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ninety-three point eight percent chance enemy power linkages are severed and control systems unresponsive.”
    â€œMr. Grigsby, we have two more bandits out there,” Diocletia said into her headset. “Yana, what’s the range? Do we need to run?”
    â€œNo . . . the frigate is probably half an hour out, the cruiser an hour or more. One more thing: I’m scanning a concentration of metals on the surface of P/2. It’s an irregular pattern, but the main mass looks like it’s thirty meters by ten.”
    â€œThat sounds like a ship,” Tycho said.
    Diocletia nodded. “Any ion emissions or heat signature? I don’t need anybody else shooting at us right now.”
    â€œCold as space,” Yana said.
    â€œA wreck, then,” Carlo said.
    â€œMaybe the Iris ?” Yana asked.
    Diocletia shook her head. “The pirates never took the Iris —just what she was carrying. This is something else.”
    â€œI have an incoming transmission from the cruiser,” Tycho said.
    â€œPut it onscreen,” Diocletia said. “Silence on deck.”
    The main screen flashed, and a face glared out at them from across space. The man was bald, with tattooed tears trailing down his cheeks to his white mustache, which was stiffened with wax so it was wider than his face. Diamonds and silver hoops decorated his right ear, while his left was a blackened stub surrounded by deep white scars. His left eye was missing, replaced by a black telescoping lens.
    Tycho felt his heart jump at the sight of the notorious pirate Thoadbone Mox, formerly captain of the Hydra . Mox had escaped capture two years ago, after Huff let him go, to the astonishment of the other Hashoones. They knew him as one of Jupiter’s most infamous traitors, suspected of having sold out his fellow pirates at the Battle of 624 Hektor. Even thirteen years later, that dark day was close to a forbidden subject among the Hashoones. Huff had nearly been killed, and his injuries had forced him to surrender the captain’s chair.
    â€œLook what I’ve caught,” sneered Mox, his telescopic eye whining and whirring as he stared at the viewscreen on his own ship. “It’s the Hashoones in that antique bucket they call a ship.”
    â€œWell, if it isn’t Thoadbone Mox,” Diocletia said. “I see someone’s lent you a new ship to replace the one we took from you.”
    â€œA bigger and better ship!” Mox crowed. “This here’s the Geryon . I’ll give you an up-close look at her in a minute. And then I’ll blast that sad little scow of yours into particles.”
    â€œYou can’t afford your own pocket cruiser—whose errand boy are you now, Thoadbone?”
    â€œErrand boy? That’s rich coming from a pretend pirate like you,” Mox said, then leaned close to the camera on his console, so that his face distorted hideously. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be talking—I’d be running. But there’s nowhere in the solar system you can hide from me, Hashoones.”
    â€œWho’s hiding? We’re right here, Mox—catch us if you can. Vesuvia, end transmission.”
    Diocletia drummed her fingers on her console for a moment.
    â€œI don’t like that man,” she muttered, then activated her headset. “Mavry, how’s the damage look?”
    â€œMinor,” Mavry said over his comlink from the fire room. “Some severed auxiliary power feeds and melted control linkages. We can fly with it—though if that missile had been two meters to starboard, it would have vaporized an engine.”
    â€œWell, I guess we’re not totally unlucky these days,” Diocletia said. “Though we’ve got company—that’s Mox out there.”
    â€œHow far off?” Mavry asked.
    â€œNot as far as I’d like,” Diocletia said, then gazed up at the main screen. Yana and Tycho exchanged a glance but