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.