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glanced back at comms, to see a new officer taking his seat at the station. “Comms, identify yourself, please.”
    The man looked back at him. “Haddie? It’s me, your cousin. Jasper.”
    “So it is. I’d forgotten about that. I put you on comms rotation, did I?”
    “Well, substation comms,” Jasper replied. “Deck Eighteen. But, uh, a lot of people passed out, so my number came up.”
    “Whatever,” Hadrian said in a surly growl. “Start monitoring. I’m sure a few people are lining up to talk to us. And someone kill those alarms—they’re giving me a headache. And in the future, Ensign Jasper Polaski—”
    “It’s ‘Sawback,’ Haddie. I legally changed it, since I was going to—”
    “You did what? Fat chance. You’re a Polaski through and through. I just have to look at you. If you had anything of the Sawback in you, don’t you think I’d know it? Well you don’t, and best not forget it. Now, as I was saying. In the future, you will address me as ‘sir’ or ‘Captain,’ am I understood? Good. Now, prioritize the hails, and get on with it.”
    Hunched over and suitably cowed, Jasper said, “System Central Command, sir, on private channel.”
    “Private? Everything’s secret with them, isn’t it? Secret this, private that, encrypted whatever. Well, on my ship it’s all out in the open, whether they like it or not. Put them on, Polaski.”
    Flinching at the name, his cousin complied. “Ready, sir.”
    Hadrian rose and squared his shoulders. “Hell, get the commander onscreen, too.”
    The commander who appeared on the main viewer looked pale and shaky, and seemed momentarily at a loss for words.
    Sighing, Hadrian said, “Now, Commander. This is Captain Hadrian Alan Sawback, of the Engage-class starship Willful Child. I understand you have something of a smuggling problem originating in this system of yours. Indeed, your inability to bring this issue to a satisfactory conclusion has been noted at High Command. Well, I’m here to clean things up. Now, first things first. Please transmit your ship registry for all active space vessels in your system, including automated ships. I’d like to get on with it.”
    “Captain, is this on a public channel?”
    “The only kind I permit on my ship, Commander.”
    “I insist, Captain, that we continue this conversation from your stateroom.”
    “Actually, I turned my stateroom into a games room, with a low-g Ping-Pong table and everything. I do have an office, however, which was originally a bridge-access components locker. A tad small, I grant you, but still roomy enough, all things considered.”
    The man on the screen seemed to be experiencing discomfort, cause unknown. But he finally managed, “In your office, then!”
    Hadrian sighed. “Must we?”
    “Captain, I insist!”
    “I’ll agree to it this time. But one day, why, we’ll all be free to say whatever we want to each other, with billions if not trillions of strangers listening in, and if they want to comment on what we’re talking about, why, I see no problem with that at all. One day, Commander, all this secrecy stuff will be a thing of the past. Your every secret will be known and given a score of some kind—I don’t know, a gross-out score—and votes will go up and votes will go down, and everybody will be happy.” He straightened. “Polaski, reroute this to my office, standard encryption blah blah.”
    Back in his office, and taking his seat behind his desk, Hadrian gestured and an image of the commander resolved in front of him. “Fine,” said Hadrian, “here I am. Now, I’ve got criminals to hunt down and destroy, so can we get on with this?”
    “Have you lost your mind, Captain?”
    “People keep asking me that.”
    “You were clocked at point seven-three-nine—”
    “Sloppy,” cut in Hadrian. “I asked for seven-five.”
    “A full report will be made of this incident, Captain Sawback, and if it’s the last thing I do, I will see you swinging a pick on