CHAPTER

SEVEN

This had not been part of her plan. “It’s not our—” Ky said, but Jim blurted, “Not yet.” She glared at him.

“You’ll have to come along now,” the guard said, flicking open what Ky was sure was a combination comunit and data entry. “Exposing the station to an unlicensed animal . . . where are you people from, anyway?” His gaze roved over Jim’s unattractive rumpled Belinta tunic, which, Ky noticed, failed to completely conceal his brand-new armor. The guard’s gaze sharpened. “Wearing armor, eh? And you, you’re carrying a weapon . . .” Now he was glaring at Ky.

She tilted her head back to the doorway of Blade, Bullet, and Bow. “We’ve just come out—”

“And put the animal in the waste can while you were in there? Do you have any idea—?”

“I didn’t put it there,” Jim said. “It was in there, whimpering and scratching, poor thing, and I couldn’t leave it—”

“Is that true?” the guard asked Ky.

“I was inside,” Ky said. “I didn’t hear it. When I came out, he was holding it . . .”

“Uh-huh. Well, it’s in your possession now, and if this is your employee, you’re responsible for it, and for not having a proper license and health papers for it . . . and how about a license for that weapon?”

Ky fished her new license out of her pocket. “Here.”

He glanced at it. “All right then. Come along to the office and take care of this . . .” He glared at the puppy.

Never argue with law enforcement in the street, her father had told her. Go pleasantly along to the office, cooperate, and you’ll be done much faster. So probably it was only seeming to take an hour, Ky thought, to follow the guard along the passage, past stores that changed gradually from the upper margin of the upper crust to the solid commercial filling of any major space station that saw a lot of traffic. And there was the guard office for this arm of Hub Three, with its hull-quality door standing wide open.

“What’s this, Mally?” asked the man behind the desk.

“Unlicensed animal. Claim they found it in a trash bin, but it seems to know him.” The guard jerked a thumb at Jim, who still cradled the puppy along his forearm; it looked asleep.

“Fine’s two hundred credits a day, crate license fifty credits, out-of-crate license one hundred credits, both require health certificate available from any onstation veterinarian and you can look them up in the business directory using a public-access com line or if it’s not your animal or you wish it destroyed that will be two hundred credits fine, ten credits disposal fee, payable immediately by cash or approved credit line only . . .” The desk clerk rattled this off in a rapid monotone, then looked up. “Name, ship name, names of all persons who have contacted this . . . whatever it is . . . ?”

“Jim Hakusar, from Gary Tobai—I’m the one who found it in the trash container. He was crying and trying to get out—”

“And you are . . . ?” The clerk looked at Beeah.

“Beeah Chok, same ship.”

“Gordon Martin, same ship.”

“Captain Vatta, Gary Tobai,” Ky said.

“Ah—you’re armed, Mally says. Your permit number?” Ky handed the permit over. “Um. Not in the database—what’s the date on this? Oh, today. I guess you won’t have any trouble paying the fines for your pet, then, will you, shopping at Blades? Though if it’s really not yours, you’d be smart to let us get rid of it.”

“No,” Jim said. Ky looked at him. “You can’t let them kill a puppy,” he said.

“What do we need with a puppy?” Ky asked. Jim gave her a stricken look.

“Dogs can be useful,” Martin said. “Dockside, I mean. This one’s very small—”

“He’s a puppy,” Jim said. “He’ll grow. I’ll bet he’ll be fierce.”

“He won’t be much trouble,” Beeah murmured. Ky looked at him in surprise. She hadn’t known Beeah had any interest in animals.

“Up to you,” the clerk said. “There’s also the mandatory decontamination and observation period for personnel in contact with an unlicensed animal lacking health papers. You can locate the nearest clinic in the business directory using any public-access comlink . . .”

The puppy opened one limpid eye, squirmed, and piddled down Jim’s front.

An astonishing amount of money later, Ky looked at her protectors with less than favor. “You two made enough commotion that any enemy we might have now knows where we are, what we’re wearing, and that I’m armed. Next time just smash a window and start screaming obscenities, why don’t you?”

