The two stopped and turned, fixing the Baron with hate-filled eyes.

"Jukaga, either one of us could cut your guts out and spill them on the floor for the rats to eat," Vak said coldly. "You of the Ki'ra hrai are weaklings compared to either the Qarg the Ragitagha, or any of the other families."

"And if you did," Jukaga replied smoothly, "then you truly would have civil war and the humans would finish up with what was left."

"Sit down," Baron Ka'ta of the Kurutak clan hissed, "Baron Jukaga is right. Let us listen to him first."

Jukaga nodded his thanks to Ka'ta. At least he knew that the Ka'ta out of all the eight families of the Empire was solidly behind him. It was almost amusing. The Kurutak, along with the Sihkag, had always been viewed as the lowest of the eight, their blood never considered as thick. It was almost a guarantee that when approached by his own clan, the ancient family of Ki'ra, that the Kurutak would grovel over the honor of being treated as equals. It was a mistake the Kiranka, the clan or hrai of the Emperor, never realized in their treatment of those residing in the royal palace. In public, of course, the positions of dominance and submission were closely observed during audiences and open ritual, but in private, it was something else, especially when all the other families viewed the Emperor's line as no better than their own.

"This petty feud between the clan of Vak and that of the Qarg is to stop here and now," Jukaga announced. "It is a disgrace that royal blood has been spilled like this in feuds within the confines of the Imperial Palace. Five of the Qarg have died in duels and five of the Ragitagha. It is enough and it is finished."

Vak started to open his mouth and Jukaga extended his paw, talons retracted in a sign of peace.

"It is enough," he said quietly.

"You are not the Emperor," Vak replied, "you have not the power to order me or Qar'ka to stop," and he looked across the table at Qar'ka, whom only a moment ago he would have gladly knifed, for support.

Qar'ka nodded his head in agreement.

The Baron inwardly sighed. The fools, could they not see the weakness revealed in that simple statement? It was something he had learned in his years of study and it had come to him with a crystal clarity. The wars against other races, the ritual of Sivar, were designed above all else as a civilizing factor to the race of the Kilrathi, to quite simply keep them from killing each other. Aggressive combat, the instinct to hunt and to kill was far too close to the surface. Within the hrai, the clan and families were controlled by the rigid system of caste. But the clan instinct only extended as far as the clan. Though all might espouse the concept that they were Kilrathi it was only in the face of a prey outside of themselves. War and Sivar were essential for the survival of the race, to keep it from killing itself off and nothing more. It was something he did not discuss, for to even question the divinity of Sivar as nothing more than a social tool would be his ruin.

All the wars had so well served that purpose, the humans, the Hari, the Gorth, Sorn, Ka, and Utara. Thank Sivar for the Utara who in their foolishness had come to Kilrah in peace, gave them space travel as a friendly gesture, and died as a result. If it had not been so, we would have destroyed ourselves when the secret of atomics came into our hands, the Baron thought, even as he surveyed the other clan leaders in the room. Aggressive races rarely survived the move into technology and made it to the point where space offered them an outlet.

He looked around the table. Qar'ka was a fool, Vak not much better; they would not see such things. All they knew was that there was no war for the moment and the pressure within their own hrai was building, petty quarreling, long forgotten feuds building to the flashing of claw daggers. And yet, when Vak had turned to Qar'ka and offered him Jukaga as an opponent that they could unite against, Qar'ka was ready to agree.

"The feuding in the palace must stop," Jukaga said coldly. his mane still flushed outward.

"And I say you are not the Emperor to so order me," Vak snapped in reply.

Jukaga smiled.

"Is he really our Emperor?"

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Are you mad?" Qar'ka asked

"He and that fool grandson have led us into one too many disasters," Jukaga replied coldly.

"How many of us have lost our sons, the best of our hrai, to the Terrans? How many of us have listened to our first chosen ones and concubines crying at night, their faces buried in their pillows to muffle the sobs, crying for those lost in this war?"

The other hrai leaders lowered their heads and even Vak, who only moments before wanted to knife him, nodded in agreement.

"Vak, you lost your first born of your first litter at Vukar Tag, I know, I saw his gallantry, his heroic death when he tried to ram the enemy carrier. He died kabaka, his soul winging to Sivar for his courage."

Vak looked up at Jukaga, his eyes cold with anger at the wasted death of his eldest son. Jukaga almost felt guilty for so easily manipulating him thus.

"He would be alive today, sitting by your side, sharing your feasting cup but for the Emperor. It was the Emperor that ordered the splitting of the fleet and Thrakhath agreed. If all our carriers were there for that fight we would have smashed the Confederation and pressed the war to victory. I was blamed and you now know the lie of that. I languished in exile, expecting at any moment that the Emperor's poisoner would come."

