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  Sparrow was handicapped, all right. Nemesis was a nimble little runabout, while Duchess’s mass clung to Sparrowhawk like a giant barnacle. All Hiram’s skill at playing duck and hide would do us no good so long as the derelict weighed Sparrow down and blocked Kojo’s line of fire.

  Sparrow did have one advantage—Nemesis was too small to hope to manage Grand Duchess in tow. If the privateers wanted Duchess, they would need Sparrowhawk—and her crew—intact.

  I stood back to initiate power to the damaged console.

  Confusion came over my helmet mic—Kojo swearing, banging metal.

  A yell from Archer. “Breach at the cargo hatch—we’re being boarded!” Followed by a cry of pain.

  Damn them!

  Power flowed to the console. “Hiram, what rockets—?”

  Kojo’s hail overrode mine on the mic. “Cease fire! All right, Nemesis. We surrender. I repeat, we surrender. All hands on Sparrowhawk, stand down.”

  I stopped cold. Kojo, surrender? Not burzing likely. I knew my brother too well.

  And I wasn’t on Sparrowhawk.

  “Patch?” Charity whispered into the mic. “I’m down to five minutes.”

  “I’m coming. Keep your mic on local and get in the airlock.”

  I careened down Duchess’s dark passages while eavesdropping on the com channel Kojo had left open for me.

  “…that’s sensible, Captain,” came the voice of the pirate captain. “Where’s your engineer? Well, get him out of the way, you can tend to him later. Fargo, take over the engine room. Bors, take the helm. I know it’ll be hard to handle—just get us to that big moon so we can straighten out the load.”

  I shut myself into the airlock with Charity. “Hold on to something, I’m going to bypass decomp.”

  The outer hatch opened with a silent explosion of Duchess’s thin air. Sparrow’s hatch was only a short leap away.

  My oxy warning began to beep. Silencing it, I cautiously stuck my head into space.

  There she was, Nemesis—the same runabout that had followed us into Davo’s thicket. She’d grappled onto Sparrow’s cargo hatch, just forward of our airlock, and married her hatch to ours.

  If Duchess’s guns had been powered, I could have blasted the runabout into oblivion.

  “Wait here,” I said.

  Charity’s oxy warning was sounding, too. She nodded, eyes wide behind the helmet glass.

  Not bothering with a tether, I leaped to Sparrow and opened the airlock. I didn’t see anyone watching from Nemesis’s canopy, but I didn’t waste any time in motioning Charity to join me.

  The sound of dragging footsteps came through the mic. “Here, lay him on the couch,” Kojo said.

  Poor Archer, he must have been caught in the crossfire. But now I knew they were in the salon. Thank you, Kojo.

  “Now, crewmen,” the woman’s voice drawled. “You know the drill. Your ship is taken, and your captain’s just been dee-moted. Sign on with us and you’ll get a fair share of the booty. Make trouble, and you’ll get a quick tour of the Gloom—without an enviro suit.”

  Charity floated across to Sparrow, fast enough to nearly knock me down. I grabbed her before she could rebound out into space and shut Sparrow’s outer hatch behind us.

  I hit the compression control, shaking with anger. Some burzing little runabout taking my ship. Threatening my crew.

  “As soon as we recompress,” I said, “I’m going to cross the cargo hold to the arms magazine and grab a couple of stunners. Stay here. If there’s any problem, shut yourself in here and wait it out.”

  “I can fight.” Her breath came in short gasps.

  “That’s good. Wait till you have a weapon, though.”

  I watched the dial. Half compression. Sixty percent. Seventy percent. I tried to remember how much the noise of compression carried through the ship. Would the invaders hear it in the engine room? In the salon? Would they be waiting when I opened the hatch?

  Archer’s strained voice came through the helmet mic. “Put me in the brig if you want. I’m not signing articles with any pirate.”

  Brave, loyal, foolish Archer. If I weren’t already married to him, I’d kiss him.

  Lili’s voice said, “Now, boyo, we’re legit privateers, no shame in that. We could use another good engineer.”

  At eighty percent compression, I shed the clumsy enviro suit, wheezing in the thin air.

  Wait. Boyo. Hadn’t Davo called Archer that?

  Something to think about later.

