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Immediate Action Required:

  Reports out of Kirro Station confirm attempts were made to kidnap rebel leader Philip Guthrie, allegedly by Farosian terrorists. Guthrie was sighted boarding a shuttle on station, still alive. Operatives on Seth are now alerted to his arrival. Command Prime repeats that all restrictions are lifted on civilian casualties, unless said actions in any way aid the Farosians. This bulletin self-destructs in thirty seconds.

  It took three minutes for the Infiltrator to respond to the shuttle’s hail, during which time Philip once more ran through his options and best strategies. In his twenty years with Fleet, he’d never been in exactly this situation: a civilian ship, a military threat.

  It was the word civilian that forced a great deal of soul-searching thought. No one on board had yet pledged to risk their life for some abstract ideal known as the Alliance. Except him.

  “Kirro Path Shuttle, this is the Infiltrator. Put Guthrie on.”

  He recognized the Dafirian drawl of Nayla Dalby’s voice immediately. He took the spare comm headset and slipped it on, twirling the microphone up. “Commander Dalby. Tell me this isn’t a meeting we’re both going to regret.”

  A sharp bark of laughter. “Guthrie, you old bastard. I’m so going to enjoy this. How does it feel to be on the losing side?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he shot back. “You’re the one sucking up to Tage.”

  “Dirty words, rich boy. Traveling in a piece-of- shit shuttle and not an admiral’s pinnace. Shame.”

  “Fuck you,” he heard Ellis intone under her breath. He’d surmised the shuttle company and this shuttle were hers. That confirmed it.

  He also knew that other than their Star-Ripper—a small but heavily armed 300-ton ship less than half the size of the Stockwell—the Infiltrator was one of the Farosians’ best ships, courtesy of that late Stolorth prince. But the Farosians had owned the Stockwell for a short period of time and lost it, so Dalby had no standing—other than personal—to belittle his method of transportation.

  “If we’re so unworthy, then why are you dead-eyeing us?” he asked smoothly, leaning against the edge of the communications console because his leg was warning it wanted to collapse again.

  “Leveling the score, Guthrie.”

  That worried him, hinting that Dalby was here for revenge and could kill everyone on board to get to him. But he wouldn’t let that happen. Death was final. Being taken prisoner by Blaine’s Tos Faros-based Justice Wardens still left options. “Tage won’t be interested in my dead body, if you want Blaine in exchange.”

  Ellis was watching him closely, her green eyes narrowed. Not happy. Well, neither was he.

  “Tage is in no position to defend Moabar,” Dalby said, naming the remote, inhospitable world the Empire used as a prison planet. “Whether you’re breathing air or sucking vacuum makes no difference to us.”

  The first Philip judged to be true. The second he knew was a lie, based on what Carmallis had found out from the Farosian agents left alive. Which meant Dalby’s personal vendetta notwithstanding, she still had her orders: to get Guthrie.

  “Tage is in no position to defend Moabar,” Philip said, repeating her assertion back to her, “because we’re hampering him. You need to rethink your aggression toward the Alliance.”

  Ellis jerked her chin to get his attention. He leaned away from the console and glanced at her screens. The two unknown bogies had just been identified as older R-3 thirty-ton Ratch fighters. First bit of good news. Their P-33s should be able to handle them defensively.

  That left only the Infiltrator. One clean shot from the Gritter could handle that. But there was no way a captain like Dalby would allow a clean shot. Still, Philip felt marginally better about this encounter than he had five minutes before.

  “Surrender your personnel, your ships, to us,” Dalby said with a smug tone in her voice. “And we just might do some rethinking.”

  “Not an option, Dalby.” Especially because a new ident had just flashed on Ellis’s screen. And Ellis’s Takan navigator was grinning widely.

  Not Seth’s P-40 but a Takan armored freighter answering the shuttle’s distress code, thirty minutes out and closing. That meant a few more banks of lasers and, yes, sweet God, a torpedo tube registering hot.

  Dalby evidently saw the same information. She cut their comm link, the bridge’s speakers going silent with a slight hiss. The Ratch fighters slowed.

