Shiva Option

CHAPTER THIRTY: Unfinished Business

"Actually, First Fang," Kthaara'zarthan said, "this is unexpected. When I requested that Waarrrmaaaasterrr Rikka return to Alpha Centauri for consultation, I never meant to imply that you needed to accompany him. Evidently I failed to express myself with sufficient clarity."

Ynaathar'solmaak gazed at the uncharacteristically flustered Chairman of the Grand Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff from across the latter's desk.

"You made yourself pellucidly clear as always, Lord Talphon. But Waarrrmaaaasterrr Rikka is one of my task force commanders-one in whom I have absolute confidence. As a matter of honor, I feel obligated to stand beside him if he is to be summoned onto the rug, as the Humans say."

"That's 'called on the carpet,' " Sky Marshal Ellen MacGregor supplied from her chair to Kthaara's left. "And he hasn't been!"

"Absolutely not," Kthaara agreed emphatically. "I remind you, First Fang, that Waarrrmaaaasterrr Rikka is more than merely the commanding officer of one of Eighth Fleet's task forces. He is also the de facto representative of an allied power to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is in this latter capacity that I have requested his presence here to discuss questions of strategic coordination, so that he can convey our concerns to the Star Union's Khan."

"The Rhustus Idk," the subject of the discussion corrected, shifting his folded wings back and forth a couple of times with a soft rustling sound. "And he is in no sense a monarch, but rather a chief executive chosen by the Niistka Glorkhus-the legislature."

"Sort of like the Federation prime minister," Aileen Sommers chimed in helpfully, earning a glare from the MacGregor for her pains.

"Thank you, Waarrrmaaaasterrr, Ahhdmiraaaal," Kthaara said with an urbane inclination of his head. "At any event, I hope you will be able to make him understand our position on the projected Telik operation."

"I surmised that Telik was to be the subject of this conference, Lord Talphon," Robalii Rikka sat up straighter on the species-compatible chair that had been provided. "That was the reason I asked Rear Admiral Sommers to accompany me in the hope that she can help me make you understand the . . . unique significance this objective holds for us. Unfortunately, it was out of the question for me and my second-in-command, Wingmaster Garadden, to simultaneously absent ourselves from First Grand Wing-excuse me, from Task Force 86. As a racial Telikan, she could have offered a valuable perspective."

"No doubt. However, I am already conversant with the history involved. Be assured that I and the other Joint Chiefs fully appreciate what the liberation of Telik has meant to the Star Union for a standard century."

"Ah, but you may not be aware of our excitement when you shared your most recent astrogation data-the data you'd acquired since Admiral Sommers' departure-and we saw the Franos System. What we were looking at wasn't immediately apparent to us. Only when we correlated your data with our own did the identification leap out at us. For we know the systems around Telik, the battlegrounds of our first war with the Demons."

Kthaara nodded in a very Human gesture which had become second nature to him after his long association with the species. It was more than merely habit in this instance, however, for it was a gesture he was confident Rikka would recognize after his long association with Aileen Sommers, whereas the ear-flick his own species used might not yet have acquired that ease of recognition.

Now that the Alliance had finished comparing the Crucians' astrogation data bases with its own, as well, the same correlation had become clear to its astrographers. Given that Raymond Prescott and Zhaarnak'telmasa hadn't had any of that data at the time, their decision not to advance from Franos to Telik had been perfectly logical. Unaware that there was any . . . domesticated species in the system to rescue-had the Alliance at the time had any policy for dealing with such situations in the first place-they'd seen no reason to divert from their main axis of advance against a warp point whose defenses they knew to be quite formidable.

Of course, they hadn't known about the closed warp point connection to the Star Union, either.

"For generations," Rikka went on, leaning forward with an intensity which caused the highest officers of the Grand Alliance to recoil almost physically, "we've lived with the knowledge that we could put a fleet into Telik at any time, without having to fight our way through a defended warp point . . . and that the risk was so terrible that we didn't dare to. Now we do!"

Kthaara gave the low, fluttering purr that meant the same as a human's nervous throat-clearing.

