it"
     Jason  looked up  at  Vance who had  not even  bothered to knock before
bursting into his cabin.  The  normally unflappable director of intelligence
seemed almost giddy with excitement.
     "Got what?"
     "The signal damn it, the signal. Come on, I'll show you."
     Jason followed Vance  back down the  corridor into  the fighter bay. He
had a flash memory of  the same corridor, running towards the bridge when it
was hit by the Kilrathi suicide pilot, killing O'Brian, the first captain of
the Tarawa, the corridor decompressing when the hull was shattered
     They  reached  the end of the  corridor, the two security guards  still
requiring that even Vance show ID and undergo a corona laser scan. It struck
him as a  bit absurd, here they were hiding on a planet's  surface,  no  one
could possibly sneak  aboard to impersonate Vance, and the man had come down
the corridor only a minute before. But  he knew that security above all else
required no relaxation.
     He showed his ID as well and leaned into the corona scanner.
     The  guards opened  the  doorway into the bay  and  saluted,  the  door
slamming shut behind them.
     The  D-5 team  was gathered in a knot  around what was Vance's cubicle,
and to Jason's surprise he saw  bottles of champagne being passed around. He
was  about  to  raise an  objection  to such  an  open  violation  of  fleet
regulations  but  then  realized that  fleet  regs no longer applied,  since
officially they were not part of the fleet,  and in  fact officially did not
even  exist. Intel people  had always struck him as a little strange and  he
realized that perhaps they needed to blow off steam like this otherwise they
would have cracked  under the pressure long ago. They were no different than
pilots in that respect.
     The crowd parted for Vance, patting him on the back.
     "Good  job, people, now let's finish our  party and get back  to  work,
there's a hell of a lot to be done before this mission is finished"
     The crowd seemed to immediately sober up and drifted away back to their
stations.
     "Here's what all the excitement is  about. I thought you should know in
case anything happened."
     "Anything happened?"
     "We could take a hit to this bay and our entire team gets  wiped out. I
want someone off this deck  to know what  we've just found out I want you to
remember the message but you are to immediately, and  forever, forget how we
found out"
     Jason nodded in agreement
     Vance pointed  to a two dimensional screen. On the right side was  what
Jason assumed was phonetically translated  Kilrathi, on the left long series
of  white  blocks, and  occasional  words  in  English  which  were  partial
translations of the message.
     "When Geoff left  he went back amongst other reasons,  to have ConFleet
send  out a false message  which stated that  our primary  matter-antimatter
assembly  plant  on  the moon  had  been  destroyed  due  to  an  accidental
detonation.  As  a  result no  new weapons would  be  delivered  for several
months. The message of course was a complete fabrication.
     An hour ago we  picked up this message from Kilrah  to their Hari  base
and cracked part of it."
     Jason leaned over to look at the screen.
     Most of  the message  was untranslated but one line  highlighted in red
leaped out  at  him  .  . .  "Remove target  2778A on  moon of nak'tara from
primary strike list Accident has destroyed target, . . ." there were several
lines untranslated . . . "shortage in antimatter weapons produced from 2778A
expected, will update."
     Jason looked back up at Vance.
     "They took the  bait. We broadcast the false message  on a code we knew
they had already cracked. Their  listening post, most  likely right in their
embassy office  picked it up and passed  it back  to  Kilrah. Nak'tara means
Earth.  It means that whatever it is they're preparing out there in Hari  is
being aimed  for an  attack straight  at Earth.  Damn it, the  bastards  are
getting ready to strike."
     Jason leaned back  in the chair and closed  his eyes for  a  moment. He
could  understand  the  elation of  Vance's  crew.  Their  job  was  to  get
information and they had just pulled out a gold nugget of information unlike
anything found in years. They had reason to celebrate. But it  meant as well
that the armistice was nothing more than a sham. Though he had assumed it to
be so from the beginning, there had always been a small part of him that had
hoped against hope that maybe the peace was  real after all. This was a dark
proof that shattered the dream.
     Damn all of  them, the Kilrathi,  the political leaders back home  that
had led them into this fix, damn all of them.
     "Think we should lift  off and get the hell out of  here?" Jason asked.
"We could punch our way through the picket screen.
     Vance shook his head.
     "And bring back what? One partially decoded message as proof. The peace
party crowd would say it  was cooked  up  to restart the war.  A lone  burst
signal does not an ironclad case make."
     "They could be moving at any time now. We should be alerting  ConFleet,
they'll believe us."
     "Son, ConFleet will believe us,  but they're the  only ones. You've got
to remember  this  as  well.  We  don't  exist as far as  the  government is
concerned. There aren't more than half a dozen people off this ship who even
know  we're  out here. How do you think it'd  be  presented if we go rushing
back  home and stand  up to announce that we  parked this ship clear on  the
other side of the Empire in clear violation of the armistice? The real truth
of  what we found would  be lost in the screaming and protests not only from
the Kilrathi but  from some of our own  people as well.  It'd also blow  the
cover on  this D-5 system. That's one of the problems with  intelligence. If
we  make  public  what  we've found, the  Kilrathi will  figure out just how
capable our  surveillance is  and change their procedures and  it  might  be
years before we can break it back down again."
     Jason nodded. They'd need something hard, clearly recorded visuals, and
even then  some  people would  claim it was a  fake  out. Hell, the Kilrathi
would  most likely have to start kicking down the front  door  before anyone
would act.
     "So we just sit here and wait."
     "Too bad  this planet screens  us  from your friend  Paladin.  Maybe he
might have something by now," Vance replied. "Hell, we're stuck here, unable
to move and one ship out to scout. I doubt if he's even got within a hundred
light years of their base."

     * * * * *

     Standing up to stretch, Prince Thrakhath growled softly as he continued
to look at the screen which showed the latest intelligence report.
     The  intelligence  report  from Jukaga matched  that  of what  his  own
military chain of command had stated. Jukaga most likely knew that Thrakhath
had  his  own  lines  of  communications,  and since the incident took place
within  a  military  command  district  he  would find out about  it  almost
immediately.
     Someone,  almost  undoubtedly  from the  Confederation, had  penetrated
right into the very system where the new fleet  was  being  constructed. The
translight  radar sweep could only  have been done by a very  well outfitted
spy ship, as no smuggler could afford to carry  such equipment. Beyond that,
the ship had been using Stealth masking. The fact that the humans had either
learned  the  secret of Stealthing or captured such equipment  was stunning.
They were on to something. The question now was whether  the information had
gotten back  to  the Confederation and their fleet command. No burst  signal
could possibly cross such a  distance. The spy ship had sent out three burst
signals  so  far,  all  of  them  aimed towards the Paghk  System,  where  a
suspected ship  was  still being hunted. But no  burst signal  had come from
that system to relay the message on.
     No, Confleet did not yet know.
     He turned to a holo projection, ordering up  a map of the Paghk system,
and  then ordered a projection of  jump lines and systems  back to where the
spy ship had been sighted. Next he ordered in a display of where the spy was
now  located, the position of ships in pursuit and where nearby ships  might
be  located  to move in to aid the chase. Finally he ordered a projection of
jump lines from the Paghk system back towards the Confederation ship.
     The  holo field was a maze of blue lines, blinking  lights representing
ships, and steady yellow  lights representing the array  of stars which were
terminus points for the jump lines.
     He studied it intently, shifting,  moving in the focus, calling up more
data,  formulating plans, then  shifting  the  field yet  again  to  examine
another  part,  a  side  screen  scrolling  out  data  on  the various ships
available.
     Yet this was  no  simple  intercept  operation. There was  a  political
consideration as  well, involving Jukaga, and just what he might be doing in
regards  to this  new situation. As he studied the holo projection Thrakhath
developed his plan.
     He was interrupted  by a  paging call. It  was the Emperor on  an  open
line.
     "It is time that we leave for the ceremony," the Emperor said  and then
clicked off.


        CHAPTER EIGHT

     "We've picked up a threefold increase in signal traffic within the last
six hours, chief."
     Vance nodded  wearily, looking through the  report handed to him by one
of his assistants. He  was exhausted. Against all rules of proper procedure,
he had put his people on eight  hour on, four hour off duty shifts.  He knew
exhaustion was  cutting into their performance, that it'd  be  best to  give
everybody a day off to  unwind,  but it was getting too hot. Earlier  in the
day they had  made a quantum  jump  in cracking Fleet Code  A,  bringing the
translations  up to nearly sixty percent.  It was increasingly revealing the
full  extent  of the conspiracy, ranging from continual updates of  military
actives and deployments around Earth, but also a thousand other details down
to spare part requests, and shipping orders for the transport fleet that was
slipping deep out into Hari space, hauling the millions of tons  of supplies
needed to  build  a  new  fleet from scratch.  A  signal earlier in the  day
reported  the  transfer   of  more  than  a  thousand  pilots,  their  plane
maintenance crews and the fighter craft off of carriers in drydock, and thus
supposedly deactivated to the reserves, to the new fleet.
     Something was definitely up. The Kilrathi were acting, but on what, and
for what reason? And now the signal increase.
     "We're also getting  ship to  ship communication  increase  within this
system. Two light cruisers have moved in along with one heavy  cruiser  just
detected."
     That made Vance sit  up  and take notice. He looked at the  report that
the analyst  pointed  out on the  screen,  a  real time  translation  of the
messages, broadcast on a low priority code racing across the screen.
     "They're  setting up for an intercept from the  looks of things," Vance
said "Send a messenger down to Captain Bondarevsky, tell him to come here at
once."
     There  were times when security got  on  his nerves. All  communication
lines  between the fighter bay and the rest of the ship had been  sealed off
based upon  the  near infinitesimal chance that a member of the ship's crew,
and one of his own people might collaborate in trying to get information off
the ship.
     The analyst turned and started for the door while Vance punched over to
his head  of Alpha  team security, informing the captain to  let the analyst
pass into the ship and return with Jason.
     A  side channel suddenly  leaped into  activity on  the display screen,
originating from  inside  the system they were now  occupying. It was one of
the standard Confleet bands. But from where?
     The D-5 had already  locked on to it, a reflected signal skipping  over
the  horizon of  the planet, the message breaking up. "Just what the hell is
this?"  Vance whispered,  turning more of  the  computer's power  loose from
other activities to focus in on the signal and enhance it.
     It was an audio signal, and he turned on a speaker.
     "Green one, Green one, this is Green two over."
     "That's Paladin!"
     Vance turned to see Jason coming up behind him.
     "Green one, where the hell are you, am under attack, over.
     "Where's it coming from?" Jason asked.
     "Looks like from directly on the other side of the planet. Getting some
skip through the atmosphere, wait a second."
     He typed in a quick order and the D-5 turned one  of  its antenna array
to  aim at  the  small  moon  of the planet which was  nothing more than  an
oversized rock orbiting half a million clicks overhead.
     "Getting a reflection  signal from the  moon as well, give  me a second
here . . ." and he punched in another command.
     "There, got it.  Triangulate the signal  as coming  from  near directly
behind us, thirty five million clicks back."
     "Straight back  towards  the  jump  point  towards  Hari,"  Jason said,
turning to look at a holo map of  the system which one of Vance's assistants
activated, a blinking yellow dot showing where Paladin must be.
     "We're getting in the clear attack signals from the Kilrathi  cruisers,
one of them is launching fighters," the assistant announced.
     "They're moving in to cut Paladin off," Jason  said quietly, looking at
the  map  which  was  now showing the enemy  ships  in  the  sector. Several
corvettes  were  already  moving to  set up a picket across the  jump  point
leading  out  towards  Confederation  space  while the  cruisers  positioned
themselves for an easy kill.
     "Either they found  him out before  he got the information, or after he
picked it up; it's one of the two," Vance said quietly.
     "Why are you telling  me this?" Jason asked, suddenly aware that  Vance
was staring at him in a coldly detached way.
     "If  he doesn't have the  data, and we  go up to try  and save him, our
cover is blown and we'll have to get the hell out.  For that matter I wonder
if we can get out now considering the hardware they've brought in here."
     "Are you suggesting that I do nothing and let them blow Paladin and Ian
apart?"
     "The mission comes first, Captain."
     "And suppose he does have the data we need?"
     "I haven't heard it yet, and frankly,  son, his chances of finding them
were slim to none to start with when we sent him on alone."
     Jason looked back at the screen.
     "Green one, Green one, am under attack, where the hell are you?"
     Jason closed his eyes and tried to focus his thoughts, while. Paladin's
insistent call for help echoed across the deck.

