Main Engineering was organized chaos as technicians scurried back and forth across the large room, carrying out arcane tasks that would evidently get the Timberwolf back into shape again. All of the temporary patches applied after the yacht exploded were now being replaced with permanent fixes to bring the ship back to maximum efficiency. Captain Maxwell noted, as he walked into the room, that the two days spent outside the Yared system so far had been put to good use by his chief engineer.

Maxwell sighted Grady Compton and the first officer standing at the main engineering status console, talking together as they monitored the repair effort. In the few weeks he’d known him, Maxwell had learned that Compton was a talented engineer. Perhaps he was a little quirky, or even strange, but he was competent. Of course, no one got promoted to chief engineer of a Starfleet starship without being competent. But, Maxwell had noticed that Compton sometimes overstated his ability to get things done, although not enough to endanger the ship or a mission by overestimation. In his years in the fleet, Maxwell had noticed that engineers tended to lengthen work estimates or underestimate their abilities, thereby giving them leeway with demanding captains who demanded everything faster. But Compton was the opposite—he seemed to be trying to prove that he was faster and better than everyone else.

Approaching his two officers, Maxwell said, “How are the repairs proceeding?”

Compton looked up from his console confidently. “We should have the engines back at peak performance in three hours. We’re just about to start diagnostics and calibration. Most of the secondary systems are also back online, including transporters and sensors.”

“Very good, Mr. Compton. I won’t delay you any further then,” Maxwell said.

Devlin jumped in then, as if to include the captain in the conversation before he could leave. “Sir, I was just telling Grady about our mysterious antagonist. What did you think of her?” Maxwell knew that Devlin liked to tweak other people, especially if he knew it would bother them. Normally, he would make a noncommittal response and walk away, but this time he felt like talking about it.

“She was beautiful—no doubting that—but she was more than just looks,” he said, leaning on the console with his arms crossed and his eyes looking unfocused at the bulkhead. “Sure she was infuriating, but in that endearing way some women have. No, wait, not endearing, but manipulative, captivating.”

Devlin interrupted, “I think I know what you mean. Annie used to do this thing when we were dating. I’d ask her what she wanted to do on a particular evening. If I said I wanted to go to some type of sports game, I’d arrive at her place and she’d be dressed for dancing. If I asked her why she didn’t just tell me she wanted to go dancing, she’d say that a woman needed to keep a little mystery. It was maddening sometimes, especially when I wanted to see the game, but somehow it kept me interested. It made me want to be captivated by her.”

“Interesting,” Compton added. “I’ve never encountered anyone like that myself, but I did see a character like that in a holonovel once. I think it was ‘Marauders of Tel Kitor.’ It was very popular last year.”

“Yes, I remember that one,” Maxwell said. “The main character was a woman who inherited a huge fortune, but was bored by it so she spent her time seeking buried treasures, avoiding pirates, and traipsing around expensive resorts … and leaving dozens of broken hearts in her wake.”

Devlin laughed at both men. “I didn’t know you two were such aficionados of holonovels aimed at drooling, teenage boys.”

“Everyone needs some mindless entertainment occasionally, Commander,” Maxwell replied with a smile. “Anyway, if we do capture this woman, I don’t know whether I’ll try to throttle her or ask her to dinner.”

“It just so happens that I had a date once where both of those happened. Of course, I was the one being throttled,” said Devlin. All three men broke up in laughter, just as Lieutenant Manigat, the ship’s science officer, entered the room. Speaking of sexuality, Maxwell thought to himself. Manigat was one of the few Deltan females still serving in Starfleet. More than a century ago, Deltans had begun joining Starfleet, but because of their open sexuality and the danger that its intensity posed to most non-Deltans, they had been required to take an oath of celibacy. That would have been enough, but unfortunately Deltans emit pheromones that cause sexual excitement in members of the opposite sex, even of different species.

While Starfleet Medical looked for ways to counteract or lessen the effects of the pheromones, the presence of Deltans on starships caused disruptions of discipline and distractions. When a distracted crewman eventually caused the death of another, the Deltan government ordered all of its people out of the service. However, in recent years a treatment to lessen the effects of the pheromones had been found and, while non-Deltans still perked up every time a Deltan walked into the room, they weren’t reduced to quivering hormones.