“All right . . . ,” Jim said, looking worried. “But how do I know when?”

Ky appealed to deities she’d heard of and didn’t believe in. The puppy, now listed as “Puddles” in the vet’s database, was being inspected, disinfected, and would be delivered the next day. The vet had informed her that it was almost certainly a purebred, a Jack Russell terrier. She privately thought of it as another kind of jack-something-terrier, but didn’t mention that. She and the others had been through a standard decontamination procedure, which had turned the damp patch on Jim’s tunic bright blue, though the technician insisted it would return to normal color later.

“It’s coming out of your salary,” she reminded Jim. He and Beeah had agreed to split the cost of the fines and vet care.

“He’ll be a help,” Jim said. “He can guard the dockside, like Martin said.”

“Not until it’s grown,” Ky said. “And puppies that size don’t grow into guard dogs.” She plugged into another link and called the ship on a secure line. Quincy answered. “We’re fine, Quincy. Just had to see a man about a dog—no, really. Jim found a stray puppy and had to rescue it.”

“I thought that was your strategy,” Quincy said, with a bite that Ky recognized as relief.

“Not this time,” Ky said. “We’re just now leaving Hub Three for Hub Four. I’ll check in when we get there.”

“Wait—you’ve messages. A sealed hardcopy from someone named MacRobert, originating at Slotter Key, and a call from that security firm, Baritom. They said call them back.”

MacRobert again? What did Master Sergeant MacRobert of the Slotter Key Spaceforce Academy want with her? “How big is the package?” Ky asked.

“Small. Not too heavy. You think it’s a trap or something?”

“No. Just put it in my cabin; I’ll get to it later.”

“Well, Baritom really wanted you to call back.”

Ky muttered, but took down the number and called them.

“Captain Vatta,” said the voice on the phone. “Our dockside staff reported that you left the secured area . . . did you not wish an escort?”

She was about to refuse, when she thought to ask Martin.

“You can send Jim back—tell him to buy some clothes on the way—and have the escort meet us,” he said. “I’d like a chance to assess their personnel.”

“Fine.” Ky turned back to the combooth. “I’m presently at Hub Three, second ring, green sector. I’m on my way to Hub Four. If your agent meets me at the tram station—”

“We prefer to have the operative meet the subject at a secure location.”

She was already behind schedule. She did not want to return to the Garda station to meet an escort. But surely MilMart counted as a secure location.

“MilMartExchange,” she said. “How’s that? Otherwise, it’ll be after I get back to the ship, some hours from now.”

“That will be adequate,” the voice said. “We supply our operatives with the usual identification kits. You are not at a secured com outlet now—”

“No,” Ky said. “I’m sure MilMart has one.”

“All right. We will provide you with the operative’s code there.”

Ky shook her head as she turned away.

“What?” Beeah asked.

“Just the day. Jim, you head back to the ship—you have your tram pass, right? I know Martin suggested you buy clothes on the way, but I’d rather have you safe on the ship. In fact—Martin, should Jim go back alone? Shouldn’t I send Beeah with him?”

“No, he should be fine for now,” Martin said. “You’re more likely to be attacked than he is; I’d rather have backup with us.”

Ky turned to Jim again. “Remember what Martin told you. Be careful, go straight back. No more puppies, kittens, lost children, or whatever else comes into your path. Martin, their agent will meet me at MilMart.”

“I’ll bet it’s a trick,” Jim said. Ky eyed him with disfavor.

“Nothing like your trick of getting us in trouble with the law,” she said. “Go on, now. I want you back on the ship by the time I call Quincy from Hub Four.”

The tram to the next hub was much the same, though this time their car held two women chatting, both with small children in tow, and a man in a shipsuit with a Navarre ship patch. With them in line was another woman with a small child, who greeted the first two cheerfully and sat down in the next row. From their greetings, Ky learned that they met every ten days, taking their children to a play area on Hub Five. She watched one of the children wipe a sticky red hand along the seat, leaving a smear.

