All of that, however, was secondary, meant only to keep these asteroids in existence long enough to fulfill their destiny. Only one engineering work on Sledgehammer Three really mattered-the one that couldn't be given a trial run.

"Get me Commander Lin," Taliaferro muttered. The pilot had barely complied before he leaned forward and snapped into the grille. "What's the word on that flaw in the pusher plate?"

"We're not certain there is one, Sir," Lin Yu-hsiang replied from his temporary command post on the surface of Sledgehammer Three. "When it comes to constructing Orion drives, we don't exactly have much experience-and having to stop what we're doing to answer questions about it doesn't exactly help!"

The pilot blanched, expecting thunderbolts. But Taliaferro actually chuckled-partly in recognition of a kindred spirit, and partly at what had become a standing joke in TG 64.1. When the name for what the task group was constructing had reached the Tabbies, they'd thought they were being honored. No one had had the heart to tell them that the name dated back to a time centuries before humanity had dreamed their race existed.

Nuclear pulse propulsion-"Project Orion"-had been a product of the twentieth century, one of many notions for liberating the infant Space Age from the dismal mathematics of chemical rocketry. Conceptually, it set some kind of record for brute-force crudity: detonate a series of nuclear explosions behind you and let them kick you forward! Naturally, it required a massive shock-absorbing plate for your vehicle's rear end. Worse, however, it had faced insurmountable political obstacles in a world understandably jittery about allowing anyone to send up spaceships packed full of what were in effect hundreds of small nuclear weapons. But for a time it had seemed to offer the best hope for reaching the outer planets and-especially after the Bussard ramscoop had come to grief on the hard facts about the interstellar medium in Sol's vicinity-the stars.

Then had come the unanticipated breakthrough into reactionless drives, and the Orion concept had gone the way of Jules Verne's giant cannon. At the same time, the idea of "dinosaur killers"-asteroids used as kinetic-energy weapons against planets-had joined reaction drives in the dustbin. It just wasn't practical to enclose an entire asteroid in a drive field. And tractoring such an object would have no effect except to rip the tractor-beam projectors out of ships that instantaneously took on velocities measured in percentages of c.

No, it couldn't be done with reactionless drives . . . but Vanessa Murakuma had wanted it done anyway. When she'd put the problem to Taliaferro, he'd automatically snorted that it was preposterous. Then he'd gone off and thought about it, to the near-exclusion of eating and sleeping. And when he'd put his solution before her, she'd backed him to the hilt, selling the idea to a skeptical Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Taliaferro's moment of amusement passed.

"I tell you what, Commander," he said. "You've got precisely as long to decide whether there's a problem-and, if there is, to fix it-as there is between now and Sledgehammer Three's scheduled ignition."

"But . . but, Commodore-"

"But me no buts, Commander. I've just finished checking out all the other asteroids, and they all report that they're ready for ignition. The first of them, Hammer Four, is due to light off in-" Taliaferro glanced at his wrist chrono "-thirteen minutes and a little less than twenty seconds. After that, there's no turning back. I'm damned if I'll stop the clock now to wait for you to get your act together!"

"Commodore, I protest!"

"Protest all you want to, Yu-hsiang-later. But right now, if I were you I'd get busy on that pusher plate. Sledgehammer Three is going to get kicked out of its orbit on schedule, and if you're still there at the time . . . well, it ought to be an interesting trip to Planet III, especially with fusion bombs going off under your ass!"

Taliaferro cut the connection while Lin was in mid-splutter, and turned to the pilot.

"All right, get us back to Alfred. And raise Fleet flag."

While he waited, Taliaferro studied a two-dimensional schematic of the Home Hive Two A System out to and including the asteroid belt. Sheer habit, for he'd long since memorized it. Still, he gazed at the little lights of the nine asteroids which TF 64.1 had transformed into weapons. They were strung out over forty-odd degrees of the belt's circumference, a curving scimitar of death. That was where they'd been found, and it had been out of the question to move them together, for the same reason their drives couldn't be tested: an Orion drive in operation was something the Bugs could hardly fail to notice. So they would start moving in staggered order starting with Hammer Four, each asteroid lighting off its drive as the others came up level with it on the hyperbolic orbit that would send them careening across the inner system, terminating at one of the three scarlet planet-icons on the display. Sledgehammer Three, the tip of the scimitar, would be last, so Lin actually had a fair amount of time left. Just as well, Taliaferro thought. I wouldn't really leave him there. Probably.

He'd barely finished reporting to Murakuma across the light-minutes when a multi-megatonne fusion fireball awoke a few score meters behind Hammer Four, its brilliantly defined shock wave surging toward the asteroid but never quite touching it. Then another . . . and another . . . and slowly, ponderously, Hammer Four began to move out of its immemorial orbit, trailing what looked (or would have looked, to anyone who'd braved the sleet of gamma rays) like a trail of small suns connected by a stream of glowing gas.

Operation Cushion Shot had begun.

It had taken an appreciable amount of time for the realization of what was happening to sink home through layers of unexpectedness-not a fatal delay, perhaps, but certainly a disadvantageous one. But there was no longer any room for doubt. The orbits into which those asteroids had been moved could be projected without difficulty, and all of them intersected at the point that would then be occupied by the third planet. Calculating the kinetic energy such impacts would release was equally simple. And the Fleet knew only too well what would happen to the system's remaining defenders at the instant that planet's population died.

Abandoning the outer system to the Enemy had been an error. That it was an error grounded in flawless logic was no excuse. Neither was the totally unprecedented nature of what the Enemy was doing.

There was, however, a positive aspect to the situation. The asteroids could be deflected from their courses-or, in the case of the smaller ones, actually broken up. It would not be easy, but with antimatter weapons it could be done. And the Enemy must be as aware of that fact as the Fleet was, so his freedom of action was limited by the need to defend those incredible kinetic projectiles as they followed their immutable hyperbolic courses in free fall, at a velocity which, while high on the standards of normal interplanetary bodies, was practically stationary to vehicles using reactionless drives.

There could be no further thought of waiting in defensive posture on and around the planets. Those asteroids must be intercepted as far away as possible. All available gunboats and small craft must be fitted with antimatter loads and launched immediately. And the Deep Space Force must go with them.

"Well, we expected it, Sir."

"So we did," Vanessa Murakuma replied to Leroy McKenna's observation. The response was purely automatic. Her entire consciousness was focused on the approaching Bug formation-a classic "Bughouse swarm."

Yes, she had expected it. Not even an idiot or a politician could harbor any remaining doubts about the Bugs' capacity to reason from observed data-or, at least, to perform some process that filled the same function as reasoning. They understood what that formation of asteroids meant, and they were committing everything they had left to what they knew was their final stand against apocalypse.

She studied the readouts on the mobile force that trailed behind the tens of thousands of kamikazes: sixty-seven superdreadnoughts, fifty-two battlecruisers and a hundred and thirty-four light cruisers. At least there were no monitors; evidently intelligence was correct in supposing that the Bugs had had insufficient time to complete any new ones since she and Lord Khiniak had made their last, regrettably uncoordinated incursion into this system.

Her eyes went to the holo sphere on whose scale that formation shrank to a single scarlet icon, moving to intercept a cluster of tiny green lights representing the asteroids and the combined fleets' battle-line, together with the fighter screen spread before them by Small Fang Meearnow'raaalpha's eighty light carriers.

Finally, she let her gaze rest on another emerald icon, near the inner fringes of the asteroid belt-one which she hoped and believed appeared on no similar displays aboard the Bug ships whose course it was paralleling.

Anson Olivera approached. The farshathkhanaak had had his eyes on that remote green icon from the first.

"Admiral, we've gotten another call from Fang Koraaza's staff. They want to know if it's time to-"

"Not yet. A little longer, I think." Murakuma had a multitude of figures, actual and projected, at her fingertips. But in the end it came down to a matter of feel, complicated by the need to factor in communications time-lags.

Still, Olivera only had a minute or so longer to fidget before Murakuma straightened up abruptly.

"All right, Anson," she said crisply. "Signal Small Fang Iaashmaahr."

The signal flashed across the light-minutes to Iaashmaahr'freaalkit-ahn, commanding her own Task Force 63 and also Third Fleet's TF 33-thirty-four assault carriers and forty-eight fleet carriers, which had gone into cloak and maneuvered among the asteroids until they were in position to cover the Bugs' anticipated course. The signal was received, and thirty-four hundred primary-pack-armed fighters launched undetected.

They couldn't remain undetected quite long enough to reach their targets, of course. The ships of the Bugs' deep space force managed to launch their gunboats into the path of the fighter strike, and other gunboats hastily detached from the "Bughouse swarm" joined them. But that desperately erected barrier could barely even slow Orion and Terran and Gorm pilots who smelled blood. One Bug starship after another died in a stroboscopic cluster of fireballs, and the com frequencies rang with cries of triumph in three languages, from three different sets of vocal apparatus.

Then the fighter strike was through, emerging into clear space and sending reports flooding into the databases of Fleet flag.

"It worked, Admiral!" Ernesto Cruciero exclaimed. "The data are incomplete, of course, but most of the deep space force ships were either destroyed outright or damaged so severely they won't be able to keep formation . . . and wouldn't be much use if they could!"

Murakuma permitted herself a brief smile at the ops officer's enthusiasm.

"Very good, Ernesto. Convey my congratulations to Small Fang Iaashmaahr-and also my desire that she expedite the recovery of her fighters so she can rendezvous with us as quickly as possible." Cruciero and Olivera both looked somewhat crestfallen. "Let's face it, gentlemen. Crippling the deep space force, while certainly desirable, was really something of a sideshow. That's the real threat." Murakuma pointed at the innocuous-looking ruby icon that represented clouds of antimatter-laden gunboats and shuttles. "And we're going to need Iaashmaahr's fighters very badly to deal with it."

* * *

There was a basic inelegance to it: the Allies had to defend the asteroids and the Bugs had to neutralize them, and both sides knew it. All of which left little scope for finesse.

Iaashmaahr's carriers remained in cloak for their run to rejoin the rest of the combined fleets, so they had the benefit of one more undetected launch. Those fighters, and the nineteen hundred others from Small Fang Meearnow's Mohrdenhaus (whose usefulness even the Terrans were coming to appreciate), went out to meet the Bug kamikazes in a dogfight whose scale was exceeded only by its desperation.

As always, the fighters cut great gashes through the massed Bug formations. And, as always, they couldn't possibly kill enough of those endless, uncaring hordes. Like water pouring through a collapsing dike, streams of kamikazes closed in on the asteroids.

The battle-line slid in, interposing itself, suffering hideous losses as it burned away hundreds more of the kamikazes. Vanessa Murakuma lay in her command chair crash frame, trying to disassociate her mind from her bruised body as Li Chien-lu shuddered from hits that sent even a monitor's mass reeling. It was all she could do. She'd already given sufficient orders: stand and fight.

Again, many of the attackers broke through-into a latticework of death around the asteroids, whose defensive installations were directed by Taliaferro's command ships. And again, not all the kamikazes could be denied their rendezvous with death. Two of the smaller "Hammer" asteroids were shattered into pieces which wouldn't even stay on trajectories that would bring them into collision with Planet III to burn up in its atmosphere, for their fragments-unlike their intact sisters-were no longer accelerating down their precisely calculated track. But not even the ultimate violence of antimatter annihilation could break up the big planetoids.

At last it was over, and Murakuma and her staff surveyed the readouts of carnage.

"Their remaining kamikazes are falling back to Planet III to regroup," Marina Abernathy concluded.

"We need to do the same thing," Murakuma pointed out, and turned from the intelligence officer to address the ops officer and the farshathkhanaak.

"Ernesto, Anson, I want a schedule for our carriers with undamaged drives to shuttle back to Orpheus 1 and Bug-06 in relays for replacement fighters. We have a long way to go, and the Bugs will be back."

She proved to be right. The Orion drives had kicked the asteroids into fairly flat hyperbolas involving far less transit time than the years simple Hohmann transfer orbits would have taken, and those same drives continued to accelerate them steadily. But on the standards of this era's spacefarers, the pace was a veritable crawl. There was plenty of time for the Bugs to return to the attack, again and again. But they did so with steadily weakening forces, for this system was on its own. They inflicted losses, which the combined fleets grimly took. They disrupted or deflected all but two of the "Hammer" asteroids. They even managed to alter the orbit of Sledgehammer One, sending it careening harmlessly aside.

It wasn't nearly enough.

They were all feeling drained as they stood on Li Chien-lu's flag bridge and watched Home Hive Three A III die.

The Bug attacks had come with greater and greater frequency as doom had drawn closer to the planet-but they'd also grown weaker and weaker. In the end, the Bugs had nothing left to throw at the onrushing asteroids, which had gradually picked up speed as they'd fallen down the sun's gravity well and, eventually, the planet's. By now they were moving at what the pre-reactionless-drive era would have accounted a very high interplanetary velocity.

They watched the view on the big screen, downloaded from recon fighters that were continuing to shadow Sledgehammer Three. Gazing at that rugged spheroid-even more rugged now, after all the hits it had taken-Murakuma contemplated the inappropriateness, verging on banality, of the popular term "dinosaur killer." That asteroid, which had slammed into Old Terra's Yucatan peninsula sixty-five million years ago, was estimated to have been a mere ten kilometers in diameter, rather like the two "Hammer" asteroids that continued to follow the monster in the screen, like lesser sea creatures in the wake of a whale. And it had almost certainly been traveling a lot more slowly. If the thing she was now watching had struck Earth, neither she nor any other life form of Terran origin-not even a microbe-would now exist.

Leroy McKenna was calling out the minutes to impact in a leaden voice. She didn't listen. Instead, she watched Planet III grow and grow in the screen. Presently, the fighters swerved away to stay out of range of the planet-based defenses, and the panorama expanded.

A seemingly small, artificial-looking object appeared, glinting in the planet's reflected light. She'd been told to expect it. By sheer coincidence, Sledgehammer Three was going to sideswipe the planet's space station on its way down. That station was as titanic as all such Bug constructs, but its mass was as nothing compared to the falling planetoid, and the pyrotechnics of its death were disappointing. The asteroid, trailing a scattering of debris that had been the space station, dwindled in the distance against the clouded bluish backdrop. It had probably been deflected a bit, but not enough to matter this close to the planet.

"Minus ten seconds," McKenna intoned, his voice even deeper than usual.

Time crept by. At minus three seconds, an extraordinary thing happened. The swirling cloud-patterns of Planet III abruptly vanished, replaced by concentric rings rushing away from the black dot that had suddenly begun to glow redly with the heat of friction. Sledgehammer Three had entered atmosphere like a three-hundred-kilometer cannonball, generating a shock wave that blew a hole in the air as it went.

Murakuma had only two seconds to absorb that spectacle. Then Sledgehammer Three crossed the terminator into darkness. A protracted second later, a blinding fireball erupted on that nighted surface, impossibly huge given the fact that it was a planet they were looking at. The night vanished as thermal pulse drove a shock wave that overwhelmed the earlier one, pushing outward in all directions from that inferno of an impact-point. Following it across the oceans came hundred-meter walls of water that would, in another hour or so, flood the coastal plains, finally expending their last efforts against the highest mountain ramparts. The earthquakes erupting along every fault line on the planet passed unnoticed. So would the glowing sleet of red-hot rock as the gigatons of debris that had been blasted into space returned in an hour or so; there would be no living eyes to see it, no living organisms to be immolated in the heat.

The impacts of the two surviving "Hammer" asteroids were barely worthy of comment. Sledgehammer Two, when it arrived, was sheer redundancy.

Murakuma finally turned to face the strangely silent flag bridge and the people who'd just witnessed the greatest single act of destruction ever unleashed by sentient beings. She spoke like a machine.

"Commodore McKenna, convey my personal congratulations to Commodore Taliaferro on the success of Operation Cushion Shot. And please raise Fang Koraaza. Given the total depletion of this system's kamikaze assets and the psychic effect the remaining defenders must now be experiencing, I believe we can proceed to reduce the other inhabited planets by . . conventional means."

