As Needle was pulled into Dinara City’s docking bay, JK’s voice whispered over the intercom. “Issa? Are we a go or not?”

“Budo. Release my restraints.” When Issa was free once more, she thumbed the comm switch, “I’ll be right up.”

Issa ran to the bridge. Cyan and Kenna were there as well manning the consoles. “Now what?” asked JK. He seemed edgy.

Issa looked to the viewscreen and saw that JK had maneuvered Dragonthorn into a perfect position just astern of Tiger Lily, another similar ex-commando transport pressed into disreputable service. The firing solution would have been perfect, what with the Dinara City orbiting in such close proximity. But…

“We’re a no go. We need to back off.”

“Issa, it took me hours to get us here. We might not get another chance. We should stick to the plan.”

Damnit! What was Ebony doing out here? “What’s our margin for error? How long before the opportunity is lost?”

JK thumbed a request to the ship’s computer. “We got about 2½ arns at most before the probabilities enter the realm of fantasy. Still, though, while the electronic eyes can’t see us, the natural ones can. The longer we stay here in the middle of the riff-raff flotilla, the more likely it is that someone notices that their scanner readouts aren’t matching their own eyesight.”

“True. Still, it’s not like Ebony to just blunder into things. I don’t like this, but I want to give her a chance to do whatever she needs to do.” Issa paused, then said, “She… knows things. Sometimes. I wonder what she knows now.”

~/~

Lippy whistled softly and shared a look with everyone on the bridge. “A Mentath high priestess? That raises the stakes a bit.”

OB1 added, “Quite. From what I understand, there is no official religious order on Mentath devoted to Relia. If this woman is claiming to be some high priestess or other, then she’s either a charlatan or the leader of an underground movement on Mentath. If the latter, then there are even bigger things afoot.”

“Ok. I think we’ve waited long enough,” Issa commanded. “Lippy, Luthy and OB1 to your pod. Budo, come with me. JK, you have the con as before. Cyan and Kenna, man the consoles. Is Vicki still guarding our prisoners?”

JK reclaimed the captain’s console, “Yes.”

“Good. Let’s go. We have to move quickly now. And, remember, we’re running silent. No shipboard communications whatsoever.”

~/~

“Cyan, controls to me,” JK commanded.

Cyan pressed a few buttons on the navigation console. “The ship is yours, captain.”

JK grabbed the joystick and brought the Dragonthorn in closer to the stern of Tiger Lily. The two ships were now in a perfect synchronized orbit. “Kenna, prepare the starboard drone pack for firing. Load the drones’ targetting information.”

“Aye aye, cap’n,” she answered.

They were ready. As JK’s hand hovered over the pod signal control, Cyan shouted, “Captain, Dinara City is arming her main laser batteries!”

“Dren! Has she locked on to us?”

“No, sir. She’s …. she’s locked onto a point in space some ways behind the incoming courier ship.”

“Cyan, focus our sensors to that same point. Set sensors to wideband. Kenna, does this ship have any cloak-filtering routines?”

“Yes, sir. They can be set to run sequential or in parallel or -”

“Whatever,” he interrupted. “Just do your magic. Quickly!”

The viewscreen changed focus to an empty point space. Suddenly, a familiar assault transport filled the screen. “It’s Hope! Christ!! CJ’s making her attack!” JK slammed the pod signal to green. “Kenna, launch the drones! Now, goddamnit!”

The dozen missiles loaded in the starboard drone pack of Dragonthorn roared to life and sped away to slam into their intended target, the ex-commando ship Tiger Lily. To the sensors arrayed around them all, the drones barely had time to register once they left Dragonthorn’s bubble of synthetic invisibility and reached their destinations among the various strongpoints of the opposing ship. The detonation points were not immediately lethal. That was the whole point and the launch was a success.

JK reduced Dragonthorn’s orbital radius, thereby avoiding most of the debris and bringing her under Tiger Lily. Within a minute the intended result was made manifest; Tiger Lily began shedding her assault pods as her crew abandoned ship. After the first two were launched, two additional, not-quite-identical pods were ejected into the ever-growing fray, to be joined by more of Tiger Lily’s complement. After Dragonthorn’s own pod launch, JK continued his orbital descent to leave the immediate scene.

~/~

“Main batteries. Stand by to -”

“My lady. Ship explosions being registered off starboard amidships.”

Relia whirled to face the young officer. “What size ship? Is it an attack?”

“No, my lady. The ship looks to be the Tiger Lily, a ex-commando-transport ship. The explosions seem to be spontaneous. An accident, perhaps.”

Relia spun to face Ebony, who calmly sat stitching her quilt near a little-used access panel. “What do you know of this?” Relia demanded.

“Of what? An accident? I know nothing about such things.”

“My lady, the crew of Tiger Lily is abandoning ship. They have launched their assault pods. The pods are interfering with our main battery targetting systems. We’re losing the lock. They’re taking evasive action.”

Relia glared at the young officer whose bowels turned to water under her gaze. She asked her in an even voice, “Will the main tractor beam be able to grab them?”

“Yes, my lady,” she stammered. “It should.”

“Then get them. If we can’t blast them out of the sky, we’ll just have to shoot them individually. And recover the pods. I should just let them all die, but I’m feeling merciful at the moment.”

“Yes, my lady. As you wish.”

Relia, then, walked over to Ebony and stood before her. “That was rather unfortunate, wouldn’t you say?”

Ebony looked up from her needlework. “Quite unlucky, I would say.”

Relia’s eyes flashed a bright blue. “I don’t believe in luck.”

Ebony ignored the threat and returned to her work. “Neither do I.”