"You still need more time to acclimatize," the AI objected. "You're doing well, but you're still not what I'd call ready."
"We don't have time for me to 'acclimatize' as thoroughly as you'd like. Let's face it-I'm a hopeless disappointment as a starship pilot."
"That's not true! You've got good instincts-I should know, I've got the same ones. It's just a matter of training them."
"Perhaps and perhaps not, Megarea, and Alicia is correct about the pressure of time. We have been out of contact too long, and I am certain more has happened since we fled Soissons. As for her instincts requiring training, is it not true that you are fully capable of translating them into actions?"
"It's not the same. Alley should've been completely trained before we ever impressed. She's the captain. That means she makes the decisions, and she could be a lot more effective if she knew my capabilities backward and forward. She's not supposed to have to think things through or ask questions, and it slows us down when she does."
"No one's suggesting I shouldn't continue training, even if I am coming at it backwards. But there's no reason we can't do that after we start wherever we're going to start. And Tisiphone's right; our information's getting colder every day."
"You're ganging up on me again."
"Which ought, perhaps, to suggest that you are in error in this instance. I second Alicia's agreement that training must continue, but not even I can stop other events while she does so."
"Hmph. Just where did you have in mind to go?"
"MaGuire, I think. How does that strike you, Tisiphone?"
"MaGuire? I should have thought Dewent or Wyvern would be more fruitful ground, Little One,"
"I don't disagree, but I still think we should start at MaGuire." The lift stopped outside Alicia's quarters, and she stepped out and sprawled across the comfortable couch. "We've got to have some sort of cover before we move in on them for real, and MaGuire's a good place to begin building one."
""Cover"?" The Fury sounded faintly surprised.
"What did you plan on her doing? Busting down doors in combat armor to ask questions at plasgun point? Ever hear of something called subtlety?"
"Hey, give her a break, Megarea! She never had to put up with these kinds of limitations before."
"I am not offended," Tisiphone said, and somewhat to Alicia's surprise, she meant it. The Fury felt her reaction and chuckled dryly. "As you say, I am unaccustomed to mortals' limitations, but that does not mean I am unaware of them. What sort of cover did you have in mind, Little One?"
"I've been thinking over all the intelligence you pulled and looking for an angle we could follow up without simply duplicating everyone else's efforts. It looks to me like Colonel McIlheny's people are doing a much better job with overt intelligence gathering than we could. He's got tonnes more manpower and far better communications than we do, and unlike us, he's official. He doesn't have to hide from both sides while he works. Agreed?"
Alicia paused, then shrugged as she felt the others' joint agreement.
"That being the case, let's leave that side of it to him and concentrate on areas where our special talents can operate most effectively."
"And those areas are, Little One?"
"I was particularly interested in Ben Belkassem's locked files, because I think he's on to something. I think he's right about there being someone on the inside, probably pretty far up, which means that same someone may well be feeding the pirates advance warning on Fleet sweeps and dispositions. If so, they'll know how and when to lie low, and that suggests Ben Belkassem has also hit on the most likely way to find them."
"By tracking the loot." Megarea sounded dubious. "That's a tall order, Alley, and we can only be in one place at a time. Shouldn't we leave that angle to him? O Branch has all sorts of information sources we don't." "Maybe, but we can probably do a lot more with any information we get our hands-pardon, my hands-on. Ben Belkassem may have more reach, but he can't get inside someone's head, and I doubt his computer support can match what you're capable of. Even better, we're a complete wild card, with no connection to Justice or Fleet however hard anyone looks. Add all the other things Tisiphone does, and you've got a hell of an infiltrator."
"And how will you use those abilities?" the Fury asked.
"I think I'm about to become a free trader," Alicia replied, and felt the others' stir of interest. "We don't have much cargo capacity, but half the 'free traders' out here are really smugglers, and we can probably match the lift of any of the really fast hulls in the sector. Besides, specializing in delivering small cargoes quickly would make us look nicely shady."
"That I should live to see the day I became a freighter!" Megarea mourned, but amusement sparkled in her thoughts.
"But can you?" Tisiphone objected. "Surely Fleet has spread the alarm since we left Soissons. From what I have seen of Sir Arthur, he, at least, would insist that the Rogue Worlds be warned, as well, embarrassment or no, since he believes Alicia to be mad. Will they not be on the watch for us?"
"Of course they will, but I don't think you realize quite how talented Megarea is. You can be a regular little changeling, can't you, Honey Cake?"
"Call me, "Honey Cake" again and you'll get a migraine you won't believe, Alley. Yeccch! But, yeah, I can do a real number on 'em."
"I realize you can disguise your electronic emissions, but you cannot hide the fact that you possess a Fleet Fasset drive. And even if you could, would not visual observation reveal you for what you are?"
"The answers are "it doesn't matter," and "no." Two-thirds of the merchantmen out here use Fleet-design drives. I can fudge mine to make it look a lot less powerful by shutting down nodes, and there're a couple of tricks I can play with frequency shifts, too. I can't look, oh Rishathan or Jungian-built, but I can produce a civilian power curve.
"As for the visual observation angle, that's one of my neatest tricks, if I do say so myself. BuShips came up with it for second-generation alpha synths, and I'm one of the first to get it."
"And what, if you are through extolling your own virtues, is "it"?"
"Sticks and stones can break my bones-assuming I had any-but words will never hurt me," Megarea caroled, and Alicia laughed. Even Tisiphone chuckled, but she clearly still wanted an explanation, and the AI obliged.
"I've got a holo imager built into the aft quadrant of my Fasset housing. I can use it to build up any exterior appearance I want."
"Indeed? An impressive capability, yet how well will it endure close observation should they bring more than the unaided eye to bear upon it?"
"I can jigger my radiation and mass shielding to give an alloy return off the "solid surface" against most of their active sensors," Megarea returned promptly. "Old-fashioned radar's the hardest, but if we decide what we want to look like and leave it that way, I can fabricate reflectors to return the proper image. The holo itself will stand up to any scrutiny, except maybe a spectrograph. It won't "see" anything off the holo."
"Yes, but a spectrograph doesn't tell them anything about mass or size," Alicia mused. "Suppose we plan our holo to incorporate a few good-sized chunks of your actual hull and let them get their readings off that?"
"They'd set readings, all right, but the wrong ones for a merchant hull. I'm made out of Kurita-Hawkins battle steel, Alley."
"Yet you have substantial quantities of less noble alloys in your machine shop stores. Could we not cover the exposed portions in a thin sheath which would appease their sensors?"
"I suppose so… . My "paint's" fused into the basic battle steel matrix, and my remotes are designed for fairly major field repairs. I could use a pigment fuser to spray a thin coat of plain old titanium over the battle steel. It'll look like hell whenever I drop the holo, and I'd be ashamed to be seen in a Fleet dock wearing it, but it should work."