“Maybe. But it was in my mission priorities.”

“I know that, but—” A deep sigh. “All right, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll support through the ansible repair. Then we’ll escort the convoy just outside the system and stand by in case of trouble. With an open ansible and only a few hours’ transit time, we should be close enough.”

“Fine,” Ky said.

When she called the crew together to tell them what was going on, Martin looked grave. “I have to say I agree with the mercs,” he said. “If you’ll take my advice—”

“Not if it means running away without finding out if a Vatta ship needs our help.”

“That wasn’t it. But have the defensive suite on, and keep the drives warm, even if you decide to match courses. Someone alert at the scans around the clock. And a plan for what to do if we’re attacked. Boarded.”

“A plan—”

“Who goes where and does what. That kind of thing.”

“Is this something you—”

“Ma’am, my expertise is in security, not full-out combat. I can suggest some things, but whether they’d work, I don’t know. And as for ship-to-ship combat, I can’t help you.”

“Get your suggestions in order, then,” Ky said. She had thought of a sudden attack, the ship being blown, but… boarded? Maybe she should still take Johannson’s advice and run for the jump point. But that left a Vatta ship here alone, a Vatta crew who might even, if they’d been in FTL space on a long jump, have no warning that they were in danger. “It’s going to take us several days to get closer to her.”

Martin nodded.

Fair Kaleen had the Vatta blue-and-red logo on the hull, but she looked battered by years of space debris. No weapons showed on the defensive suite’s analysis screen. Her crew had given no sign that they were aware of other ships in the same system, which was sloppy at best. Ky pursed her lips. Ships of that class were brought in for cleaning and repair every two years, at which time the logo was freshly painted. Ordinary light shielding protected it for that interval.

“Stella?”

“Don’t look at me. I’m not ship crew.”

“Quincy, I’m going to transfer an external feed to your board,” Ky said. “What do you think?”

“Fair Kaleen… haven’t crossed paths with that one in decades,” Quincy said. “She’s one of ours, right enough, but I don’t know what route she’s on. Looks a bit battered; that logo should’ve been touched up before now.”

“Well,” Ky said, and sat motionless, trying to think things through. Fair Kaleen had been a Vatta ship, might be one now, should be one again, since Vatta needed every ship it could muster. If someone else had taken a Vatta ship—one of her ships, she caught herself thinking—she could take it back. “Let’s give her a call,” she said, and nodded to Lee.

Fair Kaleen answered the hail with commendable promptness, and in moments her captain was online. Osman Vatta, his broadcast ID stated; stocky and dark, his black hair liberally salted with gray, he looked at Ky with an expression she could not quite interpret. “Whose are you?” he asked.

“Whose?”

“Whose kid. I’m sorry, you’re a captain, but to me, you’re a kid. I was just wondering whose.”

“Gerard’s,” Ky said. When he still looked blank, she added, “Gerard Avondetta Vatta…”

“Oh… old Moneybags Gerry.” He gave a harsh snort of laughter. “Gods, girl, you don’t look anything like Gerry. Luckily.”

Very few people, most of them now dead, had called her father Gerry. And she didn’t like his laugh.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, sobering. “I didn’t mean to make fun of him, but… he always was a bit stuffy. So, he sent you out to straighten out this mess, eh?”

“Mess?” Ky said. Something was very wrong, but she couldn’t figure out what.

“This whole thing with the banks,” Osman said. “Credit and all. I mean, he is chief high financial muckety-muck, so it makes sense that you being his daughter—”

He didn’t know. He didn’t know or he was a far better faker than she thought he was. “That’s the ansibles,” Ky said. “When ISC gets them back up—”

“Not what my fella back on Harmon told me. Said someone was going after Vatta, and our credit was shot.”

“Did your fella describe what going after meant?”

“Said someone had taken potshots at Vatta ships. Made me nervous, that did.” Nervous was not the word Ky would have chosen to describe his expression. Tense. Alert. But nervous?

She should tell him, but she was reluctant and didn’t understand why.

“Look, as you’re old Gerry’s kid—daughter, I mean—you can clear up the financial end, can’t you? Talk to the bankers and such? I have a load of cargo, good stuff, too—”

“Where was it bound? What route are you on?”

His gaze wavered. “Um… well, you know, I’m kind of independent. Experience… family connections…”

“Been a while since you came in for refit, hasn’t it?” Ky said, forcing sympathy into her tone.

“Oh, the ship’s fine. No problems there. It’s just… I can’t draw on company funds, they tell me, on account of whatever this mess is.”

Stranger and stranger. Not all Vatta captains were on fixed routes, but most of them were: profit lay in reliability. Senior captains vied for the most profitable routes, wanted the least variance in their schedules. And while this man looked like a Vatta, they weren’t the only family in the known universe with those features, that coloring. He had shown some knowledge of her family, but only what an outsider could have picked up from public sources. He had cargo… he could sell the cargo, set up a ship account… she’d done that.

Ky touched the control requesting an emergency interruption. Almost immediately, a red light flashed on her board, winking urgently.

She looked down, then back up at the com screen. “Excuse me, I’ve got a problem here—I’ll be right back.” She cut the connection, and opened the internal com. “Anyone get anything on this one?”

Stella spoke up. “The ship’s on a list from ten, fifteen years back as active, but on current lists as an adjunct.”

“Which is?”

“I’m not sure. It might be undercover work or something. I was on an adjunct payroll for a year or so. Osman… I’m fairly sure he must be Lazlo Vatta’s grandson, though there’s another Osman… how old do you think he is? Apparent age, or was that a disguise?”

“Voice analysis suggests sixties,” Rafe spoke up. “There’s that little burr—of course, he could be a heavy drinker or addicted to something that’s aged his voice.”

“That’d be Lazlo’s grandson. He’s not on the current captain list, Ky,” Stella said. “I can’t get into the old personnel stuff—it’s in the command dataset.” The one you didn’t install was unsaid but clearly communicated.

“A Vatta remittance man,” Rafe said in smug tone that made Ky want to hit him. “Skeleton in the Vatta cupboard.”

“So… why’s he in a Vatta ship?” Ky asked.

“Adjunct,” Rafe said. “They let him take a ship, but he’s not authorized refit, and I’ll bet he’s not authorized access to company funds, except his remittance. He sounds like a con man to me. He’s trying one on—he knows headquarters is down, he doesn’t know we have a command dataset.”

Martin said, “I don’t like the whole setup. He sounds too glib, and I find it hard to believe his crew didn’t pick us up on scan a long time ago. We haven’t tested the defensive suite against concealed weaponry; the mercs weren’t trying to hide theirs.”

“Quincy,” Ky said. The senior Engineering watch were all below, by Martin’s plan. When the old woman answered, she said, “Did you ever hear of an Osman Vatta? Related to old Lazlo?”

Quincy’s gasp was clearly audible. “That bastard? What’s he done now?”

“Well, he claims to be captain of Fair Kaleen, which right now is matching courses about a hundred klicks away. I gather you know something about him?”