side, were not those of a wounded man. MacKenzie James was bearishly strong, with reflexes not to be trifled with. Jensen had cause to remember.

    Shocked by the skip-runner's presence and enraged to have lost the upper hand to a castaway, the lieutenant fought to stay calm. 'I presume you deep-spaced the man who owned the suit you're wearing.'

    The query prompted an insouciant smile. 'Cut the crap,' said James, his voice multiplied by echoes off of the lock bay walls. 'If you've got any scruples about killing, they're faked.' He shook back mussed brown hair and nudged the gun barrel in the ribs of his victim. 'Unfasten my suit clips.'

    Jensen saw no option but compliance; if James decided to shed the bulky suit, a way might arise to seize advantage while his enemy was encumbered by the sleeves. Convinced that the pirate had tripped the charge in the bogus crate of brain crystals, and that an accomplice on Marity had seen the explosion and opened retaliatory fire on Chalice, Jensen talked in an attempt to distract his enemy's thinking.

    'You'll never get away with a hijacking. $ail's courses are automatically logged, and she runs under check-in protocols. All

transmissions are coded and routinely traced.'MacKenzie James said nothing.

    'Give yourself up, man.' Jensen set hands to the last shoulder clip. 'If our schedule is disrupted a millisecond, we're presumed to be boarded by enemies. We're tagged and targeted for armed search, with orders to be slagged on sight.'

    The clip unlatched with a click. James raised insolent brows. 'Let go,' he instructed. As Jensen hesitated, James swung his body and wrenched the officer's fingers. Painfully freed, Jensen felt himself spun around, his right wrist looped neatly in a tool tether.

    The lieutenant struggled, tried to jab an elbow in his enemy's face. The move was both anticipated and countered; after years spent in freefall standing ambush, Mac James had mastered null gray to a fine point. He did little but shift one hip. The result provoked a spin as he and his captive drifted in tandem from the rail. Jensen's fast movement added vector that hammered him sideways into the wall. James was protected by his suit; Jensen, caught on the inside, got the breath crushed from his lungs, and a bruise on the temple that nearly stunned him. Weakly he clawed

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