Engaging the Enemy Page 4

  “That is correct. There is another Vatta ship in this group, Gary Tobai? It is on our list, with a K. Vatta as captain.”

  “Yes. That was my ship. My cousin Stella’s the captain now. She took over for me when I…obtained this one.”

  “That is an issue, Captain Vatta. Precisely how did you obtain the ship you are commanding now?”

  “Osman Vatta tried to trap me,” Ky said. She had been thinking how best to tell it. “He hated my father, because my father and uncle were the ones who banished him from the family. Because the ship had a Vatta Transport beacon, I trusted him initially—”

  “But surely you had been warned about him. Do you not use implants, you Vattas?”

  “He was banished long ago,” Ky said. “I suppose my father thought he was dead, or far away, and that I’d be unlikely to meet him. At any rate, I had no suspicion at first. We were traveling in convoy with a military escort—the Mackensee Military Assistance ships—and they advised me it might be a trap. I didn’t agree, and stayed behind when they went on with the convoy. It was a trap, and Osman attempted to board and kill us; he had allies, two pirate ships. We improvised a defense…I was able to send a call for help, and after some hours—after Osman was dead—Mackensee was able to come back and take out the other ships before they closed with us.”

  “So they did not witness what happened? You have no corroboration for your story?”

  “They can corroborate that they found his being there suspicious, yes. That I left the convoy to check on him, yes. That I called for help, yes. That there were two ships that when challenged tried to fight, yes. Exactly what happened when he tried to board, no.” The usual delay, during which Ky wondered if any of the security recordings aboard Gary Tobai would help. With Gordon Martin, Rafe, and herself on this ship, would Stella be able to locate and duplicate them?

  “It seems likelier that you yourself were the bait in a trap set by your convoy,” Edvarrin said. “A small, apparently unarmed ship like Gary Tobai, but with military backup, captures a ship like the one you have now? Mackensee isn’t known for that kind of thing, but mercs have gone rogue before. Traders just don’t have the skills or equipment to deal with a pirate, let alone a group of them.” A brief pause, then, “Mackensee informs us that you have a letter of marque from Slotter Key. And that you also have aboard an expert in ISC technology, who has been repairing inoperable beacons. Frankly, Captain, we have no reason to believe that you are in fact a legitimate trader or commercial carrier.”

  Ky could not think what to say. She had anticipated having to make some argument to gain title of the ship, but she hadn’t guessed that anyone might think she herself was a pirate.

  “I do have a letter of marque,” she said. “But the fact is that Osman Vatta—whom you yourself interdicted—attacked my ship and intended to kill me.”

  “That will be for a court to decide,” Edvarrin replied after a longer pause than usual. “Your military escort confirms your story, but also confirms that you insisted on taking Osman’s ship as a prize. Under these circumstances, and in the absence of communication with Vatta corporate headquarters or the Slotter Key government—and with no Slotter Key diplomatic representative authorized to confirm or deny the validity of your letter of marque—we are unwilling to have you bring your ship in under your command. You will take up a station at least twenty-five thousand kilometers from our orbital station, under guard of our insystem security service, and transfer to the station by shuttle. You yourself may appear before a court as specified in the Uniform Commercial Code, Section 82, paragraph 32.b, this court to be convened upon your arrival. This court will then determine the legality of your actions and the ownership of Fair Kaleen. Should you choose not to submit to this procedure, you are forbidden to approach nearer than fifty thousand kilometers. On your present course, this intersection will occur in approximately sixteen hours.”

  Ky looked around the bridge and met expressions as blank as she felt. “That’s…not what I expected,” she said. “It could take days to straighten this out.”

  “If you go in there, you’ll end up in jail,” Rafe said. “Remember that determine the legality of your actions? If the civil court decides you were wrong to kill Osman and his crew, you’d be facing criminal charges in a system where you don’t even have diplomatic representation.”

  “It’s the only way to prove who I really am—” Ky said. “I need to get this ship in my name legally.”

  “It’s the way to be stuck in a lockup with no chance at all to prove who you really are.”

