Silverfleet and Claypool

Silverfleet was packed like the delicate instrument she was inside her shipping container, hurtling through the darkness at all but the speed of light. It was time for the change-over from acceleration to deceleration, and she was awake and nominally in command.

Vanessa would take care of everything, including padding her precious pilot against 98% of the change from positive 125 gees to negative 125 gees, but in the one in ten thousand times when a ship in flight between stars had a serious problem, this, in forty-nine out of fifty cases, was when it occurred, and if the pilot didn’t manage to do something, the ship would fly right on and never stop. Where were those ships now, including a Central troopship the young Silverfleet had helped escort, with a hundred and fifty marines on board?

Vanessa did not err. Silverfleet did not learn the answer to her question. But in that moment in the strange frame of reference immediately around her body, packed tight in its suit and its ship in the unimaginable night while outside the light from behind struggled to catch up and the light from ahead all arrived at once and the light from everywhere else made glancing curves about the fighter, she peered out of her eyes as if into the depths of a clear well. Far down the ripples of changing density and interacting gravities destroyed the designs that were there and made new designs of their own and the eye could not be sure and so she was not sure, but what was it she thought was emerging in the depths, what was elbowing its way past the photons at the end of so long a journey, rising like a bubble from what—what?

Two days later the two fighters were decelerating into a system that consisted mainly of three middle-aged to elderly suns: a red giant and two small, cool yellow stars. They danced in lock step, and around them a few chunks of rock tiptoed, the largest one barely massive enough to be rounded into a sphere by gravity. There were, as Silverfleet had predicted, no actual planets, but there was a small station riding the gravity flux around the three stars.

“They’ve got to be friendly,” said Silverfleet in a weary voice. “They look like scientists.”

“I am picking up scientific instruments in use,” Claypool confirmed. “They must be observing the three suns. The station seems pretty heavily armed, though.”

“It’s a wild and woolly place out here,” said Silverfleet. “I’m sending the first hello. What do you think, friendly, formal, neutral?”

“Science station,” Suzane Claypool’s voice called out, “we are two ships. We come in peace, and we request the privilege of docking. —How was that?”

“I’m sure it was fine, Suz. We won’t know for another twenty hours. Say?”

“What?”

“Do you have—strange dreams? I mean, when we’re at lightspeed?”

“Mine are all chase dreams,” Claypool replied. “I’m always trying to squeeze out the bathroom window. I’m always way too big in my dreams, I can barely fit through doors. And running. I can barely stay on the ground. What were your dreams, Commander?”

“I’m not sure they were dreams. But if you say you didn’t see anything, then—”

“What? I don’t think I saw anything. What did you see?”

“I can’t quite say.”

“Well,” said Claypool, “as long as it wasn’t a bunch of guys in white coats with goggles, we’re probably fine.”

Eighteen hours later, they got the reply from the station. Its computer was answering, for now, and it counseled patience. “Incoming ships, please hold at present distance until chain of command can be completed.”

“But can’t we at least dock?” Silverfleet replied. “We really do come in peace. And can we have some idea when the chain of command will be completed?” She sent her reply off into the void, and they continued speeding toward the base while their communication ran ahead of them about four times as fast.

“I hope they won’t be offended at our coming closer,” said Claypool.

“Suz, they can’t really mean for us to just sort of go into orbit six light-hours from the station and wait an undetermined time for them to get back to us. For all we know there isn’t even anyone on the station.”

“Oh, there’s a great thought,” said Claypool. “Commander, um, Halyn, I just want you to know that I am rather looking forward to stretching out in an actual bed. I hate to just turn right around and go back to lightspeed.”

“I feel exactly the same. Besides—you know, like, what dreams may come?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

They had halved again their distance to the station when the computer told them again to wait. “Please do not close distance any further,” it advised gruffly. “You require assurance from command link. Please wait for chain of command to be completed.”

“This is stupid,” said Silverfleet. “I’m not waiting out here for the computer to decide whether its colonists are dead or just sleeping. —Station, please locate your command authority and inform them of our arrival. Um, please wake them if you need to, and get back to us. Thanks. —Was that all right?”

