Engaging the Enemy Read online

  As Knae continued to question her about their voyage, about Ky, about Osman, about the mercenaries, Stella struggled with her own feelings. She and Ky had talked about the family disaster only in brief snatches, information-only. This was the first time she had told the story straight through, from the attack on her family back on Slotter Key through the attacks by Osman. She felt like two Stellas: one in control, carefully manipulating tone of voice and expression to have the best effect on the officials questioning her, and one adrift in waves of emotion she had not taken the time to recognize. From the first, she had been reacting or doing what she was told—by Aunt Grace, by Rafe, by Ky.

  Those minutes—was it only minutes?—she had lain on the bunk with a sack over her head came back to her with terrifying intensity. It was hard to breathe, even now, when she thought of it; the fear dominated everything…when was he coming? Would Ky be able to stop him?

  Knae kept on asking detailed questions, some she couldn’t answer, questions she now understood were important in many ways. But in the brief time between waking from the stun to her implant and Ky’s leaving for the other ship, she hadn’t asked enough questions, or the right questions. Ky should have told her, somehow, exactly what had happened and how; Ky should have understood that she was too dazed by events to take in everything right away.

  Her control slipped; she felt more tears on her face, and knew she was shaking.

  Knae’s face softened and his voice was gentler as he asked, “Can anyone confirm any of this? Even your crew?”

  “Quincy could. Quincy Robin. She’s as old as the ship, near enough, she’s been with Vatta all her life.” Stella took a deep breath and managed to steady her voice. “Our escorts certainly know about attacks on Vatta ships and personnel—they witnessed attacks on us at Lastway. Lieutenant Commander Johannson will confirm what happened from Lastway to here.”

  Finally they seemed to have run out of questions. Knae looked at the others, who looked back and shrugged.

  “I need to get to the bank,” Stella said. “If you don’t mind?”

  “Go ahead…but don’t leave the station without permission.”

  “I wouldn’t know how,” Stella said, smiling at them. She wondered how Ky would have fared, when even her beauty had barely softened their attitude.

  “I’m sure you don’t want someone you’ve never seen before trying to get access to corporate accounts,” Stella said, putting full force charm into her voice. The Crown & Spears account manager nodded, eyes wary. “Even though I know the account numbers and passwords—of course even with the best security such things have been compromised. But I want to open a new corporate account. We have funds coming in, owed us by the convoy that just arrived, and I want the same terms as in the other Vatta account.”

  “Er…that seems reasonable,” the man said. “And if you really needed…perhaps something could be arranged…”

  “No need,” Stella said, smiling at him, watching him react as nearly all men did to that smile. He was certainly more susceptible than Customs and Immigration’s Inspector Knae. “But I don’t want to be paying higher bank charges than the regular account; it will annoy our people and give me a black mark.”

  “Surely not,” the man said. “In such an emergency—”

  “You don’t know my aunt Grace,” Stella said ruefully. “She doesn’t believe in excuses.”

  “A close family firm,” the man said, smiling now. “There’s a dragon in every family, isn’t there? With me it was my mother’s mother. Until she died, we were all hauled up at least once a ten-day.” He shook his head. “Let’s see, then. In the present state of things, with financial ansibles down, we aren’t taking credit transfers from outsystem institutions, but we are accepting hard currency or trade goods from incoming spacers.”

  “Of course,” Stella said.

  “Existing Vatta corporate accounts fall into our Preferred category; I believe you’ll find the amenities acceptable.” He passed across a hardcopy sheet; Stella glanced over it quickly.

  “Yes, that’s quite acceptable. Now if you can refer me to a licensed appraiser…”

  “Certainly. Ballard Valuations is bonded, quite reputable. So is Actuarial Appraisals.”

  Stella flipped a mental coin and chose Ballard. Two of Aunt Grace’s diamonds produced a respectable first deposit to the new Vatta account. Stella sent the necessary information to the other convoy captains and instructed them to make their deposits promptly, then told Mackensee that she had done so.

  She had just returned to the ship from Crown & Spears when the station security chief called.

  “We’ve checked your story with the Mackensee commander and your crew personnel; we are now satisfied that you are not a pirate and that you are in legitimate command of your ship, though you are not actually qualified…but that’s not your fault. We accept that in an emergency you did what was necessary. Nonetheless, we require that you hire an experienced captain and necessary crew before proceeding.”

  “Thank you,” Stella said. “I fully intend to hire someone who knows more than I do.”

  “We are not yet convinced that your cousin is as blameless as you think, however. She failed to submit to our judicial investigation.”

  “Ky is…impulsive sometimes,” Stella murmured. “She was always very upright, however.”

  “That may be, but she is now running an armed vessel to which she has no adjudicated title and she claims to have a letter of marque and thus a prize claim—”

  “She has the letter of marque,” Stella said. “I’ve seen it.”

  “And there’s the matter of the person with her whom you think is working on behalf of the ISC. But he didn’t fix our ansibles the way you say he fixed others.”

  “Did you ask him to?” Stella said.

  “Well…no.” A longish pause, then a grudging nod. “All right. I see your point. We didn’t ask for that help, and we weren’t being overly welcoming to your cousin. I suppose if she felt she had to exit the system, he could hardly have jumped ship into vacuum.”

