CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

So,” Ky said. “You want to partner with Vatta Enterprises, Ltd., or with me personally, or with me and Stella and Toby, or what?”

“You’re in command now, aren’t you? I believe in going to the top. I’d like to partner with you.”

“Stella’s going to be my G-2,” Ky said. She wondered if he knew the term.

“Good choice,” Rafe said. “You’ll want to have her vet the contract, I’m sure. Shall I write out what I’d like to see, since you don’t have an implant?”

“Go ahead,” Ky said. She called Stella, who arrived with a model contract already drafted. Rafe glanced at it. “This is fine,” he said. When it was signed and recorded, he stood and stretched.

“I would rather not run my inquiries from here,” Rafe said. “Your security may be as good as you paid for, but I don’t want any back-traces.”

“You have an idea who it is.”

“An idea. No data. If the idea’s right, then they have the same or better tech than I do.”

“Better tech than ISC?”

“Better tech than I’ve been given. If you could direct me to a bathroom, so I can put my face back on—”

“Down that passage, second left,” Ky said.

“Captain, there’s a call for you on the bridge.”

“Coming,” Ky said. “All right, Rafe, go find out what you can. If ISC’s whole local office is bent—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but it could be. How long should I wait before rousing the troops?”

“The troops you don’t have? Don’t worry unless I’m not back in a full day cycle.”

“All right. And where should we look for the body if you’re not?”

“If I knew, I’d be safer. Just don’t . . . get into trouble while I’m gone.”

“I’ll do my best. See you then. Call us from the perimeter—you can ping Stella, right?”

“Right.”

On the bridge, Lee was holding an open contact with an odd expression on his face. “It’s a Mackensee ship,” he said. “Do you want to talk to them?”

“I wish I could afford to hire them,” Ky said, wondering if the value of Stella’s contribution would make that possible. Probably not. She sat in her command seat and flicked on her screen. “Captain Vatta here, go ahead.”

“This is Captain Pensig, Mackensee Military Assistance ship Gloucester. I understand you are the same Captain Vatta who had a contract with Mackensee at Sabine?”

“That’s right,” Ky said. She hoped that contract wasn’t under dispute somehow; they had seemed quite cordial when she left them.

“We’re having a . . . a sort of situation has come up, Captain Vatta, and the officer commanding our mobile force would like to confer with you.”

“With me?”

“Yes, Captain. I’m not sure if you’re aware of Mackensee command structure: the ship crews and the mobile forces are, perforce, in different branches, as it were . . .”

“Are you here because there’s a war on?” Ky asked. Enough fencing around; she wanted something solid.

“No, no, nothing like that. I mean, nothing other than whatever’s attacking ISC installations. We’re here on what should have been a routine mission, rotating personnel in and out of the local recruiting and consulting station. But something’s come up . . . the ansible failure, among other things . . .”

“I see,” Ky said, to fill in the long silence. “And your OIC wants to talk to me? What does he—she—think I can do?”

“I’m not sure. As I said, he’s not in my chain of command, in fact he’s . . . fairly junior . . . but he asked me to contact you, ship to ship. The . . . uh . . . officer who would normally be in charge developed a medical problem and is in cryosuspension. Would you be willing to meet with him?”

“Certainly,” Ky said. “But I’m not leaving my ship at present. Where are you docked?”

“Five Alpha Blue. I’m sure you’d like to speak to him by com before meeting in person . . .”

“Yes, thank you,” Ky said.

“Just a moment then. I’ll have him paged.”

Ky wondered why the other officer wasn’t standing by, but the vidscreen of the Mackensee bridge made it clear he wasn’t. His face, when he appeared, looked much younger than she expected.

“Captain Vatta, this is Lieutenant Mason of the Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation; he is the ranking combat forces officer presently in the system.” The ship captain could have been Lieutenant Mason’s father.

“Captain Pensig, I’ll talk to Captain Vatta alone,” the young man said. A slow flush mounted Captain Pensig’s neck, visible on the scan.

“Of course, Lieutenant Mason,” Pensig said with grave courtesy. “The com officer will seal the line.” He stepped back out of vid pickup range, and the margins of the screen flickered then steadied as someone walked through the security curtain.

