Triple-Cross

Lieutenant Jensen paced, spun in a tight circle, then hammered an angry fist on the chart table. Loose marker pins scattered from the blow, falling like micro-shot through furniture tight-knit as a battle formation. 'Damn the man, what godforsaken plot could send him back to Guildstar?'

    'Information, maybe,' suggested Harris, who lounged with closed eyes on the wall bunk, his pilot's coverall in its usual neglected state of crumple. Quarters on Sail were far too cramped for displays of violent frustration; by now resigned to having sleep disrupted by his senior's obsession with the obscure motivations of a criminal, Harris chose not to fight the inevitable. 'You can bet Mac James isn't making the run for any merchant's sake.'

    The model of a Fleet officer in a faultlessly fitted duty coverall, Jensen swore. Black-haired and classically handsome, he leaned on his knuckles and glared at his holo map of Alliance space, which hogged whatever paltry space their quarters had to offer. The display was crisscrossed with threads and speared with markers in three colors: blue for those sites the skip-runner MacKenzie James was rumored to have visited; yellow for a confirmed sighting, and red for any station or planet or interstellar vessel that had fallen prey to his penchant for piracy. Mac James being the most wanted criminal on Fleet record, the map was peppered red from end to end.

    'Or else the source you bribed is selling you a line of crap,' Harris added.

    Jensen swore again. He smoothed back bangs razor-trimmed in the latest military fashion. 'My informant isn't wrong. I pay another rebel to cross-check her.'

Harris knuckled the orange stubble that roughened his jaw. He

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