The Service of the Sword

'Impossible,' Koln insisted. 'The wedge was down.'

'Because you caught a corner of it,' Charles explained patiently. 'You caused enough of a surge to confuse the software, but not enough to actually fry the junction points. I've mentioned this possibility to you before.'

He held his breath as Dominick frowned slightly, clearly trying to remember. Charles had mentioned no such thing, of course, because he'd just now made it up. But he'd thrown so much technobabble at the commodore over the past few months that the other hopefully wouldn't remember this one way or the other.

Apparently, he didn't. 'Fine,' Dominick grunted. 'So what do we do about it?'

'Obviously, you hit her again,' Charles said. 'Try to make it a clean shot this time.'

Dominick grunted again and shifted his attention back to the helmsman. 'What's she doing?'

'Heading away at full acceleration,' the helmsman said. 'Looks like she's making for the inner system.'

'Mr. Koln?' Dominick invited.

'There are four other ships we haven't hit yet,' Koln reminded him. 'Given our current position and vector, it would make more sense to cripple them first, then go back for the Dorado.'

Dominick stroked his chin. 'Will that give us enough time to get back into position before Fearless arrives?'

'No problem,' Koln assured him. 'The Dorado is hardly going to outpace us.'

'Good,' Dominick rumbled. 'I wouldn't want Captain Vaccares to have to face Fearless alone. We deserve some of the satisfaction of pounding Harrington to dust.'

'Just be sure you don't kill everyone aboard,' Charles warned. As if that was actually going to happen now. 'Remember that part of the plan is to leave survivors who will testify they saw the People's Republic and a disguised Andermani warship working together.'

'Don't worry, we'll leave a few,' Dominick said, settling back comfortably into his chair. 'Carry on, Mr. Koln.'

'Yes, Sir.' Koln returned to his skeet shooting.

Charles heaved a silent sigh of regret. So the Manties had figured it out already. Too bad—he'd hoped he could get his hands on some of Jansci's really high-tech cargo before the house of cards came tumbling down. Some genuine, useful hardware would have made his next run that much more believable and profitable.

Still, such was the way of the game. And he was hardly going to leave this one empty-handed.

No one was paying any particular attention to him as the Vanguard swung around to target the next merchie. Casually, Charles got up from his chair and began to circle around the bridge in the casual urgency of a man making for the head. Just beyond the head was the bridge's exit.

Standing in the hatchway, he looked back one final time. Sic transit gloria mundi, he thought, and ducked quietly through the opening.

Nobody saw him go.

'I will have your head, Mister,' Sandler ground out in a voice with broken-glass edges, glaring at Cardones as if trying to set him on fire through willpower alone. 'You hear me, Cardones? You are dead.'

'That'll be up to a court-martial to decide,' Cardones said, rather surprised at how calm he had suddenly become. The die had been cast, and there was nothing to do now but ride it through. 'But for right now, may I have your permission to help the Fearless?'

Sandler's glare only got hotter. 'We might as well, Skipper,' Damana murmured from her side. 'The disinformation thing is out the window now anyway.'

'No, it's not,' she countered, shifting her glare to him as if astonished that he would dare come to Cardones's support against her. 'They'll simply assume they missed.'

'Until they get aboard and examine the junction points,' Damana said, holding her gaze without flinching.

'Which they wouldn't even have thought to do if he hadn't reactivated the wedge,' Sandler snarled.

Damana just stood there silently . . . and slowly the fire died from Sandler's eyes. 'They won't let us get away, you know,' she said, turning back to Cardones. 'They'll come after us and disable us; and then they'll go back and blow Fearless into dust anyway. Then they'll come back as Jack said and find out how we spiked their toy and ruined all their fun. We had a plan; and now you've wrecked it. And for nothing.'

'I don't think so,' Cardones said, trying to match her gaze the way Damana had. 'That is, it wasn't for nothing. Because you're right, they don't realize yet what we've done. And that gives us a weapon we can use against them.'

He looked at Damana. 'But we don't have much time.'

'What do you need?' Damana asked evenly.

'Some equipment from Shadow,' Cardones told him. 'And I need Ensign Pampas and Captain McLeod to stay behind with me for a few minutes.'

Damana threw a sideways look at Sandler's stiff profile. 'I take it that means the rest of us are abandoning ship?'

'I'll be damned if I'll leave my ship,' McLeod spoke up indignantly.

'You'll do what you're told,' Sandler said coldly. For a long moment her eyes searched Cardones's face. Then, reluctantly, she gave a sort of half nod. 'Jack, collect the team and get aboard Shadow,' she said. 'Captain McLeod, order your people to go with them.'

McLeod started to sputter, took a closer look at her face, and choked back the objection. 'Yes, Ma'am,' he gritted instead, and turned to the intercom.

'So what's the plan?' Sandler asked, her eyes still on Cardones.

Cardones gestured toward the displays. 'From the way we saw them operate at Tyler's Star, I'm guessing they'll move in close and launch boarding boats after they take out our wedge again.'

'Probably,' Sandler said. 'So?'

'So,' Cardones told her grimly, 'we're going to prepare a little reception for them.'

'That's odd,' Wallace murmured. 'Captain, CIC just reported one of the merchies has brought her wedge back up.'

'I thought you said they'd all been knocked out,' Honor said, looking over at her displays. He was right: the Dorado was up and running again, lumbering toward the inner system.

'They were,' Wallace agreed. 'McLeod must have gotten his nodes working again.'

'Any idea how?'

Wallace snorted under his breath. 'I don't even know how the Peeps knocked them out.'

'Mm,' Honor said, frowning at the numbers. Yes, the Dorado was running; but where was she running to? Surely McLeod didn't think he could outrun a battlecruiser in that thing.

And then understanding struck her, and she smiled a bittersweet smile. Of course. McLeod couldn't get away; but what he could do was try to distract the Peep. Possibly even drag him far enough out of position that Fearless would be able to engage the two enemy ships one at a time.

The catch was that if he was able to become enough of an irritation that he actually did any good, that defiance might well cost him his life.

Which left Honor with only two options: to take advantage of his proffered sacrifice, or to instead try to distract the Peep herself into leaving the Dorado alone.

Fearless had finished her deceleration and was finally starting to close the distance