"Rigelian word?" Li Han folded her hands in her lap and watched her display. The data codes were more tentative than usual because the single scout cruiser hidden outside the asteroid belt was at extreme range. Still, the essentials were clear. A powerful screen had moved away from Trevayne's main force, opening the gap between itself and the battle-line to a full ninety light-seconds, and she sat expressionlessly, watching her enemy advance into what hopefully -comwd prove an unsuspected trap. She glanced at Reznick. "Time to asteroid belt?" ""Their screen will cross it headed in-system in about six hours, sir. Their battle-line will be approximately fifteen minutes behind them." "Thank you." She turned back to the display, wishing Trevayne hadn't jumped the gun on them.

 

 

He'd begun his breakout over a month earlier than predicted, and half her carriers had yet to reach her, nor did she have any idea how the defense against the Rump pincer was proceeding. Her ignorance gnawed at her, and she wished she dared communicate with Magda or Jason, but they needed corn silence to do their jobs. She felt herself relaxing as she thought of her friends. If anyone could pull it off, they could.

 

 

Sean Remko sat in his command chair like a bear.

 

 

His combat vac suit and grooming were impeccable, but somehow he always struck Cyrus Waldeck as unwashed and slovenly. The flag captain shook his head distastefully and glanced back at his own display as his ship crossed the asteroid belt, moving at a--to them--leisurely pace to allow the battle-line to keep up. He stiffened as a sudden flicker of light abruptly resolved itself into the data codes of enemy vessels.

 

 

"Admiral Remko! We've got--was "I see them, Captain," Remko interrupted.

 

 

"Brian' he turned to his chief of staff his--- come to a heading of one-one six. Increase to flank speed. Prepare for missile engagement: carriers are primary targets." "Aye, aye, sir!" "Captain Waldeck, stand by to engage the enemy." "Aye, aye, sir!" Remko glanced at his elegant flag eaptain from the corner of one eye, then turned to his eom officer. "Get me the flagship." "Aye, aye, sir." Remko watched the drifting data codes as he waited for the eom link to be established. With transmissions limited to light speed, there was a time lag of just over ninety seconds either way, so he wasted no time trying for an integrated conversation when Trevayne's image appeared on his screen.

 

 

"Admiral, we've detected seven fleet carriers, seven battleships, and eight battle-ernisers with nine light cruis- INSUIECTION ers maneuvering as regular three-ship squadrons--almost dead ahead at max scanner range. We should be able to engage them on our own termsthe battlewagons will slow them up for us. But we'll need carrier support..." Trevayne nodded as Remko paused to acknowledge a report. He waved a hand at Yoshinaka and pointed at his chief of staffs communications panel.

 

 

"Launch them," he said.

 

 

"Sir," Remko looked back out of the screen, "the rebel carriers have launched what appears to be their entire left-brace ighter complement. ETA twenty-one minutes. Let me repeat my request for carrier support.., urgently." "Already granted, Scan," Trevayne replied. He glanced at Yoshinaka once more and received a nod of con left-brace irma-tion.

 

 

"Admiral Stoner is proceeding to join you, and he'll be launching directly." And he could fight this lot on slightly better than even terms, he thought. "Good luck. Ou." He watched Remko's face as the seconds ticked past. Three minutes after his last word, his burly subordinate nodded with a grin.

 

 

"Thank you, sir. One trashed rebel task force coming up. Remko out." "Well, you were right about the rebels offering battle here." Yoshinaka spoke as the screen blanked, then paused at Trevayne's unaccustomed scowl.

 

 

"Bloody hell, Genji, that can't be their entire force! Where're their battle-line and assault carriers? And look." He pointed to his battle plot. "They're backing away now that they've launched their left-brace ighers. Why? They can't outrun Scan with battleships to slow them down. Besides, battleships don't run away from battle-cruisers; they try to close before a force like ours can come to their opposition's support." He scowled at the plot, as if by sheer concentration he could know the minds commanding those drifting bits of light.

 

 

"I don't like it at all, Genii." But the blips told him nothing, and his eyes strayed back to the big visual display as Nelson neared the asteroid belt. Planet Three was the second brightest object in the heavens.

 

 

"Admiral Petrovna's launching, sir." 'hank you. Time, Bob?"

 

 

"Oh-seven-forty Zulu, Admiral." "Log it." Hah leaned back in her chair. The Book said a commander never committed her forces to combat when she couldn't exercise tactical control, but The Book didn't cover this situation. She'd agonized over her command structure before she finally made her call. Magda had proven her mettle too often to question her ability to handle the role thrust upon her, but Hah had really wanted her for the other detached force, even ff it was smaller. Timing, she told herself. Timing was everything. She could entrust her own force to no one eiseit had to be under her direct control, with no eom lag-and she needed Magda for the job she had, which to eft Jason for what was actually the most ticklish aspect of Operation Actium. Han didn't question his ability--comonly his experience.

 

 

"Enemy carriers advancing, sir. They're launching. Plotting estimates two hundred plus fighters. Estimated time to our fighters is twelve minutes." Thank you, David. Commander Jorgensen?" "Full decks, sir, or right next to them. They should have two-forty, plus or minus twenty." "It sounds like they're biting, sir," Tomanaga observed cautiously.

 

 

"Perhaps. But don't underestimate Ian Trevayne, Bob." Hah tapped her fingertips gently together, then glanced at Tsing Chang. "Admiral, prepare to move out. Bob, same message to the other battlegroups on whiskers." The needle-thin corn lasers woke, murmuring across the emotiness to the tightly grouped capital ships of the Ter-ran Republic. Han looked hack at her display, watching as Magda's fighters plunged into the oncoming Rim ships.

 

 

Running battle snarled viciously across the Zapata System, and space became leprous with the ugly pockmarks of nuclear warheads and dying humans. Trevayne felt Nestson tremble under full drive, but even at her maximum speed, the ponderous supermonitor fell further and further behind as Stoner's carriers raced ahead to cover Remko's cruisers. His pilots had moved in with the wary skill of professionals, but they'd been disconcerted to find that the rebel fighters mounted a new weapon--coma kind of fiechette missile, shor-ranged and useless against starships but dis-mayingly effective against fighters. They faced a daunting exchange rate, yet they hurtled into action.

 

 

Trevayne sat motionless hut for the slow drumming of his fingers. The whole unorthodox course of the batde disturbed him. Simple attrition made sense against the flanks of an extending corridor, but not in a set-piece battle to defend a vital system. And the presence of battleships this far from their retreat warp point did not offer advantages commensurate with he risk. To be sure, they were heavy metal for battle-cruisers, but they weren't fast eneugh to crush Scan before he could fall back on the battle-line, however far ahead he got. Damn it, what were the rebels up to?

 

 

His battle-line had drawn almost level with Planet Three when Trevayne thought his questions had been answered.

 

 

"Admiral" Yoshinaka announced, "scanners report nine battle-cruisers leaving Zapata III. Evidently they've been hiding behind the planet--notow they're on course to intercept our screen from behind." Even as he spoke, the computers dispassionately added the newcomers to the display.

 

 

Things clicked in Trevayne's mind. Of coursel The rebels had known he was as likely as themselves to deduce that Zapata was the logical place for them to make a stand--so they'd decided to make it elsewhere! Iphigena? Probably. It didn't matter. What mattered was ti objective for this battle was to strip him of his screen for the decisive clash... just as their false "fortresses" had already stripped him of most of his SBMHAWK'S. And, he thought grimly, they were going about it in an ali-too-rational fashion. Caught between these new baffle-cruisers and the force with which he was already engaged, Remko would be overwhelmed before he could disengage.

 

 

But... the rebels had forgotten the onward-lumbering battle-line's heavy external ordnance load of SBM'S. Yet there was no time to lose, or the battle-cruisers would soon draw out of range. He gave the command, and the capital ships' external ordnance lashed outward, the salvos of SBM'S thickened by the supermonitors' internally launched HBM'S.

 

 

Trevayne sat back, awaiting further reports as the missiles speckled his display.

 

 

Those battle-cruisers were doomed. Nothing that size could stand up to that hurricane of missiles. Nothing. Yet there remained the unidentified worry nagging at the back of his mind, the sense of something overlooked. He was still scratching at the mental itch when Yoshinaka turned a carefully controlled face to him.

 

 

"Admiral, we've lost missile lock. Those "battle-cruisers" @u@u. it seems they were scout cruisers with their ECM in deception mode. They've dropped it and gone to evasive action." Their eyes met, and neither needed to speak.

 

 

The rebels had just stripped the battle-line of its external ordnance.

 

 

Somewhere in the back of Trevayne's mind a part of him reflected that perhaps he'd been too worried about his subordinate's cockiness to recognize it in himself. Or had he simply fallen into a belie pounds in the infallibility o pounds his own judgment? It was easy to do, when M'n'iam wasn't around.

 

 

It only remained to learn why the rebels had mousetrapped him into firing off: his missiles.

 

 

"hey've taken the bait, sir!" Tomanaga's voice was exultant. 'hey just flushed their XO racks at the decoys!" "Tracking reports at least ninety percent of their external ordnance fired, sir," David Reznick confirmed. "Sir, their battle-line's flank scouts will clear the planet in eleven minutes," Stravos Kollentai reported.

 

 

"Very well." Han drew a deep, unobtrusive breath, remembering another battle aboard another ship. She glanced at Tsing Chang and saw what might have been a shadowy smile of memory on his imperturbable face.

 

 

"Commander Rezniek, send to all commands: 'Execute Actium Alpha."" "Aye, aye, sir." "Admiral Tsing." "Yes, Admiral?" There was an edge of memory in that voice, Hah deeided. She felt a surge of warmth for the bulky admiral, and her face lit with one of her rare, serene smiles.

 

 

"Yours is the honor, Admiral," she said simply. "Prepare to move out." "Aye, aye, sir. Immediately." "Admiral Windrider is launching!" Rezniek reported.

 

 

"Very well. Admiral Tsing, engage the enemy." "Aye, aye, sir." The superdreadnought TRNS Arrarat rumbled to life, drive field bellowing muted thunder through her iron bones as Battle Group Nine, Terran Republican Navy, moved out to battle.

 

 

"Sir! Admiral Trevayne! The scanners --to " Trevayne's head snapped around, his eyes flashing angrily at the hapless scanner rating whose incoherent report had shattered the silence. But his scathing retort died aborning as his plot altered silently. The disinterested computers updated the data quietly, and the menace of the new data codes flashed starkly on the screen.

