The Wolf Mk I medium fighter that Marcan had rescued from the Boa Freighter, which he and Petr now owned, and repaired for himself was equipped with a slightly modified Class 2 Military Drive that gave the ship a 15 percent greater hyperjump range than the basic model. It was Petr who had made the modifications and he had warned Marcan of the slightly greater chance of misjumps and the need for special maintenance at least thrice a year, but the ex-FMI agent had decided that the greater jump range was well worth the small additional risk. Similarly, Petr had once again boosted the firing rate of the unique dual-lasers of the ship closer to Marcan's liking. The lasers were two 3mw pulse lasers, both set to fire forward with reddish-yellow pulses. Also the shielding system of the ship was old-fashioned, consisting of separate shield banks for the fore and aft parts of the craft. Besides these small peculiarities, the ship was equipped with standard issue hardware from a Naval E.C.M System to an Energy Booster Unit.

The bridge and the sleeping quarters of the ship had been designed for a single pilot and with both Sheila and Marcan squeezed in, it felt even more cramped than it really was. Fortunately they both had military training and were used to situations in which there was no chance of privacy for several days at a time. Of course, with two people who were intimate with each other such privacy was seldom needed in any case.

The beginning part of their journey to the Reorte system went by quickly as they told one another what they had been doing during the months that they had been apart. Marcan told Sheila the whole story of the search for Polydeuces and what had happened afterwards, adding that she should not tell anyone else about Victor Shelanko and his new life as Lance Hendriks. He also told her about the difficult and dangerous journey of flying the Boa back to the civilisation and getting it fixed and re-equipped.

After he had finished his story about them getting to the Sol system, Sheila asked, "But why has nothing of this reached the papers? I'd think that the company, whatever it is for, would not just turn its back on fame."

Marcan shrugged, "I don't know and, honestly, I don't really care. As long as they keep away from me and my life they can do whatever they please."

Sheila frowned at him and said, "I didn't realise that you took Castor's betrayal that seriously."

Marcan studied the ship's computer systems and kept quiet, not wishing to study his feelings about the incident any more than necessary. Instead, he asked Sheila to tell him about her past few months and the training courses that she had attended.

Sheila started to tell about the courses, which actually reminded Marcan of the many volumes of reading that he had been required to go through after his transfer. He listened to her story only half-heartedly until she arrived to the point in which she had been given their current mission.

"You mean it was one of those FMI operatives that accompanied us to the Tiessar system who assigned you with this mission?" he interrupted.

Sheila nodded, "Yes, it was Colonel Uma Darman, the one with the long black hair. She actually mentioned that she had been put in charge of this investigation. So, in practice, I'm now working in her unit."

"And it was she who told you to find me and bring me into this case as well?" Marcan asked. He remembered the woman quite well, especially the fact that she was an Elite pilot. He also remembered, with slight embarrassment, that he had not been able to turn his eyes away from the woman. He wondered if she had noticed his looks and if that was the reason he was now investigating this case. He did not like the idea.

Sheila shook her head, "Actually, I brought it up. She was going to assign me with some other partner, an older investigator, but I thought that you and I would work better as a team."

Marcan could not but smile at her words and he turned his eyes away from the view screen to look at her. "We do work very nicely as a team, don't we?" he asked.

Sheila smiled wickedly, "As far as I remember."

He turned back to the control panel and pressed the button that activated the automatic pilot unit. The last few AUs towards the inner planets of Liabefa system should be safe enough for him to leave the pilot's seat for a while. Most of the pirate activity tended to locate into the farther reaches of star systems, close to the distance where hyperspace entrance clouds usually brought the juicy trade ships. Marcan had already fought and destroyed four smaller fighters, mostly Kraits and Sidewinders.

After he had engaged the autopilot and made sure that it worked properly - it was one of the ship's original systems that Petr had just repaired, instead of replaced - Marcan stood up from the pilot's seat and turned to face Sheila who sat on the passenger's seat on his right side. She smiled to him as he took her hands and helped her up. Then he led her to the sleeping quarters that were located just beyond a narrow door and pushed her onto the bed gently.

"If you have trouble remembering, perhaps I should do something to remind you," he said and followed her onto the almost soft bed.

"Please, do," Sheila replied and lay back on the bed.

Marcan lowered his lips onto hers and kissed her gently, pressing his right hand gently onto her waist. Then he kissed her again, onto the side of her slightly opened mouth and then lower again onto her soft cheek. When he reached her earlobe, he moved his tongue slowly along the outer rim, nibbling at it at the same time. Moving back to the earlobe, he sucked it into his mouth pulled it delicately.