"Yes, of course, Waarrrmaaaasterrr. We are aware of Telik's history, and share your excitement over the new strategic possibilities. After all, we knew we were going to have to deal with the unfinished business of Telik sooner or later. The more economically it can be done, the better."

"But," MacGregor put in, "Telik isn't going anywhere."

"That is the essence of our position," Kthaara agreed. "There is no need to launch the attack immediately. Not while the Star Union is still heavily committed to our joint campaign against the home hive systems-and to the reduction of Rabahl."

Rikka's wings folded momentarily a little tighter in his equivalent of a Human's wince. There seemed no end to the task of cutting out the cancerous ulcer in the Star Union's vitals that was Rabahl, nor to the flow of blood from that surgery.

"It is precisely that type of wastefully brutal warp-point warfare that we plan to avoid in Telik, Lord Talphon," he said.

"But why not wait? There is no urgency. Wait until elements of the Allied fleets are available to reinforce you."

For a space, Rikka seemed to be organizing his thoughts-though the others hadn't known his race long enough to be sure. When he spoke, only Sommers recognized the effort he was putting into keeping his tone level.

"There may seem no urgency to you. You cannot understand what Telik means to us. It's too foreign to your experience, for which you should count yourselves fortunate. And I appreciate your offer of support. More, I realize that your concern and desire to minimize our own casualties by asking us to wait until you can provide that support is entirely sincere. But, as you yourselves have in effect admitted, that would take time, given your priorities. Those priorities are entirely understandable-that's your war. And we are more than willing to join in it, as my command has done and will continue to do. But Telik is part of our war-a war that began long before yours."

"But do you have the strength to reduce Telik on your own?" MacGregor asked bluntly.

"Our heaviest forces are, as you've pointed out, engaged against Rabahl or assigned to my Grand Wing. But we've built up a reserve of carriers and lighter battle-line units. We'd planned to use them in the Rabahl campaign. But knowing what we now know, we've assigned them to Wingmaster Shinhaa Harkka's Fifth Grand Wing, to be used against Telik . . . immediately."

Aileen Sommers looked back and forth between Rikka-calm as stone and just as immovable-and the two across the desk, who were visibly searching for the combination of words that would move him. She swallowed a time or three, then cleared her throat diffidently.

"Sky Marshal, Lord Talphon, I believe we must respect the Star Union's position on this."

They stared at her-the totally unofficial "ambassador" who still personified the Terran Federation in Crucian eyes-and she hurried on before they could remember she was also a mere rear admiral.

"It goes beyond military calculations. I know we've all heard about their century-old pledge to the Telikans. But I wonder if any of us really grasp what it means. It's . . . it's . . ."

What do I think I'm doing? she wondered desperately. I'm a Survey officer, not a philosopher!

"Lord Talphon, I'm sorry to say that I'm not really sufficiently familiar with Orion philosophy to find an exact parallel, but it's like our Human idea of the 'social contract.' It's central to their vision of what they are-what they mean-as a society. Now that they believe they have a fighting chance to redeem that pledge, they have to try. To do otherwise would be to . . . betray themselves."

In the hush that followed, Sommers felt oddly calm. What the hell? Considering how far I've wandered from the orthodox career pathway over the last few years, they'll never promote me again anyway. She waited for Kthaara or MacGregor to speak. But to her surprise, it was Ynaathar's snarling, skirling Orion voice that broke the silence.

"I agree with Ahhdmiraaaal Saahmerzzz. She suffers from that curious Human reluctance to speak openly of honor which has sometimes misled the less perceptive members of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee, to their subsequent regret. But honor is precisely what we are dealing with here, and unlike the Ahhdmiraaaal, I am sufficiently familiar with the philosophy of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee to find the parallel she seeks."

The First Fang, the highest ranking serving officer of the Khan's unified military services, looked Kthaara'zarthan straight in the eyes.

"It is a matter of shirnask," he said. "Not of the Star Union as a government, but of its warriors-and of all of its citizens-as individuals."