“I guess so,” said Claypool. “But look, why not find an asteroid to clamp onto? We can get out, stretch our legs and wait for them to wake up.”

“Got any place in mind?”

“Well, how about—how about that one? Um, 44 by 69, I read about two hundred million kilometers, which is just about exactly where max deceleration would put us.”

“Ice and rock, forty kilometers across,” Silverfleet added as they cruised forty kilometers apart at 40,000 kilometers per hour. “Okay, but let it be entered into the record that you’re getting your way again.”

Eight hours later the two fighters came to a screeching halt in the neighborhood of a spherical mass of slushy gravel. They swung around and skidded in for a soft landing. “Is it even solid?” asked Claypool.

“Hmm . . . alcohol ices,” replied Silverfleet. “Unusual, but not unheard of. Some of them have very low freezing points. I’d guess tidal heating from the three suns could warm this thing to the point where some of those alcohols are a bit runny.”

“Can we stand on it?”

“Well, our ships aren’t sinking. The gravity’s minimal. You wanted to stretch your legs?”

“Yes, oh yes!”

When they got out, they found that there were enough chunks of rock that they didn’t have to worry much about footing. The tiny asteroid had an atmosphere of sorts—gases thawed from the surface by tidal heating, lingering briefly before escaping into space. There were also several kilometer-size pieces of rock hovering in the sky, as the planetoid slowly attracted more mass from among the debris in the system. Three suns hung in the sky, all about equal in apparent size, since the red giant was the furthest.

They took a walk, and found that large parts of the surface were dry, rounded gravel crammed with silt, almost as if a river had run there, but of course the river was escaping into the sky. They worked their way back around a decayed crater, put up the tent between the two fighters and climbed in as it filled up with air. Then they ate a polite dinner, had a few drinks and slept as they never could at light-speed. While they slept, their ships quietly sampled the ice on which they sat and traded what they could use for the most useless waste they had generated since Black Rock.

Four hours later, Claypool and Silverfleet were lying side by side making chit-chat about food, when the comm units tolled. They got up and went to look—it was the station calling.

“Incoming ships, you are warned to vacate the exclusion zone around this station until chain of command has been completed. A warning went out and you continued to approach. This station senses a hostile act and will defend itself.”

“What?” Silverfleet seethed to Claypool as they leaned over Claypool’s fighter. “We can’t stop on a dime. We were going a quarter of lightspeed. We’re just two fighters! We aren’t a threat to anyone!”

“What shall we do? What reply should I send?”

“I don’t know. Tell them we come in peace. Tell them to get their chain of command completed forthwith. You still want to go to the station?”

“I don’t know, Halyn. Maybe we should just fly on.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about that,” replied Silverfleet. “Let’s pack up, and we can look over the possibilities when we’re ready to take off.”

They got dressed and gathered up their minor belongings and stood by as the ships sucked the tent back in. Then they climbed in and sealed up and unhooked from the icy ball. They spent a minute or two looking over the starmaps before departing.

“Well,” Claypool replied, “if we want to stay away from that station, how about this little one at 499, 702, –691? Red giant, possible planets. What do you think?”

“Hey! That bastard. It fired missiles.”

“What? You mean the station?”

“I mean the station’s computer. Look.” Silverfleet waited two seconds for her display to compute, then went on: “Twenty type 5 missiles. It’s seeing us out of the system.”

“Well, then,” said Claypool, “the red giant?” But Silverfleet had already turned Vanessa toward the station. “Halyn?” Claypool called. “Are you nuts? What are you doing?” It was perfectly clear what Silverfleet was doing: she was doing a hundred gees toward the missiles.

It took them ten hours to cover the one and a half light-hours that separated them from the cloud of missiles, and for the first six they didn’t exchange a word. Finally Claypool gave in. “All right,” she said, “what attack pattern?”

“Just leave this to me,” Silverfleet replied.

“Halyn!”

“I mean it. I know I’m being stupid. I know you don’t agree. So just let me take responsibility for this. All right?”

“No, it’s not all right. If you’re going to do something stupid, Commander, you have to let me help. It’s my duty as your second in command.”

