"Relax, kid," Via put in, "The skipper was right. The University is an Actionist recruiting and education hotbed. They invest a lot of time, energy and money indoctrinating students. They get students from all over the Alliance, and when they send them back home, they're dedicated Actionists, ready to betray their home planets, if necessary, to spread the Atmos doctrine. One wrong word, and you could all have wound up dead." She glanced at Jirik. "I don't know if your Class I knows about the University, but if he doesn't, he should."
Tor's anger had evaporated, to be replaced by obvious bafflement. "But, what do we do now?" he wailed. "It looks to me like we're caught between the Alliance and the Actionists!"
"Not to mention a thousand or so pirates chasing a twenty-five-million-credit prize," Bran added wryly
Jirik grimaced. "Yeah. Well, all we can do about them is try to avoid them. If we make it to Alpha, at least that threat'll be over. Hell, I'm a lot more comfortable fighting pirates than secret agents!"
Via flashed that incredible white grin. "I can believe that. Well, skipper, I'll do my best to get us to Alpha, and I know that the others will, too. Now, I'm signing off on Alpha, but if there's anything I can do to help you out of this other thing, you can count on me. I wouldn't want any other Alliance agents or terrorists to think that they can use spacers that easily. Besides, I feel guilty and damned mad about what they did to your astrogator, just to get me aboard."
Tor was fidgeting. "Yeah, but what can we do?" he repeated "I don't see where we have any choices! If we break that book contract, it'll ruin our reputations; and if we run out on a Class I agent, we could be charged with treason!"
Jirik nodded. "You're right, Tor, we can't just run out. We'd have both sides gunning for us. As for what we can do, that's why I called this meeting. I, for one, am tired of being herded around by a bunch of spooks on both sides. I think it's time that we started taking the initiative., and doing things for our benefit, instead of theirs."
"First," he continued, "I want us all to be thinking about this. Be trying to think of ways that we can look out for ourselves. If you come up with any ideas, any at all, that might help us come out of this with our ship or our skins intact, I want to hear about them. I don't care how far-fetched they seem, bring them up and we'll talk about 'em. We've got plenty of time during the jumps to think about it; just use that time. Let's start acting instead of reacting. And Via," he added, "You know these terrorists better than any of us; if you can think of anything that you know that might help, please mention it. We really need your help on this."
Via grinned again. "You got it, skipper. You know, I'm kind of sorry that you have your own navigator; I'd kinda like to stick around with you guys. The Lass seems to be an exciting ship!"
Bran snickered. "Like hell. Usually, the old bitch is boring as hell. And that's the way we like it. This is the first time we've had to deal with interstellar intrigue."
"And the last, with any luck!" Jirik interjected sourly.
The meeting broke up and the others went out. Tor was chattering excitedly while hovering over Via, blushing furiously.
During the next recal stop they detected a ship at extreme range on the long-range scanners that Via had enhanced. Luckily, the blip was on the other side of the system, and they decided that, unless the other ship's sensors were also enhanced, there was little chance of their detection. Just before they powered up the supralight drive the other ship evidently detected them, as it fired up its inertial drive and headed in their direction; but it was hopelessly distant for interception. Jirik decided not to activate their modified beacon, and minutes later, they were safely supralight. After securing all in-system systems, they gathered to discuss the contact.
Tor was unexcited. "They barely detected us, Captain, and we weren't showing a beacon. They can't know who we were."
"They probably have a pretty good idea, Tor," Bran replied "We learned something, and they learned some things."
"Yeah," Via contributed. "We learned that whoever that was had some damned good long-range sensors. If the rest of their sensor array is as good, we're damned lucky that we came out of supralight as far away as we did.'
Jirik shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "They also had pretty damned good reaction time. Now we know that our sensors are better than theirs, but not by much. Once we started maneuvering for the jump, they picked us up fast. Then, they headed for us. In case no one else noticed, that ship is damned fast. They were accelerating at over .01G. If they kept that up, they crossed that system in hours. The only standard ships I know of with that kind of acceleration are Fleet Couriers; and from the blip, that was no Courier."
Bran's head jerked when Jirik mentioned the mystery ship's acceleration rate. "Point Oh One G!" He exclaimed, "That's over 1800 meters per second per second!" His expression became thoughtful. "If she wasn't a Courier, that means that she was stripped and beefed up for speed, with oversize inertial generators and super strength gravity compensators to keep from crushing the crew. A ship like that would be no good to anyone except a pirate. The modifications wouldn't let her haul much cargo."
"Right." Jirik replied. "So, now we can be sure that we weren't just being paranoid. The word and the pirates are out."
Via, too, was looking thoughtful. "Captain, that system was too remote for a pirate to be hanging around it, unless it just happened to be his base system, or he was looking for us. I'd have sworn that that system was safe. I'd say he's got a hell of a navigator on board!"
"He's got more than that," Jirik replied. "He's got our drive traces to track our maneuvers, and the coordinates where we jumped. He also knows that we're running without a beacon."
Via's head jerked. "Damn! I'd forgotten that! A navigator good enough to suggest staking out that system is good enough to analyze our course data, or at least most of it. The only thing that he won't know is the length of the jump. If he's that good, I'll bet he can make a pretty good estimate, though. He knows the type of ship we have, and the nav equipment that she carries."
Tor was looking confused. "I don't understand. He's hours behind us, isn't he? I thought that all ships traveled at the same speed in supralight. Even if he can figure out our next recal point, he can't get there before we jump again, can he?"
"Theoretically, no," Bran replied, "And maybe even practically, no. AS we told you, there's still a lot that we don't understand about supralight. When it was first discovered, they called it 'FTL', for 'faster than ight'. but then some bright boys got to computing, and realized that there was no way of knowing for sure whether it really was 'faster than light'. It's only usable over interstellar distances, and there's no common frame of reference. They do know that the duration experienced by the crew is not relevant. For a while, they called it 'hyperspace' but they gave that up when mathematicians isolated true hyperspaces."
"But, doesn't 'supralight' mean 'faster than light'?" Tor persisted.
Via's gleaming grin reappeared. "Linguistically, it means "above light'. But we needed a term that we could use to describe jumps that wouldn't send the mathemeticians into a tizzy. It seems that the phrase 'Faster than light', and the abbreviation 'FTL' had been used even before space trave to describe certain specific physical conditions, and the theoretical physicists and mathematicians kinda thought they owned them. So, we compromised. They agreed not to assign any specific meaning to 'supralight', and we agreed not to say that 'supralight' meant 'faster than light'. Actually, we don't know whether it does or not."