Kthaara sat back suddenly, and MacGregor's expression changed abruptly. Sommers was much less familiar with the precepts of the Orion honor code than the Sky Marshal had become over the last half decade, but even she knew that shirnask-the absolute, unwaveringly fidelity to his sworn word-was the ultimate and fundamental bedrock of any Orion's personal honor. To be called shirnowmak, or oath-breaker was perhaps the second worst insult any Tabby could be offered.

"We do not ask them to violate their oaths, First Fang," Kthaara said very quietly, "and if by any word, deed, or expression it has seemed that such was my intention, then for that insult to our Allies' honor, I offer personal apology. Our concern is solely that it is not possible for us to provide them with the heavy battle-line support we deem necessary for the liberation of Telik at this time, and we fear that without such support, their losses will be heavy. It is as farshatok to farshatok we speak, urging only that they hold their claws until we may strike at their side."

"I understand that, Lord Talphon," Ynaathar replied gravely, while Rikka and Sommers sat silent. "And I believe Waarrrmaaaasterrr Rikka also understands it. Yet their oath does not bind them to act when they may do so safely. It binds them to act as soon as they can. To delay beyond that moment would open them not only to the charge of shirnowmak but also to the charge of embracing theermish."

If MacGregor's face had stiffened when Ynaathar mentioned shirnask, it went absolutely expressionless when he said the word "theermish." Theernowlus, which Standard English translated as "risk bearing" was the fundamental Orion honor concept which went so far to explain the near fanaticism with which the Tabbies embraced the strikefighter. Theernowlus required that any Orion expose himself to the risk involved in the execution of any plan or strategy he might have devised. To send others to bear that risk while he sat by in safety was the ultimate betrayal of the farshatok bond. There might be instances in which the orders of a superior or some other obligation or insurmountable physical obstacle prevented him from doing so, and in those instances he was not personally guilty of theermish-or "risk-shirking"-but even in those instances, his honor code denied him any credit for the success of that plan or strategy, however brilliant it might have been.

"And finally," Ynaathar went implacably onward, "the oath each officer of the Star Union swears when accepting his commission requires him to embrace any sacrifice to liberate Telik at the earliest possible moment. And so, Lord Talphon, any delay on their part if they believe-in their own considered judgment-that they have the capacity to reclaim that star system at last, would be to commit hiri'k'now."

The First Fang said the final word in an absolutely neutral tone, but MacGregor inhaled audibly, and Kthaara flinched. Hiri'k'now was the violation of hirikolus, the liege-vassal military oath which bound every serving Orion officer personally and directly to his Khan. There was no worse crime an Orion could commit. Anyone guilty of it became dirguasha, "the beast not yet dead"-a clanless outcast and an animal who might be slain by anyone in any way.

"I tell you this," Ynaathar went on, "not to charge you with urging the Waarrrmaaaasterrr to commit such offenses, but because I believe you were not aware of all of the implications inherent in any consideration of the liberation of Telik. I was not myself aware of them, of course, before the Waarrrmaaaasterrr became farshatok as a task force commander in Eighth Fleet. The Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee paid a heavy price-and, knowingly or unknowingly, gravely insulted the honor of the Humans-by failing to grasp the complexities of their honor code or its points of congruity with our own when first they were our enemies, and then our allies. I will not be guilty of the same blindness where the Star Union is concerned."

Kthaara and MacGregor looked at one another, and then, in unison-almost as if it had been rehearsed-the Human shrugged ever so slightly and the Orion's tufted ears flicked straight out to the sides. Then Kthaara looked back at Ynaathar and Rikka.

"Thank you for explaining the aspects of the situation which our ignorance had prevented us from fully considering, First Fang," he said gravely, and then gave his race's tooth-hidden carnivore smile, to which decades of association with Humans had lent a new and very individual quality. "And whatever our concern over the possible casualties of an ally might have been, we can scarcely prevent the Star Union from taking any action it pleases, can we? Telik, as Waarrrmaaaasterrr Rikka has reminded us, is part of their war. We can only attempt to urge caution, and if caution is secondary-or tertiary-to the requirements of the situation, let us turn to the practicalities of how we can contribute to maximizing the operation's chances of success."

