Guns drew himself up straighter, turned a stern eye on his troops, and picked up the pace. Maybe they could bull on by without a challenge.

  No such luck. One of the military police saw them, tilted his visor up, and pointed his white baton in their direction. His voice was artificially amplified and simultaneously fed via radio to the battle station’s security center. “Hey, you! Yeah, the bozos with the crate, hold it right there!”

  Guns made his face blank and held up a hand to his troops. Confident but not obnoxious. That’s the way to go. Give an .MP a ration and they’ll give it back. Multiplied.

  “Yes, corporal?”

  The corporal looked Guns over. He didn’t like civilians. His lip curled upward. “We’ve got rules about transporting cargo through pedestrian walkways.”

  Guns nodded sympathetically. “That’s what I told the old man, but would he listen? Hell, no. Said he wasn’t about to pay docking fees on the cargo ring for one friggin’ crate. Said to hump it through the halls. Asshole.”

  The argument was calculated to appeal to that part of all enlisted people that hates officers. Unlike most officers, Naisbit had been an enlisted person himself and knew how it felt. The corporal nodded understandingly.

  “All right then, but don’t do it again. Take the next access lane left, drop two levels, and go where you please. It’s all cargo down there.”

  Guns gave him a grin. “You’re all right, corporal. We’re out of here.”

  The corporal gave them a nod, rejoined his partner, and continued up the corridor.

  Guns let out a sigh of relief. Thank God. One look inside the crate and he’d do hard time pumping hazardous waste into used roids. That’s because the navy objects to the distribution of drugs, especially addictive ones, within its own ranks.

  In this case the drug was “Orbit,” so called because that’s where it put you, and Naisbit had enough to keep a hundred users high for a year.

  Basically it was a form of amphetamine, similar to the mild stimulant sometimes issued during prolonged combat, but much more powerful. It had taken every cent of Naisbit’s life savings to purchase the drugs on Big Red.

  Now Guns would use the drugs to trade up, to buy something that would avenge Tony’s death, that would give it meaning. A club, a big club, which he’d use to smash the Feds.

  Naisbit turned around and smiled. “Come on! Get your butts in gear! Let’s deliver this baby and pick up those spares. After that the drinks are on me!”

  The weapons techs laughed and followed Guns down the hall.

  As usual Shimmura was a little surprised to find himself on liberty. Work was his fun and he didn’t know what to do without it. But the skipper had practically forced him to leave the ship, proclaiming “it would do him good,” so here he was.

  Shim drifted down the hall, his mind seeing the ways the habitat was put together, and imagining workable alternatives. He thought of the battle station’s hull. Why a globe, when wheels were so much more elegant?

  Shim had just started to answer his own question when someone touched his arm. “Hey sailor, how ’bout buying me a drink?”

  Turning, Shimmura found himself looking down at a woman even smaller than he was. She wore a shimmery body suit that hugged every curve of her lithe little body, an artificial flower in her long black hair, and a big smile. The woman delivered the line with such insouciance, with such good humor, that Shimmura’s stereotypes failed him. The automatic “no” that he’d given to a hundred hookers before her froze on Shim’s lips and became a “yes.”

  Moments later he found himself deep in a darkened room, almost floating on a cloud of her perfume, sipping a drink he didn’t want.

  It didn’t matter. She said her name was Susie and she didn’t normally work in bars, but was forced to because she’d been fired from a regular job and didn’t have enough money to get home.

  Shimmura didn’t believe a word of it, but loved the sound of her voice, and the fact that she didn’t expect him to talk. Previous women always wanted him to say things, to talk about them, or things he didn’t care about. This was bliss.

  Susie touched his arm and turned his skin warm. Shimmura didn’t know it, but he was in love.

  When the Alice B. left the protection of the Gorbachev it was for real. No more cruising in friendly sectors, no more snuggling up to orbital battle stations. For better or worse, they were on their own.

