“We’re getting new fancy guns, and some defensive systems that Drake and Janice are pretty excited about. It’ll take a few hours to get everything in place, and then we have some system checks and all that. Stephen is out visiting with his congregation, but he says he’ll be back by the next shift change.”

“Where’s Elena?” Casual, casual.

“Exploring the station. She’s got Shall whispering in her ear, so she should be fine.”

Callie covered her disappointment with an ostentatious yawn. “I should catch some rack time. I guess my ship is going to be a cacophonous nightmare of grinding metal?”

“The sweetest music in the galaxy, cap.”

“Right. I’m going to my quarters. When I get back, I want my ship all put together and pretty.”

“As pretty as me?”

“Maybe a little prettier, if you can manage it.”

Callie dreamed of Elena. Floating in space, her hair drifting, the zipper on her jumpsuit sliding down…

Oh, yes. She was in definite trouble there. Maybe they’d all die on the trip, and then Callie wouldn’t be alive to do anything to embarrass herself.

She sat up in her bunk and discovered a message waiting on her table from the station’s security AI: Salvage object tagged “Anjou” destroyed.

What? “Station, what’s this note about the Anjou being destroyed?”

The station’s voice in her earpiece was mellifluous and friendly because Callie was a sworn agent of the corporation, albeit in an on-call contract capacity. The station tended toward more brusque and harsh tones with strangers. Just part of the frontier charm of life in Trans-Neptunian space. “The transponder you left on the Anjou went offline several hours ago, and one of the recalled security ships detoured slightly on its way back to check the location. They found a debris field suggesting the ship had been destroyed by some sort of targeted energy weapon. Our working theory is that pirates looted anything of value and then destroyed the ship, probably because it was too old to be a worthwhile addition to their fleet. We’re sorry for the loss. Any recovered property will be returned to you, of course, minus expenses and fees.”

Callie grunted. “Thanks for letting me know.” There wasn’t much on the Anjou that was worth looting; the ship itself had been the valuable thing, as a museum piece or historical oddity. Legitimate museums and weirdo collectors both would have paid a lot of lix for it, and any competent pirates could have disabled the transponder and hauled the whole thing away. Stupid pirates might have just thought “old weird ship” and blown it up in a fit of pique, though.