Free Rogue-ARC by Michael Z. Williamson Page A

acquire more hardware later.
    “When and if we get to other systems, it’s a case of bribes working, or invoking threats to higher ups. But we’re the offense here. We don’t apologize and we don’t shrink back, unless it’s a deliberate act.”
    “Got it,” she nodded. Then she smiled. “I think I’ll be fine after the first round.”
    ***
    We were in that cabin for most of seven days out and six days in to Caledonia. She couldn’t find any vid she liked. There were some I might watch, but I couldn’t concentrate. We didn’t want to do too much interaction with other passengers, so meals were about the only time we left. It was cleaned daily, neat, smelled faintly of flowers and with a touch of ozone for clarity. The staff really did try, but it wasn’t enough.
    I’m a loner, didn’t have any privacy, and I couldn’t think of a diplomatic way of saying, “Can you leave for a half div while I stroke off?” A shipboard shower stall is neither romantic nor comfortable. Her flipping channels got on my nerves. Me fuming in silence got on hers. She had an annoying habit of taking forever in the shower, when I needed to get clean, get off and get to sleep.
    Which is all part of traveling with someone, especially other troops, and something you learn to cope with. I just hadn’t had to in a long time.
    I did find it soothing to have a warm back against mine at night. Human companionship was something I always lacked.
    The meals managed to be adequate without being either too institutional or flashy. I was impressed. Ships are usually one or the other. The housekeepers were agreeable to our request to come at dinner time, when we had everything secured. I didn’t want them wandering in otherwise.
    I also had to put in long divs researching. Randall was in the Caledonia system. Great. Who was the target? We had nothing concrete.
    I made a list starting with the Queen and other Royals and working down.
    I ruled out the Royals. The only group that would target them was decades old, increasingly pathetic Common People’s Action Group. They didn’t have the money, and they’d never hire an “elitist” to do their killing. That, and my team had slaughtered them in a previous engagement. There were others who didn’t like the monarchy, but they all realized it was politically and promotionally bad to target them, because the Caledonians overwhelmingly loved their Royals. That was the basis of their colony, now nation, after their parent Earth culture got rid of its royalty in one of the UN treaties.
    I supposed it was possible someone with enough money hired him to settle some petty score against an underling, but there were too many tens of thousands of possibilities to consider that.
    In between were a few hundred notable business and political people who might be significant enough. I gridded them and managed to eliminate a few who were either too old, too meaningless or too noncontentious to matter.
    That took most of a week. I’d have to spend the next week doing the heavy thinking on the rest. Also, there were some in from outsystem. I had to cut the ones who were definitely short notice, or strictly transient, or had made plans after the DNA intel date. Again, targets of opportunity were possible, but I had to stick to predictable strategic targets.
    Right before we hit jump point, I did screen a message to Chel.
    “Hey, kid. I’m about to leave system, but I am going to say goodbye. I’ll have updates relayed to you, and I’ll get back as soon as I can. Miss you. A lot. Be good. Love you.”
    I just had a lingering fear that this would be the last she saw of me. So I had to send something.
    Silver and I reached a détente the second week. She watched vid in the passenger lounge and turned down occasional passes. In the stateroom, I gave her a half div to send coded posts to a repeater back insystem that updated her social pages and noted she was doing a remote training course in the Hinterlands and