“They aren’t saying anything,” she said. “They pinged our transponder, so they know our designation, but that’s it. They’re ignoring us otherwise. And before you ask, no, they don’t have a transponder of their own. They’re not registered in the TNA database, or the Jovian Imperative, and nowhere farther afield, either.”

Callie grunted. Unregistered Liar ships were common – Liars were pretty laissez-faire about rules and regulations, and it wasn’t like you could trust their paperwork even when they appeared to be in compliance – but information asymmetry always bothered her. “If they are after the bridge generator, and they know we’re the White Raven, and they know we’re the people who found the Anjou… We’d better get them before they get us. Ashok, let’s talk tactical options. I want them disabled rather than blown to bits. I’d like to have an intimate talk with them.”

“We’re in luck. The TNA wanted us to take over Glauketas, not annihilate it, so we’ve got some fancy new EMP torpedoes. We blast them at the ship, they set off a pulse that disables their electrical systems, and it’s supposed to work even against hardened targets.”

“Do it.”

Ashok ran the tactical board, which was normally Callie’s privilege, but she wasn’t usually in a spare jumpseat in a machine shop when things got nasty. “Torpedoes away. At this distance, impact should take about ten minutes.”

“Are they shooting at us yet?”

“They are now,” the ship said. “As soon as we fired, they responded.”

“Missiles?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. They launched half a dozen projectiles, but not like any I’ve seen before. They’re large and spherical, and look more like drones or probes than missiles.”

“Huh. Why shoot robots at us? Well, who cares. Janice, you’ve got our defensive countermeasures running?”

“That’s what my board says,” Janice replied. “If it works the way it’s supposed to, whatever they fired should miss us by a kilometer.”

“The things they fired look almost like escape pods,” the ship said. “Big enough to be manned by a Liar, anyway, with some sort of rudimentary thrust and directional systems.”

“Wait. You think it’s a boarding party?” Callie said.

“Makes a certain degree of sense,” the ship said. “They blew up Meditreme Station, but now they know we got off the station ahead of them. They probably don’t know how long we were gone, or where we went. As far as they know, we could have stashed the bridge generator somewhere. Maybe they want to get direct confirmation that the device is here before they turn us into a cloud of sparkling dust with their mystery weapons. Otherwise, they’d have to vaporize every object between Jupiter and the Oort Cloud to make sure they got rid of the generator.”