"It's been a tough time. Geoff said quietly.

Closing the door of the bathroom he peeled off the grungy coveralls and stepped into the hot stream of water.

He didn't so much hear it as feel it, a vibration slamming through the building. He turned the shower off and from a far-off distance heard a klaxon. Not bothering to towel off he pulled his coveralls on and opened the door. Banbridge's aide was standing alert by the entry into the admiral's quarters and to Geoff's surprise had a laser pistol up and at the ready. Kevin came out of the bedroom, already up and alert and Geoff could see that the klaxon had triggered him into thinking that there was a scramble alert.

"Stay where you are, sirs," the steward snapped, holding his free hand back for them to remain still. "Something's going on."

Geoff felt defenseless, dressed in nothing more than oil stained coveralls. He knew the aide, besides being Banbridge's personal steward, was also a highly trained Marine commando. He'd have to leave things up to him. The aide quietly spoke into a small lapel mike, receiving orders and information back through a tiny earphone.

What seemed to be an eternity passed and then he saw the man visibly pale, right hand clenching tight around the pistol grip.

The aide looked back at Geoff.

"Sir. Admiral Banbridge, the Chief of Staff, and we don't know how many other officers are dead. The entire top floor of the building has been blown apart."

"Merciful God," Geoff whispered, bowing his head.

"I'm going to keep you secure right here, sir. We have had an incident and we don't know what the hell is going on yet."

An incident, Geoff thought. Most of the fleet's top command were most likely dead and it's called an incident.

"Hunter, break off, break off!"

Ian switched off his visual and audio back to Bannockburn. The order to abandon Paladin was simply too hard to stomach. The wave of Kilrathi fighters was now less than five thousand clicks off and closing in fast, their maneuvering scoops popped wide open to break after the high speed run in from the cruiser that had launched them. There was a slim chance that he might be able to pop off the two fighters on the forward left edge of their sweep, thereby punching a hole through for Paladin to follow.

He could imagine that Paladin was swearing a blue streak at the moment, but to hell with him if he didn't want to be saved.

Ian turned in towards the approaching fighters, toggled up his IFF missiles and dumped them off in a long range spread to stir things up. The missiles leaped forward and several of the approaching Kilrathi fighters pulled into sharp turns. As soon as the tail of the nearest one was exposed Hunter fired off an infrared tracker which instantly locked on to the fighter's engines which were glowing white hot from the high speed approach. The missile slammed up the exhaust nozzle of the fighter and detonated.

First kill of the new war, he thought grimly.

Within seconds the fight was on. several Dralthi fighters peeling off to swing in on Hunter, while the forward edge of the strike, six Grikath fighters, pushed straight on towards Bannockburn. Paladin let loose with his remaining salvo of flechettes and then toggled off a battery of IFFs from his gatling mount missile launcher. Space was a mad confusion of explosions and Ian pulled a tight turn to try and shake off an incoming infra tracker, firing off a flare, which the missile went for, detonating silently a kilometer behind him.

A Grikath shot directly across his starboard bow and with a perfectly timed deflection Ian nailed him solidly amidships and turned inside of the Cat, firing three more rapid mass driver rounds into the Grikath which blew apart.

He spared a quick glance at his tactical display and saw that the Kilrathi cruisers were spread out into an open sweep, coming up behind the wave of fighters in case there was anything still to be finished off. Behind them more than a dozen patrol craft and a light frigate were coming in as a second wave, while from the other direction half a dozen patrol corvettes were closing, pushing Bannockburn into the trap. A wave of fast moving fighters was moving ahead, above, and below to close the trap.

With a sickening finality he realized the futility of the gesture he had just offered. The game was up. He switched back on to Paladin's channel.

"Not looking good, buddy."

"Hunter, break free, make the run, I'll provide support."

"Like hell, they're on me, now run for it and get that damn information out, otherwise this whole thing is useless."

"Hunter, damn it, get the hell . . ."

"I think its the other way around, buddy, I'll cover you, now run for it. When you get to the Vacuum Breathers buddy, lift the first round for me."

"Hunter!"

He punched ahead of Bannockburn, moving to break up the forward screen so Paladin could slip through

A spread of half a dozen missiles leaped forward from the next Kilrathi attack group, the new IFF and radar trackers. Ian swallowed hard and keyed up his own transponder to draw the missiles in.

