Chapter Eight

The striking, elegant woman in the mirror, Sassinak thought, had come a long way from the young ensign she had been. She had been lucky; she had been born with the good bones, the talent, the innate toughness to survive. She had had more luck along the way. But . . . she winked at herself, then grinned at that egotism. But she had cooperated with her luck, given it all the help she could. Tonight - tonight it was time for celebration. She had made it to Commander, past the dangerous doldrum ranks where the unwanted lodged sullenly until retirement age. She was about to have her own ship again, and this one a cruiser.

She eyed the new gown critically. Once she’d learned that good clothes fully repaid the investment, she’d spent some concentrated time learning what colors and styles suited her best. And then, one by one, she’d accumulated a small but elegant wardrobe. This, now . . . her favorite rich colors glowed, jewel-like reds and deep blues and purples, a quilted bodice shaped above a flowing, full skirt of deepest midnight, all in soft silui that caressed her skin with every movement. She slipped her feet into soft black boots, glad that the ridiculous fashion for high heels had once again died out. She was tall enough as it was. Her comm signal went off as she was putting on the last touches, the silver earrings and simple necklace with its cut crystal star.

“Just because you got the promotion and the cruiser doesn’t mean you can make us late,” said the voice in her ear, the Lieutenant Commander who’d arranged the party. He’d been her assistant when she was working for Admiral Pael. “Tobaldi’s doesn’t hold reservations past the hour - “

“I know; I’m coming.” With a last look at the mirror, she picked up her wrap and went out. As she’d half-expected, two more of her friends waited in the corridor outside, with flowers and a small wrapped box.

“You put this on now,” said Mira. Her gold curly hair had faded a little, but not the bright eyes or quick mind. Sassinak took the gift, and untied the silver ribbon carefully.

“I suppose you figured out what I’d be wearing,” she said, laughing. Then she had the box open, and caught her breath. When she looked at Mira, the other woman was smug.

“I bought it years ago, that time we were shopping, remember? I saw the way you looked at it, and knew the time would come. Of course, I could have waited until you made admiral - “ She ducked Sass’s playful blow. “You will, Sass. It’s a given. I’ll retire in a couple of years, and go back to Dad’s shipping company - at least he’s agreed to let me take over instead of that bratty cousin .... Anyway, let me fasten it.”

Sassinak picked up the intricate silver necklace, a design that combined boldness and grace (and, she recalled, an outrageous price - at least for a junior lieutenant, which she had been then) and let Mira close the fastening. Her star went into the box - for tonight, at least - and the box went back in her room. Whatever she might have said to Mira was forestalled by the arrival of the others, and the six of them were deep into reminiscences by the time they got to Tobaldi’s.

Mira - the only one who had been there - had to tell the others all about Sass’s first cruise. “They’ve heard that already,” Sassinak kept protesting. Mira shushed her firmly.

“You wouldn’t have told them the good parts,” she said, and proceeded to give her version of the good parts. Sassinak retaliated with the story of Mira’s adventures on - or mostly off - horseback, one leave they’d taken together on Mira’s homeworld. “I’m a spacer’s brat, not a horsebreeder’s daughter,” complained Mira.

“You’re the one who said we ought to take that horse-packing trip,” said Sass. The others laughed, and brought up their own tales.

Sassinak looked around the group - which now numbered fourteen, since others had arrived to join them. Was there really someone from every ship she’d been on? Four were from the Padalyan Reef, the cruiser on which she’d been the exec until a month ago. That was touching: they had given her a farewell party then, and she had not expected to see them tonight. But the two young lieutenants, stiffly correct among the higher ranks, would not have missed it - she could see that in their eyes. The other two, off on long home leave between assignments, had probably dropped in just because they enjoyed a party.