The next four hours passed without much more communication than that.

Silverfleet was still a hundred kilometers in front as they braked hard to meet the oncoming missiles. She was inclined to allow them to get in close before she started taking them out, but before they were within twenty kilometers, three photon shots came in over her shoulder, taking out two of the missiles. With a mild curse, Silverfleet went into her attack pattern, pulling left and then hard right along the first line. She hit one, two, three, four, five and then flipped completely around, smiling to see the rest of her tiny attackers turn her way.

She fired four more shots and there were four fewer missiles when she started accelerating toward them again, and then she took three more with another deft maneuver, her fighter brain outsmarting the missiles’ far superior maneuverability. The rest wavered, out of not fear but confusion as Claypool came up behind them. More shots, more hits, and there was not a missile to be seen among the diffuse micro-wreckage.

“All right,” said Claypool, “you proved your point. Now—”

“Down!” cried Silverfleet. “Now!”

Claypool dropped, and the last missile dropped to strike, and Silverfleet let loose a single bolt of light. A hundred meters from its target, the missile blew in a tiny explosion.

The station itself was no match for the two of them. It was well-equipped with flectors and photon artillery, but they could maneuver and it couldn’t. And up close, it was enormous. They were blackflies and it was a cow. Its flector housings alone were the size of fighters, and they weren’t accelerating at four kilometers per second per second. These went first, along with the missile bay doors, and then the artillery posts, and finally the combat control nodes were surgically removed under Silverfleet’s knife. Then she shot her way into the bay. All Claypool could do was follow.

They got out and looked around—there was a slightly out-of-date fighter and a couple of long-unused floaters and a shuttlecraft, and along the back wall a couple of custom-made mining craft. There was no air in the bay now because of Silverfleet’s mode of entry, so Claypool had to wait until they were through the airlock to ask, “And just what do you hope to accomplish in here?”

“I hope to accomplish sleeping in a damn bed,” said Silverfleet, stalking off down a curving corridor.

“But Halyn—you mean you shot up the whole station just so you could sleep in a bed? What if there isn’t a bed?”

“No,” said Silverfleet, peeking into a storeroom, “I shot it up because it had the gall to fire on us. And by the way, you almost got killed out there.”

“Oh. Yes. I’m sorry. Thanks for saving my life, Halyn. Again.”

“No problem.” Claypool followed Silverfleet up a spiral stair. Silverfleet looked around, struck off down another corridor. “There’s a bed, all right,” she called over her shoulder. “This place is inhabited, sometimes at least. Why else would there be a fighter?”

“Well, then, where are they?” Claypool asked. “And what will you do when they return?”

“I’ll tell them the first bowl of porridge was too hot, and the second one was too cold. Because I know that bed’s going to be just right, wherever the hell it is. Anyway, whoever it is, is off in some sort of planetary scout ship. You can guess the size from the vacant space in the bay.”

“But Halyn—what are you going to say to explain all the damage?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” said Silverfleet, trying a door. Inside was a small room filled with a gravity bed, and in a few minutes their suits were floating above them as they lay, fast asleep among the pillows where they had landed.

“Mmm,” said Claypool, “I take it all back. This was a great idea.”

“I’m glad you like it,” replied Silverfleet.

“This bed just feels so good,” said Claypool.

“Oh, yeah, nothing like a gravity bed,” replied Silverfleet. “I feel like my spine has expanded ten centimeters.”

“Yeah,” said Claypool. Their conversation continued in that vein for some minutes. Then a soft sound almost distracted them.

“Um—?” asked a voice.

“What?” they both replied, bouncing up to sitting positions. The door was open and there stood an elderly man and a young woman, both in vac suits. The man seemed embarrassed, while the young woman was getting an eyeful. Claypool pulled a big cushion up to cover herself.

“Oh, are you the people who live here?” asked Silverfleet, getting out of bed and starting to put on her vac suit. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with you, you see.”

“Um, well, yes,” said the man, “we do live here, though I’m afraid we’ve been rather lax about answering our messages. You see, we’re scientists, and we’re studying the effects of the gravitational and magnetic interactions of the three stars on the other bodies in the system—”

“It sounds fascinating,” replied Silverfleet sincerely.

