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  "And the Thebans' status?" Li asked sharply.

  "Shields down, as our own. We're picking up a lot of primary and secondary sensor emissions—mostly point defense tracking stations, though CIC thinks some may be targeting systems—but no Erlicher emissions, so at least they aren't warming up any force beams or primaries."

  "Thank you." Li turned his chair to face Aurelli at last. "Mister Envoy, we are coming onto station," he said with cold formality. "I suggest you hail the Theban representatives."

  "Thank you, Admiral, I think that would be an excellent idea," Aurelli said smugly, and Li nodded curtly to his com officer.

  * * *

  "The infidels are hailing us, Holiness."

  Fleet Chaplain Manak glanced at his assistant and nodded.

  "Are the computers ready?"

  "They are, Holiness."

  "Then we shall respond." Manak glanced at Admiral Lantu. "Are you ready, my son?"

  "We are, Holiness." Manak noted the tension in Lantu's eyes and smiled. He'd watched the admiral grow to adulthood and knew how strong he was, but even the strongest could be excused a bit of strain at such a moment.

  "Be at ease, my son," he said gently, "and prepare your courier drone. We shall give the infidels one last chance to prove they remain worthy of Holy Terra. If they are not, She will deliver them into your hand. Stand by."

  "Standing by, Holiness."

  * * *

  "Greetings, Mister Aurelli. My name is Mannock."

  The voice was clear, despite the poor visual image, and Victor Aurelli wondered what mix of colonist dialects had survived to produce its accent. The Standard English was crisp, but there was a hard edge to the vowels and a peculiar lisp to the sibilants. Not an unpleasant sound, but definitely a bit odd. And this Mannock was a handsome enough fellow—or might have been, if not for the flickering fuzz of those persistent technical problems.

  "I'm pleased to meet you, sir," he replied, "and I look forward to meeting you in person."

  "As I look forward to meeting you." The poor signal quality prevented Aurelli from noticing that the computer-generated image's lips weren't quite perfectly synchronized with the words.

  "Then let us begin, Mister Mannock."

  "Of course. We are already preparing to initiate docking with your flagship. In the meantime, however, I have a question I would like to ask."

  Of course, Mister Mannock. Ask away."

  "Do you"—the voice was suddenly more intent—"accept the truth of the Prophet's teaching, Mister Aurelli?"

  Aurelli blinked, then frowned at the com screen.

  "The teaching of which prophet, Mister Mannock?" he asked . . . and the universe exploded in his face.

  * * *

  "Incoming fire!" someone screamed, and Captain Nadine Wu, CO of TFNS Deerhound, stared at her display. Missiles were coming at her carrier—not one, or two, or a dozen, but scores of them!

  "Impact in eighteen seconds—mark!" her gunnery officer snapped. "Weapons free. Stand by point defense."

  "Launch the ready fighters!" Captain Wu ordered, never looking away from her plot. The stand-by squadron might get off before those missiles struck. No one else would.

  * * *

  "Oh, dear God!"

  The anguished whisper came from Victor Aurelli, but Admiral Li had no time to spare the envoy.

  "Execute Plan Charley!" he barked, and his answering missiles whipped away. But he needed time to power up the shields and energy weapons Aurelli had forbidden him to activate on the way in, and Everest trembled in agony as the first warheads erupted against her naked drive field.

  "Captain Bowman reports we're streaming air, sir," Gianelli reported. "Datalink gone—we're out of the net."

  "Acknowledged. Get those beams up, Christine! We need them badly—"

  "Energy fire on Cottonmouth!" Li turned to his ops officer in surprise. Energy fire? How? They hadn't picked up any Erlicher emissions, so it couldn't be force beams, and the battleship was too far out for effective laser fire.

  "Specify!"

  "Unknown, sir. It appears to be some sort of x-ray laser."

  "X-ray laser?" Li stole a second to glance at his own read-outs and winced as the impossible throughput readings registered.

  "Cottonmouth is Code Omega, sir," Gianelli reported flatly. "And the carrier group's taking a pounding. Deerhound and Corgy are gone. So is Bogue, but she got about half her group off before they nailed her."