Her glance moved on, checking an invisible list. All but the prize she’d been given command of, she thought - and wished for a moment that Ford, wherever he was, could be there, too. Forrest had known her, true, but he’d missed that terrifying interlude, staying on the patrol ship with its original crew. Carew, whom she’d known as a waspish major when she was a lieutenant, on shore duty with Commodore . . . what had her name been? Narros, that was it ... Carew was now a balding, cheery senior Commander, whose memory had lost its sting. Sassinak almost wondered if he’d ever been difficult, then saw a very junior officer across the room flinch away from his gaze. She shrugged mentally - at least he wasn’t causing her trouble any more. Her exec from her first command was there, now a Lieutenant Commander and just as steady as ever, though with gray streaking his thick dark hair. Sassinak blessed the genes that had saved her from premature silver . . . she wanted to wear her silver by choice, not necessity. She didn’t need gray hair to lend her authority, she thought to herself. Even back on the Sunrose. . . . But he was making a small speech, reminding her -  and the others - of the unorthodox solution she had found for a light patrol craft in a particular tactical situation. Her friends enjoyed the story, but she remembered very well that some of the senior officers had not liked her solution at all. Her brows lowered, and Mira poked her in the ribs.

“Wake up, Sass, the battle’s over. You don’t need to glare at us like that.”

“Sorry ... I was remembering Admiral Kurin’s comments.”

“Well ... we all know what happened to him.” And that was true enough. A stickler for the rulebook, he had fallen prey to a foe who was not. But Sassinak knew that his opinion of her had gone on file before that, to influence other seniors. She had seen the doubtful looks, and been subject to careful warnings.

Now, however, two men approached the tables with the absolute assurance that comes only from a lifetime of command, and high rank at the end of it. Bilisics, the specialist in military law from Command and Staff, and Admiral Vannoy, Sector Commandant.

“Commander Sassinak - congratulations.” Bilisics had been one of her favorite instructors, anywhere. She had even gone to him for advice on a most private and delicate matter - and so far as she could tell, he had maintained absolute secrecy. His grin to her acknowledged all that. “I must always congratulate an officer who steers a safe course through the dangerous waters of a tour at Fleet Headquarters, who avoids the reefs of political or social ambition, the treacherous tides of intimacy in high places ...” He practically winked: they both knew what that was about. The others clearly thought it was one of Bilisics’s usual mannered pleasantries. As far as she knew, no one had ever suspected her near-engagement to the ambassador from Arion.

“Yes: congratulations. Commander, and welcome to the Sector. You’ll like the

Zaid-Dayan, and I’m sure you’ll do well with it.” She had worked with Admiral Vannoy before, but not for several years. His newer responsibilities had not aged him; he gave, as always, the impression of energy under firm control.

“Would you join us?” Sassinak asked. But, as she expected, they had other plans, and after a few more minutes drifted off to join a table of very senior officers at the far end of the room.

It hardly needed Tobaldi’s excellent dinner, the rare live orchestra playing hauntingly lovely old waltzes, or the wines they ordered lavishly, to make that evening special. She could have had any of several partners to end it with, but chose instead a scandalously early return to her quarters - not long after midnight.

“And I’ll wager if we had a spycam in there, we’d find her looking over the specs on her cruiser,” said Mira, walking back to a popular dance pavilion with the others. “Fleet to the bone, that’s what she is, more than most of us. It’s her only family, has been since before the Academy.”

Sass, unaware of Mira’s shrewd guess, would not have been upset by it - since she was, at that moment, calling up the crew list on her terminal. She would have agreed with all that statement, although she felt an occasional twinge of guilt for her failure to contact any of her remaining biological kin. Yet . . . what did an orphan, an ex-slave, have in common with ordinary, respectable citizens? Too many people still considered slavery a disgrace to the victim; she didn’t want to see that rejection on the faces of her own relatives. Easier to stay away, to stay with the family that had rescued her and still supported her. And that night, warmed by the fellowship and celebration, intent on her new command, she felt nothing but eagerness for the future.

