SIXTEEN

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It was weekend in Sheol, and the bars were just warming up to a nice, loose rhythm.

No one was quite sober, no one was totally drunk when the eighteen ships dove in-atmosphere, coming straight down on the city.

They flared a few hundred meters above Sheol into four perfect fingers-four formation, with two other ships on high cover, and came over the city just above the rooftops.

Miners and citizens screamed, dove for cover, even a few prayed, all sure their doom was here, that the raiders were now directly attacking what passed for civilization.

Friedrich von Baldur stood outside the Boop-Boop-A-Doop, beaming proudly.

His belt com came to life.

"And how was that?"

Baldur keyed his mike.

"Very fine, Mr. Spada. Very fine, indeed. You've trained your crews well.

Now you can bring it on home for a drink."

"Fine for the others," Spada's voice came back. "Ask M'chel for me if this armpit's got anything interesting in the way of teas.

"Come to think, ask her if she wants to go have it with me. She can have alk if she wants.

"Spada, clear."

As the ships climbed and came back into a classic Immelman, cut from secondary drive to antigrav, and, skids extending, settled in for a landing near the Boop-Boop-A-Doop, Sheol realized it was not going to be carpet bombed and strafed.

"Sonnovabitch," a miner, drunker earlier than most, managed as he gathered Baldur into an embrace:

"We got us a space force!"

The pilots and the two other members of each ship's crew were quartered in a hotel Transkootenay owned.

They were allowed out into the streets, since none of them knew anything specific they could leak.

While they unwound from the series of jumps they'd made to reach the Foley System, Grok and a group of electronics techs went to work.

Each ship had a black box installed. None of the techs knew what the boxes were intended to do, and only Grok tested them to make sure they were operational.

The boxes had started life as Search and Recovery locator beacons, intended to 'cast screams for help when a ship was in trouble. Grok recircuited them so they still 'cast on demand. But instead of a plea for rescue, they broadcast various electronic signatures. These signatures could be varied, from those of mining ships to yachts to merchant vessels to Alliance warships. All of the signatures were quite "real," having been stripped from the current Jane's.

Riss had tea with Redon Spada, and a very quiet time it was.

* * *

"This here's Johnny Behan," L.C. Doe said to M'chel with some distaste.

The man was stocky, with a trimmed beard and hair. There were four others behind him. "He doesn't drink, at least not to amount to much. And when he does, like these other parygons of virchoo, his mouth doesn't flap.

"I've used them for delicate work for Miner's Aid. They've volunteered to help, without knowing what they're volunteering for, just like you asked."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Riss said, "thanks for your faith. Now you're going to go drinking, on Star Risk's tab. And then you're going to have a nice, quiet, invisible vacation on Glace.

"No risk, no pain, with pay."

Miners on Sheol were a little surprised when a nice, quiet rock-shifter named Behan started barhopping. He still didn't drink alk, but he frequently took hits from an inhaler, which evidently was enough to put him in low orbit. Other miners asked for a taste, and were refused. Nobody got that offended, figuring Behan was just beginning his career as an inebriate, and didn't know all the rules yet.

He said he'd had it, right up to his pooper-pump, with these goddamned illegitimate high-graders, who liked to do it with their own mothers.

So what if they'd blown up the claims office? He knew where his claim was, richer than Jesus or Croesus, depending on how fried he was at any given moment.

And he, and some friends, were going back to work their rocks, go back to getting rich, and anybody who got in their way would have only himself to blame.

* * *

The news vids announced that Star Risk's patrol ships were off on a training flight to Welf, the system's innermost, mostly uninhabited world, for some shakedown drills.

Then, Star Risk spokesman M'chel Riss announced, they'd begin aggressive patrolling in the belt.

Johnny Behan's ship, followed by four others in raggedy formation, lifted off Sheol, and vanished into hyperspace.

But they didn't jump for the asteroid belt.

Instead, they linked up with the Boop-Boop-A-Doop and Spada's patrol ships, "high" above the system's plane. Their ships were left in a parking orbit around a dead planetoid, and a fuming Baldur shuttled them on to their promised vacation at one of Glace's more secluded, if expensive, island resorts to keep them out of the way while the trap hopefully developed.

"I should never have admitted that I know how to fly," he grumbled to Riss. "You and Grok will be out having the best of times, while I am driving a bus."

"What's my excuse for missing getting killed?" Goodnight asked, equally unhappy.

"Why, you're busy trying to get in my pants," Jasmine King drawled, then laughed as Goodnight's ears turned a little pink.

The two "lucky" ones boarded Spada's lead ship, which made things a bit crowded as they disappeared into N-space.

M'chel couldn't figure out why Redon Spada had ended up as de facto commander of the pilots so readily. He was most unprepossessing, in spite of his medals, and spent most of his time running up plots on a computer, tsking, and sending them to oblivion.

The rest of his time was spent writing, or rather sketching what looked like abstracts in a notebook; and making calt's eyes at Riss.

It was only mildly annoying, so she paid no attention.