"First of all," MacGregor, said "we need on-scene Alliance liaison with the Crucian attack force."

"No problem there, Sky Marshal," Sommers grinned. "As you know, the old Survey Flotilla 19 is scattered all around the Star Union to serve as training cadres and technical support. We've got people with Wingmaster Harkka at Reymiirnagar. They're headed by one of my best officers: a survey specialist who's developed some new sidelines. She's very junior for the job, as most of our people are. But her family name is one to conjure with in the TFN."

Any volume of interplanetary space was like any other, Lieutenant Commander Fujiko Murakuma thought. And the local sun, tiny across the 5.8 light-hours that separated it from the closed warp point from which they'd emerged, was a perfectly typical late type G.

But she knew better than to say that to Wingmaster Shinhaa Harkka, or to any of the other Crucians on the flag bridge. And she definitely wasn't about to say it to any of the Telikans. They all stood-none were still seated-and stared at the viewscreen in a silence which Fujiko would not have dreamed of breaking, any more than she would have interrupted a religious ceremony at which she was a guest.

Instead, she glanced at the system-scale display. The icon of Fifth Grand Wing glowed alongside that of the closed warp point, on an eight o'clock bearing from the primary. Far across the system, well over two hundred light-minutes from the primary at a bearing of four o'clock, was the system's solitary open warp point-Warp Point One, as it had been designated by the Alliance survey personnel whose RD2s had surveyed it from Franos-beyond which Vice Admiral Eustace Sung waited with the seventeen Terran light carriers and nineteen even smaller Ophiuchi escort carriers of Task Force 93. Telik itself was the second planet; its six-light-minute radius orbit had currently brought it to a five o'clock bearing.

But Fujiko only had eyes for the scarlet threat icons, reflecting the reports of the stealthed recon drones Wingmaster Harkka had already sent fanning out from his command. So far, those drones fully substantiated the downloads the ICN had relayed to GW 5 from Admiral Sung's most recent probes through the warp point. And the tale they told seemed to confirm their hopes so completely that she dared not tempt fate by voicing it.

Captain Mario Kincaid, TFMC, clearly felt no such inhibitions.

"Did it, by God!" he breathed as he gazed over her shoulder at the plot's report that every known Bug unit in the system was either at Warp Point One or in orbit around the planet. So far as GW 5's most carefully watched sensors could reveal, not a single Bug picket was in a position to note its arrival. "The damned Bugs must never've been able to nail down even an approximate location for the point!" Kincaid finished.

Fujiko sniffed, but eschewed any observations about people with a flair for stating the obvious. She should, she reflected, be grateful that the Marine had displayed the uncharacteristic restraint to speak barely above a whisper and not shatter the moment their Crucian allies were enjoying.

Kincaid, in her opinion, was a "cocky Marine" straight from Central Casting. He even affected the close-trimmed mustache favored by male officers of the Marine Raiders. Of course, she thought with a touch of malice for which she knew she ought to be ashamed of herself (but wasn't), that might have something to do with the fact that he isn't a Raider. Survey Flotilla 19 hadn't included any of those elite ground-assault troops, only the ships' Marine detachments. But all Marines liked to fancy themselves Raiders-including a young first lieutenant whose duties hadn't normally included anything more macho than ceremonial honor guards and routine security aboard TFNS Jamaica.

None of which would have bothered Fujiko, except for a certain unfortunate communications delay shortly after contact with the Federation had been reestablished. BuPers had transmitted a raft of overdue promotions . . . and Kincaid's had arrived a few standard days before hers. So for one brief shining moment-as viewed from his standpoint, anyway-they'd been equal in rank. He'd attempted to capitalize on that status with a haste and a lack of subtlety calculated to uphold the Marine image. The attempt had, to put the matter with exquisite tact, been less than successful. Subsequently, it was through sheer bad luck that they'd both been assigned to Fifth Grand Wing. Fujiko had no intention of being the first to break the scrupulously correct behavior they'd both observed since.

