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A bewildered investigator started to intervene. But Jase shoved Bren back hard, dived out after him, whirled and hit the door switch as the man tried to come out.

The door shut. The investigator had skipped back: security doors meant business. Kaplan immediately hit lock .

And that was, if not that , at least an significant improvement on the ship’s onboard situation.

Bren let go his breath. Jase straightened his jacket.

“Good job,” Bren said shakily, and in Ragi. “The intruders are now contained in Jase’s office, nadiin-ji.” He was astonished and relieved, quite astonished at himself, and Jase, and Jase’s team. He didn’t know what precisely what they were going to do about the morsel they’d just lodged in their collective gullet, but they’d defended the ship from capture. They’d won. Themselves. The human species had won one.

Jase gave an approving glance to Kaplan and Polano: “Well done. Well done, gentlemen.” Pressman, the third of Jase’s men, appeared from a little down the corridor, out of Ogun’s office, with a rifle.

“Any word coming from Sabin?” Bren asked.

“No,” Jase said sharply. “Her signal’s quit. And these bastards aren’t getting off this ship until there is word.”

Not good news. Not at all.

“Everything all right down on crew level?” Jase asked.

“Everything but third-shift crew stewing in their cabins.”

“We’ll fix that,” Jase said, and led the way back into the bridge area, into the middle of the bridge. “Cousins,” Jase said to all and sundry on the bridge, “the problem is now contained. C1, kindly continue jamming any output or input from station. Then give me contact with my office, intercom image in my office to monitor thirty-two, with audio.”

“Yessir.” C1 cheerfully punched buttons, and began the process.

Jase picked up a handset and thumbed in a code. “Gentlemen.”

Bren stood by, watching the monitor, on which one saw four armored station agents battering the office door with rifle butts—and asking himself how, if they had begun jamming, they were going to hear from Sabin at all.

They would not, he feared.

“Mr. Becker,” Jase said.

Battering stopped. The group looked at the desk.

“Our captain’s signal has ceased,” Jase said. “You are now jammed, gentlemen. Turn in all armament and electronics and cooperate with Phoenix authority, and we’ll negotiate for your return to your own command. The same authority that established Reunion in the first place is now in charge of this station, and will be in charge, and I advise you not to disarrange my office, gentlemen, since I may be judging your case.”

Bren earnestly wished he had a tap into what Jase received on his earpiece.

“That’s all very well, gentlemen,” Jase said, “but you’re on our deck, this ship maintains its own rules, and I don’t give a damn about your local regulations. Turn over your weapons and peel out of the armor. To the skin. You’ve far exceeded your authority and my patience, and unless I get a direct countermand from the senior captain, not likely under current circumstances, the lot of you are under close arrest.”

One man moved. Leveled a gun at the door and fired. The sound reached the corridor.

Jase punched one more button. “Kaplan? Fire suppression, B4.”

The view on screen clouded. Instantly.

The intruders had, Bren recalled, masks among their body-armor. They surely had internal oxygen. They surely were going to use that resource, fast.

“Gentlemen,” Jase said, “I’m going about other work. Advise me when you’re ready to comply with instructions. I know you’re on your own air. But we can keep the office in fire-suppression for the next century or so. And if you do succeed in breaching that door, gentlemen, be assured you’ll walk into worse. Would you like to negotiate at this point? Or do you want to be carried out after your air runs out? Because I’m prepared to hold out until the next century, but I don’t think you’ll last near that long.”

Bren didn’t hear what the men answered. But Jase seemed grimly pleased.

“C1,” he said, “take precautions, condition red.”

There was an answering murmur from exhausted crew, all the while crew locked down, pulled down covering panels for the consoles, all calmly.

Small under-console panels divulged weapons. The bridge crew armed itself, hand-weapons, a few heavier, to defend the ship’s heart and nerve center if it got to that. Jase might have read his captain’s training out of a rule book, but damn, Bren thought, he’d learned a few things on the planet, and he was ice calm.

Bren’s pocket comm vibrated. He said, without taking the device out publicly in Jase’s domain, “One hears, nadiin-ji. One believes the ship’s personnel are managing the situation very well indeed. Wait.”

The lift door opened. Security personnel arrived, the ship’s few remaining, in full kit, with breathing assist and antipersonnel armament.

“Four Guild enforcers are occupying my office,” Jase said with a hook of his thumb. “Fire suppression’s engaged. Captain’s signal’s gone dead and they’re for security confinement. My personal guard is sitting on the situation. Assist.”

Ship’s integrity was the ship’s highest law. Ship was country and family, even if they’d had their bloody fights. And station admin was only a cousin-relationship, when it came to that. Bren didn’t say a thing, only stood and watched the security team, clearly ready for some time, head down the short hall.

The executive offices security door shut across that view, protecting the bridge from whatever unpleasantness might break out of Jase’s office.

Jase stood still, pushing the earpiece firmly into his ear. The spy-eye was still running, but the white fog inside the office gave way to thermal image. Four armed men, each in a corner, clear as could be.

The door to that office opened. A barrage opened up, anti-personnels bouncing all over—astonishing in a small space. There seemed to be a deal of wreckage. The intruders flinched, went down under a continuing volley of pellets that richocheted off every surface in the small office and hit from every angle.

Two attempted a breakout. Bren stifled a useless warning.

The two dropped at the door, netted and shorted out, in every electrical contact exposed. A third went down, in split-screen, clawing at a suit control that didn’t seem to be functioning, and a fourth tried to bolt.

Security netted that one, too, right atop the other two, a struggling lump. It looked like Kaplan who hauled that one out and up.

It was over. Won. Bren let go a breath. His knees felt the weight of hours.

“Got the bastards,” Jase said quietly.

The bridge crew breathed, too, shoulders just that degree relaxing—but they were still armed, still waiting for orders.

“You can let them out, C1,” Jase said. “Get additional security to do a fire-check and a bug-check down there. Let’s not have any lingering problems.”

Definitely learned in his time in Shejidan, Bren thought. Banichi would declare it a fine job. Not finessed, but certainly well ended. They stood there, watching the search on the monitors, and he took a moment to report.

“Nadiin-ji, one believes the local matter is now aptly handled. Jase-aiji has done extremely well. One regrets to report Sabin-aiji’s signal has ceased for some undefined reason, but the internal threat is under arrest and destined for detention. Jase remains firmly in charge of the ship.”