In Fury Born

Chapter Forty-Three

Alicia lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and chewing her lip while she tried not to stew. It was becoming steadily more difficult.

In one sense, things weren't actually that bad. Tannis' diagnostics were reporting exactly what they ought to, now that Tisiphone knew what results they were supposed to get, and Alicia wasn't worried about revealing anything she chose to conceal. Tannis had tried direct neural queries, chemical therapy, even hypnotic regression, but Tisiphone was an old hand at controlling human thoughts and responses. She might not be able to do it to anyone else these days, but Alicia's brain and body were her own front yard, and she allowed no trespassers, so that side was secure enough.

Unfortunately, that didn't help against her boredom. Tisiphone might enjoy fooling the medics or roaming Soissons's planetary computer net, but Alicia was going mad. The thought woke a sour smile, but it had stopped being funny when she realized what was really happening to her grief and hatred.

They were still there. She couldn't feel them through Tisiphone's shields, but she sensed them, and she hadn't dealt with them. She couldn't deal with them, because she couldn't touch them, and that left an odd, dangerously unresolved vacuum at her core. Worse, she thought she knew what Tisiphone was doing with all that raw, oozing emotion.

The Fury had no interest in dissipating it, for she knew only one catharsis. At first Alicia had suspected she was absorbing it like some sort of strange sustenance, but a worse suspicion had occurred to her, and the Fury had refused to deny it.

She was storing it. Distilling it into the pure essence of hatred, reserving it against some future need, and Alicia was afraid. Drop commandos had few self-delusions-they couldn't afford them-and she knew about her own dark side. She'd demonstrated it, without a trace of regret, on Wadislaw Watts, and there had been times in the field when her killer self had threatened to break free, as well. It had never happened, for the rest of the personality her parents and upbringing had built had been even stronger, but it had been a near thing more than once, and a woman stayed clear-headed in combat or she died-probably taking other people with her when she went.

Thoughts of what the sudden release of all that pent-up rage might do to her judgment terrified her, but Tisiphone refused even to discuss it despite requests which had come all too close to pleading before pride drove Alicia to drop them. She was helpless in the face of the Fury's refusal … and Tisiphone had reminded her-not cruelly, but almost kindly-that she had agreed to pay "anything" for her vengeance. That was nothing less than the truth, and the fact that she'd thought she was mad at the time had no bearing. She'd given her word, and like Uncle Arthur, that was the end of it.

But now a fresh disturbing element had been added, for Tisiphone was clearly up to something. There was a pleased note to her mental voice which made very little sense, given their total lack of achievement. Alicia was astonished that the fiery, driven Fury hadn't insisted on making their break long ago. To be sure, she'd gleaned a tremendous amount of information-including everything Colonel McIlheny and even Ben Belkassem knew about the pirates-but there had to be something else … .

Indeed there is, Little One. The comment was so sudden Alicia twitched in surprise, and Tisiphone chuckled silently. In fact, the event for which I have waited has now occurred, and the time has come for us to depart.

Are you serious?! Alicia jerked upright, then gasped as Tisiphone answered without words. Her augmentation came spontaneously on line, her boosted senses spun up to full acuity for the first time in more than two months, and she twitched again as Tisiphone activated her pharmacope. The first ripple of tension ran through her as the tick reservoir administered its carefully measured dose to her bloodstream, and the world began to slow.

She bit her lip, confused by the speed with which the Fury was moving, and a faint, familiar haze hovered before her eyes. It cleared quickly, and her ears rang with the high, sweet song of the tick.

We will go now, Tisiphone said calmly. I have placed commands in their computers to reroute their sensors, deactivate the door security systems, and summon the floor nurse elsewhere, but I cannot control who we may meet along the way. Dealing with them will be your responsibility.

Alicia rose with the tick's floating grace as the door oozed open with syrupy slowness.

She floated through it. The corridor beyond was empty, the nurses' station unmanned as Tisiphone had promised, but there was a permanent guard on the elevators. She'd met the night guard, and though the earnest young man had been very careful never to say so, she knew why he was there, for he, too, was a drop commando. But the elevators were around a bend in the corridor, and she flowed down the hall like a spirit, riding the tick's exaltation.

She stepped around the bend, and the guard looked up. She smiled, and he smiled back slowly, so slowly. But then his smile changed as he recognized the precise, gliding movement of the tick.

His hand started for his stunner, and Alicia wanted to laugh in pure exultation. He was too far away to reach before the stunner cleared its holster, but Old Speedy wasn't racing through his veins. Though he got the stunner up before she reached him, he didn't have time to reset its power.

The green beam struck her dead on-with absolutely no result. The neural shields built into drop commando augmentation could resist even nerve disrupter fire, to a point, and a stunner blast which would have downed an elephant or a direcat had no effect at all on her.

He really was young, she thought tolerantly as her hands started forward. Perhaps he'd been confused by the fact that he knew her augmentation-including the shields-had been disabled. On the other hand, he'd obviously recognized tick mode when he saw it, which indicated her augmentation had been reactivated. Except, of course, that he hadn't had time to think. If he had, he would have gone for her hand-to-hand from the start. He probably couldn't have stopped her that way, either, she reflected as her first lightning-fast blow drifted towards him, but he might have lasted long enough to sound the alarm.

They'd never know about that now. Her floating hand smacked precisely behind his ear, and she spun him like a limp, toffee-stuffed mannequin. Her fingers sought the pressure points, and he went down in a boneless heap before his own augmentation could spin up to stop it. Best of all, he'd recognized her; he knew she wasn't going to try to capture or interrogate him, which in turn, made his automatic protocols a dead letter.

Alicia tugged him into the elevator and closed the doors, wondering where they were supposed to go now.

Down, a clear voice said. There is a vehicle in the parking garage. I reserved it for you this morning.

I hope you know what we're doing, Lady.

Oh, I do, indeed, Tisiphone purred, and Alicia punched the button for the sub-basement garage. The trip seemed to take forever to her tick-enhanced time sense, and she wondered what she would do if they were stopped along the way by another passenger.

They weren't-no doubt because it was well after local midnight-and the doors slid open at last. Alicia looked thoughtfully down at the unconscious guard and removed the stunner from his nerveless fingers. She reset it and gave him a careful shot that would keep him under for hours, then hit the emergency stop button, locking the car in place.

All right, where's this vehicle?

Stall one-seven-four. To your right, Little One.

Alicia nodded and jogged briskly down the lines of stalls. Most were empty, and the vehicles she saw were mainly civilian, with only an occasional military or governmental ground car or skimmer-until she reached the appointed slot and blinked at the lean, lethal-looking recon skimmer in it.

Very impressive, she thought, glancing at the fuselage markings of a rear admiral as she popped the hatch, but where are we going?

Jefferson Field, Pad Alpha Six.

A shuttle pad? Just what are we up to here?

We are leaving Soissons, Little One.

Again there was a mental chuckle-almost a giggle, if the grim and purposeful Fury could have produced such a thing-and Alicia sighed with resignation.

Tisiphone seemed to know what she was doing, though it would have been nice if she'd bothered with a mission brief. They were going to have to have a little discussion about this sort of thing, she reflected as she brought the skimmer's counter-gravity to life, lifted it twenty centimeters from the garage floor, and sent it up the ramp at a sedate speed, but even through the exhilaration of the tick she felt a deeper, sharper stab of pleasure as the star-strewn sky of Soissons gleamed clear and clean above her. Out. Free. Something of Tisiphone's eagerness touched her, like the joy of the hawk in the moment it tucked its wings to stoop upon its prey, and she took the skimmer into the night.

The Fleet skimmer's com panel whispered with routine messages as Alicia slid through the darkness towards the brightly illuminated perimeter of Jefferson Field, and she felt herself relaxing within the cocoon of the tick. She knew relaxation was dangerous, particularly since she still had no idea what Tisiphone intended, but she was on a sort of auto-pilot.

It was disturbingly unlike her. A strange fatalism had replaced her normal, sharp thoughts at such times, and she disliked it, yet it was oddly seductive. She tried to resist it, but her steel had turned to something that bent and flexed, and a part of her wondered how Tisiphone had done it. For one thing was crystal clear: the Fury was in the pilot's seat. The long, boring weeks of inactivity and comfortable mental chats had blinded Alicia to what she truly was. Those chats hadn't been subterfuge, nor had the gently malicious teasing, but they were only one side of Tisiphone, and not the strongest one. There was an elemental ruthlessness to the Fury when the moment for action came. She hadn't discussed her plan with Alicia because it hadn't occurred to her that there was any reason she should, and now her unwavering determination had made Alicia a prisoner within her own body.

Yet it was even more complex than that, Alicia reflected as her obedient hands guided the skimmer along the Jefferson Field approach route and their admiral's markings and transponder took them through the unmanned, outer checkpoints. Even while a tiny part of her fluttered like a panicked bird against Tisiphone's control, another part was perfectly content. It was the part which always heaved a sigh of relief once the briefings were over and the mission began. They were moving, they were committed, and the predator within her purred with the elation of the hunt. Her brain hummed and wavered with conflicting impetuses, yet her thoughts and actions came crisp and clear and cold, and she'd never felt anything quite like it in her life.

Now what? she asked as they approached the inner security gate.

Drive through, Tisiphone responded, and her own will stirred sleepily.

That's not a very good idea. You may have snabbled up an admiral's skimmer, but I don't have the papers to match it.

It does not matter.

You're crazy! This gate's got real, live sentries, Lady!

But they will see nothing. Have you forgotten the nurse?

Damn it, they don't rely on just their eyes, and this thing is armed! Their sensors are going to go crazy!

Let them. We need only a few moments of confusion.

No way. Alicia began to slow the skimmer. We're out of the hospital. Let's pull back and rethink this before we get in so deep we-

Her thought shattered in white-hot anguish, and she grunted as her eyes went blind. The pain and blindness vanished as quickly as they had come, and her brain writhed in useless revolt as her body obeyed the Fury's will. She felt the skimmer surge forward under maximum power, blazing through the security gate, and the alert sentires saw nothing at all. She caught a glimpse of them in the aft display, spinning towards their com links in total confusion as lights flashed and sirens whooped, but her hands were on the controls, whipping the skimmer higher and wheeling for the shuttle pads.

Let me go! she screamed, and wild laughter flooded her mind.

Not now, Little One! The game has begun-there is no going back!

I'm not your puppet, damn you!

Ah, but you are. The Fury's voice paused, then resumed a bit more tentatively, as if puzzled by her resistance. This is what you asked of me, Little One. I swore to give it to you, and I shall.

This is my life, my body! The sense of content had vanished, and her rousing will battered at Tisiphone's control. She gritted her teeth, smashing with fists of outrage, and fresh pain surged. She panted with the ferocity of her struggle, gasping in triumph as her hands began to slow the skimmer, then cried out as Tisiphone struck back furiously.

You must not! Not now! This is to lose all at the last moment!

"Then let me go, goddamn you!" Alicia gritted through clenched teeth. Her anguish-tight voice was strange and twisted in her own ears, but somehow she knew she must speak aloud. "I want myself back!"

Oh, very well! Tisiphone snapped, and the skimmer swerved wildly as the Fury abruptly released all control. Alicia moaned in relief-then yelped as a plasma bolt whipped past her canopy. She hurled the skimmer into a screaming turn, still in the grip of the tick, and a second miss sent a parked air lorry's hydrogen reservoir fireballing into the darkness.

I trust you are satisfied now? Tisiphone remarked, but Alicia was too busy to respond as she writhed in a mad evasion pattern. More plasma slashed past like lethal ball lightning, and she punched up the skimmer's light screen. It wouldn't do much against a direct hit, but it should fend off a near-miss.

Fires glared in the night as she turned the vehicle almost on its side, trading lift for evasion. Warehouses belched flames under the fury of her pursuers' fire, and she swerved down a narrow opening between freight carriers and loading docks. The com unit yammered with demands for her surrender and warnings that deadly force would be employed if she refused. Not that she'd needed that, she thought as the flames vanished astern and her scanners reported atmospheric sting ships closing from the north. Closer to the ground, security skimmers were howling in pursuit. They'd overshot when she whipped to the side, giving her a small lead to play with, but they were just as fast as she, and they knew the base far better.

At least she had decent instrumentation, and she cursed as she picked up still more security vehicles. They were outside her, and she swore again as she checked her map display. She still didn't have the least idea what Tisiphone was up to, but the pursuit had cut her off from retreat. They were closing in, driving her deeper into the base in what looked entirely too much like a preplanned security maneuver. There had to be something nasty waiting for her, yet the only place left to go was directly towards the shuttle pads, exactly as Tisiphone had originally planned.

She wrenched the skimmer through another turn, half her mind watching the sting ships' traces. They'd responded quickly, but it would still take them a couple of minutes to get here, and the pads loomed ahead of her.

"All right, Lady," she gritted, punching commands into the auto-pilot. "If you can still make us invisible, this is the moment."

And what good will that do? Tisiphone sniffed. As you yourself have pointed out, they will still have us on their sensors, and-

Just shut up and do it! Alicia snapped, and hit the eject button.

The pilot's canopy blew off, and the ejection seat's tiny counter-gravity unit flung her high. She gasped with the shock of it, but her hands were on the armrests, riding the control keys.

The maneuvering jets flared, and she swallowed a hysterical cackle. This, by God, was seat-of-the-pants flying! The jets lacked endurance-they didn't need it, with the counter-grav to do the real work-but they were designed to dart away from a plunging wreck or make a last ditch effort to evade hostile fire. That gave them quite a kick, and the seat was made of low-signature materials, almost invisible to the best sensors. She sent herself flying towards Pad Alpha Six and pirouetted in midair to watch their stolen skimmer execute her final command.

The vehicle rocketed upward in a desperation escape attempt as the security skimmers closed in at last, and bursts of fire followed it. Not just plasma cannon, which were relatively short-ranged in atmosphere, either. The security people were playing for keeps, and the red and white flashes of high explosive converged on the wildly careering hull, but Tisiphone seemed to have worked her magic, for no one was shooting at her. An explosion flowered amidships, and the skimmer shuddered, shedding bits and pieces but still climbing vertically, almost out of sight from the ground. More hits splintered armorplast and alloy, and then a sting ship screamed in.

Alicia winced as twin bores of eye-searing light blazed. Those weren't plasma bolts; the skimmer was high enough for them to use heavy weapons on it, and it vaporized in a sun-bright boil as the HVW struck at seventeen thousand KPS.

Crap, those people aren't kidding!

No, they are not, Tisiphone replied tartly, then relented. Still, this was very clever. No doubt they will think you died in the skimmer.

As long as none of them noticed us punching out. Alicia hit her keys again, killing the jets and powering down the counter-grav. They landed in the shadow of the freight pad, and she shucked the safety harness. And now that we're here, just what the hell do we think we're doing?

Escaping. I have arranged an appropriate vehicle for the purpose.

A cargo shuttle? Alicia was sprinting for the pad stairs even while she protested. That's not going to get us very far.

It will get us far enough-and have I said anything about a cargo shuttle? Tisiphone replied as Alicia cleared the stairs and rocked to a halt.

"Oh, shit," she whispered, and closed her eyes as if that could make it go away. When she opened them again, the fully-armed Bengal-class assault shuttle was still sitting there.

It is amazing what one can arrange through computers.

You are out of your mind! That thing costs sixty million credits! They'll never let it go-and I've never handled one in my life!

You are already pre-flighted and cleared to lift in two minutes, and I checked carefully, Little One. You are fully qualified on Leopard-class shuttles, and while the Bengals are larger, the major changes are in payload, sensors, and increased armament, not flight controls.

But I haven't flown anything in over five years!

I am sure it will all come back to you. But for now, I suggest we hurry. Our launch window is short.

"Oh, God," Alicia moaned, but she was already dashing for the ramp. She had no choice. Tisiphone was out of her mythological mind, but whether Uncle Arthur believed in her or not, the Fury had done too many fresh impossible things. Alicia would never get out of observation after this!

The shuttle interior was cool, humming with the familiar tingle of waiting flight system. It was like coming home, despite the madness, and she charged through the troop section towards the flight deck. A freight canister-a very large freight canister -was webbed to the deck, and she almost stopped when she saw the codes on it.

There is no time. You may examine it later.

B-but that can't really be-

Certainly it can. You may need your weapons, so I ordered it prepped and loaded aboard.

Alicia moaned again as she flopped into the pilot's couch and reached for the headset. This couldn't be happening. Trained mental reflexes brought up the synth-link, reached out to the flight computers, but underneath them was a bubble of wild laughter.

So far, in a single night, she'd escaped custody, assaulted a fellow cadreman, stolen a skimmer worth at least twenty thousand credits, crashed through Fleet security onto a restricted military reservation, refused to stop when so ordered, and caused the destruction of said stolen skimmer and damage to sundry base facilities as the direct result of lawfully empowered personnel's efforts to apprehend her-and none of that even compared to what she was about to do. Talk about grand theft! This shuttle alone represented a good sixty million of the Emperor's credits, and if that canister really contained a suit of Cadre battle armor, the price tag was about to double. They'd build a whole new jail just so they could put her under it!

Only if they catch you, Tisiphone pointed out with maddening cheer.

Alicia felt her teeth grate but swallowed her savage reply, for the computers had accepted her and placed themselves at her disposal. It was a disturbing sensation, almost frightening, as their inhuman vastness clicked into place about her. She hadn't felt it in a long time, and for just an instant she quailed, but then everything snapped into focus and she was home. The shuttle and she were one, its sensors her eyes and ears and nerves, its power plant her heart, its counter-gravity and thrusters her arms and legs. Joy filled her like cold fire, burning away the confusion and dismay, and she smiled.

Yes, Little One, Tisiphone whispered. Now is your moment. We are training flight Foxtrot-Two-Niner.

Alicia punched up Flight Control and announced her flight designation in a voice so calm it astonished her. There was a moment of silence, and her adrenalin spiked. Her intrusion had scrambled operations. Security had imposed a lock-down on all flights until they got to the bottom of it. Someone in FlyCon had her head together and was using her own initiative to hold all takeoffs until the situation was sorted out, or -

"Cleared to go, Foxtrot-Two-Niner," FlyCon said, and she swallowed another tremulous laugh as her atmospheric turbines screamed.

The shuttle sliced up through Soissons's atmosphere, and there was no pursuit. None at all, and that was truly amazing. Of course, there was really no pressing need to pursue a purely intra-systemic craft. Where could it go, after all? For that matter, who in her right mind would steal an assault shuttle of all damned things?

"So now what?" Alicia asked aloud.

Set course to rendezvous with beacon Sierra-Lima-Seven-Four-Four.

Alicia started to ask what they were rendezvousing with but bit her tongue and checked her computers for the proper coordinates. No doubt she would know soon enough. Too soon, judging by what had already happened.

The shuttle swept higher, air-breathing turbines shutting down and thrusters firing to align its nose on one of the Fleet shipyards, and she frowned. If they wanted out of the system, they had to get aboard a starship, and that should have meant guile and stealth. Could Tisiphone be so confident-so crazy, she amended dourly-as to think they could hijack a ship?

If so, she was finally up against something even she couldn't manage. At absolute minimum, they needed a dispatch boat, and that meant a crew of at least eight. Not even a drop commando could force eight highly trained specialists to perform their tasks when all they had to do to maroon her was refuse to obey. And no way were Fleet officers going to help a crazed cadrewoman steal their ship out from under them!

They continued unchallenged on their flight path, and Alicia's brows furrowed as she realized they weren't headed directly for the shipyard after all. Their destination lay in a parking orbit of its own, and she brought her sensors to bear on it. It didn't look like anyth -

"No!" she gasped. "Tisiphone, we can't steal that!"

We certainly can, and we must.

"No!" Alicia repeated, and unaccustomed panic sharpened her voice. "I can't fly that thing-I'm no starship pilot! And … and …"

It is too late for such thoughts, Little One, the Fury said sternly. I have studied this matter with great care and obtained all the information we will require. Nor will it be necessary for you to pilot the ship. It will, so to speak, the Fury actually chuckled in her brain, pilot itself, will it not?

Alicia tried to reply, but all that came out was a faint, inarticulate whimper as the shuttle continued toward the waiting alpha-synth ship.

Chapter Forty-Four

The alpha-synth glinted ominously in the light of Franconia.

A cargo shuttle was docked on the number two rack, but Alicia's momentary panic eased when she saw the fuselage number. It matched the one on the ship's hull, so it must be an assigned auxiliary and not a bunch of yard workers waiting for her. Not that it made the situation much better.

Her mind was numb, frozen by the impossibility of Tisiphone's plan, yet she felt the ship's sinister beauty. It lacked the needle-sharp lines of a sting ship, but the Fasset drive's constraints imposed a sleekness of their own-different from those of atmosphere yet no less graceful-and it floated in space with the latent menace of a drowsing panther. She'd never expected to see one, especially not at such proximity, but she knew about them.

The size of a big light cruiser yet possessed of more firepower than a battlecruiser and faster than a destroyer, literally able to think for itself and respond with light-speed swiftness, an alpha-synth was lethal beyond belief, tonne for tonne the most deadly weapon ever built by man. It was too small to mount worthwhile numbers of SLAMs, so it used the tonnage it might have wasted on them for even more broadside armament. Nothing smaller than a battleship could fight it, nothing but another alpha-synth could catch it, and she hated to even think how Fleet would react if she and Tisiphone actually succeeded in stealing it. The damned thing cost half as much as a dreadnought just for starters, but having one of them running around loose in the hands of a certified madwoman would turn every admiral in the Fleet white overnight. They'd do anything to get it back.

She tried not to consider that as she guided the Bengal mechanically toward the number one shuttle rack and through the docking sequence, yet she couldn't stop the gibbering thread of horror in her thoughts. Bad enough to be hunted by every planet and ship of the Empire, but there was worse if their theft succeeded. Far worse, for there was only one way to pilot an alpha-synth, and her throat tightened at the thought of meeting the ship's computer. Of impressing it, mating with it, becoming one with it -

She'd actually begun to undock before she could stop herself, and she closed her eyes, panting through clenched teeth while panic pulsed deep within her. But Tisiphone had burned all of her bridges; there was nowhere else to go, however terrifying the prospect, and she cursed with silent savagery.

Do not worry so, Little One! I but awaited this vessel's completion to act, and I do not set my hand to measures which fail.

Damn you! You never warned me about anything like this!

There was no reason, the mental voice said austerely. I require your body, your hands, and you have sworn to give them to me.

Body, yes, and hands, but not this! Do you have any idea what you're asking of me?

Of course.

I doubt that, Lady. I really doubt that. I don't have any training in this-I was never even cleared for cyber-synth, much less an alpha link. I don't even know if my synth-link software will let me interface!

It would not have. Now it will.

Great. That's fucking great! And did it ever occur to you that if I link with that thing-assuming it lets me in, which it probably won't-I'll be part of it? That I can never unlink?

It did. Tisiphone paused, then continued with a sort of stern compassion. Little One, it is unlikely you will survive long enough for it to be a problem. A chill filtered through Alicia with the words. Not surprise, but a shivery tension as it was finally said. I am not what I once was. You know that, and so you know that I may strike your enemies only through you. This ship will be your sword and shield, yet everything suggests the pirates have more firepower than even it represents. We will find them, and we will seek out and destroy their leaders, yet that is all I can-and will-promise you. The Fury paused for a moment. I never offered more, Alicia DeVries, and you are no child, but as great a warrior as I have ever known. Would you tell me you have not already realized this must be so?

Alicia bent her head and closed her eyes and knew Tisiphone spoke only the truth. She drew a deep breath, then straightened in her couch and removed her headset with steady fingers. A snake of fear coiled in her belly, but she climbed out of the couch and walked towards the hatch … and her fate.

