Liaden Universe [19] - Alliance of Equals - eARC Read Online Free Page B

and responsive action as required. We will not comply with your request while, outside, hunter ships approach.”
    Evasive action, indeed! The Uncle realized that he had been holding his breath and took in air, his whole attention pinned to the screen.
    There was too much noise; pilots objecting; pilots demanding—the tumult went unheeded as Bechimo ran, and returned fire until the hunters, one by one, were lost in traffic.
    Except for one.
    That one…leapt forward, firing what the energy grid at the bottom of the screen classified as neutrinos.
    Bechimo returned fire; the attacking ship was hit—The vid flickered, and when it steadied again, Bechimo was gone.
    There came more noise: pilots demanding to know what had happened, some few clever souls proclaiming that Bechimo had Jumped, others claiming that a Jump in such traffic was impossible, the other ship must have been killed in the same blast that had taken the hunter…
    When at last it was over, Uncle took a deep and not entirely steady breath, and leaned back in his chair, hands folded over his belt buckle, a slight frown on his face.
    “You’re not amused?” Dulsey asked, her voice quieter than usual.
    “On one level,” he said slowly. “One must allow Pilot Waitley and Bechimo to be formidable. And one might almost feel, a little, sorry for the poor agents of the Department. How could they have considered it possible that Bechimo ’s crew would give themselves up? What were they thinking, to provoke and attack, with so many witnessing their actions?”
    He flung a hand up and toward the screen, fingers sketching disdain.
    “ This is the enemy Korval cannot defeat.”
    “Nor can we,” Dulsey observed drily.
    He sniffed. “Nor have we. Yet.”
    “Fair enough. But at this pace, there will be nothing left for us; Pilot Waitley and her ship will have eaten them all.”
    “Perhaps not, though certainly they are within their rights to take as many as they deem fit.” He shifted somewhat in his chair. “It is unfortunate that the actions of idiots pressed Bechimo into an indiscretion—again, with so many eyes upon them.”
    “I mislike that neutrino bath,” Dulsey confessed. “It seemed Bechimo ’s shields were thinning…badly.”
    “I thought so, too. And while we may sit here, comfortable in the knowledge that they long ago outmaneuvered brigands, within the moment it must have seemed as if there was nothing else to do, save Jump. The situation is regrettable—but survivable, most especially given Seignur Veeoni’s work, eh?”
    Dulsey smiled.
    “In fact. When will she publish more widely?”
    “An excellent question. I think it must be soon. Very soon.”
    —•—
    “Andiree will be the first new stop on the route,” Father said, as Padi brought him his wine. Before he had asked her to refresh his glass, they had been talking about her cartography coursework, but she knew him too well to be found on the wrong foot by so minor a change of topic as that.
    “So it will,” she agreed, placing the glass on the flat disk of green-and-blue mottled stone that served as a coaster. Padi remembered the stern-faced person who had given it to him—Ambassador Valeking of Granda—as a gift of good faith. Ambassador Valeking hadn’t liked Father; her dislike so plain that Padi, who had been present at the meeting in her melant’i of cabin boy, had tasted sour grapes for hours afterward.
    Father had been amused by the Ambassador, though Padi hadn’t been able to fathom precisely why. And in the end, neither dislike nor amusement had mattered, so far as she could see; Korval and Granada together reread the standing treaty, no changes were made, and both parties signed, accepting the terms for the next twelve years.
    Oh, and Father had gotten a pretty stone coaster.
    “How do you plan to mark this momentous event?” Father asked as she settled into the chair across the desk from him.
    She considered him blandly, her best trading face in place.
    “I