"Oh, I admit I was mostly throwing out a sheet anchor just to be on the safe side and protect the Captain's reputation for infallibility. I expected either regular Navy units, or else that these ships had been disposed of through a black-market operation-either by the Havenite government or by some Peep admiral looking to build himself a nest egg before disappearing into retirement. But we've known for a long time now that some of the worst elements of the People's Navy and StateSec simply ran for it when Theisman pulled Saint-Just down. At least two of their destroyers and a light cruiser eventually turned up in Silesia, and there have been unconfirmed reports of other ex-Peep units hiring out as mercenaries. I suppose what surprises me most about this is that anyone would take the risk of continuing to wear StateSec uniform."

"Pirates are pirates, Skip," Kaplan said grimly. "What they choose to wear doesn't make any difference."

"No, I don't suppose it does," Terekhov said quietly. But it did. He knew it did.

" Wolverine , this is Hawk-Papa-Two. I have a message for Captain Einarsson."

One hundred and two seconds passed. Then-

"Yes, Lieutenant Hearns? This is Einarsson."

"Captain," Abigail said, watching Bogey Three grow steadily larger ahead of her two pinnaces, "we've just received word from Hexapuma . Bogey Two's been destroyed with all hands. Bogey One, confirmed as a Havenite heavy cruiser, has been heavily damaged and forced to surrender. Captain Terekhov has Marines aboard her, and Navy rescue and salvage parties are boarding now. He says she's suffered severe personnel casualties, and his present estimate is that damage to the ship itself is too heavy to make repair practical."

"That's wonderful news, Lieutenant!" Einarsson replied, a minute and a half later. "Unless something changes drastically in the next fifteen minutes or so, it looks like a clean sweep."

"Yes, Sir," Abigail agreed. And the fact that they were Peep ships after all justifies the Captain's decision to attack without challenging them first , she added to herself. She was surprised by how relieved that made her feel... and also to realize that in the Captain's place, she'd probably have done exactly the same thing, Peeps or no Peeps.

"I suppose you should go ahead and talk to them, Lieutenant," the Nuncian officer continued from the far end of the communications line without awaiting for Abigail's response. "She's your bird, after all."

"Why, thank you, Sir! We'll see to it. Hawk-Papa-Two, clear."

Abigail hoped the surprise she felt hadn't shown in her reply. Einarsson was the senior officer present, even if he was currently well over thirty million kilometers away. The pinnaces, with their higher acceleration, had overshot Bogey Three by less than twenty-seven million kilometers, 5.2 million less than Wolverine 's overshoot. And that same higher acceleration had brought them back to within 1.3 million kilometers while the Nuncian LACs had begun the return journey only two minutes ago. Assuming Bogey Three stayed as motionless as she'd been ever since Abigail's fly-by attack, she'd decelerate to a zero/zero intercept in another eleven minutes. There'd never been much question that her pinnaces were going to do the actual intercepting, but she had to admit Einarsson had surprised her by formally-and -spontaneously-admitting that a mere female lieutenant deserved full credit. It was true, perhaps, but Abigail had enjoyed too much firsthand experience of how difficult it was for an old-school, dyed-in-the-wool patriarch to voluntarily admit any such thing.

She switched to the merchant guard frequency and spoke into her com again.

"Unknown freighter," she said, and her soft Grayson accent was cold as space and ribbed with battle steel, "this is Lieutenant Abigail Hearns, of Her Majesty's Starship Hexapuma , aboard the pinnace approaching from your zero-zero-five zero-seven-two. Your consorts have been destroyed or captured in the inner system. You will stand by to be boarded by my Marines. Any resistance will be met with lethal force. Is that clear, unknown freighter?"

Only silence answered, and she frowned.

"Unknown freighter," she said again, "respond to my previous message immediately!"

Still, only silence, and her frown deepened. She thought for a few moments, then switched frequencies again, this time to Lieutenant Mann aboard the second pinnace.

"Lieutenant Mann, this is Hearns. Have you been monitoring my communications?"

"Affirmative, Lieutenant,"

"I suppose the most likely reason for their communications silence is that we did somehow manage take out their com section. That would certainly explain why they apparently never said a word to Bogey One about our attack. I just can't quite believe we did that kind of damage. Even if we managed to take out their laser array, they ought to be able to respond via omnidirectional radio at this piddling range!"

"Agreed." Mann was silent for three or four seconds, obviously thinking hard. Then he came back over the link. "What about the possibility that you did enough damage to take out their receivers? Or enough that the people who'd normally be mounting com watch are off dealing with more pressing damage?"