The warbling tone in Ian's head set clicked to a steady hum, increasing in pitch. The incoming were all locked on to his ship. He pulled up hard, leading the missiles away from Bannockburn.

"Pop out, Ian!" Paladin shouted, and then there was another voice on the radio.

"Green two, Green two, this is Green one, strike on the way."

Ian started to reach down to pull the ejector D ring when he saw a fighter lining up to hit Bannockburn from above.

He dropped the ring, lined up on the target and toggled off the one missile strapped beneath his fighter. Even as it streaked away he knew the game had finally caught up with him at last. He bit down hard on his cigar and closed his eyes.

Six Kilrathi IFF's impacted across the stern of Ian Hunter St. John's Ferret.

Jason leaned over the tactical display on the screen, watching as Normandy launched her fighters. Already one of the cruisers was turning back around as he cleared the north pole of the planet at an altitude of three hundred clicks, just barely skimming above the edge of the atmosphere, accelerating fast.

If only I had a full bay of fighters, he cursed silently, we'd swamp them under. Normandy had already launched her full load of fighters, twenty, and Doomsday along with two other pilots had taken out the remaining three fighters in his own bay. He could already sense that this was going to he a ship-to-ship action and he didn't relish the idea of facing a cruiser head on with a light escort carrier.

"Knew you wouldn't leave me in the lurch, laddie."

Paladin's wavery image appeared on the screen.

"You certainly brought along enough company, Paladin."

"Aye, that I did. Get ready for a coded burst, unscramble it and you'll see why."

Seconds later the signal came through and Jason turned to watch his communications officer decode it. He started to see the holo read out and turned to one of his watch officers.

"Get down that corridor fast and tell those gorillas guarding the door to send Vance up here on the double!"

"Fighters are breaking off from attack on Paladin, returning to cover cruiser," the combat information officer announced, looking back at Jason.

They must have detected the burst signal and realized we're carrying the football now, Jason thought.

"I already got it on our system," Vance said, coming on to the bridge and Jason realized that with the gear down in the fighter bay Vance would already know.

"Look at the size of those damn ships," Jason whispered, and he looked back at Vance who was intently studying the screen.

"Should we send the signal?" Vance asked.

Jason looked back at the holo. Their cover was fully blown now. He knew that was the end result the moment he made the decision to come up and save Paladin. He knew as well that if Paladin had come back empty-handed he would be in very hot water for having blown the mission cover just to save a friend. But then again it was extremely difficult to argue with success, and his decision would now be viewed as the right move and the personal reasons for Paladin and Ian forgotten.

The Kilrathi already had a visual lock on his ship. Within seconds they'd known the type and model and would quickly figure out it was Tarawa with Normandy right alongside. The antenna array atop his carrier would definitely tip them off as well as to the mission of his ship. If not for the information they had, it would be a diplomatic explosion. There was no sense in giving the Kilrathi the first jump on that front. If the information was released after the Kilrathi started screaming about the border violation the information might be dismissed as an attempt to cover up.

"Send it out now," Jason said.

"Good decision, son," Vance said with a grin and he turned back towards the flight deck. A minute later Jason noticed the momentary flicker in the ship's— battle lighting as the translight burst signal went out, repeated a minute later by a second burst for good measure.

All three cruisers had now come about and were closing in, the ranging indicator marking down the rapid drop in range. The forward spread of Normandy's fighters closed with the Kilrathi fighters launched from the cruiser and the fight was on. The edge on skill was clearly on the side of the colonial and ex-fleet pilots, deployed out to take on the heavy cruiser and its lighter escort.

One of the cruisers, however, pushed on through and Jason felt the cold sweat start to streak down his back as he sat on the bridge, waiting for the Kilrathi cruiser batteries to open up. He had never fought a carrier in a head to head engagement and he longed for a joystick and throttle, rather than the cumbersome relaying of orders.

The first volley of missiles spread out from the lead cruiser, even while the second one in line exploded from the direct hit of a torpedo spread from a Broadsword.

We've got four incoming warheads," the combat information center officer announced, "blowing chaff, flares, and radar noise makers."

"All weapons fire," Jason announced, struggling to keep his voice calm.

