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the ass," she predicted.
    "They're just following orders, the way we used to."
    "The way you used to," she corrected him. "I was a pirate, remember?"
    "Some days it's harder to forget that than others," he said dryly. "No shooting."
    "There's forty-two Men on that ship, all carrying regulation side-arms," she said. "What makes you think they'll let us just walk in?"
    "I'll contact them and explain that no harm will come to them if they offer no resistance. We don't even want to take them prisoner."
    "How are you going to contact them?" asked Val. "I blew their antenna."
    "Shit!" growled Cole. "All right, I'm leading the boarding party."
    "The hell you are," said a new voice. It belonged to Sharon Blacksmith.
    "Stop eavesdropping," said Cole irritably.
    "I'm the Chief of Security," she replied. "Everything that transpires on this ship is my business, and you're not going anywhere. We've been through all this before: the Captain doesn't leave his ship in enemy territory."
    "Enemy territory is the goddamned Republic," Cole shot back. "This is the Inner Frontier."
    "Anywhere there's a Republic ship is enemy territory," Sharon insisted.
    "The damned ship's disabled."
    "So you enter it and get shot two seconds later. What is the rest of your fleet supposed to do? You haven't exactly given them a complete and detailed battle plan."
    "If Val walks in first, she'll kill the first man who twitches, and that'll precipitate an all-out battle. I want to avoid that."
    "Then send someone besides Val," said Sharon.
    "Hey, wait a minute!" said Val. "I'm the one who blew away its transmitter and antenna; I'm the one who's going to claim the spoils of victory."
    "It's just a goddamned computer, Val," said Cole.
    "You're willing to risk your ass for it," she said. "That makes it valuable."
    Cole glared at Sharon's image. "Thanks for making life so easy for me," he said bitterly.
    "Just doing my job," she said. "You're the Captain and you're not leaving the ship in enemy territory."
    "If I'm the Captain, then I give the orders," he said firmly. "Val, I'll meet you down in the shuttle bay. Put together a team of four, and make sure one of them knows how to open a locked hatch without blowing it apart. I want them to be able to secure it again after we leave."
    "Damn it, Wilson!" said Sharon.
    He waited until Val had broken the connection. "We both know that if I let her lead the boarding party, she'll kill all forty-two of them."
    "They're the enemy."
    "No," said Cole. "They're the enemy's weapons."
    "Weapons are made to do damage, Wilson."
    "Weapons can be neutralized," he replied. "Just not by someone like Val."
    "So send Jacovic."
    "Come on," he said. "They'll take one look at him and start shooting. The Republic's at war with the Teroni Federation, remember?"
    "You have fifty-three people on this ship, and you're going to find reasons why fifty-two of them can't possibly lead the boarding party, am I right?"
    "You're complicating the issue unnecessarily," complained Cole.
    "And you're showboating," she said. "If you heard of any other Captain doing this, you'd call it egomania."
    "If you take on the Republic with a fleet of eight hundred ships, you have to be a bit of an egomaniac," said Cole. "Now perhaps you'll let me finish waking up and concentrate on the business at hand."
    "You're awake," said Sharon furiously. "If you were sleepy, you couldn't make such a dumb decision."
    She broke the connection, and a couple of minutes later Cole was on his way to the shuttle bay. Along the way he passed a small, mildly humanoid alien, dressed exactly like a nineteenth-century British dandy, scurrying down a corridor.
    "Good morning, David," he said. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
    "Are you really leading the boarding party like everyone says, Steerforth?" asked David Copperfield.
    "Do they all say it?" asked Cole, arching an eyebrow.
    "Word travels fast aboard a ship."
    "Not that fast. Someone was listening. Maybe someone from a Dickens