Starship Leaguer

Don Car Syp drank his amber Pas as he sat at his favorite café looking up at the green sky. It was his favorite pastime between jobs. He didn't wonder about it like others did. He spent a good portion of his time in space. A sky overhead extended a variety that star fields, while beautiful in their own right, did not have.

Don put his empty glass down as his com buzzed. He looked at the back of his ruddy skinned hand, realizing it was an alert. He had business to attend to.

Don got up, paying his bill with his DNA credit on the finger reader. He headed for an alley, rushing to get out of sight. He had to launch. He didn't want anyone to see that.

Don walked into the space as quickly as possible, looking around as he brought his com up. Time to activate his other self.

"Agent Don Car Syp." Don looked up. "Activate."

A golden glow surrounded Don. It headed into the sky, drawing him along. He slid into his seat, plugged into his Leaguer equipment as it headed for the distress call in space. He smiled as the vector line matched up with his visual scan.

Don knew that most Leaguers used a suit of armor capable of all the things a small ship could do. He preferred to use a ship. He didn't have to engage in a lot of urban fighting like the others did. His area had a thriving space business.

And pirates.

Don let the engines run. Leaguer technology could do almost anything. It allowed him to carry his ship in his com. It also allowed him to launch from in the middle of the city and head up.

Don headed for the edges of the system, a light beam to any system tracking his launch. Leaguers were well known as agents of the law. He didn't have to mark his path for others to see, but it served as a sign that he was on the job.

Don spotted the wreck long before he got there in person. Someone had pounded a freight hauler into pieces. The golden ship braked, looking for enemies to be hiding nearby before attempting a rescue.

No sign of any other craft.

The first thing Don did was call for survivors. He had to make sure the vehicle didn't have anyone on board before he started looking for clues. Piracy in his part of space had risen substantially. He feared a syndicate was involved.

That was a problem for another time.

Now he had a rescue to execute if anyone was alive, and a search to conduct if no one was.

"This is First Mate Calvo." The voice sounded Arturian. "We need help. We lost our engines, half the ship is breaking off, and we have hull breaches everywhere. Life support won't last long."

"This is Leaguer." Don checked his own systems as he planned out his rescue. "I need you to gather everyone together in one spot. Can you do that?"

"I think there's only two of us left." Calvo paused. "My sensors are gone."

"Hold on." Don checked his own scans. He only had two life signs too. "All right it looks like you're right. I need you to get together as close as you can. I'm going to send a shuttle for you."

"Hurry." Calvo sounded calmer than he should have. "I don't know how long we have left."

Don brought his golden sphere in closer. He gave the order for a shuttle to form off the surface as he projected a force field around the wreckage where Calvo and his surviving crewmate huddled. That should buy some time.

Don pointed the shuttle to come in above the deck. He dropped his ship to come in below the deck. His aide cut the deck away from the rest of the fragment as he pulled it loose. That would give him a stable platform without worrying about the thing coming apart while he worked.

Now came the hard part.

With the aide piloting the shuttle, Don punched a hole in the hull with his laser. The force field held the remaining air in while the shuttle got in position and extended an airlock tube. The freighter's two crewmen scrambled inside the tube with practiced ease.

"Take them to the nearest port and file a report." Don watched the shuttle turn and fly toward the outpost on Garst's moon. He was surprised that the authorities hadn't scrambled by now.

There wasn't anything he could do about that. He represented the Leaguers. He didn't have the authority to complain about someone not doing their job. Instead he would file it until he had something else to add to it.

Leaguer let his aide analyze the area. Different drives had different signatures. A Kolsol jumper formed a skip pattern while a Marvan left a wave. The system marked about ten different trails crossing the local area.

All of them headed into the inhabited planets. Where had the pirates gone after the attack? Did they head to one of the worlds and land? Did they have some kind of cloaking device? Don knew that some of the races in the galaxy did have such things. He didn't think anyone in his neck of the woods had one.

System confirmed this thought. None of the ship trails scanned seemed to have a cloak active when the attack started. So where had the pirates gone?

Don sat back in his chair. He needed a drink. He hated mysteries.

Pirates who disappeared after they attacked violated the rules of the game. He needed to cut them off somehow.

"System, you have scans for the weapons used on the freighter right?"

"Affirmative."

"Do a comparative check for weapons to drives." Don knew he was asking for a long shot.

"Weapons used match a Korvarian cruiser." The artificial intelligence put pictures and schematics on a secondary screen.

"Let's see if we can find that ship." Don sent a query to the authorities. "If we can, it might give us a lead to how many pirates are operating."

Don Car Syp searched the area around the attack for almost ten minutes before giving up. He couldn't find any trail to match the cruiser he was looking for, a signature for the suspected weapon, or a trace to show the outline of the attacking ship. He had nothing, and System was too good a machine to try and generate a falsehood he could stagger after.

"Let's check the system beacons before we head for home." Don rubbed his eyes as the golden spaceship turned to head further out of the solar system. He needed to mute the colors on the screens again. They were hurting his eyes.

Don's system of worlds belonged to a bigger government that encompassed perhaps a few hundred worlds. The mother planet, Syt, had reached out to colonize the other planets in the system, then moved out to contact the other systems close by. An agreement had been forged to make a more universal ruling body that everyone was happy with.

Legend had it that a Leaguer had helped settle the multiple disagreements over treaties with force of arms. Don's interest was in protecting the current worlds in his overview so he didn't dig into the archives which every Leaguer could access.

Part of the security of each system was beacons to track ships using trade lanes to arrive and depart from one part of the Confederacy to the other. The primary use was to keep tax evasion down by logging ships as they passed, and the cargo they carried. Taxes were paid by the shippers on what the beacons marked down.

Sometimes an inspector would make random stops to help catch smugglers.

Leaguer plugged into the one nearest where the freight hauler should have been coming. System overrode the simple intelligence in three seconds, decrypted files in five more. Pictures of the hauler filled the screen. The agent played the video in slow time as he watched the hauler move by from the perspective of the automated sentry.

He watched it again at an even slower speed. He froze several images of space behind the hauler. They looked distorted to him. Maybe a random jag of electrons, maybe not.

"Can you enhance these sections of the recordings, System?" Don touched the pieces he wanted expanded.

The frozen pictures expanded to take over his viewing area. He saw a definite distortion. It looked almost like a shape. He marked it out with his finger, running the film forward. It definitely matched speeds with the hauler.

"Can this be an echo?" Don rubbed his eyes again, returning the image to where he had first spotted the uneven lines.

"Negative."

