Engaging the Enemy Read Free Page A

attackers.
    After the meal, she settled into her cabin to consider what next. A year ago—was it really that long?—she had been a happy, ambitious fourth-year cadet in the Slotter Key Spaceforce Academy, looking forward to a career as a Spaceforce officer and a relationship with her fellow cadet Hal. Since then she had been kicked out of the Academy and dumped by the man she loved. Her subsequent career as a trader in the family business—which she had expected to be boring—had been marked by war, mutiny, attempted assassinations, and finally the capture—from a rogue Vatta—of this very ship. Her family and its thriving interstellar business had been almost destroyed. Her own government had sent her a clandestine letter of marque, authorizing her to act as a privateer on its behalf, shortly before refusing to defend or support her family when some enemy attacked. Now she was supposed to save what was left of the family and business, with no allies and too few assets.
    Too many changes too fast. She focused her attention on the ship again, checking system by system via her cranial implant. All systems nominal, and her senses told her everything felt, smelled, sounded normal as well. She had no excuse to avoid the larger issues. What was she going to do next? Where would the next attack come from?
    Not while they were in FTL flight, at least. She activated the sleep cycle enabler for the second time, and woke eight hours later, this time clearheaded enough to realize that the first sleep hadn’t been enough. Now she felt solid out to the edges again. Ready to work. She considered another workout in the gym, but decided instead to work on what she least wanted to do, methodically go through Osman’s cargo list and assign her best guess at the value, item by item. Some of it was easier than she expected, thanks to her father’s implant. Some was nearly impossible—who could say what someone would pay for prohibited technology most people didn’t know existed?
    Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she had been up for two hours without eating. In the galley, she ignored the enticing Premium Gold Breakfast Pak—she felt bloated with all the good food they’d been enjoying—and settled for a protein bar and mug of juice. Someone had left a sticky mug and bowl in the sink; she rinsed it automatically as she considered an array of options. She had two ships now:
Gary Tobai,
old and slow, and this one, larger, faster, and—most usefully—very well armed. The nucleus of a fleet, albeit a very small fleet. If she was going to command a fleet, she needed a staff. Before that, she needed a full crew of capable personnel on each ship…and before that, she needed to know how much money she had to hire the capable personnel and supply the ships…
    â€œâ€™Morning, Captain.” Gordon Martin reached past her for a bowl and poured a modest serving of dry flakes into it. He looked, as always, like the veteran soldier he had been before he joined her crew. “I’ve finished the security survey; Osman’s bad boys didn’t have time to put in many traps. All disarmed.”
    â€œThat’s good,” Ky said.
    â€œDo you object to my doing some practice on the firing range today?” he asked. “I’ve checked the reinforcement of the target frames; it’s plenty safe for what I’m using.”
    â€œThat’s fine,” she said. She should get in some practice time, too. “Martin, I wanted to talk to you about command structure, now that I have two ships—”
    â€œThink you can keep this one?” he asked, pouring milk onto his flakes.
    â€œI’m going to keep this one,” Ky said. “It’s a Vatta ship. I’m restoring it to its proper ownership.”
    â€œWell, then. You’re talking tables of organization?”
    One did not say
I guess so
to older veterans, which was Martin’s