He felt how Sheila's body turned rigid with expectation as he moved his lips away from her ear and moved down to her neck, moving her short blond hair aside with his nose and lips. Then he kissed her, and moved his tongue and lips up and down her gently curving neck and shoulder. When he moved to caress the area under her chin in similar manner, he felt her shiver with pleasure. After she could not but gasp at the continuation of his gentle caresses, he moved his hand upward from her waist towards her left breast.

It was exactly at the same moment when his hand was just reaching her breast and she was raising herself to meet his caresses, when the alarm klaxon went off in the bridge. Marcan cursed under his breath and leapt from the bed and through the door to the bridge, leaving Sheila lay panting on the narrow bed.

He threw himself onto the pilot's seat and checked the view screen. They were still over three AUs from the nearest spaceport. Usually it was close enough to let one stop worrying about pirates, but that seemed not to be the case this time. The scanner revealed that three small fighter craft were approaching them from ahead, slowing down to meet the Wolf's velocity. Two of the dots were magenta, and the third was red.

Marcan set them as weapons targets one by one and the computer identified them as two Geckos and one Viper Mk II. The radar mapper revealed that all the ships had bounty on their heads, the Viper as much as 350 credits. The high bounty indicated that the pirate must be quite good at what he did. It also told him that it would be useless to try to hail the other ships in order to find out what their purpose was.

He checked the fore and aft shield readings and saw that they were working as they were supposed to and were on full power. Also the three MV1 Assault Missiles were ready for some serious action, although Marcan was rather certain that he would not need them this time. The smaller craft would be destroyed if he got even one clear shot at them with the dual lasers when they came inside the effective range.

The only hindrance between him and the smaller ships was the fast and manoeuvrable Viper. In both of those aspects the opposing ship was superior to the Wolf Mk I and if he was unable to take it out fast, or at least distract the pilot somehow, he could be in trouble. If the pirate pilot had not got the price on his head as high as it was simply by shooting at defenceless escape shuttles, he could be as good at flying as Marcan.

Still, he was determined not to use one of his missiles when the enemy ships came into range and started firing their beam and pulse lasers at him. Marcan turned to bear on one of the smaller Geckos first, attempting to cut down the amount of laser fire fired at him, and squeezed the trigger gently, sending two consecutive twin laser pulses towards the enemy. He assured himself that it was due to his masterful skill and experience that one of those shots hit their target and blew the unshielded Gecko into smithereens.

"Nice shooting, Marc," Sheila said. She had forced herself out of the bed and joined Marcan on the bridge. Even though she could do nothing to defend their ship, her presence was all the support Marcan needed.

The show of his skill, as far as it was not mere luck, made the two other pilots more careful and they swerved aside, attempting to get farther from each other to make Marcan's work that much more difficult. This time he decided to try to get rid of the bigger target and turned his ship to follow the Viper Mk II as it tried to get behind him.

Suddenly, when the Viper was just over three hundred metres from the Wolf and he could see its sleek curves clearly, the enemy pilot shot a missile at him. Marcan's hand flashed towards the E.C.M button, in a desperate attempt to destroy the missile before it hit him. But he knew it as well as his enemy that when a missile is fired from that close a range, it is almost impossible to destroy it in time. The only hope that he had was that the Viper pilot had not targeted the missile properly and that it would fly harmlessly past him.

He was not granted such luck. The missile, presumably only a simple homing missile, which could have been destroyed with even the least sophisticated E.C.M. systems, exploded against the Wolf's fore shields and appeared to render them all the way down to 30 percent. Marcan frowned at the extent of the damage until he realised that part of it had been delivered by the Gecko that had turned back to fire at him. Marcan quickly finished his turn after the Viper and left the smaller craft into his aft where his shields were still at full power.

The Viper was quickly gaining distance from him, but he shot a few laser pulses after it just in case he happened to get lucky. As he looked at the receding fighter, Marcan realised once again how much he missed Castor's presence. Castor would have blamed him for not using the missiles and tried to convince him to fly the ship the way the AI saw was fit. In Marcan's newly repaired ship there was no AI, only the standard ship computers. The AIs had become widespread only in the last fifty years and only few older ships had them fitted. In any case, Marcan had not wanted to acquire a new AI so soon after Castor. It would have depressed even more than he was at present.

