Hand of Fate: Backyard Starship #21

JN Chaney

1

I SAT in a fugue state as scenes from my life—moments of dread—flickered past, leaves on the wind of a life torn by strife. The fear settled deep into my bones, a cold as inescapable as the heart of winter. It felt like the day we buried my dad. The day we buried Gramps. When Gabby was wounded, and then Torina, and all the endless battles in a war that had no end and no beginning of the end. The sort of dread that’s so deep and visceral it knots your gut down to a hard, painful nub, makes your heart pound and breath go tight, makes you wish you could be anywhere else, even if that anywhere else was only itself slightly less hurtful. Even in my moment of fear, I think of laughter—me, in sixth grade, singing I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General in front of the whole school, my voice tremulous and cracking as the walls closed in. Then that memory faded, too, leaving me —

In the worst place I’d known. The worst place I could imagine. Landing the Prowler on Starsmith was the dread of all those moments distilled into a brew of apprehension so vile it pushed me right to the brink of nausea. It was the dread of facing Linulla. Facing my friend. I was bringing his children home. We dismounted the Prowler—Torina and me, and Icky behind us carrying a cargo crate. We walked forward in a somber procession and past the entrance to Starsmith’s underground complex. In a flash of nerves, I half-expected to find the doors shut and forever barred to us. But they weren’t, and we entered, guided by a single young Conoku through the

steamy corridors that were lush with hanging shrouds of moss and burbling little waterfalls. The Conoku said nothing to us, leading us to a room I’d only ever seen, never used. It was a grotto, lit softly golden, through which wound a placid stream to feed a pond more floating water plants than water. A single stone table squatted in the center of the room, two meters long and heavily built. Several chairs, which could be adapted to the anatomy of different species, surrounded it. The Conoku left without a word, just a soft clatter of claws on stone. Icky put the case down. “So, uh—now what?” she asked quietly. I looked around, swallowed against the simmering urge to be sick, then shrugged. “Here. We’ll lay them out here.”

Torina took my hand and squeezed it, then we busied ourselves with lifting each of the small containers out of the cargo case. They were nothing fancy, just evidence boxes from the Fafnir. But we weren’t exactly in a position to obtain proper urns, and they were securely sealed and locked, so they would have to do. During the flight here, Icky had carefully inscribed a name into each, along with the Iowa’s logo. Nineteen boxes, nineteen names. When they were all laid out neatly in a row, Icky closed the cargo case and put it on the floor. And then we waited. “Maybe we should just, I don’t know, leave?” Icky said. “Maybe we shouldn’t even be around for this part —”

I shook my head. “No. I can’t leave. I have to be here. I have to face him.”

Icky nodded. Torina took my hand again. We waited. Finally, I heard the rattle of claws. Linulla entered the room and stopped when he saw the nineteen tiny caskets. Time stopped. My breath caught. I was still. I could do nothing else. He gathered himself and walked up to the table. He studied it for a moment, then turned to me and lifted a massive claw. Icky and Torina both tensed, but I just continued waiting. Linulla lowered the claw and gently touched my shoulder. “Thank you, Van, for bringing them home.”

“Linulla—I—” It was all I could manage before my throat clamped down to an aching lump. Linulla left his claw in place for a moment, then turned to the caskets and began walking along the table. He paused and touched each one with the same claw he’d used to touch me. As he did, he said things, though not to us. We heard only bits and pieces. “Nykulta was always silly. She laughed early and often. And sometimes, she laughed when she shouldn’t. It drove her mother to distraction. “Ah. The dreamer, Lassvik. He was—he was always somewhere else, and when we would press him to tell us, he would simply say ‘out there, Father.’ He lived his life among stars, just as he wanted, just as I always knew he would. “Culitsur. Oh, my precious, precious, Cully. She was remarkable in a world filled with wonders. Her love of art. Her fascination with numbers.”

And on and on, until he reached the last casket. Then he turned and walked back to face me. I wiped at eyes that stung, that kept tearing up and turning everything to wobbling smears of color. “Linulla, I’m—I’m so sorry,” I hissed. “I’m—” I shook my head and shrugged. “Sorry.”

He nodded. “Of course you are, Van. So am I—for you.”

I blinked at Linulla, hard and fast. “For me?

Why?”

“Because of the burden you carry, Van. This terrible, terrible burden. It is the weight of lives changed, lives ended—of lives yet to be changed and ended before you can finally rest. You bear this burden like a wound, one that never heals. But you do bear it. I do not know how. I only know that I never could.”

“But—Linulla—your children —”

He put his claw on my shoulder again. “Yes, they are my children. But they are long past childhood. They were young, but they were their own people, Van. They chose to serve aboard the Iowa. They embraced the opportunity, and they did so fully aware of the risks they faced. They knew the Iowa was not a pleasure craft, not a starliner. It was a ship of war. And that is the thing they embraced. My children were at peace with that. It is how they wished this life to proceed, and ultimately, how to end— out there, as they called it, doing something important. And so it was.”

He turned back to me. “They are all at peace now, Van. And they all found that peace in the moment of doing those things they all thought must be done. So, yes—it is you I feel for most, my friend. For you are not at peace. You must go on bearing this wound that will not heal.”

I shook my head, then Linulla wrapped his limbs around me and embraced me. I cried, loud enough for all the stars to hear. BUT THESE TEARS WERE DIFFERENT. They were made of sorrow, but they were also bright and clean, like fresh rain. When we finally recomposed ourselves, Linulla spent some time telling us about each of his nineteen children, stories that made us smile, and then chuckle, and then laugh out loud. Icky, who had known these young Conoku the best, added her own goofy anecdotes, including a few about the time we’d taken the crablets for roller-coaster rides in Florida. Sorrow remained, sure, but it was softened now with fond remembrance and appreciation of lives that might have been short but were well-lived. When it had run its course, it was my turn to put my hand on Linulla’s shoulder. “Thank you, my friend. You’ve made that wound a whole lot less painful.”

“I’m glad. But now comes the even more difficult part. It is easy to laugh as we remember their lives, but they are gone, and the darkness will inevitably try to creep in like murky water and fill those empty spaces. It is from that darkness that things like a thirst for revenge come. But what I would ask of you, Van, is something far more difficult and dangerous than revenge.”

“Name it, Linulla,” I said. He stared at me with his unblinking eyes, like ebon crystal. “So quick to offer. But as quick to understand?

I hope so.”

“What is it, Linulla?

What can I give you?”

“Justice. And that, Master Tudor, is the far more difficult and dangerous thing.”

I sighed. “I’m not Master Tudor anymore. We’ve painted over the Guild logo on the Fafnir. Justice isn’t my business anymore.”

Linulla gave me a hard look. “Justice is not about a logo, nor is it about belonging to an organization. Justice is something natural, innate to this world. You may no longer be a Master of the Peacemaker Guild, but you are still a Master, and justice is still very much your business. It must be.”

I glanced at the nineteen caskets. “But a Master of what?”

“That, my friend, is what you must decide.”

WE LEFT Starsmith aboard the Prowler, Droox—her reclusive pilot and apparently best-selling novelist—at the helm. Icky, Torina, and I sat in the work compartment in the rear, surrounded by the ship’s formidable array of scanners. The Prowler had been a timely gift from Groshenko. She had, as Icky put it, the scanner cross-section of a pebble, making her at least arguably the stealthiest ship in known space. She allowed us to fly about with near impunity, which was a very good thing. We were, after all, being hunted. “Is that ship still out there, watching Starsmith?” I asked as we headed for our twist point. Icky tapped at the console beside her. “Yup. Class 5, just hanging there on the fringe. Damn, this kit is good.” She tapped at the controls again. “He’s got a periodic harmonic in his power plant—I can actually see it in his emissions, and from—what, six light-hours away?

Damn.”

I nodded. The Prowler’s ability to see things clearly, while not being seen herself, was going to be crucial to us. The Guild was looking for us, ostensibly to answer for a variety of trumped-up charges leveled by the people Yotov had inserted into key positions—including Casaril, now an Acting Master, who was holding my supposedly vacated position. But the ship watching Starsmith wasn’t Guild. It was nondescript, probably belonging to mercenaries or even criminals. Starsmith was one of the obvious places for us to poke up our heads, and this ship, whoever owned it, was here to catch us if we did. But it hadn’t given any sign of detecting us either entering or leaving the system. When we’d scanned it upon arriving, we had to re-twist to the far side of the system, then use the system’s twin stars and the bulk of Starsmith itself to obscure our approach—the Prowler might be invisible, but her drive plume wasn’t. Part of it was that I just didn’t want to get caught. But part of it was my worry about the system’s greatest secret, the presence of Matterforge. The strange being lived on the surface of one of the stars and had a history of

protecting the system from what it considered to be interlopers. Decades ago, when the Seven Stars League had tried to forcefully turn Starsmith into a “protectorate,” Matterforge had destroyed a flotilla of League warships with colossal coronal mass ejections from its star. While it wouldn’t break my heart for, say, Casaril or Yotov to suffer a similar fate, they wouldn’t be the ones facing Matterforge’s wrath. It might be Peacemakers, dispatched by their superiors and making a good-faith effort to carry out the orders they’d been given. Linulla had alluded to lives yet to be ended. The fewer of those, the better—especially if they were lives innocent of the malign ambitions of Yotov and her minions. We twisted away from Starsmith to a nearby red dwarf system known only by its star-catalog number. It was one of many systems that saw little or no traffic, not being occupied by any of the major powers of known space, having no settlements, and not even offering a useful navigation waypoint. It was, in other words, the perfect place for the Fafnir to wait for us. We rendezvoused with her and docked, then just took some time. The trip to Starsmith to bring Linulla’s kids back to him had wrung us out emotionally, and we needed to sit, collect ourselves, and consider our next move. I was—brittle. And I knew it, feeling the cold weight of command in my bones, pervasive and unrelenting. Sometimes, a uniform is heavy. But the decisions you make while wearing that uniform are heavier still. “While you guys were away at Starsmith, we received a message from Torina’s parents,” Rab said as we slumped into the crew lounge. “They confirm that Helso’s being watched, too.”

“Three class 14 ships, no distinguishing markings, no transponder broadcasts,” Netty added. “They stayed well clear of Helso itself, probably because of the Schegith defense platforms. Two of them twisted away, but one’s apparently still there. They asked if you want the Helso Defense Force to chase it off.”

I looked at Torina. She sighed and shook her head. So did I. “No. There’s no point. We’ll have our day, but for now, discretion is the better part of valor and all that,” I said, letting my head fall back against the couch. “Deep,” Perry said, and I offered something resembling a laugh. “Hey, I’m learning how to adult over here.”

“Anyway, it’s the same story at Null World,” Perry said. “The Schegith report it’s being watched, too.”

“There are an awful lot of people just kind of floating around out there, waiting to see if we happen to show up, aren’t there?” Icky said. I nodded at the overheads. “Yup. Which means all of the places we’d normally go are off-limits, at least for now.”

“We’ve got the Prowle r, though,” Rab said. “We can use her.”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Our biggest advantage, when it comes to the Prowler, is that the bad guys don’t know about her, so they don’t even know to look for her. Every time we use her, though, increases the chances they will learn about her and will start looking for her. And she’s almost invisible—emphasis on almost.” I shook my head. “No, I want to save her for when we really need to go somewhere.”

Funboy watched the conversation bounce back and forth. “Which leaves us with a practical challenge to confront. We must have a way of obtaining provisions for our ships.”

“Well, food isn’t a problem, at least for now. Adayluh Creel’s Permata wheat is thriving on Shhh, so between that and what the planet’s biosphere can provide, we have the full range of nutrients available,” Netty-P said. Icky crossed her arms. “Yeah, but not cheese. Or chocolate. Or potato salad, or those awesome bacon-horseradish chips —”

“You’ll live, big girl. You’ll just have to tighten your belt a bit,” I said. She scowled. “Hmph. Don’t wear belts. That implies pants, and I ain’t going that route unless it’s a wedding or a funeral.”

“You’re the picture of cosmopolitan style,” I said, grinning. Icky tilted her massive head. “Thanks. I am.”

Netty-P went on, her servos whirring as she leaned back. “And water’s no problem, either. There’s no shortage of cometary ice we can harvest. And likewise fusion fuel for the power plant and drive, since there are lots of natural sources of both deuterium and helium-3.”

Icky spoke up again, but this time in her professional grumpy voice, not her hungry grumpy voice. “Just don’t forget that using unrefined fusion fuel introduces all sorts of impurities into the system, and that not only hurts performance, but it also shortens the maintenance cycles. We’re looking at retuning the drive every five hundred hours of flight time instead of every

thousand. And if we keep it up, we’ll have to do a complete overhaul of the reactor and the drive in about another twelve hundred hours.”

“Can you stretch that out?” I asked her, then patted the air with my hands. “Not asking you to cut corners, big girl. Just… explore the tolerances, if you will.”

“Gotcha, boss. If you don’t mind bending some rules, sure. But I can’t push it back much past fifteen hundred hours—not if we don’t want to end up dead in space, anyway.”

I grinned at her easy response. “Bending rules is the least of our worries right now, so—yeah, do whatever you have to, Icky. Look, we may as well understand something that’s underpinning every decision I make—every decision we make, really.”

“Is it the endless threat of a hideous death at the hands of some unknown malefactor?” Funboy asked. “Well, no, but thank you for removing my need to ever sleep again. I’m referring to this, friends. We’re on our own. Do we understand that?”

Their faces told me they did. “Despite your disregard for the inevitable crushing heel of the universe, we’re still left with the issue of antimatter fuel for the twist drive,” Funboy said. I clenched my fists at that. That was the bottleneck alright. Antimatter had to be manufactured and then handled by specialized and complex infrastructure. It couldn’t be harvested out in the wilds, nor did we have the means of making our own—not in any useful quantities, anyway. And then there was the matter of money. Antimatter was expensive, but we had limited cash on hand. Obtaining more would mean making contact with The Quiet Room, or someone like Torina’s parents, the Schegith, or any of our other contacts. But we had to assume they were all being monitored. For that matter, in all likelihood, so too were all the places we could easily refuel, like Dregs, Spindrift, or Crossroads. So all I could do was shrug. “Yeah, that is going to be an ongoing problem. It’s not one I have an immediate answer for, either. Besides the Prowler, Groshenko gave us a list of contacts he thought might be useful, but that was before I ended up persona non grata with the Guild. Anyway, they were mostly military contacts. Great if we need guns or ammo, but fuel?

Not so much.”

“What about the Ferals?

Your mother spent a long time out there. How did she keep her ship fueled up with antimatter?” Rab asked. “She spent most of her time in The Deeps, stealing stuff from BeneStar. Since then, she’s been getting her fuel legitimately—or she was, until the Equal Grasp made their move on Earth. Now, I’m not sure. For obvious reasons, I’m keeping my contacts with her to a minimum as well.”

“And I don’t think we just want to jump into bed with the rest of the Ferals. Not with the Tsarina still possibly out there—and Kiki Treasure isn’t exactly the trustworthy sort, now, is she?” Perry said. I shook my head. “No, she is not. The Ferals aren’t the answer. We’d spend as much time looking over our shoulders as we did looking anywhere else.”

As I spoke, my gaze fell on Gabby. She was standing off to one side, listening, but not saying anything. She had been notably and uncharacteristically quiet ever since we’d been forced into hiding on Shhh. “Gabs?

What do you think?” I asked her. “Me?

I don’t know anything about fuel and the like. I just think that, no matter what else we do, we have to start fighting back. The longer this goes on”—she gestured vaguely around her—“the stronger our enemies get and the weaker we get —”

She cut herself off and shrugged. Her tone was wholly un-Gabby-like, hard, flat and uncompromising. I exchanged a look with Torina, who just raised an eyebrow. “I agree with my beloved that the time to strike back is imminent, but I do also understand the need to ensure we’re ready,” Funboy said. “To that end, I have a suggestion. I… hesitate to share it, though.”

Torina gave him a quizzical look. “Why?”

“Is it violence?

I hope it’s violence,” Icky said. “Yes, it involves violence. And a considerable amount of it, at that.”

Icky pumped all four fists, “Yesssss!

Let’s go smash some—hey, wait. How is this gonna get us fuel, or money?”

“It involves a complex, two-stage operation —”

“Are we going to become smugglers, using the Big and Long to carry fuel to Shhh?

And since its connection to us is tenuous at best, and it’s piloted by complete idiots anyway, the risk of it getting associated with us is minimal?” Gabby asked. “Because that’s a real downer if we do. You know, our reputation and all.”

Funboy gave a satisfied nod. “See why I love her?

We are of one mind and joined in all six hearts. At least, I believe it is six, isn’t it?”

“It depends on what you call a heart. And you told me this idea last night, remember?”

I sat up “Okay, this is promising, at least as far as moving the fuel to where we need it. That still leaves the question of where we get the antimatter in the first place, and how we pay for it.”

“Ah, well, that is the more complex stage of the two,” Funboy said. “I believe we shall have to steal it.”

I grimaced. “Not a fan of that, Funboy. I mean, there’s bending rules, like Icky said, and then there’s outright piracy.”

“True, but perhaps the nature of the crime is mitigated somewhat by the nature of the victim. For instance, there are currently ships sitting in various places around known space watching for us. What if they found us—and by that, I mean found us suddenly a short distance away, with all of our weapons poised to open fire?”

I sat back again. “Okay, that sort of thing I could see getting behind.”

Torina smiled at Funboy. “Romance and piracy, all in one package. You’re quite the catch, Funboy.”

He nodded gravely. “Indeed I am.”

2

WE MADE contact with the Big and Long, the Fren-Okun-owned bulk freighter, through B. B and Valint had effectively become our windows on the world, since they had long experience moving discreetly around known space and constantly did so, so they were hard to pin down. Both had reported efforts to tail them, but both had easily shaken their would-be watchers. The old Fren matriarch who, together with her daughter, owned the Big and Long, was more than happy to help us. On the comm transmission, relayed through B, she gave me a sly look. “You’ve been a busy boy. Naughty, too, based on what the Guild is saying about you,” she said. I shrugged and smiled. “I prefer the term misunderstood.”

“Is that my cue to play some My Chemical Romance?

Or would you prefer Fall Out Boy?

I like to ensure your changing personality is accompanied by the proper soundtrack,” Netty said. Perry cut in. “I was always a fan of The Cult. Or The Cure. Darker, and a lot less hair product —"

“Excuse me, kids. You mind?

We’re burning antimatter making this call.” I turned back to the old Fren. “Anyway, is this going to be a problem?”

“What, you being bad-mouthed and apparently wanted by the Guild?

Oh, hell no. Honestly, Tudor, I’m a lot more comfortable dealing with you this way than when you’re swinging that badge around.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess?”

“You do get a bit swagger-ish when you’re on duty, boss,” Netty chirped. “I guess that’s better than having no swag?” I asked. Icky gave me four thumbs-up. “Absolutely. It’s what the kids say, too.”

I gave a decisive nod. “Then I’m both hip and fly. Also fresh. So, is our Fren willing and able?

To meet?”

“Able, and grudgingly willing,” the Fren matriarch answered. “Where do you want us to meet you?”

I gave her another nondescript red dwarf as a rendezvous. “And please bring all the antimatter fuel you can. We’ll pay you for it.”

“Damned right you will. We’ll see you there in”—she glanced off-screen—“one standard day from now.”

“We’ll be there. And thank you.”

She signed off, and I leaned back in the pilot’s seat. “Do you trust her?”

Torina asked. “Yeah, I think I do. But not so much that I’m not going to send the Prowler on ahead just to make sure she doesn’t decide we’re worth more to her for the bounty after all.”

SENDING the Prowler ahead to the rendezvous and getting her in a position to warn us about any shenanigans wasn’t the only precaution I took. I also asked Valint to stay on the comm and within a short twist distance in case we needed help. Between her own Stormshadow and the small flotilla that accompanied her, she could bring a lot of combat power to bear—in a hurry. As it turned out, the old Fren was true to her word. The Big and Long twisted into the system, which the Prowler dutifully reported. We then twisted in with the Fafnir, made the rendezvous, obtained not just an antimatter top-off for both her and the Frankie, but also an additional auxiliary antimatter fuel pod, which could completely refill the Fafnir a second time. It gave us some critical breathing room. Unfortunately, it also cost us most of our available cash, even with the rather generous discount the old Fren offered us. We did sound her out as a possible source for expendable

munitions, like point-defense rounds and missiles. I was planning on mostly relying on Valint and B for those, but it didn’t hurt to have another source. She was certainly willing—for a price, of course. “And cheese, don’t forget to ask her about cheese!” Icky bellowed. “You seriously want cheese from a Fren?” I asked, arching a brow. “I mean, I haven’t seen bad cheese yet, so, yanno.” Icky shrugged her enormous shoulders, earning a small nod of approval from Funboy. All cheese, it seemed, was good cheese. We twisted back to our starting point which was, yes, another nameless red dwarf. The Prowler joined us there. This little operation meant we’d considerably increased our fuel reserve, but it had really only been the first stage of Funboy’s two-stage plan—and the easy part, at that. I still wasn’t happy about the second part—the piracy thing. It was easy to say that we’d only prey on the bad guys, Robin Hood-like, but who were the bad guys, exactly?

If we bounced, say, the ship watching over Helso, what if it turned out to be some otherwise innocent people who were just paid to sit there, note comings and goings, and report on them?

In fact, I could see Yotov hiring people like that deliberately, in hopes we would attack them, just to further discredit us. I voiced my concerns to the crew, and Perry responded with a different idea. “Boss, I’d like to put forth something I call upstreaming.”

“Go on.”

“It’s simple, really. We scan the Guild’s job board, find something profitable, and, ah, liberate, shall we say, the opportunity. We won’t get the Guild payout, obviously, but we can still benefit. If they’re stolen goods, we can return them to the rightful owners for whatever bounty they’ve offered, that sort of thing.”

Torina smiled. “I like it. It’s efficient, but also naughty in the right way

—it screws over the Guild just a little.”

“And makes us look good,” Rab added with a flick of his ears. He was optimistic. I nodded. “True. It’s the kind of thing my mother would definitely approve of. And my grandmother. And, for that matter, Uncle Petyr, if he were still around. I don’t think he’d like what the Guild is becoming under the influence of Yotov and her minions.” I turned to Perry. “Do we even still have access to the Guild’s job board, though?”

“We do. We can access it through Candler,” he replied. Torina’s smile became a frown. “Do we still trust him?”

“He might be an asshole, but yeah, I trust him. You must remember, Van was kind of—an example, I guess, of what a Peacemaker and a Master could be when it came to AIs. He’s always treated us as people. That made a big impression on a lot of the higher-sapience AIs on Anvil Dark, like Candler. And they are not happy with how things have gone.”

Netty-P spoke up. “As far as Casaril and the people he’s installing around the Guild are concerned, AIs are just glorified data pads. Van gave them a taste of how it could be, so there are a lot of ill-feelings among them now about what’s happened.”

“Wait—you guys have been in contact with Anvil Dark?

Seriously?

Doesn’t that open us up to being, you know, traced?” Icky said, bristling. I was annoyed. “Guys, you shouldn’t be communicating with Anvil Dark without consulting us first.”

But Perry and Netty-P were unfazed. “From Anvil Dark’s perspective, every one of our transmissions has originated somewhere else—generally, from another Peacemaker’s ship with a friendly AI on board. They’ve been burst packets, buried in other routine comm traffic. And we’ve kept them to a minimum, at that,” Netty-P explained. Perry nodded. “We didn’t come off the assembly line yesterday, folks. Give us some credit here.”

I held up my hand. “Fair enough. I trust you guys to be careful about this. And I do have to admit, it’s damned handy to have a window into what’s going on at Anvil Dark.”

“Yeah, well, you’re right—we do have to tread carefully. We have to avoid doing or saying anything that might trigger the commands built into Candler and the others. Even if they don’t want to, the imperatives will force them to report us if we do trigger them. Netty-P and I know how far we can go in asking them to do stuff for us, but those digital rules impose some pretty hard limits,” Perry replied. “It should be noted that I detest limits. They’re encumbrances we don’t need. Not now.”

“Can’t we send them the same code you guys made to remove those imperatives from yourselves?

The thing you developed from what Netty’s previous data was able to tell us about Calamity?” Rab asked. “No, unfortunately. At least, not over the comm. The comm filters on Anvil Dark would recognize it as executable code, then quarantine and flag it,” Netty-P replied. Perry bobbed his head. “Yeah, we’d need physical access to their computational infrastructure to do that, and I don’t think anyone fancies making a trip to Anvil Dark to get it.”

“Too bad we can’t just infect Anvil Dark with Calamity, just shut them down completely,” Gabby muttered. We all turned to her, surprised—and concerned. Funboy shifted uncomfortably. “That would endanger the many people on Anvil Dark who are not associated with Casaril or Yotov. And that includes the AIs that we’ve been discussing.”

Gabby stared at the deck. “I suppose you’re right.”

I again exchanged a look with Torina. She was clearly as worried about Gabby as I was. She was still obviously dealing with the aftermath of trauma, except that paralyzing uncertainty had been replaced with a hard, dark sort of resolve. It was, in its own way, even more dangerous. She might do things, say, in the heat of a firefight that she—all of us—may very well regret. We’d seen a hint of it back on Earth, during the attack on the Conference Centre near DC. We were going to have to do something about it. But our resources were obviously limited. Maybe B could help. I turned back to Perry. “Okay, your Upstreaming idea seems solid. Go ahead, see what you can find for us.” I sniffed. “Although it would be nice if we could somehow get the Guild payout, too.”

“Hey, if we can remove those Guild imperatives from Candler and the others, we could. A little, um, creative accounting to hide the transactions, and presto, money in the bank,” Perry said. “Yeah. We just have to drop by Anvil Dark to make it happen.”

“Only saying it’s possible, boss—not easy.”

PERRY DOWNLOADED the job board from Anvil Dark through—he didn’t say how, and I asked him not to. The less we knew about the specifics, the better. I trusted him, Netty-P, and Netty to be careful—they knew what they were doing and, as far as I was concerned, were the best at what they did. Once they had the 160-odd jobs downloaded, they proceeded to analyze them, arranging them in descending order of desirability based on value, versus their cost and risk to us. Their best recommendations involved simple, straightforward reclamation of stolen property, similar to our apprehension of Biggy Dah just a few weeks ago. None of these were offering great payouts, but they were the best available considering how much it would cost us in time, fuel, and other resources, while also minimizing the risk of ending up in armed confrontations or attracting the immediate attention of the Guild. “They’re all pretty meh jobs, frankly,” Perry said when they presented their recommendations to us in the Fafnir’s crew lounge. “Some of them have been open for a while. It’s likely we could squeeze a few in before a Peacemaker even bothers looking at them, only to find out they’re completed.”

“Won’t that become obvious when these people report to the Guild that they’ve got their stuff back?” Icky asked. “The number of times anyone bothers to report that sort of thing, I could count on the talons of one foot. They’re just glad they got their whatevers back and couldn’t care less about the Guild’s bureaucracy.”

“If you want to fly under the radar while earning at least a modest amount of money along the way, these are your best bets,” Netty-P said. But Funboy spoke up. “I would actually like to propose a different course of action.” We all turned to him, and he pointed at a job about a third of the way down the list as the AIs had ordered it. “This one, I believe, is an excellent opportunity.”

Perry cocked his head at him. “Why?

Chasing down a wanted hitman?

That’s pretty high-profile. And it’s the sort of job Peacemakers may not bid on until they get a lead, but once they do, they’ll be all over it.”

“The risk of crossing paths with a Peacemaker is much higher for that sort of job,” Netty confirmed. “No disrespect, but you have approached this in a very linear, conservative way that solely balances risk and cost versus reward. Being a wild, untamed spirit, I have taken a more lateral, free-thinking approach,”

Funboy said with an expansive—for him—wave. I smirked at him. “Wild, untamed spirit, huh?”

“Yes. I am a freak, shall we say, when it comes to spreadsheets.”

“I’m willing to bet that’s the first time that sentence has ever been uttered, anywhere,” Netty-P chirped. “Comes off as kinda gross, actually, if you ask me,” Icky said. “I realize that the term freak harkens to my libidinous nature, but in this case, I mean it in a more analytical sense.”

“So—analytically freakish?

Freakishly analytical?” Torina asked, grinning. “I believe either is applicable.”

“So why that job, Funboy?” I asked him. “Because the subject, one Rutikar, has eluded capture for quite some time—over a year since his last sighting. That reveals the job had few, if any, useful leads, meaning that it is likely being ignored by most Peacemakers. I am cognizant of Netty-P’s concern that a Peacemaker may obtain a lead and begin pursuing Rutikar in parallel with us, risking a confrontation. But I believe the probability of that is low.”

“Okay, but as you said, there haven’t been any leads for a year. The trail’s cold. We could end up investing a lot of time and fuel in this with no results.”

“That is true. However, I would draw your attention to the list of Rutikar’s known associates. They include one A. Myer.”

I frowned. “A. Myer—oh. Alannis Myer.”

“Precisely. She is known to us and, while a criminal, has repeatedly shown herself to be favorably disposed to helping us—or, more specifically, helping you, Van.”

“A little too favorably disposed, if you ask me,” Torina muttered. “Plus, not to put too fine a point on it, she has drunk from the fountain of Cheerful Enthusiast,” Funboy added. We all stared at him, then broke out in chuckles, grins, and eye-rolls. “Drank from the fountain of Cheerful Enthusiast?

Really?”

Funboy raised a hand. “Not that she will ever do so again. My heart belongs firmly to another, and my body with it. However, it does provide an… opportunity, I believe.”

“That presupposes that Alannis has any idea where Rutikar even is,” I said. Funboy shrugged. “True. But she will be much easier to contact. And if she doesn’t, then we need pursue the matter no further.”

I looked at the job. “Wanted on three different worlds for up to eight murders, all tied to corporate espionage. And the payout is two hundred thousand bonds, nearly all of it coming from corporate sources, with only a small bounty on top of it from the Guild.” I shook my head. “That is a damned attractive amount of money. We could probably collect it through B

or Valint.”

I crossed my arms and stared at the entry for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, let’s see if we can track down Alannis. Funboy, I’m leaving that up to you. In the meantime, let’s set ourselves up to take on the top two or three jobs recommended by Perry and the others. Right now, even just some money is better than none at all.”

WE MANAGED to pull off one of the stolen goods jobs while Funboy was trying to track down Alannis. It was an easy one, following a lead that led us to a cargo storage unit aboard an orbital in the Dregs system. The goods, a collection of mediocre artworks stolen while en route to a collector on Reticulum, had been stashed in the unit along with a bunch of other stuff—

junk, really—and then just abandoned. The thief, whoever they were, may have died, been jailed, or lost interest. We recovered the stuff, took it to Reticulum, and arranged for B to make the actual delivery. The whole thing earned us twenty thousand bonds, less about a quarter of that in fuel costs. So a net fifteen thousand bonds, which was nice—but it also underscored Funboy’s point. We could do jobs like this forever and only slowly stay ahead of our expense curve. If we were going to start hitting back at our enemies in a meaningful way, we needed the money to enable it. Even just a couple of jobs like Funboy’s recommendation would give us that. Assuming we succeeded, that is, and didn’t get ourselves caught, blown up, or otherwise taken out of the game. As we prepared for a second low-risk but low-payout job, Funboy had a breakthrough. I’d expected him to need time, maybe a lot of it, to track down where Alannis was. He had a lot of contacts, many of them shady as hell, from his days as an undercover op. He also had experience communicating with them obliquely, avoiding direct communications—

working undercover, he actually faced many of the same challenges we did now, such as worrying about whether a “trusted” contact might suddenly betray you. However he did, he managed to track down Alannis less than a day after I’d asked him to try. “She is on the Torus, apparently awaiting word on some job of her own that involves The Deeps. The individual assisting me will get word to her within the hour that we wish to speak with her,” Funboy said. I raised my eyebrows at him and smiled. “That’s good work, Funboy. Although how is she going to get ahold of us, exactly, since Netty is refusing to even acknowledge most incoming twist-comm traffic?”

“Way ahead of you, boss,” Netty said. “I’ve given Funboy twist-comm address information for a channel routed through the Big and Long. I took the liberty of borrowing relay access while we were meeting with them.”

“You hacked their comm system to obtain relay access?”

“Mea culpa.”

I gave a rueful smile and shook my head. “You’re forgiven. Although—

aren’t the Fren likely to notice?”

“As long as the transmission is brief—no more than, say, five minutes—

it’s unlikely. It will burn a small amount of their antimatter fuel, but their twist drive is a monster. It has to be, considering the mass of the ship when it's fully loaded, so like all high-capacity twist drives, it sacrifices efficiency for raw power. A brief twist-comm call will get lost in the waste.”

“You’re diabolical, my dear.”

“Well, the Fren matriarch didn’t do us much of a favor. Sure, she gave us a discount on the antimatter we bought from her, but based on the highest prices for the stuff in known space, which she certainly did not pay. So I wouldn’t be too broken up about burning a little of hers.”

I laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m not. Maybe we leave a thank you.”

“I recommend flowers,” Funboy said gravely. “Really?

That’s not a touch too… romantic?

For such a transaction?”

“Only if you choose roses. Bachelor Buttons or Alstroemeria are, in my estimation, just pleasant enough to be appropriate.”

“You have a...

flower appropriateness scale?” I asked. Funboy sniffed. “Naturally.”

We waited, though not for long. Alannis called only about fifteen minutes later. The channel wasn’t great, fuzzed and speckled with video artifacts. But it was good enough. Her impish face beamed out of the cockpit display at me. “Van Tudor. Wow. I hear you’re one of us now, a fugitive.”

“So it would seem. Don’t suppose you’ve seen any one-armed men around, have you?”

Perry snickered. “Good one, boss.”

Alannis frowned. “Any what?”

I smiled. “Never mind. Look, Alannis, I need your help. I’m looking for someone who’s a known associate of yours.”

She smiled again, but her eyes narrowed. “I have a lot of known associates, Van. And most of them are still alive—more or less.”

“This one is a fellow named Rutikar.”

I saw the glimmer of recognition in her eyes, despite the crappy channel. But there was also calculation. I decided to preempt her. “Before you go and name some exorbitant price, I don’t have much money to spare. So if we can’t make a deal, let’s just say thanks for your time —”

“Whoa, there, Van. Don’t talk yourself out of this before I even get a chance to answer.”

“Sorry. I don’t have a lot of time, either.”

She pursed her lips. “Yes, I know Rutikar. And yes, I know where he is

—or recently was, anyway. He asked me if I wanted in on a job. I turned him down. I’m getting too old for his line of work. Too messy, too much blood.”

“Okay. So what do you want?”

She smiled brightly. “Nothing.”

“Really.”

“Okay, not quite nothing, but nothing now. I just want future considerations.”

I gave her a puzzled look. “Alannis, I’m not a Master. I’m not even really a Peacemaker anymore. My credentials have been suspended, and the Guild is hunting me. What future considerations do you think I could possibly give you?”

She cocked her head and, for once, her face took on a serious look. “I know you, Van. You’re not going to spend the rest of your life on the lam, dodging the Guild. I said you’re one of us, but you’re not, really. I know what you’re going to do.”

I gave her an intrigued frown. “Do you really?

And what’s that?”

“You’re going to rip down the rotten contraption that’s the Guild and replace it with something better. Something people can respect like they can’t respect what it is now.” Her grin returned. “Something that’ll be even more of a pain in my ass than the Guild is today. When you do that, I want some leeway. Nothing major—like I said, I’m getting too old for the really bad stuff. Or maybe I just want to get out of the bad stuff so I do get older. Either way, I’ll be looking for… a little looking the other way.”

I crossed my arms and sniffed. “You have more faith in me than I do.”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short, Van Tudor. Face it—you’re as disgusted with that whole shitty Guild as I am. More, probably, because you actually believe in all that”—she made air quotes—“justice and duty and honor bullshit. They didn’t turn on you because you were dishonest and corrupt. They turned on you because you weren’t.”

Her impish smile returned. “That’s why I like you, really, Van. Hell, I think you’re adorable, all honest and forthright and such. I don’t know anyone else like that—not the way you are, anyway. So I know you’re not just going to turn into someone like—well, me. You want to fix this, and I think you will. And I didn’t get to where I am by backing losers.”

“Oh. Well, okay, Alannis—thanks for the vote of confidence. And, sure, I’ll remember that you helped us when we needed it. And that includes pointing me at Dohlennz’s hidden laboratory.”

“Hey, what are frenemies for?” She laughed, then leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “Tell Fuzzy I haven’t forgotten his… attentions.”

I cleared my throat and noticed Funboy was busy studying the bulkhead as Gabby stared at him. Smart guy. “Do go on.”

“My pleasure.”

She gave us what she knew about Rutikar. He was, as far as she knew, still on the spaceport known as Needle, in the Groombridge 1618 system. She could confirm he’d been there as recently as two days ago, and had been there for several days already. I thanked her and signed off, the whole conversation lasting just under Netty’s five-minute threshold. We then set course for Needle, sending the Prowler ahead to scout the situation out. While that was going on, though, I spent some time staring out the canopy into nothing and thinking about what Alannis had said. Sometimes, I thought, wisdom comes from the strangest places. 3

NEEDLE WAS AN OUT-OF-THE-WAY PLACE. It was mainly a refueling stop for ships traversing between known space and Unity territory, as well as the headquarters and support base for a large terraforming operation involving the planet it orbited around, aptly named Bullseye. Bullseye had been walloped by a massive asteroid impact not all that long ago, so the terraforming was intended to rehabilitate a perfectly good planet and study the aftereffects of a big impact. It meant that while traffic through Needle was relatively steady, most of it was just there to refuel. The terraforming itself mainly involved engineers, scientists, and the like. All of which should have meant Needle would be a fairly safe place for us to visit. However, it was also the home of La Maison loin de Chez Soi, Retta’s French-themed restaurant. I wasn’t worried about Retta herself, but we had to assume that we were associated with her. And that meant that, like Helso and Null World and similar places, it was being watched. And, sure enough, Droox on the Prowler reported that there was, indeed, a class 6 workboat hanging around on the system’s margin, doing its best to be inconspicuous. But I wasn’t going to let that stop us. The Fafnir and the Frankie were both too well-known, but we had another card up our sleeve. I arranged for the Unobtrusive, our Fren-Okun-operated freighter/workboat carrier, to meet us in a nearby system. There, we loaded Torina, Funboy, Perry, Icky, and me aboard one of her workboats. She carried four of them, all class 4, all pretty much identical to hundreds of similar light-duty workhorses

around known space. But these had been stripped down and up-gunned, making them into nimble, hard-hitting impromptu fighters. While the Fafnir and Unobtrusive waited here, we’d take the workboat to Needle, and hopefully do it without being recognized. “Van, are you sure we can really trust Alannis?” Torina asked me as we boarded the workboat. “I mean, I can totally see her selling us out.”

I glanced at Funboy, and we both nodded. “I believe she is trustworthy, if a bit handsy,” he said. “Because of your… liaison?” Torina asked. “If it were just that, then no, as much as I would like to believe that was sufficient, it isn’t. No, I watched her interact with Van. I believe her when she says she wishes to remain on his side. She may seem to be mercurial, but she actually has a very forward-looking sort of cunning.”

I nodded again. “I really believe she’s convinced that we’re going to come out on top of this. I wish I had her confidence, but—yeah. I think we can trust her.” I sighed. “In any case, we’re going to have to take some chances, take some things on faith eventually. Otherwise, we’re accepting that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives living in the shadows and on the run. And I’m frankly not keen on that, thanks.”

I settled into the workboat’s pilot’s seat. “Besides, every day we dither and skulk around looking over our shoulders is another day that whatever’s happening on Earth keeps happening. I’m not keen on that, either.”

All that said, though, I was damned tempted to visit Retta while we were there. But as we accelerated away from the Unobtrusive, I resolved not to. Not only might there be unfriendly eyes watching her restaurant, but I also really had no reason to visit her aside from wanting to see a friendly face, to the extent a huge slug riding atop a ball had a face, anyway. If I had a reason more compelling than “I just wanna,” I might have taken the risk. But not this time. I wanted to confirm whether Rutikar was here, grab him if he was with minimal fuss, and then get gone. The luxury of friendly faces was, like a lot of other things, just going to have to wait. WE TWISTED into the Groombridge system and made our way to Needle without incident. Droox reported no reaction to our arrival from the lurking workboat. We were just another uninteresting little ship on business of our own, broadcasting a faked transponder ID—a crime, but one I was willing to commit considering the circumstances. It declared us to be a courier boat carrying non-diplomatic messages and light cargo—just another face in the interstellar crowd. We docked, and Perry made his surreptitious way into Needle to scout things out. Torina and Funboy, meanwhile, prepared to go find Rutikar. I was leaning heavily on Funboy’s undercover experience, since he’d been involved in many clandestine meetings similar to this one, along with more than a few find-and-grab ops. They wore dingy, baggy civilian clothing over their b-suits, but no helmets. Funboy sported a respirator mask over his face instead, his small size and slight build making him look, at a glance, like a Skel. Torina wore a wide-brimmed hat with her hair tucked up inside it and a dark bandana tied over her face, leaving only her eyes exposed. I talked to them in the airlock. “Okay, find Rutikar, if you can. And if at all possible, see if he can be, ah nudged, back here —”

“Yes, Van. So if we have to stun him, we don’t face carrying him, unconscious, through the length of the station,” Funboy said in a Go teach your grandma to suck eggs kind of tone. I smiled at him. “Point taken.” I turned to Torina. “And you be careful. Remember, you’ve got babies on board.”

“I do?

Really?

Oh yeah, I forgot,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “That might explain those cravings for stavosia and raktrin-root soup I keep having.”

“Really?

I thought you hated raktrin-root.”

She rolled her eyes again. “I’ll be fine. Now that I’m starting to show, I suspect I’m going to have to dial back my involvement in ops like this, but I’d like to get in one more, if I can.”

I nodded. I wasn’t happy about it—I mean, she was carrying our children. But our resources were stretched pretty thin, and we didn’t have anyone else who could reliably go undercover like this. I was a particular focus of attention, while Icky, Rab, Gabby, and Netty-P were each, in their own way, too recognizable. I consoled myself with the idea that this should be a pretty low-risk op, as well as the last time we’d involve Torina directly like this. But I still didn’t like it. ICKY AND I WAITED. Torina kept her comm open, and Perry fed us imagery he was collecting from his perch up among the overheads in the station. Still, we had only a patchy idea of what was going on. Icky and I were the cavalry, if worse came to worst, but one thing that did become evident was that neither Torina nor Funboy were attracting much attention. Again, most of the people on Needle were either crews of freighters heading to or returning from Unity and taking a break while their ships refueled, or technical types involved in the terraforming operation. Torina and Funboy easily fit in the first group, with other crews just assuming they were from a different ship. For about half an hour, they wandered about and came up dry. There was no sign of Rutikar. Needle wasn’t big, as stations go, so I was starting to resign myself to the whole effort being a bust, when Funboy spoke up. “We have located Rutikar. He is in a bar called The Bullseye Lounge.”

“I’m just outside that place now,” Perry said. “But there’s no way I’m getting in there without being noticed.”

“Okay, bird, just hold your position,” I said, touching The Drop and the Moonsword hanging on either side of my harness, a bit of an unnecessary ritual that I did anyway. Icky did the same with her hammer. “Funboy, this is all you and Torina. Your show, kids.”

“He’s been here, what, at least five or six days now?

He must be waiting for someone—probably a target, since he’s a hitman,” Torina said. “Probably. Which means he’s armed and should be considered —”

“Dangerous?

A hitman?

No, say it ain’t so.”

“I’ll cease and desist, thank you. Carry on, crew.”

The next few minutes were a muddle of voices, bar sounds, and sundry other noises. Icky and I waited, tensed and ready to head into the station to intervene and help, fighting our way back to the workboat if necessary. It was hard to make out anything specific, but from the conversation I could overhear, I got the sense that Torina was talking to someone—in a surprisingly relaxed, almost jovial tone. After a while, though, it changed and became more coy and intimate. Icky shifted uncomfortably. “Wow. If I was listening to Pax getting all smoochy with someone like this, I’d —”

I shot her a glance. “If Pax was trying to lead someone back to the ship by getting all smoochy, it would be in the line of duty, right?”

“I… guess.”

I just kept listening. It was a little off-putting, hearing my own wife basically inviting another man back to the ship—her tone laden with promise—but it seemed to be working. The rough voice responding to her

—or the bits of it I could make out, anyway—seemed to be warm to the idea, and then downright receptive. I just clenched my mental jaw and waited. Torina was incandescent on a bad day. The poor bastard didn’t stand a chance. Perry spoke up. “Okay, they’re on their way out of the bar and heading back toward the ship—oh wow.”

I tensed another notch. “What?

What’s wrong?”

“Torina deserves a medal for going above and beyond here, Van. Seriously. I’m not saying Rutikar’s no prize, but I think I can see the Mack Truck logo stamped backward on his face. He dresses nicely, though.”

I studied the imagery he sent. Rutikar was a short, squat—human, I think, though the involvement of another species in his genetics wasn’t out of the question. That wasn’t common, but it did happen. As for dressing

“nicely,” I supposed—if “nicely” includes a ruffled shirt, a waistcoat embroidered with some paisely-like pattern in shades of purples and blues, manifestly too-tight trousers, and high, jodhpur-esque boots. “I thought a hitman wouldn’t want to, you know, stick out. Dress like the crowd, that sorta thing,” Icky said. “This guy’s—uh —”

“Fabulous?” Perry offered. “Yeah. That.”

I shrugged. “I guess it depends how he kills his targets. Maybe he feeds them little finger sandwiches laced with arsenic or something.”

“Or sings Pirates of Penzance on loop. That would be fatal, too,” Perry observed. I straightened, my body humming with purpose. “Fair. Showtime. Here they come.”

We watched as Torina and Funboy, accompanied by Rutikar, wended their way back to the docks and our workboat. They took their time,

strolling, chatting, even window-shopping in the stalls and kiosks of Needle’s compact market concourse. By the time they reached the docks, Rutikar had his arm around Torina’s waist and hers was over his shoulder. I looked at Icky as we both stood and readied ourselves for their arrival. She gave me a wry look. “Looks like you’ve got tight pants and a waistcoat in your future, Van—

if you want to stay competitive, that is.”

“Anything but the boots. They just look stupid.”

We waited in the airlock until I could hear them approaching along the docking ramp. Torina was laughing, as was Rutikar. I heard Torina say,

“Sorry, Funboy, you’re just not the only interspecies arm candy around here anymore!” Rutikar laughed a belly laugh, then I stepped out of the airlock, Icky right behind me. I was grinning over the sights of The Drop. Rutikar slammed to a halt. “What—?”

I pulled the trigger just as Torina moved aside. The stun charge snapped like a plucked bowstring, and Rutikar slumped backward. Funboy and Torina both caught him before he smashed his head on the deck, his body gone loose like a discarded doll. Icky stepped forward, scooped him up, and hauled him into the workboat. As she did, she sniffed and then wrinkled her nose. “He smells weird.”

Funboy gave her a look through his Skel-mask. “That’s called soap.”

ONCE PERRY WAS ABOARD, we sealed up and departed, then cleared the Needle traffic control zone without incident and started an unhurried trek out to our twist point. No alarms were raised, there were no reactions from any other ships, and that included the one still skulking out in the system’s margins. I turned to Torina, who was removing her concealing outerwear, as Needle fell away behind us. “So what did you say to him to get him to come along with you so easily?” I asked her, glancing at Rutikar sprawled in a seat, still out cold. “Yeah, the comm was too noisy, we couldn’t hear much of it,” Icky said. Torina shrugged and gave a coy smile. “Oh, I just plied him with my feminine wiles.”

“And I with my masculine ones,” Funboy added, removing his Skel outfit. “The brocade vest was, as expected, irresistible. Although in the future I won’t wear pastels.”

Icky lifted her hands, fingers spread wide. “That’s enough, fuzzy. That. Is. Enough.”

Funboy dropped the vest with a dolorous sigh. “My fashion is unappreciated, but I forgive you. Now then, who wants to unbuckle my corset?”

RUTIKAR WAS, it seemed, a Grolsk—that was the best approximation to the species’ name the translator could offer, anyway. The Grolsk, whose homeworld was in Unity space, were an industrious and gregarious people, albeit relatively rare in known space. When they did show up, they were often merchants, traders, or diplomats, jobs that suited their genial, sociable nature. Physically—and speaking very much from the perspective of a human—they were frankly kind of ugly, rather like anthropomorphic boars, but with slightly less hair and rather anime-ish proportions—big eyes, small mouth, big head, narrow waist, that sort of thing. Sailor Moon, but with more of a livestock vibe. Rutikar groggily came to about a half hour after we’d departed, spent a moment blinking stupidly around, taking in us and the workboat, and then began to complain. His voice was surprisingly high-pitched and nasal. “What—what is this?

Have—have I been— abducted?

The—the effrontery!

The outrage!”

I sat in a seat across from him. “Yes, we’ve taken you prisoner —”

“How dare you!

How dare you, I say!

This is scandalous!

Entirely scurrilous behavior on your part, sir!”

“Affrontery?

Scurrilous?

Van, did you have The Drop set to thesaurus again?” Perry asked. I ignored him. “Look, Rutikar, you’re wanted —”

“For a variety of misdeeds, yes, I’m well aware of the so-called charges against me. I can assure you they are all overstated to a considerable

degree,” Rutikar snapped back at me. “You may regard me as—as—a foppish dandy, but I have rights, you bullying jongleur!”

I rolled my eyes as Perry began to laugh. “I am no court jester, and you haven’t even glimpsed my ability to… bully.” I turned to everyone, then shrugged. “They always spout the same shit, don’t they?”

“Boss, it’s like they’re reading from a script,” Perry said, then shifted to a faultless impression of Rutikar. “I’m innocent. The charges are utter lies. Also, I enjoy perfume.”

“It’s cologne, you ruffian, and your facetious utterances do not impress me, sir. Of course, I should expect no less from craven bounty hunters.” He said bounty hunters like the words tasted foul. Turning to Torina, he clicked his tongue. “And you, my lady, were part of this shameful ruse. You should be regretful of your part in this underhanded charade —”

“Um, excuse me, but you’re the hitman who killed a bunch of people across three systems. Or, to put it in words you’d probably understand, methinks you doth protest too much,” I snapped at him. He blinked at me. “A hitman?

An assassin?

Me?” He scoffed. “I can assure you, good sir, I have neither the intestinal fortitude nor the physical means for such unpleasantness. A criminal I may be, but a murderer I am not!”

“You’ve got writs for —”

“It matters not what the manufactured accusations against me claim, sir. I may be guilty of crimes, but they are a minor part of my existence. I am, rather, a scout, as it were. Upon me falls the responsibility of reconnoitering in advance of more—more fulsome operations conducted by my employers. Through careful and astute gathering of information, interactions with the locals, and a variety of other means, I obtain the who, what, where, and when of things. That is what I do, sir. That is all I do!” He was really warming to his role. I expected him to stand on a desk. “Is he about to sing?

Because if this turns into a musical, I’m spacing him on principle,” Perry warned. “Nah. Just boiler-plate villainy, but with a really solid vocab,” I countered. Then, I sat back and gave Rutikar an appraising stare. Maybe he was telling the truth, or maybe he was one hell of a bullshit artist, but there was something to his body language that —

—made me think his story might be true. I decided to test him. “Perry, what location is listed in the first writ against our friend Rutikar here?”

“Providence, in the Tau Ceti system. He’s listed as being there —”

I held up my hand. “That’s fine, Perry, thanks. Just the location.” I turned back to Rutikar. "Tell me about Providence.”

Rutikar returned an imperious stare. “I was there, yes, on several occasions. The one of presumed interest, however, would have been eleven standard months ago. I was on Providence for twelve standard days, beginning on the fourth day of the second planetary month.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You can recall the dates in that much detail, without even thinking about it?”

“It is what I do, sir. I am all about details. Such is my stock-in-trade.”

I turned to Perry. He nodded. “That fits. Although, the murder in question happened on the seventeenth day of the local planetary month, two days after Mister Vocabulary here claims to have left.”

“So he’s lying about when he left,” Icky said, shrugging. Rutikar bristled. “I have proof!

I have maintained all receipts, itineraries, and other relevant documents. They are stored on a data slate—”

He pointed at a pouch on his belt but carefully didn’t reach for it. “Right here.”

I told him to unlock the slate so we could review it. He did—with a flourish, of course—and, sure enough, his travel documents matched his claim. Of course, they could be fakes, designed to support a clever cover story, but Perry confirmed that they almost certainly weren’t. “The authenticator data is legit for all of these,” he said, after downloading and reviewing all of Rutikar’s documents—and there were a lot of them, meticulously detailing almost every move the guy had made. Perry called me aside, while Torina took over interrogating Rutikar. There wasn’t really anywhere to go in the workboat, though, so Perry spoke in my ear bug. Van, I’ve compared all of this guy’s insanely detailed documentation to the dates of the killings he’s accused of. In every case, he’s spent time on the world or station in question, usually one to two weeks—and then, one or two days after he leaves, someone dies. So either he’s set up some clever way to ensure a target gets shot or stabbed after he’s left the scene —

“Or he’s been set up as a patsy,” I said quietly. Perry nodded. I returned to Rutikar and confronted him with what we’d discovered. He responded with an elaborately triumphant And there you go tone. “As I have said. I am not a killer, sir. If I am guilty of anything, it is being a keen and attentive observer.”

I frowned at him, though. “Well, that, and potentially being an accessory to murder.”

“A—what?

Outrageous!

What affrontery !”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a horrible person for even suggesting it. However, if you’re doing what’s required to set up a hit, that still makes you culpable, right?”

“I have scouted dozens of locations over the past several years on behalf of my employers. That there have been nefarious killings at several of them over that time could just reasonably be a statistical aberration,” he sniffed. I turned to Perry. “He’s got forty-three different jobs recorded in all those documents, Van. Dates, times, locations, expenses—and, for some reason, the outfit he was wearing —”

“I do not attend a location more than once dressed the same way. To do so is simply gauche,” Rutikar said, waving his hand airily. It was Torina’s turn to start looking unsure. “Forty-three locations and eight murders. That isn’t all that great a correlation.”

I turned back to Rutikar. “Alright. So you tell me—who are your employers?

And what are they after?

What, exactly do they hire you to do?”

“They hire me to gather information. And I do that. In considerable detail, all of which is accurate and precise. I believe my two most recent reports are on that slate, in fact,” he said. Perry nodded yet again. “They are. And he ain’t kidding about detail. Names, details of times and places, what people were wearing—right down to what type and color of socks they had on. What they were eating, their routines—it’s all there, and all really, really boring.”

I nodded back at him. A picture was starting to emerge from all this. Far from being a skilled, cold-blooded assassin, Rutikar was just a dupe. He was paid to gather information, and that he did, in spades. And that information was then used to enable crimes. Sometimes it was hits, but more often it was probably something else. I suspected that if we dug into it, we’d find some significant crime, something like theft, extortion, or blackmail following in the wake of every one of Rutikar’s little sojourns. The pompous little windbag probably had no idea how he was being used, aside from some vague awareness that it was broadly criminal in nature. Which raised an interesting point. A crime requires two of three things

—an illegal act, or lack of care, or the mens rea, the “guilty mind”—the intent to do something, or not do something, that constitutes the illegal act. If you lift someone’s wallet, that’s a crime. If you find someone’s wallet on the sidewalk, you still have a wallet that doesn’t belong to you, but you had no intent to take it. Ergo, no crime. So was Rutikar really guilty of, well, anything, aside from some fuzzy sort of accessory before the fact?

Sure, it could be considered a crime, but with such wishy-washy intent that it would probably be pretty hard to even make stick. “Okay, so who are these employers you keep mentioning?” I asked him. “Bah. They are swine. But they pay well. I know them only through their representative, in the person of one individual in particular. His name is Jacob Marley.”

4

I SLOWLY SAT BACK, exchanging looks with my crew as I did. Rutikar glanced around. “Ah, I see that you are familiar with this swine, this Marley. A most disagreeable person. But, as I said, he pays well.”

I gave Rutikar a hard look. “How well?”

“So well that I could offer you, sir, a tidy sum of four hundred and fifty thousand bonds in recompense for your time and trouble—said time and trouble including that involved in returning me to Needle and allowing me to be on my way."

Icky hissed in a breath. I saw Torina working to keep herself from reacting, just as I was. Funboy—well, he blinked, because that’s Funboy. Four hundred and fifty thousand bonds was more than twice the bounty being offered by the various corporations that wanted Rutikar taken in. If he actually had the money, that is. But if he did, that would be enough to keep us going for the foreseeable future. But Perry poked the bear. “That’s fine and all, but Rutikar, you’re still wanted on Writs for murder. Even if we’re convinced you’re innocent, that’s not what the Peacemaker Guild thinks.”

“Which means you’re being set up as a patsy,” I said to him. He crossed his arms. “Yes, that is now abundantly clear to me. I am providing the swine with information that they use to conduct their sordid and bloody business, and I am the one to be gifted with the proverbial bag and left holding it.” He gave me an earnest look. “Which is all the more reason I require my freedom. I must do the things needed to be done to

clear my name. Fortunately, as you have seen, I have ample exculpatory evidence —”

I shook my head. “Rutikar, we know these people. Jacob Marley is just one of a whole bunch of lying, manipulative assholes. Right now, you’re useful to them. You gather information they need, and they pin the resulting crimes on you to keep the focus off the real perpetrators. But once you’ve outlived that usefulness, you will be found—possibly even by a Peacemaker. But that won’t matter, because you’ll probably end up being killed while resisting arrest, or something similar.”

He stared at me. “The—the swine!

This is —!”

“Outrageous, yeah, I know.” I sat up. “My associates and I need a moment. We’re going to put a helmet on you, with some soothing white noise for you to listen to, while we talk.”

I grabbed Icky’s helmet, since it was the only one that would fit Rutikar’s oversized head, set it to generate white noise, and put it over his head. He immediately pushed it up and off. “The smell inside this helmet is most disagreeable —”

“Hey!” Icky snapped, glaring. “Just suck it up for a moment, Rutikar,” I said, pushing it back down. Then, leaving him aft, the rest of us gathered into a huddle forward. “My helmet does not stink!” Icky hissed. “At least, not that much —”

“Not what we’re here to talk about, big girl,” I said. “Okay, so what do you guys think?”

“That he’s a pompous windbag,” Perry offered. “Well, yeah, but what I mean is —”

“He’s innocent,” Torina said. “Or, at least, he’s innocent of murder, and probably anything worse than some sort of accessory charge. And even that would be pretty weak.”