  Willie wasn’t sure how liberty had affected his crew, but with the possible exception of Perko he thought it had done them good. Christoferson seemed more relaxed, Naisbit walked around looking smug, Shimmura seemed more human, and Perko was, if not happy, changed.

  When security had called to tell Willie about Perko, he hadn’t believed them, and forced them to describe the man in question. When the description matched, Willie had reluctantly made his way to the security center, still certain there was some mistake. But there was no mistaking the man himself, his confession, or the holo vid of some guy named Laferty lying unconscious on the floor.

  As Willie signed a form accepting responsibility for Perko’s punishment the fuzzy-cheeked duty officer asked what it would be.

  Willie shook his head sadly. “A few days on the surface of the hull should do it. The radiation zips through your suit, cooks your brain, and makes you real peaceful from then on.”

  The ensign’s mouth was still hanging open when the two men left the center.

  “Come on,” Willie said, “I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Perko agreed and thanked Willie for bailing him out, but didn’t explain the fight. And Willie, being Willie, didn’t ask.

  In any case Perko seemed more relaxed now, as though the fight, and the mark on his otherwise pristine record, had relieved some sort of pressure. Or as Christoferson put it, “He’s still obnoxious, but less so.”

  Willie scanned the screens for the thousandth time that watch. It made no difference that the sensors would pick up another ship long before it showed up on visuals, and it wasn’t even his job, but looking was something to do. Nothing, as usual.

  The bridge was dark and quiet. Rows of indicator lights glowed steadily red, amber 5 and green. Buttons glowed waiting to be pressed, computer screens scrolled through lines of data, and the crew spoke to each other in quiet voices.

  Willie turned back and forth inside his space armor, trying to alleviate the pain. With the exception of a shower taken every second day they were living in the their space armor now, helmets at hand, conscious of the fact that they could come under attack at any moment.

  Especially on this course, a long, gentle curve that would take them in toward Jupiter. That, plus the starboard drive that Shim had programmed to cut out every now and then, should result in enemy contact. After all, what warship could resist a fat old freighter with a bad drive?

  That’s what Willie was thinking when he drifted off to sleep. He did that a lot now, catching catnaps in the command chair rather than retiring to his cabin. It drove Perko, Christoferson, and the rest of the bridge crew crazy, but they understood. If something threatened his ship Willie would be there to deal with it.

  That’s why Willie came almost instantly awake when the alarms went off. Com tech Joy Yeter was the first to speak. “We’ve got a hot one, skipper . . . three-by-three.”

  Willie knew that “three-by-three” meant that the target had been confirmed with radar, infrared, and radio direction-finders.

  Sparks pressed her earpiece into her ear, “Just a sec . . . yeah . . . there goes a coded burst. A squirt transmission of some sort.”

  Willie felt his heart begin to beat faster. The sensor alarms had already brought the crew to their battle stations—no problem there. The squirt transmission would be something along the lines of “Fat target in sight, will engage.” A routine signal to let Fed HQ know what the ship was about to do.

  His task, and the crew’s, was to make sure that it was the last transmission the raider sent out. The success of the entire Q-ship program depended on maintaining the element of surprise for as long as possible.

  “Incoming transmission,” Sparks intoned. “I’ll put it on the com screen.”

  An overhead vid screen swirled to life. A woman appeared. She had prematurely gray hair and a hard expression. Like Willie and his crew she wore space armor.

  “Unidentified freighter, this is the Confederation ship Southern Cross. Cut power to all drives and weapons. We will board in approximately thirty minutes. Any attempt to disobey my orders will result in the destruction of your ship.”

  Willie nodded towards Sparks. Now for a little acting. “Put me on.”

  A black box whirred down out of a recess in the overhead. A red light came on. Willie did his best to look flustered and scared. “Don’t fire! We’re cutting power now!”

  Christoferson touched a button and the drives cut off. The Confederation officer nodded. “Excellent. If you continue to obey my orders you will survive.” Then the screen cut to black and she was gone.

