"She is unarmed, Rox. Have you so little faith in me?"

"But a trained Coalition officer"

Dax's eyes went frosty. "I've had some training of my own, here and there."

"Yes," Roxton agreed, "but do you have the stomach to kill a woman if you have to?"

The first mate's words threatened to bring on the visions of Dax's horror-filled nightmares. He fought them off. Would he have the stomach to kill a woman? Especially this woman, who had the strangest effect on him? No doubt he was a fool for even attempting this.

"Let's hope I don't have to find out," he said grimly, and gestured to Nelcar.

It was a slow procession down the companionway to Dax's quarters, since neither of the men were willing to leave. Dax guessed that no matter what he ordered, they would be outside his door, ready to burst in at the first sound of a fight. Knowing this, he didn't bother to order them at all.

Reluctantly they released their hold on Califa. When she didn't move, they shoved her inside. She stumbled, then caught herself. Dax jerked his head at the two men in the doorway. Unwillingly they backed away, and Dax shut the door.

Dax pa.s.sed Califa without a glance, walked to the table, and picked up a carved crystal decanter of brandy. He poured some in a small gla.s.s, set the decanter down, and only then turned to look at her.

"Dare I give this to you, or will you try to cut my throat with the gla.s.s?"

Her gaze shot to the closed door, as if she, too, had guessed the men would be just outside. "I'd say it depends on who you ask."

He considered for a moment. "And I'd say you will not. As you said, if you'd wanted me dead, you had your chance."

She'd more than had her chance. He'd been so enraptured when he'd kissed her, she could have plunged his own knife between his ribs and he'd never have been able to stop her.

Kissed her. A Coalition officer. He wondered why that thought didn't make him feel sick. G.o.d, he couldn't think about that, not now.

He held out the gla.s.s. She hesitated, then took it. She inspected the contents. "Perhaps it is I who should be worried. Only one gla.s.s, and you not drinking?"

"My gut is on fire enough," he said with blunt honesty.

"Then you do not wish me dead, like the others?"

"I'm not really sure." His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. "Perhaps I'm just not in such a hurry."

"No," she said. "You want your answers first, don't you?" She downed the brandy in one gulp, then sucked in her breath as it hit. "I've been wondering how long I could keep it secret." Her mouth twisted in obvious self-disgust. "And then I'm the one to blurt it out to all and sundry..."

She held out the empty gla.s.s. He took it, set it down, then turned to lean against the edge of the table.

He drew one leg up to brace his foot on the edge of the table. He rested his crossed arms on his upraised knee, but he didn't relax. It was a ready posture, and he knew she knew it; using the solidly fastened table as a base and his bent leg to push off, he could launch himself powerfully and instantly. It was the kind of thing a trained soldier would recognize.

"Aren't you going to get the controller?"

At her question, his eyes moved to the shelf beside him where the device sat. "It's close enough."

She gave him a long look, her eyes narrowed. "You're not a fool, despite Roxton's words. I could get to it" She stopped, understanding dawning across her face. "I see. You'd rather kill me...personally. Hand to hand."

He shrugged, giving nothing away.

"What's to keep me from detonating it and blowing both of us to Hades?"

"How about my hands around your d.a.m.ned neck?" he suggested grimly. "Enough of this game. I want those answers, and I want them now."

Her eyes searched his face for a moment. Looking for what? he wondered. Mercy? Forgiveness? Or was she merely deciding how much she would tell him?

"I will have it all," he warned her, trying not to think of other ways in which he might have meant those words.

"Where do you wish me to start?"

"Your true name will do as a beginning."

"Califa is my true name."

"And your surname?"

"Claxton."

Dax's brows shot upward. "Claxton?Major Claxton, of the Coalition Tactical School on Carelia?"

Califa gaped at him, but recovered quickly. "You know of me?"

"What pilot doesn't? Your treatise on tactical strategies for the Rigel cla.s.s Starfighters is required reading even for"

d.a.m.nation, he thought as he cut himself off. She'd almost startled him into very incautious words there. But of all the things he might have expected, to find that this woman who had so beguiled him was one of the foremost authorities on tactical situations in the system was the very last. Any formally trained first-year flight student knew of her, and that she had retired to run the academy school after an injury. Her leg, he thought, still a little dazed. It was so barely noticeable he'd forgotten.

"How in Hades," he said slowly, "did the pride of the Coalition wind up"he gestured to the collar"like this?"

"I...".

Her voice trailed off. She still seemed a little startled herself. No doubt that an outlaw skypirate had heard of her, Dax thought wryly, regaining his equilibrium now. Or, at least as much of it as he ever seemed to have around her. Odd how finding out she was one of his hated enemies had had little effect on that.

"May I sit?" she said at last. Dax gestured at the empty chair beside the table. She sat, looked at him for a moment, then lowered her gaze.

"They...the Coalition hold me responsible for the escape of a slave. A gold collar. The only one to ever escape. They made me a gold collar to replace him."

Hasn't been but one gold collar ever escape, and a lot of people parted company with their heads over it. And even more just plain disappeared.

The prison guard's words echoed in his mind, giving credence to her story.

"Why you?" he asked.

"The slave was at my school."

