The Truth of Valor by Tanya Huff

about being seen, just tag the pen. When they dump, they’ll hit their aft thrusters.” Fukking predictable. The first thing a CSO did after dumping their pen was hit the aft thrusters every damned time. Surged straight ahead until they could fold into Susumi space. It was like every one of them forgot normal space had three dimensions. “We’ll be waiting to grapple the ship in. Make sure the operator is in the ship before you tag.”
    “ Gre ta ejough geyko . You just do your job and leave us to do ours. We keep what’s in the pen. Firrg out. ”
    Cho glared at the back of Huirre’s head. “Translation.”
    “Roughly, sit on it and rotate.” Huirre kept his gaze locked on his board. “She’s moving out.”
    “Take us into position.”
    “We can’t just let her have the pen, Captain!” Dysun protested.
    “We can if I say we can,” Cho told her shortly. Let Firrg have the pen. He had a Marine armory with all the promise of a great and glorious future it contained, and the Krai captain didn’t have a hope in hell of scoring anything that even came close to matching it.
    As Huirre maneuvered the Heart of Stone into position, her signature masked by the static emitted by a pair of lopsided rings circling an equally lopsided planetoid, he split his attention between the salvage ship and the empty space beyond it, waiting for Firrg to appear.
    “Captain, the salvage ship’s engines have come on-line.” Dysun transferred the information to Cho’s screen. “I think they’re getting ready to move out.”
    “No one asked for your opinion,” Huirre growled, hands and feet ready over his board.
    The di’Taykan’s hair flipped up on the side closest to the Krai. “Who tied your kayt in a knot?”
    “Gren sa talamec!”
    “If someone stuffed it up yours, you’d be in a better mood,” she snorted.
    “Shut up. Both of you.” Fingers digging into the edge of his screen, Cho willed Firrg to make her move.
    “Net’s are away, Captain!”
    “I don’t see them.”
    “We’re not picking them up on visuals, but there’s a ripple in the data.” Hair flicking quickly back and forth, Dysun bent over her board. I’m boosting magnification. Give them a minute or two to show . . . There!”
    “I see them.”
    She drummed her fingers on the inert edging. “If that ship starts to move before the nets . . .”
    “We know,” Huirre interrupted. “For horon’s sake, we all know.”
    Twenty kilometers.
    Fifteen kilometers.
    Five.
    Contact.
    “Anchor lines have caught. Dargonar has powered the buoys. They’ve dumped their pen, Captain! They’re moving!”
    “Get them, Huirre.”
    “Aye, aye, Captain.”
    Huirre moved the Heart of Stone out of concealment directly toward the fleeing ship.
    Suddenly faced with another ship, the salvage operator did the unexpected and went straight up the Y-axis.
    “Son of a fukking bitch!” Cho shifted forward on his seat as though the movement would bring them into alignment. Huirre had them perfectly positioned had the other ship been where it was supposed to be. It just figured that today, when it meant so much, he’d run into the one original thinker in the entire fukking salvage fleet. “Almon!”
    “Captain?”
    “Get the grapples into that ship!”
    “It’s not . . .”
    “I know it’s not! Huirre, bring the aft end around!” In spite of the inertial dampeners, his stomach lurched as Huirre flipped the Heart vertically. “Almon, do it!”
    “But . .”
    “Now!” He was not letting this salvage operator get away. Not when he was so close to getting that armory open.
    “Aye, aye, Captain. Grapples away!”
    Cho watched the signals from the grapple ends close in on the smaller ship, willing them to make contact and dig in. He’d haul that CSO’s ass inboard so fast it would . . . Contact! “Huirre!”
    “Aye, Captain.” Eyes locked on his own screens, Huirre worked the lateral thrusters with both hands. “Adjusting angles.”
    “Shit!”
    “Talk