  The next twenty minutes were the hardest of Willie’s life. Each minute lasted an eternity and made its own sweaty contribution to the already fetid atmosphere in the control room.

  Things were better for Guns and his people, who could pass the time by checking their weapons, and for Shimmura and his power techs, who had the entire ship to worry about.

  Then the waiting was over and things happened in quick succession. First came visual contact with the raider, along with detailed sensor readings. Sparks droned it out.

  “We have visual contact, with three-by-three sensor confirmation, a hundred miles and closing. We have computer verification of a Santiago class destroyer escort, assumed to be nuke-capable, and armed with radar-seeking, heat-seeking, and remote-guided HE missiles. Secondary armament consists of two Gatling-type auto-cannons mounted port and starboard, a pilot-operated bow cannon, and the capacity to launch two fighters. I have no, repeat no, return on the fighters.”

  Willie nodded, keeping his voice absolutely emotionless. He chinned the shipwide intercom and gave thanks for the special shielding that had been installed to keep the enemy from listening in.

  “Okay people, this is it, remember our strategy. We let ’em get real close, where our heavy-duty secondary armament can do the most damage. Then, just before they board, we let ’em have it. Guns, remember to target their communications, and watch out for message torps. It wouldn’t kill us this time, but it might the next.”

  Guns, located fifty yards away in the heavily armored fire control center, had heard this strategy only about a thousand times, but still managed a cheerful, “Gotcha, skipper.”

  After all, a good subordinate knows better than to take offense at repetition, because chances are that some dumb shit needs to hear it again.

  Besides, this was payback time, and Guns was in a good mood. He licked his lips in anticipation. The only question was, should he hit ’em with his big club, or wait for a more significant target? He’d only have one chance, so he didn’t want to waste it. Time would tell.

  Christoferson flexed her fingers. In seconds, minutes at the most, they would summon full power from the ship’s drives, and position Alice for the kill.

  Could she do it? Already Christoferson could feel the fear bubbling up from deep inside, not about death, but about her ability to function.

  What if the fear took over? What if the shrinks were wrong about her, and everyone died because she went into mental and emotional lock-up, screaming mindlessly as the ship blew up around her?

  Sweat trickled down from her hairline and slid down her temple. She reached to wipe it away and hit her helmet instead.

  In the drive room, and in communication with power techs, in the two backup control positions located elsewhere in the ship, Shimmura hummed softly. His position was like an electronic cocoon, a heavily armored globe which, like Naisbit’s, was designed to separate from the rest of the ship in an emergency. The inside surface of the globe was covered with screens, readouts, and control panels. Their combined light cast an eerie glow over the interior.

  Part of Shim’s mind was there, caressing the ship’s systems, making sure that everything was green. But another part was thousands of miles away, deep in a fantasy about Susie, and the life they could have together. Her likeness was taped to an equipment rack over his head.

  Shimmura heard Willie say, “Stand by to engage the enemy,” and reached up to touch her picture with a gloved hand.

  As the two ships came together the freighter was bathed in waves of electronic activity. Radar bounced off the hull, laser-based range-finders stabbed here and there, and a wide variety of sophisticated sensors sampled heat, radio transmissions, radiation levels, and more.

  As the signals came in they were sorted, measured, and analyzed by the on-board tactical computer. Based on that analysis a full-spectrum electronic countermeasure strategy was created, tested through simulation, and readied for use.

  So as the Confederation DE pulled up close, and ordered the freighter to open a lock prior to boarding, everything was ready to go. What followed was quick and lethal.

  Willie gave the orders. “Power up, activate ECM, engage the enemy.”

  Confederation officers looked at each other in surprise as a heavy blanket of electronic interference blinded everyone of their sensors. Their computers would sort it out, but that would take precious seconds.

  None saw the huge hatches open along the freighter’s port side, or the silent sparkle of the mini-guns, or the sequenced launch of sixteen heat-seeking missiles.

  But they felt them as the high-explosive cannon shells detonated along the length of the DE’s armored hull and the missiles exploded, some finding their way inside.

