“An excellent notion as the operation I have in mind will require a drop ship pilot,” Keene all but crooned. Mave struggled to resist the urge to glance sideways at Gnash. The Maddie had two small armed dropships that served as tenders and couriers. Each could carry a crew of about ten, perhaps fifteen if they were good friends. The vessels were capable of short jumps, though they had nothing like the range of even a small corvette like the Maddie. Mave couldn’t imagine where his mind was going with this but she was fairly confident she wouldn’t be much pleased when she discovered.

“As you are both such excellent, and dedicated officers,” he simpered, “I cannot imagine you will have any difficulty convincing Khan Zang, to release our citizens.” Mave didn’t react at first, not because she didn’t understand the words, but because they were so outlandish they refused to fit together in her mind. Tiypo Zhang was the self appointed Khan of Lout Shai and by all reports a psychopath as well as a savage. Lout Shai had an official treaty of friendship with the Arcadian Union, though that had been signed several revolutions ago. Lout Shai had been a Hegemony Possession at some point, but even before the war the Terrans had grown so tired of being shot at by every clansman on the planet they had simply pulled up stumps and left the place to rot. Unfortunately for the newly liberated Lout Shai, the only thing holding its fractured clans together had been the Terrans, and with the mutual enemy gone, they turned all their guns and unspent savagery on each other. Settling blood feuds was as common as breathing and the only thing as certain as the fact that one blood thirsty tyrant would fall was that the next one would be worse.

“Well Sir,” Mave began carefully.

“I’m sure that with an AU corvette above his city…”

“Ah you misunderstand me Lieutenant,” Keene interrupted, positively glowing with malice.  

“The Madame De Pompadour, will not be accompanying you. It is going to take us a further four days to rebuild starboard  thrusters 2 and 3 and I feel this matter cannot suffer that delay.”

 Mave gaped at her captains words. The Khan might have been cowed into aquiencence with the  presence of a warship in orbit, but he was certain to be afronted by a single dropship with a dozen armed sailors aboard. He would have them strangled with their own guts. Belatedly she managed to close her mouth a heartbeat before the Captain could comment on her shock. The AU would take a dim view of its officers being killed, maybe even send troops to topple the regime and install a puppet government. That might even be the idea behind the whole hairbrained scheme, and though Mave supposed she was a patriot, that certainly didn’t extend to dying in order to provide a pretext for the diplomats to justify the occupation of a backwater.

“We could…”  Mave began but she closed her mouth. Nothing she suggested now, while the Captain’s blood was up, was likely to garner a useful response. Instead she merely nodded.

“We will gather a crew from the on duty watch at once Sir,” she replied instead. Keene’s grin grew even deeper and his face took on a falsely gentle rebuke.

“Now Lieutenant, the on duty watch hasn’t had a chance at shore leave yet, recall a party who have already had some fun.”

“Yes Sir,” Mave replied, doing her best not to clench her teeth. Rousting drunken spacers out of brothels and bars and chivying them into a crew would neither be quick, nor pleasant and her name would be mud with spacers for yanking them away from their good time.

“I’ll expect you to be lifting within the next four hours Lieutenants,” Keene said with a final self satisfied smirk.

“You are dismissed.”

Mave followed Gnash out into the hall way and down the companion way till they were well out of ear shot of the bridge, then she slumped against the bulkhead. Pain stabbed up her side from the bullet wound.

“We are so fucked.”