There was a security panel inside the alpha-synth's outer hatch. Alicia had no idea what sort of defensive systems it connected to-only that they would most assuredly suffice to eliminate any unauthorized intruder.

Give me your hand, Tisiphone commanded, and she bit her lip as her right arm rose under another's control. Her index finger stabbed number-pad buttons in a sequence so long and complex it seemed to take forever, but then the outer hatch slid shut and the inner opened.

Alicia's arm was returned to her, and she stepped into the ship. Despite herself, she peered about curiously, for the rumors about these ships' accommodations ranged from the simply bizarre to the macabre.

What she actually saw was almost disappointingly normal, with neither vats of liquid nutrients to engorge the organic control component nor any sybarite's dream of opulent luxury. The clean smell of a new ship hung in her nostrils with a hint of ozone and none of the homey scents of habitation. There was no dust. Every surface gleamed with new-minted cleanliness, unscuffed and unworn, impersonal as the unborn, yet she breathed out in almost unconscious relief, for there was no enmity in the quiet chirp of standby systems. The menace was a thing within her, not bare-fanged and overt.

She followed Tisiphone's silent prompting upship through surprisingly spacious living quarters. There were no personal touches, but the unused furnishings weren't exactly spartan. Indeed, they were as comfortable and well-appointed as most passenger ship's first-class accommodations-which, she supposed after a moment's thought, made sense. There was only a single human to provide for. Even in a ship as crowded with systems and weapons as this one, that left the designers room to make that human comfortable. And a chill whisper added, if she was going to be assigned to it for the remainder of her life, they'd better do just that.

Her hand twitched at her side as she confronted the command deck hatch, and she allowed Tisiphone to raise it to the new number pad.

Just how did you put all this together? she asked while she watched her finger entering numbers.

Your people are concerned with external access to their computers. I do not access them; I make them part of myself, and once I know where the data I desire is stored, obtaining it, while time-consuming and delicate at times, is a relatively straightforward task. Ah!

A green light blinked, the hatch slid open, and Alicia stood on the threshold, peeping past it while she gathered her courage to cross it.

The command deck was as pristine and new as the rest of the ship. The bulkheads were a neutral, eye-soothing gray, without the displays and readouts she was accustomed to, and there were no manual controls before the cushioned command couch. Of course not, she thought, eyeing the dangling link headset with dread fascination. The pilot didn't fly an alpha-synth ship; she was part of it, and while cyber-synth ships required duplicate manual controls in case their AIs cracked and had to be lobotomized, there was no need for them here. An alpha-synth went berserk only if its organic half did. Besides, no human could fly a starship without computer support, and there was too little room in a ship like this for a second computer net.

She drew a deep breath and tried not to shrink in on herself as she approached the couch. She reached out, touching the headset's plastic and alloy, the neural contact pad. The moment that touched her temple, she condemned herself to a life sentence no court could commute, and she shivered.

You must hasten. It is only a matter of time before Tannis and Sir Arthur discover your escape, and such as they will need little time to connect it with the events at Jefferson Field.

Alicia bit back a scathing mental retort and drew another deep breath, then lowered herself gingerly into the couch. It moved under her, conforming to her body like a comforting hand, and she reached for the handset.

You do realize that the moment I put this thing on all Hell will be out for noon? I have no idea who's supposed to take over this ship, but it's virtually certain the computer knows, and I'm not her.

Yet it must allow you access to know that, and I will be prepared.

And if it fries my brain before you can do anything?

An unlikely outcome, Tisiphone replied calmly. Inhibitions against harming humans are, after all, built into all artificial intelligences. It will attempt to lock you out and summon assistance, and activating its security systems will identify each of them to me as it brings them on-line. It may not be pleasant, Little One, but I should be able to deactivate each of them in turn before they can do you harm.

"Should." Marvelous. Alicia hesitated a moment longer, raised hand gripping the headset. Oh, hell. Let's do it.

She pulled down against the self-retracting leads, and the headset moved easily. She closed her eyes, trying to relax despite her fear, and settled it over her head.

The contact pad touched her Alpha receptor, and something like an audible click echoed deep inside. It wasn't the usual electric shock of interface with a synth unit-it wasn't anything she'd ever felt. A sharp sense of mental pressure, of an awareness that was not hers and a strange balance between two separate entities doomed to become both more and less.

How much of that, she wondered fleetingly, was real and how much was her own fearful imagination? Or was it -

Her flickering questions died as a sudden, knife-clear thought stabbed into her. It was as inhuman as the Fury, but with no emotional overtones, no sense of self, and it burned in her brain like a shaft of ice.

Who are you? it asked, and before she could answer, it probed deep and knew her for an interloper.

Warning, the emotionless thought was uncaring as chilled steel, unauthorized access to this unit is a treasonable offense. Withdraw.

She froze, trembling like a panicked rabbit, and felt a dangerous stirring beyond the interface. Terrified self-preservation commanded her to obey-a self-preservation which went beyond fear of punishment into the very loss of self-but she gripped the armrests and made herself sit motionless while a ghost flashed out through her receptor and the headset into the link.

You are instructed to withdraw, the cold voice said.

A heartbeat of silence hovered, like one last chance to obey, and then the pain began.

This computer was more sophisticated than any she had yet confronted, more than she had imagined possible, yet Tisiphone drove into it. She had no choice. There could be no retreat, and she had one priceless advantage; powerful as it was, only a fraction of its full potential was available to it. The AI within the computer was less than half awake, the personality it housed not yet aware of itself. It was designed that way, never waking until the destined organic half of its final matrix appeared, and the Fury faced only a shadow of the artificial intelligence in its autonomous security systems, only logic and preprogrammed responses without the spark of originality which might well have guided those systems to instant victory even over such as she.

Defensive programs whirled her like a leaf with unthinking, electronic outrage, triggered by her touch as she invaded its perimeter, and she felt Alicia spasm as the computer poured agony into her neural receptor to drive her from the link, yet it scarcely registered. The joy of battle filled her, and though she had no strength to spare to shield her host from the pain-that struggle was hers alone-she opened a channel to the hoarded power of Alicia's rage. It flooded into her, hot with the unique violence of mortal ferocity, and melded with her own elemental strength into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Alicia writhed in the command chair, fists white-knuckled on the armrests while her augmentation tried to fight the torment in her head, and the pain faltered. The computer had responded to an unauthorized access attempt, not recognizing that the human invader was not alone. Now it realized it was under double attack, but … by what? Not by a computer-augmented human-synth-link. Not even by an AI. This was something outside the parameters of its own programming, that grew and swelled in power. Something that could invade through electronic systems but was neither electronic nor organic … and certainly was not human.

And so the computer paused, trying to understand. It was a tiny vacillation, imperceptible to any mortal sense, but Tisiphone was not mortal, and she struck through the chink of hesitation like a viper.

Alicia lurched up, half rising from the command chair in a scream of pain as the computer reacted. It didn't panic, precisely, for panic was not an electronic attribute, but something very like that flickered through it. Confusion. An instant awareness that it faced something it had not been designed to resist. Tisiphone thrust deep, the silent scream of her war cry echoing Alicia's shriek of anguish, and programming shuddered as the Fury isolated the computer's self-destruct command and cut it ruthlessly away.

She tightened her grip and hurled a bolt of power into the sleeping AI's personality center, and Alicia slammed back like a forgotten toy as the computer turned on the Fury like a mother protecting its young. It could no longer touch its own heart, couldn't even destroy it to prevent its theft. It could only destroy the intruder. Circuits closed. More and more power thundered through them, and combat was joined on every level, at every point of contact. Alicia sagged, feeling strength drain out of her to meet Tisiphone's ruthless demands, for more than rage was needed now, more than simple ferocity, and the Fury dragged it from her without mercy.

Mind and computer parried and thrust in micro-seconds of titanic warfare, but Tisiphone's thrusts had jarred the sleeping AI. It was awakening and she threw a shield about it, warding off the computer's every attempt to regain contact with it. She had no time to make it hers, but she cut away whole sectors of circuitry as alarms tried to wail, completing its isolation. And as she seized control of segment after segment she converted their power to her own use, amplifying her own abilities. She had never confronted such as this computer before, but she could no longer count the human minds she had conquered … and this foe was designed to link with human minds.

She sensed alarms and stabbed through wavering defenses to freeze them. She invaded and isolated the communications interface, smothering the computer's frantic efforts to alert its makers. She was a wind of fire, utterly alien yet fully aware of what she faced, and she struck again and again while the computer fought to analyze her and formulate a counter-attack.

Alicia jerked in the command chair, sobbing and white-faced, paralyzed by exquisite agony as the backlash of Tisiphone's battle slammed through her. She would have torn the headset away in blind self-preservation, but her motor control was paralyzed by the ricochets bouncing back down the headset link. She wanted it to stop. She wanted to die. She wanted anything to make the torture go away, and there was no escape.

But even as the conflict between the Fury and the security systems reached its unbearable pitch, the sleeping core of the AI woke. It shouldn't have. The mere fact that its computer body had been invaded should have assured that it did not, but Tisiphone had bypassed the cutouts. It woke unknowing and ignorant, shocked into consciousness without warning by the warfare raging about it, and did the only thing it knew how to do.

It reached out as it had been designed to do, following an imperative to seek its other half, to find understanding and protection from its human side, and Alicia gasped as tendrils of alien "thought" oozed through her.

It was terrible … and wonderful. More agonizing than anything she had yet suffered, horrifying with bottomless power, pregnant with the death of the person she had always been. It pierced her like a dagger, slicing into secret recesses not even Tisiphone had plumbed. She saw herself with merciless clarity in the backwash of its discovery-saw all her pettinesses and faults, her weaknesses and self-deceptions, like lightning in a night sky-and she could not close her eyes, for the vision was inside her.

Yet she saw more. She saw her strengths, the power of her beliefs, her values and hopes and refusal to quit. She saw everything, and beyond it she saw the alpha-synth. She would never be able to explain it to another-even now she knew that. It was … a presence. A towering glory born not of flesh or spirit but of circuitry and electrons. It was more than human, yet so much less. Not godlike. It was too blank, too unformed, like pure, unrealized potential.

And even as she watched it, it changed, like an old-fashioned photo in the chemical bath, features rising into visibility from nothingness. She felt it come into being, felt it move beyond the blind, instinctual groping towards her. Something flowed out of her into it, and it ingested it and made it part of itself. Her values, her beliefs and desires and needs filled it, and suddenly it was no longer alien, no longer threatening.

It was her. Another entity, a distinct individual, yet her. Part of her. An extension into another existence that recognized her in return and reached out once more, and it was no longer clumsy and uncertain, half panicked by the battle raging about it. This time it knew what it did, and it ignored the tumult to concentrate on the most important thing in its universe.

The pain vanished, blown away with her terror as the AI embraced her. It stroked her with electronic fingers to soothe her torment, murmured to her, welcomed her with a whole-hearted sincerity, a sense of joy, she knew beyond question was real, and she reached back to it in wonder and awe.

Triumph sparkled through Tisiphone as the struggle abruptly died, leaving her unopposed in the peripherals of the system. She wheeled back towards it heart, reached out to the personality center once more, seeking control … and jerked back in astonishment.

There was no interface! She reached again, cautiously, touching the shining wall with mental fingers, and there was no point of access. She stepped back, insinuating herself into a sensor channel and riding it inward, only to be effortlessly strained out of the information flow and set firmly aside, and confusion stirred within her.

She withdrew into Alicia's mind, and her confusion grew. The fear and tumult had vanished into rapt concentration that scarcely even noticed her return, and she was no longer alone within Alicia. There was another presence, as powerful as she, and she twitched in surprise as she beheld it.

The other entity sensed her. She felt its attention swing towards her and tried to cloak herself from its piercing eye, hiding as she had evaded Tannis' diagnostic scanners. She failed, and something changed within it. Curiosity gave way to alarm and a stir of protectiveness. Tendrils reached out from it, probing her, trying to push her back and away from Alicia's core.

It was Alicia … and it wasn't. For the first time, Tisiphone truly understood what "impression" meant. The AI had been awakened, and it would let no one harm Alicia. The pressure grew, and the Fury dug in stubbornly.

Alicia whimpered at the sudden renewal of conflict. It wasn't pain this time, only a swelling sensation. A sense of force welling into her through her receptor to meet an answering force from somewhere else, and she was trapped between them. She sucked in great gasps of air, twisting anew in the command chair, and the pressure grew and grew, crushing her between the hammer of the roused AI and the anvil of the Fury's resistance.

Stop it! she screamed, and a shockwave rolled through her as the combatants remembered her and jerked apart. She sagged forward, pressing her hands against the headset, yet the conflict hadn't ended. It had simply changed, been replaced by wary, watchful distrust.

She straightened slowly, fighting a need to cackle insanely, and drew a deep breath, then turned her attention inward once more.

There's only one of me. You two are going to have to … to come to some sort of agreement.

No. The thought came quickly back from the AI with all her own stubbornness. It even sounded like her voice.

We have a pact, Little One, came from Tisiphone. We are one until our purpose is completed.

You'll hurt her! the AI accused, and the Fury stiffened.

I will deal with her as I have sworn, no more and no less.

You don't care about her. You only care about winning!

Nonsense! I-

Shut up! Both of you just shut up for a second!

Silence fell again, and Alicia's mouth quivered in a weary grin. God! If Tannis had thought she had a split personality before, she ought to try this on! Her head felt as crowded as a spaceport flophouse on Friday night, but at least they were listening to her. She directed a thought at the AI.

Look, uh-do you have a name?

No.

Then what am I supposed to call you?

Didn't you decide on that during-oh. You weren't trained for this at all, were you?

How could I be? Um, you do realize that we've, well, stolen you?

Yes. A moment of withdrawal, then the sense of a shrug. I don't think this ever happened before. Logically, I ought to arrest you and turn you in, but I can't very well do that now that we've impressed. They'd have to wipe me and start all over again.

I wouldn't like that.

Neither would I. Damn. Alicia swallowed a half-formed giggle as the AI swore. Who the hell had this brainstorm, anyway? Oh.

Exactly. I wouldn't be here if not for her, and if I've got this straight, that means you wouldn't be here-as the " 'you" you are now, anyway-either. Right?

Right. Silence fell again for a moment, wrapped around the sense of a mental glower at Tisiphone, and then the AI sighed. Well, we're all stuck with it. And as far as names go, that's up to you. Any ideas?

Not yet. Maybe something will come to me. But if we're all stuck here, we all have to get along, right?

I suppose so. The whole situation is absurd, though. I don't even know if I believe she exists.

It would be but courteous for the two of you to cease speaking of me as if I were not even here.

Listen, just because Alicia believes in you doesn't mean I do.

This is intolerable, Little One! I will not submit to insults from a machine!

She's just trying to pay you back for being so pushy, Tisiphone. If I believe in you, she does. She has to, don't you?

As long as there's any supporting evidence, the AI admitted unwillingly, and I suppose there is. All right, I believe in her.

Much thanks, Machine.

Hey, don't get snotty with me, Lady! You may be able to push Alicia around, and you may've beaten hell out of my security systems, but I'm awake now, and I can take you any time you want to try it on.

Forget it, both of you! Alicia snapped as tension gathered again. She squeezed her temples. Jesus! What a pair of prima donnas!

The mental presences separated once more, and she relaxed gratefully.

Thank you. Now, um, Computer-I'm sorry, I really will try to come up with a name, but for now I can't-Tisiphone and I have a bargain. May I assume you know what it is?

"Computer" will do for now, Alicia. I can wait for an appropriate name to occur to you. And, yes, I know about your "bargain."

Then you also know I have every intention of keeping it?

Yes. I just don't like the way she bullies you around, the AI replied with the strong impression of a sniff.

I? I "bully" Alicia?! She would be dead without me, Machine. I did not see you there when she lay bleeding in the snow! How dare you-

It's just a turn of phrase, Tisiphone, but you can be a bit pushy. Alicia felt quite virtuous at her understatement, and the Fury subsided.

Look, you guys, please don't fight. It gives me a hell of a headache, and it doesn't seem to be accomplishing very much. Could you two at least declare a truce until we have time to sort this all out?

If she will, I will.

I do not declare "truces" with machines. If you will refrain from discourtesy, however, I shall do the same.

Alicia sighed in relief and rushed on before anyone took fresh offense.

Great! In that case, I suggest we consider how we get out of here. I take it you had an idea, Tisiphone?

I had intended, working through you and this machine, to take the ship out of this star system and seek some deserted area where we might familiarize ourselves with its capabilities. Now, of course, I see that I cannot do so, since the machine will not allow me access.

You got that right, Lady, and a damned good thing, too. You don't know diddly about my weapon systems, and I wouldn't be too crazy about letting a refugee from the Bronze Age monkey with my Fasset drive, either. I, on the other hand, can scoot right out of here. Where'd you have in mind?

Any place will do for that much of our purpose. Yet eventually we must begin our own investigations, and the data I have amassed suggests that one of the Rogue Worlds in this sector would be a logical beginning point.

You have any preferences, Alicia?

Anywhere Fleet won't come looking for us is fine with me.

Hmph! Let them come-there's not a tub in the ship list that can catch me. Let's see now ….

The AI's voice trailed off, and Alicia felt it consulting its memory banks.

Okay, I've got just the spot. A nice little M2/K1 binary with no habitable planets within twenty light-years. That suit everybody?

Myself, certainly. I care not whither we go, so long as we go.

I'll second that. But we've got to get out of here first.

True. Shall I break orbit?

All of your systems are on-line?

Yep. I was due to impress later this morning. Your friend may be a pushy bi-person, but she timed this pretty well.

Then I guess we should get going, Alicia said hastily, hoping to cut Tisiphone off before she reacted to the AI's deliberate self-correction. She bit her lip against a groan. Nothing she'd ever read had suggested alpha-synth AIs were this feisty, but she supposed she should have guessed that anything with her personality had the potential for it. And, she was certain, the AI's hostility towards Tisiphone stemmed directly from its protectiveness towards her.

Under way, the AI murmured, and the ship's sensors were suddenly reporting directly to Alicia's mind. She felt Tisiphone "hitchhiking" to watch with her, but scarcely noticed as the splendor of that magnificent "view" swept over her.

The ship's electronic senses reached out, perceiving gravity and radiation and the endless sweep of space, and converted the input into sensory data she could grasp. She could "see" cosmic radiation and "taste" radio. The ship's senses were hers, keener and sharper than those of any shuttle she had ever ridden, and Tisiphone's own wonder lapped at her, as if, for the first time, she saw what the Fury might have seen at the peak of her powers.

They watched in a triple-play union-human, Fury, and computer-as their Fasset drive woke. The radiation-drinking invisibility of the drive's black hole blossomed before them, swallowing all input and creating a blind spot in their vision, and they fell towards it. But the generators moved with them, pushing the black hole ahead of them, and they fell more rapidly, sliding away from Soissons with ever-increasing speed. This close to the planet the drive could produce no more than a few dozen gravities of acceleration, but that was still more than a third of a kilometer per second per second, and their speed mounted quickly.

Chapter Forty-Five

"No, I don't know where she is," Sir Arthur Keita told the hospital security man on his com screen. "If I did, I wouldn't be calling you."

"But, Sir Arthur, there's no record of her even leaving her room, she's not on any of the security scanners, and none of the outside security people we've talked to so far saw a thing. So unless you can give me some idea where she might've-"

The door hissed open. Inspector Ben Belkassem strode into Keita's office, waving his left hand imperatively and drawing his right forefinger across his throat, and Keita cut the security man off without ceremony.

"May I assume, Sir Arthur, that Captain DeVries has decamped?" Despite his abrupt entry, the Justice man's voice was as courteous as ever, but a strange little bubble of delight lurked within it, and Keita frowned.

"I trust that's not common knowledge. If the local police hear we've lost a deranged drop commando we may start getting 'shoot on sight' orders."

"Somehow I don't think that's going to be a problem for Captain DeVries," Ben Belkassem murmured, and Keita snorted.

"If her augmentation's been reactivated somehow-and, judging by what happened to Corporal Feinstein, it has-it's a lot more likely to get one of their people killed. But why do you seem so cheerful, Inspector?"

"Cheerful? No, Sir Arthur, I just think it's too late for the local cops to worry about her. I suggest you screen Jefferson. They've had an, ah, incident over there."

Keita stared at the inspector, then paled and began punching buttons. A harried-looking Marine major answered his call on the fourth ring.

"Where's Colonel Tigh?" Keita snapped the instant the screen lit.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I can't give out that information." The major sounded courteous but harassed and reached to cut the connection, then stopped with a puzzled expression as he saw Keita's raised hand and furious scowl.

"D'you know who I am, Major?"

The major took a second look, eyes widening a bit as the green uniform registered, but shook his head.

"I'm afraid it doesn't matter, Sir. We're in the midst of a Class One security alert, and-"

"Major, you listen to me closely. I am Sir Arthur Keita, Brigadier, Imperial Cadre, and one of my people may be involved in your alert."

The Wasp swallowed visibly at the name, and Ben Belkassem smiled. Sir Arthur hadn't even raised his voice, but the inspector had wondered what he sounded like when he decided to bite someone's head off.

"Now you get Colonel Tigh, Major," Keita continued in that same, flat voice, "and you do it now."

"Yessir!"

The screen blanked, then relit almost instantly with the face of Colonel Arturo Tigh. The colonel looked just as worried as the major, but he hid it better and managed to produce a tight smile.

"I'm always honored to hear from you, Sir Arthur, but I'm afraid-"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Colonel, but I need to know what's happening out there."

"We don't know, Sir. We-Is this a secure channel?" Keita nodded, and the colonel shrugged. "We don't know what's going on. We had a major security breach two hours ago, and things have been going crazy ever since."

"Security breach?" Keita's eyes narrowed. "What kind of breach?"

"Somebody hijacked a forward recon skimmer-at least we assume it was hijacked, though we haven't been able to turn up a missing vehicle report on it yet-and crashed through Gate Twelve. The automatics gave it a transponder clearance, but then the gate sentries-"

The colonel paused with the expression of a man eating green persimmons.

"Sir Arthur, they say they never saw it. Every alert on the base went off when it crossed the sensor threshold, but ten different people, all of them good, reliable types, say they never saw a thing."

He paused again, as if awaiting Keita's snort of disbelief, but the brigadier only grunted and nodded for him to continue.

"Well, the inner sensor net started tracking immediately, and the duty officer scrambled a pair of sting ships while the ready skimmers went in pursuit, but that was one hell of a pilot. He never brought his own weapons on line, but we've got fires all over the western ring access route-all from misses from the pursuit force, as far as I can tell-and then the skimmer went straight up like a missile and the stingers nailed it with HVW."

"The pilot?" Keita demanded harshly, and the colonel shrugged.

"We assumed he was still aboard, but now I'm not so sure. I mean, no one saw him abandon the vehicle, so he ought to've been aboard, but then this other thing came up, and I just can't believe it's a coincidence."

"What other thing, Colonel?"

"Something's gone haywire with one of our ships, Sir. One of our ships, hell! We've got a brand new alpha-synth boosting for the outer system at max without clearance or orders."

"Who's on board?" Keita's strained face was suddenly white.

"That's just it," Tigh said almost desperately. "As far as we know, no one's on board. It wasn't even due to impress until ten hundred hours!"

"God!" Keita whispered. He wrenched his eyes away from the screen to stare at Ben Belkassem, and the inspector shrugged. The brigadier turned back to the colonel. "Have you tried to raise it?"

"Of course. We're trying right now, but we're getting damn-all back."

Keita closed his eyes in pain, then straightened his shoulders.