"Search the beacon's memory for anything that matches that outline." Don smiled. "Then compare it to our files on ships until we have some suspects."

"Affirmative."

Millions of records were searched by the resourceful machine as the golden starship hung on the beacon by a set of tendrils. Every one that had a suspicious outline matching the one they had found was put aside for later perusal. A separate file was opened for similar distortions that didn't match the outline. System knew its agent would want to look at those too.

"Matches found." System displayed the exact matches in chronological order. "Distortions found that do not match profile." The secondary file went up beside the first.

"So they have been at this a long time." Don nodded. "Take us back home. Do not file a report with the locals before we land. I don't want anyone to know that we know something is up."

"Affirmative." System displayed the phantoms and began trying to match them to styles of ships in its memory.

Leaguer watched the planets go by on his screens, thinking about what he suspected. He had an idea that shipping had been missing and no one knew except for someone trying to keep things under wraps for whatever reason. He wondered how many other crews had gone to their graves before he had caught that distress signal.

He saw his shuttle approaching as he crossed the outer boundary, reading the report of what had happened when it dropped Calvo and his crew member off. The authorities tried to say he was incompetent and wrecked the ship on an asteroid as he stepped out of the golden sliver.

Leaguer marked the name of the man in charge as he headed for planet fall. He might have to talk to the sentient when System had garnered him more information.

Leaguer filed a report to show the ship had been attacked by pirates as his ship came apart into golden dust. He landed on the roof of his public employer. He needed to put some hours into his job if he wanted to keep it. He usually explained his absences as checking on customer needs. He got things done, so he was allowed that much freedom.

Still he knew he had to work twice as hard as anyone else in the bullpen. Of course he was able to cross into space on his own. A big part of any project was being able to cross the solar system. He had System falsify transport tickets so there was no doubt he was flying around.

His job allowed him to link into a lot of public records, and his aide could burn the classified things without a thought. Any hook to another computer was enough for System to take over and read it.

"Don Car Syp!" Regulator All Sco Pre hailed him with false cheer, the kind usually meant for a chopping. "I have been eagerly waiting for your report on the belt mines. Can you produce it?"

"As soon as I plug in." Syp smiled as he headed for his desk. The mines report had been handed in days ago. He wondered what was going on.

Don plugged into the company system, using System as his connector. The Leaguer aide worked better than any implant plug he could load himself. The artificial intelligence found his report and another overwritten report on the same subject. The projections were vastly different. Regulator Pre hovered over his shoulder, hands behind his back, breathing on the back of his thick neck.

"I'm waiting." Pre reached to plug into the system himself to see what was taking so long.

"I'm sorry, sir." Don lit his report up on the holo board in front of him. "This is my report that I handed in days ago."

"That's unusual." Pre held a palm top up, hitting the pad keys with a stylus. "This isn't what was given to the board."

"As you can see, there is the time stamp from the computer system, and the log numbers that stamps every piece of data." Don magnified the report to point out those obvious features. Supposedly no one could falsify those numbers.

Don used fake numbers all the time to protect his two lives.

"What if I told you there were two reports and one of them had presented a different outlook on the same survey?" Pre read the report, consulting the palm top.

"I would find that unlikely." Don looked over the other report used from his findings. He noted the different logs and system verifications. They were all after his filing. "You would have to be a genius to hack our system, or possess command codes like a regulator just to get a report to fake. No one here is like that as far as I know."

"As far as you know." Pre took a picture of the real report. "I want you to send copies of everything you have worked on in the last month to my office."

"I'll do it right now." Don thought a second. Every survey he had finished winged through the ether to a corner office five floors up and to the right of where he sat. "I was just checking in to get my next assignment."

"You're on suspension until we figure out what's going on." Pre didn't smile to soften the news, merely glared at the surveyor. "Unplug and exit the building."

Don did that, leaving System on the job inside the computer system. He couldn't do anything while someone looked over his shoulder. He would just have to put his program at work versus the unknown hacker.

He felt Pre's eyes on his back as he took the elevator down to the lobby. He spotted others from his department milling outside the glass doors. He had the feeling he hadn't been the only one who had a report rewritten.

"What's going on, Car Syp?" The speaker was a grizzled veteran named Hur Hud Hul. He had found more material for the company than anyone. "Why are we suspended?"

"I don't know." Don spread his three fingered hands. "I just got here myself. There was something about a false report, someone filing false survey reports."

"Those reports are from spots in the Arm." Hul gestured at the group. "That's where we all have been in the last few months, marking asteroids and planets."

"Did you tell Pre?" Don's report was on a belt of asteroids that looked good for mining.

"That blowhard said he would investigate it." Hul snorted. "There's something going on in the middle management level."

"Give me the coordinates of your target sites and I'll look into it." Don looked up at the building. "Let's go over to the Rizone so I can get some Pas to help me think."

"How are you going to do that if you're suspended?" Hul looked like he wanted to horn in and see what was going on himself.

"I think I am a little better than Pre." Don smiled, square teeth jutting over his lips. "Just give me the coordinates."

The other surveyors gave Syp their reported coordinates from the pads they carried. His fitted on the edge of the system. A frown crossed his blocky features as he thought. It didn't take a monomind to see something was wrong with the picture.

He had to get away from this crowd.

"Let's meet at the café. We'll get something to drink while we write protests and file complaints." Syp started walking. "I have something to do first."

"What are you going to do, Syp?" Hul placed thick hands on his waist.

"I'm going to call a friend and ask a favor." Syp waved as he headed away, talking to his aid on the back of his hand.

Don Car Syp sat in his golden chair, wondering what was going on.

The Arm was a set of stars close to his home system. Colonies had been declared so his species could branch away from the small hub they enjoyed. Surveyors marked viable targets for mining, colonization, forward drops for other species to engage in trade. Expansion was a slow careful thing for Sytians.

The problem was none of the targets filed by the surveyors matched what had been turned in.

Syp didn't have to recheck what System told him. Someone had changed the coordinates from the reports around a star system in the middle of the chain. The result was a list of planets that were barely usable for anything other than fuel dumps.

Official beacons had been placed to warn other ships away from the area. He had spotted the signals while checking coordinates. System had stayed out of sensor range to avoid setting off an alarm.

What should he do now?

He needed to spoof the beacons. Information would give him options. Obviously some kind of corruption was going on. Raiding the memory of a beacon would give him a picture of what went by before he arrived on the scene.

Time to become invisible.

"System, activate cloak." Syp smiled. "We want to get close to one of those beacons without it seeing us. Then you'll have to raid its memory."