  “Ha!” Ellis barked out a laugh. “I was hoping Fregmar was out here somewhere. I also wasn’t going to play this hand until I had to,” she continued, tapping a series of commands on her screen, “but I think now’s the time to give those Farosians an even better reason to leave. Arming the Gritter,” she announced.

  “Wait ‘til the Infiltrator sees that port go hot on her scans,” the mustachioed copilot said.

  Hell’s fat ass. They just might make it. Philip angled around, looking through the bridge hatchlock for Martoni or Rya. They needed an update. He didn’t see either. Martoni, he remembered, had been sent belowdecks to the life pods. Rya was likely with him.

  “Things look better,” Philip told Ellis as Dalby’s Infiltrator abruptly changed course, heading away from them. “I’m going to check in with Commander Martoni.”

  He lumbered off the bridge, right hand flat against the bulkhead for support as his leg shot insistent jolts of pain with every step. People milled about in the wide center aisle, and many seats were empty. At least five would have been designated life-pod captains.

  “Commander Martoni’s below?” he asked a young man seated in the second row—the kid couldn’t be more than twenty. He’d watched Philip approach, wide-eyed. Philip didn’t know whether the kid had never seen an admiral before or an admiral who limped as badly as he did.

  “Yes, sir. At least, I believe so, sir.” He started to rise. “Would you like me to find him for you, sir?”

  Lots of “sirs.” His subbie should take note.

  “Thanks, but I’ll go below. The leg feels better when I move.” It did. As long as he had something to hang on to, like the seat backs.

  He passed by the rear lavs and a secondary, smaller galley. The lav doors were closed, the galley empty. The stairwell behind that was more of a narrow ladderway. Belatedly, he realized negotiating that with his bad leg was probably not the best idea, but each step was also a handhold. He was halfway down when he realized what was odd. Except for his own grunting, it was silent.

  He jerked around, freeing one hand to reach for his Carver, but it was too late. Two laser pistols were aimed at him.

  “Don’t even think about it, Admiral,” a pale-skinned woman in a bulky brown sweater said, eyes narrowed as she pointed her weapon at him.

  Philip froze, his gaze immediately taking in and analyzing everything around him, including Martoni’s still form, facedown on his right, and three other crew slumped, unconscious or dead, on his left. Relief momentarily flooded him because none of the three was Rya. But there were three crew down, four counting Martoni. He made a quick assessment of his situation as he prayed they were alive.

  He was about four rungs from the decking. The woman in the brown sweater was closest to him. A few feet behind her to Philip’s left was her other armed accomplice—a tall, dusky-skinned man, head shaved bald. Martoni’s people, or two of the mystery fourteen? Philip didn’t know.

  But they were Farosians, of that he was sure. Tage’s people would have killed him.

  “I can either stun you and you can fall and break your other leg, or maybe your neck,” the woman said as the man advanced toward Philip, “or you can come down easily, let my associate take your weapons, and be in far less pain when we put you in the pod.”

  Philip eased down the last few rungs. They knew he had the Carvers. They’d probably also find the L7. But he had more than that, and if they thought he was going to willingly be shipped off to Nayla Dalby’s Infiltrator, they were wrong.

  Not that he’d let them know that just yet.

  His good
leg hit the decking. He half-turned, leaning against the ladderway’s rungs, and slowly raised his hands out to his sides, sizing up the man coming at him. They were about equal height. He could feign weakness, then head-butt the guy in the chest and hope the guy didn’t shoot him. That might also give him the guy’s body as a shield if the woman took a shot.

  But they were going to stun him anyway. He saw that as her grip on the gun shifted, the man holstering his weapon now. Stun him, shove him in the pod, and—

  Philip lunged for the guy, low and hard, teeth clenched in pain as he put his full weight on his broken leg. He heard the high whine of the stunner, heard the man groan out something as Philip’s head plowed into his gut.

  Pain blinded him as he tried to barrel the man to the ground and reach for his Carver at the same time. The guy grabbed him in a headlock. The woman shouted. Philip choked, wrenching, going for the small knife tucked in his belt. His fingers found the hilt, but the guy twisted him sideways. They stumbled, falling, hitting the decking with a bone-grinding crunch.