And of course, there was the case of Manigat. Most Deltans shaved their heads as part of their culture; a sign of fertility and promiscuity, but Manigat came from a different culture on the planet that not only rejected the practice but also frowned on the free-flowing sexuality their people were known for. So Manigat did all she could to downplay the traditional Deltan heritage. Her hair was bobbed in an unattractive mannish cut, she wore no makeup, and she took higher dosages of the pheromone-reducing drugs. Still, a lot of the men on the ship took notice whenever she entered a room and some of the young officers, who didn’t know better, made occasional passes at her. Now here’s an interesting counterpoint to our mysterious starship booster, Maxwell thought. On the one hand we have a human female using all the tools at her disposal to manipulate the men around her, and on the other hand we have a woman who has all the genetic gifts to make men literally die to be with her and she does all she can to reject them.

“Am I interrupting?” the science officer asked in her lilting accent. “I just came to oversee the sensor calibration.”

“No, Lieutenant. We were just discussing our encounter with the mysterious woman who stole that starship,” Devlin said. “We were just saying that we found her particularly interesting. I think the captain is looking forward to getting her into the brig for some questioning.”

Maxwell looked with mild disapproval at Devlin for the crude remark. It was one thing to joke with the senior officer in front of the crew, but some jokes tended to erode respect for the captain and thus discipline. He made a mental note to speak with the XO about it.

Manigat was responding by now. “I fail to understand the human male’s fascination with such women. She is obviously a criminal with little respect for other people’s lives or property who uses her sexuality to manipulate others.”

“I suppose that’s true, Lieutenant,” Compton said, “but did you see the way she flirted with the Captain?” He waggled his eyebrows outrageously.

“If he weren’t the commander of a pursuing vessel who she needed to stall and throw off, she probably wouldn’t have given him a second glance,” she replied. “No offense, Captain.”

“Oh, none taken, of course,” he said wryly.

Devlin jumped in to try to explain it to Manigat. “Have you noticed, Manigat, the human female’s fascination with scoundrels? Not all women of course, but many of them tend to have an attraction to the ‘bad boy.’”

“Yes, but my understanding is that the motivation is maternal instinct. Such women want to reform the men, to change them. But men like ‘bad girls’ because they think she will be as depraved as he is.” Manigat arched her left eyebrow while keeping a straight face. Maxwell couldn’t tell whether she was serious or pulling their legs. Knowing himself and other men as he did, he couldn’t blame her for making that conclusion.

“In any case, this discussion is moot. The woman is a criminal and a threat to my ship,” Maxwell said. “If I catch up to her again, the only date I’ll be making with her is a date before the local magistrate.” But as he walked out of engineering, he couldn’t help wishing that he’d been able to meet the mystery woman under different circumstances.

Chapter Four

The senior staff gathered in the Timberwolf’s main briefing room off the bridge a few hours later to discuss their current situation and the next step. With Starfleet Command beginning to get antsy about the delay in getting to Starbase 9, Maxwell had to decide whether to expend any more effort on this pursuit.

This was the first major operational meeting for this command staff, apart from training or routine meetings, and Maxwell was looking forward to seeing how well they worked together in advising him and organizing themselves.

Once everyone was seated around the briefing room table, the captain began by saying, “I’d like status reports and then analysis of the current situation. Commander….”

Devlin started off the reports, “The ship is back at peak efficiency. All repairs have been completed and verified. We have been outside the Yared system for 56 hours with no sign of the suspect vessel and without the Yared government giving us permission to enter their space or even scan the area. And Starfleet has sent a second request for an updated estimate for our arrival at Starbase 9.”

“What is so all-fired important about that training anyway?” Markides asked from down the table.

Devlin turned with a rueful expression. “It’s not the actual training that’s important. It’s that procedures and paperwork say we should be at place A doing task B and, by God, we should be there doing it. Otherwise, the bureaucrats get nervous.”

“We’ll do our best to fulfill that bureaucratic need, but only after I’m satisfied that this matter is taken care of.” Bringing them back on track, Maxwell turned to his tactical officer. “Breel’tzin, what have you found out about Melissa Carter?”