“You don’t look like I expected,” said Lieutenant Mason. He didn’t, either; Ky had met only a few of the Mackensee officers before, but all of them had the kind of hard edge she expected from experienced military personnel. This young man did not; he belonged in a shipping office, someplace where everything fit into a routine.

“What did you expect?” she asked. And why should you expect anything, she wondered silently.

“Someone taller,” he said. “Older, maybe.” She looked at his face, and felt considerably older than he looked. “You had a contract with us—with Mackensee—after all . . .”

So the tales told, whatever they were, had not emphasized youth and inexperience. That had to be good for something.

“So what did you want, Lieutenant Mason?”

“I’d . . . uh . . . like to talk to you. I am the ranking Mackensee officer in this system.” She could hear both surprise and pride in that. “I’ve heard of you—we all have. And I have a dilemma that you may be able to help with.”

“I don’t think we have a lot of extra resources, Lieutenant.”

“I was thinking we might combine resources . . .”

“How?”

“Ma’am, I’d really like to talk to you in person, in a secure location. Could you come aboard our ship?”

“Er . . . no, thank you. I prefer to stay on my ship. You could come here.” That would give her time to find out a bit more about Mackensee on this station.

“All right. I’ll come right over.”

“But watch for trouble on the docks.”

A sound of throat clearing, followed by “Ma’am, I don’t expect I’ll have any trouble. I’ll bring a squad . . .”

As soon as she was offline, Ky called Martin to the bridge and told him about the call.

“Mercs want to talk to us?” he said. “That’s very interesting. I wonder what kind of problem they think we can help with.”

“I have no idea,” Ky said. “But they’ll be here soon, and I’d like you to sit in.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Less than an hour later, the external scans lived up to their reputation and programming by signaling the arrival of “multiple armed individuals in body armor.” In the midst of ten Mackensee soldiers in nonpressure armor, faceplates closed, was their lieutenant, dwarfed by their imposing presence. Martin met them, gave the lieutenant a nod as crisp as a salute, and led him to the ship entrance.

Ky opened the lock and extended the access tube. “Lieutenent Mason, welcome to Dockside Vatta.”

“My escort will remain here,” the lieutenant said. He matched his appearance on the vidcom. “May I come aboard?”

“Yes, of course,” Ky said. Inside the ship, she took him to the rec area and settled him at a table. Martin stood at ease by the hatch to the galley. The lieutenant refused refreshments, sitting bolt upright in his chair, lips pursed tightly.

“Well,” Ky said, when he did nothing for several seconds. “Spit it out—what did you want to talk about?”

He glanced at Martin. “That man—”

“Is discreet and honest, Lieutenant Mason. That’s all you need to know.”

To her surprise, Mason flushed red, but he started in. “Here’s the situation, ma’am. The local station director says that the ansibles here are up and running, but we aren’t getting any messages. Any at all. We’ve sent them out, but we don’t know if our people are receiving them. Maybe the ansibles are blocked where they are. I—we can’t leave without orders; we don’t know where to go. And . . . we’re running out of credit.”

“Wait a minute,” Ky said. “What are you doing here in the first place? Did you have a contract to come here?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Lastway’s a good place to pick up contracts; that’s why we have a recruiting station and consulting office here. Out on the edge of settled space, like this, things are . . . a bit looser, if you know what I mean. You have arms deals . . . there’s MilMartExchange, you know about them . . . the largest purveyor of new and used military heavy weaponry and equipment . . . out here at the Fringe. When . . . someone . . . is thinking of fighting a war, they often come here to stock up on equipment. You must have gone by our recruiting station . . .”

“Yes.”

“It’s also the local consulting office. Whatever people say about mercs, ma’am, Mackensee is a quality outfit, platinum all the way. We don’t sell war, we sell expertise to people who otherwise will get themselves in unnecessary wars and cause a lot of damage.”

“Really . . .” That sounded like something he’d memorized from a brochure. Ky struggled not to glance at Martin and see what he thought of this spiel.