  Philip tasted blood, and his ears rang from pain and the sound of laser fire. He brought his elbow up, smashing it into the guy’s nose. His attacker went suddenly— inexplicably—limp, but there was no time to ponder his good fortune. Philip yanked his Carver out, leaned over the guy’s body, and took aim at the woman. Before he could push the trigger, she gasped and crumbled to the deck.

  “Philip!” Rya’s voice, behind him.

  He rolled on his back, Carver gripped tightly in both hands, and found his subbie in his sights, hanging upside down through the top of the ladderway, Stinger in hand.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  He took one more glance at the man and the woman to make sure they weren’t a threat, then pushed himself painfully into a sitting position. “Delightful,” he rasped out, understanding dawning.

  Rya angled up, her head disappearing, then her boots appeared and she was scrambling down the ladderway, Stinger still in her grasp. Other booted feet followed.

  “Secure the cabin, the bridge,” he ordered, the sound of his voice far less commanding then he wanted it to be but, damn, the pain was coming in ugly, fat waves now. Hitting the deck with a guy his own size landing on him had done some damage. “Check on Martoni and those others.”

  He tried to push himself up.

  Rya repeated his orders, pulling out an L7 and tossing it to a lanky, dark-haired man behind her. He took off back up the ladderway as she holstered her Stinger. Then her hands were on Philip’s shoulders as she pushed him back down. “Sit.” She knelt in front of him, her hair disheveled from her upside-down position, her eyes dark with concern. Behind her, someone had a medistat in hand and was running it over Martoni’s still form.

  “Alive. Just stunned,” he heard a woman say.

  Good news. Goddamn.

  Rya took the Carver from his grasp and put it back in his shoulder holster. “You going to pass out on me, Guthrie?” She laid her hand gently against the side of his face.

  “Trying not to.” He was, really hard. He was in a cold sweat now, and even breathing hurt. Bad. “Status?” he asked as she drew her hand away, then reached into her jacket pocket. “Dalby’s ship?”

  She pulled out a familiar-looking hypo.

  “That’s not my main area of concern this second, but I’ll find out.” She glanced quickly over her shoulder. “Holton! The admiral needs status from Captain Ellis. There should be a comm panel in the galley.”

  “Don’t knock me out. I need to be functioning,” he warned as a woman scrambled back up the ladderway at Rya’s command. The cold sting of the hypo hit his neck. He was shaking.

  “Just a little more than I gave you last time.” Rya’s voice was soft, reassuring. One arm went tightly around his back, holding him upright. “Hang in there. The trank will kick in in just a bit.”

  It already was, the numbness welcome this time as it spread through his body. He leaned against her warmth and, for a long, luxuriant moment, let himself close his eyes. He heard and felt her sigh.

  Then there was the sound of more boots on the ladderway rungs. He opened his eyes and straightened as best he could.

  “Let’s get you back against that wall,” Rya said, and he didn’t argue when she and one of his crewmen grabbed him under the armpits. “Careful of his leg,” she added.

  The wall was cold and not remotely as pleasant as leaning against his subbie, but it was definitely more advisable.

  Goddamned drugs.

  The woman—Holton, he remembered, tagging the round, dusky-skinned face, full lips, and short, dark braid with the name—knelt down next to Rya. “Sir, Captain Ellis said the Infiltrator and two Ratches are hanging well back but still shadowing us. They haven’t made any aggressive moves since Captain Fregmar— that’s the Taken freighter, sir—responded to our hail.”

  “Dalby’s waiting for me to be delivered in a life pod,” Philip said. “Though I’m guessing by now she knows that’s not going to happen.” He glanced around Rya, feeling somewhat as if he moved in slow motion. He thrust his chin to where his attackers lay. “Do they have comm units on them, something they’ve used to be in touch with Dalby?”

  Rya, kneeling, started to rise. He tugged on her sleeve. “Holton, go find out.” He wanted Rya here with him. He didn’t want to think about why, other than it was the goddamned drugs.

  Holton lunged away.

  “When Dalby knows that’s not going to happen,” he told Rya, “she may change tactics again.”

  “What in hell were you doing on that ladderway in your condition, anyway?” Rya asked, brows drawn down.

  His subbie was mad at him.

