“That counts,” Koutsoudas said. “He couldn’t have found out about that any other way—unless it was in your report to Sector HQ.”
“No, it wasn’t. They had no need, and I supposed—I suppose I was looking for something like this. If this is what I think.” She didn’t want to think that. “It all boils down to data,” Heris said. “His . . . ours . . . if any of it’s trustworthy. How much of it’s compromised. If he knows who you are, what you are, then we’re in even worse trouble.”
Heris was working her way through routine reports when Koutsoudas called her to the bridge again.
“Captain, you must hear this—it’s what Garrivay and his senior officers have said—”
Heris touched the control. Amazing sound quality; she still wished she knew how Koutsoudas did what he did. Garrivay, sounding as pompous among his own people as with her. She was glad to know she hadn’t been given special treatment. It will work, he was saying. That Serrano bitch doesn’t know anything; she’s negligible. One of the others questioned that—a Serrano negligible? Garrivay laughed in a tone that made Heris want to smash all his teeth down his fleshy throat. As they talked on, their plan appeared much as she had expected. The Benignity ships would arrive to find a blown station and helpless planet. Garrivay would exit to another place to do much the same thing. Where else? Rotterdam . . . Rotterdam. Cecelia’s friends, that lovely place she had wanted to revisit . . .
“Not likely,” she muttered. Koutsoudas started, and she realized she had put into that all the frustration and anger she felt at the whole situation. She looked at the others. “We have to stop them.”
“Stop them! What—Garrivay, or the invasion?”
“Both, ideally. Garrivay first, of course.”
“How?” That was Meharry, blunt as always. “We couldn’t breach his shields if we put everything we have into his flanks sitting next to him in dock.”
“Actually we might,” Ginese said, looking thoughtful. “Of course, his return would vaporize us and the station.”
“There’s nothing in this system that can take Garrivay’s ships,” Heris said. “Except wits.”
“Wits?” Now it was Koutsoudas who gave her a startled glance. “You’re planning to trick him out of his ships? How—at the gambling table, perhaps?”
“No. I’m not going to gamble with his notions of honor. We will have to capture his ships, and since frontal assault won’t do, it will take wits.”
“You’re planning to walk onto his ships and just take over?” Meharry asked. “Just say ‘Please, Commodore, I think you’re a traitor, and I’m taking over’?”
“Something like that,” Heris said with a grin.
“And you expect him to agree?”
“I expect him to die,” Heris said. A silence fell, as her crew digested that. She went on. “He’s not going to surrender and risk court-martial—neither he nor his fellow captains. The only way to get those ships is by coup de main—and then great good luck and the Serrano name.”
“I was going to mention,” said Meharry, “that most crews don’t take kindly to someone murdering the captain and taking over.”
“You do realize the legal side of what you’re doing?” Petris gave her a dark, slanted glance.
“Yes. I’m proposing treasonous piracy, if you look at it that way, and some people will. A civilian stealing not one but three R.S.S. combat vessels in what will be time of war.”
“You won’t get all three,” Ginese said. “One, maybe. Two if you’re very lucky. Not all three.”
“That may be. I will certainly try to get all three, because if I don’t, I may have to destroy one.” She had faced that, in her mind. She could not leave a ship loose in this system committed to helping the Benignity invasion.
“If you’re wrong about any of it,” Petris said, “you’ll have no alternatives. If the Benignity doesn’t invade through here, if Garrivay is just a detestable bully, but not a traitor, if you’re not able to get the ships—”
“Then I’m dead,” Heris said. “I’ve thought of that. It means you’re dead as well, which is bothersome—”
“Oh, it’s not that, Captain,” Meharry said. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything, and it’s a novel way to die, after all. Trying to steal one of our own ships for a good cause. More fun than jumping that yacht out of nearspace.”
“If you try it and aren’t killed,” Petris said, “you’ll be an outlaw . . . you can’t stay in Familias space.”
Heris stared at him; he did not look down. “Petris, if you think I can’t do it, say so. If you think I shouldn’t do it—if you think I’m working with bad data or logic, say so. But trust that I can do elementary risk analysis, will you?”
He didn’t smile. “I know you can. But I also know how much you want to set foot on a cruiser bridge again. Have you factored that into your analysis?”
“Yes.” Despite herself, her voice tightened. She forced herself to take a long breath. “Petris, I do miss—have missed—that command. You’re right about that, and it is a factor. But I’m not about to risk our lives, and the lives of everyone in this system, crews and landborn alike, to satisfy my whims. There’s something I haven’t shared with you.” Before anyone could comment, she flicked on the cube reader; she had already selected the passage.
Her Aunt Vida’s face, an older version of her own Serrano features, stared out at them. She spoke. “I have complete confidence in your judgment,” her aunt said. “In any difficulty. You may depend upon my support for any action you find necessary to preserve the honor and safety of the Familias Regnant in these troubled times.”
“I don’t think my aunt admiral anticipated pirating Fleet warships,” Heris said. “But it gives me a shred of legitimacy, and I intend to weave that into something more than a tissue of lies.”
“How?” Petris asked bluntly. “Not that I don’t believe you, and not that I’m opposed, but—how?”
In the pause that followed, while Heris was trying to work out why Petris was being so antagonistic, Oblo spoke. “What it really is, Captain, is that we never had a chance to be this close while you were planning before. We enjoyed the result, but we never got to see the process.”
Petris grinned. “All right, Oblo. You’re partly right. It still seems impossible to me that she’s going to take over three warships all by herself—well, we’ll help, but it’s not much. The peashooters we have on this thing wouldn’t hurt those ships, and they’d blow us away before we could get a shot off anyway. There’s no way to sneak aboard, and even if we could, I don’t see how the four of us could seize control of the ship against resistance. She can’t just stroll over and say ‘By the way, Garrivay, I’ll be the new captain as of today.’ ” He made the last a singsong parody of the traditional chanty.
The delay had given Heris time to come up with the outline of a plan. “Like this,” she said. “You’re half right, Petris. We’re going to walk in peacefully, invited guests—”
“They’ll scan us for weapons—” Ginese warned.
Heris grinned. “What is the most dangerous weapon in the universe?” A blank pause, then they all grinned, and repeated the gesture with which generations of basic instructors had taunted their recruits. “That’s right. What’s between your ears can’t be scanned . . . and you’re all exceptional unarmed fighters.”
“So we stroll in for afternoon tea, or whatever—” Meharry prompted.
“Properly meek and mild, yes.” Heris batted her eyelashes, and they broke into snorts of laughter.