Anyway, she told herself, his mustache is so light you can barely see it. I'm surprised he's old enough to grow one!

In a way, though, it's too bad he hasn't made a better job of that mustache. He isn't really all that bad looking otherwise. That narrow waist and that tight little-

Stop that, you twit! He's a conceited, insufferable prick on a testosterone overdose! Just look at that self-satisfied smile of his!

Although sometimes it's a kind of nice smile. Boyish.

I said stop that!

She turned with relief as Shinhaa Harkka approached.

"No sign of any activity in response to our emergence, Wingmaster," she said unnecessarily, simply to be saying something.

"No, there isn't. No surprise, really. Nevertheless, it's good to have confirmation of our supposition that this closed warp point is still unknown to them."

"Right, Wingmaster," and Kincaid said, smiling. "They've got nothing on this side of the local sun-nor any reason to, from their standpoint. We can be on top of the planet before they even know we're here! This could be a virtually bloodless walkover, if it wasn't for-"

All at once, Kincaid's smile froze into embarrassed immobility.

Nice going, Mario! Fujiko thought, mentally gritting her teeth, but Harkka took no apparent offense.

"You're quite correct, Captain Kincaid. Nonetheless, the existence of the Telikan population is a fact, and it renders the so-called 'Shiva Option' out of the question . . . as you are, of course, aware."

"Of course, Wingmaster," Fujiko and Kincaid chorused.

"That," Harkka continued, with no sign of amusement that was visible across the gulf of species, "is the very reason we've ruled out the use of antimatter warheads against surface targets. Telik is to be a test case for dealing with Demon-occupied planets with native sentients. And we of the Star Union have, you might say, a special motivation to find a solution to this hithertofore intractable problem. We believe that, with the help of your Terran BuResearch, we may have done so." He faced Kincaid. "As liaison officer assigned to our landing force, you'll be able to render a full report on how successful we've been."

Kincaid drew himself up an extra centimeter or two-not the most tactful thing for a human to do around Crucians-and his smile was back in full force.

"Yes, Sir!"

Ever since the Enemy had occupied the Franos System, it had been assumed that Telik was next. But after the initial probes, no attack had materialized. It was puzzling. Those whose business it was to speculate about such things had suggested that might have something to do with the Enemy's inexplicable reluctance-observed on several occasions-to apply maximum force to planets with food sources which had previously exhibited tool-using behavior. But the hypothesis remained unproven.

At any rate, the most recent reconnaissance through the warp point suggested that the Enemy forces in Franos consisted entirely of light starships configured to carry small attack craft-useful for deploying those craft in a defensive role, but quite unable to survive a warp point assault.

So Telik remained isolated but unthreatened. The Fleet would, of course, continue to build up forces to a level limited only by the availability of crews. And a large percentage of the planet-based gunboats and small craft would be kept, on a rotating basis, at the warp point to help cover against any possible surprise attack. But there was no need for any special-

But wait. . . . What was this latest sensor reading . . . ?

No!

The jubilation on the flag bridge at the initial strikes' success had been muted by the fact that it wasn't unexpected. Tension aboard GW 5's cloaked starships had been high as they crept cautiously across the light-minutes, concealed within the cloak of invisibility of their ECM. It had been hard for the Crucian fighter pilots to sit in their launch bays and rely on remote probes rather than their own recon fighters, but Harkka had been determined to keep his presence in the system unknown until he reached strike range of his objective. And unlike starships or recon drones, strikefighters couldn't conceal their drive signatures in cloak.

The wingmaster's caution had paid off. His unsuspected carriers had crept so close to Telik before launching that their fighters had gone in completely undetected until it was too late to mount any effective defense. They'd used their primary packs and standard nuclear warheads as precision instruments, taking out the planetary defense centers without inflicting any appreciable losses on the Telikan livestock-Fujiko gagged on the word-but also without the wholesale immolation of the Bug population in antimatter fires that would have induced psychic shock in the remainder.

