The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 129 —

Turtle's squadron charged in toward M. Tennica anchor point. The lead vessel shot off down the M. Lakica strand, taking up the countdown transmission. Delicate Harmony and the others shot off along the strand to A. Tellurica, where the squadron then scattered. Two ships remained with Delicate Harmony, one running ahead, one behind. Just in case.

Turtle followed the progress of VII Gemina closely. The Guardship was running the most direct strands toward S. Alisonica. But that meant nothing yet. WarAvocat might be pretending. No telling what he would do if he shook Hunger of the Destroyer. Which he might. He was running so hard that even riding the red on the edge of disaster Hunger was falling back. The race might go to whichever ship lasted longest without a malfunction.

Hunger's commander needed not taunt fortune forever. He needed to maintain contact only till pickets spotted the Guardship headed toward an operational region.

Maybe WarAvocat wanted it known he was coming. He had no reason to suspect that countdown was a lie and zero was the time when all opening phases were supposed to be complete.

The days fled. There was little to do but wait and watch and worry about how he would arrange matters so he and the hostages could get out alive.

Delicate Harmony and its companions broke off the Web and began the long starspace crawl to the loose strand connecting Gateway and Starbase, chasing the attack fleet, which had departed its assembly point three days earlier.

VII Gemina was running toward Capitola Primagenia still.

The pieces were falling into place, smoothly and on time.