Silverfleet and Claypool

The four ships careened into a system that was no system. When the sensors began to clear, no sun or suns appeared. They wondered if they were anywhere at all, but far off before them floated a clump of dingy rocks, the mass of a moderate-sized planet scattered across a few million kilometers. A few signs of technology peered out from among the rubble. Already, even eight light hours away, the fighters flew through the diffuse cloud of infinitesimal carbon and iron dust that surrounded and darkened the Adamantine Planetoids.

“I think I saw it,” Jana Crown was saying just as Silverfleet was opening her comm channel.

“I definitely saw it,” Del Cloutier replied. “It’s not the first time, but it was clearer.”

“What?” asked Silverfleet, matching their speed. Claypool was a hundred kilometers ahead, braking as they caught up. “What did you see?”

“I’m not too for sure exactly. It was sort of sliding in from the side, just at max deceleration, right out of that field of galaxies. Some sort of light effect.”

“Yes, that seems likely,” Silverfleet judged. She had spent many hours in the black phase of lightspeed trying to read Dr. Frederik’s data—trying. “We’ll talk about this later. Hey, Suz!”

“All accounted for, Halyn,” said Claypool. “Where do we go?”

“I’ve put an X on the station, such as it is,” called Cloutier. “Sending.”

“Oh,” said Silverfleet, “let me guess, it’s in that band of dark rocks.”

“You’re the brains, Commander. When we’re a lot closer, you’ll see that X marking the entrance to the tunnel to the bay. It’s cluttered with broken stuff, but there are three old freighters inside and we park our fighters in one of their bays. We may have to get out and move some stuff. Pirates aren’t much for maintenance, as you can imagine.”

“I can imagine,” replied Silverfleet. The four fighters turned slightly toward the dark blotch in the dark of space and prepared to coast in for a day and a half in the blackest of nights.

“Del,” asked Claypool, “how exactly did you become a pirate?”

“Well, Silverfleet was gone, on to somewhere else where they had a security problem, so the local pirates regrouped. They offered me more money than I could imagine piled in one place, and a lot more excitement than I’d ever get at Arturo. They didn’t lie about the second part. And the pay was better than in the Arturo guard fleet.”

“And you, Jana?” asked Claypool. “Did Del lure you away with promises of piles of platinum?”

“Not her,” said Del. “She joined us. She brought over a real Talis G220. It was some sort of family squabble. Ask her, she won’t tell you.”

“Is that so, Jana?”

“Yes,” said Jana Crown.

Thirty hours later they were in the vicinity of the Adamantine Planetoids. The three largest were grinding slowly across one another, and where they met there were pits and scrapes. Cloutier led the winglet into one of the pits. Its aperture was about twenty meters wide, and inside it widened to two hundred meters across and a kilometer deep. A pair of functional freighters and a dozen broken-down fighters hung in that space, linked to power and computer terminals by a spaghetti of cords floating limp in the weightlessness. Around them floated a debris field of tools, parts and more cabling. Opening onto the chamber were at least eight airlocks, and at the back, where the pit narrowed, three dilapidated freighters were wedged together.

Cloutier led the four fighters all the way back, where they floated for thirty seconds before one of the freighters. Suddenly its bay door slid open. They flew in, landed on empty shelves in the bay and climbed out. Silverfleet had for some reason expected to be met by a knot of swashbuckling pirates with a pirate queen at their head, but the only person in the bay was a tired-looking man in a vac suit with a big tool belt at his waist.

“Hey, Gaston,” Cloutier greeted him over the suit-to-suit comm, “what’s been going on around here since we’ve been gone?”

“Oh, Del,” said Gaston, “bad, bad. Not good. Thought you were dead.”

“I guess not,” she replied. “Bad, huh? Just the usual? Where’s Sandra?”

“I’m, uh, happy you’re back, Del.” He smiled and let go of the wrench he was holding, which floated free on a string from his belt. “I’ll, uh, come and see you.”

