The Service of the Sword

That still didn't give them a tremendous amount of time, but Sandler was a lot faster at this kind of demolition work than he had been. She carried each piece of expensive hardware in turn to the hole she'd dug, slicing it up and dropping the pieces down the pit as if she'd done this sort of thing a hundred times before.

Maybe she had. The kind of budget ONI was rumored to have probably wouldn't even have winced at having the odd million dollars' worth of equipment turned into metallic cole slaw.

Finally, it was done. The last piece of the last console disappeared down the rabbit hole, and Sandler laid aside the forceblade and began setting the section of flooring back into place. She got it down and rolled the carpet back over it, tamping down the edges with her fingertips until it looked more or less the way it had before. An emergency patch from one of her suit pockets took care of the hole in the wall; and then she was at his side, taking the screwdriver from him at last and fiddling again with the sensor. He felt air begin to flow around him, and tensed for the scream of the low-pressure warning.

But again Sandler had done her job right, and there was no fuss or bother as the suite began to repressurize. Catching his eye, she nodded back toward the patched hole in the wall. He nodded understanding and crossed to the potted plant that had been sitting in that corner. Sitting around in vacuum that way couldn't have done it any good, but at least it shouldn't show any obvious signs of damage until after the raiders were long gone.

He got the stand back into place with the pot neatly hiding the patch, and stepped back to examine his handiwork. Like the carpet, the wall wouldn't hold up to a determined search, but people looking for a full data retrieval setup probably wouldn't be interested in tearing the room apart.

His suit indicator was showing adequate pressure now. Taking his first relaxed breath since those boats had started their direction, he reached up and twisted the helmet seal. It came loose with a gentle pop, and he glanced around the room as he pulled it off—

And froze.

Sandler had eliminated all the electronics, all right.

But she'd forgotten the empty suitcases.

Sandler had popped her own helmet and was starting to unseal her suit. 'Captain!' he bit out. 'The suitcases!'

She looked around at the damning evidence, her throat going visibly tight as she realized—too late—how suspicious those empty cases would look to even the most casual searcher. And she knew better than Cardones that neither the wall nor the floor would stand up to any real examination.

And then, even as the first rumblings of panic started to surge up Cardones's throat, he had the answer. Maybe. 'I've got an idea,' he said, stripping off the rest of his suit and tossing it and the helmet to Sandler. 'Here —put these away.'

They had barely three minutes to work before the suite's pressure door abruptly slid open to reveal a nervous-looking woman and two hulking, combat-suited men.

But three minutes was enough.

'Please excuse the interruption, Mr. and Mrs. Kaplan,' the woman said, her voice quavering only slightly as the two troopers bulled their way into the suite, their momentum carrying her in ahead of them. She was wearing the burgundy-trimmed gray suit of the hotel management and seemed to be sweating profusely. 'These . . . gentlemen . . . would like permission to search your suite.'

'What?' Cardones demanded, letting his genuine tension add a matching quaver to his own voice. 'What do you mean? What do you want?'

The performance was mostly wasted; one of the troopers had already disappeared into the bedroom, and the other had turned his head to study the kitchenette area. 'I'm sorry,' the woman said. 'They arrived a few minutes ago and—'

'What's all that?' the second trooper demanded, his voice coming out hollow and slightly distorted from his suit speaker.

'What's what?' Cardones asked quickly.

'Those.' The trooper strode past the manager straight toward Cardones. Cardones hurriedly backed up at his approach; and then the trooper planted himself in the middle of the room and swept a gloved finger over the half dozen cases scattered around. 'That's a hell of a lot of suitcases,' he amplified, his voice darkening with suspicion. 'Way too many for two people on a four-day trip.'

Cardones worked his mouth and throat. 'Uh . . . well . . .'

'Open them,' the trooper said flatly. 'All of them.'

Cardones threw a helpless look at Sandler, whose eyes were wide with guilty panic. She really was a good actress, he decided. 'It's just that—'

'Open them!'

Cardones jumped. 'Yes, Sir,' he mumbled. Kneeling down, he popped the catches of the nearest suitcase and lifted the lid.

The manager inhaled sharply. 'Are those—?'

'We were going to put them back,' Sandler insisted, her voice coming out in a rush, all scared and miserable. 'Really we were.'

'We just wanted to see . . .' Cardones let his voice trail off.

'How they looked in your luggage?' the manager suggested coldly.

Shamefaced, Cardones dropped his eyes to the open suitcase. To the open suitcase; and the towels, wine glasses, and plates he'd packed inside, all of them proudly bearing the Sun Skater emblem. 'They were just . . .' he mumbled. 'I mean, it's so expensive here . . .'

Again, his voice trailed off. The trooper made a little snort of contempt and turned as his partner emerged from the bedroom. 'Come on,' he said. 'Nothing here but a couple of small-timers.'

They lumbered toward the door. The manager gave Cardones a look that promised this wasn't over, then turned and hurried to catch up with them.

The pressure door slid shut behind them, and Sandler exhaled in carefully controlled relief. 'Congratulations, Commander, and brilliantly done,' she said. 'I didn't think we were going to pull that one off.'

'Neither did I,' Cardones said honestly. 'But I guess when you go around robbing merchies, petty thieves are sort of kindred spirits.'

'Or else they just found the whole thing amusing,' Sandler said, retrieving an armful of linens from the suitcase and heading back toward the bedroom. 'Still, definitely worth a commendation for quick thinking.'

Cardones smiled tightly as he lifted out a set of wine glasses. 'Which of course no one will ever see?'

'Probably not,' she conceded from the bedroom. 'Sorry.'

'That's okay,' Cardones said. 'It's the thought that counts.'

Half an hour later, the assault boats lifted away from the comet and disappeared back into space. An hour after that, Sandler and Cardones were closeted with the manager, who no longer had any capacity left for new surprises, but simply and numbly accepted the money Sandler gave her to pay for the damage to their suite.

Six hours after that, they were back aboard the Shadow.

'Well, there's good news, and there's bad news,' Ensign Pampas grunted as he slid into a chair across from Sandler, Hauptman, Damana, and Cardones and spread a handful of data chips onto the wardroom table in front of him. 'First bit of good news: this weapon of theirs really does exist.'

'That's part of the good news?' Hauptman asked.

'It means we're not going to look stupid as the Intelligence service that fell for someone's disinformation game,' Pampas said dryly. 'The bad news is that I can't see any way of stopping this thing.'

'Explain,' Sandler said.

Pampas ran his fingers tiredly through his hair. He and the other two techs had been sifting through the Sun Skater data for the past twenty hours, and the skin of his face was sagging noticeably. Swofford and Jackson, in fact, had already been ordered to bed, and Pampas himself was only going to be up long enough to give his preliminary report. 'Near as I can explain it, it's like a kind of heterodyning effect between the two impeller wedges,' he said. 'A rapid frequency shift that creates an instability surge in the victim's wedge.'