Bub was also a slicer, though. A damn good one—he’d been breaking into computer systems ever since he was a kid, and now he used that skill to do all sorts of ugly things in his personal time. Intrusive, cruel things.

Also not Kassav’s problem.

“Let’s do this,” he said.

The New Elite fell out of hyperspace into the Eriadu system. Not much starship traffic on the scopes—not surprising. The planet hadn’t gotten much in the way of fuel shipments recently, not with the blockade on. The lack of traffic also meant the system’s monitoring satellites had probably already spotted them. That was fine—they weren’t here to hide, and if the Eriaduans wanted to send out a few patrol ships to take a poke at them…well, that was where Dellex and Gravhan came in. Their gun crews were tight.

“Wet Bub…go,” Kassav said, pointing at his lieutenant.

Bub set to work, accessing the system’s communications network, pushing on through whatever access codes and security measures were in place, going higher and higher, until he found what he was looking for.

He tapped a few last buttons, then gave another thumbs-up.

“You’re in, bossman,” he said.

A voice came over the bridge’s speaker system, raspy and sibilant and cold. The voice of someone powerful, who wasn’t used to things happening that she hadn’t ordered.

“Who is this? This is a restricted comm network,” said Mural Veen, current planetary governor of Eriadu. “And what the hell is that…music?”

Oops, Kassav thought.

He tapped a control, and the wreckpunk volume dropped to a whisper.

“Hi there, Governor,” Kassav said. “I’m your new best friend.”

Silence from the other end of the line. She was waiting to see what he wanted.

“You might have seen a ship drop out of hyperspace out near the edge of the system. That’s me, and all you need to know about us is that I can get through Chancellor Soh’s hyperspace blockade when no other ship can do it. So, that’s the first thing you should keep in mind as this little chat moves along. I can do things no one else can.”

“Let me guess,” the governor said. “You sneaked through the blockade, and now you’re going to offer to sell us food at some ridiculous rate? I don’t respond well to extortion.”

“That remains to be seen, ma’am,” Kassav said, putting an emphasis on the last word, getting a little chuckle out of the Nihil on the bridge, all listening like this was the best holoplay they’d ever seen.

“But I’ll tell you one thing,” he went on, “I am offended that you think we’re just ordinary smugglers. We’re much more than that.”

“Then who the hell are you?” she said.

“I told you. I’m your new best friend. Your savior, in fact.”

A silence.