The Andorian glanced quickly at his padd and then back at the captain. “First, her name is not Melissa Carter. I ran her appearance through the Federation security database, and while she has a number of aliases, her real name is Anna Amoroso. She is the child of hereditary land holders on Earth in the region known as Brazil. She attended top schools on Earth, Rigel, and Berengaria, and was noted in her school records as rebellious and prone to excessive personal risk.

“She first came to the notice of security officials seven years ago when she began associating with a known criminal, a con artist whose pattern included the swindling of wealthy, young women such as Miss Amoroso. It appears she turned the tables on him and they eventually went into the criminal enterprise together. He was captured three years later. Since then she has gathered a new group of associates and begun to specialize in the theft of expensive and rare starships. According to her criminal profile, she does not steal so much for the wealth—which she really does not need—as for the thrill of the act.”

“Rare and expensive starships?” Devlin interjected. “Why not jewels or dilithium or latinum?”

Breel’tzin replied, “It appears that she has developed excellent piloting skills which she then uses against pursuing security and police forces. And to find such expensive ships, she must move in the same elite circles which she was born into, a lifestyle which she appears to be accustomed to.”

Maxwell turned to his ships’ counselor, Lieutenant Hikma Jarabe, an unjoined male Trill. “Hikma, I’d like you to go over the criminal profile and the list of known associates with Lt. Breel’tzin and find any weaknesses, personality traits, or personal history that will give us an edge or perhaps a way of finding them—known hiding-holes, addictions, predilections—anything that might help.”

“Lt. Manigat,” he continued, “what can you tell us about her escape and the destruction of the stolen yacht?”

The Deltan stood and walked to a nearby display screen. “In accord with her so-noted ‘risk taking’, the tactic which Amoroso used to disable the Timberwolf and hide her escape very nearly took her own life.” Manigat called up a schematic of the yacht on the screen. “Bypassing several key safety and security systems, she was able to route warp engine plasma through the EPS system and into the navigational deflector’s primary power regulator. She also tuned the deflector to radiate omicron radiation. When the engines overloaded, the deflector acted as a giant amplifier and overloaded our sensors and disrupted the warp bubble.” The display showed the animated effect of the sequence of events as Manigat turned back to the briefing room table.

“All of this was implemented in just a few minutes and the explosion left her and her associate on board with little time to escape. In fact, had the transport to the other ship taken just a few microseconds longer, the beam would have been disrupted by the radiation blast and she would be dead now.”

Maxwell steepled his fingers and brought them to his lips as he thought about this information. Obviously, this Amoroso was a highly dangerous individual who would not think twice about risking her own neck as well as that of those around her and to sacrifice her stolen booty to avoid capture. The next time he encountered her, he would not allow her to endanger his crew like that again.

“What happened after the explosion?” Maxwell asked.

Lt. Commander Rebecca Cuddihy, the chief pilot on the Timberwolf and thus the commander of the two squadrons of Marine Viper fighters sitting in the shuttlebay, spoke up. Cuddihy was a petite, yet strongly built woman with shoulder-length brown hair she kept running her hand through as she talked. “When the yacht exploded, Tiger Flight was in close proximity to the second vessel, the Silk Dragon,” she began. “They were buffeted by the blast but undamaged, so they began pursuit of the fugitives. Unfortunately, the ship is much faster than our Vipers, and we quickly fell behind. We tracked them to the edge of the Yared system. When our fighters arrived at the border, the Yared military intercepted Tiger Flight and would not allow them to proceed. They remained just outside the border and continued to track the Silk Dragon until it landed on Yared Prime. Tiger Flight remained there until the Timberwolf caught up.”

“What is your estimation of the Silk Dragon’s capabilities, Commander?” Devlin asked. “Could your squadron take it in a fight?”

Becca thought for a moment and said, “Well, as long as they don’t have room to run, I think we could eventually batter its shields down. They are powerful for a ship that size, but not as strong, say, as a Cardassian Galor. I might compare the shield strength to a Klingon Bird of Prey. As far as its weapons go, I don’t know. They seem to be shielded from regular scans.”

“I expect the fighters would not have to fight it out alone with the ship,” Breel’tzin chimed in. “A couple of broadsides from the Timberwolf should be able to bring them to heel. A sneak explosion is one thing, but they’re no match for the full power of this starship.”