  "Many hits on enemy flagship," Gunnery announced, and Li watched Saint-Just's dot flash and blink. His missiles were getting through despite her readied point defense, but her armor must be incredible. Her shields were still down and fireballs spalled her drive field like hellish strobes, but she wasn't even streaming atmosphere yet!

  "Admiral Li!" He looked up at his Plotting officer's summons. "We're picking up additional drive fields, sir—they're coming out of the Ferry!"

  Dispassionate computers updated the display silently, and Li looked at the destruction of his task force. They must have had a courier drone on the trips, ready to go the instant Aurelli fumbled their question. Now the rest of their fleet—the fleet no Terran had ever seen—was coming through, and six more superdreadnoughts headed the parade.

  He swore silently and ran his eyes back over his own battered force. The carriers had taken the worst pounding. Half were gone and most of the rest were cruelly mauled—the bastards must have gunned for them on purpose. His surviving units were getting their shields up at last, but most of the capital ships were already streaming air. At least half of them must have lost their datalink, which meant they'd be forced to fight as individuals against trios of enemy ships whose fire would be synchronized to the second. Worse, it was already obvious the "Peace Fleet's" supposed numerical advantage was, in fact, a disadvantage.

  They'd timed it well. If he'd been only a little closer to the Ferry, he might have been able to bull through and sit on it, smashing their reserves as they made transit. As it was, he couldn't quite get there in time, and trying to would only put him closer to those damned lasers. They were almost as long-ranged as his force beams and, unlike force beams, they could stab straight through his shields. If he got even closer to them—

  "Pull us back, Christine." He was amazed he sounded so calm.

  "Aye, aye, sir," his chief of staff said levelly, though she knew as well as he that backing off the warp point was tantamount to admitting defeat.

  If only more of his fighters had gotten into space! The ones which had launched were doing their best, but once their missiles were expended they would have only their single onboard laser mounts, because there would no longer be any hangar decks to rearm them. Only Elkhound and Constellation had gotten their full groups off, and even now heavy missile salvos were bearing down on both frantically evading carriers.

  "Sir!" The utter disbelief in Gianelli's voice wrenched his head around. She sat bolt-upright at her console, her face white. "Greyhound reports she's being boarded, sir!"

  * * *

  "Ramming Fleet in position, Admiral. First samurai salvos away.

  "Thank you, Plot. Captain Kurnash, where are my shields? I—Ahhhh!"

  Saint-Just's shields snapped up, and Admiral Lantu grinned fiercely. These infidels clearly had no lasers to match his own. He didn't know what those long-ranged energy weapons of theirs were, but they couldn't reach through a shield as his could, and the massive armor his ships mounted as an anti-laser defense had served them well. The damage in the first exchange had gone in the People's favor by a wider margin than he had dared hope.

  "They're pulling back, sir."

  "I see it, Plot. Maneuvering, the fleet will advance."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  * * *

  Li Chien-lu shut it all out for a moment, forcing himself to think.

  That first deadly salvo had gutted his carriers and blown too many of his capital ships out of their datanets, and the enemy's ability to board ships under way made an already despe
rate situation hopeless. Captain Bowman had Everest's Marines racing for the armories, but they would be pathetically out-numbered when those "capital missile" vehicles got around to her. In a stand-up fight with the strength bearing down on them, his task force would be annihilated in thirty minutes of close action.

  "Commander Gianelli."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Order all escorts, battle-cruisers, and carriers to withdraw. The battle-line will advance and attack the enemy."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Admiral Li turned back to his plot as his battered formation unraveled. One or two battle-cruisers ignored the order, their drives already too damaged to run, and he doubted very many of those fleeing units would escape, but—

  "What are you doing?!" A hand pounded his shoulder, and he turned almost calmly to meet Victor Aurelli's stunned eyes.

  "I'm ordering my lighter units to run for it, Mister Aurelli."

  "But . . . but . . ."

  "They may have the speed for it," Li explained as if to a child. "We don't. But if we can make these bastards concentrate on us while the others run, we can at least give them a chance."

  "But we'll all be killed!"

