“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.
>
Chapter Eight
Too bad,” Martin murmured. “I suppose we’re in for the traditional bad quarter hour.”
“I hope it’s only that,” Ky said. “We’ve already been a problem twice today.”
“Yes, you’ll have quite a reputation when we’re done here,” he said. It wasn’t quite a chuckle. “You’re… remarkably calm for someone who just killed someone and was nearly killed herself. Is it calm, or are you in shock?”
“I’m supposed to know?” Ky said. “I don’t feel panicky, if that’s what you mean. A little worried about the men with the uniforms.”
“I presume you’ve been told how to behave when arrested?”
“Oh, yes. But I’d just as soon not spend another hour facedown on the floor, like I did on Belinta.”
“On Belinta—but you were nearly killed on Belinta.”
“And one of the men who tried to kill me was thoroughly killed.”
“By—?”
“Me,” Ky said. “I thought you knew.”
“No; I heard about the mutineers on your ship. I knew this wasn’t your first.”
“The first for this weapon,” Ky said, tucking it back into its holster as the first guard came into view. Martin had already holstered his.
The Garda—another two had entered from the far end—were fully armored, weapons out. Someone out of sight had a loudhailer. “Anyone in this area, come out with your hands up!”
“That’s us,” Ky said. “Here we go.” She put her hands up, and stepped out of the doorway, Martin beside her, hoping that no other sniper remained. Her skin tightened, but no one shot her.
“Any more of you?” asked the loudhailer. Whoever had it must also have a view of the passage.
“No,” Ky said. “Not on our side.”
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