  Screams filled the intercom and were abruptly cut off as suits lost pressure and their occupants died. Primaries were destroyed, secondaries came on-line, and computers fired weapons based on where the enemy should be if they hadn’t changed course or speed.

  The Confederation captain keyed her com tech. “Get a message off to Sector Three HQ. ‘Engaged enemy. Revise former estimate to U.N. destroyer, or destroyer escort, disguised as a freighter. Out.’”

  The com tech tapped some keys. A series of red lights came on. “Sorry, Captain, our primary, secondary, and tertiary antenna arrays were all destroyed during the first five seconds of battle.”

  The captain felt something cold drop into her stomach. So this was something more than a disguised raider, it was a carefully designed and executed trap. A Q-ship. There was nothing to do but fight her way out. Time to improve the odds. She chinned her intercom. “Launch fighters.”

  Willie felt the entire ship shudder as Guns launched another flight of missiles. Some were picked off by counter missiles but others made it through. They looked pretty as they blossomed and disappeared.

  “I have two new bogies,” Sparks said tonelessly, “and computer confirmation of two Brazilian-made Spector fighters, both armed with dual cannon and ship-to-ship missiles.”

  Willie fought to keep his voice calm. “Evasive action and engage.”

  Christoferson chose the second of three computer-generated maneuvers. The first was more aggressive but more dangerous as well. The ship rolled left, fell, and came back up on the far side of the DE. This had the effect of shielding the Alice from one fighter while giving Guns a crack at the other.

  He fired a single ship-to-ship torpedo. It was larger than a regular missile, carried a huge warhead, and came equipped with a sophisticated artificial intelligence. The AI might or might not prove a match for the Fed pilot, but it would keep the sonovabitch busy for a while, and that would be plenty. Guns smiled as the torpedo locked on and the fighter maneuvered to evade it.

  “Here comes number two,” Sparks warned, but Christoferson didn’t need the reminder, she could see the fighter in her heads-up display. A red delta coming her way, spitting metal death, trying to kill her.

  Fear rolled over Christoferson like a wave, crushing her under its weight, turning her mind to mush. She tried to think, tried to connect thought with action, but nothing happened.

  A voice came from a long way off, Willie’s voice, deep and calm. “Don’t worry, Sparks, number two’s been here before.”

  Christoferson remembered the way it was off Europa, shells hammering the length of the ship’s hull, slicing through Bowers like a knife through butter. Well goddammit, they wouldn’t do it again!

  The fingers of Christoferson’s left hand danced over the buttons in the armrest of her chair while her right hand moved the small joystick.

  All over the ship the crew felt G’s pile on, as Alice pulled up and curved right.

  The fighter followed. It fired missiles.

  Guns fired decoys. They blossomed orange as the missiles found them.

  Christoferson put the ship into a left-hand turn. Guns fired every weapon on the port side. It was like a curtain of high-explosive death. The fighter ran into it and exploded.

  Christoferson continued the turn, heading back toward the Southern Cross. “Nice shootin’, Guns.”

  “You pick ’em and we’ll pop ’em,” Naisbit answered nonchalantly.

  Christoferson scanned her HUD. It was empty of targets. “Hey, skipper, where’s the other fighter? And the DE?”

  “Destroyed,” Willie said calmly. “The DE blew about thirty seconds after you engaged fighter number two, and fighter number one blew up a minute after that.”

  It took a moment for the news to sink in. Christoferson couldn’t believe it. “You mean we won?”

  “Yup,” Willie said levelly. “We won.”

  With Willie in command, and Christoferson at the controls, Perko had been little more than a spectator during the battle, A cheer flooded the intercom and Perko chinned it off. He slumped back in his chair and let the tension drain from his body.

  He’d survived, and done so without disgracing himself. Without peeing in his pants, throwing up, or turning into a screaming lunatic. All reasonable things to do, but frowned on by the navy. Good. Now he was blooded, a true warrior, a member of the elite group who’d seen the elephant.