Lord Khiniak and his staffers came aboard Li Chien-lu, to full military honors, as the combined fleets orbited around the lifeless hulk of Planet IV. There was now the leisure to indulge such niceties.

As she led the Orions into the flag lounge, Murakuma's eyes strayed to the calendar display on the bulkhead, with its Terran Standard equivalency: January 23, 2370. It was so easy to lose track.

A little over a standard year since they'd entered this system. Operation Cushion Shot hadn't been quick. Neither had it been cheap. Even the Orions looked very sober as they contemplated the losses they'd taken in the battles that had swirled around that phalanx of asteroids. Nearly thirty-two percent of the combined fleets' starship strength. Two hundred and four ships-seven monitors, forty-five superdreadnoughts, twenty battleships, nine assault carriers, eighteen fleet carriers, nineteen light carriers, thirteen heavy cruisers, twenty-two light cruisers and sixteen destroyers-had died that those inconceivable projectiles might reach their destination. So had forty-two percent of all fighters engaged. It was a loss total that would have been beyond prewar comprehension.

But . . .

"So, Ahhdmiraaaal Muhrakhuuuuma," Koraaza interrupted her brown study. "Is it confirmed?"

"Yes, Lord Khiniak. We had plenty of time to scout the outer system during the preparation of the asteroids, and found nothing. Commodore Abernathy is prepared to state categorically that every Bug in this system is dead. I propose we dispatch a courier drone so informing the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Koraaza gave a long, rustling purr of a sigh. "So. One home hive is left."

"Don't forget the Bugs' base at Rabahl," Murakuma cautioned, recalling Fujiko's messages.

"I have not. But according to the latest message traffic, our allies of the Star Union are preparing the final assault on that system. It will no doubt be a major operation, yet they clearly consider it a matter of no immediate urgency."

"True." Fujiko had intimated as much. "They've invested Rabahl thoroughly. It isn't going anywhere, and the Crucians want to completely assimilate the new technologies they've gotten from us before going in."

"So," said Koraaza once again. "We can safely leave our allies to deal with the Bahg defilers of their own worlds. For us, there remains but one great task. Both our fleets, and those of Fangs Zhaarnak and Presssssscottt will come together and meet at last." The slitted pupils in his amber eyes narrowed, and all at once the cosmopolite Murakuma had thought she'd known was no longer there behind those eyes. "It will be a gathering of warriors beyond anything in legend. I imagine that even Lord Talphon will be there, for he owes a vilknarma, a blood-balance for the death of his vilkshatha brother. Surely the Khan will relent and allow him to be personally present at the killing of the last Bahgs in the universe."

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Full Circle

Marcus LeBlanc caught sight of a familiar figure across the great room through the rays of Alpha Centauri Alpha-light that slanted through the tall windows.

"Kevin!"

"Admiral! How are you-?" Kevin Sanders began, then remembered himself and started to come to attention.

"To hell with that!" LeBlanc strode up and shook hands with his one-time protégé, whom he hadn't seen in a year and a half. "I didn't know whether you'd be coming here with First Fang Ynaathar or not. It's good it to see you."

"Likewise, Sir. You're looking very well, if I may say so." Which was true, even though there was a little more salt and less pepper in LeBlanc's beard than there had been. Zephrain clearly agreed with him. That, and being close to Admiral Murakuma, Sanders added to himself with an inner chuckle. "Oh, and congratulations on your richly deserved promotion, Sir."

LeBlanc mumbled something insincerely self-deprecating. The conventional wisdom that promotions come fast in wartime actually held true for the combat branches-but not necessarily for intelligence and other restricted-line types, who weren't permitted to get the all-important tickets of command in space punched. Sanders, for example, was still a lieutenant. LeBlanc's sleeves, though, now bore the one wide silver-braided stripe and two narrow ones of a vice admiral-about as high as a spook could normally go.

"Not much has changed here, has it?" LeBlanc asked, changing the subject as he looked around the room. "How long as it been. . . ?"

"Five years and eight months, Terran Standard," Sanders replied instantly. Then he grinned. "That wasn't really a feat of quick recall. In fact, just before you arrived, I was thinking back to the last time we were here."

"Yes. . . ." The shadow of a wind-blown cloud of memory crossed LeBlanc's consciousness as he recalled that grim time after the inconceivable catastrophe in Pesthouse, when the successful defense of the "Black Hole of Centauri" had seemed merely a reprieve.

"Anyway," Sanders piped up, unable in his mercurial way to sustain any single mood for long, "one thing's the same: the tonnage of rank in this room. Do you think the floor will collapse?"

LeBlanc chuckled and looked around. The Joint Chiefs were here, with the exception of their Chairman. So were Raymond Prescott and Zhaarnak'telmasa, seemingly surrounded by a nimbus of legend. So was Ynaathar'solmaak, in whose train Sanders had arrived. The First Fang had also brought Robalii Rikka with him to speak for the Star Union in these councils. Rikka, in turn, had brought the commander of a task group that had only recently joined Task Force 86, as he'd long since become resigned to hearing First Grand Wing called. The newcomer drew stares even in this company: a radially symmetrical, three-armed triped-all of those limbs tentacular-whose mouth was set atop a disc-shaped body at a height of 1.3 meters, surrounded by three eye-stalks which provided a 360-degree field of vision. Xenobiological dogma, confirmed across almost five centuries of interstellar exploration, held that the evolutionary logic of tool-using mandated a bilaterally symmetrical form, bipedal or-in rare cases-centauroid. But even though Admiral Dar'sahlahk was a living affront to conservative xenobiologists, everyone else welcomed his presence. The Zarkolyans had paid a disproportionate price in the early fighting against Home Hive Four, and they had a debt to exact from the Bugs. Even the Orions understood that, however little else they had in common with that mercantile-oriented race.

Sanders sometimes thought that the paradox of the Zarkolyans' shift in orientation over the past few years supplied its own answer. A culture with a warlike tradition might have had more of a . . . well, sense of proportion about what they'd experienced. The Zarkolyans hadn't, and they'd taken to militancy in response to those experiences with the unleavened enthusiasm of the neophyte.

"There are still a few late arrivals yet to come," the lieutenant observed blandly, following LeBlanc's gaze around the crowded room and well aware of which late arrival the new-minted vice admiral was awaiting.

Then a side door opened to admit the combined staffs of Third and Sixth Fleet, just in from Home Hive Two. Vanessa Murakuma and Koraaza'khiniak entered side by side, but the former stopped dead when her eyes met LeBlanc's across the room.

LeBlanc muttered something that might have been "excuse me" and departed, leaving Sanders smiling.

As if the admirals' arrival had been a signal, the impending arrival of the Chairman was announced, and everyone hurried to his seat. Just as before, the high brass sat at the oval central table, with the staffers placed well back from it, and LeBlanc, despite his promotion, reluctantly took his place among the latter just before Kthaara'zarthan entered and everyone stood.

Intellectually, Sanders was aware that the Orions had no equivalent of the human antigerone treatments. Their natural spans were considerably longer than those of humans, which might explain some of the reason they didn't, and for some of them, a vague taint of dishonor attached to such research. The lieutenant also knew that once the Orion aging process set in, it proceeded with what humans found to be startling rapidity. But he hadn't seen the JCS chairman in some time, and he couldn't help being taken aback. Kthaara's pelt was ashen, like some ebon wood burned over by the fire of time. He'd grown gaunt, and could no longer manage the characteristic gliding Orion prowl-half-attractive and half-sinister to human eyes-but walked with a stiffness to which he imparted an awesome dignity.

Sanders looked around at the other Orions in the room. He'd come to know the race well, and now he read their body language. The pack elder has entered the circle of the fire-a mighty hunter, who's lived to such an extraordinary age that they know they're in the presence of great skill, or great luck, or maybe the great favor of Valkha. Even sophisticates like Ynaathar and Koraaza feel it; they're back at that campfire along with all the others, and they're unconsciously showing it.

Kthaara lowered himself carefully into his chair, and everyone else followed suit. When he spoke, his voice had lost some of its resonance, but none of its firmness.

"Thank you all for coming. I especially welcome Ahhdmiraaaal Muhrakhuuuuma and Great Fang Koraaza'khiniak, the conquerors of Home Hive Two. What they have done there has set the stage for this conference." Kthaara's pause seemed longer than the heartbeat it was. "We are here to plan the concluding campaign of this war."

For a moment, time hung suspended as all in the room sought in their own various ways to decide how to react to the words they'd sometimes doubted they would ever hear, to the imminent disappearance of what had been the central fact of their lives for a decade.

Will we know how to come to terms with the absence of this war? Sanders wondered. Is it even possible we may actually miss it?

In a pig's ass we will!

Kthaara raised a clawed hand to halt a low sound that had begun to rise from his audience.

"Do not misunderstand me. There will remain some work to be done afterwards. Worlds like Harnah and Franos will have to be dealt with, now that our allies of the Star Union have shown us how planets with hostage indigenous populations can be retaken. And, of course, the Star Union will have to complete the reduction of the Bahg stronghold at Rabahl-an operation for whose support we have already earmarked ten percent of the Grand Alliance's available units. But all of that will be in the nature of what Humans call 'mopping up.' Ahhdmiraaaal LeBlaaanc, who returned from Zephrain several local days ago and has had time to review and correlate the latest astrographic data, will present our reasons for believing this to be the case. Ahhdmiraaaal?"

LeBlanc stepped to a podium-cum-control console that had been set up at the opposite end of the table from Kthaara. He manipulated the controls, and the windows polarized to darken the room. Then a holographically projected display screen appeared against the wall behind the Chairman, showing a warp chart in the standard two-dimensional way: rather like a circuit diagram, or an ancient railway switching board, without any foredoomed attempt to approximate the real-space relationships of the stars in question.

It was the largest such display that most of them had ever seen, at least indoors. It had to be, to hold more warp lines and warp nexi than any of them had ever seen before on one chart.

Most of them recognized it for what it was even before LeBlanc spoke.

"Since securing Home Hive Two," he began, "Third and Sixth Fleets have probed through that system's warp points. Their findings have answered the last questions we had. We now know the warp layout of Bug space in its entirety. Here it is."

Everyone stared at that display, and especially at the five icons they'd all come to know as representing home hive systems. Four of them glowed sullenly with the dismal dark-red of clotted blood, meaning that they'd been burned clean of life in accordance with General Directive Eighteen. Only one-Home Hive Five-still glowed like a malevolent scarlet eye.

After a moment, though, people began looking elsewhere for other, secondary hostile-system icons, both living and dead. Presently, a low murmur began, and, finally, Raymond Prescott gave it voice.

"You mean-? Well, I'll be damned!" he turned in his chair and looked to where Amos Chung and Uaaria'salath-ahn sat, looking stunned. "When you two broached your theory about the Bugs back in late '64, did you expect this?"

"No, Sir," Chung admitted. "We believed that each of the five Bug sub-groupings Lieutenant Sanders had identified represented a small group of intensively industrialized systems. Since then, we've had to constantly revise our estimate of the number of those systems downward as more and more of Bug space was revealed. But we never dreamed that the entire Bug industrial infrastructure was concentrated in the five home hive systems, with only a few other occupied systems to support them with resources."

Sky Marshal MacGregor gave her head a slow shake of the wilderness.

"But how can that be possible?" She twitched a shoulder in an almost irritated shrug. "Granted that the home hives are overpopulated and overdeveloped beyond any nightmares we've ever had and that the whole concept of a 'standard of living' is foreign to the Bugs. Granted even that their single-mindedness is literally beyond our comprehension. But . . ." She shook her head again. "How could five industrialized systems-any five industrialized systems-have supported the overwhelming fleets we faced at the beginning of the war?"

"I believe I know the answer," Robalii Rikka said. "After their first war with the Star Union, the Demons began building up reserves in anticipation of a subsequent meeting. We ourselves did the same-but their buildup was far greater, due to the factors you just mentioned. Then they encountered the Terran Federation. So you, not us, had to face those reserves." Rikka looked somber, for he'd studied details of those desperate early battles in the Romulus Chain. "Truly, we owe you a debt above and beyond the new technology that Admiral Sommers brought to us. You bore the brunt of what was intended for us-and wore it down, at terrible cost to yourselves."

Eileen Sommers squirmmed uncomfortably in her place seated among Ynaathar's staffers. She looked around at the hectares of silver braid, stars, and other gleaming and gemmed insignia which made it painfully clear just how junior a mere rear admiral was in a room like this. But then she cleared her throat.

"We can't take undeserved credit, Warmaster. We were fighting for our own survival, not for the Star Union's. In fact, we didn't even suspect that you existed."

"Perhaps. But the fact remains that those inconceivable fleets would have overwhelmed us if we'd had to face them in the fullness of their strength. We feel ourselves in your debt, even if you don't regard us as your debtors. Which is why my Grand Wing is remaining under First Fang Ynaathar's command, as an integral part of Eighth Fleet, rather than returning to the Star Union to participate in the Rabahl operation. We wish to contribute what we can to the eradication of the home hive whose forces you first encountered. We feel there is a . . . fitness about it."

"You are correct," Kthaara said. "Honor is a concept which our cultures may express differently, but we all possess it in some form-it is what sets us apart from the less-than-chofaki we fight. And honor, however each of us understands it, demands that all our races be present for the completion of the vilknarma. Which leads me to a related matter."

The aged Orion turned to Prescott.

"Fang Presssssscottt, you honored me with the suggestion you made in connection with the final assault on Home Hive Five."

"Every other fleet commander has endorsed it, Lord Talphon. I was merely the first to voice what everyone feels."

"I appreciate that. Nevertheless, as I explained at the time, my orders from the Khan required me to reject it. Since then, however, I have made a direct appeal to the Khan, and he has been gracious enough to rescind his previous command. So I now take this opportunity to announce that I will assume direct personal command of Grand Fleet for this operation."

Kthaara raised his hand once more, this time to quell the incipient applause, and turned to Vanessa Murakuma.

"Ahhdmiraaaal Muhrakhuuuuma, if you are agreeable, I will fly Grand Fleet's lights from Li Chien-lu."

He made a remarkably creditable attempt at pronouncing the name of Sixth Fleet's flagship, and all eyes went to the slender, flame-haired human woman. The politics of the choice were obvious: if an Orion was to command the operation, balance required that he do so from a ship of the other superpower. But far more was involved in this decision than mere politics, and everyone knew that, too. Vanessa Murakuma was the first naval officer in the history of the galaxy to actually stop an Arachnid offensive-an offensive launched with all of the massive, crushing superiority of the reserve to which Robalii Rikka had just referred. The senior officers in this conference room knew far better than most just how impossible a feat that had been, just as they knew that the juggernaut she had somehow battered to a halt had come from Home Hive Five. It was entirely fitting-indeed, inevitable-that her flagship should carry Grand Fleet's commander-in-chief for the final home hive assault, and Sanders stole a glance at LeBlanc, who was looking at his lover and grinning like an idiot with pride.

"I-" Murakuma began, then stopped and almost visibly got a grip on herself. "I mean, I would be honored, Lord Talphon," she said. "Thank you."

Sanders decided that if she hadn't genuinely been taken by surprise, the galaxy had lost a great actress when she'd opted for a military career.

"Excellent. And now, Ahhdmiraaaal LeBlaaanc, please continue."

LeBlanc activated a flashing cursor that pointed to the solitary balefully red gleam. A warp line connected it with Anderson Three, the system where the first units of Grand Fleet was even now beginning to converge. The string-lights of the Romulus chain grew from its other side.

"There's still a vast Bug war machine in the systems between Home Hive Five and Justin, still facing Fifth Fleet. But there's no need to fight it. Home Hive Five is the Arachnids' last remaining resource base. After it falls, the forces confronting the Romulus Chain can be left to die on the vine. We estimate it will take six months to a year before lack of maintenance renders them incapable of offering meaningful resistance. It might take somewhat longer, depending on the extent of their forward-deployed stockpiles, but the ultimate result will be the same however long it takes."

