Robert Asprin – Tambu

“Are things that bad?”

“Actually, things are that good.” Tambu laughed bitterly. “We’re suffering from being too successful. There are only so many pirates for us to capture, and the ones that are left are giving us wide berth. We’ve been paying the crews out of the treasury for nearly a year now, and we aren’t making enough in salvage and reward money to replenish it. In short, our expenses have remained constant while our income has gone down. We’re in trouble.”

“Actually, our expenses have gone up,” Ramona commented thoughtfully. “Now that we’re up to twenty-four ships…”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Twenty-eight?” she echoed. “Where did the other four ships come from?”

“One captured, three joined.” he recited mechanically.

“Joined?” Ramona frowned. “But you can’t keep letting new ships into the fleet.”

“I thought you were the one who argued for that in the first place,” Tambu teased. “Most of the ships in the fleet are joiners.”

“At first, yes. But we can’t keep expanding if we’re running out of money and targets.”

“We need the extra ships and the contacts.”

“But that just means more…” She broke off and looked at him suspiciously. “You’ve got a plan, don’t you? You always have a plan.”

“Not always, but most of the time.”

“Well, come on,” she prodded, poking him in the ribs. “What is it?”

“Nothing much,” he said casually. “Just a complete reformatting of our force.”

He paused, as if expecting her to respond enthusiastically. Instead, she gnawed her lip.

“How complete?” she asked warily.

“Well, so far we’ve been living on rewards and salvage. The books show the flaw in that system–no fighting, no loot. I figure we’re ready to move onto the next social stage.”