Miles, certainly) concealed on the other side of the jump. A brief hope flared in Miles that this threat alone might be enough to make the

Cetagandans break off the attack.

"Naw," sighed Tung when Miles confided this optimistic thought.

"They're too far into it now. The butcher's bill's too high already for them to pretend they were only fooling. Even to themselves. A

Cetagandan commander who packed it in now would go home to a

court-martial. They'll keep going long after it's hopeless, as their brass tries desperately to cover their bleeding asses with a flag of victory."

"That is . . . vile."

PDF Transform

PDF Transform

Y

Y

Y

er

Y

er

B

2

B

2

B

.0

B

.0

A

A

Click here to buy

Click here to buy

w

w

w

w

w .

w

A B B YY.com

.A B BYY.com

"That is the system, son, and not just for the Cetagandans. One of the system's several built-in defects. And besides," Tung grinned briefly, "it's not as hopeless as all that yet. A fact we will try to conceal from them."

The Cetagandan forces began to move, their directions and

accelerations telegraphing their intention for a pounding pass. The trick was to try for local concentrations of force, three or four ships ganging up on one, overwhelming the defender's plasma mirrors. The

Dendarii and Vervani would attempt an identical strategy against

Cetagandan stragglers, but for a few bravura captains on both sides equipped with the new imploder lances playing an insane game of

chicken, trying to put a target within the weapon's short range. Miles also tried to keep one eye on the Rangers' dispositions. Not every

Ranger ship had Vervani advisors aboard, and battle arrays that put the Rangers in front of the Cetagandans were much to be preferred to ones that put Rangers behind Dendarii backs.

The quiet murmur of techs and computers within the tactics room

scarcely changed pace. There ought to be a flourish of drums,

bagpipes, something to herald this dance with death. But if reality broke in at all to this upholstered bubble, it would be sudden,

absolute, and over.

A vid-comm message interrupted, intra-ship—yes, there was still a

real ship encasing them—a breathless officer reporting to Tung. "Brig, sir. Watch yourselves up there. We've had a break-out. Admiral Oser's escaped, and he let all the other prisoners out too."

"Dammit," said Tung, glared at Miles, and pointed to the comm.

" Handle that. Jack up Auson." He turned his attention back to his tactics display, muttering, "This wouldn't have happened in my day."

Miles slipped into the comm chair, and paged the Triumph's

bridge. "Auson! Did you get the word on Oser?"

Auson's irritated face appeared, "Yeah, we're working on it."

"Order extra commando guards to the tactics room, engineering, and your own bridge. This is a real bad time for interruptions down here."

"Tell me. We can see the Ceta bastards coming." Auson punched off.