“Yes, ma’am. The Old Man says the only good war is the one that doesn’t happen—that’s why we like to take advisement contracts, not combat ones, if we can. And if the war has to come, better it be fought by people on payroll, because then the costs are calculable.” More advertising language.

“How many actions have you been in, Lieutenant?” Something about the young man’s glib delivery was making Ky wonder if he’d ever shot at anything but a target.

“Er . . . none yet, ma’am. But I’ve had two years of training, one at the Mackensee Combat Simulation and Practice Range.”

“I see. What made you join Mackensee?”

He shrugged. “Oh, the usual. Got in trouble, the judge said jail or mail, and I picked mail. I was lucky; Mackensee made me finish school after I went through boot, and my scores qualified me for their officer training.”

Ky thought they should have run him through a war first, but after all, she’d qualified for Slotter Key’s supposedly elite Space Academy on test scores and school grades. And look how that had turned out.

“So . . . you’re the ranking officer. Were you commanding here, on Lastway Station, or—”

“No, ma’am. I’m—I was the payroll escort officer, coming from our corporate headquarters out to Lastway . . . Major Delinn was the OIC in charge here, and Captain Oscone was in charge of troops aboard the two ships. When the ansibles went out, we were at Teglin Junction. Captain Oscone diverted one of the ships back to HQ to get new orders and put me in charge of the troops as well. Then when I got here, about two days later, Major Delinn suffered an arterial blowout and had to be put in cryosuspension because there’s no medical facility here that can handle that kind of thing. And that left . . . me.”

He sounded both scared and excited. “How many do you have in your command?” Ky asked.

“Ninety-two, all told, not counting ship crews. It’s more than a lieutenant usually has, of course. There’s twenty in the recruiting station and consulting office, another twenty in the rotation that was coming in to relieve them, and then the ships’ complements of troops. They’re not even the same organization, you see . . .”

And a payroll escort officer shall lead them . . . maybe. “How many ships do you have here?”

“Two. There’s a courier with the payroll, and a sheepdog to guard it. Not one of the big cruisers, of course, but well armed and capable of handling anything but major ships of the line. The other ship was much the same, the one the captain took back to HQ.”

“So what do you think I can do to help you?” Ky asked.

“I was thinking you could hire us,” he said. “I mean, we hear that someone’s attacking Vatta ships and people and things. We could protect you. Then you—Vatta, I mean—would be guarantors for our support onstation.”

Much as she’d wanted to hire Mackensee, this young man did not inspire confidence. She hedged. “Are you—forgive me for asking an awkward question—but are you entitled to make contractual agreements on Mackensee’s behalf?”

“Master Sergeant Dolan says I am—I mean, it’s in the regulations. The ranking officer may make binding contracts provided that such contracts are in the best interests of Mackensee.”

“And how many personnel in ship crews?” Ky asked, thinking that probably explained why they were running short of cash even if they’d brought the payroll. She wondered how big it was. She had no idea what it cost to support a military unit in idleness, a topic not covered in the Slotter Key Space Academy.

“Fifteen in the courier, and probably a hundred in the other. Why? They aren’t my problem.”

They were his problem, and he was a very stupid junior officer if he couldn’t see it.

“What sort of contract were you thinking of?” Ky asked.

“Like I said, we could protect you. You were attacked, right?”

“Yes, but as you can see I’m fine,” Ky said.

“Yes, but if you had guards, it wouldn’t have happened. And you were nearly killed, they said.”

“Who?”

“The Garda.” He reddened suddenly. “The . . . uh . . . Garda have an arrangement with Mackensee. Long-standing understanding.”

“I see,” Ky said. “So you know what they know?”

“Some, anyway. Master Sergeant Dolan does.”

Ky felt a strong desire to talk to Master Sergeant Dolan instead of Lieutenant Mason, but she was sure Dolan couldn’t negotiate contracts.

“So can we make a deal?” Mason asked.

“Patience, Lieutenant,” Ky said. She felt years older than this young man. “I have to assess my needs, and you have to tell me what your rates are. Whatever you’ve heard, merchanters aren’t made of money, and we don’t have unlimited funds. Aren’t you people usually hired by whole planets?”

