Pirius tried to think. The plan had always been to fly through the gap between the star nursery and the central Chandra system itself, get through to the relatively flat space beyond, and then make another massive jump back to East Arm, their route home. But they hadn’t banked on being alone, with no cover, and with forewarned Xeelee rising. It was unlikely that they could survive another FTL jump all the way out, not from here.

But, unexpectedly, Nilis had an idea.

The Commissary sounded dry, calm, as if he had moved beyond fear. “Make for IRS 7.”

Pirius quickly called up another map. IRS 7 was a star, lost in the Cavity: it was a red giant, and it trailed an immense comet-like tail. “It’s only half a light-year away.”

“Lethe,” said Hope, “its tail is longer than that. What use is it to us?”

“A place to hide,” said Nilis. “And we could make it in a single, short FTL jump. . . . Couldn’t we, pilot?”

“Too risky,” Cohl said.

“Every jump in this environment carries risks. A short jump is more survivable.”

“It will be no use, even if we live through the hop,” Cohl said. “The Xeelee are on to us. FTL foreknowledge—”

“Then we throw them off,” Nilis said.

“I’m amazed how calm you are, Commissary,” Pirius said.

“We can discuss my personality later. I suggest we get on with it.”

A wand of starbreaker light waved through space, above Pirius’s head. The nightfighters were finding their range; one touch of that pretty light and his life would be over. No more time for debate.

He waved his hand at his Virtual displays. “We need to make the hop anti-Tolman, if we can. Come on, Cohl, work with me.”

Nilis said, “A lot of people have died to get us this far. We have to get through, complete our mission.”

“We don’t need to be told, Commissary. Navigator?”

“I have a tactical solution. It’s a botch.”

“Lay it in. On my mark. Three, two—”

In the last second the Other Claw shuddered. And then Chandra’s shining astrophysical architecture vanished.

They came out tumbling. Pirius fought to stabilize the ship.

Nilis peered out curiously. They were immersed in a uniform crimson glow that utterly lacked detail, as if they had hopped into the interior of an immense light globe.

Pirius snapped, “Engineer. Report.”

Enduring Hope called, “We were hit, half a second before the hop. Bad luck . . . the weapons bay took it.” He laughed. “I don’t think we hit a single Xeelee. But the weapons bay soaked up the energy of that shot, and saved us.”

“Other systems?”

“The sensor pod is intact,” Nilis said. “We didn’t lose any data. And now we’re in the tail of IRS 7?”

“I think so.”

The “tail” was the remnant of the outer layers of the hapless red giant, blasted away by the ferocious stellar wind generated by the blue star cluster at the center. Pirius said, “We aimed for the root, where the tail meets the surviving envelope.”