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# CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
The Last Roadblock

The staffers and subordinate commanders crowding Hiarnow'kharnak's flag briefing room rose respectfully as Ynaathar'solmaak entered. The First Fang didn't notice. Instead he stared aghast at the screen, where the planet Harnah showed in all its blue loveliness.

What graaznaak-brained idiot left the outside view on? The sight of that planet is not what we need! And of course it would be out of the question for me to order it turned off now. All I can do is try to ignore it.

So he made the best of a bad situation and proceeded to his place at the table with a mumbled "Please be seated." They did so, led by the trio directly across from him: Warmaster Rikka, who'd asked for this conference; his Telikan second in command, Warmaster Kazwulla Garadden; and Aileen Sommers.

Even though Ynaathar considered himself—not without reason—a cosmopolite, it was never easy to read the body language of aliens, especially of aliens whose species one had only recently encountered. Despite that, he could tell that Rikka and Garadden were in the grip of some strong emotion, sternly controlled—an emotion rising, in Garadden's case, to the level of waking nightmare. Equally obvious was an element of strain between Rikka and Sommers that hadn't been there before, a certain stiff, self-conscious separateness in the way they sat side by side.

"This meeting," Ynaathar began, "has been convened at the request of the commanding officer of Task Force 86."

That was First Grand Wing's designation within the organizational context of Eighth Fleet. Rikka had accepted it with every appearance of good grace, and Ynaathar was certain it had nothing to do with whatever was bothering the Crucian. It was certainly an appropriate designation, given the sheer size of Eighth Fleet, and the warmaster had clearly recognized the need to fully integrate his own command into the far larger Allied force structure in a way which would minimize communications and command bottlenecks.

At the same time, Ynaathar was beginning to realize that the Crucian "task force" was a strategic asset whose value far exceeded its mere tonnage. The SBMHAWK bombardment of the Anderson One warp point fortresses had reduced them effectively to rubble, and no major Bug fleet units had been committed to the defense of the system. But that didn't mean they'd been unopposed, and the gunboats and kamikaze shuttles based on Harnah had swarmed to meet them. The Crucian fighter pilots were eager to upgrade to the specially modified F-4s the Federation was already putting into production to suit their own life support and body form requirements, but what they could do with the "obsolete" F-3s was an eye opener. They'd cut their way through the Bug gunboats and small craft like a laser scalpel, and Ynaathar knew their efforts had substantially reduced the casualties Eighth Fleet would otherwise have suffered.

Which made Rikka's obvious unhappiness even more distressing to the fang. He watched the warmaster's folded wings quivering, as if he was constantly forced to restrain their need to unfold in agitation, and hoped this meeting wasn't going to be as bad as he feared it might.

"As all of you know," he continued after a moment, "our recon fighter screen has reported that the only starships still in Aaahnnderrssson One are the thirty warp point defense cruisers in orbit around the planet." He neither named Harnah nor indicated the blue globe floating serenely in the screen behind him as he went on. "Our sensors have confirmed that the starships are tied into the planetary defense nets, which, of course, means they would be able to use the planetary point defense installations to support their own anti-missile defenses if we should decide to attack them in a . . . conventional manner."

He paused, considering his circumlocution, and decided it was time to stop worrying about awakening ghosts.

"Now, in the absence of a thorough reconnaissance of this system we have no way to be certain that there really are no additional Bahg starships in it. They could be lying in cloak, waiting to come in behind us. And ever since our experience in Operation Pessssthouse, we have known better than to discount the threat of Bahg traps."

An uncomfortable muttering ran through the room, but Ynaathar had expected it and continued calmly.

"As we all know, Second Fleet did not bombard Harnah when it passed through this system in the course of Operation Pessssthouse—and we all know the reason why. That reason has lost none of its force. But that was before we knew what the abrupt annihilation of a large Bahg population does to the remaining Bahgs in the local planetary system. In light of what we now know, we must seriously consider the possibility of exercising what has become known as the 'Shiiivaaa Option.' "

Ynaathar gestured toward the commander of Task Force 82.

"Fifth Fang Shiiaarnaow'maazaak has proposed that, after taking out Harnah's orbital fortresses and cruisers, we position SBMHAWK carrier pods in a dense orbital pattern around the planet, to be activated if we come under attack from additional, heavy Bahg mobile forces, searing the surface clean of life and thereby stunning and disorienting our attackers."

He ran his eyes over the room. It held a variety of expressions.

"Needless to say, the ethical implications cannot be ignored. I am sure Fifth Fang Shiiaarnaow is as sensible of them as any of us." Actually, Ynaathar wasn't sure of any such thing. Shiiaarnaow was a reactionary who fancied himself a warrior of the old school. "But before we turn to this issue, I invite Warmaster Rikka to address the meeting."

"Actually, First Fang, it was on this very issue that I wished to make my views known."

Rikka straightened up and, in the very limited space available to him, fluttered his folded wings back and forth a few times in what Ynaathar suspected was the equivalent of a Human or an Orion drawing a deep breath.

"I first learned of the 'Shiva Option' while at Alpha Centauri," the warmaster began. "When we entered this system and I learned there was a Demon planetary population of billions here, I asked one of my human liaison officers why we even hesitated to use it. That was how I learned . . ." All at once, Rikka's self-control gave way and he whirled on Sommers. "Why did you never tell us?"

Sommers stared back at him for several agonizing seconds, then spoke from the depths of obvious misery.

"I didn't know myself, until our return to Alpha Centauri. Oh, there'd been rumors about Harnah, just before my survey flotilla departed. But that was all: rumors!"

"You could have shared those rumors with us."

"I didn't really believe them . . . because I couldn't let myself believe them! Remember, there are human colonies that have been under Bug occupation since the early days of the war."

"But after we arrived at Alpha Centauri, you learned that the rumors had been true all along, and still you said nothing!"

"All right, damn it!" flared Sommers. "Yes, I could have told you. But would you really have wanted to me too? Are you sure you really would have wanted to know? You . . . and Garadden?" A low sound escaped the Telikan warmaster. Ynaathar's interpreter earpiece—aside from the personnel of the original SF 19, no one in the Alliance had had time to learn Crucian, so SF 19 had downloaded its own translation software to the flagship's computers—didn't translate it. But Sommers needed no translation, and something seemed to go out of her.

"Cancel all that bullshit," she muttered. "Yes, I should have told you. Call me a coward if you want to. I can't argue."

Rikka also subsided.

"I, too, have been uttering grazing-animal excrement. I understand why you didn't tell us, and it has nothing to do with cowardice—a thing no one in the Star Union would ever accuse you of. No, you knew only too well how we would react. You knew how you yourself had reacted, knowing that the Demons had held certain Human worlds for a few of your years. And you thought to yourself: 'But a hundred years. . . ?' "

Ynaathar had been getting ready to reprove Rikka and Sommers for the impropriety of their exchange. Now he felt no inclination whatsoever to do so. For he, too, understood.