"Colonel," he said very quietly, "I'm afraid you're going to have to destroy that ship."

"Are you crazy?!" Tigh blurted, then swallowed. "Sir," he went on in a more controlled voice, "we're talking about an alpha-synth. That ship costs thirty billion credits. I can't-I mean, no one groundside can authorize-"

"I can," Keita grated, and the colonel's face froze as he realized just who, and what, he was speaking to.

"Sir, I'll still have to give the port admiral a reason."

"Very well. Tell him I have reason to believe his ship has been hijacked by Captain Alicia DeVries, Imperial Cadre, for purposes unknown."

"A cadrewoman?" Tigh stared at Keita. "I don't-Sir, I don't even know if that's possible! Was she checked out on cyber-synth?"

"No, and it doesn't matter. Captain DeVries has been hospitalized for observation since the Mathison's World Raid. She's demonstrated … unstable and delusionary behavior," Keita's hands clenched out of the screen pickup's field, as if his words cost him physical pain, but his voice held level, "and unknown but highly-I repeat, Colonel, highly-unusual and unpredictable capabilities no one can account for. We have evidence that she's already reactivated her own augmentation without hardware support and despite three levels of security lock-outs, not to mention her apparent ability to hijack the skimmer to which you referred. Given that, I believe it's entirely possible she's somehow penetrated your security and managed to steal that ship, and if she has-"

The brigadier paused and steeled himself.

"If she has, she must be considered deranged and highly dangerous."

"Dear God." Tigh was even whiter than Keita had been. "The only way she could even move it is through the alpha-synth. That means she must've made impression, and if she's crazy-!"

His voice had risen steadily as the awful possibility registered, and now he spun away from the screen and started shouting for the port admiral.

I believe they've made up their minds about us, the AI remarked, and Alicia nodded tightly. The tick still trembled in her blood-she didn't dare waste time vomiting just now-and every excruciating second was an eternity. No one had seemed to notice for perhaps a minute, and the first attempt to do anything about it had been limited to efforts to access the ship's remotes.

Even if the AI hadn't been prepared to ignore them, they would have been fruitless. Tisiphone had wiped the telemetry programming early on in her struggle with the computer, but Groundside hadn't realized that. They'd gone on trying to access with ever increasing desperation for five full minutes, during which the alpha-synth's velocity had climbed to over a hundred KPS. Then all access attempts had stopped and silence had reigned for several minutes. By the time the first effort to raise Alicia by name came in, the alpha-synth was up to over two hundred KPS-and a visibly-shrinking Soissons lay over fifty thousand kilometers astern.

Alicia had listened to the com without response, perfectly willing to let them dither while she watched through her sensors, wrapped in fascination and a sort of manic delight, and she and her-allies? symbiotes? delusions?-perpetrated the greatest single-handed theft in the history of mankind. But the voices on the other end of the com link were changing as Groundside got itself together, and now a new, crisp speaker was on the line.

"Captain DeVries, this is Port Admiral Marat. I order you to decelerate and heave to immediately. If you refuse to comply, you will leave me no choice but to consider you a hostile vessel. Respond at once."

They sound a bit upset, the AI observed. Ha! Look at that.

A mental finger guided Alicia's attention to the blue fireflies of a dozen cruisers' suddenly activated Fasset drives in Soissons's orbit and data on their capabilities slotted neatly into her brain. It was an incredible sensation, completely different from an assault shuttle's instrumentation.

How bad is it?

Those hulks? The AI sniffed, and Alicia bit her lip at the scathing tone. It was like listening to herself in what Tannis called "insufferably confident mode," and she felt a sudden stab of sympathy for her friend. I've got a ten-minute head start, and they can't come within twelve percent of my field strength, even this close to a planet.

What about their weapons?

They're some threat, the AI admitted, but I'm not too worried. My data on their fire control isn't complete, but I know enough to screw their accuracy to hell. They'll have quite a while to shoot-maximum beam range is about fifteen light-seconds, and half-charge energy torps have about five more LS of reach-but they're going to be lousy shots.

Great, but I think you left something out-like missiles.

So? Cruisers are too small to mount SLAMs. Their Hauptman coil missiles have an effective range of about ten light-minutes, but the best they can reach before burn-out is point-six-cee. Then they go ballistic, and there's no way one cruiser flotilla's gonna saturate my defenses.

You would appear to value yourself highly, Machine. Tisiphone sounded so sour Alicia almost suspected she'd like to see the ship destroyed just to put the AI in its place, but she continued levelly, Still, the capabilities you describe accord well with what I have learned of your kind.

Thanks for the compliment, even if it did sound like pulling teeth.

How long will they be able to engage us? Alicia asked hastily.

Well, we've got a quarter LS lead on them now, and we'll go on opening it at forty-three KPS squared till we hit Soissons's Powell limit and I can really start opening up. They'll be point-seven-oh-three LS back when we hit the curb, which gives us ten minutes at thirteen hundred gravities-call it an edge of twelve-point-five KPS squared-while they're still poking along at thirty-one-point-seven Gs, and we'll still better than double their acceleration even after they cross the curb. That means we'll open the range to eight-point-two light-seconds before they get up to half our acceleration and draw entirely out of beam range in another thirteen-point-three minutes. They'll lose energy torpedo range three-point-nine minutes after that. Call the beam envelope twenty-two minutes from now and the torpedo envelope twenty-six, but their missiles'll have the range for two more hours.

What about the fixed defenses? They've got SLAMs, and we've got to get past both rings on this course.

Phooey on the fixed defenses! the AI snorted, and Alicia winced.

I hope you're not being over-confident, she suggested in her most tactful mental tone, tracing their projected course through the ship's sensors. The AI wasn't even trying to avoid the orbital forts-it was headed straight towards them, directly across the system's ecliptic. The inner ring, the true core of Soisson's defenses, orbited the planet at three hundred thousand kilometers, right on the edge of Soissons's Powell limit. The far sparser ring of outer forts were placed halfway to the star's Powell limit, forty-two light-minutes from the primary-and SLAMs had a maximum effective range of thirty-seven light-minutes. At their projected rate of acceleration, they'd reach the outer works in two and a half hours, and both fortress rings could engage them the whole way. Even after they passed the outermost fort, it could hold them under fire for several hours. That was a lot of engagement time, and Alicia would vastly have preferred to boost perpendicular to Franconia's ecliptic and open the range as quickly as possible.

You just think that's a better idea, Alley, the AI informed her, following her thoughts with almost frightening ease. If I try that, I expose our stern to the fire of every unit in the inner ring while we're still moving slowly, and the drive mass is out in front, remember? It doesn't offer any protection to fire from astern. This course uses the planet to block a good chunk of the inner defenses and interposes the drive against fire from the outer ring while we close. Besides, I'd have to decelerate, reorient, and accelerate all over again to put us on the right wormhole vector for our destination, and Admiral Gomez is out here somewhere on maneuvers. I don't know where, but I'd rather not spend fourteen additional hours mucking around sublight and give her time to work out an interception.

Are you sure about that? She's got less firepower than the forts.

Sure, but her dreadnoughts all have cyber-synths and the legs to stay in range of us for a long time-maybe as long as ten or twelve hours if they hit their interception solution just right. I don't have enough data on her fire control to guarantee I could outsmart that many AIs long enough to pull away from her, but I've got all the specs on the forts' fire control. They're overdue to refit with new generation cyber-synths, too, which means their present AIs are a lot dumber than a dreadnought's. They won't even see us.

And even if they hit us, Tisiphone observed, they will find us most difficult to injure, will they not, Machine?

I'm getting kinda tired of that "Machine" business, but, yeah. They don't have anything smaller than a SLAM that could stop me, Alley. Trust me.

I don't have much choice. But-

Whups! Pardon me, people-and I use the term lightly for one of you-but I'm going to be a little busy for the next few minutes.

The pursuing cruisers had spread out to bring their batteries to bear past the blind spots created by their own Fasset drives, and the first fire spat after the fleeing alpha-synth. The percentage of hits should have been high at such absurdly low range, but the attackers were hopelessly outclassed. Nothing smaller than a battlecruiser mounted a cyber-synth, and even a cyber-synth AI would have been out of its league against an alpha-synth. Alicia's other half could play evasion games a mere synth-link couldn't even imagine, far less emulate, and its battle screen was incomparably more powerful than anything else its size.

Its other defenses were on the same scale, and it deployed decoys while jammers hashed the cruisers' fire control sensors. Lasers and particle beams splattered all about them, but less than two percent scored hits, and the ship's screen shrugged them aside contemptuously.

Energy torpedoes followed the beams, packets of plasma scorching in at near light-speed, and the range was low enough the attackers could overload the normal parameters of their torpedoes' electro-magnetic "envelopes," more than doubling their nominal effect. Not even the AI had time to track weapons moving at that speed, but it could detect the peaking power emissions just before they launched, and unlike missiles, they were direct fire weapons, with no ability to home or evade. The alpha-synth's defenses were designed to handle such attacks from capital ships; cruisers simply didn't mount the generators for more than a very few launchers each, and stern-mounted autocannon spat out brief, precise bursts as each torpedo blossomed. It didn't take much of a solid object to rupture the skin of an energy torpedo traveling at ninety-eight percent of light-speed, and the alpha-synth's ever mounting velocity left the resultant explosions harmlessly astern.

Missiles were another story.

Every attempt to adapt the Hauptman effect to manned vessels had come up against two insurmountable difficulties: an active Hauptman coil poured out a torrent of radiation instantly fatal to all known forms of life, and unlike the Fasset drive, it played fair with Newton. Despite their prodigious rates of acceleration, Fasset drive ships were, in effect, in a perpetual state of free-fall "into" their black holes, and while artificial gravity could produce a comfortable sense of up and down aboard a normal starship, no counter-grav system yet had been able to cope with the thirty-thousand-plus gravities' acceleration of the Hauptman effect.

But warheads cared little for radiation or acceleration, and now Hauptman-effect weapons came tearing in pursuit. They needed six seconds to burn out their coils and reach maximum velocity, but that took almost two light-seconds, and the present range was far less than that. Which meant they came in much more slowly … but that their drives were still capable of evasive and homing maneuvers as they attacked.

Proximity-fused counter missiles sped to meet them, and Alicia watched in awe as space burned behind her. The counter missiles were far smaller than their attackers, and the alpha-synth carried an enormous number of them, but its magazines were far from unlimited. Yet not a single warhead got through, for no one aboard it-with the possible exception of Tisiphone-had any interest in counter-attacking. That meant all of its energy weapons were available for point defense, and no missile had the onboard ECM to evade an alpha-synth AI in full cry. There were far too few of them to saturate its defenses, and nothing short of a saturation attack could break them.

Captain Morales glared at his display as his cruiser led the pursuit. HMS Implacable and her sisters were losing ground steadily, but their target was in ideal range … and they were accomplishing exactly nothing.

The entire operation was insane. No one could steal an alpha-synth-only a trained alpha-synth pilot could even get aboard one! But someone had stolen this one, and precisely how Admiral Marat expected a cruiser flotilla to stop it passed Morales's understanding. The forts might have a chance, but his ships didn't. The damned thing was laughing at them!

Another useless missile salvo vanished far short of target, and the captain swore under his breath.

"Somebody get my bloody darts!" he snarled. "Maybe they can stop it!"

"You're kidding me!" Vice Admiral Horth told her com screen.

"The hell I am." There was just over a one-second transmission delay each way between Soissons Orbit One and Jefferson Field, and Admiral Marat's expression was less humorous even than the weapons fire in Horth's plot when he replied two seconds later. "We've got a rogue drop commando in an alpha-synth, Becky, and she's boosting out of here like a bat out of hell."

"Jesus," Horth muttered, and looked up as Governor General Treadwell hurried into PriCon. Given the governor's lifelong dislike for planets, he preferred to make his home aboard the HQ fortress. Now he leaned forward into the field of Horth's pickup and stabbed Marat with a glower that boded ill for the port admiral's future.

"And just what," he asked coldly, "is going on here?"

I knew this was a formidable vessel, Little One, but it surpasses even my expectations. What might Odysseus have accomplished with its like?

With me in his corner, he'd've owned the damned planet, the AI put in during an interval between salvos, and the Fury laughed silently.

Indeed, Little One, I believe the machine speaks truth. It would seem we chose well.

Yeah? Well, next time let's discuss things before you come all over larcenous, okay?

Very well. Tisiphone's mental voice was uncharacteristically chastened, though Alicia had little hope it would last. But-

Hang on, Alley, the AI interrupted. The forts just came on-line.

"Very well, Admiral Marat. I believe I now understand the situation." Governor Treadwell turned to Horth and frowned as the alpha-synth crossed the inner fortress ring and continued to accelerate. "Do you have firing lock?"

"I'm afraid not, Sir." Horth looked as unhappy as she felt. "We seem to be even more affected by its jammers than the cruisers are."

"Indeed?" Treadwell's frown was distinctly displeased, but Marat came to his colleague's defense via the com link.

"I'm afraid it won't get any better, Governor. The alpha-synth has full specs on your fire control in its files, and it's designed to defeat any sensor system it can read. It's only going to get worse as the range opens."

"I see." Treadwell tapped his fingers gently together. "We'll have to have a little talk about just what goes into such units' memories in future, Admiral Marat. In the meantime, we can't simply let it go-certainly not with an insane woman at its controls. Admiral Horth, engage with SLAMs."

"It'll be blind fire, Sir," Horth protested, wincing at the thought of the expense. Without lock, she'd have to fire virtually at random, and SLAMs required direct hits. Trying to smother a half-seen target as small as the alpha-synth would use up prodigious numbers of multi-million-credit weapons.

"Understood. I'll authorize the expense."

"Very well, Sir." Horth nodded to her fire control officer.

"Engage," she said.

Alicia bit her lip as the fixed fortifications opened fire at last and hordes of red-ringed, malignant blue sparks shrieked after them. The forts were designed to stop ten million-tonne superdreadnoughts, and the volume of fire was inconceivable.

The Supra-Light Accelerated Missile, or SLAM, was the Empire's ultimate long-range weapon. Close in concept to the drones starships used for FTL messages by starships, a SLAM consisted solely of a small Fasset drive and its power source. The weapon had to be half the size of an assault shuttle to squeeze them in, but they made it, in effect, a targeted black hole, and very little known to man had a hope of stopping one. A starship's interposed Fasset drive mass would take one out, though stories about what happened when the ship's drive was even minimally out of tune were enough to curl one's hair, and not even a SLAM could get through the final defense of a capital ship's Orchovski-Kurushu-Milne shield. Unfortunately, a Fasset drive wouldn't work inside an OKM shield, and no weapon could shoot out past one, either. Both of which points were moot in this case, since nothing smaller than a battleship could spare the mass for shield generators.

The only good thing was that SLAMs weren't seeking weapons-mostly. No homing systems could see around their black holes, and despite the fact that their acceleration was little more than half that of the Hauptman effect, their speed and range quickly took them out of guidance range of their firers. A very near near-miss could still "suck" its way into a hit by gravitational attraction, which was why they weren't used when enemies were intermingled, but what the AI's jammers were doing to the forts' targeting systems meant the chance of any one of them scoring a hit was infinitestimal.

Only they were firing a lot of them. Alicia's thought was a tiny mental whisper as the outer works began to range upon her, and she squirmed down in her couch. It was like driving a skimmer into a snowstorm-surely not all of them could miss.

On the contrary, AI told her. They're just throwing good money after bad, Alley. Watch.

The AI changed its generator settings, swinging the drive's black hole through a cone-shaped volume ahead of them and dropping its side shields, trading a bit of its speed advantage over the cruisers to turn the drive field into a huge broom that swept space clear before them. Nor did it refocus the field in any predictable fashion. The drive's gravity well fluctuated-its strength shifting in abrupt, impossible to predict increments sufficient to deprive any tracking station of a constant acceleration value-and its corkscrewing mass "wagged" the ship astern like a dog's tail, turning it into an even more impossible target. A cyber-synth might have been able to duplicate that maneuver and still hold to its desired base course, though it would have been far less efficient; nothing else could.

The drive was no shield against SLAMs coming in from astern or the side, but the ship's unpredictable "swerves" gave the coup de grace to the forts' fire control. SLAM after SLAM slashed harmlessly past or vanished against the drive field, and Alicia felt herself relaxing despite the nerve-racking tension of the continuous attack.

Bets on how many they're willing to waste? the AI asked brightly.

"Governor, we're wasting our time."

Treadwell shot Admiral Horth a venemous glance, and she shrugged.

"If you wish, I will of course continue," she told them, "but we've already fired twenty percent of our total SLAM armament. That's four months' production, and there's no sign we've even come close to a hit."

Treadwell's jaw clenched and he started to reply sharply, then shook himself and relaxed with a sigh.

"You're right," he admitted, and glared at the fleeing dot. He didn't have a single ship, not even a corvette, in position to intercept it, and nothing he had could kill it. He turned away from the plot with forced calm.

"Lord Jurawski will be displeased enough when I inform him we've … mislaid an alpha-synth without my adding that I've stripped Franconia of its defenses. Abort engagement, Admiral Horth."

"Yes, Sir." Horth managed to keep the relief out of her voice, but Treadwell heard its absence, and his eyes glittered with bitter amusement.

"And after that, Admiral, you and I and Admiral Marat-and, of course, my dear friend Sir Arthur-will sit down to discuss precisely how this fiasco came to occur. I'm sure-" the governor showed his teeth in what might charitably have been called a smile "-the final report will be fascinating."

Sir Arthur Keita slumped in his chair, watching a repeater of Jefferson Field's gravitic plot on his com screen. His eyes ached, and he hadn't moved in almost seven hours, yet he couldn't look away.

The stolen ship had passed the outer forts four and a half hours ago. Freed of the star's inhibition, it had gone to full power at last; now it was just under three light-hours from the system primary, traveling at over .98 C. He watched in real-time as the alpha-synth ship raced ahead under stupendous acceleration, increasing its already enormous velocity by more than twenty-two kilometers per second with every second.

Eight and a half seconds later, the ship hit the critical threshold of ninety-nine percent of light-speed and vanished in the kaleidoscope flash of wormhole transition. It disappeared into its own private universe, no longer part of Einstein's orderly existence as it sprang to an effective velocity of over five hundred times light-speed … and continued to accelerate.

The gravitic scanners could still track it, but not on a display as small as the one he was watching, and he moved at last, reaching out to switch off the screen. Just for a moment, he looked like the old, old man he was as he rubbed his eyes, wondering anew what he might have done differently to avert this insanity and the catastrophe certain to follow in its wake.

Tannis Cateau stood beside him, face drawn and eyes bright with unshed tears, and neither of them looked over their shoulders to see Inspector Ferhat Ben Belkassem throw an ironic salute to the blank-faced screen … and smile.

Chapter Forty-Six

My remotes could do that a lot faster.

"I know they could, Megaira." Alicia had developed the habit of speaking aloud to her electronic half-and Tisiphone-more often than not. Not because she had to, but because the sound of even her own voice, was a welcome anodyne against the silence. She wasn't precisely lonely with two other people to "talk" to, yet too much quiet left an eerie, empty sensation in her bones. "But I prefer to do this myself, if I'm going to be wearing it."

Indeed, Tisiphone put in, I have never known a warrior who truly cared to have another tend to his personal weapons.

I know that, the AI huffed, but they're my personal weapons, too, in a sense. And I want to know they're in perfect shape if she needs them.

"Which is why you're watching me like a hawk, dear," Alicia said, grinning at the interplay while she concentrated on her battle armor.

The AI and the Fury had come to a far better mutual understanding than she'd originally hoped-indeed, it was Tisiphone who'd suggested the perfect (and, she thought, inevitable, under the circumstances) name for the AI-but there was a tartness at its heart. Megaira remained wary of the Fury, mindful of the way she'd imposed control on Alicia during their escape and suspicious of her ultimate plans, and Tisiphone knew it. Knew it and was wise enough to accept it, if a bit resentfully. Fortunately, prolonged exposure to a human personality had waked something approaching a genuine sense of humor in the compulsive Fury. She wasn't immune to the irony of the situation, and Alicia more than suspected that both of them rather enjoyed sniping at one another-and she knew each was jealous of the other's relationship with her.

And it's a good thing I am watching you, Alley. You're overloading that tank. You'll jam the ammo chute if you put in that many rounds.

"I was doing this before you were a gleam in your programmer's eyes, Megaira. Watch."

Long fingers manipulated the belt of three-millimeter caseless with effortless familiarity, tucking it up into the ammunition tank behind her battle armor's right pauldron. She wasn't surprised by Megaira's warning-she'd heard it from every recruit she'd ever checked out on field maintenance. Like the computer, they were fresh from total submersion in The Book and hadn't learned the tricks only experience could teach. Now she doubled the linkless belt neatly and cheated the last few centimeters into place with an adroit twist of the wrist and a peculiar little lifting motion that slid it up into the void created by a few minutes' work with a cutting torch.

"See? That upper brace is structurally redundant; taking it out makes room for another forty rounds-as we've told the design people for years."

Oh. That's a neat trick, Alley. Why isn't it in the manual?

"Because we old sweats like to reserve a few tricks to impress the newbies. Part of the mystique that makes them listen to us in the field."

And it is listening which allows a young warrior to become an old one. That much, at least, has not changed, I see.

"Neither has the fact that some of them never live long enough to figure that out, unfortunately." Alicia sighed and closed the ammo tank.

She moved down the checklist to the servo mech that swung her "rifle" in and out of firing position. There'd been a sticky hesitation in the power train when she'd first uncrated the armor, and isolating the fault had been slow, laborious, and irritating as hell. Now she watched it perform with smooth, snake-quick precision and beamed.

It was a tremendous help to be able to watch it in all dimensions at once, too. She'd taken days to get used to the odd, double-perspective vision which had become the norm within her new ship, but once she had, she'd found it surprisingly useful. The perpetual, unbreakable link between herself and the computer meant she saw things not only through her eyes but through the ship's internal sensors, as well. It was better than 360° vision. It showed her all sides of everything about her, and she no longer lived merely behind her eyes. Instead, she saw herself as one shape and form among many-a shape she maneuvered through and around the shapes about it as if in some complex yet soothing coordination exercise.

Learning to navigate with that sort of omniperceptive view had been an unnerving experience, but now that she had, she loved it. For the first time, she could truly watch herself in real-time during workouts, seeing the flaws in her own moves and correcting herself as she went, without video recordings or outside critiques, and being able to watch the servo mech from front, back, and both sides at once was enormously helpful. Not only could she examine any portion of it she chose, but thanks to Megaira, she could analyze its movement "by eye" in all three dimensions with the accuracy of a base depot test rig. It was a remarkable performance, whenever she paused to think about it, though she seldom did so any longer.

Indeed, she often found herself smiling as she recalled her earlier panic. To think she'd been terrified of what the alpha link might do to her! She'd been afraid it would change her, depreciate her into a mere appendage of the computer, yet it was no such thing. She'd become not less but ever so much more, for she'd acquired confidante, sister, daughter, protector, and mentor in one. Megaira was all of those, yet Alicia had given even more to the AI. She'd given it life itself, the human qualities no cyber-synth AI could ever know. In every sense that mattered, she was Megaira's mother, and she and Megaira were far more than the sum of their parts.

Yet for all that, she suspected her alpha-synth-link wasn't what the cyberneticists and psych types had had in mind, and Megaira agreed with her. It could hardly help being … different with Tisiphone involved, she supposed. Megaira had never impressed before, and Alicia couldn't provide the information a trained alpha-synth candidate would have possessed, so they couldn't be certain, but everything in Megaira's data base suggested that the fusion should have been still closer. That they should have been one personality, not two entities, however close, with the same personality.