     "Green one, Green one, this is Green two over."
     Paladin, exasperated and  filled with  a  frustrated  rage, punched the
channel off and slammed his fist down on the console.
     To have come so far back and now to be cut off. The next jump point out
of  this system was blocked, and already half a  dozen ships which had  been
pursuing him for days were  coming through behind, a fact made  worse by the
more than fifty patrol craft and three cruisers currently in the sector. The
heavy  cruiser  was already launching its squadron  of  fighters which would
close with him within the hour.
     The game was  up  and Bannockburn was about to get fried. As soon as he
had  jumped, the  pickets  waiting on the far side plastered him  with  high
energy radar bursts and then threw on laserlocks he simply couldn't shake.
     Just  before they hit him he'd try one more burst signal, feeding every
erg  of power he had into it, but the  chance of it reaching Confed space at
this range was remote and made even more implausible by the fact that it was
dicey at best  if someone had a  listening  array focused on this region. If
only he knew where Tarawa was he could transfer the info off  and the they'd
have the power to punch a signal through, plus they would also know where to
aim it for an intercept.
     "Damn  it all to hell, if I get out of this  I quit," Paladin  snarled.
"I'm heading back  to Scotland and I'll be damned  if I ever let my two feet
get off the ground again.
     "Ian, you'd better launch now. I'm glad that the Admiral managed to get
a jump capable Ferret tucked into this ship's cargo bay. I thought  he was a
wee bit crazy  trying that out. I'm  ordering  you to  break off and try and
make  it through  the  jump  point. I'm  loading the  information  into your
fighter's computers  now.  You've got to get that information back to Confed
territory. Tarawa's either gone or bought it."
     Ian looked over at  Paladin.  He knew Paladin  was right. The swarm  of
enemy fighters was closing.
     He wanted to say something but couldn't find the words.
     Paladin looked up and forced a smile.
     "Lift one for me at the Vacuum Breathers Club, laddie. Now get the hell
out of here."
     Ian turned and headed for the door.
     "Good luck, Paladin."
     Paladin shook his head and laughed.

     Ambassador Vak'ga paused for a moment and looked back at the holo image
on his desk. Again he felt the tug of  pain and  silently cursed himself for
still  feeling  it. After all,  the mourning should have ended  on the first
Sivar after the death of his sons. That was, after all, six years back.  But
no, the pain had never stopped. His seed was gone and when he died, his hrai
would die with him.
     He thought yet again of the agreement he had made with Prince Thrakhath
on the eve  before leaving for Earth. When Thrakhath had first  suggested it
to him his blood had burned with the thought of at last  gaining  vengeance.
But now, it was  so cold,  there was no rage,  no pain, just a detachment, a
coldness,  as if the goddess had already reached into his heart to still its
beating.
     The coded message to commit the act had  arrived this morning, and soon
the  pain would stop. At least I will see my sons again, my sons taken  from
me by the humans.  At least we will again embrace and  go forth on the  hunt
with our ancestors.
     He thought  of  the  detonator  and antimatter explosive  buried in his
chest cavity. Strange, there will be nothing more of me, nothing to be found
to be buried. Fitting perhaps, since there will be no one to mourn me.
     The  Ambassador walked out  of his office,  not even bothering to close
the door.