“Well, sure! Thanks!” They went on through the freighter bay control room. On the other side the four women stood in what would have been a cramped hall for the average male resident of Colfax.

“What’s he talking about?” asked Silverfleet. “And is he really a mechanic?”

“Yes, in fact, he’s a good mechanic, but it’s not his main job here. I’m kind of honored. He cleared the top of his dance card for me.”

“I’m sure that’s very special for you, but what was he talking about? ‘Bad, bad, not good.’ ”

“I don’t know. He thought I was dead and he was worried. That big lug is so sweet. Dumb as a drill bit, but he’s good at what he does.”

“Del!”

“Well, how would I know?” Cloutier protested. “He didn’t ever say. Maybe Sandra wasn’t nice to him. I guess we’ll find out.”

“Well, who’s Sandra?” asked Claypool.

“She’s sort of the boss. Not really, no one is. But she’s the closest thing we’ve got. Oh, you’ll see, there’ll be many points of view expressed. Come on, we might as well go hear them.”

Down the hall they went, pulling themselves through the air with handholds. In the freighter’s bridge they met with several of those points of view. The bridge consoles had been torn out and a small conference room was the result, and standing around the table, their feet gripping the floor with magnets, were four women with photon rifles.

“Stop!” cried the one on the left, a brunette of about twenty. “I don’t mind killing you, and this bridge has been hardened for photon shots.”

“Well, that’s friendly,” said Cloutier. “What brings out the guns?”

“You’re spies from Central,” the brunette said, addressing Claypool and Silverfleet, “or else you’re wanted by spies from Central who’ll pay platinum for you.”

“Well, it’s good you’re flexible. I’m Halyn Silverfleet. And who would you be?”

“It is her,” the two women in the middle whispered to each other.

“This is Pedrena,” Cloutier explained. “She never lets confusion get in the way of doing something. Look, Pedrena, you don’t need to be pointing guns. These two are running from Central, and you saw what the two of them did to our six fighters. And you know, I don’t think we hardened it well enough for those guns.”

“You were in one of the ships that turned around?” asked Claypool.

“We withdrew,” said Pedrena. “Six were not enough to storm the station.”

“Uh, yeah,” Silverfleet replied, “it couldn’t have been that me and Claypool were five minutes behind you.”

“Pedrena,” said the red-haired woman next to her, a bit tall at 162 cm, “Silverfleet let Vya go. She only took out the combat computer. She could’ve blown her up, but she didn’t.”

“What? Vya?” asked Silverfleet. “She’s the one I let get away? Well, why blow her up? She was running. Anyway, what about it, shall we put the big-ass guns down and talk?”

“Orders is orders,” said Pedrena, waving her weapon at the bridge’s auxiliary hatch. “Sandra says she’s a spy, so she’s a spy. Let’s go.”

“What in the world are you talking about? What would I be a spy for?” Silverfleet gave the big guns a distasteful look. She felt like she was back on Colfax. At least now she spoke the local language. “We’re not here to fight, just to talk. I mean, really, which side do you think we’re on?”

“Yeah,” said Cloutier. “Put away the guns. We’re friendly. Those things might accidentally go off, you know.”

“Go ahead, talk all you want,” replied the venomous looking little blonde on the right. “You can go talk to the prisoners. Have all the discussions and debates you like. We talk too damn much anyway.”

“There’s been plenty of debate already,” added Pedrena. “Lots of talk. Let’s go.”

“Pedrena, this is stupid,” Cloutier argued. “It makes no sense on the face of it. Why employ Halyn Silverfleet of all people to spy for Central?”

“Because no one would expect it,” the venomous blonde replied.

“And you brought up Central,” added Pedrena. “You two aren’t trustworthy either. You’re all going in lockup, and let Sandra sort it all out.”

“Why don’t we go talk to Sandra now?” Silverfleet suggested.

“In good time,” said the venomous blonde. “We’ll let you settle into your new accommodations first. Rest after your long journey.”

