One thing, I quoted some lines from a TV show from the 70s. Any takers on the Title of the TV show?

Torch

Business was picking up. The average Verge got maybe a dozen ship arrivals a year. Outlying system even less. Until another more prosperous Star-nation found them, they didn't even have that unless their tech base had gotten back to at least basic impeller drive and hyperdrive generators. As an already going concern, and wealthy in pharmaceutical products, Torch had an average of two ships a month.

It took too damn long to travel using the old sleeper ships, try decades some times; and a sarcastic Science Fiction writer back in the first century Pre-Diaspora had used the actual flight times, so one Planet heard something that offended them over an old radio telescope transmission (As if that would have worked!), built a fleet to attack, and when they arrived, the man who had said it was long dead, and the people on that world didn't even know why, since the comment had been something of a joke even when it was said originally.

Sort of like killing people in the 20th century CE because someone had made a joke in Mycenaean Greek back when it was more common. Try 3,000 years.

That first contact could go either way. The trader who accidentally found you when he stopped for repairs might have things he could sell that would boost your tech level that you could afford. Something as minor as teaching your people how to generate electricity could have major ramifications on the local level. Hell, one planet had started their road to the future when someone who had studied postindustrial history, had taught them how to make soap! Then again, the first explorers of the Western hemisphere had recorded landing near where the Plymouth Colony was placed a decade or so later. That second landing found an uninhabited chunk of the continent; the previous ship had delivered a disease that wiped out the closest native village.

The problem was that everyone points at what was called the Imperial era or Age of Exploration on old Earth for a lot of mankind's worst crimes. But often enough, some primitive tribesman would attack those ancient wooden ships believing they could operate them for themselves right up to the age of steam and iron ships. Or do everything they could to circumvent something as simple as inoculations because they violated some religion.

Then this little free trader would go on, and soon enough, corporations would come wanting to dump products they couldn't sell (Or had been proven unsafe) on these outer worlds. Even the poorest planet had something to sell, and sometimes it was a lot more valuable than the locals knew. The fur trade in Earth's Western hemisphere had men selling cheap worked metal products for very valuable fur. Land for basing was also valuable. While only historians remembered who Peter Stuyvesant had been, everyone remembered the 24 dollars worth of glass beads paid for Manhattan Island.

Once you were discovered, the problem wasn't what to buy, it was how to stop people you didn't want to come visiting. There had been at least a dozen vest pocket empires that had formed when one nation with an acquisitive leader developed impellers first, and decided to extend their hegemony. Or pirates looking for a base would find some world no one knew about yet, and set up shop. Of course that might cause others; say a squadron from people the pirates had been preying on, to show up.

Or the corporation that had what used to be called a gold mine in valuable goods under their hands, and had the thugs to keep the locals under. So once you actually finally talked to a government, the first thing you wanted was weapons to stop them, be it pirates, overbearing businessmen, or your neighbor. In fact about half of those little empires had started when someone bought those ancient weapons, and proceeded to conquer their neighbors.

So when TRMS Vaclav Havel spotted two small hyper footprints, she immediately changed course to intercept. They were both dispatch boats squawking Solarian transponder codes- Her tactical officer's eyes narrowed. One was now squawking a Torch Merchant code. That was a violation of International law except as a ruse de guerre by a naval unit in time of war.

She wasn't sure if it was a really stupid pirate, an even more stupid naval officer (And they were Legion in the League) or some Sollie Megacorp trying to pretend they were local. "Moishe, we got a transponder change on target beta. Was reading as Solarian; SS Boojum. Now reading as TRMMV Jael."

He grinned. "Com, get me Jael."

Twenty second later, Moishe Clinton smiled as the signal came back. Lori sat sideways in her command chair, legs kicked up on to the arm. "This is TRMMV Jael, Captain Pettigrew commanding. That you, Moishe?" As laid back as it sounded, the Torch military was still at the stage where everyone from General (Or Admiral) down to the man swabbing the deck were usually still on a first name basis, and even still sharing the same mess deck on most occasions. While sounding unprofessional, the ancient Israeli Army had been kicking ass and not bothering to take names for almost a century before they finally gave in and got into the officer/enlisted man schism.

"On the chip. You didn't get past me. That bucket has had more names than a Hollywood actress! Send it."

The view didn't change. For all the world, Lori looked like some rich girl playing with her father's yacht. But some of the deadliest animals man had found were also the prettiest.