“Easy there, Breel’tzin,” Markides warned. “They’re starship boosters, not the Dominion.” Turning to the captain, she said, “We are trying to arrest them, right?”

“Of course,” Maxwell replied. “We’re not at war anymore, people. Our goal is to enforce the law, not crush anyone who defies us.” After several years of fighting for the survival of the Alpha Quadrant, Maxwell, too, found it difficult to separate the warrior instinct from Starfleet’s founding principles as a peacekeeping and exploratory agency. Having thousands of friends and colleagues and millions of people you were trying to protect killed during the war tended to harden an officer. He hoped Starfleet would have a few years of peace to rebuild that original vision. “Commander Markides, what can you tell us about Yared?” he continued.

“Not much that we don’t already know, sir,” she said. “They are a non-Federation aligned world that has rejected most forms of cooperation between governments, with a particular suspicion of Starfleet. They seem to enjoy their outsider status, profiting from being a safe haven for all kinds of people who are on the run from the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, etc. They make no distinction between the great powers of the Alpha Quadrant, rejecting them all.”

Compton interjected, “It’s funny that the very principles of the Federation that they reject are what protect their neutrality. If they were in Klingon- or Romulan-controlled space, they wouldn’t be allowed to resist.”

“I can just picture it now,” Devlin said. He assumed a Yaredian voice, “We reject the Klingon Empire and wish to remain neutral in all matters.” Changing his voice again to that of a Klingon warrior, “YAAAH! Die dishonorable scum! … And welcome to the Klingon Empire.” Everyone had a good chuckle at that. Sure enough, Klingon diplomacy seemed to consist of determining whether the other party was weak enough to just conquer or whether talking was required to give them time to find a weakness.

“Perhaps, it would be more profitable to talk further about the boosters themselves,” Jarabe began, but he was interrupted by the hail of the intercom.

“Bridge to Captain Maxwell,” came the voice of Lt. Chen, the current officer of the deck. Maxwell acknowledged the hail and the officer continued, “We are receiving a communication from the Bondi Colony. There’s been another starship heist.”

Chapter Five

The spaceport on Bondi was perfect. Dozens of private starships, all expensive and rare models, lay parked across the tarmac. Dozens more—too large to land on a planet’s surface—were still in orbit. Anna had taken her time looking at all the ships, trying to find the perfect one.

Bondi was another playground of the rich and famous. It wasn’t as famous as Risa, but that suited the exclusive clientele just fine. While the hoi polloi flocked to Risa—“the pleasure planet”—only those in the most elite circles could afford to come to Bondi. Like its namesake Australian beach, the equatorial regions of Bondi sported fine white sand beaches, crystal blue waters, and a magical climate. Further north and south were ski resorts, mountains, and forests, all staffed with attendants to pamper the guests who gathered every day and night for a parade of strutting from party to party, trying their best to make sure that everyone else was watching them, even as they watched everyone else.

On the one hand, Anna looked with contempt upon the pampered layabouts, so concerned with their social status, while on the other hand, she loved moving through those circles, leaving stupefied men and woman in her wake, stripping them of their valuable starships all the while.

Anna was familiar with this social level, being the daughter of privilege herself. All her peers were similarly endowed with wealth and privilege and opportunity, and she grew up going to places just like Bondi. She detested the shallowness and insincerity; how someone could approach you and tell you how she loves your dress and immediately turn around and cut you down in front of everyone. It was a circle of sharks, waiting for one of their own to be blooded so they could all dive in for the kill.

Sitting on a beach chair at one of the most exclusive of the exclusive resorts, Anna watched through her sunglasses at the men and women strutting around. There were the hardbodied youngsters, so self-confident in their looks and attractiveness, even as they knew that, despite the best efforts of modern medicine, they would eventually grow old and flabby and undesirable. And then there were those older patrons, those who had already turned to sagging and flab, desperately trying to hold on to the glamour of youth, to appear attractive to the youngsters all around them who already viewed them with contempt. She would relish relieving one of them of their starship.