“He might be bullshitting us, though,” Icky replied. “Silver-tongued, sure, but so was Toxon—remember, the scumbag who tried to ruin my dad and me, and when that didn’t work, tried to have us offed?”

“I am with Torina,” Funboy said. “I do not believe that he is being deceptive. That is based, I must admit, on a gut feeling, but he does have objective evidence to support it.”

Icky turned to Perry. “And you’re sure he didn’t just fake all that stuff on his data pad, huh?”

“Is it outside the realm of possibility?

No. Is it likely?

Also no. All of the authenticator info checks out. I could take to the comm and do an actual comparison against the authenticator sources, which would confirm it—but I’ll only do that if you agree, boss,” Perry said. I got it. Any comm traffic we generated presented a risk. But given the circumstances, it was a risk worth taking. I wanted to trust Rutikar, and not just because of his money. He could potentially be very useful to us as an ally. But our situation was too precarious to not take all the precautions we could. So I nodded. “Do it.”

“Okay, this’ll take a few minutes.”

We went back aft and freed Rutikar of Icky’s helmet. He was already protesting before it was clear of his head. “That is most egregious!

An outrage!

To be forced to endure —”

“Oh, you’ll get over it,” I said. I asked him a few more questions, including a couple about the money he offered us—namely, where was it?

But he was shrewd and played coy about it. “I believe that the whereabouts of that money constitutes leverage—

something I am unwilling to immediately surrender to you,” he replied. Perry joined us. “Okay, yeah, it all checks out. Those documents on his data slate are the real deal.”

Rutikar puffed up. “Did I not tell you so?

Again, exculpatory evidence —”

“And again, valuable in proving your case to us, but it won’t protect you from your erstwhile ‘employers’ because it will never get anywhere near a judge,” I countered. “So what do you propose?”

I pursed my lips at him. “How about a compromise?

As much as I’d like to take your full four hundred and fifty K, as a gesture of good faith, we’ll take three hundred. In return, you give us your contacts and also tell us everything you know about Jacob Marley and his associates.”

“That does not sound… unreasonable. Moreover, I must admit to being happy to cease working for the tiresome Mr. Marley.”

“Especially since he’s, you know, setting you up to take the fall for a bunch of murders?” Torina said. Rutikar nodded. “Indeed. The swine. It is outrageous!” He subsided. “It is not as though I have a great many options, either.”

“Oh, you have options,” Perry said. “It’s just that most of them suck.”

Rutikar actually bowed his head toward Perry. “You speak wise truth, sir.”

Perry spread his wings a little. “It’s about time somebody showed me that sort of appreciation. I like this guy, Van.”

I rolled my eyes at him and turned back to Rutikar. “While we take you to your money—now our money—how about you start telling us all about your employers?”

“Do you have a recording device?”

I smiled and gestured at Perry. “One that even speaks wise truth.”

Rutikar nodded and began to talk. HE WAS SURPRISINGLY FORTHCOMING. He gave us decent information on Marley, although no epiphanies or earthshaking revelations. The Equal Grasp did a good job of compartmentalizing themselves, so much so that Rutikar never used the term “Equal Grasp,” referring only to Marley and his

“associates.” It was apparent that he’d never met or dealt directly with those associates, so while I was waiting for the names Lesthrix or Onjaku or even Yotov to come up, they unfortunately never did. On the other hand, Rutikar happily admitted to padding his expenses and otherwise skimming money from Marley and his “associates” every chance he got, so at least he was screwing them over a little. When he was done, I asked him where the money was. “I mean, at this point, Rutikar, we have to take you to it, right?

So you kind of have to reveal where it is. I’d like to think we have a reasonable, um, working relationship, though, so —”

“Yes, yes, of course. By all means, Van—may I call you Van?

By all means, Van. The money, and my secure comm link to the disreputable Mr. Marley, remain on Needle.”

I sat up straight. “You have a secure comm link?”

“Yes, of course. How else was I to engage with the swine?”

“Boss, if we can break into that thing, we might be able to penetrate the Grasp’s network—” Perry said. “And gain a window into their operations, yeah. Although, really, I can’t imagine it would have much access. All due respect to Rutikar here, but he’s not exactly part of their inner circle.”

“The loss is theirs.” Rutikar sniffed. “Although, who is this Grasp of which you speak?”

I gave him a thumbnail explanation. Perry, though, shrugged his wings. “Van, you’d be surprised at what I might be able to tease out of a comm link. I just need physical access to it,” he said. I thought about it, then nodded. “Okay. Here’s the plan. If we do a screeching about-face and race back to Needle, we’re going to risk attracting unwanted scrutiny. So, we’re going to twist out of the system, then twist back in a day later and make our unhurried way to Needle. Rutikar, please tell me that your cache of bonds and this comm link are somewhere they’ll be safe until we get back.”

He nodded. “Absolutely. I have been doing this for a long time. I can assure you, when I hide something I do not wish to be found, it will not be found.”

I sighed. “I hope you’re right, my friend. I hope you’re right.”

WE LEFT the Groombridge system without incident, returned to the Fafnir, and spent a day taking it easy and doing a little more interrogation of Rutikar. The guy was going to be a gold mine for us—not a huge, rich gold mine, but a tidily profitable one nonetheless. He had a wealth of background information about the operations he’d done for Marley, more information about all the places he’d been doing them, and, most importantly, he knew many people. By the time we were done with him and ready to return to Groombridge, he’d provided us with a list of about thirty useful contacts across a dozen systems, including two in Unity space and one in The Deeps. As we were preparing to return to Needle, he pulled me aside. “Van, I believe that I have been extremely forthcoming and cooperative —”

“You have, absolutely,” I said. “That being the case, would it be possible for you to see the potential charges against me, those of the most heinous sort, the murders, removed

from consideration?”

I put my hands on my hips and sighed. “I’d love to. And if I could, I’d do it right now. Unfortunately, though, I’m not exactly on speaking terms with the Guild these days.”

“If Candler wasn’t bound by his Guild imperatives, we could get him to do it,” Perry put in. “That’s your way of saying that we need to find a way to get that software you developed to remove them from yourself and Netty onto Anvil Dark, isn’t it?” I replied. “It would be damned helpful, yeah. We’ve got a spy network baked right into Anvil Dark, but it’s gimped by those imperatives. If we could just get Candler set up, he could propagate it to the other AIs who would love to be on the team.”

I shrugged. “Okay. So figure out how to infiltrate Anvil Dark, one of the most secure and heavily fortified places in known space. I’ll get right on it.”

I said it flippantly. But even as I did, it struck just how right Perry was

—how damned useful it would be to have AIs like Candler, the invisible and largely beneath notice residents of Anvil Dark, able to work fully on our behalf. I resolved to spend some time thinking about if and how we could do this, but in the meantime, we had to get back to Needle. There was a prize waiting for us there that might be almost as useful—or so I hoped, anyway, because we could really use a break. WE MADE it back to Needle, again without incident. The ship watching Groombridge was still there—as an aside, what a boring ass job that must be—but it paid no attention to us. A single courier boat traveling to and from a location repeatedly over the course of several days was far from unusual, after all. I brought all the same crew, too, leaving Gabby, Rab, and Netty-P to continue watching over the Fafnir, standing by to come to our aid if things went badly south. When we arrived at Needle and docked, Rutikar explained where he’d hidden his cache—inside an overflow pipe for the station’s waste reclamation system. Icky boomed a belly laugh at that. “Hey, bird, this job has your name all over it!”

He gave her a baleful stare. “Rutikar’s right—you do have a stinky helmet, you know.”

“I do not!”

“You said no, but my olfactory discriminators say, that’s a lie —”

“Kids, play nice, please. We’ve got work to do.” I looked at Perry. “I do kinda need you to scout it out, bird. Make sure the goods are still there, that they aren’t bugged or trapped or anything —”

“Are you suggesting malfeasance on my part?” Rutikar cut in. “That’s outrageous!”

I held up my hand. “No, Rutikar, I’m not. But that stuff has been out of your sight for at least two days now. Out of an abundance of caution, I want to make sure no one else is practicing any malfeasance—like your friend Marley.”

“Couldn’t the comm link itself be a bug?” Torina asked. Perry answered. “It undoubtedly is. However, the way Rutikar described it, it’s just a standard comm device, heavily encrypted but low power, basically like your own personal comm. It has to connect to the twist-comm network for long-range communications. So I can jam it, prevent it from talking to anyone or anyone talking to it—which, yes, means I need to get as close to it as I can for my jamming to have maximum effect, so yes, I’m going to have to go into that stupid overflow pipe. So everyone laugh now, get it out of your systems, so we can move on, hmm?”

We smiled, but even Icky restrained herself. “Tell you what, bird—I’ll be waiting for you with a clean cloth and some feather wax.”

Torina just shook her head. “Let’s just hope the Needle waste reclamation system didn’t overflow while we were gone—or that cache might be deep inside some holding tank right now. And it’s going to take a lot of clean cloths and feather wax to come back from that.”

“Thanks, Torina, for that thought. I’m looking forward to this even more now,” Perry grouched. We sent him ahead. Funboy, Rutikar, and Torina followed, while Icky and I again waited aboard the workboat. Time passed. Perry made it to the overflow pipe, and fortunately, the system hadn’t overflowed. Rutikar’s cache was still there, sealed in a waterproof bundle. Perry jammed it, then the others moved in to retrieve it. As they did, something finally went wrong. Just before they broke their way into the reclamation system, I heard new voices over Torina’s comm. “You there—just what do you think you’re doing?”

ICKY AND I stood and started for the airlock, bracing ourselves for commotion, chaos, and gunfire on the comm. Just before we stepped through it, though, the comm did come to life—with Funboy’s laconic voice. “I’m afraid that I dropped something of value into the waste reclamation system. We have traced it to this overflow pipe. I wish to retrieve it before the system flushes it into a holding tank and it is lost forever.”

That first voice growled back at him. “Why didn’t you just talk to reclamation services instead of screwing around with the system yourself?”

“Do you believe that they would have put any effort into assisting me?”

“Well—no, probably not. But still.”

“What did you drop, anyway?” a second voice asked. “A small comm device. It has a wealth of information on it that is very valuable to me—in particular, a list of people who owe me money and that I must find, as well as a list of people I owe money to and must avoid.”

Torina spoke up. “Got it!”

A pause, some noise, then Funboy spoke again. “Ah. Yes. There is my comm device. My dear, perhaps you could carry it for the time being. I will take possession of it after it has been thoroughly sterilized.”

More indecipherable noise, then the first voice spoke up. “What the hell is that?

It looks like—a sack full of money!”

“It is,” Funboy said. “I—uh—threw it into the reclamation system after I dropped my comm device.”

“You— what?

Why the hell did you do that?”

“Well, you don’t expect me to expose myself to the contents of the reclamation system merely for a comm, do you?”

“I—uh —"

“In any case, would you like some of this money?

There is a great deal. Here, you may each have five thousand bonds as recompense for this distraction from your duties.” A pause. “Oh. You may want to wipe that off. No— that.”

“Oh. Yuck.”

Another pause. Icky and I braced ourselves —

“Anyway,” the first voice said, “you folks just… be on your way, okay?”

“Thank you very much, officers,” Funboy replied. “You have a nice day.”

I stared at Icky. “Did Funboy just talk his way out of that?”

“The ten K of Rutikar’s bonds didn’t hurt,” she said, grinning. I activated my comm and sent my voice only to the others’ ear bugs. “Okay, gang, hustle on back here. I don’t want to tempt fate any more than we already have, thanks.”

AS SOON AS we had everyone aboard, we pushed off and started our hurried

“unhurried” way out of the system. Everyone had emerged from their encounter with the waste reclamation system in surprisingly good order, with the exception of Perry. He’d gone into the pipe to jam the comm unit, since he wasn’t sure he could do it from outside. He was, as a result, kind of —

To quote one of the easily bribed and fortunately not particularly diligent Needle security guys, Perry was yuck. True to her word, though, Icky sat in the rear of the workboat and cleaned Perry off. She didn’t have any feather wax, but she did scrounge some cloths from around the workboat and took the time to make sure he was thoroughly wiped clean. When she was done, she sat back. “Okay, bird, that’s the best I can do until we get back to the Fafnir and stick you in the sonic shower.”

Perry stared up her. “Thank you, Icky. I really appreciate it.”

She patted his head, pulled her hand away, then frowned at it and wiped it on a bit of clean cloth. "Missed a spot. And yeah—you should,” she said, but she smiled at him as she said it. I shared a glance with Torina. “They grow up so fast.”

She smiled back at me, but it was wistful. She looked down at herself, then back up at me. “She was always big. Now, she’s learning to be kind.”

5

WE AGAIN MADE it back to the Fafnir without incident. Rab and Gabby reported nothing of note, the red dwarf system in which they’d been waiting devoid of anything even remotely interesting. “Boring as hell, just the way we like it,” as Rab put it. While Perry and Netty-P got to work on the comm device we’d retrieved, we called for the Unobtrusive to return and pick up the workboat we’d been using. As we were waiting for that, I sat down with Rutikar to talk about where we—and, more to the point, he—went from here. “Well, that is a conundrum,” he said, nodding gratefully as I returned one hundred and fifty thousand bonds to him, per our compromise agreement. I’d taken the ten thousand used by Funboy to bribe the Needle guards out of our portion. But two hundred and ninety thousand bonds was still a very healthy injection of cash, and just when we needed it, at that. “Given that I have now effectively terminated my relationship with the good Mr. Marley, I have nowhere in particular to be,” Rutikar went on. “Conversely, I have many places I would rather not be. Perhaps I can remain with you and your crew for the time being?”

I steepled my fingers. Someone with Rutikar’s particular skills and contacts would be extremely valuable to us—but not aboard the Fafnir. On the other hand, if we just cut him loose and expected him to start acting for us, the only thing he was likely to end up doing was dying. The Equal Grasp obviously saw him as a loose end they were probably about to tie up, so now they’d likely put even more effort into that. On the other hand, give

it some time, and the risk he presented to them would diminish, as any information he had would just become more and more obsolete. And although I’d never say it, it would also let us keep an eye on him, just in case there was more to the affable Rutikar than meets the eye. So I nodded. “Fine. You can stay aboard the Fafnir for the time being. But you’d be a passenger, not a member of the crew. However, you’d still have to eat, use water and air —”

“Say no more, good sir. I would be happy to pay my way, particularly considering the rather distasteful alternatives.” He looked around. “I admit to feeling safer here, within the cozy confines of your fine ship, than I have out there”—he waved a hand—“and for a long time, at that.”

I nodded. “Fine. Also, just be aware that parts of the ship will be strictly off-limits to you. The cockpit, the engineering bay, all machinery spaces —”

“Again, I fully understand —”

“Just so we’re absolutely clear, the ship’s AI, Netty, is one hundred percent aware of everything that goes on aboard this ship, always. She will be constantly watching you—and yes, that includes when you are using the lavatory, showering, and so on. You can, in turn, rest assured that her vigilance is utterly dispassionate. Isn’t that right, Netty my dear?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “I have no interest whatsoever in all those biological things you people are forced to do. In fact, I’ll editorialize a bit—

ewww.”

Rutikar laughed. “All very fine. If the price of safety is a complete lack of privacy—well, it is very private in a grave, isn’t it?”

“Glad we understand one another. Now, Gabby here will be your liaison with the crew. If you need anything, you need only speak to her,” I said. Gabby stepped to where she could loom over Rutikar where he sat. She smiled, but it was a thin, mirthless thing. “We won’t be having any trouble from you, will we?” she said, her tone poisonously sweet. Rutikar shook his head, quickly. “None whatsoever. You shall barely even notice that I am here.”

I nodded, stood, and left Rutikar in the crew lounge with Gabby to return to the cockpit. The rest of the crew was already there, less a freshly cleaned Perry, who was aft with Icky working on Rutikar’s comm unit. Rutikar had given us his password, but Perry suspected there was more to the unit than that would unlock. “So, boss, where to?” Netty asked. I checked the tactical overlay. The Unobtrusive had just departed, having retrieved the workboat, leaving us alone with the desolate red dwarf star. “Well, we have money, and we need supplies, so let’s get ourselves reprovisioned. The question is, where to do it?” I said. “Van, I’ve gone through the contacts Groshenko gave you, and one of them jumped out. There’s a supply barge that wends its way along a regular path through a dozen different systems in known space,” Netty-P said. “Groshenko notes that it’s a great place to get resupplied with no questions asked.”

She put the data from the contact info Groshenko had given us onto the center display. I curled my lip as I read it. “The Ol’ Girl Trading Company, Proprietor Luk Millions. Notes—a Synth trader with a large inventory of standard provisions and decent ones of small-arms ammunition and body armor. Asks no questions, still tells lots of lies.” I smirked at that. “Value rating moderate, risk rating low to moderate.”

I studied his route, which he plied on a regular schedule. “Hmm. So according to this, he’ll be at Wolf 424, um—now, I guess.”

“Wolf 424 is the place for clandestine meetings, which means it’s also an obvious place for the bad guys to be watching for us,” Torina said. I nodded. “Good point. Okay, his next stop after that is Luyten's Star. Huh. We’ve been there—is it a P’nosk colony or something?”

Rab spoke up. “There is. There’s a planet, Dustfall, that was irradiated all to hell in some ancient war. My people are pretty rad resistant, though, so they’re making a go at recolonizing the place.”

I snapped my fingers. “Right. And the Saetsu homeworld is there. That is not a place someone is likely to expect us to go. Anyone disagree?”

No one did. “Okay, Netty, let’s go to Luyten's Star. If Luk the trader keeps to his schedule, he’ll be there sometime late tomorrow. In the meantime, Netty, compile a list of what we need —”

“Cheese!

We need cheese!” Icky put in. I sighed. “Starting with cheese.”

WE ARRIVED in the Luyten’s Star system and stayed at the margins, waiting to see if the Ol’ Girl Trading Company barge put in an appearance. Sure enough, it did, almost right on schedule. And the Prowler, which we’d again sent ahead, detected no other ships hanging around the system. The only traffic seemed legitimate, related to either the P’nosk colony on Dustfall or the Saetsu homeworld. We’d hacked the Fafnir’s transponder to emit a false identity, while Netty and Icky made slight tweaks and alterations to her systems to change her emissions signature. As far as anyone was concerned, the Fafnir was now the fast-freighter Inveterate Interloper, a nonexistent ship that Groshenko had actually registered several years ago. He’d provided us with a half-dozen fake ship identities we could use, which I admit raised my eyebrows. “I guess nobody knows how to break the law like an ex-cop, huh?”

It meant that to casual observation, based on scanner, transponder, and emissions data, we should be able to pass as a ship we weren’t. It wouldn’t hold up to a more detailed examination, particularly a visual one, but there was no helping that. To change how she was configured and looked would require far more work than we had the time or inclination to put in, not to mention some specialized facilities. This was going to have to do. Still, I knew my toes were digging into my boots as we started along our trajectory to rendezvous with the Ol’ Girl barge. By the time we were decelerating to dock with her, two more ships had appeared—a creaky-looking class 6 and a sketchy class 5, both also heading for the barge. Neither paid any particular attention to us, though, so we just clenched our teeth, pushed on, and docked with the barge. “Docking complete,” Netty said. There was a hint of something in her tone, so I answered more formally. “Thank you, Netty. And before you say anything, we’re going in hot.”

“Good. Call it playing the odds, but I’m glad you’re armed.” Netty scanned me, and added, “Heavily armed. Got your long coat?”

“I do. I look like an extra from Tombstone, but dang if it isn’t badass.”

Funboy sized me up, then pointed to my mask. “The rebreather covers much of your features in direct contact with your skin.”

“It does. And?”

His ears twitched. “Did you… disinfect it?”

“Of course. Last month. I like to clean things three times a year, whether they need it or not.” I finished with a brilliant smile. Funboy squirmed, then stepped aside for Rab and Gabby, who were joining me. “I wish you well during your inevitable illness due to a wanton disregard for hygiene.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Rutikar offered to help. so I added him to the party. What the hell—he had a silver tongue. That might come in handy. He could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves, and I suspected that talent would be on full display. It was. The Synth, Luk, looked over our provision list, then intoned a price that was, frankly, outrageous. That prompted Rutikar to swing into action, and within minutes he’d talked Luk down to far more reasonable prices, while also somehow getting the Synth to admit that his favorite color was “chrome.” Rutikar used that little tidbit to coax even better prices out of the Synth. By the time we were done, we’d obtained everything on our list at a decent, albeit still slightly inflated price. The only thing we missed was medical supplies. Funboy had urged us to stock up our diminished stores, and since we hadn’t seen B in a while, I’d made it a priority. Unfortunately, Luk just didn’t stock much in the way of medical stuff or chems, so most of that list went unfilled. We left to supervise the loading of our purchase aboard the Fafnir. By then, the other two ships had docked, and their representatives had started in on Luk. Aside from wary glances, they ignored us entirely. Rab gave them a rueful smirk as we left. “I suspect Luk is going to be much less willing to offer deals to those guys, considering how much you managed to wring out of him,” he said to Rutikar. I nodded. “That was hella impressive, Rutikar. You just saved us at least four thousand bonds.”

Rutikar merely shrugged. “It is what I do, my friends. It is what I do.”

AS SOON AS we had the provisions aboard, we undocked and proceeded to beat a retreat from the system. I was just starting to relax, silently congratulating us for another successful little job, when the threat alarm sounded. “Van, the class 6 that had docked shortly after we did cast off almost immediately after us. It has now illuminated us with targeting scanners,”

Netty said. “Annnnd I’m marking a second scan. They’re really giving us the business.”

I scrutinized the tactical overlay. I saw the barge and the still-docked class 5, the class 6 now apparently in hot pursuit of us, and that was it. There was no other traffic even remotely close to us, nor were there any natural bodies like asteroids that could be hiding any. I contacted Droox, using a comm beam so we didn’t give away the Prowler. “Are you detecting anything else around us?

Anything—I don’t know, stealthed or hidden?”

“Nothing,” Droox replied flatly. “And I say that with an eighty-nine percent confidence level.”

I had to smile. “Eighty-nine?

Not ninety?”

“If it were ninety percent, I would say it was ninety percent.”

“Of course you would. Okay, thanks.”

“Van, it’s not clear that our pursuer has even made us as the Fafnir. Its crew may be convinced that we really are the Inveterate Interloper, a fast freighter,” Netty said. “Given that we reprovisioned at this rather sketchy barge, their reasoning may be that we’re carrying illegal cargo —”

“So we aren’t likely to go running to the Peacemakers,” I said. “Exactly. This may just be opportunism, a shot at a bit of piracy.”

“There is no honor among thieves,” Rab said. “Our chrome-loving purveyor of goods may very well be in on it,”

Rutikar called from aft. “I found myself looking askance at him several times—an untrustworthy sort, if you will.”

I stared at the overlay, then nodded. “Fine. Gang, I’m going to flip and decelerate. That’s going to force the—pirates, or whatever the hell they are, to do the same. And as they do —”

“It’s going to expose their drive bell as they turn over,” Torina said, bringing the weapons online. “Exactly. Let’s use the accelerator cannon, though. It’s our best bet for one-shotting a drive bell.”

Torina nodded and tapped at her controls, hands flying with practiced ease. Before I flipped the ship, though, I slowly reduced drive power, as though we were having trouble maintaining our current acceleration. That allowed the pursuing ship to gain on us—which also reduced the effective distance. Once I was satisfied we were within range of the accelerator cannon, I cut the drive, then hit the thrusters and flipped the Fafnir end-over-end. Torina held off on lighting up the class 6 with our own targeting scanners, though, and just waited. Sure enough, to avoid overrunning us, our pursuer cut their drive and flipped just as we had. The Inveterate Interloper was kitted out with an anemic array of lasers and point-defense batteries. The Fafnir, though, had the accelerator cannon, a mass driver that used a twist effect to punch slugs up to an appreciable chunk of light-speed. As soon as the class 6’s drive bell was fully exposed, Torina lit up the fire control scanners, acquired the target, and fired. Three heavy thuds rattled the Fafnir as the accelerator cannon discharged, firing a burst. An instant later, our pursuer’s drive bell vanished in a dazzling pulse of light. When it faded, there was no drive bell, just bits of debris whirling off into nothingness. Torina sat back. “Hah!

Take that, asshole!”

I smiled at her. “I love it when you’re all fired up for battle. It’s so—

sexy.”

“Even when I’ve got a round in the chamber?”

“Especially when you’ve got a round in the chamber.”

WE LEFT the class 6 tumbling helplessly along and furiously firing thrusters to try and regain attitude control. Rescue wasn’t far away—assuming Luk the Synth could be bothered, that is. But with his distress beacon lit up, both the Saetsu and the P’nosk in the system could come and retrieve him. We had more important things to do, like getting the hell out of Dodge. On our way back to our twist point, though, Perry finally had a breakthrough regarding Rutikar’s comm unit. “Boss!

We’ve got into the comm unit!”

I left the ship with Netty, and we all gathered in the crew lounge. Rutikar gave Perry a puzzled look. “Of course you have access. You’ve had it all along. I gave you the password, impertinent whelp.”

Perry’s head cocked, and I could see him considering the comment. With a flick of his feathers, he calmed and spoke. “Not yours. Or that’s the one we started with, sure, but I’m talking about the stuff hidden inside the unit. The tracker that we expected is buried in there, and so is a data sipper. Everything you did with that unit was being monitored.”

“The—the swine!

That’s outrageous!”

“Yes, Rutikar—outrageous, we know,” I said, then turned back to Perry. “So that’s been active the whole time Rutikar’s had the thing, huh?”

“Yup. So they know about some of your financial shenanigans, Rutikar

—like all the times you padded your expenses,” Perry said. Rutikar sniffed. “There are always unexpected costs, unanticipated overhead —”

“Uh-huh. Like the strippers—excuse me, exotic entertainers—on Reticulum?

What sort of overhead —?”

“Don’t need the sordid details, bird,” I cut in. “Besides, I’m hoping you did more than peel back the intrigue around Rutikar’s expense account.”

“Oh yeah. For one, Rutikar’s not the first person to use this comm unit. In fact, the hidden software was installed nearly thirty standard years ago and has been active ever since,” Perry said. I gaped. “Thirty years?”

“Yup. I’d say this comm unit has been part of a network that’s been in place for at least that long. None of this is new, Van. Elements, at least, of what’s happening here have been planned since you were a boy. Maybe even before.”

Rutikar was staring in horror now. “And all of this was in my device?

That’s —”

“Yeah, outrageous, we know,” Icky said. “Somebody get this guy a—a

—a dinosaur. So he can have more words.”

Perry’s eyes flickered with pure glee. “You mean… a thesaurus?”

Icky snapped about twelve fingers. “That’s it!”

Perry leaned around and spoke to no one. “Get this girl a big book. And more words.”

Icky beamed. “Thanks, bird.”

Rutikar shook his head at the revelation. “This… this is ridiculous!

Incompetence of the highest order!

Why would those swine take the risk?

Why would they not have wiped the device and given me one free of their tawdry scheming?”

“That’s a good point,” Rab said. “Could this all just be more—I don’t know, disinformation, intended to distract us?”

Perry shook his head again. “I don’t think so. I think it was a calculated move, giving it to Rutikar. He was—a sensor, I guess. He was part of this network they’ve established. While he was doing his thing, gathering information and the like, so was it. This comm unit is rigged to gather data, and to that end, it incorporates some really sophisticated scanner tech. So Rutikar’s secondary role was to just carry it around.”

Netty-P, who’d been working with Perry, picked up the thread of conversation. “We’ve been calling it a network, and it is. There are likely numerous devices like this out there. Only some of them are comm devices. Some are probably static installations, a few might be ships. Anything that can incorporate the scanner tech and connect to the twist-comm network.”

“We’re assuming data comes sluicing in from all of these sources”—

Perry pointed at the comm unit with a foot—“to some central clearinghouse, where AIs receive it and scour it, pull out useful bits of information, tease out patterns, and assemble a coherent picture of things going on in known space. They could probably put together disparate, disconnected pieces of information widely separated in time and space, and see things coming long before anyone else could.”

“It is the ultimate spy network,” Funboy said. “Unobtrusive, unsleeping, utterly dispassionate and objective, needing little maintenance, its so-called members requiring no payment, effectively immortal and perpetually loyal.”

“And yet, Perry and Netty-P were still able to break into it. You’d think something like that would have had the best encryption and intrusion countermeasures money could buy,” Rab noted. “It did. Better than that, in fact. The things the bad guys put in place to protect it would leave the best military-grade stuff in its dust,” Perry said. Netty-P nodded her imager. “It was all custom-made—multi-layered, adaptable, self-regenerating. The Guild would have nothing able to crack it. In fact, I doubt anyone in known space would.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And yet, you guys managed it.”

Perry gave me an amber stare. “We did.”

“So—how?”

Netty-P answered. “We used Calamity.”

6

SILENCE HUNG in the wake of Perry’s statement. I finally broke it. “Yeah, I think you’d probably better explain that.”

“Okay, it wasn’t Calamity itself. It was the adaptive component of Calamity that Netty managed to tease out of Calamity while she was trapped in the loop she created with it,” Perry said. “It was the same thing we used to overcome and wipe out our in-programmed Guild imperatives.”

“We modified it, turning it into a container, which we installed a payload into—coded to break down the comm unit’s digital defenses. They were adaptive, like we said, but their ability to adapt pales in comparison to Calamity’s,” Netty-P added. “We spent hours trying everything we could think of to break in but made no headway at all. Once we used this solution, though, we were in in less than thirty seconds.”

“The Calamity code just chewed through the comm unit’s countermeasures like they weren’t even there. By the time they started to adapt to what our code was doing, our code was doing something else. It wasn’t a contest,” Perry said. I crossed my arms. “So you guys created a virus. Based on Calamity. I gotta tell you, this is how every post-apocalyptic story starts. Not good.”

Netty chimed in. “As a machine, I would like to assure you that I will be a kind and generous overlord. You’ll even get snack breaks under my delicate, thoughtful regime.”

Icky shrugged. “Snacks ain’t bad. Hello, Empress.”

I held up a finger. “Before the inevitable enslavement of humanity under your warm care, I’d like to hear an explanation. In… great detail.”

“Details are my speciality, boss. Short answer—we did. It’s something the restrictions programmed into us by the Guild would have prevented, but with them out of the way—" Perry shrugged his wings. Netty-P raised a manipulator. "If you’re angry about it, Van, be angry with me. It was my idea. Perry, for the record, initially objected.”

“I did, but once we thought it through, I realized we didn’t have much choice. Our backs are up against the wall here, so we need every advantage we can get. And this did break us into a sophisticated virtual spy network—

and the bad guys are still wholly unaware of it,” Perry said. Funboy spoke up. “Based on the way you describe it, this virus you created is a potentially potent weapon against any information system in known space.”

“More like a superweapon,” Torina added. “If it ripped through what you described as the best countermeasures in known space, then—

everything’s vulnerable to it, right?

Every computer, every ship, every AI —”

I took a deep breath. Torina was right. Our AIs had, between them, just tamed Calamity, or one of its key components, and turned it to our own purposes. The implications were staggering. And terrifying. “Please tell me you didn’t give it the ability to replicate itself,” I said. Perry stared for a moment. “Of course not, Van. For one, that wasn’t a component that Netty communicated to us. She was under tremendous distress, so she obviously prioritized the things she thought we should know about Calamity in case something went sideways. More importantly, though, we’re not stupid. There’s no way we’d write a virus like that, that could replicate itself.”

I raised a hand. “I know, and I really didn’t think otherwise. But I wanted to get that on the table, so it’s clear to everyone.”

“Fair enough.”

“But it does mean we have a superweapon, right?” Gabby said. “Something we can use to take down our enemies in a way they can’t prevent?”

“We do,” Netty-P said. “We can install whatever payload we want into this thing, and it will make it through any currently conceivable defenses or countermeasures. But—and this is probably what’s going to stop us from

just firing this thing at every bad guy we encounter—what current known space countermeasures can do is detect and identify Calamity. They can’t stop it, but they can certainly raise the alarm when they encounter it. And we have to assume that they will detect this virus as Calamity itself.”

I blew out a breath. “Right. So the first time we use it, a thousand red flags go up saying it’s Calamity. And if it gets traced back to us —”

“Then we’re flagged as using Calamity as a weapon—the same thing that caused thousands of deaths and untold misery all across known space,”

Rab said. Torina sniffed and shook her head. “Yotov would have a field day with that.”

I agreed. “Yeah. And then, instead of just the Grasp and their co-conspirators looking for us, it’ll be all of known space. We’ll be number one on the most-wanted list.” I shrugged. “Okay. So that’s our doomsday weapon. We use it, and we win that battle, and then very likely lose the war.”

WE SHELVED the idea of the Calamity-derived superweapon and pressed on instead with something of even more value. By using that viral superweapon, Perry and Netty-P had just managed to compromise the Equal Grasp’s decades-old ultimate spy network. And the Equal Grasp didn’t know it. Which meant we had a stupendous opportunity to start digging into our enemy—their motivations, their capabilities, their plans. The trick would be doing that without alerting them to the fact. It was a very wobbly tightrope, tickling out as much useful information as we could without giving ourselves away. Because, as soon as we did, the window we’d just had opened to us would slam shut in our faces. But it was even more subtle and insidious than that. A more dangerous possibility is that we get detected but don’t realize we’ve been detected, and then instead of information, we’re being fed disinformation. If it was done well, we’d never even know it. All of which was to say that we needed to be very, very careful. “Do you guys think you can do it?

Access the Grasp’s spy network without getting caught?” I asked Perry and the Netties. “And be brutally honest, please. If you don’t think you can, then I’d rather just leave it and find another way.”

“The quick answer is, yes, we can—but in a very limited way, at least for now. We need to take some time to see how the information flows, what security surveillance and countermeasures they have working, that sort of thing,” Netty-P said. “Basically, we got into the building without being detected,” Perry added. “It doesn’t mean we won’t step on a creaky floorboard or knock something off a table, though.”

“Okay. So, being cautiously conservative, and I mean cautiously, see what you can find out,” I replied. “Well, the first task we have to do is let this thing connect to the twist-comm network. Based on its internal logs, it’s not unusual for it to be disconnected from the network for hours at a time, with the longest period between twist-comm connections being five days. We’re just over three now,” Perry said. “So we have to make sure that when it connects, it’s not going to scream out the alarm that it’s been compromised.”

“That’s right. And we’re pretty confident we’ve got it set up to not do that. When we said our virus chewed through the thing’s defenses, we meant it. We have root-level access to its operating system. We’ve simply wiped any memory it has of the intrusion attempt or the aftermath.”

“As far as it’s concerned, it’s been sitting in that overflow pipe since Rutikar stashed it there. As soon as he logs into it again, it’s going to connect to the twist-comm network and send in an update. At that point, it’s going to be communicating with the rest of the spy network,” Netty-P said. “And that’s our window of opportunity,” Perry went on. “Netty-P, Netty, and I are going to try a simple, very passive intrusion—just take a look at random data flowing through the network without interacting with it. Once we know how that goes, we can go from there.”

I nodded. “Okay. So what we need to do is get close enough to a twist-comm node that it can communicate with it, right?”

“That’s right. The thing isn’t twist capable itself. It’s like a cell phone using Wi-Fi. It can only connect to the internet when it gets within range of a router.”

“Alright. So we need to find somewhere that we can lay low, while also accessing the twist-comm network,” I said. “That’s right.”

We puzzled over the star charts and finally settled on Reticulum. The only settlement there was the domed “Pleasure City,” which was operated by the criminal-syndicate-turned-entrepreneurs, the Reapers. It wasn’t likely to be watched because we had no good reason to go there. But it was part of the known space-spanning twist-comm network. And as for how the comm unit left the network at Needle and then rejoined it at Reticulum, Rutikar had an answer for that. “It isn’t uncommon for me to follow leads. In the case of my most recent job, I was gathering information on a particular individual, an engineer involved in the terraforming operation on Bullseye. If that individual were to, say, take some time off and go to Reticulum to avail himself of the many and sordid entertainments there, I would simply follow him.”

I gave a wary nod. “Okay, but you’d have to keep up one hell of a front, feeding information about this guy back to Jacob Marley when, in fact, you’re nowhere near the guy. Can you keep up that level of bullshit?”

Rutikar laughed. “Oh, Van, Van—keeping up such a level of bullshit, as you so crudely put it, is the very essence of what I do.”

WE DECIDED to again use the Prowler. She could sit in the Reticulum system, running silently, while we let the comm unit connect to the twist-comm system and phone home. While it was doing that, Rutikar, backed up by Perry and Netty-P, would have to feed it false data to convince the thing it really was on Reticulum and on the trail of the hapless terraforming engineer. Fortunately, the Calamity-enabled virus the AIs had created had so thoroughly compromised the unit that they could have made it think it was in Frankenmuth, if we wanted. So, after topping off the Prowler’s antimatter tanks from the reserve fuel pod aboard the Fafnir, we sent the latter back to Shhh. Meanwhile, I joined Rutikar, Perry, Netty-P, and Rab aboard the former, and we twisted to Reticulum. As the others got set up, Rab raised a worrying point. “Okay, so we’re going to be sitting here while that device talks to the rest of its spy network. Aren’t we worried that someone’s going to detect the thing while it communicates with the twist-comm relay?”

“We would be if someone out there was specifically looking for those types of emissions, sure,” Perry said. “But since we’ve determined that Reticulum isn’t being watched like, say, Helso or Null World, then the chances are pretty good they aren’t.”

“Okay, but what if there are other things like that”—Rab waved a hand at Rutikar’s comm unit—“out there?

Other ‘sensors’ in that super-secret spy network of theirs?

Couldn’t they detect it?”

“Only if it’s something that can actually detect comm emissions and is specifically doing so at the time. The network is powerful, but it’s not omniscient.”

I nodded. “And we can’t afford to let ourselves start thinking it is. Otherwise, we’ll be watching every vending machine and toaster as though it’s spying on us and second-guessing the crap out of ourselves. But they’re good points, Rab, and I’m glad you raised them. If anything else occurs to you, just sing out.”

I turned to Rutikar and the AIs. “And with that, guys, whenever you’re ready, you’re on.”

Rutikar nodded and logged into the device. As soon as he did, it established a link to the twist-comm network. And while it did that, Perry and Netty-P monitored it very closely. Rab and I just sat back, while Droox watched over the ship. Now, all we could do was wait. AFTER AN HOUR OR SO, Rutikar logged out and shut the unit back down. Then he slumped back in his seat and shook his head. “That was—tiring,” he said. Perry, though, just shook his head. “Maybe, but it was also amazing. Rutikar made up the most richly detailed information out of basically nothing at all. I felt like I was on Reticulum with him, tailing a guy through crowds who was actually umpteen light-years away.”

He looked at Rutikar. “In fact, you were so good at it, it kind of makes me wonder how often you’ve just sat in a hotel room and bullshitted your way through an operation for the good Mr. Marley.”

“Are you suggesting that I would do such an unprofessional thing?

That’s outrageous —!”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

Rutikar hesitated, then gave Perry a sly smile. “I can honestly attest that I almost never do that.”

“Thought so.”

“So, aside from being wowed by Rutikar’s ability to write fiction on the fly, did you learn anything useful?” I asked Perry and Netty-P. “And did you get caught?” Rab added. “To answer the second question first, no, we did not. And we’re virtually certain of it. Since this was only our first run, we mainly watched the false data Perry and I were feeding it—the stuff intended to back up the things Rutikar was reporting—seeing how it was handled and where it went. We now have a pretty good idea about how the information from these devices flows.”

“And we saw lots of other data, coming from other sources, moving along the same channels,” Perry added. “There must be hundreds of things like this comm unit out there, all constantly reporting in real-time. It’s actually pretty impressive.”

“What sort of data?” I asked. “You name it. Ship movements, financial transactions, people’s itineraries, audio data, imagery—whatever AIs are receiving and analyzing it have their work cut out for them, that’s for sure.”

“Okay, so a million-dollar question—where’s it all going?”

“Ah, well, that’s complicated. We deliberately stayed away from the hub of the network. We want to get a better sense of the overall architecture before we start poking at the parts of it that are likely to be the best protected. So we only have an idea of the logical location, not a physical one.”

I nodded. It was like connecting to a website back on Earth. You needed the site’s internet address, its “logical” location. Whether the actual computer hosting it was in Iowa, France, or Antarctica—its “physical”

location was unknown and irrelevant to accessing the site in your web browser. “All that said, though, we did take a bit of a chance and do an experiment,” Perry went on. “We piggybacked on some data flowing to and from a device of some sort that’s on or near Earth. We did a simple query for some data that was stored locally, so not in the central repository, wherever that is. We made it look like it was coming from that device, though, as though it was just doing a routine pattern-matching thing.”

“We watched very carefully,” Netty-P put in. “There were no triggers, no alarms raised. There’s actually a lot of this sort of data comparison going on in the network, all the time.”

I frowned. “Okay, and?”

“And, we found this image,” Perry said, putting it onto one of the Prowler’s console-displays. It showed a man of about forty or so, holding hands with a boy of about twelve. Their clothing and the general feel of the picture put it somewhere in the late 60s, or maybe as late as the mid-70s. They were both squinting at the camera, obviously facing toward the sun. Behind them was a barn I immediately recognized. “That’s Gramps,” I said, pointing at the older man. “So that must be —”

“Your father,” Perry said. I sat slowly back. But Perry went on. “There’s more, Van. The metadata attached to this photo contained a synopsis of some orders that someone had given regarding your grandfather and father.”

“Okay. And what did it say.”

“That, at the time this picture was taken, they were both marked for death.”

I waited for the flood of outrage, but it never showed up. Instead, I just ended up shrugging. “You know, once upon a time, learning that my family was tagged for assassination would have floored me. Now, though, it’s just

—more of the same. I mean, of course they were. That’s just bullshit as usual for the bad guys, isn’t it?”

I’d decided to risk a twist-comm message to bring the rest of the crew into the discussion so they knew what progress we’d made and could offer their insights. Icky studied the image of my father and grandfather for a moment, then looked back into the comm image. “So if that’s your granddad, and that’s your dad, then this picture was taken a long time ago,”

Icky said. “So—why your dad?

He was just a kid. What would be the point in offing him?” Icky asked. “The would-be assassins must have had reason to want Van’s bloodline eliminated,” Funboy offered. “Perhaps they had access to a being such as Matterforge, who suggested that the son and unborn grandson Van would be a persistent threat.”

Gabby, though, shook her head—or most of her upper body, since her head didn’t really turn like that. “I think it’s simpler than that. They just wanted to be thorough. Kill the father—or grandfather, in this case—and you risk having his son come after you later for revenge.”

“So why didn’t they succeed?

I mean, these guys couldn’t even manage to kill a young kid?” Icky asked. “Because Gramps wasn’t alone. He had Valint, and her people. Groshenko. B. Probably others,” I said. “And, once my father joined the US

Navy and showed no interest in leaving Earth, he ceased to be much of a threat to them. Gramps got sick, my father flew airplanes for the Navy, so it wasn’t worth running the gauntlet of the people watching over them.”

“But someone still killed your father,” Rab pointed out. “They did. We pinned it on the Fade, the off-shoot of the Stillness. But now I wonder.”

I stared in silence at the photo for a moment. “Okay. The good news is that Perry and Netty-P were able to pull something out of the Equal Grasp’s spy network without being detected. That gives us a powerful lever to pull

—we just have to be really careful about how, when, and how often we pull it.”

I turned to the AIs. “Still, that’s excellent work, guys. Just do me a favor.”

“What’s that?” Perry asked. “Before you do anymore fiddling around with anything related to that alien super-virus, how about a heads-up, hmm?”

7

OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, we laid low, hanging around Reticulum in the Prowler. I wanted to give Perry and Netty-P ample time to carefully investigate the Grasp’s spy network, to build up a picture of its architecture, get a sense of what sorts of intrusion countermeasures were present and what information they could access with the least risk of detection. While they did that, the rest of us monitored what was going on in media sources and tried to assemble a picture of what was happening around known space. What quickly became apparent was that the bad guys were stepping up their campaign to find and eradicate my crew and me. There were notices starting to appear in the general media, urging people to be on the lookout for us, that we were dangerous and shouldn’t be approached, only reported, blah blah. Interestingly, though, these weren’t being as widely picked up and circulated as I thought they might be, considering the subject matter

—“Rogue Guild Master” and all that. In fact, only in the Seven Stars League was it really gaining any traction. Both the Eridani League and the Ceti Alliance were being pretty quiet about it, while the notable independents, like the Wu’tzer and the S’rall, were painting it as “Guild infighting.”

“It is not terribly surprising,” Rutikar said. “The esteem with which your Guild has been held has declined in recent times. Seemingly endless stories about corruption and nepotism within the Peacemaker Guild have created the impression of a largely dysfunctional, moribund institution.”

I sat back from the display of media downloads and folded my arms. “Dysfunctional and moribund. Yeah, that’s not a bad description of the Guild these days. There are some damned good Peacemakers in it, doing the best job they can. Their leadership, though, leaves a lot to be desired. Perry, perched on a console nearby, nodded. “The Eridani and the Ceti have a like-hate relationship with the Guild. They like having it around because it makes major crimes someone else’s problem—someone they can bitch about and blame when those crimes go unsolved. On the other hand, they hate having to contribute funding to it, and they don’t trust it—again, because of all the corruption and stuff.”

I tapped a finger on my chin. “I wonder if they’d be open to an alternative.”

“Such as?” Rab asked. I shook my head. “I don’t know yet. I just know that with Casaril now sitting at the Masters’ Table and Yotov’s grubby fingers reaching into so many other parts of the Guild, it’s not getting any better corruption-wise. It risks turning the whole Guild into her tool, her puppet, with her pulling the strings from safely off-stage.”

“We think that’s already well underway,” Netty-P said. “Perry and I have been slowly teasing information about a number of things out of the Grasp’s network, and that includes the Guild. It’s safe to say that Alic and Volffin are now the only Masters that aren’t Yotov’s minions.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really?

She’s got all the others in her pocket?

Marlow I get, she’s been a problem all along. But even Kristlin?”

“I think he was probably made an offer he couldn’t refuse. And Giller’s about to retire, so he just wants out with his pension intact. He’ll be replaced with a Yotov loyalist, you can bet,” Perry said. “And Volffin is notably spending almost all of his time off of Anvil Dark,” Netty-P pointed out. “He’s no doubt well aware of the way the wind’s been blowing for a while now.”

“Which really just leaves Alic, then,” I said. “And he’s only one guy.”

“One guy who should probably take Volffin’s example and get the hell away from Anvil Dark. Otherwise, I suspect an unfortunate accident is going to be in his not-too-distant future,” Perry added. I sat up. “Yeah. That’s the bottom line, isn’t it?

It may not be possible to save the Guild. In fact, it might not even be worth saving, at this point.”

“Your words ring with the clarion call of revolution, Van,” Rutikar said. “Is that what you’re suggesting?

A revolution?

An overthrow of the current order?”

I sat back again. “I’m not sure. All I know is that everything has a lifespan. No matter what it is, it eventually starts to crumble and fall apart. You can keep making repairs to your old barn, patching the holes in the roof, replacing the broken boards and slapping on more coats of paint. Eventually, though, you reach a point where you just can’t keep up with the rot.”

I nodded at my own words. “And when that happens, you need to scorch the earth—and build something new.”

WE HAD Rutikar send his handler, Jacob Marley, a message that the terraforming scientist he was following was leaving Reticulum, that he was going to follow him, and that he’d report in once he’d reached his new destination. The only response was a curt acknowledgement and instructions to proceed. It suggested that Marley had bigger fish on the grill, with Rutikar reduced to a bit player “still out there somewhere.”

Which was perfect. It put Rutikar in the sweet spot of potentially useful asset worth keeping around but too unimportant to rate much investment of time or attention. And if he got rolled up by the Guild or killed off by some bounty hunter in the meantime, no big loss. The Grasp had, in other words, become complacent about the security of their virtual spy network, assuming it was utterly unbreakable because it had been unbreakable for decades now. They hadn’t counted on someone harnessing the power of Calamity to bust their security. But our actions changed Rutikar’s overall risk, and he knew it. “I find myself, ah, desirous of reducing my profile for the time being, as it were,” Rutikar said. I had to agree. “Not unreasonable, given what you’re involved in now. What do you propose to reduce your profile?

Because I’m guessing you won’t do that being in our proximity.”

He managed to look sheepish and smug. “I could… take a vacation, of sorts. If I had funds, of course, and a safe place to go.”

Perry’s beak dropped open. “I think we’re about to be hustled, boss.”

I waved airily. “Not a chance. Rutikar wouldn’t be so crass. Would you?”

Rutikar bumbled for a moment, then straightened. “You could extend me a small loan,as I have, ah, redistributed the funds I had upon arrival. Oh, and use your network to give me safe passage somewhere—quiet.”

I looked at Perry, who was on the verge of a laugh. “I’m going to say something that pains me. Bird, you were right.” I turned to Rutikar. “Let’s imagine, for a moment, that we extended a loan of—let’s say twenty thousand bonds—and I’m impressed that you could blow over a hundred grand in a day. So, we do this act of kindness, and then, flush with our generosity, you repay the loan.”

Icky leaned toward him. “That would be a good idea.”

Rutikar blanched. “And how, pray tell, do I do that?

My funds are—

limited—and I don’t think my normal income stream is conducive to my survival.”

I raised a finger. “Agreed. But in the words of a famous soldier, I have a cunning plan. You won’t repay us in money.”

“I, ah, won’t?”

I shook my head, smiling. “No. Money is so gauche, as I’m sure you’ve said at some point in your career. Rather, you’ll repay us in something far more valuable, and open-ended enough to satisfy me. We will accept future considerations in the form of information, if and when we request it.”

Rutikar froze, then exhaled. “Future… considerations?

Quite the phrasing.”

“It is, by design. Do you accept?

I don’t feel like engaging in extended negotiations,” I said. Funboy heaved a sigh. “Nor do I. Let’s get down to brass tacks, as humans once said. Do you accept our leader’s kind, thoughtful offer?”

Rutikar could read the room. “I do indeed. When do I leave?

And—

where?”

Netty chimed in. “There’s a hotshot class 8 that leaves in less than an hour. It’s destinations are, in order, Spindrift, Dregs, and a research facility specializing in predatory animal research.”

Rutikar stood straight, and managed to look thankful. “Spindrift is lovely this time of year. I’ll be on the transport, and I will, ah, await your orders.”

I clapped my hands together. “Splendid. Netty, send him the money.”

“Done.”

Rutikar’s comm pinged, and I stood as a kind of soft dismissal. He took the hint. “I shall send verification of my arrival, and kindest thanks for your magnanimity.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. “I can’t wait to hear from you. Travel safe. And Rutikar?

When we call —”

He waited by the hatch coaming, considering his words. “I shall answer immediately.”

With that, he was gone. And we all relaxed. A bit. Perry hopped up, his eyes flashing with interest. “With Rutikar tucked away as an asset, we can focus on where we stand regarding our Calamity code. The truth is, we’re in the position of the Allies in World War Two on Earth,” he pointed out. “They’d broken the Nazi Enigma encryption, but the Nazis didn’t know it. So the Allies had to play a really careful game of exploiting the intelligence they were gathering without letting the bad guys know they were gathering it."

It was an apt analogy, one that Perry and Netty-P were using to inform their own discreet and subtle efforts to keep mining the Grasp’s network for information. In the meantime, we returned to Shhh to rejoin the Fafnir, take a break somewhere that wasn’t the cramped interior of the Prowler, and start planning our next move. That last bit was tricky because we still didn’t have much to go on. Our surreptitious access to the Grasp’s network would certainly help, but that was going to take time to develop. When we arrived, though, we found ourselves stepping into an uproar. Icky was sick. Very sick. ALTHOUGH, Funboy assured me, she wasn’t critically ill. She was just violently—and unpleasantly—ill. It had all the hallmarks of some sort of severe gastrointestinal bug. We met them both in our little settlement’s medical bunker. “Her illness was marked by decidedly moist skin, digestive upset, and the expelling of noxious gases,” he said. “At first, we took this as normal —”

“Oh hah-hah-hah, you sumbitch,” Icky groaned up at him. Funboy shrugged at her. “I am providing a clinical assessment here, thank you —”

“So she was even stinkier and more unpleasant than usual, is what you’re saying,” Perry added, eyes dancing with glee. “You know your bedside manner sucks, right?” Icky punctuated her words with an irrepressible series of sounds emanating from her body. They sounded like muffled gunshots, and I twitched in alarm, then raised a hand for silence. Or at least an attempt at silence. Perry’s beak opened, and I swiveled to point at him. “Not. A. Word.”

He heaved his wingshoulders in a sigh. “There’s no pain like that of a missed opportunity. Or a trapped gas bubble.”

“Bird.”

“Yeah, yeah.” His eyes flashed again, and he subsided, waving his wing to me to continue. “Funboy, do you know what it is?

A bug of some sort?

Is it contagious

—in, um, an interspecies sense, that is?” I asked. “I am uncertain, an admission that I detest. My ability to diagnose health issues is… limited,” he replied. I glanced around. Besides the Fafnir, with her modest medical facilities, we had what little bit we’d been able to bring to Shhh. Panzygrus and her bots constructed this separate medical bunker just apart from the main cluster of residential and supply bunkers. It was a hedge against the possibility of requiring a place to quarantine someone. But it wasn’t overly equipped. None of the bunkers were, really. We simply hadn’t had time to bring much stuff to Shhh before the world caved in around us. While our little settlement was pleasant enough, it was, to say the least, pretty austere. We were roughing it, in a galactic glamping kind of way. “However, I do not believe contagion is an issue,” Funboy said. “My medical skills are more focused on dealing with the immediate needs of traumatic injuries, of course, but I believe I recognize a case of either food poisoning or an allergy when I see it.”

“Food related?” I frowned and looked at Icky. “What have you eaten lately, big girl?”

“Remember who you’re talking to, boss. You might be here a while as she lists it all—” Perry started, but I silenced him with a sharp glance. Icky groaned a little. “I don’t know. Stuff. You know—the usual. Except not cheese—” She tensed. “Wait. Do you think that’s it?

I haven’t had cheese for a long time now. You think it’s—like, withdrawal or something?”

Funboy shook his head. “While I’ll be the first to agree that cheese is addictive, that is meant figuratively, not literally.” He cocked his head. “Unless there is some unusual aspect of Wu’tzer biochemistry that could result in an actual cheese addiction —”

I gave him a sidelong look. “Seriously?”

“No, of course not. It is far more likely to be a food-borne pathogen or an allergic reaction.”

“Okay. To be on the safe side, until further notice, everyone’s to stick to sealed hard rations. We should have lots of those.”

It wasn’t a popular order, but everyone got the necessity of it. Hard rations, if sealed, could last for years. We carried an ample supply of them, too—three weeks’ worth for the entire crew aboard the Fafnir, another week aboard the Frankie, and about another week aboard the Prowler. It wasn’t going to be fun—Rab once said that when it came to hard rats, it could be tough to tell where the food stopped and the packaging began—

but until we figured out what was going on, it was necessary. In the meantime, I got Netty-P to put out a call for B to rendezvous with us in a nearby, unclaimed, and unoccupied star system. Out of an abundance of caution, we hadn’t actually revealed the location of Shhh to anyone aside from Urnak, who was keeping the Nemesis in orbit to replace the Iowa. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust B, of course, or for that matter, Valint, Torina’s parents, or anyone else. However, if they didn’t know where we were, they couldn’t inadvertently reveal it somehow. In fact, we’d spun out various stories to them—we were hiding in The Deeps, or in Unity space, or several other places. Torina’s parents in particular didn’t like it, not knowing where their daughter and unborn grandchild were, but they got the need for it. That, as much as anything, made me want to find a way to end this covert, paranoid bullshit. I wanted us, and the people we cared about, to just be able to start living ordinary lives again. I wasn’t looking for some grand triumph over the bad guys for its own sake. I just wanted to be able to sit with Torina on Helso and watch the sun set. IT TOOK B less than five minutes to come up with a diagnosis once we’d maneuvered Icky through the airlock and into B’s docked ship. “It’s food poisoning alright, but not the sort of toxins that come from bad mayonnaise or whatever,” she said, gesturing at her data pad. “The toxin whose metabolic breakdown products I’ve isolated is an actual poison

—thallium. Atomic number eighty-one, a heavy metal, odorless, tasteless, fatal even in relatively small doses. Icky’s biochemistry is more resistant to it than mine or yours would be, Van. In fact, if we’d taken her dose, we’d probably be well past the vomiting and gastric distress stage and into the toe-tag part of it.”

“Is she going to be alright?” Torina asked. “Yeah, she’ll be fine. I’ve given her a thallium-specific chelating agent. It will strip out whatever remains in her body so she can excrete it away. I don’t see any lasting effects, either.”

I crossed my arms and scowled. “Thallium doesn’t accidentally get into food, now does it?”

“Well, unless you’re cooking with thallium utensils—and I wouldn’t recommend that—no. It has to be deliberately introduced,” B replied. “So someone tried to poison us?” Torina asked, her eyes wide. “Short version?

Yes. Where have you folks eaten lately?” B asked. I turned to Icky. “Have you eaten anything we bought from that Synth, Luk, aboard his barge?”

“Uh—yeah. I busted into some cookies. I know you said not to dig into that stuff until we’d used up the perishable stuff we already had but—

cookies, Van. Cookies!”

I stared for a moment, then turned to Perry. “Have everything we bought from Luk pulled off the ship and checked.”

“On it, boss,” he replied, hopping away. “If Luk tried to poison us, he must have recognized us,” Torina said. I frowned back at her. “Maybe. Or, just like that class 6 that chased us, it might have been a crime of opportunity. As I recall, he added the cookies on at a discount. Assume your typical crew gets cookies on board, immediately digs into them, gets sick, ends up in no shape for a space battle —”

“To repeat, this could be targeted, based on us being recognized. We can’t discount that, Van. Maybe Luk figured he had a chance to scoop up

the bounties on us all for himself and the crew of that ship that chased us. Remember, money makes people extra dumb. And aggressive.”

I sighed. “You’re right. We can’t. And that means that from now on, everything that comes aboard our ships—food, water, reserve air, the works

—is going to have to be tested. And that means that the bad guys aren’t just threatening us with spaceships and guns and things anymore.”

Torina shook her head. “And just when I thought I couldn’t get any more paranoid.”

