adversary a half shrug of dismissal. 'You have one outstanding asset, boy. Your thinking is simplistically accurate.'

    Since the comment was the last that Jensen might have anticipated, he was left without ready reioinder.

    Untouchable, untraceable, and infuriatingly confident, MacKenzie James turned on his heel. He stepped off the stripped bridge of the Kildare and departed through the lock for his transfer back to Marity. Moments later the same accursed analog screen showed the skip-runner ship's departure.

    Yet the last word came over the corn channel the captain had deliberately left open.

    'You have no propulsion system, no firepower, and no communication or navigational equipment left aboard,' observed the blunt tones of Mac James. 'However, in the aft console where message torps are stored, you'll find one Gibsen left behind. That should be sufficient to see you rescued, when the fight winds down over Khalia.' A m'oment later the skip-runner captain added an afterthought: 'Oh, yes, and your engineer, is it Officer Dax? He's locked in the emergency escape capsule. You'll want to let him out. Apparently he pissed off my mate some, and the air supply in the capsule was left off...'

It was Cael, one of the laser crew, who worked out of his bonds first. Lanky, sallow, and looking as if he'd worn the same coverall for a week, he arrived on the bridge in an excited gush of talk. 'Can't find Dax,' he said breathlessly as he cut Jensen's hands free. 'Damned skip-runner must've abducted him, or killed him, or something, because he's not in any of the compartments. Jesus, you should see what's happened down there. Ship's got no guts left, I swear. Stripped down to her coils, which leak, and are useless anyway.'

    'Cael,' said Jensen, standing stiffly due to discomfort and an icy vista of fury. 'Kindly be silent and cut your fellow officers free.'

    The next thing Cael chose to cut was Beckett's gag, which from Jensen's point of view was a mistake. She never did keep her mouth shut.

    'You won't get away with this, Commander,' she said, between hawking sour spittle from her throat. 'That message torp to Fleet won't bring you farts for a citation, because I'm going to see you burn. You surrendered a Fleet vessel to a goddamned skip-runner,

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