They were near the original coordinates of the Kilrathi fleet, which thankfully was moving away at full speed toward a nearby jump point. Blue and Green Squadrons, after maintaining a prolonged diversionary action against Thrakhath's flagship, had returned to Victory. Gold Squadron remained out, however, searching for a lost sheep.

Incredibly, only Beast Jaeger's fighter was confirmed as destroyed in battle, though several of the others were in terrible shape. How Hobbes still flew at all was a mystery, and Vaquero's weapons systems finally overloaded in the last fight against the Strakha. But one of the Thunderbolts remained missing, and Blair ordered Gold Squadron to spread out and search for the missing man . . . or some sign of his fate.

Lieutenant Alexander Sanders. callsign Sandman . . . Blair never really knew him. He had served as Maniac's wingman throughout the current deployment and spent most of his off-duty hours hanging with Marshall. Although he always struck Blair as a complete opposite to Maniac — steady, dependable, loyal, reliable — Sanders and Marshall were good friends as well as wingmates. Neither Blair nor the lieutenant were very comfortable with each other as a result of the on going feud dividing the colonel from the major.

Now it looked as if Blair would never get a chance to know the man. Maniac had allowed himself to be separated from his wingman in the battle with the Kilrathi escort squadron while Cobra covered herself after Jaeger's death, so no one saw Sandman fighting. He might have been destroyed, or simply damaged and left adrift . . . or he might have ejected from his fighter. Until they were sure, they had to look.

A refueling shuttle arrived from Victory to rendezvous with the squadron and top off their tanks, and now the eight remaining fighters were to form a broad search pattern, hunting for some signs of the lost pilot. They were barely within sensor range of each other, and the comm channels were mostly quiet. Everyone knew the mission had failed. Everyone was exhausted by hours of continuous stress and tension punctuated by more fighting than any of them had seen in a long, long time.

"Bad news, Colonel," Cobra broke into his reverie. "I've got a debris field here. Material analysis reads consistent with a Thunderbolt's hull armor . . . It's gotta be Sandy's."

"You're sure it isn't part of Jaeger's ship?"

"No way, sir. Too far from where Beast caught it."

"Start a close scan, Cobra. If there's an escape pod around there, find it.

"I'll try, sir, but you know the cats. If they spot a pilot after he ejects, they'll either blast him where they find him or tractor him in for interrogation and a sporting death entertaining a ship's nobles."

"Check it out, anyway, Lieutenant. If there's any chance Sandman's still alive, I want to find him." Blair paused. "All fighters, from Leader. Converge on Cobra's beacon and concentrate your search there."

Bringing the fighter around, he increased his thrust. Cobra was right, of course. The odds against finding Sanders alive were too high a bet for anyone but a blind optimist, but he had to try.

It was a pitiful gesture set against his failure defending the colony, but it was all he could do right now.

"Approaching Gold Squadron's search grid now, sir."

"Very good, Mr. DuBois," Eisen acknowledged the helmsman's report. "Go to station-keeping. Sensors to full sweep. Let's help the Colonel look for his man. Any word, Lieutenant Rollins?"

"Nothing from Gold Squadron, sir." Rollins turned in his chair to face the captain. "Coventry's broadcasting updates on the Kilrathi fleet. Several of their ships have jumped, but it looks like Sar'hrai is delaying. Probably to pick up stragglers from the cat fighter strike. If we teamed up with the cruiser, sir, we might get a few licks in . . ."

"This is a carrier, not a dreadnought, Lieutenant," Eisen told him. "A carrier with a fighter wing that isn't likely to be able to pull a strike mission for quite a while. And that close to a jump point you always run the risk of something popping in when you least expect it."

"Yes, sir," Rollins said. He sounded disappointed.

"Look, I know how everybody feels. The cats broke through, and the colony's probably . . . in trouble. You want to hit back. So do I, believe me. But there's no sense in compounding one tragedy with another. ConFleet can't afford to throw away ships on meaningless gestures, and that's what it would be if we tried to take Sar'hrai."