"Affirmative."

The lights dimmed in the chamber as System copied the stealth technology from its memory onto the billions of particles that made its globular body. Tentacles readied to spring into action as the once golden shadow eased forward on shrouded jets. A beacon standing out from its brothers drifted close enough to be clutched. The anchor fingers seized the beacon while a claw implanted a remote command to keep sending the 'all is well' signal.

"Copy everything." Don watched the screens for other ships in the area. "Then dump it back with no record of us."

"Affirmative." Files dropped to a memory bank in a blink of an eye. Nothing had ever matched what a System could do yet. Then the tentacles released with a small shudder. The globe backed away slowly as to not alert the sentries before Don was ready.

"What do we have, System?" Don studied the secondary screen intently as the ship floated to a stop outside the beacon's range.

"Military issue beacon set in orbit by marked carrier. Command signals are to be sent to this planet in case of detection. It is programmed to warn civilians and other military craft away in the name of Internal Security. Traffic has been noted into and out of the system space."

System placed pictures of the craft that had been allowed to move back and forth across the boundary line. Don had the feeling he had seen them before. He frowned as he thought.

"These are the same type ships that we picked up after that pirate attack earlier." Don smiled. "Can you match them to make sure?"

The machine hummed to itself. Several of the outlines fitted over the known ships leaving the system for Syt. Weapons were noted and marked on the outlay.

"We're going to have to go in for a closer look." Don straightened in his chair. "We have to make sure we have a bunch of pirates before we start torpedoing the base planet."

"Affirmative." The globe soared back toward the net, cloaked in electronic invisibility. It passed the beacons without raising an alarm. It set course for the fourth planet in the local space and sailed forward. Mechanical eyes looked for threats as the Leaguer headed to target.

The hero thought about a smaller, more humanoid armor now as he drifted toward atmosphere. A quicker, smaller target might be better than the globe he habitually used as an agent. A picket line of ships left him alone as he dropped below orbit into the blue sky and cloud cover.

"We'll do a once around and gather information." Don looked at the multitude of screens as the ship flew itself. "This might still be a military colony no one is supposed to know about."

The ship flew through the atmosphere, mapping everything below. Evidence of a military operation was lacking as far as either of them could tell. At least Don knew he wasn't going to be attacking some harmless farmers in the middle of nowhere.

"Looks like a pirate base to me." Don scanned the information gathered quickly as the golden ship hid itself in an ocean. "Not only are they attacking shipping, they stole a planet."

"Affirmative," agreed System a few moments later after its own analysis.

Leaguer sat in his chair, tapping an arm rest with a thick, ruddy finger. His options boiled down to take the pirates on with just his armor, call for help, or just leave and intercept the pirates one at a time when they went raiding the shipping to his home solar system. He thought about the courses of action and complications. His conclusions were almost as simple.

If he tried to pick them off while they left their base of operations, one or more might slip through and still hurt others. He didn't want to be responsible for that kind of mistake.

A call for help would normally bring a small fleet of military ships. He thought some kind of traitor was in the space service. Could he count on a fleet if the wrong person got the call? Depending on where the traitor was, any call could be lost in a shuffle and the basic signal would tell the pirates he was there.

He knew the armor could take a beating, but he didn't want to test how much it could take.

He hated to do this alone, but it looked like a midnight raid was the best way for all concerned.

Time to minimize danger to himself while inflicting maximum damage to his enemies.

"System. We're going to need to change configuration so that we have a number of offensive weapons we can use to ground the pirate ships. Once we start firing, our cloak won't be much help." Don flipped through the menus provided by his aide, looking for weapons to use. "Any suggestions?"

System displayed pictures of cannons and missiles it could create with its nanobot factories. Screen generators and power plants matched the terrific volume of fire it planned to produce. A 360 degree field of fire circled the globe's blueprint.

"Looks good." Don examined the schematics. "How soon can you make the modifications?"

"It will take about five mins to change the ship configuration." System readied tanks to suck in sea water to use as fuel for the changes it was going to craft.

"Do it." Don thought about it. "Can you create armed shuttles to help us?"

"Affirmative." System expanded the tanks to draw in even more water. "That will add additional time to modifications."

"Do that too." Don looked at the schematics from the fly-by. "We'll need help once we get started."

"Understood." The artificial intelligence went to work.

System started by sucking in the water around it, storing it in the bins it had created. It used the liquid to fuel its factories. The smooth outer shell sprouted openings. Small domes popped out. Energy cannons materialized as the domes changed shape. Openings for missile batteries sprouted to match the cannon emplacements. Magazines formed behind the missile loads so that System could maintain heavy fire without the slow reloading process from scooping air as the ship flew.

The ship sucked in more water. It decided to build the extra ships in copies of its body with the new weapons. Eggs dropped away from the skin, settling on the bottom of the ocean. The shuttles copied the general makeover, resembling their mother like the smaller clones they were.

"Ready for action." System was a computer program, but it sounded proud and smug to Don's ears.

"Here's the plan." Don looked at the fly-by information. "Their main launchpad is here. Most of their ships are grounded, probably with a watch. We'll come in cloaked, and take as many as we can. Anything after that, we'll have to improvise."

"Understood."

"Let's do this." Don lifted off. "Have the shuttles form up on our wings so we can spread the damage."

"Affirmative."

The five ships took to the air, sea water dripping from the outside of the golden globes. More still remained inside the spacecraft as fuel for more armaments. The formation drifted toward the pirate base, invisible to detection. Leaguer looked at his screens, matching what he had recorded to what he was seeing on his approach.

Everything looked good to him.

"Fire at will."

The energy cannons and missile batteries pointing at the ground unleashed a firestorm. The pirates tried to get their ships out of the target zone. The first pass crippled most of them as Don broadcast a general call for surrender. Ground emplacements opened fire on the squad as they finished the run and turned to finish the job. Pinpoint strikes stopped the anti-aircraft weapons as the shuttles spread out to finish the job.

"The ships in orbit are descending to firing range." System didn't sound concerned.

"Let's go up to meet them before they drop down on top of us." Don made sure his restraints held him in his chair.

"Affirmative."

The five golden globes headed up. Energy cannons exchanged fire as the two forces rushed to meet each other. Don thought the enemy captains hoped to encircle his squad and combine their firepower in the hopes of wiping the Leaguer ships out. He was glad that he had thought to have energy cannons on all sides. Most ships had turrets with limited fields of fire in one direction. They weren't prepared to move or fight in any direction.