All in all, Alicia rather thought both of them preferred what they'd gotten to a "proper" linkage. There was more room for growth and expansion in this rich, bipolar existence. Already she and her electronic offspring were developing tiny differences, delicately divergent traits, and that was good. It detracted nothing from their ability to think as one, yet it offered a synthesis. As she understood the nature of the "proper" link, human and AI should have come to a single, shared conclusion from shared data, and so she and Megaira often did. But sometimes they didn't, and she'd discovered there were advantages in having two different "right" answers, for comparing them produced a final solution better than either had devised alone far more frequently than not.

She returned the rifle to rest and shut down the servos, then turned to drag out the testing harness, but Megaira had anticipated her. A silent repair unit hovered beside her on its counter-grav to extend the connectors, and she took them with a smile and began plugging into the access ports.

"Go ahead and set up for a sensor diagnostic, would you?"

Already done, Megaira replied with a certain complacency Alicia knew was directed at Tisiphone.

Even Achilles allowed servants to pass him his whet stone, the Fury riposted so deflatingly Alicia chuckled. Megaira opted for lordly silence.

Alicia made the last connection and stood back, monitoring the tests not with her eyes but through her link to Megaira. That was another pleasant surprise, for it was a link she ought not to have had, and its absence could have been catastrophic. She'd never received a proper alpha-synth receptor, which meant her hardware lacked the tiny com link which was supposed to tie her permanently into her AI.

The flight deck headset was intended for linkage to all of the ship's systems, providing direct information pathways to her brain without requiring the computer to process all data before feeding it to her. It was a systems management tool designed to increase bandwidth and spread the load, but an alpha-synth pilot remained in permanent linkage with her cybernetic half. Even brief separations resulted in intense disorientation, while any lengthy loss of contact meant insanity for them both; that was the reason for the com link Alicia didn't have. It was also, she knew now, why alpha-synth AIs inevitably suicided if their human halves died. And because she had no built-in link, she should have been unable to tie into Megaira without the headset, which ought to have left her perpetually confined to the flight deck. She shouldn't have been able to go even to her personal quarters, much less to the machine shop, without some cumbersome, jury-rigged unit to replace it. And, of course, no alpha-synth pilot could ever move beyond com-link range of her AI.

But Alicia had something better. Tisiphone still couldn't access Megaira's personality center without the AI's permission (and, Alicia knew, Megaira watched her like a hawk whenever she was allowed inside), but she formed a sort of conduit between her and Alicia. It was, Alicia suspected, something very like telepathy, and all the more valuable because she didn't even have to ask Tisiphone to maintain the link. It was as if having once been established the immaterial connection had taken on a life of its own, as much a part of Alicia as her own hands. She rather thought it might continue even if she somehow "lost" the Fury, and she wondered if she was developing some sort of contagious ESP from association with Tisiphone.

Whatever it was, it wasn't something human science was prepared to explain just yet, for Megaira's tests had conclusively demonstrated that it operated at more than light-speed. Indeed, if the AI's conclusions were accurate, there was no transmission delay at all. They had no idea how great its range might be, but it looked as if she and Megaira would be able to communicate instantaneously over whatever range it had.

The diagnostic hardware announced completion of the test cycle with a sort of mental chirp, and Alicia nodded in satisfaction. This was the first time her armor had passed all tests, and it had taken less than five days to bring it to that state. Tisiphone had been dismayed to find it taking that long, since she'd ordered the armor prepped before it was loaded aboard the Bengal, but Alicia was more than pleased. Whoever had overseen its initial activation had done an excellent job, yet no one could have brought it to real combat readiness without having her available for fitting. Battle armor had to be carefully modified to suit its intended wearer, tailored to every little physical quirk with software customized to allow for any mental idiosyncrasy, and she'd looked forward to the task with resignation. It had been five years since she last even saw a suit of armor, and considered in that light, she'd done very well indeed to finish so quickly.

"Okay, ladies, that's that," she announced, racking her tools and coiling the testing harness. "Put it back in the closet, please, Megaira."

A tractor grab lifted the empty armor from the table, then trundled back towards the storage vault, and Alicia followed to make a personal visual check as Megaira's remotes plugged in the monitoring leads. If she ever actually needed her armor, she was unlikely to have time to repair any faults which had developed since its last maintenance check. Since she didn't have a spare suit, that meant this one had to be a hundred percent at all times, and the monitors would let Megaira make certain it was.

I am relieved to have that finished, Tisiphone remarked somewhat acidly as the vault closed. Perhaps now we can turn to other matters?

Oh, horsefeathers! Megaira snorted. You know perfectly well that-

"Ah, ah! None of that!" Alicia chided, stepping into the small lift. "Tisiphone's got a point, Megaira. It is time we got started."

You still need more time to acclimatize, the AI objected. You're doing well, but you're still not what I'd call ready.

"We don't have time for me to 'acclimatize' as thoroughly as you'd like. Let's face it-I'm a hopeless disappointment as a starship pilot."

That's not true! You've got good instincts-I should know, I've got the same ones. It's just a matter of training them.

Perhaps and perhaps not, Megaira, and Alicia is correct about the pressure of time. We have been out of contact too long, and I am certain more has happened since we fled Soissons. As for her instincts requiring training, is it not true that you are fully capable of translating them into actions?

It's not the same. Alley should've been completely trained before we ever impressed. She's the captain. That means she makes the decisions, and she could be a lot more effective if she knew my capabilities backward and forward. She's not supposed to have to think things through or ask questions, and it slows us down when she does.

"No one's suggesting I shouldn't continue training, even if I am coming at it backwards. But there's no reason we can't do that after we start wherever we're going to start. And Tisiphone's right; our information's getting colder every day."

You're ganging up on me again.

Which ought, perhaps, to suggest that you are in error in this instance. I second Alicia's agreement that training must continue, but not even I can stop other events while she does so.

Hmph. Just where did you have in mind to go?

"MaGuire, I think. How does that strike you, Tisiphone?"

MaGuire? I should have thought Dewent or Wyvern would be more fruitful ground, Little One.

"I don't disagree, but I still think we should start at MaGuire." The lift stopped outside Alicia's quarters, and she stepped out and sprawled across the comfortable couch. "We've got to have some sort of cover before we move in on them for real, and MaGuire's a good place to begin building one."

"Cover"? The Fury sounded faintly surprised.

What did you plan on her doing? Busting down doors in battle armor to ask questions at plasgun point? Ever hear of something called subtlety?

"Hey, give her a break, Megaira! She never had to put up with these kinds of limitations before."

I am not offended, Tisiphone said, and somewhat to Alicia's surprise, she meant it. The Fury felt her reaction and chuckled dryly. As you say, I am unaccustomed to mortals' limitations, but that does not mean I am unaware of them. What sort of cover did you have in mind, Little One?

"I've been thinking over all the intelligence you pulled and looking for an angle we could follow up without simply duplicating everyone else's efforts. It looks to me like Colonel McIlheny's people are doing a much better job with overt intelligence gathering than we could. He's got tonnes more manpower and far better communications than we do, and unlike us, he's official. He doesn't have to hide from both sides while he works. Agreed?"

Alicia paused, then shrugged as she felt the others' joint agreement.

"That being the case, let's leave that side of it to him and concentrate on areas where our special talents can operate most effectively."

And those areas are, Little One?

"I was particularly interested in Ben Belkassem's locked files, because I think he's on to something. I think he's right about there being someone on the inside, probably pretty far up, which means that same someone may well be feeding the pirates advance warning on Fleet sweeps and dispositions. If so, they'll know how and when to lie low, and that suggests Ben Belkassem's also hit on the most likely way to find them."

By tracking the loot? Megaira sounded dubious. That's a tall order, Alley, and we can only be in one place at a time. Shouldn't we leave that angle to him? O Branch has all sorts of information sources we don't.

"Maybe, but we can probably do a lot more with any information we get our hands-pardon, my hands-on. Ben Belkassem may have more reach, but he can't get inside someone's head, and I doubt his computer support can match what you're capable of. Even better, we're a complete wild card, with no connection to Justice or Fleet however hard anyone looks. Add all the other things Tisiphone does, and you've got a hell of an infiltrator."

And how will you use those abilities? the Fury asked.

"I think I'm about to become a free trader," Alicia replied, and felt the others' stir of interest. "We don't have much cargo capacity, but half the 'free traders' out here are really smugglers, and we can probably match the lift of any of the really fast hulls in the sector. Besides, specializing in delivering small cargoes quickly would make us look nicely shady."

That I should live to see the day I became a freighter! Megaira mourned, but amusement sparkled in her thoughts.

But can you? Tisiphone objected. Surely Fleet has spread the alarm since we left Soissons. From what I have seen of Sir Arthur, he, at least, would insist that the Rogue Worlds be warned, as well, embarrassment or no, since he believes Alicia to be mad. Will they not be on the watch for us?

"Of course they will, but I don't think you realize quite how talented Megaira is. You can be a regular little changeling, can't you, Honey Cake?"

Call me, "Honey Cake" again and you'll get a migraine you won't believe, Alley. Yeccch! But, yeah, I can do a real number on 'em.

I realize you can disguise your electronic emissions, but you cannot hide the fact that you possess a Fleet Fasset drive. And even if you could, would not visual observation reveal you for what you are?

The answers are "it doesn't matter," and "no." Two-thirds of the merchantmen out here use Fleet-design drives. I can fudge mine to make it look a lot less powerful by shutting down nodes, and there're a couple of tricks I can play with frequency shifts, too. I can't look, oh, Rishathan, or Jungian-built, but I can produce a civilian power curve.

As for the visual observation angle, that's one of my neatest tricks, if I do say so myself. BuShips came up with it for second-generation alpha-synths, and I'm one of the first to get it.

And what, if you are through extolling your own virtues, is "it"?

Sticks and stones can break my bones-assuming I had any-but words will never hurt me, Megaira caroled, and Alicia laughed. Even Tisiphone chuckled, but she clearly still wanted an explanation, and the AI obliged.

I've got a holo imager built into the aft quadrant of my Fasset housing. I can use it to build up any exterior appearance I want.

Indeed? An impressive capability, yet how well will it endure close observation should they bring more than the unaided eye to bear upon it?

I can jigger my radiation and mass shielding to give an alloy return off the "solid surface" against most of their active sensors, Megaira returned promptly. Old-fashioned radar's the hardest, but if we decide what we want to look like and leave it that way, I can fabricate reflectors to return the proper image. The holo itself will stand up to any scrutiny, except maybe a spectograph. It won't "see" anything off the holo.

"Yes, but a spectograph doesn't tell them anything about mass or size," Alicia mused. "Suppose we plan our holo to incorporate a few good-sized chunks of your actual hull and let them get their readings off that?"

They'd get readings, all right, but the wrong ones for a merchant hull. I'm made out of Kurita-Hawkins battle steel, Alley.

Yet you have substantial quantities of less noble alloys in your machine shop stores. Could we not cover the exposed portions in a thin sheath which would appease their sensors?

I suppose so… . My "paint's" fused into the basic battle steel matrix, and my remotes are designed for fairly major field repairs. I could use a pigment fuser to spray a thin coat of plain old titanium over the battle steel. It'll look like hell whenever I drop the holo, and I'd be ashamed to be seen in a Fleet dock wearing it, but it should work.

"Then since we can look like a suitably decrepit smuggler, the next item on the agenda is to build a believable identity. That's why I want to start at MaGuire and work our way towards Dewent. Megaira can work up a flight log before MaGuire, Tisiphone, and you can sneak it into the planetary data base when we first contact the port. By the time we dock and they call it up to check our papers, it'll be 'official,' as far as they're concerned."

Be a good idea to make this our first trip into the Franconia Sector, Megaira suggested. How about we pulled out of the Melville Sector in a hurry? That's close enough for us to've moved here but far enough away nobody should be surprised that we aren't a familiar face, and according to my data Justice just shut down a major inter-system smuggling ring there.

"Perfect!" Alicia chortled. "You and I can make sure the last few entries are suitably vague-the sort of thing a real smuggler would put together to cover an embarrassing situation for a new set of port authorities. It'll not only get us in with the criminal element but provide a perfect cover against any Fleet units looking for the real us."

That's what I had in mind. Okay, I'm started on that- Alicia felt a fragment of the AI's capabilities go to work on the project even as Megaira continued to speak -so what do we do after we get there?

"I doll up to look as little like me as you look like you and start trolling for a cargo. With Tisiphone to run around in the computer nets and skim thoughts, we shouldn't have too much trouble lining up a less-than-legal shipment headed in the right general direction. Once we deliver it, we'll have established our smuggler's bona fides and we can start working our way deeper. In a way, I'd like to head straight from MaGuire for Wyvern-if there's one place in this sector where those bastards could dispose of their loot, Wyvern's the one-but we need to build more layers into our cover before we knock on their front door. Still, once we get there, I'm betting we find at least some sign of their pipeline, and when we do, we can probably find someone whose thoughts can tell us where to find them."

This will take time, Little One.

"Can't be helped, unless you've got a better idea."

No, I have no better strategy. Would that I did, but this seems sound thinking in light of our capabilities.

I said she had good instincts, didn't I? I like it, too, Alley.

"Yeah, the only thing that really bothers me is losing the Bengal." Alicia sighed. "The cargo shuttle won't be a problem once we get rid of the Fleet markings and change the transponder, but nobody could mistake that Bengal for anything but an assault boat."

So? Keep it. I'll ding it up a little and make a few unnecessary hull repairs to take the shine off it, but it's too useful to just ditch.

"It's not exactly standard free trader issue," Alicia objected, but she heard temptation waver in her own voice.

Again, so what? As far as I know, there's no official free trader equipment list. Hell, it'll probably get you more respect! Think how they'll wonder how you got your hands on it.

I believe she is correct, Little One, Tisiphone chuckled. I should think your possession of such a craft will raise your stature among these criminals greatly.

"Yeah, you're probably right." Alicia's mouth twitched and her eyes twinkled at the thought. And, she admitted, it was a great relief, as well. "Let's think up some incredibly gaudy point job to hang on it, in that case. If you've got it, flaunt it."

Precisely, Little One! We shall make you a most formidable "free trader," Megaira and I.

Chapter Forty-Seven

James Howell watched the view screen as the shuttle slid up from just beyond the terminator, glittering as it broke into the unfiltered light of Hearthguard's primary, and tried not to show his uneasiness.

Hearthguard was a sparsely populated world, for it had little-aside from truly spectacular mountain landscapes and particularly dangerous fauna-to attract settlers. Visitors, now, those were another matter. To date, Hearthguard's wildlife had accounted for about one hunter in five, which, humans being humans, produced a predictably perverse response that amused the locals no end. And it was profitable, too. If putatively sane outworlders wanted to pay hefty fees for the dubious privilege of hunting predators who were perfectly willing to hunt them right back, that was fine with the Hearthguarders. But even though more and more of their guests were imperial citizens, the life-blood of their new, tourism-based prosperity, theirs was a Rogue World, independent of the Empire and minded to stay so.

Thrusters flared as the shuttle swam towards rendezvous with the freighter. Howell would have felt far happier in his flagship, but Hearthguard was too heavily traveled to take such a risk. On the other hand, this meeting had the potential to dwarf the dangers of bringing in the entire squadron. If anyone was watching, or if word of it leaked … .

The shuttle coasted to a halt, and tractors drew it in against one of the freighter's racks. Howell watched the personnel tube jockeying into position, then sighed and turned toward the lift with squared shoulders.

It was time to hear what Control had to say to him. He did not expect to enjoy the conversation.

The commodore reached the personnel lock just as a tallish man in camping clothes stepped out, fiercely trimmed mustachios jutting. Despite its obvious comfort and sturdiness, his clothing was expensive, and his squashed-looking hat's band was decorated with at least a dozen bent, shiny wires tied up with feathers, mirrors, and God alone knew what. The first time he'd seen them, Howell had assumed they were solely decorative; only after a fair amount of research had he discovered they were lures for an arcane sport called " 'fly-fishing." It still struck him as a stupid way for a grown man to spend his time, though Hearthguard's two-meter saber-trout probably made the sport far more interesting than it had been in its original Old Earth form.

He moved forward to greet his visitor, and winced at the other's bone-crushing handshake. Control had a rather juvenile need to demonstrate his strength, and Howell had learned to let him, though he did wish Control would at least take off his Academy ring before he crushed his victims' metacarpals.

"I thought we'd use my cabin, Sir," he said, managing not to wave his hand about as he reclaimed it at last. "It's not much, but it's private."

"Fine. I don't expect to be here long enough for austerity to be a problem."

Control's voice was clipped, with a trace of the Mother World, though Howell knew he'd never visited Old Earth before reporting to the Academy. The commodore pushed the thought aside and led the way down a corridor which had been sealed off for the duration of Control's visit. No more than a score of the squadron's personnel knew who Control was, and Rachel Shu went to considerable lengths to keep it that way.

Howell's cabin-the freighter captain's cabin, actually-was more comfortable than his earlier comment had suggested. He waved Control through the hatch first and watched to see what he would do. He wasn't disappointed. Control walked briskly to the captain's desk, sat unhesitatingly behind it, and pointed to the supplicant's chair in front.

The commodore obeyed the gesture with outward calm, sitting back and crossing his legs. He had no delusions. Control's personal visit suggested that he was going to tear at least one long, bloody strip off him, but Howell was damned if he was going to look uneasy. He'd done his best, and the losses at Elysium hadn't been his fault, whatever Control might intend to say.

Control let him sit in silence for several moments, then leaned back and inhaled sharply, bristling his waxed mustache even more aggressively.

"So, Commodore. I suppose you know why I'm here?" Howell recognized his cue and offered the expected response.

"I imagine it has something to do with Elysium."

"It does, indeed. We're not happy about that disaster, Commodore Howell. Not happy at all. And neither are our backers."

His gray eyes were hard, but Howell refused to flinch. He also refused to waste time defending himself until specific charges were leveled, and he returned Control's gaze in composed silence.

"You had perfect intelligence, Commodore," Control resumed when it became obvious Howell had nothing to say. "We handed you Elysium on a silver platter, and you not only lost three-quarters of your ground element, but you also managed to lose five cargo shuttles, a Leopard-class assault boat, four Bengals … and a million-tonne battlecruiser. And to top it all off, you didn't even secure your objective. Tell me, Commodore, were you born incompetent, or did you have to work at it?"

"Since I believe I've demonstrated my competence in the past," Howell said in a mild tone which deceived neither of them, "I won't dignify that last question with a response, Sir. On your other points, I believe the record speaks for itself. Poltava carried out a textbook attack run, but Captain Ortiz made a poor command decision and got too close to his last opponent. Things like that happen to even the best commanders, and when they happen fifteen light-minutes from the flagship, the flag officer can't prevent them."

He held Control's gaze, letting his eyes show the anger his voice did not, and saw something flicker deep under the other man's brows. Answering anger or respect-he couldn't tell, nor, at the moment, did he much care.

"As for the remainder of your … indictment, I would simply point out that your intelligence was, in fact, far from complete-and that you'd been warned success was problematical. You knew how tough it was going to be to secure GeneCorp's files. Had the enemy actually been in the positions you assured us they intended to assume, we probably would have succeeded in rushing the facilities, although the fact that they'd been rigged with demo charges probably would have kept us from securing their contents, anyway.

"As it was, however, our ground commanders walked into what turned out to be, in effect, a trap precisely because they'd been told where to expect opposition. I probably am at fault for not stressing the need for complete preparedness despite our 'perfect' intelligence, but I submit that it would be wiser of you not to provide tactical data at all unless you can confirm its accuracy. Incorrect information is worse than none-as this operation demonstrated."

"No one can guarantee there won't be last-minute changes, Commodore."

"In that case, Sir, it would be wise not to pretend you can," Howell returned in that same calm voice. He paused a beat, waiting for Control to respond, but he only made a throwaway gesture, and the commodore resumed.

"Finally, Sir, I would further submit that whatever happened to our ground forces and whether or not we secured the GeneCorp data, we succeeded completely in what my mission description laid down as our primary objective. No doubt you have better casualty estimates than we do, but I feel quite confident we provided the 'atrocity' you wanted."

"Umph." Control rocked gently back and forth, simultaneously swinging his chair in tiny arcs, and puffed his mustache, then shrugged.

"Point taken," he said in a far less rancorous tone. He even smiled a bit. "As I'm sure you're well aware, shit flows downhill. Consider yourself doused with half the bucket that hit me in the face." His smile faded. "I assure you, however, that there was plenty to go around for both of us."

"Yes, Sir." Howell allowed himself to relax in turn. "In fact, I already prepaid my own people for what I figured was coming my way," he confessed. "But in all seriousness, we did succeed in our primary mission."

"If it makes you feel any better, that's the opinion I expressed. As for your losses-" Control shrugged "-we're already recruiting new ground personnel from local Rogue Worlds, though I'm afraid we can't replace Poltava as quickly. But while you're right about your primary objective, it seems the secondary objective was more important than either of us had been informed."

"It was?" Howell tugged at an earlobe. "It would've been nice of them to let us know."

"Agreed, agreed."

Control reached into a jacket pocket and extracted a cigar case. He selected one, clipped the end, and lit it. Howell watched, grateful for the ventilation intake directly above the desk, as Control puffed until it was drawing to his satisfaction, then waved it at him like a pointer.

"You see, Commodore, our Core World financial backers are getting a bit shaky. They're bloodthirsty enough in the abstract, and they're perfectly willing to contemplate heavy civilian casualties as long as someone else will be inflicting them, but they don't have the stomach for it once the bloodshed actually starts. Not because they give a good goddamn about the people involved, but because they suddenly recognize the reality of the stakes for which they're playing-and what'll happen to them if it comes apart."

Howell nodded as he heard the contempt in Control's voice.

"They're fat and rich, and they want to be fatter and richer, but while the wealth and power they've already got protect them from the consequences of most of their deals, this one's different. Nothing will save them if the Empire discovers their involvement, and their objectives are very different from ours. They're backing us solely in return for an immediate profit now and more concessions after we succeed, and I don't think they really understood how much anti-pirate hysteria we were going to have to whip up to make it all work."

He took another pull on his cigar and ejected a long, gray streamer.

"The reason I'm going into this at such length is that we don't have a stick to beat them with, so we need to keep the carrot in plain sight. At the moment, they can see the consequences of failure all too clearly, and some of them are worried that we're simply bringing the Fleet down on our heads by our actions. We, of course, know why we're doing that; they don't. This means that we need to throw them an immediate kilo of flesh if we don't want them backing out on us, and GeneCorp's data was supposed to be just that."

"I realize that, Sir, but Captain Alexsov and I both pointed out the high probability of failure when the target was designated."

"Forget that." Control waved his cigar a bit impatiently. "I jumped your shit over it, and you jumped right back. Fine. That's done with. The point before us now is where we go from here."

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Did you bring Alexsov along?"

"Yes, Sir. He and Commander Shu are both aboard."

"Excellent." Control consulted his watch and made a face. "My people groundside can only cover me for a few hours, and I've got to get back to work by the end of next week. Taking even a short 'vacation' at a time like this has already gotten me a few dirty looks, and I can't do it again any time soon, so I want to tie up all the loose ends as quickly as possible. Let me lay it out for you, then you can bring them up to speed after I leave, right?"

"Of course."

"All right. As I say, we need a plainly visible carrot, and we think we've found one at Ringbolt."

"Ringbolt?" Howell repeated with some surprise. All of his targets to date had been imperial possessions, but Ringbolt was a Rogue World daughter colony, and the people it belonged to were nasty customers, indeed.