“Yes, but you’re not getting an entire expeditionary force . . . you’re just getting us.”

“Suppose you present a formal proposal, Lieutenant, with estimates of the cost to us, and I’ll go over it with my financial officer and see if we can come to an agreement. I have no objection in principle to hiring Mackensee for a job of work, but I’m not going to give verbal agreement to an open-ended contract with no details specified. Surely you have a good clerk NCO who can draw up a sample . . .”

“Oh. Of course. Yes, ma’am, I do. Perhaps Master Sergeant Roth . . . he’d know. Can he . . . uh . . . just ping your implant?”

“I don’t have an implant,” Ky said. “Why not have Roth work something up, get your approval on it, and bring it over to discuss?”

“Yes, ma’am, I can do that.” He seemed much cheerier with a definite plan in mind, but then most people were. Ky would be much happier when she had a definite plan in mind. “Can we do this . . . uh . . . soon?” he went on.

Curiosity and amusement pushed her past tact. “Just how short of funds are you, Lieutenant?” Ky asked.

He reddened and for a moment she thought he was going to cry. “I—they—they just cut us off short, like that, and I know the ship captains have been after me to do something, but what could I do? I was trying to do the captain’s work and the major’s work and I didn’t know where anything was, and Dolan and Roth kept looking at me like I was a five-year-old and finally Dolan said why not ask you—actually he said that two days ago, but I thought maybe if I just talked to the bank—we’ve always had a good credit rating, and maybe a message would come through from home . . .”

Twit, Ky thought. It surprised her that Mackensee had ever taken this one in, but maybe he had unexpected talents elsewhere . . . somewhere.

“I asked,” Ky said again, this time with a little edge to it, “how short you are. Are your people going to have food for the next meal, for instance?”

“Uh . . . maybe.”

Ky rolled mental eyes, and equally mental dice, and came to a decision she wasn’t ready to share yet. “Send me your Master Sergeant Roth,” she said, as if Lieutenant Mason were her subordinate. “Do it quickly.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “And can I say anything to the troops?”

Idiot. “No,” she said. “Not now. Get Roth over here.”

“I’ll call him from dockside,” Lieutenant Mason said. She sent him away looking much happier, and looked at Martin.

“He must have got in trouble for stealing candy from babies,” Martin said. “He doesn’t have enough gumption for anything else.”

“Is he really that bad?” Ky asked. “I kept wanting to smack him, but—”

“Not officer material,” Martin said. “Not in my books. Mercs may have different standards.”

“Slotter Key has no dim-witted officers?”

“Well, no . . . I mean, yes, they do, a few. I suppose he might have slipped by for some other reason.”

“So, what do you think about his proposal?”

“If they’re messed up enough that they’re about to give the troops nail soup, they may not be any help.”

“They were better at Sabine,” Ky said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “Maybe it’s just the one young fool.”

Ky called for Stella.

“You’re looking lively,” Stella said. “What’s going on with those soldiers on the dock? Did the station finally come to its senses and give us official guard?”

“No. That’s Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation. The people I contracted with at Sabine, after they invaded the system, and the people whose surgeons extracted my implant.”

“The ones who nearly killed you.”

“That was my own crewman,” Ky said. “I don’t blame Mackensee for that, though I wish I knew how much data they pulled from my implant. It was only the Vatta basic, not the full dataset, but still. Anyway. Through a series of mishaps, their local leadership is down to one very junior lieutenant, who was supposed to escort their payroll here . . . and is now in command. And overwhelmed and underfunded.”

“He has the payroll—”

“But the banks have shut them down on credit, and the payroll intended for twenty doesn’t last long when you’re trying to support almost a hundred. He wants us to contract with them for protection, so that we can feed his hungry men and women.”

“Protection . . .”

“Thing is, Stella, I thought about trying to work something with Mackensee before. They have the expertise, the weapons, the trained personnel. We could use them.”

“Can we afford them?”