No such restraints obtained in space. After the annihilation of the planetary kamikaze nests, the fighters had rearmed with antimatter loads and gone after Telik's titanic space station. But that delay had allowed the station to bring its awesome array of weapons on-line, and now the last vestiges of giddiness had departed the flag bridge as the loss figures rolled in.

Shinhaa Harkka turned away, and his expression was cast in cold iron.

"We must break off the attack," he said, and the two humans stared at him with looks of astonishment and-in Kincaid's case-pained disappointment.

"Wingmaster?" Fujiko queried.

Junior officers didn't generally rate explanations from a full admiral, which was what "wingmaster" meant. But the thinly spread SF 19 people had grown accustomed to filling roles three or more rank levels above their own, and the Crucians had grown accustomed to treating them accordingly.

"I cannot allow my fighter strength to be further depleted at this time. Our intelligence analysis, based on observations from the strike on the planetary defense centers and also the reports of our reconnaissance fighters, indicate that a substantial percentage of the planet's gunboat strength was at Warp Point One, reinforcing the mobile units there against the threat they expected to face. Thus, the Demons retain a substantial deep-space capability. Which is on its way here."

Fujiko glanced at the system-scale display. Yes, the scarlet icon of the deep space force was moving away from its station, on a course to intercept the planet's orbit. Her eyes went to the board showing the estimated composition of that force: only one monitor, but ten superdreadnoughts, twenty battlecruisers, and a hundred and six light cruisers. And a swarm of gunboats from the warp point defense force was en route to rendezvous with them.

"Wingmaster," Kincaid said, pointing at the latter, "they've weakened their warp point defenses. If we can get drones through to Franos, maybe Admiral Sung can step up the timetable and break into the system. He's got six hundred F-4s to reinforce us!"

"But," Fujiko reminded the Marine, "he's got no heavy ships-just light carriers and escort carriers. They wouldn't last a minute in a warp point assault against the defenses the Bugs still have in place." She indicated the breakdown of those defenses: forty orbital fortresses, a hundred and eleven heavy cruisers, and sixteen suicide-rider light cruisers, to say nothing of over twenty-eight hundred armed deep-space buoys and eight thousand patterns of mines. "And," she continued, "he's got no SBMHAWKs to blast him a path through all that, because-"

"Because of the haste with which we of the Star Union organized this offensive," Harkka finished for her calmly.

"The demands of other fronts also played a part, Wingmaster," Fujiko assured him, attempting to dilute the implied criticism.

"No doubt. However, the fact remains that Admiral Sung's task force can't support us until it gets into the system-and it can't get into this system until we clear the way for it."

"Catch-22," Kincaid muttered sotto voce.

"Because of that," Harkka continued, "we must fight the Demon deep space force before we can turn our attention to the planet-and I prefer to do so well away from any surviving planet-based kamikazes. Excuse me while I give the necessary orders."

The wingmaster started to turn away . . . but then he paused, and his gaze lingered on the viewscreen, with the little blue dot that had been his race's seemingly unattainable goal for a standard century.

Fujiko had years of experience in dealing with Crucians. But even without it, she could have read Harkka's mind: So near and yet so far. . . .

Kincaid cleared his throat.

"It's only a temporary delay, Wingmaster. We'll be back as soon as we've established control of the system. The Bugs down there are living on borrowed time."

Well, well! Fujiko thought, impressed in spite of herself, and Harkka gave a gesture of pleased gratitude.

"Thank you. You're very understanding. And I understand your eagerness to turn to our real purpose in coming here." He turned away, now all business.

"I didn't think you had it in you, Captain," Fujiko murmured, and Kincaid's grin reawoke.

"Why, thank you, Commander, for what I suppose was a compliment. By the way, shouldn't you be calling me 'Major'? After all, we're aboard a ship, and-"

"The Crucians don't have that tradition," Fujiko cut in coldly. "And it wasn't so much a compliment as an expression of surprise at your lapse into sensitivity-from which, I'm sure you'll recover."

"Oh, the wingmaster was right. He and I understand each other."

The Marine's eyes strayed, and he looked at the blue dot of Telik in much the same way Harkka had.

