“Yeah,” Dans said. “And flexible formations to swarm wherever the first assault goes in.”

“It won’t be us doing it,” said Cohl grimly.

“You aren’t dead yet, kid,” Dans called. She was twenty, a year older than Pirius, and a veteran of no less than six missions before today.

Cohl said, “Look at that crowd behind us.” The flies were still closing. “We can’t outrun them,” the navigator said. “In fact we shouldn’t be trying; we have orders to stand and fight. We are already dead. It’s our duty to be dead. A brief life burns brightly.”

It was the most ancient slogan of the Expansion, said to have been coined by Hama Druz himself thousands of years before, standing in the rubble of an occupied Earth. In a regime of endless war it was prideful to die young and in battle, a crime to grow old unnecessarily.

Under such a regime the highest form of humanity was the child soldier.

But Dans said rudely, “I knew you were going to say that.”

Pirius heard Cohl gasp.

Dans said, “So report me. Look, navigator, a brief life is one thing, but neither Hama Druz nor any of his legions of apologists down the ages told us to throw away our lives. If we took on that crowd of flies, they wouldn’t even notice us. Now what use is that?”

“Pilot—”

“She’s right, Cohl,” Pirius said.

Enduring Hope said evenly, “But whatever the orthodoxy, can I just point out that they are catching up? Three minutes to intercept . . .”

Pirius said tensely, “Dans, I don’t want to boost your ego. But I suppose you have a plan?”

Dans took a breath. “Sure. We go FTL.”

Cohl snapped, “Impossible.”

This time it was the technician in her talking, and Pirius knew she was probably right. The FTL drive involved tinkering with the deepest structure of spacetime, and it was always advisable to do that in a smooth, flat place, empty of dense matter concentrations. The Galactic center offered few such opportunities, and safe FTL use here needed planning.

Dans said rapidly, “Sure it’s risky. But it beats the certainty of death. And besides, the chances are the Xeelee won’t follow. They aren’t as stupid as we are.”

Enduring Hope said, “Which way?”

The bulk of the Galaxy’s luminous matter was confined to a flat sheet, the delicate spiral arms contained in a plane as thin in proportion to its width as a piece of paper. But at its heart was a Core, a bulge of stars some five hundred light-years across. This region swarmed with human factory worlds and military posts. Within the Core was the Central Star Mass, millions of stars crammed into a space some thirty light-years wide. The two brightest sources of radio noise within the Mass were called Chandra—or, officially, Sag A*, the black hole at the very center—and Sag A East, a remnant of an ancient explosion.