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ready to go,” LaRone said, putting some bite into his voice. “Bring the
Reprisal
out of hyperspace so we can launch.”
    “Ah … one moment, sir.”
    The comm went silent. “
That
was your big trick?” Quiller muttered.
    “Give him a minute,” LaRone said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. If they had to blast their way out of here—
    “Major, this is Commander Brillstow,” a new voice put in. “I see no ship departures on my schedule.”
    “Of course you don’t,” LaRone growled. “And you won’t put anything in your log report, either. Now kindly drop out of hyperspace so we can get on with this.”
    He held his breath. Quiller was right, of course; standing orders would certainly require that the deck officer clear any such unscheduled request with the captain, or at least check with someone in Drelfin’s own contingent.
    But the Imperial Security Bureau ran under its own rules, and everyone in the Fleet knew it. If Commander Brillstow had heard enough stories of ISB displeasure …
    And to his relief and surprise, the mottled hyperspace sky outside the hangar bay faded into the star-flecked blackness of realspace. “Acknowledged, Major,” Brillstow said, his voice stiff and formal. “You’re cleared to launch.”
    LaRone switched off the comm. “Let’s get moving before they change their minds,” he told Quiller.
    “It could still be a trap,” Quiller warned as he keyedthe repulsorlifts and swiveled the Suwantek toward the atmosphere screen. “They might just be letting us get outside where they can nail us with the heavy stuff.”
    “I don’t think so,” Marcross said. “They wouldn’t go for a burned-ground endgame without at least trying to take us alive and find out what in blazes we think we’re doing.”
    “I hope you’re right,” Quiller said. “Here we go …”
    Seconds later, they were outside. Quiller curved them up the Star Destroyer’s flank, swinging them around behind the superstructure as he headed for deep space. A minute after that, as LaRone watched the tactical display for signs of a last-minute change of heart, the
Reprisal
flickered with pseudomotion and vanished again into hyperspace.
    “Whew,” Quiller exhaled with a huff. “It’s so nice when ISB’s cloak-and-blade nonsense works against them.”
    “Though that doesn’t mean we should sit here and wait for them to wake up,” Marcross warned. “Any thoughts as to where we go from here?”
    “I was thinking Drunost might be a good first stop,” Quiller said, keying in an overhead display. “It’s about three hours away, a nice little backworld place that happens to have a Consolidated Shipping hub and outlet, which means it’ll have all the fuel and supplies we’ll need. It’s a long way to the edge of the Empire, you know.”
    “
If
we decide we really have to go that far,” Marcross said. “There are any number of closer systems where we could hide.”
    “We can hash that over later,” LaRone said. “Go ahead and get us started for Drunost.”
    Quiller nodded and keyed his board, and the stars outside flashed into starlines. “Of course, one questionwe’re going to have to answer before we get there is what we’re going to do for money,” he pointed out.
    There was a beep from the intercom. “Quiller?” Brightwater’s voice came. “We clear?”
    “Clear and free, and the
Reprisal
’s gone,” Quiller assured him.
    “Great,” Brightwater said. “You might want to set it on auto and come back to the number two crew cabin—second on your right, just aft of the lounge. Got something interesting to show you.”
    Brightwater and Grave were waiting when LaRone, Marcross, and Quiller arrived. Like the crew lounge itself, the cabin was designed with the kind of care LaRone would have expected of men running on an ISB budget. Furnishings included a narrow but comfortable-looking bed, a wall locker, a small computer desk, a repeater display over the desk that showed