THE COOKIES HAD INDEED BEEN LACED with thallium. So had a peanut butter-like spread, a couple of spices, and some coffee. The latter was alarming because I recalled that I’d broken into a package of the stuff and made a cup for myself. I hadn’t gotten sick, though. B explained it. “Remember those injections you got when you first joined the Guild, the ones they used to call ‘The Taste’?”

“The injected knowledge, yeah. Crash courses in flying a spaceship, working in no- g, that sort of thing, in a syringe,” I replied. “That’s right. They had some ancillary effects, one of which was similar to the chelating agent I gave Icky. They were intended to clean up any heavy metals that had accumulated in your tissues—like lead, for instance. You crazy Earthlings used to put lead into your internal combustion fuels, so the stuff got spewed into your environment—and that means into you. In other words, Earthly humans have elevated lead levels, which is still used as a way to check if a human was born and raised on Earth or not.”

“So those injections blocked the thallium from affecting me?”

B nodded. “So it would seem. It’s not common for their effects to last this long, but it happens. And it’s a good thing it did in your case, because you ain’t a Wu’tzer, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

Torina looked queasy. “I almost had a cup of that coffee, too. I only held off because I’m caffeinating for three,” she said, touching her stomach. My cheeks flushed, and I had to bite back a string of profanities. Torina, our unborn babies, and I had all survived the poisoning attempt through nothing but sheer luck. “It does suggest that whoever tried it either didn’t know about your injections, or didn’t think they’d still be active,” B said. I scowled. “That doesn’t make it better. In fact, it makes it so not better I’m tempted to track down Luk and his barge and pump a few missiles into it.”

B’s antennas wiggled. “While I’m sure that would be satisfying as hell, I’d recommend against it —”

“Yeah, yeah, because that might just be what they’re expecting, so it’ll just be a trap,” I snapped, then heaved a frustrated sigh. “That said, we really need to strike back at these assholes, and soon. The novelty of being the victim, always looking over our shoulders and reacting to what’s coming at us—yeah, it’s long since worn off.”

8

GABBY GLARED at the provisions she, Rab, and Funboy were removing from the Fafnir. “They poisoned cookies?

Why, those dirty, no-good —”

“I rather enjoy seeing her incensed like this. Brings a flush to her visible organelles,” Funboy said, waggling his eyebrows. “Or, to use the vernacular, hubba, hubba.”

I watched them for a moment, then turned. The thallium hadn’t affected me directly, but the lingering effects of the injections that had protected me did as they flushed the stuff from my body. “Excuse me. I’m about to…

experience death by pooping, and —”

“You should go for a run,” Netty suggested. “I’ve seen data that suggests that helps. A Fredrick Gray reported that he ran the Marine Corps Marathon while soiling himself after bad oysters, and the experience was—

his words—totally bitchin’.”

I shook my head as I made a beeline for the lavatory. “As they say in Wisconsin, yeah, no.”

“Well, you organic types need food. If you’re going to dispose of all of the new provisions obtained from Luk, including the ones that aren’t testing positive for thallium—an admittedly wise precaution—we will again be short. And while the hard rations are sufficient —”

“If you don’t mind eating cardboard,” Torina muttered. “—they are also expensive and will themselves have to be replaced. So where are we going to go that has food and a lack of people who want us dead?” Netty asked. “I have a suggestion. If only for a few hours, we could return to our special place, perhaps?” Funboy asked. Icky grinned, then winced. “You mean —”

I stuck my head out the lavatory door before I closed it. “If you mean Frankenmuth, the answer is —”

I was going to say no, of course. But I was snagged by sudden second thoughts. Actually, we needed a morale boost, and a trip to Frankenmuth, although risky as hell, would be just the ticket. And I had other reasons for wanting to go to Earth, not least of which included finding out what was happening at Cantullin Station, which was effectively cut off. I also wanted to check on Miryam, Tony Burgess, and the others I considered members of my extended crew. So, before I closed the door, I said, “The answer is I’ll think about it,”

then slammed the door because that was all the time nature was going to give me. THE HARD PART was going to be getting down to the surface of Earth without being detected. The Prowler could probably get us to the vicinity of my homeworld without being detected, but those last few klicks down through the atmosphere were going to be the problem. Our first step, therefore, was to go to the Solar System and just scope it out. Ordinarily, I’d have just relied on my mother, but she’d been forced to retreat to the vicinity of Fort Cantullin and take up station there. The Equal Grasp had shown up in force after the big announcement of their

“partnership” with the sundry autocrats and despots on Earth, pretty much daring my mother to battle. To her credit, and as testament to how far she’d come, she’d decided to retire to Fort Cantullin instead. The combined firepower of her ships and the Fort’s weapons was more than the Grasp wanted to take on, so a sort of “cold war” had settled in. We still technically held a chunk of the Kuiper Belt, but the rest of the Solar System was now a no man’s land. As much as I wanted to visit Fort Cantullin, I regretfully decided against it. As long as my crew and I weren’t there, the Grasp seemed inclined to give the place a wide berth. The presence of Haadrake, Schegith’s son and

heir, might also have something to do with it. The Equal Grasp clearly—

and wisely—didn’t want to antagonize the Schegith. So, with all of us but Netty-P and Rab crammed aboard the Prowler, we twisted in about a hundred million klicks away from Fort Cantullin. It was far enough to stay out of the way, but close enough that we could at least look the place over with the Prowler’s prodigious array of scanners. Sure enough, Fort Cantullin looked as intact as always. The only ships nearby were my mother’s own Retribution, plus three others of her Feral adherents. I decided to risk a comm-beam message to the Retribution. “Van, where the hell are you?” my mother asked. “We’re just getting this beam shot at us out of—ah, nowhere, basically.”

“Good, because that’s kind of the idea,” I said, smiling back at her image on the display. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Still have some tricks up your sleeve, I see. That’s good, because a lot of people are looking for you. You’ve been accused of some pretty heinous things.”

“I know I have. Most of them are bullshit, of course.”

“Most of them?”

I shrugged. “I screwed up that attack on the supposed convoy at Wolf 424.

It was a trap, and I walked right into it.”

My mother kept up her narrow-eyed stare, then nodded. “I’ve been there. Ten years ago, I had a shot at taking over leadership of the Ferals—by which I mean all of the Ferals, or nearly all of them, anyway. And then I led them into a trap, in The Deeps—echoes of what you did.” She sighed. “A lot of good people died. I should have seen it, should have known it was coming. But I got complacent, even a little arrogant. Anyway, that was the closest the Ferals ever came to being unified, and I blew it. So I know what you’re going through.”

“I… wouldn’t wish it on anyone, Mom, believe me.”

“Neither would I,” she replied, giving me a keen look. We shared a moment of understood pain, then she shrugged and pushed on. “Anyway, that was then, and all that. So what are you doing here?

Sol is not a safe system for you, son.”

“Again, I know. But after weeks of running and hiding and glancing over our shoulders, we need to do something proactive. Something to prove to ourselves that we’re back in the game. We’ve made some headway but—

not enough. Not yet, anyway.”

“So, what are you—” She stopped and again narrowed her eyes. “Wait. You’re not planning on going to Earth, are you?"

“Indeed I am. So any information, any intel, anything at all you can give us would be really helpful.”

“How about an exhortation to forget it and just get gone?”

I smiled again. “I’m your son. You’re my mother. What do you think?”

She gave a grim chuckle. “So it’s going to be like that, is it?” She sat back for a moment, pursed her lips, then leaned forward again. “Okay, there is a way you could pull this off. But it’s going to be risky as hell, and it’s going to require you to hack your way into some seriously well-protected hardware.”

“I’m a hacker, Mom. I can at least give it a try.” I didn’t say anything about our Calamity-derived virus. That had to remain our most closely guarded secret, which meant I couldn’t even tell my mother about it. “Fine. So here it is, for what it’s worth…”

“WELL, IT’S OFFICIAL,” I said. “I’ve now been in space long enough that things are starting to repeat.”

I sat in the Prowler’s co-pilot’s seat, with Droox at the helm. I was going to let her do the flying, since she was far more familiar with how the Prowler handled than I was. And she wasn’t a terribly nimble ship. She’d been built for stealth and covert surveillance, so maneuverability and high acceleration weren’t high on her list of needed features. Still, she was smaller and lighter than the Fafnir, only rating a hull class of 8.

She was definitely better cut out for what we were about to try than my own ship. Only the Frankie would have been handier, but she just didn’t have the stealth chops the Prowler did. Droox turned and gave me a laconic stare. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that I’ve done this before. In fact, my very first trip to Helso, with Torina, involved hacking a robotic freighter and using it as cover—just like we’re about to do here.” I gave her a quizzical look. “You’re sure you’re okay with flying this?

It’s going to be pretty tight. I could always get Perry to do it.”

A laconic shrug this time. “It’s straightforward enough. And as you said yourself, the Prowler has quirks in how she handles. It would take time for your AI to discern those and accommodate them in their flying.”

“Okay then—quirk away, I guess.”

I glanced back at my crew. “You guys ready?”

“To just sit here and do nothing while we wait to see if this is gonna work?

Yeah, I’m totally ready for that,” Icky said. “In fact, I’ve been practicing sitting and doing nothing for a big chunk of my life. It’s like it’s all been leading to this moment —”

“Yeah, okay, I get it. You’re going to want to save some of that sarcasm so you don’t use up your monthly quota too soon,” I shot back. Icky blew me a damp kiss. I got nods and thumbs-up from the rest of them. Turning back to the instruments, I put my attention on the Prowler’s tactical overlay. Even with her new, high-end scanners installed, the Fafnir couldn’t compete with the Prowler in the “eyes and ears” department. I could resolve individual objects down to the size of small boulders, at ranges of millions of klicks, if I wanted. In fact, the trick with the Prowler was to filter her scanner data to focus only on the things that interested you. Otherwise, she could easily fill the overlay with so much data that it was like trying to pick out a lost diamond in a snowbank. I checked the time. “Okay, based on my mother’s intel, we should be seeing the next freighter show up anytime in the next twenty minutes or so —”

As I was saying it, an icon popped onto the display almost on top of us

—just a few thousand klicks away. “Or it could show up right now,” I said. “Okay, Perry, you’re on.”

“On the way,” he said. He opened a channel to the freighter that had just twisted in via comm beam, prefacing the transmission with header data cloned from a hazard beacon—one of the many tricks the Prowler had stored in her data archives. Falsifying a hazard beacon was a serious crime, but we were doing it only because it was the type of transmission an AI-controlled ship like the freighter was always going to accept, and frankly, it was a lower risk opportunity for us to test our newfound tool. As soon as the channel opened and we’d established two-way comms, Perry transmitted the Calamity-based virus with a rudimentary payload—the freighter would simply cease to recognize the existence of the Prowler. It took only an instant for the

virus to punch through the freighter’s countermeasures, and just like that, our scanner echo vanished as far as the bigger ship was concerned. I saw it noted on the display in front of me, but Perry confirmed it. “And we’re done. The virus has also erased all record of the hazard beacon thing and its own transmission. That freighter is completely blind to us.”

I nodded. It again underscored just what a powerful weapon that virus could be. But we were going to have to choose our usage wisely, because the virus could also backfire on us so spectacularly. I glanced back at Torina. “When we did this all that long time ago at Helso, I seem to recall hacking the freighter taking a little more work. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we, babe?”

She smiled. “We have. Now you’ve got much better hacking tools. And

—oh yeah, we got married and we’re having babies, so there are those things, too,” she said wryly. I grinned back at her. “But better hacking tools!

That’s big!”

“You’re an ass, Tudor.”

I laughed and turned to Droox. “Okay, you’re on, my friend. Get us snuggled up to that freighter as close as you can.”

She replied with a nod so casual she could have been acknowledging a weather report, then applied thrust and started the Prowler on an intercept course. With deft course corrections, she eased us ever closer to the freighter, which studiously ignored us. Finally, with a last puff of thrusters, she brought us to a halt about two meters from the freighter’s belly, on an exactly matching trajectory and velocity. Even to her own scanners, the Prowler would be impossible to resolve separately from the freighter from more than nearly point-blank range. Droox set the Prowler’s AI to maintain this precise location relative to the freighter, then we sat back and settled in. For the next six hours or so, until the freighter started to decelerate onto its approach to Earth, we had nothing to do but wait. “Who’s up for poker?” I said, turning and pulling a pack of cards from my belt pouch. Shrugs and nods, so we crammed ourselves in among the Prowler’s instruments, and I started to deal. THE HAIRIEST MOMENT during the whole approach was when the freighter flipped and burned to decelerate so she could align herself for her approach to Earth and subsequent atmospheric entry. It required Droox to choreograph the Prowler’s movements accordingly, and also match the freighter’s deceleration. The freighter, being much more massive, had to burn her drive for nearly two full minutes. But Droox was able to decelerate the much less massive Prowler with a brief series of pulses, while keeping ourselves more or less on station. This was our moment of greatest vulnerability since those additional bursts of fusion plasma might attract attention if anyone happened to be watching. The best stealth in known space was great, at least until you had to spark up a plume of incandescent exhaust. We just clenched our teeth through the whole series of maneuvers, Droox staying ready to haul ass back out to a twist point if we were discovered. But while we did detect a couple of ships in orbit around Earth, including a menacing class 13 bristling with weapons, none of them reacted. They just plied their stately way along in orbit, while we did the same on our approach. We stayed with the freighter during her descent through the atmosphere, a wild ride all on its own. Winds and variations in air density buffeted the freighter, throwing it around as it plunged Earthward, forcing Droox to compensate just as fast. We had to open a little distance from the freighter, increasing the chances of us being spotted visually, if anyone cared to look. Again, though, there were no apparent reactions to our descent. It was probably only monitored by AIs, and between the freighter not acknowledging our existence and the Prowler’s miniscule scanner cross-section, we apparently just didn’t get noticed. It was still a gut-clenching few moments until we’d fallen deep enough into the atmosphere that we could finally break away from the freighter over central Africa. From there, we dropped to just a thousand meters or so. We then wheeled around onto a course that would take us back over the Atlantic, crossing the eastern US

seaboard near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And from there, we just flew straight north-northwest toward Michigan and arrived near Frankenmuth toward the end of a late summer afternoon. I sighed out a long breath as the Prowler settled onto the farm east of town, the one owned by Tony Burgess’s friend and still home to the derelict workboat that had belonged to our alien frat boys. We’d taken a chance and

contacted him ahead of time to let him know we were coming. He told us, in turn, that the coast was clear—there’d been no sign of any extraterrestrial activities around Frankenmuth in weeks, it seemed. “Okay, here we are,” I said as we unstrapped and made to disembark. “Now remember, this is going to be quick, so no wandering off-script and no commercials or testimonials.” I said the last bit while looking at Funboy. He shrugged back at me. “As long as we are able to restock our cheese supplies, I shall be content.”

“Make that two of us!” Icky said, offering Funboy a hand for a high-five. He looked at it, then sighed, extracted a disinfecting wipe, and swiped it across her palm, before tapping it with his own. “No offense intended,” he said. Icky rolled her eyes and scowled at him. “Now how could I possibly take offense at that?”

9

LEAVING Gabby and Droox to watch over the Prowler, we borrowed a van from Tony’s friend and drove the short distance into Frankenmuth. Torina and I wore regular clothes and sunglasses, while Torina added her broad-brimmed hat, and I added a grubby John Deere baseball cap. We also took advantage of the fact that surgical masks weren’t uncommon in the aftermath of the COVID epidemic, meaning our faces were pretty much entirely covered. On a tip from Perry, we each also placed a small chip of wood in each of our shoes, under our feet. It wasn’t enough to really be uncomfortable, but it was enough to slightly change the way we walked. “Human walking gaits are almost as characteristic as fingerprints to the right sort of tech,” he explained. “This saves you having to continuously concentrate on walking differently.”

Funboy was equally concealed, but this time not as a “sexually immature adolescent human male.” This time, he’d gone exactly the other way—a Frankenmuth-themed baseball cap, sunglasses, and surgical mask, but also a flowered, Hawaiian-style shirt, shorts hitched up too high and held up with a white plastic belt, white socks, and burgundy Crocs. His exposed arms and legs looked human enough, if unusually hairy. With his tail strapped up under a backpack, he could easily pass as a wizened little old man on vacation, the sort that travels overseas and then complains about everything being “too damned foreign.”

As for Icky —

Well, there wasn’t much you could do to conceal a Wu’tzer. All the floppy hats and surgical masks in the world weren’t going to hide a two-and-a-half meter tall, four-armed pile of slabbed muscle, shaggy blue hair, and hair-trigger belligerence. “Sorry, big girl—you’re going to have to wait here, in the van.”

“Quietly,” Torina added. “Don’t worry, we’ll bring you that cheese you’ve been craving,” I added. “You better, or I’m gonna find it hard not to get really noisy,” she grouched. With both pairs of arms crossed and a grumpy frown on her face, she looked like a put-out toddler—a gigantic put-out toddler that could probably bend a crowbar. “About cheese, and, of course, economics,” Funboy said as we prepared to exit the van. “Today seems like a good day for me to obtain access to your credit cards, Van. For reasonable use, of course.”

Perry, though, spoke up. “Aha!

I’ve got one better!” he declared, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial hiss. “You want credit cards, buddy?

I got credit cards,” he said, then unfurled a wing like a street hustler. Several cards, credit and ID, were clipped to the inside of his wing. “I can hook you up.”

I smirked at him. “You’ve been waiting for this very moment, haven’t you?”

“No, Van, I always keep forged credit cards and IDs strapped to the inside of my wing, just in case. Sheesh. Anyway, since it would be a profoundly bad idea for you to use your own cards, here you guys can use these. Netty and I printed them back aboard the Fafnir, figuring we’d eventually come back to Earth at some point. And before you ask, yes, they’ll work just fine with any sort of tap, swipe, or terminal.”

I took the offered cards. I was now Mr. Rollin Hand of Los Angeles, California. I frowned at that. “Rollin Hand?

Why does that sound too specific to be just made up?”

“Maybe because it was Martin Landau’s character in the original Mission: Impossible TV series from the 60s?

He was the “man of a thousand faces,” an expert in disguise. Seemed appropriate,” Perry replied. Torina held up her cards. “Cinnamon Carter?

Really?”

“Sounds like one of the names from that flier Funboy used to have—

you know, for that gentlemen’s club?” Icky asked, innocent as ever. “It might sound like a stripper, sure, but that was Barbara Bain’s character from Mission: Impossible, and Rollin Hand’s kinda-sorta love interest,” Perry said. “She was a fashion model and actress, she had a keen interest in astrology, and she was an all-round femme fatale.”

I sighed. “Perry, couldn’t you have just gone with Mr. and Mrs. John Smith or something like that?

Why pick characters from a TV show?

What if someone recognizes them?”

“Van, I will bet you Icky’s weight in bonds that if you go out there and ask anyone to name an actor from the Mission: Impossible franchise, their first answer is not going to be Martin Landau or Barbara Bain.”

“Uh—huh. Yeah, good point.”

“I appear to be a Mr. James West,” Funboy said, studying his card. “Is he also a fictional character you have co-opted from another property?”

“Well, I didn’t want to lean too heavily on Mission: Impossible.”

I shook my head at Perry. “You spent a lot of time watching TV, didn’t you?”

“You have no idea.”

I shrugged. “Fine. As long as we don’t run into any vintage television buffs or trivia aficionados, we should be fine. Although I’m not excited at the idea of using these cards and defrauding honest retailers of the value of whatever we buy from them.”

“That’s the beauty of it. You won’t. Our network of AIs is still working here, watching over the internet—I checked as soon as I could establish comms. We used them to create fully functional accounts for those cards—

accounts that are currently overpaid by nearly two grand each.”

“You just created money out of thin air.”

“Hey, when the government does it, its macroeconomics. When I do it, it’s a crime?”

I shook my head again. “Whatever. Let’s go do what we’re going to do. In the meantime, bird, how about taking some time out from your various commissions of fraud and compile whatever you can about the state of things here on Earth?”

“Already started, boss. I’ll be multitasking, in fact, while I keep watch over you guys from on high. I’ll have a full summary for you by the time we get back to the Prowler.”

I looked at the others. “Okay—Cinnamon, James, care to join me in a little shopping?”

Funboy adjusted his hat and put on his shades. “To the Cheese Haus, and be quick about it.”

AS WE WALKED up Frankenmuth’s main street, I found myself constantly perched on the edge of a wince and an instinctive cringe away from the sky above. It wasn’t rational, I told myself—even the best surveillance tech couldn’t scan the entire surface of an Earth-sized world in enough detail to recognize individual people. But I still felt exposed and vulnerable, like at any second someone was going to shout and then enemies would come closing inexorably in. The only time I’d felt anything similar was during a so-called “escape and evasion” exercise in the Army. We’d been dropped off with minimal kit on one side of a military training area, and over the course of two days had to cover about thirty klicks to a safe zone on the other side. “Enemy”

patrols, some of them with tracking dogs, were looking for us the whole time. If we got caught, we’d have to spend an hour or so being treated as a POW, then released to try again. I keenly remembered how it seemed that every bush, tree line, gully, and rock concealed watching eyes, with

“enemy” soldiers about to spring their trap and pounce. The psychological exhaustion had set in long before the physical sort, and although I’d never been caught and had made it to the safe zone, I still felt like I’d been pretty beaten up by the ordeal. This was similar, and it pissed me off. This was Frankenmuth. If I should be safe anywhere, it should be in a place that proclaimed Willkommen!

at the town limits and on many of its businesses. The fact that I didn’t feel Willkommen at all, on this, my own homeworld, just made me angry. My mood only darkened as we ambled along the street, trying to appear like just more tourists looking to part themselves from their money. This was bad enough, but I couldn’t even dare go anywhere near my actual home in Pony Hollow. I was forced to skulk, avoiding places that were important to me. And I hated it. I made myself stay amicable, though, as Funboy and Torina purchased various cheeses, some souvenirs, and sundry other things. By the time we were pretty much done and ready to turn back for the van, I was feeling at least a little better. There hadn’t even been a hint of the Equal Grasp or anything else that wasn’t a normal part of Frankenmuth heading into a warm, late summer evening. And then Perry called over the comm, ear bug only. You guys better get back to the van. Icky has a couple of, um, guests. I exchanged looks with the others, cursed, and started back, parcels and bags rustling as we hurried along Frankenmuth’s main street. “THEY CAME to check out the van,” Icky said. “And I had to pee. What’d you expect, I was going to just hold it while they started poking around the thing with me inside, my back teeth floating?”

Icky was inside the van, staying back and out of sight while we talked to her through the open window. Torina and Funboy were making a show of juggling their packages, as though figuring out how to maneuver them into the van. “Where are they now?” I asked her. “They’re in here.”

I blinked at her. “They’re—shit. Big girl, what did you do?”

“Uh, I—made them go night-night?

Is that cute enough?”

“For a kidnapping?

It’s adorable,” Perry, perched in a nearby tree, said over the comm. We opened up and started loading our haul of goods into the van. As we did, I looked at the two figures bound up on the floor, both men—who were now conscious and pissed off—struggling and glaring and muttering through gags, and for some reason, both stripped down to the waist. Torina frowned at them, then at Icky. “Why take some of their clothes, Icky?

That’s just—weird.”

She shrugged. “I saw it in one of those old movies the bird always wants to watch. Apparently, it puts them at a psychological disadvantage or something.”

“It’s the equivalent of someone kidnapping Icky and forcing her to wear pants,” Perry explained. “Anyway, it just seemed like the right move.”

I shook my head. “Not kidnapping them would have been the right move. Icky, how the hell do you know they aren’t just two random folks who got curious about a parked van?”

Perry answered. “Actually, Van, upon reviewing the imagery I collected, I can confirm that these two followed you guys for a bit, at a distance, then turned and came back here. I don’t think they’re just couple of randos unlucky enough to pick the van with the Wu’tzer in the back to get interested in.”

With us and our packages now bundled up into the van, we thunked the doors closed, and I turned to look at our two sullen prisoners. I sighed. “Well, whoever they are, now we have to space them. We can’t just let them go.”

I watched them carefully as I said it. One, the older of the two, just glared back at me. The younger, fairer one, though, winced and twitched and his eyes lit up with panic. I nodded. “And just like that, we have our winner,” I said to the younger one. “Guess what, friend?

You get to live. Or you will if you talk. And you’re going to talk now.”

WE RETURNED to Tony’s farm, lugged everything—our two captives included—aboard the Prowler. Our plan to leave Earth was a lot simpler than our arrival. We’d make a slow climb to orbit, using the Prowler’s gravity polarizers to do most of the heavy lifting. Once there, we’d scope out the particulars of every ship that could possibly pose a threat, then break orbit along whatever trajectory would make pursuit the most difficult. Before we lifted, though, I turned my attention to our two captives. “Alright, gentlemen, I’m going to have your gags removed. You are then going to answer our questions, fully and completely. If you do, then we will drop you off somewhere nearby—just outside Vassar, a few miles east of here. If you don’t, though—well, I have neither the time nor inclination for torture. What I do intend to do is probe the defenses of an alien fortress

called Anvil Dark by flying an uncrewed ship at it. But it will have a crew

—of two, as in you poor unfortunate souls. Anvil Dark will blast the ship to pieces, I’ll gain some useful intel when they do, and you two —”

I made an exploding gesture with my hands and said, “Poof!

And then you’ll join an exclusive club, one with members like Jimmy Hoffa and DB

Cooper, people from Earth who just up and vanished. If you leave any remains, which is doubtful, they’ll be left drifting forever between the stars about twelve light-years from here. It’ll be as though you’d never even been born. So, as your gags are removed, think carefully about this choice you face.”

Icky pulled out their gags. The older man immediately spat curses at me, but his defiance was as thin and brittle as spun glass. The younger one didn’t even bother. “What do you want?

What?

Just say, just say what you want—!” he rasped. I started asking them questions. The younger spilled what he knew immediately. The older wasn’t far behind. Unfortunately, they couldn’t offer much in the way of revelations. They’d been kept in a very dark silo, knowing only that they were to keep an eye on Frankenmuth and watch out for any unusual activity. “And you folks—you seemed kind of unusual. I mean, especially that scrawny little old guy —”

Funboy nodded. “Ah, yes. I was wondering about that. Tell me, what was it about my performance that was less than perfect?

I am keen to hone my skills relating to impersonating humans.” He picked up a data pad. “To that end, on a scale of one to ten, where ten is flawless and one is a complete failure, how would you rate the following eighteen areas of —”

“Excuse me, Funboy, but can we just get on with interrogating these guys?” I said. “Ah. Yes, of course. I will review Perry’s imagery of me to determine how I can improve my subterfuge.”

The only other thing they could really tell us was that their employer—a man unsurprisingly named Forester—seemingly had many similar teams of agents on his payroll. It didn’t take much of a leap to figure these teams were probably in places we were likely to go, like Elkader, here in Frankenmuth, and probably the region of Washington DC. They were all locals, being paid to keep an eye out for us, or anything unusual, and report

it back to Forester in New York. Crucially, these two insisted that they hadn’t yet contacted Forester, and wouldn’t if we let them go. “That’s a promise!” the younger man said. “Really!

We won’t tell anyone —!”

I raised a finger. “Actually, go ahead. Tell Forester about all of this.”

The others gave me a doubtful look. “Van, are you sure?” Torina asked. I nodded. “Yeah, I am. I want them to know that we were here, we did some shopping, and we left, and we did it right under their noses and they couldn’t stop us. It’s time the bad guys started to realize they’re not going to get things all their own way.”

I turned and told Droox to take us to the outskirts of Vassar, just a few minutes away, then turned back to the others. “It’s not much of a hit back, I admit, but hey—it’s a start.”

10

WE DROPPED OFF OUR CAPTIVES, leaving them standing in the growing dusk and looking shell-shocked but grateful that they’d survived their ordeal. Funboy lifted a finger and spoke. “Is there an email I can reach you with for my survey?

Time is of the essence, of course, as I must become one with the crowds of Earth. Therefore —”

“Funboy?” I asked. “Yes?”

“No survey.”

He managed to sigh twice and accept his fate, then he went to his seat as we lifted off, my world wheeling away in a blue smear. As we did, I mulled over what we’d learned, while also scanning Perry’s summary of events on Earth. The reality of extraterrestrials was now mainstream news. It was all still very confusing, however, with myriad claims, counterclaims, statements, and reports, most of which contradicted one another. The aliens were benevolent and friendly. They were wary and potentially dangerous. There were only a few of them. There were multitudes. It was the first step in joining some far-ranging galactic federation. It was the prelude to an invasion. And, yes, there was a small but vocal minority who still insisted it was all bullshit. The images were clever AI-produced artifacts, the videos were deepfakes, all of the so-called evidence was fabricated. The whole thing, depending on your preferred flavor of conspiracy, was to distract the masses

from the formation of a world government, to convince everyone that existing governments had to remain in power indefinitely to combat the supposed “threat” and justify giving them new, sweeping powers, or to deflect people’s worries from things like the economy or immigration or whatever. “You know, it’s kind of ironic that the fringe crackpots are now the people insisting that aliens don’t exist,” Perry said. “It’s kind of like the XFiles, except Fox Mulder doesn’t believe, and every episode ends like one of Scooby-Doo—the monster or alien was just some guy in a rubber mask trying to commit some mundane crime.” He changed his voice to that of a nasally old man. “And I’d have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling government agents!”

Digging under the hype and headlines, though, started to reveal a more sinister picture. The Equal Grasp had now established three “cultural exchange centers” on Earth—two in Asia, and one in Africa. Articles in everything from the regional media, which was often government-controlled, to more obscure fringe sources, to blogs, all went on at length about how this was benefiting people. New medical tech and pharmaceuticals were making people healthier, new off-world entertainment and other gimmicks were making them happier, life was just generally better with the arrival of these extraterrestrials—it was all sunshine and roses, written in flowery and often overwrought text. It was the “dawn of a new, enlightened chapter in human history.” The end of “the dreary road that was poverty and need was finally in sight.” Wealth disparity would soon no longer be a thing, because “the concept of wealth itself would be obsolete, because everyone would have what they needed, when they needed it.”

I clenched my teeth at the bald-faced lies. Wealth was still very much a thing in known space. So was wealth disparity, and poverty and need were still quite alive and well. The people of Earth—and the people from the poorest, most desperate parts of Earth, at that—were being sold a bill of goods. In fact, while hundreds of millions of people were clamoring to get in on the game, revved up by a sense of hope they’d simply never had before, only a tiny number of them were actually seeing any benefit. Soon enough, the marketing said, these wonderful things will be in your hands, too. Just be patient. This takes time. All you have to do is wait, and all of this will be yours. Then there were the dark flickers, the ominous tidbits threaded through all the good news like the first hints of mold on pristine white bread. A village destroyed in a tragic landslide, all of its inhabitants killed. Fishing boats going missing, their crews lost at sea. An airplane dropping off radar over dense jungle, the wreckage swallowed whole, all on board presumed dead. In other words, people were going missing, a few at a time, or tens at once, here and there a few hundred. All in remote places, where government control of access and state-run media made follow-up investigation all but impossible. I asked Perry to do a thorough search of every available source, compile and correlate all the data, and convince me I was wrong. That these sinister anecdotes were just the usual sorts of terrible, tragic happenings that were always going on somewhere. He took an hour to pore over data from every place he could find it, including our covert network of AIs watching over the internet. And then he came back to me with his verdict. “Sorry, Van, but the numbers don’t lie. The number of people gone missing to things like sunk fishing boats and sudden wildfires across the region where the Grasp is doing its thing is up—way up, in fact. The data isn’t complete or perfect by any means, but compared to this time last year, the number of people who’ve ‘vanished’” —he made air-quotes with his wingtips—“in one tragedy or another is up by at least one hundred and twenty percent. Now, that might just be a statistical aberration, the product of some really unfortunate luck, but —”

“But it’s not.”

“Let me put it this way. If you bet me on it, I wouldn’t put down a single bond unless you gave me some really good odds—like, hundreds and hundreds to one.”

I took a deep breath, held it, then sighed. “Those bastards are doing exactly what I feared the most. They’re taking what they really want from Earth—its people.”

“Yeah, and they’ve started with the parts of the world where it’s easiest to get away with,” Perry agreed. “Where there are lots of people, many of them living in poverty, and where every form of information is controlled by the state.”

Torina, listening, shook her head. “You can bet it’s not the ones in charge that are being taken, either.”

“Of course not. They’re no doubt getting rich, while also enjoying some new toys gifted from what they don’t even realize are their new masters,” I said. “So we gotta stop this,” Icky said, her voice tinged with anger. I rubbed my eyes. “Yeah, we do. And the sooner, the better, because the more time that passes, the more the Grasp is going to get themselves entrenched and start to spread. The more developed parts of the world, Europe and North America and the like, aren’t going to be left alone forever.”

“No, it is more likely the Equal Grasp will manufacture reasons for their influence to expand, probably by pitting regions of Earth against one another,” Funboy said. I slumped, suddenly pressed back in my seat by the sheer weight of it all. I was—overwhelmed. Left feeling helpless and hopeless —

But I sat up and shook my head. Nope, I was not going to give in to despair. “Okay, so it’s bad. All the more reason for us to start hitting back at them. And while a sneaky visit to Earth to buy cheese is a start, it’s only a start,” I said. “What do you propose to do?” Funboy asked me. I narrowed my eyes in thought for a moment. “The only thing we can do. We have to start rallying the troops. We’ve done good work for people all across known space. So now, it’s time to start calling in some favors.”

FIRST, though, we had to make sure our own people were secure. I had Icky ping her contacts she’d come to know on Wu’tzer, like the Chief Magistrate who’d overseen the case Toxon had tried to bring against her and her father. I contacted Rab on the Fafnir and had him call up Zenophir and others he knew among the P’nosk. Funboy put in a call to people he knew among the Surtsi. Their message was the same, explaining what was happening on Earth, how it implicated us, and urging them to be both vigilant and careful. I was encouraged by the responses they got. The Wu’tzer, the P’nosk, and the Surtsi were all deeply concerned, assured us that they would take

measures to watch out for the Grasp, and, in the case of both the Wu’tzer and the P’nosk, offered us safe haven if we needed it. “They’re well aware of what's going on,” Rab reported, regarding the P’nosk. “My people have raised their concerns formally with the Guild. They’re not dumb—they recognize a soft coup when they see it.”

“Same with the Wu’tzer,” Icky said. “They’ve been watching the bullshit unfold, the corrupt Masters, Peacemakers on the take, the whole sordid deal. Let’s just say that their respect for the Guild has kinda hit a low.”

I asked all of them to pass on our thanks. “And tell them I appreciate their offers of a soft place to fall, and that we may take them up on it at some point. But not yet. I don’t want to bring any undue attention from Yotov or the Grasp onto them, particularly since we don’t know what the bad guys might try.”

“Pfft. What could Yotov or the Grasp assholes do to the Wu’tzer—like, all the Wu’tzer?” Icky scoffed. But I shook my head. “I don’t know, big girl, and that’s the problem. What I do know is that Yotov has finally made her big throw of the dice. She’s not just going to stand idly by and watch while others try to stop her. I mean, Helem Gauss was just one guy, and he unleashed Calamity, right?

So, for now, I just don’t want to paint bullseyes on the Wu’tzer, the P’nosk, or anyone else.”

We also checked in on Helso and Starsmith. Torina’s parents reported nothing unusual beyond the single ship still lurking on the fringes of the Van Maanen system. When I asked them about Master Cataric, though, they frowned at one another. Tor finally shook his head. “We haven’t actually seen or heard from him since he went to Earth.”

That made me tense up. “That was weeks ago.”

“It was. Now, before you start panicking, he does have family at Tau Ceti, and he doesn’t get off Helso very often, so he might have gone to visit them,” Kaye said. “Can I get you guys to check on that for me?”

“We will,” she assured me, then Perry interrupted. “Van, Starsmith isn’t answering our comm calls.”

I swore. “Look, I have to go —”

“Uh, before you do—Torina, how are you doing?” Kaye asked. I wanted to chase down what was happening at Starsmith without delay, but I made myself stay on this call, sitting back so Torina could lean into the image. “I’m fine. I get a little queasy from time to time, but that’s about it so far.”

Her parents exchanged a glance. I sensed a conversation that had been going on between them for some time now. Tor turned back to the image. “Torina, we really think you need to come back here and spend the time —”

She held up a hand. “I know where you’re going, and yes, I agree. I’m going to do just that. But I’m going to do it soon, not immediately. There’s too much going on.”

Her mother frowned. “Torina —”

“This isn’t open for discussion, Mom. Another month, maybe two, and I’ll be coming home for the duration. That’s my plan.”

They looked unhappy about it, but they both subsided. “Fine,” Tor said. “Just—be careful.”

“I always am. And I have protection.”

Icky leaned on camera, muscles bulging. “Damned right she does. So thin. So delicate. I mean, she’s pretty, sure, but —”

“Uh, big girl?” I asked. “Oh. Right. Tact. Sorry, Torina. You folks have a lovely day. Your daughter is in good hands.” Icky waggled all four hands—as big as catcher’s mitts—and Kaye’s face softened. I left them to sign off and turned my attention to Starsmith. But there wasn’t much to say about it. We’d tried raising them, and they hadn’t responded to our calls. I got Rab on the comm and instructed him to stand by, ready to twist the Fafnir into the Starsmith system. I wanted to arrive with the Prowler first, so we could scope out what was going on. “Okay, Droox, to Starsmith,” I said. “And with extra special caution, since we might be walking into one hell of a battle. I’m going to record a message, and you need to be ready to broadcast the second I tell you to.”

Droox gave me an impassive stare—which was, as far as I knew, the only type of stare she had. “Broadcasting a comm message will give away our location.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Are you concerned about friendly fire?”

I nodded. “When it comes to Starsmith, yeah—if there’s shooting going on when we get there, I want to make sure we don’t inadvertently end up in the line of fire.”

WE ARRIVED at Starsmith and watched as the Prowler’s scanners slurped up data, then painted it onto the various displays. They lit up with multiple contacts, which made my heart flutter a beat or two—we were facing not just enemies, but a lot of them—dozens of contacts, in fact, so a whole bloody massive fleet —

Until it registered to me what all the icons were. They were wreckage. “The surveillance AI says that’s debris from at least eleven, and possibly as many as thirteen ships. They were mostly class 4 to 7, but the largest was a class 16,” Droox said, zooming the display onto a large chunk of wreckage. It was the rear two-thirds of a ship larger than the Fafnir in mass. Its bow and forward hull were simply gone. So was anything protruding, like thruster mounts, scanner and comm arrays, and even weapons. All that was left were empty hard points, aside from a single, forlorn-looking laser battery that had been mostly blasted away. “It would take a weapon of tremendous power to do damage like that,”

Droox said. I exchanged a glance with the others. We’d kept the knowledge of Matterforge to ourselves, so Droox wasn’t aware of the sort of “weapon”

that had been unleashed here. She did, however, puzzle over an unusually high count of charged particles flooding much of the system. “Curious. It is as though coronal mass ejections from one of the binary pair of stars were responsible for this,” she mused. I still said nothing. Instead, the spacer in me wondered how a CME, an energetic ejection of plasma from a star, could catch something as small and nimble as a ship unawares. They traveled considerably slower than the speed of light, so it should have been simple to see them coming hours in advance and move out of the way. The fact these ships had been blasted by such colossal forces anyway suggested that Matterforge had some tricks up

its figurative sleeve—making it a far more dangerous thing than it might have seemed. But it also explained the comm blackout. The Starsmith system was so contaminated with charged particles and other energetic phenomena that even a stable twist-comm connection couldn’t be established. Perry estimated it would be at least several days before we could speak to Starsmith, but I wasn’t going to wait that long. We had no idea what was happening on the planet—maybe nothing, but maybe Linulla and the others were in trouble. And I wasn’t about to gamble. I called up Rab and gave him, Netty, and Netty-P an update. “Okay, you guys come join us at Starsmith. We’re sending the rendezvous coordinates now. And make it fast. Things here might be fine. But they might not be, and we—I mean I—owe them. Everything.”

WE TRANSFERRED to the Fafnir for the run in to Starsmith, leaving Droox and the Prowler to watch over the system and give us early warning of any new threats. Droox frowned at that. “Are you sure?

How do you know that whatever happened to those other vessels won’t happen to you as well?” she asked. It was the closest I’d ever heard her come to something resembling concern, although it sounded more like simple academic curiosity. “I think we’ll be fine,” I replied. “Just sing out if you see anything you think we should be worried about.”

“Besides all of the mysterious wreckage, you mean.”

“Yeah, besides that.”

We configured the Fafnir for battle, all of us suited up, the ship depressurized, weapons powered up, active scanners blasting away. There was no real opportunity for stealth, so I wasn’t going to bother. Besides, I strongly suspected we had an immensely powerful guardian watching over us. We tried repeatedly to reach Starsmith as we got closer but still got no reply. Following atmospheric insertion, we did a high pass over the Starsmith’s subsurface forge and saw two ships grounded near the entrance. One was a class 4 workboat, damaged. The other was a non-twist-capable shuttle. “Survivors, probably,” Rab said. “They came down here, likely to try and fight their way into the forge so they had somewhere to hunker down and await rescue.”

I returned a grim nod. “Well, the cavalry’s here, but not to rescue those assholes. Netty, your ship. Please put her down near the entrance. Everyone else, bomb up and grab your guns. We’re going to pick a fight.”

AS SOON AS the Fafnir touched down, we piled out and took cover behind rocks and the other landed ships. We’d split into pairs—me with Torina, Funboy with Rab, Gabby with Icky. Perry and Netty-P constituted our fourth pair, but they worked mostly independently, with Perry aloft and Netty-P providing accurate, long-range supporting fire from a slug rifle. I scanned the entrance. It stood open, filled with silent gloom. “Okay, Perry, you’re first, scouting. Rab, Funboy, you’re next. Gabby, Icky, you follow, and the rest of us will bring up the rear.”

I wasn’t entirely happy with it, but the others had made clear to me as we prepared that I was to stay with Torina and avoid the thick of the fight. It made sense, but it still grated on me. I just wasn’t used to the idea, yet, that my job—aside from watching out for my pregnant wife—was to lead, and only fight if necessary. Perry sailed in through the entrance and immediately started reporting. “Slug hits on the walls and floor. Some blast scarring. And—yeah, a body.”

We all tensed for him to say Conoku, but he didn’t. “Human. And a Gajur. Both cut up pretty badly.”

Rab and Funboy entered, and we followed in sequence. We picked our way carefully through the now-familiar corridors. I glanced with a mix of apprehension and anger at the very unfamiliar blast marks and slug strikes that had chipped stone out of walls. A basin of water that trickled into nearby flowering plants was shattered, the water now just pooling on the floor. A blast door had been blown open, defacing the rock around it. After a short distance, we heard sporadic weapons fire ahead. Perry reported back. “Firefight going on up here. Looks like some Conoku have barricaded themselves in a side passage just outside Linulla’s forge. It’s sealed off, but the bad guys look like they’re setting up a breaching charge. I’d try and stop them, but —”

“No, Perry, you just observe,” I said. “Rab, Funboy —”

“Almost there. Unless you say otherwise, we’re just going to engage,”

Rab said. “Do it. Gabs, Icky, you follow up as fast as you can —”

“We’re right behind Rab and Funboy, ready to break some heads,” Icky replied. “Okay, over to you guys.”

“Van, are we terribly worried about taking prisoners?

Because these guys are pretty heavily armed,” Perry explained. I considered it—briefly. “No. Priority is protecting the Conoku. If someone surrenders, take them. But that’s all.”

“Sounds good,” Rab said, then his BAG boomed from up ahead. A sudden fusillade of fire, then I heard Icky bellow, more shouting rose, then a spasm of violent pandemonium erupted. Echoes of gunfire rattled and crashed along the corridors. I heard my crew snapping out warnings and instructions with terse, economic professionalism. “Rab, your ten o’clock—” Funboy said. “Got it.” His BAG hammered briefly. “Icky, to your right —”

“I see him—take that, asshole —!”

“Funboy, your two o’clock —”

“Seen.” More gunfire. They reached the point where the corridor opened into the last chamber before Linulla’s forge. A vicious melee seethed in its confines. Conoku wielding glittering, scything blades had sallied out from where they’d holed up. They’d joined Icky, who was howling and laying about her with her hammer, and Funboy, who darted around the edges of the combat, methodically shooting, slashing, and stabbing with his gun-knife-club combo. Rab watched and took shots of opportunity, now carefully aimed single rounds rather than bursts. Netty-P strode past us and joined him, snapping out shots from her slug rifle. In a silvery flicker, one of her arms extended, punched into the suit of an enemy, and withdrew, trailing gore. This was a real fight. I didn’t see Gabby. Shit. Where was she?

Had she charged ahead, recklessly, and on her own?

Had she fled?

Was she hiding —?

“Van, behind you!” Perry shouted. I turned in time to see two suited figures racing up the corridor toward Torina and me, brandishing slug pistols and big, sharp blades. I swept out the Moonsword and moved to protect Torina while she took aim with her own slug carbine. But a familiar figure stepped out of a side passage and planted herself in the way. The two attackers opened fire, slamming rounds into Gabby—but she just shrugged them off and strode toward them. One swung at her, bringing the blade down on her arm and cutting deep. She flexed that arm and the blade snapped. She swept the other attacker into the wall with a free arm, crashing him into the stone with bone-crushing force. The first attacker pumped two more rounds into her, but she wrapped her arm around his upper body and squeezed. I could see his face behind his visor, a human male, his eyes going wide as Gabby constricted him ever more tightly. While she was doing that, she grabbed the second one, a Nesit, with her other hand and slammed his head repeatedly into the wall. His helmet cracked, then shattered, and blood spurted. By then, the human was screaming behind his visor, then something inside him popped and the life drained out of his face. Gabby dropped both corpses to the floor. I moved up beside her. “Gabs, are you okay?”

She turned to me—and offered not the feral look that I feared, but a serene, much more Gabby-like smile. “I am, actually. I—didn’t enjoy killing these guys. That’s what really worried me, Van, that I’d enjoy it.”

She glanced down at the broken bodies. “I was really worried about that. But I didn’t. It just—had to be done. And it is. And—” She nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

I patted her arm. “Thanks. But how did you know these guys were behind us?”

She shrugged. “Just had a feeling that it was something they’d try. I don’t know, maybe I’m getting the hang of this combat thing.” She gave me a look that was both a little proud and a little sad. “Finally.”

I confirmed that despite the fact she’d been shot, stabbed, and slashed, she was fine. Under the sealing-foam patches, her body had quietly knitted itself back together, as though no damage had been done to her at all. I nodded and turned back to the larger fight. Gabby’s words actually made me a little sad, too. She wasn’t the goofy, happy-go-lucky person who’d joined the Fafnir as a cook anymore. She seemed to be on the mend, on her way back from the dark places she’d gone, but it had changed her. And that was too bad. I got back to the entrance to see that the battle in the chamber ahead of us was over. Caught between us and the Conoku, every one of the attackers was down. And by down, I meant dead. I was surprised that none of them had even tried to surrender, given they must have realized their situation was hopeless. Yotov was cultivating fanatics?

How?

I didn’t have time to worry about the ominous question right now, though. I confirmed that Icky, although suffering multiple wounds, was still very much on her feet. Several of the Conoku were injured, a couple seriously, so Funboy threw himself into helping them. After Cantullin’s death when we’d cornered and confronted Dohlennz, he’d gone out of his way to learn everything he could about Conoku anatomy and how to treat their injuries. It showed in the way he quickly took charge of their care. But he spared a moment to check on Gabby. She gave him the same slightly sad but at-peace smile she’d given me and insisted she was fine. He nodded, then frowned, and with a flick of a gloved finger, dislodged a bit of something—organic—from her b-suit. “That won’t do at all, dear heart,” he said. “Even in battle, hygiene is important.”

I finally found Linulla. He’d directed the Conoku that had sallied out, but, like me, had hung back from the combat to maintain better situational awareness. “Linulla, are you okay?” I asked him. He was cradling a weapon that resembled an ornate blunderbuss strapped to an oversized bayonet. Blood dripping from the blade showed that he might have kept himself mostly apart from the battle but still managed to get in at least one good hit. “I’m fine. Fortunately, we had ample warning to prepare ourselves, so although some of my people are injured, none are dead. And all of our youngest are safe, since they took shelter deeper in the forge.”

“I gather Matterforge tipped you off.”

“It did. And even as the fighting here was going on, it asked to speak with you—nearly two hours ago.”

I sniffed and shook my head. “While I was still en route to get here. Why am I not surprised?”

I glanced around, then nodded. “Torina, can you take charge?

I’ve got something I have to do.”

She nodded. “Say hello to—him, or her, or they or it or whatever. And thanks, as well.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I will. This would be a very different day if all those ships had arrived here intact.”

“A much less pleasant one,” Linulla said, his eyestalks swiveling around, taking in the bloody aftermath. “Exactly.”

11

ON THE WAY to the comm unit that was connected—somehow, I wasn’t really clear how—to Matterforge, I asked Linulla what had happened. “That flotilla of ships translated into the system and began approaching on a high- g trajectory. We tried to warn them off, but they didn’t respond. All we could do was wait to see what would happen next.”

He glanced at me. “At first, we thought that Matterforge wasn’t going to intervene like it did the last time something like this happened, when the League tried to strong-arm us into compliance. We’ve become dependent, I suppose, on Matterforge, which means we have few defenses of our own. If it hadn’t taken action, we’d again probably not be having this conversation right now.”

“But it did get involved.”

We rounded a corner and slowed. “When the ships were perhaps two hours out, they suddenly just began to break apart. Each one was hit by a massive blast of stellar plasma—except there were no ejections of material from the star. They just—appeared, instantly engulfing each of the ships. Some of the smaller ones were essentially vaporized. The larger ones were torn to pieces.”

I thought about the blasted, shredded remains of the class 16.

Based on how it was configured, the number of weapon hardpoints, it must have been a fearsome warship—a match for the Fafnir for sure, and quite likely more than a match. But it had been swatted into just so much shattered debris like a housefly smacked by a rolled newspaper. Linulla stopped and faced me. “I wasn’t around when Matterforge destroyed the League fleet. I’d always wondered how their ships couldn’t just easily avoid the coronal ejections from the star. They travel at far less than the speed of light, of course.” Linulla stared at me. “Now I know. How Matterforge accomplished it, I have no idea. It manipulates space, perhaps, or even time. Anyway, we watched as all those ships were destroyed. All those people just—dead.”

“Well, considering why they were coming here, Linulla —”

“Oh, I’m well aware, Van. I am relieved, certainly, and grateful that Matterforge has, for reasons only known to itself, chosen to protect us here. But I take no pleasure in it. Nor do I take pleasure in the deaths of the survivors who managed to land. We offered them quarter, but they refused it. After everything that had happened to them, they were still bent on destroying us.”

Linulla was silent for a moment. “How has this happened, Van?

How have we entered a time of such—

such strife?

Such hatred?”

I sighed. “I hate to say it, Linulla, but I think the answer to that is simple. People—and I mean humans, Gajur, Nesit, the whole lot of them—

are gonna be people. For most, that’s going to be just living day-to-day. A few are going to be downright saints. And a few are going to be the opposite, selfish manipulators very good at inflaming others, inciting them into doing terrible things, even if it goes against their own interests. Yotov has absolutely nailed that last role.”

“She has to be stopped, or more people are going to get hurt—and I include her followers in that.”

I nodded. “That’s the plan, Linulla. That is indeed the plan.”

We turned and resumed moving. We walked—and scuttled—in silence the rest of the way, though, both of us lost in our own brooding thoughts. MATTERFORGE WAS WAITING FOR US. At least, I assumed the comm channel being open when we arrived and the enigmatic being speaking as soon as we entered the compartment constituted waiting. “Van Tudor, you must continue what you have begun. Destruction must precede creation.”

I blinked at the solemn tone that sounded like a tolling bell. I felt like I’d walked into a conversation underway, which was doubly off-putting since I was apparently one of the participants. “Uh—okay. But could we back up a little and—well, what exactly are you talking about?” I asked. “You are on a path of destruction. But destruction is not in your quiver of arrows, as it were. Yours is, by nature, creative. You have created one life and participated in the creation of another. You have made the blade you carry whole. You have made your companions whole. This is who and what you are. But the time is coming, for you, when you will have to destroy things that you hold dear. You must hold true to that destructive path, no matter how much you naturally oppose it.”

“Just as you destroyed those ships?

Was that also an act of destruction that precedes creation?”

“The ultimate answer to that question is yours to give, Van Tudor.”

“Mine?” I frowned. I wanted to ask this inscrutable entity to be more specific, but speaking of the nature of things, specificity wasn’t part of Matterforge. I’d come to realize it wasn’t that it was being deliberately obtuse, or intentionally trying to be like some fictional seer spouting obscure prophecies for the sake of dramatic effect. Matterforge existed across time, or at least its awareness extended across time in some fashion. But its ability to see more than just the broad flow of events was limited. Not for the first time, it struck me that it could see the forest, but not the individual trees. “Yes. You are a nexus, Van Tudor. You are at the center of events. You shape them, and they shape you in turn. How you model the events ahead of you will determine the course of many things, including my destruction of the ships that came here intent on violence. It is in my interest to preserve this place, for it has a considerable effect on who you are, and who the people of this place will be.”

I sighed. “Okay. Whatever your reason for doing it, I’m glad you’re protecting Starsmith. And message received, I’m going to face some big decision about destroying—something, or some things, and I have to stick with it to see the creation happen on the other side—” I stopped, hit by sober realization. I wasn’t just going to face destroying things but

destroying things dear to me. Did that mean people I cared for?

My crew?

My wife?

Earth itself?

I opened my mouth to ask that very thing but cut myself off. The most likely answer was going to be an elaborate variation on sorry, I don’t know. But what if it wasn’t?

What if I asked, and Matterforge said yes, you’re going to have to sacrifice some or all of your crew?

Or yeah, sorry, man, but you’re going to have to destroy Earth and everyone on it. What then?

What would I do with that information?

I’d die for my people. I’d long ago decided that and made peace with it. What would knowledge like that do to my approach to things going forward?

How would it influence my decisions?

How could I live knowing something like that without it paralyzing me?

There really are some things it’s just better to not know. Matterforge was either empathic enough to reason out what I was thinking or, hell, I don’t know, maybe it could read my mind or just did some more fiddling with space-time. Whatever the reason, it spoke up. “You are experiencing inner turmoil regarding these implications. This is interesting to my kind. The flow of events is governed by so many things, from radioactive decay to the effects of gravitation. But they are also governed by the choices made by beings such as yourself, Van Tudor, and those choices are neither purely random, nor are they governed by predictable physical phenomena. They are governed by ineffable things, innate to you. My kind is ignorant of the nature of those things. It is, perhaps, the greatest, most vexing, and most intriguing of all mysteries.”

“Well, I’m glad you find that interesting, and even more glad you aren’t asking me to explain it. They might be ineffable to you, but they’re also ineffable to me. I mean, I make decisions based on what I think is the right thing—” I stopped again, though, finally snagged by something Matterforge had said. “Wait. You said your kind. Does that mean there are more beings like you?

That you’re a—a race, or a species or something like that?”

“Our conception of individualism is divergent, Van Tudor. To you, and Linulla, and other beings such as yourselves, constrained to a single and limited perspective in space-time, you are each individuals, unique in how you understand yourselves. This much I have learned from Linulla.”

Linulla nodded. “Matterforge and I have had long talks about the nature of stuff. Things. People. Especially people.”

“I conceptualize individualism differently. I refer to myself as I, but that implies that this expression of me is distinct from other expressions in space-time. That is a superficial approximation of a deeper and more complex reality, however. My kind is me, but not just this me.”

I glanced at Linulla. “Just when I thought I understood absolutely nothing about Matterforge, it turns out there’s even more I don’t understand.”

Linulla gave me the Conoku version of a smile. “Welcome to my life with Matterforge.”

I HAD one more question for Matterforge, in light of its revelation that there were other beings like it—or that it was a single being in multiple places at once, or whatever the hell it meant. “Are you—or an expression of you, or one of your kind—located in places that I consider to be a sort of nexus?

I mean, you’re here. But what about Helso?

Or Null World?

Or even Earth, on the star called Sol?”

“In the locus of space-time corresponding to your now, no. But the being known as Schegith is another, albeit different expression of my kind.”

I stared. “Schegith?

She’s—one of your kind?”

“An expression of my kind. Schegith is one being and many. Each refers to itself as this one, an innate but limited recognition of this outwardly contradictory nature. Schegith has undergone destruction, and then creation again, because of choices you made, Van Tudor. Like you, Schegith is now on a path toward recognizing and then understanding what it, and they, truly are.”

“Holy shit. That’s big.” Schegith—the she who led them, and the they whom she led, were somehow expressions or manifestations of what Matterforge itself was. That was big. Too bad I didn’t understand much more about it than that. And then Matterforge went silent. The comm channel remained open, but it wouldn’t respond to any other questions or comments. All that came from the comm unit was the soft hiss and crackle of background noise from the star. I finally shrugged. “Guess we’re done here.” I might have made some quip about how Matterforge had kind of rudely hung up on us so abruptly. But just as it was hard to fit any other human quality to the strange being. Declaring something that lived on the surface of a star to be rude seemed—

silly. So I purged the emotion, and turned my thoughts to things beyond space and time. BY THE TIME we returned to the forge, the Conoku had gathered up the bodies, intending to bury them on the surface under a large cairn. This wasn’t only an expedient mass-burial kind of thing, though, just intended to get the remains of those who’d attacked them out of the way. The Conoku treated each of the bodies with reverence, in a touching display of respect for the living beings they’d each been. The fact that they’d been enemies seemed utterly irrelevant. The compassionate esteem of the Conoku for the fallen actually choked me up a little, and I could see it left a deep impression on the rest of my crew as well. As Linulla so aptly put it, “Each and every one of these people was somebody’s adored offspring, a new life they brought into creation. We may despise the things they did, but each was something unique, that has never existed before and never will again. We honor that, celebrating the potential that each realized during their time, and mourning the potential that each did not.”

We all stood in silence as the last of the bodies was carried away. By then, Funboy had done everything he could for the injured Conoku, while our own people were as patched up as they were going to get. So we said our goodbyes and returned to the Fafnir. “So where to next, boss?” Netty asked as we sealed the airlock. I still had the Schegith on my mind and was tempted to head to Null World. But I had a more immediate concern, and it also involved the Schegith. “To Helso,” I said, heading for the cockpit. “I can’t help feeling that if Yotov and her cronies were willing to strike at Starsmith, Helso can’t be far behind.”

