Confederation law put all weapons in the hands of the military. CSOs were supposed to run crying for help while the Navy-buzzing around with their collective heads up their collective asses because the war had turned out to be a big fukking joke-did sweet fuk all about the big, bad pirates. Seemed like this fool hadn't got the memo.

"Huirre."

"Captain?"

"Don't damage the pen."

The Krai grinned. On a species able to not only eat, but digest pretty much any organic matter in known space, the baring of teeth gained an added significance Cho appreciated. Huirre danced the fingers of both hands and the long, prehensile toes of one foot across his board.

An instant later, the bow of the Firebreather exploded, creating a miniature starburst of debris.

"Two bodies, Captain."

One of the things Cho liked best about Dysun, about all three di'Taykan, was their lack of concern when people died. People always ended up dying in his business.

"No life signs," she added.

"Damage?"

"Uh…" Confused, Dysun waved at the screen. "The shot probably killed them, but they might have decompressed…"

"He means damage to the Heart, you serley idiot," Huirre muttered. "We took some outer hull damage by the cargo bay, got one of our sensor arrays completely fukking fried, and I'm betting…" He nodded toward the flashing lights on the comm panel. "… Krisk wants to know what the fuk is going on."

"Take us in alongside the pen," Cho ordered, then opened the channel to engineering, cutting Krisk off in mid rave with a terse, "Shut up. If there's no breach and no chance of a breach, that salvage remains our first concern. Make sure the hatch to the cargo bay hasn't been compromised. I'm on my way down."

The Heart of Stone had been designed as a scout ship for the Navy. When Cho'd taken it over, he'd doubled her firepower and added a cargo bay. Fortunately, vacuum didn't care about aerodynamics. In his line of work, he couldn't waste time reworking Susumi equations for every piece of crap they picked up-space was big, sure, but there was always a chance the Navy could accidentally stumble over them while they were sitting around dividing by the cube root of who the fuk cares. Cargo had to fit inside the ship's set parameters.