 

 

A chain of lights crept around the disk of Zapata III in a sullen, crimson line of hostile capital ships. He sat quietly, his brain racing to assimilate the new data, as eight monitors and gventy-four battleships and superdreadnoughts abandoned their hiding place in the planet's shadow. They were too close and fast for his battle-line to avoid.

 

 

And even as they emerged from the shadows there came more reports--reports of swarms of strikefighters spewing out of the asteroid belt behind Fourth Fleet.

 

 

Of course, he thought coldly, filled with an ungrudging respect for his opponent's tactics.

 

 

Escort carriers. They had one advantage over larger carriers--with their power down and a little luck, they could be mistaken for asteroids by even the best scanner teams.

 

 

Not that they'd needed much luck, he thought grimly, remembering the cloaking ECM on the escort carriers raiding his communications. He'd thought it a financially extravagant way to build such cheap carriers--notow he understood why it had been done.

 

 

He was back on stride by the time the final report came in. He knew what was happening, understood the deadly ambush into wh he and his ships had strayed. This was no mere attempt to stop Fourth Fleet; it was a full-blooded bid to destroy it.

 

 

That was why they'd let him into the system unopposed- -comto catch his slower battle-line between warp points, unable to retreat, while they hit him from all sides. And with Fourth Fleet gone, the rebels could sweep into Zephrain at last. Oh, yes, he understood--and perhaps alone among all the personnel of the Rim's ships, he was unsurprised as the "battleships" Remko had been pursuing cut their ECM and appeared in their true guise: assault carriers, already launching against Stoner's isolated ships.

 

 

Trevayne watched the ruby chips of the outgoing rebel fighters with bitter satisfaction@u He'd been right all along @u.. the decisive battle would come at Zapata, but it would be such an engagement as none of them had dreamed of in their worst nightmares. On either side, he thought grimly.

 

 

"Admiral," Yoshinaka was saying, "should I recall Commander Sandoval?" The ops officer was on his way to Togo to confer with his opposite number on Desafs staff. Trevayne shook his head.

 

 

"No, Genji. His cutter has time to reach Togo before we engage, but not to get back here." He managed a grim smile. "I'm afraid he and Sonja are stuck with each other for the duration--just as you and I are stuck with another young lady." "Sir?" "That," Trevayne jutted his jaw at the oncoming rebel battle-line, "can be only one person, Genii. Admiral Li is back for a return engagement, and she's caught me with my trousers well and truly down about my ankles." He allowed himself a brief chuckle. The sound was harsh, disb it seemed to banish his last doubts. He began rapping out orders, and the battle-line wheeled ponderously, abandoning its original course to face its foes.

 

 

Trevayne remained confident@u The rebel battle-line was powerful, but clearly no match for his own. The incoming fighters from the belt were a threat, but not enough to even the balance if Remko and Stoner could fend off the rebel carriers long enough. They were in for a nasty series of external ordnance salvos from the rebel's capital ships, but when they closed to energy weapon range his superior weight of metal would tell. And he could still draw first blood with his HBM'S before they entered SBM range.

 

 

But it wasn't that simple, as his first HBM salvo revealed. The Republic's RandD teams hadn't produced such spectacular results, perhaps, but they had not been idle. For the first time, the Rim encountered a Republican weapon that was as much a breakthrough as the grav driver. The rebels mounted shields which were outwardly identical to" those which had been in use for over two hundred years, and so they were, to a point. But conventional shields collapsed as they took damage and their massive fuses blew; these reset automatically and virtually instantaneously. They didn't "collapse" they simply flashed out of existence, then bounced back.., as good as new!

 

 

On the heels of that discovery came more bad news. While the survivors of the rebels' opening fighter strike returned to their hangars to rearm, the equally-strong second strike ignored Remko to converge on Stoner and his decimated fighters. A tidal wave of fighter missiles overpowered the point defense of Stoner's flagship, and a Code Omega message flashed on the plot with sickening suddenness. Trevayne hid a pang of dismay as TFNS Hellhound vanished in a brilliant ball of flame. If the rebel's first strike rearmed and joined the clash of battle-lines...i, Trevaynes communications section raised Arquebus quickly as Nelson and Arrarat lumbered towards one another. Capital ships were slow; even with the time lag, Trevayne had time to speak to Remko once more.

 

 

He outlined the situation in a few brief sentences, then looked squarely at the face of his embattled screen commander.

 

 

"It's vital that you hit those carriers hard-preferably while their first wave is aboard rearming. That means close engagement. I repeat, close." He paused, then leaned closer to the pickup. "Scan, you're in command of the screen because I happen to think you're the most aggressive combat commander in the Fleet. Now prove it!" Remko stared back at him unmovingly for long, long seconds as the transmission winged through space.

 

 

His face reminded Trevayne of one of Kevin's quotes from the American Civil War--a description of General U. S. Grant: "He habitually wears an expression as ff he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall and was about to do it." Remko wore that kind of expression as he rumbled "Aye, aye, sir." Then he blurted out, "Admiral, I'm gonna personally shove a force beam projector up the ass of whoever's in command of those carriers and then cut loose!" He stopped, face redder than usual, and broke the connection.

 

 

"Well." Trevayne turned to Yoshinaka and smiled. "Whoever said Scan isn't eloquent?" Then he shook himself as the rebels approached SBM range.

 

 

"Genji," he said, "run down to the intelligence center and personally impress on Lavrenti the urgency of analyzing this resetting shield the rebels have." Yoshinaka nodded and moved towards the intraship car. As an afterthought, Trevayne rose from the admiral's chair and walked with him.

 

 

"See if you can pick Kevin's brains while you're there." The intelligence center was Sanders' battle station.

 

 

"And hurry back. Things could get a bit tight in the next few minutes." Yoshinaka nodded again and stepped into the car. The doors closed, and Trevayne turned back toward his command chair and the battle as the first rebel SBM salvos began to launch. Most seemed targeted on Nelson. Yes, he thought, they'll try to begin by destroying one supermonitor, to show their people it can be done.

 

 

"Message from Admiral Petrovna, sir.

 

 

The Rim screen isn't breaking off. She's taking heavy missile fire." "Thank you, Bob." Han said calmly, watching the plot. She'd hoped the screen would fall back, for her ruse had been intended to destroy Trevayne's fighters and get her own battle-line in range of his without being devastated by long-range missile fire--not to match Magda against the screen in a ship-to-ship action. But it wasn't working out that way. The bickering fight had turned suddenly even more vicious, and that screen commander had kept his wits about him. The worst thing he could possibly do, from her viewpoint, was get in among her carriers and wreck those launch bays. Well, it had always been a possibility.

 

 

That was why Magda held that command. Anyone who went after her in close action was reaching into a buzz saw.

 

 

Hah only hoped that Magda wouldn't be among the chips chewed off by the blade.

 

 

"Signal to Admiral Windrider," she said suddenly. "Launch reserve strike immediately." The escort carri tilde ers and hangar "barges" hidden among the asteroids were supposed to be the final reserve as well as the rear jaw of the trap, but the Rim screen was doing too good a job of closing with Magla; she would need to retain most of her fighter strength to fend off those cruisers, and the diver- sion had to be made up from Jason's units.

 

 

"Aye, aye, sir." "Coming into SBM range, Admiral," Tsing Chang said calmly. "Captain Parbleu has a good setup." "Then you may open fire, Admiral." "Aye, aye, sir. Opening fire now." And Arrarat bucked as BG 9's XO racks emptied in a single massive volley.

 

 

The vast majority of the SBM'S targeting Nelson were stopped by BG I's awesome array of datalinked point defense stations--comb the laws of chance dictated that some would always get through, and the incoming salvos were massive. Nelson's dying shields were centered in a vortex of nuclear flame, and under those torrents of energy, the supermonitor's massive rmor boiled.

 

 

Her shields went down, and more salvos scorched in, seeking to exploit her weakening defenses.

 

 

Again, most were stopped. But dozens slid through the lattice-like intricacies of her point defense lasers and immolated themselves against her drive field in fireballs which gouged at her gargantuan hull.,, Glowing craters pitted her armor, snapped structural members, wiped away weapons... and personnel. And one of those craters, guided by the freakish improbability which rules the tides of war, ripped deep into the heavily armored compartments surrounding Nelson's flag bridge.

 

 

"Many hits on primary target," Tsing Chang's chief of staff reported jubilantly.

 

 

"Her shields are down and she's streaming airl" "She won't have much internal damage yet," Tomanaga commented softly, "but every little bit helps." Concussion, shockwaves, and the terrible sound of buckling, tearing metal were all the universe them was. In an instant of havoc unacceptable to human senses, almost everyone on Nelson's flag bridge died, except those in chairs with shock frames. Chairs like the one Trevayne was not in. The force of the explosion whipsawed the bridge, hurling him down and smashing him into the pedestal of the admiral's chair. His spinal column fractured and a shard of steel ripped his vac suit. Air hissed from the compartment, and his damaged suit began a deadly collapse. And yet he was, all things considered, unreasonably lucky.

 

 

Profiting from the confision caused by the hit, a second missile from the same salvo drew dangerously close before it detonated--not a hit, but a near miss which flooded adjacent space with lethal radiation. The rent armor of the stricken flag bridge couldn't shield the survivors from death, but again, Trevayne was lucky. The chair behind which he lay gave him some protection. The radiation poisoning he received was not fatal... instantly.

 

 

Genji Yoshinaka gasped as his suit pressurized. He'd been thrown against the wall of the intraship car by the concussion, but he was dazed only briefly and he heaved himself upright and slammed his fist on the override button. The buckled doors were jammed, and his hand went to the laser pistol by his side. He blasted the doors aside, cutting his way back onto the flag bridge the car had only just begun to leave... and into a scene from Hell.

 

 

Bodies sprawled amid the twisted, blackened metal Acrid smoke streamed toward the hungry rents through which atmosphere screamed into space, and severed cables lashed the escaping air like bullwhips, crackling and spitting and fountaining fire.

 

 

Yoshinaka's body responded before his numbed mind could understand. He snatched the nearest emergency kit and flung himself at the crumpled figure beside the admiral's chair. His hands moved with machine-like efficiency, slapping seals on the partially collapsing vac suit, and even as he worked he spoke calmly to the battlephone microphone in his helmet.