"All well and good," Fleet Speaker Noraku rumbled. "But in the meantime, what of the opposition we will face in Home Hive Five?"

"We're presently conducting RD2 probes from Anderson Three. They're incomplete as yet, and it will take additional time to analyze the findings. If I may, I'd like to defer my response until that work is complete."

"I agree," Kthaara interjected. "We should await definitive findings. In the meantime, we will turn our attention to the routing of our fleets to Anderson Three."

From some standpoints, Sanders reflected, assembling an attacking force before knowing what it was going to have to go up against might have seemed an odd way of proceeding. But in this case it made perfect sense. They were going to have to go into Home Hive Five regardless of what it had in the way of defenses, and Anderson Three's Warp Point One was the only way to get there. It was simple to the point of crudity.

But, his familiar imp whispered, remember what Clauzewitz said about the simplest things often being very difficult.

When next they all met, a standard month later, they did so under the orange light of Anderson Three A.

That light was dim indeed, for they were just over four and a half light-hours from the small type K main-sequence star, at the warp point where Grand Fleet lay waiting. A procession of VIP shuttles brought the senior officers of all the component fleets aboard Li Chien-lu, where they were met with full formality in the cavernous boat bay.

It was unlikely that any of them, even the representatives from the multispecies Star Union, had ever seen an honor guard quite like the one awaiting Vanessa Murakuma's guests. It was a very large honor guard, because every race of the Grand Alliance and every available member species of the Star Union was represented in it. Three-meter Gorm centaurs; tall, slender, fiercely crested Ophiuchi, koalalike Telikans; bat-winged Crucians; naked-skinned Terrans; sleek-furred Orions; even the late-arriving Zarkolyans . . . all of them were there. Uniforms-for those who wore them-were immaculate. Terran Navy and Marine brightwork gleamed, Orion metalwork and jewels glittered and flashed, the formal leather harnesses of the Ophiuchi were polished to eye-watering brightness, and brutally utilitarian Gorm uniforms stood as a drab background for the martial splendor . . .  and, in the process, made their own implacable statement of purpose.

In its own way, and very deliberately, that honor guard was a microcosm of the entire war . . . and its cost. Its members were clearly aware of that, and the polished precision of their drill suggested that they'd spent the entire past month working out and practicing the choreography which fused their intensely different military traditions (or lack of them) into a single harmonious whole.

Afterwards, the gathered flag officers of Grand Fleet filed into the flag briefing room, with its wide, curving armorplast viewport.

The lights dimmed, the better to see the tactical-scale holo sphere in the compartment's center. It showed the formations of ships that lay poised to pass through the violet circle of the warp point. Third, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Fleets were now assembled in their full combined might: eighty-one monitors, two hundred and eighty superdreadnoughts, nineteen battleships, seventy assault carriers, eighty-one fleet carriers, a hundred and thirty-four light carriers, and two hundred and sixty battlecruisers. The lighter supporting ships-almost a hundred and fifty in all-were beneath notice in a haze of green icons that would have been beyond the belief of any prewar admiral. And there was an additional thicket of smaller, even more numerous icons between the starships and the warp point: fifty-three hundred SBMHAWKs, twenty-four hundred SRHAWKs, and two thousand AMBAMPs, lying in wait to clear the way through the defenses waiting beyond it.

Marcus LeBlanc stepped forward after they were all seated and focused on the display.

"Despite the heavy losses our RD2s have suffered," he said rather heavily, "we now feel that we're in a position to report on everything in Home Hive Five within sensor range of the warp point."

He manipulated controls, and the sphere changed. The violet circle remained, but the soul-lifting array of green vanished, leaving a blackness into which a scarlet rash spread rapidly as he spoke.

"First of all, the warp point is englobed by a hundred and sixty-eight orbital fortresses of the Demon Gamma, Devastation Gamma and Devil Gamma classes. All of them are of roughly the same tonnage: about a quarter again that of our largest monitor. We've also detected a hundred and forty-four of their defensive heavy cruisers, of the usual mix of classes, and ninety Epee-class suicide-rider light cruisers. In addition, the warp point is surrounded by thirty-two thousand patterns of mines, presumably antimatter-armed."

The compartment was one great hiss of indrawn breath, a sound that was surprisingly similar in all of the Grand Alliance's constituent races, and LeBlanc pressed on hurriedly.

"The warp point is also covered by something in excess of eleven hundred deep-space buoys, armed with a characteristic Bug mix of independently deployed energy weapons. Indications are that the majority of them are bomb-pumped lasers, but we can't say that with certainty."

"Is that all?" Force Leader Noraku asked with what, in any race but the Gorm, would have been suspected of being sarcasm.

"Er . . . not quite, Force Leader. The Bugs have also mounted a combat space patrol of several hundred gunboats on the warp point. Since they must know by now that our SBMHAWK4s can wipe out any CSP they can mount, we assume that they've done so for the purpose of forcing us to use up enough SBMHAWKs to do precisely that. They've supported the gunboats with a dense deployment of kamikaze small craft."

LeBlanc indicated the force readouts, and the silence deepened until Raymond Prescott finally broke it.

"What about their deep space force?"

"Unknown, Admiral. They're evidently holding their capital ships well back from the warp point, and our RD2s have been unable to obtain any definitive readings. The same, of course, applies to the planetary defenses. However . . ."

LeBlanc adjusted more controls, and the warp point became a violet dot at the very limits of the holo sphere as the scale expanded to include the entire inner system. It was a layout which had become only too familiar to them all since the ill-fated day when TFNS Argive had entered Home Hive Five and lifted the veil of Hell. But LeBlanc thought it worth refreshing everyone's memory, and he sent a cursor flashing over the innermost three orbital shells.

"When assessing the possible force levels of this system," he said quietly, "it should be remembered that Planet II contains a population and industrial base unthinkable for anyone but Bugs. It is, quite simply, the most heavily industrialized single planet that any member of the Grand Alliance-including the Star Union-has ever encountered, with a minimum population of something over thirty-five billion. None of the other planets in this system are quite up to Planet I's standards, but Planet III is actually a binary, both of whose worlds are very heavily developed on any normal standards, and Planet I is just as heavily industrialized in its own right. Think of Sol plus Alpha Centauri. Then add Galloway's Star. Then double it. That's the industrial muscle at the heart of this single star system. Given that, we must assume that the deep space force is a formidable one, and that the close-in defenses of these planets have been built to whatever scale the Bugs deemed desirable. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no practical limit to what could be waiting in the inner system."

He looked up from the sphere, meeting the collective weight of all those eyes. And then, with startling abruptness, he sat down.

Kthaara leaned forward, silhouetted against the blazing starfields beyond the viewport.

"Now," he said, as quietly as LeBlanc had spoken, "you all know what we are facing. You also know that it is essentially what we expected-and that our plans have been laid with precisely such a contingency in mind." He turned to Admiral Dar'sahlahk. "All members of the Alliance appreciate the role the fleet of the Zarkolyan Empire has agreed to play in those plans," he said.

It was difficult to read the facial expression of a being who, in the usual sense, had no face. Nor could the translator convey much in the way of emotion. Still, the software was fairly sensitive to emphasis, and it was clear that the Zarkolyan admiral was speaking in no casual tone.

"We are honored to be given that role, Lord Talphon. It was with just such an eventuality as this in mind that we designed our Kel'puraka-class battlecruisers, and the personnel who crew them are fully aware of the implications of that design philosophy."

"Very well, then. As this is our last conference before commencing the operation, I will now open the floor for discussion."

There was surprisingly little. Everyone knew the plan, and all that remained was the usual tug of war over resource allocation. Even that was soon concluded, and the participants filed out, leaving Kthaara seated in the starlight.

He stood up slowly and turned to face the viewport. For a time, he gazed out in silence. Then he became aware that he wasn't entirely alone. He turned back to the room, still dimly lit, and his dark-adapted eyes made out the figure standing in the shadows.

"Ahhdmiraaaal Muhrakhuuuuma?"

The fragile looking, slender Human female-Kthaara knew the race well enough to know how far she deviated from the physical norm-stepped forward into the starlight.

"Pardon me, Lord Talphon. I was just recalling the last time I offered you the hospitality of a flagship of mine. You, and Ivan Antonov."

Kthaara felt the years roll away, and he gave a long, rustling Orion sigh as the memory flowed over him.

"So long ago," he said, and gave a deliberately Human nod. "I, too, remember it well. And I also seem to recall hearing that Sky Maaarshaaal Avraaam . . . discussed that invitation with you. My impression was that she felt that Eeevaan and I were old enough to know better than to transform an inspection trip into one final ride together on the war-trail." A purring Orion chuckle escaped him. "In fact, I believe that Eeevaan told me that after she finished explaining that to him at some considerable length, she intended to explain the same thing to you."

"That's one way to put it!" Murakuma said, with her own species' chuckle. "She must have rehearsed all the way from Alpha Centauri to Justin, because once she got there, she tore an extremely painful and well-thought-out strip off of my hide for letting the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and a relative of the Khan endanger themselves like that."

She grinned, but then, abruptly, a dead emptiness opened in her heart. Her eyes strayed to the viewport and the spaces of the Anderson Chain, where Hannah Avram had died along with so many thousands of others. Her grin vanished, and Kthaara's slit-pupiled eyes softened as he read her change of mood.

"But, after reprimanding you, she presented you with your race's highest decoration for valor, did she not?" he asked gently.

"Yes," Murakuma's hand strayed unconsciously to her breast, and the ribbon of the Lion of Terra. "Yes, she did," she said in a voice almost too small to be heard, and Kthaara smiled.

"We all have our dead to mourn, Ahhdmiraaaal. My own recollections go back much further than that: to the Theban War, when I was young enough to be truly foolish. Ah, what a blood-mad zeget I was then, burning to avenge my cousin's treacherous death! Ahhdmiraaaal Antaanaaav gave me the chance to seek that vengeance, even permitted me to fly a fighter in one of his strikegroups. And he and I became vilkshatha brothers."

"And now you're seeking vengeance again." It was a statement, not a question, and Murakuma held the old Orion's eyes with hers. "I'm curious about something, Lord Talphon. In all the planning for this operation, I notice you've never once considered the possibility of using 'dinosaur killers' in Home Hive Five, like Lord Khiniak and I did in Home Hive Two."

"No, I have not, have I?" Kthaara maintained a blandly inscrutable silence for a heartbeat or two, then relented. "There is really no mystery. I do not devalue that approach, and I am sure your Small Claw Tahlivver would be more than willing to repeat his exploit. But, as you discovered in Home Hive Two, even your 'cushion shot' option is subject to interception by a defending fleet. In the end, we would have to confront their mobile forces and their gunboats and kamikazes whatever we did, and unlike Home Hive Two, Home Hive Five has not been stripped of its fleet by previous incursions. And, as you know better than most of us, it takes a great deal of time. I want to finish this war, and finish it quickly. I believe the force we have assembled here can do that."

"Of course." Murakuma nodded. "I understand. And yes, we will finish it for you."

She stood straighter, gave a respectful nod, and left him. Kthaara watched her go, and then turned back to the viewport, now alone. Only he wasn't truly alone, for the Anderson Chain held other ghosts besides that of Hannah Avram.

I did not tell her the full truth, Eeevaan'zarthan. She would not have understood. She might even have thought that I was impugning her honor. In that, she would have been quite mistaken. What she did in Home Hive Two was not dishonorable. It merely would be wrong at this moment. It would be vermin extermination, not vengeance.

Admittedly, there can be no true vilknarma, no blood-balance, for all the Bugs in the universe would not balance you.

Nevertheless . . .

Kthaara's eyes went to LeBlanc's holo display of Home Hive Five. The four inhabited planets still glowed redly.

Nevertheless, brother, I can at least provide you with an impressive, if belated, funeral pyre.

All was in readiness. In the master plot on Li Chien-lu's flag bridge, the swarming green icons seemed to coil as Grand Fleet poised to strike.

"Lord Talphon . . . ?" Leroy McKenna diffidently indicated the countdown that was crawling through the last few minutes.

"Yes, I see," Kthaara acknowledged with a small nod to the chief of staff. His eyes met Vanessa Murakuma's in a moment of shared knowledge. Then he turned to the com pickup that was hooked into the flagship of every fleet, every task force, and every task group.

Anyone expecting a bloodthirsty oration is going to be disappointed, Kthaara thought. The way of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee was to use few words, but heartfelt ones, at the important moments in their lives. The more important the moment, the fewer words with which it should be diminished. And so Kthaara'zarthan, Khanhaku Talphon, fourth cousin of the Khan'a'khanaaeee, Chairman of the Combined Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Grand Alliance, and Commanding Officer of the Alliance's Grand Fleet, gave the order which launched that fleet against the final home hive system in existence after the fashion of his people.

"Proceed," he said quietly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: The Vengeance of Kthaara'zarthan

The end could not be long-delayed.

The Fleet stood at bay in defense of the final System Which Must Be Defended, and the massive waves of robotic probes the Enemy had sent through the warp point again and again and again promised that its wait would not be much longer.

Introspection was not something to which the beings who crewed the Fleet were given, nor-in any sense humans or any of their allies would have understood-were hope, or happiness, or despair. Yet those units of the vast, corporate hunger which had spawned the Fleet who were responsible for analysis and strategic planning understood what had happened . . . and what was about to happen.

Not fully, of course. Those analysts had no equivalent of the emotions, the terror and hate, which drove their Enemies. They didn't understand love, or the ferocity broken love and loss-born vengeance could spawn. They served colder imperatives, ones in which the things which made their Enemies what they were-individuals-could have no place, for theirs was not a society of individuals, it was . . . an appetite. An omnivoracity, whose every facet and aspect rested upon a single, all-consuming compulsion: survival.

Survival at all costs. At any cost. Survival which had no other objective beyond the mere act of surviving. Survival which would inspire nothing but survival: not art, not epic poetry, not music or literature or philosophy. Not ethics. And certainly never anything so ephemeral and yet so central to all their Enemies were as honor.

And because that single imperative was all the Fleet's analysts truly understood, they could never grasp the entirety of what drove their enemies. Not that they would have cared if they had been able to grasp it. What mattered motivation, in the end? Their own imperative would have demanded the same action, although they would never have been so wasteful as simply to exterminate potential food sources if there was any way to avoid it. But emotionless, uncaring survival was a harsh and demanding god, and the analysts who had preceded those who now served the Fleet had given dozens of other species to it as its sacrifices. In the end, those sacrifices had been in vain. Indeed, although the analysts were far too alien to their Enemies to ever visualize the concept that any other course of action might even have been possible, those sacrifices were what had made the present disaster inevitable. The complete impossibility of coexistence-the all or nothing appetite which had driven something which could never truly be called a "civilization" to the very stars-left no other option, no other possible outcome, than this one.

That much, in their own way, the analysts grasped. The greater must overwhelm and devour the lesser. That was the law of the universe, the only path of survival, and their kind had enforced that law against every other species it had ever encountered, with a cold, uncaring efficiency which couldn't even be called ruthlessness, for the existence of "ruthlessness" implied the existence of an antitheses, and the analysts' kind could imagine nothing of the sort. Yet they'd always understood that he who could not eat his Enemies must, in turn, be eaten by them, and so they'd always known this moment must come if they failed to conquer.

And they had failed.

It was easy-now-to look back and trace the course of their failure, yet even now, on the brink of their final defeat, it was impossible for those analysts even to consider having followed any different course of action. Oh, yes-there were minor changes they might have made, a swifter response to overcoming the technological advantages of their Enemies, perhaps. Or possibly a less profligate expenditure of the Reserve in the early, all-out offensives of the war. Perhaps they might have diverted the resources of more than a single System Which Must Be Defended to the destruction of the Old Enemies . . . or perhaps they might have diverted less, in order to concentrate more fully against the New Enemies. Or-

There were many such possibilities, yet in the end, all were meaningless beside the one possibility which had never existed for a moment: the possibility of never beginning the war at all. Even now, the recognition that their automatic, instinctive response to the discovery of yet another sentient race might have been in error was impossible for the analysts to grasp or even consider.

