"If they're pirates, they'll think we're too small to bother with." She pushed back memories of that lecture on recent incursions from outlying powers. These were not the Benignity—she had seen Benignity ships on scan. Nor the Bloodhorde, which was all the way across Familias space and probably still licking its wounds after the
Koskiusko
mess. These were common criminals, and common criminals were after the big, easy profit . . . not chasing a small yacht with a few insignificant passengers.
"If you would jump out now, we could be back in range of the Corian ansible in just a few hours—"
"And have nothing much to say. No, we need to record some data, at least the beacon IDs of those other ships—" She grinned at them, and saw the grin have its usual effects. Her father's employees had been putty in her hands since she had convinced the head cook to give her all the chocolate eclairs she could cram into her mouth. Nor had she been sick, which only proved that the stuffier grownups were entirely too cautious.
Sneaking nearer with the insystem drive just nudging them along was dead easy. Brun napped briefly, slightly worried that one of them might figure out the lockout code she'd put on the nav computer so that they couldn't go into jump while she was asleep. But they hadn't. They'd tried—she could see that in their expressions, a mix of guilty and disgruntled—but she'd used a trick she'd learned at Copper Mountain and it held.
Scan delay was down to one minute by then. One of the mystery ships was snugged up to the merchanter, and one was positioned a quarter second away. The third . . . her breath caught. The third had moved . . . on an intercept course.
It couldn't have seen
Jester.
The yacht was too small; they could have spotted the bobble near the jump point, but after that—after that she had laid in a straight course and they could have extrapolated.
She should have jinked about. In the back of her mind, a nagging voice told her that she should have done what Barrican said, and jumped out right away. The pirates could not possibly have caught her then. Now—if they had military-grade scans—she flicked off the lockout. She could jump from here; there were no large masses to worry about. She had no idea where they might come out, jumping this far from the mapped points, but it had to be better.
She set up the commands, and pushed the button. A red warning light came on, and a saccharine voice from the console said "There are no mapped jump points within critical; jump insertion refused. There are no mapped jump points . . ."
Brun felt the blood rush to her face as she slapped the jump master control the other way. A rented yacht, with standard nagivation software . . . she had not thought about that, about the failsafes it would have built in, which she would not have time to bypass. Of course Allsystems Leasing would protect their investment by limiting the mistakes lessees could make.
She looked at the insystem drive controls. The yacht's insystem drive, standard for this model, should be able to outrun anything but Fleet's fastest—but only if she could redline it. She noticed that the control panel stopped well below what she knew was its redline acceleration. Still, it was all she had.
"Milady—" Barrican said softly as she reached out.
"Yes—"
"They might not have seen us, even so. If you don't do anything, they might miss us still."
"And if they don't, we're easy meat," Brun said. "They've got the course; a preschooler could extrapolate our position."
"But if we seem to be unaware of them, they might still consider us unimportant. If you do anything, they'll have to assume you have noticed trouble."
What she had noticed was how stupid she'd been. Someday you'll get into something you can't handle by being bright and pretty and lucky, Sam had told her. She'd assumed someday was a long way away, and here it was.
"We have essentially no weapons," she said softly, though there was no need for quietness. "So our only hope of escape is to get within effective radius of that jump point—unless they do ignore us, and somehow I don't think they will."
On scan, the other ship's projected course curved to parallel theirs. Another of the smaller ships now moved—and moved in the blink-stop way of a warship that could microjump within a system.
"We can't outrun
that
," Brun said, under her breath. "Two of them . . ."
"Just go along as if we had no scans out at all," Barrican advised.
It was good advice. She knew it was good advice. But doing nothing wore on her in a way that action never did. Second by second,
Jester
slid along much more slowly than it had to; second by second the unknown ships closed in. What kind of scan did they have? Koutsoudas had been able to detect activity aboard other ships—could these? Would they believe that a little ship on a simple slow course from jump point to jump point would notice nothing?
Seconds became minutes, became an hour. She had shut down active scan long since; passive scan showed
Elias Madero
and the third unknown in the same relative location, with the other two flanking
Jester
. They were approaching the closest point to the merchanter on their projected course to the second jump point. If they got by, if they weren't stopped, would that mean they were in the clear?
There was no logical alternative. One could always choose certain death . . . but it was amazingly hard to do. So this was what Barin had faced . . . this was what the instructor had been talking about . . . Brun dragged her mind back to the present. The yacht had a self-destruct capability; she could blow it, and herself and her father's loyal men. Or she could force the raiders to blow their way in, and not wear a pressure suit—that would do it. But . . . she made herself look at the faces of the men who surrounded her, who were about to die for her, or with her.
"I was wrong," she said. "No comfort now, but—you were right, and I was wrong. I should have jumped right back out."
"No matter, milady," said Calvaro. "We'll do what we can."
Which was nothing. They could die defending her . . . or be killed without fighting; she did not believe the raiders would spare them.
"I think we should surrender," she said. "Perhaps—"
"Not an option, milady," Calvaro said. "That's not a choice you can make; we're sworn to your father to protect you. Go to your cabin, milady."
She didn't want to. She knew what was coming, and it was not death she feared, but having forced these men into a position where they had to die—would die—in a futile effort to protect her.
