“I noticed,” Ky said. “Half power,” she told Quincy. The ship opened the gap again. Something flashed in the scan behind them… the first dot vanished and the second boosted back toward the station. “You might want to intercept that one,” she said to the duty officer. “You might learn something to your advantage.”

“Uh… right.”

“Where do you want to go?” Lee asked.

“Right now, I just want enough distance to be safe,” Ky said. “Maybe ten kilometers—”

“Gloucester to Gary Tobai.”

“Gary Tobai,” Ky said. The screen flicked twice, then steadied on Captain Pensig’s face.

“Our scans report an explosion near your position. Any damage?”

“No—we’re fine.”

“We recommend you continue on present course for six hours, Captain Vatta.”

“But we—” Ky swallowed the rest of that. “Six hours, right.”

His face relaxed. “We’ll be in touch on a secured link, Captain. Gloucester will cover your retreat; Scapa Flow will remain onstation for the present.”

On her nearscans, the Mackensee ship’s trace edged out, carefully staying between them and the station.

“Station’s not mad at us,” Lee said. “Who do they think might take a potshot?”

“There’s a lot of spare armament,” Ky said. “Someone else could’ve made a critical purchase from MilMart, after all.”

“Mmm. So we’re not really safe until we clear the system, is that it?”

Ky thought about pointing out that they weren’t going to be safe anywhere, and decided against it. “Well… the farther away we are, the safer. It takes a lot of power to run one of the big beam weapons. Missiles, though… we’d better get our defensive suite up and running.” Ky turned to her com again and called Quincy. “How’s the installation coming?”

“Installation! I just got the last carton unclipped!”

“Well, chances are we’ll need it now or we won’t need it at all,” Ky said.

A silence on the other end, a mutter she couldn’t quite hear, then, “I am definitely retiring after this trip, Ky—Captain. I am too old for this. I’m supposed to fit these things in one-meter intervals—do you have any idea how much climbing that involves?” Quincy didn’t sound scared, just annoyed.

“Toby’s young and agile; so is Jim. Martin probably knows how to install that kind of thing. And maybe Rafe can help.”

“Rafe! You’d trust him with our defenses?”

“We need the suite installed and running, Quincy. Whatever it takes.”

“Right.”

Ky sat back, fingers drumming on the arm of her seat. They were alive, by the margin of a few seconds. They were back in space, where spacers belonged, and she had an ally now. Maybe more than one, if Rafe had been honest about his family name. She thought he was. But… alone, with two Mackensee ships, and a hole in the bottom of the budget… so they had provisions, but troops ate provisions as locusts ate grain fields. She would have to have money at the next place they stopped… she needed to spread the cost of all this… but how?

“Ky, have you eaten?” Stella, sandwich in hand, peered around the entrance to the bridge.

“Since when?” Ky asked.

“That’s an answer of sorts. I’ve made sandwiches; here’s one.” She handed in a plate piled with neatly cut triangles.

“You cook?” Ky said. She had not suspected Stella of any domestic skills.

Stella grimaced. “Sandwiches aren’t cooking, and I told you I could scramble eggs. I’ll just send some down to the others.”

“Good idea,” Ky said. Now that they were—well, not safe, but definitely safer—she was hungry. That snack intended for the visiting officers had never been delivered. She put the plate between herself and Lee; both of them ate in silence for several minutes.

Then Lee looked at her. “Do you think we’ll be attacked now?”

“I hope not,” Ky said. She put down the sandwich she was eating. “It’s all happened so fast… at least we have help this time. We can actually do something.”

He picked up another triangle of sandwich. “You have a plan, then.”

“I will soon,” Ky said. “Actually I have a plan now, and we’re succeeding in the first objective, which is staying alive, with mobility unimpaired.”

“And next?”

“Find and aid any family members we can, before they’re all killed. Figure out who’s doing this, and how to strike back. Same as I said in the first place.”

“And you trust the mercs?”

“They hold to contracts, the same as we do,” Ky said. “What happened last time wasn’t their fault, and we were paid well for our trouble.”

“Yes, but…” He chewed a moment in silence, then swallowed and went on. “Is there any chance we’ll get back to regular trading?”

“I don’t know,” Ky said. “Nobody’s going to be doing regular trading as long as the ansibles are down. If that’s taken care of, and as long as our enemies aren’t attacking us directly, we ought to be able to go back. It won’t be the same, of course, with all the damage Vatta’s sustained. We’ll have to rebuild the business.” Even as she said it, she wondered if it could be done at all. It had taken generations to build Vatta from that first ship to the shipping empire it had become. She cocked her head at Lee. “Why? Are you ready to go find another ship? Is adventure looking less attractive than a few days ago?”

He shook his head. “No, Captain. I’m just considering the ironies.”

“The ironies?”

“Yes. Your father picked me as junior pilot to Riel, as you know, on the basis of my safety record. My reputation in the trade was as a solid, serious young pilot with no wild tendencies. He didn’t know—because it would have done my application no good—that I had always wanted something more exciting than piloting a trader. But when my parents were killed, I needed to find a job quickly, and I was a year too young to qualify for military training. I thought it was a tragedy at the time and was prepared to be miserably bored for the next fifty or sixty years. I realized soon enough that even civilian piloting had some adventure in it, but it was still… missing something.”

“You still crave adventure?” Ky asked.

“Even after seeing it close up. Yes, Captain. If you decide not to go back to ordinary trading… don’t worry about me quitting, is what I mean. If you want me, that is.”

“You’re a good pilot, Lee; of course I want you on the ship. Let’s just not have too much adventure, all right?”

“It’s your call, Captain.” He grinned and finished another sandwich.

Ky was still thinking about the next step and the five beyond that. She needed money. Traders got money by trading or by providing a service. They’d sold all they had to sell. What service could she provide, as the target of malicious attack? What resources did she have? What she had to sell, Ky realized suddenly, was protection. As long as she had Mackensee, she had something other traders might want.

“Captain Vatta, this is Lt. Commander Johannson.”

“Captain Vatta here.”

“Our sources confirm destruction of one stolen repair bug, and the other has been taken into custody. I understand you may have some information on the ansible problems?”

“Yes,” she said. “We have an individual with considerable expertise in ISC internal affairs. At the moment he’s helping install the defensive suite we just loaded.”

“That takes precedence,” Johannson said. “But we’d like to talk to him.”

“I’ll let him know,” Ky said. “He’s not actually part of my crew; we have a partnership agreement at the moment. He helped my cousins get off Allray in one piece.”

“Ah.”

“Another thing,” Ky said. “If I’m reading our contract correctly, there’s nothing to prevent your escorting a few more trading ships, is there?”

“In convoy, you mean? We’d usually have more ships for that, but… you’re thinking of spreading the cost?”

“Yes, of course, but also establishing the legitimacy of Vatta Transport again. Right now the other trader captains don’t want to speak to me in case our problems are contagious. To get shipping contracts, we have to get some of that cleared off our reputation. If I can offer safe, or at least safer, transportation somewhere—anywhere—it should help.”