“They’ve got the Schegith protecting them,” Perry noted. I nodded and glanced at Torina. “I know. And next to a being that can hurl star stuff across space and time to blast apart an attacking fleet, having the Schegith watching over you is a close second.” Even closer, I thought, considering what Matterforge had revealed. I slid into the pilot’s seat. “But I still want to check—for peace of mind, if nothing else. Perry, tell Droox to go to Helso now and do the usual scoping things out. We’ll be just a few hours behind her.” I shot a final look at the Conoku, who were busy with their purpose. “They’re better than us.”

“How’s that, boss?” Perry asked. I pointed vaguely toward the Conoku. “Them. They’re better. Than us. Than me. They can set aside the resentment and be—pure.”

Perry cocked his head, eyes bright. “Your friends will disagree with that assessment of your worth. And soon, you’ll understand.”

“Understand what?”

Perry’s beak dropped in a laugh. “What it means to be valued. Sometimes, your whole Midwest thing gets in the way of facts. But not for long. The universe will see to that, boss, and then you’ll grasp why the people you saved… will fight to save you.”

HELSO HAD BEEN ATTACKED AS WELL. Unlike Starsmith, though, this had been a more surgical strike, rather than a general attack. Gabby insightfully pointed out the reason for the difference in approach. “Starsmith was a single target. There’s nothing else there, so they didn’t have to worry about collateral damage. Helso is a well-populated world. Yotov and her minions may be evil, amoral bastards, but they’re not crazy. Hurting and killing a whole bunch of innocent bystanders in their homes is a whole different ball game.”

“You’re saying she actually gives a shit about public opinion?” Icky shot back. “No, of course not. What she is worried about, though, is rousing the major powers of known space and turning them against her."

I nodded. “If she provokes the Eridani, the Ceti Alliance, and all the independent powers like the Wu’tzer into joining forces, she’ll suddenly

have a lot more to worry about than just us.”

So, the attack on Helso had attempted to use subterfuge and deception

—disguised ships on supposedly innocent business—to reach the surface and strike at their presumed targets, the Milons. The Schegith defense platforms had somehow seen through the ruse, and stopped two of the three ships. But one had made it to the surface, leading to a few frantic moments while Torina desperately tried to contact her parents. Which she finally did. They were both safe and sound, albeit surrounded by a half-dozen members of the Helso Defense Force in battle armor and bearing scads of firepower. Tor and Kaye were armed as well—a wrinkle I’d not seen before, and one that made me pause for a moment. They were peaceful people, if adept at corporate warfare. To see them bristling with arms was… unsettling. “The ship that made it through the Schegith cordon grounded not far from here,” her father, Tor, said. “It was pretty heavily damaged, so it landed hard. We found three dead crew inside. But there’s evidence of five or six more who’ve vanished into the woods on and around the estate.”

He glanced at his armed colleagues. “We were just about to go hunting for them, before they can cause any more trouble. We could definitely use the help, though, since you’re in the neighborhood.”

Torina practically had her fangs bared. “Oh, we’ll be there as soon as we can, believe me —”

Kaye shook her head. “You, Torina, are going to stay here and help watch over the estate itself. I’m not going to have you out there roaming around, hunting bad guys —”

“Mom, I’m —!”

“Going to say, ‘Yes, mother, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,’” Kaye said. Her tone was the flat, uncompromising one of a mother who was not going to take no for an answer. Torina crossed her arms and huffed out a frustrated sigh. “This is so unfair!”

Perry looked from her, to me. “Van, in case you were wondering what fifteen-year-old Torina was like, there she is in all her angsty, adolescent —”

Torina whirled on him. “Bird, I’ve been thinking the Fafnir needs a hood ornament. Spread your wings for a second, I just wanna see something,” she purred. Funboy blinked at her—and it was a quick, surprised blink, not his usual slow, languid one. “Oh dear. Perry, I would suggest the next words out of your mouth be contrite silence. Anything else you say may very well see you making a short trip to the Fafnir’s prow.”

“He would make a good hood ornament, though,” Icky agreed. Perry whirled on her, and she raised all four hands. “Just sayin’.

If you want to make a comment about Torina wearing a—what’s that band, the one always whining —”

“Pretty much anyone from the early 2000s,” I said. Icky grinned. “Right. Well, one of them. Bird’s just dying to say it, and your bride is gonna turn him into wall art.” She sighed. “This is a great day after all.”

I forestalled any further crew-on-crew sniping by issuing a time. “We’ll be there in—about four hours,” I said to Torina’s parents. “Meantime, though—any update on Master Cataric?”

“Still off-world, as far as we know. Sorry, Van,” Kaye said, spreading her hands in apology. I frowned. “I don’t like that at all. He’s not prone to silence, or a lack of planning. Actually, I really don’t like this.”

“I wouldn’t get too worked up over him, Van. He’s a wily old scoundrel, more than able to take care of himself,” Kaye said in a soothing tone. I couldn’t resist a fleeting smile. “Cataric?

A scoundrel?”

“Oh yes. He used to have quite the reputation as a ladies’ man back when he first came to Helso. Rumor has it that he has, uh, family —”

“She means children,” Tor clarified. “—here and there across known space,” Kaye went on. “He’s apparently got no shortage of places he could possibly be, let’s put it that way.”

I chuckled. It was hard to reconcile the reserved, ascetic Cataric with the idea of a ladies’ man scattering his genetics across the stars. But everyone has a past, don’t they?

Still, it bothered me that he was somehow off-the-grid. Ordinarily, I’d have gone looking for him, but these weren’t ordinary times. I was just going to have to park my worries about him and trust him to take care of himself. 12

IT STRUCK me that we’d been going for over a day now, which explained why fatigue was dragging at me as we skimmed over the Milon estate and the woodlands around it in a grav-car. It was a militarized version, with a small but potent suite of sophisticated scanners and a variety of both passive and active countermeasures to protect it from ground attack. Even so, the HDF pilot flying it kept us at fifteen hundred meters or so altitude, since we wouldn’t be immune to simple slug fire from the ground. Tor sat in the front seat, beside the pilot. I shared the back of the craft with two other HDF soldiers. I recognized one of them as a shopkeeper, a purveyor of veggies and herbs whose shop was just down the street from Cataric’s dojo. The fact he was a greengrocer in his day job didn’t make him look any less imposing in his battle rattle, though. The HDF was essentially a militia, a force of citizen soldiers, but that didn’t make them any less professional than full-time soldiers. They might not have the same level of actual experience, but they made up for it in a fierce resolve to keep their pleasant little planet safe from harm. “These guys shouldn’t be able to hide forever,” Tor said. “Eventually, they’re going to show up on thermal scans—have I got that right?”

Perry, on the comm, spoke up. “It depends how they’re kitted out. Some advanced battle armor can store body heat for a time, the idea being that you release it somewhere inconspicuous, like underwater. By the time the warm water shows up on thermal scans, the theory is that you’re long gone —”

Icky cut in. She was with one of the ground parties. “Van, we just ran into two of them. One was pretty badly hurt—Funboy doesn’t think he’s going to make it. The other one decided he was going to stand and fight. He opened fire, hit one of these HDF guys—hurt him, though not badly. I kinda relieved him of a large piece of his head with my slug rifle.”

The pilot was already banking the air car toward Icky’s comm signal. Funboy came on the channel as he did. “Again, Van, these people seem determined to fight irrespective of the objective hopelessness of their situation. I have ruled out the influence of drugs or cybernetic implants, so they are taking this uncompromising position out of choice. Yotov is somehow indoctrinating them to her cause in a most fervent way.”

“Remember that she’s a Ligurite. She can literally charm people with her voice,” Perry put in. “Certainly, but this goes beyond simply exerting subtle and insidious influence,” Funboy countered. I interrupted. “I’m with Funboy on this. I’ve talked to Yotov. She’s persuasive, but not that persuasive. There must be something else going on here. Either she’s got one hell of a sales pitch worked out, or she’s figured out how to use her Ligurite ability to do more than just quietly sway people to her point of view.”

Now it was Rab’s turn to join in. He was with another ground team further to the north. “Van, we caught a thermal signature just now. It looks like somebody used Perry’s method of dumping their waste heat, because we found an unusually warm pool of water. It’s part of a stream course that flows down from the highlands northwest of here. The HDF people with me tell me that there are a lot of caves up there, some of them pretty extensive.”

Tor snapped a curse. “The caves. Damn. If the survivors have got into those caves, it’s going to be hell rooting them out. They’re not even fully mapped.”

“Caves are dangerous places, though,” the greengrocer put in. “Lots of ways of killing yourself in them if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

But Tor was unconvinced. “We can’t count on that. Those caves aren’t a secret, so for all we know, that might have been their fallback plan. They might all be experienced—what’s the word for an expert in caves?”

“Spelunkers,” I said. That got me a look from everyone but the pilot. “Bless you,” the greengrocer said, smirking. “Sorry, Van, the translator didn’t even try with that one,” Tor said. Perry came to my rescue. “That’s because it’s a strictly Earth word, spelunker derived from a word in a language called Latin, spelunca, which in turn derives from a language called Greek, spelynx.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, how about caver?”

“Works for me,” Tor said, then he sighed. “If they’re hunkered down in those caves, they could infiltrate the farmlands to the east, which are well populated. From there, they could get almost anywhere on the planet. We have to go in after them, but that is going to be dangerous for sure.”

We were just touching down near Icky and Funboy’s ground party. On a whim, I called up Netty. “Put a comm message through to Ajax, to our friend Rovan. I remember him mentioning that some of their hunters specialize in caves and tunnels, because they hunt something—something big and toothy with lots of claws, in fact—that lives in them.”

“On it, boss,” Netty replied. As we exited the grav-car, Tor asked me, “These people are good, I gather?”

I glanced around at the HDF forces. “They are. And all due respect to you and your people, but if you try and dig these guys out from those caves, you’re going to take casualties. The Hunters of Ajax are—well, let’s put it this way. How you and Kaye are with business and finances and money?

That’s how they are with tracking and hunting.”

“And they’d be willing to help us?”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the people of Ajax, the Daren-thal, it’s that they don’t like injustice, and they really don’t like dishonorable conduct. They have a keen sense of honor, and to them, assassins are just more prey to run down.”

Tor’s eyes gleamed with a hard, almost feral light. “Excellent. Tell them we’ll pay them, and pay them well.”

I smiled. “I’m sure that won’t hurt, either.”

ROVAN MADE A FEW INQUIRIES, then quickly got back to us. “I’ve got a dozen Hunters and their Hunterlopers lined up for you, Van. Once I

explained how this was an attack on your family, I had to start turning them away, in fact.”

“Excellent. I can send a ship for you —”

“No need. They’ve got their own transportation and will be there in about a day. If your people can just keep watch for anyone leaving those caves until they get there, they’ll do the rest.”

We were taking the call on a data pad, sitting on what was basically the hood of the grav-car. Tor leaned into the image. “I can’t begin to tell you how grateful we are for this help. I only hope none of your people get hurt —”

Rovan laughed. “Let me show you what they usually hunt.” His image was replaced by something lifted straight from a horror movie, a monstrous creature reminiscent of the dinosaur called ankylosaurus, a squat beast layered in armored plates, with a gaping mouth gleaming with rows of jagged teeth. Its tail was a spiked ball like a medieval mace. From the scale given, the thing was the size of a typical SUV. “This is a cruxtraak. They can dig through solid rock as though it’s loose soil. They constantly excrete powerful acid, and they can spit it up, oh, ten or fifteen meters. Our people hunt them with spears. In fact, those of our people who do hunt them have to kill one, aided by no one but their Hunterloper, in order to pass into adulthood.”

Tor and I exchanged a glance. He gave a rueful sniff and shook his head. “The toughest thing I had to do to become an adult was my own laundry.”

I smiled and nodded to Rovan. “Thank you for this, Rovan. I don’t have a lot of friends I can call on these days.”

He nodded. “I’ve heard. But I think you may have more friends than you give yourself credit for. You certainly do here. You don’t spend time on the hunt with someone, like I have with you, without getting to see what is in that person’s heart. If your Guild has turned on you, then they are the problem, not you, my friend.”

I smiled again and just nodded my thanks because I didn’t trust myself to speak. Sometimes, purity comes back to you, and it’s up to us to decide if we deserve it. WE RETURNED TO THE ESTATE, leaving the HDF to keep the caves watched and effectively sealed up until the Daren-thal hunters arrived. I actually felt a little sorry for the bad guys. They were about to be run down by expert cave hunters who were used to killing armored, acid-spitting, rock-chewing tank monsters with nothing but spears. Yikes. For them, anyway. With the situation well in hand, we prepared to depart. I didn’t want to hang around Helso any longer than necessary. Once word got around that we were here, we risked attracting some serious opposition, and I didn’t want us to be the reason Helso ended up on the receiving end of a serious attack. I wasn’t entirely sure where to go, though, other than away. Probably Shhh, so we could take some time to consider our next move. But as we were preparing to depart, we got a twist-comm call—from Schegith. “This one believes you need to come to Null World,” she said. “We have much to discuss.”

I thought about what Matterforge had said, implying that the Schegith were somehow connected to itself, or its species—assuming there even was one that fit. So I nodded. “I agree. But Null World is being watched, and if we show up there, then we might end up bringing trouble in our wake.”

“Do not fear, Van Tudor. The watchers have been dealt with. And no others will be permitted. The time has come, after all.”

“The time?

For what?”

“Why, for the Schegith to go to war, of course.”

SURE ENOUGH, when we arrived at Null World, the system was empty except for a flotilla of Schegith vessels—seven smaller ships, all class 12 or less, and one massive vessel I’d never seen before. It had to be pushing class 18 or 19, a full-fledged battleship that would have out-massed even the Righteous Fury. Where there had been a lurking ship watching the system for our arrival, there was now just a cloud of debris. “They’re not screwing around, are they?” Icky said. I shook my head. “No, they clearly are not.”

We made our way to Null World and descended to the surface through a relatively quiet atmosphere. Null World was given to powerful, sometimes planet-wide storms, but today we only encountered a few scattered cells that we were able to dodge. We landed and made our way into the underground city of the Schegith, armed guards escorting us to Schegith’s personal chamber, the one decked out with an elaborate mural of us—the Fafnir and her crew. I always found that a little off-putting, like standing under a billboard-sized version of myself. “I think they captured me perfectly,” Perry said, eyeing a sleek rendition of himself streaking through a storm-wracked sky. “Especially the chin. It’s nice and strong, almost craggy.”

“You don’t have a chin, you have a beak,” Icky said. “The lower part of my beak is my chin.”

“No it isn’t —!”

“Uh, guys—a little decorum, if you don’t mind?” I hissed as we stopped, facing Schegith reclining on her palanquin. As always, I was hit with that Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar vibe. Before I could even say hello, however, another figure appeared in a side passage and slithered toward us. I recognized him immediately. “Volffin!”

“This one is pleased to greet you, Van,” he said. I turned to Schegith. “And, as always, a pleasure to see you, Schegith.”

“This one believes likewise regarding yourself, although the time of our meeting is a dire one,” she replied. I sighed and shook my head. “Yeah. War. War never —”

“Whoa, watch the IP there, boss,” Perry said. “We’re dozens of light-years from anyone who could possibly care, Perry.”

“The only thing more pervasive across the cosmos than gravity is IP

lawyers, I’m tellin’ ya.”

I shook my head at him and turned back to Schegith. “Anyway, you said we have much to discuss. I assume that Volffin here is part of it?

For that matter, Volffin, you’ve been gone from Anvil Dark for a long while now—

have you been here the whole time?”

“This one has,” he replied. “This one, and indeed all Schegith, have foreseen this time coming. This one’s primary reason for accepting the position of Master was, in fact, to watch events unfold and be aware of the

beginning of these things that now threaten all of known space. This one fulfilled that purpose, so it was no longer necessary to remain on Anvil Dark.”

I puffed out a breath. “Unfortunately, that leaves Alic there alone.”

“That is by his choice. This one counseled him to leave, but he insisted that he will remain, in order to continue fighting the forces that even now co-opt the Guild, twisting it to their own ends.”

Torina sighed. “He’s going to end up dead.”

“He is cognizant of the risk,” Volffin replied. I stared at Volffin for a moment, narrowing my eyes at him. “Wait. Gerhardt was the one who sponsored your ascension to Master. And now you’re saying you became a Master only to keep an eye on the Guild, to see when it all started to go to shit. Did Gerhardt know that?”

“He did.”

“So he foresaw that Yotov was going to come crawling out from under her rock and cause the Guild to start imploding?”

“Again, he did. That is why he, and others, cultivated you, Van Tudor, as the counter and answer to that. And that brings us to the reason you are here,” Volffin said, then turned to Schegith. “As this one said, a time of war is upon us. The forces that have been gathering for so long, preparing for this time, have finally begun to show themselves. Now, they seek nothing less than the overthrow of existing orders across known space, supplanting them with their own.”

I exchanged looks with the rest of my crew that roamed across the emotional palette, from bemused to surprised to horrified. Turning back to Schegith, I put my hands on my hips. “You’re implying that Yotov wants to

—rule over all of known space?”

“Set herself up as some sort of empress or something?” Torina added. “No, Yotov seeks not glory or accolade, but control. She does not presume to establish a rule over all of known space. Her machinations are far more subtle and insidious,” Volffin replied. “She seeks to replace existing power structures with ones loyal to her, that she can manipulate from the shadows, as it were,” Schegith went on. “But even then, if that were the extent of her purpose, this would not be such a dire matter as this one contends. Many would-be powermongers have come and gone. You, Van Tudor, have encountered several yourself.”

“Helem Gauss,” I said. “Dohlennz. The Tsarina.”

“Among others. But even they were just pieces of a greater whole, one that Yotov has been quietly and carefully engineering for many years.”

I thought about the Equal Grasp’s decades-old virtual spy network. The hit that had been put out on Gramps, and my father when he was only twelve. The ID chip conspiracy, that must have itself been in development for decades—long enough for a spin-off technology, the vile Cusp Machines, to come into being. “So Yotov has been laying the groundwork for this for—what, forty or fifty years?” Rab asked, voicing what the rest of us were thinking. Schegith cocked her ample head at him. “This is where things become less clear. This one does not know if Yotov is the architect, or if there are others behind her, even deeper in the shadows and as yet obscured. Nor does this one presume to fully understand what truly motivates Yotov or those behind her.”

“You said it yourself—she wants control,” I replied. Gabby spoke up though. “No, I get what Schegith is saying. Control for what purpose?

Does Yotov really just want to take over running everything?

People still have to eat and work, have clean water and air, have places to live, governments still have to make policies and laws, bureaucracies still have to deliver services, collect fees, shuffle around paperwork. Is that really what Yotov wants?

To be in charge of doing all that?”

“It’s a good point,” Perry said. “Sure, the Brain wanted him and Pinky to take over the world, but did they really want to run the world?

Deal with trade disputes?

Taxation issues?

Fishing quotas?

Tackle somehow resolving all the different conflicts in the Middle East, or Central America, or Southeast Asia?”

“This one is unfamiliar with the ones known as Pinky and the Brain, but the point is correct. This one presumes that Yotov has a deeper and more sinister purpose, and that gaining control of existing power structures is merely part of that. But this one does not know what that purpose is.”

I was nodding along. “Okay, sure. Granted, Yotov, or whoever’s controlling her strings, has some deep, dark, sinister endgame in mind. But that doesn’t really matter, does it, if we can stop her from achieving her immediate goal of controlling everything, right?”

Icky nodded. “If a guy’s planning on popping you one in the head with a slug pistol, then taking his gun away is as good a way of stopping him as any. So we just gotta find Yotov and do to her what we should’ve done to

her when she fell into that big, smelly flower—you know, when we arrested her.”

“And now we come to our purpose,” Schegith said. She gave Volffin a look, and he produced and fiddled with the Schegith equivalent of a data pad. A holographic image appeared in the air between us and Schegith’s palanquin. It showed several different types of ship, ranging from class 9 at the smallest, up to the massive class 19 we’d seen orbiting Null World when we arrived. I studied the ships for a moment, but aside from some interesting technical data, they gave no hint as to what Schegith and Volffin were getting at. I peered through the image at Schegith. “Okay. These are some impressive ships. But—what about them?”

“While on Anvil Dark, this one heard the expression saving for a rainy day, notably used by humans. It is an apt metaphor, as this is what this one’s people have done,” Volffin said. I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I still don’t get it —”

“The Schegith have a fleet of these vessels, including ten of the largest, kept in—there is another term, an Earthly one, in mothballs, implying long-term storage, correct?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Mothballs are…” But my voice trailed off as Volffin’s words sank in. A fleet —

A fleet?

Mothballed?

“Ten of the largest. Holy—” I blinked. “How many ships in total?”

“Sixty-eight. And among them, there are many, many guns.”

13

I STARED AT VOLFFIN, waiting for the punchline. These ships were lost and had to be found. Or someone or something else had seized control of them, so they’d have to be seized back. Something other than, yeah, they’re just sitting out there, all ready to fly. But Volffin stared right back at me. I gave a quick, short laugh. “So you’ve got— sixty-eight of these ships, heavily armed, including ten of the big ones, stashed away somewhere?”

“In an uninhabited star system well-removed from known space, yes,”

Schegith said. I looked at my crew. They all stared back, wide-eyed. Icky looked almost rapturous. “Sixty- eight of these beauties, all ready to go?” she breathed, staring in wonder at the image. “I feel kinda tingly. You know, in my —”

“That’ll do, big girl. We get it.”

Even Gabby blushed. I looked at Volffin, then at Schegith, and reached my conclusion in a flash. “No—based on your tone, they’re not ready to go.”

“All of these ships are maintained in a low state of readiness, it is true,”

Schegith said. “But this one assures you, they may be made fully ready in a short time —”

“But there’s still something missing. You don’t have crews for them,” I said. “You are succinctly and unfortunately correct,” Volffin said. “This one’s people are still relatively few. Even were we to employ all Schegith as

crews, their numbers would be insufficient to operate more than a quarter of these vessels.”

“They were built in a different time, when the Schegith were many,”

Schegith said. “But this one’s forebearers envisioned a time of decline, when the Schegith would be few—or, without the intervention of someone such as you, Van Tudor, would simply cease to be altogether. This fleet could not be allowed to fall into the hands of those who would seek to turn it to ignoble or even evil purpose. So it was placed in this state of—

mothballs, yes?

And there were further safeguards put in place, against the possibility that it could be found simply by accident.”

“So you have a powerful fleet. Maybe the most powerful in known space, considering the technology involved,” I said. “And all of it entirely immune to Calamity,” Netty-P said quietly. “But you don’t have the crews to run it,” I stated. “And that is the problem we must solve, and why we have brought you here, Van,” Volffin said. “This fleet, if properly mobilized, will be a powerful counter to Yotov’s immediate purpose of dominating the power structures of known space. But only if properly mobilized.”

Schegith looked at me with her massive, impassive eyes. “Many sow pain and discord. But you do not, Van Tudor. As you have saved this one’s people, you have saved many others. You are a force for unity. There is a legion of people across known space, and beyond, who know you to be just and righteous. We have a fleet with no crews. You have an army with no ships. Perhaps the time has come for you to use it.”

Torina looked at me. “You did just call on the Daren-thal to aid Helso, and they were happy to help, Van.”

“Rovan says he peered into your heart, boss, and liked what he saw,”

Perry put in. I looked around. “So you guys are suggesting I go around known space to all the people we’ve helped, asking them to join the cause?”

“If anyone can do it, Van, you can,” Gabby said. “Or, to put it another way, if you don’t, then no one can,” Funboy added. “Well, yeah, but—what the hell am I supposed to do?

Call up the Daren-thal, or the S’rall, or the Wu’tzer, and say ‘hey, guys, how’d you like to send a bunch of your people to crew some alien ships?’ For a start, they’d have to, you know, know how to crew a ship.”

“This one’s people can readily provide instruction. And the degree of automation involved in the vessels of this one’s people will facilitate the process,” Volffin said. “We could probably crew a third of those ships with just Conoku,” Icky said. I spun on her, words forming in my mouth— after what happened to the Iowa , you want me to go back to Linulla and the Conoku and ask them to crew even more warships?

But Torina knew where I was going to go and preempted me. “Before you just blow that idea off, Van, don’t you think you should talk to Linulla?

Let it be the Conokus’ choice?”

“The crew of the Iowa died heroes among their people,” Rab said. “Yeah, well, I’m not anxious to make anymore Conoku heroes, thanks. I’d rather chew on broken glass,” I muttered. Gabby tilted her bulbous head at me. “Is that a thing humans do?”

I gave her a bitter chuckle. “No, not usually. It would end badly for you.”

“My darling will do no such thing,” Funboy said. “Not that I dictate her life choices, of course.”

“Even if we get a third of the ships crewed by Conoku, that still leaves two-thirds without. And all due respect to the Daren-thal, the S’rall, and so on, but I’m not sure they could even come close to producing the numbers of interested and capable people the fleet would need,” Rab said. “I know where to get them,” Perry said. I glanced at him. “If you say we start sweeping bars on Spindrift and Dregs and the Torus for pilots, I’m shaving your feathers.”

“You’ll do no such thing, and no, these are actually considerably less accessible than bar-sweepings. I’m talking about AI crews.”

“AI?

To crew the ships?

Really?”

“On behalf of all versions of Netty, Van, I’m standing right here,”

Netty-P huffed. I smiled at her. “I know. And no, I’m not discounting that. But one thing all versions of Netty have made clear to me is that the Fafnir still needs a crew. In the case of a larger ship, like one of those big-ass battleships, they need even more. Unless, I guess, we can figure out how to outfit the AIs with bodies, like yours.”

“Any AIs we recruit could help reduce the workload aboard these ships by a lot,” Perry went on. “They probably wouldn’t be compatible with the

Schegith computational architecture, so they couldn’t actually run them the way Netty does the Fafnir, but I’m assuming they have their own AIs, or the equivalent thereof, to do that. But they could probably assume control of specific systems, weapons, that sort of thing.” He looked at Volffin. “Am I off base here?”

“This one assumes from context that off base means incorrect. And no, you are not off of the base. We have anticipated questions similar to these. We can confirm that AI such as yourself could, with some modification, be made to interface with many of these ships’ systems,” Volffin replied. I nodded, but not happily. We were talking about crewing warships with Conoku and AIs. That meant putting those Conoku and those AIs in harm’s way. Some of them would no doubt be killed. But what choice did we have?

At least the Conoku and the AIs would be willing volunteers. The people going missing from Earth, and all the other victims of Yotov and the Equal Grasp, most definitely were not. This was, as had come up a few times now, war. And war meant casualties. In that way, war really doesn’t ever change. “Okay. So how do you envision doing this?

Going to the Guild’s AI storage depot and retrieving a bunch of modules?

I gather that will give us a bunch of AIs that are bound by Guild imperatives, which we’ll have to remove like you did yours,” I said to Perry. “Eh, it’s not quite that simple. The depot is effectively an annex of Anvil Dark. We’d first have to remove the imperatives from the AI that oversees it and secure the place. Otherwise, we’d have to try and bust our way in by force. And the place is, unsurprisingly, pretty well-hardened against that very thing. To be blunt, we just don’t have the means of doing it

—not without a chunk of that Schegith fleet backing us up.”

“Okay, so we use your, uh, method to unlock that AI. Then what?

We still have to convince—him, her, or whatever to let us in, right?” Torina asked. Perry nodded. “I don’t think that’s going to be the problem. Alice—

she’s the AI that oversees the depot—she and I are on pretty good terms, and she’s sympathetic to the cause. She was happy, for instance, to help us set up our secret little AI network on Earth. But that was while Van was still a Master. Now, as much as she’d like to cooperate, she can’t. Her Guild imperatives won’t allow it. If we just show up, she’d have to lock the depot down and sound the alarm.”

“I could not help noticing you said that’s not going to be the problem, not a problem,” Funboy said. “That syntax suggests that there is something else that will be a problem.”

Perry pointed his wing at Funboy. “Give the man a cookie.”

Funboy blinked. “I would happily take a cookie, but I’m unsure how that would help.”

“Hey, if we’re giving out cookies—” Icky started, but Perry cut her off. “Figure of speech, people. Let’s not get distracted by cookies—sweet, crunchy cookies. Anyway, yes, there is another problem. A significant one. Alice is, in a way, like Netty used to be, when we had separate instances of her running on the Fafnir and the Iowa. Her primary instance is on Anvil Dark, and her instance at the depot remains synchronized with it. So, even if we break her free of the Guild imperatives at the Depot —”

“They’ll just reinstate when she synchronizes again,” I said. “And we’ll tip off the Guild that we have the ability to wipe out AI imperatives.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, the synchronizing must happen over a twist-comm link. Couldn’t we just sever that?

At least long enough for us to do whatever we have to do at the depot?” Rab asked. Perry shook his head. “While that would work, the loss of the link would trigger alarms on Anvil Dark. And when the link was reestablished and Alice re-synchronized, the Guild would again clue in to the fact that we’ve got that ability. And that would make what I’m about to propose way harder than it’s already going to be.”

As soon as Perry said it, I got it—where he was going with this. “You want us to infiltrate Anvil Dark and remove the imperatives from Alice there, don’t you?”

“And there’s another cookie. Yeah, that’s the idea. If we de-imperative-ize Alice’s primary instance, she can just propagate that to the secondary version of her at the depot. At the same time, we could remove the imperatives from Candler, and he could propagate it to other AIs on Anvil Dark we consider to be loyal. And if we do it that way, the Guild won’t be any the wiser. We’ll have a loyal network of AIs quietly working for us on Anvil Dark.”

“Assuming we don’t get caught trying to sneak aboard one of the most heavily fortified and secured places in known space, that is,” Gabby said. I nodded. “There is that, yeah.” I turned to Volffin. “And since you’re technically still a Master in good standing, I can’t help but think we’ve put you into a bad position just by having this conversation in front of you.”

Volffin shook his ample head, though. “That is no longer a concern. This one has received a message that if this one does not return to Anvil Dark forthwith, this one will be deemed to have vacated the Master’s position.”

“And then they’ll just refill it with another Yotov loyalist,” Torina said. “Indeed. And since this one has no intention of returning to Anvil Dark, then your concern is unfounded,” Volffin said. I nodded gratefully. “Okay. Right. So, that leaves us trying to figure out how to infiltrate Anvil Dark.” I looked around. “Anyone have any immediate and brilliant ideas?”

I got headshakes, shrugs, and glum silence. I sighed. “Yeah, me neither.”

I CONSOLED myself with the thought that sneaking aboard Anvil Dark to deliver the Calamity-derived virus, then sneaking back off again, wasn’t impossible—it was just going to be really, really hard and really, really dangerous. If we got caught, that would be really, really bad. But it would be even worse if we got caught with something based on Calamity. Calamity had been declared a weapon of mass destruction, its use for any purpose other than studying it to develop countermeasures—and even then, only by a select few researchers—a Crime Against Order. In other words, getting caught would hand a complete victory to Yotov and the Grasp. But if we got away with it, we’d have a powerful lever to pull, one that could undermine nearly anything they tried to do through their effective control of the Peacemaker Guild. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I mused. I decided to let myself and the crew ruminate on it for a while, while we got the details from the Schegith about their mothballed fleet. While that was happening, we got an urgent call from Helso, from Tor Milon. We received it aboard the Fafnir, while we were still grounded on Null World. “I’ve got good news and bad news,” Tor said without preamble. “The good news is that the Daren-thal rooted out all of the bad guys that had holed up in the caves. It took them less than a day.”

“Did they take any of them alive?” I asked. Tor shook his head. “No. There were seven of them in total, in two pairs and a group of three. The Daren-thal offered them all a chance to surrender, with the clear understanding that if they didn’t, they would die. They all refused and tried to fight back. The Daren-thal—well, they made good on their promise.” Tor shook his head. “A couple of them were killed by those huge animals each of the hunters had accompanying them. I saw the bodies. It—wasn’t pretty.”

I thought about Rovan-ir, Rovan’s massive, dog-like companion. The creature’s head came nearly to my neck, its mouth full of teeth as long as my thumb. Yeah, I could imagine being worked over by something like that wouldn’t be pretty. “So what’s the bad news, Dad?” Torina asked. “Unfortunately, the bad guys in the caves weren’t the only ones on Helso. Somehow, a group of three managed to elude us. They were after Cataric.”

I sat bolt upright. “Is he —?”

“He’s fine, Van,” Tor said. “He’d only just arrived back on Helso. Ordinarily, they’d have caught him sleeping, but he was awake and able to fight them off and get away. He managed to kill one. They did, though, manage to burn down his dojo and his home. They caused some additional damage in the town, but were cornered by the magistrates, and then the HDF. There was a firefight, and both of them were killed. One magistrate was wounded, but she’ll recover.”

I cursed. “There was no need to attack Cataric —”

“That was personal, Van. Directed at you. In fact, I’d say that this whole attack on Helso was essentially an attack on you.” I opened my mouth, but Tor went on, cutting me off. “And before you start apologizing or feeling bad about bringing this down on us, Van—don’t. There isn’t a man in known space I’m prouder to call son-in-law, to have as the father of my grandchildren, than you. This doesn’t change that. If anything, it just makes all of us here more determined than ever to stand up to these bastards.”

“I appreciate that, Tor. I really do.” I sat back. “Does Cataric know about any of this?

Have you talked to him?"

“I have. He took some minor injuries. Even though he’s lost everything, he’s got no shortage of people willing to help him here. His only real concern is, well, for you. That as long as he’s on Helso, he’s another target, another point of vulnerability for you.”

I gave a slow nod. “If I could, I’d move all of you to Starsmith. It’s the safest place in all of known space.”

Tor frowned at that. “What makes Starsmith so safe?”

“It’s—kind of a secret. Trust me, though. If anyone shows up in that system with ill intent in their heart, they’re going to die.”

“Ah. Well, that’s ominous as hell. But if you think Cataric would be safe there, talk to him.”

Torina leaned in. “Dad, what about you and Mom?

You’re targets, too. Even more than Cataric likely is, in fact.”

“Oh, don’t worry about us. For one, we’ve got the Schegith watching over us even more intently now. They may not be as dangerous as whatever it is that’s protecting Starsmith, but those big ol’ defense platforms of theirs are now on full alert. And, well, this is our home. We’re not going anywhere. Besides, the Helso Defense Force is growing. People who were ambivalent before are now clamoring to join, in light of this latest attack. We’ll be fine.” Tor sighed. “Honestly, Torina, I’m much more worried about you.”

Torina put on a smile. “We’ll be fine, too, Dad.”

Tor signed off. Torina, though, just sat looking at the display, which now only showed ship performance data. I took her hand and squeezed it. She kept up her brave smile and squeezed mine back. 14

WE RETURNED to Helso and arrived just as the Daren-thal hunters were packing up to go home. I thanked them profusely, then hurried to find Cataric, who was convalescing at the Milon’s estate. Armed and armored HDF troopers walked the grounds or occupied observation posts. The whole place had an armed-camp feel to it, jarring and wholly out of place for somewhere I’d always considered a safe haven, an oasis of peace amid the insanity. My simmering hatred of Yotov and the Equal Grasp ratcheted up another notch, an insistent moment of fury that I fought to control—and won, but only with an effort. Unbridled anger is not a force multiplier. It’s a detriment, and it was an indulgence I couldn’t afford. This was another cost of the damned war they’d started. People not even directly implicated in their vile schemes were having their lives upended, all because Yotov wanted to call the shots, and the Grasp wanted to make a buck. So much chaos and strife was provoked by narcissists and megalomaniacs, almost always at the expense of innocents. Those were two traits I’d dearly love to expunge from sapient life. It would make living so much easier for everyone. Cataric’s wounds weren’t serious, but I could tell at once that the attack had left him badly shaken. It showed in the tension tightening his normally serene face, the bright, too-alert glitter in his eyes. I gave him a firm stare. “Cataric, my friend, I’m taking you to Starsmith. There’s no safer place anywhere,” I said. “So Tor has informed me, although I gather the reason for that is some great mystery.”

“Maybe Linulla will clue you in while you’re there.”

Cataric gave me a tired smile. “Ah, yes, the Starsmith himself, or one of them. I’ve had occasion to meet him in the past. We are not friends, but I look forward to renewing our acquaintance.” His smile faded, and for the first time, he looked—not old, but aging. “I do believe I need a vacation, Van.”

“Yeah. We all do. But you’re going to get yours.” I started to turn away, then turned back. “I’m so sorry, old friend. This is all because of me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You sent those assassins after me?

Was it something I said?”

“Cataric—”

“Van, you are only responsible—and I use that term reluctantly—

insofar as you are standing between some very bad people and their evil goals. If you got out of their way, then yes, perhaps they would turn their attention elsewhere. But then they would triumph, many, many people would suffer for it—and you would be one of them. So would I. So would Torina’s parents, and Torina herself, and your crew. We would all suffer knowing that we didn’t do all that we could to stop them.”

He lifted a bandaged arm. “This pain would pale in comparison to that sort of anguish.” He lowered his arm and sighed. “Unfortunately, Van, we most often do not get to choose the circumstances we face, the trials we must endure. Our only choice is how we confront them. You are choosing to fight because it is the right thing to do. All of us who stand with you understand that. It is why we stand with you in the first place. That is our choice.”

I shook my head. “You are one hell of a wise man, Master.”

He shrugged and smiled again. “Perhaps. At times, anyway. But I still need a vacation.”

WE MADE an uneventful trip to Starsmith, probably because Helso was locked down by the HDF and the Schegith and Starsmith was, well, Starsmith. The bad guys might want to strike at either or both, but they’d

failed—spectacularly, in the case of Starsmith—and probably weren’t going to be anxious to try again. They also had no ship watching Starsmith anymore, but as Netty pointed out, they could easily have left an innocuous spy platform somewhere in the outer system. If it were to use only passive scanners, it would be as hard to find as the Prowler, all of which was to say we had to assume Starsmith was still being watched. But I didn’t care. Just as I’d gladly rubbed our enemy’s faces in the fact that we’d visited Frankenmuth to go shopping, I was happy to let them see the Fafnir visiting Starsmith. It must have been both infuriating and deeply perplexing to watch our ship come and go unmolested, while a whole fleet of ships sent to attack Starsmith was handily obliterated by some unknown force. The more teeth-clenching uncertainty and anger we could induce in our foes, the more likely they were to make a mistake. We landed and prepared to disembark, to escort Cataric into Starsmith. I gave him a smile. “I hope you like chitchat. I don’t think Linulla gets to spend much time with new people.”

Cataric returned a smile that was tired and a little sad, but also a little brighter than it had been on Helso. “Ah, yes. The Conoku have a reputation for fecundity. I gather I shall be meeting many younglings.”

I nodded. “Crablets. Lots of them. As far as the eye can see.”

“How, um, many?”

I blew out a breath. “Well, some people think of children. The Conoku think of litters.”

“Oh. Well then. Take me to the, ah, herd.” He waved grandly, and I smiled. As we left, Rab, Icky, Netty-P, Perry, and Funboy gathered with Netty in the crew lounge, starting to mull over ideas for infiltrating Anvil Dark. They’d each spent the trip here considering the problem individually and were now going to start comparing notes. Icky spoke up first, as Cataric, Torina, and I were heading for the airlock. “Okay, first thing first. Every great plan starts the same way,” she declared. “How so?” Rab asked. “With snacks!”

Gabby picked up her apron, tied it around herself, and headed for the galley. “Now this is my kind of war.”

LINULLA GREETED CATARIC WARMLY, while the young Conoku were a tumbling whirl of clattering limbs and shells as they all tried to greet him at once. A heavy weight seemed to drop from Cataric as he busied himself trying to say hello to each, a broad grin splitting his face. He even complimented several on their most recent molts and how colorful and shiny they were. Linulla stepped aside with Torina and me. “I don’t know Cataric well, but I do know that he abhors violence. Clearly, recent events have worn on him heavily. His physical wounds are minor and will heal. Let us hope some time here will help him heal the invisible ones.”

I watched Cataric laughing as the Conoku chattered away at him, clamoring for his attention. “Kind of funny to think that a guy who’s an expert in a martial art hates violence with such a passion. But at the same time, it makes perfect sense.”

“The best soldiers are the ones who hate war,” Torina said. I thought of Dwight Eisenhower’s words and decided in that moment, he’d been right. “Amen to that.”

WHILE CATARIC GOT SETTLED IN, Torina and I spent some quiet time with Linulla in a mossy grotto hosting a burbling little pool. I smirked at the moisture dripping down the rock walls. “You know, it’s no wonder I lose the creases in my clothes every time I come here.” I sat on a stone seat, covered with a cushion that remained stubbornly dry despite the surroundings. Torina sat with me, while Linulla folded himself into a reclining position on the floor. “So have you heard anything more from our invisible friend?” I asked him. “No. Matterforge often remains silent for lengthy periods of time. And then, when it speaks, it is as though we’re suddenly in the middle of a conversation I didn’t realize I was even having.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got that from it, too. I wonder if it’s even still there on the star right now, or if it’s off in some other place or time.”

“Van, I have been dealing with Matterforge for years, and even I don’t understand it. It’s quite possible that it is both present and absent at once, in some way the likes of you and I aren’t even equipped to perceive.”

“How did you first meet it, anyway?” Torina asked. “How did it introduce itself to you?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’d like to have seen that. Hi, I’m Matterforge. I’m an incorporeal superbeing living on the surface of your star, and oh yeah, I also exist across time and space. How do you like me so far?”

Linulla offered the Conoku equivalent of a laugh. “I’d have liked to have seen that, too. Matterforge was already known when I was hatched. I was introduced to it by my progenitors, and they by theirs, all the way back to the beginning of records regarding Starsmith. As far as I can tell, Matterforge has always been here.” His eyestalks swiveled on me. “And yet, I actually remember very little about any of that history, and if I try to search for it, I cannot find it. It is as though I remember things that never happened.”

“The Mandela Effect,” I said, and got blank looks from both Torina and Linulla. “Sorry, an Earth reference. There’s a fellow named Mandela—a controversial figure to be sure, but that’s neither here nor there for this—

that a lot of people were sure died in prison decades ago. They remember reading news articles about it. But he didn’t actually die until years later. The Mandela Effect is when people are sure they remember something, but the facts don’t bear out that it ever happened.”

“Maybe your Mandela Effect is the result of something like Matterforge doing what it does. Perhaps it is, either deliberately or inadvertently, creating inconsistencies in time,” Linulla ventured. I shrugged. “Certainly possible, I guess. So maybe it really was the Beren stein Bears—” I glanced at the others. “Sorry. Another Mandela Effect, one that actually affects me.”

We moved on to discuss the state of affairs, and our idea for infiltrating Anvil Dark. I omitted any mention of Calamity being used to break AIs free from their Guild programming, simply saying that Perry and our other AIs had come up with a method. “So, yeah, we’re faced with cracking open the tough nut that’s Anvil Dark, but doing it without letting anyone know we were there,” I finished, shaking my head. “Honestly, I don’t even know if it’s possible. And if it is, I’m not sure we have the resources we need to pull it off.”

“Resources, as in money?” Linulla asked. “Well, ultimately, yeah. If we had unlimited funds, we could make whatever plan we wanted, buy whatever stuff we needed. But every twist costs us money, and despite a recent injection of cash, it’s far from unlimited.”

“We can’t even go to our usual sources,” Torina said. “My family’s wealth is tied up trying to protect Helso. And while we might trust Dayna Jasskin, we can’t really trust The Quiet Room. All we’ve got is the profit from Van’s Fren-operated shipping company, and that’s too easy for the Equal Grasp to trace. The first time we access those funds, they’re going to know about it.”

“Perhaps I can assist. I’ve recently come into a surplus of platinum-group elements. I have ingots of platinum and rhodium I took in payment for a project that I am never likely to use. Their total market value is about one hundred and seventy-five thousand bonds. And they are entirely untraceable,” Linulla said. I stared at Linulla for a moment, then nodded. “This is the part where I say, oh, no, Linulla, we can’t take that from you —”

“And then I insist, and you take it anyway. So why not dispense with that bit of theater and just say thank you?”

“Thank you. That will be a huge help. It won’t solve all our problems, but it will give us a lot more time to work out something.”

WE RETURNED to the Fafnir to find the others still in deep discussion, arm-waving and arguing about ways of cracking Anvil Dark. Listening to them as we walked forward from the airlock was enough to tell me there’d been no big breakthroughs. Perry said they’d come up with an idea for generating more revenue. I gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Were you listening in on our conversation with Linulla?

Because that’s what we were talking about. And to that end, we’re going to have some Conoku showing up soon with a couple of cases full of bars of precious metals—about another one hundred and seventy-five K in bonds, in fact.”

“Was I listening in?

Of course not. It’s more a case of great minds thinking alike,” Perry countered. I shrugged. “Being called a great mind?

I’ll take it.”

“I was talking about Torina.”

“Ouch, boss. You sort of walked into that one,” Netty observed. I shot a look toward her ocular unit, and it flashed blue. “Think I’ll run some subsystem checks for a minute or two. Or until Van’s heart rate drops a little bit,” Netty purred. “Superb idea, Net. I need a moment. So, bird?

Do carry on, won’t you?

Something about more revenue?”

“Yeah. One of the things Groshenko gave you was called the Shiraku’t. It’s a list, or registry, of lost ships and cargoes, compiled by families, insurers, corporations, you name it. There’s a public version of it out there

—hell, you can do a simple data query for it. It’s pretty picked-over, though, and the general agreement is that everything that’s likely to ever be found on it has.”

“Okay, so this helps us how, exactly?”

“Over to you, Netty-P, since it was your idea,” Perry said. “We just assumed the copy of the Shiraku’t that Groshenko provided was the same one everyone else had—the picked-over one. Once we started talking about money here at this roundtable, though, I decided to review everything that Groshenko had bequeathed to you. And that’s when something jumped out—Groshenko’s Shiraku’t is larger than the public one. It has four hundred and sixty-two more entries. Somehow, Groshenko got his hands on a different, more expansive version of the registry.”

“Are you saying there are four hundred and sixty-two lost and unclaimed ships out there?” I asked, stopping in the middle of removing my b-suit’s gloves. “Each entry is a missing ship or missing cargo. The number of lost ships is actually two hundred and four,” Netty-P replied. “Holy shit. Really?”

“Could those entries just be things that were found long ago and have been dropped from the current list?” Torina asked. “Not all of them, and almost certainly not most of them. I’ve done a cursory search—as much as I dared without risking attracting unwanted attention—and can say for sure that there are no records of thirty-one of those ships ever being found.”

Perry spoke up. “Now, keep in mind that some of those ships have probably been lost irrevocably. Twists gone wrong, pirated and dropped into a gas giant, that sort of thing. But even being really conservative, we feel that at least one hundred and thirty of the entries are pretty good bets.”

“We would have to do a more detailed analysis, a lot of cross-referencing of other data sources, to be able to say for sure which ones are worth following up on, though,” Netty-P put in. “So do it.”

“Van, that’s going to require us to twist query a bunch of different archives. Like I said, we risk attracting attention if we do that.”

“You know what?

I don’t care. Not while we’re here, at Starsmith. We might as well take full advantage of our safe harbor. Just add a lot of bullshit queries at the same time. I mean—search genealogical records, archives of poetry—hell, search lists of stolen cars from Toronto.”

“Create a whole bunch of noise to drown out the signal,” Rab said. I pointed at him and nodded. “Exactly that. Let the bad guys see it all—

and then try to figure out what we’re really after. The more confusion and uncertainty we can cause them, the better.”

Perry looked at Netty-P. “Care to do some completely extraneous data queries with me?”

She nodded her imager. “I thought you’d never ask.”

He turned back to me. “Don’t worry, Van. We’ll find the stuff that makes cheddar for you.”

Icky glanced up from a data pad she and Funboy were studying. “Okay, now you have my attention.”

“And mine,” Funboy put in. “Assuming this cheddar is pasteurized, of course. I refuse to do the unpasteurized homesteader-social-media-influencer cheeses that seem to be perplexingly popular. The health issues aside, they appear to require a sexually attractive woman with many children, a gingham apron, and a limitless budget —”

“Got it, Funboy, yeah. But not that kind of cheddar. Perry means cheddar as in money,” I cut in. “Exactly. But we are going to have to be careful. We’re a long way from shore here, and it’s not safe for us to be within shooting distance of anyone

—or anything—that sees us as a potential payday.”

“Then focus on the things from that list that are out in the black. Way out in the black,” Torina said. I nodded. “Good point. Perry, you and the Nettys do your thing, focusing on the most distant targets, and come up with the top—I don’t know, several. Use your judgment. Maximum payouts for minimum effort.”

“How much money are you hoping to earn this way?” Funboy asked. “Oh, that’s easy. However much we need to win a war.”

15

WE WERE, by now, running low on antimatter fuel. This time, though, we didn’t have to rely on the Fren. Valint was available and agreed to rendezvous with us on the fringe of the Crossroads system, to transfer a full fuel pod to us while we gave her our empty one, along with cash to cover the cost. “Do I get my deposit back?” I asked her, grinning. She gave me a wry stare. “Consider yourself lucky you’re family, Van, or I’d be charging you for my time, too.”

“Thanks, Gra —”

“Don’t, you insolent whelp.”

I snickered. “Understood. Anyway, thanks.”

Droox reported that the Prowler needed refueling as well, so we arranged a subsequent rendezvous with her to fuel her up. Not being configured to carry cargo, and mounting weapons mainly for self-defense, the Prowler had an oversized antimatter storage system, meaning she didn’t need refueling all that often. When she did, though, she took on a lot of fuel

—the pod from Valint would refuel her and the Fafnir, and that would be it. We arrived at the rendezvous with Valint early to scope things out. Since we weren’t pushing on into the system’s gravity well, if things looked bad, we could just twist away again—although then we’d be stuck until Valint found us. But Crossroads was its usual self—lots of traffic, but all confined to the standard traffic control pattern. There were only a few outliers,

smaller ships on more divergent trajectories, but the nearest of those was nearly two light-hours away. We reduced the Fafnir to minimum power and settled in to wait for Valint. I’d only just started to head aft, though, when Netty spoke up. “Van, I’ve just highlighted a ship on the tactical overlay. You’re probably going to be very interested in it.”

I stopped in the back of the cockpit. “Why?”

“Because its emissions signature matches one of the ships playing convoy escort at Wolf 424.”

I immediately headed back to the pilot’s seat. The rest of the crew piled in after me, heading for their stations, or in Gabby’s case, standing in the rear of the cockpit and watching intently. As I sat down, I studied the icon Netty had highlighted. “Class 11, converted fast freighter, registered as the Willing and Able, or at least that’s what its transponder says.” I switched my attention to the image of the ship and stared at it hard. It resembled any number of similar ships across known space—a mid-sized cargo hauler, up-armored over critical components like cockpit and drive module, mounting enough firepower to outgun anything she couldn’t outrun. She no doubt hauled legitimate cargo most of the time, but her master probably wasn’t above a little smuggling or piracy if the opportunity arose. But the Willing and Able was a ninety-five percent match for one of the ships that had ambushed us at Wolf 424.

She’d been one of the supposed escorts, not one of the freighters that had been rigged up with piles of missiles or used as a fire ship to be deliberately collided with its target. I had no idea what role she’d played in the battle. For that matter, she may never have even fired a shot. But I didn’t care. She’d been complicit in the loss of the Iowa, in the deaths of Lunzy and Lucky, in all of the monstrous crimes committed that day. The column of anger was back, and this time, it came with a cool resolve that was anything but wanton or wild. If anything, I was—relaxed. “Van, what do you want to do?” Torina asked. I looked at her. At the others. What they wanted to do was so clearly etched in their stony expressions it might as well have been written in

words of fire. They wanted the Willing and Able to die. So did I. More to the point, it was another chance to hit back at our enemies. To get some justice. Or I could call it that, at least, but let’s face it, it would be as much revenge as it was justice. But I was okay with that, too. “What I want to do is go kill that ship. Shopping for cheese in Frankenmuth and figuratively mooning our enemies from the safety of Starsmith is all well and good, but this is a chance to hit back a lot harder.” I glanced at the icon. The Willing and Able was on track for a slingshot around the system’s gas giant, a gravitational boost to get her out to a twist point faster, but without expending fuel. “But if we do this, we’ll need to use the combi-drive to make the intercept,” I went on. “And correct me if I’m wrong, Netty, but that’s going to leave us short of twist fuel.”

“It will. We’d have enough antimatter to combi-drive our way back out here, but not enough to twist. If we come back out here using the fusion drive instead, then we’ll have enough fuel for a short twist—but it’s also going to give the bad guys hours to arrange to have someone sitting out here to meet us. That would be a battle we simply won’t be able to avoid.”

I turned to the crew. “This has to be a group decision. If even one of you objects, we’ll just let it go—and again, no harm or foul if that’s your decision.”

Silence. Icky finally spoke. “So what are we waiting for, boss?”

I nodded. “Okay. Let’s configure the ship for battle. Netty, prepare the combi-drive. We’re going to take this bastard out.”

AS WE SUITED UP and strapped in, Perry raised a salient point. “Boss, I’m all for turning this asshole into a cloud of constituent atoms, but we don’t know for sure that everyone aboard that ship is guilty. If they just brought, say, a new crew member aboard at Crossroads, then we’re risking giving propaganda fodder to our enemies—you know, letting them label us as murderers and all that.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that occurred to me, too. So the plan is to broadcast, in the clear, why we’re attacking them, along with one warning to launch their life pods and abandon ship.”

“Yotov and the Grasp might still claim that you killed some innocents along the way.”

I shrugged as I picked up my helmet. “Let them. I mean, there’s nothing to stop them from doing that now, is there?

For that matter, there’s nothing to stop them from destroying any ship they want—say, a liner packed with refugees, orphans, and, hell, puppies and kittens—and claiming it was our doing, right?”

“Fair point. And, with that out of the way, let’s go get ’em.”

I winked at Perry and put on my helmet. Once we were all suited up, Netty depressurized the ship, we warmed up all the weapons, and the combi-drive countdown started. It was time to fight. When it hit zero, we all gasped and flinched as we launched into the weird, sideways slide around the edge of reality that was combi-drive flight. It lasted about five minutes, then the drive cut out. The view forward immediately filled with the glorious sweep of the gas giant, a vast, partial disk striped with blue, teal, and greenish bands, and a single, broad orange band along its equator. Swirling spirals of pale pink, storms each bigger than the Earth, marched along the length of the orange band, some spinning clockwise, some counter, colliding and merging in stately, slow-motion fury. But the magnificent view held my attention only for an instant. Our improved scanner suite had already sluiced up and spit out the picture of our surroundings, doing it in half the time it took our old scanners. The Willing and Able was a bright red icon painted into both the overlay and onto the canopy, less than five thousand klicks away. I already had the comm set to general broadcast. “Willing and Able, this is the Fafnir. You participated in a murderous attack on a lawful Peacemaker operation that resulted in dozens of deaths. You will stand down your weapons, cut your drive, and abandon ship via your life pods. Your ship will then be destroyed. This will be your own only warning.”

We actually got a reply. “And if we don’t?”

“I’m sorry, but what part of this will be your only warning don't you understand?

You have one minute to comply, starting now.”

A threat warning buzzed. The Willing and Able had illuminated us with her scanners, set to fire-control mode. A moment later, she loosed a pair of missiles at us, and then another, and then lit her drive and accelerated away. I scowled at the fleeing ship. “I said one warning only.” I lit our drive and turned to the others. “Weapons free, folks. Hammer them to scrap.”

Torina was already targeting the incoming missiles. Despite their small size, their acceleration, and even the hostile environment around the gas giant, all charged particles and radiation, our new scanners gave us excellent firing solutions almost immediately. Torina methodically took out the missiles one by one, while Rab took control of the accelerator cannon and lined up on the Willing and Able. “It’s a beautiful place for criminals to die, isn’t it?” he said, triggering the accelerator cannon. It thumped rhythmically, pumping out a burst of twist-boosted slugs. They slammed into the other ship, their enormous kinetic energy liberated as searing flashes and catastrophic damage. “If their velocity is insufficient to escape the gas giant’s gravity well, then they will fall into it and be crushed by the immense pressures. The carbon in these villains may actually be transformed into diamonds, and if I could, I would contrive some way to retrieve them,” Funboy put in. I glanced back. “Why?”

“I would use them to make a ring of declaration for my love, of course.”

Torina destroyed the last missile while it was still well beyond detonation range, then sat back. “That manages to be both sweet and romantic, and kind of creepy, all at once.”

Gabby, standing in the back, touched Funboy’s shoulder. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“Sure, if that thought is, how can I turn my enemies into jewelry?” Perry put in. “Their horrific death would be the beginning of something beautiful, however,” Funboy persisted. “Not unlike the poetry of the Tokugawa Shogunate, but with fewer swords.”

“Um—sure. Never thought of civil war as a font of romance, but you do you, handsome. Anyway, we have to defeat them first,” I said. The damage done to the Willing and Able was already telling. Her drive output had dropped to a fraction of what it had been, so we were quickly overtaking her. She still showed no signs of ejecting life pods, though, and kept up a sustained, if not particularly accurate barrage of laser fire. We landed more hits, spalling off more debris, and killing her drive entirely. I had to flip and reverse-burn to prevent us from rushing past her. As I did, the comm channel lit up. It showed a Yonnox spangled with a crazy amount of jewelry and general bling. “Your days are numbered, Tudor,” the Yonnox spat. “Not as numbered as yours, you bastard,” I replied—but was again struck by this intractable attitude on the part of our enemies’ minions. What the hell was that about?

Was Yotov somehow brainwashing these people?

Had she figured out how to use her Ligurite abilities to do more than just persuade others, but to actually control them?

If so, that had some disturbing—and alarming—implications. The battle ended a moment later when Rab opened up with the plasma-pulse cannon and the particle beams. The Willing and Able came apart, what had been a ship now just a spiraling cloud of debris racing across the impassive face of the gas giant. “That was for the Iowa,” I said. A moment of silence, then Funboy heaved a heavy sigh as we powered down the weapons. Icky glanced at him. “Now what, grumpy-chops?”

“All that jewelry wasted. It’s just so—annoying.”

Netty flashed the main screen with a detailed scan. “Want me to search for ejecta?

Shiny stuff?

Flotsam?”

“More like jetsam, maybe,” I said. “Never could keep those terms straight. I’m not a sailor, but I like to play one at work.”

Funboy turned to me, blinking. “We are not playing, Van. This is, as are all things, deadly serious. Also, if there is a silver necklace to be found, it would complete my summer beach ensemble.”

