End Run

PART I MILK RUN by Christopher Stasheff

“Viking at two o’clock!” As an afterthought, the duty officer hit the “battle stations” alarm. The klaxon quacked feebly throughout the ship—well, most of it, anyhow. At least, they heard it in the wardroom.

“Oh, yes sir, right away, sir!” Flip leaped up jogging, knees punching high in parody as he headed for his gun turret.

Jolie watched him go as she ground out her cigarette under a smoking lamp that no longer quite cleared the atmosphere. She heaved a sigh. “Flip he’s called, and flip he is. Come on, Harry—get cannonized.”

“I’ll leave that for the Kilrathi, if you don’t mind.” Harry rose from the seat across from her. “I just shoot ’em, I don’t catch ’em.” I hope, he added silently, the old familiar fear chilling his core. “Have fun in the tail gun.” He took one last drag, then rolled the coal carefully off his cigarette, blew out the last of the smoke, and tucked it away for future reference. He leaped into a run, jogging toward his gun turret.

On the bridge, Captain Harcourt asked, “What’s it look like, Billy?”

“Private enterprise, Captain,” the lookout answered.

Harcourt grunted. They had all had more than enough experience with the lightly armed, privately owned raiders who kept appearing out of uncharted jump points to raid the Confederation colonies along the edge of the war zone. At least, they thought their jump points were uncharted—but after two years on picket duty, the crew of the Venture-class Corvette Johnny Greene knew where all three of them were, so well that everyone on the crew could recite the coordinates in their sleep—and frequently did.

They didn’t get very excited about the Vikings any more.

To an outsider, the crew might have appeared to be anything from informal to slapdash, but they worked together smoothly and efficiently, affecting a boredom that they almost always really felt—except when one of the privately-owned raiders showed up for a quick try at easy meat. Then the appearance of boredom masked the old, familiar fear of violent death. There was always the chance that one of the Vikings might be a match for the Johnny Greene, always the chance that a jump point might disgorge something bigger.

“All battle stations green, Captain,” Lieutenant Janice Grounder reported.

Billy killed the klaxon, what there was of it.

“Right, Number One. Set course for intercept.”

“Already on it, Captain. Skoal,” answered Morlock Barnes, the astrogator.

Harcourt settled back in his acceleration chair, satisfied, surveying the bridge—pools of light in a chamber of gloom, each pool with a person huddled over a console. The atmosphere was quiet, feeling something like a neighborhood library—if a library had the underlying tension of a life-or-death fight. It was a nice, cozy place for four people.

Unfortunately, they had five in it.

Harcourt looked for something out of order. He had a lot to choose from; the room was a monument of ingenuity, with every screen illuminated by a clip-light, the backlighting having burned out months before. In front of Grounder, who doubled as helm, were two gyroscopes with extended axes, very obviously cobbled out of bits and pieces of metal. Mounted at right angles in universal gimbals, they were substitutes for the attitude gauges, which had burned out even sooner than the screen lights. The helm itself still responded well, but only because Coriander, the damage control officer, had gone EVA and replaced the thrust tube that had been shot off by a Viking six months before. She had used the casing of a dud missile that, fortunately, they had been able to reclaim from the wreckage of the raider at which it had been aimed.

It was ironic that because the missile hadn’t fired, the ship had still been intact to be captured after Flip and Harry had shot off its thrust tubes. The Kilrathi had tried to escape in rescue pods, and were now comfortably interned on the surface of the planet they had tried to raid. Of course, they were doing hard labor, helping to strengthen the planet’s defenses, but that was one of the fortunes of war. The flip side was that their ship had furnished a surprising number of spare parts that had helped keep the Johnny Greene moving. For example, other Venture-class Corvettes did not have tail guns.

The dud missile had also furnished a computer lock-on, which Coriander had jury-rigged to aim Harry’s laser cannon, his own aiming computer having melted down during a particularly heavy engagement. Flip aimed his laser cannon with the lock-on from the Kilrathi missile that their own dud had sheared in half on its way through the Viking’s side.

They no longer noticed the stink in the air, the aroma of bodies that were washed too seldom—the water purifier was still functioning, sometimes—and the air regeneration system had interesting green growths here and there, plus filters that were nearly clogged.

The occasional Kilrathi raider did, at least, relieve the boredom. Never mind the fact that every single one of them could be killed—not very probably, because the Kilrathi were very much more lightly armed than the Johnny Greene. They were desperate fighters, though, and there was no way of telling when one of them might get it right.

Never mind that, indeed—and Harcourt tried not to. They had all grown so used to the routine that the others were pretty good at ignoring the danger, too—or, at least, pretending.

“Retract scoops,” Harcourt ordered. “Full thrust.”

“Full thrust,” the intercom confirmed. CPO Lorraine Hasker was in the midsection of the ship with her own console, monitoring the health of the engines that were her babies—even if two of them were cuckoos in her nest.

The ship accelerated—surprisingly, much faster than it was supposed to be able to. Coriander had made a few modifications of her own. If they kept it up for any length of time, the engines would burn out—providing they didn’t shake the ship apart first; the two original engines weren’t quite in tune any more, and the Kilrathi add-ons weren’t exactly balanced. But they wouldn’t need to keep up that speed for long.

The Kilrathi apparently hadn’t been expecting either the Johnny Greene or its speed; they changed course, paralleling the Confederation ship’s vector, and shot away, accelerating at maximum thrust.

“He’s running,” Billy reported.

“Don’t they always.” It wasn’t quite boring, Harcourt considered—at least it was action. But they always followed the same pattern. “You’d think the blighters would tell each other what happened when they tried any given maneuver. They could at least spread the word that it doesn’t work.”

“How?” said Grounder. “None of them ever make it back.”

“Well, that’s true,” Harcourt allowed. “But there must be thousands of them doing this all along the front. Some of them must get back.”

“Maybe the other ones don’t try to run,” Grounder suggested helpfully, “like that first one we fought. Remember? They charged us.”

“Yes, and their engines have been coming in handy ever since.” Harcourt looked over at CPO Coriander. “Nice job, Chief. Don’t know how you ever managed to tie them in with our control system.”

“I didn’t,” Coriander answered, “quite.”

“Good enough for me,” Grounder said. “They roar when I push the stick.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant—but we’ll need everything we’ve got,” Coriander said. “The bastards keep chipping away at us. Every one we blow up, takes a little bit of us with it.”

“We’re at maximum velocity,” Grounder reported. “Estimate two minutes till we’re in range.”

“You think they’d look up the specs on a Venture-class Corvette,” Coriander sighed.

“They did, Chief, but you weren’t on the chart,” Billy called over.

That, Harcourt reflected, was nothing but the unvarnished truth. A corvette was a very uneasy compromise; it sacrificed the agility of a fighter-bomber for not as much firepower as a destroyer. But if you couldn’t afford to put a destroyer out on guard duty, a corvette was better then nothing. And, he reflected, if you’re losing the war and running short of ships and men, you have to keep that corvette on station for two years in a row, without leave or refitting.

Better than nothing? Maybe—but not much. At least, not enough to give its crew any feeling of security.

Under circumstances like that, you either went crazy and tore each other apart, or you became extremely close. The crew of the Johnny Greene hadn’t torn each other apart—yet.

It never occurred to Harcourt that he might have had something to do with that.

“Viking is turning,” Billy reported.

Harcourt nodded, gazing at the illuminated grid of the battle display in front of him in frustration. light, it had—lines, it had. Blips, it had none. The hit they had taken eighteen months before had knocked out the relay circuit from the battle computer. Billy could see where the foe was, but nobody else could. They just had to trust him.

They did.

Still, the battle display did lighten the gloom of the bridge nicely.

Harcourt felt the tension building. “Now we’ll see if this Viking can think of anything new and different.”

“How many things can you do in a space dogfight?” Grounder countered.

“Come now, Lieutenant!” Harcourt reproved. “You show a singular lack of imagination. Now, if I were him, I would…”

“He’s diving!” Billy cried.

Suddenly, Harcourt ached to be able to see, but the display in front of him stayed stubbornly featureless. He glared at the direct-vision port, but it showed only careless stars.

One of them was moving—but they were still too far away for the Kilrathi to show as a silhouette.

“He knows we don’t have any armament underneath,” Harcourt said. “He’s going to try to come up under us and shoot off our belly armor.”

“Well, at least it’s something new,” Grounder said—but there was a tremor of trepidation in her voice.

Harcourt hit “all stations” on the intercom. “Everybody stand by! We’re going to flip!”

“I already did,” the senior gunner answered.

“Yes, Flip, and we’ve all decided to join you. Now, hold tight—you’re going to be hanging upside down relative to where you are now.”

“So?” Jolie’s voice replied succinctly. “We’ll just think of it as, we’re upside down now, and we’re going to be right side up!”

With artificial gravity holding them down to their seats, it didn’t really matter—but they all knew the unpleasant sensation that a roll could produce, gravity or no gravity, because Coriolis force is Coriolis force and fluid is fluid, especially if it’s in the inner ear, telling you that you’re rolling, no matter what the seat of your pants says.

Harcourt watched Grounder’s two gyros in their universal mounts as the blue poles swung around and down to point at the console itself. Blue was up, red was down—and right now, down was up, so Harcourt knew they were upside down. At least, they were inverted in relation to how they had been a couple of minutes ago.

“Viking above us,” Billy sang out.

“What’s the range?”

“Five hundred kilometers,” he answered, “closing at a klick a second.”

“Taking his time, isn’t he?”

“Hey, he wasn’t expecting to see our top.”

“Close enough,” Harcourt decided. “Fire!”

The ship bucked as the two cannon fired, a quarter-second out of phase—one of the other little things that had gone wrong, and really should have taken them into repair dock.

Flip yodelled with glee, and, “He’s hit,” Harry decided.

“We got his tail,” Billy reported, gaze glued to his screen.

“I never see any action,” Jolie grumbled over the intercom.

“You will now,” Billy told her. “He’s rolling over and coming up behind. He still wants to get at our underside.”

“I know how he feels,” she griped.

“See if you can’t fry him a little on the way,” Harcourt suggested.

The skin of the ship delivered a muffled ’whumpf’ to them—the sound of the mass driver discharge, conducted through the hull. Then Jolie’s voice on the intercom, disgusted: “Damn! Missed!”

“No, you didn’t,” Billy countered “You winged him on an attitude control tube… Wait! Missiles! He’s firing!”

“Return fire!” Harcourt snapped.

“But he’s not in range! We’ve only got two missiles left!”

“If we’re not in range, he’s not! Number One! Evasive action!”

“Aye, aye!” Grounder grinned, and the gyroscopes whined as they began to weave up, down, and cross-ways in some very interesting combinations.

It didn’t work.

“His missile’s locked on,” Billy reported, “and we’re flying into it!”

Grounder said, “We should come up behind it before it gets to us.”