Sassinak always felt that Fleet had lost something in the transition from the days when a captain approached a ship lying at dockside, visible to the naked eye, with a veritable gangplank and the welcoming crew topside, and flags flying in the open air. Now, the new captain of, say, a cruiser, simply walked down one corridor after another of a typical space station, and entered the ship’s space by crossing a line on the deck planking. The ceremony of taking command had not changed that much, but the circumstances made such ceremony far less impressive. Yet she could not entirely conceal her delight, that after some twenty years as a Fleet officer, she was now to command her own cruiser.

“Commander Kerif will be sorry to have missed you, Commander Sassinak,” said Lieutenant Commander Huron, her Executive Officer, leading the way to her new quarters. “But under the circumstances - “

“Of course,” said Sassinak. If your son, graduating from the Academy, is going to marry the heiress of one of the wealthiest mercantile families, you may ask for, and be granted, extra leave: even if it means that the change of command of your cruiser is not quite by the book. She had done her homework, skimming the files on her way over from Sector HQ. Huron, for instance, had not impressed his captain overmuch, by his latest Fitness Report. But considering the secret orders she carried, Sassinak had doubts about all the Fitness Reports on that ship. The man seemed intelligent and capable - not to mention fit and reasonably good-looking. He’d have a fair chance with her.

“He asked me to extend you his warmest congratulations, and his best wishes for your success with the ship. I can assure you that your officers are eager to make this mission a success.”

“Mission? What do you know about it?” Supposedly her orders were secret: but then, one of the points made was that Security breaches were getting worse, much worse.

Huron’s forehead wrinkled. “Well . . . we’ve been out on patrol, just kind of scouting around the sector. Figured we’d do more of the same.”

“Pretty much. I’ll brief the senior officers once we’re in route; we have two more days of refitting, right?”

“Yes, Commander.” He gave her a quizzical look. “With all due respect, ma’am, I guess what they say about you is true.”

Sassinak smiled; she knew what they said, and she knew why. “Lieutenant Commander Huron, I’m sure you wouldn’t listen to idle gossip . . . any more than I would listen to gossip about you and your passion for ground-car racing.”

It was good to be back on a ship again; good to have the command she’d always wanted. Sassinak glanced down at the four gold rings on her immaculate white sleeve, and on to the gold ring on her finger that gave her Academy class and carried the tiny diamond of the top-ranking graduate. Not bad for an orphan, an ex-slave . . . not bad at all. Some of her classmates thought she was lucky; some of them, no doubt, thought her ambitions stopped here, with the command of a cruiser in an active sector.

But her dreams went beyond even this. She wanted a star on her shoulder, maybe even two: sector command, command of a battle group. This ship was her beginning.

Already she knew more about the 218 Zaid-Dayan than her officers realized. Not merely the plans of the class of vessel, which any officer of her rank would be expected to have seen, but the detailed plans of that particular cruiser, and the records of all its refittings. You cannot know too much, Abe had said. Whatever you know is your wealth.

Hers lay here. Better than gold or jewels, she told herself, was the knowledge that won respect of her officers and crew . . . something that could not be bought with unlimited credits. Although credits had their uses. She ran her hand lightly along the edge of the desk she’d installed in her office. Real wood, rare, beautifully carved. She’d discovered in herself a taste for quality, beauty, and indulged it as her pay allowed. A custom desk, a few good pieces of crystal and sculpture, clothes that showed off the beauty she’d grown into. She still thought of all that as luxury, as frills, but no longer felt guilty for enjoying them in moderation.

While the cruiser lay at the refitting dock, Sassinak explored her command, meeting and talking with every member of the crew. About half of them had leave; she met them as they returned. But the onboard crew, a dozen officers and fifty or so enlisted, she made a point of chatting up.

The Zaid-Dayan wore the outward shape of most heavy cruisers, a slightly flattened ovoid hull with clusters of drive pods both port and starboard, aft of the largest diameter. Sassinak never saw it from outside, of course; only the refitting crews did that. What she saw were the human-accessible spaces, -  the “living decks” as they were called, and the crawl-ways that let a lean service tech into the bowels of the ship’s plumbing and electrical circuitry. For the most part, it was much the same as the Padalyan Reef, the cruiser she’d just left, with Environmental at the bottom, then Troop Deck, then Data, then Main, then the two Flight Decks atop. But not quite.