"I resent that! We haven't even been near that planet." She flipped her legs up so she was now seated properly. "Or the city on Earth, or the ones on how many is it, sixteen other League worlds?"

"Well maybe next time you'll have someone who is brain dead when it comes to history."

"Then I'll just have to work a little harder. Got a delivery for the Maven."

"Then be about it. Drinks later? Our patrol ends at 1350."

"Sure. Jael clear."

"Jael?" The tactical officer asked.

"Book of Judges, Chapter 4. When the Judge Deborah told the General Barak to go against 900 iron chariots with 10,000 troops, he was nervous, and in verse 8 Barak said to her, 'If you go with me, I'll go. But if you don't go with me, I won't go.'

"She replied, in verse 9, 'All right,' I'll go with you. But because of the way you are doing this, you won't receive any honor. The Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman'.

"After the battle was won, Sisera hid in the tent of Heber, someone he trusted." Clinton smiled.

"In verse 21, 'But Heber's wife Jael picked up a tent stake and a hammer. She went quietly over to Sisera. He was lying there, fast asleep. He was very tired. She drove the stake through his head right into the ground. So he died'." Clinton sighed. "She's hell on wheels, but she believes in giving her opponents at least some chance to understand what is going to happen to them, so when you hear an oddball name for one of our ships, be sure to look it up.

"She always gives them names of something or someone a lot deadlier than they look. When you're off duty look up the names in the database. As it is, I know one thing at least. You're not studying your Talmud. Shame on you."

Good News and Bad News

TRMMV Jael slowed to rest compared to the system, then jolted as the tug Hauler snagged her with a tractor beam. The Manticore System had instituted a rule where either you had a local pilot or two of your own pilots aboard who had been insystem before, for all ships approaching the planets. And no one, no matter how experienced was allowed within ten light seconds with active impellers.

Call them paranoid, but nothing massing more than 50,000 tons was allowed to approach without a local pilot period, and no closer than 15 light seconds. Anything that large moving at any appreciable speed could do what an asteroid had done to the dinosaurs 65 odd million years ago on Earth. Then again, with the attempted attack by the Peoples Navy in Exile almost a year ago, maybe they weren't paranoid.

After all, even paranoids have enemies.

The crew maintained their stations or went to the mess hall, because having to walk around in 9gs (Being towed at 150g) was something only Nika was able to do for any great length of time. She actually exercised when the ship was being towed. So a chair (Again, except for Nika) was obligatory. The captain was busy checking in. She had accounts here, so all she had to do was reactivate them, and contact station security to have someone come aboard and drag Simonov and his weasel off the ship. She had not asked his name, and frankly didn't care. Anyone who would torture someone just for a paycheck deserved what he was going to get.

But finally they were cut loose, the station docking tractor pulled them to the tube, and locked on. She stood, stretching. "You and Hiram make sure security takes them off your hands. Then you're off until we depart. I'm going down to talk with the Maven, and see if she has anything for us."

Customs was just a wave as she went past. She ignored the scream from some Sollie business man about the unfairness, and ignored the argument that followed. Torch station was small; barely ten kilometers across, but there were already plans for expansion. What they hadn't expanded much was the personnel shuttle system. A dozen of the Mesan shuttles; both heavy lift and personnel, had been given pretty much outright to people who would pay off the cost over the next couple of decades. She looked at the names, finally choosing a passenger shuttle with a flashing yellow light, meaning it would depart when they had enough passengers. A man saw her, and perked up. They must be close to full.

"One for Beacon?" She said.

"Sure. We'll be a few more minutes, ma'am. Need four more-" He paused as she flashed her card, took the scanner out of his hand, put in a number, and ran it. He saw she'd paid for six.

"I'm in a bit of a rush."

He grinned. "Call me George. The wife's got everything up, and we're good to go." They swam the tube, and Lori strapped herself in as he walked up the rest of the way to the cockpit. "Light the candle Nicki."

"Aren't we still light? You said we had four seats available-"

"Some big spender just paid for six just to get out early."

"Some people have no patience."

George Sierra strapped in, sliding on his headset. "Station control, this is Bumblebee. Ready to depart."

"Roger Bumblebee. Shuttle incoming at 215 positive fifteen will cross your path in five minutes."

"Thank you, Control. Departing now." He smoothly fed fuel to the thrusters, pushing away from the station. As he rotated the big bird, he noticed Nicki chatting with the other shuttle.

"No, Myra, you rub the salt and pepper mixture into the bird before you put it in the oven. No, no, I know it makes your hands greasy, but if you want to do it right, it has to be rubbed in." She looked up. "Gotta go, we'd headed down. Right. Bye." She checked the approach radar. "We're clear."

