I smiled. “Made you look.”
“You humans,” he said. “That is not a joke! There’s no punchline!”
“Oh, hush,” I said. “This part is good.”
“I guess you don’t want to hear about Peg’s secret communication then,” he said.
I glanced up. “Secret communication?”
“She’s receiving an encrypted direct call—I assume from a pirate in the Jolly Rogers, judging by the origin of the databurst. Peg obviously doesn’t want anyone to know about the call; it came in on a band that the other Broadsider receivers aren’t attuned to pick up. Her ship apparently has some special equipment. I can only see because of, you know…”
“Espionage AI?”
“Mushroom-locating AI. With supplementary espionage additions.”
A secret call? That was odd. Peg tended to be very open about everything she did—she always let the Broadsiders listen in on the negotiations she made, for example.
“Can we eavesdrop?” I asked.
“If I had my old ship’s hardware, that would be easy,” he said. “But I can’t manage it from this ship. Best I can do is tell you the length of the conversation—and maybe pinpoint the person Peg is talking to.”
“Okay,” I said, a little frustrated. I almost wished he hadn’t said anything at all, rather than teasing me. I was distracted enough that it was hard to get through the rest of the book. I put it down, about halfway done, as long-range sensors showed that we were coming up on a large gathering of starfighters.
“She just ended the call,” M-Bot said. “But I’m certain which ship it came from: the starfighter that belongs to her son Gremm.”
“So Peg had an extended secret call with her supposedly estranged son,” I said, “leader of a rival pirate faction. Something about all this doesn’t add up, M-Bot. What kind of game is she playing?”
“I couldn’t possibly guess,” M-Bot said. “I barely understand myself these days, let alone you organics.”
The “arena” turned out to be a large open-air region of the belt, populated by building-size floating chunks of rock. Though most of the fragments were on the same plane, here in this pocket the landscape was more uneven. It seemed like a fragment might have shattered, its pieces coming to rest at different elevations.
Well, I’d trained as a pilot in debris showers. I could handle this. However, a more distinctive feature of this region was the patches of strange glowing white light amid the chunks of rock. They were like mini lightbursts, but weren’t much larger than my ship. Actually, they reminded me of the little white hole I’d seen in the vision, the one that had eventually become a fragment.
Those holes made me uncomfortable. The others had told me about them, but still… Those were patches of pure nowhere, somehow breaking through into the belt. And I was going to have to fly among them.
A ragtag bunch of a hundred different starfighters were arrayed around the arena. Markings on the wings or fuselages identified their factions. No other theme unified them—except perhaps for a sense of ramshackle piecemealness.
Several had obviously had their cockpits expanded to make room for a larger species. Others were bulky shuttles or other industrial craft—but with an amusing number of weapons strapped to them, like the “super-gun” I’d made as a little girl by taping six toys together.
There were also many with dangerous designs: sleek military vessels with integrated weapons and large boosters. I picked out Gremm, the champion; his ominous starfighter was shaped like a wicked crescent moon, pointed ends facing my direction. It was larger than a DDF Poco, but made up for it with enormous boosters and a deadly armament. Now that I had time to study it carefully, I counted five destructors on the thing.
“Peg,” a voice said over the line—my ship translating. It was a low growling voice, and spoke the same language Peg did. “Took your sweet time as always.”
“I like to enjoy myself, Gremm,” Peg said back. “And the simple things give me pleasure.”
“Like being slow?”
“Like knowing I’ve made you wait,” Peg said, with a laugh. “You ready to be on with this?”
“I would be,” Gremm said. “Except I’m not champion anymore.”
“What?” Peg demanded.
“I lost the title!” Gremm explained. “Earlier today. The Cannonaders arrived early, and I thought we’d do some dueling while we waited. But…I lost.”