as this one; as long as you donât prey on their people and spend enough in port, they wonât care.â
âBut if Slotter Keyââ
âWhy do you care what they think? They turned on your family, right? Let âem howl. You have a good fast ship and a letter of marque. Youâd be crazy not to use it to the hilt.â The others, Ky noted when she glanced around, were staring at Rafe as if heâd sprouted extra limbs. He looked around, too, then back at her, a look as challenging as the flourish of a sword. âWhatâyou havenât gotten squeamish, have you, or stricken with remorse or anything? After the way you killed Osman?â
She shook her head. âNoâ¦Iâm not stricken with remorse. Osman needed killing. Itâs justââ
He interrupted. âItâs just that youâve always been a good girl, Stella says. Law abiding, rule following, all that. Well, look where it got your family. Dead, most of them. Iâm not saying turn into a vindictive pirate like Osman, but if you want to do the survivors any good, you canât be too worried about what other people think.â
Ky was aware of a tense stillness; the bridge crewâs attention was palpable. Her mouth was dry; she felt as if she were about to jump out of the ship into vacuum and free fall. A trickle of humor worked its way throughâshe had done that already. With a bungee cord. And she wasnât the nice rule-bound girl she had beenâif she ever had been. She had killed more than once, and she had enjoyed itâ¦something she hoped no one else would suspect.
âI suppose,â she said, drawing the words out, âif communications come back and Slotter Key tries to withdraw the letter of marqueâ¦Iâll deal with it.â
A faint sense of relaxation. She took a deep breath and let it out. âAll right. Iâm not putting my head in anyoneâs noose just to see if theyâll yank it tight. But I do need to talk to Stella and the Mackensee escort, and as many captains as I have time for.â
No one said anything, but there was a collective gust of breath let out.
âWeâre well stocked for any ordinary voyage,â Ky said, as if to herself. âWe canât air up the whole ship yet, but thereâs plenty for us and we have the power to warm up Environmental and let the tanks start producing. Plenty of water, right, Mitt?â
âYes, plenty. We can go to electrolysis if you want, but itâs safer to go slow.â
âWell, then. We need to find a destination, within two jumps, and in the books as being relaxed on regulatory operations.â
S tella, when Ky contacted her aboard
Gary Tobai,
stared out of the screen, eyes wide. âYouâre going to leave me behind? What if they lock me up?â she asked. âWhy wouldnât they?â
âYou werenât in command when Osman attacked us; you didnât make the decisions or even participate.â
âI had a bag over my head and was tied upââ Stella said. âIf thatâs not participatingâ¦â
âI know that and you know that, but they donât. And they donât need to. Youâre my cousin; youâre a Vattaâor a Constantin, I donât care which name you use hereâand you did what you were told. I can name you my agent for financial mattersâcollecting payment from the others in the convoy and paying off Mackensee. Mackensee will speak up for you, after all. You should still have enough to get where weâre goingâ¦â
âIf they donât put me in jail,â Stella said gloomily. âIt wouldnât be the first time a government punished the innocent because they couldnât catch the guilty.â Then, in a different tone, âSorry. I didnât mean you were guilty, of course. Just what they think, or may think.â
âThatâs all right,â Ky said. âBut
Jonathan Strahan [Editor]