“Not even at top acceleration!” Coriander called out. “I keep telling you! Missiles are faster than ships!”

“Even with two extra engines?”

“Even with ten extra engines! Pull out of it, Grounder! Give Jolie her chance!”

Grounder looked up pleadingly at the captain, but Harcourt shook his head. “No time to experiment, Lieutenant.”

“Oh, all right!” Grounder huffed, and the gyro slowly rotated.

“Closing!” Billy yelped. “Three hundred kilometers! Two fifty! Two hundred!”

“Fire, Jolie,” Harcourt advised.

The hull delivered the ’whumpf’ again.

The sudden glow from the screen illuminated Billy’s face. “Got him!” he whooped. “Nice shooting, Jolie! Now he doesn’t have any tail!”

“Still bored?” Harcourt asked.

“No, not for the moment,” she admitted.

“He’s got to pull out now,” Coriander said. “Got to steer with his nose thrusters, and run.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Harcourt said. “He’s Kilrathi.”

“Still coming.” Billy’s voice was low and tense. “Wobbled a bit, but he’s still coming.”

“He’s crazy! Jolie could shoot him into shrapnel!”

“Then he’ll die trying,” Harcourt said grimly, “or we will. Now give him our missile.”

“Now?” Billy squawked. “He’s flying straight toward us, Captain!”

“Then it will hit all the harder.”

“Our last two!” Coriander wailed.

“That’s what they’re for, Chief. Launch Missile One.”

Grounder hit a pressure patch. “One away.”

“So is his,” Billy called.

“Evasive action!” Harcourt snapped.

Grounder’s gyros whined and described crazy loops with their poles as she swooped upward, then swung from side to side as the ship corkscrewed back toward the raider. The Kilrathi missile, not yet locked on, went blithely on its way…

Straight toward the Greene’s missile.

“They’re going to lock on each other!” Coriander wailed.

“Line up on that ship and give them our last one,” Harcourt ordered.

“No, wait!” Billy shouted. “Theirs did lock on our ship! It’s coming straight toward us!”

“Well, good,” Harcourt sighed. “Then ours might still lock onto them.”

“It did,” Billy reported. “Now, how do we get rid of theirs?”

“Flip! Harry!” Harcourt called. “A silver florin for the one who gets it first!”

“Mine!” Flip caroled, and, “What’s a florin?” Harry asked, as the ship shuddered with the out-of-phase double blast again.

Once more, Billy’s face glowed orange. “Got it!”

“My florin,” Flip said immediately.

“What are you talking about?” Harry demanded. “That was my shot! Any dunce could see it!”

“I’m not just any dunce…”

“Okay, okay,” Harcourt sighed, “a florin for each of you. What about our missile, Bil…”

Then he saw the yellow glow on Billy’s face and sighed with happiness. “Ah. Score!”

“Hit,” Billy confirmed. “The whole raider. Gone.”

For a moment, depression seized Harcourt. A dozen lives, maybe more, snuffed out in a moment… brave men, probably, or at least bold creatures…

Then the whole ship shuddered, and the dull sound of an explosion echoed through the hull.

“Sorry, Captain, I couldn’t see it closing!” Billy cried. “The glare from the raider going up…”

“They launched one more just before they died,” Harcourt snapped. “Sound off by stations!”

“Sentry here!” Billy called.

“Astrogator here!”

“Damage Control working!”

“First Officer here.”

“Gun Turret One here!”

“Gun Turret Two!”

“Tail Gunner here!”

“Engineer alive and feisty!”

Harcourt exhaled with relief. “We’re all okay, then. How’s the ship, Chief?” And, with a hint of anticipation: “Is it something essential?”

“Yeah, you could say that.” Coriander was studying her board. “It’s the oxygen fusion reactor.”

A cheer rattled the intercom and blasted off the bridge walls.

“A hit, a palpable hit!” Grounder sang.

“O₂ generation is shot!” Flip whooped.

“Can’t stay on picket duty now!” Lorraine warbled.

“Gotta go to repair base.” Coriander nodded with full conviction. “Can’t stay out in space now, Captain. We’re stuck with the oxygen we’ve got in the system already. Sure, we can recycle it for two weeks, maybe a month—but after that, we’re dead. Nope, gotta go to base.”

“What a pity,” Harcourt sighed. “Only two years on station. And here I thought we’d set a new record. Oh, well, I suppose we’ll have to console ourselves with R & R.”

His mind filled with visions of supple bodies, low lights, soft music, wine, real food…

And fresh air!

Stars shifted in the vision port, and Harcourt knew they had completed the last jump to Xanadu. He smiled in anticipation of a sandy beach under a clear sky. “Tell them we’re coming, Number One.”

“Yes, sir.” Grounder pressed a switch. “CS Johnny Greene to Xanadu Base. Come in, Xanadu.”

Harcourt pressed “All stations.”

“Gunners and engineer to the bridge.” He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep them away from the first sight of the paradise that awaited them, so he made it official. For himself, he stared at the port, trying vainly to pick out the star that was Xanadu. The jump point was one and a third AU’s from the planet, which wasn’t much larger than Terra, so of course it appeared as a star—but not yet a discernible disc.

The planet had been named for its climate. It was mostly water, with a few archipelagos. The largest island, of course, held the Fleet repair base. The second largest held the main R & R station, and vacationing spacehands dispersed from there to their own secluded lazy places on the smaller islands—if they wanted to be alone. If they didn’t, the main station had casinos, restaurants, holo palaces, golf links, tennis courts, a shoreline that was one long beach where the surf rolled in perfect tubular waves, and a temperature that always ranged between sixty and eighty degrees Fahrenheit—all the amenities for a few weeks of sybaritic luxury before the tired spacedogs had to return to the lines. It may not have been Paradise, but it was close enough for Government workers.

The gunners crowded in through the hatch with Lorraine, the engineer, between them. Harcourt looked at his crew and saw the same glassy-eyed smile of anticipation on all their faces.

“Xanadu Base to CS Johnny Greene.”

Grounder looked up, eyes glinting. “Johnny Greene here. Do you have a landing assignment for us?”

“’Fraid not, Johnny Greene. We have a message, instead—orders. Do not land on Xanadu. Repeat, do not land.”

Grounder stared in shock.

Then she recovered. “Fleet base, our oxygen generation plant is shot—literally and figuratively. We have enough O₂ for a week’s breathing, no more.”

“We know, Johnny Greene, but orders are orders, and a week is enough breathing space.”

“Let me double-check that supply with Damage Control, Xanadu.” Grounder looked up at Coriander. “Chief?”

“Yeah, it’ll last that long,” Coriander grated. “They better have a damn good reason!”

“Damn good,” Harcourt seconded. “Relay that up here, Number One.”

Grounder hit the switch with a look of relief.

“Yeah, we have a week’s oxygen left,” Harcourt growled. “Captain Macmillan Harcourt here. We’ve been standing picket duty for two years, and my crew is going crazy for some R & R while their ship is being repaired. What’s the problem, Xanadu?”

“Only orders, Captain Harcourt—signed by Admiral Banbridge.”

Harcourt stiffened. That was coming from awfully high up. Why was Banbridge concerning himself with a lowly corvette?

“Orders are to divert to Hilo Base,” Xanadu said.

“Hilo Base?” Harcourt turned to the astrogator. “Where’s that, Barney?”

Barney scanned the chart on his screen, shook his head. “Nothing I ever heard of, Captain. I’ll scan.” He punched the name into the computer.

Harcourt decided to help him a little. “Coordinates for Hilo Base, please, Xanadu?”

“It’s not on any of our charts,” Barney reported.

“Thirty-two degrees right ascension, seventy-two degrees east,” Xanadu replied. “Sixteen light-years outward.”

“Thirty-two, seventy-two, sixteen,” Barney echoed, punching the numbers into his computer.

Then tension on the bridge fairly thrummed. Everybody stared at the astrogator.

“Yeah, it’s there.” Barney shook his head. “I wouldn’t call that much of a world, Captain. Says it has a couple of big lakes, though, and an inland sea. Plus a couple of R & R domes.”

The crew let out one massive groan.

“Well, there goes our month on the beaches,” Grounder sighed.

“They can’t do this to us!” Flip erupted. “Two years on picket duty, two years!”

Grounder killed the audio pickup in a hurry.

“Two years!” Flip yelled. “We never griped, we never complained, we never said, ‘The hell with this!’ and headed for home! Two years! Fifty-three fights, our ship getting shot away piece by piece! We put up with the stink, we put up with the smoke, we patched and finagled and made things work somehow! We earned this leave, damn it!”

Everybody stared straight ahead, shaken. It was only the second time in two years that they had heard Flip raise his voice in anger. The first time had been right after their premier encounter with a Kilrathi raider, when a near miss had burned off the brand-new paint job on Flip’s beloved ship. The rest of the time, he had always been cheerful to the point of being nauseating, always joking, always laughing. To hear him flare up shook them worse than Banbridge’s orders.

“The domes will keep things warm,” Harcourt sighed. He nodded to Grounder, and she opened the audio pickup again. “What’re the rest of the R&R facilities, Xanadu?”

“Danged if I know, Captain,” Xanadu replied. “Never heard of the place.”

Flip had calmed down substantially; his voice had turned cold. “Mutiny, Captain. I move we desert.”

Grounder stabbed frantically at the audio switch.

“Don’t tempt me,” Harcourt groaned. “I’ve got a wife and kids back on Terra.”

The bridge was silent; everybody knew that Flip had married just before they left for this last tour of duty. His new wife lived on the same planet as his parents, Flip’s home, which was now entirely too close to the front lines.

Flip sighed, like the air gushing out of a punctured tire. “Right, Captain. We go where we’re told in this man’s fleet.”

“That’s what we swore.” Harcourt felt like doing a little of the other kind of swearing right then, though. He nodded at Grounder, and she turned on the audio pickup again. “Orders understood, Xanadu,” Harcourt sighed. “Johnny Greene en route to Hilo. Signing off.”

“Bon voyage.” Xanadu said, the tone sympathetic. “Signing off.”

Hilo loomed in the vision port, filling its center—bland, tan, and arid with only a few dots of blue and a crescent of azure at its rim.

The gunners and Lorraine jammed the hatchway. “I can almost feel that baking desert wind,” Flip groaned.

“No, you can’t,” Coriander countered. “The temperature never gets above fifty there.”

“And this is R&R?” Billy griped.

“Belay that, folks,” Harcourt sighed. “Wake ’em up, Number One.”

“CS Johnny Greene to Hilo Base,” Grounder said. “Come in, Hilo Base.”

“Hilo Base to Johnny Greene,” a husky contralto answered him.

Every male head on the bridge whipped about to stare at the screen in front of Grounder. They saw a beautiful tanned face with a cascade of black hair, deep red lips, and long lashes over big dark eyes, giving them a collective wink. “Good to see you, Johnny Greene. We’ve been expecting you.”