In this ship, the standard layouts in Environmental had been modified by the addition of the stealth equipment; Sassinak walked every inch of the system to be sure she understood what pipes now ran where. The crowding below had required rearranging some of the storage areas, so that only Data Deck was exactly the same as standard. Sassinak paid particular attention to the two levels of storage for the many pieces of heavy equipment the Zaid-Dayan carried: the shuttles, the pinnace, the light fighter craft, the marines’ tracked assault vehicles. Again, she made certain that she knew exactly which craft was stowed in each location, knew without having to check the computers.

Her own quarters were just aft of the bridge, opening onto the port passage, a stateroom large enough for modest entertaining - a low table and several chairs, as well as workstation, sleeping area, and private facilities. Slightly aft and across the passage was the officers’ wardroom. Her position as cruiser captain required the capacity to entertain formal visitors, so she also had a large office, forward of the bridge and across the same passage. This she could decorate as she pleased - at least, within the limits of Fleet regulations and her own resources. She chose midnight-blue carpeting to show off the striking grain of her desk; the table was Fleet issue, but refinished to gleaming black. Guest seating, low couches along the walls, was in white synthi-leather. Against the pale-gray bulkheads, this produced a room of simple elegance that suited her perfectly.

Huron, she realized quickly, was an asset in more ways than one. Colony-bred himself, he had more than the usual interest in their safety. Too many Fleet officers considered the newer colonies more trouble than they were worth. As the days passed, she found that Huron’s assessment of the junior officers was both fair and leavened by humor. She began to wonder why his previous commander had had so little confidence in him.

That story came out over a game of sho, one evening some days into their patrol. Sassinak had begun delicately probing, to see if he had a grievance of any sort. After the second or third ambiguous question, Huron looked up from the playing board with a smile that sent a sudden jolt through her heart.

“You’re wondering if I know why Commander Kerif gave me such a lukewarm report last period?”

Sass, caught off guard as she rarely was, smiled back. “You’re quite right - and you don’t need to answer. But you’ve been too knowledgable and competent since I came to have given habitually poor performance.”

Huron’s smile widened. “Commander Sassinak, your predecessor was a fine officer and I admire him. However, he had very strong ideas about the dignity of some ... ah ... prominent, old-line, merchant families. He never felt that I had sufficient respect for them, and he attributed a bit of doggerel he heard to me.”

“Doggerel?”

Huron actually reddened. “A ... uh ... song. Sort of a song. About his son and that girl he’s marrying. I didn’t write it. Commander, although I did think it was funny when I heard it. But, you see, I’d quoted some verse in his presence before, and he was sure ...”

Sassinak thought about it. “And do you have proper respect for wealthy merchants?”

Huron pursed his lips. “Proper? I think so. But I am a colony brat.”

Sassinak shook her head, smiling. “So am I, as you must already know. Poor Kerif ... I suppose it was a very bad song.” She caught the look in Huron’s eye, and chuckled. “If that’s the worst you ever did, we’ll have no problems at all.”

“I don’t want any,” said Huron, in a tone that conveyed more than one meaning.

Years before, as a cadet, Sassinak had wondered how anyone could combine relationships both private and professional without being unfair to one or the other. Over the years, she had established her own ground rules, and had become a good judge of those likely to share her values and attitudes. Except for that one almost - disastrous (and, in retrospect, funny) engagement to a brilliant and handsome older diplomat, she had never risked anything she could not afford to lose. Now, secure in her own identity, she expected to go on enjoying life with those of her officers who were willing and stable enough not to be threatened - and honest enough not to take advantages she had no intention of releasing.

Huron, she thought to herself, was a distinct possibility. From the glint in his eyes, he thought the same way about her: the first prerequisite.