“Now, Donal . . . what do you think wipes are for?” said one woman, cleaning up the smear and handing the child the wipe. He tried to stuff it into his mouth, and she took it away.

At Hub Four, Ky stepped out and spotted the next mother of the bunch, with a baby in arms and a pair of twins clinging to her legs. Behind her, the Hub Four station was even plainer than that in Station 2: gray industrial flooring, cream tile walls. When they came out into the passage, it had none of the amenities of Hub Three. Signs advertised ship stores—none, Ky was sure, with gold-eye raspberries or fancy sliced meats—hand and power tools, parts and fittings, navigation software, navigation hardware, tech modules for cranial implants, shipsuits and patches. Ky paused to call and let Quincy know they’d arrived, checked the directory display to be sure she was oriented correctly, and led the way down the passage. Here were the front offices of the yards that performed major repairs and replaced spacecraft engines or entire environmental systems.

Ky had checked the locations she wanted before she left her own ship, and knew they had to work their way inward two rings and then left. Just behind the shops to their left were the warehouses of MilMart, but the access was somewhere else. She assumed it gave the MilMart surveillance ample time to collect good clear images before someone arrived on their doorstep, or whatever they had instead.

They had passed the first ring crossing and were almost to the next when Ky’s eye was caught by a familiar symbol. Here? She looked again. A narrow storefront bore the neat legend MACKENSEE MILITARY ASSISTANCE CORPORATION: YOUR PROBLEMS—OUR SOLUTION. She slowed. It was one of a row of storefronts, all of which appeared to be mercenary offices, between Barkley’s Best—GOT WAR? GET THE BEST! BARKLEYS!—and Answenia Military Advisers, EXPERIENCE COUNTS.

“Now that’s interesting,” Beeah said.

“What?” Martin said. He followed their gaze. “Oh . . . mercenaries. Which group was it you ran into, ma’am?”

“Mackensee,” Ky said. Martin nodded and said nothing more. She wondered if these Mackensees had heard about Sabine—about her. Surely they had. Surely if . . . if Vatta was completely destroyed, she could always join them, as they’d offered before. She pushed that thought away. Vatta would survive; she would ensure that Vatta survived. The nagging question of how, she ignored for the moment.

Around the corner to the left, large red letters announced the entrance to MilMartExchange in three languages. Armed guards—not the station Garda—stood outside. A steady stream of customers went in and out.

“There it is,” said Beeah. “What are you going to get, Captain?”

“What we can afford,” Ky said. “Which certainly won’t be all I want or all we need.”

The guards at the door seemed to pay no attention to her, but just inside the entrance to MilMart was a check station where Ky gave her customer ID number. She and her entourage then put on ID wristbands, and a door opened that led into a room of vidscreens. “You can look at the catalog here, and if there’s something you want, ring for assistance to go into the back and look at it. There are secured comlinks if you need to check with your financial institution.”

Ky called back to Baritom and exchanged recognition codes with the office, then told a MilMart employee that if anyone asked for “Ambergris,” it was for her. The employee nodded with such complete boredom that Ky realized a lot of people probably made contact here in this well-lighted, well-guarded place.

Then she turned to the catalog. Her first look almost made her gasp. Here were no circumlocutions: the main divisions were ORDNANCE, DEFENSIVE; ORDNANCE, OFFENSIVE; ORDNANCE CONTROL SYSTEMS; DEFENSIVE HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE; SMALL ARMS; and IFF SYSTEMS. Each was divided into ship-based, space–non-ship-based, and ground-based. She was partway down ORDNANCE, DEFENSIVE, SHIP-BASED, SELF-POWERED when she spotted familiar names and numbers. She blinked. The Slotter Key Spaceforce would choke if they knew their supposedly first-run ship weapons were being sold to anyone with the money out here. Thornbat missiles? She scrolled through to DEFENSIVE HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE. DeepPilot stealthing systems? This couldn’t be surplus; scuttlebutt at the Academy had been that funding was too short for DeepPilot to be installed on all the cruisers, let alone the smaller ships. She glanced at Martin, at an adjoining station. His face looked grimmer than usual; she wondered what he thought, finding his world’s advanced weaponry for sale to anyone with enough credits.