What was a bit worse, and she determined she'd have to rearrange some fliers' dental work when they returned to Sheol, was the bawdy speculation on the Talk Between Ships coded network com as to what Spada and Riss were doing, especially with that great furry monster aboard.

Everyone ignored Spada's weapons officer and engineer, for the sake of scatology.

Spada ignored the jibes as well, until just before they jumped out into normal space near the asteroids. Then he ordered com silence until they made contact.

His ship, and four others, all with their "spoofers," which Grok had named the mysterious black boxes, turned on, went into a rough formation, and, on secondary drive, set an orbit toward the first asteroid claimed by Behan.

"The virtue of these Pyrrhus-boats," Spada lectured, "is that they were meant to outgun most ships, outrun the others, and sense anything way beyond quote normal end quote detectors."

Then his voice turned gloomy. "That, of course, was in their day. Which was awhile back. Which is why the Alliance dumped them out here on the edges of lost for scrap metal prices.

"You might want to suit up. You don't have to put your helmets on, but keep them handy.

"Events might start happening fairly quickly."

M'chel helped Grok into his huge, custom-built spacesuit. Spada joined in. In the cramped cockpit of the combat ship, she suddenly thought the tableau looked like one of the pornographic friezes she'd seen on some planet somewhere, and was struck by uncontrollable giggling, rendering her useless. She refused to explain to either Grok or Spada.

"I think," Spada said suddenly, dropping his pencil, "it's best we put on our helmets. I've just picked up a stray signal from that dead asteroid, aimed as far as I can tell in the general direction of nowhere."

His voice never got excited, but his helmet was on, faceplate sealed, while he touched an inship alarm sensor, and opened his mike on the TBS

channel.

"Eighty-three," he said then, through the intercom. "Not that that means anything. I just told the others to spring about when I called a number, any number… ah, yes, there they are. Down 'below' the elliptic."

One screen, that had been showing little except a few asteroidal blips, suddenly flashed, and ten objects, trailing rainbow tails, indicating size and speed, appeared.

"Dopplering straight on toward us, like we're innocent miners," Spada said, again switched channels. "Decoys… stand by… stand by… I shall have you roasted, Dinsmore… Break!"

At his command, the five decoys went to full drive, the ship commanded by the to-be-unfortunate Dinsmore a bit in front, arcing "around," and straight into the oncoming ships.

Simultaneously, the other thirteen Star Risk ships, in three fighting formations, came out of N-space, and came after the raiders.

Spada's voice was calm, but M'chel saw a sheen of sweat through his faceplate.

Not that Riss was a picture of calmness. It was very seldom in her combat career that she'd had to just sit and watch, without a gun or a knife or a weapons sight to occupy her attention.

Grok seemed perfectly calm, although Riss didn't know how she would tell if he was excited or disturbed, watching several screens.

"We have a launch, skipper," Spada's weapons officer, Lopez, said, also completely controlled. "Three inbound. All acquired."

"Stand by," Spada ordered. "We'll take them out, then I want a counterlaunch right after, before they have time to figure out they missed.

"I hope. On my command… Launch!"

The ship lurched a little as countermissiles spat from tubes. There were other missiles incoming from the raiders, and other patrol ships' missiles were going after them.

Screens showed little flashes, then nothingness where the incoming missiles had been.

"Main launch… Fire!"

This time, the jolt was a little larger as ship killers, almost an eighth as long as the patrol ships, flashed out.

M'chel heard a bleep in her suit speaker, then three others.

"All missiles have acquired targets… homing," Lopez reported.

"Taking evasive action," Spada announced, and his fingers touched sensors here, there on the control board.

The ship's artificial gravity was almost up to the veers and jumps.

Almost. M'chel's stomach reminded her that if d been awhile since it'd been abused like this, then shut up and concentrated on keeping things down.

Grok turned to her, and said calmly, "It would appear my trickery has worked. Mr. Spada, if you'd now order your ships to enter X-One-One on their spoofery boxes?"

"X-One-One," Spada echoed, and 'cast the order to the other patrol ships.

"That should really irk our friends," Grok said. "Instead of small mining ships, we should all now have the signature of small, wildly orbiting rocks."

"Tracking…" the weapons officer droned. "I have a counterlaunch… one of our missiles acquired… destroyed… a hit!"

The oncoming bandits, in spite of their countermissiles, closed into what was almost a spear-wall of oncoming rockets.

"Strike… another strike… incoming missiles… acquired… destroyed," the weapons officer went on, while Spada kept his ship dancing in irregular orbits.

"Firing," he said. " Launch!"

"Wups. They're turning, skipper. We've got them on the run."

M'chel tried to interpret the screen, full of flashes and disappearances.

There were five left… no, four.

"We have three on the run," Spada reported.

"Go after them," M'chel said. "We want their base."

Spada spoke quiet orders on the TBS.

There was another flash onscreen, then a second.

"We seem to be doing better than we should," Spada said. "We do want at least one survivor to track. I'll hope those missiles had already been launched before I issued my orders.

"If not," he said ominously, "then my junior bird-man who got trigger-happy shall be in large shit. Pilots are a great deal easier to replace, and cheaper these days, than ships."