  Martin gave Rafe a sidelong look, then nodded. “He’s right, Captain. They want you to go alone; you don’t know anyone here; you don’t have any allies. You can’t call on the Slotter Key embassy, even if there is one.”

  “There’s not,” Ky said. “I checked. Representation is through Fiella Consortium.”

  “There you are. No allies, no backup—it’s insane.”

  “But if I don’t go, they’ll say I’m a pirate. And what will happen to Stella and the Gary?”

  “Stella can take care of herself,” Rafe said. “And she’ll have Mackensee to speak up for her, as well as the other captains—she didn’t make the decisions you made. As your designated representative, she can receive the funds due you from the rest of the convoy and pay off Mackensee.”

  “I’ve got to talk to Johannson again,” Ky said. “And Stella. But I have to answer them first.”

  “No, you don’t. You’ve got hours. And by the way, partner, I really appreciate your not telling me about that letter of marque. Were you ever going to?”

  “Yes,” Ky said. “When the time came.”

  The look he gave her was not reassuring. “Well, the time came at someone else’s convenience. I hope you don’t have too many more surprises for me. I do my best plotting when I have all the facts.”

  “No more that I know of,” Ky said. “For what it’s worth, I hadn’t made up my mind to use the letter of marque, since by the time it arrived in my hands, I knew the Slotter Key government had turned against our family. If the ansibles were up, I’m sure they’d have recalled it or repudiated it or whatever they do.”

  Rafe blinked. “You weren’t going to use it? What kind of idiocy is that? It’s a marvelous opportunity to rebuild Vatta’s fleet, if nothing else. Not every system government is as hidebound as this one; as long as you don’t prey on their people and spend enough in port, they won’t care.”

  “But if Slotter Key—”

  “Why do you care what they think? They turned on your family, right? Let ’em howl. You have a good fast ship and a letter of marque. You’d be crazy not to use it to the hilt.” The others, Ky noted when she glanced around, were staring at Rafe as if he’d sprouted extra limbs. He looked around, too, then back at her, a look as challenging as the flourish of a sword. “What—you haven’t gotten squeamish, have you, or stricken with remorse or anything? After the way you killed Osman?”

  She shook her head. “No…I’m not stricken with remorse. Osman needed killing. It’s just—”

  He interrupted. “It’s just that you’ve always been a good girl, Stella says. Law abiding, rule following, all that. Well, look where it got your family. Dead, most of them. I’m not saying turn into a vindictive pirate like Osman, but if you want to do the survivors any good, you can’t be too worried about what other people think.”

  Ky was aware of a tense stillness; the bridge crew’s attention was palpable. Her mouth was dry; she felt as if she were about to jump out of the ship into vacuum and free fall. A trickle of humor worked its way through—she had done that already. With a bungee cord. And she wasn’t the nice rule-bound girl she had been—if she ever had been. She had killed more than once, and she had enjoyed it…something she hoped no one else would suspect.

  “I suppose,” she said, drawing the words out, “if communications come back and Slotter Key tries to withdraw the letter of marque…I’ll deal with it.”

  A
faint sense of relaxation. She took a deep breath and let it out. “All right. I’m not putting my head in anyone’s noose just to see if they’ll yank it tight. But I do need to talk to Stella and the Mackensee escort, and as many captains as I have time for.”

  No one said anything, but there was a collective gust of breath let out.

  “We’re well stocked for any ordinary voyage,” Ky said, as if to herself. “We can’t air up the whole ship yet, but there’s plenty for us and we have the power to warm up Environmental and let the tanks start producing. Plenty of water, right, Mitt?”

  “Yes, plenty. We can go to electrolysis if you want, but it’s safer to go slow.”

  “Well, then. We need to find a destination, within two jumps, and in the books as being relaxed on regulatory operations.”

  Stella, when Ky contacted her aboard Gary Tobai, stared out of the screen, eyes wide. “You’re going to leave me behind? What if they lock me up?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “You weren’t in command when Osman attacked us; you didn’t make the decisions or even participate.”