  "Yes, Mister Aurelli, we will." Li watched his words hit the envoy like fists. It was very quiet on the bridge, despite the battle thundering about Everest's hull, and the admiral's entire staff heard him as he continued coldly, "That's why I'm so glad you're aboard this ship."

  He turned away from the terrified civilian to Commander Gianelli.

  "Let's go get them, Christine."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "A khimhok stands alone,

  Mister President"

  Howard Anderson switched off his terminal and rose, rubbing his eyes, then folded his hands behind him and paced slowly about his small study.

  During his own naval career, courier drones had been the only way to send messages between the stars, but the slow extension of the interstellar communications relays was changing that. No com signal could punch through a warp point, but drones could, and deep-space relays could beam their contents across the normal space between warp points at light-speed. Their cost tended to restrict them to wealthier, populous systems, but the Federation had taken pains to complete links all along its frontier with the Khanate.

  Which meant Old Terra had learned of the disaster in Lorelei ten times as quickly as it might once have . . . for what it was worth.

  He looked around his study unseeingly. Eighty percent of the "Peace Fleet" had died, but Everest's Omega Drones had gotten off just before she blew her fusion plants. The data base download had included Chien-lu's log, and Anderson's fury had burned cold as he read the thoroughly illegal bootleg copy an old friend had passed him.

  He picked up the message chip in age-gnarled fingers and wondered what the summons meant. Perhaps Sakanami had discovered he knew and meant to shut him up? If so, he was about to discover the limits of the presidency's power.

  * * *

  The aide rapped on the ornate doors, then opened them and stood aside, and Anderson stepped wordlessly into a magnificent office. Its splendor was an expression of the power of the man in the president's chair, but he was unimpressed. He'd sat in that chair himself.

  He stumped across the sea of crimson carpet, leaning on his cane. It was less of an affectation than it once had been. He'd been in his fifties before the antigerone treatments became available, and his body was finally beginning to fail. But his eyes remained as sharp as his brain, and they flitted busily about as he advanced upon his waiting hosts.

  Sakanami Hideoshi sat behind the big desk, expressionless as a kabuki mask. Vice President Ramon Montoya and Hamid O'Rourke sat in armchairs by the coffee table, Pericles Waldeck stood gazing out the windows with ostentatious unconcern, and Erika Van Smitt, leader of the Liberal Democrats, sat across the coffee table from Montoya.

  Quite a gathering, Anderson mused, choosing a chair beside Van Smitt. Add himself, and the people in this room represented the Administration and over ninety percent of the Assembly.

  "Thank you for coming, Howard," Sakanami said, and Waldeck turned from the window with a smile. Anderson met it stonily, and it faded. The silence stretched out endlessly until Sakanami finally cleared his throat.

  "I've asked you here because I need your advice, Howard."

  "That's a novel admission," Anderson said, and the president winced.

  "Please, Howard. I realize how you must feel, but—"

  "I doubt very much," Anderson's voice was cold and precise, "that you have the least idea how I feel, Mister President." If you did, you'd've had me searched for weapons, you son-of-a-bitch.

  "I—" Sakanami paused. "I suppose I deserved that, but I truly do need your help."

  "In what way?"

  "I need your experience. You've led the Federation through three wars, both as an admiral and as president. You understand what the Fleet needs to fight with and what it takes to produce it. I'd like to create a special cabinet post—Minister for War Production—and ask you to assume it."

  "And what would the duties of this post be?"

  "You'd be my direct representative, charged with rationalizing demand and output. If you took the post, I'd ask you to go out to Galloway's World. Admiral Antonov will be taking command in the Lorelei Sector, and I want you to help him coordinate the operations of the Fleet yard with its civilian counterparts before he ships out. Are you interested?"

  "Would I retain the right to speak my mind, publicly as well as privately?" Anderson was surprised and—he admitted it—excited by the offer.

  Sakanami glanced at Waldeck, then nodded firmly. "I couldn't expect the full benefit of your experience if you didn't."

  "Then I accept, Mister President," Anderson said. His voice was still cold, but he was beginning to wonder if he'd misjudged Sakanami.

  "Good. Good! And there's another thing I need from you, Howard. You're the only man on Old Terra who's ever personally met Khan Liharnow, and a message from you will carry more weight than one from me."