"You...owned him?" G.o.d, how ironic, he thought when she nodded reluctantly. "Did you help him?"

"No! I had sold him before he escaped."

"How convenient," Dax said, feeling his stomach knot at this casual talk of selling a man. "Why were you blamed?"

"Because I had owned him last."

Dax blinked. "Well, that makes a Coalition kind of sense I suppose. Could you not convince them it wasn't your fault?"

"I hoped to, at first. To regain my honor, I mean. But as they began to...train me, I realized I could not buy back what had never existed."

That, Dax thought, is learning the truth the hard way. "Why were they so convinced you were guilty?"

She raised her gaze to his face. "They thought at first I had sold him to the dealer and then taken him back to sell him again in the underground market. To deprive them of both a slave and his value made them very angry. When they realized he had truly escaped, they a.s.sumed I had helped him. They were furious."

"Pleasant thought," Dax began, then, as what she'd said registered, he asked, "What dealer?"

She lowered her eyes again.

"What dealer?" he repeated, his voice deadly soft.

"Ossuary," she whispered.

He straightened up and his raised foot hit the floor. "d.a.m.n you to Hades," he spat out. "I should have let them kill you. Better yet, I should have left you there in that prison, so they could ship you there. It would be a small piece of justice for you to wind up in that abyss. Perhaps I can still arrange it."

Her head came up then. Her eyes were moist, the pale blue brilliant now, but she didn't shirk his burning gaze again. Whatever else she was, she had courage, he thought.

"I make no excuses," she said. "I was born to this system. It's all I've ever known. Slaves were always there, not to be thought about, any more than a child's pet. From the day I entered theCoalitionAcademy , I was taught how to handle them, and that we had the right to own them. It was as normal to me as firing thrusters to turn."

"And now?" His voice was still low and ominous, his gaze shifting to fasten on the collar that marked her as no better than those she'd once thought she owned.

"What do you want me to say? That I've learned my lesson? That a year as a slave has taught me the pure injustice of slavery? That now I know better, that no one should be able to own someone else? Would you even believe me if I said it, all of it?"

Dax leaned back against the edge of the table wearily. "I don't know."

He rubbed his temples, feeling an ache there to match the one in his shoulder. He didn't know what disturbed him most, that she had been a Coalition officer, or a slave owner. And seller. Or perhaps what was truly bothering him was that he had responded to a woman like her, with a heat he hadn't known in...ever.

"Couldn't you prove you didn't help him escape?" He wasn't sure why he was asking; the answer could make little difference.

"Does it matter?" She sounded as weary as he felt. "Haven't you already made up your mind?"

"We've gone this far. You might as well tell me the rest. Wasn't there some way for you to prove your innocence?"

"I have learned," Califa said flatly, "that guilt or innocence has little to do with Coalition justice."

"Congratulations," he said sardonically. "We've all known that for years."

"Perhaps it is easy to be right when you are not in the middle, looking out."

"Can't see the zipbugs for the swarm? Perhaps. Why were you found guilty?"

She hesitated, then seemed to make her decision. "Because I wouldn't tell them who was."

Dax went very still. "What?"

"I knew who helped him. At least, I had a good idea."

"But you didn't turn them in? To help yourself?"

"I...could not."

"Why?"

"I...It's a very long story."

"I've got time. But those men outside will be running short on patience soon."

It was a moment before she spoke again, and he could tell by her voice it was a painful process.

"I had a...friend, a shipmate, when I was on active duty. Younger than I, but we got along well. We flew together for a while. We used to joke about who would get her own ship first. But then I got hurt, and was retired."

"You didn't want that?"

Her head snapped up. "Of course not! Would you like never to fly again?"

He had to give her that one. "No."

"They said I couldn't. That I wasn't...fit."

"Your leg seems to give you very little trouble," he remarked.

"Enough so that you noticed," she pointed out, her voice bitter with loss.

"Actually," he said, "the guard at the prison told me, or I might not have been sure for some time."

Distracted, she looked at him quizzically. "Why did the guard tell you that?"

Dax coughed. "I, er, asked him if you were for sale, too."

He saw her swallow visibly. "You would have bought me? To get me out of there?"

"To get us all out of there," he corrected, irritated. Why did people always seem to think he was some kind of altruist, when there wasn't an altruistic bone in his body? "I wasn't doing you any favor, just trying to avoid a fight. So what does this friend of yours have to do with it?"

"Shaylah was...different. She only wanted to fly. She never really saw eye to eye with the Coalition."

"Sounds like my kind of woman," he muttered, and was surprised when Califa flushed. "If that was her att.i.tude," he said, "she must not have gotten far in the ranks."

"Oh, but she did. She had her own starfighter at twenty-four. Shaylah Graymist was the youngest graduate ever to make captain."

Something tugged at Dax, some memory he couldn't bring to the surface. He wrestled with it for a moment, then gave up and gestured to Califa to continue.

"She collected medals like coins. She once destroyed three Romerian warships that had tried to attack Zenox."

That, Dax thought, would have taken some fine flying. And fighting. But he said nothing; something else about Califa's account, something in her voice, distracted him. There was pride for her friend there, but something else as well.