Grounder bristled. “Oh. This was your idea?”

“Lieutenant!” Harcourt reproved her.

The contralto just laughed, low and warmly. “It wasn’t my idea, Lieutenant, but we have some hunks here who will claim it was theirs, once they get a look at your face.”

Grounder stared, at a loss for words. She had never thought of herself as pretty—but she had been thinking about hunks. At least, until they hit Xanadu.

Harry stepped up for a look over Grounder’s shoulder, Jolie crowding right behind him, eyes snapping. “Cat!” she hissed.

“You mean she’s pretty?” Barney was stationed in front of Grounder; he couldn’t see.

Lorraine groaned. “Just what we need, on leave—competition!”

Grounder finally managed to find her voice again. “What’s the weather like down there, Hilo?”

“Outside the dome,” the contralto said, “it’s forty degrees Fahrenheit with a thirty-knot breeze, kicking up a lot of loose sand.”

Coriander stifled a moan.

“Inside the dome,” the contralto said brightly, “it’s seventy-two degrees, water at sixty-eight. The slot machines are loaded to make sure you can’t lose too badly, the croupiers have curves you never learned in Calculus, and the dealers look like Don Juan should have, with very soft, sensuous hands.”

Jolie, Lorraine, and Grounder perked up, and began to look interested. So did Coriander, but she looked wary, too.

“Of course,” the contralto went on, “we’ve just finished our second dome, where it’s twenty-eight degrees, three different grades of slopes, three chair lifts, and two feet of fresh snow every morning. Skis supplied, of course. The chalet has a loaded bar, a hot band, and dancing all night.”

“This… just might be… an interesting leave, after all,” Billy mused.

The dark-haired beauty on the screen smiled and gave them another wink. “We don’t promise anything but dancing, mind you. You’ll have to do the rest yourselves.”

Harry glanced at Coriander, thinking of all the passes he’d put off making for the last two years; emotional complications in a war zone were something none of them needed. Coriander glanced back at him, saw he was looking, and turned away quickly, blushing.

“Oh, I think we can manage,” Harcourt said easily. “Where do we land, Hilo?”

Finally, after two years, they opened the Johnny Greene’s main hatch. The airlock equalized pressure, but they still wore their suits—Hilo didn’t have all that much mass, and none of them were used to breathing thin air. The crew filed out, looking brightly about them. The sun was shining, the sky was a very dark blue, and…

The sand stretched for miles and miles and miles.

But the airbus was waiting, and an officer in a pressure suit stepped up, holding out a gauntleted hand. “Captain Harcourt? Captain Tor Ripley. Welcome to Hilo.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Harcourt took the hand, a bit surprised to see someone of his own rank for the welcoming committee—almost as surprised as he was by a handshake instead of a salute. “May I present my first officer, Lieutenant Grounder… my astrogator, Ensign Barnes…”

He made the rounds, each of the crew members saluting, Ripley returning. Then, the formalities done, he said, “Welcome to Hilo! Welcome!” and ushered them onto the bus.

The doors closed; air hissed in; the green patch lit.

“Okay, we can crack our helmets.” Ripley gave his headpiece a half-twist, then tilted it backward to bare his face. Harcourt did the same.

“Now, Captain,” Ripley said, “I’d like to talk to you about getting off picket duty for a while.”

As one, all the crew’s heads swiveled, staring at Ripley.

“It’s… certainly something I’m willing to consider,” Harcourt said slowly, somewhat dazed—but instinctively looking for the worm in the apple. “What’s the nature of the assignment?”

Ripley told them.

Grins broke out on all faces. The crew nodded.

“I volunteer, Captain.”

“So do I.”

“Me, too!”

“And me!”

“Guess I do, too,” Harcourt said slowly. “We’ll take the assignment, Captain Ripley.”

Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

In fact, it sounded like a milk run. All they had to do was make an orbit or three around a small, insignificant planet the Kilrathi called “Vukar Tag.” It was way out in the Kilrathi boondocks. Okay, so it was in enemy territory, but it was closer to the Fleet than to Kilrah, and they had the jump points very clearly mapped.

“One of our destroyers was chasing a Kilrathi raider home,” Ripley explained. “He was following the cat just a little too closely through the jump point, and something in the turbulence got the angle wrong. When the stars stopped shifting, there was no sign of the raider—but they did spot a Kilrathi corvette going into Vukar Tag.”

They were sitting at a poolside table, watching the rest of the crew with a few of their hosts and hostesses, disporting themselves like blowing whales and courting dolphins.

“You know,” Billy said, “I never realized Jolie had a figure…”

“Under combat fatigues, who would know?” Harcourt agreed. “But all the figures we need right now are the ones in your notepad.” For himself, though, he was finding it difficult to keep his eyes off Lieutenant Grounder. Her swimsuit was very demure, but he would never have called it “innocent…”

He wrenched his mind back to the topic. “That’s how they found out the name?”

“Right—not that they could understand it, of course. Nobody aboard spoke much Cat. But the captain had the good sense to slap on the recorder, and when he got back to base, our experts deciphered it.”

Billy glanced at Harcourt.

Harcourt nodded almost imperceptibly.

Billy turned to Ripley. “If you don’t mind, sir—professional interest. What did they find?”

“ ‘Professional interest’ is right,” Ripley answered. “It was just the usual greeting and landing instructions—but they did pick out of it that the planet’s name is ‘Vukar Tag.’ “ He shrugged. “What it means, nobody seems to know. What’s even more of a puzzle, is why there’s a cruiser in orbit around the dustball.”

“A cruiser.” Harcourt had a nasty suspicion. “Any moons?”

“One, and small—but big enough to hold at least a wing of fighters, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Ripley nodded. “I thought the same thing.”

“’Well guarded’ is right!” Harcourt scowled. “What are they hiding there?”

“Well, I hope you’re curious enough to want to find out, Mac,” Ripley said. “I really hope you are.”

“Minerals?”

Ripley shook his head. “It’s mostly desert, and no sign of a mining operation, though they did see shuttles coming up to a transport ship. They may be exporting something, but according to spectroanalysis, the only thing it could be is high-grade silicon.”

“Silicon isn’t exactly rare,” Harcourt pointed out. “There has to be a good supply on every Kilrathi planet.”

“Has to,” Billy agreed. “The sand from Vukar Tag must be very pure, or something.”

“Or something.” Harcourt didn’t want to say it, but it was hard to keep from thinking of religious associations. “So it’s a desert, and it’s a backwater, and all we have to do is fly around it once or twice and get pictures.” He looked up at Ripley. “That right, Tor?”

Ripley nodded. “That’s the mission in a nutshell, Mac. Of course, since it’s a reconnaissance flyby, you’ll be carrying a specialist.”

There was the worm in the apple that Harcourt had been braced for all along—if he didn’t count a cruiser and a wing of fighters. “He’s in charge of the cameras?”

“Yes, and you’ll pretty much have to go by her direction, once you get near the planet.”

Harcourt frowned, picking up on the correction in gender. “She knows navigation?”

Ripley shrugged uncomfortably. “She’s had the same training as you and I, and she’s had fifty hours combat flying time in a Sabre.”

“That’s just great,” Billy groaned.

“Billy, you’re out of line,” Harcourt said severely. Inwardly, though, he was grateful to his sentry for saying what he had wanted to, but shouldn’t. Just enough training and experience to make her think she knew what she was doing, but not enough to really know… “Just so she understands she’s under my orders, Tor.”

“Oh, of course, Mac!” Ripley dismissed the issue. “Now, about your route in…”

The route in, of course, should have been no problem at all. Intelligence had the jump points mapped, and there was no particular reason to think there should be any Kilrathi shipping near any of them—no raiders, since it was inside the borders of the Kilrathi Empire; no pickets, since the fleets were a dozen light-years farther out from Kilrah, waiting to skirmish with the Confederation. There might be the odd transport freighter, but that shouldn’t pose much in the way of a problem.

“I don’t understand, Tor,” Harcourt said. “If all it is, is a ball of sand—why is it worth a close look?”

“Because,” said Ripley, “for a worthless dust ball, it’s amazingly well guarded.”

“Oh, really?” Outwardly, Harcourt still looked relaxed and casual; inside, he was turning into a coiled spring. “What is it? A refitting base? An auxiliary shipyard?”

“Could be, but there really isn’t enough traffic—just the occasional escort or transport.” Ripley shook his head. “From what little we can see from a long way off, there’s nothing there.”

“So why all the ships?” Harcourt asked.

“That,” said Ripley, “is what we want to know.”

Of course, Harcourt should have turned down the assignment right then—or at least talked it over with the crew, and let them turn it down. But two weeks of watching bikinis while soaking up sunlight and alcohol had left him with a warm, ruddy glow that made the worst a Kilrathi could do, seem inconsequential.

Which was just what Ripley had intended, of course—sun, water, and no news, no other crews in from the war zone to trade notes with.

No wonder they had been diverted—in more ways than one!

Ramona Chekhova was only thirty-two. It was an inconvenient age—young enough to have rash, hot-blooded impulses, old enough that she should have known better.

She carried her duffel bag up to the Johnny Greene, dropped it, and stood to attention, glaring at the crew who were drawn up in a semicircle to wait for her. They saluted. She returned the salute, then turned her glare on Captain Harcourt.

“Lieutenant Commander Ramona Chekhova?” he asked.

“The same,” she confirmed. “I’m waiting, Captain.”

Harcourt stiffened, his face wooden. “I’m afraid you’re forgetting a point or two of military etiquette, Commander. I am the commanding officer of the Johnny Greene—and I am waiting for your salute.”

Yes, a lieutenant commander outranked a captain—but not on board his own ship. There, the captain is the boss.

And Ramona knew it, too. She finally flipped her hand in something vaguely resembling a salute, seething inwardly.

Harcourt saluted crisply in response.

The crew looked a little relieved, thinking Harcourt had won the first round.

Harcourt knew better. “Lieutenant Commander Chekhova, my first officer, Lieutenant Janice Grounder… my astrogator, Ensign Morlock Barnes… my Damage Control Officer, Chief Petty Officer Darlene Coriander…”

Chekhova nodded at each in turn as he completed the introductions. Then she turned back to Harcourt.

“Permission to come aboard, Captain.” She wasn’t at attention, she wasn’t at ease, she was just sort of slumping in place. Harcourt decided to ignore the insult and said, “Permission granted.” He stepped over to the boarding ramp. Ramona hesitated for a moment, caught between military courtesy and old-fashioned courtesy—but she knew that a lady must insist on being treated as a lady, or she will sacrifice one of her strongest advantages, so she stepped up on the ramp.

Harcourt was relieved to see her snap to attention to salute the colors—and the salute was crisp, in perfect form. At least there was something that she did respect.

Harcourt was about to order the countdown for liftoff when movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned and looked.

