Intrepid

Kris repeated the old joke. ''Captain, you really should do something about that speed-of-light lag time.''

Drago gave the same answer. ''Isn't that a more proper job for those unemployed boffins of yours rather than this only slightly reformed pirate?'' And it was true that the bridge crew of the Wasp did look more like pirates than respectable sailors. From the captain's purple coat, gold earring, and white bell bottoms to his navigator in cutoff shorts and tank top, the crew appeared delightfully reprobate.

And the Wasp had started life as a pirate ship. She now smelled much better. The crew might be flamboyant, but hygiene was a daily concern. And being the best former sailors Wardhaven's spy master had ever contracted for, they knew their job backward and forward.

Especially the twenty-four-inch pulse lasers the Wasp didn't officially have.

''Ah, Professor mFumbo tells me the project is impossible. Something about relativity. Oh, speaking of the good doctor, he has a probe he wants to launch.''

''So he told me,'' the captain said. ''I told him if it was okay with you, it was okay with me.''

''Hm,'' Kris said. ''I told him about the same thing, but I don't remember him mentioning you.''

''He must have been an impossible child to parent,'' Sulwan Kann muttered from her place at the navigator's station.

''That assumes he had parents, a fact not in evidence,'' the captain muttered.

''Is there any problem with launching this probe of his just before we jump?'' Kris said, trying to stay on topic. Despite the professor's approach to getting their okay, if it was safe, the scientists deserved some research.

Captain Drago nodded. ''I've had my crew check out the probe. Separation should be no problem. It won't get under way until we are far from here. We'll do it.''

''Weightlessness in ten seconds,'' Sulwan announced. Kris scrambled for her station to the far left of the captain, where she could keep an eye on offensive weapons and sensors.

At zero, the Wasp cut all power and did a flip to put the bridge head on as it drifted to a halt a thousand meters from where the jump point roiled in tortured space. To the naked eye, nothing was apparent, just a small section of space where the stars seemed to shine a bit strangely.

''Sulwan, you got the nav beacon loaded?''

''It's in Drop Bay 3. The scientists' gadget is in 4.''

Kris didn't ask about Drop Bays 1 and 2. If Jack was half the Marine she expected him to be, two Marine assault crafts were standing by. Fully manned and ready … and armed.

''Launch the beacon,'' Captain Drago ordered.

There was a slight rumble through the hull, and then the nav buoy came in view on its way to the jump point. Bigger, blockier than a government beacon, this one looked like fifty-year-old technology. Just what a merchant skipper might use to probe a strange jump point and not damage a slim profit margin.

The jump buoy held station off the jump point for a few moments while a few more tests were run, then powered up and disappeared through the jump. Sulwan started a clock. At two minutes she'd take the Wasp through after the buoy had announced to anyone listening that they were coming through.

In nearly four hundred years, there had only been one instance of two ships using the same jump point at the same time, coming from opposite directions. The resulting mess had cured humanity of ever wanting to do that again.

Inside human space, every jump point had two buoys assigned to it. Out here, Kris and Captain Drago were improvising as they went along.

''Ten seconds until we jump'' Sulwan announced.

And the jump buoy reappeared before them. ''A ship will be coming through the jump in fifteen seconds,'' it announced.

''That wasn't the message I put on the buoy,'' Sulwan said.

''Nav, reverse thrusters. Maximum power.''

''Reverse. Maximum. Captain,'' Sulwan answered, jamming the reverse thrusters knob all the way back.

''Nav, steer right fifteen degrees, down thirty degrees.''

''Right fifteen. Down thirty degrees, aye, Captain.''

And Kris's inner ear started doing slow rolls as her gut was slammed hard against the buckle of her seat belt. The Wasp shed all forward momentum and took off backward. But even as her body went through the required contortions, Kris kept her eyes on the forward view port. The screen stayed blank for the longest time.

Then a ship twice the size of the Wasp materialized as if from out of nowhere to loom over them.

3

''Engineering, give us everything you've got for reverse,'' Drago said into his commlink. ''Nav, keep us backing, but do not reverse ship. I will not give them a shot at my engines.''

''Aye sir. Get out of here but protect the engines.''