at the companionway. His rangy frame filled up the narrow opening; lit by the overhead panel, his face was flushed and his eyes overbright with excitement.

    'He's done it!' the lieutenant shouted, waving a recent message corn. 'He's finally taken the bait.'

    The 'he' needed no definition; nothing short of obsession with MacKenzie James could cause Jensen to overlook the crew member who usurped his command chair, the nail polish a calculated affront to his dignity.

    From the pilot's station, Harris drawled, 'Let me guess. We're going to go AWOL, maybe pay an unscheduled visit to Chalice? At least I presume all those messages coming and going between us and the private sector were not over an affair.'

    Kaplin watched this exchange, her nail brush forgotten in her hand. 'If our boy is even capable of an affair,' she muttered sotto voce.

    Jensen failed to take umbrage as he crossed the cockpit in a stride. Risking an undecorous crease in his trousers, he leaned on the instrument panel cowling. This drew a frown from Harris, disregarded as the lieutenant plunged on. 'No. We go under regs, by the book. Sail's a scout and recon owes me a favor. Once we've placed these dispatches, I can get us an assignment to do a discretionary patrol sweep. Since the mines on Chalice are the juiciest operation the military has going with private business, they'd naturally need to be checked.'

    Harris raked his fingers through a rooster comb of red hair, then replaced his beret with its frayed Fleet insignia. 'That'd work.'

Only Kaplin insisted on particulars. 'What's at Chalice for us?' Jensen let her sarcasm pass. 'Everything. I've been months setting it up. We're going to capture MacKenzie James and through him trace the home worlds of the Syndicate.'

    Kaplin raised pencil-thin eyebrows. 'Oh? And what's in Chalice for MacKenzie?'

    Smug now, Jensen smiled. 'A trap. My trap. James thinks he's going to heist core crystals, ones engineered with the technology used to interface those fancy brainship modules with their hardware. But once in, he'll find out the booty was bait. Sail might not have all the latest tracking gadgets, but she's strong on gunnery. We're going to stand down the Marity.'

The nail brush by now was thoroughly dry. Tossing it aside in

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