She smiled. Sneaking into someone else’s star system, even when that someone else was limited to Silly sensor systems, was always a challenge. Of course, it was the sort of challenge Ferrero enjoyed, not to mention being an excellent training opportunity. That hadn’t made it any easier, however, and she’d been just a bit surprised by how spoiled she’d become since FTL sensor arrays had become available. She missed the continually updated reports from the perimeter arrays she would normally have deployed. Their absence made her feel… exposed. As if someone who was supposed to be watching her back wasn’t.

She wondered if she would have felt happier if the new patrol patterns Duchess Harrington was instituting had been fully in place and Jessica Epps had been paired off with another RMN vessel. She probably would have, she decided. And the availability of a consort would have given her much more flexibility in her stalk of the slaver. Of the probable slaver, she corrected herself conscientiously.

Of course, the presence of a second ship would have substantially increased the chances that at least one of them might have been spotted. Which made it one more example of the endless trade-offs imposed by an imperfect universe.

She snorted at the thought and looked up from the plot.

“I think we’re just about ready, Bob,” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Commander Llewellyn acknowledged. “Should we send the crew to quarters?”

“I don’t see any reason to completely clear for action,” Ferrero replied. “Not against a merchie who’s still two and a half million klicks outside energy range! Go ahead and close up the missile crews and Missile Defense. We can always man the energy mounts if Mr. Slaver decides to be difficult and refuses to heave to before we close into graser range. Of course, he’d have to be particularly stupid for that to happen.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

A true stickler might have detected a slight edge of disappointment in Llewellyn’s reply. The exec, Ferrero knew, was a tactical officer’s tactical officer. He hated to pass up any opportunity for comprehensive weapons drills, especially when Tactical had a live target—even one as unworthy as “Sittich”—to practice on.

“Patience, Bob,” she said in a quieter voice, pitched for his ears alone, after he’d passed the necessary orders. “If you behave yourself, I’ll let you take the first pinnace across.”

“That obvious, was I, Skipper?” he asked wryly.

“Maybe not that obvious,” she said with a grin. “But headed that way. Definitely headed that way.”

“Missile batteries report manned and ready, Ma’am,” Harris reported from Tactical.

“Very well, Shawn. I think we’re just about ready. Remember, we can’t afford to just blow this one out of space, whatever it does.”

“Understood, Ma’am.” Lieutenant Harris nodded soberly. Pirates were one thing; slavers, with potentially hundreds of innocent victims aboard, were something else entirely.

“If she refuses to stop when Mecia hails her,” Ferrero went on, “we’ll put a shot or two across her bows. But if she still refuses to stop, we’ll have to get close enough to take out her nodes with energy fire. Or,” she grinned at Llewellyn again, “let the exec take his pinnaces out and play Preston of the Spaceways shooting up her impeller rings with their lasers.”