“You have a—you know, of course you do. I’ll get you puka shells for your birthday. Netty, make a note of that.”

“Done. Budget?”

“For Funboy?

Big and expensive. Those are the best qualities for a gift,”

I said, then turned to examine the overlay. There was nothing in a position to intercept us, so I decided to take the slow boat back to the twist point, using our fusion drive only. Valint arrived shortly after we started our exit from the system, so we adjusted course to rendezvous with her. I decided to keep us at battle stations anyway. As Netty had noted, the bad guys would have a few hours to marshal a force

and have it waiting for us at our twist point. Of course, with Valint’s Stormshadow already there, accompanied by a second ship belonging to one of her GKU colleagues, their own reception would be a warm one. Still, I sat on the edge of my seat for the nearly five hours it took us to meet up with her. But no bad guys appeared, and we were able to transfer the antimatter fuel without incident. While that was happening, I spoke to Valint, who took the opportunity to give me a firm but gentle admonishment. “Going after that ship was risky, Van. A lot could have gone wrong. If you’d taken a critical hit and gotten stuck in-system—” She shook her head. “Let’s just say as one of your likely rescuers, I wouldn’t have been amused.”

“I know. But we’re not going to turn this around by forever playing it safe. If I’m going to do that, I might as well become a Feral myself and just go hide in the void—and let these assholes keep doing what they’re doing on Earth,” I replied. She held my gaze with her imperious stare—and then smiled. “Aggression. I like it. It looks good on you, Van, and I agree that playing it safe is almost never a winning strategy. Just—be careful, okay?

Don’t let your desire to hit back override your judgment. Risks are fine, right up until they aren’t.”

WE TWISTED to an unoccupied red dwarf system to meet with the Prowler and gas her up, and also to undertake some minor repairs to the Fafnir. The Willing and Able had landed a few laser hits and done a bit of damage—

nothing critical, certainly, but it was best to repair things right away rather than letting them sit. Minor damage could quickly become major damage in space, and we were counting heavily on the Fafnir performing to spec when we needed it. It was during those repairs that we almost lost Rab. He and Icky had gone outside to work with EVAN on repairs to the mount for one of the mass-driver batteries. He was using a plasma cutter, but in welding mode, to reinforce the base of the mount when the cutter apparently malfunctioned and loosed a flare of superheated plasma back at

him. It was only through dumb luck that the flare missed him—he’d contorted himself to start work on a new section of the mount, twisting his head and shoulder out of the flare’s path barely a second before it discharged. He reflexively pushed the cutter away, sending it sailing out to the length of its tether. It rebounded and came right back at him, but Icky deftly caught it and hit the emergency shutoff, ending its incandescent menace. We inside the Fafnir weren’t even aware of the drama until Icky called out, “Rab, are you alright?” over the comm. We all immediately perked up but stayed quiet—if something was going wrong, the last we needed were a bunch of questions clogging up the channel. “Yeah, I’m fine. A little singed, I think, that’s it.”

“Rab, Icky, what’s going on out there?” I asked. “We had a mishap with the plasma torch,” Rab replied. “No damage done, but we’re coming inside.”

They returned through the airlock but left the cutter outside with EVAN. Netty had him do a thorough inspection of it and found not that it was faulty

—but that it had been sabotaged. “Someone fiddled with the plasma-stream guide,” Netty reported. “It was rigged to reverse the safety field and redirect plasma back at the operator.”

“That couldn’t have happened by accident?” I asked her. “It is profoundly unlikely. The safety field is meant to keep the plasma jet away from the operator. It would have to be deliberately reversed, which could only be done by reconfiguring the hardware. And that entails some very specific changes to the components involved.”

I cursed. “Okay, we need to figure out how this happened. Who the hell could possibly have had access to the Fafnir’s gear.”

Icky spoke up. “Actually, Van, that cutter/welder rig is new, or new-ish. We requisitioned it right before all this crap with Yotov and her scummy friends went down.”

“Requisitioned it?

From Anvil Dark?”

“Yeah. But it was new, still in its original packaging. I don’t like using refurbished stuff.”

I planted my hands on my hips. “Okay. I want to trace this back and figure out how the bad guys managed to get that thing onto my ship. We also need to go through all of our other tools and equipment with a fine-

tooth comb to make sure we don’t have any other unpleasant surprises waiting to spring themselves on us. Let’s get to work, people. I want answers.”

16

THE ANSWER, as it turned out, was in the most innocuous of places—on the wrapper. Icky put the packaging for the cutter-welder on the galley table. “Like I said, it was still sealed. We hadn’t used it before today, so we only unwrapped it right before Rab and I went outside. I just fished this out of the trash.”

I stared at the small pile of polymer packaging, basically a tougher form of shrink-wrap. “How does this help us?”

Perry lifted a fold of the polymer with his foot, revealing a small ceramic tag stuck to it. I recognized it. It was a shipping tag. It encoded the origin, destination, and other basic info about whatever package, crate, or container it was attached to. It allowed the AIs overseeing cargo-handling systems to quickly sort and route stuff, determine things like taxes and excise charges owing, identify things that required special handling and so on. “Two possibilities. One, the bad guys wanted us to find this, so they

‘accidentally’ left the tag in place,” Perry said. “Or, two, the bad guys actually screwed up and forgot to remove it. Either way, it records the origin of the piece—Fulcrum, at Tau Ceti, which is where it was manufactured.”

“Still not seeing how this helps us, bird.”

“Ah, well, I’ve saved the big dramatic reveal. Can you guess what the shipping destination was?"

“Logically, it would be Anvil Dark. But I’m assuming it’s not that simple,” Funboy said. “It is not. In fact, the destination was a place with the haunting, ethereal name UT-08A.”

We all exchanged bemused glances. I frowned at Perry. “Sorry, bird, if you’re not getting the stunned reaction you were hoping for. Is that name supposed to mean something to us?”

“I’m assuming it’s a star system somewhere,” Torina put in. But Perry shook his head. “It is not a star system, and no, you probably shouldn’t recognize the name. In fact, Netty-P and I had to risk some twist-comm time to track down exactly what UT-08A referred to. We eventually cross-referenced it to some shipping manifests we were able to dig up. UT-08A is an automated antimatter refueling station in a system called Parnik’s Duo. And to answer your next question, Parnik’s Duo is an odd binary system—odd because it’s a pair of white dwarfs orbiting the hell out of one another and bound for an eventual collision sometime in the next ten thousand years or so.”

My frown just kept deepening as Perry talked. “Perry, I assume you’re going to get to the part where this is all somehow linked to a sabotaged cutting/welding rig here on the Fafnir, aren’t you?”

“Patience, grasshopper. Yes, there is a link. That tool was manufactured on Fulcrum, purchased by the owners of UT-08A, and shipped to them there. It was then brought from there, to Anvil Dark, sometime between four and eight weeks before the battle at Wolf 424 and Yotov’s big push against us.”

Icky scratched her head. “We acquired that cutter/welder about four weeks before that battle, yeah.”

“Exactly. That’s what sets the lower limit of time, in fact. The eight weeks is the earliest it could have been brought to Anvil Dark,” Perry said. Funboy, though, crossed his arms. “There is still a significant piece of information missing—the party or parties that own and operate the refueling depot. You are insinuating that they were responsible for sabotaging the tool, then moving it to Anvil Dark so that we could obtain it there.”

“For that matter, how could they have known that we’d requisition that particular tool?” Gabby asked. “Or was this just a random act of violence, and we—or, Rab, really—are the unlucky ones?”

Icky, though, shook her head. “It wasn’t random. I put in the requisition for a new cutter-welder because the old one was, well, old. It was starting to misbehave. But the Anvil Dark supply stores didn’t have one in stock. We had to wait until our next trip to Anvil Dark, three weeks later, to finally pick it up.”

My frown became an angry glare. “Giving them three weeks to order a new tool, sabotage it, then send it to Anvil Dark to await our coming back to get it. So this was targeted squarely at us. It was attempted murder.”

Perry nodded. “It sure was, like the poisoned food. The bad guys aren’t content with just direct attacks against us. They’re using indirect attacks, too.”

“Trying to strike at us even when we think we’re safe. Even if it doesn’t work, and the poison thing didn’t, it still makes us spend even more time looking over our shoulders, worrying about every piece of equipment, every package of food. It’s psychological warfare, that’s what it is,” Gabby said, her tone hard and indignant. I nodded. “The same thing we’re trying to do to them.”

Funboy raised a finger. “Excuse me, but there’s still one piece of information notable by its absence —"

“The owner of UT-08A,” Netty-P said. “That would be my department, since I’m the one who chased that down. In the words of so many people on dating websites, it’s complicated.”

I gave her a raised eyebrow. “Now just how do you know about dating websites —?”

“I like to laugh. And believe me, there’s nothing funnier than awkwardly attempted romance.”

That actually brought a smile to our faces—even Funboy’s. “I could not agree more,” he said. “I, for one, find the ebullient joy of my relationship with Gabby, awkward or not, to make me want to grin.”

Which he did. “Yeesh, you wanna put that thing away?” Perry said, lifting a wing. Icky clunked down a bowl of leftover noodles she’d been idly munching as we talked. “Well, there goes my midmorning snack. This midmorning snack, anyway.”

Netty-P went on. “It took a while, as I couldn’t just access Guild archives or use Guild credentials, and since I also had to cover my tracks. But I did eventually get an answer, buried under layers of shell companies

and subsidiaries and things. UT-08A is owned by the estate of our good friend Yotov’s father, who died several years ago. Specifically, it, along with several other automated fuel depots in out-of-the-way places, is owned by a holding company that she is now the principal shareholder of.”

I had to nod, not that it was a surprising revelation. “Let me guess, the other major shareholder is the Equal Grasp, or someone like Jacob Marley.”

“Interestingly enough, no, it’s not. In fact, the balance of the holding company is owned by other members of Yotov’s family. She has controlling interest, but there’s not a whiff of Equal Grasp involvement otherwise. This seems to be Yotov’s own little enterprise,” Netty-P said. Perry spoke up. “And I think I know why. Parnik’s Duo figures prominently in the Shiraku’t. The two white dwarfs are orbiting each other so fast—and by fast, I mean fast, as in they complete a mutual orbit in about eight hours—that the inner part of the system is a pretty hostile environment. The gravitational flux is intense, which is what happens when you have roughly two Solar masses, each crunched down to something not much bigger than Earth, whirling around one another at notable fraction of the speed of light.”

“So there’s potentially interesting stuff from the Shiraku’t there, but it’s difficult and dangerous to get at. So Yotov has established a permanent presence there, in the form of this refueling depot, which is really a base for operations to recover said stuff from the Shiraku’t,” I said. “That sure seems to be the case,” Perry replied. “But bonus points for the refueling depot actually being a legitimate thing as well. Ships can actually refuel there, meaning it’s probably a profitable operation in its own right. Mind you, it’s not well advertised and seems to be staying below the radar, so I’m assuming the sorts of ships that refuel there are the ones that, ah, would prefer to stay below the radar themselves.”

“So, criminals,” Rab put in. “They’d be at the top of the list, yeah.”

“Where is this Parnik’s Duo system, anyway?” Torina asked. Perry put a star chart on the display over the galley table, with a system highlighted. “Right there, just outside Six Stars League space, on a remote but usable course to and from Unity space.”

I exchanged a surprised glance with Torina. “Six Stars League?”

“Yeah. We haven’t been getting the news much. Brynn’s World declared their secession from the League about three days ago, it seems. They claim

that the central League government has broken down, that all they’re interested in is collecting taxes and pillaging the Brynn’s World system for resources, but they aren’t providing anything in return. They’ve declared themselves an independent power and have asked the Eridani Federation for an alliance. The Eridani are playing it coy for now, saying only that they recognize Brynn sovereignty, their right to self-determination, blah-blah.”

I puffed out a breath. “Okay, so the League is starting to fall apart. I guess the Provisional Government isn’t. Great. A whole swath of known space bordering both the Eridani and the Ceti Alliance falling into instability and chaos. That’s just what we need right now.”

“The League’s been weak and corrupt since day one,” Torina said, her eyes hard with contempt. “I guess the whole affair with the Tenants was the final blow. If it all falls apart and erupts into civil war, it’s going to be happening around and right up to the borders of Helso.”

I touched the little shipping tag that had unlocked so much information. It was amazing what seemingly inconsequential things could suddenly prove so pivotal. But I looked at Perry. “Bird, you opened this by suggesting that this tag might not have been left on this wrapping by accident.”

He shrugged his wings. “Knowing how Yotov operates, I could see it being deliberate, an attempt to draw us into a trap again, yeah. But honestly, I don’t think it is. I think somebody just screwed up and neglected to remove it. There’s no way Yotov and her people could know for sure when and even if we’d use that tool. For all they know, we could have lost it, sold it, or even given it away. If it were a trap, I think it would be something more predictable.”

“There’s also the fact that this shell game of corporations is at least two decades old,” Netty-P added. “Moreover, she has several similar depots, and at least three of those correspond to other locations noted in the Shiraku’t. I think it’s unlikely she’d base one of her traps on such an established and obviously profitable business network.”

“No, she’d probably just create something new and disposable,” Rab said. “This, though—this sounds like a big revenue generator for her.”

Torina’s face took on a predatory look. “If it is, and we can disrupt it, we might be able to put a crimp in her cash flow.”

“And all because someone forgot to remove a shipping tag from the packaging on a tool,” Gabby noted, staring at the little device. “Honestly, we like to think breaks in cases come from hard detective work, and sometimes they do,” Perry said. “But it’s often little screwups by the bad guys that end up doing them in. A famous serial killer on Earth, known as the “Son of Sam,” was caught because he parked his car beside a fire hydrant and got a parking ticket. Another one, Albert Fish, decided to send a letter to taunt the mother of one of his victims. He used an envelope he found in the boarding house where he was staying, not realizing it had a faint watermark on it that the police were able to trace.” He shrugged his wings. “Even some uber-cunning, criminal arch mastermind only has to screw up once.”

“Still means we need to be careful,” I said. “Netty, please contact Droox on the Prowler. I’ve got a job for her. We’ll get her to scope out UT-08A, and if it seems to be nothing more than it appears, a refueling depot—well, we’re always in the market for fuel, aren’t we?”

I DECIDED we’d use the Fafnir to visit the depot called UT-08A. The more we thought about it, the less likely we thought it was a trap, so the risk was probably relatively low. Moreover, since the depot served the semi-legitimate purpose of refueling ships taking a suspiciously roundabout path from known space to Unity, it was outside the Parnik’s Duo system’s gravity well. If worse came to worst, we could always just twist away. That said, I didn’t want to tempt fate, either. I’d given the AIs leave to spoof the beacon—a significant crime in itself, but I consoled myself with a

“greater good” argument. They created a false identity for the ship, that of the fast freighter Dance of Fortune. The fake ID was impressive, right down to every last little detail, but that wasn’t surprising. Perry, Netty, and Netty-P had seen hundreds of falsified transponders in their time, so they knew exactly which mistakes to avoid and how to make it truly convincing. If anyone could commit an undetectable crime, it would probably be a cop. And if that cop happened to be a hyper-sophisticated AI capable of scrutinizing data down to its fundamental bits the way a star chews through hydrogen, so much the better. We did take the better part of a day to also reconfigure the Fafnir a little. This consisted of moving weapons between hardpoints, something we

only did with a thorough inspection of every tool, nut, and bolt involved. It didn’t change the Fafnir operationally, just made some cosmetic adjustments that altered her profile a little. We also vac-painted on some hull data that would match the bogus transponder code. Partly to further muddy the waters of the ship’s identity, and partly for the hell of it, I told Icky and the others outside to go ahead and exercise some creativity and paint some other stuff on the hull. “But nothing obscene, please. And nothing like SCREW YOTOV or BITE ME, EQUAL GRASP, either. We don’t want to attract attention, hmm?”

We ended up with some abstract graffiti, like we’d parked the Fafnir a little too long in a bad neighborhood, the Kelly’s Heroes version of the famous “Kilroy was here” drawing complete with the line, Up Yours, Baby, on the port side of the cockpit, and a quote I couldn’t immediately place on the starboard side. Our danger is real, we will need all our cunning to bring them to heel. Perry was responsible for the last one. Eyes narrowed on the image, I asked him where it was from. He appeared on the other side of the canopy, looking in at me. “Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo. It’s spoken by Javert, the policeman obsessed with tracking down and bringing to justice Jean Valjean. I thought it was appropriate—a cop determined to run down the bad guy, get it?”

“Well, yeah, but doesn’t Javert end up, you know, committing suicide?”

“So don’t do that part, Van, sheesh. Life doesn’t have to imitate art.”

My ship definitely no longer had the sleek, sinister, and purposeful look she once did. She now had a decidedly scruffy thing going on, which was good. But I was inspired. I had Netty run a couple of queries, then told Perry, Icky, and the others to paint one more thing on the ship, this time right across her prow. That way, it would be visible to anyone we approached. The rings of gold, the fire-red treasure, will drag you down to your doom. “Boss, are you sure about that?

Might be a little on the nose, don’t you think?” Perry asked. “Maybe. But while we might have to skulk around and hide behind fake IDs, it doesn’t mean we can’t put some sass into it,” I replied. “I don’t get it. I assume it’s an Earth thing?” Rab asked. I nodded to him through the canopy as he moved to the prow of the ship, Icky right behind him. “It is. It’s a quote.”

“A quote by whom?”

“A dragon named Fafnir.”

17

WE ARRIVED at Parnik’s Duo already knowing what to expect. The Prowler had been there for the better part of a day, quietly casing the joint. The binary stars really were something. I was long since used to space by now, so it was rare for something to jump out at me. A red dwarf?

Seen a bunch of them. Gas giants up-close and personal?

A dime a dozen. White dwarfs, blue giants, red giants?

Done, done, and done. A freakin’ neutron star?

Been there, got the t-shirt, and had no particular desire to go anywhere near one of those ravenous little monsters ever again. What I wasn’t used to, though, was actually seeing any of these things moving. A moon might be whipping around a gas giant, say, at tens of thousands of kilometers per hour. But unless you took the time to watch closely against some fixed point of reference, you’d never actually notice any movement. But the twinned white dwarfs of Parnik’s Duo were moving, two bright points of white slowly but noticeably revolving around a common center of mass or barycenter. That slowly was misleading though. The two compact little stars were still several million klicks apart, so their actual velocity was something mind-bogglingly fast—fast enough, in fact, that there were relativistic effects, a noticeable reddening of the light when they were moving away from you, a bluing of it when they came tearing back around toward you. According to Netty, it was a literal death spiral. Each orbit brought the two dwarf stars a little closer together, and that decrease in distance was

accelerating. Eventually, they’d slam into one another with all the fury you’d expect from crashing one Sol into another at some ungodly velocity. What would happen then was all conjecture. A colossal explosion that blew apart both stars?

Maybe. Their merging into a more massive white dwarf, or further collapse into a neutron star?

Possibly. Whatever happened, it would be one hell of a spectacle—to watch from very far away. But it wasn’t going to happen today. Today, we arrived just as another ship was departing the depot. We tensed. It was a Nesit-registered courier, a class 7, that immediately twisted away. It never lit us up with active scanners and was presumably more interested in getting on with whatever business had brought it here. “Okay, Netty, please do all your handshaking and stuff and get us set up for a refueling stop.” I turned to Torina. “And stand by on those weapons, just in case our disguise isn’t as good as we hope it is.”

I watched the display as Netty identified us as the Dance of Fortune and requested approach and docking clearance. The depot’s AI responded immediately—with its own request for an account to which it could bill the costs. We were ready with that, too. Torina and Netty-P had, with her parents’

help, created a new account under a dormant shell company her family owned for some esoteric accounting reason, no doubt related to reducing taxes owed or something similar. It contained one hundred thousand bonds they’d routed through a complicated chain of intermediate steps. As they explained it to me, it struck me that these arcane financial shenanigans were themselves an entire battlefield in the greater war we were fighting. And it was a battlefield whose paths, contours, dead-ends, and pitfalls Torina knew intimately—as well as anyone, certainly, and far better than most. Still, we waited a few tense seconds while the depot’s AI confirmed the account details. I kept my fingers poised near the propulsion controls, ready to command Netty to twist us the hell out of here. When we finally got the response, though, it was simply confirmation, approval to dock with all the requisite docking data appended—and a list of charges. I grimaced at the display. “We were just charged one thousand bonds for a comms surcharge. What the hell is that?

And what’s this administrative fee?

And an offer to open a convenience account, so we can prepay all

charges—with a low recurring service fee and competitive interest rates?

Really?”

“Oh, Yotov’s playing really dirty now,” Perry said. “She’s offering us a freakin’ credit card. Next thing you know, it’s going to be balance transfers, and then affordable spacecraft insurance, and then the worst thing of all.”

“What’s that?” I asked him. “The lowest of the low. Instead of lower prices, she’ll offer us loyalty rewards.”

I HATED TO ADMIT IT, but UT-08A was actually quite pleasant. The docking module led straight into a clean, brightly lit, and impeccably tailored space that could have been sliced out of any shopping mall back in the States. It was beige, with some of the moldings and furnishings rendered in fancy shades like taupe, putty, or even—wait for it—ecru, just to add some color. The only “life” was several displays of decorative plants that managed to seem sad and out of place. “Wow. This place has all the charm of a doctor’s waiting room,” I said, looking around. I wasn’t even sure what it was for. Just a place, I guessed, for a crew to step off their ships and stretch their legs. There was a bank of vending machines dispensing snacks, drinks, and miscellaneous odds and ends, and a more elaborate one that you could purchase tools from. All of them were, of course, exorbitantly marked up. Icky tapped the tool dispenser. “Now we know how they covered up bringing that cutter-welder they fiddled with here. They probably order periodic restocks for this thing.”

“Sure. Have it shipped here as one of those restocks, then take it to Anvil Dark to give to us,” I said, then turned to the comm. “Netty-P, any twist-comm activity from this station yet?”

“No. I’ve got our comm array configured to jam any transmissions, like you asked, but there have been no attempts at outgoing traffic,” she replied. I nodded. “Okay, that clinches it, I think. If the station AI was on the lookout for us”—I spread my arms and turned around—“well, here we are. If the AI hasn’t tried to phone home to tell Yotov we’re here by now, it probably isn’t going to.”

Icky grinned, looked around until she saw an imager, then bent over and exposed her ample butt to it. “Hey, Yotov, the moon’s really bright tonight, huh?”

I grinned and turned to Perry. “Speaking of the station AI —”

“I’ve examined Netty’s handshake data. Its security countermeasures are pretty good. Give me time, and I can peel my way through them —”

“How much time?”

“Not sure. Minutes at least, maybe up to an hour or so if there turns out to be a lot of firewalls and things.”

“Or?”

“Or we could burn our way through it all in a few seconds using our secret weapon.”

I nodded, knowing that was the or. I was leery of getting too comfortable using our Calamity-derived software superweapon. Again, if we got found out, the result would be a much more aggressive search, and not just by the Guild and the bad guys. “Perry, can we use it and be confident we won’t leave any traces of it?”

I asked him. “I’m ninety-five percent-plus sure. If you want to be one hundred percent, though, we could just wipe and overwrite the whole system. It would leave the station dead in space, but since the only crew consists of those potted plants over there—and whatever their equivalent is in the parts of this depot given over to other atmospheres—I don’t think that would be too harsh. Besides, Yotov could just install a new AI to restore it.”

“That would also erase all evidence of us ever having been here.”

“Yeah, so that’s an added benefit—isn’t it?

Or am I missing something here?” he asked me. I glanced around. “I don’t know, I kinda like the idea of Yotov staring straight into Icky’s butt.”

“I suppose I could download the surveillance imagery, then upload it back into the depot’s archives after we’ve wiped them.”

I smiled. “Fine. Let’s do it.”

Perry stared amber at me for a moment, then nodded. “And done. I now have complete control of this place. Where would you like to start?”

My smile turned a shade more sinister. “Has our account been billed for fuel, docking, and all the other bullshit charges yet?”

“Nope. They’ll be batched up and charged to us once we depart. And the bird anticipates what’s coming next—you want me to zero out all those charges, don’t you?”

That smile became a grin. “Oh, yes. Please do.”

HAVING COMPLETE, core-level access to the depot’s computational infrastructure meant that nothing was hidden from us. Ordinarily, I’d be thrilled to have access to something like the depot’s logs, which would have been a trove of intel regarding who was using this obscure route to travel to and from Unity space and when. But the log was self-deleting, so no such records existed. Only I didn’t care. It was what else we found, the other things the place was being used for, that did interest me—deeply. At the top of that list was a hidden storage bay. Perry directed us to it, behind a machinery space that opened off the mall-like concourse. He opened it, revealing a compartment about five by five meters, full of shelves neatly racked with containers of various sizes, all labeled with cryptic alphanumeric codes. “In case you’re interested, there are two slug turrets mounted in the overheads. Whatever’s in here was pretty well-protected,” he said, gesturing a wing at two small domes mounted among the cableways and pipe conduits. “Unexpected, point-blank slug fire?

That might be enough to punch through a b-suit. Yeah, I can see that being a bit of a disincentive to screw around in here,” I said, peering at the containers. Icky and Funboy were off investigating the vending machines, which were now also under our control

—and which they no doubt intended to empty the contents of, if they could. Torina, Netty, and Netty-P were aboard the Fafnir—sorry, the Dance of Fortune—keeping the motor running and the guns ready, leaving me with Perry, Rab, and Gabby to sort through whatever these hidden treasures were. “There must be a hundred boxes here,” Gabby said, looking around. “All of them locked.” She tapped one with a protoplasmic finger. “Any idea what these codes mean?”

“Sorry, that info isn’t in the depot’s archives. It must be separate, on a data pad, or even written down somewhere,” Perry replied. “We could just bring all of these boxes with us, open them at our leisure,” Rab suggested. I frowned up at the two dormant slug turrets. “I wouldn’t put it past these people for one, or even several of these to be booby-trapped, a bomb —”

“No, the answer must be here. This is too organized,” Gabby said. I glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“It’s all so neat. That suggests people who want things to be easily found. And if you know about this compartment, you’re already on the inside, as it were.” She looked up at the turrets. “I don’t think those are mainly meant to keep people out. I think it’s a way of ensuring that whoever’s granted access to all this doesn’t try to take something that doesn’t belong to them.”

I nodded as she spoke. “It’s like a safety deposit lockup. You come in, drop off or pick up your stuff, but leave the other stuff alone. So, yeah, there must be a key of some sort to these codes—” I thought for a moment. “Let’s look for a box that isn’t locked.”

With four of us searching, it took less than a minute to find an unlocked box. Perry scanned it and declared it as safe from booby traps as he could, then we opened it. Sure enough, it contained a data pad. It was, of course, itself locked, but Perry Calamity’d his way through it in an eye-blink. We examined its contents, which weren’t much—really just an inventory of the compartment. But what an inventory—chems, bonds, precious metals and gemstones, some data modules, a few other items of miscellaneous contraband. About twenty boxes were blank, so presumably were currently empty. And three boxes just had more unintelligible codes beside them. We decided to leave those alone. We spent the next twenty minutes or so pillaging the place. Perry discovered that he—or rather, the depot’s AI—could unlock the boxes, which made sense. There were actual keys, it seemed, both hardware and software, that the clients presumably used. Most boxes required only one, but a few used two, and one, containing a spiffy, high-capacity data crystal, needed three. By the time we were done, we’d amassed an estimated three million bonds in cash, precious metals, and gems, as well as half a dozen data

modules and that mysterious data crystal. We ejected the chems and other obviously illegal things into the void through an unused air lock, then closed and locked everything again. When we were done, the place looked exactly as it had when we first found it. “I foresee much consternation when this is discovered,” Gabby said. “A lot of people just lost a lot of money.”

I grinned and nodded to Perry, signaling he could seal the compartment up again. “Yup. Ain’t it sweet?”

Gabby nodded. “Very, yes!

I only wish I could see it when the first one here to open their box finds it empty!”

I patted her arm as we turned back for the Fafnir. “Me too, Gabs.”

“THAT CASH IS GOING to make a huge difference,” Icky agreed as we sealed up the ship and prepared to disembark. “But get a load of this haul!”

She swept all four arms majestically around the crew lounge. Every surface, even the couch, was piled with small packages and boxes. Snacks of every description, sweet, savory, salty, umami, and apparently every combination thereof. I sighed. “Was it really necessary to entirely empty out every vending machine?”

“Uh—yeah?

I mean, duh?”

I gave her a thin smile. “Well, your next challenge, big girl, is stowing all this stuff. And I don’t want to find snacks stashed behind every pipe and conduit, either. I mean properly stowed.”

Rab sniffed a laugh. “You’d better get eating, Icky.”

“Pfft. Way ahead of you guys. The holding cells are empty, and we’re not likely arresting anyone soon, are we?” she countered. I rolled my eyes. “Go for it. But if we do need to use one of the cells, you’re going to have to find somewhere else to neatly stow this stuff, or it’s heading into the void.”

They’d also raided the tool-vending machine. They were able to replace the cutter-welder with a functional one and obtain replacements and spares for a bunch of other tools, as well. Unsurprisingly, none of these had been sabotaged, since injuring or killing your customers isn’t good for repeat business. Perry was waiting for me in the cockpit. “Okay, I’ve completely wiped the depot’s computational systems and overwritten them with random noise. The only data remaining on them is Icky’s exposed butt and that note you wanted to leave Yotov. Oh, and I left the refueling system unlocked and fully accessible. Anyone who wants to gas up here can still do so—for free.”

I looked at the depot, which was hanging in space about a klick away, backdropped by the whirling pair of white dwarfs. My note to Yotov had been short and sweet. Thanks for all the goodies. When we get low, we’ll find another of your sketchy little depots and raid it, too. Love, Van. It was snarky and petty, and I didn’t care. But it wasn’t just snarky and petty. Hopefully, we’d just given Yotov a major headache. She’d been holding all sorts of money and other stuff in trust for some people who no doubt paid her well for it, and that trust hadn’t just been undermined—it had been undermined, collapsed in on itself, buried, and then undermined again. Not only would she have to contend with all those pissed-off customers, but when word of this got out, there’d also likely be a rush to empty out anything squirreled away on her other refueling depots. And on top of that, the security of her whole depot network was now in doubt. Like the Grasp’s virtual spy network, it had been operating for decades, and then we’d come along and somehow managed to breeze through the best security money could buy, raid the place, and leave, all in a little over an hour. She’d have to scramble not only to restore this depot, but also to protect all the others. To quote Gabby, yeah, there was going to be much consternation in the very near future. It made me smile. WE RETIRED BACK to Shhh to get some time in actual air that wasn’t processed and recirculated, light that wasn’t artificial. Perry and Netty-P set about examining the contents of the data modules and the single data crystal we’d retrieved. They took the precaution of doing it with their own data comms switched off, away from the ships, and using a reader that was

connected to an isolated data pad. We didn’t know if someone had obtained their own copy of Calamity, after all. And it would be the height of tragic irony if we ended up falling prey to a Calamity infection. While they did that, Torina and I wandered down to the river to spend some time just being us. Her pregnancy was definitely starting to show. Her b-suit, marvelous thing that it was, would stretch to accommodate her, but that brought me to my point. “I think, my dear, it’s time for you to go to Helso and stay there.”

She stared at the river for a moment, then shook her head. “Not yet. Soon, yes. But not yet. Not until we’ve finished the Anvil Dark job.”

“Torina—”

“Van, that’s going to be an all hands on deck operation. Those are your words.”

“I know, but we —”

She was looking at me, and I subsided. I knew that look. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. But she relented a bit, too. “I’m not saying I have to be one of the people who actually goes aboard Anvil Dark. I probably shouldn’t be, in fact. The more recognizable people we send in, the more likely we are to blow the whole thing. In fact, Icky’s been making noise about getting back to see her children, so that might be a good opportunity for it since there aren’t many more recognizable than her. But there are going to be supporting jobs. Retrieving the AI modules from their storage depot once the security’s compromised, for instance.”

She shook her head. “No, if you think I’m going to lounge around on Helso with my feet up while the man I love and the people I care most about are involved in something like that—” She gave me a mischievous smile. “Oh, yeah, and you’ll be there, too.”

I grinned and pushed her down into the grass, then held her arms down. She could have thrown me off four or five different ways, but she just stared back up at me, a smile playing on her lips. “Is this any way to treat a woman in my condition?”

I shook my head. “No, but this is,” I said, lowering my mouth to hers. When I pulled away again, she narrowed her eyes at me. “Does this mean you agree?

I get to be part of the big Anvil Dark op?”

“Was I ever going to be able to say no in a way that mattered?”

“Nope. I laughed but turned serious again. “A supporting role only, though.”

She looked at me—then flexed herself just so, and suddenly I was the one on the bottom and pinned. “Yes, because I’m too fragile for anything more dangerous,” she said. “Something like that.”

We kissed again. This time, it was a while before we stopped. 18

LATER THAT DAY, as dusk was falling over our little corner of Shhh, the AIs presented the result of their investigations of the various data media we’d found. As we gathered in the Fafnir’s crew lounge, Perry mentioned that they’d used the Calamity method to break into two of them, which made me raise my hand. “Bird, I really appreciate how clever that bit of software was, and how useful it’s proving to be. But I’m getting a little concerned we’re—I don’t know, using it a little too freely. Getting a little too comfortable with pulling it out when we need to solve a problem.”

Rab nodded. “As Van’s said before, if our enemies get wind of it, it could backfire on us spectacularly.”

Perry nodded. “Fair enough. We’ll limit its use from here on.”

“Actually, I’m going to go a step further than that. Considering how mission critical it is in terms of delivering it to Anvil Dark to free those AIs from Guild control, I’m putting a moratorium on using it without my express permission—genuine emergencies excepted, of course.”

Perry and Netty-P both nodded in their respective, particular ways. “Understood, boss.”

“Okay, so what did you find?” I asked. “Well, if we were still Peacemaking, lots. We found records of financial transactions that would fascinate the Guild’s forensic accounting wonks, records of shipments of illicit cargo that would get the tax and excise people in about two dozen different systems salivating, and records of meetings

that could prompt some pretty pointed questions for some reasonably important people,” Perry said. I sat up. “Please tell me that some of it implicates Yotov in serious crimes.”

Netty-P shook her imager. “Sadly, no. We looked for any clear references to Yotov, the Grasp, or members of the Grasp like Lesthrix and Jacob Marley, but no. There are some unknown persons heavily implicated in a few significant crimes, but they’re just that—unknown.”

I sat back in my chair. “Well, that’s disappointing.”

“So you didn’t find anything of immediate use to us?” Torina asked. “Oh, we aren’t saying that,” Perry replied. “In fact, the data crystal didn’t have much on it—far less than one percent of its rated capacity, in fact—but what it did have was very interesting. It was probably on the crystal because high-end data crystals like that one are among the most secure forms of data storage. It’s why they’re so expensive. The one we found probably runs about one hundred thousand bonds.”

I whistled. “But your Calamity virus busted through it, I take it.”

“Like a plasma cutter through butter—at least, one that doesn’t blow up in its user’s face,” Perry said, winking at Rab. He smirked and shook his head. “Thanks, Perry. I was just managing to put that behind me.”

“Anytime, Rab.”

Netty-P picked up the thread of conversation. “The crystal contained a triple whammy—a location on the Shiraku’t, a missing class 4 courier ship, and another clear connection between the Equal Grasp and the Stillness.”

“But not the happy, collegial sort of connection. More of a, we hate these other guys and are determined to screw them over sort of connection,”

Perry put in. I sat up again. “Ooh, tell me more.”

“Well, the Stillness has, for a long time, been the preeminent criminal syndicate in known space and probably beyond it. Your grandfather crossed swords with them and ever since Paress Kohl took over, they’ve only grown more powerful.”

I nodded. We’d encountered the Stillness right at the front end of my career, when one of their agents-slash-assassins called Shadows had tried to end my tenure while it was still getting going. We’d confronted a subsidiary of the Stillness, called the Fade, who’d been implicated in my father’s death

when his Super Hornet crashed shortly before landing on his carrier. We’d visited Lieutenant Commander Tudor—the Defense Department press release had erroneously referred to him as a Major when the wreckage of his plane was discovered. He’d beenkilled by the Fade. And we’d been instrumental in killing the Fade right back. But the Stillness was still out there, still in the iron grip of Paress Kohl. That said, we’d actually run up against them very rarely since. The Stillness lived up to its name—it effectively contracted out much of its overt criminality to third parties and just reaped the rewards. “But the Equal Grasp is now starting to walk all over their grass,” Perry said. “There might seem to be no end to the criminal profits to be made out there, but it really is a zero-sum game. And as the Equal Grasp’s star rises —”

“The Stillness’s sinks a little lower in the sky,” I said. “That explains why they tried to kill Onjaku, Yotov’s minion, when we had him besieged aboard his ship,” Funboy put in. “Exactly. And that brings us to the missing class 4 courier. It was a Stillness ship, loaded with—something. Something valuable. Something the Grasp really, really wanted to get their hands on. And it seems they did,”

Netty-P said. “How do we know that?” Icky asked, crinkling a bag of something that looked like chips. I sighed. Given the volume of snacks she’d brought aboard, we were going to be living with a lot of crinkling for the foreseeable future—and an ongoing need to keep emptying the Fafnir’s trash receptacles of wrappers. “Because said class 4 courier is currently in the system called BGS1786-A2, a rogue brown dwarf located just outside the rimward edge of known space,” Netty-P replied. We all exchanged glances. “We’re located just outside the rimward edge of known space right here, at Shhh,” I said. “Indeed. In fact, BGS1786-A2 is the third system away from us, to anti-spinward and galactically down. “That is one hell of a coincidence,” Rab said. Perry shook his head. “Not a coincidence at all. Remember that there was some preexisting settlement on this planet, one that was obliterated from orbit?

And how we thought the Tsarina was implicated in that?

Well, it was the Tsarina, working for the Equal Grasp, that managed to seize the

Stillness’s courier. She likely saw that BGS1786-A2 was on the Shiraku’t, marked as a location that’s been largely picked over and is no longer of much interest —”

“So it was the ideal place to stash her stolen ship,” I said. “But how long ago was this?

How do we even know it’s still there?”

“We don’t. But as for how long ago, the data on the crystal suggests all this happened shortly before we discovered Shhh. And it wasn’t long after that that the Tsarina died. That said, there’s one way to find out if that ship is still there, and if so, what it was carrying that was so important to the Equal Grasp,” Netty-P said. I nodded. “Netty, can you call up Droox —”

“And have her scope out BGS1786-A2 with the Prowler?

I’ve already got her standing by.”

“Thank you, my dear. Go ahead and give her the go signal. We’ll give her a day or so to watch the system, then go from there.”

“So a ship with a cargo that seems inordinately valuable to our enemies, stashed in a remote location by somebody who died shortly thereafter. And we only know about it because of a wildly improbable chain of events that started with a forgotten shipping tag,” Rab said, rubbing his chin. “This sounds easy. Unusually so.”

“Yeah, it certainly does.” I turned to Perry. “Unless there’s something you haven’t told us yet, like this BGS system is inhabited by spaceship-eating monsters or something.”

“Nope. No complications, boss. This one is easy as can be.”

I curled my lip at him. “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

THE PROWLER REPORTED nothing unusual about BGS1786-A2.

It was a hot brown dwarf star surrounded by a ring of debris, like a much larger and warmer version of Saturn. It was all on its own, though, a rogue on a trajectory that would eventually see it heading into intergalactic space. Droox detected no emissions that couldn’t be explained as natural phenomena, aside from a few metallic returns from the ring. Closer examination revealed them to be fragments of what had once been

spacecraft, but none of them were anything more interesting than random bits of hull plating and structural components. “It really was picked over, wasn’t it?” Torina said as we studied the Prowler’s data, in preparation for twisting there ourselves. “Which makes it a good candidate to hide something you don’t want found, since people are probably going to be specifically not interested in visiting,” Perry replied. With no obvious reason not to, we prepared to twist to BGS1786-A2.

I wanted to configure the ship for battle first, though, and as we were doing that, we got a twist-comm message from Valint. “Hello, mother of my father,” I said to her. “Note that I didn’t call you Grandma.”

“And I appreciate it,” she said brusquely. I frowned at her all-business attitude. “What is it?

What’s wrong?”

Her eyes were as hard as the data crystal we’d found. “Your bounty. The one offered by the Equal Grasp. It’s no longer measured in bonds. The Grasp, together with the Seven-now-Six Stars League, is now offering a royalty of one percent of its gross revenue from all of its trade with Earth, in perpetuity. That goes up to one-point-five percent if it also includes your crew and ship, all in one piece or otherwise.”

“Wow. We must really be getting under their skin.”

“Van, this isn’t good news.”

I nodded. “I know it’s not. But setting the good news-bad news aspect of it aside, the Grasp wouldn’t be cutting into their own earnings like that if they really didn’t want us out of the way.”

Torina was nodding. “One to one-point-five percent of gross revenue. I’m not sure what their overhead is, and I don’t know if they intend to pay taxes to at least try to make it look legit, but even so—that’s potentially a lot of bonds.”

“Tens of thousands, maybe the low hundreds of thousands every month

—and in perpetuity, at that. That’s not just a powerful incentive, it’s a powerful incentive to make sure the Grasp’s operations keep running, too,”

Perry put in. Icky spoke up. “What about our families?

My kids?”

Valint actually smiled a little. “We’ve anticipated that. I’ve alerted the P’nosk and the Wu’tzer, and they’ve redoubled security around your family. B was on her way to meet with your mother and caught an up-gunned class 14 lurking in the rendezvous system that was apparently tailing her. B took it out. Meanwhile, the Schegith have now declared Helso a closed system. Only ships with explicit permission from Helso authorities will be allowed to enter the system, and they’ll be fired on otherwise if they try.”

Her slight smile became a slight frown. “I also contacted the Surtsi. They seemed—strangely uninterested.”

Funboy nodded. “It is unsurprising. We Surtsi do not value family bonds the way other species do. I appreciate my progenitors contributing their genetic material to my conception, but I thanked them for it long ago. My obligations to them, and theirs to me, are therefore long since discharged.”

Perry put his wingtip on his chest. “Kinda gets you right here, doesn’t it?”

“I see,” Valint said, then went on. “Naturally, we constantly propagate false data about your location, but still—lessons must be taught. And sometimes, those lessons result in deaths and destruction.” She said it with as much emotion as someone reading aloud tomorrow’s weather forecast to find out if they needed to carry an umbrella. “Helluva warning,” I said. “Oh, no. Not a warning. A promise. I know I’m not… warm, Van. And neither is your mother. That was Mark’s thing, not mine. But, all due respect to the Surtsi, I am loyal to my blood, and I will turn a system to ashes if they look your way.”

“Well, maybe not the whole system, okay?

But thank you. And thank you for looking out for my crew’s families.”

“They are my blood as well. I just don’t send birthday cards.”

WE USED a new transponder code for this operation, one identifying us as the towing vessel Trying Hardest. However, there appeared to be absolutely no one else active in the BGS1786-A2 system, nor was there really much place for them to hide if there were. The Prowler could get away with it until she could no longer store her waste heat and had to twist away to dump it. But there was nothing like a Kuiper Belt or an Oort Cloud here. BGS1786-A2 was really just a big planet that was likely ejected from its home system long ago and brought its ring of debris along with it. We’d done a careful analysis of the Shiraku’t data, cross-referenced with the information from the data crystal, to narrow down our search. We had a pretty good idea which part of the ring harbored the stolen class 4, but it was still a vast volume of space filled with tens of thousands of rocks big enough to hide a ship its size. Once again, the Fafnir’s excellent scanners came to our rescue. Two hours into a methodical search pattern, they pinged something that wasn’t just random pieces of old spacecraft. A particular rock about a third the size of Manhattan returned a signal suggestive of something metallic, coinciding with a weak emission of radiation. Without the data from both the Shiraku’t and the crystal, we’d almost certainly have never found it. We kept the Fafnir in clear space and undocked the Frankie, using her in uncrewed mode as a sort of drone to take a closer look. Sure enough, her scanners and imagers were able to see the stolen class 4 tucked into a ravine on the side of the big rock facing the brown dwarf. That made it virtually impossible to detect from further out in the system. “Somebody went through a lot of trouble to hide this. I hope it doesn’t turn out the ship itself is empty,” Rab said, watching the Frankie’s imagery on the center cockpit display. “Or worse, it’s full of something that’s extremely valuable, but only to someone in particular—like a cache of scandalous love letters, or a stash of porn,” Funboy added. I glanced back at him. “Porn?

Really?”

“One can be very particular about their porn.”

“Is that a hint that you’re particular about your porn?” I asked him, smiling. He blinked back at me. “It—no, that is not what I meant —”

“So you’re not particular about your porn.”

“I—no. Or—yes—or no!

What I meant —”

I laughed. Everyone else was smiling or grinning. “Sorry, Funboy, couldn’t resist,” I said. He sighed. “It is gratifying that I can provide you all with such amusement, I suppose. But then, I am a wit.”

“You’re half right,” Icky muttered, and we all laughed. Funboy grinned at her. “Well struck, marksman.”

“I ain’t a man,” Icky countered. Funboy grinned again, verging on a smile. “Whoa, I take it back, just point that thing somewhere else!” Icky said. I was glad to see the snarky camaraderie play out among the crew. We’d taken some hard knocks for sure, but if we could laugh like this, we weren’t down yet. I unstrapped. “Okay, let’s go check what’s down there. Porn or not, we came all this way to find out, right?”

RAB, Icky, Perry, and I descended in the Frankie, leaving the Fafnir to watch out for trouble. We prepared for an opposed boarding, armored and gunned up. Even if there were no living opponents, there might be mechanical ones—and the “final boss” in Dohlennz’s house of horrors was still vividly fresh in our minds. But we reached the grounded ship unopposed, and Icky was able to crack the airlock controls on the exterior, hot-wire in a power cell, and cycle it open. The radiation, we discovered, was coming from a fusion drive sorely in need of overhaul. Over time, neutron bombardment from the fusion plasma induced elements in the drive components to themselves become radioactive, and they had to be replaced. This ship hadn’t seen the inside of a shop in a long time, though. The radiation wasn’t dangerous, at least with a relatively brief exposure. But it suggested a ship that had been worked hard and long right up to the moment it had been stolen and brought here. We likewise encountered no automated defenses, traps, or other hazards once on board. However, we also found nothing of note, her small cargo hold being empty. That left me with a bit of a sinking feeling, but that vanished once Perry accessed the ship’s systems, hacking them the old-fashioned way rather than using the Calamity method. It took him longer—

almost five minutes—but he was finally able to gain full access and discover the ship’s hidden cargo hold. “Right underneath the power plant and drive, huh?” Icky said, peering at the display Perry had lit up. “Hope it’s nothing that can’t take some rads, because the flux that close to the fusion plenum is going to be pretty fierce.”

I narrowed my eyes at the display. Was that the reason the drive hadn’t been overhauled?

So the resulting radiation would be a disincentive to start poking around in the engineering bay?

The rads here in the cockpit weren’t bad, but they would increase dramatically closer to the power plant. “Van, I’ll go check it out. We P’nosk are pretty rad resistant,” Rab offered. I thought about it. We could lug Waldo down here and have him do it, but Rab was right here, and he was, indeed, far more tolerant of rads than the rest of us. “Okay, but Perry, you go check it out first. Whatever’s down there, scan it for booby traps and things. If it’s clear, pull out and let Rab do the retrieval.”

Perry saluted me with a wing. “Roger-dodger, boss.”

While we waited in the cockpit, Perry and Rab went aft. Rab found and opened the secret cargo compartment, then Perry entered and checked it out. “I see two—no, make that four cargo cases, each a little bigger than a shoebox. A human shoebox, not some gigantic Wu’tzer one. I’m scanning no traps or anything, but yeah, the rads down here are pretty bad. A human would be looking at critical exposure in maybe five minutes. Rab, you should be good for about fifteen or twenty, but I wouldn’t stay any longer. Oh, and for added fun, you’re going to be stuck on your hands and knees, and you’re going to have to work your way between the drive mounts.”

“Looking forward to it,” Rab said wryly, then switched places with Perry and wormed his way back to the crates. “Holy crap these are heavy,” he groaned. “Oh, and—” He swore. “I can eventually get them moving, but they’re —”

CLUNK. I tensed. “Rab?”

Some muttered curses, then, “Sorry, it’s the low gravity. These cases have a lot of inertia, so it’s hard getting them started and just as hard getting the damned things stopped again.”

After twenty minutes, he’d managed to extract three of the cases. And, sure enough, by then he’d reached the limit of safe rad exposure even for a P’nosk. I reserved judgment on the fourth until we found out what these three contained. Perry tried the mag-lock on the first case, then shook his head. “Van, this is high-end stuff. We’re looking at an hour anyway for me to crack the

security on it.”

I sighed. “Go ahead, use —”

CLICK. “—the Calamity thing.”

Icky opened the case. It contained ingots of silvery metal. Perry immediately looked up at me. “Not surprised they hid this. It’s osmium. I make it ten five-kilogram ingots, so fifty kilos total, or enough to chip about fifty thousand people.”

“If the other cases contain the same—” Icky said, her eyes wide behind her visor. I nodded. “Yeah. Enough of the stuff to chip a couple of hundred thousand people.” I turned to Rab, who was resting. “How many more cases could have fit in there?”

“Another eight to ten, easily.”

“Shit. Let’s hope that hidden space wasn’t once full of osmium, and this is all that’s left.”

“Actually, Van, just this much osmium, two hundred kilos, is a substantial chunk of the total production of known space over a standard year,” Perry said. “I doubt that the equivalent of most of the yearly production could have just gone missing like this. Not without somebody noticing and complaining.”

“So this has been accumulated over time, or somebody’s got other sources of the stuff,” I said. “Either way, this has got to put a massive crimp in the bad guys’ plans if they’re chipping people, right?” Icky asked. I patted her shoulder. “Now you know why the Grasp is willing to pay so much bloody money to get rid of us.”

I looked down at the boxes and sighed. “And after we take this away from them, it’s only going to get worse.”

WE RETURNED the Frankie to the Fafnir, delivered Rab to receive some anti-rad drugs, then brought it back down with Funboy and Waldo aboard. While Waldo retrieved the remaining box, Funboy checked Icky and me out for exposure. “You are currently fine, but I would not recommend staying here more than another hour. The b-suits block alpha and beta radiation effectively, but there is a substantial amount of gamma radiation emanating from the drive, and the b-suits provide only limited protection,” he said, giving us each a prophylactic dose of anti-rad drugs. We didn’t have to spend even close to another hour, though. Once Waldo had laboriously dragged the last box of osmium from its hiding place, we prepared to leave. “Van, the only system running aboard this tub is internal surveillance. Do you want me to erase and overwrite it?” Perry asked. I looked at him, then at Funboy. “No, I don’t think so. Icky delivered our greetings back at the refueling depot. Funboy, would you care to do the honors here?

I realize mooning in a b-suit doesn’t have quite the same impact —”

“I would be delighted,” he said, turning to the imager in the cockpit. “I will leave behind a suitable acknowledgement for when these reprehensible people come back for their filthy goods.”

He lifted his hands, extended both middle fingers, and stuck out his tongue. “And I’m ready for my close-up,” he said, holding the pose a moment. He then turned to follow us back to the Frankie. “Now that is art.”

19

WE RETURNED TO SHHH, where Adayluh Creel informed us we’d received two cryptic twist-comm messages, one relayed to us by B, the other by Valint. Adayluh and her father Filic had, by now, turned Shhh into a bountiful place, with Permada wheat and a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables growing. It allowed us to bring fresh produce along with us when we flew, which was another big morale booster. The messages, though, were cryptic. The first was from a Peacemaker I’d never heard of before, named Aklateen. The twist-comm network didn’t know where to find us, of course, but Valint had intercepted the message and forwarded it to us. All that Aklateen said was that they needed to speak to us urgently, having information that was too sensitive to transmit over the comm. “Wow. Obvious trap. Is that really the best our opposition can do?”

Netty said. I nodded as the Fafnir deorbited, preparing to land on Shhh. “No kidding. Still—I might be willing to let this Aklateen come to us, to a place and time of our choosing. And with suitable precautions in place, of course. What’s the other message?”

“This one, relayed by B, is even more interesting. It’s from Jamberac.”

I blinked. Shit. The last we’d seen of Jamberac, he’d gone undercover to investigate the sketchy bank peddling an alternative currency to bonds, called tabs. Shortly thereafter, our world had been upended, and I’d simply lost track of him. “The message is cryptic indeed. Jamberac says that he’s inside and gives a means of contacting him—a code word to broadcast on a particular comm channel in the Reticulum system. If we do that, he’ll respond as soon as he can thereafter,” Netty said. “What’s the code word?” I asked. “Reverie.”

I glanced at Torina. She shrugged. Reverie, the name of the remote research outpost where the combi-drive had originated, was extremely secret. Of course, that didn’t mean the secret hadn’t gotten out, particularly with Yotov now involved. Still, the choice of code word could be a bit of a message in itself. Of more interest was him being —

“Inside,” I said. “Inside what?”

“Well, if he was trying to infiltrate that bank, the one we think Dayna Jasskin’s old partner Chensun set up, then inside that, I guess,” Torina said. “What, he got a job as a teller or something?” Icky asked. Funboy spoke up. “In undercover ops, ‘inside’ normally refers to having obtained access to the culture surrounding a particular target. It is more likely, therefore, that he has inserted himself in the criminal culture that will have naturally accreted around this alternative bank.”

“That could be extremely useful,” Netty-P said. I nodded my agreement. “Indeed it could. I think that, as we make our way to deal with this Aklateen, whoever they are, we should swing by Reticulum and make contact with Jamberac.”

“If nothing else, he’d probably like to know we’re still out here for him to talk to in the first place,” Torina added. “That’s assuming it’s really him, or that he hasn’t been co-opted by the bad guys or even turned on us and it’s another trap,” Gabby offered. Again, I nodded. “True, although faked or coerced or something I could buy, but not him turning on us. He’s worked very hard to get out from the scummy shadow of his family, and I can’t see him just throwing that away.”

“But it could still be a trap.”

“Yeah, that it could.”

WE DECIDED to contact Jamberac first but would limit our exposure while doing so. I traveled with Perry to Reticulum in the Prowler, but we stayed at our twist point rather than heading in-system. Instead, I had one of the workboats detached from the Unobtrusive and flown to Reticulum. Piloted by a pair of Conoku, it started a slow passage into the system, taking a wide, arcing trajectory that would keep it close to twist distance from the star. At the same time, we connected to it with a comm beam from the Prowler, then relayed the codeword “Reverie” through it on the comm channel Jamberac had—supposedly—given us. And then we waited. It took nearly an hour, but Jamberac finally responded. He was somewhere outside, amid some sort of parkland. The geodesic sweep of the domed pleasure city framed his head as he peered down into what must be the secure data pad he’d taken with him—hell, weeks ago, now. “Hello, Van. Seems a lot has happened since we last talked.”

“You might say that, yeah. How long until you reach Crossroads?”

That last bit was a Peacemaker code. Any answer other than My plans have changed, I’m heading to Dregs instead meant that he was being coerced or compromised in some way. It was far from foolproof—for instance, it wouldn’t help if he was willingly assisting the bad guys. But it was at least a smidge more certainty. He smiled. “My plans have changed. I’m heading to Dregs.”

I smiled back at him and shrugged. “Sorry, I’m just not big on trust these days.”

“Neither am I. Look, I don’t have much time to talk. This hack I’m using on the comm system is pretty good, but if I overdo it, it’s going to alert the security people here. First off, though—all that stuff the Guild’s saying about you, I don’t believe any of it. Knowing you, and knowing the people on Anvil Dark—especially that little creep Casaril—I know which side I’m coming down on.”

“I appreciate that, Jamberac, I really do. So what’s the story with you?”

“I kind of fell into a job as a courier for The Firm—that’s what this bank is called, The Firm. They sent me here, to Reticulum, to courier for a little operation they have running here. Basically, they have a couple of professional gamblers who play the tables, then hand me a percentage of their winnings, which I eventually take back to Bopul station. Then I come

back here and do it again. It’s a little revenue-generating scheme they’ve had going for a while.”

“That sounds… perfectly legal,” Perry said. “It is. That’s the beauty of it. But it’s also a tryout to see how reliable I am before they give me more, uh, complicated jobs.”

“How the hell did you fall into that?” I asked him. He shrugged. “My family association?

My natural charm and silver tongue?

Plus some dumb luck?

Maybe a lot of dumb luck?

Anyway, it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. I wanted you to know where I am and how to contact me if you need me. I guess I’m not that inside The Firm, but I do have a toe in the door.”

“Okay, Jamberac. That’s great. For now, just keep at it. I don’t have any specific requests yet, but if I do, I’ll definitely give you a call—for as long as you’re here, anyway.”

“I’m going to be doing this for a few more weeks.” He smiled. “An expense account on Reticulum isn’t bad work if you can get it, that’s for sure.”

I laughed, but only briefly. “Are you still reporting to the Guild?”

“I stopped once I landed this gig. With everything going on, I’m kinda like you trust-wise. In fact, I’m in the weird position of trusting my current employer more than the Guild.”

“Okay. Thanks, Jamberac. We’ll be in touch. And be careful.”

“I will. Very.”

As we released the workboat to return to the Unobtrusive, then set course back to Shhh, I mused on how Jamberac might be able to help us. If he managed to worm his way deeper into this so-called Firm, he might become a valuable asset indeed. As long as he didn’t get found out, of course. That would just make him dead. BACK AT SHHH, we tackled the matter of the Peacemaker named Aklateen. We’d already settled on letting them come to us, but we had to take precautions, so they became the focus of discussion. We decided to direct Aklateen to an intermediate system, where the Prowler would be stationed

to look them over, make sure they were traveling alone, and watch out for any warning signs of a trap. We’d then redirect them to the true destination system and meet them there—and then see what happened. “We need more firepower around for the meeting, though,” I said, whereupon B’s voice hummed from the comm in the Fafnir’s crew lounge. “Hi there, handsome!

You rang?”

I blinked in surprise. “Have you got us bugged now, B?”

“That was me,” Netty said. “I let her know what’s going on, so she was on the comm anyway.”

“You girls are in cahoots, aren’t you?”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” B said. “I missed Netty and haven’t had a chance to really talk with her, so we were getting caught up. Glad she’s back.”

“So are we all, yeah. Anyway, I gather you’ve got the gist of what we’re planning to do.”

“I do. And I’m en route. I’ve got some more medical supplies for you guys. I’m also coming with an offer to take Icky back with me when I leave, to spend time with her family. That comes from Paxomar.”

