The Service of the Sword

Ten men were dead, one captive before the boarding action was ended. The captive bleated that there were no others, alternately pleading for his life and—once he realized that his opponents were women—threatening them rather unconvincingly with God's wrath.

Shaken to the core, for the bloody bodies sprawled in the shuttle bay brought back long-buried memories, Judith kept one channel tuned to Zaneta's report as she moved toward Aaron's Rod's bridge. Only by concentrating on her immediate responsibilities could she keep herself from sinking back into the terrified ten-year-old who had watched her parents reduced to similar bloody stillness.

'Prisoner says that he and his fellows came aboard with contraband earlier. Sam had brought his cronies when Ephraim ordered a change of watch so he could have all his sons with him at the conclave. Joe was to meet them with Blossom so they could take the goods off, Ephraim none the wiser.'

'Did the Silesians have a shuttle of their own?' Judith asked, fitting herself into the captain's chair and snapping on read-outs. Reassuring activity from Engineering told her that Mahalia and her crew were in place.

'A small one, parked in the aft hold. Apparently, Joe managed an override there. Didn't want to risk the shuttle bay itself.'

'Smart. Lock the man in one of the cabins. Check his shuttle. There might be things we can use.'

'Right.'

'And find out if anyone expects the prisoner.'

'Right.'

'Mahalia in Engineering,' came a new voice. 'Captain, we're in luck. The smugglers did some of the powering up so they could operate bay doors and the like. We're ahead of schedule there, though of course they didn't need to bring up the impellers.'

'Good.'

'Naomi here,' came a voice that sounded rough, as if the owner might have been shouting. 'We have a bit of a situation with the passengers. Some are panicking, claiming that the presence of the smugglers is a bad omen. Children reacted badly to going by the dead bodies.'

Judith felt a trace of impatience. That wasn't her department! She was just supposed to fly the ship out of here. She schooled herself to sound calm.

'If you must, use sedatives. Did Wanda make it?'

'Yes.'

'Have her lead prayers. Something from Psalms should be perfect. Maybe number thirty-seven?'

'Right. Sedatives will make evacuating in case of emergency harder.'

'Put the worst cases in the life pods and seal them in.'

And leave me alone! Judith thought. All she did was turn to Odelia and say, 'Limit Naomi's bridge link or connect her to Rena in Damage Control. I need sensor readings to plot our course out of here.'

'On it, Moses,' Odelia said. 'Sensors are coming up. Dinah has put Sherlyn on them.'

'Smart,' Judith said, and was pleased to see Odelia smile.

As she turned her attention to the astrogation plot, she noticed that Dinah wasn't yet at her own station, but stilled her annoyance. It wasn't as if she needed a gunner quite yet, and as XO Dinah was doubtless sparing Judith problems the captain wouldn't hear about until after this was all over and the Sisters were safe. Hadn't Dinah done her duty and made certain there was someone minding the sensors?

Judith immersed herself in her calculations, hardly aware when Dinah arrived and took over fielding those queries Odelia couldn't divert elsewhere. Data flowed over her boards, organized and perfect. A ship here, a ship there, planetary mass there, farther out a larger vessel that had to be the Manticoran ship. Intransigent, its beacon announced.

That should be our name, Judith thought. If there has ever been anyone forced to hold their ground, it's us. 

Mahalia reported that Aaron's Rod's impeller nodes were hot and ready just as Odelia, her voice so tight Judith hardly recognized it, said, 'Captain, we have a communication from the surface. They're ordering us to hold our orbit and await the authorities. Do you have an answer?'

Judith touched the keys that snapped Aaron's Rod's impeller wedge into existence and sent the privateer sweeping up and out of her parking orbit.

'That,' she said, 'is our answer.'

What was supposed to be a sleepy watch was turning distinctly interesting. Carlie, at the Tac station on Intransigent's bridge, listened to the reports coming in while she took her turn plotting intra-system traffic.

Captain Boniece was not the type of commander to have his crew idle away an opportunity to gather information. Endicott might one day be an ally, in which case the information could be used to defend it. If it chose to side with the Peeps, well, the information would still be useful.

Intransigent did nothing overtly rude, but her sensors were so much better than the Masadans' that they took in a great deal that doubtless the Masadans assumed was out of range. Carlie knew, too, that Tab Tilson had requested the use of any middies who could be spared for what he promised would be an interesting training exercise.

Carlie remembered her own days as a middie and suspected that Tab was having them monitor all in- system and planetary communications. The sorting of order out of the myriad unshielded transmissions would be excellent training for the mad wash of information that flowed through the Combat Information Center in the midst of a battle.

And if they picked up some information on the Faithful's Navy, or on the presence of the Peeps in system, well, that wouldn't be a bad thing either. As the hours passed, the most interesting thing they found was how little evidence there was of either, almost as if both had decided to make themselves scarce.

Almost! Carlie snorted to herself. Get real, woman. This is no coincidence. 

She noted with interest that a personnel shuttle, sleek and easily maneuverable, had detached from a Silesian trading vessel and had entered a ship in parking orbit around the planet.

'Interesting,' Boniece murmured when she passed this information on. 'Beacon says the ship is Aaron's Rod, an armed merchie.'

'If she's armed, the armament is well hidden,' Carlie reported in response. 'I wonder if there's a reason for them to hide their weapons?'

Armed merchantmen were often suspect since it didn't take much for one to turn pirate. This liaison with the Silesians—many of whom were themselves pirates—made this one even more suspect than usual

'Get a listing on Aaron's Rod,' Boniece suggested.

Sally Pike, one of Carlie's middies doing a nervous turn on the bridge, reported, 'She's registered to a Templeton Incorporated, Sir. She's also registered with the Masadan government as a privateer.'

'Interesting,' Boniece said again. 'Does Templeton Incorporated have any other armed merchantmen?'

'Yes, Sir,' Midshipwoman Pike replied with a promptness that made Carlie ridiculously proud, 'Proverbs and Psalms. Both registered as privateers.'

'It seems we should raise our estimate on the number of armed vessels available to the Faithful in time of war,' Boniece commented.

'Privateers are hardly a problem, are they, Skipper?' commented an engineer with the lazy confidence of one who knows that his ship is in all ways superior.

'Guns,' Boniece said, turning to Carlie, 'what would you say?'

'I'd say, Sir,' Carlie replied promptly, peripherally aware of Midshipwoman Pike listening with some astonishment to the ATO getting quizzed, 'that anything that has guns and sidewalls can't be rated 'hardly a problem.' For that matter, even an unarmed vessel could ram.'

'Paranoid,' Boniece agreed, 'but reasonable, and we cannot forget the psychology of the Faithful. In their own view, they are God's Chosen, and people who believe God is on their side are hard to predict.'