He cursed himself for not understanding sooner.

He had no excuse. He'd reviewed Sommers' report, and talked to the Crucian representatives. So he'd known, as a matter of dry historical fact, the way the First Crucian-Arachnid War had ended, a century before. He'd even known—on the same bloodless level—that the closed warp point through which the Crucians had withdrawn had been located in the home system of the Star Union member-race known as the Telikans. He'd known all that. He'd just never felt it.

What is wrong with me? he wondered. Have the last nine years so surfeited us with horror that we have lost the capacity to notice it? That one who calls himself a warrior of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee could not even think about the implications . . . or realize how any being sworn to the defense of his—or her—people would react to such news?

If so, that is not the least of the things the Bugs have robbed us of.

Garadden's hands twisted together. They were surprisingly humanlike—the most humanlike thing about her. To Humans, she resembled an animal known as a koala bear—sheer coincidence, for the koala was a mammal, while the Telikans laid eggs—but with arms that hung almost to ground level when she stood up to her full 1.7-meter height. Humans, Ynaathar had heard, regarded koalas as irresistibly cute. There may have been some, although he hadn't met any, who thought that about Telikans. But nobody thought it of Garadden.

"One of the children the retreating Crucian fleet evacuated from Telik was my direct maternal ancestor," she said without looking up, in a voice of acid-etched lead. "When those children were thought old enough for the truth, they were told what everyone in the Star Union believed to be the truth. That is the myth that has sustained us ever since: our families purging the planet's databases of all reference to the closed warp point, leaving us and the rest of the Star Union safe to someday avenge them, and then sitting down to wait for the Demons to arrive, bringing a death which, however obscene, was at least quick."

Garadden rose to her feet, gray fur bristling, and her voice grew louder and harsher. No, not cute at all, thought Ynaathar.

"Now we know the real truth. We know the agony went on for generation after generation. We know that Telik today is not a world of honored ghosts, but of meat animals that know. And that those meat animals are our cousins!"

Garadden looked like she was going to be sick. In any other circumstances, it would have astonished anyone who knew her. But Ynaathar didn't find it incongruous at all. He belatedly recalled—as I have been belatedly recalling a great many things, he reproached himself—that the Telikans were herbivores. Garadden had been speaking of things even more horrifying and revolting for her than they would be for an omnivorous Human, and far more so than for a carnivorous Orion.

Rikka also stood, a diminutive form beside his massive second in command, but radiating no less horror . . . or fury. He glared around the room, letting his eyes linger on every other officer present before he finally brought them to rest on Ynaathar.

"All members of the Star Union—not just Telikans—are as one on this point. We cannot countenance the idea of killing the Demons' victims along with the Demons. Nor can we allow ourselves to be associated with such an act!"

Ynaathar met the Crucian's eyes. Rikka had retained enough diplomatic poise to not state the obvious corollary of his own words: that the alliance had no future if Ynaathar did this thing. And Ynaathar, of course, could hardly utter it aloud either.

"Thank you for your forthright expression of the Star Union's position, Warmaster Rikka," he said instead. "For my own part, I regret the breakdowns of communication and failures of sensitivity that led us to this unfortunate misunderstanding. Now that I understand your viewpoint, and appreciate the horror that lies behind it, I fully accept your argument."

Rikka and Garadden resumed their seats amid a general relief that was as palpable as it was unvoiced, and Ynaathar turned a subtly pointed look on the Task Force 82 commander.

"Fang Shiiaarnaow, I presume you will wish to withdraw your proposal."

Shiiaarnaow hesitated, and for a horrible instant Ynaathar was afraid the crusty warrior was going to ruin everything. Traditionally, the honor code of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee had held that, while it was the duty of the warrior caste to defend the Khanate's civilian populace, even some of those citizens were expendable if the harsh necessity of war required it to defend the Khanate as a whole. And Shiiaarnaow was just the being to indulge in some totally inappropriate huffiness along those lines at this of all moments. But when he finally spoke, it was with his very best attempt at diplomacy.

"Of course, First Fang. We all share our allies' fury and revulsion at what these chofaki have done. And, at any rate, the issue is hardly a vital one here in Harnah, where there is no major enemy fleet element to oppose us. But . . ."

Again, Shiiarnaow paused. Then he spoke unswervingly, and Ynaathar found himself reluctantly recalling the Human expression big brass ones.

"There will be other systems where populations like the Harnahese—and, yes, the Telikans—still exist in their millions among the Bahg billions. What if we encounter a massive concentration of defensive power in such a system? Are we to unconditionally deny ourselves the option of disorganizing and befuddling the Bahgs in such a situation? Will our Crucian allies insist that we abide by their principles at any cost, no matter how many avoidable casualties it entails?"

"I respect your viewpoint, Fang," Rikka replied heavily. "But you must respect the fact that for us this is more than a 'principle,' which is how my translator renders your term. It is a cultural and religious imperative!"

"But," TF 85's Vice Admiral Samantha Enwright protested in a deeply troubled voice, "we're talking about beings degraded almost below the level of sentience, Ambassador. They're the end products of generations of ruthless selection in favor of individuals willing to go on living and reproducing in the full knowledge of what awaited them and their children. Forgive me, Warmaster Garadden, but might death not be a mercy for them? A release?"

"I will not accept that death or continued animalism are their only alternatives," Garadden ground out. "They can be . . . rehabilitated. And no, I don't expect it to be easy. It will take a heartbreaking effort. But we must make that effort!"

The commander of Task Force 81 looked up, and his expression surprised Ynaathar. Admiral Francis Macomb was what one might call a human equivalent of Shiiarnaow, and Ynaathar would have expected him to give the Orion his full-throated support. But he looked uncharacteristically troubled.

"Warmasters, I understand what you're saying. From the bottom of my heart, I understand it! But how can we liberate a subjugated population on a world like this?" Macomb's usual persona returned with a bark of scornful laughter. "When Admiral Antonov first discovered Harnah, there was a lot of talk about some kind of gene-engineered bioweapon that would wipe out the Bugs without harming the native life forms. Typical! As far back as the twentieth century, we humans got into the habit of expecting a high-tech 'silver bullet' for every dilemma. But it came a cropper in the end."

There was much nodding of heads, and the various nonhuman equivalents thereof. In retrospect, the failure of the bioweapons research was no surprise. Galactic society was far less advanced in that area than a twentieth-century Terran would have expected. The reason was simple: fear. The kind of fear that had assumed the stature of a full-blown cultural taboo. Everyone knew that tailored microorganisms could mutate beyond their creators' control faster than you could say "Frankenstein." Humans knew it in their forebrains, from theoretical studies and computer models. Orions knew it in their guts . . . from what had actually happened to their original homeworld.

