"He's certainly a polite sort of fellow," Venizelos commented. "So how hard are we going to slap him, Skipper?"
Honor studied her displays. The Locksley was well within the no-escape area now, and apparently still unaware that he was facing anything other than six helpless merchantmen. At this point, Fearless could basically do whatever she wanted to him.
And yet...
"Mr. Wallace, do you happen to know how well-supplied Logan's group is?" she asked.
"I don't know the numbers, Ma'am," Wallace said slowly. "A little better than the average Silesian rebel, probably, but not that much better."
"Can they afford to throw away missiles just for the fun of it?" she asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
"Not a chance," Wallace said firmly. "Not even the relatively piddling one he tossed across our vector."
Honor nodded, her mind made up. The Locksley had spent a valuable missile trying to get the convoy to stop without any further fighting. That meant he was either exactly who he said he was, with the more or less peaceful intentions he claimed to have, or else a pirate with the kind of chutzpah even a politician might envy.
"All right," she said. "Joyce, get a camera ready on me. Andy, when I cue you, bring up the wedge and sidewalls and paint him with the active sensors."
She settled herself in her chair and made sure her uniform tunic was straight. This should prove interesting. "He's hailing again, Ma'am," Metzinger said.
Honor nodded. "Put him through."
The screen before her cleared, and the face of a young man appeared, his cheeks tired and sunken, his eyes blazing with the fire of zealots and True Believers everywhere. "—one last time, Manticoran ships," he was saying. "If you don't drop your wedges—"
He broke off abruptly, his bright eyes goggling as he belatedly recognized her uniform. "This is Captain Harrington of Her Majesty's Ship Fearless," Honor said calmly into the stunned silence coming from the com. "I'm sorry; I didn't catch that?"
And with her final word she flicked a finger at Venizelos.
All around her, the bridge displays altered as Fearless suddenly surged to full combat readiness. The young man on the com display jerked like he'd been stung, his eyes darting to his own off-camera monitors, and Honor could hear the faint sounds of gasped consternation coming from the command deck around him.
"I've made my half of the introductions," she prompted. "Your turn."
With what appeared to be a supreme effort of will, the man pulled his gaze back to the com screen. "My name is Iliescu," he said, his cheeks looking more sunken than ever. "I—all right, Captain, you've got us. What now?"
"You've threatened my convoy, Mr. Iliescu," Honor reminded him coolly. "Verbally, as well as by putting a missile into space against us."
She watched his face as he opened his mouth, probably to protest that that had been a warning shot. But he subsided with the words unsaid. She knew that, and he knew that she knew it.
"All of which means that I would be within my legal rights to blow you to scrap," she continued. "Or do you see it differently?"
Iliescu took a deep breath. "I see that the use of shredder darts is an attack on all civilized human beings," he said. "I see that they're illegal, but that they're still being used by petty tyrants desperate to hold onto their power and their privileges. What would you do, Captain, if they were being used against your people?"
"We're not talking about me," Honor reminded him. "Do you have any evidence that there are Manticoran ships carrying these things?"
His lip twitched. "We don't know who's bringing them," he admitted. "All we know that they're supposed to be coming in soon, from a supplier on Creswell."
Honor nodded. Creswell had been the convoy's last port of call. So that was why Iliescu had been lying in wait in this particular spot. "So what are you planning to do? Stop every convoy coming from that direction until you find the shredders?"
Iliescu drew himself up. "If necessary," he said with stubborn dignity.
"All by yourself?"
"We have three other ships on loan from the Logan Freedom Fighters," he said. "We're running this in shifts."
"Who's your contact with Logan?"
The question seemed to take Iliescu off guard. "What?"
"I want the name of your contact," Honor repeated. "The one who negotiated the alliance with your Zoraster Freemen."
Iliescu's eyes were bulging again. "You're very well informed, Captain," he said. "I don't know if I should..."
"There's no deal possible unless you convince me, Mr. Iliescu," Honor warned quietly. "As far as I can tell from here, you could still just be another pirate with a gift for glib."
Iliescu swallowed hard. "His name is Bokusu. Simon Bokusu."
Honor glanced at Wallace, caught the other's fractional nod. "All right," she said, looking back at Iliescu. "Under the circumstances, I'm going to give you this one free pass. But from now on you leave Manticoran ships alone, or there will be trouble. Is that understood?"
"Understood," the other said. "What about the shredders?"
"None of the ships in my convoy are carrying them," Honor told him. "You have my word on that."
Iliescu hesitated, then nodded. "All right. Iccgood-bye, Captain."
His image vanished as he broke contact. "Secure from battle stations," Honor ordered. "Signal the convoy to return to formation."
"Well, that was interesting," Venizelos commented. "Also pretty disgusting. What kind of a sick animal uses shredders anymore?"
"You heard the man," DuMorne said. "Petty tyrants desperate to hold onto power and privilege."
"And we have to look the other way," Metzinger murmured.
"Just one of the many fun things about duty in Silesia," Venizelos said. "Skipper, do you want to leave the wedge at full power?"
"We might as well, since the masquerade's blown anyway," Honor said. "And as long as the active sensors are on line again, let's give the area between us and the planet a good, hard look."
"Yes, Ma'am," Venizelos said. Honor turned back to her tactical plot, watching the ships of her convoy shuffling back toward their original flight formation. The maneuvers were nowhere near military-precise, but not bad for merchantmen. Maybe there ought to be a course on this sort of thing at the Merchant Fleet Academy.
There was a beep from Venizelos's board. "Skipper, we've got another wedge coming up," he announced, frowning at his displays. "Off to port, about three million klicks out."
"Course is running skew across the ecliptic," DuMorne added. "Looks like she was just coasting through the outer system."
"We have an ID?" Honor asked.
"She's reading as an Andermani warship," Wallace said, his voice suddenly taut.
"Transponder identifies her as the IANS Neue Bayern," Metzinger confirmed.
"Neue Bayern," Venizelos repeated, punching keys on his console. "Battlecruiser, Mendelssohn class, massing just under nine hundred thousand tons. No sign of anyone else in her vicinity."
"Any idea what she's doing out here?" Honor asked, swiveling to look at Wallace. The other was working his board, his eyes intense but uncertain.
With good reason, she realized as she ran down the same logic track he was probably following. A lone Andermani ship, and one that had apparently been lying doggo as a pirate might, could very possibly be their raider.
Except that it wasn't fitting the rest of the ONI profile. A battlecruiser was too big, for one thing, and it wasn't running either the Silesian ID or the camouflaging surface emission spectrum.