This time I won’t lose that ship either, she thought. If that Starfleet captain hadn’t interfered, she would have made it to Yared where her buyer had been waiting. She’d had to promise him another equivalent yacht and then snuck out on the buyer’s ship, past the waiting starship. Her short exposure to the Starfleet captain had intrigued her. He wasn’t like these preening peacocks in this resort. He was experienced, hardened by life and self-controlled, but she could see the zeal for life in him, even across the communications link. In some ways, he reminded her of Derik, her first true love when she was 21, the man who had introduced her to the excitement of starship boosting. He had been a con man who’d specialized in soaking rich young women of their money, but he hadn’t counted on the fire in Anna’s spirit.

After she found him out and turned the tables on him, the two of them joined forces and had run around the quadrant together for three years, pulling various cons and scams until finally he’d been caught by the Lyssian police. Now that he was serving a life sentence in a Lyssian prison, Anna had gone out and started her own gang. An eclectic mix of free spirits, outcasts, and common criminals, the group had pulled off a series of successful stings and boosts, never having been caught in four years. One reason for that success lay in the careful planning Anna did before every boost.

And so now she was planning, picking out her target, matching names and faces to the starships parked in the spaceport. Peering surreptitiously at her padd—which to anyone else would appear to be the latest issue of Appeal magazine—she finally found the man who belonged to the Markham Rapida 1000 yacht berthed in bay 235B, one Paul Courtney, now seated across the sand at the bar, talking animatedly with a Vulcan.

Anna thought to herself that scamming a Vulcan would be an interesting exercise someday. Her feminine wiles and standard manipulations would probably be ineffective, so she’d have to rely on her wits and an attempt to confuse his logic. But he wasn’t the target today.

Courtney was a 60-year-old executive working for a mining conglomerate based on Mars with operations throughout Federation space. According to her sources, he was not currently married, having just shed his wife and embarking on a mid-life attempt to regain his youth through the attentions of beautiful, young women. Well, Anna planned on giving him that attention.

Rising from her chair, Anna fixed her revealing bathing suit and strolled across the sand toward the bar. She wasn’t a tall woman, standing only 170 centimeters, and she was curvaceous and well-toned, rather than just skinny. Behind the dark glasses, she caught the glimpses of men turning to watch as she walked by, with the men who were already with a woman doing their best to look without being caught looking.

“I’ll have another white wine,” she told the bartender as she approached and stood next to Courtney. He stopped talking to his Vulcan friend and looked at her appreciatively.

“Good afternoon, lovely lady. A beautiful day isn’t?” he said by way of opening.

Barely glancing his way, Anna replied, “Yes, but isn’t every day in paradise beautiful?”

“But the everyday beauty pales in comparison to your beauty,” he said lamely. Anna had heard every opening line, every attempted, over-expansive compliment. She supposed that if she were really in this for companionship rather than the con, she would be tired of the silly banter. If only men realized that what a woman wanted was honesty, sincerity, and fun, not bravado and silly compliments. But of course she had to play along.

“Why, thank you,” she said, taking off her glasses and giving him her winning smile—the one that caused her eyes to sparkle and made her whole face gleam with joy. There had been men who would have given up precious body parts just to have that smiled turned on them genuinely.

He held out his hand and introduced himself, and she noticed he sucked in his gut a bit as he did so. “Paul Courtney. A pleasure to meet you ….”

“Katrina Beauchamp, but my friends call me Katy,” she replied.

“I hope I can be one of your friends, Katy,” he said, almost leering.

Within two hours, Anna had completely charmed Courtney and he was regaling her with stories of his powerful job, his fabulous houses, and finally his very expensive private yacht that he piloted himself. “It’s a Markham Rapida 1000, but I’ve had it heavily customized,” he said. “The warp engines are uprated and can make Warp 6 in a pinch. And of course, I’ve added every available amenity—a full galley in addition to replicators, six master-size suites, and even a whirlpool bath. Perhaps I can show it to you later.”

“Why wait?” she said with a suggestive smile. “I think the idea of a nice, private whirlpool bath sounds very appealing.”

Courtney readily agreed, of course, unable to believe his incredible luck. Anna gathered up her things, wrapping a sarong over her bathing suit, and incidentally hiding a small phaser in the folds. Courtney was so eager to go, he almost forgot to put on his shoes and shirt.