Sheila's warning woke Marcan up from his daydreams and he saw that his aft shields had gone down to forty percent. He saw that the Gecko was following him only five hundred metres behind and the pirate's volley of laser fire was draining the Wolf's shields at an alarming rate. Immediately, Marcan engaged the retro thrusters at full power. The sudden change in the Wolf's velocity surprised the other pilot and the Gecko shot past the other ship right into its crosshairs.

With a sneer, Marcan squeezed the trigger and destroyed the smaller craft with the third shot. The only enemy ship left was not the Viper Mk II and it was easy to see that the pirate was having second thoughts about turning back to face the hunting Wolf. Marcan sent a few more shots after it to help the pirate come to a sane conclusion. Then, after it was clear that the Viper pilot wanted nothing more than to get away quickly, he turned the Wolf towards their destination and turned on the autopilot again.

"Well, did you have enough fun already?" Sheila asked just as soon as he had let go of the flight stick.

Marcan looked at her curiously, "What do you mean?"

Sheila looked at him matter-of-factly and said, "Are you ready to continue what you so carelessly left unfinished back there?" She tilted her head towards the sleeping quarters meaningfully.

Marcan groaned and rested his head back on the pilot's seat. "I kind of lost the mood there, you know," he said apologetically.

Sheila stood up from her seat and leaned over to kiss him on the lips, pushing her tongue between his lips and swivelling it hotly around his rather surprised tongue. Just as suddenly as she had started the kiss, she broke it off and straightened up and turned her back at him. Over her shoulder she said, "If you follow me, I'll make sure that you get your mood back." With that, she started towards the door that led into the room with the bed.

Marcan, who was no longer suffering from the loss of certain mood, got out of the pilot's seat as quickly as he could and hurried after the enticing woman. He reached her at the door and wrapped his arms around her, pulling the woman against him; her back still turned to him. Then he buried his face into her blond hair and his lips started to search for a way to reach her sensitive neck.

He felt how Sheila pressed herself against him and reached behind herself to caress him. Marcan moved his hands to her stomach as he continued kissing her beautiful neck and felt how the woman quivered under his gentle touch, almost loosing her footing. He tightened his grip slightly to help her and then moved his hands further up still, to touch her small and tender breasts. Sheila turned her head backwards and opened her lips for a kiss, looking at him with eyes gleaming with desire. Marcan guided her to the bed and lay on top of her.

Afterwards, when the lay there together, panting, Sheila said suddenly, "I'm starting to remember."

Marcan looked at her quizzically, "What do you mean?"

Sheila smiled to him and said, "I'm starting to remember how well we work as a team, Marc."

Marcan laughed and kissed her. Then he took her in his arms and squeezed her gently and smelled her hair. He wished that the moment would never end and he was allowed to keep Sheila to himself forever.

They managed to refuel the Wolf Mk I at Liabefa and without delay they made the final jumps to Reorte system. Marcan's first instinct was to head directly for Reorte 9, the gas giant from whose orbit he had found the Vera Industries' manufacturing plant on his first visit. However, that visit had taken place so long ago that there was no guarantee that the plant would still be there.

Still, considering how expensive it would be to move the factory ship from one gas giant and its moons to another, and how long a break in the functions of that plant it would mean, it was a safe bet that it would still be orbiting the ninth planet. Marcan chose the gas giant as the target for the navigation computer and let the autopilot swivel the ship into correct bearing.

Sheila was again sitting on the passenger seat on his right side. Marcan found it a pity that she could not co-pilot the ship the way they had with the Wolf Mk II. He knew how she liked to be in charge of the big guns and a turret shooter's job would have fitted her perfectly. At present, she was forced to just watch every time some unfortunate pirate attacked them how Marcan handled the situation and she had no way to help him.

"Would you like to watch a movie to pass the time?" he asked her.

Sheila looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. They had over two days together before they arrived to the vicinity of the gas giant. "You have any good ones?" she asked.

"DreamWare or conventional?" Marcan asked back.

"Conventional," Sheila asked. "I'd like to be able to talk about it while we watch."

Marcan smiled, "Me too." Then he brought up the list of movies in the computer's memory onto the main view screen with the space as a backdrop. "Actually," he began, "these are all over ten years old, chosen by whoever owned this ship in the Argo II's crew."

Sheila smiled, "Just like you to forget to upgrade your selection. But no matter, I did miss a lot of movies during my early career. But, please, deselect those action adventures at once; I'm not in the mood for anything like that. Is there anything romantic?"

