His churning thoughts suddenly paused. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? He felt his lips twitch and managed somehow to suppress the need to grin triumphantly as he realized the solution to his dilemma. His “brilliant” subordinates had reported the contact even before CIC, had they? Well, good for them! And as the officer of the watch, wasn’t it his job to confirm whether or not the contact was valid as quickly as possible—even before the computers and the highly trained plotting crews in CIC could do so? Of course it was! And that was the sole reason he had delayed in reporting to the Captain: to confirm that the possible contact was a real one.

He caught himself just before he actually rubbed his hands together in satisfaction and then turned to the helmsman.

“Prepare to roll ship seventy degrees to port and come to new heading of two-two-three,” he said crisply.

Del Conte spun his chair to face the center of the bridge before he could stop himself. He knew exactly what the lieutenant intended to do, but he couldn’t quite believe that even Elvis Santino could be that stupid. The preparatory order he’d just given was a classic maneuver. Naval officers called it “clearing the wedge,” because that was exactly what it did as the simultaneous roll and turn swept the more sensitive broadside sensor arrays across the zone which had been obstructed by the wedge before the maneuver. But it was the sort of maneuver which only warships made, and War Maiden had gone to enormous lengths to masquerade as a fat, helpless, unarmed freighter expressly to lure raiders into engagement range. If this asshole—

“Sir, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” the senior chief said.

“Fortunately, I am,” Santino said sharply, unable to refrain from smacking down the disloyal noncom.

“But, Sir, we’re supposed to be a merchie, and if—”

“I’m quite aware of what we’re supposed to be, Senior Chief! But if in fact this is a genuine contact and not simply a figment of someone’s overheated imagination, clearing the wedge should confirm it, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Sir, but—”

“They’re only pirates, Senior Chief,” Santino said scathingly. “We can turn to clear the wedge, lock them in for CIC, and be back on our original heading before they even notice!”

Del Conte opened his mouth to continue the argument, and then shut it with a click. There was obviously no point, and it was even remotely possible that Santino was right and that the contact would never notice such a brief course change. But if the contact had them on a gravitic sensor which wasn’t obstructed by a wedge, then War Maiden was at least nine or ten light-minutes inside its sensor range. At that range, even a brief change in heading would be glaringly obvious to any regular warship’s tactical crew. Of course, if these were your typical run-of-the-mill pirates, then Santino could just possibly get away with it without anyone’s noticing. It was unlikely, but it was possible.

And if the asshole blows it, at least my hands will be clean. I did my level best to keep him from screwing up by the numbers, and the voice logs will show it. So screw you, Lieutenant!

The senior chief gazed into the lieutenant’s eyes for five more endless seconds while he fought with himself. His stubborn sense of duty pulled one way, urging him to make one more try to salvage the situation, but everything else pushed him the other way, and in the end, he turned his chair back to face his own panel without another word.

Santino grunted in satisfaction, and returned his own attention to the helmsman.

“Execute the helm order, Coxswain!” he said crisply.

The helmsman acknowledged the order, War Maiden rolled up on her side and swung ever so briefly off her original track, and her broadside sensor arrays nailed the contact instantly.

Just in time to see it execute a sharp course change of its own and accelerate madly away from the “freighter” which had just cleared its wedge.

“I cannot believe this… this… this…”

Commander Abner Layson shook his head, uncertain whether he was more stunned or furious, and Captain Bachfisch grunted in irate agreement. The two of them sat in the captain’s day cabin, the hatch firmly closed behind them, and the display on the captain’s desk held a duplicate of Francine Alcott’s plot imagery, frozen at the moment the pirate which the entire ship’s company had worked so long and so hard to lure into a trap went streaking away.

“I knew he was an idiot,” the commander went on after a moment in a marginally less disgusted voice, “but I figured he had to at least be able to carry out standing orders that had been explained in detail to every officer aboard.”

“I agree,” Bachfisch said, but then he sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I agree,” he repeated more wearily, “but I can also see exactly what happened.”

“Excuse me, Sir, but what happened was that the officer of the watch completely failed to obey your standing order to inform you immediately upon the detection of a potential hostile unit. Worse, on his own authority, he undertook to execute a maneuver which was a dead giveaway of the fact that we’re a warship, with predictable results!”

“Agreed, but you know as well as I do that he did it because he knows both of us are just waiting for him to step far enough out of line that we can cut him right off at the knees.”

“Well, he just gave us all the ammunition we need to do just that,” Layson pointed out grimly.

“I suppose he did,” Bachfisch said, massaging his eyelids with the tips of his fingers. “Of course, I also suppose it’s possible his career will survive even this, depending on who his patrons are back home. And I hate to admit it, but if I were one of those patrons, I might just argue to BuPers that his actions, however regrettable, were the predictable result of the climate of hostility which you and I created for Lieutenant Santino when we arbitrarily relieved him of his duties as OCTO.”

“With all due respect, Sir, that’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“Of course I know it. At the same time, there’s a tiny element of truth in it, since you and I certainly are hostile to him. You are hostile towards him, aren’t you, Abner?”

“Damn right I am,” Layson said, then snorted as the captain grinned at him. “All right, all right, Sir. I take your point. All we can do is write it up the way we saw it and hope that The Powers That Be back home agree with us. But in the meantime, we have to decide what we’re going to do about him. I certainly don’t want him standing any more watches unsupervised!”

“Neither do I. For that matter, I don’t want him at Tactical, even if he’s just backing up Janice. Bad enough that the man is a fool, but now his own people are helping him cut his own throat!”

“Noticed that, did you, Sir?”

“Please, Abner! I’m still a few years shy of senile. Del Conte knew exactly what would happen.”

“I think that may be putting it just a bit strongly, Sir,” Layson said cautiously. He’d hoped without much confidence that the captain might not have noticed the senior chief’s obvious decision to shut his mouth and stop arguing with his superior. “I mean,” the exec went on, “Santino specifically ordered him to—”

“Oh, come on, Abner! Del Conte is an experienced man, and he damned well shouldn’t have let the fact that his superior officer is an unmitigated ass push him into letting that officer blow the tactical situation all to hell, no matter how pissed off he might’ve been or how justified he was to be that way. You know it, I know it, and I expect you to make very certain that Senior Chief Del Conte knows that we do and that if he ever lets something like this happen again I will personally tear him a new asshole. I trust that I’ve made my feelings on this matter clear?”