"Vorkosigan." Miles's name hung in the air before them like a visible thing. Destang regarded it without favor, and went on, "When I finished dealing with a certain Investigator Reed of the London Municipal Assizes at 0700 this morning, I was determined that only divine intervention could save you from my wrath. Divine intervention arrived at 0900 in the person of a special courier from Imperial HQ." Destang held up a data disk marked with the Imperial seal between his thumb and forefinger. "Here are the new and urgent orders for your Dendarii irregulars."

Since Miles had passed the courier in the cafeteria, this was not wholly unexpected. He suppressed a surge forward. "Yes, sir?" he said encouragingly.

"It appears that a certain free mercenary fleet operating in the far Sector IV area, supposedly under contract to a subplanetary government, has slipped over the line from guerrilla warfare to outright piracy. Their wormhole blockade has degenerated from stopping and searching ships to confiscations. Three weeks ago they hijacked a Tau Cetan registered passenger vessel to convert into a troop transport. So far so good, but then some bright soul among them hit on the idea of augmenting their payroll by holding the passengers for ransom. Several planetary governments whose citizens are being held have fielded a negotiating team, headed by the Tau Cetans."

"And our involvement, sir?" Sector IV was a long way from Barrayar by any measure, but Miles could guess what was coming. Ivan looked wildly curious.

"Among the passengers happened to be eleven Barrayaran subjects—including the wife of Minister for Heavy Industries Lord Vorvane and her three children. As the Barrayarans are a minority of the two hundred sixteen people being held, Barrayar was of course denied control of the negotiating team. And our fleet has been denied permission by their unfriendly governments to cross three of the necessary wormhole nexuses on the shortest route between Barrayar and Sector IV. The next shortest alternate route would take eighteen weeks to traverse. From Earth, your Dendarii can arrive in that local space area in less than two weeks." Destang frowned thoughtfully; Ivan looked fascinated.

"Your orders, of course, are to rescue alive the Emperor's subjects, and as many other planetary citizens as possible, and to deal such punitive measures as you can compatible with the first goal, sufficient to prevent the perpetrators from ever repeating this performance. Since we ourselves are in the midst of critical treaty negotiations with the Tau Cetans, we don't wish them to become aware of the source of this unilateral rescue effort if, ah, anything goes wrong. Your method of achieving these goals appears to be left totally to your discretion. You'll find all the intelligence details HQ had up to eight days ago in here."