 

 

"Doctor Yuan to the flag bride! Damage control to the flag bridge! Use the emergency bypass route. Captain Mujabi, have corn raise Admiral Desai. Inform her she's in command.., details to follow." And then there was nothing he could do but wait, kneeling at the side of the semi-conscious figure in the IsvaRwcror fleet admiral's vac'suit with the blood-misted faceplate. He was still there when Doctor Yuan arrived.

 

 

"More hits on the primary target, sir," Tomanaga reported. "Her drive field is weakening and her fire's almost ceased. Permission to shift target?" "Granted." "Parnassus reports critical HBM damage, sir. She's withdrawing." "Acknowledge." Hah glanced at the' blinking data codes under the crippled superdreadnought's blip. Parnassus was done for--ff she had time to withdraw before she went Code Omega it would be a miracle.

 

 

"BG 14 reports loss of both escort destroyers, sir. Admiral Iskan requests additional fighter support." "Denied. We don't have it to spare. Tell him to tail in behind BG 16 aeaful, use them for cover." "Aye, aye, sir.

 

 

"External ordnance exhausted, sir. Closing to energy range. Force beams and primaries in range in two minutes." "Very well. Signal Admiral Kanohe: "Destroyers attack enemy line of battle." Signal all battle-lines units: "Stand by to engage with beams."" "Standing by, sir." "Admiral Tsing, your group will engage the enemy's lead battlegroup." "Aye, aye, sir." Sonja Desai was speaking to her chief of staff when Joeaa, quin Sandoval almost ran onto Togo's bridge.

 

 

@u.. yes. Get her inside the globe@u Their fighters aren't going to be busy with our escorts forever, and their capital ships are comingeaffu.

 

 

They'll want to stay close--inside HBM range.

 

 

Sandoval waited impatiently. His cutter had come through the beginning of the battle on its final approach to Togo, and he was still oversupplied with adrenalin. But he had no intention of giving Desai an excuse for dressing him down by violating any aspect of military courtesy. Finally she turned back to him.

 

 

"Commander Sandoval," she began without greeting or preliminary, "I'd better bring you up to speed.

 

 

Admiral

 

 

Trevayne is seriously injured and out of action.

 

 

I've assumed command. Nelson's shields are down and there's not much left of her armor. She's taken significant internal damage, including the virtual destruction of her flag deck; she can still maneuver, but we'll have to get her inside our globe. Captain Mujabi has taken command of BG 1. We've lost Olqmpus, and Drake and two more superdreadnoughts have taken heavy damage.

 

 

At the same time, the rebels have taken considerable HBM damage, but they're still closing. They'll be in beam range shortly." Sandoval gaped at her. Mother of God, what did the woman use for blood? Formaldehyde?

 

 

Aloud, he asked, "And Commodore Yoshinaka, sir?" "Alive and well." "I'd better get back, rejoin him.... his "Out of the question, Commander. You can't fly a cutter through what's happening out there." Was it possible that there was a very slight ironic twinkle in her eyes?

 

 

"Welcome aboard, Commander... and strap in tight.

 

 

Things are going to get bumpy." "Sir, we can't stop them! They just keep coming!" Magda Petrovna regarded her fighter commander levelly. Commodore Huyler was a good man under normal conditions, but these weren't normal. His pilots were doing everything perfectly--but what could you do when your enemy suddenly began to ignore everything your fighters handed out while he concentrated on mauling your flight decks? And those damned improved force beams were just the weapon to do it with, she thought grimly.

 

 

"Admiral." It was the rating monitoring Han's eom traffic. "Parnassus is Code Omega--coms is Copperhead. Shiriken reports total loss of energy armament." "Do your best, Commodore," she told Huyler.

 

 

"If you can't stop them all, try to cripple as many as possible. Go for the heavy cruisers--you've got better odds there. The screen will just have to handle the battle-cruisers." "Aye, aye, sir." The screen blanked, and Magda glanced at her battle plot. She hid her fears well, she thought, for that was part of the game. Yet her carriers had to remain in support range of the capital ships.

 

 

If she let herself be driven INSU-AAECTON away, those mammbth monitors and supermonitors would overwhelm Han no matter what. She leaned over and touched a eom stud, opening an all-ships channel.

 

 

"This is Admiral Petrovna," she said calmly, watching the Rim ships close on her flagship with magnificent courage. "We're done retreating, people. We stop them here, or we don't go home." She looked back at the plot. In one corner the opposing battle-lines were merging into a single sea of light dots. "Admiral Li is depend, ing on us," she said quietly. "We're not going to let her down." She heard the cheers ripple through her flagship and closed her eyes in pain.

 

 

"Well?" Captain Joseph Yuan, M.D., rose and looked into Genji Yoshinaka's anxious face.

 

 

Repair parties labored furiously about them, rep left-brace essurizing the charnel house that had been a flag bridge. Since they and the medics had arrived, Yoshinaka had finally had time to worry.

 

 

For the first time since Yuan had known him, his control was perceptibly frayed.

 

 

"The admiral is suffering from acute anoxia, shock, and concussion," Yuan said in a voice of dispassionate professionalism. "His spinal cord is severed just below the fifth vertebra, and he has severe radiation poisoning. It's a miracle he's alive--and he won't be for very long.

 

 

I doubt a fully-equipped dirtside hospital could deal with this. I Yoshinaka fumbled to grasp what he had heard.

 

 

Yuan had warned him he might have gotten a bit of concussion himself, but that could not fully explain his pain and confusion.

 

 

"You're telling me yoeau, can't save hm?ful" "Not necessarily.

 

 

Two of Yuan's technicians entered, wheeling in a strangely repellent object. Its attached instrumentation and tankage couldn't hide its basic shape; it was a coffin. Yuan pointed at it.

 

 

"There's one chance--not a good one, but beggars can't be choosers. If we act fast, we can get him into th cryogenic bath. "Freeze" him, to use the vulgar term. Now, you realize that this procedure normally involves an extensive workup, but we haven't time for any of that.

 

 

We won't be able to "unfreeze" hims" Yoshinaka stared at Yuan as he would have stared at a horrifyingly calm, reasonable lunatic.

 

 

"What... what's the use, then, ff... hiswas The doctor raised a hand. "We can't unfreeze him now.

 

 

But we can suspend his vital functions indefinitely. And maybe at some time in the future we'll be able to undo the effects of this quickie job and repair the other damage. I can't promise that, but..." His temper flared, and Yoshinaka realized that this man might feel as strongly about Ian Trevayne as he did. "Damn it, this is our only chance to save him!" The technicians had been making hurried preparations as he talked. Now one of his medics looked up suddenly. "Doctor, his vital signs are weakening fast." "Goddamn it!" Yuan's face twisted in angry grief. "We may be too late already!

 

 

Get him in there! Move, manl Move!" On a sunlit beach in Old Terra's Midworld Sea, a little girl with chestnut hair smiled and beckoned, and Lieutenant Commander Ian Trevayne ran to join her.

 

 

Scan Remko's eyes swept the officers facing hm-hi flag captain and staff--comand his New Detroit Accent, always harsh, was a saw.

 

 

"Ladies and gentlemen, I don't give a flying fuck about damage reports." His hand slapped his plot like a gunshot. "It's our job to keep those rebel fighters off the admiral, and that means forcing close engagement with their carriers. Those are my orders from the admiral. So I don't want to hear about fighters or missiles or any other goddamned thing. All that matters is that they've stopped backing away and we can get at them.

 

 

Admiral Trevayne's orders apply to every ship -comincluding this one. If anybody hangs back, I'm going to tear him a new asshole! Is that understood?" The staff types shrank before his fury, and it was the flag captain who spoke a heartfelt "Yes, sir!" Remko looked at him sharply and motioned him closer as the others returned hastily to-their consoles. When everyone else was out of earshot, he spoke softly.

 

 

"You've never liked me much, have you, Captain?" Cyrus Waldeck looked him straight in the eye and spoke just as quietly. "I hate your guts, sir. But for now, let's go kill those rebel bastards!" Remko extended his hand. Waldeck took it.

 

 

"Sir, the enemy screen has forced a close engagement with Admiral Petrovna. She'll need every fighter she's got just to hold them off--she can't send her first strike back into the main engagement." Rear Admiral Jason Windrider eyed his chief of staff coldly. He didn't know Magda, Jason thought--not if he thought she'd hold back fighters Han needed. He watched her flagship's light flicker as it took hits, and his teeth ground together. Never before had they been in the same battle aboard different ships, and only now did he truly realize how much it could cost two warriors to love.

 

 

He stared at his plot bitterly. He had nothing heavier than a destroyer under his own command--just a lot of immobile barges and tiny escort carriers without a single offensive weapon of their own. There was no way he could come to Magda's aid, even if his orders had allowed it.

 

 

"Sir! We've intercepted a signal from Admiral Petrovna." Jason's eom officer faltered under his bitter eyes. "She... she's seeation, ding her first strike back to support Admiral Li, sir.

 

 

Jason closed his eyes briefly, staring deep into his soul. Then he nodded once, sharply. When he spoke, his voice was calm.

 

 

"Signal to Admiral Petrovna: "Suggest you recall fighters. Am moving to support battle-line and rearm fighters engaged against enemy main body. Windrider, out."" He turned to his chief of staff. "Leave the barges and get these buckets moving, Ivan." "But, sir," his chief of staff said quietly, "the enemy's between us and Admiral Li." There was no fear in his voice, only logic. "If we come close enough to support her, we'll be in missile range of the Rim battle-line. The ships will never stand it, sir." "They only have to stand it long enough for Admiral

 

 

Daoid Weber and Steve White Petrovna to deal with that screen," Jason said bleakly.

 

 

"Now get us moving." "Aye, aye, sir." Drive fields woke in twenty-four escort carriers scattered among the asteroids, stripping away the anonymity which had shielded them. Two dozen earrierssmall and frail--abandoned concealment and darted towards the battling Titans while missile-hungry fighters swerved to meet them.

 

 

Jason Windrider watched his plot. Was he doing it because it was the logical move? Or in a desperate attempt to save the woman he loved?

 

 

If logic dictated, his actions were correct; ff he'd allowed love to rule him, they were contemptible.

 

 

He dosed his eyes once more and forced himself to reconsider his decision.

 

 

No, it was right, he dee'gled finally. If Magda retained her fighters, she could beat off Trevayne's screen. She'd take losses, but she could do it. And only ff her big carriers survived could Han win the battle. So he was right.., even though so many people would die.