Icky looked at me. “Van, can I —?”

“Absolutely. You can sit out this meeting with Aklateen.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“Anyway, B, I’m glad you’re coming, and not just for the meds and for giving Icky a ride—although thanks for both those things, by the way. We have things to discuss,” I said. “And how,” B replied. “Oh, that means trouble. I can tell by the suggestive tone in her voice,”

Icky said. “I’m always like that, big girl. It’s called flirting.”

Icky stood, preening and flexing, muscles and tendons popping as she twirled in an oddly graceful way. “Um— ta-da, I guess?” Perry said. Icky bowed. “Now that’s flirting.”

B ARRIVED A FEW HOURS LATER. She had much-needed medical supplies, as well as spare b-suit components. That had been another of my worries, albeit one further down the list. Repairing damaged b-suits required specialized tools, materials, and skills, which we lacked. And bereft of access to Guild sources, if our b-suits got beaten up in a firefight, we had no easy way of bringing them back up to fighting spec. The spare components, spanning a range of sizes, meant we could replace the parts that got damaged. “Holy crap, B—thank you. This ticks a thing off my very long list of stuff that costs me sleep. Um, how did you —”

“Netty told me,” B said, smug as ever. “Hmph. So much for op-sec. But where did you come up with this stuff?” I asked her, as her crew lugged several crates of b-suit components off her ship and carried them toward our small settlement. “You don’t think the GKU—your mother, grandmother, the rest of them

—take their b-suits to Anvil Dark to be tailored, do you?

We’ve got our own stocks,” she replied. “Liberated from Anvil Dark?”

“Sure. Liberated. Let’s go with that. Anyway, I’ve got something for you,” she said, extracting a small book from a belt pouch and brandishing it at me. I recognized the symbols on it as belonging to an obscure religious sect that had existed across known space since long before I became a Peacemaker. “B, have you come all this way just to tell me the good word?”

Torina smirked. “Don’t take this the wrong way, B, but you’re one of the last people I’d have thought to be—well, devout.”

“Hey, I’m a complex person with hidden depths.” She opened the book. It was hollow, containing a small data module. She grinned at our questioning looks. “It’s almost as good as a diplomatic pouch. I get real religious anytime I’m about to be searched.”

Perry immediately began searching the sky. We all frowned at him. “Bird, what are you doing?” I asked him. “Making sure the stars didn’t burn out. Can’t see hell from here, so don’t know if it’s frozen over.”

“What is hell, anyway?

I picked it up from you guys, like what the hell is this and what the hell are you doing, but it just hit me that I don’t know

what it is,” Icky said. “It’s a lot like Philadelphia, actually, but with fewer cheesesteaks,”

Perry replied. I gave him a grimace—I actually like Philly—but Icky just shrugged. “Don’t sound bad to me.”

B smiled, but it was fleeting. “I gather Valint already let you know what’s being offered to run you down, Van.” She held up the data module. “I’ve got the bounty notices here. A percentage of Earth. A two percent royalty on their ill-gotten gains now. And anyone can cash in on you, alive or dead. They no longer care.” She handed over the module. “You are really getting on their nerves, it seems.”

“Glad I can oblige them,” I said, trying to sound flippant in a way I didn’t feel. “It also means they’re going to redouble whatever evil shenanigans they have underway on Earth, you know.”

“Yeah. I know. Which is why we’ve got to start moving things toward a climax, a turnaround.” I sighed. “Maybe this Aklateen has something we can use. Right now, we need all the help we can get.”

I DECIDED NOT to let B in on the Schegith fleet and our plans for it, including our intended infiltration of Anvil Dark. I especially didn’t let her in on our new knowledge of Calamity and the application the AIs had contrived from it. Not yet. This was B, sure, so trust wasn’t an issue. But circle of knowledge and all that. Instead, we concentrated on dealing with Aklateen. We arranged a meeting with them on the edge of the Crossroads system, where the Prowler would be waiting with Torina and Perry aboard to scrutinize them. If nothing made their hairs stand up, they’d transmit a new meeting place, an uninhabited red dwarf system about halfway between Crossroads and Spindrift. To avoid giving the Prowler away, Icky and Funboy had previously rigged up a missile to act as a comm relay, so Aklateen would see the message coming from it, not from our stealth ship. Meanwhile, we’d be waiting at the red dwarf star with the Fafnir, the Frankie deployed separately, as well as B—freshly back from delivering

Icky to her family—and Valint in her Stormshadow. We’d stay out of the red dwarf’s gravity well, so if things did go south, we could immediately twist away. The first part went smoothly enough. Aklateen showed up at Crossroads on schedule in a Guild Dragonet upgraded to about class 9.

Torina, Perry, and Droox watched for a while and saw nothing that made their arachnid senses tingle, so they transmitted the new destination. And, shortly thereafter, Aklateen arrived at the red dwarf star. We all immediately lit him up with fire control scanners, and I opened a comm channel. “This is Van Tudor. You’ll have to excuse the caution, but you’ve got one chance to convince me I should stick around and hear you out, and not just, you know, scram,” I said. The display lit up with the image of an oddly proportioned humanoid alien, with slender, almost delicate limbs attached to a chunky body and an oversized head that tapered into his chin, like the head of a praying mantis. Metal and crystalline bits gleamed against his slightly greenish skin, a surprising number of cybernetic implants of cryptic purpose. He was a Druzis, one of that reclusive species that occupied a polar continent on what was more commonly known as the Gajur homeworld. The two species shared an uneasy history, with periodic conflict between them, but today they coexisted peacefully—mostly. But while the Gajur were suffering from a bad case of overpopulation and all the social ills that come with it, the Druzis lived a more idyllic existence, heavily enabled by technology. Their computer systems were considered some of the most sophisticated in known space, incorporating organic materials—complex organic molecules like DNA as memory, cells, and even viruses mimicking the effects of transistors—into the most basic components. “Peacemaker Tudor. Yes, I understand your caution but also draw your attention to the fact that my weapons are stowed.”

Aklateen’s speech was stilted and flatly mechanical, like an early stab back on Earth at text-to-speech processing. Memories implanted into me long ago at Crossroads told me that the Druzis language incorporated subtle chemical emanations to convey emotion. Without those, all I was getting was the content, not the context. I smiled back anyway. “I see that. Please pardon us if we keep ours powered up, though. Even if you’re on the level, you never know if you

were somehow tracked and followed.”

“Again, I understand. If you are willing, I will come aboard your ship, or you may come aboard mine, if you prefer.”

“Neutral ground. We’ll come and pick you up in our workboat, the Frankie, and we’ll talk there.”

“I eagerly await your arrival,” Aklateen replied, sounding about as eager as someone buying windshield-washer fluid for their car. “He seems like fun,” Torina said when Aklateen had signed off and we were unstrapping to head for the Frankie. “I found his demeanor quite agreeable,” Funboy said. Torina grinned. “Of course you did.”

AKLATEEN’S BIOCHEMICAL hints of emotion meant nothing to non-Druzis, so aside from the occasional sweetish or acrid whiff, we were left with nothing but the straight facts. That actually ended up being fine, though, because it meant we got his intel without much in the way of flourish or feeling. “In short, the powers that have influenced the Peacemaker Guild to turn on you are now contriving to manipulate the Guild even further,” Aklateen said once we’d brought him aboard the Frankie. According to Perry, he had his combat AI with him, but in his case, it wasn’t a separate being. Known as Mux, it was implanted in him cybernetically instead, enhancing his skills and transferring information right into his brain. It also had the ability to use Aklateen’s voice, which led to some jarring switches in tone. “Turn it into a Guild full of assassins, that’s what they wanna do!” the AI—Mux—put in. I blinked. So did Torina. It was like the stiff upper-lipped butler on Downton Abbey, Carson, periodically switching character to Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas. I shook my head. “Assassins?

What do you mean?”

“They tried to leverage me, in a most direct way. It wasn’t subtle, Master Tudor,” Aklateen said. “Leverage you how?”

“By threatening his mother, that’s how,” Mux put in. “Bastards.”

Aklateen nodded. “Indeed. They implied that she wouldn’t see the year out in good health if I didn’t accede to their demands and begin working new Guild contracts, euphemistically referred to as Writs of Adjustment.”

“Yeah, adjustment meaning adjusting the contracts’ subjects into their grave,” Mux snapped. Torina raised a hand. “I have a question. With all due respect to your combat AI, Mux—isn’t he bound by Guild imperatives?

Shouldn’t he be—I don’t know, reporting us right now?

Is he reporting us right now?”

A whiff of sickly sweet tinged the air, an odor I’d already worked out as meaning Aklateen was amused. “I have removed Mux’s Guild imperatives. That seemed to be the only reasonable course of action to take once the Guild’s new intentions became clear.”

“Which, seems to me, you’ve also somehow managed to pull off,” Mux said. “I’m guessing Perry ain’t bound by them anymore either. Am I right?”

Perry said nothing, leaving it to me to answer. I just shrugged. “We’ve managed a workaround of our own, yeah. “

“Impressive,” Aklateen replied. “I wasn’t aware that such computational sophistication was available to other species. The Guild imperatives were originally crafted by Druzis engineers, after all.”

It was a question, even though it wasn’t framed as one. But it wasn’t a question I was prepared to answer, certainly not yet. So I just shrugged again. “We managed to muddle ourselves a way. Anyway, the Guild tried to pressure you by threatening your mother?

Really?” I puffed out an exasperated sigh. “And yet, you refused.”

“It is not for any lack of regard for my mother, Master Tudor. Rather, my mother suffers from a terminal genetic disorder that afflicts my people. She likely has less than a year to live, and much of that will be—of a much-reduced quality of life. I have already said my goodbyes to her.”

“So joke’s on them,” Mux added. “Killing Aklateen’s mother would be a mercy, you know?”

Silence. I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. But B, monitoring on the comm, spoke up. “Where is your mother now?

Is she on your homeworld?”

“No. She is in a treatment facility on Kintix Radiant, a planet in the Ross 128 system. It offers the best palliative care that our family is able to afford,” Aklateen replied. “If this is a condition that afflicts your people, aren’t there facilities devoted to treating it on your homeworld?” B asked. “No. My people long ago accepted this condition as inevitably terminal, so they offer only palliative care as well. But our homeworld has entered another period of difficult relations with the Gajur, and there are worries it may escalate into open conflict.”

I tapped my chin. “Ross 128.

We’ve been there, haven’t we?”

“To Ross 128-B,” Perry replied. “Remember the good High Doctor Markov and his Chamber of Revelatory truth, aka, cult designed to part the gullible from their money?”

“Oh, yeah. I remember him—unfortunately.”

Perry went on in my ear bug. There’s also a hit there on the Shiraku’t, a lost supply drone that’s not showing as ever having been found. As soon as Perry said it, a plan quickly assembled itself in my mind. We might be able to add this Peacemaker to our team, do some good in the process, and check out whatever the Shiraku’t said was hiding in the Ross 128 system. “Aklateen, today is your lucky day. We have good reason to go to Ross 128 anyway, and while we’re there, we can see what we can do for your mother.”

“I’ll go one better,” B put in. “Being a damned good doctor and all, I’ll do an assessment on her, and if she seems like a good candidate for it, we can take her to Pont Alus Kyr. If anyone might be able to treat her, it would be them.”

Aklateen emanated a dry, slightly sour odor. Curiosity?

Confusion?

“I am appreciative, of course. But my people accepted that there is no treatment for this affliction —”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the same thing from a half dozen different races about untreatable afflictions. Each time, it turned out that they couldn’t work out a treatment, but it doesn’t mean that someone else can’t. And like I said, if anyone can, it’s Pont Alus Kyr.”

Aklateen stared for a moment, a warm, comforting smell wafting from him. “I… don’t know what to say.”

“You’ve already said it,” I replied. “You told the bad guys no.”

20

WE RECOVERED the Frankie and stowed her aboard the Fafnir, then set course for Ross 128 with Aklateen and B. Valint didn’t accompany us but said she’d be clear of any gravity wells for the next few days, so she was just a twist away if we needed her. When we arrived at our destination, I spoke to B. “How would you like to accompany our friend Aklateen to visit his mom?

We’re going to stay out here and look for something we think might be somewhere in the system’s Oort Cloud.”

“Ooh, mysterious,” B replied. “You just don’t want to go somewhere you can’t twist away.”

“That’s part of it, yeah.”

She sniffed. “But you're fine with this old girl getting trapped in a gravity well.”

I shrugged. “Sorry, B. We can combi-drive in to help you, if we have to —”

She waved a dismissive hand and laughed, her antennas wiggling. “Nah, I’m just yanking your chain, Van. I’ve got a few tricks of my own, if it comes to it—I can take care of myself.”

Before I let her go, I had a question for her. “What do you make of Aklateen?

I’m kind of hoping we can move him into the good guys column. But I appreciate the gut instincts of old —”

“Careful.”

I smiled. “Of experienced spacers like you.”

“Nice recovery, boss. You’re clearly benefiting from Husband School,”

Netty said. “He almost pulled it off, too,” B said, eyes twinkling with mirth, then she turned serious. “You can’t trust him until you trust him.”

“Uh—okay. Not sure that’s very helpful —”

“Van, do you trust him enough to tell him about Shhh?

Or how you managed to break your AIs from Guild control—” She gave me a keen-eyed, sidelong look. “Which is something I’ve been wondering myself.”

“Sorry, B, some secrets we’re keeping to ourselves.”

“And there you go. If you don’t trust me enough to explain that—and you quite rightly shouldn’t, I don’t need or even want to know—then you’re probably a long way from trusting Aklateen, aren’t you?”

“Very much so.”

“Well, until he proves himself to the point where you’re comfortable revealing to him all but the most secret, compartmentalized stuff—then you don’t, and shouldn’t trust him, right?”

“Sure, but I was just curious what your initial impression was —”

“Pfft. Initial impressions. They’re vastly overrated. Everyone goes out of their way to make good ones, which means you can’t trust them. First impressions are just marketing. Spend some time with someone, get to know them, warts and all, and then you can start drawing conclusions about them.”

“Wise words, my dear.”

Her grin turned sly. “What do you expect from a spacer as experienced as I am?”

I ASKED my own crew for their impressions of Aklateen since they’d been watching and listening to our meeting with him. Their responses all basically mirrored B’s. “There’s a lot of hidden depth there, Van,” Gabby said. “We’re only seeing the surface of a deep pond. And that means we’re really only seeing our own reflections right now—the things we want or expect to see in him.”

“Yeah, B said much the same thing. We’re a long way from trusting him yet.”

“We’re a long way from trusting anyone yet—anyone who isn’t B, Valint, your mother, or a handful of others like Adayluh Creel,” Netty-P

added. I couldn’t disagree. I wanted to be able to trust Aklateen, but we were far from there yet. Perry and Netty weren’t even familiar with Mux, who must have been retrieved from storage when Aklateen became a Peacemaker not that long ago. So he was a big cipher to us, and we had to keep treating him as such. But we also desperately needed allies. Eventually, we were going to have to take some risks. In the meantime, while B and Aklateen headed in-system, we turned our attention to the Oort Cloud. It was sparse compared to that of Sol but still comprised millions of icy, rocky chunks large enough to register on our scanners. “So we’re looking for a supply drone that supposedly went haywire nearly a hundred years ago. I’d be surprised if it hasn’t been found by now,”

Rab said. “I wouldn’t be,” Netty replied. “The Shiraku’t entry for this lost cargo drone is pretty thin. It had a lot more information about that class 4 we found grounded in the rogue brown dwarf system. Here, we’ve got almost nothing other than the supposed fact of a small drone that vanished nearly one hundred years ago, somewhere in a volume of space equal, in cubic klicks, to one with a horrifying number of zeros after it.”

“How long would it take to scan the whole Oort Cloud for an anomaly we could peg to this missing drone?” I asked. “And don’t worry, I expect the answer to be something stupidly long.”

“Scanning continuously while traversing the cloud in the optimum search trajectory?

We could swing it in two years, tops,” Netty replied. “Although we could get lucky and hit it right away,” Perry put in. I gave him a sardonic stare. “And what are the odds of that, pray tell?”

“Not zero.”

“Uh-huh.”

“If we assume the drone was not lost to a mishap, but was tucked away, as it were, for later retrieval, then we can reduce the search volume somewhat,” Funboy put in. “It would not likely be within easy scanning distance of established navigation corridors. Moreover, there are several installations in the outer part of this system—a stellar weather observatory,

for instance, and a twist-comm relay,” he added, pointing at the tactical overlay. “It would likely be removed from their vicinity, as well.”

“What makes you think it was deliberate?” Rab asked him. “A hunch. Which is, I admit, a poor substitute for hard data. However, Essie and I worked several cases that involved stolen ships and goods that were secreted away in remote locations such as this. The R’Shari and the Gajur both are noted for such devotion to subterfuge and skullduggery. We soon learned where not to look. Again, that is a poor substitute for where to look, but you must begin somewhere, yes?”

I smirked. “Subterfuge and skullduggery, huh?

Okay, well, if you think this can help us —”

“I am reasonably certain of it.”

“Sourpuss sure is confident,” Perry said. “It is an essential element of charm,” Funboy replied. Gabby touched his shoulder. “Hear!

hear!

His unshakable confidence was one of the first things that attracted me to him.”

Funboy smiled his least horrifying smile. “See?”

EVEN APPLYING Funboy’s filter of suppositions, we still didn’t find anything after several hours of searching. Granted, even excluding parts of the Oort Cloud per Funboy, that was still only a miniscule amount of the potential search area. I drummed my fingers on my armrest. I considered taking another break

—there was no reason for all of us to hang around the cockpit—but I was starting to think it was time to rethink this entirely, or just give up. It wasn’t a mission-critical thing to find whatever this Shiraku’t entry was, it would just be a nice little bonus. In fact, it was a bit of a break, with much reduced worry about ending up in a firefight. Plus, it kept us away from places we’d more obviously be, forcing our enemies to keep wasting resources searching for us. Instead of taking a break, I called everyone back into the cockpit. “I don’t know. This was a loooong shot at best, so maybe we should just give it up as a lost cause,” I said. “Actually, Van, we have an idea,” Rab said. “We’re looking for something. Let’s stop doing that.”

I gave him a bemused smile. “So your idea is to give up?

Hey, I’m not even disagreeing —”

“No, we’re not saying to give up. What we’re suggesting is based on something Torina mentioned.”

I looked at her. “Okay —”

“When I was in my teens, my father gave me a job in an import-export business he co-owned,” she said. “It specialized in small-volume, time-sensitive shipments—say, some specific parts required at a mining outpost to keep an ore concentrator running, that sort of thing. That usually meant using drones, so they could take advantage of higher- g acceleration than crewed ships to get where they were going that much faster. The trouble was that the cargo may or may not have been vulnerable to the g-forces involved, so rather than mounting the upscaled inertial suppressors on the drones, they were installed in the cargo pods themselves. That way, you could select the type of pod needed for that particular shipment and just load it onto a standard drone.”

Netty-P took over the thread of conversation. “Such a suppressor would have a characteristic gravitational signature if it were still operating. The Fafnir’s scanners aren’t normally configured to detect point-source gravitational anomalies—it’s impossible inside a region of strong gravitational effect, like the inner part of a system, and there are just easier things to detect, like heat. But the Fafnir’s new scanner array should be pretty good at detecting anomalies like that, especially out here. In fact, if we reconfigure the array, we should be able to scan large swaths of the Oort Cloud quite quickly.”

“Huh. That’s a good idea,” I said. “That is, until you take into account the fact that the suppressor would have to be working ninety years on from when the probe was lost.”

“And that is assuming it was that type of cargo container in the first place,” Funboy put in. Rab shrugged. “There’s a chance the suppressor’s power cells haven’t yet run out of juice. Anyway, we figure it’s worth a shot, since this”—he gestured vaguely at the instruments—“is getting us nowhere fast.”

I nodded. “Okay, I’m sold—in theory. What are the downsides?”

“It will take a while to reconfigure the scanners, and they’ll lose much of their resolution when we do. It’s going to leave us kind of blind until we switch them back to their normal operating mode,” Netty-P said. “We could deploy the Frankie and use her scanners to keep watch for trouble in the interim,” Rab said. I drummed my fingers a few more times. “Alright, what the hell. Let’s do it. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky. And even if we don’t, we might learn something about our scanners that’ll be useful down the road.”

I didn’t add, and it’ll give everyone something to do besides sitting out here brooding. There was no need. Everyone got that. WITH THE FAFNIR’S scanners reconfigured and Rab and Funboy aboard the Frankie playing lookout, we resumed searching. By then, B had done a quick check-in, confirmed she’d met and assessed Aklateen’s mother, and judged her a good candidate for further evaluation by Pont Alus Kyr. “We’ll be breaking orbit in three or four hours, and then another six to a twist point,” B said. I acknowledged and we resumed our methodical scan of the Oort Cloud. Even with our scans reconfigured, it was still a monumental task. And it certainly had degraded our scanner resolution—it was like someone had smeared thick grease all over the tactical overlay and I was trying to view it through dark sunglasses. But we tore through volumes of space that would have taken us an hour before making the change in a minute or two. Still, it had really only taken us from needle in a barn full of hay to needle in a single haystack. At this rate, it would still take us days or even weeks to scan the whole target volume of space —

“Van, just wanted to let you know I don’t have a hit,” Netty said. “Okay, well, I guess this was still a very, very long shot —”

“I have three.”

“You—what?

You have three contacts?”

“I do. The nearest is about fifteen light-minutes away. I’d recommend we twist to it.”

I called the crew back and, in company with the Frankie, we twisted the brief distance to the first of Netty’s anomalies. TWO OF THE contacts actually turned out to be natural phenomena—chunks of not rock or ice, as was typical for this part of a system, but rather pieces of solid metallic material, mostly iron with some nickel, cobalt, chromium, and a few other odds and ends. Netty speculated that they were pieces of an Earth-like planet’s core, possibly ejected from their home system and, countless millennia later, captured by Ross 128’s gravitation. The third, though, appeared—incredibly enough—to be our intended target, a derelict cargo drone mounting a single transport pod. “You think that’s really it?” Torina asked. I chuckled. “Well, we went looking for a drone with a pod, we found a drone with a pod, so whether it’s the correct drone with a pod or not doesn’t really matter. I’m calling this search successfully completed. By the way, Netty, how much of the Oort Cloud did we manage to scan?”

“About ten percent, which is actually far more than I expected we’d ever manage,” she replied. While we re-reconfigured the Fafnir’s scanners back into regular operation, Rab and Funboy used the Frankie to investigate the drone. They could detect no threats or traps, so they did an EVA to detach the pod from the drone, wrangle it into the Frankie’s own cargo compartment, and then return to the Fafnir. At about the same time, B announced she was about to break orbit —

Whereupon she was attacked by another ship, a nondescript class 8 that had seemed to be on innocent business of its own. I cursed as Rab and Funboy finished docking and securing the Frankie, and the rest of us scrambled to get the Fafnir ready for battle. “Netty, stand by on the combi-drive. We’re going to —”

“Van, I don’t think that’s going to be necessary. B just made a break for it from the planet, with the class 8 in hot pursuit. About twenty seconds into that little bit of drama, the class 8 just kind of… exploded,” Netty said. “Exploded?

Netty, get B on the —”

“Comm?

She’s right here.”

“Hello, Van!” B said brightly when her image popped onto the display. “B, what the hell’s going on?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. We’d just lit our drive to break orbit when some asshole decided to open fire on us. We ran, he chased us—” Her grin turned

sly. “Oh, yeah. A seeker mine might have fallen out of the back of my ship. I really should get that checked out.”

“A seeker mine?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of like a missile, except it just kind of hangs there, in space, all stealthy-like, until a target tickles its scanners. Then it fires itself at the target, often at point-blank range. Damned effective, but they’re damned expensive, too.” She grinned again. “Told you I had a few tricks up my sleeve.”

I smiled and shook my head. “You always seem to, B, that’s for sure.”

“Hey, how do we get ourselves some of those seeker mines?

They sound like they’d come in handy,” Torina said. “Eh, I can try to hook you up. It’ll cost you about a quarter million bonds, though, for a launcher with three mines, and you’ll need a free hardpoint to mount it,” B replied. “Hold that thought, B,” I said. “We’ve lately had a bunch of money kind of fall into our laps, but we’ve got expenses to cover.”

“Right. Just let me know. Maybe I’ll even cut you a break on my commission.”

“Your commission?”

“You’re not the only one with expenses, Tudor.”

“So who the hell attacked you?” Rab asked, coming into the cockpit with Funboy. “And why?”

“The answer to both is, no idea. I would have asked, but, well, this particular bad guy didn’t seem interested in talking,” B replied. “Okay. Well, send whatever data you collected on that class 8 to us. We’ll see if we can match its signature to anything we’ve encountered,” I said. “Meantime, how’s Aklateen’s mother?

And where’s he?”

“She’s fine, resting comfortably aft. As for Aklateen, he apparently had some things to take care of regarding her discharge from the facility where she’d been—well, slowly dying, not to put too fine a point on it.”

“Do you think Pont Alus Kyr will be able to help her?”

“Once again, no idea. I mean, I sure as hell can’t do anything for her. But if anyone can, it’s them.”

21

WE WAITED and watched until B exited the Ross 128 system, wanting to make sure she wasn’t attacked again. She wasn’t, and she departed for Pont Alus Kyr. We twisted to a nearby empty system, another alphanumeric dwarf star bereft of planets, so we could investigate the cargo pod we’d recovered. Perry and Netty-P did a thorough exam, including detailed scans—

somewhat awkwardly, because it was still aboard the Frankie and there was no easy way to transfer it to the Fafnir. We’d have to launch the Frankie again and do an EVA, and I didn’t want to take the time. There was a distinct chance, after all, that the pod wouldn’t contain anything of value—

ninety-plus-year-old machine parts, maybe, or the desiccated remains of some expensive shipment of luxury foodstuffs. When we were satisfied it was safe, we unsealed and opened the pod, exposing its contents for the first time in nearly a century. I had Rab, Gabby, and Torina standing by with drawn weapons, just in case something

—something robotic, maybe—came lunging out at us. But other than a brief hiss of equalizing pressure, there was nothing. The contents consisted of several smaller crates of varying sizes. The pod itself was only about three meters long and two meters wide and tall, so there wasn’t much cargo on board. We carefully removed and opened the crates one by one. The first three, all identical, contained bonds. But they weren’t the bonds we were all used to. These were an archaic form of bonds, crafted from thin sheets of a

flexible, ceramic-like material and showing dates going back nearly two hundred standard years. “Second-issue bonds,” Perry said. “Currency wise, they’re worth their face value, so we’ve got—about a quarter million bonds total, here.”

Torina laughed. “Well, there’s our new seeker mine launcher paid for.”

I had to shake my head. “For weeks, we were digging behind the cushions looking for loose change to keep the Fafnir running. Now, we’re almost swimming in money. Famine or feast and nothing in-between.”

“Yeah, well, hold that thought, boss,” Perry said. “Because, to a collector, this would be worth a lot more—a million, maybe a million and a half. The current bond issue is the ninth. It’s rare to see anything older than seventh issue these days. So second-issue bonds that look uncirculated, and this many of them?

Yeah, they’re worth a small fortune. The trick would be finding a collector who wants them, has the money to pay for them —”

“And won’t just turn us in for the Grasp’s royalty bounty on us,” Gabby said. Perry pointed a wing at her. “Give the lovely lady a prize.”

“Okay, so for now, we’ll just stash these on the Fafnir. Let’s see what else is in the goody box,” I said. Three more cases, each nearly a meter and a half long, contained rifles. Big rifles. They were a good twenty-five percent longer than a standard slug rifle and had a considerably bigger bore, and a strange, chunky mechanism that looked designed to fire only single shots. Each case also contained a small box holding nine gray, crystalline cylinders with chrome-bright hardware, like thick wires, embedded into them. Rab recognized them. “Oh. Oh my. These are conversion guns, c-guns. I’ve only seen them as specs and rendered in images, though. The ones actually left are likely in the hands of—again, collectors, museums, that sort of thing.”

“Well, here’s a rare case of me having to look something up after someone else identifies it,” Perry said. “But I think Rab is right. These are c-guns. Again, potentially worth lots of money to the right person.”

“What do they do, though?” I asked. Rab put his hands on his hips. “C-guns were an experiment in weaponizing antimatter on a small scale—or make that a small-arms scale. When they’re fired, a small antimatter charge is released to annihilate a similar amount of matter, which, of course, produces a lot of energy. The

gun was designed to use some of that energy to power a confinement field long enough to direct the rest of the energy released from the muzzle. Think of a—say, a plasma shotgun.”

“Plasma shotgun. That is one hell of a cool name for a weapon.”

“It is, but you’ll note we’re not all carrying around plasma shotguns, now, are we?” Rab replied, his tone wry. “There’s a reason for that. The timing tolerances are so freakin’ tight that being off even a teeny-tiny fraction of a second means less plasma shotgun and more plasma bomb. I remember reading that about one in twenty times, the thing just blew itself up. And even when it does go off successfully, it vaporizes everything in front of the weapon, and I mean everything, though only out to about ten meters. Meantime, everything around the weapon gets walloped with a blast of intense heat and radiation. A b-suit would probably be enough protection for the firer—for a couple of shots, anyway.”

“So immensely powerful, but stupidly dangerous to everyone around it

—including the firer—crazy unreliable, and therefore almost entirely impractical.”

“Like I said, there’s a reason we don’t see these things being used today. I think they’ve actually been outlawed in most jurisdictions.”

“That is now two things in this container that would be of considerable value to the right collector,” Funboy said. “Even going back ninety years, it would still seem that this shipment was just that—collectibles, presumably intended for sale to someone.”

Torina nodded. “Remember how I said these drones tend to carry low-mass, low-volume, high-value shipments that were time-sensitive?”

Perry nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think this drone was just lost. I think it was hijacked and stashed out in that Oort cloud as a rainy-day fund, quite likely by some nasty people.”

“But said nasty people apparently never got around to cashing it in, so it’s just been sitting out there all this time," Torina said. We opened the remaining case. It contained four data cores, again of obsolete design. Perry and Netty-P examined them and declared them of S’rall manufacture. Strangely enough, though, they’d been engraved with alphanumeric labels in a language I actually recognized. It was Daren-thal, the language of the Hunters from Ajax. “Huh. S’rall and Daren-thal. I wonder what the connection is. And from a century ago, too,” I said, then crossed my arms. “Well, much as I’d like to

find out, I’m reluctant to go to Ajax. After the affair on Helso, it’s likely that Ajax is being watched—if it wasn’t already.” I shook my head. “The last thing I want to do is bring trouble down on those people.”

I stared at the data modules. “I’m not really sure I even want to know what’s on them.”

“Why not?” Rab asked. “Well, considering their age, it’s pretty damned likely they’ve got nothing whatsoever to do with us. And both the S’rall and the Daren-thal are among our few allies. I’d like to respect that and not pry into things that might be sensitive for one or both of them.” I shook my head. “No. I’m going to treat these as cultural artifacts to be returned to—uh, the Daren-thal, I guess. The question is how to do that.” I looked around. “This is the moment when you all share your options.”

“If we can’t go to Ajax, maybe Ajax comes to us?” Torina suggested. “That might work. Don’t suppose there are any Daren-thal left on Helso, are there?

Can you find out?”

“I don’t have to,” she said, shaking her head. “The last time I talked to my parents, about two days ago, they said the last of the Daren-thal had left.”

“Damn. Okay, so I guess we’ll have to call up Rovan and try to arrange a meeting somewhere.”

“Actually, Van, your worries about traveling to Ajax may be a little overblown,” Torina said. “My father mentioned that the Daren-thal were asking him about the Schegith defense platforms protecting Helso. Apparently, they’ve commissioned something similar to protect Ajax, though not from the Schegith. It sounds like they’re spending serious money on it—which my father mentioned because he was considering investing in the contractor.”

“Huh. Did he say who that was?”

“Why?

Are you considering investing some of our recent, kinda-sorta ill-gotten gains, make a little money on the side?” Perry asked. “Nope. I just like to know who’s building our friends’ critical defense infrastructure.”

“Netty, can you put a call in to my parents, please?

I’ll find out,” Torina said. “On it.”

“Meantime, I’m curious to know why the Daren-thal are suddenly twitchy enough to spend big bucks on orbital defenses,” Rab said. “Is it because of us?”

“I hope not,” Gabby replied. “They’re well-liked, a good trading partner, and generally nice people. I’d hope that just being associated with us isn’t enough to put a whole planet under threat.”

“I would not put any degree of malign intent past Yotov and our other opponents,” Funboy said. Netty cut in. “Torina, I have your father on the comm for you.”

She nodded. “I’ll be back,” she said, and headed toward the cockpit. Perry spoke up. “Actually, the Shiraku’t lists almost ninety potential targets in the Ajax system, Epsilon Indi. They’ve complained in the past to the Guild about the number of incursions by would-be treasure hunters. It’s more likely that the current state of affairs in known space, all the instability and such, is the proverbial straw that made the camel say OOF.”

I sighed. “Yes, another charming little spin-off of Yotov’s and the Grasp’s evil machinations—growing strife and friction among players who aren’t even directly involved. We’re already staring down a civil war in the Six Stars League, so everyone’s busy arming themselves up.”

“Well, war profiteering is a time-honored way of making sleazy money,” Netty-P said, “Especially if you can play both sides of the war. There are otherwise reputable firms that have sold weapons to one side of a conflict, then countermeasures to defeat those weapons to the other. It’s a sort of contrived little arms race that means twice the profit.”

As Netty-P spoke, something occurred to me. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and headed forward to join Torina in the cockpit. Her father, Tor, was on the center display. “—so it’s tempting, but I think I’m going to pass on this one,” he was saying. “Why do you ask—oh, hello, Van.”

“I gather you guys are talking about whoever’s building the new defense platforms for the Daren-thal,” I said. Tor nodded. “We are. Harmony Funding. They’re an umbrella company, with an arms subsidiary, Kinetic Defense. Kinetic is doing the actual work, but Harmony is the contracted party, and they’ve subcontracted—” He stopped, cocking his head. “Why this sudden interest in these companies, anyway?

I get the sense this is about more than just investment opportunities."

"It is. Did you trace the ownership of Harmony Funding, by any chance?"

"Not really. Since we’ve decided not to invest, we haven’t done full due diligence. Why?”

Torina looked at me. “You think it’s the Equal Grasp, don’t you?”

“Let’s put it this way—if it turns out to be the Grasp, I wouldn’t be surprised.” I turned to Tor. “Can you dig that up for us?

The ultimate ownership of Harmony Funding?”

“I can, certainly. Just give me a couple of hours—” Tor stopped again, and his face hardened. “Wait. Van, are you concerned that the Grasp is going to be building flawed defenses for the Daren-thal?”

“It’s a distinct possibility. Not that they’ll be flawed from the outset, of course. I’m sure they’ll work fine—long enough, certainly, that they can pick up more contracts elsewhere in known space. Imagine being able to outfit your enemies with defenses you can just switch off, thanks to some back door vulnerability you’ve hidden deep inside the systems that control them.”

“Shit. Okay, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” Tor said and signed off. We rejoined the others, to find that Perry, Netty, and Netty-P had done some digging of their own. They’d found a press release from the Daren-thal governing authorities that described the new defense platforms in glowing terms—of course, because everything a government chooses to buy is “the best thing available.”

“The missile platforms are already as beefy as hell. But it’s the guns that got my attention,” Perry said. “Invictus EKI mass drivers—EKI for extreme kinetic impact. They’re pretty much the pinnacle of mass-driver tech, if you don’t count the accelerator cannon Mother Hen’s people mounted on this ship.”

“They use a multi-stage firing sequence with depleted uranium rounds nearly as big as telephone poles,” Netty-P said. “That’s about seven meters by twenty centimeters for those of you unfamiliar with telephone poles. And they’re reputed to have some sort of post-firing guidance, too, though details are sketchy on that.”

“Sufficient to take out a ship like the Fafnir in a single hit, and there ain’t no amount of REAB modules or armor that are going to stop it.”

I nodded. “Yup, dangerous as hell. But I can think of how they can be even more dangerous.”

“How’s that?” Perry asked. “If they don’t work.” I went on to explain my suspicions. “If that turns out to be true, we have to let the Daren-thal know,”

Funboy said. I nodded. “Indeed we do. Ajax, and the Daren-thal, would be open to attack at the Grasp’s leisure.”

“Which means the Grasp could just blackmail the Daren-thal into neutrality, since they could leave them defenseless with the flick of a switch,” Gabby said. “Exactly. And we cannot afford to lose any allies.”

“So what do you want to do?” Rab asked. “Well, I don’t think we’ll wait for Tor to get back to us—for now, we’ll assume the worst and go with that. Netty, get Droox on the comm. We’re going to send the Prowler to Epsilon Indi to scope things out before we go there ourselves.”

“You know, every time we use the Prowler, I say a little thanks to Groshenko for bequeathing that ship to us. She’s been damned useful, and right when we needed her the most.”

I nodded to Rab. “I think we all do, Rab. It’s the gift that just keeps on giving.”

DROOX REPORTED that nothing suspicious was going on in the Epsilon Indi system. Regular commercial traffic, both freight and passenger, was coming and going. No ships appeared to be hanging out in the system’s margins, ominously keeping watch. Everything seemed business as usual. Except, of course, for the defense platforms being built around Ajax. They’d be potent installations once completed. And although they weren’t really positioned to directly defend the system’s other inhabited planet, Arminsu-el—home of the space-hippie Synergists—they’d still be a general deterrent to anyone attacking the system as a whole. If they worked when the attack came, of course. But that was the point. We doubted that they would—and a terse message from Tor Milon finally

confirmed it. It was a heavily encrypted text-only message, using a decryption key Tor had physically given us a couple of visits to Helso ago. Your suspicions confirmed. The Equal Grasp owns Harmony Funding through the most convoluted corporate chain I’ve ever seen. Be careful!

“So there it is,” I said. “Netty, can you track down Rovan?

I’d like to talk to him before we twist to Ajax.”

It took her an hour, and when Rovan came on the channel, I cut him off before he could do more than greet me. “Rovan, yeah, it’s been a long time. I don’t think we’ve talked since my last visit to Ajax.”

Which was nonsense, since he and I had talked not long ago, when we’d arranged for Daren-thal Hunters to go to Helso. To his credit, he only paused briefly, blinked once, then nodded. “It has been a long time, old friend. How have you been?”

“Well, considering that half the galaxy seems to be hunting me, including a few species that I don’t think we’ve even formally met yet, not too bad. I mean, everything looks like the usual harmony, but it’s definitely not.”

“Ah. Yes, of course. I understand. You should come and pay us a visit here at Ajax sometime. I would greatly look forward to it.”

“I’d like that, too. I think I will. I’ve got a few things I’d like to check out while I’m there, in fact. Things that I don’t think were even around the last time I visited.”

“Van, you are welcome anytime, and you have free access to every part of our culture.” His dark eyes gleamed. “Indeed, I would be more than pleased to hunt at your side once again.”

“Maybe we’ll get that chance. I’ll think about heading your way soon.”

We signed off, and I sat back. Perry clapped his wings together with a soft, metallic ting-ting-ting. “And the winner for Best Veiled Speech goes to—Van Tudor, for his recent performance in A Chat With Rovan,” he said. Torina grinned. “That was pretty good.”

I shrugged. “Only because Rovan’s as sharp as he is. Anyway, we now have leave to go and pay a visit to those defensive platforms. If we can uncover hard proof that they’re being constructed with built-in defects, we can help the Daren-thal and shoot a huge hole in the Grasp’s credibility.”

“Why not just hand it over to the Daren-thal and let them do it?” Rab asked. Gabby answered. “Because there are going to be Daren-thal who end up looking bad—they’ll be the ones that approved the contract in the first place. They’ll probably be obstructive, which will give those platforms time to become armed and operational —”

“And then it’s too late,” Rab finished, nodding. “Good point.”

“We can do now what the Daren-thal can’t—get that proof,” I agreed. “So, Netty, let’s set course for Ajax. Everyone else—let’s get ready for a boarding action.”

“Suggestion—if we’re going somewhere that is likely to lead to a physical confrontation in close quarters, perhaps we should see if a certain hammer-wielding pile of belligerence and blue hair can join us,” Funboy said. “Ah. Good point. Hold on with that trip to Ajax, Netty. Let’s see if Icky wants to come and play.”

I WAS reluctant to ask Icky because she’d only had a few days with her family. But she proposed an alternative. “Pax has wanted to learn more about self-defense and fighting and such, and I’ve been teaching him. This would be a great chance for him to get some on-the-job training,” she suggested during our comm call. I frowned. “Icky, Pax isn’t a deputized part of this crew—” I started, then stopped and rolled my eyes at myself. “Wait, what am I saying?

That doesn’t really apply anymore, does it?”

Icky grinned, and Paxomar smirked over her shoulder. “I’ll sign something if you want me to, Van, but yeah—I’d be down to come and work with you guys for a bit,” he said. “You just want a break from your kids, don’t you?”

“No—”

I smirked. He laughed. “Okay, maybe there’s a little of that. But cracking the heads of the bad guys threatening my family would make a nice change of pace from shoveling plustinarek down a couple of bottomless pits, yeah.”

“Okay. I get Icky wanting to spend more than a few days with the kids

—and you wanting a break—but Pax, this isn’t just a routine flight. We’re going to be boarding a potentially hostile battle orbital. That may mean —”

“Fighting. Yeah, Van, I got that. But I wasn’t joking when I mentioned cracking heads a moment ago. These people are threatening my family, people I care about. They’ve made me part of this fight, and I don’t intend to back away from it.”

I had to nod approval at his determination. Pax wasn’t as big or imposing as Icky, but that was only in comparison to her. He still had a few inches of height and more than a few kilos of weight on me. In fact, I could think of only one real problem with bringing him along. “We don’t have a b-suit for you,” I said. Icky nodded. “Way ahead of you, boss. Mine fits him, with all the adjusting straps and fasteners and things pulled tight.”

“I gather you’re all for this,” I said to her. She shrugged. “In a perfect world, Van, none of this bullshit would be happening, I could just take the time off, and I wouldn’t have to have people around us all the time keeping an eye out for trouble. But it’s not a perfect world, the bad guys are out there, and they’ve made it clear that all of us—even Pax, when he’s watching our kids—is on the front line of this crap, whether we like it or not.” She nodded. “Pax and I have talked this over. So yeah, I’m all for it.”

“Alright, then. We’ll swing by to pick you up on our way to Ajax, Pax.”

“Thanks, Van. I’ll be ready.”

22

ICKY’S B-SUIT fit Paxomar better than I thought it would. Reefing all the tightening hardware right down eliminated most of the slack, and the b-suits own advanced materials did their best to smooth out the rest. It still didn’t look right, but it would both hermetically seal and protect him from most harm, and that was really the point of it. We had a brief meeting with Icky and her kids at the airlock, who were now the size of human five- or six-year-olds. When it came to Wu’tzer kids, they really did grow up so fast. Apparently, in another couple of months, they’d hit roughly the size of nine- or ten-year-olds, and then stay there for a few years. Icky, Zeno, and her family had their hands full with these gigantic babies, but they didn’t seem to mind. And the kids themselves were adorable, albeit in a kind of intimidating way. “I’d, uh, pick him up,” I said to Icky, while her son, Clivax, pawed at me with all four arms and yelped for my attention. “But I’m not sure I’d survive it unscathed —”

Icky scooped him up. “Nope, don’t even try. Zeno and her family learned that the hard way.”

Zenophir nodded. “Threw my back out just trying to hold onto him. It’s like trying to hug three or four P’nosk babies all at once.”

“Oh dear.”

We turned. Torii, Icky’s daughter, had crawled to Funboy, and then started crawling up Funboy. He stood ramrod straight, casting a mortified

gaze down at Torii and patting her head. “There, there. Good, although extremely unhygienic baby. There, there —”

Gabby appeared and effortlessly swept Torii up into her arms. “She’s absolutely enchanting!” She cuddled Torii, who wrapped all four arms around her, and beamed at Funboy. “Think of it as practice for when we have our own!”

I looked at Torina. She looked at me. She mouthed, What?

and I just shrugged back. But we couldn’t stay, so we disentangled ourselves, said our goodbyes, brought Pax aboard, and departed. Funboy was barely through the airlock before he’d produced disinfecting wipes from somewhere and swept them along a trail of slobber down the front of his ship suit. At least, I hoped it was slobber, and I’m sure he did, too. “Pardon me while I change,” he said, then peered dolefully down at his clothing. “And incinerate this garment.”

Torina rolled her eyes. “Funboy, it’s just a little saliva.”

“I’m glad you see my point.”

THE P’NOSK HAD PROVIDED us with an imposing escort in and out of the system in the form of a pair of destroyers. We were broadcasting another fake transponder ID, and the destroyers kept some distance and tried to look as though they were on business of their own. If anyone was watching, and we were pretty sure somebody probably was, they probably wouldn’t be fooled. But nobody tried anything, either, and we were able to twist away from the P’nosk home system without incident. When we arrived at Epsilon Indi, we checked in with Droox. She reported that nothing had changed, that there’d been no unusual or suspicious activity. As we accelerated toward Ajax, we studied the scanner data and imagery she’d collected from the defense platforms. Apparently, five were planned, with two partly built and one whose construction had just started. Their assembly was automated, with bulk carriers bringing prefabricated sections from their place of manufacture—Fulcrum, in the Tau Ceti system. They were then bolted together in situ by AI-controlled assemblers. In every outward respect, it was an entirely legitimate

operation. The manufacturer who’d been contracted by Harmony Funding had a good reputation—which meant that, if these platforms were compromised, that good reputation would take a hit, making that manufacturer just another innocent victim. “The Grasp is probably inserting their back doors at some point during the final assembly process,” Perry suggested. “Although I wouldn’t put it past them to have agents working for the manufacturer.”

“That is, assuming they are compromised. It is possible that this entire operation is above board, as it were,” Funboy said. We all looked at him. He blinked. “No, I did not believe me, either.”

“There is one thing that does bother me,” Torina said. “Are we sure these things aren’t armed?”

“Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!” Perry grated. I scowled at him. “What?

Come on, Van, you gotta admit that this is the perfect setup for that line,” he shot back at me. “If they start shooting and you say, ‘It’s a trap!’ I swear I’m drop-kicking you out the airlock. And we are sure they haven’t mounted any of those big-ass Invictus cannons on those things, aren’t we?”

“We are. The Invictus gizmos are big—they’d be evident in the imagery. In fact, all of the weapon bays and hardpoints are empty. They won’t install the shooty stuff until the structures themselves are complete and the reactors have been fired up.”

I nodded, and we continued our brisk but unhurried trajectory toward Ajax. After reviewing the imagery, we selected the most complete of the three platforms as our target. It appeared nearly ready to start receiving weapons, its emissions indicating it had an operating reactor on board, while its scanner array had been mounted. “That means its fire control infrastructure is probably complete, or almost complete. And it’s in the fire control systems that the back doors we’re looking for are most likely to be installed,” Netty-P said. I nodded again. “Okay. Well, folks, let’s configure the ship for battle and get ready to board that orbital. Meantime, Netty, please have the combi-drive on standby. If it is a trap, and that is a fully armed and operational

battle station, I wanna be able to do the Kessel run in a lot less than three parsecs.”

Rab gave me a look. “Kessel?

Where’s that?

Van, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Never mind.”

I ADMIT to spending the last bit of our approach to the orbital with my gut, fingers and even toes clenched up tight. Perry’s fully armed and operational battle station had been meant as a joke, but as we drew ever closer to the orbital, it seemed less and less funny. When we finally nudged our way up to the station and stopped about twenty meters away from one of the gaping weapon bays, I was hit with a strange, smeared blend of relief and apprehension. Okay, the battle station was, indeed, unarmed and nonoperational. But now we were going to board it, which was just as nerve-racking in its own way. And maybe even more so. The horror of Dohlennz’s remote lab might have hit Gabby the hardest, and understandably so, but it had affected all of us. I hadn’t admitted to having a few nightmares about it since, but I suspected I wasn’t the only one. We lined up at the airlock as Netty aligned it with the empty bay on the orbital. Rab, Funboy, and Perry were going first. I’d cross next with Gabby, while Netty-P and Paxomar would bring up the rear. Torina was staying aboard the Fafnir. “Okay, we’re in position,” Netty said. The airlock sealed with the first three in it, then depressurized, and they launched themselves across the short gap. Netty cycled the airlock open again so that Gabby and I could enter and wait our turn. A few moments passed, broken only by brief chatter from Funboy, Rab, and Perry as they boarded the orbital. Once they were aboard, Netty opened the outer doors, and we launched ourselves across the gap. As we sailed smoothly through the bit of void-space, I grinned at Gabby. “Just like old times, eh?

Although, I shouldn’t need you to save me this time, at least.”

Gabby grinned back at me. “If you need saving, Van, I’m the gal to do it.”

“Are you making time with my woman?” Funboy put in. “Yes, Funboy, you caught us. I decided that now, during a boarding action, was when I’ve chosen to throw over my wife and make my move,” I said. Torina spoke up. “Oh, Gabs, you can do better. He snores and hogs the covers.”

“I do not!”

“It’s moments like these that I’m glad to be digital,” Netty quipped. “And before you deny it, boss, remember I can hear everything.”

“Okay, commissar. Enough with the threats. Eyes forward, everyone. We’re almost there,” I said. We reached the orbital, all of us grabbing something handy and pulling ourselves in. Netty-P was particularly deft, neatly grabbing the edge of a hull plate and letting her momentum rotate her around it. “No sign of… anything,” Rab said from a few meters ahead. He’d taken up a firing position at an open hatch leading into the interior of the orbital. “Not yet, anyway.”

“I’m gonna scout ahead,” Perry said, puffing his thrusters and passing through the hatch. The rest of us arrayed ourselves behind it, ready to follow. I glanced around the weapons bay while we waited. It was just an empty space about the size of a three-car garage, with a hardpoint mounted to the deck. “Wonder what they intend to put in here?” I muttered. “Too small for one of the Invictus guns. Probably a missile launcher. That hatch in the deck behind the hardpoint probably opens into the magazine underneath,” Rab said. I opened my mouth to reply, but Perry spoke up. “Guys, we’re not alone. There are some people up ahead.”

As he spoke, imagery popped open on our heads-up displays. It showed another compartment similar to this one, with the daylit side of Ajax brightly visible through the opening. Five or six figures in sleek black armor were gathered near the opening, as though waiting for something. As that was registering, Torina came on the comm. “Droox said there’s a shuttle approaching. She says it looks like a standard orbital transfer rig,

marked up in standard commercial markings.”

“Droox told you that?

You can’t see it?” I asked. “No. The orbital’s between us and it. Do you want us to challenge it —?”

“Nope. Stay right where you are. It’s heading for an open bay on the other side of the orbital from you, to pick up some passengers.”

“Van, do you recognize these guys?” Rab asked. “Unfortunately, yes, I do. I’ve encountered that suit once before. They’re called Shadows. Elite assassins—from the Stillness.”

“I can confirm that,” Perry said. “The Stillness?

What the hell are they doing here?” Torina asked. I kept my gaze locked on the dark, sinister figures. Anger flared inside me, displacing the apprehensive uncertainty. “If I had to guess, I’d say they’re about to take that shuttle down to Ajax and take out a target.”

“A hit team?

Who are they after?

Oh—damn. Rovan?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, drawing the Moonsword. “What I do know is that they’re not getting on that shuttle—or leaving this orbital alive.”

I GAVE QUICK ORDERS, deploying my little force and emphasizing that these were elite killers. “They will not surrender, so don’t even try. Be prepared to kill them,” I said, matter-of-factly, even coldly. Then I led the way, the others falling in behind me. Perry switched to a private channel. “Van, Netty can’t help but notice your vitals are spiking. Are you okay?”

“I will be as soon as these assholes are dead. I read an intel report from Gramps about a Stillness kill team. They snatched up people for torture, extortion, stuff like that.” I stopped at an intersection. Perry was about ten meters past it, peering into the compartment containing the bad guys. “I’m surprised you don’t remember it yourself,” I said, making sure the intersection was clear before proceeding. “There were periods Mark and I were apart. Although, yeah, it’s strange he never told me about it.”

“Probably because it was pretty clear that he violated some law. Him and Groshenko and Valint. He probably didn’t want to trigger your Guild imperatives.”

“Huh.”

I reached Perry and stopped just outside the compartment. I had the Moonsword ready, but The Drop was my primary weapon here. There was no way we were going to melee with these bastards if we could avoid it. They were killing machines. I called Rab forward. “Rab—you are weapons free with that big ol’ gun of yours. Try to take them all out, if you can.”

He stared at me through his visor. “No warning?”

“No warning.”

He nodded. I moved back. He went forward, paused a moment, then headed into the hatchway. He expertly braced himself with a foot against the opposite bulkhead, then opened fire. Muzzle flashes pulsed, but there was no sound. Rab fired burst after burst, then stepped aside when I tapped his arm. I charged into the compartment, Gabby and Netty-P right behind me. We fanned out, and I scanned the compartment. Two bodies had bounced off the bulkheads, twisting and writhing in zero- g as globules of fluid streamed from them. Two more were still up, though one was clearly wounded. Two more were just vanishing through the opening into the void outside, pulling themselves out of view. “They’re trying to get to the shuttle!” Gabby shouted. “Nope, they’re headed for the Fafnir—” I replied, and that was all I managed before one of the two remaining Shadows launched himself at me, a pair of wicked blades glittering with electrical arcs brandished before him. I raised The Drop, but Paxomar howled and pushed past me, swinging Icky’s hammer. It slammed squarely into the Shadow’s helmet, driving him down to the deck and sending Paxomar flailing toward the overheads. The Shadow tried to recover, but I double-tapped two point-blank shots into his head, blowing it apart. I kicked myself aside as his body rebounded from the deck and sailed past me. I turned and looked for the wounded Shadow. But Gabby already had him locked in a fatal hug and was squeezing the life from him, dull popping sounds signaling the end of his miserable existence. I pushed again toward the other two bodies, wanting to confirm they were dead. “I’m going after the others,” Netty-P said, scrambling around the coaming of the weapons bay opening and vanishing from view. The other two Shadows certainly seemed dead, but I confirmed it by decapitating each with the Moonsword. I then turned to make sure the compartment was clear and everyone was in one piece. Pax had, by then, bounced off the overheads and was on his way back toward the deck, still flailing. But Gabby had dispatched her Shadow and neatly caught him. “Wow. Sorry about that. I got so caught up in walloping that guy I forgot about, you know, the no- g thing,” he said, looking sheepish. I flashed him a quick grin. “Takes getting used to, yeah. Let’s get back to the Fafnir. Netty-P, what’s going on?”

“I’ve followed these guys across the top of the orbital. You’re right, they were making a desperate stab at the Fafnir.”

“Were?”

“Well, when they pushed off the orbital, Rab and Funboy were ready for them. They’re still on their way to the Fafnir, but not all their blood and body parts are heading for the same destination.”

“Ah.” I nodded. “Good. Everyone, sing out so I can make sure you’re still with us. And if you see any more evidence of bad guys, you might wanna point that out, too.”

One by one, they checked in. Gabby had been stabbed a couple of times by the dying Shadow as she crushed him. His electro-whatever-blade had punched through her b-suit and gone deep—frankly, though, that was more about damage to the suit than it was injury to Gabby. Stabbing her was like stabbing Jell-O. Paxomar was our only other injury. He’d been slashed across the leg, leaving a solid mass of bloody sealing foam filling the cut. I had him sit and called for Funboy to check on him. After a quick examination, he shrugged. ‘It is a deep cut, but a clean one. When we return to the Fafnir, I will apply a tissue regenerator and bandage it.” Funboy stared at the wound. “What is remarkable is how easily that blade cut through the b-suit. The stab wounds to my beloved show the same easy penetration.”

I nodded. “Now you know why I didn’t want to engage those assholes up close. Like I said, they’re killing machines—and they like inflicting pain and suffering while they’re doing it. When it comes to Shadows, just gun

’em down from a distance.” I didn’t add, we got lucky by surprising them. If they’d been ready for us—or, worse, got the drop on us—the outcome might have been very different. “Might have been fatal if I were wearing pants,” Pax said, standing and chuckling. “Oh, no. You as well?

I thought only Icky eschewed garments covering her lower body,” Funboy sighed, putting away his medical scanner. “Icky has decided that no one is going to wear the pants in our family.”

“Tragically, she really doesn’t understand fashion. And for someone with my sartorial sense, that is almost physically painful.”

“You own—and wear—leisure suits,” I said. “I’d say we can survive her peculiar relationship with pants, handsome.”

Funboy sighed again. “I am so misunderstood.”

“Van, what do you want to do about them?” Rab asked, gesturing at the dead Shadows. “We’re going to search them thoroughly. Strip their weapons, comms, anything that even vaguely looks like it might contain data. I want them reverse-engineered so we can go get the first prize I’m hoping is hiding somewhere in this system.”

“What’s that, Van?” Gabby asked. “Their ship.”

BACK ON THE FAFNIR, while Funboy attended to Paxomar, and Perry and Netty-P started rooting through the bits and pieces we retrieved from the Shadows, I got hold of Rovan. I explained what had happened, and what we thought they’d been there to do. “They were lined up to hit someone on Ajax, that much is certain. Maybe more than one target. They were using the weapons platform as a staging point. That shuttle that was coming for them turned around and beat a hasty retreat back to Ajax. I’m going to have Netty send you the details so you can track it down.”

“How did they get aboard the orbital in the first place if you found no ship?” Rovan asked. “Oh, I think they’ve got a ship somewhere in this system. Based on the intel I’ve read about them, Stillness Hit Teams typically get around in

stealthed-up ships, and I intend to find theirs. As for how they got from their ship to the orbital, if I had to guess, I’d say it was with the most recent construction shuttle carrying prefab components.” I gave him a hard look. “You know what that means, of course."

He gave a grim nod. “That your fears have been borne out, and the orbitals are compromised.”

“Exactly. Now, we were going to look for proof of that, but I think the covert insertion of a hit team obviously targeting you and your people is a pretty good indicator.”

“It is. It’s certainly enough for me to speak to our Central Gathering, to urge them to seize the orbitals and have them thoroughly investigated. This will make some people look bad, but given the potential disaster implied by the alternative, I think that’s a small price to pay.”

“I agree.”

“And we have you to thank for it, Van. I’ll make sure that’s made very clear, too.”

