It was five days since Yelena Habitat hit the panic button when Christopher's ship appeared in the sky outside. It was a  one-man long range patrol pod, and the red sun of the Entente emblazoned on the hull probably offered as much protection as the hull itself did. The Law Enforcement Agency operated under a One Riot, One Ranger principle, stretched thin as it was.
        Christopher eyeballed the two shuttles the habitat had sent out to escort him in – offering him protection or just showing respect, he wasn't sure. They were just plain orbiters, all wires and girders, not even streamlined enough to dip into the atmosphere of the gas giant Yelena orbited. He could see the mining lasers and mass drivers crudely welded onto them as makeshift weapons. Technically illegal, of course, but most officers would turn a blind eye, especially if offered the right incentive.
        "Yelena Habitat, this is Law Enforcement Agency vessel-" he rattled off a number into the wireless, "responding to emergency transmission. Requesting permission to dock."
        "Roger that, LEAV," came the reply. "Come alongside shuttle bay three."
        Somewhere along the habitat's main shaft, a transponder began to sing, and Christopher let his ship lock onto it and start guiding in automatically. Bay three was exactly where he expected it to be; Yelena was just as prefab as it looked, two long cylinders spinning for gravity and connected by a static shaft. Hundreds of habitats just like it had been built back before the war and scattered across the night. Some became rich; most became Yelena.

        Christopher wasn't surprised to have an crowd meet him. The place probably got few enough visitors, never mind Entente officers. There were probably a couple hundred people filling the loading dock - the habitat's whole population, for all he knew - led by an honor guard of dozen men in ornate antebellum uniforms carrying antique firearms.
        "DeTAIL! Ten-HUT!" their sergeant ordered, and the honor guard snapped to a well-drilled attention. Well, there can't be that much to do here, after all, Christopher thought. Feeling something was required of him, he returned the salute, raising his suit glove to the edge of his helmet.
        "Madame President?" he hazarded at the matronly woman who approached him.
        "Director, if you please, Officer," she said, shaking his hand. "We like to use the traditional titles here."
        Christopher nodded approvingly. "It does you credit, Ma'am," he said with sincerity.
        
        The formalities weren't too bad, thank God. Christopher and the Director made a cursory review of the guard before she led him back towards the main habitat, giving him a brisk overview of the place which he decided he could safely ignore. They were accompanied by Miss Kayler, the Director's young assistant who said very little and blushed when Christopher smiled at her - and, at a respectful distance, the whole rest of the crowd, who murmured and jostled each other for a better glimpse of the Entente Man. They were all tall and skinny, almost emaciated, the way people got living in low gravity with nothing to eat but yeast.

        The crowd drifted away as they arrived at the administration building. Christopher was introduced to the members of habitat's board, whose names he immediately forgot, and Miss Kayler served yeastcakes and brackish recycled water.
        "Well, Officer," said the Director at last. "Shall we get down to business?"
        "Please, Madame Director," he answered, breathing a sigh of relief inside.
        "The long and the short of it is, Officer, that we have a pirate on our hands."

        In a long-winded way, the story came out. Five days earlier an unidentified ship had come out of the night, strafed a mining outpost on a nearby moon, stolen the ore and equipment on it, and then had gone to ground somewhere in the gas giant's system. Now it was out there, waiting for Yelena to send another ship back to the mining outposts. Typical pirate tactics, the board explained, unnecessarily: they weren't strong enough to storm the habitat directly, but they could pick off lone ships on the outside.
        "And without access to those ores and minerals," the Director concluded, "This habitat will not be able to survive."
        Christopher nodded sympathetically. "I've seen this before," he said. "Spacers gone bad, preying on ordinary folks just trying to get by. Scum, if you ask me," he made a spitting motion.
        "Oh, I don't know if I'd go that far, Officer," said the Director, folding her hands in her lap. "Times are hard, even we know that. I'm sure they're just doing what they have to in order to survive. Just as we are."
        "Maybe so," he agreed. "In any case, get me the coordinates, and I'll make sure that they don't bother you again."
        "Thank you," she replied.
        Christopher looked around the room, at the hopeful faces staring at him. "Ladies and gentlemen, if I may speak to the Director alone for a moment?" he requested smoothly.
        "Of course," someone said, confused, and one by one the board filed out, leaving only Christopher and the Director around the polymer conference table.
        "That leaves, of course, the matter of your contribution," he said.
        "Contribution? Yelena is a fully subscribed member of the Entente - oh, I see," she said, realization dawning. "Of course. We haven't ever had a law enforcement officer here, you see."
        "It's the accepted thing," he explained gently. "As you said, Madame Director, times are hard."
        "Of course," she said again, composing herself. "And how much is, ah, the accepted-?"
        Christopher named a quantity of yeast, another of polymers.
        "I see," said the Director. "Well, of course, once we have access to our mining outposts again..."
        "I assure you that you will, Madame Director," said Christopher, extending his hand.