That gave Don's group a terrific advantage that he exploited by moving and firing. The shuttles concentrated their fire on targets while he turned and crossed the confining circle before it closed on him. He left a floating ship's graveyard behind him as he let loose all the missiles in their magazines.

Don watched the hurt ships as his shuttles formed back on him. His shields had stopped most of the enemy fire from hitting the hull but his armor had taken some damage. Still he had given out more damage than he had taken.

"Let's gather the shuttles back in and take the cripples down to the surface." Don looked at the damage reports. "Then we complete repairs and get someone from the authorities out here to pick them up."

Don Car Syp smiled as he lounged in his chair.

His armor, pocket battleship, had reduced the pirate fleet to helpless cripples in a matter of seconds. Every target had been dropped on the planet surface with the warning not to run off if they wanted to make it back to civilization. Zap posts had been erected as temporary guards to enforce the message.

Nothing cools down the desire to run than miniature lightning.

System routed a call for military assistance through a channel they had discovered in the course of their duties. It went right to Central Command, right to the planning board. If there was a traitor, six admirals would shut him down as they tried to figure out what to do. If he was on the board, the other five would shut him down with the evidence of piracy.

Don Car went over how his clone ships had performed in action with System. It was a tactic he would have to think about keeping as a reserve. He might even have to increase the size of the basic model to carry two around for fast dropping in space combat.

The spiked weapons design had proved effective since the armor was a ball. Multiple turrets had fired at the same areas with little power drop as the gold ships rocketed pass. That was a machine aiming advantage.

"We should see if anything is on those ships we can use for evidence." Don rubbed his wide, blocky face. "I should have thought about dumping their memory cores before this."

"Affirmative." System marked one of the downed ships. "This ship received and transmitted the most radio traffic during the action."

"Let's see if the crew thought about getting rid of their computer memories." Don brought the golden globe over the cracked frigate. Life forms fled from his hovering body, shouting something up against the thrusters he pointed down to generate the lift he needed. "Do your thing."

A golden claw extruded from the undercarriage of the globe. It dropped down until it reached the hull of the broken pirate ship. It felt around until it found a socket. Then System plugged in, and looked at what was left of the central memory.

Don looked the figures over, reading a cross section of looting across jurisdictional lines like he had never seen. He wondered why no one had caught on to the raiders before he had. Someones in all of the spheres must be blocking information flow from somewhere in the infrastructure. That meant a lot of planning.

He might have snagged a pirate king in the making. That made him sit back in his chair, smiling. Piracy was always a big deal, and every so often someone wanted to be the man in charge of everyone else. Battles with the navy was not unheard of when that happened.

He have saved everyone a lot of trouble with this one raid.

"Let's check the rest." Don made sure nothing on the ground could scratch his shields, much less his armor. "Maybe we can find whoever was helping them cover up their raids. That would be a bonus."

"Affirmative." System pulled the claw back, then aimed for the second in command it had deduced from radio traffic and position in the line when their flight had passed.

One by one, Leaguer stripped what he could from the wrecked ships. Some had lost their memories, some had been wiped because the officer on deck was smart enough to order it done, but most gave up what they knew. It painted a dim picture.

There was enough evidence to point to a massive blanket of silence about what was going on out there in the Arm. Even the closing of the system pointed to that. No wonder the filed reports had been changed with the loss of cargo that was going on.

You didn't want surveyors leading settlers to your pirate base. That would lead to some awkward moments on both sides.

Don loaded the stolen files and sent them to law enforcement and the media. Reporters could be silenced, but things still leaked out to people who needed to know. That prevented someone from burying the subject, even if they put a positive spin on it.

System reported a military presence arriving in the far area of the solar system. Don nodded and they took off for home. They had done all they could for now.

Don Car Syp sipped his favorite drink at his favorite café, staring at the people on the street. System had cross-checked the information they had stolen. If there was a traitor in the military, he had kept his identity a secret from everyone captured by the Leaguer. That led Don to sit down and think about it over a glass while he was still on suspension.

Altering the reports had been an audacious move. It dropped the blame on the surveyors for missing the planet, or worse, cast them as henchmen to the pirates. Only the original files had kept all of them out of prison.

System had checked the file access. As far as it could tell someone had substituted the files in transit. That was something that should have been impossible. On the other hand, System regularly hacked the planetary and system nets without problems. That put Don back to square one.

Maybe not square one.

He was looking for someone who could access the surveyor reports, supply technical data on the defense net, and had enough knowledge to hack the system as easily as his aide. How many people fit all three categories?

That allowed him to exclude most of the population. He was looking for a person who could penetrate government security like water. People could operate the nets, ninety nine percent couldn't use the government's private channels at will.

How many net hacks were free and going about their business?

About two thousand.

How many were capable of hacking everything?

Ten are in the top shelf, thirty five on the second, and a hundred at the bottom.

How many could remote dial to the defense net to change records?

The first and second shelves could do it with the right equipment. The third possibly could do it if a transmitter patch was installed in the net hardware.

"We'll have to check the satellite data for uplinks." Don took a sip. "That might take a while."

"Affirmative." His aide sounded chipper to him. No machine should sound happy.

"I hate this part of things." Don put credits down for his tab and got up. "I am way better with the kicking down the door stuff."

"Affirmative."

Don walked along, looking for a spot to launch from to head out in space. He found a nook he could use to cloak himself. Gold wrapped his red skin as he stood in the available shadows. Then he was heading for orbit, outer shell wrapping around the inner as he went. He sat back in his chair.

"We'll head out to the defense net and inspect a couple of satellites." Don looked at several screens, watching the information pass by as System roared out of the atmosphere. "We'll try the ones closest to the pirate attacks. The first thing we need to rule out is tampering. Once we do that, we can work our way along other lines."

System dug out all the existing information on the net, reviewing it before they arrived on the frontier line. It assured itself that it could mark differences from specs to real time observation.

The golden globe drifted to the nearest satellite to the last attack. Tentacles reached out and took over. A min later, the sentinel had been taken apart, inspected, and put back together. System couldn't find anything in the once-over. It decided to check the schematics while on the way to the next one. The next satellite gave up nothing either. System chattered to itself but admitted finally there was nothing extra there in the hardware, or software.

"The net reports to command headquarters, and stations nearby." Don considered the negative reports. "I think that in general most go to the nearest naval base. Let's trace the line back as far as we can."

The golden globe soared to the naval base on Mor, a moon of the gas giant Kel. The moon was crusted over with ice, and inhospitable to life, but the navy had installed a base under the ice. Several antennae stuck out of cover, taking and sending reports. Patrol ships should launch from a dock carved in a crater wall at the first sign of trouble.