"So," Macomb continued, "if we want to selectively exterminate the Bugs on a planet like Harnah while sparing the natives, we're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: put our Marines down into the mud. Now, the only time we've gone toe-to-toe against the Bugs on the ground was during Admiral Murakuma's counteroffensive in the Romulus Chain. I've talked to General Raphael Mondesi, who commanded the landing force—he's at Alpha Centauri now, in a staff billet. So I have some conception of what it's like."

Macomb hesitated, and sought for the words that would give these people a glimpse of the hell Mondesi had evoked for him. In the end, he knew, no one who hadn't seen it for himself could possibly grasp the full implications, but he went ahead and tried anyway.

"It's not like fighting a normal enemy, one whose spirit you can break by hurting him enough," he said. "It's more like fighting a force of nature—like a hurricane or a tidal wave, but one with a brain. One that can think and plan and adjust its responses in the face of resistance. One made up of millions of units that individually just don't care whether they live or die! And it's not just the warriors. They can use the workers to screen their warriors' assaults—to soak up our fire until they can get across any kill zone we could set up. And on a planet like Harnah, there are billions of them. Billions! Do you have any idea what that means? Any idea of the losses our Marines would take?"

There was a dead silence as everyone in the room tried to see through the eyes of those Marines—necessarily limited in numbers, for even the Grand Alliance's spacelift capacity was finite. It would be like staring up at a towering tsunami of malignant, insensate protoplasm.

"The position is, undeniably, a difficult one, First Fang," Rikka said into the silence at last. "We fully grasp the implications of what we're insisting on—the sacrifices we're asking of your personnel. And we are prepared to make you an offer as an earnest of our commitment."

"An . . . offer?"

"Yes First Fang. I make it in my capacity as ambassador. But Warmaster Garadden has asked to speak for me—as, I believe, is fitting."

Garadden stood up again.

"Our proposal is this," she said. "If the other members of the Grand Alliance will pledge to refrain from bombarding Demon-occupied planets with subjugated native populations on their surfaces, the Star Union will pledge in return to furnish a minimum of fifty percent of the ground-assault forces necessary to take any such planets."

At first, Ynaathar wondered if the translator software had rendered the Telikan's words correctly.

"Ah, Warmaster, did I understand you to say—?"

"You did, First Fang. I refer not to a ceiling, but a minimum of half the total landing force for the entire Alliance for every planet like Harnah."

Sommers stared up at Garadden. Clearly, this was news to her.

"But . . . but the Star Union Ground Wing is far smaller than either the Federation's Marine Corps or the Khanate's Atmospheric Combat Command—much less both of them!" she protested, her expression horrified. "And it consists overwhelmingly of racial Telikans, drawn from the small refugee population base. Garadden, were you listening to Admiral Macomb? Do you realize we're probably talking about millions of casualties?"

"Yes," Garadden replied simply. Her muzzle wrinkled in her race's smile. "You see, we take our convictions in this matter very seriously."

Silence fell yet again. A different sort of silence, this time.

"As far as the Grand Alliance as a whole is concerned," Ynaathar said at last, "this will of course have to be ratified by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But pending their decision—as to which I have little doubt—I undertake on my own initiative to abide by the agreement you have proposed. In other words, there will be no bombardment of Harnah by Eighth Fleet." He looked around the very subdued conference room, letting his gaze linger pointedly on Shiiarnaow. "Is there any further discussion?"

There was none.

"Good," said Ynaathar with finality, "for we must turn to other matters. In particular, I fear the unanticipated lack of opposition in this system may have disturbing implications. Indeed, it may invalidate some of the basic assumptions behind our entire joint operation with Seventh Fleet."

* * *

The Fleet waited.

There was very little else it could do, for the united strength of the New Enemies and the Old had effectively completed the destruction of all those thousands of warships which had been laboriously built up after the Old Enemies' long ago disappearance. Now the combined Enemies stood poised to smash the last link between the remaining Systems Which Must Be Defended, and the Fleet lacked the strength to drive those Enemies back. It could only await their attack and hope that the division between the Enemy forces and their points of contact would create a lapse of coordination which would permit the Fleet's surviving united strength to fall upon one of them and crush it in isolation.

It was in the fading hope of such an opportunity that the Fleet had chosen not to resist the Enemies' intrusion into the most recent system to fall. The decision had not been an easy one. With the loss of two Systems Which Must Be Defended and their supporting satellite systems, every productive population center had become critically important to the Fleet's continued operations, yet there had never really been any other possible choice, for that system could be dispensed with. That in which the Mobile Force which had once defended it now stood could not. Nor could the one in which the only other Mobile Force the Fleet retained now waited to face its allotted share of the Enemies' warships.

In a way the Fleet had never contemplated, those systems, too, had become Systems Which Must Be Defended. They simply could not be lost, for if they were, they would take with them any hope of coordinated action between the old Systems Which Must Be Defended. And at least they were directly linked, without any intervening warp junctions to separate them, which provided at least the possibility of rapidly reinforcing one Mobile Force with the other to achieve the sort of crushing superiority which had eluded the Fleet for so long. That superiority would give the Fleet victory, if it could be achieved. If it couldn't be, the only possible outcome was defeat, and if the Fleet lost here, then any hope of ultimate victory—or survival—would be equally lost.

Which would be most unfortunate, indeed.

* * *

"You know," Raymond Prescott remarked, gazing somberly into the glowing display before him, "this is more your sort of operation than mine, in a lot of ways."

"Indeed?" Zhaarnak walked over to stand beside him, letting his own eyes rest on the glittering icons and light-strings of warp lines stretching from Pesthouse to Centauri.

"Of course it is," Prescott said with a small, tight smile. "If there's one thing we humans pound into our midshipmen in their tactical courses, it's the KISS principle!"

"Aye, yes!" Zhaarnak purred a chuckle. " 'Keep It Simple, Stupid.' " His Orion accent mangled the Standard English indescribably. "What a delightfully Human concept! Although," he sobered considerably, "one which has certainly demonstrated its soundness under certain circumstances."

"That it has, brother," Prescott said in the Tongue of Tongues. "On the other hand, your own traditions have their place, as well, much as some admirals I know would like to deny it. Still, this sort of complicated coordination of operations is something the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee's instincts are far more comfortable with."

"Truth," Zhaarnak agreed. "Yet whether we are more 'comfortable' with it or not, there are times when there is no other road to victory. Just as your Fang Aaahnnderrssson taught us in the Wars of Shame that there are times when your own warriors' ways are the only road. Which," he added quietly, "does not make me one bit less . . . anxious than you, brother."