Mass driver cannon mounted forward went into action, a volley of torpedoes leaping out from the forward launch tubes. The range was below a hundred kilometers and closing.

"Helm ten degrees to port, fifty degrees down." He started a curving turn downwards and then countered the order, bringing his carrier straight back up towards the underside of the rear cruiser.

"Torpedo attack diverting," combat information announced, "regaining lock on Normandy."

Several Kilrathi fighters raced across his bow, dropping missiles, the weapons impacting on the forward shield.

"Normandy's in trouble!"

Jason turned to look back at his communications officer and then toggled over to a damage display of his sister ship.

A torpedo from the first spread impacted on his sister ship's bow. Forward shielding was gone. Two colonial fighters on close in escort maneuvered and rammed two of the next spread of torpedoes coming out from the Kilrathi cruiser while Normandy fired a spread in return.

The torpedoes crossed each other's paths and seconds later Normandy and the enemy cruiser fireballed, the two ships so close that the explosion merged into one vast expanding cloud of white hot flame.

A colonial fighter came through the wreckage, spinning wildly. The pilot, however, was still able to maintain some control and he aimed his craft straight in at the cruiser in front of Jason. Punching on afterburners the modified Ferret slammed straight into the Kilrathi bridge.

"Damn," Jason whispered. Within seconds he had seen three colonial pilots go kamikaze.

The enemy cruiser started to rupture along its bow, internal explosions detonating off from the blow. Half a dozen fighters swung in front of the cruiser, matching speed so as to hover, and ignoring the defensive fire they poured mass driver rounds into the ruptured hull. The cruiser started to disintegrate, mass driver rounds punching clean through the hull and the ship detonated, taking another colonial fighter with it.

The explosion from Normandy was still spreading out and Jason realized he had just under twenty strike craft out there, some of them still engaged in eliminating the rest of the fighters, others moving forward to provide cover for Bannockburn, or pursuing the light corvettes and patrol craft.

Jason left the bridge and headed down the corridor to the fighter bay, stopping before the ever present guards and waiting impatiently until they brought Vance out.

"I want your gear torn up and moved out of the way for fighter recovery," Jason said.

"What?"

"You heard me, Admiral. I've got twenty fighters out there, some of them undoubtably hurt and I plan to recover them."

"Jason, it'll take days to disassemble the D-5. Most of it is hard wired into the floor."

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't have days, for some of those ships I might only have minutes. D-5 has to be moved."

Vance started to bristle.

"Son, there's billions of dollars' worth of equipment in there. Enough money to buy a couple of hundred fighters. Tell your pilots to eject and we'll pick them up."

"I'm sorry, sir, that's not the way it's going to be. Those are colonial fighters and I'm not going to go back and tell Kruger that we ditched them to save a surveillance computer which has already done its job. Beyond that, if we don't have those fighters for the run back home, I don't think we'll make it. We've put a real burr in the ear of the Cats and they'll want our hides as vengeance. This is going to be a running fight all the way home."

"Listen, son, I hate to pull rank, but I think you should know I'm a full admiral in the fleet."

"I know that, sir, but I am captain of this ship."

Vance looked at him appraisingly and after a brief span of seconds, which to Jason seemed like an eternity, a thin smile creased Admiral Vance Richards' face.

"Aye aye, sir. I'll have a landing area cleared."

Jason inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, sir," and he headed back to the bridge.

"Message for you, sir."

Jason nodded and went over to the communications officer and saw that Paladin had established a laser link.

"Thanks, laddie."

Jason sensed that something wasn't right.

"Are you all right?"

Paladin nodded and then lowered his head for a second.

"Jason. Ian's gone."

Jason felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. He stood silent

"I told the lad to run for it, he stayed to get me out instead. They burned him with a missile spread meant for me."

"Damn it all to hell," Jason whispered.

"Aye, lad, damn all of it," Paladin sighed.

There was a moment of silence and then Paladin finally stirred.

"By the way, did you get the message out?"

"On its way."

"I think the old proverbial manure is about to hit the fan when that arrives."

"It's only just started," Jason replied coldly, remembering the holo display of the new Kilrathi carriers. He realized that chances were they might already be heading to Earth. The armistice was a fraud as he always knew it was, and by falling for it, the Confederation might very well have lost the war. But for the moment it was hard to think of that. He had just lost one of his closest friends and that was all that he could grasp.

