{"product_id":"engaging-the-enemy-isbn-9780345447579","title":"Engaging the Enemy","description":"\u003cb\u003e“Marvelously compelling . . . consummate military-adventure science fiction.”—SciFi\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eIn the aftermath of the cold-blooded assassinations that killed her parents and shattered the Vatta interstellar shipping empire, Kylara Vatta sets out to avenge the killings and salvage the family business. Ky soon discovers a conspiracy of terrifying scope, breathtaking audacity, and utter ruthlessness. The only hope against such powerful evil is for all the space merchants to band together. Unfortunately, because she commands a ship that once belonged to a notorious pirate, Ky is met with suspicion, if not outright hostility . . . even from her own cousin. Before she can take the fight to the enemy, Kylara must survive a deadly minefield of deception and betrayal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eEngaging the Enemy\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fast-paced space adventure, with a heroine that will captivate readers.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eOmaha World-Herald\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Excels in character development as well as in its fast-paced action sequences and intricate plotting.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You’ll have fun with this one, for Moon keeps things moving.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eAnalog\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Marvelously compelling . . . consummate military-adventure science fiction.”\u003cb\u003e—SciFi\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fast-paced space adventure, with a heroine that will captivate readers.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eOmaha World-Herald\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Excels in character development as well as in its fast-paced action sequences and intricate plotting.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You’ll have fun with this one, for Moon keeps things moving.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eAnalog\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eElizabeth Moon\u003c\/b\u003e grew up on the Texas border, served three years of active duty in the USMC (1968–71), and now lives with her husband, also a veteran, near Austin, Texas. She has published more than twenty-five novels, including Nebula Award winner \u003ci\u003eThe Speed of Dark, \u003c\/i\u003eHugo finalist \u003ci\u003eRemnant Population,\u003c\/i\u003e and the enduring epic fantasy series The Chronicles of Paksenarrion. She has published more than fifty short-fiction pieces in anthologies and magazines and in four of her own short-fiction collections, most recently \u003ci\u003eMoon Flights \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Deeds of Honor\u003c\/i\u003e. When not writing, Moon enjoys photographing native plants and wildlife, knitting socks, and cooking.Chapter  One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In the afternoon sky, the sound of the approaching aircraft rose above the  sea breeze, a steady drone. Nothing to see . . . no, there it was, small  to make that much noise . . . and then the sudden flood of data from   the implant: not an aircraft, no one aboard, a weapon homing on the   airfield’s navigational beacon. Visual data blanked, overloaded by heat  and light, auditory data an inchoate mass of noise, swiftly parsed into  channels again, stored, analyzed: primary explosion, structural damage,   secondary explosion, quick flicker of building plans, primary visual  restored . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ky Vatta jerked awake, heart pounding, breath coming in great gasps. She  wasn’t there, she was here, in the dark captain’s cabin of Fair Kaleen,  darkness pricked with the steady green telltales of major ship functions.  All she could hear beyond her own pulse beating in her ears were the  normal sounds of a ship in FTL flight. No explosions. No fires. No  crashing bricks or shattering glass. No reverberative boom echoing off the  hills minutes later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Bedlight,” she said to the room, and a soft glow rose behind her,  illuminating tangled sheets and her shaking hands. She glared at her  hands, willing them to stop. A deep breath. Another.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The chronometer informed her that it was mid-third-shift. She had been  asleep two hours and fourteen minutes this time. She went into the  bathroom and looked into the mirror: she looked every bit as bad as she  felt. A shower might help. She had showered already; she had taken shower  after shower, just as she had worked out hour after hour in the ship’s  gym, hoping to exhaust or relax herself into a full night’s sleep.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She was the captain. She had to get over this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This time she dialed the shower cold, and then, chilled, dressed quickly  and headed out into the ship. She could always call it a midshift  inspection. Her eyes burned. Her stomach cramped, and she headed first for  the galley. Maybe hot soup . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In the galley, Rafe was ripping open one of the ration packs. “Our dutiful  captain,” he said, without looking up. “Midshift rounds again? Don’t you  trust us?” His light ironic tone carried an acidic bite.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She did not need this. “It’s not that I don’t trust the crew. I’m still  not sure of this ship.