Prescott nodded soberly. He was well aware that Zhaarnak wouldn't have made that admission so freely to any other human, but there was only too much justification for any anxiety his vilkshatha brother might feel.

On the scale of the display, the glittering icons representing Seventh and Eighth Fleets were mere centimeters apart in the Anderson One System and Pesthouse, respectively. Only the crimson stars of Harnah, Anderson Three, and Anderson Four separated them. A mere three warp transits, and the two fleets—with over seven hundred and twenty starships, thousands of fighters, and hundreds of gunboats between them—would join forces and, in the process, secure total control of the Anderson Chain. Only three.

A civilian, looking at that display, would see instantly that only a tiny step remained, that only the tiniest gap lay between those forces. And, although the astrophysicists' best guess was that Harnah and Anderson Four lay something like a hundred and three light-years from one another in real-space terms, the civilian would have been correct, for light-years meant nothing to the starships which plied the crazy quilt of the warp lines.

Or not usually, at any rate.

But this time wasn't usual, for between Pesthouse and Anderson One lay not simply three star systems, but two massive Bug fleets, each dedicated to smashing any intruder foolish enough to come within its reach. And because those sullen Bug warships waited there, the light-years between Pesthouse and Anderson One meant a very great deal, indeed, for any message from Eighth Fleet must be relayed by the ICN from Anderson One, back to Centauri, through a score of additional star systems and starless nexi to L-169, and thence down the length of the Prescott Chain, through Home Hive One, to Pesthouse. Even with light-speed transmission relays across every one of the intervening star systems, that message would take literally weeks to reach its destination. The "shortcut" across Zephrain helped a little, but not enough to make any real difference, and that made the coordination of the step across that "tiny gap" physically impossible.

Unfortunately, Zhaarnak's observation that no other approach was possible was damnably acute. Those three star systems had to be taken, at whatever risk or cost, and so the strategists had no choice but to coordinate on the macro scale what could not be coordinated on the micro scale. Which was, of course, the reason for Zhaarnak's—and Prescott's—anxiety. According to the plan painstakingly worked out and communicated over the weeks between Centauri and Pesthouse, Seventh Fleet was to time its attack on Anderson Five to commence on March 11, 2369, Terran Standard Reckoning, exactly five days after Eighth Fleet began its assault on Harnah . . . and there was absolutely no way to confirm that First Fang Ynaathar's attack had actually begun on schedule.

Prescott drew a deep breath and chided himself—again—for his doubts. Of course there was no way to confirm it, yet there was no real need to, either. If one thing in the universe was certain, it was that Eighth Fleet had begun its attack on time. Ynaathar's proximity to Centauri assured him of completely secure support down a far shorter supply line than the long stretch of systems which lay behind Seventh Fleet. It was possible, even probable, that there'd been last-minute changes to his projected order of battle, additions and subtractions alike from the list of forces which he'd forwarded to Prescott, but the ships, personnel, and munitions for his attack had been assembled, and Ynaathar and every one of his flag officers was only too well aware of how critical it was to distract the Bugs. Given the enemy's interior position, the Alliance had no choice but to force him to split his attention between two separate threats at opposite ends of the section of the Anderson Chain he still controlled, and Eighth Fleet knew it.

Just as Prescott and Zhaarnak knew that their own attack on Anderson Four must begin on schedule to provide the counterbalancing diversion Ynaathar would require to reduce the odds against him. And at least Seventh Fleet was once again at full strength and ready for the challenge it faced.

The human allowed his eyes to move from the warp links to the endless lists of task forces, task groups, squadrons, strikegroups, and battle divisions which filled the data display, spelling out the sheer, ponderous might of the force he commanded. Sixty monitors, forty-six superdreadnoughts, twenty-five assault carriers, thirty-one fleet carriers, thirty-one battlecruisers, twenty-one light carriers, and twenty light cruisers, all supported by more than forty-four hundred fighters, and over seven hundred and fifty gunboats. The stupendous firepower under his control was, as he and Zhaarnak had demonstrated only too grimly—sufficient to sterilize entire planets, yet Eighth Fleet was even more powerful. It had only half as many monitors as Seventh Fleet, but four times the superdreadnoughts and battlecruisers as compensation, and its more numerous assault and fleet carriers, coupled with the proximity of Centauri, more than balanced the twenty-one CVLs of Vice Admiral al-Salah's TG 72.4.

Surely that crushing mass of destruction had to be enough, properly handled, to smash even the soulless, uncaring ranks of death which were a Bug fleet!

Of course it was, he told himself flatly, and his eyes hardened as he remembered his brother and all the men and women—human and nonhuman alike—who had died under his command since the Battle of Alowan to reach this moment. He no longer quailed under the weight of his blood debt to those thousands upon thousands of warriors and the billions of civilians who'd died under the monstrous tsunami of the Bugs' ravenous omnivoracity. It was a burden he'd been given no choice but to learn to bear, just as Ivan Antonov had learned, but Raymond Prescott knew the great secret Antonov had tried so fiercely and with so much success to hide.

Whatever one might learn to bear, one could never learn to forget. That much he understood perfectly when he looked into Vanessa Murakuma's eyes and saw the shadows and darkness no one else seemed to recognize. And those memories and that debt, and the cold, savage hatred for Andrew's death, came to him now as he inhaled once more and then turned to look into the slit-pupiled, alien eyes of the being who had become not just his comrade in arms but the brother Andrew had never known . . . and who shared Raymond Prescott's determination to avenge his death.

"You should return to your ship, brother," he said quietly in the Tongue of Tongues, his expression calm, almost serene. "We will begin the attack in three standard hours."

"May our claws strike deep," Zhaarnak replied, equally quietly, and Prescott nodded and laid a hand briefly on the Orion's broad, powerful shoulder.

"May our claws strike deep," he agreed.

* * *

It had worked.

The decision against opposing the attack of the New Enemies who had been joined by the Old had exposed the approaches to no less than two Systems Which Must Be Defended to potential attack, but it had also disordered the Enemies' battle plan. It was obvious that the two Enemy fleets had intended to attack in close coordination, staggering their assaults just enough to draw the Fleet into committing against the first threat before the second revealed itself. But the Fleet's withdrawal had caught the Enemies off-balance, instead.

Half of the Mobile Force which had been withdrawn before the first Enemy thrust stood in place, prepared to delay any thrust on his part. But the other half sped to join the other Mobile Force as it fell back before the second Enemy attack. The joint forces of two Systems Which Must Be Defended raced to rendezvous and throw themselves upon the second Enemy force, the one which had already slain two other Systems Which Must Be Defended, and for the first time in far too long, the Fleet knew that victory lay within its reach. Three hundred and fifty warships, headed by sixty-three monitors and ninety-six superdreadnoughts, reached out to wrap their tentacle clusters about a mere hundred and eighty Enemy ships and crush the life from them, and the unsuspecting Enemy continued blindly towards them.