“Pedrena,” the redhead put in, “we can’t lock up Jana and Del.”

“We can if they’ve gone over,” replied Pedrena. The redhead and Jana exchanged meaningful shrugs.

“At least let’s put away the guns,” said Silverfleet nervously. “We’ll go where you want, but you don’t need the guns.”

“Look,” said Pedrena, “I don’t stand much of a chance against the Great Silverfleet out in space, but right now, right here, you don’t stand much of a chance against me. So stuff it—we keep the rifles!”

“All right, fine.” Silverfleet shrugged and followed the tall redhead through the auxiliary hatch. The other three pirates and her three friends were behind her. She had an itchy feeling in her back about the readiness of all that firepower. They pulled themselves along a tunnel that seemed to be a tube of fabric, turning and turning back and joining a short rock passage. This opened onto a room cut out of the rock. It was large enough to hold several dozen people, a lot more than the two disheveled fighter pilots that stood, feet magnetized to the floor, watching them climb in and attempt to get their balance.

“Commander!” cried one of the two, a dark-skinned woman in her twenties with short, dense, kinky black hair. Beside her, a little woman with greying brown hair shifted pensively. Silverfleet looked from one to the other silently.

“One last time,” said Cloutier, “this is stupid. I mean, why lock me up? Why lock Jana up?”

“You have to let Jana and Del go,” the redhead tried again.

“If Silverfleet gets this treatment,” said Jana Crown, “then I’m honored to get the same.”

“Good,” replied Pedrena. “Get their stunners.” Silverfleet tried to act like she didn’t have one, while Claypool pulled hers out ready to use it—and found a photon rifle in her face. The four women all handed over their stunners. “Maybe you’ll be honored to be spaced with the rest of them. Meanwhile, I hope you all have a nice visit.” The steel hatch slammed shut.

When Cloutier and Claypool and Crown turned from glaring at the hatch, they found Silverfleet releasing the dark-skinned woman from a hug, and hugging the greying woman. “Elan! Conna!” she was saying. “Now—what in the Goddess’s name are you doing here?”

“Just sitting here waiting for you,” said Elan Klee.

“We’ve had such a nice chat together,” said Conna Marais. “These past, oh, twenty-two days. Having a chat. In this cell.”

“So,” said Claypool, “you came all the way out here—?”

“Yes, chat,” said Silverfleet. “Shall we have a nice little chat? We have so much to talk about. Gee, it’s nice to see you. So, how much did the White Hand pay you to come get us?”

“They didn’t pay us anything,” Elan Klee replied.

“You’re doing it for free?”

“No, Commander,” replied Conna, “we were running away. We came all the way from Marelon to find you.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“They’re force-feeding the Marelonians the White Hand ideas,” said Elan Klee. “There were ideological units among the marines on the troopships—but it’s a mess. They’ve killed tens of thousands.”

“Hundreds of thousands, millions soon,” put in Conna. “You have to do something.”

“How tragic,” said Cloutier. “Makes you wish for pirate trouble again, doesn’t it? Halyn, you don’t go in for that sort of thing, do you—saving planets from oppressors?”

“Not generally, no,” said Silverfleet “So,” she said to the two prisoners, “the weight of the White Hand is on your homeworld. People are being executed and re-educated and relocated. No doubt dogs are being kicked, too. And you want me to help you? Help free Marelon from the evil invaders? Or do you just want to—how did Milton say it—parley? ‘This isn’t about fighting,’ right?”

“What?” asked Elan. “No. It’s about fighting. It’s about doing the right damn thing. Okay? We ran away from our explorer force, we ran all the way here, by way, I should mention, of a place called Colfax where we each notched our first two fighter kills against these four 186’s, anyway, we left everyone we knew and everything we owned and put our damn lives on the line, and we get here and—okay, I know. You have no reason to believe us. But still, it’d be nice for someone to act just a little sympathetic.”

