“I see,” Ferrero said sourly. Given the current range between the two ships, Harris was only able to keep tabs on the other by using the remote scansats Jessica Epps had set up to cover the system periphery when Ferrero moved her anti-pirate operations into the Harston System. The remote platforms’ grav-pulse transmitters allowed him to effectively real-time sensor data from most of the outer system without using all-up Ghost Rider recon drones. Those drones were not only expensive, but also something which the Royal Manticoran Navy didn’t go out of its way to flaunt, on the theory that what other navies didn’t see, they couldn’t acquire sensor data on.

The scansats also had much greater endurance than the more costly drones, since they simply sat in place rather than being compelled to maintain impeller wedges. Because of all those factors, the fact that patrolling RMN cruisers now routinely seeded the outer volumes of their star systems of responsibility with FTL scansats was well understood, however, and their stealth systems were fairly rudimentary. That meant people knew to look for them and that they were relatively easy for shipboard sensors to spot, so there wasn’t too much question that the other cruiser had known for some time that Jessica Epps was aware of her presence, in general terms, at least. But it was equally obvious that at this distance extended-range remote drones were the only way the other ship could be tracking Jessica Epps in return, and Ferrero didn’t like the fact that they were clearly so stealthy that even Manticoran shipboard sensors couldn’t find them. But Harris wasn’t quite finished with his report.

“Uh, excuse me, Ma’am, but I’m not certain you do see. Not entirely, that is,” he amended hastily as she shot him a sharp glance.

“Then suppose you enlighten me, Mr. Harris,” she suggested coolly.

“Ma’am, they’re almost seventeen light-minutes away from us,” he reminded her respectfully. “But they’re making their course corrections on average within three minutes of each of our helm changes.”

Ferrero stiffened, and the tac officer nodded and tapped his display.

“I’ve been running a passive track on their impeller wedge for the last eighty minutes, Ma’am. The longest interval so far has been six-point-seven minutes. The shortest was less than two. The data’s on the chip if you want to review it.”

“I’m not questioning your observation, Shawn,” the captain told him in a deceptively mild voice. “I’m just not very happy to hear what you’re telling me.”

“I’m not very happy to be telling it to you, Skipper,” Harris admitted, smiling ever so faintly as her warmer tone suggested that he wasn’t about to be blasted to cinders after all.

Ferrero allowed herself a small smile in return, but her brain was busy as she gazed at the bland light icon representing Hellbarde. The Andermani cruiser had become something of a constant companion of Jessica Epps’ over the past few weeks, and she didn’t like it. This Captain Gortz—and she still didn’t know even whether Gortz was a man or a woman—couldn’t possibly be getting in Jessica Epps’ way so often and so thoroughly by accident. She (or he) was deliberately following Ferrero’s ship from system to system for the express purpose of harassing her. That was the only possible explanation, and the other ship’s increasingly offensive behavior was not only doing bad things to Ferrero’s blood pressure but also suggested her captain was working to an orchestrated plan. The question, of course, was whether the plan was the personal property of Captain Gortz or if it had been handed to her (or him) by higher authority.