*        *        *

        There was a last gasp as the patrol ship's engine cut, and Christopher tugged the belts across his acceleration cushion just in time to keep from floating away in the microgravity. He had put the ship into a parabolic orbit around the gas giant, and it would be a good few hours before he got close to the moon with the outpost on it. Until then, nothing to do but wait.
        He hit a switch, and the screen in front of him faded from the sensor display to the video feed, showing him the magnificent view of the gas giant outside, so big it looked like he was flying underneath a colorful, cloudy sky. It would almost be a shame to leave a place like this - Christopher had realized a long time ago that it wasn't enough for humanity to live in spartan ugly habitats, they also generally put them in the darkest, grayest spots they could find. At least in this line of work he got to see plenty of different kinds of ugly - and once in a while, something beautiful too.

        The ship was beeping before he knew it, and regretfully he switched back to the sensor display. Sure enough, there was a rickety tin can lifting from one of the moon's deep craters and getting ready to hitch a vector. Showtime.
        "Attention, unidentified vessel," he broadcast en clair across a wide swath of spectrum, strong enough so they'd pick it up all the way back at Yelena. "This is an Entente Law Enforcement Agency vessel. You are suspected of piracy. Maintain current vector, power down to minimum and prepare to be boarded. Any other action will be considered hostile, and met with force. I repeat, maintain vector, power down, prepare to be boarded."
        The display flashed as the tin can fired up its engine, injecting itself into a high orbit that would take it deeper into the gas giant's local system. Away from Christopher, but not towards deep space. Here we go.
        He flipped a switch, bringing the ship's lasers online. Another button fired them on a suppression solution, just strong enough to fry any opticals the tin can might have had open and looking his way. He checked its trajectory and hit his own engines again, putting himself on an intercept course.
        "Attention, unidentified vessel," he broadcast again. "Stand down, or you will be destroyed."
        The tin can flashed twice, launching a pair of kinetic kill weapons in his direction - the space equivalent of spikes on a road. His ship swung the lasers over and vaporized them without Christopher having to do a thing.
        He checked the display. Was it worth a missile? Sure, why not. He brought one online, overrode the ship's targeting solution with his own, and launched. He felt the ship kick as the missile left, and allowed himself the luxury of switching over to video for a moment, watching the glowing red exhaust streak across the night.
        He flipped the display back just in time, and watched it flicker as the missile detonated, flooding the spectrum with radiation. Capitalizing on the moment of blindness, he gunned the engine again, closing fast.

        The tin can would be within visual range now. Still, better safe than sorry. The electronic warfare array came to life, roaring static across every frequency. Opticals only. Acquire target. Microwave communications. Encryption on.
        "Hey, baby," he said.
        "Hey, yourself," Aisatu's face filled the leftmost half of his screen. She had a broad, high-gravity skull with twinkling eyes and a mischievous grin. His girl. "Think they liked the fireworks?"
        "I'm sure they loved them, baby," he said. "They'll be talking about this one for years."
        "So they bought it?" she asked.
        "Ate it right up," he assured her with a laugh.
        "Need any more?"
        Christopher checked his display quickly. The moon was directly between them and Yelena habitat. "Nah, we're good."
        "You got the stuff?" she asked.
        "Need to go back for it," he said.
        "Hurry back, baby," she signed off.
        Below him, the front end of Aisatu's tin can swung open, throwing a realistic-looking cloud of debris forward along her trajectory, bringing herself to a near-halt hidden behind the moon. Christopher silenced the jammers and gunned the engine again, slingshotting himself on a path back towards Yelena.

        Again, the two shuttles came out to meet him, escorting him to a different docking bay further up the shaft. Christopher had spent the trip back prepping the tanks, getting ready to take on the bribe he had been promised. The yeast would keep him and Aisatu going long enough to pull at least one more job, maybe two. Then it'd be time to hide the patrol boat back inside the tin can, scrape the Entente symbol off the hull for good measure; head somewhere more civilized (but not too civilized), sell the polymers, and live like royalty for a few months before heading back out into the night. Not bad at all.

        There wasn't as big a crowd waiting to meet him this time, but the Director was still there, along with the honor guard. Strange, Christopher thought, he hadn't noticed the last time how funny their modern-looking rifles looked alongside their old-fashioned uniforms.
        "DeTAIL! Ten-HUT!"
        Christopher was expecting it this time, and returned a sharp, crisp salute.
        "DeTAIL! FIRE!"
        Twelve rifles rang out, echoing in the loading dock, and Christopher's body fell to the ground.

        "Miss Kayler?"
        "Yes, Ma'am?"
        "Have a wave sent to the LEA. Let them know we've gotten another of their patrol ships back for them, and that this time it's going to cost them extra."
        "Right away, Ma'am."