Free A Matter of Oaths by Helen S. Wright Page A

approvingly.
Aware of the obvious, but not concentrating on it to the exclusion of other
possibilities. The asteroids would make a good hiding place for one or two
raiders. Noromi was aware of that and had positioned both of the other patrolships
to cover it. Bhattya , above the plane
that held asteroids and convoy, was equally well placed to meet an attack from
the asteroids or from the three other sectors within her reach.
    Rallya narrowed her eyes as she calculated how well placed
they were. They had gradually moved out from the position she had left them in
at the end of her shift, three hours ago. Accident, or Rafe thinking ahead? The
latter, she conceded grudgingly. As she watched, he continued to flick between
the long range scan and the asteroids.
    “Rafe showing off again?” Elanis said quietly from behind
her seat. He had learned not to make such comments for everyone to hear —
Joshim had reduced him to incoherence with a few well-chosen words the first
time that he did so — but he continued to make them to Rallya in private,
taking her sparring with Rafe as encouragement.
    “Trying to emulate his father,” Rallya suggested. Rafe had
not mentioned Sajan’s information since that day, made no attempt to discover
what Rallya knew. It would be interesting to see how he reacted to this
pestilent aristo apparently knowing more than he did, and she could rely on
Elanis to use what she told him.
    “His father?” Elanis rose to the bait beautifully.
    “Some aristo in the New Empire. Commander Buhklir. Sajan,
aboard Tariya , knew him before she
came across the Zone.” Rallya smiled happily. “Did you know he was an aristo
too?”
    “He’s never mentioned his past,” Elanis said stiffly. “No
doubt he’s an unacknowledged son.”
    “Ask him,” Rallya suggested. “If he is, that’s another
advantage he has over you. Looks, skill, intelligence and he isn’t an aristo.
What more could anybody ask for?”
    Elanis fell silent, lacking the wit to respond in any way
that would not be insubordinate. Rallya had not yet forgiven Joshim for moving
Churi from her team into Rafe’s and replacing him with a lazy lump of bone and
blubber; the first opening that Elanis gave her, he would be off Bhattya . Joshim had filed a request to
transfer him the day after he arrived, but Rallya would not rely upon the
goodwill of some assignment clerk. She would push him into insubordination
sooner or later; he did not have Rafe’s fine judgement of where the line lay.
She grinned, admitting to herself that the line for Rafe was not in the same
place as it was for everybody else. She had not had so much fun with her
clothes on in years, and she would not hamper Rafe with rules.
    Rafe’s main view had changed again, picking out a lone
asteroid above and to one side of the convoy. Rallya stiffened as he tightened
the focus and switched to a large scale mass-contour chart. Yes, that
discrepancy could be a raider, well hidden and waiting to pick off the tail-end
ship of the convoy with a tight tractor-beam before a preset jump; that was how
she would do it in their place.
    As she pushed herself out of her seat, the primary alert
sounded and she swore. No time to get into the web; Vidar would have to handle
it alone. No, not Vidar, Rafe. The teams could not switch roles now, not
without wasting seconds that would let the raider escape. As she sat down
again, still cursing, Rafe started the tight turn that would take Bhattya after the raider.
    Joshim displaced Lilimya from the seat beside Rallya,
blatantly disregarding the alert; he had not been in the web-room when it
sounded, should have stayed where he was. The raider was moving away from the
asteroid, trying to get out of its mass shadow in order to jump. A beautiful
ship, built for speed and stealth. Rallya cursed the historians, for their
failure to identify the source of such a ship, and the diplomats, for their
repeated failure