  "A message to Liharnow?" Anderson's eyes narrowed once more. They'd shown him the carrot, now they were about to tell him how high he had to jump to get it. "What message?"

  "We haven't released the report, but ONI has finished its analysis of Admiral Li's drones," O'Rourke answered for Sakanami. The defense minister faltered as Anderson turned his basilisk gaze on him, then continued.

  "You must have heard rumors the Thebans aren't human after all. Well, we have positive confirmation they aren't. The battle-cruiser Scimitar got away, but not before she was boarded. The Thebans have some sort of personnel capsule—something like a short-ranged capital missile—that lets them literally shoot small boarding parties at a ship. They have to knock the shields down first, but they carry drive field penetrators like fighters and small craft. ONI puts their maximum range at about eight light-seconds.

  "Anyway, Scimitar's Marines took out her boarders, and the bodies are definitely non-human." He paused, as if that explained everything, and Anderson frowned. Obviously they didn't realize he'd already seen the original reports, but what were they driving at?

  "I fail to see," he said into the expectant silence, "what that has to do with my acquaintance with Liharnow."

  "Surely it's obvious that this changes everything, Howard." Pericles Waldeck's patronizing manner was one of several reasons Anderson detested him.

  "How?" he asked coldly.

  "Mister Anderson"—O'Rourke seemed stunned by his obtuseness—"we lost eighty percent of Admiral Li's force—over ninety percent of its tonnage, since none of the battle-line got away. That's more than a quarter of Battle Fleet!"

  "I'm familiar with the figures, Mister O'Rourke."

  "Well, don't you see, we agreed to intervene and handle the situation alone because we thought we were dealing with humans! We're not—and we don't have the least idea how powerful these Thebans really are. They said they had only one system, but they could have dozens. We need
to invoke the Alliance and get the Orions in here to help!"

  Anderson stared at him.

  "We can't," he said sharply. "It's absolutely out of the question."

  "Howard," Sakanami stepped into the breach, "I don't think we have any choice. It'll take us months to redeploy the Fleet, and if we do it'll leave the frontiers almost naked. We need the Orions."

  "Don't you understand the Orion honor code?" Anderson demanded. "A khimhok stands alone, Mister President. If you ask Liharnow for help now, you're rejecting the role you asked him to let you assume! The best we can hope for is that he won't hold us responsible if the Thebans hit him again."

  "But we accepted the role because we thought the Thebans were humans, and they aren't," Waldeck explained with elaborate patience.

  "Which doesn't matter a good goddamn!" Anderson shot back. "Jesus, haven't you even talked to your xenologists?! To an Orion, an obligation is an obligation. If he makes a mistake, takes on a responsibility because of a misunderstanding, that's his problem; he'll handle it anyway or die trying."

  "I think you're overreacting," Sakanami said.

  "Like hell I am! Damn it, Liharnow put his own honor on the line to let you handle the Thebans! You go to him with an idea like this, and you'll have the fucking Orion Navy on your back, too."

  "I find your language offensive, Howard," Waldeck said coldly.

  "Well, fuck you and the horse you rode in on!" Anderson retorted. "I'll help clean up your goddamn mess, Wonder Boy, but I'll be damned if I help you make it any worse!"

  "Howard—" Erika Van Smitt started pacifically.

  "You stay out of this, Erika! All you did was support the Administration—don't screw up now and get roped into this insanity!"

  "I've had just about enough of you, Anderson," Waldeck grated. "You and your holier than thou criticism! It's always the civilians, right? Always our fault! Well, Mister Anderson, this time your precious Fleet's in it up to its gold-braided ass!"

  Anderson met the younger man's eyes contemptuously. Their enmity cut far deeper than mere politics—it was personal and implacably bitter. Waldeck would never forget that CNO Anderson had personally seen to it that Admiral Solon Waldeck was court-martialed and shot after ISW-1 for allowing the Orions to capture a copy of the Federation's entire astrogation data base . . . and attempting to conceal the fact. Other branches of the Waldeck clan had provided many a flag officer as distinguished as any family could wish, but Solon had been Pericles Waldeck's grandfather.