Ship Commander Tereshkova only appeared a decade older than me. She also appeared very upset. Given her rank and standard anti-aging treatments, she was probably twice my age. There was no mistaking, however, the scowl she wore or the angry tremble in her voice.

"I'm sorry," I said for the nth time, reminding myself that I actually out-ranked her and trying not to feel intimidated, "but the contract stipulates you only get paid when we get paid. Technically, we're only acting as a-"

"Do you have any idea how close to the margin we owner-operators operate? I have loan payments due and I've already defaulted on nearly a quarter of my crew contracts. Any one of them could file a complaint and I could end up with a lien on my ship and the cost of chartering transport back to Sol!"

"Shines Like the Sun did give you a generous bonus-"

"Only because the ships needed to refit and re-supply! We had to spend that money just to take the job. Besides, you still owe us our boost bonus. We were supposed to have that a week ago."

"Shines Like the Sun is very embarrassed about this. He's promised us an extra bonus for waiting."

"Embarrassed? He's the Cack ruler's brother. He owns whole star systems!"

"Which is how you can know he will make good on his promises. He's only run into a temporary cash-flow problem."

Tereshkova's eyes flashed as she glared into the video pickup. "I'm the one with the cash flow problem and if I don't get some cash flowing in here, you are going to lose a battle cruiser-and that will just be the beginning of your problems!"

She killed the link leaving me with either a veiled threat or a dire prediction. Tired of apologizing for our employer, I ignored the flashing message request icons from the other Ship Commanders and pulled up a view of our one-thousand-plus ship fleet passing single file through the transit station. I knew she wasn't the only one ready to leave. I had spent the whole morning logging similar messages from other SCs.

As we transited to another system in a careful circumnavigation of Unbounded occupied space, a swarm of merchant craft flashed the fleet with messages offering equipment and services at "low, low prices." They paced the fleet like hungry jackals, but not one of our ships signaled a request to break rank. None of our ships could afford to and I knew that only fed their anger.

If we were being hammered with complaints, I could only imagine how badly Sunshine's people were catching it. So it was no surprise when the Cacks scheduled a fleet-wide conference in v-space. We all logged into a virtual audience chamber as spectators to watch Sunshine address the fleet in his shiny plastic plumage. As Sunshine spoke, a machine-assisted human translator provided a second audio feed.

"My dear friends, I thank you for your patience and your trust. My father, the Ruler, once told me before he died, that of all the wealth one can accumulate, the best is friendship. It seems, now, that we are in this situation because of my embarrassing wealth of friends.

"When I first began this expedition, I intended to both deal with a personal problem and do a favor for my friends. Finding myself with more friends than I expected—or deserved—offering to assist me, I could not say no.

"I have not forgotten your difficulties and, having lain awake at night worrying about you, I believe I have found a solution. Negotiating on your behalf, I have secured a contract with Doggedly, a nearby regional manager who is having difficulties with a race outside the economic zone preying on his traders. In exchange for destroying their space-faring abilities, he has agreed to not only cover your boost bonus but to make your next three contract payments. Furthermore, you may take possession of any ship or other off-planet assets you can carry off."

Puzzled, I looked to Phil, forgetting we were in spectator mode and that none of our avatars were present in v-space. The chat message cues for both the officers and enlisted scrolled excitedly with chatter. It seemed all past grievances were already forgotten as everyone speculated on their coming wealth. I called up the scanty briefing info on our future opponents, wondering just who we were about to fight.

* * *

Back on the Torchbearer, I raced to Fleet Command and Control, trying not to hit any passersby with the pressure suit helmet swinging from my hand as I caromed off the walls. Ship's Commander Brennon had called for battle stations as the Torchbearer neared the transit station and the ship shuddered slightly as the spinning habitat module braked, was retracted, and locked against the ship's hull. This was a standard part of battle preparations since relatively minor damage to a spinning habitat module could tear up the whole ship. As I hurried weightlessly through the narrow twisted passages toward the C&C, dodging exposed ducts and conduit, I felt as if I were weaving through the bowels of a giant machine whose builders had considered their human occupants only as an afterthought. After the Flower of Dirt, the Torchbearer seemed small, cramped and inexplicably primitive.

