Audacious rendezvoused with the other capital ships of the mercenary fleet barely half a million kilometers out from Ringbolt, for it was obvious the bogey was far faster and more maneuverable than they were. So far it had shown no sign of hostility, but Monkoto spread "his" ships-tight enough to concentrate their fire, dispersed enough to intercept any effort to get by them-and readiness reports murmured in his link to Audacious's cyber-synth.
He returned his attention to the bogey with a sort of awe. Whatever it was, it was pouring on an incredible deceleration. It was well inside the primary's Powell limit, but it was decelerating at over thirteen hundred gravities-which, if it kept it up, would bring it to a halt, motionless with regard to Audacious, just over five thousand kilometers short of his flagship. If its intentions were hostile, that was suicide range, and -
The light cruiser Serpent finally got close enough for a visual, and Monkoto gawked as CIC shunted it to his display. A freighter? Impossible!
But a freighter the image before him was, and a freighter it remained-a slightly battered, totally unremarkable freighter … with more drive power than a battleship.
"We're coming into com range, Ferhat. Want me to hail them?" Megaira asked eagerly through a wall speaker, and Ben Belkassem heard Alicia's soft chuckle beside him.
Megaira liked the inspector, and Ben Belkassem was bemused by how much he liked her in return-and how much he enjoyed her bawdy, wicked sense of humor. She'd even built herself a "Megaira face," a svelte, stunning redhead, so she could flirt via com screen while her sickbay remotes worked on his arm, and he knew she simply ached to use that face (and figure) on a new audience. Whatever else happened, he would never again think of AIs in quite the same way.
"Have you identified Audacious?" he asked.
"Yup. Just as big and nasty as you said, but I could spot her half my drive nodes and still run her into the ground."
"Be nice," Alicia said, and Megaira sniffed.
"Never mind, Megaira," Ben Belkassem grinned. "Go on and call them."
"Sure thing," she said, and he twitched his uniform straight for the pickup. His own baggage remained somewhere on Wyvern, but Alicia and Megaira had outfitted him in "Star Runner's" midnight blue, and he had to admit he liked the way it made him look.
"Admiral, the bogey identifies itself as the private ship Star Runner," Monkoto's com officer announced. "They're asking for you by name."
Monkoto scratched his nose. Odder and odder, he thought with his first real smile since the Ringbolt Raid, but that "private ship" business had to be a fiction. Whatever that thing might look like, it was no freighter.
"Route it to my station," he said, and leaned back as a lovely young woman in dark blue and silver appeared on his screen. He eyed her high-piled, Titian hair admiringly while he waited out the transmission lag, then her own eyes sharpened and looked back at him.
"Admiral Monkoto?" she inquired in a musical contralto, and he nodded. There was another lengthy delay while his nod sped to her screen, then she said, "I have someone here who wishes to speak to you, Sir," and disappeared, replaced by a small, hook-nosed man in a sling and the same blue uniform.
"Hello, Simon," the newcomer said, not waiting for Monkoto to respond. "Sorry to drop in on you without warning, but we need to talk."
Ben Belkassem watched Alicia from the corner of his eye as they stepped out of the personnel tube onto Monkoto's flagship.
Something was happening inside her, something that was burning holes in the Alicia DeVries he'd first met, and it was getting worse. Right after leaving Wyvern, hours had passed between flashes of that something else, but the intervals were growing shorter. It wasn't Tisiphone-he was positive of that now-and that made it worse. It was as if Alicia herself were burning out before his eyes. He could almost feel her … slipping away. Yet she had herself under control just now, and that was enough. It had to be.
"It's been a long time, Ferhat," a mellow tenor said, and Simon Monkoto held out his hand in greeting.
"Not that long," Ben Belkassem disagreed, returning the mercenary's clasp with a toothy grin.
"And this must be Captain Mainwaring," Monkoto said, and Alicia smiled tightly without confirming his assumption. He didn't notice; his eyes were locked on Ben Belkassem, and his humor had vanished.
"You said you have some information for me?"
"I do-or, rather, Captain Mainwaring does."
"What-?" Monkoto began eagerly, then chopped himself off. "Forgive me. My colleagues are waiting in the main briefing room, and they should hear this along with me. If you'll join us, Captain?"
Alicia nodded and followed the tall, broad-shouldered mercenary into a lift. She watched his face as the elevator rose, seeing the pinched nostrils, the deep-etched furrow between the eyes, and she didn't need Tisiphone to feel his hunger calling to her own, sharp-edged and jagged.
The lift doors opened, and Monkoto ushered them into a briefing room.
"Captain Mainwaring, Mister Ben Belkassem, allow me to introduce my colleagues," he said, and worked his way down the table, starting with Admiral Yussuf Westfeldt, a stocky, gray-haired man. Commodore Tadeoshi Falconi was as tall as Monkoto but thin, with quick, assertive movements; Captain Esther Tarbaneau was a slender, black-skinned woman with a very still face and startlingly gentle eyes; and Commodore Matthew O'Kane was a younger version of Monkoto-not surprisingly: he'd begun his career with the Maniacs.
Between them, Alicia knew, these people controlled over seventy ships of war, including two battleships, nine battlecruisers, and seven heavy cruisers, and no regular navy could have matched their experience. They looked back at her with hooded eyes, and she wondered what they made of her.
Monkoto finished the introductions and took a seat at the center of the long table, across from her and Ben Belkassem. The outsized view screen at her back was focused on Megaira's freighter disguise, and she tried not to wipe her palms on her trousers as she faced people who fought for pay and remembered the million-credit reward the Empire had offered for her.
"I've dealt with Mister Ben Belkassem before," Monkoto informed his fellows, "and I trust him implicitly. Certain conditions of confidentiality apply, but he represents a … major galactic power."
The others nodded and regarded the inspector with renewed curiosity, wondering which branch of the imperial bureaucracy he worked for, as Monkoto gestured for him to take over.
"Thank you, Admiral Monkoto," he said, returning the searching gazes steadily, "but under the circumstances, I feel I ought to put all my cards on the table. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ferhat Ben Belkassem, and I am a senior inspector with Operations Branch of the Imperial Ministry of Justice."
Breath hissed in along Monkoto's side of the table. O Branch agents never revealed their identities unless they were up to their necks in fecal matter and sinking fast, but at least he'd guaranteed their attention.
"I realize that may be a bit of a shock," he continued calmly, "but I'm afraid there are more to come. I know why you're here-and I know where you can find the pirates." A ripple ran through his audience. "To be more precise, my associate does."
Eyes swiveled back to Alicia, hot and hungry and no longer hooded, and she made herself sit straight and still under their weight.