He looked around the room and stood up.

"We must stay united, we must control our hrai and stop this petty feuding which threatens to turn the palace into a slaughter pit. Don't you think the Emperor is quietly encouraging us thus to fight against each other, to thus keep us from standing united against him?"

He could see more than one nod of agreement to his statement and smiled

"Then start the war now!" Qar'ka snarled. "End this ridiculous farce. We have lulled the humans to sleep, now let us rip their throats out and be done with it."

Qar'ka hesitated for a moment as if not willing to speak.

"We must finish it before the Mantu return," he said quietly, "and take us in the back while we still fight the Confederation."

The others looked over nervously at Qar'ka and then back to Jukaga

Jukaga nodded and said nothing. Just after the defeat at Vukar, a report had come in from a deep space remote probe, far beyond the edge of Hari space, a probe so far removed that it had taken a year even to bring it in. There was an indication that the Mantu, who had once before invaded Kilrathi space, had completed their war against an unknown neighbor and might very well return. Seventy years past there had been a brief encounter with them, and though the fight had been a draw, it was suspected that the Mantu might in fact be far superior in their weapons technology. They had disappeared, drawing back to fight other foes, but it was always suspected that there would come a day when the Mantu might turn their full attention on the Empire, a concern that deeply troubled Jukaga as he watched their resources being spilled against the humans.

Jukaga turned away and pointed at a long list of figures displayed by a holo projector.

"This war against the Confederation has lasted over thirty years, the borders barely shifting after our first gains. War is not just fighting, it is economics, and resources, and production and morale and perhaps most importantly the learning of the way our enemy thinks. I know some of you might scoff at such concerns but that last factor has been my chief concern and responsibility."

"You and the nobles of your hrai have remained safe at home, playing with numbers and reading while we spill our blood," Vak laughed coldly.

"Without the weapons my hrai designed and the intelligence my spies and remote devices have gained, you would have been frozen meat floating in space," Jukaga replied.

"He speaks the truth," Talmak of the Sutaghi interjected before Vak could reply. "Now let him finish. If Thrakhath had listened to Jukaga's concerns before Vukar the battle would have turned out far differently."

"The war had become a balanced match without end in sight until now," Jukaga continued. "We almost had the edge until Vukar and their raid to our base on our moon. If it had not been for Thrakhath and the Emperor, as I already said, we might very well have taken Earth.

"Earth, that has always been the key, and Thrakhath forgot that. A human warrior once wrote that in war one must find the focal point that will cause the collapse of his enemy and then throw all resources against it

"This time I want no mistakes. Give this armistice just a little more time until the enemy is asleep and our secret fleet is completed. Let the fools get used to peace. Let them believe in this friendship. Let our secret fleet continue to be built even as we make a show of decommissioning our current ships. Then we will strike and crush them."

"But the Sivar," Vak replied. "Where is the Sivar to be this year? Our people demand that."

"You have the prisoners that we have kept hidden, do it to them," Jukaga replied coldly.

"Prisoners, there is no honor in that. I still say that in eight eight of days, when Sivar comes, then we should launch our strike and turn the rivers of Earth red with the blood of the slaughter."

"And I tell you that it must be yet five eighty of days. Look at the charts, can't you see the truth in them?" and he pointed to the wall."

"War is not simple numbers, it is blood," Vak snorted.

"Four more carriers at Vukar is a simple number, Vak and that number is the difference between your first born still floating in space, his body unclaimed, versus his living and breathing this day."

Vak snarled and Jukaga was not sure for a moment if the anger was aimed at him, or at the humiliation over the useless death of a son.

"Listen to me, my takhars," and he deliberately chose the word which meant brothers of equal rank. He looked around the room and saw that even Vak was at last willing to listen, unable to argue with the cold facts of numbers.

"Let the plan unfold. When the time is ripe, over a dozen carriers will leap forward, slashing through their near defenseless border region. Before they can even hope to mobilize, we will jump straight to Earth, and there I promise you a slaughter like no other. In our plan we already have our agents at work, weakening their will to fight, ready as well to kill their leaders of war when the time is right. When we cut the heart out of the Terran Confederation, then in the years to come we can go at our leisure from planet to planet, saving some for Sivar, others destroying if they are a threat. Thus we will win, and thus we will be ready as well if our old enemy the Mantu should again return."

He settled back in his chair and waited. Vak looked around the room, saw the nods of agreement and finally lowered his head.

"The feud stops, you have my support," he said quietly.

Jukaga did not allow himself to show his teeth in a gesture of triumph.