But her duty came first, and the present circumstances often drove any thought of pleasure from her mind. In the twenty years since her first voyage. Fleet had not been able to assure the safety of the younger and more remote colonies; as well, planets cleared for colonization by one group were too often found to have someone else - legally now the owners - in place when the colonists arrived. Although human slavery was technically illegal, colonies were being raided for slaves -  and that meant a market somewhere. “Normal” humans blamed heavyworlders; heavyworlders blamed the “light- weights” as they called them, and the wealthy mercantile families of the inner worlds complained bitterly about the cost of supporting an ever-growing Fleet which didn’t seem to save either lives or property.

Their orders, which Sassinak discussed only in part with her officers, required them to make use of a new, supposedly secret, technology for identifying and trailing newer deep-space civilian vessels. It augmented, rather than replaced, the standard IFF devices which had been in use since before Sassinak joined the Fleet. A sealed beacon, installed in the ship’s architecture as it was built, could be triggered by Fleet surveillance scans. While passive to detectors in its normal mode, it nonetheless stored information on the ship’s movements. The original idea had been to strip these beacons whenever a ship came to port, and thus keep records on its actual travel - as opposed to the log records presented to the portmaster. But still newer technology allowed specially equipped Fleet cruisers to enable such beacons while still in deepspace, even FTL flight - and then to follow with much less chance of detection. Now the plan was for cruisers such as the Zaid-Dayan to patrol slowly, in areas away from the normal corridors, and select suspicious “merchants” to follow.

So far as the junior officers were concerned, the cruiser patrolled in the old way; because of warnings from Fleet about security leaks, Sassinak told only four of her senior crew, who had to know to operate the scan. Other modifications to the Zaid-Dayan, intended to give it limited stealth capability, were explained as being useful in normal operations.

As the days passed, Sassinak considered the Fleet warnings. “Assume subversives on each ship.” Fine, but with no more guidance than that, how was she supposed to find one? Subversives didn’t advertise themselves with loud talk of overturning FSP conventions. Besides, it was all guessing. She might have one subversive on her ship, or a dozen, or none at all. She had to admit that if she were planting agents, she’d certainly put them on cruisers, as the most effective and most widespread of the active vessels. But nothing showed in the personnel records she’d run a preliminary screen on - and supposedly Security had checked them all out before.

She knew that many commanders would think first of the heavyworlders on board, but while some of them were certainly involved in subversive organizations, the majority were not. However difficult heavyworlders might be - and some of them, she’d found, had earned their reputation for prickly sullenness - Sassinak had never forgotten the insights gained from her friends at the Academy. She tried to see behind the heavy-boned stolid faces, the overmuscular bodies, to the human person within - and most of the time felt she had succeeded. A few real friendships had come out of this, and many more amiable working relationships . . . and she found that her reputation as an officer fair to heavyworlders had spread among the officer corps.

Wefts, as aliens, irritated many human commanders, but again Sassinak had the advantage of early friendships. She knew that Wefts had no desire for the worlds humans preferred - in fact, the Wefts who chose space travel were sterile, having given up their chance at procreation for an opportunity to travel and adventure. Nor were they the perfect mental spies so many feared: their telepathic powers were quite limited; they found the average human mind a chaotic mess of emotion and illogic, impossible to follow unless the individual tried hard to convey a message. Sass, with her early training in Discipline, could converse easily with Wefts in their native form, but she knew she was an exception. Besides, if any of the Wefts on board had identified a subversive, she’d already have been told.

After several weeks, she felt completely comfortable with her crew, and could tell that they were settling well together. Huron had proved as inventive a partner as he was a versifier - after hearing a few of his livelier creations in the wardroom one night, she could hardly believe he hadn’t written the one about the captain’s son and the merchant’s daughter. He still insisted he was innocent of that one. The weapons officer, a woman’ only one year behind her at the Academy, turned out to be a regional sho champion - and was clearly delighted to demonstrate by beating Sassinak five games out of seven. It was good for morale, and besides, Sassinak had never minded learning from an expert. One of the cooks was a natural genius - so good that Sassinak caught herself thinking about putting him on her duty shift, permanently. She didn’t, but her taste buds argued with her, and more than once she found an excuse to “inspect” the kitchens when he was baking. He always had something for the captain. All this was routine -  even finding a homesick and miserable junior engineering tech, just out of training, sobbing hopelessly in a storage locker. But so was the patrol routine . . . nothing, day after day, but the various lumps of matter that had been mapped in their assigned volume of space. Not so much as a pleasure yacht out for adventure.

