Intrepid

''You shouldn't be able to, ma'am,'' was the answer she expected. ''Power cables aren't designed for that surge. However, a small three-incher might dribble something out. Couldn't pierce much ice armor, but then, we're just a thin-skinned merchie,'' he said, with a wicked grin.

A knife might not be much, but in a fistfight, it could run the table. But a guy pulling a knife in a gunfight was in for a surprise. A big one.

''Where you been?'' Captain Drago asked.

''We're just coming back from Xanadu,'' the other claimed.

''Trying to trade among those crazies?'' Drago asked.

They'd already learned about Xanadu, the supposed home of the Abdicators. They were a bunch of nuts who insisted all humanity had to go back to Earth and hide from the coming alien hordes that would wipe us out. They'd been noisy forty years ago, then had gotten kind of few and quiet. Kris now knew why.

By some twisted logic, the leader of the Abdicators had moved all his followers far out beyond the Rim. Supposedly to hide. Considering how insanely crazy their beliefs had been before, Kris was none too sure she wanted to know what they'd become out on their own for half a century.

''They may be crazy, but they have money. They bought everything I had. I'm hauling my containers home empty except for some with wines and proto-pharms they sold me. If you got the range, they're a good place to drop by. Where you headed?''

But whoever was doing the talking over there must have figured he'd done enough babbling to distract the captain of the Lucky Seven Horse.

On Kris's board, a capacitor appeared, going from green to yellow to red as it sucked power from the ship's main battery.

''Evade,'' Kris shouted, but Nelly had already activated a jinks pattern in the helm. The Wasp danced left, right, up, down, and a feeble three-inch laser burned empty space.

''What the hell,'' came from the other ship on an open mike, then it went dead.

A red wash in the engineering spaces showed both reactors on the other ship coming to full life, overpowering whatever cover they had been hiding behind. The pirate ship shot away from the jump point, following a twisting course that danced its engines in and out of a direct shot from the Wasp.

A half dozen laser capacitors went from not there to yellow to red as they sucked up a charge.

Then the sensor board got hazy.

''They're trying to jam,'' Beni observed, did something to his board, and some of the jamming went away.

''Shields,'' was Kris's next order.

And she hated herself for it.

A slight bulge on the nose of the Wasp hid one of her two innovations. On order, Smart Metal™ deployed like a huge umbrella, rotating as it went. It both hid the ship behind it and provided a defense against lasers.

During drills, Kris had first ordered, ''Raise. Metal,'' or ''Raise. Defenses.'' Someone on the back of the bridge had whispered, ''Shields. Up,'' quoting from a long-running space opera. The bridge crew had a good laugh, but from then on, no matter what order Kris gave, the answer from Defensive Systems was always, ''Shields. Up.''

''Shields. Up,'' now answered Kris. No one laughed.

''Keep backing ship,'' Captain Drago ordered. ''Guns, let me know when you're fully charged.''

That was the Wasp's other secret. For three hundred years fusion reactors had produced the plasma that rocket motors streamed out to move the ship. That plasma, on its way to the engines, passed through magnetohydrodynamic coils that generated electricity for the ship and its weapons.

The Compton Maru had gotten under way, exposing its vulnerable engines because otherwise it couldn't charge its lasers.

The Wasp backed up, using only its maneuvering engines. By all rights, it couldn't charge its pulse lasers off that dribble of plasma. But on Kris's board, the four laser capacitors were rapidly moving from green to yellow, headed for full red. Thanks to new science and a recent refit, the Wasp stripped electricity directly from the plasma flux in the reactor.

The times they were a changing. And this pirate was about to find out.

Then Kris got her own surprise. The Compton Maru sprouted a shielding umbrella from its own bow. This one had a leaping tiger on it. Its jaws agape, its claws dripping blood.

''Aggressive type, aren't they,'' Sulwan observed.

''Let's see if they can walk the walk,'' Kris said, mashing her commlink. ''Ahoy, Compton Maru. This is the USS Wasp, and I am Lieutenant Longknife, Wardhaven Navy. You just fired upon me. Dump your core and prepare to be boarded.''

''You can go to hell,'' shot back in reply, but in the background there was a startled cry of ''Not a Longknife.'' Followed by ''Shut up.''

The two ships circled each other. Captain Drago kept the Wasp pivoting on its long axis, nose always to the Compton. The pirate, for her part, did her best to open the range while keeping her engines covered.

The range was point-blank. Hand grenades in a broom closet.