The City Who Fought by Anne McCaffrey

This space adventure further develops McCaffrey's vivid future universe of diversified cultures, technological wonders and twisted, sometimes corrupt, politics. Space Station SSS-900C, a profitable but out-of-the-way trading and mining center, is attacked by Kolnari, pirates from a planet of sociopathic exiles. While awaiting the arrival of the Central Worlds' Navy, the inhabitants play for time with a major deception planned by Simeon, the shellperson operating the station, whose hobby is the study of early warfare, including guerrilla tactics. (Shellpeople, damaged while young by accident or birth defect and encased in life-support systems, are wired into and control sophisticated technology such as space stations, cities and spaceships, while maintaining their own personalities and emotions.)