Ramona stood in the hatchway, watching the activity on the bridge with an expression of guarded interest.

Harcourt had a brief struggle within himself. He knew it was possibly foolish, but the gentleman in him won out. “Would you like to come in to observe, Lieutenant Commander?”

“No, thank you, Captain.” But Ramona made no move to go away.

Harcourt frowned. “Well, then, I must ask that you return to quarters.”

She gave him a cold stare. “Protocol, Captain?”

Harcourt suppressed a surge of irritation. “Practicality, Commander. You would be welcome to join us for a few minutes, but then I’d have to ask you to leave anyway. We have a bridge crew of five, and five acceleration couches. After we’re under way, you’ll be welcome, if you deign… if you wish to join us. But while we’re lifting off, I must ask you to stay in your quarters, strapped into your acceleration couch, in accordance with regulations.”

She glared at him, then spun on her heel and stalked away.

Harcourt gazed after her, eyes narrowing. He should have insisted that she say, “Yes, sir,” to acknowledge that aboard ship, the captain is always the senior officer. Even a lieutenant in command of a fighter-bomber can issue orders to an admiral aboard his craft, and be sure he was within his rights and would be obeyed. Of course, the admiral might bust him back down to private later on—but if the matter was really important at the time, the lieutenant could insist on it.

Of course, the lieutenant would be a fool to try to push an admiral around, unless it were a matter of life and death.

Harcourt decided to let it pass.

He turned back to the bridge crew—just in time to see them whisking their eyes back to their screens. He smiled thinly and said, “Commence launch, Number One.”

“Yes, sir,” Grounder said. “All stations, ready?”

“Go,” said Billy.

“Go,” said Coriander.

“Go,” Lorraine said over the intercom.

“Go,” Barney echoed.

“Initiating countdown. Ten… nine… eight… seven…”

Ramona stormed back into her cabin, threw herself down onto her acceleration couch, and strapped in. How dare that idiot Harcourt order her around like an infant! She steamed, her whole body tense, then realized it was a horrible condition for lift-off, and tried to force herself to relax.

She had to establish her authority aboard this ship—had to! If she couldn’t, she might as well kiss this whole mission good-bye. She knew how closely they had to skim the planet in order to get clear pictures, and she knew as well as Harcourt how heavily-guarded the planet was. She wasn’t about to throw her whole career away because some middle-aged idiot wouldn’t listen to her, a middle-aged idiot who hadn’t even been able to win commander’s rank, and was still captain of a mere corvette, a job normally relegated to a lieutenant.

She would not be treated as a subordinate! She had fought for her rank, she had taken risks, she had endured hardship, she had brought back information under enemy fire—and she wasn’t about to let anybody stop her from bringing this mission in successfully completed, either!

Ramona decided she would have to exert her authority as soon as possible.

Ramona waited until the graveyard watch, then came up on the bridge when most of the rest of the crew were asleep. She halted, staring at Grounder, wondering if the woman were on drugs, the way she was gazing about her with a happy smile.

Everything worked now—at least, until their next battle. That was why Grounder had been gazing around her in euphoria—at all the shiny new equipment that actually functioned.

But of course, Ramona didn’t know about that.

Then Grounder saw Ramona. She started and looked up, surprised. “Good evening, Commander.”

“Good evening.” Ramona paced the bridge as though she had every right to be there, ignoring Grounder and Barney.

“Uh… begging your pardon, Commander,” Grounder said, “but I don’t think the Captain has authorized your presence on the bridge.”

“Yes, he did.” Ramona turned to confront her. “Just before we lifted off, remember? He said I’d be welcome on the bridge once we were under weigh.” And she turned her back, inspecting the meters and the screens.

Her eye lit on the velocity readout. This was a place where she could give orders with no worry about disrupting the ship. “Only cruising speed?”

Grounder stared, puzzled. Then she said, “Well… yes, sir. That’s standard operating procedure en route to a jump point.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Ramona snapped. “Full acceleration! Right away!”

“Uh-h-h-h-h…” Grounder exchanged a quick glance with Barney. “I don’t know if the power plant will take it, sir.”

“What do you mean, not take it?” Ramona was instantly angry. “I know the specs on a corvette as well as you do, Lieutenant! This tub can take full acceleration for ten hours without any trouble!”

Grounder bristled at hearing the Johnny Greene called a “tub.”

“This ship can take full acceleration for about one hour, sir. Beyond that, maybe it will and maybe it won’t—depending on how well they overhauled the engines.”

“Overhaul?” Ramona glowered. “What was the matter with them?”

“A near miss from a Kilrathi missile. Jolie shot it down fifty meters from the ship, but some of the shrapnel chewed up the insides of the engines a little.”

“Is that why you have those obscene Kilrathi monsters welded on?”

For the first time, Grounder really wondered about the woman. “I’d scarcely call them ‘obscene,’ sir. They’re machines, and they work—and I think Chief Coriander worked magic, managing to tie them in with our system.”

“Well.” Ramona’s lips curved in a nasty smile. “With four engines instead of two, you certainly shouldn’t have any trouble maintaining full acceleration from here to the jump point.”

“Nothing except the stress on the structure of the ship,” Grounder countered. “The Johnny Greene was built for only two engines; four puts in more stress than the ship will take, if it goes on longer than an hour or so.”

“Don’t try to tell me how a ship works, Lieutenant! How do you think I got to be a light commander? Just do as you’re told! Retract your scoops and hit full acceleration!”

“But the fuel supply…”

“Do it!” A very ugly gleam came into Ramona’s eye. “Are you refusing a command from a senior officer?”

Grounder’s face became a flint mask. “No, sir.”

“Then do as you’re told!”

“Full acceleration, aye!” Grounder sighed. The silly shrew would have to learn for herself.

The little ship surged ahead.

Ramona grabbed at the back of an acceleration couch and held on until the surge had passed. The little chit had done that deliberately, she knew, to try to throw her off her feet—but she had obeyed orders, so Ramona couldn’t really make an issue of it. Instead, she turned away to pace the bridge, her lips curving just a little in a smile of satisfaction. She wasn’t about to take the chance of leaving the bridge, though; if she did, that snip of a lieutenant would try to ease the acceleration down again. No, Ramona had issued an order, and she meant to see that it was obeyed.

She kept watch for two hours, watching Grounder’s face grow more and more pale, more and more strained, watched and glared until…

Until the klaxon blared, tearing at her eardrums.

Ramona slapped her hands over her ears, staring around, amazed. She adjusted to the loudness of the horn, took her hands away…

The ship lurched, then began to jolt forward in jumps.

Ramona stumbled, reaching out and catching herself against the top of a console. “Stop it, Lieutenant!”

“As you say, sir.” Grounder pulled the acceleration control down.

“Not that! I said full acceleration, damn it!”

But Grounder kept easing off. “Sir,” she said through stiff lips, “that alarm you hear is for the power plant overheating, and the shuddering you’re feeling is the strain on the ship’s skeleton that comes from four engines, not quite balanced in thrust, driving a ship that’s only designed for two. I can’t…”

Harcourt burst onto the bridge, his hair tousled, clothes in disarray, eyes still filmed with sleep, pajama cuffs still sticking out of the sleeves of his uniform blouse. “Status!” he snapped.

“Reactor overheated, Captain. Beginning to cool, though.”

“Overheating! And the shuddering we’ve got going through the frame? What’re you doing, Grounder? Running the ship flat out?”

“Yes, sir,” Grounder said through thin lips.

Harcourt stared at her in disbelief. “Flat out? A two-engine ship with four engines?” Then he realized the order that had to be given. “Decelerate to cruising velocity!”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“All right. Cancel the klaxon.”

Grounder toggled the alarm off.

Harcourt drew a deep breath, striving for calm. “What in the name of Heaven possessed you, Number One?”

Ramona realized she’d better acknowledge her error before Grounder could blame it on her. “She was acting under my orders, Captain!”

Harcourt grew very still.

Then, slowly, he turned, his eyes chips of ice. “Orders? Who are you to give orders aboard my ship, Commander?”

In spite of herself, Ramona felt a chill of fear at the sheer mayhem leashed in his eyes.

She couldn’t let him see that, of course. She thrust her jaw forward and snapped, “We have to get to Vukar Tag ASAP, Captain! We need to get to that jump point now, and…”

“And in one piece, Commander!” Harcourt stepped closer, eyes iron, fists on his hips. “Everybody aboard this ship knows the modifications we made—had to make, just to keep this ship on station! For two years, Commander! And fifty-three Kilrathi raids! They know their ship, and you don’t! I will comply with the orders that have been given me to the best of my ability, my crew’s ability—and my ship’s ability! Any interference from you will hamper our ability to execute this mission!”

“Interference!” Ramona felt a surge of anger coming to her rescue. “Captain, I am in charge of this mission!”

“And I am in command of this ship!” Harcourt turned to Grounder. “No one aboard this ship is to accept any orders from Commander Chekhova unless they have been cleared through me first! Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Yes, sir!” Barney echoed.

“See that the order is promulgated to the entire crew at breakfast, Number One.”

“You are not executing your orders to my satisfaction!” Ramona raged.

“Then you may file charges against me, in accordance with established procedure.” Harcourt was suddenly icily formal. “When this mission is completed!”

“But at the rate you’re going, this mission will never be completed!” Ramona knew it was untrue, of course, but all that mattered right now was winning the fight—and making this pigheaded captain realize who was boss.

“Forget about the breakfast announcement, Number One.” Harcourt stepped over to his console and pressed “all stations.”

“Attention all crew! Wake up and hear this! All stations attend! No one is to accept orders from Commander Chekhova without my express approval! Signify understanding!”

Everybody was awake, of course. In fact, they had been halfway to battle stations when Grounder had canceled the alarm. Now they responded from their cabins.

“Gunner A acknowledging, Captain.”

“Tailgunner acknowledging, Captain.”

“Gunner B acknowledging, sir.”

When the roster was completed, Harcourt turned his icy gaze on Ramona. She stood, fists clenched, face dark with fury at the public humiliation. “Captain Harcourt, this is insubordination of the worst sort!”

“No, Commander. Your action took that honor.”

“I am in charge of this mission, and you will have to maneuver as I prescribe in order for me to obtain the visual survey that I have been commanded to conduct!”

“And so I shall—within the margins of safety for this ship.” He stepped closer, too close, crowding her. “But you will issue all your orders to me, and through me, Commander—or I will place you on report on the instant, and confine you to quarters until we have completed the jumps to the Vukar Tag System. Is that understood?”

Ramona glared at him. It was a standoff, and she knew she should stand her ground…

But she knew it was quicksand, and she was sinking fast.

“Understood, Captain,” she grated. “I’ll wait till we get to Vukar Tag.”

The unspoken threat hovered in the air between them. They stood with gazes locked, every muscle tense.