They were what they were, and they'd done what they had done because what they were had been incapable of any other action, any other response. And so, in the final analysis, they weren't even "evil" as those who'd gathered to destroy them understood the term, for "evil" implied a choice, a decision between more than one possible course of action. And because the analysts had never been able to envision the possibility of choice-because they couldn't do so even now-they felt no guilt as they awaited the destruction of the final System Which Must Be Defended. Not for what they'd done to other species, and not even for what they had brought down upon their own. It would have been like expecting a whirlwind to feel a sense of blame, or a forest fire to feel remorse.

And yet, for all the monstrous gulf which separated them from their Enemies, the analysts shared, however tenuously, two emotions with those Enemies. In their own cold, dispassionate way, they knew despair. The despair which had swept over the citizens of Justin, of Kliean . . . of Telik. The despair which knew there was no escape, that no last-second miracle would reprieve the Worlds Which Must Be Defended or turn aside the fiery doom their species' own actions had laid up for it.

And even in their despair, they knew one other fragile emotion: hope. Not for themselves, or for the System Which Must Be Defended, but rather for the System Which Must Be Concealed. For the single star system of which the very last courier drones to reach them from a murdered System Which Must Be Defended had whispered, and which might someday attain once more the status of a System Which Must Be Defended.

In time, perhaps, the System Which Must Be Concealed would wax powerful once more. Indeed, it must do so, if it survived at all. And perhaps, in some far distant day, the analysts which served the System Which Must Be Defended  would return to this area of space-wiser, better prepared, knowing what they faced-and secure the survival of the new System Which Must Be Defended and its daughter Systems Which Must Be Defended in the only way that was certain: by destroying all possible competitor species, root and branch. And perhaps those future analysts would not return here. Perhaps they would seal off the warp point behind themselves and avoid these Enemies-forever, if that were possible, and for as long as possible, if it were not.

The present analysts couldn't know the answers to those questions. Nor, to be honest, did they much concern themselves with them, for they weren't questions these analysts would ever have to answer.

The questions they faced would be answered shortly . . . and forever.

The first scene of the last act commenced with an eruption of SBMHAWK carrier pods into Home Hive Five in the now-familiar pattern. First came the HARM-armed wave to take out the decoying ECM-equipped deep space buoys. Then came a truly massive wave armed with SBMs and CAM2s, targeted on the Bug gunboats, fortresses, and defensive cruisers.

That far, all went according to well-established doctrine. But what came next was something else altogether.

The Gorm were stereotypically a stolid, imperturbable race. As often happens, stereotype held a grain of truth.

Gunboat Squadron Leader Mansaduk, for example, had never been affected by the disorienting sense of wrongness that seemed to overtake his Orion comrades-in-arms and Terran allies at the instant of passing through a warp point-at least not to the same extent. Oh, he felt it, of course; no brain, organic or cybernetic, was immune. He just didn't let it upset him. So normally, he approached transit with serene equanimity.

Not this time, though. He looked left and right beyond the outer corners of his curving viewscreen and watched the wall of gunboats of which his was a part. They were clearly visible to the naked eye, for this was an exceptionally tight formation on the standards of space warfare. It had to be for what it was about to do.

"Approaching transit," Sensor Operator Chenghat reported in a voice which, like his minisorchi, was a little too tightly controlled, and Mansaduk turned his gaze straight ahead. The warp point was, of course, invisible.

Well, he told himself, if it happens, it should be the quickest possible form of death.

Before he'd even finished the thought, the universe seemed to turn itself inside out, and they were in Home Hive Five. The largest simultaneous warp transit the Allies had ever performed-every one of Grand Fleet's gunboats, in fact-was over.

Stroboscopic flashes to Mansaduk's left and right marked the deaths of gunboats that had interpenetrated. There were a great many of them.

The Squadron Leader took dispassionate note of the fact that he was still alive. A quick glance at his display showed him that one of his squadron's gunboats wasn't, but there was no time to feel anything. No time to do anything but give the orders which sent his surviving gunboats to their places in the wave rushing toward the Bug kamikazes.

The gunboats' ordnance loads were configured for killing small craft. The CAM2s had cleared away all of the opposing gunboats of the Bug CSP. All that were left were the assault shuttles and pinnaces, which were enormously more vulnerable missile targets. Fighter missiles would have been highly effective against such vulnerable targets; the all-up, shipboard AFHAWKs a gunboat could carry were even deadlier, and the intolerable glare of nuclear and antimatter warheads ripped at the guts of the kamikaze cloud.

At first, the kamikazes simply tried to avoid the gunboats which were killing them. Their purpose was to kill transiting starships, and to do that they must survive, not waste themselves in combat against mere gunboats. But they must also somehow remain within attack range of the warp point, and they couldn't do that if they were dead. And so, as the gunboats' kill totals climbed and climbed, the massed kamikazes had no choice but to turn upon them. Exchanging one of their own number for a gunboat was hardly cost-effective, but the Bugs had no choice but to expend some of their number if the rest were to survive to perform their real function.

A vicious fight snarled around the warp point as the better-armed pinnaces of the kamikaze cloud flung themselves upon the gunboats. Mansaduk watched the suicide shuttle that had been his gunboat's latest target flare into a momentary sun, then took advantage of a brief lull to study the readouts. The kill ratio was very much in the Allies' favor, for a gunboat was a small, nimble target, difficult for a kamikaze to catch. But against the numbers the Bugs had to waste no kill ratio could truly be considered "favorable," and Mansaduk began to feel an anxiety that would have surprised his non-Gorm acquaintances. His eyes strayed towards the view-aft. Isn't it time yet. . . ?

Then, with no warning, as was the nature of such things, it happened . . . and once again the warp point was marked by the firefly-flashes of simultaneously-transiting vessels materializing in the same volume of space. There were fewer fireflies this time, but bigger ones, because now starships were making transit.

The first wave consisted of Zarkolyan Kel'puraka-B and Kel'junar-B-class battlecruisers, crewed by beings whose fiery hatred for the Bugs was an elemental force, untempered by any tradition of dispassionate military professionalism. The original Kel'puraka and Kel'junar classes had been extraordinarily well-defended against missiles and kamikazes, with four advanced capital point defense installations each, which made them better adapted to warp point assaults than most battlecruisers. But the "B" refits, while retaining the original designs' defensive power, incorporated a truly radical offensive departure: the elimination of all normal missile launchers in favor of massed batteries of the new "box launcher" systems, effectively converting what had been conventional BCRs into highly unconventional specialized kamikaze killers.

The entire design concept was a calculated risk; the box launchers were slow and awkward to reload, for they lacked the sophisticated ammunition-handling equipment that made up so much of the mass and volume of conventional launchers. Because of that, the box launchers had to be loaded one round at a time, from outside the ship, with its drive field down. But the advantage of the "box launcher" was that multiple missiles could be simultaneously loaded into each box . . . and fired in one, massive salvo. And the very absence of the reloading equipment of other launchers meant that three times as many box launchers could be mounted in the same internal volume. Which meant that a single battlegroup of five Kel'puraka-Bs and one Kel'junar-B command ship could belch forth four hundred and thirty-five anti-fighter AFHAWKs in a single coordinated salvo.

They did, and as they fired, each battlegroup became the center of a spreading cloud of fiery death. Their missiles raced outward, like the blast wave of some stupendous explosion, and its crest was a solid, curving wall of kamikazes vanishing into the plasma-cloud death of their own massive loads of antimatter.

The Zarkolyans blasted enormous swathes through the ranks of suicide shuttles before the Bugs understood what they were dealing with. Then the kamikazes, as though in response to a single will, turned on the new attackers. Six of the battlecruisers who'd survived transit died, but most of the pressure was removed from the gunboats, which proceeded to torment and distract the kamikazes. Those gunboats had expended their own AFHAWKs, but they retained their internal weapons, and they took vicious advantage of the kamikazes' distraction. And while they did, the surviving battlecruisers withdrew through the warp point to reload their box launchers in the safety of Anderson Three.

As they withdrew, the main body of Grand Fleet began to transit-one at a time, led by more Zarkolyans. This time they were Shyl'narid-A, Shyl'tembra, and Shyl'prandar-class superdreadnoughts, the larger cousins of the Kel'purakas which had preceded them. They embraced precisely the same design philosophy, but with five times as many launchers each, and the defenders of Home Hive Five had never seen anything like them. The kamikazes turned once more, swinging back from the gunboats to leap upon these bigger, clumsier, more vulnerable targets . . . and the superdreadnoughts belched death into their faces like the blasts of some war god's titanic shotgun.

Mansaduk's squadron was down to only two gunboats by the time they broke through into the clear and saw those advancing behemoths. A quick glance at his HUD showed the surviving kamikazes regrouping for an attack on the new threat-the one they'd been intended to face. He had no need to look at his crew. Unlike his inanimate instruments, their minisorchi was woven with his; he knew what they felt.

"No, Chenghat," he said, his eyes still on his HUD. "Not just yet. We have work to do here before we can follow the battlecruisers back. We must give the superdreadnoughts our support. They won't have the option of retiring to rearm."

The Fleet tallied the losses of the warp point defenders with profound dissatisfaction.

Ultimately, there'd never been any realistic hope of preventing the Enemy from gaining entry to the System Which Must Be Defended, of course. The introduction of those extremely irritating warp-capable missiles had seen to that. Still, the Fleet had hoped to exact a far higher price of the invaders as they made their assault transits. Unfortunately, this Fleet component hadn't known of the new battlecruiser and superdreadnoughts classes. Sensor data shared with all of the Systems Which Must Be Defended by the System Which Must Be Defended which had been charged with the war against the Old Enemy suggested that the new classes came from the Old Enemy's fleet components, but no report had indicated that they would be capable of such massive salvos of AFHAWKs, and their appearance in simultaneous transits-coupled with the Enemy gunboats' earlier transits-had wiped out far more of the combat space patrol and kamikazes than projections had allowed for.

Still, total gunboat losses had been barely eighteen hundred, less than seven percent of the Fleet's total gunboat strength in this system, and thousands upon thousands of planet-based kamikazes remained to replace those lost on the warp point. The Fleet's Deep Space Force's starships were outnumbered by more than three-to-one by the Enemy units now in the System Which Must Be Defended, and the balance of firepower was even worse than those numbers suggested, for over half of the Deep Space Force's total starships were mere light cruisers. But even now, those ships could call upon the support of the planet-based kamikazes and almost twenty-four thousand more gunboats, and some of those gunboats carried the new, second-generation jammer packs. Clearly, the Enemy's total combined attack craft strength was less than half that-indeed, current estimates suggested it was less than ten thousand-and they were supported by little more than a thousand gunboats after their losses during the initial assault.

The odds against the Fleet were thus formidable, yet not truly impossible. The Fleet's greatest weakness lay in the disparity in the speeds of its component units and the tactical constraints that disparity imposed, but its numerical advantage in gunboats, properly applied, offered an opportunity to offset that weakness. Coupled with the new jammer technology, the Fleet estimated that it actually had one chance in three of inflicting sufficient damage to induce the casualty-conscious Enemy to break off short of the Worlds Which Must Be Defended.

This time.

Kthaara'zarthan and Vanessa Murakuma stood side by side on Li Chien-lu's flag bridge, watching Grand Fleet take form in the plot.

It was, inevitably, a somewhat diminished array. As usual, the destabilizing effects of warp transit had degraded the accuracy of the defensive fire that had met the kamikazes. Ten monitors and a dozen superdreadnoughts of the leading waves had either been destroyed or sent limping back to Anderson Three. But they'd absorbed all the damage the Bugs had been able to inflict. The carriers, coming afterwards, had entered unmolested and were now deploying a fighter cover of unprecedented strength. Behind that shield, the remainder of Grand Fleet was streaming in and coalescing into its prearranged formation with practiced ease.

As well it should, Murakuma thought. This operation was unprecedented in numbers and tonnage, but in nothing else. It was the kind of offensive which nearly a decade's experience had rendered almost-not quite-routine. From any prewar viewpoint, Grand Fleet's experience level would have been as awe inspiring as its size.

"Do you suppose the Bugs will have any technological surprises waiting for us?" she asked Kthaara.

"Surprises, by definition, are unpredictable," the Orion said philosophically. "The possibility cannot be denied. We have learned to our cost that the Bahgs are capable of inventiveness, and in their present straits they must be innovating under the lash of desperation-if, indeed, they are capable of feeling such a thing as desperation. Nevertheless, our precautions should suffice against any plausible threat."

Gazing at the solid phalanxes of green lights forming up on the plot, Murakuma couldn't disagree. For all of Kthaara's eagerness to end the war in one grand, sweeping act of vengeance, the canny Orion refused to neglect the Allies' hard-learned tactical doctrines. The massive battle-line would advance in-system behind a cruiser screen, its flanks covered by clouds of fighters. That advance, toward the teeming planets whose destruction would cripple any further resistance, would force engagement upon what must be a badly outnumbered deep space fleet. True, the DSF would surely be preceded by a lot of planet-based kamikazes. But, again, the Allies were used to that, she reflected, then looked up as Leroy McKenna walked across to her and Kthaara.

"Lord Talphon, Admiral, the last units have transited successfully."

"Excellent." Kthaara straightened up. "Please let me know the instant all commands have reported readiness to proceed. It is time to finish this."

Lieutenant Commander Irma Sanchez had thought she was prepared for the oncoming wavefront of death.

VF-94 had launched from TFNS Hephaestus, the assault carrier on which the squadron was now embarked, and taken its place in Grand Fleet's fighter cover. To minimize pilot fatigue, that cover was maintained by squadrons in rotation, and this was VF-94's shift. It was almost over, and Irma was allowing a certain blue-eyed face to peek into her consciousness. She'd managed to get leave a couple of months earlier, but hadn't been able to stay for-was it possible?-Lydia's twelfth birthday. That was a few standard days from now. . . .

"Sssssskipperrrrr-"

The voice in her helmet was that of the recently promoted Lieutenant Eilonwwa. Irma was still amazed by her good fortune at having kept him. The multispecies fighter squadrons Seventh Fleet had cobbled together amid the retaking of Anderson Three had been emergency expedients only, as Commander Nicot had told her at the time, and by now none were left . . . except VF-94. Commander Conroy, Hephaestus' CSG, subscribed to the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it philosophy.

Eilonwwa was currently on the squadron's outermost flank, and he'd picked up the downloaded readings from the recon fighters first. But now Irma's fighter was displaying them for her. She managed to acknowledge Eilonwwa's transmission as she gaped at the readings. That can't be right! Can it?

"Heads up!" Commander Conroy's voice was crisp yet completely calm, almost conversational, on the command circuit, but Irma knew he, too, had read the tale of those tens of thousands of kamikazes roaring down on Grand Fleet in formations whose density was without precedent in space warfare-even in this war. He fired off a series of orders, and Hephaestus' component joined the wave of fighters that curved inward to support the cruiser screen and, it was hoped, envelop its attackers.

The forward squadrons began to salvo their FM3s, and Irma wondered if they were even bothering to pick targets. There was no real need, after all. Anything fired into that mass of small craft was almost bound to hit something, and the missiles' short-ranged seekers would probably do as good a job of finding something to kill as the overloaded tactical computer of whatever fighter launched them.

Fireballs began to glare all along the cliff face of that moving mountain of suicidal death. It was incredible. They were actually so close together that an exploding kamikaze's antimatter load could take out two-even three-additional small craft by simple proximity. It was worse than shooting fish in a barrel; it was like dynamiting them in a fish bowl!