“Oh, it is, it certainly is. But it takes us away from the station for long periods. My granddaughter and I just got back from a planetoid that’s in the L5 point of Beta and also the L4 point of the giant.”

“Both at the same time?” Silverfleet replied incredulously. “How is that possible?”

“With reference to the system center of mass. The stars act as though they’re all rigidly attached to it. But the other bodies move about in an assortment of patterns. This planetoid we’re looking at right now is, you know, very unstable, it’s got a lot of volcanism, but it also has carbon dioxide icecaps. We’ve been spending a lot of time there, granddaughter Tilla and I. My daughter’s been out getting some supplies. She should be back in system by now.”

“Where does she go?”

“Oh, Colfax, actually.” Silverfleet made a face. “I can see you’ve been there.”

“Just came from there. She’s flying a supply ship of some sort?”

“Yes, a mini free trader. You must’ve passed her on the way—it takes about three weeks to make the jump.”

“We take five days,” said Silverfleet. “Actually, I should mention, we sort of knocked out your defense system. We were provoked—it fired on us.”

“Yes, I’d noticed some damage,” he said politely. “I was going to ask.”

“Just the two of you?” asked the young woman. “Did all that? The flectors are, like, gone.”

“Sure,” said Claypool, still hugging the pillow. “Have you ever heard of Halyn Silverfleet?”

“The famous fighter pilot?”

“Well, that’s her, right there,” Claypool explained. “I’m Suzane Claypool. I’m her, uh, second.”

“Nice to meet you, Pilot Claypool,” said the man, extending a hand. She shook it, holding the pillow tightly with her other hand. “My name is Dr. Frederik, Deon Frederik, and this is my granddaughter Tilla Pool. Her mother should be back from shopping soon—my daughter, Paula Pool. We only came back to get some things. We don’t stay here very much—we’ve got a dozen homes on various pieces of rock in the system.”

“You guys disabled the whole defense system by yourselves?” Tilla reiterated.

“It was mostly Halyn,” Claypool explained. “I’m, um, afraid that the station wasn’t much of a challenge for her—she’s the best fighter pilot in the, um, galaxy.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Tilla, “everyone’s heard of her.”

“I’m sure I’m not,” said Silverfleet. “Look, I’m afraid I did get a bit carried away. Why does a station like this need such a big tough defense system, anyway? Got lots of precious metals?”

“Uh, no, just equipment, actually,” said Dr. Frederik. “But there are pirates.”

“Really? Out this far?”

“Oh, there are all sorts of people out here. I never thought when I came out here with my family that we’d meet anyone but maybe some sort of alien life form, but there are humans all over the place.” He laughed. “We haven’t seen an alien yet. We’re still waiting.”

“But the pirates are a threat?” asked Claypool. “What do they want?”

“Oh, materials, fuel. But the last time they came we’d just upgraded station defense, and old Fritz sent them packing. That’s what my daughter calls the computer.” He frowned. “But I guess you did a pretty good job on it.”

“Sorry,” said Silverfleet. “All we wanted was a place to rest.”

“We’ll fix it,” said Claypool. “And in the meantime, we’ll be station defense.”

“Of course we will,” added Silverfleet.

“But you two can handle a whole wing of pirates?” asked Tilla.

“Uh, sure,” Silverfleet replied.

“We may yet see,” said Dr. Frederik. “Shall we move to the arboretum for some refreshment?”

“We left Central, oh, twenty some years ago.” Dr. Frederik took a sip of his brandy and looked at Tilla. “You were born in 3339?”

“333-eight,” said Tilla. “At Parorum. My dad was Thad Hewlis, the drive theorist. He died at Central before I was born. That’s why Mom and I went with Grampa.”

“How did your father die?” asked Claypool.

“Street crime,” said Dr. Frederik. “He was killed by thugs for a few thousand cred. The week’s transport fare. It about killed Paula—my daughter.”

“That’s terrible,” said Claypool. “So Paula came out here to help you?”