Finally, Harcourt gave a curt nod. “Thank you, Commander. That will be all. Please return to your quarters.”

He stepped aside. Ramona marched past him, head high, chin up…

Until she reached her cabin.

There, she secured the door behind her, toggled her audio pickup to “Off,” then “Interrupt,” so that it could not be activated from the bridge…

And threw herself on her bunk, the sobs tearing at her throat.

The moment of disorientation passed, and Ramona stood up from her acceleration couch, a gleam in her eye. It had been a month, a month of staying in her cabin when she could. When she couldn’t, she had avoided the vindictive glances of the crew, enduring Harcourt’s brittle courtesy at table, and swallowing her pride.

Now, though, she would be in charge. She went to the door.

The cabin speaker came to life. “Commander Chekhova to the bridge, please,” Harcourt’s voice said. “Commander Chekhova to the bridge.”

It was a nice try at face-saving, but Ramona wasn’t about to let him get away with it. She marched out into the companionway and swept up toward the bridge.

Retribution was coming.

But retribution stalled at the bridge hatchway. As she stepped through, she saw it—the battle display, repaired and working all too well, alight with colored symbols that showed her the situation.

At the center, a green circle represented the Johnny Greene. Halfway to the rim, a yellow circle that represented Vukar Tag lay at two o’clock—but at the rim itself was another, much larger, yellow circle—swollen, a fat yellow dot lying near it, with fireflies hovering about.

“We seem to have arrived during war games,” Harcourt said, watching the display. “Makes sense, with a bunch of gung-ho pilots this far out in the boondocks, with nothing to do but chew their claws and go crazy aching to be back at the front lines, where they can earn some glory… Well, any commander would need to do something to keep their fighting skills up, not to mention keeping them from clawing out each other’s throats.”

“Yes.” Ramona’s mouth was dry. “He would.” Then, “So they have fighters stationed on the gas giant’s moon?”

“Artificial moon.” Harcourt nodded at Billy, who said, “The readings indicate an orbital station, Commander.”

Harcourt nodded. “At maximum velocity, they’d have no trouble at all cutting us off between Vukar Tag and the jump point, when we’re trying for our exit.” Finally, he turned and looked up at her. “Seems this planet is even better guarded than we knew.”

“Yes.” Ramona saw the chance to push a confrontation, and forced her attention sternly away from it. The mission came first. “Kind of strange, for a ball of sand and rock.”

Harcourt turned back toward the display. “Has to be something going on in their furry little minds that we don’t know about… Well, I guess we leave that to the folks in Psych.”

“Right,” Ramona said. “Our job is to bring in pictures of that world, every square foot. How can we do it, Captain?”

“Oh, we can get in there and take pictures, all right,” Harcourt said breezily. “Four fly-bys, and you’ll have the whole planet scanned—or do you need more?”

“Four is enough,” Ramona agreed. “One polar orbit will do in a pinch, if I’m high enough up—the computers back at HQ can compensate for distortion and magnify the details, as long as I have million-pixel resolution on the crystal, which I do. They can plot a polar projection there, or magnify any square foot they want.”

Harcourt nodded. “That’s good, because we can get in there for an orbit, but the chances of our completing more than one without being shot down are minuscule. One, though, we might complete.” He looked at her again. “What we can’t do is get those pictures back to the jump point.”

Her eyes sparked anger. She locked glares with him. “Can’t, Captain?”

Harcourt shook his head with full conviction. “We can try, Commander. We can try like fury. But the Cat admiral who is commanding this little fleet only needs to be halfway intelligent to blow us up before we clear the orbit of Vukar Tag’s moon—and even if we make it that far alive, he’ll definitely cut us off before we get to the jump point.”

Slowly and conscious of every ounce of dignity, Ramona turned back to the battle display, feeling a cold weight sinking within her. He was right, she knew; even a dunce would be able to keep them from escaping.

Of course, the odds that the cruiser wouldn’t tear them to pieces with its fighters, before they even completed one orbit, were minuscule, too, no matter what Harcourt said. Personally, she wouldn’t even want to bet on their getting close enough for that orbit, without being shot to shreds.

But she heard herself saying, “I can’t take any pictures from this far away. How long before they discover us, Captain?”

Harcourt shrugged. “Could be two seconds from now, could be an hour. It all depends on when they have a planned sentry-scan of the jump point. But we’re not waiting.”

“Oh?” Ramona didn’t want to sound ignorant, but she had to know. “How are you going to stop them?”

“Barney?” the Captain asked.

Barney pointed at a faint, fuzzy line between Vukar Tag and the gas giant. “Asteroid belt. We can hide in there for a while, sir.”

It was an old trick, Ramona knew, but it was almost always effective. With all systems shut down except life support, there was no external radiation to give them away, so any scanner would perceive them as just another piece of floating space junk. She nodded reluctantly, to hide a feeling of massive relief. “Do it.”

“Cut all active sensors,” Harcourt ordered.

“Actives dead.” Billy leaned back, folding his arms and watching his screens. Only the passive sensors, the ones that received incoming radiation but didn’t send any out, were still operating. Since the enemy ships were all putting out radiation with their own sensors—radar and its descendants—they still showed on his screen.

The asteroids didn’t generate radiation, so they no longer showed—but their force field would protect them from even the largest piece of space junk they were apt to bump into. The force field was a closed system, so no radiation would leak from it to show their location.

“Let me know if anything starts moving toward us.” Harcourt didn’t have to say that he meant anything with a mind inside it. He turned around to Ramona. “Now. Any ideas on how we get close to the planet?”

Ramona started to say that was his responsibility, then bit the words off. If she was supposed to be in charge of the mission, it was exactly this sort of thing that she was supposed to be able to cover. She frowned, thinking.

Harcourt’s tone softened. “Why don’t you sit down, Commander? This might take a while.” He looked up at Ensign Barnes. “Barney, do you suppose you could rustle up a couple of cups of coffee?”

“Sure thing, Captain.” Barney headed out the hatch.

Harcourt turned back to Ramona. “Let’s start by figuring how we would do it if there were no enemy in the way. Do that first, then we can make a few modifications to allow for Kilrathi stumbling blocks.”

Ramona almost laughed at the idea of his “few modifications.”

“Left to our own devices, we’d make a slingshot around the planet—except when we got done with the horseshoe, we’d bend it a little farther and make it a complete circuit.”

“You sure that’s all you need, Commander?”

Ramona shrugged. “It wouldn’t be, if there weren’t any enemy—but there are, so let’s leave it at one orbit. If we complete three hundred and sixty degrees, though, doesn’t that send us off at the wrong angle for escape?”

“No, because we’d modify the angle of approach so that the angle of exit would sling us right toward the jump point.” Harcourt’s brows drew down in concentration. “Of course, if there are enemy there, we’d want to end the pass going in the wrong direction, to mislead them. Then…” He turned and studied the battle display for a few minutes. “We’d exit going toward the gas giant, and use it as a slingshot to alter our trajectory back toward the jump point. Tractor beam the planet.”

In peacetime of course it would be highly illegal to use even a small asteroid that way, like a drunk grabbing a light pole and swinging around; the asteroid would take an entirely new—and potentially fatal—orbit, maybe even smashing into a planet. But this was war.

“We could keep that,” Ramona said slowly, “if it weren’t for that wing of fighters stationed on its moon.”

“Right.” Harcourt nodded. “I think I just found out why they chose to station them there. I’ve been wondering why, when they had a perfectly good moon right by Vukar Tag itself. Of course, they’ve got another wing there.” He turned to Billy. “Any other planets?” But before Billy could answer, “No. It doesn’t matter. Any rock sizable enough to hide us while we shift direction, they’ll have an outpost stationed.” He turned back to Ramona. “We’ll have to expend fuel and realign our course once we’re back in the asteroid belt.”

“So we’ll be coming back here?” she said slowly. “That makes sense. Now how do we manage that, if they get a few fighters in our way?”

“Shoot them down.” But Harcourt’s face showed that he wasn’t quite as confident as he tried to sound.

Ramona nodded. “Okay, we’ve made a plan and allowed for a few enemy craft. Now, how about worst case? Let’s say the cruisers scramble all their fighters, gun for us themselves, and call in the troops from the moon and the gas giant.”

“Oh, we’re not that important. Of course, whatever’s on Vukar Tag, probably is.” Harcourt turned to the bridge at large. “Anybody have any ideas?” He pressed “all stations.”

“Gunners and engineer to the bridge. Brainstorm needed. All and any ideas welcome, no matter how asinine, no matter how badly it won’t work. Maybe it will give us a plan that will.”

Ramona stared, unnerved. She had never heard of a captain depending on his crew this way. He was supposed to be alone and aloof, the source of all the ingenious plans, all by himself.

But she had learned the hard way about the closeness of this particular crew. She bit back a scathing comment.

“Capture an enemy ship,” Barney said slowly.

“Oh, fine, if we’re still alive when we’re done!” Grounder said.

Barney shrugged and said defensively, “The Captain said any idea.”

“I did, and it’s a good one.” Harcourt raised a finger. “But how do we split off the enemy ship alone so that we can grapple and board it?”

Flip, Harry, Jolie, and Lorraine came filing in. “Board a Kilrathi?” Harry said. “What is this?”

“The Dumb Idea Session,” Billy told them, and they all nodded, understanding immediately.

Ramona only wished she did.

“So what do we do with it once we capture it?” Jolie asked.

“Take it in on a close approach to the planet,” Grounder explained.

Billy snorted. “They’d still atomize us once they found out we wouldn’t obey orders. For all they’d know, we could be a Cat psycho playing kamikaze.”

“One of their own men?” Barney asked.

Jolie shrugged. “Every race has insanity. At least, we have to assume that.”

“I haven’t seen a crazy Cat yet!”

“Me neither—but I’ve never seen a Cat myself, eye to eye, anyway.”

Grounder nodded. “Could be their mental cases get killed off in basic training.”

Ramona was chilled to see that nobody batted an eye at the idea—but she had to admit it made sense, from what they knew about the Kilrathi.

Harcourt turned to Ramona. “Any ideas about how they think?”

“The Psych boys have come up with a lot,” Ramona said slowly, “but no evidence of outright insanity yet. Of course, they wouldn’t, if their maniacs never get off the ground, just get locked up in hospitals.”

“Oh. The Kilrathi do let them live?” Flip asked, plainly skeptical.

“I didn’t say that,” Ramona admitted. “Neither did Psych. They suspect the ones who really can’t function just get killed off in the natural course of things.”

“So even in a stolen ship, we still get shot down,” Harcourt summarized. “Still, it gives us a better chance than we’ve got so far. As we are now, we wouldn’t get within a planetary diameter of Vukar Tag.”

“A big planet,” Lorraine said.

“As we are?” Coriander looked up. “Maybe we could change that—weld on some sheet metal cutouts that give us their silhouette. Save us the trouble of trying to capture one of them.”

