“They’d appear to be in a bit of a hurry, wouldn’t they?” she observed.

“I suppose that’s one way to put it, Roberta,” Bachfisch murmured.

He straightened and rubbed his chin gently while he gazed intently at the plot. Todfeind wasn’t the very newest ship in the Andy inventory, but her class had been designed less than ten T-years ago, and she massed right on four hundred thousand tons. At that tonnage, her normal maximum acceleration should have been around five hundred gravities. Since the Andermani Navy, like every other navy in space, normally restricted its skippers to less than the maximum acceleration available to them under full military power, she should have been accelerating at no more than four hundred or so. But according to the tac officer’s sensors, she was pulling just over four-seventy-five.

“They’re right on the edge of their compensator’s max performance,” Hairston observed, and Bachfisch glanced at her. He started to say something, then shrugged, smiled at her, patted her shoulder once more, and turned to the exec.

“I know the contract specifically allows for delays in transit occasioned by piratical activity, Jinchu,” he said. “But we’ve lost a bit more time than I’d wanted to, even to swat another pirate. I think we can make it up if we can talk Santerro into letting us jump the transshipment queue in Broadhurst, but I don’t want to dawdle on the way there.”

“Understood, Skipper,” Gruber replied, and nodded sideways at Pirates’ Bane’s astrogator. “I’ve had Larry working an updated course ever since we diverted to deliver our ‘guests’.”

“That’s what I like to see,” Bachfisch observed with a smile. “Conscientious subordinates with their noses pressed firmly to the grindstone!” Gruber chuckled, and Bachfisch waved at the main maneuvering plot.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” he observed. “So let’s be about it, Jinchu.”

“Yes, Sir,” the exec said, and turned to the astrogator. “You heard the Captain, Larry. Let’s take her out of orbit.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” the astrogator replied formally, and Bachfisch listened to the familiar, comforting efficiency of his bridge crew as he walked slowly across the deck and settled into his own command chair. No one could have guessed from his demeanor that he was barely aware of his officers’ well-drilled smoothness as he leaned back and crossed his legs, but most of his attention was someplace else entirely as he considered Todfeind’s acceleration numbers.

It was always possible Hairston’s explanation was the right one. High as that acceleration rate might be, it was still within the safe operating envelope of most navies’ inertial compensators. But not by very much, and the Andies were just as insistent about avoiding unnecessary risks or wear on their compensators and impeller nodes as the Royal Manticoran Navy. So if Todfeind’s captain had elected to push the envelope that hard, then logically he must be in a very great hurry, indeed.

But what Bachfisch knew that Hairston didn’t was that the Andermani captain had invited Bachfisch and his senior officers to supper aboard his ship. The IAN didn’t extend that sort of invitation to mere merchant spacers every day of the week, and Bachfisch had been sorely tempted to accept it. Unfortunately, as he’d just finished remarking to Gruber, the detour to deliver the captured pirates had put Pirates’ Bane well behind schedule, so he’d been forced to decline the invitation. But if Kapitän der Sterne Schweikert had seen fit to issue one in the first place, then he’d obviously planned on hanging around long enough for the meal to be served.