They were the right words, Eisen told himself. But he didn't like them at all.

"Captain?" That was Tanaka, the Sensor Officer. "Sir, I'm only reading seven fighters in the search grid. There ought to be eight . . ."

"What the devil?" Eisen demanded. "Find that other fighter. And Rollins . . . get on the line and tell Blair it's time he took roll call!"

"Sensors confirm it, Colonel. Lieutenant Peters didn't respond to your orders to tighten the search grid. Instead she's vectored off toward the Ariel jump point."

"Goddamn. . ." Blair didn't finish the curse. "She must've been listening on the comm channel when you filled me in on enemy movements. Decided to even some scores with the Kilrathi fighters you said were likely to get left behind."

He should have watched Flint more closely, he told himself, angry and bitter. She had been a model wingman throughout the battle, but it must have been dreadful for her to see those last few fighters escape to launch their deadly missiles at the colony.

At her homeworld . . .

All she needed was one more kill to fill the score to avenge her brother, with nearly sixty more for her father. But how many more Kilrathi would Flint have to kill to avenge the population of an entire world?

"Colonel," Eisen broke onto the channel. "There s still a Kilrathi carrier near the jump point. Possibly some undamaged fighters as well. Your Lieutenant Peters is heading right into a slaughterhouse, and she's not acknowledging our return-to-ship orders. Can you do anything to stop her?" The captain paused for several seconds. "It's your call, Blair."

He stared at Eisen's image on his comm screen, his mind racing. Flint had a huge head start, and by the time he mounted any sort of rescue mission she might be dead. Gold Squadron was battered, exhausted, with missile stocks low and battle damage plaguing every one of the Thunderbolts. Common sense dictated that they cut their losses now and let Flint have her final, suicidal gesture. No matter how upset she might be, Robin Peters was no fool. She just wanted to go down fighting.

But there was another part of Blair that couldn't just give up on her. The same part that prolonged the search for Sandman. Good pilots don't give up on their own, especially not on their wingmen.

"I'll go after her, sir," he said at last. "See if there's anything I can do."

Eisen didn't respond right away. "Understood, Colonel," he said at last. "And . . . Godspeed."

"This is Leader," Blair said, more crisp than before. "If Sanders had managed to eject, we would have found him by now. Pack it in, people. Hobbes, get them down to the deck I'm going after Flint."

"My friend, you cannot go alone —" Hobbes protested.

"I'm with you, Colonel," Cobra overrode Ralgha's soft voice. "Lets move!"

"I'm alone on this one," Blair said firmly. "That's a direct order. All fighters return to Victory. One rogue pilot in a day is enough."

"But —" Cobra sounded ready to start another war.

"A direct order, I said." Blair paused. "But . . . Cobra, you and Vagabond have the least damage, after me. Get down on the deck, let the techs patch anything essential that's damaged, and then rearm and refuel. Prep another fuel shuttle and escort it toward the Ariel jump point. Flint and I will be needing fuel before we get back."

"If you get back" Ralgha said. "I do not understand why you are doing this, my friend. You are putting yourself in danger for no good purpose . . ."

"She's my wingman, Hobbes. I have to go. Now carry out your orders." He cut the channel with a savage stab at the comm button, then switched on the navigation computer to plot a course after Flint.

Blair's only hope was that he wasn't making the same empty gesture as she was.

Flint glanced mechanically from her sensor board to the weapon status display, hardly aware of what she was doing any more. Somehow the shock of what had happened was dull and distant, as though she was watching someone else react in her place. The emotion that nearly overpowered her as she had realized her planet was under a slow, savage death sentence faded away now, replaced by grim determination.

It felt the same way when Davie died . . . and when the news came in to the Academy about her father. The grief and pain were there, but they were suppressed by the overwhelming need to act, to do something.