“It would take time…” Harcourt began.

“Or… Wait!” Coriander snapped her fingers, both arms out, like a traffic cop. “If we’re going to talk about add-ons, let’s use asteroids! We’ve got plenty of ’em! One day, and I could weld on enough so that we’d look like just one big piece of space junk!”

“Good, as far as it goes,” Harcourt said judiciously. “We could get a lot closer—but they’d still shoot us down.”

“Not if we got close enough to the planet, they wouldn’t! They’d be worried about meteorites falling and kicking up so much dust that they’d have a desert in the sky instead of on the ground—so much that it would mask the sun and cut off their heat source, not to mention light for whatever few plants they manage to grow!”

“A good thought,” Harcourt said. “That one has possibilities. Let’s keep it in the file and see what we can add to it. Who’s next?”

Barney was, then Lorraine, then Coriander again, and finally, Ramona managed to come up with an option herself. “We could stuff a large asteroid with explosives and launch it out toward Vukar Tag with a time fuse,” she suggested. “While they’re busy checking it out, we could zip in and steal a few quick pix.” But she knew it was dumb even as she said it. “No. They’d only send a few ships, wouldn’t they? And there would be plenty more to jump us.”

“Still, the idea of a distraction is good,” Harcourt said. “Anybody got any other diversions that would get all of them?”

They did, but none of them were really very good. They all foundered on the rock of Kilrathi fanaticism—if something even looked as though it might come near the planet, the Kilrathi would be apt to blow it to smithereens first and try to figure out where it came from later.

After an hour, Harcourt saw the first faint signs of frustration and mental fatigue. “End of session for now.” He stretched. “My turn to get the coffee. Everyone take half an hour, then meet for dinner—and no talking over the situation until after dessert!”

But by the time they were done with dessert, he still hadn’t come up with a better idea. He wasn’t looking forward to the next skull session, as he tailed onto the line past the disposer to shove his tray in.

They filed past, then into the little lounge at the end of the wardroom. Harcourt sank into a recliner and looked around. “Anybody come up with anything new?”

They all shook their heads.

Anger burned within Ramona. She felt hopelessly inadequate, because she hadn’t been able to come up with anything but one very weak idea, while her shipmates had come up with a dozen. “Well, we have to do something,” she blurted.

“Yes, we do,” Harcourt sighed. “The longer we sit and wait, the better the chances that some random scan will find us. Since we haven’t thought of anything better, we’ll try Chief Coriander’s idea, and go in dressed up as an asteroid. Six hours shut-eye, folks. Then we start catching rocks and welding them. Billy, you have first watch.”

Breakfast the next morning was pretty tense, but it showed as much in bad jokes and too much laughter, as in snarling. Right after, Grounder caught Harcourt and Ramona both trying to suit up, and read them the riot act about their responsibilities to the ship, crew, and mission. Instead, Coriander, Harry, and Flip suited up to go out with, surprisingly enough, a very large butterfly net made of steel cables; Coriander had whipped it up before breakfast. Out they went, to start catching rocks.

They filed out through the small EVA hatch, onto the hull of the ship, fastening their safety lines to ringbolts, magnetic boots clamping firm. The four stood looking out at the surrounding night, admiring the view of shifting stars for a minute, before they got down to work.

Then Coriander stiffened. “What the hell is that?”

They were all silent, staring.

“Well, what is it?” Harcourt’s voice crackled on the headphones. “We can’t see anything in here that doesn’t give off a signal. What have you spotted?”

“It gave off a signal once,” Coriander said slowly, “lots of them. It’s a Venture-class corvette.”

The intercom was very silent for a moment.

Then Harcourt said, “You mean a Kilrathi Kamekh, don’t you?”

“No,” Coriander said. “I know my silhouettes, Captain—and this is more than a silhouette. It’s close enough so we can see a three-quarter profile. It’s a Confederation corvette, and the name on the bow is in Roman letters.”

Inside, the bridge was frozen. Then Harcourt asked, “What’s the name?”

“The John Bunyan,” Coriander answered.

“Pilgrim’s Progress,” Ramona whispered.

“This pilgrim did make some progress, all right,” Harcourt said, “but not enough. What kind of shape is she in, Coriander?”

“She’s a wreck, Captain. Half of the tail is shot away, holes in it big enough to dock a Ferret… I can’t see from here, but I think the vision port is gone; at least, it’s not reflecting any light. She’s dead, Captain. And she died hard. Probably fled this far, and hid in here to lick her wounds.”

Harcourt could envision it—a lone Confederation ship, its panicked crew holding onto composure and sanity by their fingernails, space suits closed against vacuum, hoping, waiting frantically for a rescue, while around the asteroid belt, dozens of Kilrathi fighters hovered, waiting for them to come back out.

They never had.

Harcourt pushed himself away from his console. “This time I am going out—with a rocket pack!”

“Captain, you can’t!” Grounder cried.

“Don’t worry, I’ll wear a very, very long fishline.”

“Then why don’t you let me do it?” Harry’s voice asked over the intercom. “I’m all suited up already. Just give me the booster pack and the fishline, and I’ll shoot over, attach it to the wreck. Then all you have to do is reel us in.”

Harcourt hesitated, remembering his responsibilities. He sighed. “You guys get all the fun. Okay, Harry, go catch me a fish.” He turned to Grounder. “See if you can find anything in the data stores about a corvette named John Bunyan.”

Harry’s boots thudded against the hull. He looked around. “There have to be eyebolts here, same as there are on our ship, Captain, for clipping onto when you go EVA.”

“Yeah, there have to be,” Harcourt’s voice said in his earphones. The signal was coming over the wire rope, to maintain radio silence. “But after you clip it onto the ship, Harry, make sure you hold onto that cable until you’re inside the hatch! Got it?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Captain. I brought along an EVA cable of my own.” Harry unwound it from around his waist. “And here’s an eyebolt.” He clipped his cable onto the eye, then made sure it was fast to his belt. He unclipped the “fishing line” and snapped it into the eyebolt, too. “It’s in the eyebolt, Captain. I’m going in through the hatch now.”

“As long as it’s the hatch…”

Harry punched the entry patch and waited. When it had been too long, he frowned, and punched it again. Nothing happened.

“There’s no power on board that ship,” Coriander told him, “no power at all. Deader’n a duck at a shotgun convention, Captain.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Harry frowned. “I could go in through one of the blast holes…”

“Be real careful, okay, Harry?” Harcourt said. “The broken edges on that metal might be sharp as knives. I’d rather not have you drinking vacuum.”

Harry eyed one of the dark holes with a leery glance. “If it’s all the same to you, Captain, I think I’d rather stay out here.”

“Good.” Harcourt nodded vigorously. “We’ll wait until the docking’s over. Just make sure your cable stays fastened on both ends, okay?”

“Will do, Captain.”

Back on the bridge, Harcourt turned to Grounder. “Can I get my suit on now, Mommy?”

She gave him a look of exasperation. “Well, I suppose I can hold things together, if you’re within shouting range.”

Ramona turned away, so they wouldn’t see her roll up her eyes in despair.

Coriander knew right where to find the external power input that the repair crews used in dry dock. After all, the John Bunyan was exactly like her own ship. The airlock opened; Harcourt and Ramona stepped in; the lock hatch closed.

Inside, the emergency lights gave a feeble glow. The green patch lit; the lock had cycled in record time—of course. No problem matching pressures, when there was none on either side of the door. The inner hatch swung open and the two stepped in, their helmet lamps lending harsh accents to the eldritch gloom of the emergencies.

Harcourt went first to the nearest blast hole, stuck an arm through, being careful not to touch any of the jagged edges, and felt the connector Harry pushed into his hand. “Thanks,” he said, so Harry would know he could let go, then pulled, turning away. The computer cable came in behind him—a coil floating free between the two ships, connected at its far end to the brain of the Johnny Greene.

They went through corridors that were eerily familiar, copies of the ones on their own ship, with the computer cable snaking behind them. They stepped into the bridge just as…

The ship accumulated enough power, and lit all the instruments.

The familiar, warm darkness was lightened by the battle display—but only a grid of curving lines, as theirs had been not very long ago. The individual screens glowed to life. The work lights spotlighted the consoles at each position—and the crewmen slumped over them.

Harcourt was intensely grateful that the space suits, and especially the helmets, prevented him from seeing the mummies within.

Ramona paced beside him, completely silent. Harcourt wasn’t feeling all that talkative himself, but he said, by way of apology, “We have to know what happened,” and stepped up to the captain’s console.

The captain sat slumped over the slanted surface, helmet on gauntlets. Harcourt was glad he didn’t have to push the corpse aside; the cable receptacle was low on the console’s side, and clear. He pushed it in, made sure the two connectors meshed, then said, “Okay, Chief. Drain the memory.”

“Yes, sir,” Coriander’s voice said in his earphones. “Just a straight file transfer, or do you want an audio analog while it’s going?”

“Just the straight file. Let me know when the dump is finished, so we can come home.”

“Yes, sir.”

There was no sound, of course—they hadn’t called for audio analog—but Harcourt saw the green jewel come on.

He turned away, looking out over the bridge, trying to avoid staring at the bodies. He noticed the gaping hole in the roof, the crewman lying prone on the floor with a long, brown-stained gash in his pressure suit, the two who sat side by side, arms about one another, slumped in death…

“Dump finished, Captain,” Coriander reported in his ears.

“Gotcha, Chief.” Harcourt turned back to Ramona. “Anything else we need to see?”

Ramona glanced at him with haunted eyes. Then her gaze roved around the rest of the bridge. She shook her head. “Nothing, Captain.” She turned and went out.

Harcourt unplugged the cable and followed her, rolling it as he went.

They cycled through the airlock, hauled themselves across the linking cable to their own ship, and cycled through again, blessing the hiss of air as it jetted into the lock. The patch glowed green; the hatch opened, and they stepped through. Ramona gave her helmet a half-twist and tilted it back with a grateful sigh. “Those poor bastards,” she said. “Those poor, brave bastards.”

Harcourt nodded, thinking that “lambs” might have been a better term—sacrificial lambs.

No. Not lambs. They had died fighting—or trying to. “We have to bury them,” he said. “We owe them that much.”

“Why?” Ramona countered. “They’ve got the perfect coffin as it is.”

Her face was very bleak. Glancing at her, Harcourt felt a chill. What was going on in that mind of hers?

“Captain to the bridge!”

“Coming.” Harcourt hurried away, unfastening his pressure suit. He came into the bridge with his helmet still under his arm. “What did you get, Chief?”

“The whole ship’s log,” Coriander said, “at least for this mission, from the time they were asked to volunteer up until they died.” Her face paled as she watched the screen.

Harcourt was tempted to ask for an audio analog. Instead, he said, “Give me the digest.”