* *

A small maintenance crew riding in a repulsorlift truck approached the service gate of the spaceport. Anna’s accomplice in the unsuccessful Trejillan boost, Nils Hanson, was behind the wheel and next to him sat a very large, very powerful black man. Behind them, in the bed of the truck, sat an Acamarian woman—one of the famed gypsy-like Gatherers, very muscular with a no-nonsense air—and a chubby, officious Zakdorn. As they approached the gate, Nils leaned out to speak to the guard stationed there.

“Can I help you?” the guard asked, approaching the truck as it stopped.

“We have a work order for the refueling system in bay 235B,” Nils said, all smiles. “Something about a problem with the deuterium tanks.”

“Let me check,” the guard said as he disappeared into his hut to check his computer. Nils wasn’t worried about the check, since of course he had planted the work order in the system that very morning. A minute later, the guard came out and waved them through.

Quickly making their way through the crowded spaceport, Nils brought the truck to a halt outside bay 235B. The four jumped from the truck and approached the locked access door. A valid maintenance crew would have had a working key card to open the lock, but since they weren’t a valid maintenance crew, Nils set to work bypassing the system. Meanwhile, the big black man, Gordon Ansell, the woman, Marilla, and the Zakdorn, Urbina, all kept watch for passersby, especially port security. Two minutes later they were in the bay.

Gordon whistled as he saw the sleek vessel inside. “She’s a real beauty. Are you sure you can’t just hack the lock and get us inside?” he asked Nils.

“If I could, Anna wouldn’t be conning the owner to bring her down here right now. It’s one of those new Vulcan security systems with a self-scrambling password. It’s DNA bonded and if you make a wrong move, it sends out an alert. It would take hours just to bypass it.” He added with a laugh, “Anna works much faster than that.” The woman’s ability to manipulate and cajole others to do her will was amazing. He had felt that charm leveled upon him before and could attest to its power. He wondered occasionally if she was using some kind of alien enhancement—like Deltan pheromones—to augment her abilities, but in four years he’d found no evidence of it. He found that to be more impressive and slightly scary.

“Enough chatter,” said Marilla, elbowing past the two of them. “We’re supposed to be a repair crew. Let’s look like it until Anna shows up.” Urbina shuffled along behind her, struggling with a heavy toolkit. “If this is all for show, why did we need such heavy props?” he huffed.

“Because, if some guard wants to look in your kit, you want him to see tools and not a pile of your books,” Gordon replied snidely, flipping at the front of Urbina’s overalls as he walked past. Everyone except Nils gathered by the refueling system, pretending to repair it to keep up their cover, while he stood by the door with a hand scanner to watch for anyone approaching.

A few minutes later, Courtney’s repulsor car came to a stop outside. He turned to Anna and said, “I think you’re going to really enjoy the whirlpool. It’s augmented with a sonic wave component that will completely relax you.”

“Mmmm,” she purred in reply, stretching her arms above her head. “I can’t wait to try it out. I just feel so tense right now.” Looking out the window she gestured to the docking bay. “Is this it?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes, my dear. Your chariot awaits.” They debarked from the car and Anna let him take the lead as he removed his key card and opened the door. As he entered, he drew up short at the sight of the maintenance crew inside. “Can I help you?” he asked loudly across the large bay.

Nils rose from kneeling next to an open access panel on the bay’s wall—where he had moved upon scanning their approach—wiping his hands casually on a rag as he walked quickly towards them. “Don’t mind us, sir. We had a report of a leak in the deuterium fueling system and we’re just checking it now. We should be out of your way in about 10 minutes.”

“Very well then,” Courtney said dubiously. “I’m not taking off anyway, just visiting the ship. Carry on.” He turned away from Nils and immediately smiled, full of confidence, at Anna, holding out his arm for her as they headed for the yacht’s boarding ramp. They climbed the ramp, he entered his passcode for the security system, and as he turned to allow Anna to enter first, he felt something poking him in the ribs.

Looking down, he saw Anna holding a small phaser against his side. Confused, he looked at her face. “I’m so sorry, Paul,” she said sweetly, “but I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the ship.” By now, Anna’s team had begun shedding their disguises and came running for the hatch. Turning to Ansell, she said, “Gordon, would you take Mr. Courtney out to his vehicle and ensure he’s safe and out of danger?” She admonished, “Handle him gently now.”

