He looked over at Lady Kiva, whose current expression could be read as intent, or condescending smugness, depending on one’s own personal inclinations. Every experience Marce had of her was of someone one did not want to mess with. She reminded him of Vrenna that way, albeit with less of an actual conscience.

“What are you smirking about?” Kiva asked him. She’d caught him glancing at her.

“I was just thinking about you spacing Chat,” Marce replied, lying.

“What about it?”

“I was wondering if you would have spaced him for good if he hadn’t talked.”

“Hell, yes. Motherfucker was going to set off a bomb on my ship,” Kiva said. “You don’t fuck with my ship. You don’t fuck with my people.”

“I’m a crew member now,” Marce said. “That means I’m one of your people, too.”

“And we’re not going to give you up, now, are we?”

“Hopefully not.”

Kiva nodded. “So there you go. Don’t be a dick about it, Claremont.”

Marce grinned at this.

The communication channel between ships crackled open again. “This is Captain Wimson of the Red Rose, asking for direct parley with Captain Blinnikka of the Yes, Sir.”

Blinnikka slapped open his personal circuit. “Blinnikka here.”

“I understand you wish to cut the shit, Captain.”

“If that’s all right with you, Captain.”

“It certainly is. Why not be civilized about it. By now you’ve figured out what we are.”

“You’re pirates. You’ve been tracking us for most of a day.”

“Correct. And by now you realize that one of our associates has disabled your ability to enter the Flow.”

“Affirmative.”

“However, today is your lucky day, Captain. We are willing to leave you your cargo and stay out of your way while you either repair your ship or turn back to Imperial Station. All we need from you is to deliver two people to us.”

“Who are those people?”

“The first is our associate, the one who planted the bomb, who I’m sure you probably now have sitting in the brig. The second is a passenger. Lord Marce Claremont.”

“Captain, we can’t turn over your associate.”

“ ‘Can’t’ is a very strong word, Captain.”

“Let me amend. We can turn him over, just in very small pieces. He appears to have mistimed his bomb. He went up with it.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“If you want we can scrape the walls and hand him over in a bag.”

“Thank you, no. His retrieval was optional. Lord Marce’s, however, is not.”

“Our passenger manifest has no Marce Claremont, lord or otherwise.”