“Bad boys don’t explain,” Ky said.

Rafe shook his head. “You are entirely too knowing for a young sprig of Vatta virtue, Captain. I begin to think you’ve spent some time in the back alleys of the universe yourself.”

“So… is that the story?” Johannson said, clearly impatient with their badinage.

“All right. I’ll use the same cover name,” Rafe said. “I was suddenly recalled to a sense of family duty when the Vatta ship blew up at Allway—or Stella seduced me, whichever is more believable—and Captain Vatta here put my nefarious skills to good use.”

“Coming aboard may be a problem,” Ky said. “You know—well, maybe you don’t—but we don’t have a standard passenger lock, only the emergency.” At least the hatch would work smoothly now.

“We’ll send a pod,” Johannson said. “Do you need a suit as well?”

“I have a suit,” Rafe said. “I might just mention how much I hate wearing it.”

“You might get yourself into it and start checking it out,” Ky said.

“Give some women command and they go… all right, I’m going.”

Ky turned to the vidscreen. “Any progress on the convoy specs, Commander?”

“Yes: we can handle four ships, including yours. I’ll transmit the list of those we think acceptable, ranked by our preference, which of course need not be yours. And there’s a red list, of ships we would not accept.”

“Fine. I’ll start contacting captains at once.”

Captain Solein Harper of My Bess looked just as forbidding as the first time Ky had talked to him, but at least he didn’t cut off the contact the moment he saw her face.

“You’ve probably heard we’ve hired Mackensee for our next voyage,” she said.

“I heard,” he said. “Two warships to a trader is pretty hefty protection, I’d think.”

“So it is,” Ky said. “Would you be interested in convoy space?”

“Convoy?”

“Mackensee assures me that they can protect four ships in fairly close convoy.”

“Where are you headed?” He wouldn’t have asked that much if he hadn’t wanted to come, she knew.

“Haven’t decided yet,” Ky said. “Where were you bound?”

“Nowhere until I can be sure of communications, but I’m eating up profit sitting here.”

“Communications here will improve shortly,” Ky said, hoping she was right. “If you’re interested, a convoy share will be one-quarter the escort cost, minus the Vatta basic contract. Ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand! What, you think I haul platinum or something? Eight.”

“Nine,” Ky said. “For you.”

“Done,” he said. He would have gone to ten, she knew, if she’d pushed. But nine was a big help, and his goodwill might be a bigger one. “In Vatta accounts here?”

“On safe arrival,” Ky said.

“Ah.” His face relaxed; now he looked tough but not vicious. “That’s honorably done, Captain Vatta. You’ll want another one or two, will you?”

“You have someone to recommend?”

“Polly Tendel—independent, fairly new, broke off from Dillon four years ago. Seems a decent sort, kind of rough around the edges.”

Ky glanced at the Mackensee list. Tendel was there, though not in the first five. “All right. You want to contact her?”

“I can… same terms?”

“Yes.”

A half hour later, Ky had the rest of the convoy lined up: Harper’s My Bess, Tendel’s Lacewing, and Sindarin Gold’s Beauty of Bel. All the ships had passed muster with Mackensee, and—according to the transmissions from the station—all were in the process of clearing for departure. As the contract specified, Mackensee had control of the convoy, and thus the rendezvous point. Ky let them handle it. She spoke to Rafe before he transferred to the Gloucester, then tried not to hover over her engineering crew as they finished installing the new defensive suite. She could not resist loading the installation manual to her own workstation, where she could follow their progress without interfering.

She caught herself yawning, and remembered that many hours ago she had been wishing for time to take a nap before the Mackensee officers came aboard. Had she really been awake that long? Another jaw-cracking yawn, and she decided that awake might not be the right term. She called down to Engineering.

“What now?” Quincy asked.

“Sorry,” Ky said. “Just letting you know I’ll be in my cabin, hopefully asleep. You need a break, too.”

“I had one, and it’s about time you did. I’ll put anything new on your board.”

Stella, when Ky came into her cabin, said the same thing. “And someone will call you if they need you; you know that.”

“Yes, Cousin,” Ky said. She should shower… but she was on the bed, asleep, before that thought ended.

When the call came, she’d had almost five hours of sleep. It was Rafe, on the Mackensee ship.

“I’m going to have to go with them,” he said. “I can’t… explain how certain things work, and how to secure the evidence needed without compromising my other oaths.” He grimaced. “Not as part of the… er… main team, but in a separate group. These people don’t trust me, which I suppose is natural, so they won’t let me go to the local office alone.”

“If it’s necessary,” Ky said.

“Oh, it’s necessary.” Rafe glanced aside; though only his face appeared on the screen, Ky was sure he was conveying the presence of an auditor.

“Well, then…” Ky couldn’t think what to say. Be careful seemed both unnecessary and insulting.

“I believe Lieutenant Commander Johannson wants to speak to you,” Rafe said, turning away.

“Captain Vatta,” Johannson said, coming into pickup range. “The other ships in the convoy are now beyond primary danger range, headed for rendezvous. Your representative has convinced us there is sufficient reason for the actions planned. I must now formally ask if your orders concerning ISC personnel remain?”

“Yes,” Ky said.

“All right; just checking. We’re scheduled to start the operation within the hour, with the transfer of your representative and certain other personnel.”

“What’s the plan?” Ky asked.

“You mean in detail?”

“Yes,” Ky said.

Johannson frowned. “It’s need-to-know, ma’am,” he said. “I don’t think you should be too concerned—”

“We studied this in the Academy,” Ky said. “I’m just curious to know how you’d go about it.”

He looked askance, eyebrows high. “You studied how to set up a take-out?”

“Yes. It was part of special ops, level two.”

“Slotter Key must be an interesting place,” he said. “Suppose you tell me how you’d set it up, and I’ll tell you if you’re right.”

Ky thought back to Colonel Aspin’s lecture. “You can do it with a minimal team, if you have to,” she said. “Sniper and spotter. Better is a half squad, and better yet a squad. Squad leader commands the squad, but the spotter ranks the sniper. Ideally, you’ve got plenty of intel about the area. You have routes in and out planned. You are hot on com, half the squad spread, covering the routes, the other half in reserve.”

“Hmmm. So… what do you know of the station manager’s routine?”

“Not much. I know the ISC offices are on Hub Three, and I’d presume the manager’s would be the most secure…” Rafe knew. They knew Rafe knew; they had Rafe aboard with them.

“Almost. Quite central, anyway. He lives on the same hub, two sectors away. Travels any of five routes, all distinct, and has staggered random times for arrival and departure. Once he’s past the first intersection, he can be almost anywhere.”

“Tagger? We were told to tag if possible.”

“Tags are traceable. We prefer CAID—you know what that is?”

Ky did. It was considered the latest and best method of remote identification. “So you’d have a plan, and internal line of travel, from each of his known alternate routes, plus a way of detecting if he’s off track and getting someone to him. Here, you’d probably use your people who were stationed here in the recruiting and consultancy positions. They know things about the station that aren’t in the public specs, I’d bet.”