The Service of the Sword

Flagstad's bow.'

Honor felt her eyebrows lifting as she confirmed the missile's vector for herself. Most pirates didn't bother with anything as civilized as warning shots. 'Are you getting anything from his ID transponder, Joyce?' she asked.

'Nothing useful,' Metzinger said. 'It reads out as the Locksley, with a Zoraster registry, but there's no ship of that name in our files.' She paused for a moment, listening to her earbud. 'He's calling on us to drop our wedges and prepare to be boarded,' she added. 'He claims to be with the Logan Freedom Fighters, and pledges we won't be harmed if we cooperate.'

Venizelos snorted. 'Cute. And, of course, your average merchie wouldn't know the Logan group doesn't operate in the Zoraster system.'

'Actually, they may have just started,' Wallace spoke up. 'One of Logan's top lieutenants has been talking with the Zoraster Freemen about an alliance. They may have cut a deal.'

'You're kidding,' Venizelos said, frowning at him. 'Where did you hear that?'

Wallace gave him a wry smile. 'Try reading the ONI dispatches sometime,' he said. 'It's all in there.'

Venizelos's mouth twitched. 'I guess I'll have to start skimming them a little slower,' he conceded. 'I don't know, though. Boarding merchies sounds more like a pirate maneuver than something freedom fighters would do.'

'Especially when their fight is supposed to be with the Silesian Navy, not Manticoran merchantmen,' Honor agreed. 'Joyce, has he given any explanation for his demand?'

'Yes, Ma'am,' Metzinger said, her voice suddenly grim. 'He says they're looking for a shipment of shredder pulser darts. Apparently there's a special order on its way to the Ellyna Valley government.'

'Yuck,' Venizelos muttered under his breath.

'Agreed,' Honor said with a disgusted feeling of her own. Pulser darts were lethal enough without adding in the shredding capability that could take out whole clusters of people with a single shot. All civilized nations, including the Star Kingdom, had banned them long ago. So, for that matter, had the Silesian Confederacy, at least on paper.

Unfortunately, there were still people out there who had no qualms about using them, which was why there were still people out there manufacturing the damned things.

'Tell them we don't have anything like that aboard any of our ships,' she instructed Metzinger.

'Yes, Ma'am.' Metzinger turned back to her board.

'I guess you can't blame them for not wanting to end up on the receiving end of shredders,' Venizelos commented.

'Next question being whether they plan to destroy them if they find them, or simply load 'em in their own guns,' DuMorne pointed out.

'They'll destroy them,' Wallace told him. 'The Logan group has consistently denounced the use of street- sweeper weapons, and there's never been a report of their own people using them. Any deal they made with the Freemen would have required that same restraint.'

'So what exactly is our official stance toward these people?' Venizelos asked. 'The usual hands-off thing, unless and until they threaten our shipping, at which point we can slap them down as hard as we want?'

'Basically,' Honor said, turning back to Metzinger. 'Joyce?'

'He apologizes, but says they have to check for themselves, Ma'am,' the com officer reported. 'He again promises we won't be harmed unless we do something foolish.'

'He's certainly a polite sort of fellow,' Venizelos commented. 'So how hard are we going to slap him, Skipper?'

Honor studied her displays. The Locksley was well within the no-escape area now, and apparently still unaware that he was facing anything other than six helpless merchantmen. At this point, Fearless could basically do whatever she wanted to him.

And yet . . . 

'Mr. Wallace, do you happen to know how well-supplied Logan's group is?' she asked.

'I don't know the numbers, Ma'am,' Wallace said slowly. 'A little better than the average Silesian rebel, probably, but not that much better.'

'Can they afford to throw away missiles just for the fun of it?' she asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

'Not a chance,' Wallace said firmly. 'Not even the relatively piddling one he tossed across our vector.'

Honor nodded, her mind made up. The Locksley had spent a valuable missile trying to get the convoy to stop without any further fighting. That meant he was either exactly who he said he was, with the more or less peaceful intentions he claimed to have, or else a pirate with the kind of chutzpah even a politician might envy.

'All right,' she said. 'Joyce, get a camera ready on me. Andy, when I cue you, bring up the wedge and sidewalls and paint him with the active sensors.'

She settled herself in her chair and made sure her uniform tunic was straight. This should prove interesting. 'He's hailing again, Ma'am,' Metzinger said.

Honor nodded. 'Put him through.'

The screen before her cleared, and the face of a young man appeared, his cheeks tired and sunken, his eyes blazing with the fire of zealots and True Believers everywhere. '—one last time, Manticoran ships,' he was saying. 'If you don't drop your wedges—'

He broke off abruptly, his bright eyes goggling as he belatedly recognized her uniform. 'This is Captain Harrington of Her Majesty's Ship Fearless,' Honor said calmly into the stunned silence coming from the com. 'I'm sorry; I didn't catch that?'

And with her final word she flicked a finger at Venizelos.

All around her, the bridge displays altered as Fearless suddenly surged to full combat readiness. The young man on the com display jerked like he'd been stung, his eyes darting to his own off- camera monitors, and Honor could hear the faint sounds of gasped consternation coming from the command deck around him.

'I've made my half of the introductions,' she prompted. 'Your turn.'

With what appeared to be a supreme effort of will, the man pulled his gaze back to the com screen. 'My name is Iliescu,' he said, his cheeks looking more sunken than ever. 'I—all right, Captain, you've got us. What now?'

'You've threatened my convoy, Mr. Iliescu,' Honor reminded him coolly. 'Verbally, as well as by putting a missile into space against us.'

She watched his face as he opened his mouth, probably to protest that that had been a warning shot. But he subsided with the words unsaid. She knew that, and he knew that she knew it.

'All of which means that I would be within my legal rights to blow you to scrap,' she continued. 'Or do you see it differently?'

Iliescu took a deep breath. 'I see that the use of shredder darts is an attack on all civilized human beings,' he said. 'I see that they're illegal, but that they're still being used by petty tyrants desperate to hold onto their power and their privileges. What would you do, Captain, if they were being used against your people?'

'We're not talking about me,' Honor reminded him. 'Do you have any evidence that there are Manticoran ships carrying these things?'

His lip twitched. 'We don't know who's bringing them,' he admitted. 'All we know that they're supposed to be coming in soon, from a supplier on Creswell.'

Honor nodded. Creswell had been the convoy's last port of call. So that was why Iliescu had been lying in wait in this particular spot. 'So what are you planning to do? Stop every convoy coming from that direction until you find the shredders?'

Iliescu drew himself up. 'If necessary,' he said with stubborn dignity.

'All by yourself?'