And yet, if you could accept the sacrificial logic of massed kamikaze attacks in the first place, then that hideous hurricane of exploding small craft made perfectly good sense. Yes, the fighters could kill anything they could see, but the Bug formation was so dense, so compact, that the strikegroups could see only a tiny fraction of them at a time, and while they were killing the ones they could see, the others were sweeping closer and closer to the Fleet at over twelve percent of light-speed.

That was why the protective fighters had to envelop them, had to capture them in a net of coordinated crossfires and finely sequenced squadron-level pounces.

But there were too many attackers to envelop, and no time to work around the perimeter. There was time only for each squadron to salvo its missiles head-on . . . and then follow them straight into that maw of destruction. It was sheer, howling chaos, with absolutely no possibility of centralized direction. Strikegroups came apart, shredding into individual squadrons-sometimes individual fighters-as they fought for their own lives and the life of the battle-line.

But they were used to that, had been ever since the Bugs introduced their gunboat-mounted jammer packs. Nor did it matter much; there were plenty of kamikazes for everyone to kill. Enough, and more than enough.

"All right, people," Irma said as she finished her formal orders and VF-94's spot in line flashed closer at a combined closing speed of over .25 c. "Try to keep some kind of formation and watch each others' backs. But mostly . . . kill the bastards!"

And then they were in among the vastest dogfight in history, and there was plenty of killing for everyone.

Even for veterans of the war against the Bugs, there was something horrible about the way the seemingly illimitable ranks and columns and phalanxes of gunboats and small craft advanced. There was absolutely no tactical finesse. This was an elemental force that existed for the sole purpose of reaching the screen, and passing through it to the capital ships and carriers.

They know-in whatever weird way they "know" things-that this is their last stand, Irma thought in some sheltered recess of her mind, even as she blew two kamikazes out of the plenum, so close together and in such rapid succession that the fireballs merged. And we know this is the last real battle we'll have to fight. That's why there's a kind of madness about this carnage . . . from both sides.

Then the tatters of the Bugs' first waves came into contact with the screen, and it became clear that there was going to be something else about this battle that was unique.

"Report! I want answers!" Leroy McKenna's strain broke through his usually rock-steady surface as he snapped at the staff intelligence officer. Murakuma decided that this wasn't the time to reprove him. Instead, she concentrated on trying to match the studied imperturbablility that Kthaara'zarthan radiated as he stood beside her.

Marina Abernathy glanced up, then exchanged a few more hurried words with a knot of specialists before she turned to face the chief of staff.

"It's clear enough, Sir-we just never anticipated it. The Bugs have developed and deployed a system analogous to the jammer packs they've been using against our fighters. But this version disrupts the datalink systems of starships."

"But . . . but there's nothing bigger than gunboats out there!" McKenna waved at the master plot showing the oncoming torrent of tiny red lights that was coming up against the cruiser screen . . . and suffering far fewer losses from its fire than it should have. "They can't carry second-generation ECM on something that small!"

"They're not. It's a much weaker system than that, with what seems to be a maximum range of not more than two light-seconds-probably closer to one and a half. But within that range, it has the same effect."

Murakuma decided it was time to step in.

"Does it radiate an easily detected emissions signature, like the earlier generation jammer packs?"

"According to the preliminary reports, it does, Admiral."

"Very well, then." She turned to Ernesto Cruciero and pointed to the teeming plot, where the swarms of emerald fighters were still snapping at the heels of the masses of kamikazes. "Ernesto, get with Anson. Our fighters must understand clearly that their first priority is detecting and killing the jamming gunboats."

"Aye, aye, Sir. We'll pass the word-and it looks like several of our strikegroups are already doing just that, on their own initiative."

Murakuma nodded. She would have expected no less.

"I agree we need to kill the jammers," Abernathy put in, "but the destruction of the jamming system does not imply instantaneous restoration of the datalink it was jamming. It's going to take at least a little time to put the net back up, so no matter what our fighters can do. . . ."

The spook left the thought unfinished.

"Both points are well taken," Murakuma acknowledged formally. "But however well it works-or doesn't-it's still the only game in town. Send the orders, Ernesto."

"Also, Ahhdmiraaaal Muhrakhuuuuma," Kthaara said, speaking up for the first time, "it would be well to alert all fleet commands to what the battle-line can expect. They are already at General Quarters, of course. But . . ."

He indicated the plot, where the scarlet ocean was beating against the dam of the cruiser screen. The dam was already starting to spring leaks.

"The battle-line," the old Orion resumed, "including, needless to say this ship, should prepare for heavier kamikaze attacks than we had anticipated."

The battle rose, if possible, to an even higher pitch of insanity. The cruisers of the screen, many of them now fighting individually rather than as elements in the precision fire control of datagroups-poured out fire in a frenzy of desperation. Fighters corkscrewed madly through the dense clouds of kamikazes in grim efforts to seek out and destroy the jamming gunboats.

There weren't as many of those last as might have been expected from earlier experiences with the first-generation jammer packs. Probably, it was a new system the Bugs hadn't had time to put into true mass production. But great as that mercy might have been, there were still enough of them to make a difference. For all the frantic efforts of the fighters and the cruisers of the screen, more and more kamikazes broke through and hungrily sought out the massed formations of monitors and superdreadnoughts, and the carriers sheltering behind them.

Most especially, they hunted the command ships-like Seventh Fleet's Irena Riva y Silva, a ship by now almost as legendary as the admiral whose lights she flew.

A thunder god's hammer smashed home, and the entire world rang like one enormous bell. Even in the shelter of his armored, padded command chair and its restraining crash frame, Raymond Prescott momentarily lost consciousness as the latest kamikaze impacted.

That was the wrong word, of course. It wasn't the direct physical collision that not even a monitor could have survived. The last-ditch point defense fire had prevented that, and it very seldom happened in space war anyway. But what had happened as the searing ball of plasma reached out and slammed into the flagship's drive field was bad enough.

Prescott dragged himself back to awareness, shaking his head inside his sealed vac helmet. The reverberations of the kamikaze's death throes echoed through his brain, making it impossible to think quickly or clearly, but his eyes sought out the plot and the data sidebars that detailed his command's wounds out of sheer spinal reflex. But then his attention was pulled back away from them as his private com screen awoke with the call he'd ordered be automatically patched into it if it came.

"Raaymmonnd!" Zhaarnak'telmasa's voice was as torn by static as his image was shredded by interference. "You must abandon ship immediately! The Bahgs have realized you can barely defend yourself now. They are closing in from all sides!"

Intellectually, Prescott knew his vilkshatha brother was right. But there was a difference between what intellect recognized and what the wellsprings which made a man what he truly was demanded.

"All right. But first I want Admiral Meyers and his staff to get off." Riva y Silva was doubling as Allen Meyers' flagship for Task Force 71. "After that-"

Amos Chung had always been bad about delaying the moment he helmeted up. That probably explained the blood streaming down from his lacerated scalp . . . and it certainly explained how he overheard the vilkshatha brothers' hurried conversation.

"Admiral Meyers is dead, Sir!" He shouted over the whooping of the emergency klaxons, the screams of the wounded, and the creaking groans that arose from the ship's savaged vitals. "Direct hit on secondary Flag Plot! And the same hit buckled the escape pod tubes from Flag Bridge! We'll have to use the elevators!"

"All right," Prescott said to Zhaarnak as he unlocked his crash frame and sat up, then turned to Chung. "Amos, tell Anna-"

"She's dead, too, Sir," the spook said harshly.

For a moment, Prescott sat amid pandemonium, head bowed, unable to move.

"Raaymmonnd!" The voice from the com unit was the yowl of a wounded panther.

"Incoming!" someone shouted from what was left of Plotting.

"Come on, Sir!" Chung pleaded. Jacques Bichet joined him. Together, they dragged the admiral physically to his feet and started him towards the hatch. After a few steps, he started moving under his own power. Soon, he and Bichet were helping Chung.

They'd just gotten into the elevator and started toward the boatbay when the next titanic sledgehammer smashed into the wounded ship.

Irma Sanchez blinked away the blinding dazzle of the fireball. Well, the Ninety-Fourth was the only multispecies squadron, she thought, seeking with bitter irony to hold her grief back out of arm's reach where it couldn't hurt her.

But there was no time to mourn Eilonwwa. She'd broken free momentarily of the battle pattern, where she could at least take stock. They'd stayed with the kamikazes as the latter passed through the collapsing cruiser screen, and on towards the battle-line. Now some of those gargantuan ships were close enough to be naked-eye objects.

She managed to study her HUD through muffling layers of fatigue. The nearest one-a Howard Anderson-class command monitor-was an atmosphere-haloed wreck, shedding life pods, shuttles, and pinnaces as it signaled its distress. Then she noticed the ship ID: it was Riva y Silva, flagship of her own Seventh Fleet. With the years of experience that made the fighter an extension of her own body, she wrenched the little craft into the kind of tight turn that only inertia-canceling drives made possible.

The Code Omega arrived just as her viewscreen automatically darkened.

Not even the shuttle's drive field saved it from the shock wave that rushed out from the bloated fireball astern where Riva y Silva had been, and small craft carried only the most rudimentary inertial compensators. It was hard to see-the secondary explosion inside the elevator shaft had damaged his helmet visor badly, and the HUD projected on the inside of the scorched, discolored armorplast showed strobing yellow caution icons for at least a quarter of his suit's systems. But Raymond Prescott could see as well as he needed to when the brutal buffeting was over and he knelt beside the motionless form of Amos Chung. The intelligence officer's shattered visor showed the ruin inside only too clearly.

He heard a voice over his own helmet com. The com seemed to be damaged, like everything else about his vacsuit, and it took him a second or two to recognize it as the young voice of the shuttle's pilot.

"Admiral . . . everyone . . . our drive's gone, and there's a gunboat coming in fast! Stand by for ejection!"

Prescott obeyed like everyone else, out of the sheer auto-response of decades of training. But even as he sat, his eyes were locked once more upon that uncaring, damnable HUD and the blazing scarlet icon of his suit's location transponder. Even with a working transponder, the chance that an individual drifting survivor would be detected by search and rescue teams-assuming there was anyone left to worry about SAR-were considerably less than even. Without one, there was no chance at all.

Raymond Prescott stared at the blood-red death sentence, and a strange, terrible calm flowed through him. The death that every spacer feared more than any other, if he were truly honest. The fear of falling forever down the infinite well of the universe, alone and suffocating. . . .

He began to reach for a certain valve on his vacsuit.

It was only because she was following the gunboat that Irma Sanchez detected the crippled shuttle. She pressed on after the Bug, crushed back into her flight couch by the brutal power of the F-4's drive. Grayness hovered at the corners of her vision, but it wasn't acceleration alone that bared her teeth in a savage grin.

There was no time for a careful, by-The-Book attack run. The only way she was going to be able to get any kind of targeting solution was by coming insanely close.

The damage the shuttle had already taken must have affected the circuitry. The pilot's first attempt to eject his passengers and himself failed.

Surprise at that stayed Prescott's hand.

Someone screamed. The gunboat was lining up on them. Prescott prepared for a quick death instead of a slow one.

Then the pilot yelled something about a fighter.

The F-4's computer screamed audible and visual warning as a Bug targeting radar locked the fighter up. Irma knew where it was coming from. There was no more time-no time for a proper target lock from her own fighter. She laid the shot in visually, the way every instructor at Brisbane had told her no one could do, and her internal hetlasers stabbed out with speed-of-light death.

In the fragment of an instant before it erupted into a ball of flame, the gunboat birthed its own, slower-than-light death darts.

The second time, it worked. With a g-force that almost induced blackout (and finished off his suit com once and for all), Raymond Prescott was out into the starry void, just in time to be dazzled by the gunboat's death.

His rank meant his was the first seat in the sequenced ejection queue, and the old-fashioned explosive charge hurled him outwards. But even it was damaged; it fired erratically, its thrust off-axis, and the starscape swooped and whirled crazily . . . and then the shuttle blew up behind him.

A fresh stab of grief ripped through him. So much grief. Grief for all the men and women who'd never gotten off of Riva y Silva at all. Grief for Amos Chung . . . and for Jacques Bichet and the other shuttle passengers he knew were still sitting in their seats, still waiting for their turn in the queue. Still waiting, when the dead man without a transponder had already been launched because he was so "important" to the war effort.

The charge stopped firing, and his hands moved mechanically, without any direction from his brain as he unstrapped from the seat. He thrust it away from him almost viciously and watched it go pinwheeling slowly off across the cosmos. There was a huge, ringing, silent nothingness within him-one that matched the infinite silence about him perfectly-as he watched, as well as he could through his damaged visor, while the seat vanished into the Long Dark that waited for him, as well.

Strange. Strange that it should come to him like this, in the quiet and the dark. Somehow, he'd always assumed it would come for him as it had for Andy, in the flash and thunder and the instantaneous immolation of matter meeting antimatter. In the fury of battle, with the men and women of his farshatok about him. Not like this. Not drifting forever, one with the legendary Dutchman, the very last of the farshatok who'd planned, and fought, and hoped beside him for so many years.

His vacsuit had never been intended for extensive EVA. Its emergency thrusters' power and endurance were strictly limited . . . and they showed another yellow caution light in his HUD. It made no difference, of course-not for a single, drifting human in a vacsuit with no transponder-but he reached for the thruster controls, anyway. The life support of his damaged suit was undoubtedly going to run out soon enough, yet it was important, somehow, that he exercise one last bit of self-determination before the end.

He tapped the control panel lightly, gently, almost caressingly, and the thrusters answered, slowing his own spinning tumble.

When the end came, he would choose a single star he could see through his damaged visor, fix his gaze upon it, and watch as the darkness came down at last.

Somehow, Irma had managed to punch out in time.

She had no idea how. Nor did she have any true memory of the death of the faithful little fighter which had served her so long and so well as it ate the Bug missile. Now, as she tumbled through space, amid the horror of vertigo, she clung for her sanity's sake to the thought of the extremely powerful transponder every fighter pilot's vacsuit contained.

Actually, a pilot's suit had a number of goodies that went beyond the standard models that everyone aboard a warship wore in combat-and not just its greater capacity to absorb body wastes before overloading with results best not thought about. For one thing, it had a considerably more powerful thruster system than a standard suit.

That thought drove through her brain at last, and she forced control on herself and used the thrusters to stop the tumbling. Then she shut them off. No need to waste the compressed gas. She had nowhere in particular to go. If anything was going to save her bacon, she told herself philosophically, it was the transponder, not the thrusters. Not that it was likely to. She'd probably survive for the short run, for the battle had receded, turning into a distant swarm of fireflies. But that had a downside: no one was close enough for her half-assed helmet com to communicate with, and the odds of anyone coming close enough to pick up even her transponder signal were slim, to say the very best.

So she simply drifted. There was nothing else to do. She drifted for a long time. Eventually, she stopped looking at her helmet chrono. Periodically, she took sips of the nutrient concentrate the suit's life support system dispensed, with no great enthusiasm-the stuff would keep you alive, but it tasted like puke. Mostly, she let her mind wander listlessly through the landscape of memories.

Then, after some fraction of eternity, she spotted another vacsuit.

Somebody from the shuttle, maybe? she wondered. If so, he's probably dead already.

But if he isn't . . . That's a standard vacsuit, but from this close, I ought to be able to pick up even its dip-shit transponder code. Assuming it was transmitting. So it must not be. And with no transponder, he's got no chance.

Without further thought, she maneuvered herself into the right alignment and activated her thruster pack.

The gas was nearly gone when Irma was still about fifty meters short of the other suited figure. She cut the thrusters and let herself coast onward. She managed to snag the other suit en passant, and they tumbled on together in a clumsy embrace for a few seconds before she was able to use the last of the gas to halt the sickening motion.

Well, that's just dandy! No more thruster.