  “Precisely,” Stella said, smiling. “And now, I’d like permission to unload my cargo and go about my business—trading business.”

  “Quite so. Go ahead, then. We’ve greenlighted your cargo access.”

  Three shifts later, the first of the convoy ships had made its deposit into her new account, and she had made the required transfer to Mackensee for their escort service. Their own cargo, small as it was, sold for a good price; she now had enough in the account to hire new crew.

  _______

  Balthazar Orem had lost his ship to dock charges; with no transfer credit and a cargo that didn’t compete well in the current market, he’d been unable to keep up, and the station had seized his ship. “I’ll be glad to work for a company like Vatta,” he said in his recorded interview. “I know Vatta’s had problems, but it’ll recover. It’s always been a respectable line. Maybe I can save enough to start over m’self someday, but realistically—” He rubbed his left hand through thinning gray hair. “I’m gettin’ on for that. Just to be in space, just to have a ship, that’s what I want. All my papers are in order; I’ve never had a judgment against me.”

  “He’s the best we’ve found,” Johannson said. “He worked up to his own ship from cargo handler; he knows his job and he has a good reputation, other than being ‘too small to compete.’”

  “I’ll take him,” Stella said. “At least, I think I will, but I still want to meet him myself.”

  “Pilots are a bit chancier,” Johannson said. “We found you what we think is the best available onstation, but she’s got a reputation as a handful. Here’s her interview.” He flicked on the vidscreen. The hard-faced redhead sat bolt upright, looking as if she might explode any moment.

  “I’m a pilot,” she said. “Not a navigator, not an engineer, and for sure not a cargo worker. Pilot. Best one around, and that’s why I insist that I’m just a pilot, nothing else.”

  Stella
tried to imagine that personality in her crew and almost refused.

  “I don’t get in rows, I don’t cause trouble—I’ll do my share of general shipwork, in the galley and so forth. But I’m a specialist, see? This is a small ship you’re talking about, and sometimes these small ships think everyone can do everything. They can’t. I need to run my sims every day to keep my skills up and stay sharp.”

  That didn’t sound as bad.

  “She’s abrasive,” Johannson said, “but she passed our skills test with a very high score.”

  “I’ll take her,” Stella said. She needed skills more than a sweet personality.

  Orem came for his interview within minutes of her call; he must have been waiting just outside the dock space. Stella recognized the same quiet competence that characterized many Vatta captains. It was hard to make herself ask more questions, and she finally shook her head and said, “This is ridiculous—you’re clearly qualified, Captain Orem, and I hope you’ll accept this position.”

  “Thank you, ma’am; I’ll be glad to.”

  “Just give me time to move my things out of the captain’s cabin—”

  “You don’t need to do that, ma’am. I can bunk anywhere.”

  “Of course you’ll have that cabin,” Stella said. “It’s set up for communications to the bridge.” She didn’t really want to bunk in crew quarters, but she knew better than to shortchange her new captain.

  By the end of that business day, she had hired an excellent environmental technician as well, and Orem had already worked up a watch schedule for the old and new crew.

  “I like him,” Quincy said to Stella in the rec area. “He feels solid to me. And she’s prickly, but qualified.” No question who she was…the new pilot.

  Over the next few days, as Orem settled into command of Gary Tobai, Stella completed the financial transfers from the convoy to the new Vatta account. It was tedious, as not all the convoy captains had accounts with Crown & Spears, and two of them had to wait for their cargoes to sell in order to clear the amount needed. Stella suspected that Ky would not have had the patience to keep after the various ship captains without annoying them too much.

  She had told Quincy to organize a priority list for repairs; now she told Orem how much they now had available to spend. Repair crews moved into the damaged cargo hold and began rebuilding the wiring. Stella looked at their balance—much healthier than she’d expected, even counting the cost of repairs—and went in search of trade goods. With traffic down, what would the market on Rosvirein be looking for? Or, assuming a reasonable course, something she couldn’t predict with Ky, the next logical port, Sallyon?

  If Vatta was to rebuild, it would need contacts on as many stations as possible. Garth-Lindheimer had been a prosperous and respectable trading station for some time; the system had several habitable planets, and insystem trade sustained the economy even with the ansibles down. No interstellar traders headquartered here, but she visited the branch offices of those who had regular routes through Garth-Lindheimer. Everyone’s business was down, pirate activity was up, and no one wanted to subcontract with Vatta, even for short runs. She paid a visitor fee to make use of the Captains’ Guild, where she expected the dining room gossip to more than repay that expense. At first she heard nothing new, just complaints about the time it was taking ISC to repair the ansibles, the apparent increase in pirate attacks, lost revenues, rapacious insurance companies.

  “So what is Slotter Key like?” asked Captain Parks of Amber’s Dream on her third visit; he offered to buy her lunch, and she accepted.

  Stella shrugged, letting the soft knit dress she was wearing almost slip off one shoulder. He appeared to be only a few years older than she, sandy-haired with pale blue eyes. She’d seen him watching her before; perhaps he would be less cautious than the other captains. “It’s my home world; I think it’s beautiful. Pretty much standard type for unmodified human colonization. More ocean than most, I’d say.”