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Ah. As I’m sure you recall, I’m on third-shift duty right now, and this  is my midshift meal. Do you want something?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She wanted sleep. Real sleep, uninterrupted by dreams or visions or  whatever . . . “The first snack you pick up,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He reached into the cabinet without looking and pulled something out.  “Traditional Waskie Custard,” he said, reading the label. “The picture is  an odd shade of yellow—sure that’s what you want?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’ll try it,” Ky said. He had put his own meal in the oven; now he handed  her a small sealed container and a spoon. She glanced at the garish label;  it did look . . . unappetizing. Inside the seal was what looked like a  plain egg custard. Ky dug the spoon into it. It should be soothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Excuse my mentioning it to the captain,” Rafe said, sitting across from  her at the table. “But you look like someone slugged you in both eyes  about ten minutes ago. I promise to perform all my duties impeccably if  you’ll go back to bed and look human in the morning.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ky started to say something about duty, but she couldn’t get the words  out. “I can’t sleep,” she said instead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Ah. Reliving the fight? It must’ve been bad—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That attempt at pop psych therapy almost made her laugh. Almost. “No,” she  said. “I had my post-manslaughter nightmare the second night. This is  something else.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “You could tell me,” he said, his voice softening to a purr. When she  didn’t respond, he sat up and said, “With the matter of the internal  ansibles, you have enough on me that I wouldn’t dare reveal any secrets of  yours.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Maybe it was safe to talk to him; he had been ready to commit suicide  rather than let outsiders know he had unknown technology, a personal  instantaneous communicator, implanted in his head. “It’s not . . . it’s .  . . I’m not sure what it is.” Ky tented her hands above the custard, which  was not as soothing as she’d hoped. Something in the texture almost  sickened her. “I think . . . somehow . . . I’m seeing what happened back  home.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What . . . the attack?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yes. I know it’s impossible; I don’t even know if Dad’s implant recorded  any of it, and I haven’t tried to access those dates anyway. But I keep  dreaming it, or . . . or something.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “A high-level implant could record it all,” Rafe said. “If your father  wanted a record, something for a court. Are you sure it’s not bleeding  over? I mean, if he put an Urgent-to-transmit command on it—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It couldn’t override my priorities, could it? Everything’s user-defined .  . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “True, but this implant’s had two users. It may not know you aren’t your  father.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “That’s . . .” Ridiculous, she had been going to say, but maybe it wasn’t.  She’d had the implant inserted in an emergency, with no time then for  adjustment of implant and brain. She’d gone directly into combat, and then  the direct connection to Rafe’s implant had made changes in hers, changes  that essentially reconfigured it into some kind of cranial ansible. That  might have damaged or changed control functions. And she’d never had  someone else’s implant before. Why, she wondered now, hadn’t Aunt Grace  downloaded the data into a new one? Unless it couldn’t be done. “I hadn’t  thought of that,” she said instead. “What do you know about transferred  implants?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Not much,” Rafe said. “I know it’s possible to use one; I don’t know how  much residual control might be involved. That one was your father’s  command implant, right? I’d expect it to have special features.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “It probably does,” Ky said. “It certainly does now, after linking with  yours.” She looked at the cup of custard and pushed it away. “I suppose  I’d better look into that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “If you don’t want to go insane from lack of sleep and nightmares, that  would be a yes,” Rafe said, pulling his own mealpak from the microwave.  “Real food wouldn’t hurt, either. How about some noodles and chicken? I  can make myself another.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It smelled good. Ky nodded; Rafe pushed the tray across to her, picked up  her container of uneaten custard and sniffed at it, then wrinkled his nose  and dropped it in the recycler. He pulled out another mealpak and put that  in the microwave before sitting down again. Ky took a bite of noodle and  sauce; it went down easily.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “See if the implant has a sleep cycle enabler,” Rafe said. “They don’t put  those in kids’ implants, but the high-end adult ones often do, along with  a timer. It should be in the personal adjustment menu somewhere.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ky queried her implant and found it: sleep enhancement mode, maximum  duration eight hours, monitored and “regulated” brain-wave activity and  damped sensory input. Users were instructed not to use this function more  than five sleep cycles in a row without medical advice . