Description: Chapter One "Remind me to tell the commander we need more recruits from the Navy," Torin muttered, checking the seals on Binti''s HE suit. "That a comment about my piloting?" Craig asked as he maneuvered the Promise into position, carefully avoiding the line of sight from both Mictok Station Trilik and the pirate ship tucked between the station and the gas giant. "You''re the best damn pilot I ever saw," Torin told him, "but a boarding party says Navy to me." "A serley small boarding party," Werst grumbled as Ressk checked his seals. "We need more recruits. Period. I''m not saying we aren''t the definition of kickass," he continued, "but there''s only the four of us going in." "There''s only six non-Mictok on the station and two on the ship," Alamber pointed out. "I''ll be into the system as soon as you''re inside, Craig will take the ship, and--given you''re facing less than two-to-one odds--I don''t understand why Binti and Ressk are going." Werst''s nostril ridges flared. "When you put it like that, it does seem like overkill." "No one dies," Torin reminded them, using the pressure of her chin against the suit''s wide collar to turn the magnetic plates in her boots on, then off again. "Pirates may be a waste of oxygen, but I''m not spending the better part of a tenday filling out paperwork before having my ass hauled before the Rehabilitation Committee so I can explain why social expectations weren''t met." Binti grinned. "By us or by them?" "Either. Or." The Hazardous Environment suits were bright orange, di''Taykan danger orange, although the color had been chosen for its visibility rather than any cultural reason. "The Marines don''t leave people behind," Staff Sergeant Beyhn had told Torin''s group of recruits, as he''d told a hundred groups before and would tell a hundred after. "If you have one of these on," he''d added before the warm fuzzy feeling of belonging had faded, "we''ve got a chance of finding your body even if the beacon craps out." The suits worn by Strike Team Alpha were Marine Corps suits, or as ex-Marine as Torin, Werst, Ressk, and Binti Mashona. The Warden''s insignia on the center chest was less overt than the Justice Department preferred, but as the Strike Teams were considerably more overt than the Justice Department preferred, Torin figured it balanced in the end. The helmet made use of H''san technology and held two different shapes; down the back like an empty bag and snapped up over the head into a rigid polarized sphere. Helmet up, the suit could support the tanks by filtering any combination of external oxygen and nitrogen into something essentially breathable. It recycled all fluids almost indefinitely. Self-contained, the suits were comfortable for six hours, livable for eight, and, if breathing remained an option, became progressively nastier after that. If all went well, they''d be out of the suits before the plumbing had a chance to recycle the morning''s pouch of coffee. Torin didn''t expect it to go well. Precedent aside, the anticipation of all hell breaking loose helped keep her people alive. Suits secured, she checked with Binti and the two Krai, then turned toward the control panel. "Ready when you are." "We''ll be in position in five," Craig told her. "Opening inner airlock door." The airlock opened into the control room. Back when Craig Ryder had been a Civilian Salvage Operator, the control room had been the Promise ''s single cabin, the greater part of the ship the Susumi drive. Justice had upgraded and expanded the Promise when she''d nearly been destroyed by pirates, adding the ability to attach packets as needed, but she remained Craig''s ship. The other Strike Team pilots flew decommissioned Navy Corvettes--the smallest Naval vessel with a Susumi drive. The other Strike Team pilots would have shit themselves before ghosting into docking position on a gas giant mining station using momentum and air jets and hard-earned skill. "We''re still a surprise, Boss," Alamber called from the second seat as the inner door opened and Torin led the four suited members of her team into the airlock. "Speed matched to within five point seven kilometers an hour. Exit in seven minutes . . . mark." The countdown appeared on the lower right curve of her helmet. The inner door sealed, and the pressure began to equalize. "You really think we can take back the station with six people, Gunny?" "How many people do we have?" Behind the lightly polarized surface of her helmet, Binti''s brows rose. "Six." "Then we''ll take back the station with six people." There''d been a rise in violence in Sector Seven--in MidSector as well as OutSector--spreading the Strike Teams thin, preventing them from doubling