The catalog seemed to have something from everyone’s arsenal, in fact. Items coded as FmPr in the catalog turned out to be manufactured by FarmPower on Sabine Prime . . . ground-based armored vehicles and heavy equipment for preparing landing sites and fortifications. Nothing from Belinta—she had scrolled to the list of source manufacturers—but dozens of other systems had contributed their bit. She wondered if it was all stolen . . . but the important thing was, enough money and you could outfit a space fleet from here. Considering those mercenaries’ offices, quite possibly someone—several someones—did.

Not that everyone could afford it . . . she blinked again at the prices, mentally calculating what she had to spend. Not enough, not nearly enough. She’d been taught that war was expensive; she’d memorized the estimated costs given in class—the Reandi Incursion 2.3 times as costly as the Belaconti Uprising—but she’d never considered what it might take to convert one small ship from an old, slow, unarmed trader to a fast, powerful raider. All Aunt Gracie’s diamonds wouldn’t put a dent in her wish list.

Raider? She paused, not really seeing the page of display in front of her. She had come here looking for ways to protect the ship from Vatta’s enemies. When had her intentions slipped sideways into something like . . . raider? Dangerously close to pirate, that was. Privateer, came a whisper in her mind, if she had authorization from the government.

But what else was there, for one captain and one small vessel? Nothing she could put on the ship—even if she could afford the stealth package, the point defense missile system and its software, and a faster insystem drive—would really protect them against the kind of enemies she seemed to face. She couldn’t trade effectively while evading pursuit—good cargo ships were predictable, reliable; that’s what customers paid for. On-time delivery. Guarantees of complete cargo.

“Captain?” Beeah spoke suddenly.

“Yes, Beeah,” she said, not looking at him, seeing instead the narrowing funnel of choices facing her, none of them good. If she could not use her ship as Vatta had always used their ships, what could she do with it? With her crew? With that idiot puppy? Could she really become a raider—her mind shied away from pirate—and attack other ships? And if she could, mentally, take that on, what would it take in resources?

“If you can give me a budget, I can prioritize upgrades on the basic functions,” Beeah said.

“That’s what I’m thinking about,” Ky said. “Maybe we should have waited until we’d sold our cargo, so we’d know what our resources are. I can estimate, but—this is not a place where I want to come up short.”

“I see that. The cargo’s selling, though, isn’t it?”

“I certainly hope so. Let me just check with the ship and see how it’s going . . .” She signed on to the secure com again, and called her crew.

“More offers are coming in,” Alene said. “The only other tradeship in the past two weeks had a totally different cargo mix, so the market’s on our side.”

“Good,” Ky said. “You’ve got the account number for deposits.”

“Excuse me, Captain Vatta?” That was a MilMart employee. “There’s a person wishing to speak to you. He says he’s from Baritom Security Services, and he gave the correct countersign.”

“Thanks,” Ky said. “I’ll come out. Beeah, you wait here; I won’t be long.” Then to Alene, “Go on and make the best deals you can. We want to move the Leonora consignments first. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Back through the door, into the anteroom, with Martin at her heels. Baritom Security Services outfitted its agents in brown with green facings. Willem Turnish was a little taller than Ky, appeared to be middle-aged but fit, with warm brown eyes. “Captain Vatta?” He held out a datapak.

“Yes,” Ky said. “Your code, please?”

He rattled it off, word and number both; Ky replied with hers, and then inspected the datapak. Name, height, weight, thumbscan—she held it out and he pressed his thumb to the plate, which flashed green. So he was what he claimed to be.

She handed the datapak back and glanced at Martin. His face conveyed no message at all.

“I’ll probably be another hour here,” she said. “You can wait out here, or—if there’s a café nearby—”

“I’ll wait here,” Turnish said, gesturing to a bench along one wall.

“Fine,” Ky said.