And Fujiko, too, understood. For Kincaid, that planet represented the chance to finally take part in a planetside assault out of the Marine legends on which he'd been weaned-a chance this mass butchery misnamed a war had offered in all too short supply. Of course, an excellent chance of being killed went with it . . . but only for other people. Like all young men, he was immortal.

"Maybe you do, at that," she said, in a tone very different from the one he was accustomed to hearing from her.

Not that Bugs thought that way, but those in the Telik System had very little to lose.

They came on in the now-familiar "Bughouse Swarm," with the starships englobed by gunboats and small craft, and those thousands of kamikazes made a threat which Fifth Grand Wing had to take seriously. Shinhaa Harkka commanded an impressive number of ships, but the mix of types was decidedly on the light side by the standards of today's battle fleets: no monitors, only four assault carriers, and twenty-four superdreadnoughts, as contrasted with twenty fleet carriers, sixty battleships, forty-two battlecruisers, and ninety of the heavy cruisers the TFN deemed too small for front-line service.

But if the Bugs had even greater motivation than usual-or would have, if they'd been any other race-so did the Crucians. This was the climactic moment of their history, the apocalyptic hour for which they and their parents and grandparents had spent a century preparing themselves. Fujiko had expected Harkka to broadcast some inspirational speech before battle was joined. He hadn't. It would have been superfluous.

And now she and Kincaid watched in a mixture of awe and horror that silenced even the Marine's volubility.

"This isn't war," Kincaid finally breathed. "It's . . . something else."

Fujiko nodded without being conscious she was nodding. The inborn skill of the Crucian fighter pilots was in evidence, as always, but this time it wasn't being employed in the service of rational military calculation.

"If there were a way they could eradicate every Bug cell in this system, they'd try to do it," she said softly.

"Without regard to losses," Kincaid agreed in an equally hushed voice.

Harkka had sent Fifth Grand Wing's entire fighter complement screaming ahead of his ships. But it wasn't so much a shield as a spear. The fighters tore into the layers of gunboats and small craft enveloping the Bug ships, burning a hole like a red-hot poker through insulation, opening a path for the ships.

There was to be no question of any long-range missile bombardment in support of the fighters, as per normal Terran or Orion tactical doctrine. No, the remaining fighters spread out, holding back the walls of the passage they'd opened against the swarming kamikazes outside it, and the two Terrans rode the flagship Fahklid-23 into that tunnel of flame, racing toward the insanely close-range beam-weapon duel that the Crucians, with one will, sought like a sexual consummation.

Afterwards, Fujiko had only the most disjointed memories of that time of thunder.

She knew it had been real, though. Her body gave proof enough, for it ached all over. Fahklid-23 had staggered under repeated impacts that had overloaded her inertial dampers, and they'd been tossed about in the crash frames that had prevented broken bones but not bruises. And the acrid stink of the drying sweat trapped inside her vacsuit told her she had, on some level, felt more fear than she'd been aware of, caught up as she'd been in the Crucians' near-exaltation of bloodlust.

If you can smell yourself, then everybody else can smell you, too, she quipped to herself wearily. Actually, she was doing everything wearily just now. But she fended off the encroaching demands of sleep and made herself study the display.

Fifth Grand Wing was traversing the asteroid belt that girdled Telik's sun at a fifteen light-minute radius, forging outward toward Warp Point One. There would be more Bug-killing to be done there, but it would be anticlimactic. And after the fortresses were no more, Admiral Sung would bring Task Force 93 through. . . .

"Damned good thing, too," Kincaid said, reading her thoughts. He looked more recovered than Fujiko felt, but his expression was unwontedly serious. "We can really use those fighters after the losses we've taken."

"That's for sure. When we return to Telik, the Warmaster's decided-thank God!-to stand off and take out the space station with fighter strikes. And we'll need cover against any surviving kamikazes that might be lurking around."

The last wisps of Kincaid's fatigue evaporated, and his eyes lit up.

"Yes . . . when we return to Telik!"

Fujiko observed his eagerness with amusement-and with a trace of an emotion whose exact nature she found frustratingly difficult to define, but which included worry.