Marcan frowned. Just when he was sure that he had Sheila's personality tracked down to the last syllable, she managed to surprise him. Usually the action adventures, preferably with big guns and explosions, were the only movies she wanted to see. She had always neglected the romances as too wishy-washy. But he did as she requested and the list on the screen was cut down to less than ten titles from the original two hundred. It was clear that the ship's previous owner had not been a big fan of romance stories either.

As Marcan viewed the list of movies and their short intro sequences, he noticed that they all contained at least some action as well. He noted also that he knew none of the titles. He had never been a fan of movies in the first place as he always preferred the real thing to the imagined, but still he was surprised to see that all the titles were unfamiliar. Then he noticed the production places of the movies and he realised why the movies were so strange. Almost all of them had been produced within the Empire and the rest had been produced in some obscure frontier worlds.

"Do you see anything that you like?" he asked after the last intro sequence.

"How about that Titania? It seemed to have enough romance in it along with the action." Sheila asked.

Marcan chose the fifth title in the list and read its description again. It appeared to be a tale of some big star cruiser's destruction on its maiden voyage. It was set in the early fourth millennium and starred some of the Empire's most prolific actors and lasted over six hours. He knew none of the actors but he was glad to notice that the movie was one of the old shorter ones; he really hated the way movies seemed to get longer and longer with each passing year. Before he started the movie, he stood up and got them both a tall glass filled with greenish liquid. The Magalan Greens were the first thing he had secured onboard the Wolf before he had taken it for the first ride after its restoration.

Their movie enjoyment was broken only a few times with one of them having to visit the ship's facilities and once by some small pirate group attacking the seemingly easy prey. Marcan had been away from the bridge at the time and Sheila had taken care of the destruction of the three pirate Adders. Marcan promised her that he would take care that the kills were moved from his Elite Federation file to hers as soon as they reached some civilised spaceport.

The rest of the two days they spent enjoying each other's company by talking and cuddling as well as sleeping together. For the most part, however, one of them was sleeping while the other was piloting the ship. But, even though in that way they wasted much of the time they could have spent together instead, it provided some nice chances for one of them to wake the other up in interesting ways.

When they finally arrived into the vicinity of Reorte 9, the arrival signal interrupted their shared moment on the narrow bed. Marcan excused himself and leapt to the door that connected the living quarters with the bridge. The door hissed aside with satisfying speed and he bounced the last metres to the pilot's seat. The familiar form of one of the many gas giants in the system filled the main view screen. However, Marcan paid minimal attention to the extraordinarily beautiful treasure of the universe and, instead, turned his attention to various devices on the control board. He turned on the label system and glanced at the view screen to see if any of the numerous dots in space had been identified as the manufacturing plant.

When he saw the registration number of the station, he selected it as the navigation target and turned on the autopilot again. However, since this was not a commercial spaceport, he could not just trust the computer to get them all the way through the docking procedure.

But before he could open the communications channel with the manufacturing plant, someone must have noticed his course change towards it. The voice was the same hard edged female voice that he remembered from his previous visit. "Unknown craft with the registration code UA-684, identify yourself immediately!"

"This is Marcan Rayger, the commander of UA-684 requesting docking permission," Marcan answered.

"What is your business here?" the voice asked, none less hard.

"I'm here to meet Alana Vera and James Weston concerning the production of the Castor class ships," Marcan answered.

"What is your concern with this deal?"

"I used to be the liaison in the discussions between Bardoff's Trust Fund and Vera Industries. James Weston will clear me if it's necessary," Marcan replied, taking a calculated risk with mentioning the company's vice-president's willingness to clear him. It was true that Weston had asked him to come back to visit them, but it had been with the understanding that Marcan would at the same time bring Polydeuces with him. Now, as he understandably did not have the small fighter with him, it could very well turn out that Weston would have nothing to do with him.

There was a pause before the traffic controller contacted him again and it was clear that she was contacting James Weston to conform Marcan's claim. Marcan clenched his teeth and calmed himself down by breathing slowly. He wondered what he would have to do if they were not given the docking permission. The Federal Military did not have any authority in the sector - a type of situation that was already familiar to Marcan - and there was no way he could just demand an admission to dock and expect that demand to be met.

When the communications channel opened again, it was no longer the female who spoke to him. "Commander Rayger, this is James Weston. May I inquire what your business here is?"