When she came back to the terminals, she turned to Martin. “Well?”

He shook his head. “He’s a professional; he’s armed; he has the right codes. I can’t tell how competent he is, from that brief an encounter, but he has the look of someone with experience. I can tell more after we’ve been on the street with him.”

Ky turned to Beeah. “Beeah, if you went back to the ship, now you’ve seen the catalog, you could discuss with Quincy what they’ve got, and how it might fit our hull. And you could get Alene’s best guess on what our cargo might bring.”

“If you’re sure, Captain,” Beeah said.

“Martin’s with me,” Ky said. “With the escort, that’s two—two should be enough. Besides, I’m wearing armor now, and I’ve got my new toy.” She patted the holster.

“More dangerous than you look,” Beeah said, grinning. “I’ll be off, then.”

Ky turned back to the catalog. If she bought the defensive suite, item number 34-5000-89357, then she could just—maybe—afford the single launcher installation, item number 68-4322-7639. But the only reason to have a launcher was . . . to attack other ships. Other defenseless ships: a single launcher was too puny to go against real warships or better-armed pirates.

She could not do it. To become a pirate, a thief . . . that would end Vatta, even if she herself lived, became wealthy, tried to reconstitute the organization. If Slotter Key had turned on her family—a mystery that she could not solve here and now—they would certainly not authorize her to be a privateer. Nor did she have the resources to make a living on the run without raiding. She would have to . . . to what? Admit they were all doomed? Not that, either. Run? Run where? To another sector, far across the spaces where Vatta had traded, back to the old worlds her family had once fled? Out to the unknown worlds beyond the Rift?

She leaned her head on her hand, refusing all those choices, and unable to think of any others. No, she had to think and she could not think. The self she had been in the crisis at Sabine—the self who had taken quick, decisive action—seemed to have vanished, leaving a sour confusion behind.

Sighing, she stretched and exited the catalog to look at the information on purchase agreements. She could put items on hold with no deposit for twenty-four hours, or with a deposit for up to five days. In hard, cold, rational analysis, they needed that defensive suite in any case. In fact, they needed a better one. Item 35-4571-983324 would be ideal, but the catalog listed only one in stock. She put a hold on it, no deposit. That at least would give her time to think. Could Quincy install it? Would they have to find someone else who could?

Back to the list. If offensive ordnance was too expensive and only good for preying on others, what about defensive? ORDNANCE, DEFENSIVE, SHIP. Ky looked down the list. If they had Slotter Key ordnance, maybe they’d have . . . yes. Mines, self-powered, autostabilizing, Model 87-TR-5003. Top of the line, as far as senior students at the Academy knew. Compared to the other ordnance, mines were economical, even cheap. Nor did they take up much space. If you understood how to use them—and she had written a paper on the use of passive and active defensive systems, including mines—they could be very effective. Of course, there were a lot of complications, including the inherent instability of anything in space: mines drifted with gravitational forces, and eventually their “self-powered” ability to correct their drift wore out, leaving lethal hazards scattered in unknowable locations.

But Ky was willing to make the universe more hazardous for others, if it would save her own ship. She put a hold on the mines, too. If she took that defensive suite, she could just barely afford fifteen mines. You can’t ever have too much ammunition, one of her instructors had said. Maybe some of their cargo would bring premium prices.

She collected Martin, checked out of the catalog viewing area, and picked up her escort. He preceded her to the exit, and certainly seemed to be competent in his check of the passage outside. Unlike the hapless Jim, he would not be plucking puppies from waste cans. That thought reminded her of another errand.

“Do you know a shop near here, or on our way back to the interhub tram, that carries pet supplies?” she asked.

“Pet supplies?”

It was an unusual question, but he didn’t have to sound that amused.

“Pet supplies,” she said again. “We have acquired a . . . mmm . . . puppy. It’ll be released from quarantine tomorrow.”

“Let me check . . .” He looked momentarily blank, accessing his implant, then he nodded. “BioExotics, down this way,” he said, gesturing to a cross-passage ahead of them. Above the official numbered designation, someone had added a pink-and-green sign with WILLOW LANE in curly letters.

