David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

"Why, Commodore?" Terekhov asked, watching Karlberg intently.

"Because it's going to make us more of a target, especially given how exposed we are, and I don't have the available assets to encourage the ill-intentioned to stay the hell out of my star system," Karlberg said bluntly. "Especially not if they have modern vessels available."

"Modern vessels?" Terekhov leaned forward, and his eyes narrowed. So did FitzGerald's-and both midshipmen's, for that matter. The pirates operating out of the Verge in the Talbott Cluster's vicinity tended to be among the less technically capable of their ilk. In many ways, they were the equivalent of the rowboat-equipped pirates who'd haunted prespace Old Earth's shallow coastal seas, and they made the average Silesian pirate look like first-line naval units in comparison. Against that sort of opposition, even Karlberg's diminutive, obsolescent light attack craft should have made a good showing.

"Yes," the commodore said, and there was no longer any trace of levity in his voice or expression. "Someone's intruded into the system here at least three times in the last two weeks. Whoever it is isn't interested in introducing himself, and the only one of my LACs that's gotten close enough to try for a solid sensor sweep failed completely. Now, admittedly, our electronics are pretty much crap compared to yours, Captain, but we ought to be getting at least some useful data. We aren't, which suggests that whoever we're up against has considerably more modern electronics than we do. Which, in turn, suggests they're probably much more modern and capable generally than we are."

"You keep using the plural, Commodore," Terekhov observed. "You're fairly confident you're dealing with more than a single intruding vessel?"

"I'm ninety-five percent certain there are two of them," Karlberg said. "And, whatever they are, they're bigger and, presumably, tougher than anything I've got. And they're arrogant buggers, too. They're waltzing right into and through my star system because they know damned well that nothing I've got could hurt them, even if I could manage to track them accurately."

"I see," Terekhov said slowly. He glanced at FitzGerald, and Ragnhild finally allowed herself to glance at Paulo, as well. She could see from his expression that he was thinking the same thing she was. If Karlberg was correct (and Ragnhild was impressed by the man's obvious capability) about how modern these intruders were, where had they come from? What were modern vessels doing playing pirate in such a poverty-riddled portion of the Verge? This was the sort of area that attracted chicken thieves, not the sort that could pay the operating costs of modern, powerful raiders.

"Well, Commodore, Mr. President," Terekhov said after a few moments of silent thought, "if you do have somebody wandering in and out of your system with less than honest motivations, then I suppose we ought to see what Hexapuma can do to discourage them." He smiled thinly. "As permanently as possible."

"Mr. Dekker?"

"Yes, Danny?"

"Mr. Dekker, I think you'd better see this." Daniel Santiago's Montana accent was more pronounced than usual, and his brown eyes looked worried.

"What is it?" Dekker pushed back his chair and rose, walking across to Santiago's desk.

"This e- mail just came in." Santiago pointed at his old-fashioned display. "The system says it comes from an address that doesn't exist."

"What?" Dekker bent over his subordinate's shoulder, peering at the screen.

"It used to exist," Santiago continued, "but this provider shut down over two T-years ago."

"That's ridiculous," Dekker said. "Somebody must be playing games with his mail origination."

"That's why I think you should take a look at it, Boss," Santiago said. He reached out and tapped the message subject header, and Dekker's eyes narrowed.

"Re: Reasons to evacuate… right now," it said.

"I do not believe this!" Oscar Johansen said. "What did I do? Kill one of this guy's relatives in a previous incarnation?"

"It's not really personal, Oscar," Les Haven said with a grimace. "It just seems that way."

"Yeah? Easy for you to say!" Johansen glared at his hardcopy printout of the mysterious e-mail. "You're not the one who's going to have to explain all of this to the Home Secretary!"

"Well, you aren't either, come to that," Haven replied. "My government's gonna have to do the explaining. And President Suttles and Chief Marshal Bannister are gonna purely hate it."

"And so is Chairwoman Vaandrager," Hieronymus Dekker put in with a heavy sigh.

The three of them stood behind a police cordon and a hastily erected wall of sandbags, gazing resignedly at the Rembrandt Trade Union's Montana office from a range of two kilometers. The building sat in a corner of the Brewster City Spaceport, backed up against the warehouse-surrounded trio of combined personnel and heavy-lift freight shuttle pads which customarily serviced RTU traffic on Montana. At the moment, they weren't servicing anything, and the office building itself had been evacuated within fifteen minutes of the e-mail's receipt.

"You think he's serious?" Johansen asked after a moment.

"Steve Westman?" Haven snorted. "Damn betcha, Oscar. Man may be a brick or two shy of a full load, but he is a determined sort of cuss. As you might have noted about three weeks ago."

"But this-!" Johansen said, waving helplessly at the deserted office building and shuttle pads.

"He probably thinks it's funny," Haven said. Johansen looked at him, and the Montanan shrugged. "The RTU more or less extorted this particular landing concession out of the planetary government 'bout twenty T-years ago," he said. "Matter of fact, today's the anniversary of the formal signing of the lease agreement."

"We didn't 'extort' anything out of anyone." Dekker's tone was stiff and a bit repressive.

"Didn't use guns or knives," Haven conceded. "And I don't recall anyone being outright threatened with dismemberment. But as I do recall, Hieronymus, Ineka Vaandrager-she wasn't Chairwoman then, Oscar; just the head of their Contract Negotiation Department-made it pretty clear that either we gave you folks the concession, or the RTU put its southern terminal on Tillerman. And slapped a fifteen-percent surcharge onto all Union shipments in or out of Montana, just to smack our wrists for being so ornery and disagreeable about it all." He squinted up at the taller, fair-haired Rembrandter. "'Scuse me if I seem a mite prejudiced, but that sounds kinda like extortion to me."

"I admit," Dekker said uncomfortably, avoiding the Montanan's eyes, "that it was a perhaps extreme tactic. Chairwoman Vaandrager hasn't always been noted for the… civility of her negotiating tactics. But to respond with threats of violence on this scale hardly seems a rational act."

"Oh, I dunno," Haven said. "Least he sent your employees a warning to get out of the way, didn't he? Hell, Hieronymus-for a feller like Steve, that's downright gentlemanly. And at least the whole shebang is far 'nough away from everything else he can blow the crap out of it 'thout damaging anything else or killing anybody."

"But surely your planetary authorities should have acted sooner if they knew all along that he was angry enough with us to do something like this-" Dekker began, looking far from mollified by Haven's observations, but the Montanan cut him off with a vigorous head shake.

"He was mighty pissed off, all right. But not enough for something like this. Not until Van Dort organized the entire annexation effort."

"Not even Mr. Van Dort could have 'organized' something on that scale if the proposal hadn't won the endorsement of the overwhelming majority of the Cluster's citizens!" Dekker protested.