System tapped the communication array, checking it for intrusions and tampering. It found a coded command system that told the base that everything was going according to procedure, no problems anywhere close to the net. The system also sent reports to another channel that pointed back to Syt, the homeworld.

Don smiled when he was told. Now that was a clue.

Leaguer slid into Syt's atmosphere, hiding his profile behind a cloak, and a smokescreen. His aide zeroed in on where the secondary signal had been sent on the military channel. Casual inspection showed that it was anything but a military base below.

He would have to go down and ask some questions. He hated that. He just couldn't talk tough enough to be threatening.

He needed to work on it.

Leaguer smiled. No time like the present to work on personality flaws. He dropped the golden globe down as gently as a leaf. Don paused when he realized radio traffic emitted from the house in the middle of the merchant and workers neighborhood. System confirmed that it was from the leak in space.

System also copied everything to its memory to take apart later. Right then it was more concerned with someone bumping into the armored sphere by accident.

The message from space was copied and sent in some kind of code on the air net used by everyone to pass information across the planetary bodies. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on.

How could he turn it to his advantage?

"System, can you check everyone who reads that message?" Don pulled the globe over a roof top and dropped down to almost land on it. He reduced the armor into something that was just a shell around him that weighed no more than a body. Then he touched down without punching through the roof.

"Affirmative." System compiled a list of names while Don watched the neighborhood below on his scanners. A list of names meant nothing, but System would also check them against past posts from that user.

That would weed out everyone but a core of people around the person in the house across the street.

Then the hard work would start.

"Confirmed ten absolutes, and five possibilities." System displayed what records it could find on the suspects. A list of posts tied them together to confirmed piracy. A ship was scuttled, then a post went out.

He still didn't have any hard evidence he could use to bring them in, and the military angle would shut down any outside investigator. Civilian law enforcement was not welcome to interfere with Navy business.

On the other hand, his message packet to the media and other authorities had triggered some kind of response inside the system. He just couldn't tell what it was yet. At least none of it had blown back on the surveyors.

Don decided that maybe he should talk to the person in the house about what was going on before they disappeared.

Leaguer checked the scans, noting there was only one presence moving around. He lifted off gently from his perch, bringing himself up to full power. He extended out anchor lines to grab onto the roof. System confirmed the stun guns were ready. Don paused directly over the house, glad that traffic seemed nominal at the moment.

"Call the house." Don listened as the com unit was dialed by System. The image on the screen stopped and answered his com, standing in his kitchen as far as the Leaguer could tell.

"Hello?" A picture of typical kid flashed on the screen as identification for the caller. "Who is this?"

Don knew his ident would be blank on the other end.

"This is the Leaguer." Don decided to start out with the biggest card he had. "I know you are involved with the piracy ring I exposed. I want you to turn your friends in to the cops."

The hacker ran for his computer, maybe to delete his files, maybe to send a message. That didn't matter to Don. He hooked the anchor lines and ripped the roof off of the house. That made the guy look up long enough for a stun gun beam to drop him down.

Leaguer extended a delicate hand to grab the small work unit and the hacker. He put the roof back on the house to make it look like nothing was wrong. Maybe he could catch other lagomorphs with the same trap.

First he would have to hack the work unit and talk to his captive. Then he could rig out the rest of his trap. The hacking into the military array should have been spotted by inspections on the equipment. Someone on the base must know about the open channel. That was another line he would have to follow up on.

This was more complicated than what he liked to get into. He should disengage and let the real authorities do some of this. On the other hand, who in the authorities would do this? He didn't know who was with the pirates and who wasn't. Until he did, he couldn't do anything more than report what he had found.

That meant staying on things and weeding out anyone connected to the original band he had caught up in his net. He might be catching good with the bad, but he didn't have the man power to assign to clearances as he went.

System reported various pirate related information in the work unit. Most of it had been posted in the forum they had discovered. So this could be their point man.

Time to have a talk with him.

Leaguer decided to let the computer expert dangle high in the air until he woke up. Sometimes a physical threat worked better than any bribe. Sometimes it didn't. He would just have to see if his captive would tell him anything when the threat of crashing into the ground at terminal velocity was applied.

A scream through the external pickup made Don wince. Still that was about the reaction he wanted. Now to make it work for him.

"I was wondering if you knew what the penalty for piracy was." Don made sure the air space was clear. "That's what you're getting if you tell me about your set up. Otherwise I'll have to drop you, and ask the next guy on the list."

"You're bluffing." The hacker gave the golden globe an upside down symbol to have sexual relations with yourself.

Leaguer opened the claw, plotting an intercept trajectory as he let the computer worker fall. He let System do the actual catch with a force field. He wanted the man scared. He didn't want to turn him into putty with a misjudgement of speed.

"Do we have an understanding?" Don waited, watching the screen intently. He didn't want to have to repeat the performance. Even a computer brain as sophisticated as his aide could make a misjudgement and accidentally kill someone with a stunt like he just pulled.

"I'll tell you anything." The hacker knelt on the glowing platform, looking ready to vomit. "Just don't do that again."

The whole story came out then. He had been hired to supply a monitoring bug, set up a forum, and broadcast a code to others on the board. In return, a certain percentage of monies was sent to his account as a finder's fee.

He didn't know who hired him, and claimed he didn't know what he was locating ships for with his bug.

Don considered what he had been told. If the board was taken out of the picture, then the rest of the pirates would go to ground. Tracking down the identifications might not be enough. And he still didn't know who the brain was, and if he had snagged him with his raid on the Arm.

How could he use this anonymous code dropping to his advantage?

He needed something that would bring out all the rest of the circle so he could round them up in one fell swoop. The only thing he could think of was a treasure so vast, a pirate would give his right arm to get a chance to grab it. It would have to be plausible enough so they wouldn't expect anything. The worse thing was Don didn't know how much time he had before the board members turned suspicious and dumped their log-ons.

There still was the matter of the inside man at the outpost to take care of also. He must be someone regularly assigned to the array to keep the monitor hidden from his fellow soldiers. He might be the only one who inspects the array.

Or the whole outpost might be in it together.

"System, have you cracked the code for the bulletin boards?" Don weighed everything in his mind. He had to go with what he had. If his scheme worked, he was done except for some loose ends. If it didn't, he would have to think of something else to try, or settle in to wait.

"Yes." System buzzed happily.

"I want you to send out an alert for the launch of a cargo ship containing priceless artifacts from the historical museum heading through the net where the other attacks have occurred." Don nodded to himself. "Then we'll have to get there to take cover and wait."