  Ninety-five percent, and I could breathe easier. Charity had removed her suit, too, so we both stood in our leggings and undervests as the dial crept toward one hundred.

  I kept the helmet close to my ear. The pirates were still trying to talk Sparrowhawk’s crew into cooperating, and no one had raised an alarm about suspicious noise in the cargo hold. If we were lucky, they hadn’t noticed the comp cycle running, and I’d be able to cross to the arms magazine and grab a stunner without meeting resistance.

  Of course, if our usual bad luck held, there’d be a pirate right outside the airlock with a stun rifle pointed at my head.

  Compression cycle complete.

  With a deep breath, I threw open the airlock and ran out.

  And stumbled on legs that hadn’t felt gravity for four hours.

  My stocking feet slid across the frost-covered deck. I’d forgotten about Sparrow being on power-saving skinny mode. The temperature in the cargo hold had dropped enough to freeze the moisture in the air.

  Bang. I slid into the bulkhead. So much for stealth.

  I scrambled up, slipping on the icy deck. Lunged for the arms magazine. Punched in the first two numbers of the combination.

  The door from the passage flung open. Zing! A stun shot rang out, fired through the door without aiming.

  “Come out, hands in sight,” a Terran voice shouted.

  Punch, punch. I jerked open the magazine, grabbed a stun pistol, and dove for cover behind a bale of cargo.

  Zing. This time, he’d aimed. He got close—close enough that the blast numbed my hand and sent my stun pistol flying across the hold.

  Damn.

  “Don’t be a burzing hero,” the Terran drawled. “I got the drop on you, so give it up.”

  My stunner came to rest behind a bale two long paces away. I flexed my hand and weighed my options. None seemed good.

  “Please, don’t shoot me,” came Charity’s whispery voice.

  The man spun to see Charity, pretty as a kitten and nearly naked.

  “I’m so cold,” she simpered, wrapping her arms over her breasts.

  That was as good a distraction as I could ask for.

  I ran for the bale.

  Zing.

  For a crazy moment, the deck canted to starboard, spoiling the pirate’s aim. Charity cried out and stumbled back into the airlock.

  I fell against a bale—and watched my stunner slide farther away.

  Then the grav adjusted. I slid across the deck, taking cover behind a crate.

  “Burzing grav.” The pirate was on the deck, between bales.

  “You’re making a mistake, a big one,” I said, with all the authority I could muster behind chattering teeth.

  “Maybe,” he said, “but I’ve got the stunner and you got nothin’.” He dashed two strides closer to cower behind the next bale of cargo.

  As fast as I could with a still-tingling right hand, I unlocked the latches on the Prestocrate I was hiding behind.

  Archer’s harrow-tooth coatrack. He’d filed down the sharp blades, but the pointy bits were still menacing enough.

  “All right,” I said. “I’m coming out.”

  I raised my right hand. Stood.

  And with my left hand, I threw Archer’s precious work of art at the pirate.

  The man dodged, getting off another shot as I dove for my stunner.

  The coatrack, with its hooked teeth, missed him.

  And hit the bale of compressed thistledown directly behind him.
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br />   Whoosh. Down exploded out of the bale, filling the hold with a blizzard of thistle. It danced and swirled, getting into my nose and throat, as irritating as a swarm of mosquitos. Thistle clung to the stun pistol’s grip, sticking to the moisture on my hand.

  The fog of thistledown blurred my stun shot, but it was enough to knock the man down.

  Charity, coughing in a thistle cloud, picked up his stunner.

  “Burzing bilge scum,” she said, pointing the stunner at the bilge scum’s head. “You’re lucky my daddy ain’t here.”

  Leaving the pirate lashed to the battens and locking the cargo hold door behind us, Charity and I—now fully dressed and each armed with a stunner—crept into the passage.

  The lower deck passage was clear, but grumbling came from the engine room, audible even over the throb of the engines.

  If the damn fool had messed up Archer’s tools, there’d be hell to pay.

  I clumped down the passage, making no effort to be quiet.

  The man in the engine room didn’t even turn around. “Remus? What took you…”

  I gave no warning, no silly demand to raise hands, just a stun shot to his back.

  Two pirates down.