Inside the C&C, I slipped into a pod-shaped crash-chamber, attached my helmet, strapped myself down and booted up the information system programs. Sub-Commander Harlow gave a nod from the crash-chamber across from me. The small room near the bridge at the heart of the ship contained three other crash-chambers, all five of the oblong spheroids being arranged in a circle facing a backup holographic table. In moments Phil rushed in with fleet officers Chris Knight and Cathrine Kacsmaryk and strapped in.

Chris Knight was an athletic blond man who appeared to be about my age, though he was at least two decades older. He had earned a reputation as a hotshot pilot in the colonies during the war. Cathrine Kacsmaryk was a pretty young brunette who appeared, if anything, younger than me. Phil had warned me, before he introduced us, that she was a tactical genius from the war college on New Sparta. The Pentaminc Corp. had paid a lot of money to hire her and then had wasted her in logistics. Phil considered it quite a coup to have gotten her reassigned to the fleet when this contract came up.

"Status report, all wings," Phil ordered.

I already had my com panel up and punched the status request icon. In seconds, the ship icons began lighting up green. I scanned the list to ensure no qualifying comments were attached.

"Alpha wing ready," Harlow said.

"Beta wing ready," Knight said.

"Delta wing reports ready," Kacsmaryk said.

"Gamma wing all shows green," I said.

"I want two scout ships from each wing, each with a standard complement of recon drones, to insert themselves into the transit queue before us," Phil said. "They are to proceed as soon as they transit."

I flash-messaged the tac-officers of the two most senior ships' commanders and relayed the orders. Phil had already told us the Cacks did not expect any serious resistance to our attack and so the scouts would be looking for prizes as much as threats. Still, he didn't want any ships taking damage because the scouts overlooked a gunship while targeting a rich freighter.

"Instruct our wings to execute procedure Alpha Four as soon as we transit," Phil said.

I relayed the orders for our ships to secure the area around the transit station. The other fleet commanders had allowed us to go first in the transit queue because having us guard the gate would allow them to start chasing down targets while we played catch-up. But by getting our scouts out front, Phil had said he hoped to find richer targets deeper in-system by the time we caught up to the others.

The scout craft and their accompanying drones transited to the next system. The second the station released their navigational control, they disappeared, zooming off towards the system's primary at ten times the speed of light. The Torchbearer's acceleration warning chimed and we moved forward through the ring of the transit station. Once on the other side, the warning chimed again and the ship pulled away at three Gs. I followed the fleets' movements on my display as each ship sped away in a different direction, circling the station in outward growing spirals. Even at an accelerated pace, it took our fleet nearly ten minutes to transit and most of the rest of an hour for the last ship of the Patriotic Force of the Free Government of the Thousand to arrive.

"Transmit the rally coordinates from my panel to all ships," Phil said. "Proceed as soon as the last ship is released from station control."

I forwarded the message while glancing up at the system plot of the coordinates. They were deep in the system. "Er, shouldn't we form up and re-seed the EPR transceivers before we launch the attack?" I asked.

"That would be the approved method," Phil said. "But it appears the other FCs have decided otherwise."

I called up the other fleets' plots. Their ships had already spread out and were seizing freighters, mineral ore processing vehicles, and anything that moved. As I watched, one of Moony's ships captured a passenger transport that had the potential of being worth ten times the value of the ship that captured it.

"Very good." I shrugged and sent his instructions. My board flickered with my ships' replies. "All ships have acknowledged."

"Proceed."

The Torchbearer leaped forward at nearly six times the speed of light, yet it would take a couple of hours before we reached the rendezvous point. During that time, with the exception of our gravimetric sensors, we would fly deaf and blind. If all went well, we would leap-frog the other fleets and begin attacking the targets our scouts had found for us. Until then, we took turns spelling each other for short breaks.

