“Yes,” Ky said. “Operate the exterior lock for your boarding party, alone, not in pressure suit.”

“Good. You have approximately twenty minutes to prepare for inspection.” The connection went dead. Ky sat back, and took a long breath. Always breathe, her Academy instructors had said. What they hadn’t said was what to do after that breath, when you were stuck in a ship with no options.

She took another breath, and addressed the crew again, repeating the instructions she’d been given. She could feel the same fear seeping along the corridor, out of the bulkheads, that she herself felt. Who could she get to sit the comdesk in her absence? Who was the most levelheaded?Quincy?Gary? Mitt? They were the most experienced, but she needed them to keep their sections steady. Certainly not one of the newcomers, whose steadiness she didn’t know.

She calledQuincyseparately. “I need a calm person to sit the comdesk,” she said. “I’m supposed to wait near the emergency lock to cycle the boarding party in.”

“Not alone!”

“Yes, alone. That was specified. Just find me a com-watch person, Quincy. We’re going to try to get through this without casualties.” If it was possible. If they didn’t plan to blow the ship after taking off everything of value. She turned to Riel. “You’re officially second in command, Riel. I’m leaving you on the bridge; use your best judgment if something happens to me—”

“I don’t know—” All the faint condescension he’d shown her until now—experienced crew to the unqualified neo—had disappeared. “I never expected—”

“None of us did,” Ky said. “Suck it up, Riel; this isn’t a game. You’re on deck.” She couldn’t believe she was the one talking to him like this. She was younger, less experienced…

His face changed. “You’re not scared…” It was not quite a question.

Ky shook her head. “Scared or not scared isn’t the issue. You know that. It’s doing the job. You’re trained; you’ve got the experience; you’ll do it. And after all, the most likely thing to happen is that they look us over and decide we’re insignificant.”

“What if they’re grabbing people—hostages or recruits or whatever?”

Ky spread her hands. “I can’t stop them, Riel. But I don’t expect they will, not on a campaign.” She should think of something for him to do, something to occupy his mind, but nothing occurred to her and she couldn’t take the time. “You’ll do fine,” she said as she left the bridge.

She stopped by her cabin to use the toilet and straighten her hair. If she was going to meet these mercenaries, she was not going to look like a rat pulled out of a drain. She made sure that her stowage compartments were unlocked, and then moved quickly through the ship, past crew who were coming to the rec area, and made her own check of locks as quickly as she could. No time to inspect contents, but at least she could see for herself that lockers had been unlocked.

The hatch to the emergency escape passage, never locked, opened away from her. The passage lights came on as she entered, and began pulsing in sequence—intended to guide escapees in the right direction, but annoying now. She didn’t have time to worry about overriding the automatics. Ahead, the small bay just inside the vacuum lock glowed with warm colors from the amber and red outlining the lock’s inner hatch. Ky plugged the cord of the wall-hung exterior com unit to her earbug and waited. She had ample time to review the instructions for manual operation of the lock which were shown in print and illustration both on the bulkhead next to the comunit, and to look at the empty cubicle of the lock itself, shown on the monitor from the vidcam inside.

The voice, when it came, was far too loud. “GLENNYS JONES. BLACKFISH. BLACKFISH. OPEN UP.”

“Captain Vatta here. Initating outer hatch opening.” She pushed the buttons; servos whined and a vibration shivered under her. Aside from inspections, the vacuum lock was never opened and it resisted, finally coming loose with a smuck of pressure seal. A vidcam went blurry as the pressure loss caused momentary condensation, then cleared again. Armored figures moved into the lock interior; behind them something thin and glistening stretched into the dark. Ky stared at the monitor. Dark armor, streaked with thin lines of metallic paint in a spare, abstract pattern, hung with bulges that must be equipment. Very obvious weapons—

“Close outer lock,” came the command in her headset.

“Closing outer lock,” Ky said. The outer lock closed slowly, hesitated. One of the figures reached back, grabbed the inside push bar, and yanked; the hatch thunked shut. “Pressuring up,” Ky said. Air hissed into the lock; when pressure equalized, inner hatch controls were enabled. “Opening inner lock,” Ky said.

The hatch opened into the lock; Ky stepped back against the bulkhead to let the invaders out.

The first in line faced her, and kept a weapon pointed at her. Ky stood still, hoping they couldn’t detect her pounding heart—but they probably could, if those suits had the capability of Slotter Key’s combat suits. The second pulled the inner lock shut, then moved a short way down the passage.

“You’re Captain Vatta?” The voice came through her earbug; she didn’t know if the speaker was in the suit or still outside.

“Yes,” Ky said.

“Kind of… young, aren’t you? Are they robbing cradles these days?”

“First voyage,” Ky said. She was not going to rise to that bait. “It was supposed to be a milk run.”

“Lucky you,” the voice said. “I suppose we should be glad you had the sense not to play hero. Tell me, is your entire crew straight out of infant school, or is there someone aboard with a gray hair or two?”

Ky refrained from saying that they had the crew list. “Most of them are older than I am,” she said.

“Caretakers?”

“Something like that.” She thought of making the comparison with senior NCOs and young officers, but thought better of it.

“You don’t get upset easily, do you?” the voice asked. She wasn’t sure what the right answer to that one was.

“I try not to,” Ky said, with a slight emphasis on the “try.”

A faint grunt answered her, then, “Well, suppose you cycle another round in, then.”

Ky worked the controls; the outer lock opened more easily this time, with less noise, and the next two entered. When she had completed the sequence and two more armored figures crowded the little space, the voice spoke again.

“Unplug from the phone—I’m switching to external speakers. We’ll handle the lock from here. Start back up the passage. We’re right behind you; don’t try anything.”

She could think of nothing to try. She led the mercenaries up through the escape passage, trying to move calmly, trying not to think about those dangerous figures behind her, their weapons pointed at her. After all, if they’d wanted to shoot her, they could have done that right away. And if they’d wanted to blow the ship, they could have done that, too. Whatever it was they wanted, so far it included keeping her alive and the ship in one piece.

Gerard Vatta, pacing his office, waited through the clicks and buzzes, the bleeps and clicks, that involved an intersystem call. He could imagine all too clearly the distances a signal must travel to InterStellar Communications headquarters: the light-years from Slotter Key’s system to the relay at Beckwith’s Star, more light-years from Beckwith’s Star to Nexus II, and from Nexus II to Nexus I. More light-years than his age.

Finally the open line… but now he had to convince layers of underlings, whose jobs depended on keeping the officers of ISC insulated from people like him, that this time they should instead let his call go through. He had one in: Vatta Transport had been a steady supporter of ISC over the years, when other long-haul shippers had argued for laws restricting ISC’s monopoly. Lewis Parmina, now only three slots away from the CEO-ship, and rumored to be the chosen successor to the current CEO—had been a Vatta guest more than once at Corleigh.