 

 

"Incoming missiles, sir," his chief of staff said tensely. "Stand by point defense," Rear Admiral Windrider said.

 

 

The battle-lines ernnehed together, and the space between them became trellised with beamed energy: the tearing x-ray fury of hetlasers and the space-distorting Edicher-effeet weapons--the metal-wrenching force beams and the stiletto-thin, unstoppable primaries.

 

 

Under those intolerable hammers of energy, shields flashed and overloaded, dying in bursts of deadly radiation.

 

 

The Republic's new screens made a superdreadnought effectively equal to a monitor, at least in its ability to absorb punishment. But the battle-line Ian Trevayne had forged still held the advantage--comor would have, but for the rebel fighters and formations of hetlaser-armed destroyers that swept through the carnage. The fighters came slashing in, corkscrewing and weaving to penetrate the defenses.

 

 

Many died, but others survived, pouring their fire into the Rim ships, breaking off and streaming back to the fragile escort carriers to rearm, The destroyer squadrons were less maneuverable and bigger targets, but there were many of them, and they could take far more damage. They rammed their attacks down the Rim's throat, dosing tmtfi their shields jarred and flashed against their opponents'.

 

 

At such range, the hetlaser was a deadly weapon, and Sonja Desai was forced to divert more and more of her killer whales' firepower against those lethal minnows.

 

 

She watched the devastation mount about her furiously fighting ships. Omega reports began coming in from the lighter spreadreadnoughts and battleships--only a trickle, yet, but a flood would soon follow. No one had ever seen such extravagant slaughter. The worst engagements of the Fourth Interstellar War paled beside this holocaust -comand still it grew. It was inconceivable.

 

 

Almost half the rebels' energy, weapons were a new kind of primary, she noted almost absently.

 

 

Apparently they hadn't cracked the secret of the varialle-focus beam, but they seemed to have come up with something almost as good. Desai was a weapons specialist; she didn't need experts to tell her tle rebels had stumbled onto a different application of the foreefield lens principle--comone which al- lowed a "burst" longer than that of the standard primary. to " to to to " Long enough for the beam to "swing" slightly. Its slicing action did less damage than a force beam, simply slashing a five-centimeter-wide gash through whatever it hit. But that was more than enough to eripple any installation--and it passed effortlessly through any material object or energy shield in its path.

 

 

That was what made it so deadly despite its slow rate of fire; it could damage supermonitors without first pounding through their nearly indestructible shields and armor.

 

 

The primary has always held an especially nerve-wracking fear for spacers. One can be standing in an undamaged ship and suddenly find a five-centimeter hole through one's stomach. It happens rarely, of course--human bodies are small objects, placed aboard starships in limited numbers. But even improbable things happen occasionally.

 

 

Like the primary which suddenly sliced through Togo's flag bridge. Air began howling into space.

 

 

Two scanner ratings got in the beam's way, and it eut them in two in an explosion of gore. It swung towards Sonja Desafs command chair, but it did not quite reach it... it terminated at the midthigh level of Joaquin Sandoval's right leg. He crashed to the deck, the leg suddenly attached only by a thin strip of muscle and skin.

 

 

The primary is not a heat weapon; it does not cauterize. The stump spurted blood.

 

 

Sandoval began screaming.

 

 

Desafs reflexes thought for her as one hand slammed the release on her shock frame and she flung herseff free. No one else on the shocked bridge could move as she ripped a severed cable from a shattered panel. She whipped it around his leg, jerking the crude tourniquet tight even as she summoned the medics via battlephone.

 

 

"Sir, Adder, Coral Snake, Ortler, Thera, and Anderson are Code Omega," Tomanaga reported, his voice hoarse as the nightmare tally rose, his face afire with battle and awe at the unprecedented destruction.

 

 

Han sat in her command chair, stroking the helmet in her lap as she absorbed the litany of death.

 

 

Death inflicted by humans upon humans. Death dealt out in the name of duty and honor. Her shoulders were relaxed, her face calm, but a trickle of sweat ran down one cheekbone.

 

 

Arrarat shuddered as another missile exploded against her drive field, and Han looked at Tsing's ops offacer; he sat motionless before his panel. His d0mentalink was gone. It was very quiet on the flag bridge, despite the dreadful butchery raging within and beyond the hull. She looked up as a shadow fell on the side of her face, and Tsing Chang looked down at her.

 

 

"Sir, you must transfer. Arrarat can no longer serve as your flagship." "No," she said softly.

 

 

"Admiral," Tsing tried again, "Captain Parbleu is dead. Commander Tomas tells me we have two hetlasers and one primary left--the armament of a light cruiser, sir. Right now, they're not even shooting at us very much, but it's only a matter of time till they finish us off. You must transfer." "No," she said once more. "I've had three flagships, Chang. I've lost two of them." She looked away from the " plot where Bernardo da Silva had just died at the hands of her own ships. "I won't leave this one." "It's your duty, Admiral," he said softly.

 

 

'This task force is your responsibility--not a single ship." "Oh? And what of you, Admiral?" "I've only got two ships left," he said simply, "and they're both out of the net." ISURCTO

 

 

"But you still have yoir eom." Arrarat was doomed, but it seemed to her hypersensitive mind that only her pre. sene, had deferred that doom this long. She knew it was irrational, yet she couldn't leave. She shook her head doggedly. "And you've still got your drive, Admiral. Instruct Arrarat to withdraw.

 

 

I can still eommand from here." "Yes, sir. You're right, of course." Tsing paused, looking down at her, and his lips curved suddenly in a warm smile. "It's been an honor to serve with you, sir." She looked up, troubled by his gentle voice even through the mental haze of battle. It no longer sounded like the imperturbable Tsing she knew.

 

 

"I'm sorry, sir," he said softly--and his fist exploded against her jaw.

 

 

Han's head snapped hack, her eyes rolling up. She lolled in her shock frame, and Tsing caught up her helmet and jammed it over like..r head, sealing it while the bridge crew stared in frozen to isbelief. He turned to Tomanaga.

 

 

"You've got four minutes to clear this ship, Commo- dore,"" he said crisply. He punched the release of Han's shock frame, his face fierce, and snatched her up. He threw her limp body at Tomanaga, and the chief of staff caught her numbly. "Get her out of here. Now, goddamn it!" Tomanaga hesitated one instant, then nodded sharply and raced for the intraship car.

 

 

"She'll need her staff," Tsing snapped. "The rest of youout!" Li Han's staff never hesitated. Something in his voice compelled obedience, and they were halfway to the boatbay before they even realized they'd moved.

 

 

Tsing punched a button on the arm of Han's empty chair, and his voice echoed through every battlephone aboard his savagely wounded flagship.

 

 

'rhis is Admiral Tsing. Our weapons are destroyed. I intend to close the enemy and ram while I still have drive power. You have three minutes to abandon ship." He turned to his staff.

 

 

"Commander Howell, message to Admiral Windrider: 'Vice Admiral Li transferring to TRNS Saburo Yato via cutter. Urgently request fighter cover." Send it and get out." He bent and pressed buttons, slaving drive and helm to the flag bridge. He looked up a moment later--his staff remained at their stations.

 

 

"Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you misunderstood me," he said calmly.

 

 

"No, sir," Frances Howell said softly.

 

 

"We understood." Tsing started to speak again, then closed his mouth.

 

 

He nodded and dropped back into his command chair, glancing at the chronometer.

 

 

"Two minutes, Commander Howell," he said.

 

 

"Then I want maximum power." He touched a brilliant dot on his plot. "That looks like a nice target." "It does, indeed, sir." "She's what?" Jason Windrider demanded.

 

 

Only nine of his small carriers remained, but a destroyer flotilla and two light cruiser squadrons had broken through to protect the survivors while their hangar crews broke all speed records rearming fighters.

 

 

"The Flag is transferring, sir," his eom officer repeated. "Admiral Tsing requests fighter cover for the admiral's cutter." "What the hell is she playing at now?" Jason fumed, fear fraying his voice with anger.

 

 

He stared at the maelstrom of capital ships and sighed. "All right, Ivan. See ff you can sort anyone out of that mess!" "Yes, sir." Only a handful of Carl Stoner's fighters survived, and they'd been driven back by Magda's fighters once she was free to retain them for her own defense. Even Se'an Remko's ships had been unable to close on her flagship as her fighters slashed away at their drive pods, slowing them, battering them. She'd lost heavily--five of her own battle-cruisers were gone, and two assault carriers and three fleet carriers had been gutted or destroyed--but her remaining hangar bays supported enough fighters to make it suicide for Stoner's survivors to engage her.

 

 

Remko had realized that. In desperation, he had ordered them into the butchery of the batfie-lines, hoping they might make a difference, that they and the capital ships might offer one another some mutual protection. Now three of Stoner's waifs saw an unbelievable sight: a INSURBECTION cutter spat out of tle boatbay of a rebel superdreadnought and dashed towards an embattled monitor.

 

 

"Zulu Leader to Zulu Squadron," their leader said, his voice ugly with hate and despair. "Must be someone pretty importantmlet's go get him!" "Zulu Three, roger." "Zulu Six, roger." His two remaining wingmen dropped back to cover him, and the Rim squadron leader stoope.d on the cutter like a hawk.

 

 

Lieutenant Anna Holbeek shook her head in disbelief. Find a cutter and escort it through this?! Someone had obviously had a shock or two too many, she thought. But hers was not to reason why.

 

 

"Basilisk Leader to Basilisk Squadron," she said resignedly. "Let's go finstl the admiral, boys and girls." Five agile littl strikefighters slashed through vacuum, closing on Han's cutter.

 

 

Death crashed about them, but so vast are the battlefields of space that even in that cauldron of beams and missiles, no weapon came close to the deadly little quintet.

 

 

"Basilisk Leader, Basilisk Two.

 

 

I've got her on instruments, Skip--but she's got trouble." "I see it. Green Section, close on the cutter. Red Sec-t-ion, follow me." The three Rim pilots were so intent on their prey they never even saw the Republican ships that killed them.

 

 

"Sir! One of the rebel superdreadnoughts is closing rapidly!" "What about itThat" Vice Admiral Frederick Shespar grunted, tightening his shock frame as TFNS Suffren's evasive ac- tion grew more violent.

 

 

"Sir, she's on a collision course--at maximum speed!" "What?" Shespar stabbed one glance at his flag plot and blanched in horror.

 

 

The ship coming at him could hardly be called a ship.