"Then I have the promise of all of you to control your hrai in the palace."

"It will be difficult, but it will be done," Qar'ka finally said. "But what of your other words about the Emperor?"

Jukaga nodded.

"In the days to come just consider this. He is old, he will not live forever. When he goes to his fathers, Thrakhath will take the golden throne. Given the leadership both have shown, do we truly want them to lead us to our final victory, or even more importantly against the threat of the Mantu if they should return?"

"Are you suggesting the breaking of our oath-sworn word?" Vak asked.

Jukaga slowly shook his head.

"Just that I want you to consider my question, nothing more, Jukaga replied. "Other than that I suggest nothing."

Vak smiled, and for an instant Jukaga was not sure if it was a sign of aggression at himself or towards the Emperor and without another word he got up and strode from the room, the other clan leaders following.

Jukaga sighed with relief as the door closed behind them. How the feuds had truly started was all too evident. The Emperor had manipulated the hrai of Vak into feeling slighted at the court rituals by the other clans. He had not intervened when blood started to spill as a result.

It was masterful on the Emperor's part, keeping the clans from uniting and turning their aggressive energy against him. Jukaga closed his eyes to clear his thoughts.

The Emperor by now must see the threat forming. The Emperor must somehow sense that he was actually contemplating the unthinkable, the actual elimination of the Imperial line. If the war was on, such an act would be absolutely intolerable, in peace it might just be successful. The Emperor therefore needed peace to finish the building of the fleet, but at the same time needed war to secure his throne.

Jukaga reached over to a side table and poured himself a cup of wine and quietly lapped it up. And yet there was far more. If he had learned anything from his study of the humans, it was that there was more than one way to win a war. Direct and brutal combat was the only thing the Kilrathi knew and understood. Yet there were so many other ways. It was already evident that the humans were weakening themselves in a foolish bid for peace. A year from now, if all could be kept quiet they would cripple themselves beyond all hope of recall.

If he could eliminate the Emperor and the Prince, and then personally lead the new fleet into Terran space they would most likely capitulate in despair. Thus the fleet would be preserved. For if the Mantu were coming, the fleet, and far more beyond it, would be needed to stop them; a subjugated race of humans, and the vast resources they controlled, would help in that survival. The Emperor was too much a Kilrathi to see that. Brutal all-out war was the only path the Kilrathi had ever understood. It had, for so long, been the fundamental key to their success. Now, it might very well be the path to their destruction, fighting themselves to exhaustion only to then be conquered by others. He even half suspected that this was part of the Mantu plan, for surely they must know what was going on.

The Emperor would have to go, it was that simple, and he found that he could indeed contemplate something that the humans so often practiced in their political struggles but which was unknown to the Kilrathi, political assassination of a superior without direct confrontation and challenge.

As he contemplated he smiled remembering his favorite readings of the human English author and his play MacBeth. It was that reading which had first planted the thought

Tolwyn. The English race of humans and their cousins the Americans were an interesting study. So violent but also so imbued with a strange idealism. Tolwyn fascinated him, a cultured man, and yet a complete warrior.

He knew that there was something hidden behind the downfall of Tolwyn's career, and his reported move to the Landreich reinforced that. Tolwyn was too honorable to break the old English code of warfare with its bizarre notion of fair play and rules. He was following orders from someone above him, to be removed so he could go to the Landreich. But for what?

Jukaga called up a holo map of the Landreich sector and its jump point pathways into the Empire.

The realization finally came. Tolwyn was being sent out as a spy, to try to find the fleet, and if discovered, his link to the government could be denied

"Masterful," Jukaga said softly. The information matched into the report he had obtained from one of his operatives inside Thrakhath's military intelligence. Thrakhath must have surmised this concern as well, and thus sent out a precious Stealth to investigate.

Tolwyn had to be blocked. If the humans found out the truth, the peace would indeed be shattered, the timing of his own plans destroyed. Though he hated to do it, he would have to send a message to Thrakhath outlining his concerns for security and to recommend that it be doubled.

Tolwyn was a fascinating challenge, a worthy foe. Though he would not openly admit it even to himself, he was finding in his heart that the humans were a race he had almost come to like, and more importantly, a race he was even willing to spare in his own quest for power.

"Well look what the birds dragged in," Jason laughed, trying to conceal the fact that he had been sweating out the last twenty hours, increasingly convinced that his old friend had bought a permanent piece of space.

K'Kai, ignoring Jason's teasing remark, led Ian up to the bar. Ian looked around the room with a grin, though Jason could see that the rescued pilot had most definitely had the wits scared out of him.

