son and
Doomsday,  who had  flown down the day before from  Tarawa, were in the back
corner  engaged  in what  was  obviously a  heated conversation with several
colonial pilots. Sparks,  waving  a hand computer unit, was shouting at whom
he guessed was a supply  officer, who in turn was shouting  back  with equal
vigor, and hunched over a table  up in the front  was a  tall gaunt man with
sun  scorched  features and dark eyes.  He glanced  up at Ian  and his  gaze
seemed to pierce right through him and then, as if he didn't even exist, the
man looked back down at a shelf of printouts.
     "Say, that's Kruger himself," Ian whispered
     K'Kai bobbed her head.
     Technically Kruger was a wanted  felon  within Confederation territory,
having once hijacked his fleet destroyer, which he was in command of, during
the early  days  of the  war, when  through  "strategic necessity," the  old
C-in-C ConFleet had decided to abandon the Landreich system in the face of a
Kilrathi  offensive.  Using  the  ship  and  an  assortment of scrounged  up
freighters  and  smuggler  craft  he  fought  the battle  of  the Hell Hole,
stopping a Kilrathi attack into  this sector and according to legend  chased
them back through twelve jumps.
     His own ship was blown out from under him on the last jump through by a
Kilrathi ambush and Kruger, with the remaining members of his crew, survived
for three  years on a planet inside the Kilrathi  system, driving the locals
nearly insane  with his  commando style raiding until  being picked up by  a
freebooter who took them back to the Landreich. In the interim, ConFleet had
tried him  in  absentia and found him guilty  of  mutiny  and hijacking of a
Confederation  warship, a  capital  offense in time  of  war. He was hailed,
however, as  a  returning hero by the colonials and elected president of the
Landreich  system  within  the  year.  The  election  made  matters somewhat
complicated, presenting the  Confederation with the unique problem of having
a  felon serving as an elected member of the planetary senate and thus being
immune from arrest and trial.
     Max Kruger had a hell of a reputation and was viewed either as a genius
improviser of small unit irregular tactics or a barbarian. In Ian's opinion,
he was both.  The colonials  definitely fought their wars with the Kilrathi,
and at times with each other,  using cast-off equipment, shoestring budgets,
and a hell of a lot of guts.  They also fought it with a cold  ferocity that
rarely asked for or expected quarter. For Kruger there was  only one rule of
war, ultimate victory.
     "Everything back aboard Tarawa OK?'
     Ian turned and smiled as Jason came up to join him.
     "Another hundred crew members signed in last night off a transport that
ran out from Sirius. We've got eight more pilots and four  Ferrets that were
strapped to the transports hull."
     "Is that all, we were promised twenty."
     "They  had some problems getting the four,  the peace commission kicked
up a royal stink. We're lucky we got what we did."
     "It figures," Jason sighed. "That commission really screwed us up."
     "What do you mean?"
     That  report  that we'd have ten squadrons  of ъapiers and Sabres, well
forget it."
     "What the hell happened?"
     "The  shipment was blocked by the  commission. Seems that  the Kilrathi
ambassador caught wind of the deal, screamed holy hell, and the  Baron  even
got  into  it, threatening to end all peace negotiations if  the  ships were
allowed  to  leave Earth  system.  ъodham, of course,  caved in.  The  three
transports,  loaded down  with  fighters and  spare parts were  blocked from
leaving moon orbit. So now we've  got to scrounge up  whatever  we can  find
around here."
     "We ve  got five escort carriers,  and a  grand  total  of  twenty-nine
fighters and that's it, not counting the stuff the locals have."
     More people crowded  into the  room behind Ian so that  he, Jason,  and
K'Kai were gradually shoved to the back of the room.
     "Andrews, everybody here yet?" the gaunt man asked, looking over at the
guard at the door.
     "Near about."
     Well, damn it, we can't wait, let's get started then."
     The gaunt man moved up to a small podium.
     "For those of you Confed people who don't know it, I'm General Kruger."
     Ian looked around the room and saw the outright admiration on the faces
of the men  and women  wearing the hodgepodge of jumpsuits, assault trousers
and vests, and coveralls that passed for colonial guards uniforms.
     "First off, I welcome  all you white and blue suits into the service of
the Landreich," Kruger began. "As  already agreed upon, all  ships  that the
Landreich has purchased," and with that there was a ripple of  laughter from
the colonial personnel,  have been incorporated into  our fleet.  You  will,
however, still have your own chain of command, answering to Admiral Tolwyn."
     For the first time Ian realized that Tolwyn was in the room, his nephew
by his side. Tolwyn  stepped out from a back corner of the meeting hall  and
raised  his hand in  acknowledgment.  It  seemed  strange to  Ian to see the
Admiral  not  in standard fleet uniform,  but  in the khaki of  a  Landreich
officer.
     Just  how the hell did he get out here so fast? Ian wondered, what with
Jason's ship arriving only last night into orbit above Landreich.
     "Those of you in colonial forces that are assigned aboard former Confed
ships will take orders from the duly appointed commander of that ship."