"Greetings, Mr Weston. I'm just interested to see how the production of the Castor class ship is coming along. I was forced to let go of mine, you see, and I've been considering the possibility of acquiring a new one from your company to replace it," Marcan answered. His excuse was clearly a poor one; if he had been merely interested in purchasing one of the Castors, he could have contacted one of the company's subsidiaries and ordered the ship through them.

"Commander Rayger, I..." James Weston began, but was then interrupted by another voice that was just barely audible. Marcan could not hear what the voice said, but it was definitely a man's voice. He wondered who had enough power in the Vera Industries to interrupt the vice-president of the company. Then James Weston continued, "Commander Rayger, you are permitted to proceed. There will be someone to lead you into my office as soon as you have docked."

The female in the flight control echoed the permission, giving details on the approach vector and the number of the landing pad cleared for him in the flight deck. Marcan thanked for the permission and cut the connection, taking the Wolf Mk I into the requested approach vector.

As the ship steered towards the flight deck doors, Marcan wondered whose voice he had heard on the background. Whoever it had been, he had probably persuaded James Weston into letting Marcan through. When Sheila came to the bridge, dressed in her civilian clothing, Marcan told her what had happened.

"And you have no idea who it could have been?" she asked.

"No," Marcan answered, getting up from the pilot's seat. He still had some dressing up to do. "But it must be someone who knows who I am, and the list of people who do is not too long."

Sheila sat down on the pilot's seat to take care of the landing process as Marcan headed towards the living quarters. In fact, the only people Marcan could think of who knew him were from the Federal Military or from the Dioscuri Syndicate. Since it was the federal military that had sent him to Reorte, it was doubtful that it would be them inviting him in. Therefore, unless there was someone amongst the Vera Industries' leaders who just wanted to see him, the man would have to be from the Dioscuri Syndicate. The anger that Marcan still harboured against the Trust Fund and the AI who had betrayed him started to resurface as he pulled on his trousers. His anger made him miss the leg and as his grip of the trousers failed and the piece of clothing fell on the floor, he cursed aloud.

When he got back to the bridge, he saw that Sheila was already piloting the ship inside the manufacturing ship's landing bay. The landing pads were mostly free and theirs was relatively close to the bay doors. What surprised Marcan and made him forget his mounting anger was the fact that theirs was not the only Wolf in the landing bay. A Wolf Mk II stood on a pad not far from theirs.

Seeing the larger ship took Marcan back to the weeks during which he and Sheila had piloted one in search of Emic Troy. He remembered how she had handled the top turret laser and made it possible for him to survive long enough to fire a nuclear missile towards a heavily defended Imperial military base. He also remembered how she had scared him after a serious crash when he had momentarily been afraid that she was dead.

He walked to stand behind Sheila as she took them the final few metres onto the landing pad and then he bowed down to kiss her on the hair. He looked at the Wolf Mk II on the landing pad ahead and saw that the registration number painted on its hull was AE-247. That suggested that it might not be one of the Federal Military ships, since they had their own special registration codes. Still, it could not be a coincidence that a rare Wolf Mk II was onboard a construction ship whose owner had been involved in the theft of one of those military ships. He started to suspect that it might not be someone from the Dioscuri Syndicate who was waiting for him with James Weston.

Marcan had not been in James Weston's office during his last visit. The only office floor room that he had seen was the conference room at the end of the corridor. Weston's office was on the left side of the corridor just before that conference room. Unlike in the conference room, there were no windows giving views of the space or soft couches to sit on; there was just a large table behind which Weston sat and a couple of chairs in front of it. There were a couple of more chairs by the left wall as well, and some file cabinets and bookshelves filled with folders and scrolls.

The young woman who had directed them to the office left them there and left even before the introductions began. Weston stood up and walked to the door to meet them. Marcan and James shook hands and Sheila was introduced as Marcan's companion.

Weston shook hands with Sheila as well and walked back towards his table. "Come and sit here. May I offer you something to drink?" he asked.

Marcan hesitated long enough for Sheila to say, "Do you have any soft drinks, Mr Weston?"

Weston, who had walked to the small bar that had revealed itself from behind a panel in the wall that had slid aside when the man had walked to it, glanced at Sheila, and said, "Just James, please. Would you like apple, lemon, zirra or sunfruit flavoured soft drink?"

Marcan and Sheila both chose the sunfruit and Weston brought them two tall glasses filled to the rim with yellow bubbly beverage. Then he took his seat again and gazed at the both of them as they sipped their drinks.

"So, you are no longer working for the Bardoff's Trust Fund?" he asked from Marcan.