     * * * * *

     "How are you doing, Geoff? It's damn good to see you again."
     Admiral  Banbridge  came  around from behind his  desk, hand  extended.
Former Rear  Admiral  Geoffrey  Tolwyn  grasped  it,  and  to  his  surprise
Banbridge  grabbed hold of him  in a friendly bear hug. Turning he looked at
Kevin, who stood at attention, and smiled.
     "I heard you're one of the fleet's best," Banbridge said approvingly.
     Geoff smiled broadly  at the compliment to his nephew. The long transit
back to Landreich, and from  there hidden aboard a high speed smuggler craft
to Earth, had given him the opportunity, for the first  time, to really find
out  just  who his nephew truly was. In  the back of his  mind,  in spite of
Kevin's  actions aboard Tarawa, he still perceived him  as a child. That was
now dispensed with, their relationship changing  to the close bond  that can
form between an uncle or father, and his son who is now a man.
     "Kevin,  I  hate  to ask  this,  but would you mind  waiting for us? My
steward will show you a damn nice shower and cook up some food for you."
     Kevin  saluted  and  followed  the  steward into the  rear of the small
apartment Banbridge had down in the basement of Fleet headquarters.
     "He reminds me of you at that age, Geoff," Banbridge said with a smile,
as he led his old student into his office and closed the door.
     "Glad you're back safe. Have a seat and fill me in."
     Geoff settled down into  the proffered chair, his old boss sitting down
across from him.
     "First of all, what the hell was this signal you had me send?"
     As Geoff explained Banbridge's features lit up.
     "Same trick we Americans once used against the Japanese at Midway  with
the fake report of a water distillery breaking down. The Japanese  picked it
up and  reported  to their fleet that ótarget X was  short of  water, and by
that  little  trick we knew  their next target was Midway. Vance always  did
know his history."
     "Have we had  any word yet from out there? Since I  left Landreich I've
been out of touch."
     Admiral Banbridge shook his head and Geoff silently cursed.
     "What's been happening back here on Earth?"
     Banbridge blew out noisily  and reached around to his desk, pulling out
two  glasses and  a small decanter of  port  wine,  pouring out a drink  for
himself and Tolwyn.
     "The  damn fools  are  eating up the  crap that Vak'ga  and Jukaga keep
feeding them. Hell, Rodham has even  agreed to a cultural  exchange, with  a
bunch of Kilrathi singer's and dancers coming to Earth next month.  The damn
brie and wine crowd at the capital are  eating it up, begging for tickets to
the  performance. The Chief of Staff raised holy hell about it, pointing out
that we'd have over a hundred Kilrathi  running  around the capital and damn
near  everyone of  them  an intelligence  operative. He was  hooted  down by
Jamison and told to, órelax, the war is over.'
     "It's nuts, I  tell  you.  Anyone who talks  about preparedness,  about
keeping the fleet appropriations up, is denounced as a war monger."
     "And just how is the fleet?" Tolwyn asked.
     "Four fleet carriers are still on line.
     "Just four?"
     "It's  worse. Two of them are drydocked at the  moment but it's claimed
they can be brought back up to operational status within thirty days.
     "What about the others?"
     "In drydock, reactors pulled, crews on extended leave."
     "What the hell for?"
     Banbridge sighed.
     "Jamison convinced the President, and  he convinced the Senate, that if
the Kilrathi were going to  make  a move we'd have plenty of warning and she
pointed out that  all but six  of the Kilrathi  carriers  had been put  into
inactive reserve as well. So  as  a  cost cutting measure the carriers  were
pulled in for major refitting and overhaul. Getting them on line  could take
up to three months."
     "God help us," Tolwyn  whispered, draining his glass and then accepting
a refill.
     "Forty-eight percent of the rest of the ships of the fleet are still on
line,  the  rest  are skeleton crewed in reserve. Operationally we're losing
our edge. Flight training time for the fighters has been cut by nearly half,
even  our  main  battle  fleet  ships  still  in  active  service, our heavy
cruisers,  are tied  off with crews on leave. It'd take weeks, maybe a month
to  two months to even get one full Task Force Group  organized and back  on
line.
     "What's worse is the freeze on construction.  We should have  had a new
fleet  carrier  and four more  cruisers operational by now and  a number  of
other  ships started. We tried to  get through a government decree requiring
all shipyard  works to stay on their jobs;  that caused a hell  of an uproar
and some of our best  technicians are quitting to look  for work else where.
Key war  industries, which during hostilities  were forbidden to strike, are
now  having walkouts with  people wanting  higher wages, made  worse by what
looks like an economic depression due to a freeze on new defense contracts.
     "Morale is down in the gutter. The career people are sore as hell. They
wanted this thing seen through  to  the finish. Most of our old line  people
know that this war won't really  be over till we storm through the rubble of
the  imperial  palace  and raise the Confederation  flag. Anything else is a
prelude to defeat.  The  reservists and draftees  on the other hand are  all
clamoring to get discharged. Hell, senators are getting flooded with letters
from parents, wives,  and even  our own troops demanding demobilization, the
old óbring the boys and girls back home.' "
     "I guess it's kind of hard to blame  them when you think of it. To them
it really does look like it's over."
     Banbridge nodded.
     "I  tell  you, Geoff, I think a democratic republic is the only way  to
run the  show; you English are  the  ones who really invented it and then we
Americans picked it  up.  But there's always been one flaw in it and that is
the sustaining of a long-term war. It's hard at times for civilians to truly
understand the military; we  have a thousand year  tradition of always being
at odds with the civilians we're sworn to defend. The military at times gets
turned  into  the Greek messenger  who gets blamed for simply telling people
the truth of how the universe works. People get too  caught up in  the  wish
for peace and  forget  that  the  law of the jungle is still the law in most
parts of  this universe, and  they  don't like it when  we  try to tell them
differently.
     "Got any suggestions on how to change it?"
     Banbridge smiled and shook his head.
     "It's  what I've  spent  forty-three years in  the  service fighting to
defend. No, it's got its problems but I'd keep it.
     "That's  if it survives one year longer. Don't people realize what  the
Cats are up to?"
     "Oh, a hell  of a  lot of  ordinary people do,  especially in the outer
planets  and  the  frontier.  They've  lived on  the  real edge  of the war,
sometimes  in the  middle of  it. They know what even  a  momentary  slip of
vigilance can  do. But the inner  system  of planets, and  especially Earth,
have been bearing the financial burden  of a war  that's been fought several
hundred light years and a  dozen or  more jump points away,  I think they're
willing to  grab  at anything  if it'll mean  peace.  We've  got  an  entire
generation  that's been born and come to  adulthood knowing nothing  but war
played out  nightly on the holo screen, and the ruinous taxes to support it;
to them peace is a dream as powerful as any narcotic."
     "And it just might kill them."
     Banbridge sighed
     "The damn  media  is  part of  the  problem. The  Kilrathi have  done a
masterful  job of feeding them selected footage of furball planets bombarded
in  the war,  tearful interviews with  widows who ask for  peace, the  usual
propaganda crap. But try and send our own  crews in to film  freely  and the
curtain gets slammed down. It seems to be really popular of late, especially
on  the college campuses, to buy Jukaga's line that the war was a conspiracy
of  their military  and ours  to make  themselves powerful and  big industry
rich. The majority of people see  through  it, but  there's enough out there
buying what ever they see on the holo to make things a bit hot.
     "But enough on that, fill me in on what's  happened with  you  over the
last two months."
     As  Geoff described his  arrangement of ship transfers to the Landreich
and the mission into Kilrathi  space  with the  D-5  team Banbridge remained
silent, sipping on his port and refilling Geoff's glass when it went dry.
     "When I got back to Landreich,  that's when things started to get dicey
with Kruger."
     "How so?"
     "He's  absolutely  furious  with the Confed  and the  blockage  of  the
fighter shipment.  At least they were getting a  trickle during the war, but
the  peace  commission has shut  off  any  further  shipments of war-related
supplies.
     "I tell you, Wayne, those colonials are  absolute masters at cobbling a
fleet together and keeping it flying. What they're having an impossible time
getting  through  legitimate  channels are the  latest high  tech  fighters,
electronics, and ship to ship missiles."
     "Legitimate channels?"
     Geoff laughed.
     "They're  still getting  some interesting equipment, but don't  ask  me
how."
     Banbridge nodded and smiled.
     "Spare parts  they  get from  cannibalizing, patching,  and  making do.
They've even produced their own heavy fighters, by taking obsolete three-man
patrol ships and jacking on the most god  awful bizarre engines  you've ever
seen. Anyone who flies them  deserves a medal of honor just  for turning the
engines on.
     "Now for frontier raiding, dealing with Kilrathi colonial  guard forces
or even light raiding fleets they could teach us a thing or two . But if the
main battle  fleet  ever  hits through there,  every planet in the Landreich
will be glowing and Kruger knows it. By heavens,  Wayne, the way he swore at
you, the Chief of Staff and Rodham were a thing to behold."
     "Will he stick with us though when the time comes?"
     "Only as far  as Landreich interests  are  concerned. Frankly, I  think
he'd be happy if the Confederation and the  Empire blew each  other the hell
apart and the colonials were the only ones left."
     "I just bet that old bastard does," Banbridge said with  a smile. "He's
the most amazing pain  in  the  butt I've ever  known, and also  one  of the
best."
     "When  do you  want me  to  go back out?" Tolwyn  asked.  "I think it's
crucial that if things  go bad that  I'm out there with  him. I know he sees
through  this  little  court  martial  game I  went  through. He  knows  I'm
operating  covertly for the Chief of Staff and intelligence, and  I guess he
sort of likes me as a result."
     "That's part of the  reason you got picked for the  assignment, I had a
gut feeling he'd see you as a bit  of a renegade, and  your  fighting record
was sure to impress him."
     Geoff nodded and was silent. There was  nothing really to  be said.  He
had  been  asked to volunteer for the assignment, to  deliberately provoke a
court martial offense, to seek a dishonorable discharge in order  to go into
covert operations. It had  destroyed  his reputation, making him a pariah in
his  own service, except for the half dozen or  so people who were in on the
secret.  If his  old mentor and friend had asked him to kill himself for the
good of the service he would not hesitate.
     "I do have one question that's troubling me though," Geoff finally said
and he hesitated for a moment.
     "What about Project Omega?"
     Banbridge looked over at Tolwyn in surprise.
     "Son, you were  never cleared to  know that.  Damn, if I had  known you
were on the in on Project Omega  I'd never have  let you go running off with
Tarawa the way you did. You aren't supposed to know anything about it."
     Tolwyn smiled.
     "But I do, and don't ask me how."
     Banbridge nodded.
     "Still being  supported  through black funds. This project  Rodham does
know  about, but no one else  in the cabinet has been cleared. He  agreed to
keep it going, I guess  in part as  a lever to force  the Chief into signing
the armistice. Rodham thinks Omega is our ace in the hole."
     "And how close is it to completion?"
     Banbridge shook his head.
     "A hell of a lot of snags, six months before we could even fire up  the
engines on the first ship, a year more likely, though the  conservatives are
saying eighteen months is a safe bet."
     Tolwyn shook his head at the news. There was something ironic about the
war that  he felt an outside observer would find  amusing. The Kilrathi  had
gone through incredible expense and effort to start the secret building of a
new class of carriers, if indeed what flimsy information intel had been able
to dig up so far was true. The  Confederation was  doing  the same thing. It
was  not  so much a  super carrier  along the  lines  of suspected  Kilrathi
design,  but  more  a Stealth,  heavily  armored  battlewagon with  upgraded
shielding that was proof  against  medium-yield antimatter  warheads.  There
were rumors as well of a  super weapon to be  carried on the  new  ship, but
that was an even darker secret. They  were still a dream, however, and would
have no  impact on this war, hidden like the Kilrathi construction yard,  as
far as possible from the battle front.
     "Any word yet from Tarawa?"
     Banbridge shook his head.
     "Silent,  though forward listening posts have picked up orders  pulling
several cruisers off from patrol on the frontier to head back in towards the
sector Tarawa and Normandy are operating in. It might be a coincidence."
     "I don't believe in coincidence, the Cats must be on to something."
     "That's what I thought as well."
     "Wish I was back out there with them," Tolwyn whispered.
     "Bondarevsky's a good man. If he's in a scrape he'll figure away out."
     Geoff nodded in agreement. Jason had become  like  the son he had lost.
If Reggie had not been killed twenty years ago he'd even be Jason's age.
     "When do you want me to go back out to Landreich?"
     "The Chief of  Staff wants to hear  a full briefing  from  you tomorrow
morning," Banbridge paused to look over at his computer screen.
     "Speaking  of the old  man, there's a staff meeting in ten minutes. Why
don't you stay here, I'll have my  aide get a meal into you, and for heavens
sake, Geoff, let's see if we can get you some better clothes."
     Tolwyn nodded in agreement.  He  felt absolutely ridiculous wearing the
coveralls of a civilian maintenance worker,  and the  beard he had  grown on
the way back from Tarawa  was itchy  as all hell. It was a convenient enough
cover  for  him  to  slip  through  the  underground  parking  lot  of fleet
headquarters. Once  he was inside, a  Marine security team  had  ushered him
down a private corridor the rest of the way to Banbridge's private quarters.
He rubbed his chin.
     "Wish I could shave this off."
     "You do look kind of ridiculous, Geoff."
     Banbridge stood up and grabbed his attachÝ case.
     "What's the meeting about?"
     "Always curious, aren't you?"
     Tolwyn smiled. "Working with Vance kind of rubs off on you."
     "That damn Kilrathi ambassador asked for a  meeting  with the Chiefs of
Staff  and  some of  our fleet  admirals.  He's  screaming over  a  list  of
grievances about border  violations by military  patrols, and incidents from
the Landreich are top on the list. So just lay low here, there's bound to be
some press trying to sneak around, and if they ever saw you, there'd be hell
to pay."
     Geoff  shook  hands with  his  old  academy  instructor  and  smiled as
Banbridge headed out the door.
     Banbridge paused and looked back at Geoff.
     "You've done damn good, son; I'm proud of you," and then he was gone.
     The aide  came  in a minute  later and  offered to  lay out  some fresh
clothes while Geoff took a shower, an offer he eagerly agreed to after weeks
in space, surviving the usual water rationing of one minute  showers. As  he
walked  past the  small bedroom  he  saw Kevin stretched out  on top  of the
sheets, fast asleep.
     "Didn't even bother  to eat, sir," the steward whispered. "He stretched
out and was asleep like a baby inside of a minute."
     "It's been a tough time. Geoff said quietly.
     Closing the door of the bathroom he peeled off the grungy coveralls and
stepped into the hot stream of water.
     He didn't so much hear  it as feel it, a vibration slamming through the
building.  He  turned  the shower off and from  a  far-off distance  heard a
klaxon. Not bothering to towel off he pulled his coveralls on and opened the
door. Banbridge's aide was standing alert  by the  entry into the  admiral's
quarters and to Geoff's surprise had  a  laser  pistol up and at the  ready.
Kevin came out of the bedroom, already up and alert and Geoff could see that
the klaxon had triggered him into thinking that there was a scramble alert.
     "Stay where you are, sirs," the  steward snapped, holding his free hand
back for them to remain still. "Something's going on."
     Geoff  felt defenseless,  dressed  in  nothing  more  than oil  stained
coveralls. He knew the aide, besides being Banbridge's personal steward, was
also a highly trained Marine commando. He'd  have to leave things up to him.
The  aide  quietly spoke into  a  small  lapel  mike,  receiving orders  and
information back through a tiny earphone.
     What seemed  to be an  eternity passed  and then he saw the man visibly
pale, right hand clenching tight around the pistol grip.
     The aide looked back at Geoff.
     "Sir. Admiral Banbridge, the Chief of Staff, and we don't know how many
other officers are dead. The entire top floor of the building has been blown
apart."
     "Merciful God," Geoff whispered, bowing his head.
     "I'm going to keep you secure right here,  sir. We have had an incident
and we don't know what the hell is going on yet."
     An incident, Geoff  thought. Most of the fleet's top  command were most
likely dead and it's called an incident.