“Exactly what I need to know. Stella, I’m assigning you as financial officer, as well as G-2. You know what you brought into this. I’ll tell you what we’ve got—” She called up the figures from the trading they’d done and the remains of Aunt Gracie’s fruitcake diamonds. “We need to provision this ship, and decide what upgrades we can afford with and without hiring the Mackensee group. I’ll be talking to one of their senior NCOs shortly, someone with more sense than that lieutenant. Give me some numbers.”

“Right,” Stella said. “I can do that. Fifteen minutes . . . you had the list of upgrades already loaded, right?”

“Right.”

Rafe came back before Master Sergeant Roth arrived.

“Did you know the dockside area is full of big, noisy, obvious soldiers?” he asked Ky.

“Yes, of course,” Ky said.

“I hope you don’t think they’re better protection,” Rafe said. “They didn’t notice me coming until I was close enough to lob any sort of weapon—”

“I wasn’t counting on them for protection from sneaks,” Ky said. “And I’d told them you were coming. What did you find out?”

“The local ISC rep is crooked as a corkscrew,” Rafe said with relish. “The ansible is open all right—to him and whoever he’s in contact with, but he’s blocking all incoming and outgoing messages at will. He’s got a probe into what are supposed to be unbreakable automatic systems. I can’t tell yet if the next jump-point ansibles from here are really down, or if he’s programmed this one to think they’re down. That would take me several days. There are at least five in the deal on this end, though: the director, all three technical heads—one per shift—and a weasel in the records section. That one tried to convince me faked records were real, and of course I believed him—to his face.”

“Won’t they suspect something if you’re trying to bribe the records . . . er . . . weasel?”

“How’d you know—well, yes. They’ll know I want information. From the look on his face, he’s been taking bribes from everyone onstation who wants to know what’s going on. The shoes he’s wearing, the jewelry . . . he’s rolling in more money than someone at his level ever makes. But with everyone asking, another one asking is just another source of money—he doesn’t suspect who or what I am.” He cocked his head. “Aren’t you going to tell me about the soldiers?”

“There’s nothing to tell yet.” Ky sighed as he continued to look at her attentively. “No, I’m not going to tell you. When there is something to tell you, then I will.”

“You are entirely too cautious, Captain Vatta. I must admire that caution, inconvenient as it is for me. Where is the fair Stella?”

“Busy,” Ky said. “And your next project is?”

“Something I’m afraid you can’t help with,” he said. “I would give my left arm—or at least a couple of fingers—to get hold of a bit of technology no one is supposed to have yet. Ever hear of a pin ansible?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Ky said. “But I don’t have one.”

His eyes had widened, now they narrowed. “Where did you hear of it?”

“Never mind that . . . what’s it good for?”

“An ansible you can mount on a ship,” he said. “And more important, an ansible that allows real-time communications while you’re in FTL flight.”

Ky stuffed her first thought, That’s impossible, back in her mouth and said again, “That would be quite an improvement in communications . . . just having a shipboard ansible would be an advance.”

“Yes. And those do exist. The full-capability ones, those you can use in FTL flight, were in development the last I heard. But I suspect they now exist.”

“So why isn’t ISC bragging about this and selling them for vastly inflated prices?” Ky asked.

“Come, Captain, you have more business sense than that. I hope. ISC derives its revenues from per-message charges through the current ansible system—we don’t sell ansibles, ever.”

“Yes, but this is something that would make a bundle—”

“Comparatively? We would have to price it very high indeed, and we would be subject to competition, I’ve no doubt.”

“Yes . . .” Ky thought about it. “So you’re saying that there is a strong motive for ISC to freeze technological development that would risk its monopoly?”

He smiled at her. “I would not ever say that, Captain, because that would be revealing company secrets. Should you come to that conclusion on your own, I can’t stop you.”

Ky grinned back. “I’m glad we’re temporarily on the same side.”

“The thing is, if I had a pin ansible now, I could easily find out whether the more distant transfer lines are really blocked, or software clogged. As it is, I have to risk tapping into the station director’s control lines, and if he’s at all suspicious, he’ll realize someone’s snooping.”

Quincy called Ky on the ship com. “Can we find a time to talk?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’m concerned about something.”

“Now, or a couple of hours? I’m expecting a visitor I really need to see.”

“Couple of hours is fine.”

