Which was the reason Metcalf prayed they wouldn’t have to deal with any regular navy crews that approached the quality of, say, Lester Tourville’s people. It would not be a pleasant afternoon in space if they did.

Now stop that, she told herself with absent severity. So far, things have gone better on the retraining front than you could ever have expected, now haven’t they?

And so they had. Bacchante had come swanning along as innocently and unsuspectingly as Krashnark, and Warner Caslet had talked her skipper through the minefields and energy platforms just as smoothly as he’d talked Citizen Captain Pangborn through them. The actual capture of the ship had been a little trickier, since Bacchante had just stopped in for a little R&R and a broader selection of fresh vegetables. Since she hadn’t been delivering any prisoners, finding a justification for sending multiple shuttles full of boarders up to meet her had been much harder. In fact, it had been impossible… but it hadn’t been necessary, either. Citizen Commander Vestichov hadn’t been able to surrender fast enough when the targeting systems of a dozen graser platforms locked his ship up at a range of less than twelve thousand kilometers.

And so the light cruiser had become the second unit of what Commodore Ramirez had christened the Elysian Navy. She was nowhere near as powerful as Krashnark, and Metcalf knew the Admiral had been tempted to turn her loose as a courier to the Alliance, but the lieutenant commander was grateful she hadn’t. Having two ships with which to exercise against one another had increased the effectiveness of their quickie training program by at least a hundred percent.

And now the fact that we have two ships means the Admiral is off in one of them, and Commodore McKeon is off in the other one, and they’ve taken Ramirez and Benson with them. Which means I get to make the call on this, unless I want to drag Simmons into it. And I can’t do that until they get him to the other end of a com link, and I really shouldn’t shuffle the decision off onto him even then. Because the longer that boat sits up there, the more likely it is that something will blow up in our faces, isn’t it?

“Dust off the stored response, Anson,” she said, and to her own surprise, her voice sounded almost as calm as the Admiral’s would have. “Transmit it, and let’s get that boat out of here before its crew notices something they shouldn’t.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Lethridge said formally, his eyes showing his respect for how quickly she’d decided, and nodded to PO Alwyn. “You heard the Commander, PO. Let’s send them on their way.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

The petty officer entered a command sequence on his board, and Metcalf watched a green light blink, confirming transmission of the stored message Admiral Harrington had ordered Harkness and Scotty Tremaine to create six months earlier. It wouldn’t tell anyone at the other end anything very exciting—only that Proxmire and his crew had pulled out on schedule for their next destination. The message was from Camp Charon’s chief com officer, courtesy of Harkness’ computer generation efforts. The real com officer had hanged herself five months ago rather than face court-martial on charges of murder and torturing prisoners. Metcalf didn’t quite understand the logic behind that, but in light of the evidence against her, she’d simply advanced the date of her demise by a few weeks without altering its manner in the slightest.