"You know what Myra likes to make for Dinner." He commented.

They answered together. "Reservations!"

The Institute

Ruth Winton sat at her desk, surveying her domain. When she'd left Mount Royal Palace to live her dream at one remove, she had never expected to be not only the head of intelligence of a new star nation, but it's founder as well. All she had wanted was a chance to see something beyond the Palace!

Well if it was something she was starting, she would do it up brown. She had chosen it's name with malice aforethought, and so far, only two people, Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachet, had gotten the joke.

The Institute.

Like anyone in her position, she knew that a century or more from now, people would consider what she did as procedure. She remembered the Greats; Sir Francis Walsingham who had started the old British Special Intelligence Service long before it got the name. Iron Felix Dzerzhinski who had founded the Cheka, which later became the KGB, and William Donovan, who had created the OSS during the Second World War. The first true Intelligence service the old United States had.

When it came her turn to create her agency, she had gone back to the old Israeli Mossad, or The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, though it was called only by it's short form. There had been a joke way back when that the entire annual budget of the Mossad would not have paid for what the old CIA spent on paperclips. But as small as it had been in it's day, it had been a highly efficient, lean and mean agency. The nation it had been created to protect had a past not unlike the genetic slaves. Historically treated like non human refuse, they had come from a charnel house that had seen over five and a half million human beings of their faith reduced to nothing more than air pollution and consumer products. A lot of them had been worked literally to death, the others poisoned then reduced to ash and bone to be used for fertilizer, hair for mattresses, and fat for candles.

As much as haters of their race had linked them with those that slaughtered them, they had a good reason for their antipathy for the world in general. Because as they had struggled to live, and died, the rest of the world had ignored their plight. Because of that, the Mossad had few rules. They would hunt those who treated them as prey where ever they hid, and to hell with national borders. If a nation didn't destroy their enemy, they would.

At one point, after a brutal attack and murder of a number of their athletes at a series of games meant to foster peace, they had struck back and systematically destroyed the terrorist organization that had claimed responsibility, going so far as to allow one of their own to be burned in a supposedly 'failed' attack just to draw out the last of their targets. There had never been a major operation against their citizens in other nations after that.

Of course it was still early days for a nation barely five years old. Considering a lot of those 'lost sheep' she had an overabundance of killers and terrorists at her beck and call. If she had wanted to, she could have every man who were left handed with red hair between 21 and senility on Old Terra killed, though it would take years. Or any smaller number eliminated.

When it came to Mokri Dela, Wet Work, she was oversupplied.

"Maven? Captain Pettigrew to see you."

"Send her in, Jason, please"

Case in point. The woman who entered the office looked as if she should be studying in a middle school somewhere. Like a lot of the 'sex' models Manpower sold, she was startlingly attractive. If she looked even five years older, she would be beating men off with a stick. Then again, anyone who came on to her before she knew them would meet the stick soon enough.

Lori had been rescued by a Beowulf Biological Survey Corps ship in the back of beyond of Galactic South almost forty years ago. While the name suggested scholarly men and women who would go from planet to planet cataloging and discussing what might be transplanted safely, they were some of the most efficient at shuffling slavers off this mortal coil. Whenever there was rumor of slaver operations, they would mosey on in like an Earth cow looking for fresh grass, and while everyone thought them about as bright, when they left a lot of bad people were dead.

Slavers had taken up residence on a station, and they had come in pretending to be yet another delivery. When the smoke cleared, eight slavers were dead, and the Chief Engineer, Robert Tadaroki Pettigrew had found a small girl of perhaps eight in a bedroom, clutching herself in agony with blood on her thighs. He had started to help, but she began to scream, beating on his hand as she did.

He had handed her off to the ship's medical officer; gladly a woman, and he had brought samples of what she had found to the lab on board the ship. The girl, still shivering like a horse surrounded by wolves, was taken to the main airlock, and watched as the last man to use her was spaced.

Ruth wanted to sigh. As much as Manpower's advertizing suggested people were as easy to make as the average car, when it came to some things, you couldn't just dump the genes together and have the perfect slave pop out the other end. You need to educate them sufficiently to do their jobs.

And if you think what that meant for a sex slave, it was worse. Try starting when they are six and keeping at it until they were properly 'broken in'. God, treating a human being, a child, as if they were a new set of shoes!

She smiled at the woman. "You've heard the old phrase, 'good news and bad news'?"