     A low groan went up from the colonial personnel in the room.
     We've   got  to  coordinate  this  effort,"  Kruger  snapped,   "so  no
complaints."
     "Any questions?"
     The colonial officers  looked at each other,  mumbled  a bit  and  said
nothing.
     Kruger nodded towards Tolwyn, who came up to the front of the room.
     "Well, I'm glad to see that most of you at least made it out here.
     "First  off  . .  ." and  Tolwyn was interrupted  by  the  sharp  spine
tingling wail of a klaxon.
     The room went  quiet as Kruger raced to a  monitor, leaned over it, and
then turned back.
     "Any pilots with strike craft please man them immediately."
     Ian pushed his way out of the room, a stream of colonial pilots pushing
around him, Jason, Kevin, and Doomsday falling in at his side.
     They  ran up  the  corridor and  out into the blazing  heat, scattering
towards  hangars,  the high wail of  sirens  echoing against the surrounding
hills. The ground crew, which had so lazily  come  out  to meet Ian  when he
landed, were moving with a  cool precision, unchocking  the wheels, the crew
chief  inside  the  cockpit,  the engine already up and whining,  four  crew
members lifting two missiles up onto the Sabre's wing pylons. Ian ran to the
ladder,  one of the ground crew tossing  him his helmet which he snapped on,
the chief  coming  down the ladder and clearing  it just as Ian leaped on to
the third rung and scrambled up, the chief now behind him. Ian saw Jason and
Doomsday running  past, heading for the Ferrets  they had  flown  down  from
Tarawa.
     "Engine green, nav  system loaded by combat control, all  weapons green
with two radar trackers  loaded, emergency eject armed and ready, good luck,
sir!" the chief shouted, even  as he  reached  over  and helped buckle Ian's
safety harness on, cinching the shoulder straps tight.
     This  is Hunter in  Sabre 239A ready," Ian  announced  to  the  control
tower.
     "Will  advise, Hunter,  ground  chief will signal your  clearance," the
ground control officer snapped and then switched off.
     Ian gave a thumbs-up as the chief  slid down the ladder and  the canopy
snapped shut, the green light  of airtight lock flashing  on. The  chief was
now out in front of Ian's  fighter, hands held high over his head with fists
crossed, signaling that the taxi  ramp was  not yet cleared. The Ferret with
the  light corvette engine  he admired earlier bolted  straight  out of  its
hangar to his right, not even bothering to go for the runway and not needing
one anyhow as it pitched its nose back, and within fifty yards  stood on its
tail, flame  slamming off the concrete  taxiway  as it screamed straight  up
into the sky, riding a column of fire.
     To his left he saw the  armored  bunker which  contained the surface to
space missiles peel open,  the silver tips of  half a dozen Sprints pointing
straight up.
     "Hunter cleared for  takeoff,  once lifted depart angle nine zero," the
control  officer's  voice crackled in  his headset and  he grinned  with the
order to go for a full burn vertical ascent into space.
     The  crew chief uncrossed his arms and leaped to the side of the Sabre,
crouched,  and  pointed forward. Ian  released  his  brakes, slammed in full
afterburners and all aft maneuvering thrusters. The Sabre leaped forward and
within seconds he was up past a hundred and ninety clicks an hour. He yanked
back on his stick, pulling it  into his gut, the nose  lifted up  and he was
off.
     Ian toggled up his landing  gear as his Sabre pointed straight  up into
the red sky, the altimeter spinning. Inertial dampening didn't work all that
well inside the gravity well of a planet and  he started to breathe in short
convulsive  grunts  as  the Gs built up. He knew his sonic boom was blasting
out across the landscape but it was almost silent inside  the cockpit except
for  the  teeth-rattling  rumble of the twin Tangent-class  engines  burning
white hot  behind him. He  punched through the thin clouds and the  color of
the  sky  shifted, turning  from  a deeper red into violet, the  first stars
starting to appear. He looked to  his left to see the curvature of the world
and what looked like another Ferret rising up to close on his port wing.
     "Combat information, this is Hunter, what's the trade today?"
     "Forward scouts  report detecting an  ionized  trail emerging from Jump
Point Beta 233.  There have been weak radar detects and  one laser scan lock
indicating a  fighter of Kilrathi Stealth design is approaching. Patrol grid
is already  fed into your auto-nav. If you encounter unknown you are cleared
to shoot to kill without warning."
     "Just what  I wanted to hear," Ian replied as he  locked in on the auto
nav system  and released  his  controls, the autopilot taking  over. Cleared
into  space, and with fuel scoops closed he continued  to accelerate so that
within minutes the full sphere of the Hell Hole hung in space behind him.
     The attempt to ship fighters to the Landreich was known by the Kilrathi
thanks to the peace commission and a scouting attempt had to be expected. At
least  the  colonials  didn't  fool  around  with diplomatic  niceties,  Ian
thought. If  someone violated their  space in a suspicious  manner they were
taken out, no questions asked
     He scanned the comm channels, listening in as pilots tersely called out
their check points and the search spread outward. The frustrating part of it
was  that unless they had some really good luck, they could  very well  pass
right over a Stealth and not even know it. The mere fact that the Empire was
sneaking a very precious and  rare fighter into this  sector meant that they
had a good idea of what was going on.