"Affirmative." System picked the oldest model ship still flying, picked the best artifacts in the museum to load it with, and then sent a fake flight plan out, as the golden globe lifted upwards, prisoner in tow.

"Put our prisoner in a holding cell until we can hand him over to the authorities."

Golden chips assembled around the force field, forming a round ball floating behind the golden globe that Don used. It rolled along on a tether as System plotted the best course to make it to the ambush point with the hopes of being undetected by scanners looking for an ambush like the one they were setting up.

Don wanted to wrap this up and move on to the next emergency. This was the first time in a long time he had encountered a cellular syndicate like this. He preferred enemies he could stun and hand over without a second thought, or natural disasters that he could alleviate.

The golden globes soared across space as its pilot considered back up plans in case this one didn't work out the way he wanted.

Leaguer arrived at his ambush point, smiling when he had clear vacuum so he could get ready. He wanted to finish his enemy off as fast as possible. If this scheme worked, it might put a stop to the piracy once and for all.

He hoped to at least cause it to scale down to a regular level again.

First he had to get rid of some baggage.

"Drop our prisoner out of the way." Don indicated a lifeless moonlet nearby. "We don't want his holding cell in the way."

The small globe dropped to the surface of the asteroid, and sank in.

"Deploy the decoy." Don kept an eye on the scanners for any indicators that he had been joined by vessels trying to cloak themselves.

A small missile leaped from the golden globe, assumed a logical flight path to leave the system. It stalled out, projecting a signal to emulate a ship a hundred times its size, and a distress signal to show that it was in trouble.

"Put us undercover." Don indicated the same moonlet miles away from where the cell had been dropped. "We'll wait and see what happens."

The golden globe sank into the rock, covering itself with the surrounding stone. Power cut down to passive scanners and life support. Don sat back to wait to see if his trap worked.

Alerts cut through his boredom several mans later. He stretched the kinks out as he watched the screens in front of him. System had several cloaked profiles marked cutting through space. Missile volleys fired a preemptive strike in the area where the torpedo had drifted after cutting its engines.

"Full power." Don marked the lead ship as his primary target. "Release the drones."

Leaguer exploded off the moonlet, two fighters releasing from each side. Multiple turrets fired from the main ship as he headed for the pirate fleet. The concentrated fire blew a hole in the engines of the lead ship before more missiles could be released.

The two fighters swept down the sides of the lead ship, firing at the other space craft in the same configuration as their mother ship. The rest of the fleet fired at the smaller globes, trying to bring their guns and batteries to bear with turnings of their steel bodies. The fighters stayed inside the turn, spinning like a top to bring full batteries and charged guns to bear with no effort.

Don targeted the next ship, bringing full tubes and barrels to bear as he closed. The pirates were trying to break away from his secondary units. He knew they would try that. He let System target the engines of the second ship as it turned to try and match with the smaller globe. Explosions left it dead in space.

Don liked the improving odds as he marked his third target. The fighters were already moving to their next opponents as he fired again. System raked the back half of the frigate, scarring it with fire and debris floating around it in a cloud like a comet's tail. The other three ships fired at his golden target as they reversed their course.

That wasn't unexpected.

"Get ready to use the omni-cannon." Don fired flares at the missiles, ducking and dodging to try to avoid the energy beams. His shields might be able to take a beating, but he didn't want to test it.

"Affirmative." System started the countdown.

All Leaguer armor were created with a one shot destructive wave that ate all the power when released. The Leaguers who used it sometimes wound up dead. The armor was not designed to put out that much power all at once.

Don and his System had come up with a way to channel that energy into a cannon beam. They could only use it once. When they did, it would core any three ships like a fish swimming in water.

"Issue the warning." Don was not going to let those ships get away so he would have to chase them down later. They could give up now and be disabled, or he would fire the beam. As close as they were, none of them would survive a near miss.

The fighters moved to cut off any escape. Their weapons provided a welcome distraction for Don to move in and use the bigger guns from his own armor. Now he was pulling the biggest gun he had. Now he would see if the pirates had enough of a sense of self preservation that they wouldn't make him use it.

The pirates powered down and secured their weapons. System reported it couldn't see any tricks that it could see. It looked like things were over on the raiding side of things. Now he had to work on the brains side of things.

And he still didn't have a clue how to do that.

Don waited for the Navy to arrive. He handed over everything that he had gathered so far including his prisoner and the knowledge there was an inside man. He didn't expect anything to come of it. They had been infiltrated. They couldn't admit it.

He would just have to keep after it until he had a solution.

Don Car Syp sat at one of his favorite café's outside tables and thought, with a drink on the table in front of him sweating. The round up of the pirates' forum members had been done quietly by the Navy, but System had monitored the traffic. Some innocents had been taken with the guilty, but he had his eye on the situation so they could be released without too much trouble.

His main problem still remained that he didn't know if he had gotten the whole bunch with his efforts, or did some escape the net to start over with a better machine. The one he had taken apart had been more effective than he had imagined.

There was no telling how many sailors had been killed in the years the operation had been in place.

He sat and thought, going over the web he had constructed, the actions he had taken. Pieces of the puzzle turned and turned but didn't fit together after he had the other limbs constructed. The most glaring thing was the Surveyors' Office.

That needed inside help to change the maps around. He was sure that none of the surveyors could do it. He had checked their records when he had first started working for the Office. None of them had an ability to use a processor outside of their navigation systems and piloting controls. Some of them couldn't write proper Sythian.

He knew that last for a fact.

So who did change the maps?

The maps went into the system with the report, then went to the Navy and the Colony Office. Empty planets were marked for people who wanted to travel away from the home world, and had filled out the paperwork with the CO to board one of the transports. The potential planets were also marked for Navy security needs.

So the hacker had to change them in the Surveyor's Office, then change the copies at the other two offices. Not many could change the maps in the first place, and then to double that feat with two more security systems and not be caught meant someone as skilled as System.

That didn't seem too likely.

That had to be the key somehow. He didn't know why, but his brain was telling him that if he looked into the maps he could finally wrap things up.

The first step was to get into the Surveyor's Office and look around.

Don finished his drink, paid his tab, and headed out. A simple ride on the rail system got him over to the glass tower that housed his work area. He looked up at the edifice from the plaza at ground level. Now came the hard part.

Don went inside the building, passed through the checkpoint with a wave. He went to the elevator. His floor would be locked down so the elevator wouldn't stop on that level. Same with the stairwell doors. Luckily he had his key with him.

