“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.