“I hate to mention this,” said Claypool, “but Milton seemed real sympathetic, up until the point where he started shooting.”

“So did they toss you in here right away?” asked Cloutier, “How’ve they treated you? My wing had left for its rendezvous with destruction by the time you showed up.”

“This is Del Cloutier,” Silverfleet explained. “Another of my trainees from way back, turned to buccaneering.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Elan Klee and this is my good pal Conna Marais. We were among the dead weight Silverfleet had to work with at Marelon. How were we received? Oh, they politely heard us out, and then and only then did they start shouting about how they had to kill us immediately. Then this Sandra threw us in here and forgot about us. Which I guess beats immediate spacing. We get a badly replicated meal about every other day.”

“All the meals here are badly replicated,” Cloutier assured her. “You’re getting no special treatment in that regard.”

“Look,” said Silverfleet, “let’s lay it on the line here. Suppose we decide to believe you. What do you propose that Claypool and I should do next?”

Elan stared into Silverfleet’s eyes. “If I say, Go back to Marelon, you’ll think it’s a trap.”

“Whatever would make me think that?”

“Look, Commander, I know the White Hand’s supposed to be all about truth, but I know the White Hand’s also all about treachery and people not trusting each other. I know they tested Milton and Trull for membership by sending them after you. All I can say is, fine, don’t trust us, but don’t just leave us here. We came all this way to ask for help.”

“Trull, huh? Pimply, sandy hair? Kind of a klutz?”

“Very much of a klutz.”

“Well,” said Silverfleet, “that solves one mystery. I was afraid it was you or Demetria. But hey, I guess it still might be. How did you know we’d be here of all places?”

“It’s where Colfax thought you’d gone. After we disabled their entire starfleet, they were willing to talk, to the extent that people there have mastered the art of speech. They were willing to tell us whatever would get us out of their system. They knew about the pirates—that sounded like a reasonable guess. Of course they had no way of tracking you—of course we had no reason to believe them, and I’ll tell you we cursed the name of Colfax when we got here and were thrown in the clink. We figured it was a setup, and maybe it was.”

“No,” replied Silverfleet. “They’re treacherous enough down there on Colfax, but they’d never be able to conspire with both the pirates and the White Hand. Too many people of superior intelligence. You, on the other hand—”

“Commander,” said Conna, “why would we be lying in wait for you in a prison cell?”

“Why would you follow us all the way from Marelon?” Claypool retorted.

“Because, damn it,” said Elan Klee, “you’re the only ones who can help.” Silverfleet and Claypool exchanged looks, then Silverfleet looked to Cloutier, who shrugged. “Okay, okay,” Klee went on, “who cares. Don’t believe me. I don’t give a crap. I don’t even blame you. The fact is, there’s a nice reward back at Marelon for returning you two to Central. I’m sure that’s why you’re in here with us now.”

“So you think,” said Claypool, “that the pirates are in with Central? They’re in contact?”

“They must be.”

“Maybe some of them are,” said Cloutier. “Certainly not the majority. You saw—Stacy wanted to let you go.”

“The redhead?” asked Silverfleet.

“Yeah,” said Jana Crown. “She’s cool.”

“They had a thing, Jana and Stace,” Cloutier explained. “Do you still have a thing, Jana?” Jana rolled her eyes and ignored the question.

“The White Hand must have spies everywhere,” said Claypool. “Even the pirates would sympathize with them, or surely with their cash. Um, how much is the reward?”

“Ten million credits for you,” said Conna, “and some sort of finder’s fee for the Commander.”

“Please stop calling me that,” said Silverfleet. “But wait. Finder’s fee? Do they still think I’ll fight for them?”

“Fiona’s adamant about it,” replied Klee.

“It’s nice to have the respect of your enemies. But what do they want to do with Claypool? Imprison her? What’s the charge? I mean, ten million’s a lot of funds.”

“I don’t know,” Conna answered. “They don’t say. Did you commit some awful crime?”