Don took the elevator to the Tax/Fee floor. He got off, doubled back to the stairwell after making sure the cameras blocked seeing him. He started up the stairwell, System helping with the minimal security measures in place.

Don paused at the door to his office. System bypassed the alarms on the lock, and fed a false image to the cameras. He opened the door and stepped inside. They hadn't left a living guard to secure the place. That was fortunate.

He went to a random station and hacked the files. System went over what had been done in the last month. Then it went over the work again and again. The false overlays had been loaded the day the office had been shut down. It made sure before reporting its findings.

"Time to suit up," Don said to his aid. "We're going into space."

System lifted Don up, coating him with the basic golden armor he had been given when he had first became a Leaguer. They punched a temporary hole in a window to get outside. Then the golden agent headed straight up as the glass knitted back together. The globe design expanded from the basic armor as the atmosphere gave over to star lit blackness.

Don headed for the outpost where he had discovered the link to the message forum. If he was right, there was a connection between the Navy and the Surveyors' Office. Then he could do some more digging to prove it.

Then he could see if there were more connections leading off from this branch of inquiry. This might be a central nexus connecting everything together.

All he needed was a name at the outpost that fit the name that loaded the false maps to the SO workstations. That would be all the confirmation he needed since every government office used the name and number of its employees with a password that changed every week. It would be a big stretch for someone else to be able to use the same methods at two different installations.

That was especially hard to believe since SO credentials could not be loaded into dedicated Navy workstations.

Leaguer coasted to a stop near the outpost antenna. The relay had been taken down. The empty space had been covered over by a fresh patch of tiling. The military personnel department had probably already sent over a list of names on who should have been pulling the tap down.

That wasn't Don's concern.

His only concern was who had signed the order to put the relay on the communications equipment in the first place. Once he had that, he could move on to the next part with a small amount of work.

Don edged closer, screen in place. He didn't need to be shot at while basically committing espionage. That would defeat the whole purpose of coming out there in the first place.

"Hack the repair orders, System." Don watched the screens for anyone who might spot him and cause trouble. "We need confirmation with a comparison with the logged false maps."

"Affirmative." System extended feelers to connect to the array and then to the records files. It sorted through the data in seconds. "Match found."

The name on the screen blinked to confirm what Don thought. He sat back in his chair, realizing that he had expected another dead end. It looked like he was finally ahead of the game. Now came the part where he put the restraints on.

That should be enjoyable.

Don ordered System to disconnect, and pulled away from the outpost. The best thing to do was try and catch the Sytian at home. Failing that, they would have to look for him with the help of public information.

Leaguer looked up his enemy's home address as he headed back to Syt. The directory listed a house in a quiet borough a few miles from capitol center. That's where they would start looking.

The gold ball dropped through the atmosphere, hovering over the address listed. Scans showed no one home. Maybe he was at work. It couldn't be easy.

Better check if he had even shown up for work with the amount of trouble Leaguer had already generated.

"System, call the subject's office with Vel Ma Din's voice." Don scanned the nearby houses while he waited for confirmation of the order. "Let's see if he's there."

Several seconds of conversation followed before System reported the subject had not gone to work that day. Don frowned. Where else could he have gone? Surely he wouldn't stay on the planet with the authorities looking for him.

Don knew the man had a small spacecraft listed under property from a search through financial records. That would be at a port somewhere, stored until it needed to be used. They didn't have anything to lose by checking on it.

Maybe they could catch him at the port. Don doubted it. His quarry probably took off as soon as the Navy grabbed up the people at the outpost.

Still, it hurt nothing to check on it and try to catch up if he could.

Leaguer cruised to the port listed on the files he had glommed onto when he had did his background check. He paused outside of the launch space, sending a query on the slot that his fugitive ship should be in. He was told the owner had filed plans and took off to another sphere of influence two days ago.

Two days was enough to take him anywhere in that part of the galaxy, perhaps to other regions unknown to Syt.

What could he do now?

Don thought about it. He wasn't giving up. He was getting this guy no matter what it took.

"Send out an alert to all nearby Leaguers until we get this guy." Don knew his brothers would keep an eye out for anyone matching the description System loaded into the net. "Let's see if we can reconstruct his launch plan."

"Affirmative." The golden globe drifted to the hangar, scanning the air for traces that it could use. A simple comparison matched what it was picking up to what the tower had recorded when the ship had headed for space.

Leaguer headed into space on the same trajectory, following the trail left behind. A simple calculation told him the ease of light speed travel and range so he knew where the ship would hit depending on flight path.

System's engines could do better than that without trying.

"Jump distortion detected." System showed the healed rift in the vacuum.

"What's in range for this direction?" Don nodded to himself. This could be what he was hoping for.

Three star systems filled the auxiliary screens. Major ports and ties with Syt were marked down. They had become an expanding conglomerate according to his data. They were also in the way of Syt expanding in that direction.

That was interesting. A pirate fled to a territory with a government that had an interest in stopping shipping from a colonial power. Official backing could mean a declaration of war between the two.

Leaguers were meant to be above political backstabbing. They were meant to be neutral in their dealings. Don didn't want to start a conflict across star systems. Millions could die in a shooting war. He still had his duty.

Don watched the stars change as he headed after the fugitive.

Regulator All Sco Pre looked at the sky, sipped amber liquor like Pas, and smiled. It felt good to get out of his official standing. In a man, he would be gone with no trace of his passing. His other identity was already set up for him to step into as soon as he had his ship switched out.

It had been a profitable run, but now it was time to retire and vanish with all the credits he had made.

He had known that he couldn't go on forever. He had taken steps to keep things away from his door as much as possible. Still he was free while most of the people he employed were going to rot away under prison sentences.

And it was all because of a distress call caused by his own men not thinking about what they should be doing. If they had followed procedures, Leaguer and the Navy never would have known things were going on.

Now everything was gone with questions he didn't want to answer fueling the warrant process he had avoided.

Pre checked his watch, put his bottle in a recycler, and started walking. By the time he got to the port, his ship should be ready to go. All the modules would be switched, with even the identification code changed to something innocuous. Then he could go anywhere he wanted as long as he had a connection to the bank where he placed his earnings.

Pre reached the terminal, feeling lighter and lighter as he neared his escape vehicle. He turned at the main building, and headed to where the shops and private pads clustered in one section of the port. Once he lit the engines, things would be so much better.

Pre walked down the rows of hangars, looking at the ships being serviced. He smiled when he saw the hangar of his mechanic come into view. The Horsut nodded a furry head when he saw the ex-regulator coming down the aisle. The ship must be ready to fly.