She must do something, even though she knew it was hopeless. If she didn't die on the firing line, her career would probably be over anyway by the time Blair got through with her. She had disobeyed orders and let her vengeance get in the way of the mission once again, even after the Colonel gave her a second chance. This was the last time she would be in the cockpit, facing the Kilrathi, one way or another.

Robin Peters intended to make this last time count.

Her navigational computer signaled that she was fast approaching the Ariel jump point. Her autopilot cut out instantaneously, and Flint forced herself to relax and let her combat training take over.

The sensor board came alive with targets.

"Blair to Peters. Blair to Peters. Respond, please." Blair closed his eyes for a moment, caught somewhere between anger and concern and fear. "For God's sake, Flint, answer me. Break off and head for home before it's too late."

But his autopilot told him it probably was too late already. With her head start, she would have reached the jump point zone eight minutes ago, and eight minutes could be an eternity in a dogfight. By his best estimate Blair's Thunderbolt was still two minutes from contact.

He ran a quick inventory of his weaponry. There was still one fire-and-forget missile slung under his wing and both his gun turrets were fully charged. If there was any real opposition waiting ahead, it would be all too inadequate, but he didn't plan to remain for a long dogfight. Blair wanted to find Flint in one piece, then persuade her to withdraw in a hurry. Hopefully, the Kilrathi would be too concerned with getting their fighters back to Sar'hrai so she could jump to worry about chasing two foolhardy Terrans . . .

If not . . . well, it wasn't likely to be a long battle in any event.

The computer beeped a warning and cut the autopilot, and Blair focused on the sensor board as it began to register targets. The view before him wasn't encouraging.

The Kilrathi carrier dominated the scene, huge and menacing, hovering near the jump point. There was a great deal of activity around the big ship, and for a moment, Blair feared that Flint had driven straight in to attack the capital ship, a brave but utterly futile gesture indeed. But the blips he was registering were all Kilrathi, and after a moment, he realized that the bulk of the targets were keeping close to the carrier to protect incoming fighters attempting to land on Sar'hrai's flight deck.

Then he picked up Flint. She had not pursued the carrier after all, but she was heavily involved with a trio of Vaktoth fighters which locked her in a classic wheel attack circling her fighter and pounding at her shields without mercy. Flint handled her Thunderbolt impressively, managing somehow to dodge and turn out of the line of fire again and again, but inevitably some of those enemy beams penetrated her defenses. It was only a matter of time before her shields finally failed, leaving her fighter exposed to the full fury of the Kilrathi attack.

Blair took in the scene in an instant and cut in his afterburners. The Thunderbolt surged forward as if eager for battle, and in mere seconds his targeting computer locked on to one of the heavy fighters ahead. He would have to make this fast before any of the other Imperial fighters decided to intervene.

His blasters caught the Vaktoth at its weakest point, in the rear section just above the engines. There was a flaw in the shield pattern there, making the fighter vulnerable to a concentrated attack, but even the weak spot on a Vaktoth was formidable by anyone's standards. Blasters could punch through the shields, perhaps even damage armor underneath, but they didn't cycle fast enough to allow the Thunderbolt to exploit a successful hit. The usual tactic was to add a missile to the mix, preferably a heat-seeker that could fly light up the enemys main thruster outlet while the shields were off-line . . . or, lacking missiles, to rely on a wingman to finish the attack.

Blair couldn't count on his wingman, not until she snapped out of her crazy urge for vengeance. He must use his last missile.

It was over in an instant. The Vaktoth came apart in a blinding fireball. The other two Kilrathi pilots broke the wheel and turned away, but Blair knew they weren't ready to run yet. They just wanted to regroup, assess the new threat.

And perhaps call in reinforcements.

"Flint!" he called. "This is the only chance we're going to get. Break off now!"

"Break off. . . Colonel? What are you doing? You're supposed to be back at the ship . . ."

"So are you," he snapped. "I decided you needed a personal invitation." On his screen he saw the two Vaktoth making slow, wide, outer loops to launch a converging attack from two directions. There was no sign that others planned to join them, but it would only be a matter of time. Sooner or later more fighters would reinforce these two, unless the two Terrans abandoned the battle.

