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threats had been made, even before Philip changed allegiances.
    He also knew Ben Halsey wasn’t one to go down without a fight. A burly man in his late fifties, Halsey was ex-ImpSec—and Imperial Security Forces had a well-earned reputation for excellence and ruthlessness. For someone to get a jump on him … Devin could only liken it to a handball match where an unassuming and unknown player suddenly decimates a known athlete with years of experience.
    He needed to see Rallman’s log and the Aldan Prime police reports. And he needed the holos of Trip’sapartment at Montgomery. The answers to all the questions would be there.
    Halsey was tough, experienced, but Jonathan Macy Guthrie III was no idiot. Trip had made a point of studying every combat holo then-Captain Philip Guthrie ever authored. Philip was more than the ship driver he often joked he was. He’d graduated top of his class in the academy and he was an acknowledged authority in several forms of combat and tactical reconnaissance. When Devin was Trip’s age, Philip—ten years his senior and already a respected Fleet officer—had put him through a grueling boot-camp survival course on one of the Guthrie game preserves on Sylvadae. They’d both done the same thing for Trip, just last year.
    Devin didn’t have Philip’s love of weapons, but he could handle a high-powered Carver laser pistol. So could Trip.
    J.M. tried to protect the Guthrie clan through fortuitous marriages. Philip did so by teaching Guthrie boys how to survive. And, if necessary, kill.
    If someone had come after Trip, Trip would have fought back; Devin had no doubt of that. So he needed to see the police holos. He needed to follow the trail of blood.
    Kaidee threaded her way through the noisy crowd packed in Trouble’s Brewing, looking for a seat at the bar. Hell, she’d be satisfied to even
see
the bar. The throng was easily four deep, in various shades of gray, dark blue, and green—all standard freighter-crew uniform colors. She waved to three gray-suited crew from the long-hauler
Wiznalarit
. Another few steps and she nodded at more familiar faces, including Corrina and Rae from the
Solarian Wolf
, and received raised alemugs in a silent toast. Tables in the popular pub on Dock Five’s Blue Level were packed, with patrons sitting on armrests, laps, anything.
    Trouble was, it wasn’t just Trouble’s Brewing.
    Dock Five was packed, with about every bay or berth taken. Even the regular shuttle and passenger transport docks were filled with cargo ships, captains moving their freighters only to allow the next transport to unload or retrieve passengers.
    As soon as the passenger transport departed, the captains moved their freighters back into the dock again.
    No one she knew was out in the lanes.
    Six hours ago, Tage had added another destroyer at Dock Five’s outer beacon and shut the lanes down—again—to all traffic other than scheduled passenger transports and the Imperial Fleet. Even the jumpgates were blockaded.
    So freighter captains and crew did the only thing they could do when there was no work: they drank. And Trouble’s Brewing always had a more-than-decent supply of ale, because it maintained a small brewing facility in its kitchen.
    But if Trouble’s ran out of grain, real troubles would begin. She could almost feel an undercurrent of tension, ready to explode.
    “Kaid! Makaiden Griggs! Over here!”
    Kaidee turned at the sound of her name, recognizing the voice of the bald-headed, pale-skinned older man whose hand splayed in the air. His brown coveralls bore the glowing-wrench logo of Popovitch Expert Repair Service. She dodged a ’droid server with two trays full of dirty glasses and headed for the corner table where Pops, his office manager/daughter Ilsa, and his repair techs often lounged.
    Garvey—she didn’t know his first name—was leaning over the back of a chair that was empty except for one of Pops’s scuffed boots. Next to him was Aries Pan, a tech