  “Stay here and follow the helm’s orders as best you can,” I told Charity. “In one minute, give a one-second burst on the rocket to send us downward, then a one-second counter-burst. Got it?”

  She nodded, eyes shining.

  I crept up the aft steps to the passage that led to the passenger cabins and salon. I risked a quick look: the passage was clear.

  Voices emanated from the salon.

  Above me, the companionway led to the wheelhouse, but the pirate manning the helm could wait.

  From the salon, Hiram raised his voice. “You call yourself a captain? Why, missy, you better be ready. You’ve got a tiger by the tail.”

  Thanks, Hiram. Always attuned to Sparrow’s creaks and moans, he would have heard me on the steps. I braced for Charity’s maneuver and the inevitable bump in grav.

  The deck dropped away as Sparrow powered downward, leaving me feeling as light as a feather. Immediately, she swooped up again. I had three seconds until the gravity would stabilize.

  It took me much less than three seconds to cross the passage to the salon.

  The privateer captain, halfway out of her seat, raised her weapon, but my shot hit her first.

  Her companion was still reaching, trying to get his balance when Kojo’s feet caught him on the knees.

  I stepped into the salon, frowning ferociously, so everyone could see my sergeant’s uniform coat.

  “Stand down!” I ordered, pointing my stunner. “You’re all under arrest for piracy, by order of the Corridor Patrol.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Letters of marque

  After we took back control of Sparrow’s wheelhouse, Hiram wrestled the combined assemblage of ships—Sparrowhawk, Grand Duchess, and Nemesis—into orbit around the moon that Nemesis’s helmsman had been heading for.

  If we kept collecting ships at that rate, we could start our own space station.

  In the calm of orbit, we all gathered in the salon. Nemesis’s crew—all five of them—were in improvised restraints on the carpet. I stood guard, with Archer on the couch looking puny as Charity tenderly tucked a blanket around him.

  Poor Archer—I had firsthand experience with what a stun shot to the gut felt like. He’d get over the cramps and nausea in a couple of hours.

  In the meantime, we had these freebooters to deal with.

  “What the hell is the Corridor Patrol doing out here?” Captain Lili demanded. “This ain’t no burzing corridor.”

  She eyed my spiffy Gav uniform coat, complete with sergeant’s insignia and the badge of Gavora’s most prestigious military clan. “And for the love of rain, get me a blanket or something. It’s freezing in here.”

  A Terran old enough for her hair to show more gray than black, any beauty that Lili might once have had was spoiled by a thick ear, crooked nose, and misshapen eye socket.

  I leaned against the door frame, arms folded, glowering like every Patrol officer I’d ever seen. “I am Sergeant Pata, on special assignment to monitor piracy along the Ribbon Road.”

  “You don’t look like no Gavoran,” Remus said, gazing at a few wisps of very un-Gav orange hair that had escaped from under my purple cap. He was the one from the cargo hold, and he still had thistledown in his clothes, hair, and ears. Like Captain Lili and his crewmates, he didn’t wear a uniform, just layers of whatever-came-to-hand. If I’d met him on the street, I would have crossed to the other side to stay out of his way.

  “You’ve never seen a hybrid before?” I said sniffily. As if one came across cross-bloods every day on a better class of planet. “No matter. The Corridor Patrol outpost on Kriti knows how to deal with pirates.”

  “Privateer,” Lili insisted. “I got letters of marque to take any ship that’s an enemy of Barony.”

  Hiram harrumphed. “Do we look like Troy militia to you? We salvaged a Barony derelict. We’re on our way to return her to Barony and claim the salvage fee.”

  “Sure you are.” Fargo cracked a one-sided smile. He was the one I’d shot in our engine room, another soul who looked like he’d been on the losing side of a score of bar fights. “That’s why you’ve dragged her halfway to Troy.”

  “Troy?” Kojo and I exchanged glances.

  “That’s right,” Lili said. “Didn’t Davo tell you where he was leading you?”

  Kojo raised his brows again: She knew about Davo?

