that button-" The trooper pointed.

Ky pressed the button, and other telltales turned yellow, then green.

In moments a man's face took shape on the viewscreen. He wore the Mackensee uniform and metal shapes whose significance she did not know on his shoulders and lapels. Gray hair cut close, a broad face, green eyes.

"I'm Colonel Eustace Kalin," he said. "I'm in command of the local Mackensee forces. You're Captain Vatta, is that right?"

"Yes, I'm Captain Vatta," Ky said.

"Captain, we have business to discuss, which would best be

discussed face-to-face. I'd like you to come aboard-"

Ky shook her head. "Colonel, this is my ship, and the captain does not leave the ship-not willingly that is-while in transit."

His brows went up. "You regret our giving you emergency medical

care?"

"Not at all, Colonel," Ky said. "I'm glad you did, and grateful for your surgeons' skill. But now I am healthy. My place is here, aboard my ship, until we are safely docked somewhere. My second- in-command was killed when some of the... the passengers...

attempted to take over the ship."

"I see," he said. "In that case... we have been asked by the ISC to tow your ship back to orbit near Sabine Prime. I understand that you have no onboard power?"

"That's correct," Ky said. "The individuals who attempted to gain control of the ship caused the drive to malfunction, and we are out of fuel. However, I am not willing to have this ship treated as a derelict and subject to wreckers' law."

"What would you do if we didn't tow you back?" he asked. "You have no FTL drive; you have no working insystem drive... Were you planning to get out and paddle? Do you really think you're in a position to make conditions?"

"All situations are negotiable," Ky said, quoting her father. "I could,

for instance, hire you myself to tow us back."

He laughed. "You don't scare easily, Captain Vatta. All right. With your permission and not under wreckers' law, making no claim on

hull or cargo other than that which we contracted with you to carry, will you permit us to tow you back to Sabine Prime near-orbit where we can carry on this discussion in a less public venue?"

"Thank you," Ky said. "I accept your offer of transport." "What we need to do then is let your engineering staff talk to my engineering staff about where to grapple on." He shook his head slightly. "I'm beginning to believe what Master Sergeant Pitt and Major Harris said about you, Captain Vatta." She had no idea what they'd said-what she remembered best were their comments on young women who harbored rescue fantasies and were too susceptible to young men. But the Colonel almost sounded approving, like the Academy Commandant on a good day.

Three hours later, the Glennys Jones was snugged up to the flank of a Mackensee warship, and Quincy and her Mackensee counterpart were deep in conversation with hull schematics. A score of pressure-suited troopers were going over the outside of the hull under their direction, applying some kind of test equipment to various points. Ky didn't have a clue what that meant. The medic had been back to the bridge to remind her to eat her bread and fruit mush. He reported that the passengers were all doing well, sucking down the liquid food packets as fast as they were allowed.

Ky finally went to bed when she couldn't stop yawning, only to wake a few hours later when her stomach lurched sideways and then up. She called the bridge.

"Just an adjustment to the artificial gravity," Garlan said. "We had a little trouble synching our AG to the warship's when they tried a microjump with us attached. But that bled off a lot of speed."

"What about our hull strength?"

"That's fine, Captain. There's no strain on the linkage, it was just

the delta vee surge of the double endim transition. Since you're awake, they wanted to know if they could do it again, to save time on the way back."

"Let me check with the passengers," Ky said. She struggled up, splashed water on her face, and called down to the holds. The medic answered. "How are they doing?" she asked.

"That gravity surge didn't help," he said. "Their guts aren't that stable yet. What happened?"

"Microjump by your ship. They want to do it again."

"Tell 'em to wait twelve hours," he said.

Ky called back to the bridge, and relayed that. Then she sagged against the headboard of her bunk. She was awake, tired, frustrated, and worried.

Twelve hours and fourteen minutes later, the ship seemed to lurch again. This time Ky had been able to warn everyone it was coming, and the medic reported that the passengers had come through without incident. Some of them were now eating bland solids. She had been given permission to try a proper breakfast, which tasted delicious.

They came out of that microjump in close orbit around Sabine Prime. Ky looked at the scan when the screens cleared and felt her stomach clench on the breakfast it had earlier accepted. Prime's

orbital station held several civilian ships, including Vatta Transport, Ltd.'s Katrine Lamont.

"What-" She swallowed an epithet. "What is that doing there?""I don't know," Lee said. "Last I heard, the Kat was over on the Beulah Road route."

"I knew they'd have heard," Ky said. "But I didn't think they'd be crazy enough to send a ship in."

"Next scheduled carrier?""Not likely. When we were here before I looked that up, and it was four months off the Elaine of Gault. It only feels like four months."