  “Sir,” he told her, wrestling with a grin that fought to take over his mouth, “what in hell were you doing on that ladderway in your condition, sir.”

  Her pursed mouth shifted to a smirk. “What in hell were you doing on that ladderway in your condition, sir?”

  “Looking to tell you and Martoni that we had backup from a Takan armored freighter and that it appeared the immediate crisis was passing.” Idiot that he was. He should have known better than to underestimate Dalby. Then he frowned, remembering his trek through the passenger area of the cabin. “Where were you, Lieutenant?”

  Spots of color dotted her cheeks. “Lav. Sir,” she added.

  “What were these two doing with Martoni when you left?”

  “I wasn’t with him. He picked his pod captains, came down here. I didn’t think it wise to have both of us belowdecks at once, so I stayed in the cabin to finish my security assessment of those on board. I found out that Holton and Tramer served with my father. They verified a few others, personally. Then I ducked into the lav and, when I came out, I heard some woman threatening to stun you or break your other leg. I grabbed Tramer, Holton went for her friends, and the rest you know.”

  “Hanging upside down and shooting?”

  “When you work on stations, you learn all sorts of techniques for ladderways. Going ass first usually just gets you shot in the ass. Sir.”

  Holton was back, a round silver object about the size of a large button in the palm of her hand. “The woman had this, sir. And here’s her and the other guy’s IDs. Probably bogus.”

  Rya picked up the two thin ID cards that Philip could immediately tell weren’t Fleet but civilian. He took the round transmitter. Short-range burst link. That explained Dalby’s shadowing. He pocketed it in his vest. If it beeped or burped, he wanted to know. “I need to get back on the bridge,” he said.

  Rya was shaking her head. “There’s no way you’re going up that ladder. You need to stay in sick bay.”

  “This shuttle doesn’t have a sick bay.”

  She swept one hand at Martoni, who was just starting to twitch, and at the still unconscious forms of his attackers. “It does now.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You can and you will.” She pinned him with a stern look that had Cory Bennton clearly behind it, in the way he
r brows slanted down and her eyes narrowed. “Holton, find out if Captain Ellis has a spare intraship pocket comm so the admiral can chatter at her. Update her, while you’re at it. And see what that Infiltrator’s up to.”

  “Just about to suggest that myself,” Holton said, grinning. She punched Rya playfully on the arm. “She’s good, this one, isn’t she, sir?”

  Philip grunted, Holton headed for the ladderway, and Rya pulled herself out of her kneeling position, then sat, folding her legs in front of her. She studied the ID cards. “Amalia Mirrow and Gilbert Rolf Samling. Issued out of Baris.”

  “Martoni’s people?”

  She frowned. “The guy was, I’m pretty sure. She was an unknown, seated up near the front.”

  “We need to hear everyone’s story, when they wake. And I don’t want them hearing one another’s.”

  She caught on right away. “Getting shot doesn’t mean Martoni wasn’t part of it. They only stunned him.”

  “Agreed. Or they may have intended to send him and the others along with me.”

  “Commander Adney needs to know what’s going on. Do you still have your archiver?”

  Philip nodded, patting his vest pockets. He found it and pulled it out, Chaz’s note coming with it, fluttering to the decking. Something odd played over his subbie’s face when she handed the slip of paper to him, but it wasn’t something he understood or could place. She looked … hurt.

  Goddamned drugs.

  “I’ll let you work in peace,” she said, shoving herself to her feet. She headed for Martoni before Philip could reply, before he could ask what was bothering her more than their getting ambushed and threatened or shot. Because he felt it was something more than that.

  He grunted at his own ruminations, then slipped the archiver to his comm link and went through the requisite codes. “Adney, Guthrie again. We’ve got more problems. I don’t know what you’re figuring on as the minimum crew complement for that damned bucket Bralford bought us, but you’d better cut it in half. Right now I don’t think we’re going to have enough crew to even get us to Ferrin’s.”

  Rya didn’t want to believe Commander Martoni worked for the Farosians. Not because she liked—or disliked—the dark-haired man but because she knew Philip needed every live, trustworthy body he could find if they were going to create an Alliance Fleet. And trustworthy was starting to be a serious problem.