They all looked at Claypool, who hesitated and then said, “My only crime was knowing the wrong people.” They stared at her still. “And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

“All right, Elan,” said Silverfleet after a moment, “so back to the question. Let’s suppose I believe you. Let’s suppose you’re for real. Right now, what do you think we should do?”

“Get out of here,” Klee replied. “Obviously.”

“Come to Marelon,” Conna advised. “Help rid the place of Central.”

“Well,” Claypool put in, “if we’re talking about Doing the Right Thing, Marelon’s the nearest White Hand colony and the furthest out from Central. It’s the logical place to start.”

“Oh,” Silverfleet retorted, “so let’s see if I’ve understood the plan. Step one, we go to Marelon and free them, step two, we free, oh, Talis, I guess. And then we proceed by induction. So how do we even get to step one? Hello? Do you remember, we already fought for Marelon’s freedom, and lost? And that was with the help of the fine Marelon Defense Force, including those famous star fighters Conna Marais and Elan Klee. Now you think we can do it with you two and maybe a few pirates? Now do you see why I’m still suspicious?”

“I didn’t say it would be easy,” Klee replied. “I didn’t say it would be something we could do in one go. All I want is to be part of your wing. And I did say the first thing was to get out of this cell.”

“Well, how shall we do that? Say, Suz, shall we do what we did to get out of jail on Colfax? What did we do, anyway?”

“We sat in our underwear in a room with a dirt floor and no facilities—except the dirt floor—until they came and got us, and then you distracted them by being threatened with sexual assault while I grabbed a blunderbuss and started shooting.”

“Might not work here. Well, let’s put more thought into this than we did into that.”

“That won’t be hard.”

“I can tell you have some stories,” said Conna. “I just hope we don’t all sit in prison together long enough to tell them all more than once.”

“I’m sure you have stories too. And don’t think I’m done quizzing you—we have no more reason to trust you than Milton, and we didn’t trust Milton, which is how he ended up floating in the Black Rock system.”

“Black Rock?” Klee repeated. “Why did you call it that?”

“That moon,” Conna suggested.

“You found it?” asked Claypool. “You found our place?”

“We did,” said Conna, “while we were with the rest of your old Marelon Defense Force, investigating. Elan and I were the only ones who found your apartment. After we saw that, we decided to try and follow you.”

“Did you try out the beds?”

“Actually,” said Klee, “when we saw the beds and the plates and stuff, that’s when it hit us what was going on. That you’d been there, that you’d left. That you’d already made it on your own, just the two of you in empty space. I said, ‘That’s kind of cool, you know?’ and Conna said, ‘It is cool, now you mention it.’ We sort of hunkered down there for twenty hours. Slept like a baby. Then we were already playing hooky from the White Hand, so we decided we had to follow you.”

“They killed my son,” Conna explained. “Oh, you don’t have to believe that.”

“Oh, Conna,” said Silverfleet. “Why did—why did they kill your son?”

“I guess he engaged in what was someone’s idea of suspicious activity. He was sixteen, for gosh sake. Everything anyone his age does is suspicious. I don’t know what he could have really been doing, but he wasn’t any rebel. There wasn’t any rebellion.”

“They prefer not to let it get that far,” Claypool explained.

“Well, it didn’t, and it won’t,” said Klee. “They’ll kill half of Marelon just as an example to the other half. We scouted that red giant and I thought I’d picked up something from that moon. You see, I came to fighter piloting by way of mining for my dad on Veldar. I can smell things in space, especially on moons and asteroids. So we went for a look and we spotted your snug little hidey-hole right away—after flying past it about five times. When we decided to run, we guessed you’d head for the next star out that had planets, and that was Colfax. Great place. We didn’t land.” She looked at Silverfleet, then Claypool, then back to Silverfleet. “How am I doing?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Silverfleet replied.

Later, after they had talked and slept and eaten some tasteless wafers with water, they were sitting around listlessly when there was an indeterminate noise outside. Then the hatch flew open. Stacy, the red-haired pirate, and another young woman stood there.