“It’s lunchtime,” Martin said quietly. “How about a stop for something to eat?” Ky glanced at him; he’d mentioned before the security risks of public eating places. Was this part of his assessment of their escort? Ky started to refuse, but her own stomach growled.

“There’s a café on the corner,” her escort said.

“Fine. A quick lunch, then.” Martin didn’t say anything, and when she looked at him, his face was impassive.

The café was not crowded, in the postlunch period, but the smells from the kitchen were all good. Mindful of Martin’s earlier lecture, she went to a table against a wall and placed herself with the wall at her back. Martin sat on her right, facing the door squarely; Turnish flanked her, sitting across from Martin—which put his back to the door, but facing the kitchen hatch. She offered Turnish a meal; he said he’d eaten before he came on duty. Even though she was paying for his time, Ky felt subtly pressured by his stolid demeanor, as if she were eating in front of an instructor. An escort shouldn’t involve himself in chitchat, true, but Turnish radiated patience at a level that felt impatient. Ky worked her way through a delicious soup and fresh-baked bread that made it clear how this café stayed in business. Martin, she noticed, had inhaled a thick sandwich while hardly taking his gaze off the door.

Out in Willow Lane, late first-shift meant almost no traffic. Turnish led the way past open shop doors in which no one appeared . . . a succession of small businesses: laundry and cleaners, bakery, used-clothing stores, hand-tool repair, sign studio. It could have been afternoon in a small town. Ky relaxed. Yes, it would be easy for an assassin to set up on a quiet street, but who knew she’d be coming down this way? Any rational assassin would assume she’d head straight back to her ship.

“Look out!” Turnish said suddenly and started to turn toward her.

Ky dove for the deck, shoving Turnish aside; he fell beside her. The first two shots missed all of them by a meter. Ky glanced back at Martin; he had his weapon out and squeezed off a shot as she watched. She braced herself on her elbows and looked for her target. There . . . peeking out of the doorway of Andy’s Tailor Shop ahead of them. She squeezed off one round of CPF; she saw the assailant’s body jerk, withdraw, then topple slowly out into the passage. The weapon fell with a clatter. A familiar surge of satisfaction pulsed through her. No time for that . . . Ky looked for cover, and the backup. There would be another; whoever was doing this would not have hired a single shooter. Nothing. No one came to the door of the shop—of any shop—to look. She could feel the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. A doorway to the right gaped empty only a meter or so away. She tapped Turnish’s leg with one hand, looking past him for more trouble.

“Move to cover,” she said. “Four o’clock. I’ll cover you.”

“I don’t think so,” Turnish said, rolling over. Her breath stopped as she stared down the bore of his weapon . . . That’s really big ran through her head in a soprano squeak. The man grinned. “Checkmate, Vatta. Game over.”

She could not move fast enough; her weapon was offline, aimed at where trouble had been, not where it was. She knew she could not move fast enough, and that knowledge made it impossible to move at all. He kept smiling, clearly aware of her thoughts, of her fear, of her weapon’s position. Her throat was dry; icy sweat trickled down her spine. Martin couldn’t possibly—but then noise blasted her ears, and the man’s head exploded in a spray of blood and brains before she even saw what it was Martin was doing.

Breath rushed back into her lungs in a gasp. Ky swiped at the mess on her face. “You—”

“I wasn’t sure until he turned on you,” Martin said. “Sorry. He could’ve been just careless, about the café. Get on into that doorway.” Still no alarm—the passage might have been empty. Perhaps it was. Perhaps everyone had been paid to go have a midshift snack or something.

The dead man’s weapon lay farther away than Ky expected . . . with his hand still on it. Martin must have fired two shots, then—that fast?

Not that it mattered now. What mattered now was getting some official help. Cautiously, she eased into the doorway she’d spotted and looked for a com port. The one in the red booth three shops down was far too exposed, but most stations had them in more discreet locations as well.

Before she located one, she heard the shrill whistle of approaching law enforcement.