     "Hunter, break off, break off!"
     Ian switched off his visual and audio back to Bannockburn. The order to
abandon  Paladin  was  simply  too  hard to  stomach. The wave  of  Kilrathi
fighters was now less  than  five thousand  clicks  off and closing in fast,
their maneuvering scoops popped wide open to break after the  high speed run
in from the cruiser that had  launched them. There was a slim chance that he
might be able to pop off the two fighters on the forward  left edge of their
sweep, thereby punching a hole through for Paladin to follow.
     He could imagine that Paladin was swearing a blue streak at the moment,
but to hell with him if he didn't want to be saved.
     Ian  turned in towards  the approaching  fighters, toggled up  his  IFF
missiles and dumped them off in a long range spread to  stir things  up. The
missiles leaped  forward  and several of the  approaching  Kilrathi fighters
pulled into sharp turns. As soon as the  tail of the nearest one was exposed
Hunter  fired  off an  infrared  tracker  which instantly  locked on  to the
fighter's engines which were glowing white hot from the high speed approach.
The missile slammed up the exhaust nozzle of the fighter and detonated.
     First kill of the new war, he thought grimly.
     Within seconds the fight was on. several Dralthi fighters  peeling  off
to swing  in on  Hunter,  while the forward edge of  the strike, six Grikath
fighters, pushed straight on towards Bannockburn. Paladin let loose with his
remaining salvo of flechettes and  then toggled  off a battery of  IFFs from
his gatling mount missile launcher. Space was a mad confusion of  explosions
and Ian pulled a tight turn to try and shake off an  incoming infra tracker,
firing off  a  flare, which the  missile  went  for,  detonating silently  a
kilometer behind him.
     A Grikath  shot  directly across his starboard bow and with a perfectly
timed  deflection Ian nailed him solidly amidships  and turned inside of the
Cat,  firing three more rapid mass driver rounds into the Grikath which blew
apart.
     He  spared  a  quick  glance at his tactical  display and saw that  the
Kilrathi cruisers were spread out into  an open sweep, coming up behind  the
wave of fighters in case there was anything still to be finished off. Behind
them more than a dozen patrol  craft and a light frigate were coming in as a
second wave, while  from  the other  direction half a dozen patrol corvettes
were closing,  pushing  Bannockburn into the  trap.  A wave of  fast  moving
fighters was moving ahead, above, and below to close the trap.
     With  a sickening finality he realized the futility of the  gesture  he
had just offered. The game was up. He switched back on to Paladin's channel.
     "Not looking good, buddy."
     "Hunter, break free, make the run, I'll provide support."
     "Like hell, they're on me, now run for it and get that damn information
out, otherwise this whole thing is useless."
     "Hunter, damn it, get the hell . . ."
     "I think its the other way  around, buddy, I'll cover you, now  run for
it. When  you get to  the Vacuum Breathers buddy, lift  the first round  for
me."
     "Hunter!"
     He  punched ahead of Bannockburn, moving to break up the forward screen
so Paladin could slip through
     A spread of half a dozen missiles leaped forward from the next Kilrathi
attack group, the new  IFF and radar trackers. Ian swallowed  hard and keyed
up his own transponder to draw the missiles in.
     The warbling tone in Ian's head set clicked to a steady hum, increasing
in  pitch.  The incoming  were all locked on to his ship. He pulled up hard,
leading the missiles away from Bannockburn.
     "Pop out, Ian!"  Paladin shouted, and  then there was  another voice on
the radio.
     "Green two, Green two, this is Green one, strike on the way."
     Ian started to reach down  to  pull the ejector  D ring when  he saw  a
fighter lining up to hit Bannockburn from above.
     He dropped the ring, lined up  on  the target and toggled  off the  one
missile strapped beneath his fighter.  Even as  it streaked away he knew the
game had  finally caught up with him at last.  He bit down hard on his cigar
and closed his eyes.
     Six Kilrathi IFF's impacted across the stern of  Ian  Hunter St. John's
Ferret.

     Jason leaned  over  the  tactical  display  on the screen, watching  as
Normandy launched her fighters. Already one of the cruisers was turning back
around as he cleared the north pole of  the planet at an  altitude  of three
hundred  clicks,  just  barely skimming above  the  edge of  the atmosphere,
accelerating fast.
     If only  I  had a full  bay of fighters, he cursed silently, we'd swamp
them under. Normandy had already launched her full load of fighters, twenty,
and Doomsday along with two other pilots had taken  out  the remaining three
fighters in  his own bay. He could already sense that this was going to he a
ship-to-ship action and he didn't  relish the idea of facing  a cruiser head
on with a light escort carrier.
     "Knew you wouldn't leave me in the lurch, laddie."
     Paladin's wavery image appeared on the screen.
     "You certainly brought along enough company, Paladin."
     "Aye, that I did. Get ready for a coded burst, unscramble it and you'll
see why."
     Seconds  later the signal  came through  and  Jason turned to watch his
communications officer decode it.  He started to see the holo  read out  and
turned to one of his watch officers.
     "Get down that corridor fast and tell those gorillas  guarding the door
to send Vance up here on the double!"
     "Fighters are breaking  off from attack on  Paladin, returning to cover
cruiser," the combat information officer announced, looking back at Jason.
     They  must have detected the burst signal and  realized we're  carrying
the football now, Jason thought.
     "I already  got  it on our system," Vance said, coming on to the bridge
and Jason realized that  with the  gear down  in the fighter bay Vance would
already know.
     "Look  at the size of those damn ships," Jason whispered, and he looked
back at Vance who was intently studying the screen.
     "Should we send the signal?" Vance asked.
     Jason looked back at the holo. Their cover was fully blown now. He knew
that was the end  result the moment he made the decision to come up and save
Paladin. He knew as well that if Paladin had come back empty-handed he would
be  in  very hot  water  for  having blown the mission cover just  to save a
friend. But then again it was extremely difficult to argue with success, and
his decision would now be viewed as the right move  and the personal reasons
for Paladin and Ian forgotten.
     The Kilrathi already had  a visual lock  on  his  ship.  Within seconds
they'd known the type and model and  would  quickly figure out it was Tarawa
with Normandy right  alongside.  The  antenna  array atop his  carrier would
definitely tip  them off as well as to the mission  of his ship. If  not for
the information they had,  it would be a diplomatic explosion. There  was no
sense  in  giving  the  Kilrathi  the  first  jump  on  that front.  If  the
information was  released  after the Kilrathi started  screaming  about  the
border violation the  information might be dismissed  as an attempt to cover
up.
     "Send it out now," Jason said.
     "Good decision, son," Vance said with a grin and he turned back towards
the flight deck. A  minute later Jason noticed the momentary flicker in  the
ship's- battle lighting as  the translight burst signal went out, repeated a
minute later by a second burst for good measure.
     All  three cruisers had now come about and were closing in, the ranging
indicator  marking down the  rapid  drop in  range. The  forward  spread  of
Normandy's fighters closed with  the  Kilrathi  fighters launched  from  the
cruiser and the fight was on. The edge on skill  was  clearly on the side of
the colonial and ex-fleet  pilots, deployed out to take on the heavy cruiser
and its lighter escort.
     One of the cruisers, however, pushed on through and Jason felt the cold
sweat start to streak down his back as he sat on the bridge, waiting for the
Kilrathi cruiser batteries to open up. He  had never fought a  carrier  in a
head  to head engagement  and he longed for a  joystick and throttle, rather
than the cumbersome relaying of orders.
     The first volley of missiles  spread  out  from the lead cruiser,  even
while  the second one in  line  exploded  from the  direct  hit of a torpedo
spread from a Broadsword.
     We've  got four  incoming  warheads,"  the  combat  information  center
officer announced, "blowing chaff, flares, and radar noise makers."
     "All weapons fire," Jason announced, struggling to keep his voice calm.
     Mass  driver cannon  mounted forward went  into  action,  a  volley  of
torpedoes leaping out from  the forward launch tubes.  The range was below a
hundred kilometers and closing.
     "Helm ten degrees  to port, fifty  degrees down."  He started a curving
turn downwards and then countered  the order,  bringing his carrier straight
back up towards the underside of the rear cruiser.
     "Torpedo attack  diverting," combat  information announced,  "regaining
lock on Normandy."
     Several Kilrathi fighters raced across his  bow, dropping missiles, the
weapons impacting on the forward shield.
     "Normandy's in trouble!"
     Jason  turned  to  look back at his  communications  officer  and  then
toggled over to a damage display of his sister ship.
     A  torpedo from the first  spread impacted on his  sister  ship's  bow.
Forward  shielding  was  gone.  Two  colonial fighters on  close  in  escort
maneuvered  and rammed  two of the next spread of  torpedoes coming out from
the Kilrathi cruiser while Normandy fired a spread in return.
     The torpedoes crossed each other's paths and seconds later Normandy and
the  enemy  cruiser  fireballed, the two ships so close  that  the explosion
merged into one vast expanding cloud of white hot flame.
     A colonial  fighter  came  through the wreckage, spinning  wildly.  The
pilot, however,  was still  able to  maintain some control and  he aimed his
craft straight in at the cruiser in front of Jason. Punching on afterburners
the modified Ferret slammed straight into the Kilrathi bridge.
     "Damn,"  Jason whispered. Within  seconds he  had  seen three  colonial
pilots go kamikaze.
     The enemy cruiser started to rupture along its bow, internal explosions
detonating off from the blow. Half a dozen fighters swung  in  front of  the
cruiser, matching speed so as to hover, and ignoring the defensive fire they
poured  mass driver  rounds into the  ruptured  hull. The cruiser started to
disintegrate,  mass driver rounds  punching  clean through the  hull and the
ship detonated, taking another colonial fighter with it.
     The explosion from Normandy  was still spreading out and Jason realized
he had just under twenty strike craft out  there, some of them still engaged
in eliminating  the rest of the fighters, others  moving  forward to provide
cover for Bannockburn, or pursuing the light corvettes and patrol craft.
     Jason left the bridge and headed down  the corridor to the fighter bay,
stopping before the ever  present guards and waiting impatiently  until they
brought Vance out.
     "I want  your  gear  torn  up  and  moved out  of  the  way for fighter
recovery," Jason said.
     "What?"
     "You heard me,  Admiral.  I've got twenty fighters out  there, some  of
them undoubtably hurt and I plan to recover them."
     "Jason,  it'll  take days to  disassemble  the D-5. Most of  it is hard
wired into the floor."
     "I'm sorry,  sir, I don't  have  days, for some of those ships  I might
only have minutes. D-5 has to be moved."
     Vance started to bristle.
     "Son, there's billions of  dollars' worth of equipment in there. Enough
money to buy  a couple of  hundred fighters.  Tell your pilots to eject  and
we'll pick them up."
     "I'm sorry, sir,  that's  not  the way it's  going  to  be.  Those  are
colonial fighters and  I'm  not  going  to  go back and  tell Kruger that we
ditched them to save a surveillance computer which has already done its job.
Beyond that, if we don't have those fighters  for the run back home, I don't
think we'll  make it.  We've put  a  real burr in  the ear  of the Cats  and
they'll want our hides as vengeance. This is going to be a running fight all
the way home."
     "Listen, son, I hate to pull  rank, but I  think you  should know I'm a
full admiral in the fleet."
     "I know that, sir, but I am captain of this ship."
     Vance looked at  him appraisingly  and after a  brief span  of seconds,
which to Jason seemed like an eternity,  a thin smile creased  Admiral Vance
Richards' face.
     "Aye aye, sir. I'll have a landing area cleared."
     Jason inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.
     "Thank you, sir," and he headed back to the bridge.
     "Message for you, sir."
     Jason nodded and went over  to the communications  officer and saw that
Paladin had established a laser link.
     "Thanks, laddie."
     Jason sensed that something wasn't right.
     "Are you all right?"
     Paladin nodded and then lowered his head for a second.
     "Jason. Ian's gone."
     Jason felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. He stood silent
     "I told  the lad to run for it, he stayed  to  get me out instead. They
burned him with a missile spread meant for me."
     "Damn it all to hell," Jason whispered.
     "Aye, lad, damn all of it," Paladin sighed.
     There was a moment of silence and then Paladin finally stirred.
     "By the way, did you get the message out?"
     "On its way."
     "I think the old  proverbial  manure is about to hit  the fan when that
arrives."
     "It's only  just started,"  Jason replied  coldly, remembering the holo
display of  the new Kilrathi  carriers. He  realized that  chances were they
might  already  be heading to Earth. The armistice  was a fraud as he always
knew it was, and  by falling for it, the Confederation  might very well have
lost the war. But for the moment it was hard to think  of  that. He had just
lost one of his closest friends and that was all that he could grasp.

