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Coordinates follow.)”
    EDNA began scanning instantly for the approaching Marauders. She found them just coming over the dayside horizon line, six silvery darts. They must have come from a mother ship parked in high orbit. Automatically, EDNA began defensive targeting; if they attacked, she would show them a few surprises of her own. She also noted that the starport’s extrapolation of their interception time lacked precision; the Marauders would intercept in seven, not six minutes. EDNA considered for an additional two milliseconds, then decided—quite correctly—that this matter needed the attention of a superior officer. She paged the Captain. . . .
    Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell, earned her rank the old-fashioned way. 3 She lied, cheated, conned, manipulated and clawed her way to power. Like other all ambitious souls, she left a long trail of bodies behind her; only hers remained identifiable by their expressions of astonishment. Notorious for her skills; clever, resourceful, inventive and brutal; Star-Captain Campbell operated by a single overriding principle: “Profit with honor, profit without honor—but profit nevertheless.”
    Her Registry papers identified her as female, both genetically and physically. Psychologically, however, Neena Linn-Campbell had the soul of a bulldozer, and her gender-identity remained the subject of numerous bawdy StarPort jokes and speculations. Of primarily Negro-Asian descent (with some minor Palethetic mutations and tailored genes thrown in for evolutionary confusion), she possessed a remarkable intelligence and a quick sensitivity to circumstance.
    A petite woman, wiry and caustic, she affected the waspish cynicism of one born to sin; she spoke with the gruff manners of an outworld dockworker and routinely rebuked all attempts at friendliness. “I already have the best friends money can buy,” she would explain. “I don’t need any more.” Quick to anger, slow to forgive, Star-Captain Campbell had established a well-respected reputation for ruthlessness in the pursuit of monetary gain; a reputation that shamed shipmasters two or three times her age.
    Under different circumstances Star-Captain Campbell could have become an exquisite courtesan. Both her form and features had a classic proportion, and once upon a time, she had dressed to show herself to maximum advantage. Rumor had it that lucrative offers of employment in several major corporate harems had occurred on more than one occasion, but that Neena Linn-Campbell had deferred because she found insufficient profit in the exercise. Apparently, however, it forced her to realize that she needed to present herself as something other than a sexual plaything—the men she dealt with seemed to have no other way to see her. Subsequently, her standard garment became a severe black jumpsuit, the single most utilitarian garment she could design. The costume demonstrated a simple and direct statement: Do not touch. This individual requires respect .
    Neena Linn-Campbell knew of the rumors; she neither denied or confirmed them. She never discussed her past, and her crew had learned not to speculate—although over a period of years, she had demonstrated her ability to maneuver gracefully throughout a variety of circumstances, including elegant grand balls, official state dinners, gaming tables, bargaining offices, bureaucratic chambers, the High Mass of the Purple Revelation, the Low Mass of the People’s Dionysetic Revolution, various flavors of diplomatic receptions, behind-the-scene negotiating sessions, war zones, machine shops, frontier cantinas, barnyards, high-pressure mines, heavyside dockyards, red light districts, and the occasional barroom brawl; thereby spawning a flurry of fascinating but untrue rumors about her life before her assumption of command of The Lady MacBeth . 4
    One fact, however, remained evident to all who encountered her. Star-Captain Campbell bore a violent