Arada’s gaze narrowed. “Then you should call someone and complain about that.”

Yeah, Arada was definitely mad now. ART slid into her feed to show her its targeting lock. The transport’s bot pilot had noticed the targeting lock, too, and was not happy. I let the bridge supervisor’s pretend-calm-but-really-slightly-panicked feed message to Leonide get through.

Leonide pressed her lips together. I could see it was a concession and I thought Arada did, too. Composed and calm, Leonide said, “There’s no need for all this. I was simply looking for a better deal. Perhaps coming from an academic background, you find that unusual.”

Arada swallowed, and also made herself sound calm. “Well, it was a little rude. I’d like to go back to my ship now.”

And for you to transmit the invoice, I told her in the feed.

“And for you to transmit the invoice,” she repeated.

Leonide tilted her head. “Of course.”

The rest was pretty normal. We backed out toward the lock and dropped Jete in the corridor before I sealed the foyer off from the rest of the ship. I let Arada have her feed back, and Overse said immediately, Are you all right?

I’m fine, babe, Arada told her. Just some corporate power peeing.

Ick.

We got our EVAC suits on. (I had control of the lock so no chance of them spacing us. And with ART’s guns still pointed at them, it would have been a suicidally stupid thing to do.) Then we cycled out of the lock with no trouble.

Once we were in the safety of ART’s tractors, and Arada had responded to all the exclamations from Ratthi, Amena, and Thiago, Arada tapped my private connection and asked, Why did she do that? Did I sound weak? I’m sorry I messed up.

No, it wasn’t you. I think she told us too much, in front of her crew, and she realized it. She wanted to make sure they knew she was in charge. I didn’t say it but I also thought Arada had been too sympathetic, and it had made Leonide feel like she had given too much away.

Arada sighed. But it was worth it. At least we know what to do next, now.

Yeah. We were going to the colony’s space dock.

It was four hours by ART’s clock to the colony planet and its space dock, which would have given us time to get ready, if we had any idea what to get ready for.

“We don’t know Perihelion’s crew is there,” Arada reported to the others as we took off our EVAC suits in ART’s airlock foyer. “But there is a chance the explorer is using it as a base of operations.”

“At worst, it may provide some information about just what is going on here,” Ratthi agreed over the comm. “If the dock’s systems are still active, then they might have information that SecUnit can pry out for us.”

Arada and I tried to stow our suits but one of ART’s drones showed up to elbow us out of the way and take over. ART agreed with Arada’s assessment, because the nav/route info scroll in ART’s feed showed we were already pulling away from the supply transport.