She was half-dozing in her cabin, early in third watch, when the bridge corn chimed.

“Captain - we’ve got a ship. Merchant, maybe CR- class for mass, no details yet. Trigger the scan?”

“Wait - I’m coming.” She elbowed Huron, who’d already fallen asleep, until he grunted and opened an eye, then whisked into her uniform. When he grunted again and asked what it was, she said, “We’ve got a ship.” At that, both eyes came open, and he sat up. She laughed, and went out; by the time she got to the bridge, he was only a few steps behind her, fully dressed.

“Gotcha!” Huron, leaning over the scanner screen, was as eager as the technician handling the controls. “Look at that ...” His fingers flew on his own keyboard, and the ship’s data came up on an adjoining screen. “Hu Veron Shipways, forty percent owned by Allied Geochemical, which is wholly owned by the Paraden family. Well, well . . . previous owner Jakob Iris, no previous criminal record but went into bankruptcy after . . . hmm ... a wager on a horse race. What’s that?”

“Horse race,” said Sassinak, watching the screen just as intently. “Four-legged mammal, big enough to carry humans. Old Earth origin, imported to four new systems, but they mostly die.”

“Kipling’s corns, captain, how do you know all that?”

“Kipling indeed, Huron. Our schools had a Kipling story about a horse in the required elementary reading list. With a picture. And the Academy kept a team for funerals, and I have seen a tape of a horse race. In fact, I’ve actually ridden a horse.” Her mouth quirked, as she thought of Mira’s homeworld and that ill-fated pack trip.

“You would have,” said Huron almost vaguely. His attention was already back to his screen. “Look at that -  Iris was betting against Luisa Paraden Scofeld. Isn’t that the one who was married to a zero-G hockey star, and then to an ambassador to Ryx?”

“Yes, and while he was there she ran off with the landscape architect. But the point is - “

“The point is that the Paradens have laid their hands on that ship twice!”

“That we know of.” Sassinak straightened up and regarded the back of Huron’s head thoughtfully. “I think we’ll trail this one. Commander Huron. There are just a few too many coincidences ...” Even as she gave the necessary orders, Sassinak was conscious of fulfilling an old dream - to be in command of her own ship, on the bridge, with a possible pirate in view. She looked around with satisfaction at what might have been any large control room, anything from a reactor station to a manufacturing plant. The physical remnant of millennia of naval history was under her feet, the raised dais that gave her a clear view of everyone and everything in the room. She could sit in the command chair, with her own screens and computer linkages at hand, or stand and observe the horseshoe arrangement of workstations, each with its trio of screens, its banks of toggles and buttons, its quietly competent operator. Angled above were the big screens, and directly below the end of the dais was the remnant of a now outmoded technology that most captains still used to impress visitors: the three-D tank.

Trailing a ship through FTL space was, Sassinak thought, like following a groundcar - through thick forest at night without using headlights. The unsuspecting merchant left a disturbed swath of space which the Ssli could follow, but it could not simultaneously sense structural (if that was the word) variations in the space-time fabric ... so that they were constantly in danger of jouncing through celestial chugholes or running into unseen gravitational stumps. They had to go fast, to keep the quarry in range of detection, but fast blind travel through an unfamiliar sector was an excellent way to get swallowed by the odd wormhole.

When the quarry dropped out of FTL into normal space, the cruiser followed - or, more properly, anticipated. The computer brought up the local navigation points.