"Leave me here, Colonel. I'll cover your retreat."

"Forget it, Lieutenant," he told her. "I don't abandon my wingmen . . . not even when they abandon me. Either we both go back to the ship or neither one of us does."

"I . . . yes, sir." Her voice was like lead.

"Those two are coming in fast," he said, still studying the sensor board. "We'll have to fight our way out. Follow my lead, Flint. I'm counting on you."

He banked left, accelerating, driving toward one of the two widely-separated Vaktoth. Flint stuck close to his wing, trailing a little but evidently obeying him.

Blair locked on his targeting computer, but held his fire. The Vaktoth grew in his crosshairs, looming closer. It opened fire, and blaster shots slammed into the Thunderbolt's shields where the earlier fighting had already weakened his defenses. There was precious little armor left under those intangible barriers of energy, and if they failed now it would be the end.

He pulled his steering yoke up hard at the last possible second, sliding over the top of the Kilrathi ship with only meters to spare. Blair spun the Thunderbolt around using maneuvering jets, praying the damaged one wouldn't let him down this time. Then, applying full thrust, he tried to kill his velocity while opening fire with his blasters at point-blank range. Shot after shot pounded the rear shields of the Vaktoth until the blasters exhausted their energy banks.

Blair spun the fighter around again and accelerated before the Kilrathi pilot reacted. Moments later Flint was there, unleashing her own beams in a furious attack on the weakened Vaktoth. The enemy ship began bringing its weapons to bear, but too late. Flint's blaster fire penetrated the hull and set off a chain reaction of explosions in the fighter's fuel and ammo stores.

For the first time since he'd flown with her, Blair didn't hear Flint counting her score.

"Let's get going, Lieutenant. Before the rest of the welcoming committee catches us."

The last Vaktoth came into weapon range, firing a few random shots just to measure the distance. On his screen, Blair could see four more ships detaching themselves from the force watching over the carrier.

If they got too involved with this one, they'd soon be facing those reinforcements, and Blair doubted he could manage another stand-up fight.

"Your hull looks pretty bad, Colonel," Flint said, echoing his thoughts. "I'll drop back and hold them."

"You'll follow my lead, like I said before." More shots probed after them, and Blair could feel the sweat starting to run down his forehead under the flight helmet despite the carefully-maintained environment of the cockpit. He wasn't sure he could pull another rabbit out of his hat this time.

"Colonel! Targets! Targets ahead!" Flint's voice was more alive as she called the warning.

Four blips appeared ahead, blocking their escape route back to Victory. With pursuers behind and this new force ahead, they couldn't evade another battle for long. Blair knew they couldn't last once engaged.

Suddenly the four new blips changed from amber, the color-code for an unidentified bogie, to green. Friendlies . . . Confed fighters. Blair could hardly keep himself from whooping in sheer joy at the sight.

"This is Flight Captain Piet DeWitt of the destroyer Coventry," a cheerful Terran voice announced. "Captain Bondarevsky tells me you carrier hot-shots need a little assist. We're here to escort you home, Colonel. Fall in ahead of our formation, and leave the bad guys to us."

"We're in your hands, Captain," Blair said, breathing out a long, soft sigh. Already the nearest Vaktoth broke off at the sight of the four Arrow interceptors, and the rest of the Kilrathi pursuit was slowing noticeably as they studied the newcomers and tried to assess what the Terrans would do next. "We thank you all."

"Compliments of Captain Bondarevsky, Colonel. He told me to tell you this makes up for that time off New Sydney."

Blair felt the relief flowing through him, and with it another sensation . . . fatigue. Now that the pressure was gone, it took the full force of his will to program the autopilot to take the Thunderbolt home.

Then, at last, he slumped in his acceleration couch exhausted. He didn't win any victories today, but he survived, and Flint with him. And maybe that was enough.