 

 

She was a battered, broken wreck, stream-lng atmosphere and shedding bits of plating and escape pods as she came, but there was clearly nothing wrong with her drive. It took him barely a second to realize her grim purpose--comb a second is a long, long time at such speeds.

 

 

"Gunnery! New battlegroup target! Burn that ship d--was He never finished the sentence. Tsing Chang's flagship hurled herself headlong at Suffren. Neither supermonitors nor superdreadnoughts are very fast, by Fleet standards--but these were on virtually reciprocal courses.

 

 

Two-thirds of a million tonnes of mass collided at a closing speed of just under fifty thousand kilometers per second.

 

 

It was too intense to call an explosion.

 

 

Some events are so cataclysmic the mind cannot comprehend them. The weapons in play in the Zapata System had killed far more people than died with Arrarat and Suffren--but not so spectacularly, so. deliberately. The devastating boil of light and vaporized steel and flesh hung before the eyes of the survivors like the mouth of hell, and they shrank from it.

 

 

As two fighting animals will separate momentarily to draw breath, the battle fleets pulled slightly apart. It wasn't really a lull, for weapons still fired, but a reduction of the unprecedented, unendurable intensity of close combat. As a conscious, ashen-faced Li Han turned from the cutter's view-port, something very like a respite closed in on the warring ships.

 

 

The Republic needed it. Scores of fighters were rearming aboard Windrider's and Magda's surviving carriers as Han stepped from her cutter aboard Saburo Yato and raced for the intraship car. Her brain was like ice over a furnace. The anguish of Tsing's death warred with a sort of horrified pride in the manner of his dying, but she couldn't let herself think of that. Not yet. There were things to do, a battle to win. She would allow herself grief and pride later. Later, when she had time to mourn as Chang deserved.

 

 

She stepped onto Yato's flag bridge, and Admiral Stephen Butesky leapt aside to offer her his command chair. She nodded briefly and dropped into x while a shaken Tomanaga quietly displaced Butesky's chief of staff.

 

 

"Status report!" she snapped. She didn't really want to know. She didn't want to consider her hideous losses, or even those of her enemies. But she had a job to do. Thank God for this lull! Perhaps she could-- "Admiral Li?" A strange eom rating looked up at her, eyes puzzled, and Hart choked back a sob of grief for the people aboard Arrarat.

 

 

"Yes?" Her voice showed no sign of her sorrow.

 

 

"I've just picked up a parley signal from Vice Admiral Sonja Desai." Han blinked, then smoothed an incipient scowl from her face and gestured acceptance, her mind racing.

 

 

Who the devil was Vice Admiral Desai? It was unheard off An officer didn't simply send a signal to her opponent while missiles and beams were still flying! Why-- She didn't recognize the dark, sharp-featured woman who appeared on the screen. Her vac suit was drenched with blood not her own, obviously, for she sat upright in a command chair, clearly in complete command of herself.

 

 

"Where is Admiral Trevayne?" Han demanded without preamble.

 

 

"Admiral Trevayneis in sickbay. I have assumed command."" Desafs habifual expressionlessness did not alter, and she resumed after the briefest of pauses. ""rhe position is this, Admiral Li: we can continue this battle and fight it out to a conclusion, and I believe I can win. Quite probably you disagree. But whichever of us is right, 'winning" in this context means being left with the last one or two ships, or at least with a surviving force too weak to follow up its "victory." As an alternative to this profitless slaughter, I propose a cease-fire in place, of indefinite duration, while we apprise our respective governments of the situation."" The immobile face took on a slightly rueful expression. "We may have to ask you to transport our messenger to the Innerworlds, but we have with us a high-ranking Federation official who will be able to represent our status to the Prime Minister." Han's face was like a sculpture as she thought furiously. Could she win if the battle resumed?

 

 

Yes. With her fighters rearmed and the range too short for the Rim's HBM'S to be decisive... yes, she could win. She felt certain of it--and she suspected this Desai knew it, too. Yet Desai was also right. Her own battle-line had been savaged, the relentless attacks of the Rim screen had hurt. Magda far worse than had been allowed for, and Jason's force was devastated. And she had little idea just how much fight those looming supermonitors still had in them-- three were gone, others badly damaged. One hadn't fired in minutes. Was it any more than a hulk? She knew she could take them, avenge Second Zephrain's blot on the Fleet's honor @u.

 

 

. and vet... and yet there was that edge of uncertainty and her ignorance of how matters stood with the Rump pincer. And there was the terrible knowledge that even victory, would leave her on her knees, without the strength to follow through against Zephrain.

 

 

But still...

 

 

Damn it, where was Trevayne? Was he really dead? They'd hardly admit it, would they? And, her dogged honestly demanded, why did she care?

 

 

Aloud she temporized. "Such an agreement might exceed my authority. At the least, you're asking me to assume a heavy responsibility." "No heavier than I'm assuming myself." "On the contrary.; you're occupying four planetary systems of the Terran Republic which I'm under orders to recover--was "And I am under orders to reopen contact between the Innerworlds and the Rim Feder... the loyalist systems of the Rim." Desafs stiffness relaxed just a trifle. "Now that we've each recited our position papers, let's turn to reality. You and I are in command on the scene. We both. know our orders can't be carried out--not without a gree of slaughter which passes the limits of sanity and decency. Shall we make our governments aware of that reality.? Or shall we continue to carry out our orders in spite of it?" Her eyes bored into Han's. "In the end, I suppose it comes down to a question of where our duty really lies. That's a question many of us have had to face over the last few years, isn't it?" Two pairs of dark eyes locked. I can win, Hun told herself. to can win the greatest space battle in history! Or @u do to think that because I want to win so badly? And if I do, why?

 

 

Out of duty... or hatred? Shame that a man who may not even be alive over there once beat me?

 

 

Or for the glory? And what "glory" is there in being the woman responsible for such slaughter?

 

 

And could I kill them all? Her thoughts turned ever inward. Could I wipe them out--because that's what it comes down to; this Desai will no more surrender if I

 

 

INSUBRECTION reject her offer than I would. Even after all that's passed, even ffI have the capability to treat them like Arthur Ruyard, could I do it? After lan Trevayne didn't do that to me?

 

 

And almost before she realized she was speaking, the quiet words came.

 

 

"Very well, Admiral Desai. I agree." Vice Admiral Li Han stood in a strange cabin, hands by her sides. Her eyes were dry, but her bee was strained and drawn. She sank into a chair, her lips trembling briefly in a tired smile. She'd lost hree sets of quarters now. She was once more down to a single battle-stained vac suit.., her painfully reassembled possessions drifting atoms.

 

 

Her face crumpled as realization hit. Arrarat was gone. All those people. Twenty-five hundred friends. Chang.

 

 

She buried her face in her hands, feeling her nails press into her temples as she fought the tears. She wouldn't weep. She wouldn't?Chang had chosen the way he died.

 

 

But he had died, she told herself sadly. Died under her command--with thousands of others aboard the ships she'd commanded. And she hadn't even won! She'd renounced victory, held her hand in the name of "humanity." But what of her debt to those who had died, trusting in her to win the battle?

 

 

She straightened her spine and stared into a mirror, her cheeks dry, and scarcely recognized the wan face that looked back at her from those brilliant black eyes. tears, she told herself. No tears for Chang, for the dead, for the lost victory. The past was past, and the future pressed upon her.

 

 

She reached for the eom panel and began to punch Magda's code, then stopped. Her hand fell into her lap, and she leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes.

 

 

Not yet. She must speak to Magda, must plan and confer. But not yet. Please, God, not just yet.

 

 

An odd numbness gripped the officers in Togo's briefing room. It went beyond the inevitable aftershock of battle--even of one such as this.

 

 

Sonja Desai looked at the faces of the people who had come so far and given so much for the victory which had been denied them. It wasn't defeat, Not really.

 

 

But it wasn't victory, either, and the price they'd paid was terrible enough to demand victory.

 

 

Scan Remko sat staring dully at the deck, his face working with emotion. He'd learned what had happened to Trevavne, and no assurance that he'd done tar more than his "duty" could reach him in the darkened chamber to which he had withdrawn and which held but one thought: he had failed the admiral.

 

 

Yoshinaka and Kirilenko sat side by side.

 

 

They'd come from Nelson (along with Sanders, who was even now preparing for his departure) and had arrived a few minutes late, after receiving assurances that Sandoval's condition was stable. Mujabi was present in his new capacity as CO of BG lfwhat remained of it. So were the other ranking survivors, including Khalid Khan, who was the first to react.

 

 

"What you're saying, Admiral, is that we're simply to keep station here in Zapata until we get orders to the contrary?" "Correct," Desai nodded. "So are the rebels. This is the precondition to the cease-fire.

 

 

All major Fleet units must remain in place. Of course, noncombatant supply vessels aren't included, nor are light combatants... like the rebel destroyer which will take Mister Sanders to the Innerworlds." They all stared at her as if she had, inexplicably, left out the most obvious point.

 

 

It was Kirilenko who blurted it out.

 

 

"But, sir, what about the admiral... er, Admiral Trevayne?" Desafs face was at its most flinty.

 

 

"Nelson is, of course, covered by the cease-fire terms and must remain here. But I am advised by Doctor Yuan that Admiral Trevayne can be maintained aboard Nelson indefinitely in his present condition. So there's really no problem.

 

 

Any other questions?" The stares changed subtly, as if these people were looking at a thing they couldn't comprehend, and were fairly sure they did not want to.

 

 

Kirilenko stiffened, and his mouth began to open.

 

 

Under the edge of the table, Yoshinaka gripped his forearm, very tightly. Kirilenko's mouth closed again, and he subsided.

 

 

Desai stood. "If there are no further questions, ladies and gentlemen, please carry on." She walked to the door, then paused and looked back.

 

 

Everyone was still seated.

 

 

Desai looked sraieaht into the eyes of Scan Remko, the senior man in the room. For a bare instant, he stared back with an unreadable expression. Then he lumbered to his feet and said, in a voice like a rockslide, "Attention on deck." They rose slowly to attention. Desai nodded very slightly and stalked through the door.

 

 

Her expression and posture remained equally stiff in the iqhtraship car and through the passageway to her quarters. e sentry snapped to attention, and she nodded crisply to him as she pressed the door stud and entered.