“That’s interesting,” said Huron, pointing. It was more than interesting. A small star system, with one twenty-year-old colony (in the prime range for a raid) sited over a rich vein of platinum. Despite Fleet’s urging, FSP bureaucrats had declined to approve effective planetary defence weaponry for small colonies . . . and the catalog of this colony’s defenses was particularly meager.

“Brotherhood of Metals,” said Sass. “That’s the colony sponsor; they hold the paper on it. I’m beginning to wonder who their stockholders are.”

“New contact!” The technician’s voice rose. “Excuse me, captain, but I’ve got a Churi-class vessel out there: could be extremely dangerous - “

“Specs.” Sassinak glanced around the bridge, pleased with the alert but unfrantic attitudes she saw. They were already on full stealth routine; upgrading to battle status would cost her stealth. Her weapons officer raised a querying finger; Sassinak shook her head, and he relaxed.

“Old-style IFF - no beacon. Built forty years ago in the Zendi yards, commissioned by the - “ He stopped, lowered his voice. “The governor of Diplo, captain.”

Oh great, thought Sass. just what we needed, a little heavyworlder suspicion to complete our confusion.

“Bring up the scan and input,” she said, without commenting on the heavyworlder connection. One display filled with a computer analysis of the IFF output. Sassinak frowned at it. “That’s not right. Look at that carrier wave - “

“Got it.” The technician had keyed in a comparison command, and the display broke into colored bands, blue for the correspondence between the standard signal and the one received, and bright pink for the unmatched portions.

“They’ve diddled with their IFF,” said Sass. “We don’t know what that is, or what it carries - “

“Our passive array says it’s about the size of a patrol craft - “ offered Huron.

“Which means it could carry all sorts of nice things,” said Sass, thinking of them. An illicitly armed patrol craft was not a match for the Zaid-Dayan, but it could do them damage. If it noticed them.

Huron was frowning at the displays. “Now ... is this a rendezvous, or an ambush?”

“Rendezvous,” said Sassinak quickly. His brows rose.

“You’re sure?”

“It’s the worse possibility for us: it gives us two ships to follow or engage if they notice us. Besides, little colonies like this don’t get visits from unscheduled merchants.”

Judging by the passive scans, which produced data hours old, the two ships matched trajectories and traveled toward the colony world together - certainly close enough to use a tight-beam communication band. The Zaid-Dayan hung in the system’s outer debris, watching with every scanning mode it had. Hour by hour, it became clearer that the destination must be the colony. They’re raiders, Sassinak thought, and Huron said it aloud, adding, “We ought to blow them out of the system!” For an instant, Sassinak let the old fury rise almost out of control, but she forced the memory of her own childhood back. If they blew these two away, they would know nothing about the powers who hired them, protected them, supplied them. She would not let herself wonder if another Fleet commander had made the same decision about her homeworld’s raid.

She shook her head. “We’re on surveillance patrol; you know that.”

“But, captain - our data’s a couple of hours old. If they are raiders, they could be hitting that colony any time ... we have to warn them. We can’t let them - “ Huron had paled, and she saw a terrible doubt in his eyes.

“Orders.” She turned away, not trusting herself to meet his gaze. She had exorcised many demons from her past, in the years since her commissioning: she could dine with admirals and high government officials, make polite conversation with aliens, keep her temper and her wits in nearly all circumstances . . . but deep in her mind she carried the vision of her parents dying, her sister’s body sliding into the water, her best friend changed to a shivering, depressed wreck of the lively girl she’d been. She shook her head, forcing herself to concentrate on the scan. Her voice came out clipped and cold; she could see by their reactions that the bridge crew recognized the strain on her. “We must find the source of this - we must. If we destroy these vermin, and never find their master, it will go on and on, and more will suffer. We have to watch, and follow - “

“But they never meant us to let a colony be raided! We’re - we’re supposed to protect them - it’s in the Charter!” Huron circled until he faced her again. “You’ve got discretion, in any situation where FSP citizens are directly threatened - “

“Discretion!” Sassinak clamped her jaw on the rest of that, and glared at him. It must have been a strong glare, for he backed a step. In a lower voice, she went on. “Discretion, Huron, is not questioning your commanding officer’s orders on the bridge when you don’t know what in flaming gas clouds is going on. Discretion is learning to think before you blow your stack - “

“Did you ever think,” said Huron, white-lipped and angrier than Sassinak had ever seen him, “that someone might have made this decision when you were down there?” He jerked his chin toward the navigation display. She waited a long moment, until the others had decided it would be wise to pay active attention to their own work, and the rigidity went out of Huron’s expression.