up. Torin would have preferred to take more Wardens into the pirate-held station, but as there weren''t any available, her preferences were moot. The six of them, in pre-Strike Team Alpha days, had taken down an entire pirate fleet. A single ship draining the tanks at a Mictok-run mining station should be a walk in the cake. Torin frowned. Maybe not cake. Pie? Not for the first time, she missed the late Sergeant Hollice and his command of oldEarth idiom. Over the last five tendays, three other mining stations had been hit, quick and quiet, the Wardens informed after the fact. The violence had been minimal by Torin''s standards, but two Mictok and a Bril had been killed. The Elder Races hadn''t fought back because the Elder Races didn''t fight back, which was one of the reasons the strike teams existed--the Younger Races cleaning up the damage done to their three species over the long years of the war. That said, everyone agreed the Bril''s death had been accidental. They were a strangely fragile species with some of their important parts in unexpected places. Informed of the previous attacks, the manager of Mictok Station Trilik had adopted the very non-Mictok attitude of assuming the worst and had deployed long-range scanners. The moment the scanners had picked up an unscheduled tanker in-system, they''d sent a message to Berbar Station, the Justice headquarters in Seventh Sector and evacuated all but essential personnel, fully aware that had they waited until the tanker came close enough to identify, it would have been too late. The pirates would have blocked the signal. Having noticed ships leaving the station en masse, smart pirates would have headed for home. Perhaps the pirates thought the Mictok--who had close to a monopoly on mining the Confederation''s gas giants--hadn''t shared information about the previous attacks. Perhaps they thought the Mictok would be embarrassed to send for help before they knew for certain they needed it. Perhaps they''d never actually spoken to a Mictok, as Torin didn''t think it was possible to embarrass one of the giant spiders. Perhaps, after three successful robberies, they''d gotten cocky. There hadn''t been resistance, so there wouldn''t be resistance. Wrong. Three minutes. With the pressure equalized, the outer airlock door opened. One minute. "Speed matched to within six meters per hour. Five. Four. Three . . ." "On my word." Torin watched the seconds count down. "Speed matched." Three. Two . . . "Go! Go! Go!" The Promise was one hundred and one meters from the station--one meter closer and the station''s docking computers would have taken over, announcing their approach. Craig could have nestled his ship up to the airlock--to any airlock--without help, but the Mictok insisted on safety first, most likely because a good seventy percent of the gas they mined was combustible. Thirty percent of the seventy was highly combustible. The potential for disaster put the docking arm used for the arrival and departure of personnel on the opposite side of the station from the gas giant, the bulk of the station a shield against the planetary storms and the tanks filled with potential explosives. This also put the airlock the Strike Team was heading for on the opposite side from the tanks and the pirates emptying them. On the one hand, they were less likely to be seen. On the other, they had the entire width of the station to cross once inside. Torin unmagged her boots three meters before she hit metal, twisting and allowing the much less powerful magnets in her gloves to make first contact, preventing eighty-six accelerating kilograms from slamming into the station and setting off an impact alarm. The piercing, panic-inducing nature of the alarm meant no one, on any station, wanted the sensors reacting to every passing piece of space debris so only those large enough, fast enough, or solid enough to damage the outer hull set off the klaxons. These large, fast, and solid measurements were consistent across the Confederation and, for all Torin''s comments about the Navy, the entire boarding party had done this before. A few meters to the right, Ressk filled her peripheral vision. Werst touched down above them, his head to theirs. Binti''s aim had put her close enough to the airlock controls she had to shift to the left when Ressk hand-walked over. No one expected people to cross vacuum and open the door. No one set alarms for the unexpected. On the other hand, as no one wanted personnel trapped outside a station should the worst happen, the emergency access codes for the airlocks were also consistent across the Confederation. Torin believed the definition of

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