War Of Honor

Chapter Twenty Nine

"Wayfarer, this is LaFroye. Our pi

"Understood, LaFroye. Ah, may I ask just what it is you're concerned about?"

Jason Ackenheil sat back in his command chair, watching Lieutenant Gower, his com officer talking to one Captain Gabrijela Kanjcevic, mistress after God of the Solarian-flag merchant ship Wayfarer, and smiled thinly. It was safe enough, since he was far outside the range of Gower's visual pickup. Wayfarer wasn't that huge for a merchie—a fast freight hauler configured for relatively small cargos (by the standards of the leviathans which roamed the interstellar deeps) and limited passenger service—although she still dwarfed LaFroye to mi

But that was about to change . . . assuming, of course, that his information was accurate.

Which, all things being equal, it had damned well better be.

"It's only routine, Captain," Gower assured the face on his com screen. Then he glanced over his shoulder, as if checking to see if anyone were in proximity, and leaned turned back towards Kanjcevic's image.

"Just between you and me, Ma'am, it's pretty silly, actually. We've had reports of a rash of merchant losses in this sector over the last few months, and Intelligence has decided someone's using an armed merchant raider. So orders came down from Sidemore to make an eyeball check on every merchant ship we can." He shrugged. "So far, we've checked eleven without finding a thing." He did not quite, Ackenheil noticed, add "of course," but his tone made it superfluous, anyway. "Shouldn't take more than a few minutes for our pi

He shrugged again, and Kanjcevic smiled.

"Understood, Lieutenant," she said. "And I don't suppose I should complain about anything designed to make life harder on pirates. We'll give your people full cooperation."

"Thank you, Captain. We appreciate it. LaFroye, clear."

Gower cut the co

"How was that, Skip?"

"Perfect, Lou. Just perfect," Ackenheil assured him. Now let's just hope Reynolds knew what he was talking about in that intelligence brief, he added very quietly to himself.

Captain Denise Hammond, RMMC, stood and moved to the center of the pi

"All right, People," she told them. "We're docking in five mikes. You know the drill. No nonsense off anyone, but no bloodshed if we can help it either. Copy?"

A chorus of assents came back over her helmet com, and she nodded in satisfaction. Then she turned back to the hatch and waited with a hungry grin of anticipation. If the Skipper was right about what they were about to find, then this would be one of the best days she'd had in months, possibly years. And if he was wrong . . . Well, she was only a Marine. None of the crap was going to splash on her for following orders, and she'd never much liked Sollies, anyway.

The pi

The smile disappeared into sickly shock as that same hatch slid open and he suddenly found himself looking down the business end of a stun rifle. One held in the powered gauntlets of a Royal Manticoran Marine in the menacing bulk of battle armor. A Marine, a corner of the lieutenant's stu

"My name is Hammond, Lieutenant," the Marine behind the stun rifle said over her armor's external speakers in a soprano which would probably have been pleasantly melodious under other circumstances. "Captain Hammond, Royal Manticoran Marines. I suggest you take me to your captain."

"I—I—" The lieutenant swallowed hard. "Uh, what's the meaning of this?" he demanded. Or tried to demand, anyway; it came out sounding more like a bleat of terrified confusion.

"This vessel is suspected of violating the provisions of the Cherwell Convention," Hammond told him, and felt a profound sense of internal satisfaction at the way his face went suddenly bone-white. "So I suggest," she went on as the rest of her boarding party swiftly and competently secured the boat bay, "that you see about getting me to your captain. Now."

"It's confirmed, Skipper," Denise Hammond told Captain Ackenheil. There was no visual, because she was speaking to him over her helmet com, but he didn't need a visual from her. He'd already seen the imagery from the external cameras of the Marines who'd forced the hatches into Wayfarer's "passenger cabins." Even in Silesia and even aboard freighters with strictly limited perso

Of course, Wayfarer's crew had managed to save a little space for them in their quarters. After all, they didn't need much space to store their personal belongings when they didn't have any . . . including clothing of any sort.

The expressions of abject terror on the faces of those naked, hopeless "passengers" had been enough to turn a man's stomach. But the moment when they realized they were looking at Royal Marines, not the bully boy guards of the owners to whom they had been consigned, had been something else again. Indeed, seeing it had given him almost as much pleasure as the sick, stu

Which was punishable by death.

"Good work, Denise," he said sincerely. "Very good work. Keep an eye on things over there for another twenty minutes, and I'll have the prize crew across to you."

"Aye, aye, Sir. We'll be here."

"Do you know what I hate most about our political lords and masters?" Dr. Wix demanded.

Jordin Kare tipped back his chair and cocked his head with a quizzical expression as he regarded the astrophysicist who'd just burst unceremoniously through his office door. It was very early in the day—which was the only reason Wix had gotten past the secretary who would have intercepted him during regular working hours—and Kare's coffee cup sat steaming on the corner of his blotter beside a half-eaten croissant.