“She’d never taken much interest in astronomy, she studied biology at university, but she’s got a, well, natural flare for solar science.”

“Very good,” said Silverfleet. “A natural flare. And is she also your fighter pilot?”

“I do a lot of the flying,” said Tilla. “I managed to fit our lander in the bay without even touching your fighters, by the way. They look pretty nice.”

“Mine’s Vanessa,” said Silverfleet. “I don’t think Suzane named hers.”

“Oh, she has a name,” Claypool put in, “I just don’t tell anyone.”

“She’s very mysterious. So, is that your fighter in the bay? The 211, I think it is?”

“Yes!” said Tilla. “Isn’t it nice? It’s not as nice as yours.”

“It’s a bit of a rarity,” said Silverfleet. “They only made the 211’s for a couple of years. I think it was a pretty good fighter, but I went straight from the 206 to the 220. To Vanessa, in fact. Now everyone has one. It’s become the standard fighter. They make 220’s on a dozen different planets, but you can’t tell one from another.”

“They’re very reliable,” Claypool put in.

“More reliable than pilots, anyway,” Silverfleet added.

“So how did you two come to be out here?” asked Dr. Frederik.

“Oh, fleeing from oppression,” said Silverfleet.

“We were part of a fleet defending Talis,” Claypool explained. “From pirates, usually. The White Hand instigated a civil war and then intervened in it. They sent a big fleet and the marines, and they defeated us, despite Silverfleet’s best efforts. She had four kills, and I had two, but the rest of our side kind of underperformed.”

“We two got six,” said Silverfleet, “but that was all we had going for us. Their big ships were coming up, so we fled, Suzane and I. I didn’t even know there were any survivors besides me, but when I decelerated into Marelon, there she was. It wasn’t long before Central followed us, and again we were surrounded by untrained and/or incompetent pilots, and again we were the only ones to escape. We’ve been in flight ever since. We have no idea where we’re going.”

“You’re wanted on Central, or something?” asked Dr. Frederik.

“No, no,” replied Silverfleet. She looked at Claypool and wondered how to explain. She wondered what the truth was. “I don’t know, Suz,” she said, “are you wanted on Central?”

“I don’t think either of us is very popular with White Hand.” She looked back and forth at their hosts. “You’re not White Hand—are you?”

“Oh, of course not,” said Dr. Frederik. “Hardly. Of course when we left Central they were just getting started. One thought, perhaps they would be able to solve Central’s many problems. Crime, you know, corruption.” He looked at Tilla and added, “Murder in the streets. But it’s a pipe dream. Such a solution would involve much greater crimes than robbery resulting in homicide. But we haven’t heard a thing since we left. They were talking about closing down the University system. Did they?”

“You mean ‘the Department of Right Doctrine’?” Claypool replied. “No, they’re not supporting science the way they used to.”

“They’ve been good for the fighter wings,” said Silverfleet. “They made a half-hearted effort to convert me, once upon a time—as you’d imagine, I was not their type. They love interfering in things that aren’t their area of specialization—there’s the right way to educate, of course, and there’s also the right way to do business and marry and plan families and—if you can imagine it, the right way to go on vacation. They have authorized vacation packages. They don’t want you to enjoy your trip—they want it to make you proud to be human. The only areas they don’t interfere much with are the fighter wings and the ship factories. Those were working fine before the White Hand took over. And they were better off the way they were. The White Hand found that out at Alcen when I was just starting out. The Alcen fleet was mostly composed of Central First Fleet free agents who left when the Hand tried to impose their doctrine on them, and cut pay.”

“You fought for Central,” said Tilla, “and then you switched and helped defeat them. You had a dozen kills in the two battles.”

“No, not a dozen—can’t be. I believe I had six in the second battle. I admit I wasn’t that into it the first time—I think I had two, then my thrust got damaged and the battle moved away from me.”

“So you had two in the first one?” Tilla pressed her.

“All I care about,” Dr. Frederik put in, “is that you can rebuild the defense system. I have to admit I was somewhat concerned when we got a good look at the damage, and then when I saw the fighters in the bay I wondered if it was pirates. But they could never have done it, unless there were some new ones in the region. You can fix it, can’t you? Paula will help.”

