David Weber - The Service of the Sword

That was precisely what had attracted Manpower's attention to Tiberian in the first place. It was the closest star to the real objective, which meant it was ideally located to support the operation at need, and it might as well have been totally uninhabited in terms of the locals' ability to realize anyone was wandering around the outer reaches of their system. So it should have been totally safe to let the pirates play.

Except that the stupid damned transport had dropped out of hyper right on top of them. Not even a merchie's sensor suite could have missed them at that range, which had left Ringstorff no option but to order Tyler to capture it before it could translate back out with the word of their presence.

The elimination of the ship's entire crew and its passengers had been an unpleasant necessity, but one which Manpower's Silesian hirelings had protested. Not out of squeamishness, of course, but because dead passengers couldn't be ransomed by living relatives. They were being paid well for their services, but no self-respecting pirate was going to turn down the opportunity to enhance his profits, and they'd objected to losing this one.

Ringstorff hadn't liked it, but he'd passed on their complaints to the home office, at which point some REMF genius had come up with the notion of placating the pirates by allowing them to dispose of the transport itself through their own contacts in Silesia. At a little over two million tons it hadn't been all that large, but it was still worth the odd billion Solarian credit or two, and the pirates' credit accounts had done well out of it.

Which, unfortunately, had suggested to their stellar intellects that there was no reason why they shouldn't add a few more prizes to the list while they waited for whatever it was their employers had in mind. The same home office genius who had authorized the disposal of the transport in the first place had signed off on their new request, as well. Ringstorff wasn't certain whether that had been solely to keep the hired help happy or if there might not be a more devious motivation. It had occurred to him that the authorizer might have decided that if, indeed, it became necessary to eliminate "the Four Yahoos" and their crews after the main operation's conclusion, it could be convenient to have them identified as common, garden variety pirates. If it was handled correctly, it might even be possible to get the Erewhonese Navy, or the Manticoran Alliance, or even the Havenites to eliminate the "pirates" for Manpower.

It was the sort of complicated, theoretically neat and tidy plan that a certain variety of armchair strategist was fond of. Personally, Ringstorff had no intention of letting anyone else eliminate the Four Yahoos. If they had to go, he was doing it himself, before some half-way competent naval intelligence sort decided to wonder how a batch of "typical" Silesian pirates had gotten their hands on such powerful and modern vessels.

But in the meantime, he felt like a man juggling hand grenades. He was virtually certain that "his" captains had taken at least some prizes they hadn't mentioned to him at all. Certainly enough ships had disappeared in the area to begin attracting an unpleasant amount of attention... like the Erewhonese destroyer which had literally stumbled across the depot ship on its way out-system. Fortunately, the destroyer had already informed the Refugians that it was leaving Tiberian, and the Erewhonese appeared to believe that whatever had happened to it had happened somewhere else.

"You don't suppose that this cruiser is here because someone in Erewhonese intelligence has figured out their ship never got out, do you?" Lithgow asked, and Ringstorff grunted in amusement at the way his subordinate's thought processes had paralleled his own.

"The thought did occur to me," he admitted. "But if they had any serious evidence that we popped their ship here, they wouldn't have sent a single cruiser to check it out. They'd have responded in force, even if they didn't realize how much firepower we have, if only to give themselves some tactical flexibility if we tried to run for it."

"So you think they just happen to have turned up?"

"I didn't say that. Actually, I think they probably are here because of the Yahoos' operations. I'll bet you they've been jumping ships they've never bothered to mention to us. And if they have, the Erewhonese—or even the Havenites—could be turning up the heat trying to shake the 'pirates' out of the woodwork. In fact, it's more likely to be Haven than Erewhon, now that I think about it. Erewhon's already checked Tiberian out; Haven hasn't. It would make more sense for the Peeps to follow up their transport's loss here if they're just getting started on their own investigation than it would for the Erewhonese to backtrack through Tiberian for a third time."

"Good point," Lithgow conceded. "Still leaves us the problem of what we do about it, though."

"What I'd like to do would be to pull the hell out of here and take Maurersberger and Morakis with us. Unfortunately, we can't. Oh," he waved one hand, "we could sneak even farther out-system without whoever this is spotting us. I'm not worried about that. But if Tyler and Lamar come back before our visitor leaves, he's hardly going to fail to notice their hyper footprint, now is he? If that happens, it's the Erewhonese destroyer all over again, and in that case, I want all the firepower we've got right where I can put my hands on it in a hurry."

"You really think it would take all four of them to deal with one Peep cruiser?"

"Probably not, but I'm not about to take any chances I can avoid, either! And let's face it, however good 'our' ships are, their crew quality is a little suspect. Whereas if this really is a Peep, Theisman and his bunch have improved their crew quality significantly in the last couple of T-years. Better to have too much firepower than too little, in that case."

"... so, Ms. Hearns," Commander Watson said, leaning back in her chair and propping her elbows on its arms, "are there any questions?"

"I don't believe so, Ma'am," Abigail replied after a moment's thought. The exec gave a good brief, she thought. She still might not think very much of Captain Oversteegen's decision to send her down to Refuge, but she felt confident she understood what she was supposed to do once she got there.

Watson studied her for a moment, then frowned ever so slightly.

"Is something troubling you, Ms. Hearns?" she asked.

"Troubling me?" Abigail repeated, and shook her head. "No, Ma'am."

"I wasn't asking whether or not something about your instructions troubled you," Watson said. "But, frankly, Ms. Hearns, I believe that something rather more fundamental is troubling you. And I'd like to know precisely what it is before I send you off groundside out of my sight."

Abigail gazed at her, and behind her own calm expression she took herself sternly to task. Tester, the last thing I need is to sit around sulking like a schoolgirl just because the Captain hurt my feelings! she thought. And just my luck the Exec should decide to call me on it!

She considered denying Commander Watson's charge, but she wasn't about to compound her fault by adding lying to it. And so she drew a deep breath and made herself meet the exec's eyes levelly.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," she said. "I don't mean to be overly sensitive, but I suppose that's what I'm being. It just... bothers me that the Captain never even seems to have considered assigning this to anyone else."

"I see," Watson said after a few thoughtful moments. "What you're saying is that you resent the fashion in which the Captain seems to have chosen you for this role because of your social and religious background. Is that a fair assessment, Ms. Hearns?"

There was no condemnation in the exec's cool voice, but neither was there any encouragement, and Abigail drew a deep breath. She started to defend herself by denying that she "resented" anything, but that would have been another lie. And so she nodded, instead.