“Quick,” Stacy hissed. “No time.”

They all jumped up, but doubt held them in their places. “Who are you and where are we going?” asked Claypool.

“I’m Stacy Mackenzie, and this is Vya de Har, and we’re getting out of here.”

“Vya?” Silverfleet repeated. “Are you—?”

“You spared my life,” replied Vya, a delicate-looking blonde. She waved her photon rifle. “Now I’m saving yours, Commander.”

She handed Silverfleet two little plastic disks—her stunner and Claypool’s—and Stacy gave back Cloutier’s and Crown’s. Then the six prisoners chased their two rescuers back through the rock and the curving tube and out into the freighter where they had left their fighters. Two more pirates waited in the bay.

“Halyn!” cried a cannonball-shaped woman with grey hair. A skinny little brunette stood next to her.

“Myrrh! Myrrh Melville! You’re a pirate?”

“Uh huh,” said Myrrh, grabbing Silverfleet in a hug. “The academy training didn’t stick. This is my daughter Meena.”

“Nice to meet you, Meena.” The girl bit her lip and blushed. “Well,” said Silverfleet. “wherever we’re going, we’d better get on our way.” She looked at Elan Klee.

“Um, back toward Marelon?” Klee suggested. “Maybe, um, Black Rock?”

“No. Central knows we’ve been there. They’ll be scouting that system every two weeks.” She turned to Cloutier and Myrrh. “Anyplace further?”

“Further from Central?” Myrrh replied. “Well—well, there’s Yellow Roost. It’s sort of a hideout from the hideout.”

“Not ready to go back to Marelon yet?” asked Claypool.

“Not yet,” said Silverfleet. “We have more work to do before we can do such a thing as take on Central. Bela wasn’t built in a day, you know. No, I think we have to go further—a lot further, before we turn back. If we’re going to do this, if we’re going to ever go take up the fight again, we have to gather and train. What do we have now? Two, four, six, eight, ten. Ten fighters. Which of us is as good as the average Central pilot? You, me, maybe Cloutier, maybe Myrrh. No. We have to go further away, and just one jump won’t do, because someone with the pirates is in with the White Hand.”

“I won’t argue with you,” Claypool replied. “Okay, let’s go. Yellow Roost, you said?”

“I’ll take you there,” said Cloutier. “But wait. We can’t leave Gaston.”

“What? Of course we can!” Silverfleet replied. “He’s only—oh, fine,” she said, seeing a soft look in Cloutier’s hard blue eyes, “but how are you going to take him?”

“Just stuff him in another fighter. He doesn’t have to do much to it, just take it to lightspeed. Wait here, I’ll go find him, he can’t be far. If I’m not back in five minutes—”

“Don’t worry. We will leave without you.”

“I’d do the same for you,” said Cloutier. She whispered something to Claypool, then went to the hatch. The others started climbing into their fighters, all except for Claypool, who seemed thoughtful. The hatch opened before Cloutier got her hands on it. “Oh,” she said, “hi, Sandra.”

“At ease, Cloot,” said Sandra, a greying blonde with the largest piece of photon artillery Silverfleet had ever seen a single person attempt to wield. She was flanked by Pedrena and the venomous-looking little blonde. Six more pirates came in behind them. “Out of the fighters, everyone. No flying today.”

The would-be escapees exchanged glances and climbed out of their ships. “Sandra Chase,” said Silverfleet.

“Old friend?” asked Klee.

“Kind of,” Sandra explained. “I replaced her when she went over to the other side at Alcen. Then she blew up my first ship.”

“Have you been with the White Hand ever since?” asked Silverfleet.

“I’ve never been with the White Hand. I just like the deal they offered. So, as I say, back out and away from the ships. Now, which one of you is Claypool?”

“What the heck do you want with her?” asked Silverfleet. “My poor ego. I thought it was me they wanted.”