“The John Bunyan was ordered to run a reconnaissance mission past Vukar Tag,” she said, “six months ago. They tried to get close to the planet, but fighters swarmed up to defend, and they had to run for the asteroid belt. They were Swiss cheese by the time they got here, but they had taken out seven Kilrathi ships on the way. The only atmosphere left was in the pressure bottles on their suits. They stayed in the asteroid belt, hoping the Kilrathi would give up and go away so they could make a run for the jump point—but the Cats stayed. They hung around for eight hours, twelve hours… The captain recorded the last entry just before he blacked out from lack of oxygen.” She paused, then said, “The computer made one final automatic entry, noting that the fusion plant had been hit by a parting shot, a random Kilrathi missile. Then the reserve battery ran out, and the computer couldn’t do anything more, either.”

Harcourt turned to Ramona. “Did you know there had been a ship assigned to this mission before us?”

Ramona stared, frozen. Then she gave a quick, jerky nod. “Yes, Captain. They didn’t tell you, huh?”

“Not a word.” Harcourt’s lips thinned. He had a nasty, sneaking suspicion that Ramona had known the information had not been included in his briefing—but maybe he was being paranoid. After all, it had sounded like a good deal, at the time…

As long as they weren’t told the whole truth.

“Captain,” Billy called.

“What is it?” Harcourt knew that tone in Billy’s voice. His tension increased.

Billy was pointing out the vision port. “Silhouette. Just coming out from behind that big rock.”

Harcourt stared. Then he said, “Can you get that on your screen?”

“Electron telescope.” Billy jabbed at his panel a few times, and another screen lit. “There it is, Captain. Full magnification?”

Harcourt nodded.

Billy twisted something, the image expanded…

Into the silhouette of a Venture-class corvette. Badly damaged, missing a lot of pieces, but a Confederation corvette nonetheless.

“So,” Harcourt breathed, “we’re Number Three.” He turned to Ramona. “Or is it Number Four? Or Five? Or Six?”

She shook her head, ghostly pale. “They didn’t tell you this, Captain? They really didn’t tell you any of it?”

Harcourt forced his voice to be gentle. “No, Commander. None.”

“We’re Number Three,” she said, “and the Admiralty’s really upset that the first two missions disappeared.”

“I’ll just bet they are!”

Ramona shrugged helplessly. “They’re afraid all this spying will attract the Kilrathi’s attention.”

Harcourt just stared at her.

Then he said, in a very soft voice, “Oh, are they really, now?”

He turned back to look at the hulk on the screen. “I’d say they attracted attention, Commander. Yes, I think you could say that.”

Ramona was silent.

After a minute, Harcourt turned back to her. Her eyes had hardened, but they were still fixed on the wrecked silhouette on the screen. “You know,” she said, “if you didn’t captain a corvette yourself, you might never recognize that shape, it’s been chewed up so badly.”

“Yes, you might not.” Harcourt felt as though a gust of cold air had blown through him. What was she thinking?

He found out soon enough.

“We need to talk in private, Captain.”

He looked in her eyes and said, “Yes. Of course. The wardroom.” He turned to the staring eyes all about them. “No one interrupt.” Then he rose and went out the door.

Ramona followed.

In the wardroom, Ramona toggled off the intercom and locked it. Then she told him what she had in mind.

“No! It’s sure suicide! I won’t hear of it!”

“It’s the only way.” Ramona paced the wardroom. “We need a ruse, right? Well, this is it—better than going in disguised as an asteroid, even. A dead hulk, no emissions of any kind, so badly shot up that its silhouette isn’t even recognizable any more! I get aboard that wreck, you tow me up to cruising velocity, then disengage and let me go. Vukar Tag grabs me into orbit, but I’m going so fast that the planet can’t hold me. I swing around it once, get my pictures, shoot off toward the asteroid belt again—and voila! Mission accomplished!”

“Impossible!” Harcourt snapped. “If we’re off by one degree on the calculations, you’ll get sucked into Vukar Tag’s gravity well and crash!”

Ramona shrugged. “That’s the chance I take, that everyone in the Fleet takes whenever they go into battle. What’s the matter? Don’t trust your own computer? Or Ensign Barnes?”

“Barney is a damn fine astrogator!” Harcourt barked.

“Yes, I know—so crashing is the least of my worries.” She came back, leaned over him. “Look, I volunteered for an extremely dangerous mission. I knew I might not come back alive.”

“Yeah, but at least you could accomplish something by your death! This way, you might still get shot down before you get close enough for a single frame! When the Kilrathi see a bogey coming in to Vukar Tag, they’re apt to hit it with everything they’ve got, just to be on the safe side!”

“No, they won’t,” Ramona said, “because they’ll be too busy chasing after you.”

Harcourt didn’t move, but he went rigid. “Oh, will they?”

“Sure. A diversion, distraction, just as you were talking about with your crew during the brainstorm session.”

Harcourt leaned back, eyeing her very warily. “Just what kind of distraction did you have in mind?”

“Act like a Viking,” she said. “Private enterprise. A privateer, Free Trader—call it what you want. You attack one of their supply ships.”

Harcourt just stared at her in disbelief.

Then the idea sank in, and he went loose. “Yes. That would distract their attention, wouldn’t it?”

“You bet it would! They’ll come swarming up to stop you! As soon as you see they’re on their way, you take off and head for the jump point.”

“And leave you behind? Not a chance!”

“Simmer down, Captain—I’m not talking about suicide.” Ramona held up a hand. “Remember how we talked about using the planet as a slingshot, tractoring a chunk of atmosphere, ending up with us heading right toward the jump point? Well, instead, you have me come out heading toward the asteroid belt. Then you loop around, attack one of their fighters, exchange a few shots, then cut off all exterior emissions. They’ll think you’re dead, and won’t worry too much when you ‘crash’ into the asteroid belt and don’t come back out. Once you’re in there, you can maneuver on thrusters and pick me up.”

Harcourt sat glowering at her, trying to find a flaw in the plan.

He found it.

“Fine,” he said, “but how do we get home?”

“You won’t really be damaged, won’t be losing air the way the John Bunyan was.” Ramona knew she was talking more from hope than from logic. “But you’ll pretend to be, so they’ll think you are—and they’ll wait a few days, maybe a week, then go away. But your life-support systems will be intact, and you have rations enough for a couple of months. So when they decide you’re dead, and go away back to their bases…”

“If they decide we’re dead and go away.”

Ramona shrugged. “They did with the John Bunyan. Why shouldn’t they do it with you?”

Harcourt glared at her, trying to think of an answer again—but this time, he couldn’t. It was a lousy plan, one that was almost guaranteed to get her killed, without the information she’d come to get… “What if you are shot down in the middle of it? And the chances are very good that you will be. The pictures don’t get back to us, the mission fails, you’re dead—for nothing!”

“Of course I get the pictures back to you,” she said scornfully. “I’ll beam them by microwave. There will be plenty of time, before you turn to fake that attack on the fighter. Even if I do crash or get shot down, you’ll have all the pictures I shot up until then.”

A chill enveloped Harcourt’s back.

She saw it in his eyes and nodded. “Yes, Captain. Once you have that information, you have to forget about me, if that’s the only way to escape and get the data back to the Admiralty.”

“No,” Harcourt whispered. “I won’t abandon one of my crew.”

“I’m not one of your crew,” she countered. “I’m in charge of the mission—and I rank you. Especially when I’m no longer aboard your own ship.”

Harcourt said nothing. He couldn’t. Not just because she had finally hit the point at which she could legitimately give him orders—but because she was right.

There are times when you have to take the only course of action that’s open to you, no matter how much you dislike it. This was one of them.

Oh, Harcourt could have commanded them all to turn the ship around, leap through the jump point, go home, and report that the mission was impossible. He would also have been stripped of rank or, at the very least, given up hope of all promotion. But his crew would have been alive, and so would Ramona.

She, however, seemed to have a death wish—and she was in charge of the mission. He couldn’t go back without disobeying orders—technically, mutiny, even though it was his own ship.

Harry and Flip volunteered for the grisly task of moving all the bodies back to the wardroom of the John Bunyan. If Ramona’s scheme worked, if she came out alive, they would take her aboard the Johnny Greene and Harcourt would read the Service for the Dead over the derelict, then leave it as a floating coffin in the asteroid belt forever.

If it didn’t work, there wouldn’t be anything left to bury.

Ramona moved into the bridge of the John Bunyan. All her mysterious cases came open. She set up her arcane gear, replaced the dead nose camera with something that looked like the grandmother of all gadgets, then pressed Coriander into helping her install some very sophisticated cameras of her own. The Chief mounted the microwave dish for her and hooked up a little computer programmed to keep it always aimed at the jump point and therefore toward the Johnny Greene. Then they substituted a magnetic grapple for the towing hook…

And sat. And waited. And waited.

Finally, Billy called out, “Transport! Just in from the jump point!”

“Battle stations!” Harcourt snapped, and Grounder hit the klaxon.

The crew scrambled to stations, Lorraine fired up their two original engines, and they burst out of the asteroid belt as though they had the Wild Hunt right behind. They accelerated up to cruising velocity, aiming the John Bunyan exactly right, and let it go. The hulk sped away from them on a trajectory that should loop it around Vukar Tag in a hyperbolic orbit, spinning it out faster than it came in.

Harcourt triggered one short transmission: “Good luck, Commander. We’ll be waiting.”

He hoped.

“That,” said Billy, “is one gutsy lady.”

“I really feel badly now, about having been such a shrew to her,” Grounder said.

Harcourt shook his head. “You had orders to follow, Lieutenant.”

“Yes,” said Barney, “but we could have tried to warm up to her.”

“I did,” Coriander said. “She wasn’t having any.”

Harcourt nodded heavily. “I think someone must have told her about ‘the loneliness of command’ at a very impressionable age—so she decided that if she was a commander, she should always be lonely.” Then he shook himself. “Enough. We could have been warmer, we should have been, but she didn’t exactly encourage it. She’s got a job to do, we’ve got a job to do—and if we want her to have a hope in Hades of living through it, we’d better get busy with our end. Turn and aim for that transport. How long till we catch it, Number One?”

“Two hours, Captain.”

“Close enough.”

“Fighters coming up off the moon like popcorn without a lid!” Billy reported.

But a stern chase is a long chase, and the Johnny Greene was already up to cruising velocity. When it turned, leveling off toward the transport, Harcourt ordered, “All engines full.”

Now they did what Ramona had commanded at the wrong time—kicked in their two captured Kilrathi engines. On all four, they ran up to the maximum velocity for any Confederation corvette, and past it.

Way past it.

The supply ship swelled in their screen, bigger and bigger.

“They’re coming up off the gas giant’s orbital station!” Billy snapped.

On the battle display, the Johnny Green was a bright green circle at the center. Above it, near the top, was the yellow oblong of the supply ship. Below, there was an arc of red arrowheads—Kilrathi fighters.