Marcan shook his head and put down his glass. "That's right," he answered briefly.

"And you have not found the smaller fighter yet?" Weston continued.

Marcan frowned. He had assumed that the Trust Fund would have brought the small fighter to Vera Industries as soon as they returned to the more populated sectors. "Yes, I did find it, but I was forced to give it to the Trust Fund almost immediately afterwards. I assumed that they would have contacted you by now," Marcan explained.

Weston shook his head, "They haven't. In fact, there does not seem to be any such Trust Fund in existence any longer either. We have no idea who we should be looking for to get that ship."

Marcan nodded, "I know. They founded a new company called Dioscuri Syndicate, named after the twin gods after whom the ships were named. The last I saw of them, they were roaming around in a Long Range Cruiser."

"I see," Weston said, and then asked, "Then you claim that you have come here to see how far we are with the Castor class ship? Are you sure that it is the only reason for your visit?"

"That's part of it. We can discuss the rest later," Marcan said, wondering what Weston could know already to make him this suspicious. He also wondered where the person was who had told Weston to let Marcan dock on the manufacturing ship. If that person had been eager to let him dock, why was he not here now, meeting them with Weston?

Weston squeezed his eyes almost shut as he looked back at Marcan. It was clear that the vice-president of the company was thinking furiously, but Marcan had no idea what it could be.

"Well, about the Castor then," Weston gave up the stare contest. "When you visited us a little over a year ago, I told you that we could start producing the ship in one and a half years. It seems that my estimate was correct and the first ships will come out in June or July this year. But if you are intending to purchase one, you'll have to wait until early next year. Almost one hundred of our customers have booked one of these new ships in advance thus far."

"But you are going to call the ships Castor?" Sheila asked.

"Yes. That name has gained some renown after Bardoff's ship was found and our marketing department saw that it would not be wise to change the name," Weston admitted.

"What will you do if do not get your hands on Polydeuces's blueprints?" Sheila continued.

Weston shrugged, "We'll have to make something up. We'll either replace the docking clamps with a top turret or manufacture a ship following the sketches that we have of Polydeuces. In any case, it does not matter much, since it is the Castor that our clients want at the moment."

"How much are you asking for one of those ships?" Marcan asked.

Weston grimaced, "Quite a lot. The early production costs are higher than normal and we have put a price of 150,000 credits on the ship. We hope to get it down to about 135,000 credits by 3254AD. Do you wish to buy one?"

Marcan thought about it. He rather liked the small Wolf Mk I that he presently used and it was a great ship as long as he worked alone, but on their way to Reorte the ship had proved rather too small for two people. He did not know how much time he would have to spend aboard the Boa in the future, but assuming that he still had time to fly on his own once and a while he might need a larger ship. And Castor's hyperspace jump range and manoeuvrability was far greater than he might find in other ships of its size. The only other possibility might be the bigger Wolf, but he did not trust his chances of getting his hands on one of those.

On the other hand, if he purchased a ship reminiscent of Castor, it would always remind him of the AI that he had almost grown to be friends with and who had betrayed him in the end. He did not know whether he wanted to buy such a burden with a ship that would never be the same to him as Castor had been. Still, he did hunger for a ship as capable as Castor had been.

"Yes," he said finally. "Put me in the queue. However, I wish to program my own AI, so leave that unit blank for me."

To Marcan's surprise, Sheila echoed his words; "Put me in the queue as well."

He looked at his girlfriend questioningly, at the same time attempting to decide what his emotions were trying to say to him. He found himself not liking the fact that Sheila wanted to buy her own ship since it meant that she was not planning to be travelling with him in the future. He realised that he had rather imagined them travelling together when he had made his own decision and the fact that she wanted to buy her own ship was rather a disappointment to him.

Sheila, however, was oblivious to his worries, as she looked back at him and smiled. "I cannot always rely on others to provide me with ships when I need them," she said, referring to the military. Marcan hoped that the hint had been missed by Weston, who was just then working on his computer.

"I'll need your identification cards, if you don't mind," Weston said then rather innocently and looked at the both of them.

Marcan hesitated only momentarily until he handed his card to the older man. Then he glanced at Sheila and wondered how she would handle the situation. He did not know if she had any identification cards with her which did not reveal her status as a FMI officer, especially such that did not claim that her name was something other than Sheila, which they had already revealed to Weston. The innocent chit-chat about ship purchases had suddenly turned into a minor dilemma for them both.