  “I had a bag over my head and was tied up—” Stella said. “If that’s not participating…”

  “I know that and you know that, but they don’t. And they don’t need to. You’re my cousin; you’re a Vatta—or a Constantin, I don’t care which name you use here—and you did what you were told. I can name you my agent for financial matters—collecting payment from the others in the convoy and paying off Mackensee. Mackensee will speak up for you, after all. You should still have enough to get where we’re going…”

  “If they don’t put me in jail,” Stella said gloomily. “It wouldn’t be the first time a government punished the innocent because they couldn’t catch the guilty.” Then, in a different tone, “Sorry. I didn’t mean you were guilty, of course. Just what they think, or may think.”

  “That’s all right,” Ky said. “But I need someone here to handle the financial end, and you are, at present, our family finance person.”

  “Quincy says we need a pilot,” Stella said. “Or we’ll have to have one of theirs.”

  “Take one of theirs. It’ll lower their suspicions. Of you, anyway. I’ll talk to Mackensee and the others.”

  _______

  “I hope you don’t mind that we told them about your letter of marque,” Johannson said when she called the Mackensee ship. “The locals thought you were Osman trying another trick, or maybe one of his crew or a relative or something. I tried to convince them that you were legitimate, but then they started suspecting us.” His expression was that of someone holding a very dead rat by the tail. “I thought the letter of marque would give you some legitimacy, but apparently not.”

  “I understand,” Ky said. She did, but that didn’t make her happy about it. “He was a relative—distant and unwelcome. At least he didn’t have any children.” That they knew about, Ky thought suddenly. What if he had? What kind of monsters would someone like Osman have fathered? Was she going to be pursued by his children? She shoved that worry down to deal with the immediate problem. “My concern now is how they will regard Stella. Will it be safe to send her in, or will they throw her in jail?”

  “I doubt they’ll detain her,” Johannson said. “I was able to pry out of them that they had no bias against Vatta as a whole, and Gary Tobai doesn’t scare them. It’s in their database as a legitimate Vatta ship. They may do a closer inspection than otherwise. I hope you moved those mines—”

  She had forgotten the mines. Anyone coming aboard—certainly anyone inspecting the cargo holds—would see both the mines and the evidence that one had gone off inside the ship. “No,” Ky said. “I didn’t have the chance.”

  He pulled at his lower lip. “Hmmm. That may be a problem. And that ship needed some repairs, didn’t it? If you—your cousin, I mean—can make it to another port, perhaps that would be wiser.”

  “We have to collect the fees from the convoy to pay you,” Ky reminded him. “The contract’s with Vatta, so Stella can do that—she can set up a transfer account, for instance. And they’ll need supplies.”

  “Ah. But do repairs have to be made before another transfer?”

  “I’ll ask our engineer, but probably not. Stella will need more crew, though. She’s shorthanded now; she doesn’t even have a pilot aboard.”

  Johannson sighed, a sound between resignation and exasperation. “We can supply one for her to dock, but you’re right, she’ll need one.” No port authority would let a ship leave without a licensed pilot aboard.

  “That would be a big help,” Ky said. “Just getting her to the dockside legally.” And a Mackensee pilot wouldn’t wander around the ship and discover the mines she’d had no chance to remove.

  “I suppose we could claim to have loaned you the mines,” Johannson said. “Though that doesn’t explain the damage…”

  “Maybe they won’t be noticed,” Ky said. “If she can get in, do the financial stuff…the ship’s a mess but the repairs aren’t critical, exactly.”

  “She can’t sell anything remotely suspicious,” Johannson said. “That’ll trigger a request to inspect the cargo holds. Loading…well, she can have her own crew do that, but if that involves new people, people she’s not sure of—” He sighed again. “I’d like to offer to help her screen applicants, but I can’t. I’ve exceeded our regs already. You’ve really put her in a very difficult spot.”

  Ky wondered if he’d have been half as sympathetic if it had been the lovely Stella who had put her in a spot. “I’m sorry,” she said, though she felt she had done nothing but apologize for days.