* * *

Raymond Prescott stared at the plot and tried not to be sick.

The master holo sphere was set to system scale, and Anderson Four's primary was a yellow dot at the center of a system Prescott remembered only too well. Just over five light-hours from it, at nine o'clock, was Warp Point Three, through which Seventh Fleet had entered the system from Pesthouse, blowing away the defenses with minimal loss and proceeding across the system toward Warp Point One, which led onward along the Anderson Chain. That was a long haul, for their destination was four and a half light-hours from the primary on an almost diametrically opposite heading of two o'clock. Warp Point Three, whose terminus was still unknown, lay on a bearing of eight o'clock, at 5.6 light-hours.

But Prescott had eyes for none of that, much less for the system's lifeless planets. Like everyone around him on Riva y Silva's flag bridge, he could only stare at the swarming red "hostile" icons that his wide-ranging recon fighters had revealed.

The Bug deep space force in this system, pulling back ahead of Seventh Fleet, was bad enough: thirty monitors, sixty-six superdreadnoughts, ninety-six battlecruisers, and seventy-eight light cruisers. But he and Zhaarnak, though expecting a stiff fight, had pressed on into the system, confident of their ability to take that force. Until the new Bug forces had appeared, bearing down from Warp Point One. A detailed force breakdown was impossible as yet, but at least thirty-five monitors, forty-five superdreadnoughts, and sixty-five battlecruisers had streamed in from Anderson Three, where they were supposed to be fully engaged in the defense of Harnah. Nor was that the end of Warp Point One's capacity to spew forth death, for an estimated five hundred oncoming gunboats had now been detected behind that daunting array of capital ships.

Finally, the quiescent icon of Warp Point Two behind them had erupted with the scarlet of still more gunboats. Their number was unknowable as yet, but there were tides of them, streaming in from what Prescott was now sure must be one of the three remaining home hive systems.

All those converging red icons seemed to swim before his eyes, and he stared into a nightmare from which there would be no awakening.

Well, now we know how it happened. This system and Anderson Three are the conduits from at least two of the home hives. And now we're here, just like Second Fleet was. . . .

Amos Chung cleared his throat softly.

"Sir, it appears that they're using the same tactical disposition they did in Pesthouse."

He indicated the icon of the deep space force that had now turned on them. Then he gestured at an auxiliary plot with its tactical display. Yes, Prescott reflected. It was the same globular juggernaut of battlecruisers, light cruisers, gunboats, and kamikaze small craft.

He stared at them for a handful of endless heartbeats, then inhaled sharply, almost spitefully. He faced his sense of paralysis and drove it back into its kennel as he pulled himself ruthlessly together. This was not Operation Pesthouse all over again. Battle-hardened though Second Fleet had been by the time it reached Pesthouse, its temper couldn't have begun to match that of the blade he wielded. Seventh Fleet stood behind him, its monitor battle-line immeasurably more powerful than Second Fleet's had been, forged and hammered beyond common conception in the crucible of history's bloodiest series of campaigns and calm in the knowledge that the Bugs could be beaten. And he and Zhaarnak had made the decision to bring along the light carriers, not generally regarded as viable battle fleet units but able to augment the combat space patrol of fighters.

They would need them now.

"Raise Lord Telmasa, and the task force commanders," he told the communications officer quietly. "Put them on screens in the flag briefing room." Then he gestured to his staffers to follow him and strode into the adjacent compartment with its array of com screens.

"Evidently," Zhaarnak began without preamble, "First Fang Ynaathar's attack on Harnah did not distract the attention of the enemy forces in Aaahnnderrssson Three after all."

"Evidently not," Prescott agreed. If either of them doubted that the attack had taken place, he did not voice those doubts. Instead, Prescott turned to all of the flag officers watching him from their individual screens. "Ladies and gentlemen, I think it's time for us to activate Case Doppelganger."

* * *

If there was anyone in Seventh Fleet who felt no trace of panic as word of the odds against them spread, then that "anyone" had to be a lunatic. But if anyone in Seventh Fleet was about to let panic paralyze him, there was no sign of it as the fleet's personnel responded to its commander's orders.

Case Doppelganger was the product of endless hours spent gaming out possible responses to the Bugs' globular kamikaze formations in the tactical simulators aboard Irena Riva y Silva and Hia'khan. As the name suggested, it was in many respects an adaptation of the Bugs's own concept—in this case, a tight globe of mutually defending capital ships, packed as closely as their own drive fields and the need to allow for evasive maneuvers would permit.

There was plenty of time to assume the formation as the enemy attack forces swept towards Seventh Fleet across light-hours of vacuum, and Captain Stephen Landrum and the farshathkhanaaks of each separate task force briefed their pilots carefully. Those fighters would sweep outward from the fleet's globe, engaging and weakening the kamikazes and gunboats while the globe ran before them.

It was all about defense in depth to bleed the Bugs as they closed and then meet them with the most murderous close-in defensive fire into history of space combat.

Now all that remained was to see if it worked.

* * *

Clearly the Enemy had been as completely surprised as the Fleet could have hoped. If he hadn't been, he would never have continued onward with a force so much weaker than that waiting to destroy him.

Yet as the Fleet's strike elements swept towards him, it became evident that he had adapted his own doctrine once again. The Fleet had never before seen the spherical formation he'd adopted, yet it quickly recognized the similarity between it and the Fleet's own new attack formation. From its own experience, the fleet was fully aware of the defensive effectiveness of such an arrangement, and the Enemy's decision to turn away from his pursuers would make it even more effective. The strikes were faster than his battle-line, but the need to include cruisers and battlecruisers in their defensive shells limited their speed advantage to barely fifty percent. That meant they could overtake the Enemy only slowly, and while they did so, his small attack craft would hammer at the formations's defenses.

That was regrettable. Yet the small attack craft could venture into their own attack range only at the expense of casualties, and as they were ground away, so would be the Enemy's ability to wear down and fend off the next attack formation.

* * *

Stephen Landrum watched his strikegroups go in again and again and again. They were good, those pilots, possibly the most experienced and best trained in the history of interstellar combat, with the sort of kill ratios that fighter pilots throughout history could only have dreamed of.

But good as they were, there were only so many of them, and the Bugs had devised a formation which denied them at least half their usual advantages in combat. If the strikefighters wanted to attack the gunboats and the kamikazes who represented the true threat to their starships, they must first run the gauntlet of the massed anti-fighter missile batteries of the Bugs' starships.

And they did.