Now more little red arrowheads came swooping in from ten o’clock.

“You wanted attention? We got it!” Harry howled. “When can I start shooting, Captain?”

“You’ve got ranging computers again,” Harcourt answered. “When they register enemy, you can start shooting.”

Jolie gave a whoop of joy.

A minute, five minutes, ten…

“Range!” Billy snapped.

Jolie howled.

Her gun was in tune now—there was no Whumpf! echoing through the hull—but dots of blue sprang up in the space between the red arrowheads and the green dot.

Even Harcourt felt the satisfaction of being back in battle, the relief now that the shooting had started. Fear hollowed him, but a terrible excitement seethed up to fill that emptiness. He knew he very well might not live through this one—but he felt more intensely alive than he ever had.

How was Ramona feeling, he wondered? His gaze strayed toward the rim of the screen at eight o’clock, where the fat yellow arc that was Vukar Tag loomed. There was no blue dot near it—she was flying a dead ship, after all. Harcourt ached to send out a scan, but knew they couldn’t spare it; ached to know how she was doing, what she was seeing…

Coriander had charged all the batteries on the John Bunyan, and Ramona had brought plenty of her own, so she could watch the screen to see what her cameras saw as they recorded the fly-by. Of course, she couldn’t activate them until they were near the planet, but the ship’s batteries were enough to show her what the passive sensors saw—not on the huge battle display, of course; it would have taken a major dry dock to repair that. Coriander had revived the lookout’s screen, though, and Ramona watched, her heart in her throat, a pool of icy fear in her stomach sending out rivulets all through her body. She saw the little red arrowheads darting up from Vukar Tag, darting toward her; they had to be leveling their guns on her…

Then they were swinging away, passing her by. She heaved a huge sigh of relief. She was only a piece of floating space junk to them, after all—an asteroid about to become a meteor, to be burned up as it flashed through the atmosphere, on its way toward becoming dust. Nothing to worry about; it certainly was nothing that was going so fast that they couldn’t come back and finish it, if they had to.

But the active blip, the “Free Trader” that was pouncing on their transport—that was something they had to eliminate. What impelled them to send what must be every ship in the system against one lone corsair, though? The logical conclusion sank within her like lead: they couldn’t let any Confederation ship get away with news of Vukar Tag.

What the hell was on there, anyway?

Well, she would find out in a few minutes. The planet loomed beyond the vision port, hovering over her, ready to fall on her…

She pressed the “record” patch, and her camera’s viewfinder lit up.

Then, suddenly, Vukar Tag was beneath her, and she was skimming over it.

There was nothing to hear from her cameras, of course—everything was recorded in solid memory with automatic backups in a redundant system. None of the archaic frustrations of a transport system, of spinning wheels and fragile tape that could snap or stretch, nor any danger of a crash from a magnetic or laser head hovering over a spinning surface. The data went straight into memory, with an anti-erase lock.

The lenses were electronic, able to show her a drinking mug on the surface in fine detail—but just in case they failed, there was one optical zoom lens, only a foot long, but capable of the same amazing magnification as the electron-telescope.

What did she see?

Sand.

She was zoomed out as wide as she could be—she had to cover a whole hemisphere, since she could only be sure of the one orbit (and not even that, really). The boys back home could expand anything they saw that might be worth expanding. For herself, out of idle curiosity, she could isolate any one feature of the surface, hold it in a buffer memory, and expand it to full view.

She intended to. If she was going to give her life for this look, she meant to have it.

She tested the buffer on a faint line that she thought might be a mountain range. Sure enough, there they were, rounded humps swelling up toward her—old mountains, worn down by wind. Not water, though—there was too little of it on this planet…

She canceled the view, hovering over her instruments, the enemy forgotten in the thrill of fulfilling her mission, of seeing the closely guarded secret, whatever it may have been.

The miles unrolled beneath her. The pole shifted slowly, a tiny ice cap moving from the top of the screen to the center, then to the bottom, and the southern ice cap began to come into view…

All of a sudden, she remembered the Kilrathi fighters. She stepped back over to the lookout’s screen. There they were, red sawteeth chasing a green dot, thousands of kilometers away.

But what was this? A larger triangle, a bomber at least, perhaps a small ship, spurring away from a cruiser, chasing after her!

Her heart leaped into her throat again. She poised, ready to leap to her recording equipment, ready to hit the patch that would activate the burst transmission of all the data gathered so far…

And saw a tiny oblong in the center of the Southern hemisphere, halfway down her screen. It was too regular to be a natural formation.

Triumph flamed through her veins as she punched to isolate the oblong into the buffer, then swelled it to fill the screen…

It was a fairy-tale castle.

It was a bird’s-eye view of a fairy-tale castle, all turrets and alabaster and sapphire, glowing in the sunset as though it were all made of jewels.

All about it lay only desert, empty rock, empty sand…

The words leaped unbidden into her head:

This was it. She didn’t know how or why she knew it, didn’t know what it was or why it was important—but this was it. This was why Vukar Tag was so heavily guarded, why it was crucial. Some ancient treasure of the Kilrathi, some source of racial pride, an emotional anchor, a ceremonial site—whatever it was, it was vital to them, drastically important.

A beep came from the sentry screen. She turned, staring at it, saw the red triangle closing on the green dot in the center of the screen that was her own hulk.

She leaped, and hit the “Transmit” button.

Above her, atop the hulk, the microwave dish sent a half-second burst of encoded data spinning after the Johnny Greene at a hundred times its speed…

Ramona felt the final, surging euphoria of victory. She stood next to her recording equipment, watching the empty sand unroll before her, feeling the singing victory, but with the horrible dread coming up beneath it, the certainty of doom.

There was nothing she could do. The ship had no engines, no thrusters, no way to steer or run at all. She could only wait, only trust to blind luck, only hope that she would live to see the completion of her orbit, to once more see the Joh—

Aboard the Johnny Greene, Billy saw the flash and let out a high, keening wail.

“They got her.” Grounder sat rigid.

“Annihilated!” Billy mourned. “Nothing left but atoms! Brave woman! Valiant warrior!”

“Did she die for nothing?” Coriander barked.

“No,” Billy said. “I got her burst transmission five seconds before the flash. Stored on crystal, and I just backed it up. Heaven only knows what it was!” His voice sank low, tragic in tone. “Lord, I hope it was worth her life!”

Grounder stared at him, amazed, realizing Ramona had made far more of an impact on Billy than any of them had known—including him. He had a thing for her. Shrew though she was, he had it bad.

“I hope it’s worth our lives!” Harcourt’s voice snapped them out of it. “No point in going back for her now. You’re sure she’s dead, Billy? Not the slightest chance?”

Billy shook his head, already deep in grief. “When a blue dot turns yellow and takes up that much space on the screen, Captain, there’s nothing left but ions. I don’t know what they hit her with, but it did a real thorough job.”

“Then the hell with Vukar Tag, and the hell with their asteroid belt,” Harcourt snapped. “We can make her death worth something, by getting that data back to the Admiralty.”

The ship began to shudder, ever so slightly.

“How much longer can we take the stress of full thrust, Chief?” Harcourt snapped.

“Half an hour sure, forty-five minutes maybe.” Coriander watched the battle display, transfixed.

“How far to the jump point at this velocity, Barney?” Harcourt demanded.

“Twenty-five minutes, if those fighters from the gas giant don’t get us first,” Barney answered.

“Range!” Billy shouted, his face suddenly savage. “Tear ’em apart, gunners!”

“Fire,” Harcourt said quickly, so that Billy wouldn’t have been giving an order beyond his rank.

Harry’s whoop echoed through the intercom, with Flip’s warbling yell right behind it. The guns were in phase, so they felt nothing, they heard nothing—but the battle display showed dots of blue breaking out all along the line of red arrowheads. Blue met red; they turned yellow, expanding.

But something big was coming up behind them—a destroyer.

“Missiles!” Harcourt snapped. “Fire One! Two!”

Larger blue dots shot away from the Johnny Greene, through the red arrowheads—but the arrowheads converged on them like bees on a bear. One blue circle turned yellow with the dozen arrowheads that had beset it—but the other broke through.

Some of the red arrowheads were past the little blue dots.

“Hit ’em, Harry!” Harcourt yelled,

Harry answered with a cowboy’s holler, and the blue dots peppered the red arrowheads. One went up in a yellow flash, another, another…

The last spat a red dot of its own.

The Johnny Greene rocked, the sound of the explosion echoing through its hull.

“Harry!” Harcourt snapped.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Harry growled, disgusted. “There! And there!”

The red arrowhead turned yellow, expanding.

“Jump point ahead!” Grounder snapped.

“Three Cats astern!” Billy cried.

Jolie whooped over the intercom.

On the battle display, another field of blue dots sprang out behind the Johnny Greene.

“Got any use for a dead Cat?” Jolie shrilled. “I’ll get you a few!”

On the screen, one of the arrowheads turned into a yellow flash, expanding—but the other lanced through the arc of blue dots, closing on the green circle that was their ship, closing, closing…

The ship bucked, as though it were a schooner that had just plowed over a submerged sandbank, then kept on. The stars in the viewscreen shifted drastically, to a totally different sky.

Harcourt went limp. So did the bridge crew—except for Billy. “Jump completed!” he called out. “No bogeys in evidence, no hostiles at all!”

“We’re clear,” Grounder whispered.

“Only for the moment.” Harcourt knew he had to keep them moving. They didn’t dare let up—not for long. “Barney, plot the course for the next jump point. They could be right on our tails.”

“Course plotted and feeding!”

“I might’ve known. Chief! Damage?”

“None from the jump.” Coriander scanned her board. “Just from that one shot that got through—a leak amidships.”

“Patched,” Lorraine’s voice said over the intercom. “But it won’t last long.”

“It doesn’t need to.” Coriander picked up her tool kit. “I’m on my way.”

She had recovered amazingly quickly, Harcourt thought as he watched her slim figure dart out the hatch, a figure that was more remembered than seen. “Keep scanning, Billy. No real reason to expect them to have stationed an intercept out here, but you never know.”

“They will from now on, I betcha.” Billy kept his eyes on the screen.

“You don’t really think they will, do you, Captain?” Grounder asked.

Harcourt shrugged. “You always assume your enemy will do the worst—and the most unexpected, Lieutenant. You know that.”

More to the point, though, he needed to keep their minds off the gallant woman who had died doing her duty, to whom they really should have shown much more kindness…

He felt the guilt sinking within him, fought it, knowing he had only done his duty. It was up to him, though, to make sure she had not died in vain. Whatever it was on Vukar Tag that the Cats guarded so closely, the Admiralty would find some way to use it against them.

Kipling’s lines echoed in his head:

Oh, the Kilrathi were thieves, all right—very vicious, but very competent, thieves—and the revenge for Ramona would follow.

Oh, yes, the revenge would follow.