Irma brought her helmet into contact with the other's for direct voice communication with a certain resentful emphasis. She gazed through the helmet visor, but whatever this poor bozo had been through, his suit hadn't gotten off unscathed. It was so badly scorched she couldn't even make out the rank insignia, much less the name which had once been stenciled across the right breast, and there were spatters of what had to be blood daubed across it. The enviro pack didn't look any too good, either, although at least the external tell-tales were still flashing yellow, not burning the steady red of someone who would no longer need life support at all. Even the visor's tough, almost indestructible armorplast was heat-darkened. She could barely see into it at all, but she caught the impression of open eyes, looking back at her, so at least the guy was alive and conscious.

"You all right?" she demanded.

"Yes, more or less." The answering voice was badly distorted by the transmitting medium of their helmets, but it sounded a little old for regular space crew. Not weak, or shaky. Just . . . like it ought to be accompanied by gray hair.

"Thank you-I think," it went on. "You must be a fighter pilot, from the looks of your suit."

"Yeah-Lieutenant Commander Irma Sanchez, commanding VF-94. If," she added bitterly, "there's any VF-94 left to command."

"So you have a chance of being found, by someone tracking your transponder. And now I have that chance, too. Yes, I definitely thank you, Commander. By the way, I'm-"

"Can the thanks, Pops," Irma cut him off rudely. "I just pissed away my ability to maneuver-not that it was doing me much good. And before that, I'd gotten my fighter blasted out from under my ass to save that shuttle you were on. So don't thank me, all right? I wasn't doing you a favor. I was just being stupid-as usual!"

The old-timer didn't seem to take offense. Instead, the poorly transmitted voice only sounded thoughtful.

"VF-94 . . . yes, I seem to recall. On Hephaestus, right? And aren't you the last of the human squadrons to have non-human pilots?"

"We were. We had an Ophiuchi pilot-a damned good one. But he's dead now."

For no particular reason, the reminder of Eilonwwa knocked open a petcock which had been holding back a reservoir of hurt, and now it poured out in a gush of rage.

"He got killed just like everybody gets killed who deserves to live! Like my lover-we were in the Golan System, when the Bugs came, do you know that? He stayed. So did the parents of a little girl I took with me in the evacuation. And now they're Bug shit! Do you understand that? And now I'm in the goddamned fucking military so I can kill Bugs. I've killed them and killed them and killed them, and there's just no fucking end to them, and I'm fucking sick to death of it!"

She jarred to a sudden halt and sucked in a deep, shuddering breath as she realized she'd been screaming into this inoffensive middle-aged guy's helmet.

"Sorry, Pops," she said uncomfortably. "Didn't mean to blast your eardrums."

"Oh, that's all right. And yes, I think I do understand. I've lost friends myself. I just lost a lot of them, when Riva y Silva went. And before that . . . I lost my brother."

"Shit. I shouldn't have dumped that load on you."

"That's all right," the man repeated. "But tell me: what about that little girl? What happened to her?"

"I adopted her. It was all I could do, especially after . . . after losing the child I was carrying."

"I'm sorry."

"Anyway," Irma went on, "she's going to be twelve in a few days. I haven't been able to see all that much of her, just whenever I can get leave. And every time I do, it's been so long that . . . well, it's as if . . . Hell, there I go again. Why am I telling you all this?"

"Possibly because I'm the only other human being available," the man said, and she could have sworn she heard something almost like a smile in the distorted voice. "Anyway, I'm glad you have. It reminds me of why we're doing what we're doing."

"Huh?"

"You see, you're wrong about one thing. There is an end to the Bugs. It's right here, in this system."

"So? It's not like it'll make any difference to you and me. Face it: transponder or no transponder, the odds are about a million to one against our being rescued. Nobody's going to come looking for survivors out here in the middle of all these cubic light-minutes of nothing."

"It's possible that you're being too pessimistic," the old-timer suggested in an odd tone, almost as if he were chuckling over some private joke. Which was just a bit much out of somebody in a suit that was about to crap out in the middle-literally-of nowhere at all.

Something scornful was halfway out of Irma's mouth when her communicator suddenly pinged with a deafening attention signal.

The shuttle's crew was made up of Tabbies, but there was a human lieutenant aboard. He was already speaking to the middle-aged man as they cycled Irma through the inner hatch of the lock. Her fellow castaway had his helmet off and his back to her as the lieutenant finished what he was saying.

"-and he's waiting for you now, Sir."

Hmmm . . . Irma reflected. That "Sir" sounded awfully respectful. Pops must outrank me. Maybe I shouldn't have lipped off quite so much.

"Thank you," the man said to the lieutenant and bent over the cabin com screen, which displayed the image of an Orion. Incredibly, he began speaking in what sounded awfully like the howls and snarls the Tabbies called a language.

I always thought humans couldn't do that, she thought.

"What's been happening?" she demanded of the lieutenant. "I've been out here a long time."

"The kamikazes hurt us, Sir," the youngster said, "but not enough to even the odds when the Bug deep space force arrived. That was what they must've hoped for, but they crapped out. Our battle-line was still fast enough to hold the range open, and we blasted them out of space without ever closing to energy range."

"But what about their suicide-riders?"

"Yeah, they had the speed to close with us. And we took some losses from them. But only a few of them managed to break through without fire support from their capital ships." He shrugged. "Like I say, we got hurt-but every single one of their ships is either dead, or so much drifting junk nobody's ever going to have to worry about it again."

Irma sagged against a bulkhead with relief. Then, with the important questions taken care of, another one occurred to her.

"But if the Fleet's still headed in-system, how the hell did you find us? What were you doing back here?"

"You've got to be kidding!" The lieutenant stared at her with a stunned incredulity that made him forget her rank. "D'you think Fang Zhaarnak was about to let us call this search off?"

"Fang Zhaarnak?" Irma stared back in confusion. "What does he have to-?"

But then the older man wrapped up his alley-cat-like conversation with the Orion in the com screen-who, Irma now noticed, wore the very heavily jeweled harness of exalted rank-and turned to say something to her. And as he did, she finally saw his face clearly-the face she'd seen in more news broadcasts then she could count. The face she'd seen before the First Battle of Home Hive Three when the admiral commanding Sixth Fleet in Zephrain had announced to his personnel, including a young fighter pilot consumed with rage and the need for vengeance, that they were going to kill the very first home hive system to die.

"Oh, shit," she said in a tiny voice, and Raymond Prescott smiled at her. There were ghosts behind those hazel eyes, she thought numbly, yet that smile held a curious warmth. One that didn't fit well with the stories she'd heard about him since his brother's death.

"I just asked Fang Zhaarnak to inquire into the status of VF-94, Commander. You'll be glad to know that three of your pilots made it back to Hephaestus."

"Thank you, Sir. Uh, Admiral, I apologize for-"

"For heaven's sake, don't apologize! As you pointed out-rather forcefully, as I recall-you saved my life. And that wasn't all you did for me."

"Sir?"

"You reminded me of something I'd lost sight of, in the world of large-scale abstractions I inhabit, and in . . . becoming what I became after my brother was killed. You reminded me of why we're fighting this war-the real reason. And it's very basic and very, very simple. We're fighting it for that little girl of yours."

After a moment in which the background noises of the shuttle seemed unnaturally loud, Prescott grew businesslike.

"We're on our way to rendezvous with Fang Zhaarnak's flagship. Grand Fleet's regrouping for the final advance in-system. In the meantime, our carriers are going to go back to Anderson Three to pick up replacement fighters from the reserves there. We still have some work to do."

Irma straightened up.

"Sir, if possible I request to be returned to Hephaestus."

"After what you've been through? No one will expect you back immediately, and Fang Zhaarnak's people are already informing Hephaestus that you survived. At least take time to get checked out physically."

"I'm fine, Admiral. And . . . if we're going to get a couple of replacement pilots, I'll need all the time I can get to integrate them into the squadron before we tackle the planets."

Prescott nodded, and smiled.

"I believe we can probably arrange that, Commander."

* * *

Kthaara'zarthan stood on Li Chien-lu's flag bridge, a motionless silhouette against the viewscreen whose starfields now held two new, pale-blue members: the twin planet system occupying Home Hive Five's third orbit, seemingly almost touching each other at this distance.

Vanessa Murakuma didn't disturb him. Instead, she turned to her chief of staff.

"Are the ship losses in yet, Leroy?"

"Yes, Sir. As expected, they were very light in this latest action. So the earlier figures are essentially unchanged."

She thought of what lay behind McKenna's emotionless words. Twenty-nine monitors, thirty six superdreadnoughts, five assault carriers, twenty-one fleet carriers, forty-one battlecruisers, and thirty-three light cruisers. They'd also very nearly lost Raymond Prescott when his flagship died; would have, if it hadn't been for some fighter jock.

But Leroy was right. Virtually all those ghastly losses had been sustained in the earlier battle with the deep space force and its massive wavefront of kamikazes . . . and the Bugs had shot their bolt in that battle. When Grand Fleet had reached the inner system, it had found relatively few gunboats and small craft remaining. And the Allies' surviving carriers had been able to launch full complements of fighters to meet those kamikazes at extreme range. So few of them had gotten through that the cruiser screen, even after the laceration it had taken earlier, had blown them apart with almost contemptuous ease.

Kthaara turned slowly, as though reluctant to give up his contemplation of those twin bluish lights.

"Have all the fighters recovered?"

"Yes, Sir. Some of the carriers have already finished rearming their groups; all of them should be done within another twenty minutes." There was no need for McKenna to report the nature of that rearming, for it was preplanned: FRAMs, fighter ECM, and decoy missiles.

"Excellent." The old Orion drew a deep breath. "Our fighter losses in the latest action were so light that I believe we can proceed with the first of our operational models. Do you concur, Ahhdmiraaaal Muhrakhuuuuma?"

"I do, Sir," she said formally. The other models had postulated a fighter strength so badly depleted that it could deal with only one of the twin planets at a time.

"Very well." Kthaara turned back to the viewscreen, and spoke in the Orion equivalent of a whisper. "Do it."

There was very little of the Fleet left, but what there was knew it had failed.

The Enemies had been brutally wounded, but they hadn't been broken. Perhaps the Fleet had taught them too well over the years of warfare, for there'd been a time when such losses would have caused them to break off. Or perhaps not. The Enemies must know as well as the Fleet did that this was the last of the Systems Which Must Be Defended, after all.

It didn't truly matter. The long survival the Fleet had guarded for so many centuries was about to end, and there was no longer anything the Fleet could do about it. Not really. All that remained was to kill as many Enemies as possible before the death of the first World Which Must Be Defended destroyed any possibility of organized resistance. It wasn't much. Indeed, there was no logical point in it at all. Yet for a species for which coexistence was not even a concept, for which the possibility of negotiations or surrender did not even exist, it was the only action which remained, however pointless.

There was no subtlety to it.

The fighters screamed down on the twin planets, ignoring the space stations and the almost fifty fortresses in low orbit about each of those doomed worlds. Speed was their only armor as they shot past those orbital defenses.

Nor did they slow down to maneuver into position to attack specific dirtside objectives, which would have given the fortresses time to complete targeting solutions. No, there were enough fighters to render any sort of tactical precision superfluous in a mission whose sole purpose was planetary depopulation. They just came in at full speed in a single pass, allowing the planets' gravity wells to whip them around in the classic slingshot effect, and simply dumped their FRAMs before pulling up and swerving away. It didn't even matter whether the missiles struck land or ocean; tsunami was as good a killer as any.

The spectacle was downloaded to Li Chien-lu's main flag viewscreen. They watched as the faces of both planets erupted obscenely in boils of hellfire. It was the final application of the Shiva Option.

When it was over, Kthaara'zarthan received reports of the losses the fighters had taken. They weren't inconsiderable. But . . .

"Shall we send the carriers back to Anderson Three for more replacements, Sir?" Murakuma asked.

"I think not. Given the well established impact on the Bahgs' mental cohesion of this-" he waved a hand in the general direction of the two dead planets "-I believe that even understrength strikegroups can deal with the remaining planets."

"What about the orbital works here, Sir? They're untouched."

"They have ceased to matter. Leave them to die-we will not sully our claws. Set course for Planet II."

Irma Sanchez had managed to get away from the throng that had greeted her on her return from the dead, and actually caught a little rest as Hephaestus returned to Anderson Three. But then two unbelievably young pilots had arrived in VF-94's ready room, and she'd spent the return trip to Home Hive Five in a frenzy of improvisation that left her wondering if being lost in space had really been so bad after all.

Then had come the attack on the twin planets-shrieking past the orbital fortresses at a velocity that made them look like slingshot pebbles whizzing past, with the target planet zooming up with startling rapidity before she'd released her FRAMs. It had all been too quick.

But then had come Planet II. They'd been able to take that a little slower, because the Bugs in those fortresses had been in the grip of whatever it was that gripped them when billions of their fellows went abruptly into the flames.

And now it was time for Planet I.

The last one, she thought as she saw it growing in the fighter's little viewscreen. The reality hadn't hit her until now. Forty billion Bugs, the spooks say. The last forty billion in the universe. Shouldn't I be feeling something? Is it possible that this has become routine?

But, she realized, so suddenly that it was like some abrupt revelation, she'd emptied her cup of rage long ago. Once, approaching this planet, she would have seen Armand's face, and the sickening fury would have come roaring up like boiling acid. But now she remembered the words of Raymond Prescott, and the face that rose up in her mind's eye was that of a blue-eyed eleven-year-old girl.

No, she corrected herself, glancing at the chrono, with its date in Terran Standard. Not eleven anymore.

Then they were in, past the sluggishly responding fortresses.

Happy birthday, Lydochka, she thought as she sent her FRAMs streaking down. The now familiar fiery wall of antimatter fireballs walked across the planet, cauterizing the universe, burning away something that could not be allowed to blight any more young lives.

Afterwards, there was a long silence.

EPILOGUE

"So," Robalii Rikka said, "I suppose my carefully rehearsed farewell speech must go to waste. I'll be seeing you again before very long, in the Star Union."

"Yes, Warmaster," Aileen Sommers replied. "The Legislative Assembly's confirmation came through today. There's still some paperwork left to unravel in the Foreign Ministry, of course."

"After which you will resume your position as ambassador from the Terran Federation to the Star Union-this time with proper accreditation," Rikka couldn't resist adding. "I must say it was a remarkably intelligent decision-" the Crucian stopped just short of saying on the standards of your human politicians "-given the unique status you hold among us. You are the logical choice. Oh, by the way, congratulations on your promotion."

"Thank you, Warmaster," she said with a grin . . . after a pause of her own just long enough to confirm that she knew perfectly well what Rikka had left unsaid, even though her agreement must remain equally silent. "They did it just minutes before retiring me. The whole business was a matter of hustling me from one office to another on the same floor. I think their idea was that a retired vice admiral would seem more impressive than a retired rear admiral."

"So you'd think the same logic would apply to her military attaché, wouldn't you?" Feridoun Hafezi asked rhetorically. "They ought to have made me at least a rear admiral for the job. But no, the best they could do was commodore!"

"You're still on active duty," Sommers reminded him. "So in your case they have to play by the rules."

"Still . . ." Hafezi muttered darkly into his beard, and Rikka gave Sommers his race's smile.

"The esteem in which you're held in the Star Union has nothing to do with courtesy ranks. But if your rulers' belief that it does has caused them to give you a long-overdue promotion, then far be it from me to disillusion them."

"So the right thing gets done for the wrong reasons," Hafezi said, this time with a trace of genuine bitterness.

"In this universe," the Crucian pointed out gently, "the right thing gets done so seldom that it ill behooves us to be overly particular about the reasons when it does." He gave the slight flexing of his folded wings that presaged a return to formality. "I can delay no longer. Farewell for now."

Rikka departed, leaving the two humans alone in the lounge just inside the outer skin of Nova Terra's space station. They stood at the transparency and watched the light of Alpha Centauri A glint off the flanks of the Crucian ships. First Grand Wing, also known as Task Force 86, was preparing to return to the Star Union, where work still remained to be done.

