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Metcalf intended to shred Gan Ying as soon as she cleared the asteroid’s safety zone. She had to
depart soon; otherwise the frigates would be in the legal right in attacking
her at the neutral harbor. The Brazilians knew it, yet the seventy-two-hour
deadline expired with no action. Commodore Metcalf had Ajax fire a
series of coilgun rounds within a few dozen kilometers of the station.
    The Brazilians never transmitted a word, but, at last, the Gan
Ying cut loose, and a small port tug pushed her away from the rock at a few
meters per second before scurrying back to its dock. On four frigates, small
maneuvering thrusters fired, rotating the ships slightly to keep their bow
lasers pointed at the cruiser.
    “Whiskey-12 at forty-five kilometers from the asteroid,” Apache ’s
sensor operator said. At fifty they would fire. Neil watched the camera feed of
the Gan Ying in apprehension. Her gun turrets were angled forward. They
should have been tracking the frigates …
    “Commander, something’s wrong,” Neil said. He pitched his
voice a fraction deeper than normal, trying to sound confident so Howell would
listen. He described his observation on the gun turret. “The target isn’t
acting like it’s going to fight.”
    “But she buttoned up her cooling fins. Trying to ram one of
us?”
    “I don’t think so. She isn’t bearing directly on any of us,
and she would have to get a lot closer to have any hope of damaging us, even if
she lit off her antimatter,” Neil said.
    Why would Qin come in stupid like this? It’s almost as if
she is asking us to kill her. The thought triggered a memory, of a news
story he read several years ago, about a guy who wanted to commit suicide, but
couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he threatened some cops, and they did the
job for him.
    Neil said, “Commander, we should hold fire. I think Gan
Ying is flying dead. We can board her, as long as we don’t blow her apart
in the next ten minutes.”
    The XO looked nervous. Come on, Howell , Neil thought.
Something had changed in Lieutenant Commander Howell since he led the ship in
battle. It took killing a bunch of Hans to make you believe in your crew.
Now take a chance. Think of the payoff.
    “Comms, kindly transmit the suggestion to the flag that we
wait and see what the Gan Ying will do,” Howell said. “Tell them we
suspect the ship may not be a threat. Mercer, make the suggestion to the intel
people on the other ships.”
    A flurry of transmissions between the frigates followed, ended
by a curt order from Metcalf to wait. Lieutenant Kerr on the Ajax messaged Neil privately that the commodore was about to discard the idea, but Kiyokaze had sent something for Metcalf’s eyes only, and he changed his mind.
    So they watched. For ten minutes, Gan Ying did
nothing but coast. The wounded cruiser grew closer to Ajax , and Neil
grew worried that he had made a mistake, that the ship would try to ram ...
    “Seeing multiple streamers on the hull. The ship’s opening
to space,” Neil said. “She’s dead, sir. Scuttled, but there’s a lot left. She
must have been unable to light off her antimatter.”
    “Message from the Ajax ,” said the comms officer.
“Commence boarding operations. Intelligence personnel accompany boarding teams
for exploitation.”
    Only the directed energy officer,
Barrett, came down to see them off. Neil lingered on the flight deck as the
Marines and techs boarded the jumper, and she approached him briskly, her
magnetic boots clacking against the metal floor.
    “Be careful out there,” she said, squeezing his hand.

Chapter 3
    DAMASCUS – Arabic and Islamic Federation President
Adnan Kilani affirmed his country’s neutrality in the war Thursday but rejected
Japanese demands for independent inspections of African cargo transiting Federation
territory into Asia. Tokyo and Washington have accused Federation officials of
turning a blind eye to war materiel from factories in Kenya, Tanzania, and
Mozambique