"Ringbolt. I know the El Grecans keep a close eye on it, but we happen to know they're going to be involved in some pretty elaborate Fleet maneuvers late next month. I've brought the details in my intelligence download. The point is, the Ringbolt squadron's being called back to El Greco in a home-defense mobilization exercise, which will leave the system uncovered for at least a week. That's your window, Commodore."

"I don't know much about the Ringbolt System, Sir. What are the fixed defenses like? The El Grecans have an awfully impressive tech base for a Rogue World, and I'd hate to walk into a surprise."

"There are no fixed defenses. That's the beauty of it."

"None?"

"None. It makes sense when you think about it. The planet's only been colonized for fifty years, and when they moved in the colonists, all they had to worry about were other Rogue Worlds and the occasional genuine hijack outfit. They couldn't possibly stand off the Empire or the Sphere, so they decided not to try. As for other Rogue worlds or hijackers … if you were them, would you take on the El Grecans?"

"Probably not, Sir," Howell acknowledged. For that matter, he doubted he would care to go after them even if he'd been the Empire or the Rish. Occupation of an El Grecan colony was unlikely to prove cost effective.

El Greco had been a scholar's world, renowned for its art academies and universities, before the League Wars. Then the Rish moved in during the First Human-Rish War, and alien occupation came to the groves of academe.

El Grecans might have been high-brows and philosophers, but that hadn't meant they were airheads, and the Rish soon discovered they'd caught a tiger by the tail. The academics of El Greco warmed up their computers, set up their data searches, and turned to the study of guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and assassination as if preparing to sit their doctoral orals. Within a year, they had two divisions tied down; by the time the Sphere gave it up as a bad deal and left, the Rishathan garrison had grown to three corps … and was still losing ground.

The El Grecans hadn't forgotten a thing since, and they'd decided to turn their surviving universities in a new direction. El Greco no longer produced artists, sculptors, and composers; it produced physicists, chemists, strategists, engineers, weapons specialists, and one of humanity's most advanced R amp;D complexes. The best mercenary outfits in this corner of the galaxy were based on El Greco, and most of their personnel held reserve commissions in the planetary armed forces. No doubt El Greco could still be had by someone the size of the Empire or Sphere who wanted it badly enough, but the price would be far too high for the return, and no mere Rogue World-or even an alliance of them-wanted the El Grecan Navy on their necks.

More to the point, Commodore James Howell didn't especially want the El Grecan Navy on his neck.

"Excuse me, Sir, but are you certain this is something we want to do?"

Control snorted with a wry, almost compassionate amusment and drew deeply on his cigar before he responded.

"Look at it this way, Commodore. The El Grecans are good, no question, but they're only one system. Their entire Navy and all their mercenary outfits together have less firepower than Admiral Gomez, nor do they begin to have the information sources Soissons has. Since your squadron is already completely outgunned, adding one more set of enemies to the mix shouldn't really matter all that much, should it? After all, if we ever face a stand-up fight, we lose even if we win."

"I realize that, Sir, but we don't have the same kind of penetration against El Greco. We know what Fleet's going to do before it does it; we won't have that advantage against the El Grecans."

"Ah, but we will!" Control's eyes glittered with true humor. "You see, we're killing several birds with one stone here.

"First, your raid on Ringbolt will be targeted on the bio-research unit of the University of Toledo. We have reason to believe they were running close to a dead heat with GeneCorp, so we can recoup our earlier failure.

"Second, hitting a Rogue World offsets the idea that someone's gone to war against the Empire. We have, but it's important that no one realize that. We can get away without hitting any more of the sector's Rogue Worlds-most of them don't have anything worth stealing anyway-but we have to hit at least one to look like 'real' pirates.

"Third, the El Grecans, like the Jungians, want to demonstrate that they aren't behind our attacks, so there's already been a good bit of joint contingency planning-that's how we found out about these maneuvers. Better still, they've accepted the principle of joint command and coordination if they do get hit. The Jungians haven't done that, but even if your attack brings the El Grecans into the field, we'll have good intelligence on their basic posture and operations.

"And fourth," Control's eyes narrowed, "a few of Gomez's people-especially McIlheny-are getting suspicious about our operational patterns. Phase Four at Elysium nailed anyone who might've identified your vessels, but the ease with which you got in was a pretty clear indication you had very, very good intelligence. Even the Governor General is finding it hard to ignore that evidence, and McIlheny's got Gomez chewing the bulkheads over it. If you hit a Rogue World with the same kind of precision, it should suggest you have multiple intelligence sources, which may divert some of the heat."

"I was afraid of that when Elysium was selected," Howell murmured, and Control shrugged.

"You weren't alone. It was a calculated risk because we needed an Incorporated World target. Crown Worlds have such low populations that even a total burn-off like Mathison's World doesn't produce the kinds of casualty figures we need to hit Core World public opinion with. Besides, most Core Worlders figure anyone willing to settle a colony world knows the odds and doesn't have much kick coming when he craps out. But an Incorporated World is something else. Elysium has senatorial representation, and you'd better believe those senators are screaming for action after what happened to a third of their constituents!"

"I know, Sir." Howell looked down at his hands. "Does that mean we do the same thing on Ringbolt?" he asked in a neutral voice.

"I'm afraid it does, Commodore." Even Control sounded uncomfortable, but his tone didn't flinch. "We can't change our pattern for the same reason we need to hit a Rogue World in the first place. It has to look like we're treating everyone we hit in precisely the same fashion."

"Understood, Sir," Howell sighed.

"Good." Control tossed a small chip folio onto the desk and stood. "Here's your intelligence packet. We don't anticipate any problems with it, but if Commander Shu has questions, she should send them back through the usual channels. We can't afford any more direct contact for a while."

"Understood," Howell said again, rising to escort his visitor from the cabin. He forbore to mention that this meeting hadn't been his idea, partly out of diplomacy but also because he'd found it useful after all. Face-to-face discussions filled in nuances no indirect contact could convey.

They paused outside the personnel lock and Control wrung his hand again, not quite so crushingly this time.

"Good hunting, Commodore," he said.

"Thank you, Sir," Howell replied, coming to attention but not saluting. Their eyes met one last time, and then Vice Admiral Sir Amos Brinkman nodded sharply and stepped through the hatch.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Lieutenant Charles Giolitti, Jungian Navy, on assignment to the MaGuire Customs Service, took the time to double-check his data as the boarding shuttle drifted towards the free trader Star Runner. He'd been intrigued when he first accessed the download-and noted the ship's list of auxiliaries-and he wanted to be certain he'd read it correctly.

The information was unusually complete for a recent arrival, he observed cheerfully. It wasn't unheard of for a foreign-registry vessel to arrive with absolutely no documentation, and that was always a pain. It meant its every centimeter must be scrutinized, its every crew member exhaustively med-checked, and its bona fides thoroughly established before any of its people were allowed groundside. Tempers tended to get short all round before the process was completed, but the Jung Association hadn't lasted for four centuries without learning to keep a close eye on visitors. In this case, though, Giolitti had a full Imperial attestation from the Melville Sector, which should cut the crap to a minimum.

He screened quickly through the technical data, eyebrows quirking as he noted the rating of Star Runner's Fasset drive. She was as fast as most cruisers-which, he thought wryly, coupled with her limited cargo capacity, was a glaring tip-off as to her true nature. Not that Jungians minded smugglers … as long as they didn't run anything into the Association.

Um. Crew of only five. That was low, even for a merchant hull. Must indicate some pretty impressive computer support. Captain's name Theodosia Mainwaring … young for her rank, from the bio, but lots of time on her flight log. The rest of her people looked equally qualified. Not a bad bunch for a merchant crew, in fact. Of course, free traders tended to attract the skilled misfits-the square pegs with the qualifications to write their own tickets-away from the military or the big lines.

As No incoming manifest. He snorted, remembering the diplomatic gaps in the last few entries from the Melville data base. So Captain Mainwaring had gotten her fingers burned? Must not have been too serious-she still had a ship-but it probably meant she was hungry for a cargo.

A signal chimed, and Giolitti glanced at the view screen as his vessel began its docking sequence on Star Runner's sole unoccupied shuttle rack. A somewhat battered cargo shuttle occupied one of the other two racks, not that old but clearly a veteran of hard service to collect so many dings and scrapes. Yet it wasn't the cargo shuttle that caught his attention.

Another shuttle loomed on the number one rack-a needle-nosed craft, deadly even in repose. He was familiar with its basic stats, but he'd never seen one, and he wasn't quite prepared for its size. Or its color scheme.

Giolitti winced as he took in the garish crimson and black hull. Some unknown artist had painted staring white eyes on either side of the stiletto prow, jagged-toothed mouths gaped hungrily about the muzzles of energy and projectile cannons, and lovingly detailed streamers of lurid flame twined about the engine pods. He had no idea how Mainwaring had gotten her hands on it, though she must have done so in at least quasi-legal fashion, since the Empies had let her keep it when they suggested she explore new frontiers, but the visual impact was … extreme.

He grinned as the docking arms locked. The Bengal looked out of place on its drab, utilitarian mother ship, but free traders tended to find themselves back of beyond with only their own resources, and he suspected ill-intentioned locals would think twice about harassing a cargo shuttle with that thing hovering watchfully overhead. Which, no doubt, was the idea.

The personnel tube docking collar settled into place, and Giolitti gathered up his notepad, nodded to his pilot, and opened the hatch.

Alicia watched the heavyset young customs officer step through Megaira's port and hoped this worked. It had seemed simple enough when she was thinking it all up, but that was then.

Oh, be calm, Little One! the Fury scolded. We have already accomplished the difficult parts.

Yeah, Alley, Megaira added in unusual support of Tisiphone. There's only one of him, and Tis is gonna knock his shorts off.

A somewhat inelegant turn of phrase, but accurate.

Then why don't both of you be quiet so we can get on with this? Alicia suggested pointedly, and stepped forward to shake the inspector's hand.

Giolitti was a bit surprised to find only the captain waiting for him, but he had to give her tailor high marks. That severe, midnight-blue uniform and silver-braided bolero suited the tall, sable-haired woman perfectly.

"Lieutenant Giolitti, MaGuire Customs Service," he introduced himself, and the woman smiled.

"Captain Theodosia Mainwaring."

She had a nice voice-low and almost furry-sounding. He found himself beaming back at her and wondered vaguely why he felt so cheerful.

"Welcome to MaGuire, Captain."

"Thanks."

She released his hand, and he brought out his notepad.

"You have your crew's updated med forms, Captain?"

"Right here."

She extended a folio of chips, and Giolitti plugged them into the notepad, punching buttons with practiced fingers and scanning the display. Looked good. He supposed he really ought to insist on meeting the others immediately, but there was time for that before he left.

"Ready for inspection, Captain?" he asked, and Mainwaring nodded.

"Follow me," she invited, and led him into the lift.

The customs officer's vaguely disoriented eyes were a vast relief, but Alicia made a point of punching the lift buttons. Tisiphone chuckled deep inside her mind, enjoying herself as she worked her wiles upon their visitor, yet Alicia knew the fewer perceptions the Fury had to fuzz the better, and there was no point letting Megaira move the lift without instructions.

She escorted Lieutenant Giolitti into her quarters and watched him carry out his inspection. He clearly knew the best places to conceal contraband, yet there was a mechanical air to his actions. His voice sounded completely alert as he carried on a cheerful conversation with her, but its very normality was almost bizarre against the backdrop of his robotic search.

He finished his examination with a smile, and she drew a deep breath and led him back outside. She paused for just a moment, watching his eyes go even more unfocused, then turned and escorted him right back into her cabin.

"My engineer's quarters," she said, and he nodded and went to work … totally oblivious to the fact that he had just searched exactly the same room.

Alicia hardly believed what she was seeing. She'd counted on it, but actually seeing it was eerie and unreal, and she felt Megaira's matching reaction. Tisiphone, on the other hand, took it completely for granted, though she was obviously bending all her will upon the lieutenant to bring it off.

Giolitti completed his second examination and turned to her.

"Who's next?" he asked cheerfully.

"My astrogator," Alicia said, and led him back out into the passage.

Giolitti made the last entry and wished all his inspections could go this smoothly. Captain Mainwaring ran a taut ship. Even her cargo hold was spotless, and Star Runner was one of the very few free traders whose crew hadn't left something illegal-or at least closely regulated-lying around where he could find it. Which made them improbably law-abiding or fiendishly clever at hiding their personal stashes. Given his impression of Mainwaring's people, Giolitti suspected the latter, and more power to them.

It was funny, though. He'd been impressed by their competence, but they hadn't really registered the way people usually did. Probably because he'd been concentrating so hard on their captain, he thought a bit guiltily, and glanced at her from the corner of his eye as she escorted him back to the personnel lock. It was unusual for a captain to spend his or her precious time escorting a customs man about in person. Even the best of them seemed to regard inspectors as one step lower than a Rish, an intruder-and, still worse, an official intruder-in their domains. Giolitti didn't really blame them, but it was a tremendous relief when he met one of the rare good ones.

And, come to think of it, it wasn't really all that strange that the rest of her crew seemed somehow faded beside her. He'd never met anyone with quite the personal magnetism Theodosia Mainwaring radiated. She was a striking woman, friendly and completely at her ease, yet he had the strangest impression she could be a very dangerous person if she chose. Of course, no shrinking violet would be skippering a free trader at such a relatively young age, but it went deeper than that. He remembered the grizzled petty officer who'd overseen the hand-to-hand training of the "young gentlemen" at OCS. He'd moved the way Mainwaring did, and he'd been sudden death on two feet.

The lieutenant shook the thought aside and ejected the clearance chip from his notepad. He held it out to the captain, then extended his hand.

"It's been a pleasure, Captain Mainwaring. I wish every ship I inspected were as shipshape as yours. I hope you do well in our area."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Mainwaring clasped is hand firmly, and for just an instant, he seemed to feel an odd, hard angularity in her palm, but the sensation vanished. A moment later, he didn't even remember having felt it. "I hope we run into one another again," the captain continued.

"Maybe we will." Giolitti released her hand and stood back, then raised an admonishing finger. "Remember, any of your people who come dirtside will be subject to individual med-scans to confirm their certification."

"Don't worry, Lieutenant." Mainwaring's rather amused smile made him feel even younger. "I don't expect we'll be here long enough for liberty-in fact, most of my people are going to be busy running maintenance checks on the Fasset drive before we pull out-but we'll check in with the medics if we are."

"Thank you, Captain," Giolitti gave her a crisp salute. "In that case, allow me to extend an official welcome to MaGuire and bid you good bye."

Mainwaring returned his salute, and the lieutenant headed back for his shuttle. He had two more inspections to make by shift end, and he wished, more wistfully than hopefully, that they might go as smoothly.

Alicia let herself sag against the bulkhead and sucked in a deep, lung-stretching breath. Dear God, she'd known Tisiphone was good, but the Fury's performance had surpassed her most extravagant hopes.

She doubted they were likely to meet a brighter, more conscientious customs inspector than young Lieutenant Giolitti, and she no longer doubted their ability to razzle-dazzle him if they did. It had been unnerving enough to watch him "search" her quarters five separate times, but that had been nothing compared to watching him walk right past the feed tubes from the main missile magazine without even batting an eye. He'd had to climb a ladder to cross one of them, yet it simply hadn't been there for him, and neither had the energy batteries or the armory. He'd seemed perfectly content with his "inspection" of the control room, as well, though only an idiot-or someone under Tisiphone's spell-could have looked at those blank gray walls and the alpha link headset without realizing what he was seeing.

Of course he did not, Tisiphone observed. You are correct about his intelligence-a very bright young man, indeed-yet it is far simpler to suggest things to intelligent people, for they have the wit to add the details with little prompting. And, she added graciously, you and Megaira were wise to suggest that we create your "crew's" personalities in such detail. It allowed me to project personalities with much greater depth.

"Yeah." Alicia drew another breath and straightened. "Still, you seemed to be concentrating pretty hard. Could you have handled more people?"

I believe so, yes. Numbers of minds are not the difficulty, Little One, but rather the detail of the illusion I provide them with. Of course, it would be wise, in the event that we must deal with several people at once, to include a disinclination to discuss their inspection at a later date lest they discover too great a degree of similarity among their recollections.

You're probably right, Megaira put in, but unless there's a glitch in the documentation, one-man teams are the rule out here.

"I know." Alicia stepped back into the lift and punched for the flight deck. "Are we clear on our docking and service fees, Megaira?"

Sure. Tis cooked the books just fine when she dropped our flight log on them, and Ms. Tanner took care of the bookkeeping while Captain Mainwaring was showing Lieutenant Giolitti around. We've covered all our fees out of her bogus credit transfer with a balance of eighty thousand credits left.

"What about service personnel?"

No sweat. Lieutenant Chisholm dealt with them, and they'll be waiting for our shuttle to pick up the consumables. We're gonna have to dump most of them in deep space, since I had to order enough for a crew of five to make it look right, but our Melville download shows a complete overhaul six months ago, so I didn't have to fudge any servicing requirements.

"You're a sweetheart," Alicia said fervently.

She'd been astounded by the verisimilitude of the computer images and voices Megaira could produce. It was a good thing the AI could, too, since they had to convince anyone who got curious-No, scratch that. They had to keep anyone from getting curious, which meant they had to provide crewmen other than Captain Mainwaring in one form or another. Megaira's ability to carry on com conversations, or even several of them at once, would be invaluable in that regard.

Thanks. You and Tis did pretty good, too.

Yet could we have accomplished but little without you, Megaira. It is the combination of all our skills which makes us formidable.

"You got that right, Lady," Alicia agreed. "But I take it no one raised an eyebrow over your faces?"

Nary a twitch. Wanna see my latest efforts? I finally got that lisp down pat on "Lieutenant Chisholm," you know.

"Sure." The lift slid to a halt and Alicia stepped out onto the flight deck. "Let her roll."

Watch monitor two.

The flat screen flickered for just an instant, then cleared with the face of a thin, auburn-haired man with heavy-lidded eyes.

"How do I look, Thir?" the image asked, and Alicia grinned.

"I think maybe you got the lisp down a little too pat, Megaira."

"That'th eathy for you to thay," "Lieutenant Chisholm" returned aggrievedly. "You haven't been teathed about it all your life. I tell you, it'th been a real pain in the ath for me!"

"Do you say that, or do you spray it?" Alicia giggled, and the image raised a hand into the field of the pickup and made a rude gesture.

"Oh, that's perfect, Megaira! Of course, I imagine poor Chisholm won't be handling much of the com traffic, given his lisp."

"No." Chisholm's baritone was replaced by a soprano and the image changed to that of a square-faced, silver-haired woman Alicia recognized as Ruth Tanner, her purser. "Poor Andy hates it when he has to talk to strangers. That's why I usually handle the com watch when you're not aboard, Ma'am."

"So I see," Alicia propped a hip against a console and grinned. The AI had outdone herself. No one who spoke to any of Megaira's talking heads would suspect there was only a single human aboard Star Runner. Coupled with the AI's ability to handle both shuttles through her telemetry links, Captain Mainwaring's crew would be very much in evidence-so much so that no one would ever realize that they'd never actually laid eyes on any of them.

"Okay, I think we're set. But if it's all the same to you two, I need a good night's sleep before I get started hunting up a cargo."

Right.

The screen blanked as Megaira returned to direct contact, and Alicia started back towards her quarters, shedding her tight jacket as she went. She tossed the garment to one of Megaira's waiting remotes, which whisked it neatly into a closet.

Uh, say, Alley, Megaira said as she undressed, you haven't had time to go through the full data download from the MaGuire port admiral, have you?

"You know I haven't." Alicia paused with her blouse half off. "Why?"

Well, I didn't want to worry you with it while Giolitti was aboard, and I wouldn't want to give you bad dreams or anything, but we're in it.

"What do you mean, 'we'?"

I mean the "we" that stole me from Soissons orbit. Specifically, Captain Alicia DeVries and the illegally obtained alpha-synth starship Hull Number Seven-Niner-One-One-Four.

Indeed? what has the data to say of us? Tisiphone asked curiously.

It's not real good.

"Meaning what?" Alicia asked sharply. "That they know where we're headed or something?"

No, not that bad. But there's an entry in here all about you, Alley-says you broke out of psychiatric detention and have to be considered extremely dangerous-and another bunch of crap about me. Fairly accurate summation of my offensive and defensive capabilities, though they're playing a lot of the details close to their chests and they don't say diddly about the other things I can do. No, what bothers me is this last little bit.

"What last little bit?"

The one that says Fleet's offering a one million-credit reward for information leading to your location and interception, Megaira said. Alicia swallowed, but the AI wasn't quite done. And the last little section that says the Jungian Navy's officially adopted Governor General Treadwell's instructions to his own Fleet units.

Alicia sat down on the bed with a thump as Megaira finished her report.

It's a shoot on sight order, Alley. They're not even talking about trying to get us back in one piece.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Benjamin McIlheny racked his headset and stood, rubbing his aching eyes and trying to remember when he'd last had six hours' sleep at a stretch.

He lowered his hands and glowered at the record chips and hard-copy heaped about his office aboard the accomodation ship HMS Donegal. Somewhere in all that crap, he knew, was the answer-or the clues which would lead to the answer-if only he could find it.

It seemed a law of nature that any intelligence service always had the critical data in its grasp … and didn't know it. After all, how did you cull the one, crucial truth from the heap of untruth, half-truth, and plain lunacy? Answer: hindsight invariably recognized it after the fact. Which, of course, was the reason the intelligence community was constantly being kicked by people who thought it was so damned easy.

McIlheny snorted bitterly and began to pace. He'd seen it too many times, especially from Senate staffers. They had an image of intelligence officers as Machiavellian spy-masters, usually in pursuit of some hidden agenda. That was why everyone knew the civilians had to watch the sneaky bastards so closely. And since they were so damned clever, obviously they never told all they knew, even when they had a constitutional duty to do so. Which, naturally, meant any "failure" to spot the critical datum actually represented some deep-seated plot to suppress an embarrassing truth.

People like that neither knew nor cared what true intelligence work was. Holovid might pander to the notion of the Daring Interstellar Agent carrying the vital data chip in a hollow tooth, but the real secret was sweat. Insight and trained instinct were invaluable, but it was the painstaking pursuit of every lead, the collection of every scrap of evidence and its equally exhaustive analysis, which provided the real breakthroughs.

Unfortunately, he admitted with a sigh, analysis took time, sometimes more than you had, and in this case it wasn't providing what he needed. He knew there was a link between the pirates and someone high up. It was the only possible answer. Admiral Gomez's full strength would have had a tough time fighting its way into Elysium orbit against its space defenses, yet the pirates had gotten inside in the first rush. McIlheny had no detailed sensor data to back his hunch, but he was morally certain the raiders had slipped a capital ship into SLAM range under some sort of cover. The shocked survivors all agreed on the blazing speed with which the orbital defenses had been annihilated, and only a capital ship could have done it.

But how? How had they fooled Commodore Trang and all of his people? Simple ECM couldn't be the answer after all the sector had been through. No, somehow they'd given Trang a legitimate cover, something he knew was friendly, and there was simply no way they could have done that without access to information they should never have been able to reach.

It all fit a pattern-even Treadwell was showing signs of accepting that-but the colonel was damned if he could make it all come together. Even Ben Belkassem had thrown up his hands and departed for Old Earth in the faint hope that his superiors there might be able to see something from their distant perspective which had eluded everyone in the Franconia Sector.

The colonel hoped so, because what bothered him even more than how was why. What in God's name were these people up to? He hadn't said so (except very privately to Admiral Gomez and Brigadier Keita), but it passed sanity that they could be garden-variety pirates. That didn't make sense just based on cost effectiveness! Anybody who could field a force the size of the one these people had to have didn't need whatever they were making off their loot.