  Lili wriggled her legs, tied at the ankles. “Captain Kojo, I guess you and the sergeant here haven’t learned yet just what kind of a friend Davo is. If you were counting on that snake to lead you out of the Gloom, you’ll be long a-waiting. As soon as Davo caught sight of us, he skedaddled like a burzing bilge rat. And if he meant to put you on the Road to Barony, he’d have told you to power away from that dark star on a different course altogether. Heading four-four-two puts you on the path to the nearest Troy outpost.”

  As one, Kojo and Hiram and Archer and I turned to Charity.

  Blushing, Charity fussed with the blanket over Archer’s feet.

  “Is that right, Charity?” Kojo asked. “Is this course leading us to Troy instead of Barony?”

  She blinked and looked down. “Barony’s got a price on Daddy’s head. But he said Troy will pay for Duchess, maybe even more than Barony will.”

  Ancestors! No wonder the spirits of Grand Duchess’s captain and crew were filled with hate—we were taking them to their worst enemies.

  “Captain Lili, you seem to know Davo better than we do,” Kojo said. “Maybe you better tell us what’s going on.”

  Lili’s helmsman sat up, propping herself against the bulkhead. “We know him, all right. Tell them, Captain. Tell them how Davo let his crew rot to save his own skin.”

  Lili scowled. “I was first mate on Hellbender under Captain Davo. Fargo here was engineer, Bors was pilot, and the others did a bit of everything. Nine months ago, a Barony ambush caught us running supplies to Troy past the blockade on the Ribbon Road.”

  “Davo was siding with Troy?” Hiram asked.

  Fargo grunted. “We weren’t in it for the politics. That particular week, Troy was willing to pay more.”

  “The Barony cruiser blasted a hole in Hellbender too big to patch, killed one of our crew straight out. Captured us and took Hellbender in tow.” Lili shrugged. “Hard luck, but sometimes luck is like that. We figured we had a bargaining chip or two, information that Captain Davo would trade to get us free.”

  “That didn’t happen,” Fargo said, squirming under the restraints. “Barony wanted more than a few bits of information about Troy’s military placements, they wanted the mother lode—kept asking how Davo managed to navigate the Gloom.”

  “They ripped Hellbender to bits,” Lili said, “looking for special sensors, scan boosters, secret locator codes. They didn’t believe us when we told them i
t was all in Davo’s head. Hell, I know a few of the signposts—I can get in and out of the thicket, and we’ve used that dark star enough that I figured Davo would come out that way. But in the heart of the Gloom?” She shook her head. “As far as I know, Davo steers by his balls.”

  “They weren’t convinced,” the crewman said. “They beat the crap out of us, one at a time and all together, and made Davo watch. When they got tired of that, they stuck us in a cold, dark hole and forgot about us.”

  “You can’t blame Davo,” Charity cried. “He’s always said the knowledge was in his head. Even he couldn’t explain how he did it. They tortured him, too, you know? He’s dying because of what they did to him.”

  Lili squinted at Charity. “You’re his girl, ain’t ya? He used to talk about you, his little Charity, waiting back on Kriti, and how someday he was gonna go back to you and treat you like a princess.”

  “I got news for you,” Fargo said. “Davo ain’t no prince.”

  Kojo cut him short. “Barony let you go.”

  “That’s right. You say Davo’s dying? Well, maybe it’s true—Barony isn’t too careful with its prisoners.” Lili craned her neck to look up at me. “What about that, Mzee Sergeant? Ain’t torturing prisoners a violation of law?”

  “You can register a complaint at sector headquarters,” I said. “Go on with your story.”

  “Register a complaint, yuh.” She pouted as if tasting something sour. “Anyways, when they finally gave up trying to learn the great secrets of navigating the Gloom, the Barony interrogators were ready to settle for one thing.”

  “Grand Duchess,” I said.

  “Yuh.” Lili scowled ferociously. “Seems Davo was holding out on us, his own crew! He let slip to his guards that he’d come across Grand Duchess one time when he was out in his skimmer. He never told us about it. I guess he was waiting for some way to salvage her on his own so he wouldn’t have to split with the crew—his own personal treasure chest.”

  “No!” Charity cried. “He wouldn’t.”

  “He would and he did.” Fargo turned his head to dry-spit. “Of course, that led to another round of beatings, trying to make us tell them where Grand Duchess was, but we didn’t know nothing about it. And by that time Davo would rather croak than lead Barony to her.”