Marque and Reprisal Read Online Free PDF Page A

that he had voted to blow the ansible platforms. This time… this time they had a better plan. He knew the coalition wouldn’t last forever, but for now, for the length of time it would take to bring down InterStellar Communications and consolidate the power they needed, it would hold.
    They didn’t have to kill all the Vattas, whatever that idiot said. They only had to kill enough, at once or within a short interval, enough to shock and terrify the rest: Vatta and non-Vatta shippers, Slotter Key and other planetary governments. No more little bangs, no more sporadic raids. One big paralyzing, terrifying, enigmatic explosion… He grinned wider. He could just imagine the frantic scrambling, the panic spreading through Captains’ Guildhalls, government offices, corporate headquarters, all across this sector. Everyone trying to figure out who, and why, and what would happen next. He and his allies were the only ones who knew the answer.
    By the time they figured it out, if they ever did, it would be too late. He knew all about Slotter Key’s President; the President didn’t even know his name. Someday everyone would know it.
     
    Ky checked in at the Captains’ Guild and took her duffel up to her room while her escort waited. It took only a few minutes to unpack and freshen up. She would take the paperwork to the Economic Development Bureau first, and then pay her courtesy visit to the Slotter Key legation. With any luck, she could have the afternoon free to start looking for cargo. She’d downloaded a list of recent shipments, but Belinta’s exports didn’t match well with her understanding of what would sell at Leonora. Lastway was a mystery; from the records, its markets went up and down dramatically, depending on what preceding ships had delivered.
    At the Economic Development Bureau, she handed the paperwork to a bored clerk and received the confirmation of the final funds deposit in the Vatta account. She was almost back to the legation when her escort turned to her.
    “Captain, there’s an urgent message from the Captains’ Guild. Your ship wants to contact you, and you have no implant.”
    “Call the legation and tell them I may be delayed,” Ky said. “We’ll go to the Captains’ Guild.”
    Only a few minutes later, she was in a secure communications booth in the Captains’ Guild lobby, talking to Quincy aboard
Gary Tobai
. “Slow down,” she said finally. “I thought it was cargo thieves and now you’re telling me it’s sabotage?”
    “The station police say it is. Was going to be. They found our cargo—the original, part of the consignment to Leonora—in a utility closet. They’re sure it’s the same; it’s got the consignment IDs on the tape. But what was in the container that fellow loaded was a time-delayed explosive. They said it could have blown up the ship. And part of the station if we’d still been docked. If I hadn’t noticed—and I almost didn’t, he was just a dockworker, I thought—Captain, we could have been killed—!”
    “But you did spot him, and we weren’t,” Ky said. Her mind whirled. Sabotage was not unknown, and Paison’s allies might consider that they had a motive. They knew—anyone who followed the news stories would know—where she was going when she left Sabine system. But Belinta was an unlikely place for an ambush, she’d have thought. Well out of the way, small, little traffic, an insular, suspicious culture. It would have been more cheaply and easily done somewhere else.
    “They want us to leave,” Quincy went on. “For our own safety, they’re saying, but I can tell they’re scared.”
    So was Quincy, by her face and voice, and no wonder. “A good idea,” Ky said. “How close were we to finishing loading?”
    “Another six to eight hours.”
    “It will take me that long to get back up to the station,” Ky said. “Unless I charter a flight.” Would that be reimbursable as a legitimate expense, under the circumstances? “I’ll let