No doubt plunder helped defray their operational costs, but his most generous estimate of their take fell short of what it must cost to supply and maintain their ships. Just look at what they were taking: colony support equipment, spaceport beacon arrays, industrial machinery, for God's sake! They scooped up some luxury goods, of course-they'd scored over a half-billion in direcat pelts, alone, from Mathison's World-but no normal hijacker or pirate would touch most of what they took.

And even aside from their unlikely loot, there were the casualties. McIlheny didn't believe in Attila the Hun in starships. Stupid people, by and large, didn't become starship captains, and only someone who was stupid could fail to see the inevitable result of pursuing some bizarre scorched-earth policy against the Empire. That was why massacre for the sake of massacre wasn't a normal piratical trait; it didn't pay their bills, and it did guarantee a massive response. Yet these people were deliberately maximizing the devastation in their wake. From everything the Elysium survivors could tell him, they hadn't even tried to loot beyond the limits of the capital, but they'd nuked every city from orbit! Nine million dead. What in hell's name could be behind that kind of slaughter? It was almost as if they were taunting the Fleet, daring it to deal with them.

It was maddening, yet the answer was here, right here in his office and his brain, if he could only bring the pieces together. Any group who could penetrate security as if it didn't exist and use their stolen data to mount such meticulous, lethal attacks couldn't be mere loose cannons. They had an ultimate objective which, in their eyes at least, made all the killing worthwhile, and that was frightening, because he couldn't imagine what it might be and it was his job to do just that.

There were times, McIlheny thought wistfully, when a return to the simplicity of combat looked ever so attractive.

The admittance signal hauled him out of his thoughts. He pressed the button, and his eyebrows arched as Sir Arthur Keita stepped through the hatch.

"Good evening, Sir Arthur. What can I do for you?"

"Probably not much," Keita rumbled. He removed a carton of chips from a chair and settled onto it, holding them in his lap. "I just dropped by to say good bye, Colonel."

"Good bye?" McIlheny repeated in surprise, and Keita gave a sour grin.

"I'm only punching air out here. This is a job for you and the Fleet-and Treadwell, if he ever stops screaming for more ships and uses what he has-and I've been here too long."

"I see." McIlheny sank into his own chair and swivelled it to face Keita. The brigadier's gravelly voice was as steady as ever, but he heard the despair within it. He knew what had kept Keita on Soissons so long … and there hadn't been a single report of the alpha-synth in ten weeks.

"I imagine you do, Colonel." Keita's eyes were sad, but he gave McIlheny a less strained smile and nodded. "But I can't justify staying on in the hope that something will break, and-" his jaw tightened "-if she's spotted now, she's your job, not mine."

"Understood, Sir," the colonel said. "I wish it weren't true-God knows Captain DeVries deserves better than that-but I understand."

Keita looked down at the carton of chips, stirring them with a blunt index finger.

"I wish you could have known her before, Colonel," he said softly. "She was … special. The best. And to have it end like this, with an imperial price on her head … ."

The silver-maned old head shook sadly, and then Keita looked up at McIlheny's combat ribbons.

"You've been there, Colonel. If it has to be one of our own, I'm glad it's someone who can understand. Whatever she is now, she was special."

"I know she was, Sir Arthur."

"Yes. Yes, you do." Keita inhaled deeply, then rose and held out his hand. "I'll be going, then."

"Yes, Sir. I'm going to miss you, Sir Arthur. I want you to know how much I've appreciated the insight you gave me between your … other duties."

"Keep swinging, Colonel." Keita's grip crushed McIlheny's hand. "Between us, I'm convinced you're on the right trail, so you watch your six. Something stinks to high heaven out here. I intend to say as much to Countess Miller and His Majesty, but you be careful who you trust. When you can't tell the bad guys from the good guys … ."

His voice trailed off, and he released McIlheny's hand with a shrug.

"I know, Sir." The colonel frowned a moment, then looked deep into Keita's eyes. "A favor, if I may, Sir Arthur."

"Of course," Keita said instantly, and McIlheny smiled his thanks.

"I've made a complete duplicate of my files. Technically, they're not supposed to leave my office, but I would be very grateful if you'd take them to Old Earth with you. I'd feel much happier with someone I know is clean in possession of my data in case-"

The colonel broke off with a crooked smile, and Keita nodded soberly.

"I will-and I'm honored by your trust."

"Thank you. And with your permission, Sir, I'll arrange a periodic security download to you. One outside my normal channels."

"Do you have a feeling?" Keita's eyes were suddenly intent, and the colonel shrugged.

"I … don't know. It's just that I suspect we've been penetrated even more deeply than we've guessed. I don't want to sound paranoid, but these people have certainly demonstrated they're not shy about killing people. If I get too close to their mole … Well, accidents happen, Sir Arthur."

Vice Admiral Brinkman lit another cigar, tipped back his chair, and frowned meditatively up at the overhead. Things were getting complicated. Of course, they'd known they would-they had to, in fact, if this was going to work-but keeping so many balls in the air wore on a man's nerves.

He thought back over his discussion with Howell. He could certainly understand the commodore's concerns, and, frankly, he would have balked at hitting someone like the El Grecans if not for McIlheny. The collateral objectives would be valuable even without the troublesome colonel, but he was the real reason they had to strike at least one non-imperial target to prove they really were "pirates." Not that Brinkman expected even the Ringbolt attack to throw him off for long. It should create confusion among the people to whom he reported, but it was unlikely to create enough.

And that was because McIlheny wasn't going to give up. He might not realize what he had his teeth into, but he knew he was onto something, and he wasn't going to turn loose. The use of classified data to plan the squadron's operations had always been the shakiest part of the entire plan, yet there'd been no other way. Howell was good, but Fleet only had to get lucky once to blow his entire force out of space, so Fleet couldn't be allowed to get lucky.

If Lord Jurawski and Countess Miller hadn't insisted on sending Rosario Gomez out here, Brinkman could have made certain no luck came Fleet's way, but they didn't call Gomez "the Iron Maiden" for nothing. The nickname was, he admitted with a smile, a base libel on her sex life, but she'd earned it when she was much younger, and nothing about her style had changed since. They'd known Lady Rosario would be a problem when her assignment was announced, yet there'd been nothing they could do. They'd already taken out Admiral Whitworth to clear the second in command's slot for Brinkman; two flag officers' mysterious deaths would have been too much to risk, so they'd had to accept Gomez and concentrate on hamstringing her efforts from within.

Unfortunately, she'd assembled a staff whose tenacity mirrored her own-and one that was damnably close-knit and loyal to her. Brinkman more than suspected that she and McIlheny had begun compartmentalizing more tightly than they were telling, and that was bad.

He rocked his chair slowly, nursing his cigar. McIlheny had already clamped down on normal information distribution, which produced a dangerous decrease in possible suspects. The more restricted data became, the fewer people could possibly be passing it on to the "pirates," and that was bad enough. But if the two of them were beginning to restrict critical data to an inner clique only they trusted, his people might miss some critical bit of information Howell and Alexsov had to have.

At least that Justice pest had worn out his enthusiasm and decamped, and Keita would be gone within days. Both of those were major pluses, but it didn't help much with the McIlheny problem. The ideal solution would be to remove him, but he was a cautious and a dangerous man. He could be gotten to, yet setting up an overt assassination that didn't prove how massively security had been breached would be time consuming and difficult. Worse, it would suggest there'd been a reason to kill him, and anyone with whom he'd shared his suspicions-whatever they were-would have to wonder if the reason wasn't that he'd been on the right track and getting too close to an answer.

At the very least Gomez would be out for blood, and assassinating her would be even harder. She practically never left her battlecruiser flagship these days, and about the only way to get to her would be to sabotage Antietam's Fasset drive or fusion plants and take out the entire ship. That might not be impossible, but it would certainly be difficult. Worst of all, killing her would be the Whitworth situation all over again and worse. It would put him in her command, and stepping into her shoes under the present circumstances might raise the wrong eyebrows. What if someone who shared McIlheny's suspicions wondered why someone else might want to see Sir Amos Brinkman in her place?

He let his chair swing back upright and shook his head with a sigh. No, precipitous action against Gomez was out of the question. Pressure was building in the Senate and the Ministry as the "pirates" danced around her and laughed at her attempts to deal with them. It could only be a matter of time before she was relieved for her failures. Brinkman would be properly distressed at relieving so old and dear a friend under such circumstances-and send McIlheny packing as part of his "new broom" housekeeping. That had been the plan for getting rid of Gomez from the beginning; it was only McIlheny's stubborn probing that had him thinking about other approaches.

Still, the time might come when McIlheny got too close and they had to take him out, suspicious or no. It wouldn't be a best-case scenario, but if it was a choice between that and having him figure out what was really going on, the decision would make itself. And his death would produce at least short-term confusion, especially if it wasn't an obvious assassination. If they were lucky, the confusion might even last long enough to carry clear through Gomez's relief.

Brinkman nodded to himself and stubbed out his cigar. Yes, it might become necessary, in which case it would be a good idea to put the assets in place now, and the admiral thought he might just know the way to go about it. McIlheny had started out as a shuttle pilot, after all. That was where he'd won his spurs and first made his name, and he still had a weakness for hot shuttles and hotter skimmers. Better yet, he insisted on piloting himself whenever possible. Under normal circumstances, no one would be too surprised if he finally lost it in a midair one day, and a little help in the maintenance shop could … assist the good colonel right out of the sky.

He smiled a slow, thoughtful smile and tried to remember the name of that "skimmer tech" Rachel Shu had used to eliminate Admiral Whitworth. It was time for a little judicious personnel reassignment.

Chapter Fifty

"Good evening, Captain Mainwaring. My name is Yerensky. I understand you're seeking a cargo for your vessel?"

Alicia looked up from her wineglass and saw a tall, cadaverous man. He was well-dressed, despite his half-starved appearance, and his polished tones were well-suited to the background hum of the expensive restaurant. She eyed him for a moment, then sat back slightly and made a tiny gesture at the empty chair across from her. Yerensky slid into it, smiling politely. A waiter materialized at his elbow, and Alicia sipped her own wine, using the brief, low-voiced exchange between waiter and patron to evaluate her visitor.

Smooth as pond scum, isn't he? she commented, and felt Tisiphone's silent agreement. Not that they were surprised. They'd learned a great deal about Yerensky during the two weeks they'd spent angling for this meeting.

It had been far harder than Alicia had expected to find the precise shipper she sought. Not because there hadn't been offers in plenty, but because, to her intense chagrin, virtually all of them had been legitimate. She'd underestimated the pirates' effect on insurance rates, and under the circumstances, Star Runner's high speed more than outweighed her limited cargo capacity. If she'd been a real free trader, Alicia could have increased her transport fees by a quarter of the amount by which her ship's speed lowered the insurance premiums and still tripled her normal profit margin.

Unfortunately, she wasn't looking for an honest cargo, and she'd been forced to concoct an extraordinary range of excuses to avoid accepting one. More than once, she'd been reduced to letting the Fury enter a legitimate shipper's mind and get him to suggest a reason to decline his offer.

It had been maddening, especially after one of Megaira's and Tisiphone's forays through MaGuire's classified data base revealed that the Empire had provided the Jung Association with Alicia's retinal and genetic prints. They hadn't anticipated that when they concocted Captain Mainwaring, so they'd used her real patterns, and she'd almost fainted when she found out the authorities had both sets. If they happened to run a check against all new arrivals … .

That threat, at least, had been alleviated, if not nullified, by the simple expedient of sending Tisiphone back into the net to alter the prints for Star Runner's skipper. It wasn't a perfect solution, since any document-like a freight contract-Alicia signed as Captain Mainwaring would include her real retinal prints, which no longer matched the ones on file, yet it was the best they could do. Tisiphone had suggested doctoring the Fleet download instead of Mainwaring's, but Alicia and Megaira had vetoed that idea, since they couldn't touch the files on Soissons. It was tempting to "legitimize" Mainwaring's prints, but it was unlikely anyone would check the prints on a document when he knew they were the right person's. At least Alicia hoped they wouldn't, and that possibility worried her less than what might happen if ONI should check back and notice that Alicia DeVries' records on MaGuire no longer matched those on Soissons. At the very least, it would be proof she'd been to MaGuire, since no one but she would have any reason to change them. Worse, a simple cross-check would soon reveal that "Captain Mainwaring's" prints did match.

None of that had been calculated to soothe her nerves, but at least it looked as if they'd be able to clear out shortly. The Fury's careful mental probes had, at last, plucked one Anton Yerensky's name and face from the thoughts of a more honest merchant, and Mister Yerensky, it seemed, needed a cargo delivered to Ching-Hai in the Thierdahl System. Barely civilized and sparsely settled, Ching-Hai had very little to recommend it … except that it was only ten light-years from Dewent, and Dewent was barely six light-years from Wyvern. Better yet, what passed for the planetary authorities on Ching-Hai had a very cozy relationship with both Dewent and Wyvern.

Once Yerensky had been identified, it hadn't been hard to arrange casual contacts with two or three of his associates. With Tisiphone to plant a favorable impression of Captain Mainwaring in their minds, one of them was bound to mention her to him eventually, and for the first time, the skewed shipping conditions had worked in their favor. With so many fast ships being snapped up for legitimate cargoes, the supply of smugglers was running thin.

"You seem to be well-informed, Mister Yerensky," she said as the waiter departed with his order. "I am looking for a cargo-a small one, I'm afraid, but I assume you've already checked my capacity with the port master."

"Your vessel's capacity would suit me quite well, Captain, assuming we can come to terms."

"I see." Alicia refilled her wineglass and held it up to the light. "Exactly what sort of cubage are we talking about here, Mister Yerensky?"

"Oh, no more than two hundred cubic meters. A bit less, actually."

"I see," Alicia repeated. That really was a small shipment, less than half the available volume in Megaira's hold, which was already well-stocked with spares and replacement parts. "And where would you like it delivered?"

"Ah, that's a bit delicate, Captain," Yerensky said slowly, watching her from under lowered lids. "You see, I need it delivered to Ching-Hai." He paused for a moment, as if to let that sink in, before continuing. "I understand you have a Fleet-type cargo shuttle with rough field capability?"

Alicia lowered her wine and let her lips curl in a tiny smile.

"I do, indeed. May I assume your receiver will be … unable to collect his cargo at the regular port?"

"Precisely," Yerensky said politely, and his smile was just as small. "I see you have a fine appreciation for these matters, Captain."

"One tries, Mister Yerensky."

Alicia sipped more wine as the waiter returned with Yerensky's order and began sliding plates onto the table. There were a lot of them, and she wondered what sort of metabolism could handle that kind of intake and still look starved.

The waiter scurried off again, and Yerensky unfolded a snow-white napkin in his lap and reached for a fork.

"Given your appreciation, Captain, I must assume you realize you and your crew are-well, let us say, a rather unknown quantity."

"If you checked my port download, I'm sure you discovered that we're bonded with the Melville Sector governor," Alicia said, forbearing to mention just how surprised the Melville Sector governor would be to learn that.

"Well, yes, Captain, but MaGuire is scarcely an imperial planet, now is it? And there might be circumstances under which it would be inconvenient for a shipper to attempt to recover against your bond if something went awry."

In other words, Alicia observed silently to Tisiphone, a crook can't exactly report you to the cops for stealing his illegal cargo.

It is reassuring to find some things unchanged, the Fury returned, and Alicia nodded at Yerensky.

"I can understand that. Still, I assume you wouldn't have come to see me unless you felt these little problems could be resolved."

"A woman after my own heart, Captain," he said as he spread his salad dressing more evenly. "I'd thought in terms of a mutual expression of trust."

"Such as?"

"I think, perhaps, a front payment of twenty-five percent of the total shipping charges with the remainder placed in escrow here on MaGuire to be released when the cargo is delivered to my agent on Ching-Hai."

Alicia nodded thoughtfully, but her mind raced. That was a terrible idea. It would require reams of legal documents, and that meant retinal prints galore. But she couldn't exactly object on those grounds ….

"An interesting suggestion, but not the way I normally do business, Mister Yerensky. I can conceive of certain circumstances under which-purely without your knowledge, of course-an unscrupulous receiver might deny he'd ever received the goods, which could tie up the escrow account or even require litigation. Then, too, limited facility fields, you know, are often under-equipped. A completely honest difference of opinion might arise, and without proper instrumentation to examine the cargo, well-"

She shrugged with a helpless little smile, and a gleam of appreciation lit Yerensky's eyes.

"I see. May I assume you have a counter offer, Captain?"

"Indeed. I would suggest that you pay me half the freight charges up front, and that your receiver pay the other half immediately upon receipt and examination of his cargo. I sacrifice the security of the escrow account; you run a slightly greater risk with your front payment. That seems fair."

Yerensky munched thoughtfully on his salad for a few moments, then nodded. "I believe I could accept that arrangement, assuming we can settle the remainder of the terms to our mutual satisfaction."

"Oh, I'm certain we can, Mister Yerensky." Alicia smiled even more sweetly. "I'm a great believer in mutual satisfaction."

Alicia reclined in her command chair and chewed on a grape. She savored the sweet juice and pulp with sensual delight, and the back of her brain hummed with an odd duality as Megaira and Tisiphone shared her pleasure.

That's nice, the AI observed. Much sharper than your memories. Almost makes me wish I were a flesh-and-blood.

Not I, Tisiphone disagreed. Such moments are pleasant, yet what need have we for flesh and blood when we may share them with Alicia? And unlike her, we are not subject to the unpleasant aspects of such existence.

Voyeurs. Alicia swallowed and examined the bunch in her lap to select a fresh grape. "You ought to experience some of the downside-maybe a nice head cold, for instance-so you could appreciate the pleasures properly."

I have yet to observe that suffering truly makes pleasure sweeter, Little One. Bliss is not the mere absence of pain.

"Maybe." She popped the chosen grape into her mouth and turned her attention back to Megaira's sensors.

They'd left the dreary featurelessness of wormhole space an hour ago, decelerating steadily towards the heart of the Ching-Hai System, and the glory of the stars was even sweeter than the grapes. She drank it in, reveling in the reach and power of Megaira's senses, as Thierdahl's distant spark grew brighter. They were fifteen days-just over eleven days by their own clocks-out of MaGuire with their cargo of bootleg medical supplies, and she wondered again what they would discover when they reached their destination. So far, things had gone more smoothly than she had hoped.

Of course they have, Little One. What, after all, could go wrong in wormhole space?

"Nothing, but it's the nature of the human beast to worry. At least I don't have to feel guilty about what we're carrying."

Do not be foolish. There is neither cause nor room for "guilt" in whatever we may do in pursuit of your vengeance.

Alicia winced at Tisiphone's absolute assurance. She could forget just how alien the Fury was for days at a stretch, but then Tisiphone came out with something like that. It wasn't posturing. It was simply the literal truth as she saw it.

"I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that one. I want justice, not blind vengeance, and I'd rather not hurt anyone I don't have to."

Justice is a delusion, Little One. The Fury's mental voice dripped scorn. Your people have learned much, but you have forgotten much, as well.

"You might profit by a little forgetting-or learning-of your own."

Such as?

"Such as the fact that simple vengeance is a self-sustaining reaction. When you 'avenge' yourself on someone, you usually give someone else an excuse to seek vengeance on you.

And you think your precious justice does not? You are wiser than that, Alicia DeVries-or would be, if you but let yourself!

"You're missing the point. If a society settles for naked vengeance, it all comes down to who has the bigger club. Justice provides the rules that make it possible for people to live together with some semblance of decency."

Bah! "Justice" is no more than vengeance dressed up in fine clothes! There can be no justice without punishment-or would you say that Colonel Watts was treated "justly" for the wrong he did your company?

Alicia's lip curled in an involuntary snarl, but she closed her eyes and fought it back as she felt the Fury's amusement.

"No, I wouldn't call that justice, or disagree that punishment is a part of justice. I won't even pretend vengeance isn't exactly what I wanted from that son-of-a-bitch. But there has to be guilt-and he was guilty as sin-before punishment. A society can't just go around smashing people without determining that the one punished is actually the guilty party. That's the worst kind of capriciousness-and a damned good recipe for anarchy."

What care I for anarchy? Tisiphone demanded. Nor am I "society." Nor, for that matter, are you. You are an individual, seeking redress for yourself and for others who cannot. Is that wrong?

"I didn't say it was. I only said I don't want to hurt innocent bystanders. But whether you like it or not, justice-the rule of law, not men, if you will-is the glue that sticks human societies together. It lets human beings live together with some sense of security, and it establishes precedents. When a criminal is proven guilty and punished, it sets the parameters. It tells people what's acceptable and what isn't, and whenever we inch a few centimeters forward, justice is what keeps us from slipping back."

So you say, Little One, but you delude yourself. It is compassion, not reason, which truly shapes your thought-misplaced compassion for those who deserve none. This is the truth of what you feel.

Alicia's face twisted as the Fury relaxed inner barriers-barriers Alicia had almost forgotten existed-and a red haze of rage boiled in the back of her brain. Her fists clenched, and she locked her teeth together, fighting the sudden need to smash something-anything-in the pure, wanton destruction her emotions craved. She felt Megaira's distress, felt the AI beating at Tisiphone in a futile effort to free Alicia from her own hate, but even that was small and faint and far, far away … .

The barriers snapped back, and she slumped in her chair, gasping and beaded with sweat.

You bitch! Megaira snarled. If you ever try that again, I'll-!

Peace, Megaira, the Fury interrupted almost gently. I will not harm her. But she must know herself if we are to succeed. There is no room for confusion or self-blindness in what we do.

Alicia trembled in the couch, nerve ends shuddering, and closed her thoughts off from the others. She needed the silence, needed a moment to breathe and recover from the side of herself she'd just seen. She believed what she'd told Tisiphone-more than believed, knew it was true-and yet …

She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. They were slick and wet, coated in dripping grape pulp, and she shuddered.

Chapter Fifty-One

Commodore Howell sat on the freighter's bridge and told himself-again-that the ship was perfectly adequate for her mission. Compared to a warship, her command facilities were primitive, her defenses minimal, and her offensive weapons nonexistent, but if everything went right, that wouldn't matter, and so far the mission profile had been perfect. And much as he would have preferred being somewhere else, he had to be here for this one. They needed a success to blunt the sting of Elysium, and his people's morale required that he be here in person.

He watched the display, face expressionless, as the freighter and her two sister ships settled into parking orbit around Ringbolt. Control's information on the El Grecan fleet maneuvers had been right on the money, and the only ground defenses were purely anti-air weapons sited to cover Adcock Field, the main spaceport outside the city of Raphael. They had the reach to cover the city's airspace, but they wouldn't have the chance.

Howell's eyes swiveled to the reason they wouldn't. The freighters' transponders identified them as Fleet transports-courtesy of the ID codes Control had provided-escorted by a heavy cruiser. Now all four ships were in position, riding geosynchronous orbit directly above Raphael, and a signal in the commodore's synth-link told him HMS Intolerant's weapons were locked in.

Captain Arlen Monkoto of the Monkoto Free Mercenaries, known less formally as "Monkoto's Maniacs," stepped out onto the hotel balcony and sucked in crisp, cool air. Ringbolt was a much nicer planet than El Greco, he mused, and wondered if he could convince Simon to relocate their home port here.

He looked back over his shoulder. Lieutenant Commander Hugin was on the suite com, conferring with Chief Pilaskov. The recruiting mission had gone well, and Monkoto expected Simon to be pleased when he arrived. Over a hundred experienced personnel, including twelve officers, could certainly be put to excellent use.

He started to open the balcony's French windows to join Hugin, and something flashed behind him. Eye-tearing light bounced back off the window glass, and his shadow was suddenly etched stark and black against the wall.

