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And with her final word she flicked a finger at Venizelos.
All around her, the bridge displays altered as Fearless suddenly surged to full combat readiness. The young man on the com display jerked like he'd been stung, his eyes darting to his own off-camera monitors, and Honor could hear the faint sounds of gasped consternation coming from the command deck around him.
"I've made my half of the introductions," she prompted. "Your turn."
With what appeared to be a supreme effort of will, the man pulled his gaze back to the com screen. "My name is Iliescu," he said, his cheeks looking more sunken than ever. "I—all right, Captain, you've got us. What now?"
"You've threatened my convoy, Mr. Iliescu," Honor reminded him coolly. "Verbally, as well as by putting a missile into space against us."
She watched his face as he opened his mouth, probably to protest that that had been a warning shot. But he subsided with the words unsaid. She knew that, and he knew that she knew it.
"All of which means that I would be within my legal rights to blow you to scrap," she continued. "Or do you see it differently?"
Iliescu took a deep breath. "I see that the use of shredder darts is an attack on all civilized human beings," he said. "I see that they're illegal, but that they're still being used by petty tyrants desperate to hold onto their power and their privileges. What would you do, Captain, if they were being used against your people?"
"We're not talking about me," Honor reminded him. "Do you have any evidence that there are Manticoran ships carrying these things?"
His lip twitched. "We don't know who's bringing them," he admitted. "All we know that they're supposed to be coming in soon, from a supplier on Creswell."
Honor nodded. Creswell had been the convoy's last port of call. So that was why Iliescu had been lying in wait in this particular spot. "So what are you pla
Iliescu drew himself up. "If necessary," he said with stubborn dignity.
"All by yourself?"
"We have three other ships on loan from the Logan Freedom Fighters," he said. "We're ru
"Who's your contact with Logan?"
The question seemed to take Iliescu off guard. "What?"
"I want the name of your contact," Honor repeated. "The one who negotiated the alliance with your Zoraster Freemen."
Iliescu's eyes were bulging again. "You're very well informed, Captain," he said. "I don't know if I should . . ."
"There's no deal possible unless you convince me, Mr. Iliescu," Honor warned quietly. "As far as I can tell from here, you could still just be another pirate with a gift for glib."
Iliescu swallowed hard. "His name is Bokusu. Simon Bokusu."
Honor glanced at Wallace, caught the other's fractional nod. "All right," she said, looking back at Iliescu. "Under the circumstances, I'm going to give you this one free pass. But from now on you leave Manticoran ships alone, or there will be trouble. Is that understood?"
"Understood," the other said. "What about the shredders?"
"None of the ships in my convoy are carrying them," Honor told him. "You have my word on that."
Iliescu hesitated, then nodded. "All right. Iccgood-bye, Captain."
His image vanished as he broke contact. "Secure from battle stations," Honor ordered. "Signal the convoy to return to formation."
"Well, that was interesting," Venizelos commented. "Also pretty disgusting. What kind of a sick animal uses shredders anymore?"
"You heard the man," DuMorne said. "Petty tyrants desperate to hold onto power and privilege."
"And we have to look the other way," Metzinger murmured.
"Just one of the many fun things about duty in Silesia," Venizelos said. "Skipper, do you want to leave the wedge at full power?"
"We might as well, since the masquerade's blown anyway," Honor said. "And as long as the active sensors are on line again, let's give the area between us and the planet a good, hard look."
"Yes, Ma'am," Venizelos said. Honor turned back to her tactical plot, watching the ships of her convoy shuffling back toward their original flight formation. The maneuvers were nowhere near military-precise, but not bad for merchantmen. Maybe there ought to be a course on this sort of thing at the Merchant Fleet Academy.
There was a beep from Venizelos's board. "Skipper, we've got another wedge coming up," he a
"Course is ru
"We have an ID?" Honor asked.
"She's reading as an Andermani warship," Wallace said, his voice suddenly taut.
"Transponder identifies her as the IANS Neue Bayern," Metzinger confirmed.
"Neue Bayern," Venizelos repeated, punching keys on his console. "Battlecruiser, Mendelssohn class, massing just under nine hundred thousand tons. No sign of anyone else in her vicinity."
"Any idea what she's doing out here?" Honor asked, swiveling to look at Wallace. The other was working his board, his eyes intense but uncertain.
With good reason, she realized as she ran down the same logic track he was probably following. A lone Andermani ship, and one that had apparently been lying doggo as a pirate might, could very possibly be their raider.
Except that it wasn't fitting the rest of the ONI profile. A battlecruiser was too big, for one thing, and it wasn't ru
On the other hand, considering the poor quality of the data on which it was based, the profile itself might not be all that accurate. Besides which, who was to say that the leopard might not occasionally trade in his spots for stripes?
"Well, if she's on escort duty, she seems to have misplaced her convoy, Ma'am," Venizelos observed. "And as for her vector . . . Stephen, what do you make of it?"
"We don't know what she was doing before we came in, of course," DuMorne pointed out. "But her current vector matches nicely with a straight-line course from Tyler's Star to Schiller. It almost looks like she's spent the past few days drifting her way across the system.
"Like someone hunting pirates?" Venizelos suggested.
Or perhaps something a little more personal? Honor caught Wallace's eye as he glanced up and lifted her eyebrows in silent question. He cocked an eyebrow of his own and gave a small shrug.
So at least they were agreed about their basic uncertainty. The Neue Bayern might well be out hunting a rogue Andy raider. On the other hand, she might be here to give that same raider tactical or logistical support.
"I hope she wasn't trying to sneak up on Iliescu's roadblock," Venizelos mused. "We pretty well ruined that one if she was."
"She'll get over it," Honor said, coming to a decision. Whatever this particular Andy was doing out here, she probably knew about the raider. Given that, it wouldn't hurt to let her know the Royal Navy was also in on the game. "Joyce, open a cha
"Yes, Ma'am." Metzinger keyed her board, and Honor silently began counting out the seconds. At the Neue Bayern's distance there was a twenty-second delay just for the signal's round trip, plus whatever time her captain took to decide whether or not he felt like talking to any Manticorans today.
The count was up to ninety-four seconds when the com screen came up, revealing a heavy-jowled man with close-cropped hair and full lips that seemed to be settled in a perpetual frown. "This is Captain Lanfeng Grubner of the IANS Neue Bayern," he said, his voice gruff and sounding like he wasn't at all happy about being disturbed. But maybe that was just his heavy German accent. "What do you want, Fearless?"