“Yes,” she said very quietly. “Yes, I have. I imagine it haunts that person, if someone actually was there, as this is going to haunt me.” At that his face relaxed slightly, the color rising to his cheeks. Before he could speak, Sassinak went on. “You think I don’t care? You think I haven’t imagined myself - some child the age I was, some innocent girl or boy who’s thinking of tomorrow’s test in school? You think I don’t remember, Huron?” She glanced around, seeing that everyone was at least pretending to give them privacy. “You’ve seen my nightmares, Huron; you know I haven’t forgotten.”

His face was as red as it had been pale. “I know. I know that, but how can you - “

“I want them all.” It came out flat, emotionless, but with the power of an impending avalanche ... as yet no sound, no excitement . . . but inexorable movement accelerating to some dread ending. “I want them all, Huron: the ones who do it because it’s fun, the ones who do it because it’s profitable, the ones who do it because it’s easier than hiring honest labor . . . and above all the ones who do it without thinking about why . . . who just do it because that’s how it’s done. I want them all.” She turned to him with a smile that just missed pleasantry to become the toothy grin of the striking predator. “And there’s only one way to get them all, and to that I commit this ship, and my command, and any other resource . . . including, with all regret, those colonists who will die before we can rescue them - “

“But we’re going to try - ?”

“Try, hell. I’m going to do it.” The silence on the bridge was eloquent; this time when she turned away from Huron he did not follow.

The scans told the pitiable story of the next hours. The colonists, more alert than Myriad’s, managed to set off their obsolete missiles, which the illicit patrol craft promptly detonated at a safe distance.

“Now we know they’ve got an LDsl4, or equivalent,” said Huron without emphasis. Sassinak glanced at him but made no comment. They had not met, as usual, after dinner, to talk over the day’s work. Huron had explained stiffly that he wanted to review for his next promotion exam, and Sassinak let him go. The ugly thought ran through her mind that a subversive would be just as happy to have the evidence blown to bits. But surely not Huron - from a small colony himself, surely he’d have more sympathy with them . . . and besides, she was sure she knew him better than any psych profile. Just as he knew her.

Meanwhile, having exhausted the planetary defenses, the two raiders dropped shuttles to the surface. Sassinak shivered, remembering the tough, disciplined (if irregular) troops the raiders had landed on her world. The colonists wouldn’t stand a chance. She found she was breathing faster, and looked up to find Huron watching her. So were the others, though less obviously; she caught more than one quick sideways glance.

Yet she had to wait. Through the agonizing hours, she stayed on the bridge, pushing aside the food and drink that someone handed her. She had to wait, but she could not relax, eat, drink, even talk, while those innocent people were being killed . . . and captured . . . and tied into links (did all slavers use links of eight, she wondered suddenly). The two ships orbited the planet, and when this orbit took them out of LOS, the Zaid-Dayan eased closer, its advanced technology allowing minute hops of FTL flight with minimal disturbance to the fields.

Their scan delay was less than a half-hour, and the raiders had shown no sign of noticing their presence in the system. Now they could track the shuttles rising -  all to the transport, Sassinak noted - and then descending and rising again. Once more, and then the raiders boosted away from the planet, on a course that brought them within easy range of the Zaid-Dayan. Huron only looked at Sass; she shook her head, and caught her weapons officer’s eye as well. Hold on, she told the self she imagined lying helpless in the transport’s belly. We’re here: we’re going to come after you. But she knew her thoughts did those children no good at all -  and nothing could wipe out the harm already done.