  “And why are you all the way over here?” he asked, his eyes straying to her cleavage.

  Stella took a calculated breath. This kind was the easiest to pump for information. She explained, briefly but emotionally, about the attacks on her home and family. “And then my cousin went off in the other ship, and left me to take care of things here.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” he said. He was leaning forward now. Stella sat back.

  “It’s not, but what could I do? I had to find someone to help me with the ship. I’m not a licensed captain, as you know.”

  “You could have asked me,” he said.

  This was too ridiculous. “You have a ship already,” Stella said, with just a hint of tartness. “And I am asking your advice now. What sort of cargo do you think will be profitable if I were headed for, say, Bissonet? And is Rosvirein the best way to go, or should I head for the Topaz Cluster?” Stella had picked Bissonet as most obvious populous system beyond Rosvirein and Sallyon.

  “Bissonet? They’re a major manufacturing center, and your ship’s too small to carry any raw materials they might want.” Parks moved his wineglass a centimeter. “I’d try culinary additives, art glass, things like that. Tricky, if you haven’t been there before.”

  “I’ve got to do something,” Stella said, shrugging. “If I’m going to rebuild Vatta, it has to start somewhere.”

  “A hard task,” Park said. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, inadequate chin resting on his hands. “You are young for it, but then the young and beautiful find many things easy that others would find impossible.”

  He was impossible. If he leaned any closer, he would upset the whole table in her lap.

  “You flatter me,” Stella said. Usually she enjoyed a game of flirt and fly, but now it seemed as juvenile as a child’s circle game. What she wanted was information, useful information, not admiring glances and barely veiled lust. It was her own fault, she admitted to herself; she had dressed to arouse, but it was still a bore.

  “What an excellent fish,” she said, applying herself to the pink-fleshed fillet in front of her. It was good; Ky had said that the food at the Captains’ Guild dining rooms was nearly always good.

  “It is,” the man said, starting in on his own pair of chops. “If you like fish,” he added.

  Stella smiled sweetly at him but went on eating. When she had finished, she thanked him and excused herself. “I’m sorry, but my ship tells me there’s a call waiting—it was a lovely meal, and you were most generous.”

  His smile brightened. “Perhaps I’ll see you this evening, if you stop by the bar—”

  “It will depend on business,” Stella said. If you couldn’t leave them laughing, you could at least leave them hopeful. Not that she wanted to fan his hopes, but no need to leave him feeling used.

  In the days that followed, while the repair crew finished their work, Stella picked up small amounts of a varied cargo. This was much more her sort of thing than running a ship. She had always had a knack for recognizing what would become a style trend well before it did; she could read quality in merchandise types she didn’t know as if it were printed in bold on the surface. Now this led her to pick up bales of handwoven cloth, several crates of art glass, some spare parts for larger ships’ environmental systems, two crates of porcelain dishes, and 250 Kospar Infini toilets, top of the line across the galaxy. Captain Orem told her about those when they came up on the auction board.

  “I thought toilets were toilets,” Stella said. “Mature technology, been around thousands of years—I mean, I know the name, and they’re nice, but to haul around on spaceships?”

  “All Kospar products are first-rate,” Orem said. “But the Infini model is what the rich and famous put into their homes and private offices. Kospar limits the manufacture every year, well below demand. Designers beg for them. What was in your father’s house?”

  “Kospar,” Stella admitted. “Benites upstairs, and there was an Infini in the master bath and the main guest bath, but I never used those
. What’s the difference?”

  He shrugged. “What’s the difference between synthsilk and real silk? Grape juice and wine? For one thing, each is unique in some way: color, texture of the exterior, inclusions—”

  “Inclusions?”

  “Decorative elements incorporated into the structural material. I saw one once that had ferns…it was a work of art, not just a basic human necessity. For another thing, they don’t break. They never require cleaning. They never need repair or adjustment. Anything that damages one of them will destroy the house around it. They all monitor for a wide range of health concerns. And they have the most comfortable seats. They also cost, of course, and the profit on them, even for the shipper, is quite generous.”

  “So you think we should take them.”

  “We should take twice that many if they were available. I don’t suppose you’ll sell many on Rosvirein—though the criminal element has never been noted for austerity—but if we do go on to Sallyon and Bissonet, I’d expect a very nice profit indeed.”

  The toilets came aboard, along with hand-knit scarves of wool from a local game animal, bright-painted religious icons, packets of freeze-dried “wild” meat and fish, and anything else that caught Stella’s eye and passed Captain Orem’s experienced trade sense.

  _______

  Ky brought Fair Kaleen into Rosvirein’s system cautiously. Rosvirein had the reputation—according to her father’s implant and Rafe’s memory—of a rough place in which few questions were or should be asked. The automatic beacon when they arrived requested confirmation that the beacon ID was correct, nothing more. Ky checked the scan. Twenty-eight ships insystem, twenty of them carrying trade beacons, and eight of them showing as armed, weapons hot, under the Rosvirein Peace Force logo. Twelve of the twenty traders were in space; the others were listed as docked.