     "Sire, there has been an accident."
     Jukaga  looked  up  from  his  desk  at  the  aide who was  bowed  low,
trembling.
     "Go on."
     "Sire, we've just  received a burst signal  that the Emperor's personal
cruiser suffered a reactor detonation, and that all aboard are lost."
     "Oh, really, how tragic."
     The aide looked up at him, confused by his tone.
     "You are dismissed," and he turned away, barely able to hide a flashing
of  teeth in satisfaction. So it had  worked as  planned.  Getting a reactor
fuel tube aboard, with the tiniest of pinholes  drilled into  it, had been a
chore. The fuel rod had been a trick thought up years ago, the idea being to
have  smuggler  craft carry  it into the frontier region and  sell them off,
with the hope that the rods would eventually wind up on Confederation ships.
The rod would then rupture in the white hot heat of the pulse engine reactor
and cause a chain reaction detonation. The idea never worked, but  he always
remembered where  they were stockpiled while everyone else  forgot.  It  had
taken  a little  maneuvering  of computer shipping files to  get it into the
right place, knowing that the Emperor's ship  never  left Kilrah without  an
entirely new load of rods on board.
     He smiled. Yes, that had been masterful, and it helped when one of your
own deep agents worked on ship maintenance. Fortunately, the poor fool never
even really knew what he was doing, which made the plan leak-proof.
     A  moment later there  was  a  flurry  of  angry roars  in the corridor
outside. As he stood up the door slammed open.
     Prince Thrakhath strode into the room.
     Baron Jukaga knew that in spite of all his effort  at  self-control his
mane was bristling with fear. He struggled to bring it under control.
     "Surprised to see me?" Thrakhath growled.
     Jukaga stood, speechless and then finally recovered.
     "I just heard of the tragedy, the Emperor?"
     Better than you had hoped for," Thrakhath snarled.
     "Whatever  do you mean, my Prince?" Jukaga  replied, angry with himself
that there was the slightest of tremors in his voice.
     "That is for you to figure out," Thrakhath stated coldly.
     "I don t understand what you are moving towards.
     Thrakhath  stood  silent,  eyeing  him  coldly. He could  see the Baron
regain  his self control. What  was  enraging was the  simple fact  that the
Emperor, through intuition  or information had suspected that his ship would
be destroyed, but as to how it would be done they had never figured out, and
still did not know and most likely never would. His only real  hope had been
to  so  startle  the  Baron  as  to  make  him  say  something  foolish  and
incriminating  and that, Thrakhath could  already see,  had failed.  It  was
obvious  now that the Baron will claim that he was being blamed unjustly. If
directly accused, the other clans might very well rally to his side  as they
had once before after Vukar.
     Thrakhath snarled angrily, seeing that his bluff had failed.
     Thrakhath, still glaring at Jukaga, waited for him to speak.
     "What  are these  two reports I  just  received," Jukaga finally  said,
motioning to his comm screen. "regarding a bombing on Earth and that the spy
ship was located too late before it sent a burst signal out?"
     "It means that we have to move for war now."
     "That is madness," Jukaga snapped,  regaining his full composure.  "The
plan called for another four and a half eight-of-eights of days."
     "Impossible now,"  Thrakhath replied. "Many of  the humans are  already
blaming us for the bombing, and with the  information regarding our fleet it
means a renewal of war."
     Thrakhath smiled.
     "And an end to your weak scheming."
     "What is the truth about this bombing?" Jukaga asked coldly.
     "Oh, undoubtedly one of their own did it and then will blame it  on us.
Perhaps the attempt on the Emperor can be linked to it."
     Jukaga hesitated.
     "They would never do that, kill  their  own military leaders like that.
There's more to it than that."
     "Are you accusing me?" Thrakhath snapped.
     Jukaga looked at him coldly but knew it was best to back off.
     "And  how did this signal get out? We suspected the carrier was in that
system and we  knew that  their scout ship was running back towards  it. How
could  this  have  happened? There should have  been  a carrier  and  a full
cruiser squadron there."
     "And are you  accusing me of a fault in that  as well?" Thrakhath asked
quietly.
     "You  don't understand at all, do you?" Jukaga finally replied.  "If we
had  but waited  the year,  they  would have fallen into our hands, weak and
divided. Now, they will feel nothing but rage  at a betrayal of their trust,
they will fight with a fanaticism you have never seen.
     "Remember I warned  your father and uncle  of this back  when  the  war
started and they so foolishly decided to open with a surprise attack."
     "Then it is your job to disarm them of this fanaticism, and if you fail
and they do not submit . . ."
     "Then what?" Jukaga snarled
     "I will annihilate  their worlds and no one will be left alive, no one,
and you will be responsible."