"Of the two, the second one makes more sense. But I don't like the feel of this. Something isn't right. I can't explain exactly why I'm so sure, but I am."

"Well," Mann said after a heartbeat or two, "I'm just a Marine. I'm not prepared to question a Navy officer's judgment in a case like this-especially not after Captain Terekhov and Major Kaczmarczyk made it abundantly clear the Navy officer in question is in command. How do you want to handle it?"

He had not, Abigail noted, made any remarks about religion or superstition.

"I think we have no choice but to go ahead and board," she said, after a moment. "But until we know more about what's going on aboard her, I'd prefer to limit our exposure. We'll take one of your squads, two of my Engineering ratings, and both midshipmen across without docking, and both pinnaces will withdraw to five hundred kilometers before we crack a hatch."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Mann agreed. Abigail was more than a little surprised by the total lack of argument, but she only nodded.

"Very well, Lieutenant. Get your squad saddled up. We should be ready to go EVA in about seven minutes."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Lieutenant Mann said again. The tall, black-haired lieutenant rubbed his neatly trimmed goatee and looked over his shoulder in the troop compartment of pinnace Hawk-Papa-Three. "You heard, Sergeant?"

"Aye, Skipper." Platoon Sergeant David Crites, Third Platoon's senior NCO, had blue eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, despite his prolong, and a no-nonsense manner. Usually. This time he rubbed his own beard, a considerably bushier and generally more majestic proposition than his lieutenant's, and grinned. "Probably be simplest to just go ahead and take McCollom's squad, seeing's how he's right here, conveniently located next to the hatch, and all."

"Well, if he's the best we have available, I suppose he'll have to do," Mann agreed with a sigh, and the skin around his hazel eyes crinkled in a smile as he looked at Lance Corporal Wendell McCollom.

McCollum, who ran Second Squad for him, stood a hundred and ninety-three centimeters tall, with dark hair and a prominent nose. He was also just a tad on the plump side for a proper recruiting poster, and he and Crites, who'd known one another for almost twenty T-years, were known for punning contests that could go on literally for hours.

What mattered most at this moment, however, was that Second Squad and its plump lance corporal happened to have the highest training marks for the assault role in Hexapuma 's entire Marine detachment. Which was why McCollum's people were the only ones-aside from Mann and Crites-in full battle armor.

"Try not to open any exploding paint lockers this time, Corporal McCollom," the lieutenant said sternly.

"One little mistake, and they never let you forget about it," McCollom said sadly, then regarded his youthful platoon commander with a mournful, accusatory eye. "I still think that was an underhanded trick, even for an officer... Sir."

"Underhanded?" Mann returned the corporal's regard innocently. "I thought it made a nice change from the usual audio alarms. And, as the Sergeant pointed out to me at the time he-I mean I -thought of it," he admonished with a twinkle in his eye, "you really should pay more attention to possible booby traps in training scenarios."

"I do now, Sir."

All three smiled, and Aikawa Kagiyama, who sat watching them, wished he felt remotely as calm as they appeared. At least some of it had to be an act, he thought. The way warriors throughout the ages had put on relaxed faces to demonstrate their confidence before facing the unknown. Yet there was a tough, resilient professionalism underneath the act. Mann was the youngest of the three, but there was no question of his authority, however light the hand with which he exercised it, and Aikawa thought that was probably what he envied most.

The lieutenant scratched his chin for a moment, thoughtfully, then looked at Aikawa, whose anxiety level ratcheted abruptly upward.

"It seems you're going on a little excursion with us, Mr. Kagiyama. I don't know what we're likely to be walking into over there, but my people will look after you. Just remember two things. One, you're a midshipman on your first deployment, not Preston of the Spaceways. Stay out of trouble, keep an eye on the people around you who've done this sort of thing before, and leave your sidearm holstered unless somebody tells you differently. Second, your skinsuit's a hell of a lot better at stopping pulser darts and other nasty things than bare skin, but it's not battle armor. So do all of us a favor and try to keep the battle armor between you and any unpleasantness we run into."

It was, Aikawa reflected, like being told to keep his hands in his pockets. Which, under the circumstances, he found almost comforting.

"Do you think Lieutenant Hearns is right to be concerned, Sir?" he asked after a moment.

"I don't know." If Mann thought Aikawa's question was out of line, no sign of it showed. "But I do know she's not the kind to jump at shadows. I suppose we'll find out in a few minutes." He looked back at Crites and McCollum. "Let's get our people helmeted up."