Sheila's expression revealed that his fears were not without ground. Thinking quickly, Marcan said, "Put the other ship down to my name as well. We'll come to get them together, anyway."

Weston nodded and pressed a few more keys on his computer. Then he turned back to look at them both. "Now that we have completed the business side of your visit, we can turn to the other reasons?"

Marcan sipped some of his drink and knew that whatever reason he tried in order to be able to look around the factory ship or learn about the Mamba Mk IIs, Weston was surely able to see through his charade. The only question was, whether the company's vice-president would call his bluff or not.

"When I last visited your factory area, you told me about your new line of Mamba Mk IIs. Back then, you said that the ships were bought by someone who did not want them to be seen because of some customisations on the ships, but I was wondering if that deal still held? Could we see some of those ships now?" Marcan asked, trying to keep his voice innocuous.

He was unable to say whether Weston's following expression revealed that he had seen through his bluff or not. James Weston just smiled and looked back at him with his big round eyes as he said, "This is your lucky day in that respect. We have supplied our customer with the last batch of the customised ships and have started producing the basic model. If you'd like to see them before you go, I can give you a quick tour."

Sheila smiled and said, "That would be nice."

On his earlier visit that had lasted for several days Marcan had already seen a large part of the factory area, including the areas where the raw materials brought in by the dozens of different kinds of probes and mining machines were smelted as well as the offices where the diploma engineers were drawing up various new thruster and hatch mechanisms for the new designs. But whereas he had been allowed to see the production lines of the old Mamba and the hundreds of droids and dozens of people working along them, he had been kept away from the production line of the Mamba Mk II. Now, over a year later, he finally got to see those production facilities and the design of the new ship.

The original Mamba had developed from several individual designs for a racer craft that was as manoeuvrable and fast in any atmosphere as it was out in the vacuum of space. It was an early ancestor to the several different racer ships that were seen in all the latest racing competitions all over the human space. It had been because of several nasty accidents, none of which in the end had been the fault of the ship or its design and which had had little to do with the version of the ship sold on the open market, that had nevertheless made the ship quite unpopular. In the end, the shipyard responsible of the ship had folded and the number of Mambas in use had begun falling.

When Marcan and Sheila finally saw the new model of the ship, he immediately saw that it had been designed to be different in appearance from the original ship. He suspected that it was because of the possibly lingering bad feelings that the older model brought forth.

But when Weston showed them the computer models of the ship, Marcan saw that the ship was not quite so different from its smaller brother than he had initially thought. It was still the sleek needle-like design but the otherwise flat ship now professed a new vertical wing on the top of it, in which the bridge and the living quarters were located. However, it was the numeric data of the ship's characteristics and the performance statistics that impressed Marcan and made him wonder once more where Alana Vera had got enough money to attract so much talent into her design team.

Still, he and Sheila had not gone through all their troubles and told all the half truths and lies to James Weston just to get to admire the statistics of the new ship. It was the ship itself that they had come to see, and the positioning of its bottom manoeuvring thrusters to make sure that it was the same ship mode as the one the people who called themselves the Sentinels had used.

When Marcan looked at one of the finished ships as it stood in front of them in one of the large flight decks, he tried to imagine how it would look like if painted completely black and seen against the dark backdrop of the space. To his trained eye, it seemed rather probable that the sleek red-blue ships were of the same type he had seen and fought against in the Tiessar system. Still, he could not trust his memory that far, considering that he had only seen the ships through Castor's image modification and on the destroyed Skeet Cruiser's low-grade recordings. What he needed to see was the thruster configuration, and it was the one thing that the computer readings that Weston had showed them had not included.

So, as casually as he could, Marcan walked to the 60 tonne craft standing on the flight deck and studied it as closely as he could while Sheila talked with Weston. He crouched under the ship and spotted the manoeuvring thrusters. They were aligned almost in the same way as the ones on Mamba Mk I, but there were slight differences, mainly necessitated by the fact that the centre of mass was different because of the structural differences. As soon as he saw the thrusters, Marcan was sure that he had found the ship that they were looking for and the existence of which the Federal Military had conjectured. There were no longer any doubts about the fact that Vera Industries had supplied the ships to the Sentinels. The only question was whether Weston and Vera knew what the ships were used for.

"Like what you see?" Weston asked then, having just explained Sheila the reasons behind the new look of the Mamba Mk II.

Marcan turned away from the ship and walked towards Weston and Sheila. "It seems to be a nice little ship," he said. "Still, it is not something I would buy: it's a little too small for my purposes."