After a moment, Hafezi spoke a little too casually.

"Well . . . have you thought about it?"

"Yes," Sommers said softly.

"And-?"

Sommers turned to face him. She looked the very picture of desire at war with a lifetime's stubborn determination to face the practicalities.

"There are a lot of problems, you know," she said.

"Such as?"

"We don't really have enough time before we leave for the Star Union."

"Yes we do. And even if we didn't, we could do it there. In fact, maybe you could do it yourself. Can't an ambassador perform marriages?"

"Be serious! There's also . . . well, we haven't had a chance to talk to your family. What are they going to think?"

"I believe they'll approve. And even if they don't . . . well, I hope they do, but if they don't it changes nothing."

"And what about you?"

"Me? Haven't I made clear enough that I couldn't care less about-"

She stopped him with the lightest touch of her fingertips to his mouth. She finally smiled.

"Are you sure you've thought everything through? For instance, I outrank you. You'll have to do as you're told."

"Me and a few billion other men," Hafezi remarked, and gathered her into an embrace.

Vanessa Murakuma gave Fujiko a final hug.

"So long for now. I know you're in a hurry, with that Marine captain of yours-Kincaid, is that his name?-waiting."

"He just asked to show me a few sights here, Mother," her daughter explained painstakingly. "He was here on Nova Terra once, you see, and . . . and he's most definitely not 'my' Marine captain! In fact, he's conceited and self-absorbed and insufferable and . . . and what was that?"

"Only something from Shakespeare, dear. Get going-you'll be late."

She watched until Fujiko had vanished down the corridor, then hurried to the nearest drop shaft. She was nearly late herself.

Ellen MacGregor's office commanded a magnificent view of the Cerulean Ocean from its lofty altitude. The Sky Marshal didn't seem to be enjoying it. She directed Murakuma to a chair with a grunt, then held up a sheet of hardcopy and spoke without any preliminary niceties.

"What, exactly, is this?"

"I think it's self-explanatory, Sky Marshal. I'm resigning my commission."

"So it's true-I got one of these from Marcus LeBlanc just yesterday. You and he really are planning to retire to . . . what Fringe World hole is it?"

"Gilead, Sky Marshal," Murakuma said, and MacGregor shuddered.

"This is preposterous. Your resignation is not accepted."

"I believe I'm within my rights, Sky Marshal. I've obtained definite legal opinion to the effect that-"

"Oh, spare me that!" MacGregor glowered for a moment, then relaxed. "See here, let's try to work out a compromise that'll accommodate both your, uh, personal agenda and the good of the Navy."

Murakuma's antimanipulation defenses clanked into place at the last five words.

"I'm willing to listen, of course," she said very, very cautiously.

"Excellent. I've been doing some consulting, too, and I believe we could offer you permanent inactive status. Oh, I know, it's unusual. Unique, in fact. But it could be done. And," MacGregor's genes made her add, "the money would be better than your retirement pay."

"Hmmm . . ." Murakuma subjected the Sky Marshal to a long, suspicious look. She saw only blandness. "But then you could reactivate me any time you wanted," she pointed out.

"Oh, no! It would be strictly your decision whether or not to accept any reactivation request." MacGregor emphasized the last word.

"I'd have that in writing?"

The Sky Marshal looked deeply hurt. "Of course."

"Well . . ." I'll have to look this over, but if she's not snookering me . . . well, what harm can it do? I'll never accept reactivation. "May I have a day or two to think it over?"

"Certainly-two Terran Standard days." The emphasis was perceptible. MacGregor wasn't likely to forget about this twin-planet system's godawful sixty-two-hour rotation period.

"Thank you, Sky Marshal." Murakuma stood, and MacGregor dismissed her with an airy wave and an expression behind whose benignity ran the mental refrain: Got her! Got her!

Murakuma returned to the first floor and proceeded to the main meeting room. A briefing had just broken up, and Marcus LeBlanc was chatting with Kevin Sanders as she approached.

"Lieutenant," she greeted Sanders. "I understand you're departing for Old Terra sometime soon."

"That's right, Admiral. I'm being attached to the DNI's staff."

"Well, Admiral Trevayne is fortunate to get you."

"Thank you, Sir. She's assigning me to the . . . the office that specializes in the Khanate." That was about the closest anyone, even the famously irrepressible Sanders, could come to admitting out loud that the Federation spied on its allies.

"So you'll be working for Captain Korshenko," LeBlanc observed.

"Yes, Sir. In fact, I'll be going back with him. I'm not sure he exactly wanted it that way. He seems to think I'm a little . . . well, unorthodox."

"Where do people get their ideas?" Murakuma wondered, deadpan.

"Can't imagine," LeBlanc intoned with equal solemnity, and Sanders cleared his throat.

"Well, must be going, Sir. Admiral Murakuma," he said, and departed jauntily. The other two waited until he was out of earshot before they laughed.

After a moment, they went out onto the terrace where they'd always seemed to find themselves whenever the winds of war had swept them both to Nova Terra.

"So," LeBlanc began, "have you talked to her?"

"Yes. She had a proposal."

"Oh, God! Please don't tell me you let her-"

"No, no, no! I only told her I'd think about it. Just let me bounce it off you-"

Kthaara'zarthan turned his head without surprise as someone walked up from behind him. Two someones, actually, and he smiled at them-the expression remarkably gentle for a warrior of his race and reputation-and then turned back to the painting. Silence hovered as the newcomers stood beside him in the quiet, late night gallery. It was long after hours, but the museum's board had been most gracious when he asked them to permit him one final visit before his departure from Terra.

"It is a truly remarkable work," he said finally, his voice quiet as he gazed at the enigmatic Human-style smile which had entranced viewers for over eight Terran centuries.

"Truth," Raymond'prescott-telmasa agreed, equally quietly. He didn't add that Kthaara was one of only a small number of Orions familiar enough with human expressions and emotions to realize just how remarkable a work it truly was.

"She knows something the rest of us do not," Zhaarnak'telmasa said, and Prescott smiled at his vilkshatha brother. It was different, that smile of his, since the destruction of Home Hive Five. Warmer. More like the smile Zhaarnak remembered from before his younger brother's death, but touched as well with some of that mysterious serenity which hovered about the painting Kthaara had been admiring.

The younger Orion returned his own attention to the portrait and considered how much he himself had changed in the years since Raymond had taught him the true meaning of honor-of his own honor, as much as of his vilkshatha brother's. How odd, he thought yet again, that it had taken a Human to make him realize what the Farshalah'kiah truly meant. Not because he hadn't already known, but because, in his pain and his shame for his retreat from Kliean, he'd allowed himself to forget.

"I wonder," he went on after a moment, "if she would share her secret with us?"

"There is no secret, younger brother," Kthaara said, and pretended not to notice the way Zhaarnak's shoulders straightened at his form of address. "Not truly. She smiles not because of any secret knowledge forbidden to the rest of us, but simply because she remembers what we too often forget."

"And that is?" Prescott asked when he paused.

"That life is to be lived," Kthaara said simply. "She is eight of your centuries dead, Raaymmonnd, yet she lives here still, upon this wall, revered by your race-and by those of mine who have the eyes to see-because she will never forget that. And because by recalling it, she keeps it alive for all of us."

He turned away from the painting, slow and careful with the fragility which had come upon him, and he was no longer the tall, straight, ebon-furred shadow of death he'd been all those years ago when he and Ivan Antonov had first met. So much. He had seen so much as the years washed by him-so much of death and killing, so much of triumph and of loss. And now, at the end of his long life, he finally knew what he had truly seen along the way.

"We are warriors, we three," he told them, "yet I think there have been times in this endless war when we have . . . forgotten the reason that we are. I was thinking, as I stood here alone, of other warriors I have known. Of Eeevaan, of course, but also of others long dead. Some of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee, but even more of those who were not. Of Annnngusss MaaacRorrrrry, who I met on your world of New Hebrrrrideeees during the war against the Thebans, Raaymmonnd. And, even more, perhaps, of Ahhdmiraaal Laaantu. Do you know his tale?"

"Yes," Prescott said. Every TFN officer knew the story of First Admiral Lantu, the Theban commander who'd fought so brilliantly against the Federation in the opening phases of the Theban War. The admiral who'd led the forces of "Holy Mother Terra" to one stunning triumph after another and fought even Ivan Antonov to a near draw. And the greatest "traitor" in Theban history.

"I hated him," Kthaara said quietly. "I blamed him for the death of my khanhaku, for it was units under his command who destroyed my cousin's squadron in the very first battle of the Theban War, and they did so by treachery. Looking back from today, it would be fairer to say he did so in a surprise attack, but I did not know-then-that Laaantu believed he was already at war against the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee, and so I was consumed by my hatred for his 'treachery.' Indeed, it was my need to seek vilknarma which first brought Eeevaan and me together. But in the end, Laaantu taught me the true duty of a warrior, for he betrayed all he had ever known, the faith in which he was raised, even the farshatok whom he had led into battle, because he had learned what none of them knew-that the 'Faith of Holy Mother Terra' was a lie. That the chofaki who ruled his people had used that lie to manipulate them for seventy of your years and then to launch them in a war of conquest. It was a war they could not win-not in the long run-and Laaantu knew what a terrible price would be exacted from his people if they fought to the bitter end. If their false leaders refused to surrender and Eeevaan was forced to bombard his world from orbit. And so he joined his enemies and aided them in every way he could, fighting to defeat his own people. Not for any personal gain, but because only by defeating them quickly and with as few Human casualties as possible could he hope to protect them from the consequences of their rulers' actions.

"And when I realized what he was doing, and why, I could no longer hate him, mightily though I tried. Oh, how I cherished my hate! It had kept me warm, filled me with purpose and the passion of rage, and in the end, the killer of my khanhaku had taken even that from me, for he had reminded me that the true warrior fights not from hate, but from love. Not to destroy, but always and above all to preserve. Do you understand that, Raaymmonnd?"

"Yes," Prescott said softly, thinking of a fighter pilot and a little girl . . . and of his brother. He looked into Kthaara'zarthan's ancient eyes, and his own hazel gaze had softened.

"I do not counsel any warrior to forget wrongs which cry out to be avenged, or to foreswear vilknarma," Kthaara said, "and certainly I do not equate the Thebans-or Laaantu-with the Bahgs. But the essential point is about us, about who we are and why we chose the Warrior's Way, and not about who we fight against. And as Shaasaal'hirtalkin taught so long ago, he who cannot relinquish the comfort of his own hate damns only himself in the end, and he who fights only in the name of destruction is the death of all honor holds dear. It is life we are called to defend. The life-" the wave of a clawed hand indicated the portrait on the wall "-she represents. The love of life which is all the secret hidden in her smile."

He gave a soft, purring chuckle and looked at the two younger officers. Raymond Prescott, who'd already been named the commander of Home Fleet, which meant his elevation to Sky Marshal, probably within the next ten years, was virtually assured, and Zhaarnak'telmasa, whose career in the service of the Khan would surely match that of his vilkshatha brother. They were very different from his own younger self and the basso-voiced "Ivan the Terrible" who'd sworn that same oath so many years before . . . and yet they were also so much alike that his heart ached as he gazed upon them.

"More years ago than I wish to remember," he said softly, "Eeevaan told me of how Fang Aandersaahn had watched over his own career, of the pride the fang had taken in his accomplishments, and of the example he had set. It was, he said, as if when Fang Aandersaahn arranged his assignment to command against the Thebans, he had somehow passed on to him some secret fire, some spark. As if Eeevaan had been given charge of a treasure more precious than life itself."

He smiled in recollection of his vilkshatha brother, the expression both sad and yet filled with cherished memories, and then he inhaled deeply.

"And now, Clan Brothers, that treasure has passed to me . . . and from me, to you. It is what brought all of our peoples together in this Grand Alliance-what taught us to trust and to fight as farshatok where once there was only distrust and suspicion. And for all its power, it is a fragile fire. There will be those, Human and Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee alike, who will wish to step back, now that the menace of the Bahgs is no more. Our leaders will turn from the war which has cost so much, in both lives and treasure. They will seek to put it behind them, to rebuild its ravages, and that is as it should be. But when they do, when they must no longer remember the desperate need which brought us together, they will give openings to those who wish to step back, to forget that we ever became farshatok. They will try to return to the days of suspicion and distrust, and to some extent, at least, they will succeed."

He smiled again, sadly, and reached out to rest one clawed hand on each officer's shoulder.

"It will not happen at once, and I think I will be gone before it does, but it will happen, Clan Brothers. And so I charge you to guard our fire-the true fire of the Farshalah'kiah. Your fire and mine, Fang Aandersaahn's and Eeevaan's. Remember not just for yourselves, but for those who will come after, and in the fullness of time, pass that same treasure to your successors, as I have passed it to those who have succeeded Eeevaan and myself."

"We will, Clan Lord," Zhaarnak promised quietly, and Prescott nodded.

"Good," Kthaara said very, very softly, and his hands squeezed once. No longer young, no longer strong, those hands, and yet in that instant, infinitely powerful. "Good," he repeated, and then drew a long, deep breath and shook himself.

"Enough of such solemnity!" he announced with sudden briskness. "My shuttle leaves in less than an hour, but there is time enough for us to share one last drink-and one more glorious lie each-before I depart!"

He laughed, and they laughed with him, then followed him from the gallery. Behind them, she hung upon the wall, still smiling with all the deep, sweet promise of life.

"But, Agamemnon," Bettina Wister protested, "you know Admiral Mukerji could never have done the dreadful things that woman accuses him of!"

Assemblyman Waldeck looked at his nasal-voiced colleague with expressionless contempt and wondered if she'd actually bothered to view Sandra Delmore's report. Probably not, he decided. At best, she'd had one of her staffers view it and abstract its "salient features" for her.

Waldeck, on the other hand, had viewed it, and he had no doubt whatsoever that it was essentially accurate. The only question in his mind was who'd leaked the damning information to the press.

LeBlanc, he thought. It was probably LeBlanc. He knew vice admiral was as high as any intelligence analyst was ever likely to go, and besides, he's retiring. One of his spies or informants probably reported it to him at the time, and he's just been waiting for the right moment to use it. It's exactly the sort of thing he would do.

". . . and even if it were true," Wister continued, "he was only doing his duty. That awful woman can call it 'cowardice' if she wants to, but I call it simple prudence. Of course any responsible military officer who knew what the policy of his government was would try to restrain a uniformed thug like Prescott who was clearly taking unwarranted risks with the fleet committed to his allegation and its personnel. And as for the ridiculous charge that he was 'insubordinate'! Why, if I'd been there, I'm sure I would have called that myrmidon 'insane'!"

"Bettina," Waldeck said, much more calmly than he felt, "Prescott is hardly one of my favorite people, either. And, like you, I've always found Terence has a proper appreciation for the relationship between the civilian authorities and the military chain of command. But it could certainly be argued that calling the commander of a major fleet actually engaged in battle against the enemy insane in front of his entire staff and flag deck command crew represents a case of . . . questionable judgment."

"But Prescott is insane!" Wister shot back so stridently Waldeck winced. "The people may not realize it now, but they will! I'll make it my special task to see to it that the truth about his bungling of the so-called 'April's Fool' battle-and at the Battle of AP-5, as well-is made a part of the public record! 'War hero,' indeed! Why, he might as well be one of those horrid Orions himself!"

Waldeck opened his mouth . . . then closed it. Sometimes a man simply had to know when there was no longer any point trying to explain, and this was one of them. Mukerji had been a useful tool for decades, but the only thing to do with any tool was to discard it when it broke. And thanks to Sandra Delmore's reports, Mukerji was definitely a broken tool.

At this particular moment the Terran electorate-including Wister's mush-minded constituents-were convinced that Raymond Porter Prescott had single-handedly defeated the entire Bug omnivoracity . . . and probably killed the last Bug emperor in hand-to-hand combat. The fact that any halfway competent flag officer could have defeated the Bugs with the immense material superiority the Corporate Worlds had provided was completely lost upon the hero-worshipping proles, and they would have no mercy on anyone who dared to trifle with the object of their veneration.