        CHAPTER NINE


     "Show that transmission from Tarawa on the main holo."
     "Big Duke" Grecko, the Marine general of the Joint  Chiefs and the only
survivor of the explosion, settled back painfully in his chair. Geoff Tolwyn
looked over at him anxiously. The bleeding  from the lacerations to his back
and neck had soaked through the bandages and his shirt, staining the khaki a
dark red. Geoff wanted to say something but knew it was useless.  Grecko was
a Marine, and would bite the head off of anyone who tried to show sympathy.
     The wonder of it was that Grecko had survived at all. He had walked out
of  the meeting with  the  ambassador in disgust,  threatening to resign his
commission, and was down the far end of the corridor when the bomb went off.
The explosion  had  ripped  Grecko's  left arm off.  Fortunately  it  was an
artificial arm which had replaced the one lost at Vukar and the plasti  limb
absorbed the  blow from a  shattered support pillar  which would have killed
anyone else.
     Grecko started  to move his shoulder, as if the lost limb was  still in
place, swore vehemently and then clumsily used his right hand to scratch his
neck.
     "I'd leave that  alone, sir,  there's still some  shrapnel in  you," an
attentive medic standing behind Grecko said.
     "I  didn't ask  for your advice,  son, and besides  I don't think  your
security clearance allows you to be in here, so get the hell out."
     "I've got my orders  to stay  with you,  sir, until you  report to  the
hospital."
     Grecko looked to the Marine guard standing at the door.
     "Sergeant, either  escort  this pest out of  here or shoot him, I don't
care which."
     Geoff smiled sympathetically at the  medic, who  looked flustered as he
left the room, mumbling that all Marines were nuts.
     "Nothing  a  good shot of  whiskey  and a couple  of minutes  with  the
tweezers can't cure," Grecko snapped, still scratching his neck.
     The holo screen in  the middle of the room activated and Grecko studied
it intently for a long silent minute.
     He picked up a secured phone and punched in a number.
     "Mr.  President, this is Grecko, are  you still in  the  building, sir?
Good, I think you need to come to my office at once," and hung up.
     He looked back at Geoff.
     "We re really in the barrel this time,  Geoff. Are  you  sure that this
stuff Vance just sent is the real goods?"
     "I wasn't there when  he got the data,"  Tolwyn replied, "but you  know
Vance even better than I do,  sir. He wouldn't have  sent  it  if it  wasn't
genuine." Grecko nodded grimly.
     "We've got  five  admirals  and  seven  generals  dead  in  the  morgue
downstairs,  a hundred and thirty one  other  key personnel  gone as well, a
military half dismantled and now this," and he viciously pointed at the holo
as if it were something he could vent his rage on.
     Grecko shook  his head  wearily and Tolwyn  could see that the man  was
struggling to control the  pain, both physical  and emotional. Geoff felt it
as well. He had just lost his old mentor and one  of his closest friends and
many other comrades whom he had served with through the years.
     "How does this all fit together?" Grecko asked.
     "The armistice, I think we had that figured from the beginning," Tolwyn
replied.  "Now  we  know  it was  to buy  time so they could reorganize  and
concentrate  on finishing their  super carriers. They  know that we now know
and I guess that's  where this  bomb plot figured in, to decapitate our high
command, sow confusion and then strike hard straight at Earth."
     "How long before that fleet could get here?"
     "If they were fully ready  to  move, flank  speed could put them across
the Empire in twelve, fourteen days. From the frontier to Earth, another ten
days. Even if we  had full resistance up, I  think  those carriers could cut
through  inside  of two  and a  half weeks  from  the  time they  cross  the
demilitarized zone. Remember, just before the armistice we wargamed that one
out,  the assumption of a surprise attack  with our  own defenses down. With
these new carriers, it doesn't look good at all, sir."
     Grecko exhaled noisily.
     "According to what  Banbridge briefed me on just this  morning, it'd be
at least four months  to  bring  the  fleet  back up  to full  pre-armistice
strength.
     "Damn all to hell," he snapped.
     The  door to  the  small conference  room  opened  and President Rodham
stepped in, followed by Foreign Secretary Jamison.
     Grecko stood  up  as did  Tolwyn. Geoff still found the  nickname  "Big
Duke" amusing  since Grecko barely stood over five two. His  pugnaciousness,
however, more than made  up  for his  shortness and more than one Marine  or
fleeter had found himself on his back after making a comment.
     "How  are  you doing,  Duke?"  Rodham  asked,  looking  at  the  Marine
general's torn and empty sleeve in surprise.
     "Nothing like getting shot in a plastic arm. Didn't hurt a bit."
     Rodham nodded and then shifted his gaze to Tolwyn.
     "What in hell are you doing here?" and his features went cold.
     "He was  here today as a  personal guest of  Admiral Banbridge when the
explosion happened," Duke replied.
     "You  have no security clearance," Jamison shouted.  "Grecko, get  this
man the hell out of here right now! I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out
that he had something to do with this bombing."
     "No, sir, he isn't moving."
     Jamison turned on Grecko in surprise.
     "Rear Admiral Tolwyn," and Geoff  was  surprised to hear Grecko use his
official and former title, "was acting under the direct  orders of the Chief
of  Staff  when he  violated the  cease fire order, with the intent  of thus
having a cover to subsequently engage in a covert operation."
     "If that bastard were alive right now, I'd see that he was  stripped of
his rank," Jamison snarled.
     Grecko stiffened.
     "That bastard, as you call him, ma am, was my closest friend. I'd  like
to suggest, ma'am, that you  go down to the  morgue and  tell what's left of
him that he's a bastard."
     "General, would you  explain  Tolwyn's  presence  here?"  Rodham asked,
stepping between the two as Jamison leaned forward, ready to explode.
     "The Chief of Staff suspected the armistice from the beginning, sir and
asked  Geoff to  volunteer  for  a  covert  mission.  If  the  mission  were
undertaken by someone already dishonorably discharged it would give us," and
he looked coldly at the President, "plausible  deniability if something went
wrong. Geoff organized the transfer of some of our demobilized assets to the
Landreich where the equipment could be kept on line and then went out  on  a
deep  reconnaissance  mission inside the  Kilrathi Empire. He  returned from
that mission and arrived here only minutes before the bomb went off.
     "We've  just received an official  protest over that escapade," Jamison
snapped  "The Kilrathi are screaming their  heads  off claiming that five of
their cruisers were hit in an unprovoked attack and destroyed."
     "What about Tarawa and Normandy?" Tolwyn asked anxiously.
     "They claim they got one."
     "Not a bad  exchange," Grecko said dryly. The  Kilrathi must be  damned
embarrassed, but Tarawa only reported three confirmed kills  for the loss of
Normandy and I'll take their word over the furballs'."
     "They're claiming the right, as  provided in the armistice, to hunt the
other  one  down  and  have  requested  information  regarding  the   ship's
location."
     Jamison looked over at Rodham who nodded sadly.
     "The Kilrathi have  demanded information  regarding the ship's location
and  destination. If we refuse to provide that immediately,  a condition  of
war might be declared."
     "Tell them to go burn in hell," Grecko said.
     "And besides," Tolwyn said  quietly, a  smile  creasing  his  features,
"those ships are not of Confederation registry."
     "Look, General, the armistice is hanging by  a thread," Rodham replied,
ignoring Tolwyn.  "First  the  violation  of their  territory and then  this
terrorist bomb plot to kill  the ambassador  and  make it look like the Cats
did it by killing some of our people as well."
     "Are  you trying  to  tell  us that some  of  our own  people  did this
bombing?" Tolwyn asked,  incredulous  that such  a suggestion could even  be
made.
     "Well, its one  serious possibility," Rodham replied, "and  we have  to
look at all angles."
     Tolwyn was about to  come back with a  rather  angry  and  very obscene
retort, but Grecko held his hand up for him to be silent
     "Sir, I would appreciate it if you took a look at this holo display and
the data printouts. We  just received it as a burst signal  relayed  in from
Tarawa  less than  a  half  hour ago. Their mission  was  to  follow  up our
suspicions regarding Kilrathi  construction  inside  the  Hari  sector," and
Grecko pointed to the three  dimensional projection, in  the middle of which
floated the images of the Kilrathi super carriers.
     Rodham went  over  and looked intently at the carriers, requesting that
the  computer  rotate the images  and  then provide data  on  mass,  length,
armaments, and projected fighter carrying capacity.
     Tolwyn watched the President closely and could  detect a paling  of his
features and more surprisingly a  nervous tic  at  the corner of his eye. It
was  obviously  a  hell  of  a shock for the  President, but he  had  little
sympathy  for him at this moment, still remembering how  not so long ago the
head  of the Chiefs of Staff, with tears of frustration in his eyes,  begged
for the armistice not to be signed, warning of what would be the end result.
Noragami was now dead as a result.
     "Is this genuine?"  Rodham asked  quietly,  now examining the map which
showed where the fleet was and projected times of arrival into Confederation
territory if an offensive were launched.
     "The  data was  burst signaled from Tarawa,  located  here," and Grecko
pointed  at the map showing  the last reported position of the carrier. "The
data was obtained from a deep reconnaissance probe  which ventured into Hari
space."
     "On whose  orders?"  Jamison  asked.  I  was  never  informed  of  this
escapade. Remember, I am  the Foreign Minister and if you were contemplating
a violation of the armistice I should have been informed."
     On the orders of  the Chief of  Staff," Grecko  said  coldly, not  even
bothering to turn.
     "Is there a  chance this  is  falsified information?" Rodham asked, and
Tolwyn could detect the  slight  note  of hopefulness  in  his  voice, as if
wishing that the entire problem would, simply be shown to be a hoax.
     "It was sent  in personally by Admiral Vance Richards,  sir, and that's
good enough for me.
     "Richards is out there þ I thought he retired?"
     Grecko merely smiled.
     "What you've  committed here is outright mutiny,"  Jamison snarled. "If
the  rest  of  the  Joint Chiefs  were  not already  dead  I'd  demand their
resignations as I am now demanding yours."
     Grecko turned slowly and stared at Jamison.
     "If you were not a lady," he said coldly,  "I'd  loosen your  teeth for
what you've done to us. If you want my resignation you can have it, but only
after we have a  full  investigation of  myself, the  Joint Chiefs and  more
importantly of you. Would you care to see the file military intelligence has
on you and  your suspected cooperation with  the Kilrathi in return for your
son?"
     Jamison turned towards the President.
     "I want him fired as of this minute and Tolwyn here put in jail pending
an investigation."
     Rodham looked  over at Jamison  in  confusion and then slowly sat down,
turning to look back at the holo.
     "Your report on the false signal and the Kilrathi message regarding the
antimatter warhead plant, does that fit into this?
     "It fits right in, sir," Grecko replied.
     "Sir, you  are looking at the beginning of  a full scale offensive with
an upgraded fleet," Tolwyn  said. "In less than a month the Kilrathi will be
above Earth demanding our surrender if we're lucky, though if past practices
are  any  indication  they'll  flatten  us  with  a full antimatter  warhead
bombardment and then come down to  gloat over the wreckage and tear out  the
throats  of  the survivors with their claws when  their  next Sivar ceremony
comes around."
     Rodham nodded slowly and  closed his eyes for a moment. Jamison started
to speak and the  president held up his  hand for silence. He finally turned
and looked over at Tolwyn.
     "You were the best fighting admiral in the fleet, Geoff. Banbridge told
me more than once  that he wanted you to  replace him as commander  of Third
Fleet when he retired."
     Geoff lowered his head, saying nothing.
     "Admiral  Tolwyn,  I am officially  pardoning  you for the  incident at
Munro. As of this moment I am reinstating you as  a  full admiral in command
of Third  Fleet,  with  the  mission  of  organizing  defenses  against  the
anticipated Kilrathi invasion. General  Grecko, I  am appointing you the new
head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in command of all Confederation forces."
     "Just what the hell is this?" Jamison roared.
     "Secretary  Jamison,  I expect  your resignation as  Foreign  Secretary
effective  immediately  and  also   advise  you  that  you  will   face   an
investigation.  I have refused to believe the allegations  made against  you
for too long. I think this matter has to be looked into." Jamison's features
flushed.
     "Harry, you can't do this," she said quietly, her voice full of menace.
     "I am the  President of the Confederation, and I  can damn well appoint
and fire my cabinet as I see fit."
     "And have  me as the whipping boy  for this situation?  Like hell. Your
charges against me are nothing but a smokescreen to shift blame. It was your
decision to sign the armistice."
     "Based  upon  the  information  you provided to  me regarding  Kilrathi
political intentions."
     "You're  the president, Harry,"  she snapped  coldly.  "The buck  stops
here, remember."
     Rodham lowered his head, nodding sadly.
     "Yes, it does. I fully realize that," he whispered. "And that is one of
the reasons I demand  your resignation. Admiral Richards presented me with a
report  more  than  six months  ago,  indicating  that you  might  present a
security risk since the capture of your son  and that the Kilrathi  might be
in contact with you for a possible deal."
     "Are you calling me a traitor?" Jamison roared.
     "Not yet," Rodham said quietly.
     "You want my  resignation,  well  you can go to hell. Make  it a public
firing in front of  the  press, and believe me, my side of the story will be
told as well."
     She looked around the room angrily.
     "I'll  see all  of you in hell," and she stormed out of the  conference
room.
     Rodham  watched her go and  wearily he  turned back  to face Tolwyn and
Grecko.
     "I'm sorry, Duke, you and the other officers were right."
     "Even if we turn them back, Mr. President, a lot of good youngsters are
going to die in the doing of it. We had them, sir, we had  them on the ropes
and we could have crippled them. Now it's the other way around."
     "You don't need to remind me, Duke."
     "I  do need to remind you, sir, Grecko snapped back. "It's always  been
this way. The civilians start to forget just how dangerous the world, or the
universe really  is. They start  to believe their fantasies, and then in the
end  it's the  kids  on the  front line  who pay for it. Well, sir,  on this
little  folly  the human  race might very well  become  extinct  before it's
done."
     Rodham started to speak and then stopped and looked away.
     "After I  take  care of Jamison,  I'm resigning as  President," he said
quietly. "Vice President Dave Quinson never did support this idea; he was as
much as public about it.  I think he could help rally our people better than
me."
     "I  think that's a good idea, sir," Duke replied,  his voice  cold  and
even.
     Rodham stood up and looked back at the holo display.
     "You know, Jamison will make this an ugly fight. It might slow down our
mobilization.  I'm therefore issuing  as  my final executive  order  a  full
mobilization of the  fleet, along  with  wartime governmental control of the
economy. Jamison is most likely running to the press right now so I'd better
act first. When I resign my cabinet will have to resign as well. Maybe it'll
clear the deck for Quinson."
     "A smart move, sir."
     Rodham nodded again and extended his hand.
     "I'm sorry, Duke. Sorry for everything."
     Wayne hesitated for a moment and then shook hands.
     Harold Rodham, shoulders slumped  in defeat, turned and walked  out  of
the room, not even noticing the salute of the two officers behind him.
     "I guess his heart was in the right place," Geoff said quietly.
     You  know what  they  pave  the road to hell with,"  Duke replied, "and
frankly, Geoff, I think we're all on a greasy slope  aimed straight into the
fiery pit."

     The Emperor, in an unusual gesture, ordered the screen removed so  that
he was fully visible to those who sat before him. As the two Imperial Guards
drew the screen back the clan  leaders went down on  their knees,  foreheads
touching the cool turquoise inlaid floor of the audience chamber.
     "Raise up your  heads, return  to your feet," he said,  and they did as
commanded.
     "I wanted you to gaze upon me, to dispel any  lingering doubts as to my
continued existence."
     They  stood silently, furtively looking from one to the other, but most
of them  finally turned their gaze upon Jukaga, who stood in  the  middle of
the group, staring straight at the Emperor.
     "You have  heard  the  rumors, and they are true,"  the  Emperor  said.
"Someone  indeed  attempted  the most  heinous  of  all crimes,  a crime  so
loathsome that there is not even a word in our own tongue to describe it, so
that we must borrow this word from corrupt and downcast races."
     He fell  silent  as if  waiting,  and  the  silence  dragged  into long
uncomfortable  minutes, as  if he  were  waiting for one of  them  to  throw
himself upon the foot of the throne in supplication.
     No one moved.
     "He shall  be found out," the Emperor finally said coldly. "Now  let us
discuss the war."
     The group visibly relaxed.
     "The fleet made jump  fourteen days ago from their  base, within  hours
after being discovered, and  is moving at flank speed to the  front. It will
arrive here at Kilrah later today."
     "Then it has begun," Vak breathed, trembling  with excitement and a low
murmuring of growls filled the audience chamber.
     The Emperor nodded.
     "We have placed blame, both for the bomb in their headquarters, and for
this other loathsome act, upon the humans."
     "Could it not  be, Jukaga replied, his voice soft and  even, "that both
bombs were indeed acts of humans?"
     "I heard  a report  that  you yourself said  that  the bombing of their
headquarters could not have been done by them," the Emperor retorted.
     "It is a mere  conjecture," Jukaga  replied, "for I  have not heard any
admission  that we planted the  bomb in their headquarters and thus  wrecked
the peace."
     The  Emperor smiled. Both he  and the  Baron  knew the real truth,  yet
neither could admit it.
     "I expect, Baron, that you will continue to keep them  divided  as long
as possible. Even now they still argue, though, before they shut our embassy
down and arrested the staff, we had information that they were mobilizing."
     "What of our spy?"
     "We have lost touch with  the  embassy and thus  no  longer have direct
contact. It is assumed that she is gone."
     "And what of the human embassy here on Kilrah?" Vak asked.
     "I  ordered their  throats  torn  out this morning,"  the  Emperor said
coldly. "In public we  are blaming them for the bombing of my cruiser. It is
a  convenient  excuse  now  to  treat   them  all  as  they  deserve:  total
annihilation, total destruction of every world they inhabit."
     Jukaga looked up at him in shock.
     "That was in violation  of the rules  of  war and  of  the  agreement,"
Jukaga snapped.
     "What rules of war?" Vak retorted. "There are no rules with such beasts
who have  lost whatever shred of  respect we once held  for  them. They  are
lower than prey and should be exterminated without thought or mercy."
     The Emperor laughed coldly.
     "I am sick to death of this human scum and the potential for corruption
that  they present  to us.  I am therefore issuing  the following order: all
human prisoners that we still hold as well as slaves  are to be slaughtered.
Secondly, the new fleet is  to be  armed with thermonuclear weapons that are
clad in strontium. These heavy weapons,  when detonated in the atmosphere of
a planet, will make uninhabitable. They shall be annihilated."
     As he  finished speaking he looked straight at Jukaga while  the others
in the room roared with delight.
     Jukaga  looked around at the clan leaders  and for the first time truly
felt as if  a distance had opened  up. If his plot  had  succeeded, even now
they  would be  turning to him for guidance.  Now instead they were eager to
close in on  him for the kill. But  there was  more. He felt a cool distaste
for  what  the  Emperor now  proposed. Though  he wanted  to  see the humans
humbled and defeated, he found that of  late he was  feeling  something  far
more, what could almost be called, if not a fondness, at least the beginning
of a respect. He knew he was  falling into a  trap, that if one studied  his
enemy long enough,  and came to know him, in the  end one would find things,
beliefs, and individuals  one could identify with. What the Emperor  was now
proposing was monstrous.
     "Such an action will arouse them  to a frenzy," Jukaga said. "They will
fight as they have never fought before."
     "They are animals to be hunted," the Emperor replied.
     "No, my lord."
     A stunned silence filled the chamber at his direct contradiction to the
Imperial word.  He did not care. How could he even begin to explain  what he
knew,  the countless examples of humans, motivated to fight  without thought
of self, fully willing to die fighting rather than submit.
     "Terror will not breed submission as it  did with others," Jukaga  said
quickly. "It will instead create a wish, as the humans put it  óto  take one
of the bastards with me.' "
     The utterance of an obscenity, which to the Kilrathi was  the most foul
of insults shocked the other clan leaders.
     "Do  what  is  assigned  to you, Baron," the  Emperor  replied sharply.
"Convince them to submit. Now leave me!"
     Baron Jukaga backed out of the room, barely inclining his head.