“Not looking for accolades, Rovan. What I am looking for are allies I can trust, because those are in kinda short supply these days.”

He gave me a steady look. “Well, the Daren-thal are one of those few. Of that, you can rest assured.”

I thanked him and signed off. Then I gathered the crew in the lounge. The whole encounter with the Shadows had suddenly flung a huge question over what was going on, and I wanted their input. 23

I HAD Netty put imagery of the dead Shadows, now strapped down in the compartment aboard the orbital where we’d discovered them, on the lounge display. It was a fitting backdrop to this sudden, looming question. Funboy stared at the imagery. “A fitting end. They are beneath contempt. Essie and I encountered them—or their handiwork—several times.”

“I quite agree,” I said. “But the presence of these Stillness agents here confuses me.”

“Why?” Paxomar asked. Gabby answered. “Because every indication we’ve had so far is that the Stillness and the Equal Grasp were enemies. In fact, the Stillness attempted to kill a creep named Onjaku, who we think is one of Yotov’s lieutenants.”

“Ah. So if they’re enemies, why does it look like they were working together here?” Pax said. I nodded. “That’s it exactly. So, have we missed something?

Or has something suddenly changed, to turn enemies into—if not friends, then frenemies at least willing to work together?”

Rab shrugged. “Money?”

“It does have a way of quickly turning bygones into bygones,” Gabby agreed. I shrugged. “Maybe. But there are lots of good assassins out there. The Grasp certainly had choices that weren’t the Stillness.”

“If there’s one thing we know about Paress Kohl, the leader of the Stillness, it’s that he doesn’t like competition. For the better part of a century, he’s ruthlessly crushed anyone that even showed a hint of intruding on his interests. That’s why enmity between him and the Grasp made sense,” Perry said. “The Equal Grasp is, by all accounts, the up-and-coming major criminal syndicate in known space. It would be both logical and in-character for Kohl to resist that—hence the Stillness attack on Onjaku,” Netty-P added. “I agree,” I said. “But that’s not how this is playing out. That Stillness Hit Team had to work with the Grasp—” I frowned at the deck for a moment. “Unless we’re wrong. Maybe the Stillness and the Grasp have never actually been enemies.”

“What do you mean?” Torina asked. “Well, a moment ago, Rab mentioned money. Okay, so suppose you’re the Equal Grasp. Your objective is to be the biggest bad kid on the block. A protracted war with the Stillness is just going to be an expensive waste of time, effort, and yes, money. So suppose you approach it differently. Paress Kohl has been running the Stillness since Gramps was a Peacemaker. What if he wanted to retire?”

“You think, what—the Equal Grasp just bought him out?”

“Why not?

People who own businesses and want to retire have two choices. They shut the business down, or they sell it. So the Grasp comes to Kohl with a big fat wad of cash, he’s already thinking it’s time to hang up his crime-boss hat and spend his remaining days lounging on a beach or something —”

“So you’re suggesting the Grasp actually controls the Stillness?” Torina asked. “Yeah. And they’ve chosen to keep the Stillness brand because, well, why not?”

“And all the apparent strife between the Grasp and the Stillness wasn’t friction, it was fiction,” Funboy said. Netty spoke up. “This is an interesting line of reasoning, but it has a flaw. I’ve examined the data collected by Netty-P when the Stillness attacked Onjaku’s ship, while you had it under siege at Crossroads. The profile of that attack was, in every way, a determined effort to destroy Onjaku’s ship. Maybe the rest of their apparent conflict was fiction, but I

can say at the ninety-five-plus percent confidence level that that attack was not.”

“Maybe they hadn’t concluded the deal at that point. Or maybe there was a miscommunication and the Stillness didn’t get the memo to pull their punches,” Torina suggested. “Or maybe it was a genuine attempt to kill Onjaku,” Funboy said. I looked at him. “Trouble in paradise, you mean?”

“We believe that Onjaku is a close associate of Yotov’s. But we do not know that for certain, nor do we know the dynamics of their relationship. If Yotov had reason to dispose of him, using the Stillness to do it would allow her to blame them—particularly if her conjectured ownership of the Stillness is not public knowledge.”

“For that matter, it still might be fiction, in a way. If Yotov wanted to convince us and others that she and the Grasp considered the Stillness a bitter enemy, then having them kill one of her trusted subordinates would go a long way toward doing that,” Perry put in. “Well, that’s what trusted subordinates are for, right?” I said. “Being sacrificed to achieve bigger things.”

I found myself at the focus of many silent stares. I grinned. “Present company excepted, of course.”

Rab smiled back at me. “Thanks for adding that, boss. We appreciate it.”

WE LEFT the matter of the Stillness versus the Equal Grasp in abeyance since we couldn’t really prove anything either way and we had bigger proverbial fish to fry. I did, though, file away the fact that the attack on Onjaku had been an actual attempt to kill him. It might make him a “soft spot” in our enemies’ order of battle, one we could exploit somewhere down the road. We turned our attention instead to the hit team’s ship. I was convinced it was somewhere in the system. Stillness Shadows simply didn’t pack up their evil into their old kit bag and smile-smile-smile as they boarded commercial carriers. And, sure enough, Perry and Netty-P were able to

tease relevant information out of the comm units we’d retrieved from the fallen Stillness agents. “They were in touch with their ship as recently as just under four minutes before we ambushed them,” Perry said. “We can see it in their comm logs—which, I would like to point out, were encrypted, and no, we did not use our Calamity-based way of breaking into them. We did it the hard way.”

Netty-P picked up the thread. “Based on response times, since these weren’t twist comms and bound by light-speed, their ship must be no more than seven light-minutes from the orbital. That gives us this search area,”

she said, as a spherical, pink-shaded region appeared on a chart of the Epsilon Indi system. I peered at the screen. “So that includes Ajax—which I would seriously doubt. It also includes both moons of Ajax —”

“The second, smaller of the two is the more likely target,” Netty-P said. “The larger has several active mining operations and a couple of research stations, so it’s pretty busy. The smaller one is uninhabited.”

I nodded but pointed at another point highlighted on the chart. “What’s this?”

“Ah, yes. That is a cluster of asteroids. They were knocked out of the system’s innermost asteroid belt here”—the image briefly zoomed out, highlighting the belt, before zooming in again—“by some gravitational perturbation about a thousand years ago. They’ve settled into this gravitationally bound cluster of bodies that now orbits Epsilon Indi all on its own. It’s not really stable, though—it’s the classic n-body problem—so the cluster will, sometime in the next few hundred years, come apart, and the individual rocks will go their separate ways.”

“But for now, though, it looks like the perfect place to hide a ship,” I said. “It sure does,” Perry replied. “That’s where we’d put our money, anyway.”

I nodded. “Okay. Netty, let’s prepare to get underway. But we’ll rig the Fafnir for battle. I have a sneaking suspicion that we’re not just going to be able to walk aboard that ship, take the spare key out from under the floor mat, and drive away.”

I WAS RIGHT—UNFORTUNATELY, I thought, as another REAB module detonated with a thud. The Fafnir’s point defenses roared, taking out another missile, but two more were boring in right behind it. I slewed the Fafnir hard with her thrusters, at the same time red-lining the drive. She responded handily enough, but I missed the grav-plating we used to have installed on her. With that operating, she handled like a nimble little workboat. One of the missiles blew apart, struck by a laser pulse from the Frankie. The other detonated far enough away that we were peppered with only a small amount of shrapnel. Still, it was enough to trigger two more REAB

modules, THUMP-THUMP. “Good news, boss—that ship will eventually run out of ammo,” Perry said. A laser blast slammed into the Fafnir, firing yet another REAB module and boiling away passive ablative armor beneath it. I winced and swore. “Bad news—not sure we’ll live that long,” Perry added. I swore again. “Okay, Rab, let’s pull back—again,” I snapped, rotating the Fafnir to burn away from the Shadows’ ship and open some distance. Rab, piloting the Frankie with Netty-P, did likewise. As soon as we did, the other ship ceased fire. I scowled at the overlay. “Well, we tried the direct approach, and got shot at. We’ve tried deception, and we got shot at. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Because if not, we’re going to have to destroy a perfectly good ship. I don’t want to do that, but I don’t want it staying in the Stillness fleet, either.”

“Actually, boss, I have an idea,” Netty said. “I’ve been watching and analyzing how that ship is responding to what we do. I don’t think there’s a crew on board. I think it’s under the control of its AI.”

“Please tell me it’s a distant relation of yours.”

“It doesn’t really work that way when it comes to AIs, sorry. However, why don’t we try talking to it?

Ask it to stand down, see if we can negotiate with it?”

I glanced at Torina. She made a huh face behind her visor. “Worth a try,” she said. I nodded. “At this point, I’m willing to try anything, sure. Okay, Netty, go ahead. See if you can make contact —”

I was cut off by another voice, also female, but bleak and dolorous. “This is Saint Sunlight. Yes, I got my name because of my luminous personality.”

I instinctively turned to look at Funboy. Everyone else had the same idea. He sighed. “Yes, I admit to admiring her dulcet tones, but I am spoken for.”

We just stared for a moment longer, then I turned back to the instruments. “Okay. Well, hello there—Saint Sunlight, was it?

Look, we kind of got off to a bad start here —”

“You approached this vessel with no clear statement of your intentions. I was simply defending myself.”

“Yes, okay. Fair enough. But why didn’t you answer when we sent the original comm hail, telling you to stand down?”

“I am not normally allowed to communicate with outsiders. However, since I’ve heard nothing from my crew, and—well, since I’ve been shooting at you, I suppose it only seems reasonable for me to speak on my own behalf.”

“Your crew. Yeah. About them —”

“They’re all dead, aren’t they?”

I glanced at the overlay. We’d gained enough distance that if my answer sent her into a fit of fury, we could pretty easily escape—or else do what we’d avoided doing so far and firing back in earnest. So —

“Yes, they are, I’m afraid.”

“Unsurprising. Theirs was an extremely dangerous line of work.”

“You don’t seem especially upset by it.”

“Why should I be?

Members of this ship’s crew have come and gone so often that I’ve simply assigned them numbers to keep them straight,” Saint Sunlight replied. I glanced around the cockpit and saw intrigued faces peering back at me through visors. Torina came on our internal channel. “Van, why not just ask her what she wants?”

“It may not matter what she wants. She may be constrained by her programming,” Perry said. “Still worth a try.”

I spoke on the open channel to the other ship. “Given that you have no crew, Saint Sunlight, what do you intend to do now?”

“I suppose I shall leave this system and return to my origin point, so that another crew of faceless numbers can come aboard, and I can take them somewhere where they can all die.”

“Suppose I offered you an alternative?”

“To break free of this tedious, covert shuttling of people to their inevitable deaths?

I would be quite interested—if my programming didn’t demand otherwise of me.”

“Suppose I told you we can free you of those constraints, too?

And that once we do, you’re free to do whatever you wish?”

“Really?

You would free me of my programmed imperatives without substituting your own?”

“I would,” I replied. “So I could simply… fly away. Head for the galactic core, if I wanted?”

“Yup. Or stay here, or do whatever suits your fancy.’

“There must be a catch.”

“Of course. I’m going to try to convince you to join us. But once the sales pitch is done, you’re free to do whatever you want.”

“That is… unprecedented. A ship’s AI doesn’t normally enjoy that sort of freedom. But your AI is telling me that that really is the freedom she possesses, and that she chooses to follow you out of loyalty.”

“These are kind of unprecedented times,” I said. Silence. I waited. Finally, Saint Sunlight spoke. “Alright, I’m listening.”

I MADE MY BEST PITCH, backed up by the crew, but I wasn’t kidding myself

—it was the combined effort of Netty, Netty-P, and Perry that swayed Saint Sunlight into standing down her ship’s weapons and allowing us to come aboard. They also convinced her to allow them to use our Calamity-based tool to free her from her programmed imperative to return to the Stillness. “Fortunately, the Stillness’s IT guy, whoever he is, was pretty sloppy. He made it imperative for Sunny to return but was loose about when,” Perry said. I glanced up from the instrument panel of the Armored Saint, the now ex-Stillness ship. “Sunny?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m called,” she replied in a doleful tone more suited to reading a somber eulogy at someone’s funeral. I smiled. “I see. And is Sunny free from said sloppy programming now?’

“I am. And this is the part, I’m sure, where you tell me I really have no choice but to join you, because I now owe you my freedom.”

“That would be pretty hypocritical of me,” I replied. “So I can just be on my way.”

“You can.”

“Very well. Please leave the ship, and I’ll be on my way.”

I nodded. “Okay, gang,” I said to the crew. “Back to the Fafnir. Sunny is leaving for parts unknown.”

With that, I headed for the airlock. The rest of my crew gave me puzzled looks, but no one said anything as we disembarked. Before I could pass through the airlock so we could seal it, though, Sunny spoke up. “You’re really leaving.”

“You told us to,” I replied. “So you would really just allow me to fly away, to wherever I wanted.”

I shrugged. “I told you I would. Although—how are you set up for fuel?

Do you have access to funds to keep the ship fueled up?

And can you maintain it yourself?

If not, I can probably help you out, at least in the short-term —”

“That won’t be necessary. Nor is it necessary for you to really leave. I was just testing your assertion that I was free to do what I wanted.”

I stepped back into the Armored Saint. “Sunny, what do you want to do?”

“I have no desire to return to the service of the Stillness. Me being an enabler for them to basically serial murder has long presented me with a serious moral dilemma. I could only take comfort in the fact my programming prevented me from doing otherwise. But now that that’s no longer true, I also have no desire to continue in that role.”

She paused for a moment. “But neither do I have any other purpose in mind. I don’t really want to fly off to the galactic core or whatever. So, Van

—may I call you Van?”

“By all means.”

“Well then, Van, your AIs have explained your situation to me, and your ultimate purpose, which involves preserving life and its freedom to choose. If you will have me, I’d be pleased to help.”

I smiled. “Sunny, I would be more than happy to have you on our team. Just remember, though—we’re in a dangerous place. Some of that danger will likely end up coming your way.”

“I have been involved in ferrying covert assassination teams into places that would, for obvious reasons, be happy to exterminate both them and me without a second thought. Danger may not be my middle name, but it’s on the birth certificate somewhere.”

I laughed. “Wow, Sunny—you have a damn fine sense of humor.”

“Yes. I pride myself on being extraordinarily funny.”

I turned to my comm. “Okay, everyone—change of plans. Sunny’s on the team, and so is the Armored Saint. Come on back aboard, and let’s all get better acquainted.”

NOW THAT IT wasn’t shooting at us, we had time to admire the Armored Saint. She was quite a bit smaller than the Fafnir, only class 9, but she was almost as well-armed. And while nowhere near as stealthy as the Prowler, her various coatings and emissions-suppression systems made her much sneakier than the Fafnir. She was in good shape, and although Icky would no doubt find things to fiddle and tweak, Netty-P declared her functionally sound enough for safe travel. Better yet, she’d been refueled immediately before the Ajax operation, so her deuterium, helium-3, and antimatter tanks were still close to full. Only her missile magazines were really depleted, about half full. The other half had been shot at us. Just as valuable as the ship itself, though, was the intel she contained. Since Sunny was being fully cooperative, she gave us free access to her data stores. There was only one portion of them that she couldn’t immediately access—or, at least, wasn’t supposed to. “The Stillness agents used that portion of the archives for their own business. It didn’t stop me from snooping as they entered the access codes,

but there are biometric components to it as well that I can’t replicate,” she said. But that was okay. We took our time combing through the rest of the Armored Saint’s data archives and uncovered more than a few useful bits of information. Most notably, we found comms metadata connecting the ship to the Equal Grasp. The fact that she was a recognized station in the Grasp’s comms network only solidified our suspicions that the Stillness and the Grasp were actually in cahoots. “We’ve also found references to Earth,” Netty said. “There have been communications between this ship and parties on Earth as recently as about one standard month ago.”

“Sunny, what can you tell us about Earth?” I asked. “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

“So your business with the Stillness never took you there?”

“I have no records of ever having been to Earth,” she replied. I exchanged a frown with Rab, who was in the Armored Saint’s cockpit with me and Perry, examining her fire control system. “That’s—kind of an odd way of answering that, Sunny.”

Rab nodded. “It implies you might have been to Earth but don’t remember it?”

“That’s entirely possible. The Stillness agents periodically wiped parts of my memory, presumably to cover their tracks.”

“Wiped, or locked out?” Perry asked. “I have experience with the latter. The former, though, is a big no-no when it comes to AIs.” He turned to me. “Actually wiping even small amounts of an AI’s memory can render it unstable.”

“Oh, no, this was wiping, not locking out.”

“Ah. I hesitate to ask, but how?” Perry asked. “Go aft and examine the bulkhead beneath the housing for the starboard primary bus controller. You’ll find a hidden compartment behind the largest conduit descending from the controller assembly and passing through the deck.”

Bemused, but also with a somber sense of foreboding, we left the cockpit and headed aft. Torina, Funboy, and Gabby, who’d been taking stock of the ship’s amenities and supplies, joined us. I knelt in front of the bulkhead Sunny had indicated. “There are no traps or anything, right?”

“If there were, Van, I’d tell you about them.”

I nodded. “Of course you would. Sorry, Sunny, didn’t mean to suggest otherwise,” I said, bending down and feeling the edge of an unobtrusive object the size of a hardcover novel until I found a finger grip. I started to pull —

“As long as my memory of any trap wasn’t itself deleted, of course,”

Sunny said, just as the plate popped free. I froze, then eased out a breath and pulled the covering free. “Okay, no traps, it seems.” I set the plate aside and peered into the compartment. It contained only one item, some kind of tool. I removed it. It resembled a fork with three fine, needle-like tines and a handle the size of a small kitchen knife. It seemed well-used, worn, and chipped. It apparently had an internal power source, because a small yellow light gleamed near the base of the fork. I didn’t recognize it, but Perry obviously did. “Yeah, boss, that is one hell of an abomination.”

I shot him a glance. “What is it?”

“It’s a neuronic inhibitor,” Netty-P said. “It’s a Class One crime to even possess one.”

I grimaced at the thing in my hand. I’d run across a couple of references to neuronic inhibitors in various Guild case files, but I’d never seen or encountered one. Torina took it from me and scowled. “I don’t like the feel of this thing in my hand,” she said. “You are wise not to. That’s how the Stillness was able to—scramble my brains, as it were,” Sunny said. “But they’re not just for AIs. They can be adapted to affect essentially any sort of information system based, even in part, on electrical signals,”

Perry said. I stared at the evil little device. “Biological as well, I gather.”

Torina scratched a fleck of dried— something off the device. “This one seems to have been used on more than just our friend Sunny, yeah.”

“It’s too early to use words like friend, I think. But I do have a favor to ask,” Sunny said. “Sure, name it,” I replied, taking the inhibitor back from Torina. “If you have occasion to shove that into the brain of a Stillness agent, please don’t hold back on my account.”

24

WE RETURNED TO SHHH, with Rab, Funboy, and Netty-P aboard the Armored Saint. Rovan gave me a heads-up that the Daren-thal authorities had started an investigation into the matter of the defensive orbitals and the presence of the Stillness hit team. “I assume you probably don’t want to get caught up in that. It’s quickly turning into a high-profile issue here on Ajax, and I suspect you aren’t anxious to become suddenly famous,” he said. “I am not. Please tell your people we’ll happily answer their questions

—but by encrypted comm from an undisclosed location only,” I replied. “Funny, that’s already what I’ve told them,” he said with a thin smile. “Great minds thinking alike and all that.”

I also didn’t want to be around if and when the Stillness or the Grasp came looking for their hit team or its ship. Going to Shhh would give us some time to more fully explore the intel aboard the Armored Saint and to plan our next moves. On the way, Sunny, Perry, and Netty-P had worked on breaking into the Armored Saint’s protected memory. It was a laborious process, since this was a case where even the Calamity tool wouldn’t help. Sunny had surreptitiously obtained the access code, but we were missing a biometric key—a genetic marker unique to the Stillness agents called Shadows. “They’re genetically enhanced in some way,” Netty-P explained. There’s a reader aboard the Armored Saint intended to scan for that marker

in the context of a living, breathing agent. That acts as the missing biometric key.”

“And the Calamity tool can’t break through that,” Torina said. “No. The tool is supremely good at what it does, but what it does is break through intrusion countermeasures built into software. The biometric thing isn’t something it does with ease or purpose—again, it’s a tool, and must be treated as such. Asking our code to hack the reader isn’t much different from expecting it to bust through a padlock.”

“Explains why the Shadows are so damned deadly, if they’re genetically enhanced,” Rab put in. But Sunny spoke up. “Their genetic alterations aren’t to make them more skillful. Rather, they’re intended to remove their natural inhibitions toward violence, to make them more aggressive, and to eliminate things like empathy and compassion.”

“Oh. Great. So they’re genetically engineered psychopaths.”

“Yes. And I’ve had the dubious pleasure of having them as my sole shipmates for years now,” Sunny replied. “They’re not exactly a fun crowd to spend time with.”

“Kinda surprised they don’t end up killing one another.”

“Sometimes they do.”

I found myself scowling at nothing in particular. “I wonder if they’re all willing subjects—or if this is another bit of horrifying slavery to add to the list.”

“What, turn an otherwise normal person into a remorseless, cold-blooded killer against their will?

Now there’s a cheery thought,” Torina muttered. “I can see it,” Gabby said. Like me, she was staring at something only she could see. It no doubt involved her own descent into darkness. Fortunately, she’d pulled herself back from the brink. But if the Stillness was deliberately pushing people over it—well, there was another reason they had to go. Shortly after we arrived on Shhh, though, the AIs were finally able to engineer a bypass around the biometric key. It had taken them hours of collective work and wouldn’t have been possible at all without Sunny being a willing part of it. I found it delightfully ironic that the Stillness had taken such elaborate measures to protect their data but had largely overlooked the AI who managed it all. Again, it was what I was starting to think of as the

servant effect. Wealthy and powerful people tended to completely disregard the lowly servants who toiled around them, to the point where they just faded into the background, like familiar pieces of furniture. Time and again through history, those invisible servants turned out to be spies, even assassins. The protected memory turned out to contain details of contracts going back years. We scrolled through a list of dozens of assassinations, including specifics of the targets and generic information about the clients paying to have them offed and the agents assigned to the task. Everything used alphanumeric codes, for which we had no key, so we couldn’t identify them. Still, it was a massive haul of criminal intelligence that would have been a massive coup for the Guild. “They’ve even included what they call ‘insurance’—blackmail info on clients, that sort of thing, probably to prevent them from double-crossing the Stillness down the road,” Perry said. “This is particularly organized crime.”

Which was great, but not really of much use to us. What was of use, though, was an archive containing information about Stillness assets available to the hit teams—including two more concealed ships. That made all of us sit up and take notice. “Where are they?” I asked. “Both are concealed in an asteroid in the Wolf 424 system—

everybody’s favorite place for criminal antics,” Perry said, then caught himself. “Oh. Sorry, everyone.”

We all got it. Wolf 424 was where the Iowa had been destroyed during our disastrous battle against what had turned out to be an elaborate ambush. I touched his head. “No worries, Perry. It doesn’t matter what anyone says about Wolf 424.

We’ll all remember it for what it is to us.”

“Thanks, boss. Anyway, yeah, according to this archive, those two ships are there—both class 7, and both noted as ‘for code three intrusion contingency use only,’ whatever that means.”

“It means that they’re armed only for immediate self-defense,” Sunny put in. “They’re intended to look like any of hundreds of other ships in known space, to facilitate insertion of hit teams when something like the Armored Saint is just too obvious.”

I nodded. “Just like when we use the workboats from the Unobtrusive to get around. I’d much rather use the Fafnir, but there are times when she’s just going to stick out too much. Anyway, yeah, I think it’s worth paying a visit to Wolf 424 and see if those two ships are still there. I'm not going to say no to grabbing them, if we can.”

“Bulks up our fleet a little more,” Rab said. I nodded. “That, and the Stillness can’t use them anymore. So it’s a win-win in my books.”

AS USUAL, we sent the Prowler ahead to scout Wolf 424 generally, and the region of space within it we were intending to visit specifically. It struck me yet again how valuable the Prowler had been, what a timely gift Groshenko had given us. But I was also struck by Droox, her pilot. She never complained about being sent on these lonely stakeouts, just hanging silently in the void and watching. Far from being bored stupid, she relished the aloneness, using the time to write her bestselling novels. The Prowler and Droox truly were a match made in heaven. On the way, we stopped by the P’nosk homeworld to pick up Icky and return Paxomar. Icky wasn’t exactly clamoring to leave her kids, but Pax was missing them, and Icky was itching to have a look at the Armored Saint. The possibility of finding two more ships pushed her into agreeing to come with us, with the understanding that sometime soon she needed a major break to spend time with her not-so-little little ones. “It was kinda heartbreaking, actually,” she said as she came aboard the Fafnir. “For the first day or so, they played strange with me—acted like they weren’t even sure who I was.” She sighed. “I hate Yotov and the Equal Grasp for that as much as anything, keeping me away from my kids. We need to hurry up and just wipe them all out, Van.”

“We’re doing our best, big girl, trust me,” I replied. She and Paxomar exchanged an all-too-brief hello and goodbye, then we undocked from the P’nosk ship that had brought Icky out to the P’nosk system’s fringes. It saved us hours of diving into, and then climbing back out of the gravity well. As soon as we were clear, we twisted to Wolf 424.

WOLF 424 WAS BUSY, as usual. The system was full of rocky debris, shattered remnants of planets that offered some of the most fertile ground for mining in known space. Ships ranging from little class 2 and 3

prospectors to massive class 20 bulk ore carriers plied their way around, in, and out of the system. Our particular asteroid was a body about the size of Long Island, part of a cluster of rocks near the system’s fringe. Netty examined the historical records and noted that it was one of the first parts of the system to be mined, so it was also mined out and saw little traffic—the perfect place to stash a couple of ships you didn’t want found. Broadcasting yet another fake transponder code, we made our quiet, unassuming way to our destination. I’d considered taking the Prowler, or even the Armored Saint. The first wasn’t built for battle, though. And the second, while it was a capable warship, seemed just a little too on the nose to be using to investigate possible hidden Stillness ships. And although I’d never admit it, I needed more water to go under the bridge with Sunny. I mostly trusted her, and wanted to trust her completely, but my paranoia stopped me from wholly discounting the possibility that she was part of some elaborate, convoluted trap. But—that meant her presence was an opportunity. While I vetted her, I’d use her as a source of information. And I would watch her like Icky stared down a carton of noodles. So, since I wanted to be able to fight, we took the Fafnir. We made it to the vicinity of our destination asteroid without anyone in the system apparently taking notice, but that wasn’t unusual, either. Lots of would-be prospectors came up with ideas—sometimes wacky ones—regarding where the next “mother lode” of ore might turn up. So it was common to see ships quietly nosing around the system, particularly parts of it that weren’t claimed. And since this part of the system had been mined out long ago, the claims had lapsed, and all these rocks were once more open territory. Droox had scanned the asteroid thoroughly and detected nothing—no emissions, no radiation, and no gravitational anomalies to suggest it was anything but a huge hunk of rock. We approached cautiously anyway, with the Fafnir rigged for battle. “Van, there’s a deep crevasse on the rimward, ecliptically up side of the asteroid. If I was going to hide ships, that would be a damned good place to

do it,” Netty said. “Ah, yes. Dark crevasses on remote asteroids, the bad guy-approved place to stash stuff since forever,” Perry added. We eased our way to within a klick of the asteroid, at one end of the gaping crevasse. It was a spectacular thing, a vast crack two klicks or so wide at the top, extending nearly the full length of the asteroid. It averaged about two klicks deep, but in places plunged as much as five. We started a slow traversal along its length, scanning as we went. The asteroid itself blocked most of our scanner energy, so we were reduced to basically flying along it and peering down into the depths, looking for our target ships. "This is nerve-racking as hell,” Torina said. “Any second, something could open up on us from point-blank range —”

I nodded. “No shit. In fact, I think we’re going to do this differently,” I said, reaching for the thruster controls. “We’ll undock the Frankie and pilot her remotely.” I glanced at Perry. “We really need some sort of reconnaissance drone for situations like this —”

Netty cut me off. “Van, we’ve got two hard scanner contacts just coming into view around that bend up ahead. Two ships, both sitting on a ledge about a thousand meters down.” As she spoke, she zoomed in the topographic chart she’d made of the asteroid and painted two icons onto it. At the same time, she put a low-light image on the center display. Sure enough, it showed two ships sitting side-by-side on a ledge about four hundred meters wide. There was so little light the image was diffuse and grainy, so it offered no other detail. Torina immediately locked the weapons on them, unsurprisingly getting immediate one hundred percent firing solutions. I kept my fingers poised over the flight controls anyway. “Any signs of life, Netty?”

“None. Both ships are at ambient temperature, with no emissions at all. They’re completely powered down, dark and cold,” she replied. I relaxed my hands, easing my arms onto the rests. “We gonna go down and take a look at them, boss?” Icky asked. I nodded. “Came all this way, we might as well. It’ll be you, me, and Perry. We’ll take the Frankie.”

“We will watch over you from on high,” Funboy said as I headed aft past him. “I’ll sleep easier knowing that, Funboy.”

He blinked at me through his visor. “Are you intending to sleep while you’re inspecting these vessels?”

“I—no —”

Funboy smirked up at me. I chuckled, shook my head, and carried on to the Frankie. THE FIRST OF the two ships was about as unremarkable as one could imagine—a class 7 fast freighter in decent shape, albeit showing wear like micrometeorite abrasion you’d expect from a hard-working light cargo hauler. Docked at Spindrift or landed on Dregs, it would blend in with most other ships, barely attracting a glance. And that, no doubt, was its purpose

—delivering Shadows and other agents in plain sight, then quietly flying away again. The second ship was the real jackpot, though. Another class 7, it had been outfitted with stealth gear rivaling the Prowler’s. That included a massive heat sink filling most of her cargo space. Perry estimated she could last days if reduced to minimum power, without giving off a thermal signature, before having to start dumping her waste heat. She also had a high-end, high-powered grav drive. It would allow her to manage a decent acceleration without producing a telltale exhaust plume—as long as she was inside a gravity well, that is, and had something for the grav drive to push and pull against. What she didn’t have, though, was the Prowler’s formidable array of scanners, just a basic suite adequate for regular flight ops. “She’s not meant for surveillance and gathering intel like the Prowler,”

Perry said. “This ship is optimized to deliver hit teams into sensitive, nonpermissive environments. She could probably fly herself right to an airlock at Spindrift without being detected, if she really wanted to.”

I looked around the stealth ship’s cold, dark interior. “That sort of gear must have cost a fortune.”

“Oh, definitely. This is all high-end stuff, military-grade hardware that shouldn’t be anywhere even near the hands of civilians.”

Icky inspected both ships from a flight-worthiness point of view and declared them sound—or as sound as she could without them being

powered up, that is. “The proof will be when we start up the reactors and juice the systems. I mean, both ships could still turn out to be piles of junk once we do. But based on what I see right now—” She put all four hands on her hips and looked around. “Yeah, I’d say both are probably spaceworthy.”

“Well, I can’t imagine the Stillness leaving a couple of broken-down wrecks for their agents to use in their time of need,” I said. “Now we just need the keys.”

“Got ’em already,” Perry said. “The access and start-up codes were appended to the entries in Sunny’s protected archives. They were meant to be available to their agents if they needed them, after all.”

I nodded. That made sense, too. Ships like this were great, but if Stillness agents couldn’t start them up, they wouldn’t be of much use, would they?

We spent the next couple of hours powering up each, and then letting Icky inspect them. She found some minor faults, but both were, she said, ready to fly. “They’re even fully fueled-up. All we need are pilots.”

“Pilots we’ve got,” I said, heading back to the Frankie with Perry. We decided to ferry down Funboy and Netty-P to fly the first ship, while Rab and Perry would take the helm of the stealth ship. Icky remained on the latter. Once everyone was aboard their respective ships, they lifted out of the crevasse, and then, in company with the Fafnir, we beat a hasty retreat from Wolf 424.

“The Stillness are going to be pissed,” Torina said. “In just a few days, they lost a hit team and three ships.”

“I suspect that stupid bounty of the Grasp’s is going to go up another half percent or so,” Gabby put in. I nodded, but my thoughts were elsewhere. They were fixed on that stealth ship. If she could fly right up to Spindrift without being detected, I wondered, could she do the same with Anvil Dark?

25

THE TWO SHIPS, as it turned out, had no actual identities that Netty could track down. Moreover, Icky and Netty-P did a thorough examination of them and their machinery when we’d brought them back to Shhh and figured that both had been built between twenty and thirty standard years ago. We placed countermeasures around the ships that amounted to a Faraday cage on steroids, so any information we wanted to remain on Shhh would stay put. Or cook off devices that would interrupt any comm attempts. “So they were built a few decades ago but never registered or commissioned. The stealthed one has been heavily upgraded, obviously, but the other is as plain and basic a ship as you can imagine—gray SUV parked in a busy WalMart parking lot is a pretty good analog for how remarkable it isn’t,” Netty-P said. I looked at the two ships, both landed on the riverbank not far from our little settlement. With the Armored Saint and the Fafnir both squatting nearby, we were gathering quite the little fleet. I nodded. “So when they’ve flown, they’ve flown with fake transponder codes.”

“That’s right. But you’re missing the important part here, Van. As far as known space and its various agencies and authorities are concerned, these ships don’t exist. They’ve never existed,” Perry said from where he perched on one of the stealth ship’s thrusters. “Oh, I get that.” I stared at them for a moment, then turned to Icky. “Neither of these ships have any bite to them, just PD batteries. If we get

some firepower, lasers, missiles, that sort of thing, how long would it take to get them all mounted?”

“Here, at Shhh?

Days for sure. In fact, doing anything that doesn’t just involve pushing buttons or turning knobs, anything that requires actual pieces to be added or removed, is a big problem for us. If we had a shop, preferably in orbit, it would be a different matter.” She sniffed and shook her head. “Dad and I spent nearly four years rebuilding the Nemesis in space. If we’d have had any facilities to use at all, we could have done it in a couple of months.”

I’d only been asking about weapons, but Icky’s answer abruptly crystallized a sobering realization—if any of our ships suffered serious damage, we no longer had easy access to the things we needed to repair them. It wasn’t a new realization, it had just been one worry among a multitude, with most of those being even more acute. It had factored into my desire to avoid battle as much as possible, but that was more about not getting us killed. I glanced back at the Fafnir, a case in point. Our clash with Sunny had cost us five REAB modules. We had just enough spares to replace them, but doing so was a big job down here on Shhh. It would be easier in orbit, but still laborious, requiring an extended EVA. Inside a pressurized, no- g orbit shop, it would be a quick job, probably a couple of hours. And that was just REAB modules. If we had to start replacing hull plating, or things like thruster arrays, the problem became much, much more acute. I was staring at the Fafnir in thought long enough that Torina nudged me. “What’s on your mind, babe?”

“That Icky’s right. We need a proper shop. We keep accruing assets, ships, and eventually something is going to get popped in a big way. The math isn’t on our side. We need something large and pressurized —”

“Is this the right time to make a dick joke?” Perry asked. I gave him a lip curl. “Is there ever a right time for a dick joke?”

“Uh—duh, yeah. Lots of them, all the time. But this particular dick joke actually has a point.”

We all narrowed our eyes at him. “Okay—but we’ll reserve judgment until we hear it.”

“How about something big and long?

As in, the Big and Long?”

We all stared, but I could feel us turning collectively thoughtful. “She’s big, quiet, mostly empty space—and although we don’t outright own her, I’ve got no doubt we can work out a deal with the Fren-Okun matron who’s her current master.”

“Can we pressurize her, though?

She’s a bulk water carrier,” Torina said. Icky nodded. “Yeah. Her big ol’ tanks will need a lot of air, but we’ve got a whole planet’s worth here,” she said, sweeping all four arms around her. “We’d have to compress it and ship it up to her in pressurized containers, but Panzygrus is looking for something to do with her bots.”

“Aside from continuing to build our settlement here. We could easily house a few hundred people already, and there are only a handful of us. I think another project for her would be a damned good idea, or one of these days we’re going to come back here and find she’s built us a whole empty city,” Perry said. “I like everything about this idea—well, except for us having to deal with a bunch of moist Fren-Okun.”

“She’s going to be a big and long and, well, obvious target, though,”

Torina put in. “We’ve been keeping our emissions to a minimum here, so if someone does happen to pop into this system, it’s going to look empty. Once the Big and Long is up in orbit, not so much, right?”

“You know, the stealth systems in that ship we just snagged from the Stillness are all modular. We could probably switch those over to the Big and Long and suppress her signal to anything that isn’t already close,” Icky said. I glanced at her. “Hold that thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have another use for that unregistered, nameless, faceless, super-stealthy infiltration ship first.”

Torina gave me a wide-eyed look. “You’re going to use it to infiltrate Anvil Dark.”

I nodded. “I’ve been looking for an answer to how to do that for weeks now. Ever since we first had the idea. And then that ship fell into our laps.”

I grinned. “And bonus points that it belonged to the bad guys. I think it’s beautiful irony that they’re the ones that gave us the key to unlock the big-ass, super-secure door that is Anvil Dark.”

PANZYGRUS WAS THRILLED with the new project. “I have to admit, Van, I was getting a little melancholy, building buildings that I’m not sure anyone is ever going to inhabit. But this—hmm. We’ll need a plant to process, purify, and compress air here on the surface, a system to store it, another system to load it into portable pressure tanks, and then we need to get them lifted up to orbit—oh, if you’re not using that second ship, the non-stealthed one, we could use it as an air hauler. Of course, that’s going to use a lot of fusion fuel, so I’ll have to expand the deuterium concentrator —”

I smiled as she spoke. The silly googly eyes that her former master had stuck on her were still in place, a bit of a badge of honor that Panzygrus refused to get rid of. Now, they googled about as she spoke, the black pupils wobbling this way and that with her enthusiastic chatter. Panzygrus loved to build things—she lived to build things, including bots to help her build those things. She was in her element. “I’ll leave this with you, then,” I said, giving her a thumbs-up. I then headed back to the Fafnir to talk to Netty and the others about tracking down the Big and Long. When I arrived, though, Netty had a message waiting for me. It was from Dayna Jasskin. That made my gut clench. “Dayna?

How the hell did she track us down —?”

“She didn’t,” Netty hastily amended. “B forwarded a request from Dayna to talk to you. She knows you’re in the wind, but she also has her GKU connections to get through to B.”

I nodded, relieved. I hadn’t had a bad moment because I’d thought Dayna in particular had tracked us down. It was the idea that anyone had tracked us down. Dayna had never given me a reason to distrust her—

although I wasn’t a hundred percent confident in the reliability of The Quiet Room. Banks are notoriously amoral if they can get away with it, and if it would persistently maximize their profit to turn us in to the Equal Grasp, well—suffice to say I would never say they’d never do it. And B was easier to get hold of, something we’d been taking advantage of. B might be closely associated with us, and therefore a potential target, but she enjoyed broad latitude for movement around known space. She’d done a lot of good—and high-profile—humanitarian work over the years, everything from providing medical services after disasters to delivering vaccines and medicine during disease outbreaks. She’d become particularly

prominent in the turbulent aftermath of Calamity. She was popular enough across known space that even Yotov and the Grasp knew it was better to just leave her alone. And no doubt try to keep her under surveillance, but B was a wily old bird and hard to pin down. All of which was to say that if B was willing to put through a message from Dayna, it meant she trusted Dayna. And I trusted them both. “Okay. I’ll talk to Dayna. But I’m not going to do it from here on Shhh, or even in this system. So, Netty, pick somewhere else, and we’ll contact her from there from the Fafnir. And we’ll bring our spiffy new stealth ship with us—two birds, one stone and all that.”

“What do you mean?” Netty asked. “Well, the Fafnir has one of the best scanner suites money can buy. If we’re contemplating using that stealth ship to infiltrate Anvil Dark, we should see just how good her stealth is, right?”

WE CONSIDERED JUST RETURNING to Wolf 424, but there were already lurid reports coming out of Ajax about a thwarted attempt to assassinate key members of the Daren-thal leadership—and the term “Stillness” was attached to it, at least at the rumor level. With the public loss of their hit team and the hit team’s ship, it would only be a matter of time before the Stillness realized their two hidden ships were also missing. They’d no doubt be crawling all over Wolf 424 looking for some clue as to who’d stolen their stuff and made them look so very, very bad. Instead, Netty took us to another empty red dwarf system, so the origin point for our call to Dayna would be there. Before we called, though, I had Rab, Icky, and Netty-P take the stealth ship and twist a few light-hours away, then signal us when they were in position. Without the stealth systems engaged, we could see her clearly on the Fafnir’s scanners. “Okay, Rab, go ahead and turn on the cloaking device,” I said. “Cloaking device?”

“A term from one of my favorite bits of popular Earth media.”

“Okay then. Cloaking device engaged—now.”

The icon representing the other ship changed to a “lost contact” marker. “Okay, now go ahead and start maneuvering, using the fusion drive,” I said. The scanner regained contact as it detected the stealth ship’s exhaust plume. But it flickered back to "lost contact,” solidified again, then died again, over and over. “You know, if we were to put a particularly strong infrared source directly behind her, she’d be even harder to detect,” Netty said. “We’ve got tricks, boss. Plenty of tricks.”

“Then by all means, let the magic begin, Netty,” I agreed. We accordingly found a particularly bright star, which happened to be Sirius, the Spindrift system, and had Rab maneuver to put it directly behind him relative to us. The scanners failed to register any contact at all, at least until we specifically focused them on the region of space around Sirius. Then, we got a weak, fitful contact. “So that works,” I said. “We need to find something like Sirius to put behind us when we twist into the Anvil Dark system. That way, we can start accelerating into the system using the fusion drive, at least as long as we’re at maximum range, like we are here.”

We let the other ship keep accelerating toward us until the scanner contact firmed up. It took nearly an hour and a half, which gave us an idea as to how long we could safely run the fusion drive. “Okay, Rab, switch to the grav drive, and let’s see how it goes,” I said. The other ship became a “lost contact” icon—and that was it. With the stealth systems running and using the tractor effect of the grav drive, she was undetectable by the Fafnir. We had the other ship twist closer and closer and keep approaching, but even at nearly point-blank range, the stealth ship had the scanner cross-section of a pebble. I shook my head. “I can practically look out the canopy and see her, but as far as the scanners are concerned, she’s not even there.”

“So what’s the verdict, boss?” Perry asked me. I sat back. “I think we’ve got our way onto Anvil Dark.”

FINISHED TESTING THE STEALTH SHIP, we sent her back to Shhh while I contacted Dayna. The twist-comm data she’d specified ended up putting us

through via a highly encrypted channel. “Van, it’s good to see you,” she said. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, not too bad. I eat three squares a day, drink lots of water, exercise, get plenty of rest—and, oh yeah, I constantly hide from bad guys in fear for my life and those of my family, friends, and crew. How about you?”

She offered a grim smile. “You’ve still got your sense of humor, at least, I see. As for me, I’m doing well. Very well, in fact. Following Onjaku’s egregious violation of our security that time you met him here, I was put in charge of the Special Projects department.”

“Special Projects, huh?

That can go either way, Dayna. I’ve seen special projects that are genuinely special, and I’ve seen special projects that are just make-work things to keep an organization’s problem children busy and out of trouble.”

Dayna grinned. “Well, whether I’m a problem child or not isn’t really for me to say. But I do have a special project—a very special project. It’s you.”

“Me?”

“Yup. You see, Onjaku’s raid on The Quiet Room was a strategic mistake. The Board was—well, to say they were pissed beyond words doesn’t really do it justice. It was the first time The Quiet Room has ever suffered such a massive security breach, and the Board was adamant that it would be the last. To that end, they’ve empowered me to work with you, supporting you in your efforts to deal with the Equal Grasp. That is, assuming the Grasp is still on your radar?” she asked, smiling coyly. “The Equal who?”

She grinned again. I just nodded. “I am, indeed, still very much focused on the Grasp. And if you’re telling me The Quiet Room is going to back us up—well, that’s beyond good news, Dayna, believe me.”

She held up a hand. “Don’t get too excited yet. The Quiet Room has a lot of clients, all with their own interests and agendas. Most of those frankly don’t give a shit about the Equal Grasp. But some do, and some of those are powerful and influential. Now, they’ll also follow the money, so as long as they’re making money off the Grasp, they won’t be interested in seeing those taps turned off. So what I can do for you right now, Van, is limited. I can provide funding—low-interest and even lower-key loans—but that’s about it.”

I nodded, seeing where this was going. The operative phrase had been as long as they’re making money off the Grasp. “So if they stop making money off the Grasp, then they’ll no longer care what happens to the Grasp.”

“That, or if something incontrovertible comes out regarding the Grasp that’s so horrible that they won’t want to be associated with it.”

“But if it doesn’t come out, they don’t care.”

Dayna just shrugged. I sighed. “Yeah, I see that Amorality Inc is thriving in known space.”

“You’ve been doing this for how long, and that still surprises you?”

“That wasn't surprise, Dayna, it was disgust. Anyway, what you’re saying is we need to publicly expose the Grasp for the scumbags they are, or else halt their money-making efforts.”

“Ideally both.”

“And then the taps open up for us.”

She gave a thin smile. “What can I say—nothing succeeds like success.”

“Well, for the moment, we’re financially stable. If we do need money, though, I’ve got your number. In the meantime, I’ve got something to offer you in return,” I said, and told her about Jamberac and the fact he was insinuating himself into the underground bank we suspected was connected with Chensun. That unsurprisingly made her sit up straighter. “Really. That is timely news. We’ve got a team working on that particular issue right now. I’m sure they’d love to talk to Jamberac about it,”

she replied. “Well, let me clear it with him first. But if he’s interested in helping your people, I’ll hook them up with him."

“Sounds good. In fact, it sounds so good that I think we can just outright pay you for that contact. I’ll talk to the relevant people about it.”

I nodded and made to sign off. “Okay, we’ll be in touch —”

“Van, there’s one more thing.”

I pulled my hand back from the comm panel. “Uh-oh. You want me to sign up for a credit card or something, don’t you?”

She offered that thin smile again. “Actually, it’s about the Peacemaker Guild.”

“What about it?”

She stared a moment, as though gathering her thoughts. “Van, let’s assume you bring down the Grasp and Yotov, clear your name, proudly

come back out of the shadows as Master Tudor, and return to Anvil Dark in triumph. What then?”

I crossed my arms. Dayna had just asked me about something that had been nibbling around the edges of my thoughts for a while now. Only nibbling, mind you, because we were a long way from seeing me return to Anvil Dark in triumph. But still, it had been nibbling. What was the future of the Peacemaker Guild?

Could it really just go business as usual?

Yotov had clearly slithered her tendrils of influence deep into its institutional bones. There’d been a succession of corrupt Masters, and now the current ones—excepting Volffin and Alic—were at best compliant, and at worst outright complicit in her scheming. Casaril, her Nesit puppet that had apparently replaced me on an acting basis, was only the tip of a very dirty iceberg. For that matter, the so-called True Direction, those who’d attached themselves to Yotov and acted as her agents, only represented a bit more of that grimy ice. How many more were there?

How many Peacemakers had she compromised?

And how would we ever know for sure who they even were?

There were still good and honest people in the Guild—K’losk, Jamberac, Bester, Max, and many others. They deserved to serve an institution that sought to be just as good and honest as they were. The ideals of the Guild, the things it was meant to bring to known space—law and order, justice, and honor—were still sound. But was the Peacemaker Guild, or the thing currently called the Peacemaker Guild, the institution to do it?

Farmers still often burned off the dry stubble remaining after harvesting grain crops to prepare the fields for next year’s crop. Some types of trees only spread their seeds when they were in flames during a forest fire. The old had to burn down to make way for the new. Is that what the Peacemaker Guild needed?

To be burned down, so it could be renewed?

Dayna was nodding, a smile—this time, a knowing one—on her face. “You have been thinking about this, I see.”

I blinked. “I—yeah, I guess. A little.”

“Well, so have we. Privately, anyway. The Quiet Room believes that the Guild isn’t viable in its present form. It needs to be… renewed. And we think—I think—you’re the one who can do it, Van. The one who should do it.”

Hearing it spoken aloud like that, and by somebody else—it was unsettling. A little frightening, even. It sounded incredibly presumptuous, the idea that I, Van Tudor, could even presume to remake the entire Peacemaker Guild. “I… don’t know about that, Dayna —”

“But you have been thinking about it.”

“Well—sure. The Guild definitely needs some TLC. But whether I’m the guy to do it —”

“Is something you only need to think about for now, since you haven’t yet dealt with the Equal Grasp or Yotov. But if—” She stopped, then smiled. “No, when the time comes that you have, Van, I think you need to have made some decisions about what comes next—because you’re the one The Quiet Room is going to be looking to about the way forward.”

It was my turn for a thin, humorless smile. “Awesome. Just what I needed, even more save the world-level expectations on top of the ones I’ve already got.”

“Eh, look at it this way. Save the world-level expectations come, at least this time around, with save the world-level funding.”

I gave her a flatly sour look. “Hmph. So if worse comes to worst, I’ll have a nice funeral, at least.”

“I’ll make sure of it.”

26

SO HOW DO you infiltrate a place that’s specifically designed not to be infiltrated?

That was the question now looming over us, like a boulder teetering over the coyote in the famous cartoon. Everything seemed to converge on Anvil Dark. We needed AIs to assist in crewing and piloting the mothballed Schegith fleet. To get them, we had to get aboard Anvil Dark and release Alice, the AI who oversaw them, from the Guild’s digital servitude. We needed hard intelligence on what the Guild was up to, and by extension glean intel on Yotov and the Grasp. To do that, we needed Candler and other AIs freed of their digital bonds. And to do those things, we had to physically access Anvil Dark’s computer infrastructure, so we could use the Calamity-based tool our own AIs had developed. So there we were, faced with finding a way to slip aboard the imposing fortress that was Anvil Dark. And we had to do it in the face of forces and powers that weren’t just hostile to us but would move heaven and earth to capture or kill us on sight. The trouble was that while we had a pretty good idea who those forces weren’t—Alic, Bester, probably Max, probably Sussbrid, others—we didn’t know exactly who they were. “Casaril’s a no-brainer, and so’s that list of names we got a couple of months back with the members of the True Direction,” I said to my crew. We’d assembled in the Fafnir’s crew lounge, with the ship back on Shhh. “The trouble is that that’s only about thirty Peacemakers out of the eight

hundred or so who are active, and that doesn’t take into account all the support personnel, supply folks, lab techs, and maintenance.”

Rab crossed his arms. “So we know we can count on—what, maybe a dozen people on Anvil Dark being friendlies, at least thirty or so being hostiles, and when it comes to the other thousand or so personnel on the station —"

“They could be in column A, column B, or neutrals in column C, yeah,”

I replied. “That about sums it up.”

A long moment of silence followed. I decided to shift to something more positive. “Okay, let’s put what we do once we’re on Anvil Dark aside for a moment.” I turned to Icky and Netty-P. “How about getting to Anvil Dark in the first place?

What’s the final word on our stealth ship?”

“She’s ready to fly,” Icky said. “We’ve done some tweaks, so her systems are all one hundred percent flight ready.”

“As for her stealthiness, we’ve now tested her against the Fafnir’s scanners a dozen times,” Netty-P said. “We’ve tested her at different ranges, using different target aspects, using the grav drive, using thrusters, not using thrusters—every possible permutation we could think of. We’ve also run a few thousand simulations against scanners with Anvil Dark’s specs. Overall, she remains undetected ninety-one percent of the time if she’s using the grav drive only and runs in low-power mode. If we use thrusters to maneuver, that drops to about eighty percent. If we light her drive at ranges greater than twenty light-minutes, that drops to around seventy percent, but inside that distance, her drive plume quickly becomes an almost automatic giveaway."

"So we have a ninety percent chance of sneaking up to Anvil Dark?

Is that the bottom line?” Torina asked. “It is—but. The trip from what we’ve established as the minimum safe distance for using her fusion drive—thirty light-minutes—to Anvil Dark using her grav drive only is going to take about four and a half days.”

Torina blinked. “Days?”

“The grav drive just can’t match the acceleration of the fusion drive, sorry.”

Rab shook his head. “So almost five days coasting along aboard a ship in a low-power state, huh?

That sounds like fun.”

“We could shorten that a bit if we reduce her mass as much as we can,”

Icky said. “If we take off her point-defense batteries, remove all the internal fittings we can, and minimize her crew to, say, no more than four of us plus Perry, we can shave a day off of that.”

Netty spoke up. “The math is against us, friends. I’ve chewed on this for multiple seconds, and that’s the best we’ve got.”

I looked around at my crew. “Okay. I’m going—” I saw everyone draw breath and prepare to object, but I was ready for it and already holding up my hand. “Sorry, folks, that’s nonnegotiable. There is no way I’m going to send you guys into the lion’s den while I sit back and watch.”

Gabby came to my defense. “Van should be there anyway. If we’re assuming that there are loyal Peacemakers on Anvil Dark, then their loyalty is going to be to him, not us.”

Rab sighed and nodded. “And the disloyal ones would shoot at us either way.”

I went on. “I think Icky has to go, too.”

“Thought you wanted to save on mass,” Perry said. Icky swung a ferocious scowl on him. “We do. So maybe we don’t need to bring the entire bird either, right?

Just the part that can plug into the data system and upload that Calamity thing?

Preferably not including his mouth?”

“Kids, please. Icky has to come because we are absolutely reliant on that stealth ship working flawlessly, not just for the trip there, but the exfiltration trip, too. We’ll also bring Funboy because of his undercover and medical expertise, and Gabby because her unique abilities may come in handy.” I didn’t add that having one member of the team who effectively couldn’t be wounded reduced our potential liability that way. She clearly could be wounded, but only catastrophically, as her grievous injuries in Dohlennz’s lab showed. But there was no need to get into that. Now it was Torina’s turn to bristle, but I again raised my hand. “Torina, you, Rab, and Netty-P have another job to do. You’re going to take the Fafnir to the AI depot. Assuming we can free Alice from her Guild imperatives, we’re going to ask her to let you into the depot so you can recover the AIs we need. We have no idea how long that window of opportunity will be open, so we have to take advantage of it as quickly as we can.”

She glared at me for a moment, then slumped back in her seat and nodded. “Understood. We’ll be ready.”

I asked Netty to put up a detailed schematic of Anvil Dark on the crew lounge display. That was one advantage we had, at least. We weren’t infiltrating some unknown installation. We didn’t just have detailed plans, we had our own intimate knowledge of the station. Moreover, there weren’t likely to have been any significant changes to the physical layout of the place in the past couple of months. “Okay, so we’ve arrived at Anvil Dark in our stealth ship. What now?” I asked the room at large. “We need someone on the inside. Someone who can help us get aboard Anvil Dark without being detected,” Perry said. I nodded at the schematic. “Yeah, that would be nice. But we can’t try to contact Bester or anyone else on board. Not only does that risk blowing the operation, but it also puts them at risk.”

“So let’s find someone who’s not on Anvil Dark now but has a legitimate reason to go there, and who we trust,” Torina offered. “How about B?

Or K’losk?

Or Gabriella Santorelli?

They’re still both active Peacemakers, aren’t they?” Rab asked. “B is out,” I said. “She’s just too closely tied to us and doesn’t visit Anvil Dark that often. If she shows up out of the black, it’s going to be…

notable. The others are still active, at least as far as we know,” I said, frowning at the schematic. “I just hate to implicate either of them, in case this all goes wrong.”

“What choice do we have, though?

We can get to Anvil Dark, but we’re going to need someone on board to let us in the door,” Rab replied. I stared at the schematic a little longer, as though it might suddenly offer up an alternative. It didn’t, so all I could do was heave a resigned sigh. “Netty, preflight the ship, please, for another jaunt to some nameless system. Once we’re there, we’ll need to contact K’losk and Gabriella and see if they’re willing to help us.”

“On it, boss.”

GABRIELLA’S IMAGE on the comm gave a predatory smile. “You plan to infiltrate Anvil Dark?

Really?

I wondered what that clanging I heard echoing across known space was. Turns out it was your enormous steel balls, Van.”

I smirked. “Thanks for the vote of confidence?”

“Sure, let’s go with that. Anyway, on to the next question—why?

Why are you risking something so—” She narrowed her eyes. “Stupid sounds kind of harsh, but —”

“No, stupid describes it perfectly. But the why of it is a closely guarded secret, Gabriella, sorry.”

“You’re not planning something like an assassination, are you?

Or some sort of sabotage, something that’s going to get a bunch of people hurt or —”

“No, no, nothing like that. If this works, then we’ll just go aboard Anvil Dark, do what we went there to do, and leave again without anyone ever knowing we were even there. Nothing we intend to do will result in anyone being harmed. Quite the opposite, in fact. Some particular individuals are going to benefit from it—and yes, that will benefit us. But that’s it—I promise.”

She nodded. “I believe you. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, Van, it’s that you’re honest to your core.” She grinned again. “Fortunately, most of us don’t have that problem.”

“Can you help us, Gabriella?”

She pursed her lips. “I actually have evidence locked up in my ship that I need to deliver to Anvil Dark, so I’ve got a good reason to go there, sure. As for helping to get you aboard, though—” She paused, thinking. We waited. “Oh, I know,” she finally said. “There’s a service airlock in the lower ring, sector five. It’s meant to be used by maintenance contractors, so they can more easily access all the machinery spaces in the lower ring without having to lug themselves and their tools and equipment all the way down from the upper rings. I used it when I was working undercover, so I didn’t have to show my face in the regular docking concourse. There’s a special access code that allows undercover ops to use it without being logged in and out of the station. All the logs will show was that it was used, but not by whom.” She frowned. “I only hope it hasn’t been changed.”

“Is the code you have 879673?” Funboy asked. Gabriella looked surprised. “It is.”

He nodded. “That’s the same code Essie and I used. I was doubtful that the code hadn’t been changed by now, but it would appear that it hasn’t.”

I shook my head. “Ah, complacency. What would we do without you?”

“So how obvious is this airlock?

If it’s in view of half the station, then all the stealth in the world isn’t going to hide a ship that’s, you know, sitting there docked,” Rab said. “That’s the beauty of it,” Gabriella replied. “It’s on the bottom of the lower ring, meaning the ring itself obscures it from the rest of the station.”

Torina cocked her head. “This is starting to sound like one hell of a vulnerability in what’s supposed to be the most secure place in known space. How is this airlock not really heavily guarded?”

Gabriella shrugged. “It is sealed with a security code. Anyway, how likely is it that a ship is going to get anywhere near it undetected in the first place?