“It is, it is,” Sandra replied, “but they only want you to fly for them. You and me—it’ll be just like the old days that never were. Now which one is Claypool?”

Silverfleet looked around and realized Claypool was not among them. “She should be heading out the tunnel by now,” said Cloutier without missing a beat. “Sorry. I thought you might try something like this. While we’re asking questions, where’s Gaston?”

“While we’re answering them, he’s dead,” said Sandra. “He tried to stop us from disabling your fighters. He failed. Sorry, Silverfleet.”

“You—you didn’t touch Vanessa!”

“So sorry. Now, about this Claypool person. No, there hasn’t been any fighter traffic in the tunnel. So, where is she?”

“You sadistic slut!” cried Silverfleet. “You did something to Vanessa!”

“Careful,” the venomous blonde advised, waving her weapon. “Photon artillery. Your head and feet would still be there, but they wouldn’t be connected.”

“You too, Cloutier,” added Pedrena. “Your retard boy’s floating in space, and you could go be with him, so don’t you get any ideas.”

Cloutier stared at Pedrena for a second, then down at her feet. “Stupid fucking bitch,” she muttered. “What’s happened to us, anyway? We used to be good honest pirates.”

“Look,” Silverfleet reasoned through clenched teeth, “what possible good is all this sadism going to do you?”

“Oh, I have a little deal, for me and my loyal sisters here. Poor Jana, poor Stacy, poor Vya. I won’t say poor Myrrh, I know you’ve had it in for me all along. And don’t try to suggest they might go back on the deal—the White Hand have their virtues, but deceit isn’t one of them. I don’t even care what they want this person for, but they want her, and you too. The rest of you will go back to the cell and wait for their judgement—you know, the punishment for piracy is death on the spot.”

“So they’re coming here?”

“Oh, yes. They’re already on their way. We had contact even before your friends showed up from Marelon. Now, back away and put down your weapons.”

“With respect,” said Silverfleet, “why should we? Have you thought this out at all? We aren’t going without a fight. Claypool’s not going to let you take her alive at all. Once the guns start going off, people will start dying. Say I get killed—seems a good guess. Say a few of your own go down. Now you don’t have me, you don’t have Claypool, and you’ve got maybe half a dozen somewhat reliable pilots left, and here’s Central with ten or fifteen experienced fighters. And now where’s your deal? Without your side of the bargain, you’re just pirates. And you know what the punishment for piracy is, don’t you?”

“We’ll have all of you,” said Sandra, waving her weapon provocatively.

“And that photon piece. You know you can’t shoot that thing in here—!”

“Seal up,” Sandra called to her supporters, who pulled down their visors. She fired a blast that left a crater in the bay wall, and the air quickly drained from the room. Silverfleet and her friends quickly sealed up too, but in the time it took, Sandra’s loyalists moved in on them.

“Sandra!” squeaked one of the pirates in back. Sandra turned to look. The pirate was motioning, gagging, but she couldn’t get out any more words.

“Ow!” cried another. “Hey! I—the air!”

“Where is she?” Pedrena demanded. “Hey—hey, there’s a leak—!”

“Everyone against the wall!” shouted Sandra through her comm. After ten seconds of confusion, during which the first pirate to squeak stopped struggling and suffocated, the pirates separated, and there stood Suzane Claypool. She had her helmet sealed, and a screwdriver in her hand.

“She tore open my—she—!” was all Pedrena managed before she’d wasted the last breath of air she would breathe in her life. The pirates looked from her to the first of them to be stricken, who had floated up and sideways. Her bare skin was visible through a long ragged slash across the back of her vac suit.

“Here I am,” said Claypool. “What are you going to do, shoot me? I bet they don’t want me dead.”

“Grab her arms,” Sandra ordered.