     Jason "Bear" Bondarevsky opened his eyes  as  the distortion field from
the transit jump settled down and looked over at his navigation officer.
     "Alignment correct, star lock confirmed, jump was on the mark."
     "Tactical," and  he turned in  his chair to look at the officer hovered
over the holo display of the sector.
     "Bannockburn  in position eighty nine thousand  clicks dead  ahead. Too
early to  tell yet,  sir,  on  passive  optical sweep.  At jump  transit our
pursuers, three  corvettes  and  one frigate,  were forty-two  thousand nine
hundred clicks dead astern and gaining at eight point two clicks a second."
     Jason nodded. There was time to scout around before worrying  about the
back door.
     "Flight deck."
     "Doomsday here, sir."
     "How are the birds?"
     "All fighters ready and armed, just give us the prey."
     "What about munitions?"
     Doomsday gave his usual glum look.
     "Enough for one more strike, sir. Eight torpedoes  are all we have left
for ship  busters. The  fighters  will  have to sortie  with  half  standard
missile and mass driver round bolts."
     "Standby."
     "Paladin on laser lock, sir."
     Jason looked  over at the communications officer and nodded  for her to
put it on the main holo.
     "How goes it, laddie?"
     Jason smiled. Even though he  was technically the commander of this two
ship fleet, he  knew Paladin would never follow protocol of address  and the
fact was refreshing.
     "Fighters are  up and armed.  Damage control's repaired the hull breech
in the port engine room."
     "And Vance?"
     "Madder than  hell. Seems Sparks broke one of  his computers  moving it
out, said  something  about the machine  costing just  under half a billion.
Sparks frowned, then said he could dock her pay if he was upset, but she had
fighters to service."
     "Good for Sparks.  She's  a  rare  lass," Paladin laughed  and then his
features went glum.
     "We've got some trade up  ahead, lad. Another cruiser just came through
from  the jump point  leading  back  to  Kilrah with two destroyers leading.
Looks like  standard tactical  for  more coming behind. I tapped  into their
comm channel and they're madder than hell and lookin for blood."
     "Can we run past them to our jump point?"
     "Just barely."
     Jason punched into the engine room.
     "Shovel  on  the coal  back  there.  I  want  full  thrust, fuel scoops
closed."
     "Close the scoops and we'll run her bone dry by the next jump.
     "Just do it."
     He switched back to Paladin.
     "Let's get the hell out of here, and hope they don't have more  waiting
at the next jump."
     "Laddie, from the looks  of It  I  think the whole Empire  is  gonna be
stirring to fry us."
     "Let's just hope Kruger figures a way to get us out of here.