 

 

The door closed silently behind her. She stood a moment, her face wearing a vague look which slowly turned into one of pained bewilderment. Something happened inside her, something whose possibility would have been flatly denied by those who knew her. Her features collapsed into a maskstbf inconsolable grief, and a harsh, low cry welled out of her like the plaintive wail of a maimed animal unable to understand its pain. She hurled herself onto her bunk, burying her face in the pillow as she wept convulsively, and the sound of her empty, tearing sorrow filled her cabin.

 

 

A moment later, the door slid open with its usual soundlessness to admit Remko and Yoshinaka.

 

 

They stopped, frozen with amazement, at the sight of the sobbing woman on the bunk. The woman neither of them had ever thought of as a woman at all. Remko turned to Yoshinaka and opened his mouth, but the commodore put a finger to his lips and slowly shook his head.

 

 

They departed as silently as they'd come, leaving Sonja Desai alone with her grief for the man she had loved silently and hopelessly for years.

 

 

CONFERENCE Oskar Dieter studied the strained faces of his cabinet, remembering the day the first mutiny had been reported, and shuddered. his was almost worse. There'd been no treason this time, yet Fourth Fleet had lost more tonnage in two hours of close action than had been taken from Admiral Forsythe, and the shock cut deep. Even Amanda Sydon was gray-faced and stunned.

 

 

He sighed and tapped the crystal table with his knuckles. "Ladies and gentlemen, for the record- --was he looked at Sky Marshal Witcinski his-comI should like to say that I concur entirely with Admiral Desafs actions." A rustling sigh ran around the table. "Even ff she had continued the action and won, it would have cost more than we can stand.

 

 

Admiral Trevayne's---was his voice faltered briefly his-comships are both our most powerful single striking force and our sole technical advantage.

 

 

Had Admiral Desai won at the expense of crippling damage to Fourth Fleet, we would have been unable to follow up her "victory." Had she lost, the Terran Republic must inevitably have captured sufficient examples of the Rim's weaponry to duplicate it." He felt his listeners' stab of surprise as he deliberately used the term "Terran Republic" instead of "rebels" and their horror as they considered the consequences of the Republic's acquiring weapons in advance of anything they could produce.

 

 

"I would like to ask Sky Marshal Witcinski and Vice Admiral Krupskaya a few questions," Dieter went on quietly. "First the Sky Marshal. With Fourth Fleet halted, whether by a cease-fire or the destruction of its units, what are the chances for Operation Yellowbrick?

 

 

"Nil," Witcinski said. His voice was like a gravel-crusher. "Whoever planned the rebels'--was he stressed the word deliberately--"tactics knew what he was doing. I still don't know how they guessed our plans, but they've put up a web of fortresses and fighters that's stopped us cold.

 

 

I've suspended operations ater taking only two of our target systems, Mister Prime Minister.

 

 

We could still take the other three our ops plan calls for, but not and have anything left at the end.

 

 

"As for Fourth Fleet"--he shrugged--"I can only endorse your own estimate. Trevayne's ships are unique. Now that I've examined Vice Admiral Desafs report, I am even more convinced that they represent a qualitative breakthrough of the first magnitude. Trevayne and Admiral Desai managed to destroy almost fifty percent of the force engaged against them, but the rebel admiral knew the sort of action she had to fight. Trevayne's force lost at least as much as she did. As nearly as we can estimate, almost twelve million tonnes of shipping were destroyed--not damaged, destroled.

 

 

We don't know about the rebels, but Fourth Fleet lost over forty-one thousand dead. I think that's an effective answer as to whether it can carry out its part of the plan. Without the Rim to meet us more than halfway--was He shrugged again.

 

 

"I see." Dieter turned to Susan Krupskaya. "Admiral Krupskaya, what are the odds of the Republic recognizing the futility, of further operations on our part?" "Excellent, sir," she said after a very brief glance at Sanders. "Analysis of our losses must tell them Operation Yellowbrick bled us white. They've been hurt, too--butadly--but not as badly as we have." "I see," Dieter repeated. "And how quickly can they duplicate Admiral Trevayne's weapons without actual samples?" "It's hard to be precise, sir, but my analysts estimate eight months, maximum, before they have working models." Someone gasped, but Krupskaya plowed on.

 

 

"We've been looking at the data Mister Sanders brought back, and they're very, very close to the variable focus beams, judging from their' new primary. With that head start and the data they must have recoccded during the Zapata engage- ment, they can have that weapon in three to five months.

 

 

The HBM should take considerably longer--we've no evi- dence that they've begun experimenting with gray drivers-- but their new shields offset that. And we," she smiled thinly, "have no way of obtaining hard data on their new systems, since they've carefullv used them only against the Rim. It will take us much longer to duplicate them. And, Mister Prime Minister--was she paused and drew a breath his-comx is my duty to point out that, judging from their order of battle at Zapata, our previous estimates of their con- struction rates may be as much as fifteen percent low, so even our numerical advantage is in question." "Thank you, Admiral," Dieter said gravely, and ('ooked back at his shaken colleagues. "Ladies and gentlemen, I already knev what Sky Marshal Witcinski and Admiral Krupskaya were going to say, and I had them plug that data into our computers. According to the new projec- tions, we stand a sixty-five percent chance of losing the war within one year." The room was deathly silent.

 

 

"If we hold out for another year, we have a sventv percent chance of final victory--but the computers project a war which will continue for another twelve to fifteen years.

 

 

With losses," he finished quietly, "which will make the Battle of Zapata look like a children's picnic." The political leaders stared at him in shock.

 

 

The military leaders weren't surprised, but their expressions were those of people who'd just bitten into something spoiled. No one questioned his statements.

 

 

"I think, my friends," he said very, very softly, looking straight at Amanda Sydon and her "war party" adherents, "that under those circumstances, we cannot justify contin- uing this war ff there is the least possibility of any other acceptable resolution. Even victory can cost too much at times." Sydon glanced at her supporters, but they refused to meet her eyes. The glare she turned on Dieter was fulmi- nating, yet she said nothing. There was nothing she could say, and the voice of protest came from another source. "But, Mister Prime Minister!" Witcinski protested. "Vic- tory is the only "acceptable resolution!" Yellowbrick should have succeeded-woustd have succeeded ff the rebels hadn't figured out what was coming and managed to ambush Admiral Trevayne. I'm not faulting him, sir--it was a brilliant ploy, obviously something they spent months arranging. But now that they've stopped us, they'll exploit. No strategist worth his salt would stop hOW-LIKEWAS "Indeed, Sky Marshal? What do you think they'll do, then?" "They'll leave their forces in the Zapata System exactly as they are," Witeinski predicted. "As far as we can tell, they committed less than ten percent of their assault carriers there--comthe others are still available for offensive strikes, backed up by their surviving Frontier Fleet fleet and light carriers, while we cut our defenses to the bone for Yellowbriek. They can achieve crushing local superiority wherever they choose, and they know it.

 

 

They'll go on the offensive and chew us up, hoping for a knockout." "That would certainly be their most logical course," Dieter said softly, "but they're not going to do it." "Why not?" Witeinski demanded hotly, feeling his professional judgment called in question.

 

 

"I think because they don't want to destroy the Federation,"" Dieter said slowly.

 

 

"No?" Amanda Sydon laughed harshly. "They only went to war against it!" "Agreedmbut I think they just wish to be left alone," Dieter replied. Sydon stiffened angrily, and some of the others joined her, but he raised a hand and his voice was stern with hard-earned authority. "No, hear me out--all of you! From the beginning, the Fringers have been reacting to what they considered an intolerable situation. They reacted militarily because all political avenues seemed closed. They--was He shook his head firmly. "Enough. The point is that they never sought to conquer the Innerwodds. Arguably, they lacked the ability, to do so, but it would seem that is no longer true--they have the ability to conquer us ff they act promptly. The Sky Marshal's arguments are most cogent, but to succeed, they must act at once.

 

 

Surely none of us is so foolish as to believe that their strategists are less competent than our own?

 

 

They must know that their advantage is fleeting--that they must act before we make gMore our losses. Yet they are not going to doso.

 

 

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have received a communication from Ladisgg'aus Skjorning." The atmosphere in the conference room was so brittle it could have been chipped with a knife. "He offers"--his eyes bored into Sydon's m?an immediate armistice for the purpose of concluding a general peace." Some of the people at the table looked as if he'd just punched them; others suddenly at straighter, their eyes bright with hope. He didn't tallyy to estimate the numbers which felt either way. "His message is accompanied by an analysis almost identical to that we have just heard. But in pursuit of his armistice, he has ordered a two-month unilateral suspension of ali offensive operations, pending our reply. In short, my friends, he has voluntarily given up his best chance for outright victory to prove he desires pbledace!" Ladislaus Skjorning sat in the first-class lounge of TRS Prometheus and watched the blue and white planet grow It had been six years since last he saw that world, and the sight stirred something within him.

 

 

It had been hard to induce the Republic to send most of its executive branch into Federation space aboard an un- armed passenger liner, but he'd done it. His cabinet had en rela. tiveffity easy to convince, but not Congress. Only -comence tact that the Federation had voluntarily offered a quarter of Battle Fleet as hostages for the safe conduct of their guests had outweighed congressional memories of Fionna's assassination.

 

 

Now Prometheus slipped into orbit around the mother- worMore, and Ladislaus hid a grin.

 

 

One of the more tieidish decisions during the past several months had been choosing the site of the conference. But then he'd remembered that one spot on Old Terra herself was neutral; the tiny country of Switzerland, which had maintained its traditional independence for eleven centuries.

 

 

Some of the Federation representatives seemed to re- gard his suggestion as a subtle compliment, but others--like Dietermreeognized the second half of the message. It was possible to be good Terrans without belonging to the Federation.

 

 

A muted bell chimed, and Ladislaus rose, offering his arm to Tatiana Illyushina. The shuttle was waiting to carry them to the city of Geneva for the meeting which might end the dying.

 

 

A crowd waited beyond the hatch. Ladislaus stared out, feeling Tatiana craning her neck beside him, and smiled despite his tension. She'd never before been off Novaya Rodina with its vast, endless plains, and the mountainous horizon must seem as strange to her as would his own Beaufort. He knew they were under close scrutiny as his vice president gawked at the peaks, and he hoped wistfully that some might mistake her youthful fascination for callow inexperience. He doubted they'd be so stupid, but...