Master Sergeant Roth fit Ky’s model for Mackensee much better than the callow lieutenant. Ky noticed that he and Martin looked each other over and came to some apparently favorable mutual conclusion. Roth brought with him a variety of Mackensee contracts. “Captain, I’m glad to meet you. Heard from our people at Sabine you did a fine job coping with those pirates.”

“Not much choice, Master Sergeant. Your lieutenant tells me you’re in a real bind here.”

The look on Roth’s face was eloquent. Ky remembered it well from MacRobert. “The lieutenant is . . . not too experienced,” he said.

“Your OIC had a medical emergency?”

“He told you that?” Roth scowled. “He doesn’t—sorry, ma’am. But he shouldn’t have.”

“Well, let’s see what you have,” Ky said. “We both seem to have a situation that would benefit from cooperation.”

“Thing is, we can’t get through to our headquarters,” Roth said. “We aren’t sure that the local ansible manager is being straight with us.”

“He’s not,” Ky said.

“You know that?” His eyebrows shot up.

“I have sources,” Ky said.

“Your own G-2?”

“You could put it that way.” She wasn’t going to compromise Rafe’s situation if possible. “We know he’s not straight, but we haven’t defined how bad it is.”

“So . . . what are your mission parameters?”

“My mission priorities are what you’d expect,” Ky said. “Survive, find other surviving Vattas and protect them, find out who’s doing this and how, and intervene.”

“Makes sense to me, Captain. You seem to have the intelligence; we have muscle. What would your strategy be if we were partners in this?”

“Unblock Lastway’s ansibles first, then work out from there. Collect a surcharge from other users to bankroll the project that far. If we’re out in space, we’re harder to find; if we unblock communications, it’ll be easier to figure out who’s blocking them. Once the financial ansibles start coming online, trade should resume, including bank transfers, which will make everyone’s life easier, including yours.”

“So you’d like us to do what?”

“Be the muscle you are. This ship is old, slow, unshielded, unarmed. I’d rather spend money hiring you than trying to turn it into a warship. But I don’t have much. As you may have heard, most accounts are frozen, not just yours. We have the money we made in trade, selling the cargo we had when we came.”

“Ma’am, if you can provision us, I believe the Old Man would not be displeased at a contract that put us back in contact with our people.”

“I believe I can do that, Master Sergeant. But what about your lieutenant? Will he sign off on this?”

“I certainly hope so. Our ship captains aren’t directly in his chain of command, but they’ll lean on him.”

“Another thing,” Ky said. “I’ve had a subcontract under Mackensee, but I’ve never been the contract holder. Who calls the shots in something like this? You? Your OIC? The ship captains?”

“Employer defines the mission, but has no direct command of Mackensee personnel. Ship captains command ship crew in space; troop commanders command troops but under the captains in space, and independently otherwise. In something like this, I’d advise stationing a Mackensee NCO as liaison aboard your ship, and your communications would be through him or her to our senior ship captain in space, or to the OIC otherwise. Would you anticipate any station or groundside actions?”

“Possibly station, not groundside. I would, however, like the option of direct consultation with your ship captains, captain to captain, should anything come up in space. If they’re protecting my ship, they may need to give me data quickly—”

“Oh, that’s fine. It’s just that you can’t tell them what to do, other than to carry out the mission you assigned in the first place.”

“Then let’s get it nailed down, get your lieutenant to sign off on it, and I’ll contact the banks to release funds. I presume you’d rather provision yourself than have civ do it—”

“Yes, ma’am, that would be ideal. Our immediate need is for rations; if the captain will take my advice, release just enough for, say, three days’ rations for a hundred troops, then your liaison can contact the ship captains and find out their needs. That would come to—” He looked blank a moment. “—just under five thousand credits.”

“Fine,” Ky said.

“There’s just a couple of things,” Roth said. “I’m sure it’s not a problem; you had a contract with us before. I know your record. But it’s something I have to say, since you’re the primary contractor here; please don’t take offense.”

“All right,” Ky said, wondering what was coming.

“Are you now or have you ever been engaged in slave trading?”

“No!” She could not keep the shock out of her voice.