        CHAPTER TEN

     Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn stood up  and  walked to the front of the room.
He looked down the length of the conference table and felt  a cold twinge of
pain. So many familiar faces were gone,  killed in the  bomb attack. It felt
strange now  to  be standing before this group; after all it was Banbridge's
job to run Third Fleet. He suddenly felt old  and very lonely. He pushed the
thought aside.
     "Good morning."
     He paused, reached into his breast pocket, pulled  out  an envelope and
opened  the letter.  A  paper  letter such  as the one he was  holding was a
wonderful  gesture  out  of  the past,  part of the old  traditions that the
military still hung on to.
     "By order  of the JCS, Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn  is appointed  commander
Third Fleet  as of this date, with the primary mission of meeting, engaging,
and destroying  any  hostile  invasion  into  Confederation space  which  is
directed towards the inner  system of worlds.  You are  authorized to employ
any means necessary as outlined in Emergency Decree  394 issued this date by
the President of the  Confederation. Your command will include 3rd Destroyer
Group, Commodore Polowski commanding . . ."
     He paused and looked back up at the group.
     "Anyhow,  all of you  are  listed here," he  said quietly, "and if  you
aren't  listed,  I'm taking  you anyhow,"  and the room  echoed with nervous
laughter.
     Geoff activated the main holo screen  which displayed  the new Kilrathi
heavy carriers, while  a side screen displayed  the surmised position of the
fleet and its possible route into Confederation space.
     A low murmur of  voices filled the room as the dozen group and squadron
commanders, representing the  ships and Marine assault regiments  under  his
command examined the data.
     "Our  task  is to  meet  and  stop this force before it gains the inner
worlds of the Confederation."
     "Just how many  fighters  will  these  ships carry?"  Lyford  Beverage,
commander of the First Cruiser Squadron asked.
     "We're working off of only one intelligence sweep, a long range optical
examination followed by  a translight radar burst,  so our  data is sketchy.
Our evaluation  team believes they carry four launch bays, and  perhaps six.
It's hard to tell, since all the  ships were aligned identically at the time
we swept them so we don't have a full examination from all angles. Given the
mass of the ships, our  best guess is  two hundred and forty fighters, scout
and bomber craft, perhaps three hundred. Close analysis of the scan detected
five of the ships emitting infrared  signatures for functional reactors. The
other seven were cold."
     "Good lord, Geoff, if five of those things are coming at  us that means
we'll be facing upwards of fifteen hundred attack ships," Rear Admiral Allen
Zitek growled  from the back of  the  room, his speech computer  making  him
sound almost robotic. Zitek  had been  badly burned  years before leading  a
squadron against a Kilrathi carrier. It still amazed Geoff what the surgeons
could do if a man could be brought in while still alive.
     "Don't forget  that  the  Kilrathi  had a  minimum  of  nineteen  other
standard carriers  and at least twenty heavy cruisers  that  carried  thirty
fighters each. That comes to  over three  thousand seven hundred  additional
strike craft."
     There was a chilled moment of silence.
     "What  about  logistical  support,  supplies,  and  training  from  the
Kilrathi view point?" Duke Grecko asked from the back of the room.
     "That's the one hope," Geoff replied. "We now understand the mystery of
their  transport shortage and  their occasional  shortages of missiles. They
were straining their system  beyond the max to keep the war going and at the
same time building this new fleet in secret.  I've handed  this data over to
intelligence analysis, and I'm stilling  waiting for the full report. My gut
feeling  on it is that  they  couldn't fully do  both. I think they stripped
some  of  their best  squadrons off  their front  line carriers  during  the
armistice  and  shipped  the personnel out  to the new ships, replacing them
with new recruits. The burst signal from Tarawa already indicated a thousand
fighters  transferred  off  ships  that  had  been put  into their  inactive
reserve. I'm certain we'll see their best shot  from the new carriers, which
will be fully loaded for combat.  The rest of  the  fleet will be held in  a
secondary support role or open action on other fronts as diversions."
     "That still  would  leave a minimum  of fifteen hundred strike craft on
five carriers coming straight at Earth, not to mention what looks like close
to a hundred escort ships," Zitek replied. "And just  how many fighters will
we have to meet this?"
     "We can have five carriers fully  on line within two weeks, with  forty
one escorts, carrying a total of six hundred and eighty-nine strike craft."
     "Just five?"
     "Actually,  only two are on  line  and fully operational at the moment,
Geoff said shaking his head.
     "With crews working around the  clock and cutting a  lot of corners,  I
expect  to  see three more carriers ready to join the fleet by the  time the
Kilrathi  penetrate into Confederation space. It'll be forty-five days, more
like sixty, before our remaining carriers will be on line again."
     "Jamison  was  brilliant  pushing  that deactivation  through,"  Grecko
snapped and Geoff could only nod his head in agreement.
     The political arena with Jamison standing in  the center was now one of
absolute  chaos.  Less than twenty-four hours ago  Rodham had announced  the
existence of the Kilrathi super carriers and the  assumption  that Earth had
been directly  targeted for attack.  He then called  for  the  Confederation
Senate to renounce the armistice and to mobilize  for  a renewal of the war,
closing with his resignation as president. Minutes  later the vice president
was  sworn  in  and delivered a  sharp rousing  speech, demanding  that  the
Kilrathi open their  border  for full inspection of  the new fleet  or  face
offensive action.  It was all a  bluff on Quinson's  part, but  it at  least
sounded good. The Confederation had been thrown into a state of panic by the
announcement, with every holo reporter scrambling to put  their spin on  the
issue,  which ranged from "we've  been stabbed in the back  by the Cats," to
"the evil military was pushing for a war." The situation was further stirred
up by the Kilrathi reply that the bombing of headquarters and the attempt on
the Emperor's life were part of a military coup by pro-war officers and that
they were totally innocent of any wrong-doing.
     At first Geoff had naively assumed that this had closed the  deal, that
the Senate would vote for war and that the new president's  declaration of a
full military emergency would be observed.
     Jamison had  triggered near chaos instead. First she refused to resign,
even though Quinson  had appointed a new Foreign Minister. Next  she accused
the  military of conspiring to renew  the war,  a position that the Kilrathi
were pumping out through their propaganda agencies.
     The result  was that the Senate  had  still not declared war, wavering,
some  even  adopting the  Kilrathi  line, and demanding  that  the  military
unilaterally disarm.
     Quinson had stood firm, however, evoking  executive right to  order the
military  to mobilize for emergency action. The one restraint, however,  was
that such  an emergency did  not give the fleet  the right to take offensive
action.  Tolwyn had actually fallen  into  a  shouting match with the senate
military committee over  that point, wanting to  free  his two light escorts
that were operational for a spoiling and recon raid into Kilrathi space, but
he had been held back.
     Sometimes it really bites to be in the military," Polowski snapped from
the back  of the room.  "I'd just love to get Jamison onboard  my ship  as a
forward turret gunner's  mate when we charge those carriers and let  her see
what  her peace loving friends have done while  we slept,"  and there  was a
chorus of approval.
     Geoff held up his hand for silence.
     "Remember, we  are the  military.  Civilian politics is outside of  our
control and like it or not that's  a tradition we must observe. It's our job
to defend the Confederation from  the attack we all know is  coming, and I'm
counting on you to give it everything you have.  Some really  big damn fools
got  us into  this fix. The hell with  them, push them out of your  minds. I
want you to focus on the billions  of innocent people who will be under  the
Kilrathi antimatter bombs and the survivors who will face their knives if we
fail. The existence of the human race now hangs in the balance
     He paused for a moment. The words had come  out of  him, not planned at
all. In any other setting he felt they would  have  sounded worn. But it was
the simple truth: the actual existence of his entire species rested in their
hands. One  wrong move on his part and it  might all be over with. All of it
gone forever, two thousand years of England gone, a  cold  silence of death,
of extinction.
     I can't dwell on  this, he realized. It'll drive me insane  if I do, so
stay focused on the job and nothing else.
     He switched the holo screen  to a map of the inner core  of planets and
the jump lines leading out to the frontier.
     "The  Kilrathi have three main  lines of approach, all of which finally
come in here," and he pointed  to a blue white star  from which  radiated  a
number of jump lines. "Here at  Sirius and the jump point behind Sirius  the
shortest  routes of jump lines come together  and then  from there  straight
back to Earth. By  the shortest route, jump line alpha, it's ten jump points
from Sirius  to the  frontier, four  back to Earth.  The next route, beta is
twelve jumps to the  frontier and delta  is thirteen.  All  the other routes
meander back and forth. For the Kilrathi I think they'll be so confident  of
their  strength, and  also concerned about not giving us time to rearm, that
they'll come straight on in.
     "I propose to meet them in front of Sirius."
     "Geoff, that abandons several hundred inhabited colonies further  out,"
Polowski said quietly, "my own home of Planet Warsaw being one of them."
     Tolwyn nodded.
     "There are eighteen major jump  points leading  across the frontier and
several dozen  other  jump  points running parallel or  zigzagging back  and
forth. Before  the armistice neither we nor the Kilrathi had the strength to
simply go charging in, saying the hell with our rear and leaping towards the
jugular. They  now  do.  We  lack the strength of a major counter strike and
even if we did have it, it'd be weeks before we could even begin to move it.
By then  it'll be too  late. In  addition they can  hold a  number  of their
standard fleet carriers in reserve as a reaction force to counter even light
escort raiders the way we  had been using them in the past. We have  to fall
back and concentrate what assets we have. If we try  a  forward defense they
might swing around us."
     "Why not an offensive, Geoff? Split them  off  the way we did at  Vukar
Tag," Grecko asked from the back of the room.
     "It won't work this time, sir. Even if we took what  we  had  right now
and shot it straight in, their older carriers acting as a reserve would stop
us cold,  while the new  fleet would just  continue  on  into Earth. Second,
they'd see it for  what it was, an  effort to  split their offensive. They'd
ignore it and still bore straight in. What we have  to do  is seek a meeting
engagement with  their main fleet and stop it, that's the only viable option
left open to us."
     "So what about my home planet?" Polowski asked
     Geoff paused for a moment. The cold hard word for it was "abandon"  but
he could not bring himself to say that, or even really admit it to himself.
     "Mike, the  Kilrathi have two ways to  run this offensive. The first is
to break through our forward defenses, then spread out and start ripping the
colonial  worlds to shreds.  Every day that they do that is one more day for
us  to rearm and they  know it. The second way is to come charging  straight
in,  figuring they can mop up the colonies at their  leisure after  the core
planets have been destroyed along with the fleet."
     "I'm betting on the second method. It's sound militarily and  it's what
we would do: kill the home world and inner planets and end the war. The only
advantage we can hope for  is to stand and defend  as close to our main base
as  possible,  thus  stretching  their line  of  communication while we  can
continue to pour into action whatever ships come on line at the last minute.
It is the one classic advantage of the  defensive the ability  to fall  back
upon your base of supplies, and it's our only hope."
     "Easy for you  to say," Mike replied.  "My entire family's out there on
Warsaw, two jumps from the frontier."
     "Can  you propose any  other  alternative  given  what we  have?" Geoff
asked, his  voice filled with a genuine  concern. He knew he couldn't simply
order men to abandon their homes and  families. They'd have to be willing to
do it with the hope of final victory and then rescue, no matter how slim the
chance.
     Mike looked down at his memo pad and then finally shook his head
     "You're right, Admiral, its the only way," and  there was a soft chorus
of agreement.
     "I  wish we could inform the  governors  and  presidents of the various
colonial  worlds of our  strategic plan,  though  for security reasons it is
obvious  we cannot. For that matter, gentlemen, no one outside  this room is
to have any knowledge of what our strategy is.
     "That'll give  precious little warning to  whichever worlds are  in the
way of the fleet," Zitek said. "Even if they're coming straight  on, they'll
still dispatch some cruisers on the way in to scorch the planets directly in
their path.  They'll have to, they can t afford to leave potential  bases in
their rear.  Nearly every one of those outer worlds has at least one base on
them, the major systems garrisoned with troops and orbital bases. They could
stand against raiders, but not against what they'll be throwing in."
     Geoff  nodded grimly.  It meant that millions in the outer worlds might
die. He  could  only  hope that those  who  could get out of the  way would,
heading to remote areas of their world to wait out the attack. At least most
of  the worlds were sparsely populated,  with a lot of room to  hide. In the
early  days of the war the  outer  regions,  except for the Landreich on the
flank of  the Confederation, had been devastated, and billions had died. The
region had yet to recover.  It wasn't  until Sirius  was reached  inside the
area  never touched  by the  war,  that  the  major inhabited  regions  were
located.
     He could only hope  they had dug their shelters  deep enough to survive
bombardment.
     "So  the colonies  are  a  write off?"  Duke  asked quietly,  obviously
wanting to make the fact absolutely clear.
     "Local  guard units will be given  the discretion  to stay, but I  want
everything here for the major  showdown," and he pointed  at Sirius, hanging
in the middle of the holo. "Sirius is where the decision will be made."
     "What about the Landreich and Kruger?" Polowski asked.
     "I'll ask them for help  and  for the release  of the escorts we signed
over to them,  but I doubt old Kruger will  be  amused that once again we're
pulling a withdrawal due to strategic necessity."
     He could well imagine the explosion  that  would  be created  when  the
burst signal reached Kruger on that one.
     "Gentlemen, I want the fleet fully loaded and ready to move within four
days."
     The men looked at him incredulously.
     "Geoff,  it'll  be  eight, more  like  ten days  before  we get all our
personnel back in aboard ship," Zitek replied. "Even our active carriers had
half  their  crews on  leave.  Some  of  them  are  at  the far  end of  the
Confederation."
     "You'll find a  clause in  Emergency  decree 394A  that  allows for the
drafting of emergency replacements off civilian ships, and retired personnel
if need be for the duration of the emergency. Use it, shanghai your crews if
necessary, but  I  want full ship's  complements inside of ninety-six hours.
Now  let's get to work." The admirals and  Marine  officers filed out of the
room. Geoff looked back down at his memo pad, ready to feed in a long series
of orders. Looking up he saw that Duke had stayed behind.
     "Something's wrong, isn't it?" Geoff said, sensing that there  was  bad
news coming.
     Duke nodded.
     "I just got a signal in the clear from Kruger."
     "Go on."
     "He  told us and I quote  óyou  created this mess, you  solve it. Go to
hell.' "
     Geoff chuckled sadly.
     "Doesn't  the  damn  fool  realize,"  Grecko  snapped,  "that   if  the
Confederation goes down, the Cats will turn on him next?"
     "If  he comes to help  us,  he'll get hit from  the rear.  It's the old
classic  problem  of  frontier militia  being  called  up to  serve with the
regulars þ do you leave your homes open to attack  by marching off somewhere
else?"
     Geoff paused, realizing that there was something else to the message.
     "You're holding something back, Duke, what is it?"
     "He also reported, in the clear, that Tarawa  has failed  to return and
is assumed lost."
     Geoff remained standing, staring straight at Duke.
     "Damn this war to hell."

     Eyes wide with excitement and with the thrill of the hunt,  the Emperor
turned to face his grandson.
     "Magnificent, simply magnificent," he growled, turning back to look out
the  forward view port of  the cruiser that now served as the Imperial ship.
Less than a kilometer away, the Kilrathi Fifth Fleet of the  Claw  passed by
in review.  The light frigates,  corvettes  and three  destroyer  groups had
already passed. The last of the heavy cruisers was just passing to port  and
now the first of the new carriers, Hagku'ka, came into view.
     Every fighter  had been launched  and moved in  formation ahead of  the
carrier,  three  and  a  half  eighties  of  fighters  arrayed  in  eight  V
formations. The  bow  of  the  carrier  came into view, the heavy  durasteel
forward  edge  studded with quad mounted mass driver guns  and  anti-torpedo
launch tubes. Three launch decks, one on either side and one  topside opened
into the vast interior of the ship,  which was  mostly comprised of the huge
hangar bays, workshops, and armament storage areas needed for the fighters.
     Internal bulkheads had been double layered, compartmentalizing the ship
so that even  if the forward  end was  shattered all the way back amidships,
the aft half could continue to  fight.  Three  belts of armor sealed off the
outside of the ship from the interior so that if a torpedo did penetrate the
phase shielding and  outer  layer  of armor, its  detonation would not burst
into the  vulnerable inner  decks and fuel  storage  areas. Sealed  internal
access shafts even allowed for the  transfer of  fighters  from one  bay  to
another for launching if a bay opening were shut down. Just aft of  amidship
three more launch bays were mounted pointing aft, in  the same configuration
as  the forward half of the ship. The six Yatug class engines were  actually
buried  inside  the  ship,  wrapped  in heavy  armor,  their  exhaust  vents
tunneling through thirty meters  of ship  before reaching  open space. If  a
spread of  missiles were closing from astern, the engines could be throttled
off and  the exhaust  vents slammed  shut, the missiles impacting impotently
against heavy durasteel. The shields  could then be retracted, or if need be
blown clear and the engines unharmed, fired back up.
     The  first carrier  passed,  followed by  four  more  and  the  Emperor
watched, speechless. So this was the culmination of years of secret planning
and the stripping of the best resources of the Empire. All for this, a