 

 

A band struck up, but the music was neither the Repuly lie's Ad Astra nor the Federation's Suns of Splendor. It took a moment of frowning effort to place it, then he smiled and nodded. It was indeed ancient, he thought, but the venerable Battle tigrmn of the Republic was a fitting selection for both sides.

 

 

He recognized Oskar Dieter and David Haley among the waiting officials. The big, solid-looking fellow in all the braid must be Sky Marshal Witcinski, and the fox-faced man beside him looked suspicously like the briefing holos" of Kevin Sanders.

 

 

Ladislaus squeezed Tatiana's elbow.

 

 

"Tatiana, my love, I'm thinking it's best you deal with yon Sky Marshal and leave the sharp-faced fellow to me." "Yes, Lad," she agreed demurely, "and I promise not to sign away our claim to Novaya Rodina, either." "Lass, I'm only worried about your inexperience," Ladislaus teased.

 

 

The Federation dignitaries halted at the foot of the pad, and Ladislaus started down through an honor guard of the Republic's Marines. He rather wished he'd brought Li Hah or Magda Petrovna for the military discussions. Fleet Admiral Holbein was a good man, but he lacked their quick wits. Yet there could be no question of recalling either of them from Zapata until these discussions were concluded. He sighed and stepped off the last step.

 

 

"Mister Skjorning." Dieter bowed, carefully observing ISU-APeople, ECO the agreed upon'protocols and avoiding official titles. "Wel- come to Old Terra." "lhank you, Mister Dieter." Ladislaus gripped the prime minister's hand firmly and looked into the slender New Zuricher's face. "I'm glad to see you again, sir, and only sorry that it must be under such circumstances. I've said some hard things of you in the past. I would like to retract them now." "hank you." Dieter looked away for a moment.

 

 

""rhat means a great deal to me in a very personal sense." He looked as ff he meant to say more, then shook his head. "Allow me to introduce you to my colleagues, sir." "It would be an honor," Ladislaus agreed, and the long round of introductions and reintroductions began.

 

 

He watched their faces carefully as they shook hands or bowed to one another, comparing their responses to those pre-dieted in his linstaking briefings. By the time he reached the end of the line, he knew the intelligence people had been right; Dieter's colleagues were almost evenly divided on the question of peace or war.

 

 

It remained to be seen whether he could bring them to decide for peace. his... quite impossible." Foreign Minister Roger Hadad shook his head firmly. "Even ff we were prepared to stipulate that anv planet which secededattempted to secede, rather--"" he corrected hastily, remembering that the Federation had steadfastly denied the legality of secession his-comis prima facie a member of your Terran Republic, we cannot possibly concede that any world taken from the Federation by force of arms is a 'natural" member of your confederation. The simple fact that a planet was considered a "Fringe World" before the rebelli--before the war, that is, is insufficient reason for us to resign all claim and abandon its citizens." "Mister Hadad," Ladislaus rumbled semi-patienfiy, "that may be true. At the same time, it's to be plain there's no cause to be saying a world isn't a natural part of the Republic simply because it dared not secede because it was having a garrison dispatched to stop it." He fixed the dapper minister with a gimlet eye. "I'm not to have been getting off the produce shuttle yesterday, Mister Hadad.

 

 

I'll not be accepting any argument which sets the ground for denying the legitimacy of any secession." "But we can't simply tell the citizens of a system like Cimmaron that we've abandoned them!" Hadad protested sharply.

 

 

"Cimmaron's folk," Ladislaus said implacably, "welcomed us with open arms, sir. In point of fact, they'll have the pitching of three kinds of fits if we offer to be handing them back to you." "But--was "Mister Dieter," Ladislaus turned to the prime minis- ter, "this point must be settled. We'll not insist that anyone leave the Federation for the Republic--but it's to be plain we must insist that the Republic is a legitimate government. And if we're to be a government, we're after having the same responsibility to our citizens as the Federation to its." "I agree, Mister Skjorning." Dieter nodded, and Ladislaus could have sworn he saw a half-wink from the eye away from Hadad. "Roger, we must accept that the Terran Republic exists, whether we like it or not. It follows that its Congress has a responsibility to its citizens. Now, we've already accepted in principle that the worlds which seceded are part of the Republic. The question is what to do with those which were added to the originally seceding worlds by force of arms, correct?" "Well, yes," Hadad said in a tone of barely suppressed anguish. "But it's not that simple.

 

 

There are matters of precedent, of--was "There are no precedents," Dieter said, and Hadad stared at him as ff he'd tried to sell him a skimmer of questionable pedigree. "Under Federation law as presently interpreted, secession is treason, but we're plainly contemplating turning a de facto situation into a de jure one. Mister Skjorning," he turned to Ladislaus, "I would suggest plebiscites for all non-seceding planets forcibly occupied by the Republic. Any which wish to remain with the Republic, however they came to be included therein, will be free to do so, but any planet which wishes to return to the Federation must be free to do that, as well. You will appreciate, I trust, that we are not in a position to reciprocate owevry planet currently occupied by Federa-t-ion forces? With, of course, the exception of systems captured during the recent offensive?" "I do, Mister Dieter," Ladislaus agreed gravely, not mentioning that aside from the systems Trevayne had taken, the Federation did not control any world which had shown an interest in joining the Republic.

 

 

"Thank you, sir. Roger?" Dieter leaned back in his chair beside Sanders, returning the session to Hadad's control. The foreign minister didn't seem particularly grateful, but strove to conceal his disgruntlement.

 

 

"Very well, Mister Skjorning," he said, scribbling on an old-fashinoned pad. "We'll agree--tentatively, of course- to a plebiscite to determine the fates of the planets captured by the Republic. But that brings up another rather delicate point. You see---was "You're to he, worrying over access between the Rump and the Rim excuse me, between the Innerworlds and the Rim Systems--across Republican space," Ladislaus said genially, and Hadad nodded. "Well, Mister Hadad, we're prepared to be offering free passage to unarmed vessels, with armed merchant vessels to be passing under bond and with our right of examination. Mail packets and courier drones will be having freedom of passage without censorship or examination. Warships are to be another matter, but we're to be being reasonable so long as you're to be consulting us beforehand. I'm hoping that's to be satisfactory?" "Er... yes," Hadad nodded. In fact, it was rather more than he'd been prepared to settle for, and he felt a sudden, unexpected liking for the big Fringer before him. He smiled.

 

 

"Well, Mister Skjorning, I must say you're being reasonable."" He seemed to regret the admission as soon as he made it and set his face more sternly. "But there remains the matter of repatriation and property losses." "Yes and no, Mister Hadad," Ladislaus said, and turned to Tatiana, who looked for all the world like an adolescent observer as she sat next to him. She nodded and opened a memo touchpad, bringing the small screen alive.

 

 

"Mister Hadad," she began crisply, "you must be aware that there will be considerable dispute over how much is owed or, indeed, whether anything is owed, to compensate private citizens for wartime property losses." Hadad glanced at Dieter, who returned his look expressionlessly, and then back to Tatiana.

 

 

"That goes without saying, Ms. Illyushina.

 

 

However, we must insist that some clear understanding be reached." "Naturally. We propose a joint offer of repatriation for any who desire it, this offer to include relocation of families and personal property only. The Republic is prepared to guarantee equitable liquidation of investments and real estate if the Federation will do likewise.

 

 

Repatriation and relocation costs will be shared evenly by the two governments. Is that acceptable?" "It will certainly do for a first presentation to the Assembly, ma'am. However, there remain the matters of sequestered property and war losses." "War losses," Tatiana retorted, "are just that: war losses. If not covered by insurance, the injured party will, unfortunately, be unable to recover. On sequestered property--was she allowed herself a sharklike grin that turned Hadad's blood suddenly cold his-comthe Republic is willing to be reasonable. We are prepared to stipulate that the respective governments shall compensate their own nationals for their lOSS-ES." She leaned back cheerfully as a strangled sound came from Dieter's Minister of Finance, and Ladislaus hid a smile as Hadad's face fell, though it was difficult when he saw the toothy grin Sanders directed at Tatiana.

 

 

"B-b-b-but you've seized property worth well over two trillion credits!" Amanda Sydon half-screamed. "The property sequestered by the Federation amounts to less than three percent of that figure!" "In fact," Tatiana agreed sweetly, "the value of property seized by the Federation is approximately sixty-seven billion credits, while that expropriated by the Republic had a pre-war tax value "Dieter winced; given the sleight-of-hand Corporate World accountants had routinely perpetrated against Fringe World tax assessors, the tax value could be multiplied by at least two his-comof two trillion three hundred and seventy-two billion. The Republic, however, stated at its Constitutional Convention that no Federation citizen's property would be expropriated unless our nationals" propertggst was seized." She shrugged pleasantly. "Since the Assembly was in possession of that declaration before passing the Sydon-Waldeck Expropriation Act, we can only assume that the Federation wished to embark on a policy of mutual expropriation. Therefore" Ladislaus and Sanders leaned back and smiled at one another as Tatiana and Sydon went after each other hammer and tongs, and Dieter sighed.

 

 

Amanda was outmatched, he thought, watching Tatiara's cheerful face. Odd how capable the distaff half of the Fringe had proven @u.. and how fitting for that capability to cost the Corporate Worlds a bundle.

 

 

"Well, Lad," Tatiana sighed and leaned back in her lounger, "I think we've done it." She chuckled. "lhe Corporate Worlds shrieked like a gelded rnegaovis over the economic $1auses--they think its immoral to end a war without showing a profit--but they can't carry a majority on them. Dieter's really cut them down to size since the war began." "Aye." Ladislaus nodded slowly from his own reeliner. "It's a mortal long voyage we've had, but it's to seem we've reached port at last." "Yes." Tatiana rose on an elbow. "Will you go to the vote?" "No, lass. I swore to myself I'd never stand in that chamber again, and no more will I be doing it. You go; I'll have the watching of it on HV." "But you're our president] If you don't go, none of us should." "Tatiana," Ladislaus never opened his eyes, "it's an impertinent young thing you're after being.

 

 

It's no matter of policy but a personal thing-one I can't have the changing of even for Oskar Dieter, who's to be deserving better of us. Go, lass." His obvious exhaustion silenced her, and she studied his face, seeing the lines worn there by the past six years, the almost invisible gray creeping into his blond beard and hair. She felt a sudden tenderness for the huge man who'd carried the personal burden of the Fringe World's fight for so long.

 

 

"All right, Lad," she said after a moment. "But I wish--was She broke off. "Lad?" He didn't respond. His massive chest rose and fell slowly, and Tatiana smiled gently as she rose and left silently.