"Yeah, I know, the drinks are an on me, "Ian announced, and a cheer went up from the pilots who swarmed up to the bar. Ian looked around a bit glumly, realizing that the old fleet tradition could be rather expensive.

"I'll have this thing Ian talks so much about, a single malt scotch," K'Kai announced

The bartender looked at Ian.

"For that kind of sippin' liquor it's ten dollars for a shot."

"Give it to her," Ian sighed, "the bird was the one that rescued me.

The bartender seemed to relax a bit, especially when Jason reached into his pocket and fished out a wad of bills, hard Confederation currency, and tossed them on the counter.

"I don't think you've got much change on you at the moment, Jason said looking over at Ian. "You can pay me back later."

Ian nodded his thanks and called for a Scotch as well, downing it in one gulp. He looked over at Jason and smiled weakly.

"I was scared out of my wits," Ian said quietly. "Maybe I might have been able to dodge that second missile, but it just kept boring in on me. When I popped out of there my ship was already blowing."

Jason could easily see that by the scorching on Ian's flightsuit.

"By popping up at the last second I had enough forward velocity to go into a low orbit around the moon. I looped over a mountain range not clearing it by a thousand meters. Every time I circled the moon my orbit kept degrading until finally the mountain range was straight ahead and I knew I was going to slam in. If K'Kai had gotten there thirty seconds later I'd have been splattered. Her tractor beam caught me just in time."

He raised his glass and Jason could see the trembling which Ian struggled to control. Everyone who flew experienced it sooner or later, especially with the life expectancy of pilots being what it was. There was a point though when one too many close brushes simply drained the well dry. If they were back with the Confed Fleet, Ian would have been in to the psych officer and most likely stood down for a couple of weeks of R&R before being sent back in. But there wasn't any time, and in this stripped down fleet a psych officer was a luxury that Kruger would have considered pure idiocy.

"Captain Bondarevsky, Captain St. John?"

The two looked over their shoulders at a colonial officer.

"You got us."

"You're wanted by Kruger."

"On our way," Hunter said, forcing a smile.

Jason looked around at the bar, fished into his pocket and pulled out what he had left and tossed it to the bartender.

"Keep it flowing on me till the money runs out"

The colonial pilots cheered a thanks, as Jason left. Hunter looked back at K'Kai, and silently nodded a thanks as he went out the door.

The bar was conveniently across the street from the entry into the command post. Following their guide they passed the security guards and went back down into the basement command post.

Kruger and Tolwyn looked up as Ian and Jason came into the room.

"Glad you're alive," Geoff said.

"So am I."

"But you lost a Sabre," Kruger interjected, "a first line ship in return for one Kilrathi Stealth, not a good trade in my book at all."

"Return with your shield or upon it, is that it?" Ian said dryly.

"Something like that," Kruger retorted. "You Confed boys might think it's all right to blow a ship apart or prang one up on a bad landing, get out, and then have another one handed to you, but out here it's different. We're at the butt end of any supplies. With your asinine Confed signing that article 23 of the armistice forbidding the resale of fighter aircraft, a Sabre is precious."

"Sorry," Ian replied, "next time I'll make sure to blow up with my ship."

"At least we know about their new missile," Tolwyn interjected, while pouring himself a cup of tea and motioning for Ian to come over and join him.

"You go too easy on your boys," Kruger said, looking over at Tolwyn. Jason found it hard to suppress a low chuckle.

"Something I say amusing to you, mister?" Kruger asked, looking back at Jason.

"As a matter of fact, yes, sir," Jason replied.

Kruger looked at him coldly and again Jason found himself wondering if his honesty would get him into hot water. Whether Kruger could really discipline him or not was problematic, he was after all a "volunteer" in the Landreich's Free Corp, not even officially sworn in, but he did suspect the gaunt one-eyed leader could make life difficult.

"We've got a little surprise for you two," Tolwyn said handing a cup of tea to Ian and moving to get between Jason and Kruger. Glad for the excuse to break eye contact Jason focused his attention on Tolwyn.

"What is it, sir?"

"The special equipment we were hoping to get made it out of the Confederation and will arrive here tomorrow. It's the real reason I wanted to get these carriers out here," and he looked over at a frowning Kruger and smiled "besides helping out our allies in the Landreich.

"Therefore Tarawa and Normandy aren't going out on forward patrol with the other three carriers."

"Why, sir?" and the disappointment in Jason's voice was evident.

"I couldn't let you in on it till now, but your ship has been selected for the real mission. Let's head up there now, Paladin's moved over from Normandy and he's already on board waiting for us."

"What is it, sir?" Jason asked, feeling like a child who was being held back from looking under the Christmas tree.

"Let's just say we've decided to add to Tarawa a little something special that just came in."