“Sure, we can do it,” said Claypool. “Did you really have no idea we were in the system?”

“We don’t check our messages enough.”

“I’d say,” put in Silverfleet. “What if the pirates came?”

“The defense would deal with it. At least, that’s the idea. Of course, as you say, you’re our defense system until the station system is up again. But if even the two of you couldn’t defeat a wing of Central fighters, how will you defend us against a dozen or more pirates?”

“Good question,” said Silverfleet. “We’ve fought pirates before. That’s why we were in Talis.”

“Talis, eh? I think these came from that area.

“Now that’s interesting. We pretty much annihilated a wing that had been attacking ore ships around Talis, but I’m sure they were only part of something larger.”

“Silverfleet annihilated that wing pretty much by herself,” said Claypool. “The rest fled on hearing her name.”

“Oh, bull. Anyway, the ones we captured said they were part of a larger group, which is typical, but they certainly didn’t plague Talis any more after the whup-ass we put on them.”

“Lot of good it did Talis,” said Claypool. “Eight months later the government had been destabilized and the White Hand had taken over, backed by the Central First Starfleet.”

“Second,” said Silverfleet. “Not my old outfit. Oh, they were way different from the pirates. We couldn’t win the battle all by ourselves, although if we’d won, it would have been by ourselves.”

“Well,” said Dr. Frederik, “that fleet, whichever one it is, conquered star after star, and if they barely beat you two, then I’ll have no fear of the station falling while you defend it.”

“Let’s get to work,” said Claypool.

Silverfleet and Claypool tried to fix what they could for the next two days while they waited for Paula Pool to arrive, but station security was not close to their areas of expertise. Silverfleet also took the opportunity to learn more astronomy. She studied the stars, she studied the gap in the stars, the window onto far-off galaxies, and she studied what Frederik and his daughter were studying.

“I don’t really know what it all means,” she told Frederik. “Astronomy is just my hobby.”

“We’re learning all sorts of things about triple star systems. The pattern of solar winds and magnetism is very interesting.”

“Do you get any, you know, anomalous readings?”

“Practically all we get are anomalous readings,” Frederik replied with a chuckle. “Do you have anything in mind?”

“Oh, no. Well, all right. From the edge of the galaxy.”

“It’s far from being the edge,” he replied. “There are the halo objects, and the circumgalactic environment, but most of it’s not visual, so you hobbyists might think there’s nothing there but space.” Suddenly he looked thoughtful.

“What?” asked Silverfleet.

“The trouble with anomalous readings,” he said, “is that by definition they do not come with explanations. How many times have people thought they were receiving alien communication? But we’ve now colonized some of the places that were supposed to be full of little blue men with big eyes.”

“Dr. Frederik,” said Silverfleet, “are you picking up extragalactic communication?”

“No—like I said, we specialize in anomalous readings. No, if someone from the next galaxy decided to send us a message, as I’m sure you know, it’d take two million years to get here. A bit long of a lag time for a decent conversation.”

“So,” said Silverfleet, “it wasn’t communication. Do I have to guess what it was?”

“It wasn’t anything,” said Frederik. “It was just—just anomalous readings.”

“So,” said Paula Pool, “you’re the famous fighter pilots. It’s all my daughter could talk about on the comm on my way in.” They met in the bay control room, while Tilla stood nearby, hardly able to contain herself for the amount of awe she felt for the three women before her: tiny redhead Claypool, tiny brunette Silverfleet and her mom, the much taller, black-haired Paula. “Of course she wants to be a fighter pilot. The Great Silverfleet. You know how to fix photon units?”

“I’ll hold your wrenches,” replied Silverfleet.

“I think I can fix up your missile targeting,” offered Claypool.

“Really? Do you come with tools?”

“Just the fighter set. We don’t carry any extra weight.”

“It’s fine,” said Paula, going back into her lander. She came out a moment later with the lander’s tool pack as well as her own greasy and banged-up tool bag. She handed the lander’s tools to Claypool. “The missile control booth is directly above the bay. It’s just a three-meter-long crawl space, but it has everything, even the console.” She handed her bag to Silverfleet. “Here, you can carry this, since you offered.”