Lori looked at her, and while she was still the perfect china doll to the unknowing, her eyes flamed. She nodded. "Give me the bad news."

"After speaking to Acting Chief Justice Moran, we can't accept custody of Simonov or his man that you have."

Lori started cursing fluently in Chinese. Ruth leaned back, and let her. When she finally ran down (She had shifted to perfectly fluent German halfway through the two minute diatribe) she commented. "But there is good news."

"What. We get to throw them out the lock ourselves?"

"Oh nothing so... merciful. Actually, a dispatch boat from Beowulf was here last week, and when we told them who you went after, they were very interested. In fact there was already a standing reward of 50,000 Solarian Credits for anyone known to be dealing in Beauty. It's all yours. But you do have to deliver him to Beowulf personally."

Lori shook her head. "You do know my crew is either on the ground or soon to be? By all the gods of man, I might not reach the two on board before they shuttle down!"

"I took the liberty of asking them to wait until you can call them. However, I did not call them in time to stop four of them from leaving the station."

"For my sins." Lori sighed. "What is Moran's problem?" Giuseppe Moran was from Erewhon, and was the acting Chief Justice for the entire court system of Torch until enough indigenous lawyers could pass the bar and get elected.

That was a bit trickier. "Do you know the phrase, 'Graymail'?"

"No."

Back when the First Soviet Union was still at odds with the United States-" Lori raised her hand.

"You mean 1917 to 1989 CE?"

"Yes. Back then, if one of the Soviet spies were caught and brought to trial, Soviet agents would pass their lawyers lists of operations they knew those men were trying to ferret out. Under the disclosure laws, if they were known to have been close, the Government lawyers were required to hand over the information to the lawyer, judge, even the jury sometimes. Someone, they thought, would talk, and they could get what they wanted for nothing.

"That's why they had so many exchanges, trading Soviet agents for people held by the Communists rather than trials."

"Didn't the Communists have trials?"

"Of course they did. But they were always the defendant admitting his crimes, asking for mercy, and being sent off to prison. Just for show."

"Then maybe we should pass a law here where it can't be used."

Ruth chuckled at that. Until they had a larger House of Commons, and at least a start on a House of Lords, most laws (That Berry had promised could later be repealed simply by challenging them once the lower house was at least a quarter full) were chosen by Berry herself, Princess Ruth, Web Du Havel, Jeremy X and Thandi Palane; usually around the morning coffee table. "If I bring some chocolate filled doughnuts, I know I can get Jeremy and Thandi on my side."

"What, Berry doesn't like chocolate?"

"She loves chocolate. Bring it near her at your own peril. Unfortunately too many of those coming from out system know or assume it and arrive with kilo upon kilo of it from everywhere you can name. She's taken to paraphrasing Laocoon from Virgil. 'Beware of goddamned salesmen bearing gifts'."

"Then I had best get my crew together and get out of here."

"One more thing." Ruth picked up a chip folder. "We've found out there is a 'sex slave' get together on a station. We don't have a lot, yet. But enough for Thandi to begin planning an operation to free them." Lori looked at the folder as if it were a grenade with the pin pulled. "We do have some information on who is going to be there, and their... Two of them are of your series."

Lori took the folder, trying not to crush it. Ex-slaves treated this in different ways. Some met them, embraced them as if they were long lost family, which in a way, they were. Others ignored them unless they met, and then it was like a man meeting his ex-wife who now looks trim and happy on the arm of another man.

"When they get here..." Lori pocketed it.

"I know. We'll have accounts set up and every support they need by the time they hit ground. I promise." She knew to the Agorot exactly how many Torch Shekels she paid for this woman and her team. Oh she also knew that when they took down a target, they also fleeced his accounts, adding insult to injury. But as far as she knew, it was like the song from the recent play based on an ancient television show of the 1970s CE;

They robbed the rich, gave to the poor

Except what they kept for expenses!

She knew for a fact that after the first mission, they had never even touched the accounts that money was in except for necessary maintenance of the ship beyond spending it on things like the medical infrastructure where they had donated one hell of a lot more than she was paying them!

Lori turned to leave. "What, you're not going to look at the information?"

Lori turned back. "Not until we're well away. Because if I look at it before I get those reprobates aboard, I might just kill someone."

Beacon

The best way to deal with Beacon was to picture the stories about the Old West of the Old United States like Dodge City or Tombstone. As much as liberals try to disarm the populace in an attempt to curb crime, one thing you get in return is rudeness. If the man you just jostled can't either beat you senseless, or kill you, you probably don't even bother to acknowledge their presence.