"Sire, there has been an accident."

Jukaga looked up from his desk at the aide who was bowed low, trembling.

"Go on."

"Sire, we've just received a burst signal that the Emperor's personal cruiser suffered a reactor detonation, and that all aboard are lost."

"Oh, really, how tragic."

The aide looked up at him, confused by his tone.

"You are dismissed," and he turned away, barely able to hide a flashing of teeth in satisfaction. So it had worked as planned. Getting a reactor fuel tube aboard, with the tiniest of pinholes drilled into it, had been a chore. The fuel rod had been a trick thought up years ago, the idea being to have smuggler craft carry it into the frontier region and sell them off, with the hope that the rods would eventually wind up on Confederation ships. The rod would then rupture in the white hot heat of the pulse engine reactor and cause a chain reaction detonation. The idea never worked, but he always remembered where they were stockpiled while everyone else forgot. It had taken a little maneuvering of computer shipping files to get it into the right place, knowing that the Emperor's ship never left Kilrah without an entirely new load of rods on board.

He smiled. Yes, that had been masterful, and it helped when one of your own deep agents worked on ship maintenance. Fortunately, the poor fool never even really knew what he was doing, which made the plan leak-proof.

A moment later there was a flurry of angry roars in the corridor outside. As he stood up the door slammed open.

Prince Thrakhath strode into the room.

Baron Jukaga knew that in spite of all his effort at self-control his mane was bristling with fear. He struggled to bring it under control.

"Surprised to see me?" Thrakhath growled.

Jukaga stood, speechless and then finally recovered.

"I just heard of the tragedy, the Emperor?"

Better than you had hoped for," Thrakhath snarled.

"Whatever do you mean, my Prince?" Jukaga replied, angry with himself that there was the slightest of tremors in his voice.

"That is for you to figure out," Thrakhath stated coldly.

"I don t understand what you are moving towards.

Thrakhath stood silent, eyeing him coldly. He could see the Baron regain his self control. What was enraging was the simple fact that the Emperor, through intuition or information had suspected that his ship would be destroyed, but as to how it would be done they had never figured out, and still did not know and most likely never would. His only real hope had been to so startle the Baron as to make him say something foolish and incriminating and that, Thrakhath could already see, had failed. It was obvious now that the Baron will claim that he was being blamed unjustly. If directly accused, the other clans might very well rally to his side as they had once before after Vukar.

Thrakhath snarled angrily, seeing that his bluff had failed.

Thrakhath, still glaring at Jukaga, waited for him to speak.

"What are these two reports I just received," Jukaga finally said, motioning to his comm screen. "regarding a bombing on Earth and that the spy ship was located too late before it sent a burst signal out?"

"It means that we have to move for war now."

"That is madness," Jukaga snapped, regaining his full composure. "The plan called for another four and a half eight-of-eights of days."

"Impossible now," Thrakhath replied. "Many of the humans are already blaming us for the bombing, and with the information regarding our fleet it means a renewal of war."

Thrakhath smiled.

"And an end to your weak scheming."

"What is the truth about this bombing?" Jukaga asked coldly.

"Oh, undoubtedly one of their own did it and then will blame it on us. Perhaps the attempt on the Emperor can be linked to it."

Jukaga hesitated.

"They would never do that, kill their own military leaders like that. There's more to it than that."

"Are you accusing me?" Thrakhath snapped.

Jukaga looked at him coldly but knew it was best to back off.

"And how did this signal get out? We suspected the carrier was in that system and we knew that their scout ship was running back towards it. How could this have happened? There should have been a carrier and a full cruiser squadron there."

"And are you accusing me of a fault in that as well?" Thrakhath asked quietly.

"You don't understand at all, do you?" Jukaga finally replied. "If we had but waited the year, they would have fallen into our hands, weak and divided. Now, they will feel nothing but rage at a betrayal of their trust, they will fight with a fanaticism you have never seen.

"Remember I warned your father and uncle of this back when the war started and they so foolishly decided to open with a surprise attack."

"Then it is your job to disarm them of this fanaticism, and if you fail and they do not submit . . ."

"Then what?" Jukaga snarled

"I will annihilate their worlds and no one will be left alive, no one, and you will be responsible."