“Sorry, ma’am, I’m sure these don’t apply; it’s just routine. I have to ask; it’s regulations.” He looked embarrassed but went on to the next. “Are you now or have you ever been engaged in transporting goods you knew to be stolen?”

“No.” Now that she knew the kinds of questions coming, it was easier not to react to them.

“Are you now or have you ever been engaged in piracy?”

“No.”

“Are you now or have you ever been in possession of a letter of marque issued to you by a planetary or system government?” Shock again. She paused, and Roth looked up. “Ma’am?”

“I . . . do have one. From Slotter Key. It was waiting when I got here, but—”

Roth looked worried. “You didn’t have it at Sabine, did you?”

“No. I just said—”

“Because that would screw everything, ma’am. You’re—you’re a privateer?”

“No,” Ky said firmly. “I’m not. I never—I didn’t ask for it, it was here when I got here, and I’m not sure it’s valid anyway, because the government—”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but this is a serious problem. I’m going to have to call Captain Pensig.”

“Can you explain?”

“We don’t do contracts with privateers. Legal problems; it’s against regs. There’ve been a few cases, but—you say you haven’t used it?”

“No, I haven’t used it. It was here when I got here, and I’ve been sitting in dock—”

“That’s something . . . ,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “The thing is, ma’am, the term is possession of a letter of marque. Not proof that you’ve operated using it. Can you prove that you didn’t have it before you arrived here?”

“I’ve got the delivery receipt somewhere,” Ky said. Quincy would know, probably.

“I’ll just go back to dockside and call Captain Pensig,” Roth said. Ky started to ask why he wasn’t calling Lt. Mason, but refrained . . . she didn’t want to deal with Mason anyway. She hoped someone would straighten out the legal angles; it would be the worst sort of irony if a letter of marque that Slotter Key undoubtedly didn’t want her to have kept her from getting the help she needed now.

In a very few minutes, Lee spoke up. “Captain, you’ve got another call from Captain Pensig.”

Pensig looked grim. “So—Roth tells me you weren’t a privateer at Sabine, but now you are. Was that some kind of reward from the Slotter Key government?”

“No,” Ky said. “This is what happened.” She went over it all again, finishing with “So I don’t even know if the letter is valid now. There’s no way to contact them; the ansibles are down.”

“Hmph. The problem is, Captain Vatta, that under the law relating to privateering, possession of a valid letter is construed as sufficient proof that the holder is in fact a privateer.”

Ky hadn’t known that.

“And we don’t contract with privateers, since that blurs the lines of responsibility should anyone question the legality of proceedings.”

“I’m not following that,” Ky said. Pensig sighed.

“I could explain it, but better if our legal staff did. Look here, Captain—we’re both in a cleft stick. You need our protection; we need your money. I believe you when you say you have not committed any acts based on the authority of that letter. Under these circumstances, I think a limited contract might be possible, but you would have to agree not to use that letter of marque while we’re in contract, and I must warn you that the contract will likely be rescinded as soon as we’re back in contact with our headquarters. As you say the letter itself may be. Is that acceptable?”

Ky hadn’t ever planned to use the letter of marque while with the mercenaries anyway. “Yes, that’s acceptable,” she said.

“For our own protection, I’ll have to have that clause added to the contract,” Pensig said. He sighed again. “I’ll have our legal staff transmit the changes. Any other surprises?”

“Not that I know of, but I didn’t know about this one,” Ky said.

Shortly after that, Master Sergeant Roth reappeared with a revised contract; Ky signed it, and Roth transmitted the details of the contract to the Mackensee station and the ship captains. The lieutenant, predictably enough, thought the Mackensee contingent should get more money, but within the hour they had an agreement. Ky called the bank and had five thousand credits transferred to the Mackensee account.

“The men’ll be pleased with this,” Roth said. “They were not looking forward to survival rations or being put in cold storage.”

Ky had not realized that last was a possibility—frozen soldiers? She repressed a shudder. “One favor,” she said. “Could you find me someone other than the lieutenant for a liaison?”

Roth grinned. “Yes, ma’am, I think we can do that.”