We're headed to Border Station San Diego to meet a convoy; from there we'll skim along the edge of the Tahoe Ice Cloud to a passage that leads to Willard Research Station, where the Liberty Navy does all the cool research we peons aren't allowed to know about.

This is not how I'd do it, personally. Willard lies fairly close to the trade lane between California Minor and the Magellan Jump Gate/San Diego. With that in mind I'd take the trade lane and do a mid-lane-jump abort, then fly the much shorter distance. You have to fly the same distance roughly but you're exposed for much less time. Relatively few people actually think of doing a mid-lane abort too. I suggested this to Juni, and she agreed with the concept in theory, but said the transports just weren't maneuverable enough to go through the Cloud at speed unless following a path that had been cleared of large obstructions already.

Oh well. Juni says that, fortunately, they didn't have to bring the transports far, since the main hub of artifact smuggling was in Magellan and so it was only one jump. She didn't have to tell me that; she's trying to earn my trust. I wonder what it's like for her. She's not much older than I am, but she's pretty high-ranked for her job, and manifestly pretty good at being Secret Agent Lady. I wonder if she can turn off certain aspects of her job, like trying to earn people's trust so she can drill them for information.

I suspect even when this is all over, when I'm hundreds of light years and tens of years away from having ever met her, I'll never know if I saw the "real" Jun'ko Zane.


Damn fool convoy left without us. They're lucky nobody jumped them while they were hanging around with their hands in their pants at the first waypoint into the Barrera Passage. Border Station San Diego was looking on high alert; I saw three wings of LPI Patriots buzzing around and readings off the station said they had more powered up inside the bays. Hopefully that's part of Juni's plan and not a sign something bad is going down elsewhere in the system.

We linked up. Juni's got this habit of throwing in a jink right as she enters cruise that seriously creeps me out. I keep thinking she's spotted an inbound cruise disruptor and I start looking around in a panic. Can't fight the spike if you don't see the spike.

We're into the ice cloud, following the buoys. Two down. There's a clearing an an abandoned depot up ahead; Juni thinks that's where we'll get hit, if we get hit at all. And I'm picking up...I hate it when this happens.

Outcasts, multiple vectors, I count six Daggers inbound. The lead transport just hit a mine.

Damn! Their tachyon beams just cut through my shields like lasers through butter. I bought the wrong kind of protection for this fight. I took down one in a head-to-head but I'm spending batteries like it's going out of style. Gotta keep them off the transports; there's twenty crew on each.

I almost had one, high deflection shot, he's down a wing, but-damn damn damn! Juni needs help! Hopefully the transport's guns can finish him off. Swing around. Juni's putting on a pretty good show; she's chasing one, being chased by another, and firing in both directions with her fighter's forward guns and its turret. I pop the guy behind her with three volleys; one to drop his shields, one to wake him up, and one as he tries to jink and evade. Then it's back to chasing down the ones going for the transports. They know I'm the real danger now; if I take a shot at a guy, they break off what they're doing and come for me.

Juni called in reinforcements. She must have had them waiting close by because LPI Gamma was in the fight in seconds. I popped one more who was getting a little too eager to hit the transports and damaged some of the others to make them flinch off an attack run, but the LPI got the kills. We're moving again, LPI's on the flanks, Juni and I on close cover. Fifteen more klicks.

Willard's in sight. Never been so happy to see a Liberty Dreadnaught on station as I was to see the LNS Harmony. Juni said to land, we'll meet back in space in a few minutes. I told her to wait just a little longer than that.


"Things are pretty weird right now, Trent, this better be good." Juni's not looking happy.

"I watched the Liberty Navy kill another Freeport Seven survivor when I jumped into California to meet you. They told me not to talk about it, but...they were trying to arrest him, they said, but they weren't. Not when they salvo'd a dozen Cannonball-class missiles at a Rhino as their first option. That's a kill order." I paused a bit. "He was...he said other survivors were disappearing and he needed to talk me. After Lonnigan, now this?"

"It's worse than you realize." Juni said. "Meet me in space. We need some privacy. A secure channel."


"Something is terribly wrong, Trent. When I tried to get in touch with my CO, to brief him on this operation, he'd been ordered to Manhattan. Some of my sources say he's under arrest, for treason. All my friends at LSF headquarters have been reassigned or aren't talking to me."

Oh shit. Juni... "Tell me you didn't do something, Zane."

"No! Trent, seriously, why would you even think that?" Well, that got her good and mad. Hard to fake the pupil dilation too when it hit her. I'm not a secret agent, but I did make a lot of deals as a freelance cargo hauler.

"It seems likes it's aimed at you. Why else would they?" I ask. "If you haven't done something, what now?"

"I've still got other friends. There's a cruiser captain in this system, name of Walker. He's got connections who can help us sort this out. Wait one-ships on an intercept course."

"Those are Valkyries..." Rheinland military heavy fighters squawking Rheinland military IDs. Three of them.

"Rheinland ships, this is LSF Commander Jun'ko Zane. State your intentions." They're in our way, and when I fire maneuvering thrusters to slip around, one blocks me. "Rheinland ships respond."

They don't. Except on the open channel, between each other, where my comm picks it up. "Bogie in sight. Dropping the hammer."

Off to the races then. Not a moment too soon as they spray tachyon and pulse fire through the space I was occupying a moment to go. Two on me, one on Juni. Well, he's going first.

But he's not going easy. Damn, these guys are good. The Valkyrie's lost none of its charm since I first saw one in action two years ago either. I can't stay on them, they're just too maneuverable. It's snapshots or nothing. Fortunately with my plasma cannon I've got enough one-shot damage to fry a lot of shield or armor off one of these things when I tag them. Juni's smart, we set up a continuous scissors for defense and get shots where we can. It stills takes us several minutes to get all three of them.

Three of them. Three Rheinland Valkyries. Hardest fight I've ever seen. They didn't even try to break it off. The last guy, he actually tried to ram me as he was dying. What the hell?

Juni, of course, has a different what-the-hell. This is an act of war. And she's got another what-the-hell beyond that: Rheinland Valkyries sent to kill an LSF commander and a freelancer, in Liberty, while the LSF command structure is apparently in chaos. That's too much to be coincidence and too disconnected from everything else to be anything but coincidence. Real-life paradox. We're pressing on to reach Walker, who's waiting on California Minor.