  _______

  Stella Vatta went looking for Quincy; the elderly engineer was doing something at the control boards…Stella had no idea what, and at the moment didn’t care.

  “I think Ky’s gone crazy,” she said.

  Quincy looked up. “I doubt it, but what’s bothering you?”

  “She’s not going to dock here. They’re insisting on adjudicating possession of Osman’s ship, and Ky insists it’s Vatta property, stolen and then recovered as a prize. Claims that makes it hers two ways. They’re not agreeing; she’s going to pull out, she says. That’s insane. Leaving me here with a ship I don’t know anything about—”

  Quincy gave her a hard look, not the sympathetic one she’d been hoping for. “You’ve been aboard how long? And she appointed you captain tens of days ago…”

  Stella tossed her head. “I’ve been trying, but I never had the ship background. And anyway, even if I did know all about this ship, it’s not right for her to just hare off somewhere and leave me—”

  “We could go with her,” Quincy said.

  “She says not. She says we’re supposed to stay behind and handle all the financial stuff with the convoy and Mackensee.”

  Quincy’s brows rose. Stella nodded at her.

  “Now do you see what I mean? I can just imagine what the other captains will say. And Mackensee. And she’s left me to straighten out whatever messes she’s caused—”

  “You are trained in finance, though, isn’t that right?” Quincy asked.

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Do you really think this is something you can’t do?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “So she knows you’re capable of it, and she’s left you a job you can do. It’s unfortunate that she has to pull out, and I admit I’d be more comfortable if she were going to be around—” That in a tone suggesting Quincy wasn’t at all convinced Stella was competent. “—but I don’t see that it’s as bad as you’re making out.”

  Stella stared at the old woman. “You—you agree with her?”

  “Whether I agree with her or not on any given decision isn’t the point. The point is she’s saved us—and this ship—twice now, and for me that’s a record worth respecting. She’s asked you to do something you’re capable of doing—”

  “I got that already,” Stella said.

  “Good. Because
that’s what’s important. If she’d asked you to fight a space battle, I might think that was crazy. If she asked you to pilot the ship into dock yourself, I’d know that was crazy. But asking you to sweet-talk some ship captains and handle finances? It should be eating cake with cream for someone like you.” The look Quincy gave her made clear what assets the old woman thought Stella would use on the ship captains. Stella felt her blood beginning to sizzle.

  “We don’t even have a pilot,” Stella said, struggling to keep her voice level. “It’s not legal. We have to have a pilot to dock.”

  “And undock,” Quincy reminded her. “But pilots are always for hire at major ports like this. We can call for one, to get in, and I’d be very surprised indeed if you couldn’t hire any crew you wanted once we’re docked.”

  “You don’t think they’ll ask questions?” Stella said. Quincy looked blank. “About the damage,” Stella went on. “Where Ky the genius nearly blew a hole in our ship and knocked us all out.”

  “It didn’t go anywhere near the hull,” Quincy said. “And there’s no reason a hired pilot would need to be down there in cargo anyway.”

  “We’d better hope they don’t have a good nose,” Stella said. To her, the emergency access passage still had a meaty aroma though the others claimed they’d swabbed it repeatedly and there weren’t any visible stains from Osman’s gory demise. She was sure minute traces of blood remained that could be found by any good forensics team. Not to mention a certain gory package in the back of the freezer; Ky had wanted a tissue sample to prove identity if she needed to.

  Quincy leaned against the bulkhead and folded her arms. “Stella, I can tell you’re upset, but for the good of Vatta you need to get over whatever it is. You and Ky must work together—it’s our only hope.”

  “I was willing to work with her,” Stella said. “But she isn’t working with me: she’s just doing what she wants and she expects me to follow along like…like that idiot puppy.” Quincy opened her mouth but Stella ignored her and rode the rush of anger that had finally gotten loose. “I’m not her puppy or even her kid sister. I’m older than she is, I’ve been out in the universe longer, and she treats me like some low-ranking employee, not a colleague or family member!”