"Ready to fly, sir." The Horsut produced a checklist of things he had done to the small flyer. "Here's the bill."

Pre signed the bill, ran his credit stick for payment. The mechanic copied the paperwork for future reference and handed it over. Another mechanic floated the ship out of the hangar to a pad where she could be launched into space. He handed the fugitive the new ignition card when he climbed out of the cockpit.

"Pleasure doing business with you." The Horsut waved one of its four arms before turning to the next piece of hardware it needed to put back together.

Pre plugged in the ignition card, asked for clearance, and launched when he had the go-ahead. He cleared the atmosphere and soared out of the gravity well on a course to take him to his next destination. Once he picked up the rest of his identity chips, he could go anywhere he wanted.

Pre felt a jerk as if he had brushed against something in the middle of empty vacuum. Warning lights told him the ship was in trouble. He looked around, trying to figure out what had hit his ship. He noticed the wings that helped atmospheric flight were gone.

Pre poured power to his engines. Maybe he could outrun what looked like a disaster to him. He could take his ship to another mechanic for more wings. He had a fast flyer, and was good enough to pass a rating test for government service.

Breach alarms sounded in the cockpit after a violent shaking of his ship. Pre checked his systems as the seat area closed down. Internal mapping told him the back end of his ship was gone. He looked over his shoulder. Everything beyond the waist of the one seater floated behind his still forward hurtling nose.

Pre raised his hands against the bubble of the cockpit glass as a golden globe with an open triangle appeared overhead. Tentacles descended and wrapped around the nose of the broken flyer. He should have known the Leaguer had never given up trying to find him.

Pre sat back in his restraints. He contemplated hitting the emergency release button and jettisoning his control section. A realistic assessment told him that would delay the inevitable for about ten mins if that long. If he didn't want to go back home, he would be better off trying to break the cockpit plastic and let the vacuum kill him.

Pre shrugged and determined to enjoy the ride. He couldn't stop it, and he didn't have any weapons he could use. He had been caught in a trap before he could think to run.

The stars changed and the controls still functioning on battery power indicated that the Leaguer had dragged his catch almost to Syt in one jump faster than Pre had flown in the opposite direction. The homeworld grew larger until the globe descended on the plaza in front of the government offices. Armed guards rushed out to greet the broken ship with weapons ready to shoot through the transparent covering.

The Leaguer pulled back his appendages as he headed up to space to wait for the next criminal or emergency that called him. That didn't matter to Pre. The pirate king stared into the muzzles of ready energy weapons and knew they were waiting for him to make the first move.

He opened the cockpit with the other hand raised to show he was giving up without a fight.

epilogue

Don Car Syp sat his regular table, sipping a drink, and thought the day couldn't get better than this. He watched the females walking by with their skimpy summer clothes, thinking that he might stay at his post until the sun went down.

Locking Pre up had generated a number of answers according to the traffic System eavesdropped on. The pirates were signing deals to try and avoid execution for piracy. Prosecutors and Defenders provided plenty of captioned photos for the media as they warred for public opinion before the first trial went before the tribunals.

The best thing of all was Pre had set everything up on his own with no help other than the pirates he had enlisted. That meant Syt's neighbors were in the clear, avoiding even the thought of a war.

All in all, Don thought he had done a good job. All the information he had gathered had been added to the Library at Headquarters, letting the other Leaguers know what had happened if they wanted to look it up. Some of it had already been given to the Prosecutors so they could find it in the various databases and use legal means to bring it to bear.

Don's view of an excellent pair of legs was spoiled by a Sythian crossing in front of his viewpoint with a purposeful stride. The surveyor looked around for a place to hide before the other could walk up to his table. He tried not to groan as the other sat down at his table with him.

"How did you do it, Syp?" Hur Hud Hul signaled for two more drinks to be brought to the table. "I know you had a hand turning Pre in to the authorities."

Don paused. He had to protect his dual existence. Leaguers that didn't suffered. That was the first thing they taught you when they gave you an aide. On the other hand, he had to give Hul a reasonable explanation so he would go away and not try to dig into the fact that something had happened that connected Pre to Leaguer to Pirates after the meeting at the bar.

Don especially didn't want to form a connection between himself and the rest of the events that had happened.

"I thought something was wrong about those maps so I ran them through a checker to figure out what had been changed. Once I knew I called over to the Regulators office and reported them." Don checked his explanation in his mind. It seemed to hold up and it mirrored what had happened. Only no one would be able to check how System had loaded the information. "I used a fake name so it didn't look like a surveyor was getting involved in inter-office politics."

"Is that why they arrested Pre?" Hul took the glasses offered by the waitress, frowned at the Pas in them, handed one of the tumblers to Don. "I heard Leaguer caught him fleeing into the Kha'dol Sovereignty."

"I don't know about that." Don sipped the Pas, letting it flow down to warm up his insides. "I do know the maps were a bit of overthinking."

"I don't understand." Hul drank half of his glass in one shot.

"The maps were altered report maps dated back to when we filed our reports on the Arm." Don looked at another beautiful set of legs as he thought. "None of the Surveyors have the ability to alter a sheaf of reports like that to exclude a whole system. That meant someone else had done it. Additionally my friend discovered that the maps had been put in the system the same day Pre showed up to accuse us of malfeasance."

"So if he hadn't done that, he would have gotten away with everything." Hul drank the rest of the Pas.

"Maybe, maybe not." Don glanced over, then returned to looking at the passing females. "Pre was smart and covered his bases, but no one is perfect. If the maps hadn't shown up, he would have made some other mistake."

"I'll tell you one thing." Hul stood up. "I'm glad things are settled. The word is we're back on duty tomorrow. Be ready for the call in."

"Always, Hul." Don raised his glass. "Be seeing you."

"Thanks, Syp." Hul saluted, smile on his craggy, purplish face, before turning and heading down the street.

Don sipped the rest of the liquid in his glass, watching the sun set with the coming of long shadows. He stood, paying the check with real coins. Then he headed along the sidewalk.

Maybe he would take in a show. A call in in the morning was a long way away from where he strolled along the poured sheet of mixed ceramics. Besides System would get him going whether he wanted to go, or not. He might as well enjoy himself the last few hours of freedom he had left.

The sun would always rise in the morning no matter what he did. Worrying about tomorrow was pointless. He looked down at his sleeping aid on the back of his hand. They were taking tonight off, so a show would help with that, then a trip to the book store seemed in order. Then he would go home and turn in.

The morning would give him new challenges to overcome like it should. No one could ask for anything more.

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