“Where is she now?”

“All over the damn ship,” Lee said. “She’s checking on everything, but I know she’ll come back in here—an’ anyway, we have to get some others. Two of us, me and Jim, we’re not enough. If that Quincy finds out—”

Ky was fascinated by Lee’s glibness. Either he had some experience she didn’t know about, or she had corrupted him in the past several months. She suspected both.

“How many do you think will join you?”

“Allie,” Jim said, speaking up. “She’s unhappy anyway; she doesn’t like that new cargomaster, she told me.”

“Mitt might join us,” Lee said. “And he’s good in a fight. Sheryl probably. Like you said, Cap’n, Quincy’s no use to us and she’s the one most likely to tell our captain.”

“You can have twenty minutes,” Osman said. “Then report back and tell me how it’s going.”

“What if she’s on the bridge?”

“If you’ve got four people and you can’t take down one, you’re useless,” Osman said.

“Right,” Lee said.

Ky finished the ninth mine, her mind now racing on the larger problem. Or was it a problem? Maybe it was an opportunity. He wanted to close and board… if she had a crew trained in EVA, she could send someone over to his ship with a mine when they were close enough. She didn’t have a crew trained in EVA. Besides, that would damage or destroy the hull she wanted, and would signal Osman’s allies that the mutiny was faked. If she could knock out his ship’s systems—she stopped moving, immobile for long seconds as her mind threw up yet another scenario. Pictures flickered through her mind, almost too fast to follow. Transfer tube. Air locks open. A blurred shape flying through the tube… not this mine, but one of the others, one of the EMP weapons MacRobert had sent her.

“Quincy. Martin.”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Do we have any kind of… of machine or something that can throw a… say… seventy-kilogram mass about a hundred, two hundred meters?”

“You mean like a hydraulic piston sort of thing? No.”

No. Not the answer she wanted, needed. Her mind threw up the picture of Mehar’s pistol bow. Made it bigger. Back in the dawn of time, people had used big machines of that type to throw rocks or something… but they didn’t have time to build one, and it would have to be wider than the escape passage anyway. Could some of the crew—all the crew—heave the thing down the passage fast enough? Almost certainly not. Twang! The sound of a packing cord coming loose made her jump. Then the plan appeared, bright and clear and complete in her mind.

“Quincy, how many packing cords would it take to accelerate that seventy-kilo mass?”

“Packing cords… packingcords!” Ky could see the engineering mind at work, as clearly as if Quincy’s implant were printing the figures on her forehead. “That’s the craziest—but—Alene! Sheryl! Get me all the packing cords you can grab—the priority on purple and green, three meters… you’ll want some way to fasten them…”

“Yes.” And some way to make sure the load was lined up with the internal and external hatches, and some way to be sure that Osman’s air lock was open, and some way to take advantage of the confusion that would result if this worked and to recover from the mess if it didn’t. But she felt a wave of confidence. It was a workable idea, the first she’d had, and from it flowed concatenated consequences—using Osman’s ship as a shield against his allies, once she gained control.

“Ma’am, that’s a very dangerous plan—” Martin began.

“We have a very dangerous situation,” Ky said. “As several people, including you, pointed out earlier. Have you got a better plan? If this works it will prevent a boarding situation.”

His plan if they were boarded had been complex, and she was not at all sure her crew could carry it out. Especially the last phase.

“I understand that, ma’am.”

“Oh, and Quincy—with just the EMP pulse aimed into his ship, estimate the damage to grapples, transfer tube, and our control systems…” She ripped open one of the cartons.

“Right,” Quincy said, sounding more cheerful. “And send Martin down here.”

Risks. If this failed, they might actually be captured. That must not happen. Toby must not fall into enemy hands, nor Stella, nor Quincy… nor she herself. She thought it would work—it should work, it certainly could work—but what if it didn’t? She called Toby, Stella, and Rafe to meet her in the rec area. They had a right to know the worst before the others. The final elements of Martin’s plan, the ones she hadn’t told them about before in case it never happened.

“The situation is… grave,” Ky said. Toby paled, but didn’t move. Stella, already paler by nature, sat as still.

“Hopeless?” Rafe asked.

“No. Not hopeless. Difficult, dangerous, tricky. Grave. But not ever hopeless.”

Rafe pursed his lips. “Sometimes, Captain Vatta, it is necessary to recognize when there are no viable alternatives.”

The formality alerted her. “You think there are not?”

“We’re outnumbered by larger, faster ships, several of them armed with ample weaponry to blow us away if the defensive suite doesn’t hold, and maybe even if it functions as advertised. Our enemies have proposed a plan that they claim will save some of the crew—do you believe that, by the way?”

“Of course not,” Ky said. “They have no interest in the crew’s lives. They assume I do.”

“And this plan involves letting this ship be boarded. So… it might be time to eat the bullet.”

“I think not,” Ky said. “I think it’s time to have our enemy eat the bullet. It’s just that ensuring it goes down their gullet is not going to be easy.”

“And the cost of error might not be a quick death,” Rafe said, holding her gaze.

“That at least lies within our power,” Ky said. She did not glance at Toby; she did not want to see that awareness enter his eyes. The pup moved suddenly, squirming out of Toby’s grip with a grunt; his claws clicked on the deck.

“Rascal!” said Toby in a tense voice.

“It’s all right,” Ky said, almost relieved by the interruption. “Rascal’s behavior is the least of our problems. I do feel it’s imperative that every crewmember have the capability to ensure a quick death…”

“You mean… suicide?” Toby asked.

She had to look at him now. His brow furrowed with the effort to act calm; his jaw was clamped, mouth in a firm line.

“Yes,” she said. “But only if it’s necessary, if the rest of this doesn’t work.”

“My… my family didn’t believe in suicide,” he said, looking down.

“Neither did mine,” Ky said. “For all the usual reasons. But Toby, if Osman captured you… it doesn’t bear thinking on.”

“I… don’t want to die.”

“Me, neither. I don’t intend to die, in fact. I intend to kill Osman, and my parents also taught me that killing people was wrong. But you’re signed to the contract as an adult, Toby. Adults sometimes have to do things they never thought they’d do. If you honestly can’t… well… we’ll take care of you.”

From his face, he understood that, too. “Can we kill them?”

“I think so. Or I’d blow this ship myself.”

“All right.” His face stiffened. Ky glanced at Rafe and Stella. “Don’t… I can do it myself, if I have to. Will it… hurt?”

“No,” Ky said. Honesty, brutal to the end, forced her to add, “Or at least, not as long as Osman would.” She handed out the packets.

Rascal was gnawing on her boot; she bent down and scooped him up. He wiggled furiously, managing to swipe his tongue over her chin before she was able to dump him back into Toby’s grip. “Here you go, Toby,” she said. She searched for something comforting to say and came up empty. What could you say, after telling a youngster he might have to kill himself? There was always the appeal to duty… and what teenager didn’t have secret fantasies of being the hero? “You take care of him, and do whatever Quincy asks. You’re clever—you may be the one who saves the ship.”