Again, he went to the TBS, ordered two other ships to format on him, and the others to hang "back" in the pursuit.

The last remaining raider flashed into N-space.

"A little late, friend," Spada said. "I have a tracer on your young bottom."

Their ship went in, out of N-space twice more, and each time the fleeing raider's blip was onscreen.

Spada turned a speaker on, and an unintelligible chatter filled the compartment.

"He's screaming for help, I'd guess," he said. "But he's not completely out of control, since his signal's in code. Now, all we have to do—"

Again, they came out of hyperspace, and there was a tiny flash on the blip.

"What the hell?" Spada said, touching buttons.

"That's strange," he said. "The bastard appears to have blown up. Look, here, on an infrared. Run it back a few seconds, and here. We've got a flash of energy, almost as strong as the drive, coming from the bow of the ship.

"And now, look at the prog screen over here. Unable to predict an orbit.

That ship's now out of control.

"I wonder—"

"Close on that ship," M'chel ordered. "And stand by to let us out. I don't like wondering."

The woman and the huge alien floated near what had been a warship, a former N'yar attack craft. The N'yar had been pacified by the Alliance more than ten years ago, but the ship still qualified as a modern killer on the civilian market.

It looked to Riss like an Earth cuttlefish she'd seen in holos, sleek from its stern to midsection. But there it blossomed out, alloy tentacles splayed.

The two pulled themselves closer, went into the ruins of the ship's nose.

"Interesting blast pattern," Grok said.

"It is," Riss said. "Very interesting."

"You have a theory?"

"Better. I have an explanation," M'chel said. "Now, let's see if the explosion left anything worth picking through."

"There's no question," M'chel said, turning away from the holo of the N'yar ship, "the raider ship was destroyed by an explosion from within. We weren't within range at all."

"An accident?" Jasmine King asked. She got up, went to a sideboard of the Boop-Boop-A-Doop, poured chilled tea for herself.

"Probably not," Baldur said.

"Certainly not," Goodnight agreed.

"The ship was 'casting to its home base for support when it exploded,"

Grok said.

"A booby trap," Riss said. "Put in by the raiders' leader, certainly without the knowledge of the ships' crews. Probably command-triggered."

"Poor bassid shouldn't have hollered for Momma," Goodnight said.

"Momma wouldn't've blown him up, otherwise.

"I assume you shook down the wreckage."

"You assume right," M'chel said. "The control room, and the crew, were shredded. The other compartments all had standard-issue Alliance surplus.

No letters home, no nice little star charts with 'we live here' no nothing worth talking about."

"At least we have two more facts!" Baldur said. "First, since the raiders made no attempt to challenge or seize what they thought were miners returning to their claims, we have further verification of my theory that the bandits are simply trying to drive Transkootenay away, for still unknown reasons."

"I have a strange thought," Riss said. "Jasmine, would Cerberus Systems be evil enough to want to snatch up what Transkootenay's got, and they're running the raiders?"

King thought.

"They're morally capable of anything," she decided. "But I don't think they'd pull a grab. Word might get out, and that kind of thing would lose them more clients than whatever they could gain by ending up with the Foley System's goodies.

"I don't care how rich these asteroids are, or if there's some incredible discovery that's been made that the raiders are after."

"Now there's something we haven't gone after," Goodnight said. "I've got all of the raw reports from my brother. I wonder if there's anything in common that the guys who got their ass shot off could've found?"

"Like what?" Riss asked.

"Like… hell, I'm not a geologist. God, diamonds, the apes of Ophir. But I'll see if I can find anything worth taking," Goodnight said.

"Your second fact?" King asked Baldur.

"Thank you. We were veering. The second, obvious fact is that whoever is running this little operation wants to keep his little secrets, whatever they are, secret, which is the reason for the booby trap. Also, which is heartening, we now know that he or she actually has little secrets, which is what we should be going after."

" I'm going after a drink," Goodnight said, and went to the sideboard.

Baldur ignored him.

"Another thing that just occurred to me," he said. "We took zed casualties in this little battle. The oppo, assuming that each of those N'yar ships were half-manned, and Jane's lists them as having a twelve-person crew, took sixty losses. That may be no more than an unfortunate skirmish to the Alliance, but to anyone in the private sector, that's a catastrophe.

"So, if we hear no more of these bandits, we may assume they were merely a collection of freelances, working for their common good. But if they are still strong for the fray, then we have a single opponent, with a defined, if unknown goal. Which, of course, will make our task a bit harder, and worthy of renegotiating our contract with Transkootenay."

"I think we should give this unknown a name," Riss suggested.

"It would be better than a vague him or her," Baldur agreed.

"Call her… him… Murgatroyd," M'chel said, suddenly remembering an archaic romance she'd read as a raw recruit.

"Murgatroyd?" Goodnight said with a great deal of skepticism.

"Murgatroyd," Riss said firmly.

"Murgatroyd it is," King said. "So entered in our records."

"Something else that should be entered," Grok said. "The score is now high-graders one, heroes one.

"Or better.

"I think we should attempt to further change the score."