It was a pity, really, but there it was. That blind adulation was the true explanation for the fury which had swept that electorate when Delmore's "exposé" of Mukerji's . . . confrontation with Prescott broke. If a few more years had passed, the Heart World sheep would have forgotten all about any sense of indebtedness to Prescott. But they hadn't, and as the public denunciation swelled, the rest of the media-sensing blood in the water, and not particularly caring whose blood it was-had picked the story up with glee. They could be counted upon to keep it alive for months, at the very least.

Unless, of course, the Naval Affairs Committee took action against the source of the public's discontent. Which would necessarily mean tossing Mukerji off the sled before the wolves caught it.

The real question in Waldeck's mind was what to do about Wister. He'd been able to sit on her during the war, but her present stridency wasn't a good sign. The idiot really believed the nonsense she spouted, and the last six or seven years of being forcibly restrained from airing her idiocy in public appeared to have pushed her over the edge. She seemed unable to understand that the mere fact that the war was over wasn't going to automatically and instantly restore the universe she'd inhabited before the Bugs came along. And like any petulant, spoiled adolescent who wanted back the world in which she had been the center of everything that mattered, she was perfectly prepared to pitch a public tantrum until she got her way. Which could have . . . unpleasant consequences for her political allies.

No, he decided. She'd been another useful tool, but, like Mukerji, she was scarcely irreplaceable. Of course, it would have to be done carefully. In fact, it might be that the Delmore story offered an opportunity to kill two birds with a single stone. If he handled it right, he could distance himself from the Mukerji fallout by making it appear that Wister had been the political admiral's patron. And if he gave her enough rope in the public hearings, let her babble away in public the way she was now, he could confidently count on her to destroy any credibility she might have retained if she or Mukerji tried to deny the relationship. And when Chairman Waldeck found himself "forced" by the mounting examples of Mukerji's incompetence and cowardice to turn against his political protector Wister-more in sorrow than in anger, of course . . .

It was always so convenient to have someone else one could use as the anchor to send one's own unfortunate political baggage straight to the bottom.

He considered the proposition for a few more seconds, then nodded mentally, and turned to Wister with an expression of thoughtful concern.

"Protecting Mukerji against these charges will be politically risky, Bettina," he told her in a carefully chosen tone.

"Protecting him against the vicious accusations of a violent, bloodsoaked butcher like Prescott," Wister shot back, completely ignoring the fact that Raymond Prescott had yet to make a single public statement in the case, "is the Right Thing to Do!"

"I didn't say it wasn't," Waldeck said in that same artfully anxious voice. "I only meant that it would require someone willing to put his-or her-political career on the line in defense of his political principles."

"I have never hesitated for an instant to stand up for the things in which I believe!" Wister declared, and Waldeck was careful to keep any sign of elation from crossing his face.

"Well, in that case," he told her with admirable resolution, "I'll have the Committee staff began assembling evidence in the matter immediately."

The Sanchez house, a rambling retirement villa, crowned a bluff looking eastward to Orphicon's Naiad Ocean. Ramon and Elena had occasionally considered selling the place. They weren't getting any younger, and their granddaughter-for their daughter had made clear to them that the blond toddler she'd brought through hell and adopted was precisely that-had always had a hair-raising love of playing along the edge of the cliff whose foot the waves lapped at high tide. Even now, just turned twelve, she often went there alone and looked out to sea as though waiting for someone.

This time, she really was.

Lydia Sanchez-born Lydia Sergeyevna Borisova on a world called Golan A II, about which the grownups always avoided speaking-stood on the bluff under a sky as blue as her eyes and as vast as all heaven, silent amid the screeching of the Terran-descended seabirds. The wind stirred her hair and sent her lightweight shift flapping against her slender no-longer-quite-child's form. She didn't notice the chill. Her mother was late.

Yes, her mother-the only mother she'd ever truly known. Oh, there'd been a woman once, whose face Lydia sometimes glimpsed fleetingly in her dreams. A woman who'd sung her to sleep with lullabies about the witch Baba Yaga, and the Firebird, and Vasilisa the Brave. A woman who'd called her Lydochka.

She never heard that diminutive here; Orphicon's ethnic stew contained few Russian ingredients. No, there was only one person who ever called her that. . . .

"Lydochka!"

She whirled around and saw a figure running up the pathway from the house-a figure whose TFN black-and-silver was already opened at the collar in its wearer's haste to get it off.

"Mom!" she squealed, and ran into an embrace that lasted and lasted, the black hair mingling with the blond.

When Irma Sanchez could finally force words past a constricted throat, all that came out was, "Oh God, honey, I'm so sorry I missed your birthday!"

Lydia giggled.

"Oh, that's all right, Mom." She tried to hug Irma even harder, but recoiled with an "Ouch!" She looked down at that which had jabbed her. A little golden lion gleamed against the midnight tunic.

Lydia looked up-not very far up, for she was already almost as tall as her mother. She'd known about it, of course-her grandparents were practically inarticulate with pride. But now she found she didn't know what to say.

"Uh . . . it's very pretty, Mom."

"Pretty? Yes, it is, isn't it?" said Irma, very softly. She lifted up the golden lion, hanging from its varicolored ribbon. It flashed in the sun.

Lydia was puzzled, for her mother's eyes were focused far away. She had no way of knowing how far-in time as well as in distance, and beyond the veil that sunders the living from the dead. The dead went by names like Eilonwwa, Meswami, Georghiu, Togliatti . . . and Armand. And then there was Armand's unborn child, to whom Irma could not even give a name, for they'd never chosen one. They'd had all the time in the world.

With a sudden, violent motion, Irma tore the medal from her tunic, ripping the nano-fabric. She reached back like a discus thrower and, with all the wiry strength in her, flung the Terran Federation's highest decoration for valor out over the cliff. It caught the sun, glistening as it fell. The splash, far below in the surf, could not be seen.

Lydia stared at her mother, round-eyed.

"What did you do that for, Mom?"

Irma took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Because it's over, dear. That-" she gestured out to sea "-that was part of something I had to do. Something called war-something horrible. The only excuse for it is that sometimes it's the only way to stop something even more horrible. But even that doesn't change the fact that it's all about misery and pain and death and sorrow and loss and . . . and . . . and it's over!"

Lydia continued to stare, and tried to understand.

"Do you mean it's true, what everybody's been saying? That the Bugs aren't going to come after all?"

"That's right, Lydochka. The Bugs are never going to come."

Arm in arm, mother and daughter turned and walked along the pathway to the house, under the clean sky.

Glossary

AAM-advanced antimatter warhead.

AFHAWK-Anti-Fighter Homing All the Way Killer Missile; the standard ship-launched anti-fighter missile.

AFHAWK2-a second-generation, much larger, extended-range version of the AFHAWK.

AM-antimatter warhead.

AMBAM-Anti-Mine Ballistic Antimatter Missile; a large missile, equipped with multiple ballistically deployed antimatter warheads, which is used to clear paths through minefields.

AMBAMP-Anti-Mine Ballistic Antimatter Missile Pod; a warp-capable pod designed to transport AMBAMs through warp points.

antigerone treatments-human age-slowing therapies.

battlegroup-the starships (usually six) linked together by command datalink. Also called a "command datagroup" or "command datalink datagroup."

BB-battleship.

BC-battlecruiser.

BCR-a capital missile-armed battlecruiser optimized for long-range engagement.

CA-heavy cruiser.

CAM-Close Assault Missile; a capital missile-sized weapon capable of "sprint mode" attacks at close range.

caraasthyuu-a particularly irritating biting, stinging insect from Old Valkha, the original Orion homeworld.

chegnatyu-semi-mythical Orion warrior heroes; paladins.

chofak (plural: chofaki)-literally "eater of midden scrapings," though generally translated as "dirt eater." An Orion term to describe a being so lost to all sense of honor as to be unable even to recognize it as a concept.

CIC-Combat Information Center.

CL-light cruiser.

CM-Capital Missile. A large, long-ranged missile with a very heavy warhead. Too large to fire from a "standard" sized launcher. It carries sophisticated ECM and is very difficult for point defense to intercept.

command datalink-an advanced datalink system capable of linking up to six warships simultaneously.

Corthohardaa-"Space Brothers," the native Ophiuchi who crew the Ophiuchi Association navy's strikefighters.

CSG-Commander Strikegroup, the CO of the strikegroup embarked aboard a single carrier.

CSP-Combat Space Patrol; a force of strikefighters and/or gunboats detailed to fly defensive missions covering a specific region of space or a specific target.

CV-fleet carrier.

CVA-assault carrier.

CVL-light carrier.

Dahanaak-"Talon Strike," the Ophiuchi equivalent of the Terran Marines Raider forces.

datagroup-the ships (usually three in number) linked together by standard datalink.

datalink-a system of computers and communication systems which effectively link the offensive and defensive capabilities of up to three starships, allowing them to operate as a single unit for combat purposes.

DD-destroyer.

defargo-the honor dirk of the Orion officer corps.

Demons-the Crucian term for the Arachnids.

dirguasha-"the beast not dead," an Orion who, for his offenses against honor, has been rejected and expelled from his family and clan and who may be killed by any other Orion in any way.

droshkhoul (plural: droshkhouli)-"shadow seeker," Orion term of disapprobation for someone who always finds a way to avoid combat without quite acting openly dishonorably.

DSB-Deep Space Buoy.

DSBL-Deep Space Buoy (Laser), also known as Laser Buoy. An orbital platform mounting a bomp-pumped laser to defend point targets.

ECM-Electronic Countermeasures. ECM1, the earliest and crudest version, simply makes the mounting ship more difficult to hit. ECM2, or "jamming ECM," serves to jam or break up enemy datalinks within relatively short range of the system. ECM3, (also known as "deception mode ECM") is a more advanced generation which can perform as ECM1 or 2 be used to project false sensor readings to make a ship appear to belong to a different class. ECM4 ("cloaking ECM") is an even more advanced system, capable within limits of making a ship invisible to enemy sensors.

Farshalah'kiah-"the Warrior's Way"-the ancient teachings of Shaasaal'hirtalkin, the Orion equivalent of Lancelot/Musashi, who formalized the honor code of the Orion warrior caste.

farshathkhanaak-"lord of the fist," Orion term for the senior strikefighter pilot assigned to a task force or fleet.

farshatok-"warriors of the fist," Orion term for warriors so well trained and so motivated that they fight as the individual fingers of a single fist.

FM, FM2, FM3-progressively more advanced and capable strikefighter missiles.

FRAM-a short-range, sprint mode, antimatter-armed strikefighter munition.

GFGHQ-Grand Fleet General Headquarters.

ghornaku-"sharers of union," the term for citizens of the Star Union of Crucis, regardless of their species.

graaznaak-an exceptionally stupid, carrion-eating lizard fron New Valkha.

Hiarnow'kharnak-the chief deity of the ancient Orion pantheon, God of War and ruler and creator of all the other gods.

hanaakaat-Ophiuchi talon-based martial art.

HARM-Homing Anti-Radiation Missile.

hasfrazi-the most deadly raptor of the Ohiuchi home world, whose head is the emblem of the Corthohardaa.

hercheqha-an Orion marsupial, equivalent to a small deer.

hiri'k'now-the violation of hirikolus, the most unspeakable crime any Orion warrior can commit.

hirikolus-the liege-vassal relationship between an Orion warrior and his khanhaku or the Khan'a'khanaaeee himself.

HUD-Heads Up Display; a display projected in front of someone's eyes so that it can be read without looking down.

ICN-Interstellar Communications Network; the long chains of deep space buoys between warp points used to relay messages at light-speed across the intervening space.

IDEW-Independently Deployed Energy Weapons; individual, unprotected, remotely targeted energy weapons, usually force beams or primary beams, mounted in deep space buoys.

Iierschtga-anti-god of Crucian theology.

Ithyrra'doi'khanhaku-literally "honor-named of all clan lords," the highest Orion award for valor, equivalent of the Terran Federation's Lion of Terra.

Khan'a'khanaaeee-literally, "lord of the high lords," the near-deified, absolute ruler of all Orions.

khanhaku-"clan lord"; title of the head of one of the great Orion warrior clans.

Khanhath'vilkshathaaeee-literally "the high lords' blood slayers," also translated (inaccurately) as the Caste of Assassins. The highly venerated order of supreme Orion duelists charged with removing an ineffectual or corrupt Khan by challenging and killing him.

Kkrullott-the Crucian deity.

lomus-"household"; the extended family of a Gorm, joined by complex mutual honor obligations.

minisorchi-a Gorm empathic sense.

MT-monitor.

MTE-escort monitor.

MT(V)-a carrier built on a monitor hull.

naraham-"detachment," the Ophiuchi concept of the ability to maintain a sense of poise, calm, and balance under any circumstances.

Niistka Glorkhus-"Speaking Chamber"; the supreme legislature of the Star Union of Crucis.

PDC-planetary defense center.

queemharda-"self-brotherhood," the Ophiuchi ideal of self-knowledge and acceptance.

querhomaz-"self-determination," the Ophiuchi ideal of an individual's absolute determination to fully fulfill his role in life.

quurohok-"place knowing," the Ophiuchi ideal of an individual's ability to recognize and make the life choices required to allow him to attain his maximum potential.

RD-Recon Drone; a remote, powered sensor platform.

RD2-Second Generation Recon Drone; an advanced recon drone capable of making unassisted warp transit.

Rhustus Idk-Prime Minister of the Star Union of Crucis.

SBM-Strategic Bombardment Missile; an even longer-ranged version of the Capital Missile. It sacrifices ECM capability for extended range.

SBMHAWK-Strategic Bombardment Missile, Homing All the Way Killer; a combination of several SBMs in a pod capable of transporting them through a warp point to attack targets on the far side.

SD-superdreadnought.

sprint mode-an extremely high-velocity attack mode, reachable by some missiles. "Sprint mode" missiles move so quickly that they are effectively impossible for point defense to track and intercept.

SRHAWK-Suicide Rider Homing All the Way Killer. A warp-capable pod designed to look like an SBMHAWK in order to lure attacking gunboats to short range, where they can be destroyed by the blast effect of its single massive antimatter warhead.

shirnask-absolute fidelity to one's sworn word. One of the two fundamental honor obligations of an Orion warrior.

shirnow-"oath breaking."

shirnowmak-"oath breaker," second worst insult in the Orion language.

synklomchuk-the duty owed by any Gorm to the house-kin members of his lomus under synklomus. In simplest terms, the responsibility to die before allowing any preventable harm to befall any member of the household.

synklomus-"House Honor." See above.

Taainohk-the "Four Virtues" (queemharda, naraham, quurohk, and querhomaz), the combined philosophical concepts at the core of the Ophiuchi honor code.

talnikah-"battle mother," the CO of any Telikan field force. Originally translated by Survey Command personnel as "combat mama."

theernowlus-"risk sharing," the Orion honor concept which requires a warrior to expose himself to risk before asking anyone else to share it.

theermish-"risk shirking," the violation of theemowlus (see above).

Valkha'kharnak-the second most important member of the ancient Orion pantheon, the Death Messenger of Hiarnow'kharnak and the chooser of the honorable dead.

vilka'farshatok-"war fist of the blood," a fusion of Orion warriors so well trained and motivated as to fight as members of a single clan, regardless of their origins.

vilknarma-"blood balance," the Orion concept of seeking redress for treachery or murder through the death of the offender.

vilkshatha-"blood sworn," the symbolic mixing of the blood of two Orion warriors who have sworn brotherhood and become members of one another's clans.

Waldeck Weave-Terran term for fighter evasive maneuver patterns first devised by Admiral Minerva Waldeck during ISW 3.

zeget-a huge and powerful predator, somewhat larger than a Kodiak bear. Top of the food chain on the original Orion homeworld.