I'm not worth it
, she wanted to say . . . to admit . . . and she knew she must not say that. She must not take their honor from them. They thought her father was worth it, or—again Esmay's words rang in her head—they thought
they
were worth it. She said their names, to each of them: Giles Barrican, Hubert Calvaro, Savoy Ardenil, Basil and Seren Verenci, Kaspar and Klara Pronoth, Pirs Slavus, Netenya Biagrin, Charan Devois. She could find no words for them beyond naming them, recognizing their lives. She gave them all she had, a last smile, then went meekly to her cabin as they wished. It wouldn't work; she would die at the end, but . . . they would not have to see her dead or captive. They could die remembering that smile, for all the good it did . . . and she did not even know if they believed in an afterlife where such a memory might be comforting. She wrote their names, over and over, on many scraps of paper and tucked them in places she hoped the raiders would not find. They deserved more, but that was all she could do.
When the cabin hatch gave at last, she faced the intruders with her personal weapons, and the first one to try the opening fell twitching. But the small sphere they tossed in burst in a spray of needles . . . and she felt the fine stinging all up her body. Her hand relaxed, her sidearm fell, she felt her knees sagging, and the deck came up to meet her.
She woke with a feeling of choking, tried to cough loose the obstruction, and then realized it was a wad of cloth tied in her mouth. A gag, like something out of an ancient story. Ridiculous. She blinked, and glared up at the men standing over her. They were in p-suits, helmets dangling in back. Her body still felt heavy and limp, but she could just move her legs when she tried. Then they spoke to each other in an accent so heavy that she could hardly understand it, and reached for her. She tried to struggle, but the drug made it impossible. They dragged her upright, then out through the twisted hatch into the main passage of the yacht . . . over the bodies of her guardsmen . . . through the tube they'd rigged between the yacht and their ship, whatever it was.
They pushed her into a seat and strapped her in, then walked off. Brun wiggled as much as she could. Her arms, then her legs, began to itch, and then tingle. So . . . the drug was wearing off, but she didn't see how she could get away. Yet.
Your first duty is to stay alive.
Several more men came through the tube . . . was that all? Or had some stayed aboard the yacht, and if so, why? She felt her ears throb as they shut the exterior lock, then the interior lock. They must have cast off the yacht . . . someone would find it. Someday. If another Boros ship came this way, if another Boros ship even noticed a minor bit of space debris . . .
The ship she was on shuddered uneasily—jump?—then steadied again. Three of the men were still back by the airlock. Now they went to work . . . Brun craned her head, trying to see. Her ears popped again. Something clanked; the ship made a noise like a tuning fork dragged on concrete, then stopped. The men moved on into the airlock, and—judging by the sounds—undogged the outer hatch. Colder air gushed in, chilling her ankles. She heard loud voices from the other—ship, it must be—and those men leaving.
The ones who'd originally brought her aboard reappeared, now in some sort of tan uniform instead of p-suits, unstrapped her, and hauled her upright. If she could break loose, while they thought she was still weakened—but three more appeared at the airlock. Too many, her mind decided, even as her body tried to twist. Too much drug, she realized, as her muscles refused to give her the speed she was used to. Well, if she couldn't fight, she could at least observe. Tan uniforms, snug-fitted shirts over slightly looser slacks, over boots. Brown leather boots, she noticed when she looked down. On the collar, insignia of a five-pointed star in a circle.
Once she was through the airlock, she saw the Boros Consortium logo on the bulkhead . . . so she must be on the
Elias Madero
. The men hustled her down the passage—wide enough for a small robot loader—past hatches with symbols and labels she felt she should recognize. Past a galley with its programmable food processor humming, past a gymnasium . . . to the bridge, which reminded her instantly of the bridge where she'd stood when she'd broken the second mate's nose . . .
But the man who stood in the center of the bridge was no merchant captain.
He had to be the commander. He wore the same uniform as the others, but the star-in-circle insignia on his collar was larger, and gold instead of silver. She met his gaze with all the defiance she could muster. He looked past her to her escort.
"Got the papers?" He had the same accent as the others.
"Yep." One of the other men came forward with her ID packet. "She's the one, all right. We checked the retinal scans and everything."
"You done good, boys." The commander glanced at her papers, then at her. "Not a single shred of decency, but what can you expect of that sort?" The other men chuckled. Brun struggled to spit out the gag; she knew exactly what she wanted to say to this . . . this person. The commander came closer. "You're that so-called Speaker's daughter. You're used to having your own way, just like your daddy. Well, all things come to an end." He waited a moment, then went on. "You probably think your daddy will get you out of this, like he's gotten you out of all your other scrapes. You may think he's going to send that
Regular Space Service
"—he made a mockery of Fleet with that tone—"to rescue you. But it ain't gonna happen that way. We don't want your daddy's money. We aren't scared of your daddy's power. They won't find you. No one's gonna find you. You're ours, now."
He grinned past her, and the other men chuckled.
"Your daddy and that Council of Families, they think they got a right to make the laws for everbody, but they don't. They think they got a right to set fees and taxes on everbody comes through their so-called territory, but they don't. Free men don't have to pay any mind to what perverts and women say. That's not the way God made the universe. We're free men, we are, and our laws come from the word of God as set forth by the prophets."
Brun wanted to scream at him:
They will destroy you
, but she could not make a sound. She thought it at him anyway:
You can't do this; you won't get away with it; they will come after me and blow you to bits.
He reached out to her face, and when she turned away he grabbed her ears with both hands and forced her to face him. "Now your daddy may try—or maybe, because he'll know we've got you, he'll have the good sense to let us alone if he doesn't want to see his little girl in pieces. But he's not gonna get you back. No one is. Your life just changed forever. You're gonna obey, like the prophets said women should, and the sooner you start the easier it will be on you."