"What's the trouble?"

"We're being directed into a slot fifty klicks from a Tleka cargo hauler," Itold him, still studying that display. "I can't be certain, but it looks to melike there's something lurking around the side of the hauler where I can't seeit."

"As in a Najiki Customs cruiser?"

"Or something even bigger," I agreed tightly.

"So why head in at all?" he asked. "Turn around and get us out of here."

"And let them know we know they're there?" I countered. "And that we've gotguilty consciences to boot?"

"You're right," he conceded reluctantly. "So we act innocent?"

"As the driven snow," I said. "At least until you've got the stardrive up andrunning. Let's just hope they can't pull any of the telltales with their ownsensor readings."

"These thrusters are pretty noisy, and across a big chunk of the spectrum," hepointed out. "That ought to mask the stardrive, at least at a fifty-klickdistance. Okay; I read thirteen more minutes to full green. I'll see if I canshave a couple of minutes off that."

"Good. Do it."

I took my time bringing us in the rest of the way, managing to eat up nearlyfive of Nicabar's thirteen minutes before we finally settled into ourdesignatedslot. I kept two of my displays trained on our companions to either side, wondering which of them would make the first move.

The Najiki freighter took that honor. Even as I ran thrust to the forwardmaneuvering vents to kill some of our momentum, I saw a large side hatch slideopen, and three dark gray starfighters appeared. They paused a moment as ifgetting their bearings, then grouped into formation and headed straight forus.

I keyed the intercom for all-ship. "This is McKell," I announced. "Everyonegetstrapped down and find something to hang on to. We've got unfriendly company.

Revs?"

"Still at least six minutes to go," he reported. "Probably closer to seven.

How long till they get here?"

"Depends on how much of a hurry they're in," I told him, watching the fightersclosely, hoping even now that it was a false alarm, that they were actuallyinterested in someone else entirely. But they were still coming, and showed nosign that they might suddenly veer off somewhere else. "Keep those thrustersrunning hot—they get even a hint that we're firing up the stardrive andthey'llbe all over us."

The words were barely out of my mouth when the Najik made it official.

"Freighter Icarus, this is Utheno Military Command," a calm Najiki voice cameover the comm speaker. "You are ordered to shut down your thrusters andprepareto be boarded."

"The thruster noise must be hurting their ears," Nicabar said mildly. "Whatnow?"

"We ignore them," I told him. "That came in broadcast, not narrow beam, andour ID says we're the Stewed Brunswick. It may be they're still not sure about usand are trying to spark a guilty reaction. Anyway, we don't dare shut down thethrusters now."

"You're going to risk drawing fire," he warned.

"Not yet," I said, shifting my attention from the incoming starfighters back to the Tleka cargo hauler. It was a classic, time-tested maneuver: a group ofgrass-beaters in front noisily and ostentatiously driving the quarry back intothe waiting arms of the hunter lurking silently in the bushes. In the bushes, or behind a Tleka cargo hauler, as the case might be.

Except that in this case the hunter was no longer hiding. He was there in fullview, his port-side weapons array just coming up around the cargo hauler'sdorsal spine: a Najiki pocket destroyer, its zebra-camo striping giving it analmost-delicate look. As warships went, I suppose, it wasn't much to bragabout; from where we currently stood, it looked about the size of Paris.

"Watch for them to target ion beams," Ixil's voice warned from behind me.

"Thank you," I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic as I threw a quickglanceover my shoulder. He was striding in through the doorway, gazing at mydisplays, his expression as glacially stolid as ever. The ferrets dug in on hisshoulders were betraying all that surface calm, though, twitching to beat the band. "Youhave anything else in the way of insightful advice to offer?" I added.

"I meant as opposed to lasers or disabler missiles," he said, stepping to theplotting table. "If they're acting on their own against suspected smugglerstheywon't be as careful to minimize damage as they will if they're doing this atthe behest of the Patth."

I was about to inform him that they'd already identified us as the Icarus whenthey helpfully made the point for me. "Freighter Icarus, this is your finalwarning," the Najiki voice announced firmly. "Shut down your thrusters or wewill open fire."

And that one, unfortunately, had come in tight beam, for our ears and no oneelse's. Which meant they knew who we were, and all hopeful thoughts of fishingexpeditions were gone.

As was anything to be gained by playing innocent. "Hang on," I warned Ixil, bracing myself and throwing power to the thrusters, keying the exhaust to theforward maneuvering vents. Our forward speed dropped precipitously; and withit went our orbital stability. Even as we dropped back behind the incomingfighters, we also began to fall toward the planetary surface five thousandkilometers beneath us.

Unfortunately, "precipitously" was also a sadly relative term. With a fighteror even the enhanced thrust/mass ratio I'd built into the Stormy Banks, such amaneuver might have caught our opponents at least partly by surprise. But withthe flying cement bag that was the Icarus, we didn't behave so much like aleaping jaguar as we did a hippo jumping backward from a dead stop in deepmud.

I could picture the Najik in the fighters and destroyer watching ourelephantineescape attempt and laughing themselves silly.

They could laugh all they liked. Their logical assumption—at least, what Ihopedwas their logical assumption—would be that we hadn't started activating ourstardrive until they'd sprung their trap, from which assumption they wouldfurther assume they still had ten to twelve minutes in which to short-circuitthat activation and gather us serenely into the hunter's waiting arms. What theyhopefully hadn't tumbled to yet was that we were in fact less than fourminutes from escape. All I had to do was keep them off us for those four minutes, andwe would be home free.

All in all, though, that was a very big if. Especially since the Najik inchargeof this operation was apparently not the type to dawdle simply because he hada little time to kill. The starfighters were swinging to match my maneuver evenbefore I'd completed it; and as they closed up ranks again faint green lineserupted from the ion-beam ports beneath their noses and tracked toward us.

I threw power to the Icarus's port-side vents, giving us a sideways yaw, hopingto keep the hyperspace cutter array at our bow out of the ion beams. But weturned every bit as ponderously as we braked; and even as I swore helplesslyunder my breath the beams converged on the cutter array.

And that was that. Clenching my left hand into a fist, I continued the uselessmaneuvering, waiting for the buildup of localized charge and the subsequentcrack of a high-voltage spark that would scramble the array's electronics andmake all of Nicabar's minute-shaving so much wasted effort.

The beams momentarily drifted off target as I dropped us farther into Utheno'sgravity well, converged again as the Najiki gunners reestablished their aim.

Anyminute now and the spark would come; and after this much charge buildup it waslikely to be a memorable one. Distantly, I wondered if it might even be strongenough to jump some of the current across the fail-safes and fry my bridgecontrols in the bargain.

And then I frowned, a brand-new set of warning bells going off in the back ofmyhead. There was something wrong here, something ominously wrong. I knew howion beams worked—I'd been on the receiving end of them more times than I cared toremember—and these were taking way too long to show their teeth. I keyed thehull-monitor cameras toward the bow and focused in on the cutter array.