 

 

Thev had matured, David Haley thought, looking out over the quietly restive Chamber of Worlds with almost paternal pride. The delegates who'd stampeded this way and that in the early days of the crisis they'd created had won their adulthood the hard way, but they'd won it. Now they sat almost silently, waiting as the computers tabulated the vote.

 

 

The peace terms represented major concessions on al- most every point, he reflected. The Republic had been careful not to humble the Federation's pride, except, perhapsmhis lips quirked--on that matter of expropriations, but it had been firm, as well. The Fringers had come through fire and worse to reach this moment. They were no longer suppliants, and they would not retreat a centimeter. It only remained to see if the Assembly had been sufficiently tempered to recognize the essential fairness of the settlement before it.

 

 

A light flashed on his panel, and a small screen lit with the results of the vote. He studied them briefly, then rapped his ceremonial gavel sharply, and an electric tension filled the chamber.

 

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly," Haley said clearly, "it is my duty to announce the result of your vote on the motion to ratify the peace terms presented by the foreign minister." He drew a deep breath. "The vote is 978 in favor; 453 opposed. The motion--was he paused for just an instant, quivering with relief "mis carried." There was utter silence for a moment, then a soft stir of mounting conversation. There were no cheers, no shouts of victory.. Reaching this moment had cost too many too much for that, but the relief was there. Haley felt it in the air about him as he turned to the Vice President of the Republic of Free Terrans and bent over her hand with a gallant flourish.

 

 

Only then did the applause begin.

 

 

L'ENVOI Oskar Dieter stretched out on the recliner under the night sky and pondered the vagaries of fate. He, who had never expected to be more than Simon Taliaferro's shadow, was prime mlmster--comofa diminished Federation, perhaps, but one once more at peace --comand Simon was gone.

 

 

Now he studied the cold stars, trying to find Fionna MacTaggart, but she had left him. Search as he might, she was gone, and it worried him.

 

 

A throat cleared itself, and he looked up to see Kevin Sanders.

 

 

"Good evening, Mister Sanders." "Good evening, Mister Prime Minister." Sanders" voice was gently mocking, but his smile was friendly@u "To what do I owe the honor?" "Curiosity." Sanders' eyes narrowed slightly. "Tell me, Mister Dieter, did you realize I was tapping your conduit to the rebels?" "Please, Mister Sanders! To the Republic, if you please." "To be sure. The Republic." Sanders paused. "Did you?" "Well.... "Dieter cocked an eyebrow at his guest, and then, for the first time in Sanders' memory, he laughed out loud. He nodded slowly. "I did. I realized it before I asked you to leave ONI to join my government." "You did?" Sanders looked briefly crestfallen, but he rallied gamely.

 

 

"Of course. Your silence convinced me you were a man of initiative and discretion. I needed you."

 

 

"You needed me because your foresaw this outcome from the beginning, didn't you?" Sanders made it a question, but both knew it was a statement.

 

 

"More or less." "I hope you'll pardon my pointing this out, sir," Sanders said dryly, "but that's rather an odd thing for a wartime leader to admit." "Is it?" Dieter chuckled again, softly. "I suppose so. But if you disagreed, you should have said so at the time, shouldn't you?" "Agreed. Still, I wish you'd satisfy my ceaeauriosity in one more regard. As a return favor, as it were.

 

 

"Of course, ff I can." "Why?" Sanders asked, his humor suddenly gone.

 

 

"Because someone had to do it," Dieter said slowly, "and I owed a debt." "To Fionna MacTaggart?" Sanders' voice was soft. "You are indeed a perceptive man, Mister Sanders," Dieter said quietly. "Yes, to Fionna. To all those people trapped in a war they didn't want but didn't know how to end, but especially to Fionna. I wonder ff she approves?" "Mister Dieter," Sanders looked down at the reclining prime minister, and a smile played around the corners of his mouth, "I'm sure she does.

 

 

Fionna MacTaggart was a remarkable woman: understanding, intelligent, insieaong, htful @u.. but that's not the reason I'm sure she approves.

 

 

"No, Mister Sanders? Then what is?" "She also," Sanders said simply, "had a very lively sense of humor." "Well, Lad," Tatiana raised her glass to Ladislaus as Prometheus' drives hurled the liner outward, "God knows how, but you did it. Even when I thought we'd never make it, you always hung on and kicked us in the backside till we made it work." She shook her head wryly, and Ladislaus smiled at her gently, leaning back in his chair and savoring the sensation of completion. It was not an unalloyed pleasure, but it was a vast relief.

 

 

"They're throwing a party in the Captain's Ballroom, Lad," Tatiana said winningly.

 

 

"Sort of a rehearsal for the victo ball. Why don't you come?"

 

 

"No, lass." Ladilaus shook his head.

 

 

"It's tired I am. I'll be staying here, I'm thinking. Here with my thoughts." "All right, Lad." She accepted defeat and pecked him lightly on the cheek. "Get some rest -comy've earned it." She started for the door then paused, looking back.

 

 

"Fionna would have been very proud of you, Lad," she said softly, then started to say something more, only to cut herself off with a tiny headshake. The door sighed shut behind her.

 

 

Ladislaus waved his hand above the lighting control, dimming the cabin to comfortable twilight, and pulled a battered tri-di from his pocket. The fiat representation was less perfect than a holo cube, but there was no mistaking the very young red-haired woman who stood laughing on the deck of a sloop with an equally young Ladislaus. He studied the print for long, silent moments, his smile bittersweet, then shook his head.

 

 

"Aye, Tatiana, I did it," he whispered, and lifted the tri-di until the faint light fell on Fionna's smiling face. "I'm sorry, love," he said softly, and a single tear trickled down his bearded cheek. "I know it wasn't what you wanted--comb it was all that I could do." Magda Petrovna adjusted a lustily crying infant on her hip and poured more vodka.

 

 

Jason sat beside her, beaming at their guest with a smile Magda knew was far more inebriated than he was as the tiny, immaculately-uniformed woman raised the glass in shaky fingers and studied it owlishly.

 

 

"I," Fleet Admiral Li Hah, Second Space Lord of the Terran Republic's Admiralty, said with great precision, "am drunk.

 

 

I have never been drunk before." "I know." Magda watched her drain the glass.

 

 

As soon as Hah set it down, she filled it again.

 

 

"I think you planned for me to get drunk," Hah said plaintively.

 

 

"Hush, Ham" Magda said. "Why would I do a thing like that?" "Because," Han said carefully, "you think it's a good idea." She hiccuped solemnly. "You think I've been holding things inside too long, don't you--was she paused and gripped the edge of the table, eyes widening as her chair moved beneath her his-commy round-eyed friend?" "Maybe, Han." "Well, it happens," Han said very slowly, "that you're quite perceptive for a round-eye." Her expression remained relaxed, but a large tear welled in each eye, sparkling on her lashes. "Have been holding it in," she went on vaguely. "Been holding it in ever since Cimmaron, I think." She blinked at her friends through her tears, and her face began to crumple at last.

 

 

She drew a deep breath. "All those peopledead. But not me. Funny, isn't it?" She laughed, an ugly sound, and pressed her face into her hands.

 

 

"They're all dead, but I'm alive. Me, the silly bitch who got them all killed. All. those... people.. "her voice broke in a sob of pain. "Chang. Chung-hui. All of them.., because I couldn't do my job..." "Han, Hah!" Magda hurried around the table and put her free arm around the slim shoulders, cradling the weeping woman against her. "fhat's not true! You know it isn'fi" "It stsi" Han wailed, her voice desolate as the deeps between the stars.

 

 

"It isn't," Magda repeated gently, "but you had to say it. You had to to et it out and face it so you can go on with your life. Remember them, Han, but don't let the pddast keep you from reaching out to the future." "What future?" Han demanded bitterly.

 

 

"There isn't any future!" "Of course there is!" Magda laughed softly and pushed her daughter into her friend's arms. Han's grip tightened instinctively, and she blinked down into the small face. Dark eyes stared back up at her, and she smiled tremulously. "You see, Han?" Magda asked gently. "lhere's always a future, isn't there?" "Yes," Han whispered, hugging her goddaughter tightly.

 

 

"Yes, there is, Magda. There really is!" "I'm glad you agree," Jason said dryly, sitting on the other side and hugging her roughly. "And since you do," he went on in the voice of one bestowing a great gift, "this time you can change her!" "I could make faster progress with this prosthetic leg," Joaquin Sandoval told his three visitors, "ff the damned doctors woulduld only let me! I'm strong enough by now to spend more time on my feet Yes, feet, plural!" "Don't rush it," Scan Remko growled. For him and Yoshinaka, this was simply one of the calls they'd paid regularly since returning to Xanadu.

 

 

For Sonja Desai it was something more--coma farewell visit to the only three men in the Rim who knew she had a heart. She was returning to the Federation.

 

 

"Yes," she'd confirmed, seeing their thunlerstruck faces. "The Federation--and this Terran-Orion "Pan-Sentient Union"--recognizes all the field promotions conferred out here, and they say they want me." Her expression had turned uncharacteristically gentle. She'd actually smiled slightly. "And I've gotten homesick for Nova Terra. Besides--was she'd broken off and waved one hand in a curiously vulnerable little gesture. Now her eyes met Sandoval's, and he, for once, knew when no words were needed.

 

 

The air in the chamber deep below the Prescott City Medical Center was so cold it seemed brittle. A thin film of frost covered the enclosed, coffin-like tank in the center of the room with its attendant machinery. The door slid open, and Miriam Ortega entered, heavily cloaked against the. chill she did not feel. She walked to the tank, andfora long, long time stood motionless and unspeaking, her breath white puffs of condensation in the air. After a moment, the tears no one had been allowed to see began finding their way down her cheeks, very slowly in the cold. But the silent communion was unbroken. Finally, she extended a slightly trembling right hand and gently touched the cover of the tank with her fingertips. Only then did she draw a shaken breath and speak in a very quiet, steady voice. "Ian, this morning I gaveled to order the constitutional convention of the Rim Federation, Forgive me." She withdrew her hand slowly, leaving five streaks in the rime. Tiny drops trickled slowly down them, glittering like tears in the cold, still air. After a moment, she took another deep breath, squared her shoulders, turned, and to eft the chamber.

 

 

By the time the door closed, silently condensing moisture had already begun to cover the tiny streaks.

 

 

The End