Three pirates approached Claypool, who waved the screwdriver menacingly. They were understandably hesitant, and before they could close the distance, Cloutier had grabbed one pirate’s photon rifle and clobbered her with it. Shots flashed, as the two sides mingled, almost indistinguishable with their helmets sealed. But Myrrh and Cloutier and Vya and Stacy knew whom they were fighting. Sandra and two of her colleagues fired their photon weapons at the flailing mob, but they couldn’t afford to hit any of their own dwindling troop, so they fired wide and only put holes in the far wall of the freighter. The shooters were grabbed, one at a time, and disarmed. After three shots, Elan Klee and Vya de Har got to Sandra together and shoved her against the wall with her rifle across her visor. In the time it had taken for Central to vanquish the Talis fleet, Silverfleet’s partisans had their opponents down.

“Let me,” said Cloutier. “You filthy fucking sadist. You can go see how Gaston’s doing.”

“No, let’s not kill her,” Silverfleet advised. “No, I’m not advising mercy. Leave these here for Central to find. The White Hand will show them their own brand of mercy. Oh, yes they will. They have their virtues, as you say, but restraint isn’t one of them.”

“But after what she did to your ship—!”

“Nice bluff. Didn’t work. Vanessa’s security is too much for anyone here except maybe Gaston, and if she killed him, it was because he wouldn’t do it. So I doubt she did anything subtle like disabling the drive, and you can see for yourself she didn’t get around to doing anything rash like smashing in our hatches. Which is what we will now do to your fighters, my sweet Sandra Marie. But first, let’s get you somewhere safe like that comfy cell you had us in.”

Sandra and her friends did not feel the need to say much as they were locked away until the next batch of fighter pilots arrived to free them. Silverfleet and Claypool and their friends bade them have a nice day and headed back to the bay. As Claypool came into the bay behind Silverfleet, their vac suits sealed up again, movement to their right caught their eyes. Someone in a maintenance helmet was peeking out of a service hatch. The person was armed with a piece of bent pipe.

“Gaston, my friend,” said Silverfleet, after a moment. “Come on out and let’s look at you.”

“Gaston!” shouted Cloutier. “Gaston, my darlin’ boy! So that was a bluff too.”

Gaston emerged, fully clad in a drab and dirty maintenance vac suit. He shrugged. “I don’t know if you heard,” Silverfleet explained to him, “but Sandra said they’d killed you. Maybe they thought they had.”

“Whacked me on the noggin,” said Gaston, a gloved hand to his soft helmet.

“Were you wearing that?” asked Claypool.

“No, no, got it on in there when the air went. I got six or eight suits here and there about the place. Never know, you know?”

“When the place is going to spring a leak?” replied Cloutier. “No, that’s right, around here you never know. So what are we going to do with you?”

“I’ll stay here,” he said. “Caretaker. This is my place, you dig?”

“But White Hand is coming,” said Silverfleet. “Sandra called them. They think they’re going to capture the Great Silverfleet and the Mysterious Claypool.”

“I’m not that mysterious!” Claypool objected.

“Anyway, you’re sure you want to wait for them?”

“What do I have to worry about?” Gaston replied. “Just a mechanic. Everyone needs a mechanic.”

“He’s probably right,” said Claypool. “Staying may be safer than leaving. Fiona will take one look at him and think oh good, a certified mechanic. I bet she won’t even let Sandra take revenge on him—hey, he’s just a guy. Fiona won’t credit him with any brains at all.”

“Which is too bad for her,” said Cloutier. “Because Gaston’s got more brains than even I gave him credit for. Right, Gaston?” He just grinned through his visor. “So you take care, okay buddy?”

“Okay pal,” said Gaston. “You too.”

An hour later, ten fighters trickled out from the pit in the side of the planetoid, Vanessa in front. Then Cloutier and Myrrh took the lead, as the wing swept away from the dark patch of rock and headed out toward the empty space in the field of stars. A few hours later their signals were gone from the region. Behind them, every remaining fighter and every freighter in the pirate base had a big messy hole blown in the area of its drive engine.

A day later, another set of signals appeared on the other side of the Adamantine Planetoids: twelve fighters with Central markings.