She did a sweep of the rest of the station, just in case her informant had tried some pitiful attempt at disinformation, but Glauketas was otherwise unoccupied. She opened up the airlock, and the White Raven parked close to the surface and let Ashok and Lantern and Elena and Robin in. The ship retreated to a safe distance, and they made their preparations. Because Callie had promised, they put the pirates in an escape pod and set its course for Io, one of the Jovian moons that stubbornly insisted it was independent, and generally held to be a miserable place. Then they familiarized themselves with the station’s weapons systems, and left Ashok manning the consoles.

After that, they picked out rooms for themselves. Callie took the pirate queen’s, which was positively luxurious, and Elena kept her company while they waited.

“Incoming,” Ashok called over the asteroid’s crackly old PA. Callie leapt up and hurried toward the control room, right in the heart of the asteroid, and Elena went after her, feeling languid and serene, even though she knew she should feel tense. They were about to engage in an armed standoff that would almost certainly involve shots fired, but Callie was so confident, and so magnificent, that Elena could only bring herself to be worried in the abstract.

Callie had dragged a huge chair made of real wood, carved all over with comets and stars, into the control room, and now she lounged in it like a throne in front of the screen. The pirate queen’s face appeared, snarling. “What the hell are you doing on my station?”

“My station now.” Callie yawned. “Right of conquest, yeah? That’s your thing? I can’t help but notice you left with eight ships and came back with two. How did the expedition go?”

“That was a Liar station, not TNA, and they had weapons like I’ve never seen before – but you know that. You sent us to die. But I didn’t die.”

“Did you at least blow the place up? They’re the ones who exploded Meditreme Station. I was hoping you’d take them out for me.” Callie was lying – Lantern had predicted the pirates had no chance of actually destroying the station, but she wanted to keep the queen off balance.

The queen’s eyes went wide, then narrowed. “That’s ridiculous. Why would Liars blow up the station?”

“It’s a long story you won’t be around long enough to hear. Did you kill them or not?”

“Not. We hurt them, bad, but not bad enough. After most of my ships were destroyed I didn’t have enough personnel to board successfully, so I retreated. I’m going to kill you, though, all of you–”

“Too bad. If you’d performed a service for the TNA, I might have considered leniency. This is a trial now. You’re entitled to an advocate. Do you want one?”

“Fuck you, you lunatic–”