They did it over and over again. The glare of nuclear and antimatter warheads, the invisible death of x-ray lasers, the sudden mid-word interruption of deep-space death . . . By now, they were only too familiar to Landrum and every other fighter commander in Seventh Fleet. And if they were familiar to the COs, how much more common were they to the fighter jocks who lived and died through them? Yet not one strikegroup balked, not a single squadron hesitated.

The first of the Bug attack globes was clearly visible in the visual display now. Not the ships themselves. No one could have picked them out even yet. But Seventh Fleet's personnel didn't need to see the ships.

They could see the explosions that marked the deaths of humans, Orions, and Ophiuchi, as well as Bugs. The explosions that wrapped themselves around the outer perimeter of the globe and turned it into a solid sphere of brimstone come straight from Hell as it rumbled dreadfully onward in Seventh Fleet's wake.

* * *

After a while, Raymond Prescott had found, one passed beyond fatigue into a state of heightened awareness.

It was something he'd experienced before, of course. He was, after all, one of the two most experienced combat commanders in human history. It had shaken his perception of the universe when he realized that he and Vanessa Murakuma now had actually seen more—and more intense—combat even than Ivan Antonov. Of course, fighting Bugs either gave one experience quickly or killed one . . . when it didn't do both of those things at once.

Yet for all the dreadful history of combat and slaughter which lay behind him, he'd never experienced anything to surpass this.

He'd lost track of how long it had been since he'd left the flag bridge. He ate meals brought to him there, and disposed of their end products in facilities a few steps away. But sleep was something dimly remembered, a fading memory of some prior life, recalled only when it appeared in the form of an irresistible temptation he nonetheless had to resist.

But why resist it? an inner voice he didn't want to hear asked. What's the difference? Death is death, regardless of whether or not you're awake when it comes. And it's coming.

He shook himself as if to physically throw off the incubus of despair.

The fighters had done their magnificent best, but some of the gunboats and shuttles had broken through. A screen of battlecruisers and light cruisers had interposed themselves—and the bodies of their crews—between them and Seventh Fleet's main body. Almost seventy of those ships had died. But the Bugs had come on with something beyond their normal indifference to losses—something that Prescott, had he been talking about any other race, might have called desperation. At least two hundred gunboats and a hundred kamikaze assault shuttles had broken through and plunged into the battle-line's final defensive envelope with fighters still on their tails.

There were no reliable figures on how many of them had completed their attack runs—nor did Prescott need them. The figures that mattered were those of the ships they had taken with them into death: eight monitors, twelve superdreadnoughts, and eleven light carriers. And, of course, the people. Prescott was still coming to terms with the fact that he would never hear Force Leader Shaaldaar's rock-steady basso again. Vice Admiral Janos Kolchak had died with his flagship, as well. Twelfth Small Fang Yithaar'tolmaa's Howmarsi'hirtalkin had survived, but the small fang's own remains were somewhere in the twisted mass of wreckage that comprised most of his flagship.

And yet, Prescott kept forcing himself to remember, the battle-line had mostly survived. The Bug deep space force originally assigned to this system had evidently underestimated the extent of that survival, for it had pressed on without waiting for support from the massive Bug formations coming in from Anderson Three. That miscalculation had almost certainly saved Seventh Fleet—for now, at least. That and its own battle-forged toughness. It had met the incoming Bug starships with a hurricane of missiles, wrapping them in a shroud of purifying antimatter flame that swept them from the continuum. But the Allied battle-line had paid with fourteen more of its own monitors to do it, and the number of other ships destroyed or damaged was in the usual proportion.

And now the monstrous array of fresh capital ships from Anderson Three was closing inexorably in, its BCRs racing ahead of the slower monitors and superdreadnoughts in their haste to begin finishing off the crippled prey. And Zhaarnak was comming him.

He turned to the com screen, and the vilkshatha brothers looked at each other. Each of them saw the memory of Alowan and Telmasa in the other's eyes and knew how precious the shared years which had passed since that unexpected reprieve had been to both of them. Yet there seemed little to say. There was no need for them to put what they felt into words . . . and there was certainly no point in saying that the next fight would be Seventh Fleet's last, for they both knew it.

So instead, Zhaarnak turned to practicalities with a briskness that anyone familiar with his race would have recognized as a mask for despair.

"We must reorganize our battle-line, Raaymmonnd."

"Yes." Prescott looked again at the loss totals, then looked away. "Our task force organization has pretty much vanished. We'll abandon our worst damaged ships and scuttle them, so they won't slow up our withdrawal. I've already got Anna and Jacques at work forming new battlegroups around whatever command ships are still alive."

"Can we manage such a fundamental restructuring in the midst of battle?"

"We can." Prescott's tone held no doubt, only certainty. Only a force as superbly trained and battle-tried as Seventh Fleet could even have considered plugging units from different Alliance members into the same datagroups on the fly. Prescott knew that, and the pride was like ashes in his mouth.

"I want those BCRs to encounter the kind of coordinated missile fire they're not expecting," he said. "Maybe it'll give them pause."

"We will also need to reorganize our strikegroups to cover the withdrawal."

"Truth. Raathaarn and Stephen are working on it, but it's going to involve even more organizational improvisation. We'll base all of the surviving fighters on Terran carriers because they're the best equipped to meet multispecies life-support requirements."

And because the surviving Terran carriers alone have ample hangar space for every one of the fighters we still have left, he left unsaid.

"Very well. I will have Small Fang Jarnaaa coordinate with Claw Laaandrummm."

There was little left to say. Zhaarnak said it anyway.

"It has been a good hunt, brother."

Prescott gazed into the screen at the brother he would almost certainly never see in the flesh again. This electronic image would have to do, and in a way he knew Zhaarnak would have understood, it was Andrew to whom he spoke, as well.

"Truth, brother. A good hunt. Our claws struck deep indeed."

* * *

TFN safety regulations imposed strict limits on the number of sorties a given fighter pilot could fly in a given time. In Seventh Fleet's present pass, those regulations—like so much else—had long since gone by the boards.

Several times, Irma Sanchez had almost yielded to the enormous army of exhaustion, sleeplessness, stress, and grief for her gallant, too-young pilots. Meswami had been the latest to go—she'd let herself feel it later. Pink-cheeked Rolf Nordlund was now, by default, the XO of a "squadron" reconstituted out of ingredients from three species. And Irma was still skipper, senior to Cub of the Khan Mnyeearnaow'mirnak, Lieutenant (j.g.) Eilonwwa and the two human pilots who'd been foisted on her.

That, she reflected, was probably what had kept her from simply letting go: the problem of running this motley crew that still went by the call-sign "Victor Foxtrot Niner-Four." That, and the small blue-eyed face that occasionally floated up to the surface of her mind amid all the fatigue and horror—for what kind of universe would Lydochka inhabit after all this was over?