Meanwhile, Nils, Marilla, and Urbina pushed past them on the ramp, into the ship, Nils and Urbina heading for the bridge and Marilla turning aft for the engine room. Courtney spluttered as Gordon lifted him bodily and carried him away. “You won’t get away with this! I have powerful friends. They will hunt you down.”

Anna blew him a kiss and laughed as she turned lightly on her heel and bounded into the ship. It was indeed lovely and expensive. The appointments were magnificent, the craftsmanship was top-notch, and her buyer was going to be well pleased. He might even forget about her last failure. Stopping briefly in one of the staterooms to change out of her bathing suit and into more appropriate attire that the crew had brought along for her, she then entered the bridge.

Nils was under the helm console, hotwiring and bypassing systems to start it up, while Urbina sat at another console, studying what looked like local space charts. “How long, Nils?” she asked.

“A few more minutes. This isn’t a flitter,” he said, grumbling.

“Take your time,” Anna replied sardonically. “I’m sure Gordon and Marilla can handle port security when they show up.” Nils only gave a muffled grunt at that, but he did seem to move a little faster. Moving over to where Urbina was sitting, Anna looked over his shoulder at his display. “Patrol patterns?”

“Yes,” he replied as he tapped in commands. “I’m examining the local security procedures, patrol patterns, and traffic control procedures to plot the course most likely to safeguard us from close examination and allay any suspicion.” Urbina wasn’t the traditional goon most people expected to find in a starship-boosting gang, but as a Zakdorn he was a strategic mastermind. And as a graduate of both the Kolan School of Economics and the Zakdorn War College, Anna had found his talents to be invaluable time and time again in many different ways.

“By the way, how are your investments in pimelli futures doing?” Anna asked converationally.

“They’re up 23 percent over the past month. I expect to exercise certain options later this week to take advantage of a rise in demand that I think will occur,” he replied. In his spare time, Urbina liked to make strategic investments with his ill-gotten gains, not necessarily to make more money, but for fun, using the money as a way of keeping score and for keeping his prodigious intellect honed and ready. Anna had made a lot of money in the past couple of years watching Urbina’s investments and following his moves.

“I’m ready,” Nils announced as he pulled himself from under the console and sat at the helm. Tapping on the controls, the ship suddenly came to life, and Nils grinned at Anna. She smiled back and yelled out the bridge’s door. “Gordon, Marilla, we’re ready to go.” Taking Nils’ place at the helm as he moved out of the way, she initiated the launch sequence. When spaceport control signaled, she told them they were taking off to test repairs to the ship. With some luck, she thought as the ship rose through the atmosphere, port security wouldn’t discover Courtney until they were well out of the ….

“Private yacht Silent Partner, this is Bondi Traffic Control. You are ordered to shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded by security officials.” Anna muttered an expletive. How did that fat desk jockey get free so fast? she asked herself. Keying the comm system, she said: “Traffic Control, this is Silent Partner. There must be some mistake. We are a repair crew from Monodyne Shipyards on an authorized checkout flight. We’re taking the ship to the edge of the system and back to check flightworthiness.” She didn’t think they’d buy it for a moment, but it might give her a few more precious seconds. Meanwhile, Urbina sent her a new course to follow based on the new situation.

“Silent Partner, we know you are not a repair crew. The owner of the vessel has been found. Be warned, we will use deadly force if you do not comply,” came the stern official voice.

“He sounds like the Borg,” Nils said from the side.

“Well, in this case, resistance is not only not futile, it can be counted on,” Anna said. With a fierce look on her face, she began maneuvering the sleek yacht through the crowded orbit of Bondi, flying quickly past passenger liners, private ships, and freighters, trying to throw off pursuit by the security vessels which were now beginning to show up on her sensors. If she could get clear of the inner system, she could punch up the impulse engines to full power.

Seconds later, the ship was suddenly away from the crowded traffic lanes, and it leapt forward under her command. The security ships were gaining on her, but not fast enough. Finally, she received a beep from the navigation system that they were passing the system outer marker. With a victorious whoop, Anna punched in the command for the ship to go to warp, and they left the Bondi Colony and the trailing security ships behind.