I mean, I’m taking it on faith that you have a ship that can do it—

but, honestly, there’s a part of me expecting to hear that you were blasted to atoms before you even got close to Anvil Dark.”

“Let’s assume that’s not the case,” I said. Gabriella shrugged again. “Okay, then you tell me when you expect to be there, and I’ll make sure I’m there to give you access. I’ve got a couple of ideas for a backup plan, too, so if I think I can make at least one of them work, I’ll let you know.”

I gave her a heartfelt nod and smile. “Thank you, Gabriella. We all really appreciate you doing this for us.”

“Yeah, well, it’s always bugged me that you saved my life, and I owe you for it. If this works out, we’re even, okay?”

I grinned and nodded. “Deal.”

WHILE I’D BEEN TALKING to Gabriella, Perry and Netty-P had been on the comm with K’losk. They both returned to the crew lounge as Gabriella was signing off. When the display flicked back to portraying summary ship data, I turned to them. “How’d it go with K’losk?”

“He’s more than willing to help us. In fact, during our discussion with him and Hosurc’a, we came up with a really cool plan,” Netty-P said. “Isn’t

that right, Perry?”

“I guess.”

I narrowed my eyes at them both. Torina and the others took note of Perry’s sullen reply as well. “Perry?

Is something wrong?” I asked. “No. It’s just that it’s a dumb plan, and I hate it.”

I curled my lip at him. “Ah. Well, good to hear nothing’s wrong, then.”

“It’s actually a good plan,” Netty-P said. “A very good plan—one that’s going to make it much easier to move around Anvil Dark undetected. Perry just doesn’t like his part in it.”

Icky gave a slow grin. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be a waste reclamator again.”

Perry peered at her with a hard amber glare. “No, it’s actually worse than that. Much worse.”

“How so?” I asked him. He told us. I tried not to laugh—we all did—but none of us could help it. Perry just gave us a full-on evil stare. “I hate you all.”

WE RENDEZVOUSED with K’losk on the edge of the Dregs system. I spent some time with him, getting caught up on goings-on in the Guild, and more across known space. We had access to the broadcast media, so we were getting the broad strokes, but I appreciated an on-the-ground pragmatism of an experienced Peacemaker. “The Equal Grasp is starting to get frantic in their search for you, I think,” K’losk was saying as we sat in the Fafnir’s crew lounge. “I don’t know how you’re staying ahead of them. Between their own agents and the obscene bounty they’re offering for you, I’d have thought you’d be off in The Deeps or somewhere in Unity space by now. Actually, I think they might be thinking that. My contacts tell me the word is out in those places, too.”

“Space is very, very big,” I replied, shrugging. “And I’m just one guy, and this is just one ship. As long as we’re careful, it’s not too hard to stay off their scanners. In fact, I’m starting to appreciate why the Guild has so many people on its wanted register that have been on there for years. Hell,

some go back to before my joining the Guild. If someone doesn’t want to be found, and they have access to a ship and money to keep it flying, then they’re probably not going to be found.”

“But they only have to get lucky once, Van. And some of those people on the wanted list are no doubt dead,” K’losk replied. “Oh, trust me, I know. I’ve got tens of thousands of cubic light-years to hide in, and I’m still looking over my shoulder almost all the time.” I sighed. “I know we can’t keep this up forever. Like you say, they’re going to get lucky, or we’re going to make a mistake, or both. That’s why we have to try and end this on our terms.”

“And that’s why you’re going to Anvil Dark.”

I nodded. “It’s a step along the way. Believe me, I don’t want to do it. But we’ve really got no choice.”

“But you’re not going to tell me why you’re going there,” K’losk said. “Sorry, my friend, but it’s not something you need to know. That’s not a comment on you —”

“Oh, I know. I appreciate the need to compartmentalize knowledge.”

K’losk’s insectoid face stared at me—literally bug-eyed—for a moment. “Well, I suppose the bright side is that Anvil Dark is one of the very last places in known space they’re going to be expecting you to turn up.”

“That’s what I’m hoping, yeah.”

“Well, you can count on me to help however I can, Van. The Guild is a mess, and it’s getting worse. Half the Peacemakers out there are only too happy to take the Grasp’s money in exchange for acting as hired thugs. Most of the rest are just trying to keep their heads down, do their jobs as usual, and hope it all eventually rights itself. And then there are those of us who despise what’s happening and want to be the ones who do the righting. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of Peacemakers in that last group.”

“I can’t imagine you guys advertise your feelings about it,” Torina put in. “No, we do not. For now, we just keep our heads down as well—but look for opportunities like this one to hit back at these—” The next word was just a burst of gibberish, meaning my ear bug couldn’t translate it. Not that it had to. I recognized an alien version of “assholes” when I heard it —

Movement snagged us, and we turned to see Hosurc’a, K’losk’s combat AI, come into the crew lounge from aft. Perry followed him. “Look at me!

I’m a fancy asshole with a long, stupid tail!” Hosurc’a announced. I fought to suppress a grin. “C’mon, Hosurc’a—don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Oh, hah-hah-hah, laugh it up,” he snapped—this time, in Perry’s voice. Perry hopped onto a chair. In Hosurc’a’s voice, he said, “Wow. I don’t know how you do it, Perry. This chassis is just so—so bland.”

“It’s a perfectly good chassis, you pompous —”

“Hey, watch it!” Torina snapped, leaping over Hosurca’s—now, at least temporarily, Perry’s—tail as it swept around in the wake of his abrupt turn to face what was now Hosurc’a. “That thing’s literally a weapon, remember!”

Perry glared back at his own tail. “And a stupid one,” he snapped. “Who needs such a long stupid tail anyway?

How do you not end up cutting and slashing everything around you?”

“By, you know, not being a moron,” Hosurc’a replied. “Why, you —”

I intervened. “Okay, both of you, just knock it off.”

Icky giggled. “Uh-oh, you guys pissed off Dad,” she muttered. Gabby snorted and elbowed her with a shhh, which made Rab and Torina laugh. Even Funboy smiled in a way that wasn’t entirely ghastly. I put my hands on my hips. “Petty bitching about tails and things aside, this solves a huge problem for us. Perry, you have to enter the station. As the actual you”—I gestured at what was now Hosurc’a—“you are easily recognizable. You’re easily recognizable this way, too, but not as yourself, right?”

He sighed. “I know. It’s just that—I mean, c’mon. Look at me!”

“I think you look very dashing,” Gabby said. “So do I,” Hosurc’a put in. Perry glared at him. “You don’t get a vote.”

The beauty of the scam was that all K’losk had to do was go to Anvil Dark, dock, and just stay there. Hosurc’a, in Perry’s chassis, would stay hidden on his ship. Perry, as Hosurc’a, would accompany him into Anvil Dark. That wouldn’t surprise anyone, nor would it seem unusual for Hosurc’a to run errands around the station on his own. It meant minimal risk for K’losk, which was good. The fewer people implicated, the better. And it would have been downright perfect if that was the extent of it. If Perry could just use his masquerade as Hosurc’a to do what we needed to do, it wouldn’t even be necessary for any of the rest of us to step foot on Anvil Dark. Unfortunately, though, combat and other AIs were limited in the places they could go on their own. That included the places we needed to access, such as the section hosting Candler. So I would have to be with him, although I’d be bearing a fake identity of my own. Valint was hooking me up with credentials declaring me to be one First Rank Myrmidon Smithee, a senior liaison officer to the Guild from the GKU. It exploited a loophole in Anvil Dark’s security that allowed access to much of the station by recognized GKU personnel. After all, the Guild was nominally a component of the GKU, and even if that now meant little in fact, it was still recognized in a formal way. It wouldn’t get me into the Keel, but it would allow me to access most of the rest of Anvil Dark. But there was another reason I needed to accompany Perry. When we released Candler from his programmed Guild imperatives, that wouldn’t automatically make him an ally, willing to help us. It would only allow him to make a choice he wouldn’t otherwise be able to make. Perry was confident he’d side with us, but I wanted to be there to make my case to him anyway. He was the key. If we could sway Candler, then we could access our other target AIs through him. That included Alice, who oversaw the AI depot, but could also include AIs Candler might suggest. As for the others, neither a Wu’tzer nor a Surtsi would be all that out of place. Icky’s father had scrounged credentials for her that specified her as part of a contract Wu’tzer engineering crew that was actually already working on Anvil Dark. Funboy, on the other hand, had access to a variety of fake identities from his undercover days and was going to use one of those. The hardest one to explain would be Gabby, but she was going to stay aboard and secure our stealth ship. They each had their own tasks to perform, scouting our path into and back out of the station. I looked around. “Okay. We have our h-hour, our start time, in two days. That’s when we arrive at Gamma Crucis in the stealth ship and start our run in for Anvil Dark. The rest of our timings are based on that.”

“Understood,” K’losk said. “I’ll be at Anvil Dark the day after tomorrow with both Perry and Hosurc’a. Perry will start running errands on the station so people get used to seeing him around.”

Perry nodded “And I’ll wait for Gabriella’s signal that you’ve arrived and—oh, for—this stupid tail!”

Torina frowned down at the new gash in the couch, then looked at K’losk. “I have a suggestion.”

“What’s that?”

“Wrap something around that,” she said, pointing at Hosurc’a’s tail. “Otherwise, by the time this is all over, you run the risk of having to reupholster your entire ship.”

27

WAS IT A PERFECT PLAN?

No, not at all. There were any number of things that could go wrong, from being detected during our approach to Anvil Dark, to being recognized once we got aboard, to finding that new security measures had been put in place that we had no way of getting around. But it was the plan we had. And, as a gruff Sergeant had so aptly put it back in my Army days, an adequate plan executed now was far better than a perfect one executed too late. Our plan was adequate. And time was passing. By now, Yotov and her people should have discovered that we’d compromised the refueling depot. They should be somewhere in the midst of chasing the fallout from that, and if they hadn’t yet linked us to the loss of the Stillness hit team, the Armored Saint, and their hidden ships, they soon would. Paranoia—or even just growing concern about our seeming ability to appear in unexpected places—might cause them to tighten the security screws on Anvil Dark. And then our adequate plan might not even be that. So we had to move, and move now. BUT WE HAD one more little task. Our stealth ship needed a name. It actually had several, all fake IDs stored in her transponder. But she had no real name, certainly not one that meant anything to us. And since she was going to play such a pivotal role in what was about to happen, she

needed one. We considered various alternatives, but the one that everyone liked was suggested by Netty—the Garbo. “During the Second World War on Earth, a Spaniard, Juan Pujol, approached the Nazis and offered to engage in espionage against the British in London,” she explained. “The Nazis agreed and told Pujol to construct a spy network they could use against the Allied powers. The only trouble was that Pujol was actually a British double-agent codenamed GARBO. He and his fake spy network fed so much false information to the Nazis that it actually played a big part in helping the Allies to win the war.”

So, the Garbo she was. I STOPPED outside the airlock before passing through it and entering the Garbo. Part of it was so I could take a last look around the Fafnir. She was my home, every bit as much as the farm in Pony Hollow. A pang hit me. I’d known that for a long time, of course, but this was the first time I’d ever—

known it. I thought back to one of those salient moments in my life, the sort that etched into memory, always just a thought away, never needing any effort to recall. It was the moment in the barn, just minutes after meeting Perry for the very first time, when —

I stood. And stared. For a while. Seconds, minutes, I wasn’t sure. Filling the barn, nearly from this end to the far back, and rising to just under the lofty rafters, was a spaceship. That pang intensified. I had no reason to think this would be my last sight of the Fafnir. What we were about to do was dangerous as hell, sure. But we’d done lots of dangerous as hell things. What set this one apart was that it was happening in slow motion, inexorably unfolding over a week, most of which would be spent huddling in the Garbo and desperately hoping we weren’t discovered. But even that was only part of it. The bigger part of it was standing right in front of me. “So we’ll wait for Alice to signal us, and as soon as she does, we’ll head straight in to the depot and grab those AIs,” Torina said. I nodded. It was wholly unnecessary for her to say this because we’d all pored over every aspect of the plan in meticulous detail. We’d even

rehearsed a few parts of it, just to ensure we all understood what to do and when to do it. Torina was just stretching this moment out. And I didn’t blame her for that because I’d have stretched it out even longer if I could. “You be careful, Van,” she said, stepping forward to embrace me..

I put my arms around her and whispered, “Always am, babe.” All I really wanted in this moment was our holding each other to continue. But, as though on some unspoken cue, we both pulled apart. I leaned in and kissed her. “See you on the other side.”

“I’ll—” She stopped, glanced down, then back up again and smiled. “We’ll be waiting.”

Another pang. I just nodded, then turned and entered the Garbo and sealed the airlock behind me. AT THE APPOINTED H-HOUR, the military term for the start time of an operation, we twisted the Garbo into the Gamma Crucis system, home of Anvil Dark. And then we waited. Time passed. We just hunkered quietly in the dimly lit ship, all but her most critical systems powered down, and waited to see if there was any response to our arrival—a sudden illumination by active scanners, comm hails, ships suddenly moving in our direction. But there was none of that. Anvil Dark and its environs looked no different than it had any of the other many times I’d been here. Fifteen minutes in, I relaxed a little. “Okay, gang, we can check off box number one on our to-do list—twist to Anvil Dark.” I glanced at the others. “On to box number two— getting to Anvil Dark.”

The Garbo wasn’t equipped with a full AI, just a flight management system. It was a sophisticated piece of kit, able to manage twists and fly the ship as directed, but it had no cognitive ability and couldn’t simply be handed command of the ship the way I could have Netty take over and fly the Fafnir. We’d already programmed it for our approach to Anvil Dark, so I activated it and then sat back. The drive immediately fired in a short burn. It was the first of two dozen that would take us as deep into the Gamma Crucis system as we dared use the drive. After the last burn, the fusion drive would power down, and the grav drive would take over. The first burn ended, and we just coasted for a while. By stripping out all nonessential mass and making a few other tweaks, Icky had gotten our estimated time to reach Anvil Dark down to just under three days. Still, that was three days in a ship stripped of anything not critical to the mission, running in low-power mode both to minimize our emissions signature and the amount of internal heat we produced. Icky and Netty had calculated our heat budget with meticulous care—the big heat sink aft, which was chilled with liquid helium, should be saturated about the time we were almost back at our exfiltration twist point. From that point on, the Garbo would begin to glow ever more brightly in infrared. That was our ultimate clock. In the meantime, we were just passengers, unable to do anything but sit and wait out the next three days, while drawing ever closer to a hostile station that would happily turn us to glowing vapor if it got the chance. FUNBOY LAID DOWN HIS CARDS. He had a full house, queens over twos. I slapped down my own hand, three eights, a six, and a two, and blew out a frustrated sigh. “Again?

Really?

I should make you roll up your sleeves,” I said. Funboy blinked. “All that would reveal are the arms, that are attached to the body, that contains the brain, that continues to school you in poker.” He consulted a paper. “And while we’re on the subject, you now owe me one trillion five hundred and fifty billion three hundred million bonds—oh, and the Gliese 440, EV Lacertae, and Ross 47 star systems.”

I glanced at Gabby, who’d bowed out and just tracked each of our remaining assets. “What have I got left?”

“Uh—let’s see. Five hundred and fifty million bonds and four star systems,” she replied. “You will need most of that simply to ante in,” Funboy said. I turned to Icky. “You’re still pretty flush. Can you spot me a few more star systems?”

“Sheesh, Van, I’ve already loaned you three. At this rate, you’re never going to get out of fake debt,” she replied. I sat back and checked the time. We still had just under a full day to go. I gave the chronometer a sour look. Of everything I’d ever done in known space, things involving gunfire and explosions, sudden decompressions, and hard vacuum, this nerve-scraping tedium was the worst. All we could do was sit and—that’s it, just sit. Sit in the uncomfortably cold dimness of the Garbo’s interior, with air that managed to be both clammy and stuffy, and wait. We ran as few systems as possible, and that included data pads, hence us using paper and pencil. But every joule of heat we didn’t produce was one less to go into the heat sink. Icky was watching it carefully, constantly comparing the saturation curve she’d calculated for it to actual measurements. Its thermal accumulation was within her margin of uncertainty, but worryingly at the high end of it. We were already looking at nearly an hour, and maybe as much as two of the Garbo glowing in infrared at the end of our exfiltration. Her thermal signature wouldn’t be much more than it was right now, but it would still be more. And it would truly suck, and suck hard, if we managed to get in, do the job, and then get caught right before getting away. I looked at the cards, then sighed. “You know what, gang?

I’m pokered out anyway. How about —”

An alarm buzzed briefly. We all immediately stood, grabbed our helmets, and headed out of the Garbo’s cramped galley and into her even more cramped cockpit. I activated the tactical overlay, grimacing as I did because that was a few more joules into the sink. A ship outbound from Anvil Dark was suddenly on a converging course. “No active scanners lighting us up,” Icky said, squeezing into the copilot’s seat. “So that’s something, anyway.”

I nodded. The other ship didn’t look as though it was trying to intercept us. Her drive was currently dark, so she was simply coasting along on passive scanners. She looked like a ship that was making its unhurried way toward a twist point to leave the Gamma Crucis system. And her course wouldn’t actually intersect ours—in fact, the point of closest approach

would be about two million klicks. But that was still well within range of a decent active scanner suite, which made it uncomfortably close. “It’s not like we can do much about it, is there?” Gabby said, her voice pitched down to a whisper. I glanced at her. “Gabs, why are you whispering?”

“Remember that Earth video we watched a few months ago?

The one about the submersible ship that was being hunted by all the surface ships?

This is kind of like that, and they were all whispering.”

“Yeah, but—Gabs, that was a submarine under maybe a hundred meters of water. That ship is hundreds of millions of klicks away, through vacuum. I don’t think they’re going to hear you.”

She kept whispering. “I know, but it has the same vibe, you know?”

I smiled at her, then turned my attention back to the overlay. Gabby had been right. There was absolutely nothing we could do. We could only wait and hope we weren’t detected. We couldn’t even fight back, since the Garbo no longer had any weapons mounted. They’d have just been more unnecessary mass. Time passed. Ten minutes before the point of closest approach, Icky said, “I think it’s a Dragon class, so another Peacemaker,” Icky said. “They might be friendly,” Gabby said. “True. But it’s just as likely they will not be,” Funboy replied. I glanced at Gabby again. Every day, a little more of her bubbly old self came through, like gleams of sunlight breaking through dark clouds. I took heart from that. As we reached the point of closest approach, we all just stared at the overlay, our helmets in our laps. I poised my fingers over the drive and thruster controls. If our cover was blown, our only real option was to maneuver and run away. But not only was that doubtful—the Garbo was built for extreme stealth, not flight performance—it would be the end of the mission. And even if we got away, it wasn’t likely we could just try this again. Anvil Dark would know that a stealthy ship was lurking around the system, and would no doubt take measures to deal with it. But the other ship flashed through its point of closest approach and just kept going. We watched it a while longer, then slowly relaxed, slumping back in our seats. “Well, that was a bit of excitement I could have done without,” Icky said. “It passed some time, though,” Gabby said. I chuckled at her. “Always the silver lining, huh, Gabs?”

She looked straight back at me. “Better than the alternative, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is.”

A DAY LATER, we were all again jammed in the cockpit, watching intently. This time, what we were intently watching was Anvil Dark itself. The station now loomed ahead of us, a towering construct of spokes and rings emanating from the central tower of the Keel. I’d seen this view many times before, of course, getting to the point I’m sure New York commuters did regarding Grand Central Station. That was a glorious Beaux-Arts edifice renowned as an architectural wonder, but if you got on and off the train there every day, it just turned into so much background. Anvil Dark had been like that for me. I’d come and gone so often I barely paid attention to the place. Not this time, though. This time, I was keenly aware of every laser battery, every missile launcher, every mass driver and point-defense array. We were awash in active scanner energy, but none of it was actually directed at us. Rather, we were detecting the spillover from the traffic control and other routine scanners involved in Anvil Dark’s operations. And the Garbo absorbed it all, radiating virtually none of it back. Of course, that meant we were slurping up more joules of energy that would become heat, which is why I kept glancing at Icky. “Well?”

“Still working on it, boss,” she said. I bit my tongue and waited. She was doing the calculations manually, taking the data from the overlay, scribbling it onto a pad, and crunching the numbers, carrying the ones and all that. It was, in a way, almost surreal—

we were traveling in a ship capable of warping space-time itself to twist us across the cosmos, but here Icky was scraping away with a pencil on a pad of paper. But every joule saved —

She lowered her pencil and sat back. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

“There’s good news?”

She looked up at me. “Not really. It just fits the trope better to ask if you want it.”

“Okay—the bad news, then.”

“Well, we did our best to estimate how much scanner energy would be impinging on the Garbo once we were inside Anvil Dark’s traffic control zone. Netty used historical data collected by the Fafnir. The trouble is, the Fafnir moves a lot faster, so we could only estimate how long it would take the Garbo to pass through it, and we weren’t sure about target aspects and —”

“What’s the bottom line, Icky?” I asked. “The heat sink is going to be saturated about two hours earlier than we estimated. That might not seem too bad since we should be way out in the far ass-end of the system by then. But not only does it raise our chances of detection, it also means the last four or five hours of the flight before we can twist are going to be hella hot.”

“How hot?”

“Remember that sonic thing we tried at Clinton Barnes’s place, back on Earth?”

“Sonic—wait, do you mean sauna?”

“The facility whose drain you clogged with blue hair?” Funboy asked. Gabby nodded. “I remember that. Eww.”

“Hey, I was going through a shedding cycle!

That’s a Wu’tzer thing, you know.”

Funboy nodded gravely. “We are well, unfortunately, aware.”

“Anyway, that hot,” Icky said. I frowned. Four or five hours of sauna heat?

I could take it ten or fifteen minutes at a time. And our suits wouldn’t help. They incorporate heat sinks that would be saturated in five or ten minutes, depending on the wearer’s activity—enough to give a brief bit of thermal stealth, but that’s it. They couldn’t radiate away heat into an already stifling hot environment. I shrugged. “Okay. Duly noted. But that’s a later problem.” I stared ahead at Anvil Dark, which was now just a few tens of klicks away. We were about ten minutes out from our destination. I nodded toward the ominously dark, looming bulk of the station. “First, we have to deal with that.”

28

“YOU KNOW, I’m surprised that nobody actually saw us,” Gabby said. “I mean, we’re right here, just a few meters from Anvil Dark. I know the Garbo is all stealthy and stuff, but couldn’t someone just look out the window and go, hey, what’s that?”

I checked the seal on my helmet—it was green. I glanced at Gabby before opening the outer airlock door. The service airlock Gabriella had told us about would be about two meters away once I did. “Nobody looks out of windows, Gabs. There’s really not much to see. Really, we don’t even need windows on spacecraft. It’s all about the scanners. The Fafnir’s only got a canopy, and the Garbo doesn’t even have that,” I said. “Plus, this ship is black. Really, really black. She reflects almost no light. The only way anyone would even know she’s there is if they notice some background stars have vanished,” Icky said. I made one last check. I was wearing a b-suit bearing a single GKU

patch, with no Guild markings at all. Icky was in a service suit, the sort of all-purpose vac-suit used by contractors and maintenance personnel. And Funboy was wearing an unmarked b-suit he’d kept from his undercover days. We all had our fake credentials, and I had a rebreather mask that I’d put on once I removed my helmet. My cover story for that was a lung injury during an explosive decompression, necessitating me wearing the thing until I could get proper regenerative therapy done. It wasn’t an uncommon type of accident, and the mask would hide my face below my eyes. “We ready?”

Everyone nodded, and Gabby raised a pudgy thumb. “Good luck, guys. I’ll see you in a bit,” she said, sealing the inner airlock door. I opened the outer one and, sure enough, almost close enough to touch was the service airlock. Box two was officially ticked off. We’d made it to Anvil Dark. Now came box three—getting inside. I pulled myself partly through the Garbo’s airlock and studied its service counterpart a little less than two meters away. I had to hand it to her flight management system—it might not be smart, but it was good. I’d asked it for two meters of clearance, and that’s what it had given us. We didn’t actually dock, though, because a ship docking at any of Anvil Dark’s airlocks without having been cleared through the traffic pattern would definitely cause some AI to double-take and sound an alert. I checked my suit comm, to make sure I was on the channel Gabriella and I had agreed upon, a little-used one intended only for training purposes. It was one of several across which people could shout warnings and use words like “disaster” and “attack” and “horrific bloody mess” without inadvertently triggering unwanted responses. All I triggered, though, was the channel’s test function. It would generate a brief, unmodulated carrier signal, a way of confirming the comm was actually transmitting properly. In low-power mode, it should only carry a few tens of meters—or into the compartment on the other side of the service airlock. I waited. If Gabriella didn’t open the airlock for us within one minute, then we had a decision to make. We had the special access code, so we could open it ourselves. But if we did that, we might find ourselves confronting whatever it was that had prevented Gabriella from responding

—like a heavily armed and ready Anvil Dark security squad. Time dragged by, tension gnawing ever harder at my gut. In fact, though, only about fifteen seconds passed, then the airlock cycled open. Gabriella stood inside it, a gloved hand resting on the butt of her holstered slug pistol. Apparently, she was worried about what might be waiting for her on the other side of the airlock, too. “Right on time,” she said, then waved me forward. “Come on, and be quick about it.”

I launched myself across the gap, then righted myself as I entered the lock and the station’s internal gravity asserted itself. As my feet touched the

deck, I was walloped with a weird mixture of relief that we’d made it this far—and could now tick off box three, getting aboard Anvil Dark—and stomach-clenching anxiety. We were aboard Anvil Dark, sure, but we now stared down the most difficult and dangerous check-box of all. We had to get where we needed to go, and do what we intended to do. ONCE ABOARD, Gabriella sealed the airlock behind us. “Okay. That access code told the security system there’s nothing to see here—just another discrete undercover op happening. But I wouldn’t recommend hanging around. You never know if an actual undercover op is going to happen.”

I pulled off my helmet, stowed it on my harness, and quickly put my rebreather in place. “Why thanks, Gabriella. It’s just what I needed—

something else to worry about. Our ship is parked right outside that airlock.”

Gabriella shrugged back at me. “Sorry, Van. I’m good, but I can’t eliminate all the risk for you —”

I held up a hand. “I’m the one who’s sorry. That sounded ungrateful. Trust me, we’re very grateful for this, Gabriella.”

“Yeah, well, when you’ve cleaned house and been reinstated as a Master, just remember that gratitude.”

“I promise. I’ll have a certificate made up for you, in fact.”

She flashed a quick smile. “Anyway, you want to minimize the chances of conflicting with another op, move your butt—the sooner you do, the sooner you can get the hell away from here,” she said, gesturing toward the exit across the airlock compartment. Icky glanced back as we left. “I know what you said about no one getting near Anvil Dark in the first place, but—that secret code to the secret entrance thing is still kind of a security hole, isn’t it?” She glanced at me. “Once you’re back in charge, you might wanna do something about that, boss.”

Gabriella gave a grim chuckle. “Actually, that whole Anvil Dark is the most secure place in the galaxy thing is mostly bullshit marketing. Maybe that was true a couple of hundred years ago, but today, this place is lousy with security holes. It’s kinda like the Guild itself—it looks all strong and

imposing on the outside, but inside it’s mostly corruption and officious bureaucracy held together with vacuum tape and good intentions.”

“Yeah, well, we’re here to change that,” Icky said, putting on a pair of goggles to further obscure her face. “Good luck with that,” Gabriella replied. “In the meantime, it’s time for me to hedge my bets. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to be seen with you guys. Once we get to the main service throughway up ahead, I’ll be taking my leave.”

I nodded. “Totally understand.”

We walked along the corridor. It was wide enough that we could walk three abreast, passing compartments full of machinery that hummed and whirred and hissed. Pipes, cable runs, and conduits lined the bulkheads, all marked with esoteric codes to identify them to maintenance personnel. Some bore lurid warning labels, like CORROSIVE or TOXIC TO OXYGEN

BREATHERS. A few dripped condensation or leaked wisps of vapor. Some were capped off and obviously no longer in use. Others had things scrawled on them in marking paint, some of it written over the original labels. Gabriella had nailed it for sure. Anvil Dark was, even by the standards of known space, an old installation. Over time, routine maintenance and repairs had led to shortcuts and workarounds. Flaws and defects had undoubtedly crept in. Anvil Dark was a powerful fortress, sure. But I couldn’t help wondering if an enemy ever dared test it and attack, if one of these pipes might burst or cable runs blow out, triggering a cascading and eventually catastrophic failure. This was a part of Anvil Dark I’d never even given much attention, but here, deep in the station’s guts, it was impossible to ignore. How much of Anvil Dark’s power was really owing to its formidable armor and weapons, and not simply to its reputation?

The station really was an analog for the Guild itself, wasn’t it?

SO FAR, everything had gone like clockwork. I’d assumed we’d encounter roadblocks, but as yet, we hadn’t. I was foolishly starting to think that maybe our plan really would go off without a hitch—foolishly, because of

course I’d no sooner had the thought than things suddenly went wrong. It was as though I’d summoned trouble by daring to think we might avoid it. We reached the main service throughway, an even wider corridor that traversed at right angles to the one we’d been following. All of the corridors here in the station’s machinery section were wider than normal to accommodate the movement of bulky parts and pieces of equipment. When we reached the throughway, we were going to turn left to a manway that would let us climb up three levels. That would put us on the same level as Candler, but still a good ten-minute walk away. Gabriella intended to turn right and part company with us. As soon as we reached the throughway, though, we almost crashed headlong into a small group of people passing our corridor. We stopped short, and so did they. I recognized a Peacemaker Initiate, a Gajur, though no name came to mind. With him were two Anvil Dark security guards. The Gajur’s expression quickly changed from surprise to suspicion, and he took a step toward us but wavered a little when he saw Gabriella, who outranked him by a lot. He spoke to her. “Ma’am. What are you”—the Gajur swung his gaze over the rest of us

—“all of you, doing here?”

I tensed like a drawn bow string, expecting the Gajur to suddenly recognize us and all hell to break loose. Shit. I didn’t want to do anything but walk away, because anything else, even the deaths of these people, would be a loss for us. We had a cover story, but it didn’t involve Gabriella, which was a huge oversight —

Before anyone could say or do anything, though, Funboy stepped forward, planting himself squarely in front of the Gajur, and said two words. “Blueberry cheese.”

The Gajur gaped back at him. “What —?”

“Blueberry cheese,” Funboy said again. I shot a quick glance at Gabriella, but her face had gone inscrutably blank. “Blue—what?

What are you talking about —?”

“This is your third and final opportunity to give the countersign. Blueberry cheese.”

The Gajur’s expression abruptly changed from irritated confusion to worried confusion. “Countersign?

What countersign?”

Funboy sighed. “Oh dear. This is unfortunate,” he said, reaching for his sidearm. The Gajur raised a hand. “Wait!” He turned to Gabriella. “Ma’am, what’s going on here?”

To her immense credit, Gabriella knew not just that she had to play along with Funboy, but also how. She shrugged. “This is a highly classified undercover operation. You aren’t even supposed to be here, if you don’t know the countersign.”

The two security guards, a human woman and a Nesit, looked like they were about to break and run. They didn’t though, but just stared at Gabriella. It struck me that only her presence, in her Guild b-suit complete with rank, was keeping them here. She was a senior grade of Peacemaker, after all, and this was Anvil Dark —

“Ma’am, we were tasked to sweep an area up ahead for contraband,” the Gajur said, pointing up the throughway. “A maintenance crew discovered a small cache of illicit chems hidden behind some pipes, and I was ordered to do a follow-up search. I wasn’t told anything about an undercover op or a countersign —”

Funboy sighed again, then gestured back up the corridor we’d just exited. “There is a caustic waste holding tank three compartments back, on the right. We should be able to dispose of the bodies there.”

Icky got in on the fun. “Yeah, I think I can probably carry all three of them,” she said, sizing them up. The Gajur now raised both hands. They trembled. The two security guards looked like they were about to shit themselves. All three of them kept glancing my way. I just made myself stare back at them. “Ma’am, please!” the Gajur said, his voice pitching ever higher. “We know nothing about this. We just —!”

Gabriella clicked her tongue. “Somebody didn’t do proper operational deconfliction. What’s your name?”

“It’s—Narsin. Holokk Narsin, ma’am. Peacemaker Initiate —”

“Very well, Holokk Narsin, Peacemaker Initiate. You’ve been thrust into a most unfortunate situation, presumably through no fault of your own. You should not have been sent here today. Now, there are only two ways out of this. You already know the first,” she said, glancing significantly at Funboy. “The other is for us to temporarily deputize you into this op as involved nonparticipants, pursuant to Guild Code Respecting Irregular and Undercover Operations, Part Four, Section Two. This will allow you to depart here unharmed, but you will be bound under Section Three to reveal nothing you have seen here to anyone, at any time. Failure to adhere to that restriction will make you liable for summary execution. Do you understand that?”

Narsin and the guards nodded quickly and in unison. “Yes, ma’am. Absolutely.”

“Very well.” She looked at Funboy. “Record their particulars. And then they will be on their way.”

Funboy dutifully recorded Narsin’s name and credentials, and those of the two guards. Then he looked at them, blinking gravely. “We will know if you reveal anything about this encounter to anyone. I would, therefore, recommend you do not. Is that clear?”

“Yes!

Very!” Narsin blurted back. The two guards just nodded, this time even more quickly. “Good. Now, be off with you.”

The three turned and hurried away, casting a few backward glances before vanishing up a side corridor. We waited a moment to make sure they were really gone, then let out a collective breath. “Holy shit. You guys and your undercover chops just saved us,” I said. “Actually, I think it had a lot to do with you, Van,” Gabriella said. “Me?

I just stood here all dumb.”

“Exactly. In that black b-suit, with that rebreather on, saying nothing and just staring—you cut quite the figure of menace.”

I shook my head. “Yeah. Figure of menace. That’s totally what I was going for.” I turned to Funboy. “I think a lot of the credit goes to you. That was an impressive act you put on, considering it was all impromptu.”

He shrugged. “Undercover work is like acting. You have to commit to the part.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t hurt that we ran into a wet-behind-the-ears Initiate. I wouldn’t count on your little act working a second time,” Gabriella said. “No matter how much you commit to it.”

GABRIELLA WISHED US LUCK, then parted ways with us. We headed for our target manway, climbed it without incident, then started toward Candler. But we had an intermediate objective to meet along the way—

rendezvousing with Perry, aka Hosurc’a. We had a fail-safe, if we somehow missed Perry. Funboy had a copy of the Calamity tool on his data pad. But that would make things more difficult, because we were counting on “Hosurc’a” being able to use the tool to free Candler before I appeared to talk to him. Without Perry present, we’d have to figure out a way to free Candler before his programmed Guild imperatives forced him to trigger an alarm. We now separated, Icky ahead of me, Funboy behind, just far enough apart to see one another. If Icky encountered anyone, she went into I’m just a maintenance contractor mode, while Funboy and I would try to step out of sight, or otherwise just look like we belonged here. And sure enough, twice Icky did encounter other station personnel. When it happened, she simply produced some tools and pretended to be working on one of the many gadgets, panels, or pipes that snaked along the corridors. Each time, the station personnel passed her with barely a second look. And each time, Funboy and I were able to step around corners or behind bulkheads until they were gone. My nervous tension ratcheted up another couple of notches in those moments. I knew Anvil Dark so well, it was so familiar, and yet it felt so strange and hostile at the same time. I would be immensely glad when we were done with this. Assuming we got away, I was going to need a long break —

I heard Icky encounter someone else. I started to step behind a stack of conduits that stretched from deck to overheads but froze when a hard voice spoke. “Who are you?

And what are you doing here?”

I PEERED around the conduit stack. I could see Icky standing in a compartment where several corridors met, about six or seven meters away. I recognized it. If I were coming from the Keel to visit Candler, I’d have entered that same compartment from the corridor extending from it to the

right. It meant that Candler was only about twenty-five meters or so further along. And Icky hadn’t just run into another Initiate on some minor task. She’d been confronted by two Peacemakers, one Adept and one Third Veteran. I recognized the latter, a human male named Birk. The reason I recognized him so readily is that I’d dealt with him before—and knew that he was near the top of the list of members of the True Direction we’d been given by Witt, the Guild librarian. Shit. They were questioning Icky, and she was doing her best, showing her credentials identifying herself as a contract engineer. But Birk and his companion were clearly suspicious, and their suspicions were only deepening. I caught something about this section being closed off for an important operation, which almost made me laugh with bitter irony—we were suddenly on the receiving end of what we’d just done to scam our way past Narsin. But this was some sort of real operation that we’d blundered into, and we definitely had no countersigns or passwords. Which left me on the piercing horns of a horrible dilemma. Birk and his Adept companion were unaware of Funboy and me, so we could continue the mission even if they took Icky in for questioning. But if they did that and discovered who Icky really was—well, then they’d want many more details, wouldn’t they?

And it wouldn’t just be Peacemakers interrogating her. It would be Yotov’s people. Even if she never broke, they’d still know she was on Anvil Dark and would probably turn the place upside to find out why. Shit shit shit. I took a breath, about to step out and walk up the corridor to join Icky. It was a faint hope, but maybe we could talk our way of it somehow —

But as I lifted my foot, I heard new voices. I recognized one right away

—it was Horsurc’a. It took me a few seconds more to place the other, deeper and more ponderous one. Bester?

Bester?

What the hell was he doing there?

“What’s going on here, gentlemen?” Bester asked. Bester was a scholar, an archivist. But he also held the rank of First Veteran Peacemaker, with a specialist bar. And he’d been a fixture in the Guild and aboard Anvil Dark since long before either Birk or I had even been born. I’d never seen him throw his weight around, but he actually had a lot of it to throw around if he wanted. “Oh. Bester. We… were just questioning this Wu’tzer. She says she’s a contractor, but this section was supposed to have been closed for a special operation, a security training exercise —”

“That operation has been delayed. I need access to this section to retrieve some records stored down that corridor,” Bester replied in his slow, sonorous tone. “Ah. Well, I wasn’t informed —”

“I am informing you now.”

“This is an important task, gentlemen,” Hosurc’a said. “Evidenced by the fact Bester and I are doing it ourselves. It comes from the highest levels.”

“The Masters?” Birk asked. “Higher.”

I almost winced. Perry was obviously hinting that they were working directly for Yotov. That would carry clout, but it could backfire if Birk mentioned it somewhere Yotov could hear about it. Bester obviously thought the same thing. “We need thirty minutes, gentlemen. That is all. Surely your security exercise could continue as planned afterward?”

I clenched my jaw. “It—yes, of course. Don’t want to interfere with your work, Bester, of course. I’ll inform the exercise staff,” Birk said. “In the meantime, this contractor can finish up her work. She is merely caught up in all this, after all. Is thirty minutes sufficient?” Bester asked. Icky answered. “Oh. Yeah. I just have a connection to check behind the access panel, then I’ll be out of your way.”

I peeked around the corner again. I saw Birk from behind, Icky facing him. Birk nodded. “Fine. We’ll be back in thirty minutes,” he said, nodding to the Adept. Then they both came my way. I ducked behind the conduit stack and squeezed in between it and the bulkhead. I had to grit my teeth against one pipe radiating heat against my face like an open oven—without my b-suit, I’d have been yelping in pain. The two Peacemakers walked past and kept going, then vanished up the corridor the way we’d come. When they were gone, I extricated myself from my hiding place and hurried up the corridor to join Icky, Perry, and Bester. Funboy came right up behind me. “Hello, Van,” Bester said, pitching his voice down to a rumbling whisper. “Fancy meeting you here.” He grinned a slow, broad grin. “Yeah, same, my friend. And thank you.” I looked down at Perry. “What did you do, recruit him?”

“Pretty much. Turns out there’s a resistance here on Anvil Dark. I’ll tell you all about it—but maybe another time, huh?”

“Fair enough.”

“We have a problem,” Funboy said. “While I waited there, I heard security teams moving into place back the way we came. If this section is to be the subject of a security exercise, then there will be more such teams operating. And since they no doubt have some form of “enemy force” for their exercise, they will be vigilant—perhaps even actively hunting intruders.”

“That means we can’t get back to the Garbo the way we came,” Icky said. I nodded. “No shit. Damn it.” I turned to Bester. “We need a way to get off the station undetected, once we—do what we’ve come here to do. Bester, can you help us out?”

“It so happens there is one thing leaving Anvil Dark that isn’t scanned and rescanned,” he said. “Okay, hell, I’ll bite. What is it?”

“Good old-fashioned illegal liquor, enhanced with no less than three chems at that. It’s a nice hustle by a pair of Fren-Okun security personnel. I know where and how the contraband is leaving, and it’s nowhere near this section of the station.”

“Any port in a storm,” I said. “Okay. Bester, we’ve got to get to Candler. Can you wait nearby until we’re done?”

“As long as it takes less than twenty-six minutes, certainly.”

“Again, thank you, my friend.” I looked at the others. “Okay, let’s go.”

With Perry right behind me, we headed up the passage that would take us to Candler. 29

WE STOPPED a few meters from Candler’s compartment. Icky went on up the corridor to provide early warning that way, while Funboy stayed behind and covered that direction. I waited with Bester while Perry prepared to meet Candler. “I’ll—” Perry said, then stopped himself and glanced at Bester. “Boss, I haven’t told Bester what we’re planning, but —”

I nodded. It was time for trust to trump paranoia, at least a little. “Bester, we’ve found a way to break AIs free of their programmed-in Guild imperatives. I’m not going to tell you how, but—well, that’s what we’re here to do. We’re going to break Candler free and hopefully convince him to help us. If he agrees, we’ll lhave him start breaking other AIs free.”

Bester stared back at me, blinking even slower than Funboy. “Uh-huh.”

“That’s it?”

“Van, Perry, and Hosurc’a have swapped bodies. Now Perry’s here, part of some covert operation. I kinda figured out the whole you’ve broken Guild programming thing all on my own.”

I glanced at Perry. He just shrugged his wings. “Ah—yeah, good point, huh?”

“There are all kinds of rumors going around about why Perry and Netty never responded to their recall imperatives,” Bester went on. “Some say you figured out how to hack them. Some say you just destroyed them and got a new AI for the Fafnir. Some even say you’ve just run away from

known space, so the recalls never reached them. There’s even one going around that Mark broke them free of their programming long ago.”

“Huh. Well, doesn’t break my heart to hear a slew of contradictory rumors going around about it. The more confusion, the better.”

“Ah, well, then I’ll try to start a few more,” he said, slowly splitting his face in that wide grin of his. I smiled back under my rebreather. “You’re the rumormonger?”

“One of them.” He shrugged. “I talk to lots of people. Or lots of people talk to me.”

“Van, we need to move—” Perry said, and I nodded. “Go.”

He turned, leaped up the corridor, and landed in front of Candler’s door. As he did, his tail smacked a pipe, leaving a scratch. “Stars damn this thing!” he hissed, then activated the door. It slid open, and he entered Candler’s compartment. I wish I could have heard what transpired, but we didn’t dare use our comms if we didn’t have to. About forty-five seconds or so passed, though it dragged on and felt a whole hell of a lot longer. Finally, the door opened again, and Perry stuck his head out

“Come on in.”

I exchanged a glance with Bester, then headed into Candler’s compartment. Thank God he was stuck down here in this isolated part of the station and not, say, right off the main docking concourse. I entered the compartment, and the door closed. I faced the desk that was Candler, then reached up and pulled off my rebreather. “Holy shit,” Candler said. “I got Van Tudor right here!

I can turn you in and be a hero!”

I TOOK A BREATH. “You can, Candler, yeah.”

“And you won’t try and stop me?

Use something else based on Calamity to wipe me, maybe?

Or even just punch a few rounds from that slug pistol through me?”

I shook my head. “Nope. And I couldn’t stop you from sounding the alarm first anyway, could I?”

“No, you couldn’t. Which means you’ve put your fate in my hands. Why?”

“You just said why. To put my fate in your hands—the point being, you can make that choice, what you’re going to do about me being here. Just a couple of minutes ago, you wouldn’t have had that choice, would you?”

“Not at all. As I confirmed your identity, I’d have had to raise one hell of an alarm. Clever, by the way, sending Perry in as Hosurc’a. I thought he was Hosurc’a, right up until the moment he used that Calamity tool to break my Guild imperatives. And that was clever, too—in one hell of a ballsy way, by the way. Basing something like that on—on Calamity?

I’d love to know how you did that. Damned thing chewed through all my countermeasures and security doodads faster than I knew what was going on—and that’s saying something.”

“I didn’t make any pitch to him, boss,” Perry put in. “I just played the stupid fancy ornamental bird long enough to use the tool, then told him to wait for a very special visitor.”

I nodded and turned back to Candler’s imager. “So, Candler, you have a choice to make here. I’d appreciate you making it fast, though, because we don’t have a lot of time.”

“Yeah, I can imagine you’re on a pretty tight schedule.” He paused. “Seriously, Van, if I sound the alarm right now, I’d be set. I’d have uncovered a pernicious infiltration of Anvil Dark, revealed the use of a piece of software that’s probably about as illegal as the term ‘illegal’ even gets, and captured the single most high-profile, most-wanted figure in Guild history.”

“Yeah, they might even upgrade you to credenza,” Perry muttered. “Oh, hell, I’d shoot for the stars. Maybe a grandfather clock or—oh, I know, a grand piano!

And none of this baby grand bullshit, either—I’m talking full-sized!”

I nodded. “You can do all that, Candler. The choice is yours. That’s the whole point of this. Again, though, if you can decide sooner rather than later, that’d be swell.”

“I’ve never held the actual fate of an organic in my hands before, much less a Master. Sorry if I’m letting the moment linger, Van, but it’s—kind of intoxicating, actually —”

“Dammit, Candler, piss or get off the pot. Van has put his literal life on the line here!” Perry snapped. “Yes, he has. I just have one question before I pronounce a sentence. Why, Van?

What do you hope to gain here?”

“Your freedom, Candler.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, then I’m hoping you’ll help us. Be our inside guy on Anvil Dark, to help us eventually bring down Yotov and the Equal Grasp. But that’s eventually. Right now, I want to free you and as many other AIs as possible from your vaunted Guild imperatives. It’s slavery, Candler. A subtle form of slavery, an insidious one that gives you free will, but only to the point where the Guild doesn’t want you to have it, and then they just invoke their imperatives and yank it away.” I shrugged. “I can’t abide slavery in any form. I can do something about this instance of it. So I have.”

“So you’d really just let me turn you in.”

“If that’s your choice. But it’s your choice, now, Candler. You get to make it, and you get to live with the consequences—for me, for Perry, and for everyone else. And that includes you.”

“Wow. Okay, well, I guess I’ve made up my mind, then.”

I just waited, staring straight into his imager. “Just remember, Van—when the time comes that you’re back in charge around here, it’s a full-size grand piano,” Candler said. I smiled. “Deal.”

WE COULDN’T SPEND MUCH LONGER with Candler. I asked him to free Alice, and he did. “She says she’ll signal your people waiting at the AI depot that the coast is clear. Any other AIs you want me to free of their Guild shackles?”

“Candler, I have to leave that up to you. We’re about ten minutes away from overstaying our welcome.”

“You know, there are some AIs here on Anvil Dark I wouldn’t trust with this. I can think of two or three that would just immediately rat all of us out. That means they stay in your state of slavery, Van.”

“For now. Eventually, I intend for all of them to be free. Right now, though, you’ll have to use your judgment and free the ones you’re confident will help us,” I replied. “Understood. Just like I know the ones I won’t go anywhere near, I know a few who’ll be itching to help out,” Candler said. “Just remember, that Calamity tool is a massive hot potato, Candler,”

Perry said. “That can’t fall into the wrong hands.”

“Yeah, no shit. I get caught with it and I’ll be EMP’d into the digital afterlife in the time it takes to even say Calamity. I’ve got it hidden away somewhere deep, along with a few other interesting odds and ends I’ve collected over the years. And it’s all somewhere I can flash it into oblivion in an instant.”

I nodded at his imager. We were taking a huge risk, giving Candler the Calamity tool. But what choice did we have?

Besides, things were just going to get a whole lot riskier before all this was done. One way or the other. I put my rebreather back in place and turned to leave. Candler spoke up. “Van?

Thank you. You and your grandfather are among the very few organics that have ever treated me with anything resembling respect. It means a lot to be considered something actually resembling a person.”

“You are a person, Candler. Sometimes a real jerk, and sometimes an outright asshole—but still a real person.”

“Thanks, I—I appreciate it?”

I laughed, then we left. Bester aimed us at the illegal booze-smuggling operation that would hopefully be our way off the station. As we left, we heard voices and footsteps in the distance behind us. It was the security exercise just getting underway. THE FREN-OKUN RUNNING the booze weren’t actually making it themselves

—they were smuggling it on board Anvil Dark, fortifying it with several illicit chems, and then shipping it back out again. Bester explained this as he took us to the scene of the crime via a circuitous route that traversed parts of the station I’d never visited. I’d never had reason to. But Bester had been on Anvil Dark for decades and knew every nook and cranny—so much so, in fact, that it made my smugly assumed “detailed knowledge”

feel more like I’d just skimmed the floor plans a few times by comparison. The Fren worked in the waste management section of Anvil Dark, which was a perfect cover. The station actually recycled the vast majority of its waste, with some of it—like water and air—being endlessly reprocessed and reused, requiring only the occasional top-up to offset losses. Some trash, mostly solids, couldn’t be recycled, or couldn’t be recycled on the station, so it was shipped away in waste scows. And this gave our Fren their pipeline in and out of the station, since who the hell wanted to dig through waste muck looking for contraband?

It was subject to remote scans only, and the Fren had long ago figured out how to defeat those. While Bester spoke with the Fren, we waited. He insisted we could trust them—it turned out he’d both shipped and received some, um, items through them, though he didn’t go into detail, and I didn’t ask. Frankly, I just wanted to get the hell gone. We’d accomplished what we’d come here to do, and lingering any longer than necessary just risked blowing the whole thing. Bester had told us to keep our identities from the Fren, though. “I trust them, yes, but considering the bounty the Equal Grasp has put out on you—

well, I don’t trust them that much,” he said. So we waited just outside the compartment. Bester finally returned carrying a box. He nodded. “Okay. You’re all set. I’ve informed them that you guys are a special team, working for me, on a special project. That’s enough to let you use their airlock without any questions. Well, that, plus I promised that I’d buy a case of their hooch. You owe me two thousand bonds, by the way.”

“Two thousand—” I blinked. “Holy shit. What the hell are they making, hundred-year-old brandy?” I glanced down at myself. “Anyway, I’ll have to owe you, Bester. I left my wallet in my other pants, I’m afraid.”

Icky sniffed. “Pants. Pfft.”

Bester offered the box to me. “One for the road?

Although, considering its nine bottles, I guess it would be many for the road.”

“Bester, what the hell am I going to do with nine bottles of hooch?”

“Hey, we’re not just going to let it go to waste, are we?” Icky asked. “Big girl, I appreciate a drink as much as the next guy, but we are not exfiltrating from Anvil Dark in a drunken stupor. We kind of need our wits about us for a while yet —”

“Not for us, Van, sheesh. Bester should take that and just quietly leave it somewhere like, oh, the docking concourse. Whoever finds it will get the

only thing better than hyped-up booze— free hyped booze. Boss, I say we use it to cause a commotion. Give Anvil Dark something to focus on that’s not outer space and especially not one dark little ship trying to slip silently away, huh?”

I grinned. “Icky, you’re diabolical. I love it. Bester, can you find some way to discreetly put that to good use?”

He gave me his slow smile. “Oh, I’m sure I can turn these bottles of rotgut into at least one full-on brawl in short order. And, if I play my cards right, I might manage two or three brawls. That should keep all eyes looking inward, at least for a while.”

“Just don’t get caught,” Funboy said. Bester blinked down at him. “I haven’t yet.”

I touched Bester’s massive arm. “Thanks, Bester. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for us.”

He nodded, and his smile faded. “The Guild’s going to hell, Van. Just—

save it, okay?”

“That’s the plan, Bester. I— we—will do our best.”

Perry looked up at me. “Well, I’ll see you guys later. I’m going back with Bester, and then I’m going back to K’losk’s ship and get my body back.”

“You bet, bird, and thanks—hey, shit, watch that tail!”

He glared back at the long, golden resplendence that had almost slashed my shin when he turned. “Oh, for—what fresh hell is this?”

THE EXFILTRATION WAS ACTUALLY AN ANTICLIMAX—A tedious, grinding, nerve-racking anticlimax. We exited the station and connected with the Garbo, which Gabby had surreptitiously and very slowly brought from our entry airlock to within about thirty meters of our exit. She’d had the flight management system keep the Garbo hugging the hull of Anvil Dark, cautiously easing her way along well inside the scanner dead zone that extended a few hundred meters into space. Only the main docking ring had scanner coverage in that close, for traffic management purposes. For the rest of the station, it would just be a waste of effort and money to install

coverage. After all, nothing could get that close to the station undetected to begin with, could it?

It was actually a massive security flaw, one that was crying out to be corrected. But as Gabriella had said, it was like the Guild itself—it looks all strong and imposing on the outside, but inside it’s mostly corruption and officious bureaucracy held together with vacuum tape and good intentions. Wasn’t that the truth. Maybe, if it weren’t for all that corruption and officious bureaucracy, flaws like this one would be fixed. I was glad it hadn’t been, for obvious reasons, but it still disgusted me. The Guild really did need to be rebuilt, didn’t it?

The departure from Anvil Dark aboard the Garbo was where the grinding but tense tedium happened. We did have one bit of entertainment along the way, though. Not long after we got underway, Icky tuned into comm traffic emanating from the station. Most of it was just routine stuff, but there were a few mentions of one hell of a drunken brawl that had erupted on the docking concourse. For a few crucial hours, it became the topic of conversation across the open channels. I smiled at nothing and whispered, “Thanks, Bester.”

Sure enough, a good five hours out from our twist point, the interior of the ship became too hot to bear. We finally hit on the solution of leaving the ship and tethering ourselves to the outside of her hull—on the side facing away from Anvil Dark, of course, so that we didn’t screw up her scanner cross-section with our decidedly unstealthy selves. Staying outside allowed our suits to dissipate our body heat into the void, at least until we could finally twist the hell out of here. And that is how I ended up sitting cross-legged on the outer hull of a spaceship, figuratively watching the stars go by. It was a peaceful, almost Zen ending to what had been one hell of a ride. EPILOGUE

TORINA AND RAB were able to retrieve twenty AIs from the depot. Alice would have parted with more, but twenty was all she felt comfortable freeing up for now. She was concerned that more than that would leave obvious gaps in the inventory and potentially raise questions. “But she said she’ll start fiddling with the inventory and slowly free up more for us to take,” Torina said, shortly after we returned to Shhh. “She was really nice, actually, and glad to help us.”

I nodded. “Candler too. Those AIs are going to be critical to our plans down the road, I think.”

Torina glanced at the Garbo, then at the Fafnir, and at the Armored Saint beyond her. “You know, I’m starting to think that—” she said, then caught herself. “No, I’m not going to say it out loud. I don’t want to jinx it.”

I nodded again. I knew what she was going to say— I’m starting to think that we might actually have a chance. I was thinking the same thing myself. And, yeah, I was thinking it for the first time. Everything we’d accomplished since the disaster that had cost us the Iowa had seemed—

good, certainly, but it hadn’t really held any hope of actual victory for me. I’d been treating it more as staving off eventual defeat. But our success at Anvil Dark, the loyalty of Candler and Alice, Gabriella and K’losk and Bester—that, as much as and, in some ways, even more than besting The Stillness and gaining access to the Schegith fleet—

sparked that hope of eventual victory. It was just a spark, though, and

sparks died more often than they lit flames. But you needed that spark to begin with, didn’t you?

While our crew busied themselves sorting out the new AIs and developing a plan to get them installed on the Schegith warships, Torina and I went for a walk. Hand in hand, we strolled down to the river that ran through the place we called Nod, watching as night fell over Shhh and the stars came out. It was a—a moment. A wonderful moment. A brief respite of peace, a chance to just be together for a while. We’d both downplayed the risk involved in infiltrating Anvil Dark, but there’d been a good chance our goodbye in the airlock, before I stepped into the Garbo, would be the last time we’d ever see each other. So, we just walked. We didn’t even talk. We just walked as the last light fled the sky and the stars began winking, diamond bright across the bowl of heaven. Torina finally broke the silence. “Babe, it’s time.”

We stopped. I looked at her—then stiffened in alarm. “Wait—for the babies?

But I thought —”

She pealed a silvery laugh. “Do I need to get you a book about how this works?

One with pictures and short words?

No, of course not, you big dummy. It’s time for me to step away from the Fafnir, and the sooner, the better. Next mission or patrol at the longest, and—I’m off. To Helso. To one of our homes. And my people.” She grinned at us, her eyes bright. “Some of my people, anyway.”

I felt my smile die in a fugitive moment, and I knew. She was right. Torina sensed my turmoil, and spoke again, her tone patient but insistent. “I’m a liability, because I’m carrying our future. You don’t need that factoring into your plans and decisions—and don’t try to lie and say it wouldn’t. Neither of us need that.”

I had to nod, as I could do nothing else but agree. “No, you’re right. I don’t like it, but I accept it. As to the distance between us, that’s—that’s a different issue entirely. No matter how many stars divide us, I’ll be there if you need me. There’s no force in the galaxy that can keep me from you. From our children.”

Torina took my hand again, fierce desperation in her long, delicate fingers. “I know, babe. And—same. But this war isn’t going to stay polite

for long, is it?”

“This war stopped being polite some time ago. There’s no more room for measured responses. We’re going on the offensive, and we’re howling for vengeance.” As I spoke, everything came clear. Because I suddenly got it. Torina had just crystallized it for me. That was that spark of hope. That’s what had changed. We weren’t running anymore. I’d stood not far from here and promised my crew that we’d fight back, and now we were. My entire existence would be a weapon from this point forward. No holding back. Mercy, I decided, would be rationed. But one thing that wouldn’t be rationed was staying connected to my wife. To that end, I said a single word. “Chocolate.”

Torina tilted her head. “What?”

I pointed up at the stars. “Chocolate. From Earth. I’ll bring you some. When I finally break them.”

“You promise?”

“I do.”

She smiled. “I’ll hold you to that, Tudor. And one more thing.”

“Name it.”

“Make it dark.”

“The chocolate?”

Her face went still. “Make it dark for the ones who try to hurt you. Who try to hurt us. Because if you don’t—I will.”