"Yes, I think the Castor will be more successful than this one," Weston admitted, and continued, "but we need an assortment of different ships to attract customers. It's never wise to count on just one article."

Marcan nodded, "That's true, and as it happens, you've had a client who needed just this kind of ship, hadn't you? Do you know what they needed them for?"

Weston shook his head, "No. We do not consider ourselves responsible about our clients' purposes when we sell the ships and with the secrecy around this particular project we were even less inclined to ask too many questions."

"So, you have no idea who they were?" Sheila asked.

"No," he answered. "Probably some small security force of some other company somewhere."

Marcan nodded and turned around to look at the ship again. He hesitated and tried to figure out a way to ask his next question without rising too much suspicion in Weston. In the end, he waited until they were walking back towards the landing bay where their Wolf was waiting before he brought up the dangerous topic.

"By the way, Mr Weston, have you heard of any newly found cloaking devices in the frontier systems?" he asked.

There was a brief moment of hesitation and a surprised look in Weston's face before he answered, "No, why?"

"No reason," Marcan hurried to answer. "I have just heard rumours of ships equipped with those having been seen in these southern sectors."

Weston looked at him curiously, but Marcan was sure that there was more to that expression than mere curiosity. "I've heard nothing," he said. "But I have been immersed in our company business lately."

Marcan nodded and let the subject go. They had arrived to the main hangar and it was time to say goodbyes to James Weston. As they did so, and promised to come back in one year to pick up their ships, Marcan noticed that the Wolf Mk II that had been in the hangar when they arrived was no longer there.

When they were back aboard their ship and leaving the factory ship, Marcan looked over to Sheila and asked, "What do you think?"

Sheila reached her right hand under her shirt and produced a small electronic device. She looked at its display and pressed the small buttons. Then she looked back at Marcan and said, "That man was lying when he told you that he had not heard of any cloaking devices. In fact, this analyser tells that he was highly strained and nervous throughout our meeting from the very moment we entered his office."

Marcan nodded, "Interesting. I thought I saw him hesitate when I asked that question. And, by the way, that Mamba Mk II was the same ship the Sentinels are using."

Sheila frowned, "So, we have found the culprit, then."

"Probably," he said curtly.

Sheila looked at him curiously, "What is it?"

Marcan shrugged as he guided their ship along the exit vector away from the vast factory ship. He had not yet decided whether they should go to the local commercial spaceport at Nakasoneport to refuel or jump to some other system. "It's just that now that we have found out that Vera Industries is mixed up in this terrorist activity with the Sentinels, it is more than certain that the military will do everything they can to destroy this company. It will not matter that they are based on the frontier systems and not in the Federation."

Sheila nodded, "I know. I don't like it either, but what can one do. Anyway, it will not concern us too much."

"No," Marcan admitted, "although I would have liked to get that Castor." A moment later he added, "I wonder who it was who told Weston to let us in. It sounded to me as if he would have liked to keep us away.

Sheila frowned and said, "I wonder that too. His nervousness indicates that there is a lot more to this mystery than we can see."

Marcan smiled slightly and looked at her, "Well, we FMI people are trained to like mysteries, aren't we?"

Sheila smiled and turned to look at the main view screen. What she saw made her gasp in surprise.

The space directly in front of them shimmered slightly and then there was a big starship in front of them. Marcan did not recognise the model, but he saw that it was bigger than the Boa. It was shaped like an ellipsoid with several bulbous weapons turrets spotting its frame.

"Get us out of here!" Sheila gasped.

Marcan forced himself to concentrate on the Wolf's controls and brought up the astrogation computer screen. He selected a system at random, only making sure that it was inhabited, and punched the hyperspace jump button.

Nothing happened.

Then the space around the Wolf Mk I shimmered again and suddenly several black Mamba Mk Is surrounded them, forcing them to retain their present course towards the large spherical ship. When they were just four hundred metres from it, Marcan and Sheila felt a small tug and Marcan lost all control of the ship. They were pulled in towards the large craft with a tractor beam.

With growing dread and dismay both Marcan and Sheila looked at the landing bay door that opened up to suck them into the alien ship. Without thinking, they reached for each other and held hands as the black velvet engulfed them completely and all the systems, including their ship's main engine, shut down. In a moment there was nothing they could see and their only comfort came from the feel of each other's hands. Marcan squeezed Sheila's hand reassuringly and was grateful for the fact that she could not see his nervousness.