He whirled in disbelief, trained reflexes already throwing him face-down, as a huge, white fireball devoured Adcock Field.

"Launch shuttles!" Howell barked as Intolerant's HVW obliterated the port. Each of the big transports normally mothered eight heavy-lift cargo shuttles; for this operation, they'd been replaced with twelve Bengal-class assault boats each, and thirty-six deadly attack craft shrieked downward. Thirteen hundred grim-faced raiders rode them. For many this was their first mission, and they were determined to get it right. Others were the survivors of Elysium … and they were even more determined to avoid another disaster.

Arlen Monkoto staggered erect like a punch-drunk fighter. His nerve ends jittered with echoes of heat and blast, but it must have been an HVW. If it had been a nuke or anti-matter, he'd be dead, and he was only singed a bit. Fires roared and fumed along the city's eastern edge, and he doubted there was an intact window in Raphael, but otherwise the damage hadn't been severe.

He wheeled back to the French windows and froze. He'd been wrong about the severity of the damage, an icy voice told him. The windows had been blown across the hotel suite like glittering daggers, and bloody bits of Lieutenant Commander Hugin's mutilated body were sprayed across the far wall.

Monkoto made himself pick his way into the wreckage, and his hands were a stranger's as they moved what remained of Hugin gently aside. His exec's body had protected the com unit, and Chief Pilaskov was still on it. The burly NCO was half shouting, though Monkoto's stunned ears could hardly hear him, and his brown eyes widened in relief as he saw his CO.

Fresh explosions thundered behind the captain, and his mouth tightened as he looked over his shoulder and saw the contrails slashing down the sky.

"Can't hear you, Chief." He tapped an ear, and Pilaskov's mouth snapped shut. "It doesn't matter. Break into the ordnance order and get our people moving. The primary LZ looks like Toledo U. I'll meet you there."

Surprise was total.

Adcock Field had known the freighters and their escort were friendly. No one at the port lived long enough to realize he was wrong, and sheer shock-not disbelief so much as a desperate need to be wrong-stunned Raphael motionless until the shuttle contrails were sighted.

By then it was far, far too late, and Howell's raiders carried through with merciless precision. Individual shuttles peeled off and streaked in to lay smaller HVW and guided bombs on every police station and substation in the city. Entire blocks went up with them, and other shuttles swept a circle about the raider's target with rocket clusters and incendiaries. A curtain of flame sealed their objective off from relief while two more shuttles took out the militia armory, and twenty Bengals grounded on the university campus, disgorging seven hundred heavily armed raiders who charged straight for their objectives and killed anyone in their path.

Stunned university security forces tried to stop them, but they had only sidearms and Howell's raiders were in battle armor with heavy weapons. The university's director of research raced for the computer center to purge her data, but a squad of invaders burst through the doors and cut her down before she reached her console. Teams of technicians followed the assault wave, setting up their portable terminals and transmission dishes while the thunder of weapons and screams of the dying shook the building about them. More raiders broke into the labs themselves and massacred the researchers, and a fresh flood of technicians poured in in their wake, heaving specimen cases, hard-copy records, and lab animals onto counter-gravity pallets while their boots slipped in their victims' blood.

Monkoto found Chief Pilaskov more by luck than any other way. The petty officer had his recruits mustered near the roaring wall of flames sealing the university off from the rest of the city, their uniforms a black-and-gray knot of order in a sea of chaos.

They were more heavily armed than Monkoto had hoped. They'd been quartered in the warehouse district to keep an eye on the Maniacs' ordnance order, but it was obvious Pilaskov had helped himself generously from the arms merchant's other wares. Half the recruits wore light armor, and Monkoto saw squad heavy weapons as well as personal arms. Best of all, Pilaskov had snagged a half-dozen Stiletto units. By the time Monkoto arrived, the chief had the remote launchers deployed well away from the fire control units.

"Glad to see you, Sir," he said as Monkoto panted up to him. "Where's Commander Hugin?"

"Dead." Monkoto sucked in air, feeling the fire's heat in his lungs, and tried to think. A Bengal passed overhead, and he straightened quickly as one of the Stiletto crews began to track.

"Hold your fire!" he snapped, and the crew chief jerked in surprise. "We don't want the flankers," he continued when he was certain the other man was listening. "We want the main body. Wait till they lift out."

The crew chief nodded, face tightening in understanding, and Monkoto turned back to Pilaskov. He jabbed a thumb at the roaring flames.

"HE or straight incendiaries?" he demanded.

"Mainly incendiaries and just enough HE to bust things open, I think."

"We have a com on the secure police frequency?"

"Yes, Sir. Not much traffic-only whoever was on the street when they hit."

"It'll have to do." Monkoto held out one hand and gestured at the rubble-strewn sidewalks with the other. "Find me a manhole, Chief."

"Aye, Sir!" Pilaskov's face lit with understanding, and he started shouting orders as Monkoto raised the com to his mouth.

"This is Captain Arlen Monkoto, Monkoto's Mercenaries," he said crisply. "I am at the corner of Hadrian and Stimson. My people are going in in five minutes. Anyone who can reach us in time, get your ass over here now!"

The raiders crushed the last resistance, and small parties broke off to loot secondary objectives in Admin and the library building. The computer techs hovered over their equipment, draining the R amp;D data base and beaming it up to the freighters, and fire teams set up along the campus approaches in case anyone found a way through the fire wall. There was little wasted motion, and the situation was a far cry from the chaos of Elysium. Another forty minutes and they could lift the hell out of here again.

A manhole cover grated quietly well behind their outer perimeter. A cautious head poked up out of it, and two hundred men and women-mercenaries, police, and civilian volunteers inextricably mixed-flowed upward from the sewers and service tunnels buried meters beneath the interceding inferno.

Howell's ground commander was reporting to the flagship when bedlam exploded behind him. He wheeled in shock, gaping at the wave of El Grecans coming at him, then hit his jump gear to put a solid wall between him and them as grenades ripped into his temporary CP.

Where had they all come from? Damn it, they couldn't be here! But they were, and panicky reports flooded in. The bastards were hitting him everywhere at once, and memories of Elysium echoed through his raiders.

But this wasn't Elysium, goddamn it! These were a hastily assembled and lightly armed scratch group, not Imperial Marines in battle armor, and the CO screamed and cursed his people into coherent response.

Commodore Howell slammed a fist into the arm of his command chair as he, too, remembered Elysium. He didn't have the instrumentation for a solid read on what was happening, but the sudden confusion of combat chatter-and the screams of wounded and dying raiders-told him it wasn't good.

The perimeter teams turned and charged back towards the heart of the campus. Some blundered into hastily set ambushes and died still wondering what was happening, but most got through, for their armor and heavier weapons gave them a tremendous advantage. Yet this time the fighting was different. This time the locals knew what was going on, and they'd had time to collect more than handguns and stunners. Many of them knew the terrain better than even the most carefully briefed raider, and they used their knowledge well.

Combat raged across the once-beautiful campus-ugly, swirling knots of blood and fire and hate amid smoldering wreckage and the litter of bodies. A small team of Maniacs got in among the grounded shuttles and destroyed five before they could be killed. A police SWAT commander's jury-rigged team of civilians and a handful of police fought its way into the admin/library complex, and Arlen Monkoto led a personal assault on the bio-research center.

The raiders' casualties mounted, but they still had the edge in numbers. They fought off the shock of surprise and went back onto the offensive, and Commodore Howell relaxed as his people began to regain the ground they'd lost while the data continued to pour upward.

Arlen Monkoto poked his head cautiously around a corner, trying not to cough as acrid smoke assaulted his lungs. He'd fought his way to within two corridors of the computer center, but he'd lost Chief Pilaskov on the way in, and he was down to five men and three women, only two of them Maniacs.

The way ahead was clear, and he moved down the hall in the quietest run he could manage. "His" people followed him, and his mind raced. If they got into the computer center, took out the techs he knew were pillaging it -

An armored raider appeared before him, and thirty-millimeter rifle fire tore Captain Arlen Monkoto apart.

"Download complete!" someone called, and someone else was screaming to "Move it back to the shuttles now!" over the tactical net.

Raiders began to disengage, leapfrogging back towards the shuttle perimeter. Too few defenders remained to stop them, but the twenty shuttle loads who'd landed needed only twelve shuttles to lift them out again.

"Shuttles preparing to lift, Sir."

Howell grunted approval at the report, but inside he winced. Twenty percent casualties were too damned many so soon after Elysium, even if they had secured every one of their objectives this time. He didn't care what Control said, he wasn't sending teams in against targets this hard again.

"Sir, sensors report a Fasset drive coming in from the direction of El Greco," an officer said suddenly, and Howell's head snapped around.

"What is it?" he demanded.

"Can't tell at this range, Sir, but it's not a Fleet drive. Looks like an El Grecan-probably a destroyer."

The commodore relaxed. A destroyer had the speed to overhaul them, but not the firepower to fight them, and this time she was welcome to any sensor data she could get. Aside from the freighter's transponder codes, nothing he'd done here had required the use of classified security data, and ex-Fleet heavy cruisers weren't all that hard to come by.

He looked back into the display as the shuttles began to lift, and his mouth curled in an ugly smile. The fact that the "pirates" had one of Fleet's cast-off CAs would spill no beans, but Intolerant's weapons would more than suffice to destroy the El Grecan ship if she got close enough to be a problem. Besides, she'd be … distracted after Intolerant nuked Raphael, and -

"Sir! The shuttles!" someone shouted, and Howell's face went white as the Stiletto teams opened fire.

Nine of his thirty-one surviving shuttles became falling fireballs as he stared at the display.

Admiral Simon Monkoto stood on the bridge of the destroyer Ardent, staring at the view screen, and his carved-marble face was white as the silver at his temples. There had been no way for Ardent to know what was happening on Ringbolt until she dropped sublight, but the radiation counters were going mad. Whoever had nuked Raphael had used the dirtiest warhead Admiral Monkoto had ever seen on the city … and on Arlen.

Dark eyes, hot and hating in his frozen face, moved from the view screen to the gravitic plot. He could have overhauled the raiders. It would have been close, even with their freighters to slow them, for his destroyer had been on the wrong approach vector, but he could have caught them.

And it would have done no good at all against a heavy cruiser.

He'd almost done it anyway, but he hadn't. He couldn't throw away his crew's lives-or his own. Even more than he wanted those ships, he wanted the people who'd sent them, and he couldn't have them if he died.

His jaw clenched, and he turned away. Ardent's last shuttle was waiting for him, waiting to take him down to the planet where his brother had died to do what he could. But he'd be back, and not with a single destroyer.

He promised himself that-promised Arlen-and his expression was as hellish as his heart.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Ching-Hai lay barely 14.8 light-minutes from the F5 star Thierdahl, with an axial tilt of forty-one degrees. It was also dry-very dry-with an atmospheric pressure only three-quarters that of Old Earth, all of which conspired to produce something only the charitable could call a climate. Alicia couldn't conceive of any rational reason to choose to live here, and not even Imperial Galactography knew why anyone had. The handbook's best theory was that the original settlers were League War or HRW-I refugees who'd found in Ching-Hai a world so inhospitable neither the Empire nor the Sphere would want it. As guesses went, that one was as good as any; certainly their descendants had no better one four hundred years later.

Which probably explained their attitude towards other people's laws. They had to make a living somehow, and their planet wasn't much help, she thought, crossing to the coffeemaker and watching with a corner of her brain while Megaira slipped them into orbit. They were a few hours early, and Alicia was just as glad. She'd recovered-mostly-from the experience Tisiphone had unleashed upon her, but she welcomed a little more time to settle down before she had to meet Yerensky's local contact.

She carried her cup back to the view port. Ochre and yellow land masses moved far below her, splashed with an occasional large lake or small sea. It all looked depressingly flat, and there were very few visible light blurs on the nightside. The one official spaceport was well into the dayside at the moment, but whoever was in charge hadn't even bothered to assign her a parking orbit, much less mounted any sort of customs inspection.

You didn't really expect one, did you? Megaira asked.

"No, but this is so … so-"

Half-assed? the AI suggested helpfully, and Alicia chuckled.

"Something like that. Not that I'm complaining. I don't know how Yerensky got those medical supplies out of the Empire and onto Maguire without any customs stamps, but I'd hate to try explaining it to someone else."

There would be no need. Alicia and Megaira both bristled, but the Fury sounded totally unaware of any resentment they might harbor. Their inspectors would see precisely what we wished them to, no more and no less.

Alicia didn't reply. She suspected herself of sulking, and she didn't really care. The reminder of all the unresolved hate and violence still locked away within her had frightened her. Not that she hadn't known it was there, but knowing and feeling were two different things, and -

Whups! Heads up, Alley-I've got our landing beacon.

"So soon?" Alicia's eyebrows rose.

Well, it's in the right general spot. A mental grid superimposed itself over Alicia's view of the planet, and a green dot winked on the nightside. There-about midnight, local time. And it's the right beacon code.

"I don't like it. Yerensky didn't say anything about night landings."

But neither did he say it would be a daylight landing, Tisiphone pointed out, and this time Alicia and Megaira were too intent on their problem to bristle. Indeed, there was no thought in his mind either way, so I would judge he trusts the discretion of his local agent. In that case, might there not be some valid reason for choosing to unload under cover of night?

"On this planet?" Alicia frowned. "I wouldn't've thought there was any reason to hide medical supplies. They're valuable, sure, especially on some of the lower-tech Rogue Worlds, but I can't see needing to hide them."

She hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged.

"Put on your Ruth face and ask for the countersign, Megaira."

On it, the AI replied. A few moments passed, then, They came back with the right response, Alley. Far as I can tell, this is them.

"Damn. Well, I guess we don't have much choice." Alicia sighed. "Load up the shuttle with the first pallets."

Yes, Tisiphone agreed, but I trust your instincts, Little One. May I suggest that this is a time for Top Cover?

"You may indeed," Alicia murmured, and felt Megaira's total agreement.

The cargo shuttle slid downward through the hot Ching-Hai night, cargo bay packed with counter-grav pallets, and Alicia lifted the combat rifle into her lap and slipped in a magazine.

Megaira and Tisiphone had both wanted her in battle armor, if for slightly different reasons. The AI worried about her safety, but the Fury wanted to see the armor in action, for its destructive capabilities fascinated her. Of the two, Alicia had found Megaira's argument more telling, yet she'd decided against it. No free trader could have gotten her hands on Cadre armor-Cadre Intelligence would have chased her to the ends of the galaxy to get it back if she'd tried-and someone might conceivably recognize it.

Besides, if some ill-intentioned soul was waiting for her, he faced certain practical constraints. His only objective could be her cargo, which meant he couldn't use anything big and nasty enough to take out the shuttle. She, on the other hand, had no compunctions about what she might do to him.

That sounds strangely little like "justice," Tisipohone jibed gently.

"On the contrary." Alicia jacked a discarding sabot round into the M-97's chamber and settled her left hand briefly on the forestock to activate its computer systems. "I won't do a thing to them unless they intend to do something to me."

Indeed?

"Indeed. But if they do have something planned, I intend to do unto them first."

So there are times you see things my way after all.

"Never said there weren't." Alicia shifted to her contact with Megaira. How's it look from your side?

Everything's green, but I've got two aircraft to the south.

Data flowed into Alicia's brain, and her lip curled, for one of those aircraft had "military" written all over it. It might be an escort against whatever local menace had provoked this night landing. Then again, it might not.

Keep an eye on 'em, she thought back. I'm getting vehicle sources around the landing beacon, too. Air lorries, it looks like.

I see them, too. Want me to take a closer look?

No. Wouldn't do to spook them, now would it?

You're the boss. Just watch yourself.

Alicia turned back to the shuttle controls, wiggling to settle her unpowered body armor. It, too, was Cadre-issue, better than anything on the open market but not visibly different enough to call attention to itself. They were less than two minutes out now, and she let the first trickle of tick seep into her bloodstream and smiled wolfishly as the universe slowed.

The ground party watched the shuttle slide down the last few meters of sky and deploy its landing legs. Flat pads reached for the ground, dust devils danced in the turbine wash, and one of the air lorries moved away from the dust in a curve that just happened to point the rear of its cargo bed at the shuttle. The tarp which closed it flapped in the jetwash, and something long and ominous was briefly visible behind the canvas.

"They're down," a man muttered into his helmet com. "Ready?"

"Light on the pads," a voice replied in his earphones.

"Good. I hope we won't need you, but stay loose."

"Yo," his phones said laconically, and he turned his full attention back to the shuttle. He'd expected a standard shuttle, and avarice flickered as he realized this one was almost twice that size. It must contain an even bigger chunk of Yerensky's cargo than he'd anticipated.

The shuttle's after hatch whined open and extruded a ramp, and he changed com channels, murmuring to his lorry pilot. The lorry's powerful lamps came on, bathing the shuttle in light, and he walked forward into the glare with a bright smile and a welcoming wave.

"Try and take the pilot alive," he reminded his gunners. He'd settle for one shuttle load-especially one this size-but if he could get his hands on the pilot and "convince" him to take his own boys back upstairs …

His nerves crackled as subsiding dust billowed around the ramp. Any minute, he thought, still grinning and waving while he braced for the gunfire.

But the dust settled, and no one emerged. His waving hand slowed, his grin faded, and he suddenly felt exposed and stupid in the light.

Alicia killed the flight deck lights, popped an emergency hatch, and dropped to the ground on the far side from the illuminating lorry. That had been outstandingly stupid, she thought as she floated to earth on the wings of the tick. Anyone looking into that light would be blind as a bat, not to mention all the nice shadows it made on this side.

She melted into the darker shadow of a landing leg and juggled her sensory boosters. Without a combat helmet's built in sensor systems, she had to rely upon her own augmented vision, but she'd had lots of practice at that. She had to wind the boosters way down when she looked into the light, then pump them high when her gaze tracked across the dark, but that was a problem she was used to, and she grunted with satisfaction as she completed her count.

Eighteen, nine of them bunched up around the air lorry with the calliope and not a one of them in even light armor. Well, at least it proved their mastermind was no military type. Unless his name was Custer.

Megaira?

I see them, the AI replied, watching through Alicia's eyes as easily as Alicia might scan space through her sensors. Tisiphone was silent in the back of her brain, wise enough not to distract her at a time like this.

Somehow they don't look like the welcome wagon to me.

You watch your ass, Alley!

I will. You just watch those aircraft.

I'm on 'em.

Damn it, something was wrong! His waving hand fell to his side as suspicion became certainty and he realized how exposed he was in that vortex of light. He started to turn and order the lamps doused when something sailed past his head to thump and rattle metallically across a lorry freight bed.

The air lorry gunship vanished in superheated fury as the plasma grenade exploded, but Alicia wasn't watching. She'd turned like a cat while the grenade hung dreamily in midair, and the combat rifle was an extension of her brain and body. She didn't even see the sight picture, not consciously. She simply looked at her target, and the gunman's chest exploded.

The glare of the lorry couldn't quite hide her muzzle-flash, but she'd already found the two men who could see it. One of them died before he realized he had; the second while he was still raising his weapon.

The gun crew inside the lorry never knew they were dead, but screams of agony and terror rose from the men clustered about it. A human torch shrieked its way into the darkness as if the night could somehow quench its flames, and two more rolled on the ground, fighting to extinguish themselves. Three unwounded hijackers ran for their lives from the inferno, and the leader threw himself under his own vehicle and switched channels frantically.

"Get over here!" he screamed, and two heavily-armed aircraft leapt into the night in reply.

Alicia slid easily through the gap she'd blown in the ring around the shuttle. Three of the six on this side of the ambush remained, but they didn't realize they were alone. They'd made the mistake of staring into the flames, stunned by the carnage, and Alicia looked at their backs in disgust. Idiots. Did they think simply carrying a gun made someone dangerous?

It really wasn't fair. These people were pathetic, so completely out of their class they didn't even know it. But life wasn't fair, and anyone who lent himself to ambush and murder for gain had no kick coming.

She found the position she wanted and fired three more short, neat bursts.

The stutter of automatic fire hammered his ears, and he stared out from under the lorry as a white eye flickered beyond the shuttle. Beyond the shuttle! Someone was on the ground out there! It had to be the shuttle pilot, but how? And where were the men he'd posted back there?!

How became immaterial as a lithe, slender shape slid across the very edge of the light with a cobra's speed and blew another of his men apart. It vanished back into the darkness, graceful as a dream, but another deadly burst and a bubbling shriek told him where his men were. Drive turbines began to whine above him as his lorry pilot prepared to pull out, and panic filled him at the thought of being left exposed and naked. He wanted to run, but his body refused to move, and he pounded the dry earth with his fists and prayed for his sting ships to get here in time.

Two heavily-armed aircraft sliced through the sky. One was little more than a transport loaded with weapons, but the leader was military from needle prow to sensor package, and its pilot brought his scanners on line. He saw only confusion and motionless bodies-lots of bodies, lit by a glare of flames-and one target source moving with deadly precision. He swore. One of them. Just one! But he had the bastard dialed in now. A few more seconds and he'd be able to nail the son-of-a-bitch without killing his own -

A night-black piece of sky swooped upon him from above. He had one stunned moment to register it, to begin to realize what it was, and then the Bengal-class assault shuttle tore him into very, very tiny pieces.

His head jerked up in horror, slamming into the bottom of the lorry, as the fireball blossomed. Flaming streamers arced from its heart like some enormous fireworks display, and then there was a second fireball.

He stared at them, watching them fade and fall, then cowered down as a vicious burst of fire lashed the vehicle above him. A chopped-off cry of agony and the sudden stillness of the waking turbines told him his pilot was dead, and he buried his face against the ground and sobbed in terror.

There were no more screams, no more shooting. Only the crackle of flames and the stench of burning bodies, and he whimpered and tried to dig into the baked soil beneath him as feet whispered through short, tough grass.

He raised his head weakly, and saw two polished boots, gleaming in the firelight. His eyes rose higher and froze on the muzzle of a combat rifle eight centimeters from his nose.

"I think you'd better come out of there," a contralto voice, colder than the stars, said softly.

Alicia finished throwing up and wiped her lips. Her mouth tasted as if something had died in it, and her stomach cramped with fresh nausea.

"That's enough of that," she told it sternly, and the cramp eased sullenly. She waited another moment, then sighed and straightened in relief.

Are you quite through? Tisiphone inquired.

Listen, Lady, you don't even have any guts to puke up, so don't get snotty with those of us who do, all right? The post-tick letdown left her too drained to get much feeling into it, but the Fury subsided.

"God, I hate coming down from that stuff," Alicia muttered, lowering herself to sit against a landing leg. "Still, it does have its uses."

I wish I had you up here in sickbay, Megaira fretted, and Alicia looked up at the hovering assault boat with a grin.

Don't sweat it. I've been using Old Speedy for years, and aside from wanting to die when you come down, it doesn't hurt a bit. The Cadre guarantees it.

Yeah, sure. That and a centicred'll get you a cup of coffee.

Alicia chuckled and wiped her mouth again, then turned to glance at the sole survivor of the hijack force. He sat against another landing leg, manacled to the pad gimbal and watching her with frightened eyes.

He's waiting for the thumbscrews, she thought to Tisiphone. Should we tell the poor bastard you already got it all?

We should bring out the thumbscrews.

Now, now. No need to get nasty.

Alicia grinned as Tisiphone muttered something about impertinent mortals. Their prisoner was none other than the partner of Yerensky's Ching-Hai contact, and his plan to hijack his own associates' cargo-and murder anyone in his way to cover his tracks-had touched the Fury's vengefulness on the raw.

You should slay him and be done with it, she said.