As we approached the rendezvous point, I saw a waiting scout ship on the gravitics. As soon as the QWEGs shut down and the fleet flashed into existence, the scout ship broadcast the data it and the other scouts had collected, and my board lit up with data profiles. The targeting computers began selecting likely hostiles, but other than some short-range fighters near what looked like the system's primary habitable planet, few threats appeared. I sorted through the targets and began reassigning threat values based on their estimated economic values and the SCs began flagging their targets and flying off to seize them as soon as I upgraded each one.

We had obviously abandoned any thought of fleet level tactics, so after taking a couple of minutes to sort through the identified targets, my job mostly consisted of monitoring the situation and evaluating any new threats that emerged. Every few minutes a coded laser transmission would reach us from a more distant scout ship, but the value of the targets identified dropped off significantly.

"I'm getting interference from the other fleets," Knight snarled. "They keep intercepting my targets."

"At least your SCs are pursuing their assigned targets," Kacsmaryk said. "Mine are ignoring their selected targets and going after whichever one they think is most valuable."

"Are you actually assigning individual targets to each ship?" I blurted out, surprised.

Cathrine lifted her head and tossed me a confused look. "Of course. Their way is too inefficient and allows potential hostiles through."

"Don't worry about enforcing strict target assignment," Phil said. "We'll be developing some protocols as we go. Consider this a practice test to see what we need to work on."

Cathrine turned her attention back to her panel and muttered, "There's no such thing as a practice test."

Updating my board, I noticed one of our ships had targeted one of Solomon's ships and my breath caught in my throat. I slapped the icon to directly flash-message Commander Thomas of the Saberhagen as his ship moved in to attack. "Saberhagen, this is C&C. Break off your attack. You're targeting the wrong vessel."

Five long silent seconds followed during which my heart hammered out a dozen rib shaking beats, Commander Thomas' irritated voice replied.

"No, C&C, I have the right target."

"You are targeting a friendly vessel. I repeat, you are targeting a friendly vessel. Break off immediately." I quickly scanned my panel for potential targets in his area, thinking he had been in pursuit of another ship and accidentally acquired one of Solomon's when it crossed his path in the chaos of battle.

"This is not a friendly ship. I warned him once already, and he keeps boarding and seizing ships I've already flagged."

I sat stunned. Visions of our fleet turning on itself in a fight over limited targets filled me with a sick feeling of impending disaster. I found a nearby target, a small unmanned craft, and bumped up its threat rating by two categories. "Saberhagen, you have a new target, zeta-one-eight. Please acknowledge and comply." I held my breath, watching Saberhagen approach its target, then scanned our nearby ships. None were close enough to intercept the Saberhagen before it got into attack range.

"Acknowledged," came the disgusted voice. "Targeting zeta-one-eight."

I exhaled, feeling a little dizzy and watched his ship change course. As I ran a hand across a damp forehead, I looked at the other officers crouched in their crash-chambers and took a deep breath. Since none of our ships seemed to be on the point of murdering an ally, I switched over to Commander Brennan's com channel to try and get a feel for what was going on.

"This is the Torchbearer to unidentified freighter. Shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded. Comply and your crew will be safely released, resist and you will be treated as combatants and your crew will not survive."

I continued listening in on Commander Brennan's com traffic as I watched the orgy of looting from my monitors. In the initial rush, some of the lower value targets were simply tagged with marker buoys loaded with nano-viruses. Unable to resist military-grade infections, those ships would already be under our control by the time we returned to them.

The freighter complied and shut down its engines. Commander Brennon launched a breaching pod filled with armored troopers and a young officer to take charge of it, then turned Torchbearer away to the next target before the pod had even attached itself to the freighter. The Torchbearer started heading toward an orbiting space station.

"He's not going to try and claim that station, is he?" I asked.

Phil poked his head above the rim of his crash chamber. "Our client doesn't want to leave any space assets behind. I'm sure we'll grab anything of value we can transport and destroy the thing."

I watched a handful of small craft flee the station and make for the planet surface. "What about ground-based space assets?"

Phil frowned down at his monitors. "I hope not. Most consider planetary bombardment a war crime. That's crossing a moral line I'd rather not cross."