Three hours later, Halyn Silverfleet and Paula Pool were hip-deep in glass thread when the voice of Tilla Pool came from a speaker ten meters away. “Mom, Commander Silverfleet, Um, Ms. Claypool,” she called, “could you come to the bridge?”

Five minutes after that, all five people on the station were gathered in the main control. “Pirates,” said Frederik. “It’s their usual raiding party. A dozen fighters and a freighter. We’d normally trade with them from behind our, um, walls, but—well.”

“Hey,” said Tilla Pool, “you’ll have the defenses up by the time they get here, right?”

“You have to be joking,” her mother replied. “All the guts are pulled out and lying on the floor. We haven’t even started actually fixing it.”

“You would know this would happen right now,” said Claypool. “It’s as though they knew. But they couldn’t have. It’s just dumb luck.” She sighed. “So—”

“So,” said Silverfleet, feeling Tilla’s trust and Paula’s mistrust, “you still have your interim defenses.”

Half an hour later the two fighters were accelerating out of the vicinity of the station. Tilla had been talked out of chasing after them only by the duty of staying behind as the “last line of defense.” It was Claypool’s idea. In her outdated but mint-condition fighter, Tilla was taking up a patrol course behind them.

As they soared out into the blackness, their screens resolved the foe that swiftly approached. Communications flew out from the pirates to the station, a demand for loot without bargaining, and return communications rebuffed them, but the pirates had nothing to say to the two fighters. Claypool and Silverfleet played several dozen games of chess, ate some recycled waste and got some sleep while they waited for distance to close.

“What attack pattern?” asked Claypool when they were within thirty minutes, knowing that the pirates would overhear them.

“How about, you get these guys, I’ll take care of those guys?”

“Sounds good.”

Fifteen minutes before contact, six of the twelve pirate fighters broke off and tried to fly around the battle to get at the station, which was now twelve hours’ journey behind. The other six threw themselves at their two challengers. Silverfleet and Claypool split up. Silverfleet easily got around the side of the pirate line. One fighter took a photon in the drive and blew up, the next turned to fight but didn’t get a shot off before Silverfleet left it dead in space, and the third fired wildly and turned to flee. Another fighter was coming from the other direction, maneuvering and firing with the precision of an old hand—it was Claypool, finishing off her third pirate. Silverfleet turned after the fleeing fighter and put a photon shot into the centimeter-wide spot on its left side where its combat controller sat. Weaponless, the pirate bolted from the system.

“Any damage?” called Claypool from behind her.

“Only to my enemies,” replied Silverfleet, whipping around to chase the other six fighters. She noted one dead in space and two patches of debris where Claypool’s enemies had been. “Not too many prisoners this time.”

“I guess I got carried away.”

“Well, let’s get carried away about keeping those other six away from the station,” said Silverfleet. “We don’t really want Tilla to get her first taste of battle outnumbered six to one.”

“Right,” Claypool replied, and they set courses side by side back toward the station. It took about five minutes for the pirates to think better of running ahead of Claypool and Silverfleet; with a little communication, the six split up and soon were at full acceleration back where they came from. The freighter, which had never dropped below 20% of lightspeed, was now laboriously turning, too far out of the system still to easily catch. Twelve hours later, the two pilots were back at the station.

“You guys are good at what you do,” said Paula when they came out of the airlock.

“Yes!” gushed Dr. Frederik, grabbing them one at a time and shaking them by the shoulders. “It was really something! Boom, boom, boom!”

“Hitting that last one in the combat section was a good one,” said Tilla.

“Those pirates weren’t much,” Claypool explained.

“I was ready for them, by the way.”

“I know you were,” said Silverfleet. “Paula, shall we take the lander out and pick up their survivors?”

“There are people out there alive?” asked Tilla. “Can I go?”

“Sure,” said Silverfleet, smiling at Paula. “You can fly your fighter.”

Paula Pool gave Silverfleet a doubtful look, then shrugged, smiled and said, “Sure. Dad, will you be okay here? The defenses aren’t much better than they were.”

