“You’re welcome,” he said, shrugging as if the thanks made him uncomfortable. “Corporal Conas will take you to see the major,” the man said.

Corporal Conas was waiting, armed. Ky wondered what they thought she could do, that they needed to give her an armed escort, but she walked forward when he gestured.

The major—Harris, his name was—sat behind a desk in a tiny office so bare and tidy that Ky wondered if it was a real working office, or just a place chosen to interview hapless civilians. He did not smile but introduced himself.

“Captain Vatta, we have a problem.”

She knew she had a problem, but not any problem they shared.

“What is that, sir?” The sir came out automatically.

“You’re aware that someone blew the system ansibles…”

Someone implied that it wasn’t the mercenaries… “Yes…” Ky said.

“We didn’t do it. We don’t blow ansibles; we don’t want trouble with the ISC any more than anyone else does. Overcharging monopolistic pirates they may be, but what they do is essential, and what they do to people who bother their ansibles is… exorbitant.” He paused.

“I see,” Ky said.

“Naturally, everyone thinks we did it,” the major went on. “Warships appear; the ansible platforms blow. Obvious. I’m sure by now the ISC has figured out where we are, and is thinking the same obvious thing. The only party who won’t believe we did it is the party who actually did it, and so far no one has claimed responsibility. It would be far handier if the mercenaries were to blame.”

“I see,” Ky said again. She did, in a way. She had wondered about that; she remembered wondering about that. Why would mercenaries, who depended on ansible communications as much as anyone else, risk the serious and permanent annoyance of the ISC? Control of ansibles was one thing; destruction entirely another.

“We have, besides the operation we were hired to perform, several other tasks now facing us: we need to clear ourselves with the ISC before they come barreling in here and blow us up on spec, and we need to house hostages safely in the meantime, lest we incur judgment for their fates as well. We had hoped to use your ship, the smallest, as a courier to the ISC, but I understand that you have no FTL capability.”

“Right,” Ky said. “And we also have a commitment to deliver agricultural machinery, now in our holds, to Belinta.”

“Neither of which is possible without an FTL drive, isn’t that correct?”

“That is correct, yes, sir.” Ky took a deep breath. “Major Harris, if I may ask, would it be possible to obtain a sealed unit from the repair yards on Sabine Prime’s orbital station?”

“Not now or in the immediate future,” Major Harris said. He did not explain why, and Ky was reluctant to ask. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You are not acting like most civilian captains, Captain Vatta—most of them try to bluster and scold and command me to do what they want.”

“It’s my first voyage, Major,” she said.

“Um. I suspect it’s more than that. What are you, Slotter Key space service operating undercover?”

Ky felt her eyes widen. “Me? No, sir.”

“You’re very free with your sirs, Captain Vatta. I don’t mind it, but it’s… reminiscent of a discipline I’d expect to know better than you. Master Sergeant Pitt remarked on your demeanor as well.”

“Sergeant Pitt?”

“She’s the one who broke your neck, and then called the medics. Not your average civ, she said about you. More like an officer candidate.” He looked at Ky a long moment. “You have something to say, Captain Vatta?”

“Not really, no.” She left the sir off with an effort. “You have an extracted pattern from me and I don’t doubt there was some interrogation while I was in the medbox.”

“And that, too, is not something I would expect a young and inexperienced civ trader to know.” He leaned back, hands behind his head. “Look here, Captain Vatta. It is not our practice to harm neutral civilians, which you clearly are. But we have a proposition for you—a proposition that could work to your advantage later. I am not going to offer that possibility to someone who won’t come straight with me.”

Ky thought about it. It was only her embarrassment, after all; there was no strategic value in his knowing that she had been kicked out of the Academy. “All right,” she said. “I was kicked out of the Slotter Key space academy in my last year.”

“I see.” It was his turn for that noncommital comment. When she said nothing more, he said, “Why?” after waiting a few moments.

“I trusted someone—a junior cadet—and tried to help him out. He lied to me. He just wanted to make trouble for the government, and my ‘help’ gave him that opportunity. It embarrassed the admiral, and…” She spread her hands. “I was the handy sacrifice.”

“That’s two young men you’ve trusted unwisely,” the major said. “If I were you, I’d stop doing that.”

Mild as the rebuke was, Ky felt her face going hot. It wasn’t fair; she hadn’t “trusted” Skeldon. She struggled with her emotions. The major went on.

“Just a bit of advice I’d give any young officer. Everyone makes mistakes. But not the same ones over and over.”

“I don’t even like them,” Ky muttered. The major grinned.

“Young men in general, or these young men?”

“These—but they seem so… so helpless, sometimes.”

Major Harris laughed aloud, and Ky glared at him. “Sorry,” he said. “But the first thing mercenaries lose is the rescue fantasy thing. My advice is, the next time you see someone you think you need to rescue, walk quickly away on the far side of the street.” Then he sobered. “But that’s not important—it’s your life and not mine, even if it did nearly get you killed and did actually end your military career. What I have to propose now affects both of us.”

Chapter Twelve

Ky felt the rise in tension. “And what is that?” she asked.

He looked at her a moment, and then nodded. “All right. We had hoped to use your ship as a courier to the ISC, but since you have no FTL drive, we can’t. However, we need a place to stash some neutral civilians who might otherwise give us problems. Your ship is more than adequate for that task. The only problem is that some of them are older than you, and—at least in their own estimation—rank higher. We would prefer to have civilians under civilian command—saves us work, and prevents certain kinds of problems—but that will depend on you. We would, essentially, like to hire Vatta Transport to transport—temporarily and in this system—some passengers. For that service, we are prepared to pay standard per diem for an expected duration of that transport.” He glanced down at his desk display. “If our calculations are correct, that would come to something in the neighborhood of two hundred fifty thousand credits.”

Two hundred fifty thousand credits. That would repay the loan on Sabine Prime and finance the repairs to the FTL drive as well…

She tried not to smile. “You do realize we have limited quarters for additional personnel,” she said. “How many were you anticipating?”

“Your environmental system will handle a total of seventy, isn’t that correct?”

“Seventy! Yes, though that’s right at redline. Fifty-five’s the rated limit. But we don’t have the space—”

“You have cargo holds—aired up, I’m informed. We’d supply some amenities—pallets and blankets—”

“My cargo holds are stuffed full of cargo,” Ky said. “On contract to the Economic Development Bureau on Belinta.”

“They’d have to be emptied—or at least enough to accommodate fifty additional passengers. With your present crew that keeps you under the redline.”

“Just barely,” Ky said. “And we can’t just dump cargo—we have a contract. You understand contracts—” She could not believe she was arguing with a man who had her completely at his mercy, but Vatta stubbornness held her spine stiff.