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    An Urgent tag came up: “Authorized user request: review sealed files.” Ky  scrolled mentally to check the priorities of sleep enhancement versus  Urgent Message, dropped the priority of the message to allow sleep  enhancement to override it, and set a condition for waking. Then she  finished her noodles and chicken.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I’m going back to bed,” she said. “Tell first shift I may be late.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Initiating sleep enhancement mode was like walking off a cliff into  oblivion. She woke feeling rested for the first time since before she’d  put the implant in . . . languid, comfortable. After a shower and change,  she went up to the bridge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Good rest, Captain?” Lee asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Very good,” Ky said. “But I’m going to need to spend a lot of time today  exploring data stored in this implant. I suspect it’s going to be very  intense. So if there’s anything you know you need for this shift, tell me  now.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “We’re doing fine,” Lee said. “All systems green—this is a lovely ship,  despite the way she’s been used. Whatever else Osman was up to, he  maintained the ship systems perfectly.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Call if you need me,” Ky said. “I’ll be in my cabin.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She puttered around briefly, stripping the bed and sending the linens  through the ’fresher cycle, reluctant to face what was coming. When she  realized that, she sat down at her desk and activated the secured files.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In the afternoon sky, the sound of the approaching aircraft rose above the  sea breeze, a steady drone . . . but this time she was awake, and viewed  the audiovisual data as an outsider, not a participant. Her father’s  emotions did not flood her awareness; she recognized the silhouettes of  the two craft before the implant matched them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Still, the violence of the explosions was shocking. Her breath came fast.  Deliberately, Ky slowed the replay, returning again and again to the same  image: were they aircraft with missiles or bombs, or were they the  weapons? That hardware could be either. They had come in low and fast; the  implant did not record—her father had not thought to look for—the telltale  evidence that might tell her which they were.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ky put a tagger on the best of the early images and told the implant to  find any similar images after the explosions, but apparently her father  had not looked for the aircraft again, nor had he tapped into the  airfield’s scan data after that first moment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Back to the beginning. The implant didn’t tell her what her   father was thinking that afternoon, but it held his planned   itinerary—a flight from Corleigh back to the mainland—and his planned  schedule—a meeting with senior management at Vatta headquarters, the  agenda including the quarterly financial reports, dinner with his brother  and his brother’s wife, the next two days a series of meetings with the  Slotter Key Tik Growers’ Association, the Slotter Key Agricultural  Commission, the Slotter Key Shipping Advisory Commission. An address to  the graduating class of Nandinia School of Business—Ky ignored the link to  the text. All routine: he normally spent at least six days out of ten on  the mainland; her mother preferred Corleigh’s gentler climate except  during the main social season.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His flight plan had been properly filed well in advance; anyone could have  known when he would be at the little private airfield, and yet no  explosion occurred there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She noted that oddity and went back to the visual record itself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The local offices exploded; debris rained from the sky. Another explosion;  the visual output darkened. Along the margins, a row of red numbers  appeared, giving her father’s vital signs. She tried to steady her  breathing—was this when he died?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But no. The visual record returned, as someone pulled debris off him. She  recognized the faces: old George, their pilot Gaspard, someone she had  seen around the office . . . Marin Sanlin, the implant told her. Her  father looked toward the house, now a tower of flame and smoke . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Even seeing it, she could not quite believe it. Surely the comfortable  sprawling house with its tall windows to catch the sea breeze, its cool  tile floors, had not really gone so fast, so completely. Some walls still  stood, as fire raged inside, consuming everything from her past . . . the  long, polished dining room table, the library with its shelves of data  cubes and old books, the paintings, the family rooms . . .Nebula Award-winning author of The Speed of Dark and Command Decision [quote]--SciFi.com","brand":"Del Rey","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305050034405,"sku":"NP9780345447579","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345447579.jpg?v=1767726280","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/engaging-the-enemy-isbn-9780345447579","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}