A snarl of Orion brought her back to the present. She'd never learned the Tongue of Tongues. Eilonwwa understood it, however, and could speak Standard English with his own race's extended consonants. Irma wondered what she'd do if the Ophiuchi bought it.

This time, though, she didn't need Eilonwwa's services as a translator, for she had a pretty good idea what Mnyeearnaow was talking about.

"I see them, Lieutenant," she cut in as Eilonwwa began to interpret. It was yet another formation of kamikaze shuttles, stooping like raptors on Seventh Fleet's dwindling battle-line. She rapped out a series of commands. At least Mnyeearnaow could understand Standard English, and he kept formation as well as anyone in this ad hoc squadron as they altered course and went to the attack.

Their external ordnance was long gone, and hadn't been all that copious to start with, given their need to carry extended life-support packs for this endless patrolling. But their F-4s' internal hetlasers jabbed and thrust, turning antimatter-laden assault shuttles into expanding miniature suns. But the kamikazes went into evasive action, and fresh formations of gunboats appeared to complicate the tactical picture.

A scream of static and a brief fireball, and Irma winced. Johnson, she thought. Or was her name Jackson? God, I can't even remember, I've known them so few hours.

But then the last kamikaze was free of them, and only Mnyeearnaow was in a position to intercept it. The Orion swooped in . . and didn't fire.

Irma heard the snarling, mewling voice in her headset and cursed her inability to understand. "Eilonwwa—?"

"He sayss hiss firrring mechanisssm hass mallllfunctionned, Ssir," the Ophiuchi fluted.

"Mnyeearnnaow," Irma snapped, "pull up! That's a direct order."

But the Orion's fighter continued to close with the shuttle that now had nothing between it and the battle-line.

"Goddamn it, don't pretend you can't understand me!" Something caught Irma's eye. The computer had deduced the kamikaze's target: TFNS Irena Riva y Silva.

Fleet Flag she thought automatically. Maybe Mnyeearnaow's seen it too.

"Mnyeearnaow," she yelled, "talk to me!"

The Orion voice finally sounded in her headset—but only in a howling, quavering war cry that sent primal ice sliding along her spine. And then fighter and shuttle met at a combined velocity that was an appreciable fraction of light's. Irma's outside view automatically darkened; the flash wasn't why she had to squeeze her eyes tightly shut and blink them rapidly a few times.

Then they were past the gunboats and into the clear. Irma let herself take a deep breath among the clean stars for a moment while receiving the survivors' acknowledgments, then braced herself for the gunboats to resume the engagement.

Only . . . they didn't.

Bewildered, Irma wondered if she'd heard something. But no, the sudden break in the battle-pattern had triggered a sense deeper than hearing. Yet to her or any veteran it was practically audible.

Nordlund must have "heard" it, too.

"Uh, Skipper—?"

"Yeah, Rolf . . . er, XO. Resume our patrol pattern. I don't know where they've gone, but I'm not arguing."

* * *

"No, Ahhdmiraaaal Maaaacomb," First Fang Ynaathar said flatly, "we will not probe the warp point first."

"But, First Fang—" TF 81's commander began, and Ynaathar forced himself not to snarl. It wasn't easy, and only the fact that he'd fought shoulder to shoulder with Macomb and knew the Human was no chofak but as true a farshatok as the First Fang had ever known made it possible.

"There can be no other decision," Ynaathar cut off the TFN commander of Eighth Fleet's battle-line. "You know as well as I that Fang Presssssscottt and Fang Zhaarnaak commenced their attack precisely on schedule. And if the Bahgs have chosen not to defend Harnah, then it can only have been to employ their warships—and their gunboats and kamikazes—somewhere else. We cannot allow them to combine against Seventh Fleet and crush it in isolation!"

"Sir, I agree completely with your analysis of the Bugs' actions and probable intentions," Francis Macomb said respectfully. "It's the logical thing for them to have done, if they're willing to simply write Harnah off. But they've certainly proven in the past that they can do the unexpected. If they have more strength than our analysts believe they do, they may have elected to repeat their Pesthouse strategy and draw us forward so they can cut us off from retreat, not Seventh Fleet. Or they may have already defeated Seventh Fleet and be prepared to turn their combined strength in our direction if we continue to advance. I fully accept that we have no choice but to advance anyway. I'm only pointing out that we've carried out no detailed reconnaissance of this warp point and that we have no existing operational plan for an advance beyond Harnah into Anderson Three. Sir, we're not prepared for this operation. If we push ahead too hard and too fast, we may put ourselves into precisely the same situation we're afraid Seventh Fleet's already in."

Ynaathar gazed at the Human face on his com screen and heard the echo of Operation Pesthouse in Macomb's voice. It was understandable, the First Fang thought, for the ambush of Second Fleet was the sort of traumatic shock from which few warriors ever fully recovered. The loss of so many ships—and of Ivan Antonov and Hannah Avram—had cost his Terran allies something else, as well. It had cost them much of that calm assumption of ultimate victory which had so infuriated so many of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee before the present war, much of that mantle of invincibility they'd won largely at the expense of the KON.

Under some circumstances, Ynaathar admitted to himself, he might have taken a certain grim satisfaction in the humbling of that pride, for it had been the Humans who had humbled the pride of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee in the Wars of Shame. But that had been before the Bugs burst upon Human and Orion alike. Before they had fought and died as farshatok before the faceless, implacable menace which had come out of the Long Night to murder both their species. And before Ynaathar'solmaak had realized what a priceless asset that Human confidence and almost innocent arrogance truly was.

And because all of that was true, the First Fang chose his words with care.

"There will be no more debate, Fraaaaancisssss," he said, and if his voice was calm, it was also unflinching. "Seventh Fleet depends upon us—Fang Presssssscottt depends upon us—and we will not fail them. This is not Operation Pesssthouse, my friend . . . nor will we allow it to become such. Your reservations are noted and acknowledged. They have much merit, but that merit must be set against our responsibilities to Seventh Fleet. The decision to advance immediately into Aaahnnderrssson Three without further reconnaissance is mine, and I assume full responsibility for it."

He held Macomb's eye for perhaps two breaths, and then the Terran officer nodded.

"Yes, Sir," he said crisply.

"Thank you," Ynaathar replied quietly, then straightened. "Prepare the SBMHAWKs and stand by for transit."

* * *

Disaster.

It had never happened before. It could never happen. Yet it had, and the Fleet—

No. Not the Fleet, for the impossible action had destroyed forever that which had been "the Fleet." That which had always fought as one being, with one awareness and only one purpose, had broken at last under the strain which could no longer be endured, and from one, it had become two. Or perhaps even more than that.