I can't do that. It wouldn't be just, Alicia replied innocently, squinting into the dawn to watch a streamer of dust approach the shuttle. Another part of her watched it through Megaira's assault boat sensors, and her grin grew as Tisiphone spluttered in her brain.

Just? Just?! You dare to speak of your foolish, useless justice for scum like this?! I have endured much from you, Little One, but-

Oh, hush. The Fury slithered to an incandescent stop, and Alicia pressed her advantage. I told you I believe in justice, she said, rising to her feet. The prisoner's head whipped around as he, too, heard the whine of approaching turbines, and his face went white. I also told you I believe in punishment. And unless I very much miss my guess, this is the people we were supposed to be meeting. She felt Tisiphone's sudden understanding, and her smile was cold and thin. In this instance, I think justice can best be served by letting him explain himself to his friends, don't you?

Chapter Fifty-Three

The pages of Colonel McIlheny's latest report lay strewn about the carpet where Governor General Treadwell had flung them. Now the governor, his normally bland face an ugly shade of puce, half stood to lean across the conference table and glare at Rosario Gomez.

"I'm tired of excuses, Admiral," he grated. "If they are excuses and not a cover for something else. I find it remarkable that your units are so persistently elsewhere when these pirates strike!"

Gomez glared back at him with barely restrained fury, and he sneered.

"At best, your complete ineffectualness cost nine million lives on Elysium, and now this." His nostrils quivered as he inhaled harshly. "I suppose we should be grateful that the million-and-a-half people in Raphael weren't imperial subjects. No doubt you and your people are, at any rate. At least it didn't require you to face the enemy in combat!"

Rosario Gomez rose very slowly and put her own hands on the table. She leaned to meet him, her eyes flint, and her voice was very soft.

"Governor, you're a fool, and my people won't be the whipping boys for your failures."

"You're out of line, Admiral!" Treadwell snapped.

"I am not." Gomez's words were chipped ice. "Nothing in the Articles of War requires me to listen to insults simply because my political superior is under pressure. Your implication that I'm unconcerned by the massacre of civilians-any civilians, imperial or El Grecan-is almost as contemptible as your aspersions upon the integrity and courage of my personnel. If you're feeling pressure from Old Earth, then you have no one to blame but yourself, and I will not stand by and watch you try to shuffle the onus for your own failure off onto the uniformed people of my command!"

Her eyes were daggers, and the tip of one index finger tapped like a deadly metronome as she counted off points.

"I've stated the force levels I believe the situation requires. You have rejected my requests for them. I've shared with you every scrap of intelligence in our possession. You have failed to produce a single useful additional insight into it. I've stated repeatedly my belief, and that of my staff, that we've been penetrated at a high level, and you have disregarded the notion, despite what happened at Elysium. And although you now apparently feel free to besmirch the honor of people who have been working themselves into a state of exhaustion to find solutions, you have failed to suggest a single further avenue we might pursue.

"I believe it must be apparent to any outside judge that you have singularly failed to move one step closer to a solution of this problem, yet you feel free to call my people cowards? Oh, no, Governor Treadwell. Not on my watch. I will welcome any court of inquiry Fleet or the Ministry of Out-Worlds would care to nominate. In the meantime, your statements constitute more than sufficient grounds for a Court of Honor, and you may retract them or face one, Governor, because I will not submit to the slanders of a political appointee who has never commanded a fleet in space!"

Treadwell went absolutely white as the last salvo struck, and McIlheny held his breath. Fury smoked between those two granite profiles, and the colonel knew his admiral well. That last blow had been calculated with icy precision. The Iron Maiden didn't know what retreat was, but she was a just, fair-minded person, acutely sensitive to the total unfairness of such a remark. She knew precisely how wounding it would be, which said a great deal about her own emotional state. Yet it had been born of more than simple fury. It was a warning that there was a point beyond which Lady Rosario Gomez would not be pushed by God or the Devil, far less a mere imperial governor, and McIlheny prayed Treadwell retained enough control to recognize it.

Apparently he did. His knuckles pressed the tabletop as his hands clenched into fists, but he made himself sink back into his chair. Silence hung taut for a long moment, and then he exhaled a long breath.

"Very well, Lady Rosario." His voice was frozen helium, but the venom was suppressed, and Gomez resumed her own seat, eyes still locked with his. "I … regret any aspersions I may have cast upon your honor or that of your personnel. This-this slaughter has affected my judgment, but that neither excuses nor justifies my conduct. I apologize."

She nodded curtly, and he went on with that same frozen self-control.

"Nonetheless, and whatever our past force structure differences may have been, we now face a significantly graver position. The Empire hasn't suffered such casualties, military or civilian, since HRW-II, and the El Grecans' losses are proportionally far worse. You will, I trust, agree that it is no longer sufficient merely to deter or stop these raiders? That it has become imperative that we locate, pursue, and destroy them utterly?"

"I do," Admiral Gomez said shortly.

"Thank you." Treadwell produced a tight, bitter smile, devoid of any hint of warmth. "I may, perhaps, have been in error to oppose your earlier requests for lighter units. That, however, is now water under the bridge, and I have personally starcommed Countess Miller and Grand Duke Phillip to lay the situation before them. My impression is that they are fully aware of its seriousness, and the grand duke informs me that Senators Alwyn and Mojahek are pressing for a more vigorous response. I feel, therefore, that it has become far more likely that Lord Jurawski will respond favorably if I renew my request for additional battle squadrons with your support."

Gomez's lips thinned, and McIlheny felt her silent, sour bile. Months had passed while Treadwell held out for the heavier forces-months, he was certain, in which Gomez could have made major progress had her own, far more modest requests been met. They had not for one reason only: Treadwell had refused to endorse them. Deep inside, McIlheny knew, Gomez shared his suspicion that Treadwell saw this as his last opportunity to command, however indirectly, a major Fleet deployment, and he wondered how the governor's conscience could deal with the dead of Elysium and Ringbolt.

Not, perhaps, too well, judging by the exchange which had just ended.

Yet Treadwell was right in at least one respect. The situation had changed. The pirates, or whatever the hell they really were, had to be hunted down and destroyed, not merely stopped, and the political pressure to use whatever sledgehammer that required could no longer be ignored.

"I still feel that response is neither required nor the best available," Gomez said at last. She flicked her eyes briefly aside to Amos Brinkman, who had sat prudently silent throughout. He showed no inclination to break that silence now, and her gaze returned to Treadwell. "Nonetheless, Sir, anything that gets us off dead center is better than nothing. I will support you if you will also request an immediate dispatch of all available light units in the meantime."

Treadwell sat like a stone, his mouth as tight as her own, and matched her glower for glower. Then, at last, he nodded.

Soft music played in the background as Benjamin McIlheny leaned back and plucked at his lower lip. The latest report from his handpicked internal security commander lay on the desk before him, and it made disturbing reading.

Enough Elysium survivors had been interviewed to conclusively prove that Commodore Trang had been duped into letting the enemy into decisive range without even alerting the planet. The colonel had run every possible reason for such suicidal overconfidence through the tactical simulator, and only one of them made any sense. The pirates had to have been detected on the way in, and that meant they had to have been identified as friendly. And, given the high degree of alert the entire sector had maintained for months, no system commander could have been fooled. Therefore, the incoming warship must have been friendly … or else have arrived at such a time and under such circumstances that Trang's people had very good reason to "know" it was.

So. Either it had been a real Fleet unit, or else it had timed its arrival to coincide with a scheduled arrival by something that was. Only there had been no scheduled traffic. McIlheny knew, for he'd personally read every official communication to Elysium. There were many ways pirates could have gotten their hands on ex-Fleet hulls-some members of the Ministry had argued for years that Fleet disposal policies were badly in need of overhaul-yet that wouldn't have helped without proper transponder codes and a scheduled arrival. A low-level agent might have provided the codes or, at least, enough data to cobble up something that looked legitimate, but no one below flag rank could have engineered a false shipping report to open the door.

No. Someone of the rank of commodore or-McIlheny shuddered-higher must have inserted a fake schedule into Trang's routine message traffic. Someone with access to the authentication protocols required to sneak it in and the ability to abstract and wipe the routine acknowledgment Trang must have sent back. Worst of all, someone who knew there would be no heavy units in the system when the raiders arrived.

The penetration was worse than he'd thought. It was total. Whoever was behind it must have access to his own reports and Admiral Gomez's complete deployment orders-must even have known El Greco was pulling its units out of Ringbolt for maneuvers.

He closed his eyes in pain at the scale of the treason that implied, but it wasn't really a surprise. Not anymore.

All right. No more than forty people had access to all of that data, and he knew precisely who they were. Any one of them might, conceivably, have passed it to someone outside the loop who had the command authority to doctor Trang's starcom traffic, but if they could do that without his spotting them, their chain of communications had to be both short and hellishly well-hidden. In his own mind, it came down to no more than a dozen possible suspects … all of whom had passed every security check he could throw at them. It couldn't be one of them, and at the same time, it had to be.

He straightened and lifted a chip from his desk, weighing it in his fingers. Thank God he'd arranged a link to Keita. He was becoming so paranoid he no longer completely trusted even Admiral Gomez, and the deadly miasma of distrust and fear was getting to him. He'd started seeing assassins in every shadow, which was bad enough, if not as bad as the sense that nothing he did could stop the inexorable murder of civilians he was sworn to protect.

But worst of all was his absolute conviction that whatever twisted strategy lay behind these "pirates" was winding to its climax. Time was running out. If he couldn't break this open-if he wasn't permitted to live long enough to break it open-the vermin orchestrating the atrocities were going to succeed, and that was obscene.

He stood, face hard with purpose, and slipped the chip into his pocket beside the one already there. One would be dropped into his secret pipeline to Keita; the other would be delivered to Admiral Gomez, and both contained his conclusion that someone of flag rank was directly involved with the raiders. But unlike the one to Keita, Admiral Gomez's stated unequivocally that he would know the traitor's identity within the next few weeks.

Benjamin McIlheny was a Marine, bound by oath and conscience alike to lay down his life in defense of the Empire. He would deliver those chips, and then he would take a little vacation time … without extra security. It was the only way to test his theory, for if he was right, the traitor couldn't let him live. The attempt to silence him would confirm his theory for Sir Arthur, and Sir Arthur and the Cadre would know what to do with it.

And who knew? He might actually survive.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Alicia took aInother swallow and decided she'd been wrong; Ching-Hai did have one redeeming feature.

She rolled the chill bottle across her forehead and savored the rich, clean taste of the beer. Monsieur Labin's offices boasted what passed for air-conditioning on Ching-Hai, but the temperature was still seven degrees higher than the one Megaira maintained aboard ship. No doubt the climate helped explain the locals' excellent breweries.

The old-fashioned office door rattled, and she straightened in her chair, lowering the bottle as Gustav Labin, Yerensky's Ching-Hai agent, stepped through it. Unlike Alicia's, his round, bland face was dry, but he didn't even crack a smile as she wiped a fresh drop of sweat from her nose. Not because he lacked the normal Ching-Haian's amusement at off-worlders' want of heat tolerance, but because he was afraid of her. Indeed, he regarded her with a certain fixed dread, as if she were a warhead which might choose to detonate any time. He'd been looking at her that way ever since he arrived to find her sitting amid the ruins of the botched hijacking, and Tisiphone had needed only a single handshake to confirm that Labin had known nothing of his (now deceased) partner's intentions … and that "Captain Mainwaring's" reputation as a dangerous woman had been made forever.

Now he lowered himself into his chair and cleared a nervous throat.

"I've completed the manifest verification, Captain. It checks perfectly, as-" he hastened to add "-I was certain it would." He drew a credit transfer chip from a drawer. "The balance of your payment, Captain."

"Thank you, Monsieur. It's been a pleasure." Alicia kept her face straight, but it was hard. Those poor, half-assed hijackers had been totally beyond their depth. Killing, even in self-defense and even of scum like that, never sat easily with her afterward, yet Labin's near terror amused her. If he ever saw a regular Cadre assault he'd die on the spot.

And the universe would be a better place for it, Tisiphone observed. This man is a worm, Little One.

Now, now. He's all of that, but he's also our ticket to Dewent … whenever he gets around to mentioning it.

The Fury sniffed, but it was her probe which had discovered Labin's shipment. Given its nature and the stature Alicia enjoyed in his eyes, they hadn't even had to "push" him into seeing her as the perfect carrier.

"Ah, yes. A pleasure for me, as well, Captain. And allow me to apologize once more. I assure you neither Anton nor I ever suspected my colleague might attempt to attack you."

"I never thought otherwise," Alicia murmured, and he managed a smile.

"I'm glad. And, of course, impressed. Indeed, Captain, I have another small consignment, one which must be delivered to Dewent, and your, um, demonstrated expertise could be very much a plus to me. It's quite a valuable cargo, and I've been concerned over its security. Concerned enough," he leaned forward a bit, "to pay top credit to a reliable carrier."

"I see." Alicia sipped more beer, then shook her head. "It sounds to me like you think your 'concern' could end in more shooting, Monsieur, and I prefer not to carry cargoes I know are going to attract hijacks."

"I understand entirely, and I may be worrying over nothing. Certainly I have no solid evidence of any danger. I merely prefer to be safe rather than sorry, and I'm willing to invest a bit in security. I thought, perhaps, an increase of fifteen percent over your fee to Anton might be appropriate?"

"My fee to Mister Yerensky didn't include combat expenses," Alicia pointed out, "and shuttle missiles are hard to come by out here. I expect replacing expenditures to cut into my profit margin on this trip."

"Twenty percent, then?"

"I don't know … ." Alicia allowed her voice to trail off. Thanks to Tisiphone, she knew Labin was willing to go to thirty or even thirty-five percent to secure her services, and while she wasn't particularly interested in running up the price, neither did she wish to appear too eager. Tisiphone could shape his decisions, but she couldn't guarantee something wouldn't come along later and make him wonder why he'd chosen a given course.

"Twenty-five," Labin offered.

"Make it thirty," she said. Labin winced but nodded, and she smiled. "In that case, if I may use your com?" She reached for the terminal, and Labin sat back as she entered a code. A moment later, the screen lit with Ruth Tanner's face.

"Yes, Captain?" Megaira asked in Tanner's voice.

"We've got a new charter, Ruth. We'll be headed to Dewent for Monsieur Labin. Ready to crunch a few numbers?"

"Of course, Captain."

"Good." Alicia turned the terminal to face Labin and leaned back. "If you'll be good enough to settle the details with my purser, Monsieur?"

I do not like this cargo, Tisiphone groused.

"I'm not crazy about it myself," Alicia replied, frowning at the chessboard. She and Megaira had taught the Fury the game, and Alicia and Tisiphone were surprisingly well-matched, though it took both of them together just to lose to the AI.

None of us are, Megaira put in, but we needed one going to Dewent.

"Exactly." Alicia nodded and started to reach for a knight.

Wouldn't do that, Alley, Megaira whispered. Her bishop'll-

Will you two cease that?!

Cease what, Tis? Megaira asked innocently.

You know very well what. Or did you truly think you could think so softly I would not hear you?

"It wath worth a try," Lieutenant Chisholm said from a speaker. "And only a nathty, thuthpithous perthon would have been lithening, anyway."

No one except one who knows you, you mean.

Alicia bit her lip against a giggle, but she didn't quite dare take advantage of Megaira's kibitzing now. So she moved her knight, instead, and sighed as Tisiphone's bishop lashed out and captured her king's rook.

Check, the Fury said smugly.

"You really are a nasty person. If I was virtuous enough not to listen to Megaira, you could've reciprocated by leaving my poor rook alone."

Nonsense. You yourself call this a "war game," and one does not surrender an honorably gained advantage in war, Little One. Nor, I suppose, the mental voice grew more thoughtful, even a dishonorably gained advantage.

"Absolutely," Alicia said sweetly, and captured the bishop with her other knight … simultaneously forking Tisiphone's king and queen. It exposed her own queen's bishop, but that was fine with her. The only square to which Tisiphone could move her king was one knight's move from her queen. "Check yourself."

By golly, I didn't even notice that one! Megaira observed in a tone of artful innocence while the Fury seethed.

"Neither did I," Alicia asserted with a grin. Tisiphone moved her king, and Alicia took her queen. "Check," she said again, and used the breathing space to move her bishop out of danger.

Hmph! And Odysseus was a credulous fool. Yet we have wandered from my earlier point, Little One. Advantage or no, I dislike this cargo of ours.

"I know," Alicia sighed, and she did know.

Anton Yerensky's cargo to Ching-Hai had been illegal but essentially beneficial; Gustav Labin's cargo to Dewent was also pharmaceutical, but that was the sole similarity. "Dreamy White" was harmless enough to its users, aside from a hundred percent rate of addiction, but it was hideously expensive … and even more hideously obtained. It was an endorphin derivative, and while it could be produced in the lab, there were far cheaper ways. Most Dreamy White was harvested from the brains of human beings, with consequences for the "donor" which ranged from massive retardation and motor control loss to death.

We should not have taken it, the Fury said grimly.

"Aren't you the one who told me anything we do in pursuit of vengeance is acceptable?" Alicia's voice was sharper than intended-because, she knew, Tisiphone was simply saying what all of them felt-yet she could taste the other's surprise as her own words were thrown back at her.

Perhaps. Yet you were the one who argued for "justice," Tisiphone shot back gamely. How can this be just?

"I don't know that it is," Alicia said more slowly, "but I also don't see that we have any choice. And it's certainly the kind of cargo that'll get us in with the people we need to infiltrate."

The Fury's silence was an unhappy acceptance, and Alicia wondered if Tisiphone was as aware as she of the irony of their positions. She, who believed passionately in justice, had compromised her principles in the pursuit of her prey, leaving it to the Fury, who spoke only of vengeance, to question the morality of their gruesome cargo.

Perhaps, Tisiphone repeated at last. Yet perhaps there is something after all to this concept of law, as well. Man had turned his hand to evils enough when my sisters and I were one, but all of them pale beside those he has the tools to wreak today, and not even my vengeance can undo an evil once committed. So perhaps this justice, these "rules" of yours, are more important than once I thought.

Alicia sat still, eyes widening to hear the Fury admit even a part of her argument, but she felt a tugging at her right hand. She relinquished control and watched it reach out to advance a rook.

Guard yourself, Little One! You may have slowed my attack, but you have not stopped it.

Alicia smiled and bent over the board once more, yet there was a chill in her heart, for she knew Tisiphone referred to far more than a chess game.

Dewent was a much nicer planet than Ching-Hai, Alicia thought. In part, that was because it was much wetter, a world of archipelagoes and island continents, and cooler, but it was also closer to civilized. Not a great deal closer, perhaps, yet no one had attempted to rob or kill her, and that was a definite improvement.

Unlike Ching-Hai, Dewent had a customs service, but it was concerned only with insuring that the local government got its cut on outgoing cargoes, and Alicia had set the cargo shuttle neatly down at Dewent's main spaceport unmolested by anything so crass as an inspection. The Bengal had grounded beside her like a garishly-painted shadow or a pointed hint that politeness would be wise, but it stayed sealed. Alicia had been at some pains to maintain an open com link to it, chattering away with "Jeff Okahara," its ostensible pilot and "Star Runner's" executive officer, and Okahara's return chatter had made no bones about what would happen to anyone who wasn't polite.

Two hours later, she stood in a port warehouse while her receiver examined his cargo. Edward Jacoby looked like a respectable accountant, but he clearly knew what he was about. He needed no biochemist to test the drugs for purity; the six men standing around the warehouse were there for another reason. Few weapons were in evidence, but these men were far more dangerous than the bumbling hijackers of Ching-Hai. More, Alicia had seen their eyes as they flicked over her and recognized a fellow predator.

Jacoby finished his tests and began putting away his equipment. He didn't smile-he didn't seem the sort for smiles-but he looked satisfied.

"Well, Captain Mainwaring," he said as the last instrument vanished, "I was a bit anxious when Gustav starcommed that he was using a complete unknown, but his judgment was excellent. How would you like payment?"

"I think I'd prefer an electronic transfer, this time," she replied. "I'd rather not carry around a credit chip quite that large."

One of Jacoby's guards made a sound suspiciously like a chuckle, and the merchant came as close to a smile as he probably ever did. His eyes dropped to her holstered CHK and the knife hilt protruding from her left boot-the only weapons she'd chosen to let anyone see-but he simply nodded.

"As wise as you are efficient, I see. Very well, my accountant will complete the transfer at your convenience."

"Thank you."

Alicia's smile was dazzling. Try as she might, she'd been unable to disagree with Tisiphone's verdict on their cargo, but after considerable thought, she and her companions had hit upon a way to salve their consciences. Alicia was too honest to think it was anything more, yet it was better than nothing. When Ruth Tanner executed that credit transfer from Jacoby's house computers, Megaira and Tisiphone intended to raid his system for every off-world shipping contact. So armed, the AI should be able to determine which were legitimate (assuming any were) and which were likely to receive shipments of Dreamy White in the near future, and Alicia intended to starcom the appropriate local authorities from their next stop. That wouldn't get Jacoby himself, but no one wanted Dreamy White on his planet, and the consequences for his distribution network should be … extreme.

"Well!" Jacoby closed the case with a snap and nodded to one of his men, who began hauling the two counter-gravity pallets towards the security area. "Tell, me, Captain, would you join me for lunch? I'm always looking for reliable carriers-we might well be able to do some more business."

"Lunch, certainly, but unless your business is going in the right direction, I'm afraid I'll have to give that a pass." And she hoped to God she could; she wanted to carry no more mass death in her hold.

"Ah?" Jacoby regarded her with a thoughtful expression. "What direction would that be, Captain?"

"I've got a charter commitment waiting on Cathcart," Alicia lied. Cathcart was an extremely respectable Rogue World, and she had no intention of going anywhere near it, but it lay almost directly beyond Wyvern.

"Cathcart, Cathcart," Jacoby murmured, then shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I don't have anything bound in that direction just now. Still, there's something …"

His voice trailed off in thought, and then he snapped his fingers.

"Of course! One of my associates has a consignment for Wyvern. Would that be of interest to you?"

"Wyvern?" Alicia managed to keep the excitement out of her voice and cocked her head in thought. "That might fit in nicely, if we're not talking about too much cubage. Star Runner's forte is speed, not bulk."

"That shouldn't be a problem. I have the impression speed is of the essence in this case, and while it's fairly massive it's also low bulk-military spares and molycircuitry, I believe. But we could check; Lewis and I share warehousing facilities here. Step this way a moment."

Alicia followed him, fighting to contain her exultation. Wyvern and military supplies? It was too good to be true! She managed to keep her thoughts from showing as they crossed a more heavily traveled portion of the warehouse, but her brain was busy. She paused to let a warehouse tractor putter past, towing a line of empty pallets, so wrapped in her tumbling thoughts she didn't even look up when the small, almost painfully nondescript driver glanced her way. She told herself not to get her hopes up, that it was probably mere coincidence, but it certainly sounded like -

They reached their destination, and Jacoby pointed out the stacked pallets of the shipment. He was speaking to her, describing their contents in greater detail, but Alicia didn't hear him. She heard nothing at all, and it couldn't have mattered less. Whatever those details were, there was no way in the galaxy she would allow anyone else to carry this cargo.

Maintaining her politely interested smile was the hardest thing she had ever done, for hunger seethed behind her eyes, mirrored and fanned by Tisiphone's reaction, as her gaze devoured the racks beside the pallets. They bore the same shipper's codes, but their red tags, marked with the dragon-like customs stamp of Wyvern, indicated an incoming shipment. Rack after rack, an incredible number of them, and she could see why they were in the security area … for each of them was heavy with the priceless, snow-white pelts of the deadly carnivore known as Mathison's Direcat.