Refitting the ship had taken much longer than any of them had anticipated, not to mention costing considerably over the original estimates. The results were heartening, however. The ship, now named the Scorpion, had a sting to be reckoned with in the form of four long-range slicers. Hendricks had assured them that they were now armed better than any ship currently registered. The only discomforting thought was that not all pirate ships were registered.
Even more important than the weapons, and twice as costly, were the custom scanners which allowed them to appraise a situation from a position well outside the range of another ship’s detection equipment.
That plus several months of practice made the Scorpion and her crew formidable opponents. When they were all in agreement that they were ready to do combat, a new problem arose. How do you find the pirates?
Their only solution had led them here, to the Weisner System, which reported the highest frequency of pirate attacks. Prepared for a waiting game, they had struck paydirt almost immediately. In orbit over Magnus, the largest inhabited planet in the system, their detectors found two ships lying side by side. One was disabled and showed signs of recent damage, while the other seemed to be unscratched, and had two turret guns prominently mounted on her exterior.
It could be a pirate in the process of looting a victim. Then again, it could simply be a commercial ship answering a distress call. The problem was one captains had been wrestling with for over a decade. How do you tell a pirate from any other ship until he fires on you?