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“I don’t know how accurate it is,” he said, “but Sparks and Jorkad seem to think it isn’t too far from the real thing. If it’s anything like the simulator, the Strakha’s going to be heavy going. Big and mean, but not exactly subtle…except for the stealth technology. I guess the Cats figured they had a cloak, so why bother making the thing nimble too? Takes some getting used to when you’ve come out of the high-maneuverability school.”

“Sort of like trying to fly a shuttle after a stretch of duty with Hornets,” she said, nodding.

“Well, not quite that bad, maybe,” he said, remembering his landing on Independence and how clumsy the shuttle controls had seemed. “I figure with enough sim time it won’t be too much of a problem getting these Cat planes down cold. I have to admit, though, that it’s pretty strange thinking of how to use them in combat, and not just how to beat them.”

She laughed. “You could say the same thing about this whole operation,” she said. “A year ago a Cat was just something to shoot at. Now I’m starting to understand how they think…and it’s starting to scare me. Sometimes I wonder how we managed to hold them off so long. They sure as hell know how to build a carrier.”

Bondarevsky nodded. “I know what you mean. And working with the Cats from Murragh’s bunch…they’re not exactly what we always thought they were, are they?”

Before she could reply they were interrupted by a chord from Aengus Harper’s guitar. The young lieutenant had found himself a perch on one of the tables and taken the battered-looking instrument out of its case. For a moment he contented himself with strumming chords, apparently at random.

“Well, the Bard of the Spaceways is at it again,” Bondarevsky commented with a smile. “What’s it going to be tonight, lieutenant? More of your old Irish rabble-rousing songs?”

“Ah, now, sir, should I be playin‘ such things and ignoring the spirit of the season?” Harper replied with his easy, charming grin. “No, tonight I’ll not be speakin’ of the Gaels and their long struggle for freedom, more’s the pity. Instead I thought I’d give you a Christmas song me auld mither taught me when I was just a lad.”

He started picking the strings with practiced skill, closing his eyes and starting to sing in a soft, pleasant voice. It was a song Bondarevsky hadn’t heard for years. The crowd was rapt as the young Taran sang the story of the child Jesus and his scornful playmates in Egypt, and the miracles that alarmed their mothers.

Thinking of the work they’d done on Karga, Bondarevsky couldn’t help but think the lieutenant’s choice was deliberate…and apt. They’d all worked their share of miracles out here on the edge of the frontier, and after this holiday was past they’d be right back in the miracle-working business once more.

Lutz Mannheim Starport, Newburg

Landreich, Landreich System

1039 hours (CST), 2670.364

“There’s a visitor at the airlock to see you, Captain. Do you want to see anybody?”

Captain Wenona Springweather looked up from the computer terminal on her desk at her First Mate, who stood just inside the door of her day cabin with an apologetic look on his face. “Does this visitor have a name?” she asked irritably. Two solid hours had gone by since the Vision Quest had grounded and Landreich Port Authority officers had swarmed aboard each armed with questionnaires and computer forms that she had to fill out personally, it seemed, before the scout ship could secure permission to berth at the starport at all, much less apply for the free overhaul Admiral Richards had promised her before the start of the voyage.

She suspected that Captain Galbraith was behind the extra attention she was receiving. He hadn’t been at all happy with the scout ship’s performance on the way home. Springweather couldn’t help it if her jump coils had worn through coming out of hyperspace at Oecumene, and the cycle time for an interstellar hop was running anywhere up to five times as long as it should. If Galbraith had sent over the parts and technical experts she’d asked for when the problem first developed she could have put the problem to rest then and there, but Galbraith wasn’t the sort of Navy man who’d extend a helping hand to a frontier scout. So Vision Quest had slowed Independence down, and now it seemed Galbraith was exacting his revenge by inflicting petty bureaucracy on her. At this point a visitor would be a welcome relief…unless he turned out to be another bureaucrat.

“I’m sorry, skipper, but he wouldn’t give a name. Looks like a merchant skipper…a prosperous one, by the cut of his clothes. Said he had a business proposal for you.”

She grinned. “When have you ever known me to turn away the chance to make a credit or two, Frank? Send the gentleman up, by all means.”

Springweather managed to finish going over the Customs Manifest, appending her retinal print to the computer file just as the visitor arrived at her door.

He was a tall, gaunt man with dark hair and a down-turning mustache that made him look like a pirate right out of a historical holo-vid romance. His eyes, studying her, burned with the intensity of a man with a mission.

She stood and rounded the desk, extending a hand. “I’m Wenona Springweather. Captain, for what it’s worth, of the Vision Quest. My Mate tells me you’ve some business for us. How can I be of service?”

“My name is Zachary Banfeld,” he said, taking the hand.

Springweather’s eyes narrowed. That was a name she’d heard before. But she had never expected to meet one of the most notorious men on the frontier.

Banfeld was the organizer and leader of a group that called itself “The Guild,” a loose association of ship-captains and businessmen from a dozen worlds along the frontier, and not just within the Landreich’s sphere of influence. Ostensibly they were civilians who had banded together for mutual protection and support during the war, but in fact rumor had it that they were much more than harmless merchants. Pooling their funds, they had bought weapons to arm their merchant ships, and even managed to acquire a small, antiquated escort carrier and some Confederation fighters. All this was supposed to be used to convoy merchant traffic along the dangerous frontier trade routes, but there were stories that suggested Banfeld’s Guild operated as privateers-some said outright pirates-raiding shipping and remote planetary outposts and selling the proceeds at a substantial profit.

He seemed to sense her reaction to his name, and gave her a thin-lipped smile. “My reputation no doubt precedes me, Captain, but I assure you I’m not at all the way I’m portrayed on the holo-casts. Neither Robin Hood nor Blackbeard…just Zack Banfeld, trying to do my job.”

“And that job is?” She let a hint of ice creep into her tone. Wenona Springweather was as mercenary as any frontier scout, but her motto had always been to steer clear of the war and everything it represented. Banfeld, on the other hand, took entirely too much interest in conflict.

His smile turned wolfish. “Why, simply turning a profit, Captain,” he said. “And, if I can, helping out the small shipowner from time to time.”

“Such as now?” she asked. “What sort of help did you have in mind for me?”

“Just a chance to make a large sum of money in return for a few small bits of information,” he said blandly. “About the work you’ve been doing the past several weeks.”

“My last two trips have been classified by the Landreich government,” she told him. “They’ve been employing me as a consultant, and you must understand that I couldn’t go around selling secrets.”

He shrugged. “It’s fairly well known by now that you found a Kilrathi derelict. That news has been circulating around the bars for weeks. I’m…interested in learning the details, though. If the government is no longer interested in this ship, it might be an excellent source for parts, equipment, that sort of thing.”

“And if the government is still interested?”