The ships which had first flung themselves upon the second Enemy attack watched in something for which those who crewed them had no word. Another type of being might have called it shock, or disbelief—possibly even betrayal. But these beings had no terms for those concepts, and so they had no way to describe it or categorize it, or even to understand it clearly. Yet even in their confusion, they recognized the shattering of the Unity which had always been theirs and which had bound them eternally to the same inexorable Purpose.

In that moment, however dimly, the beings aboard those starships and at the controls of those gunboats and suicide shuttles which still survived recognized in the sudden appearance of the combined forces of the Old Enemies and the New the same moment of final desperation they had brought to every other species—save one—they had ever encountered. For in that moment, the Mobile Force which had been sent forth by the System Which Must Be Defended in which the New Enemies had first been encountered, broke off without instructions from the Fleet. Indeed, broke off against the orders and the plan which had sent it here in the first place. It responded not to the threat to the Unity and the Purpose, but to the threat to its own System Which Must Be Defended, and so it abandoned the attack. Deserted the Unity to fall back in desperate defense of its own single fragment of that Unity . . . and so abandoned the Purpose that Unity served.

It could not happen.

Yet it had.

* * *

"No, First Fang." Raymond Prescott's exhaustion detracted not at all from his obvious resolution, and he spoke in the Tongue of Tongues with careful emphasis. "I cannot entertain such a proposal."

Ynaathar stared across the table of his private office.

The orange light of the Anderson Three binary shone through the viewport, and Prescott knew precisely what the First Fang was thinking. Not that understanding could undermine the adamantine power of his determination.

He and Zhaarnak had brought what was left of Seventh Fleet here to Anderson Three after the Bugs' inexplicable withdrawal from Anderson Four. By then, Eighth Fleet had finished off the system defenses, and the Bug mobile forces had vanished into cloak, presumably to slip out through this system's unexplored Warp Point One. Both vilkshatha brothers had been properly grateful for their deliverance. But now . . .

"Fang Presssssscottt, look at the loss figures!" Ynaathar protested with an edge of respect which might have seemed odd to a human, coming from a superior officer to one of his juniors. "Seventh Fleet comprises barely more than an oversized task force now. The only reasonable course is to dissolve it and merge its units into Eighth Fleet."

"Seventh Fleet is more than just an organization chart, Sir," Prescott replied, still in the Tongue of Tongues. "It is more than just a total of ships and personnel. It has come to . . . to mean something that transcends all that. I admit that we are in no shape to fight again, at present. We should return to Alpha Centauri for refitting and reinforcement. But I will resist any move to dissolve Seventh Fleet, by all the means in my power. That includes going to Alpha Centauri and personally appealing to the Joint Chiefs. It also includes, as a last resort, resigning my commission if my arguments are unavailing."

Zhaarnak leaned forward.

"And I, First Fang, will go further. I will go all the way to New Valkha and put the case before the Khan himself. I will make it a matter of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee's honor . . . and of his."

"Do you understand what you are saying?" Ynaathar breathed. And does your vilkshatha brother realize what it would mean? That if you test the Khan'a'khanaaeee's own honor in this matter and he decides against you only your death will maintain your honor?

But then the First Fang looked at Raymond'prescott-telmasa's hard, set Human expression and knew that this Human understood perfectly.

"Yes, First Fang," Zhaarnak replied to the question flatly, "for it is a matter of honor. Seventh Fleet has become my farshatok. Breaking it up would be a greater wrongness than I would care to live with."

Ynaathar regarded the two fathers in honor of Clan Telmasa, sitting there in their haggardness—and in their mantle of legend—and recognized defeat.

"Very well, I agree," he capitulated. "I will so advise the Joint Chiefs, and I believe they will concur."

* * *

"No, Commander."

Commander Jeanne Nicot looked up sharply.

"What did you say, Lieutenant Commander Sanchez?"

Irma remained steady under the new CSG's glare. Commander Georghiu's atoms were scattered through the spaces of Anderson Four, and Irma was still trying to understand her own feeling of loss. In retrospect, there was something almost endearing about his stuffiness, which had lacked Nicot's hard edge.

"Sir, you know our record, so you know how much the Ninety-Fourth has been through. Hell, we've been down to less than this—down to me and Lieutenant Meswami, in fact." She swallowed the lump of memory and pressed on. "Now there are four of us: me, Lieutenant (j.g.) Nordlund, Lieutenant (j.g.) Eilonwwa, and Ensign Chen . . . I mean Chin."

"Three," Nicot corrected. "You can't count Mister Eilonwwa. These mixed squadrons were strictly a desperation expedient. Come to think of it, you only got Mister Chin as part of the same emergency consolidation. So it's really down to you and Mister Nordlund—who, as you know, has even less business being an executive officer than . . . Well, the point is, do you really think you can put VF-94 back together with some green replacements?"

Irma met Nicot's eyes unwaveringly.

"I've done it before, Sir."

"Hmmm . . . So you have." Nicot flipped through some sheets of hardcopy. "There's quite a bit about you in the records I inherited from Commander Georghiu. He thought highly of you," she said, and Irma's facade collapsed into a pile of astonishment.

"He did . . . Sir?"

"Yes, in his own way—although I don't think he ever knew quite what to make of you. At one point, he refers to you as a 'character.' " Nicot shook her head dismissively. "Well, if you think VF-94 is still viable . . ."

Irma decided to press her luck.

"It would help, Sir, if we could keep Chin. And . . . it would help even more if we could keep Eilonwwa."

"We've been through that," Nicot snapped irritably. "Come on, you know it's out of the question! The different dietary requirements, the variant life-support specifications—"

"Our fleet and assault carriers have had Ophiuchi squadrons along with Terran ones ever since the Zephrain offensive, Sir. They have a lot of experience handling whatever logistical complications that causes. Maybe VF-94 could be transferred to one of those carriers." And get us off this goddamned monitor at last, Irma forced herself not to add. Belatedly, it occurred to her that Nicot might take the idea as a personal affront, but the CSG gave no sign of it if she had.

"So now we're supposed to accommodate Seventh Fleet's entire strikegroup organization to VF-94's convenience? You do think a lot of yourself, don't you Sanchez?"

"I think a lot of the squadron, Sir. So should anyone who knows its record."

"Commander Georghiu's estimate of you wasn't exaggerated, Sanchez," said Nicot coolly. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. "All right, I'll make the suggestion to Captain Landrum. Maybe something can be arranged."

"And about Mister Eilonwwa, Sir . . . ?"

"Yes, yes, that too—although I'll be amazed if you get your way on that." Another small smile. "On the other hand, if this idea does go through, I won't be getting a chance to know you better. I'm almost sorry about that. Almost."

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