And as much as they point at statistics when they make a try for the weapons, they are misleading. If a city has 50,000 people, and has 520 violent crimes a year, how is that different when it's 5 million, with 52,000? If you do the math, you see the violent crime rate has not changed, but they point not at the percentage, they always point at the numbers!

It was actually safer to live in Dodge City on it's worst day then it was to live on any day in New York of the time.

The citizens of Beacon were almost belligerently armed. But it wasn't because they feared anyone who lived there. As the Ancient Marine Corps (And Torch had taken the saying as their own) had enshrined, 'yeah thou I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil... For I am the meanest thing in it!'.

Actually, the wildlife of the planet was stubborn enough to make mere sea wearing away stone despair. There were avians (You couldn't call all of them birds, too many were more bird analogs) that traveled too fast for a mere sonic fence to stop them. And don't even start on things that burrowed! Some thought of the sonic fences Mesa had installed to stop them as something to dive below.

So along with other humans being polite, you need a weapon that would stop something that thought of you as lunch. On the frontier (Which Beacon definitely was) you have to think of your life first. So any would be foot pad took his life in his own hand when he said, 'your money, or your life'.

Lori was actually lightly armed. She carried a Colt-Volund 1 mm needle gun that could take down anything on the planet with one shot. Anywhere inside the League it was considered an assassin's weapon, and there were jail sentences measured in decades for mere possession. But here it was considered a tool.

She was in the 'bad' section of town, which as anyone who has lived near a port knows, starts at the docks. All of those sailors (Or spacers) wanting to have something to drink and blow off steam. Unlike military crews, a merchant ship needing a crew would accept monkeys if they could figure a way to talk to them. The problem is, what used to be called 'cabin fever'. Crews had arrived with half of them dead back in the day. So they had a lot of steam to blow off.

She approached the fifth bar near the landing pads, and went in. She had decided she would definitely have a drink this time. The chip folder was a ton weight in her pocket, and she hadn't even found those assholes yet! It was dim, and she paused. As much as they used it for a dramatic pause, she wondered how often it happened because you went from bright day to darkness. The bartender knew her, so it wouldn't be a problem. She strode across the floor, sliding into an empty bar stool. "Rusty Nail." She ordered.

The bartender was delivering the drink as someone loomed behind her. "You bastard! Serving an underage girl!" The man was not only three sheets to the wind, more sails were being hoisted. He patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, little lady-"

As he had been speaking, her left hand dropped below the bar as the right picked up her drink. The bartender saw his eyes widen, then tighten from excruciating agony. All anyone else saw was someone who suddenly stiffened, then suddenly hunched forward forearms on the bar, head bowed over them as if called on to pray because of some schedule like the original Islamic faith.

She sipped appreciatively, setting down the glass, then leaned over as if whispering sweet nothings into his ear. "Now listen, you moron. I'm forty-five goddamned T years old. I am old enough to be your mother you bag of hormones! Are you listening? I can't tell." She squeezed, and he whimpered. "Good. Now listen; I am actually a fun girl to be around, but right now I am rather busy. The next time we see each other you can treat me like a lady, buy me dinner, and maybe, maybe, we might make some beautiful music.

"But just a warning. All of those cutesy names guys call their girlfriends? All they do is irritate me. Think of something that fits me, not some 'one size fits all' crap. Now, I am going to let go. Remember that I am some tiny little woman, and you have problems making sure your knuckles don't drag. The next time you talk to me, you will respect me. Otherwise I will rip these off, saute them in a white wine sauce, serve them up on a bed of steamed rice, and you will eat them. Are. We clear. On This?" On the last sentence she squeezed at every word. He nodded frantically.

"Good." She purred, kissing him lightly on the cheek. "You're cute. Maybe next time we won't have... problems." She lifted her hand a moment before he staggered back. "I am sure you have something to do somewhere else." The man looked at her like someone who had reached in to pet a cute little gerbil, and found out it was a hungry baby Kodiak Max. He walked away, but he walked halfway across the room without looking away from her.

"Ah, young love." She sighed, sipping. "Have you seen anyone else in my crew, Manolo?"

"Sasha was here earlier." He reported. "Nigel is over there demonstrating nitroglycerin-"

The glass shattered. "He's doing what? Where?" He pointed. She spun, saw the Brit sitting at a table with five observant men, and in front of him, a smoking glass of a reddish colored fluid. "Shit!"