“We’ll take our fighters too,” said Silverfleet. “You’ll need more protection than he does.”

“What do you plan to do with these prisoners?” asked Dr. Frederik. “Keep them here?”

“We’ll see.”

Ten hours later, Paula pulled the shuttle back into the bay, and emerged with Silverfleet and Claypool and their two prisoners, the little brunette Jana Crown, who had been spared by Silverfleet, and the tough blonde Del Cloutier, who had survived Claypool.

“They’ll do as I say,” said Silverfleet. “Jana sees it as a matter of honor, and Cloutier earned her wings flying with me—Arturo, I think?”

“My home planet,” said Cloutier. “I don’t miss it. You, I appreciate you more now than I did then. I haven’t had a decent commander since. Halyn—can you please be my commander again? I’m tired of the pirate life.”

“Me too,” said Jana Crown. “Can we go back and take over the pirate base? I’m sure we can with you two. It’s a short jump from here.”

“Well,” said Silverfleet.

“So you know these people,” said Paula. “These pirates, that is.”

“I know Del Cloutier. Miss Crown, I don’t believe I’ve ever flown with.”

“She’s good,” said Cloutier. “Very good, actually. And trustworthy. Take my word as a former pirate. She never fit in among the pirates.”

“I don’t know what sort of assurances I expect,” said Paula, “as long as you fix up our defenses which you broke. And yes, if you go take these pirates over and root out the other pirates so we don’t have pirates anymore, that would be a positive.”

“I’m ready,” said Cloutier. “Start paying back my debt to society or whatever.”

“That can be next on our agenda,” said Claypool. “Halyn, we could use some more fighters.”

“For what it’s worth,” said Cloutier, “Silverfleet all by herself could take any ten of the pirates. I think we should do it. Is this all okay?” she added, glancing at Paula.

“Just so we get Fritz and all his weapons back up. Now,” she said to Silverfleet, “before your head gets too big to fit into the access tubes—!”

“Yes, I know,” said Silverfleet, “so we’d better be quick about it.”

Three weeks later, the station was slightly better than new, and Dr. Frederik almost seemed to have forgotten Claypool and Silverfleet had ever been there, and Tilla Pool and Jana Crown had gotten as much training as the Marelon fighters had ever had. Silverfleet and Claypool and Crown and Cloutier and the Pools were assembled outside the bay. All six female humans within ten light years were present as they said their goodbyes.

“We didn’t meet under the best of circumstances,” said Silverfleet to Paula, “but—”

“I hope you find someplace to settle down,” Paula replied. “That is what you want, isn’t it?”

“Take care of yourselves,” said Tilla.

“You too,” said Claypool. “Don’t be in too much of a hurry to get into battle.”

“Halyn,” said Paula, “Fritz is my baby, but he’s got a bit of a temper, so I guess I forgive you for trying to blow him up. Anyway—be careful, okay?”

“I will,” said Silverfleet, hugging Paula. “You too. And don’t trust those Colfaxers.”

“Are we ready?” asked Cloutier.

“Just about,” replied Silverfleet. “Um, Doc?”

“I’m sorry. What?” Dr. Frederik responded from a view screen, where he sat at the controls of a mining drone over a two-kilometer asteroid a few thousand kilometers away.

“These anomalous readings—have they been growing?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, like, in intensity? Or apparent size? Getting stronger?”

“There are lots of different unexplained signals,” replied Frederik. “We haven’t been able to analyze them all. Of course, we’re mostly focused on the three stars and their gravitational fields. So—judge for yourself. Do you want me to send the information over?”

“Sure,” said Silverfleet. She looked at the other three vac-suited women. “Pirate base in the Adamantine Planetoids?”

“Coordinates loaded,” said Cloutier.

“See you there,” said Claypool. “Let’s fly.”

“Yes, let’s,” said Silverfleet, climbing into Vanessa. In another ten seconds, with both the coordinates for the pirate base and the station’s summary log for the past year in her computer, she was leading her little wing out from the station and into the darkness at the galaxy’s frontier.