The com tech waved at her. "Captain, you've incoming traffic-""Right." She sat down in her seat and prepared to grill the colonel to find out what he knew. But the face that came up was not Colonel Kalin. The dour, lined face looking back at her belonged to the captain of Katrine Lamont. She knew it all too well. When she'd been an apprentice, shipped out to experience the wonders of space and get her mind off what her mother called "that military nonsense," Josiah Furman had been the captain of that ship, taking obvious pleasure in putting a Vatta youngling to the nastiest and more boring chores. She'd come back more determined than ever not to be stuck in ordinary civilian transport.

She couldn't think of anyone-barring her mother-she wanted to

see less.

"You've made a fine mess of things," he said. "You weren't supposed to be anywhere near Sabine... but then you never did follow orders."

That was unfair, she had followed many orders, many stupid orders, many boring orders. She had followed most orders, including his. She tried not to see the expression on the Mackensee com tech's face, just as the com tech was very obviously trying not to look at her.

"What did you think you were doing?" he went on, not waiting for an answer, as if he were her actual parent. "First, you make an idiot of yourself at the Academy, and then you can't even carry out a simple, uncomplicated voyage without getting the entire company in an uproar. Do you have any idea the profits you're costing us by this?"

It was a pause, if not the pause she wanted. "Trade and profit," Ky said, fighting to keep her voice even. "Vatta captains are expected to take advantage of opportunities-"

"Experienced captains," he said. "Captains who know what they're doing. You-I got pulled off my route, with loss of early-delivery bonuses, just because you couldn't do what you were told and deliver that useless excuse for a ship to the wrecking yard. Because of you," he said, and glared at her.

She was tired, hungry, grieving, and this was totally unfair. All those emotions tangled in her throat, and she could say nothing. Had her father told Furman to scold her this way? He hadn't scolded her about the Academy... Was he angry now?

"My father-," she finally said. "Your father told me to come pick up the pieces and be sure you were safe. Pulled me right off my route, told me to skip two destinations. So I have to divert, load up your cargo, load your crew, haul your cargo to Belinta, that armpit of the region, before I can get back to my route, and take you home. My customers will be upset-"

"You can't do that," Ky said.

"I don't want to, but your father said-"

"I mean, you can't take our cargo to Belinta. We have cargo there,

in storage, for Leonora and Lastway."

"Then it will have to stay there. I am not going to Leonora and

Lastway, and neither are you. I've seen the reports- Glennys Joneswill never make it out of the system. I'll sell it for scrap here-""You will do no such thing," Ky said. Her jumbled emotions had settled with anger on top, and at that moment she felt she could leap across space and remove his head without a weapon. "With repairs -simple repairs-this ship is quite capable of taking cargo to Belinta and beyond, and that is what I will do. I am in command of this ship, not you." That last came out weaker than she meant.

"You're under tow," Furman said. "You can't even dock with the station-which, by the way, I understand you left illegally, without permission. Your ID beacon is transmitting the wrong data. They won't let you dock." He smirked. On his big, heavy face it looked particularly disgusting.

Ky hadn't thought of that complication. The moment in which she had elected emergency undock over the possibility of being blown up with the station seemed years in the past. Had it only been a few hands of days?

"It was an emergency situation," Ky said. "Other ships also broke

loose-"

"But not Vatta ships," he said. "You've damaged our reputation, you've cost us millions, and now you make excuses-enough of this. Your father sent me out here to take care of things, and that's what I'm going to do. I'll sell the ship for scrap, transport your cargo to Belinta and your crew back to a nexus where you can catch a passenger ship home. Get your things and be ready to leave in-"

Ky stabbed at the board and cut the connection before what she

thought emerged from her mouth. Her vision hazed.

"That was interesting," Lee said softly. "He seems to think you're still a schoolgirl..."

"Apparently," Ky said. She tried to control her breathing, her face, her voice. It would have been so satisfying to throw something breakable at something immovable.

"Who is that?" asked the Mackensee com tech.Ky took a deep breath. "He was captain on the ship where I served my junior apprenticeship," she said. "We did not get along. To be fair, at thirteen I was the typical adolescent brat, and the youngest of my family. I'd been sent off because my parents thought I was spoiled, and they were right. But he... did not help."

"And they sent him to help you now?" The tech's face expressed

unexpected sympathy.

"Probably he was closest," Ky said. She hoped that was it. She hoped it wasn't an unsubtle message from her father that she had screwed up yet again, and worse. "Look," she said to the tech. "I

really need to talk to home-to headquarters-about this. Is there