     He  heard a call of a brief contact  by Doomsday  and then two  more by
colonial pilots, in each case the  Stealth was  lost.  Punching into his nav
computer  he checked the three sightings and then overlaid the points into a
map of the system.
     "Combat  control,  request  break   of  my  standard  sweep,   wish  to
investigate region around coordinates 233 by ADF."
     "Will advise," and the link clicked off.
     A moment later it crackled back to life.
     "This is Kruger, good thinking, Hunter; proceed at your discretion.
     Grinning,  he  broke off the auto nav, opened his  fuel and maneuvering
scoops, and turned. The coded coordinate was the location, at the moment, of
the Hell  Hole  system's largest planet, a gas giant named Thor.  The  three
brief sightings roughly matched a standard Kilrathi  evasive maneuver called
the reverse claw, and it pointed towards Thor,  which would  be an excellent
place to hide out until the patrols simmered down.
     Punching  in the new nav  coordinates,  Ian closed his  fuel scoops and
within minutes was up over three thousand clicks a second and climbing. Thor
was nearly twenty million clicks away and he settled back, nearly dozing off
as the Sabre closed, half listening to the commlink chatter as the scrambled
forces continued to prowl for the needle in a very big haystack.
     Approaching  within  a  million clicks of Thor he finally  started into
reverse thrust, extending his fuel scoops to create drag. The stray hydrogen
atoms found in space impacted  on the energy field surrounding his ship  and
were then swept into the fuel tank.  Each strike slowed  him down by an ever
so minute fraction, which built up with each passing second.
     He  started a close scan of  his instruments,  knowing  that any  sweep
radar was next to useless.
     "Now where would I go," he whispered, as if he could almost he heard by
his opponent and he  felt that prickly uneasy feeling, knowing that some how
the  Kilrathi was near. He had  learned never to discount "the gut feeling."
Any fighter pilot who did not believe in the instinctive feel usually didn't
live very long.
     Too close into Thor, he reasoned, and the passage of the ship  would be
noticeable as a disturbance in  the intense magnetic fields. If he went into
the atmosphere  he'd kick up the soup and really  give himself away. The one
advantage  of chasing a Stealth,  Ian knew, was  that he  was just as blind,
running on scan shut down, otherwise  he'd be given away.  He spared a quick
look at  the map  of the system. Two moons, one nearly  the size of Earth's,
the other half the size.
     Get into the lee of the  orbit of the moon is what I'd do, Ian thought,
blocking  direct approach  from one entire side, hide  out and then wait for
the patrols to give up before a final run in on the recon sweep.
     But which  one? If he  had had a coin on  him he would have flipped it.
Ian shrugged his shoulders  and started for the smaller of the two, shutting
down all scanning systems. He maneuvered so as to approach the moon from the
forward side  relative  to its orbital direction. He throttled back and then
came  in a  mere hundred clicks above the surface, crossing up over the pole
and moving down the other side.
     Ian  punched up  a full high intensity burst scan, diverting nearly all
ship's  power into radar.  If there  was anyone within a million  clicks the
radar burst would  damn  near  rattle  the  fillings  out  of his head,  Ian
thought, suddenly wondering if  the Kilrathi  even  had fillings. He waited,
watching his screen. The trick was that, even if it didn't detect a Stealth,
it just might panic the pilot into thinking that he had actually been found.
     There! Just  under  two thousand clicks  away. Damn, he  had  found the
needle!
     A  faint echo blipped on  his screen,  the  computer working to gain  a
lock, narrowing the radar beam down  and firing off another  pulse, this one
concentrating nearly  all  the  energy of the  previous  pulse into a narrow
cone. It was enough energy to fry out every circuit on an  unshielded vessel
a hundred thousand clicks away.
     The second burst hit, painting  the enemy ship clearly on his screen at
a  range of eight hundred clicks. The target acquisition  computer, upgraded
to handle Stealths, threw a laser  lock  on the  ship. The lock hung  on and
held as the pilot fired up to full throttle and went into evasive.
     "Combat control, this is  Hunter. Got him! One Kilrathi Stealth, on his
tail and closing."
     A high pitched whine suddenly cut  in  on his headset. The Kilrathi had
dumped three missiles which Ian's computer told him were IFFs. Ian countered
by punching in an IFF  scramble. In a  full running fleet engagement such an
act could be suicide because the moment  his transponder switched there  was
still no  guarantee that the enemy missile which  had  already  gained  lock
would veer away.  On the other  hand,  everything else flying around, either
human or  computer guided, would assume that he was not on the same side and
act accordingly Ч but out here it was a safe maneuver.
     The computer  raced through  thousands  of possible transponder  codes,
searching for  the  right  one to  throw the  missiles  off,  but  they kept
closing. Ian toggled off a guided bolt in return, which used the laser  beam
as a guide in to its target.
     He continued the chase, running blind. There was nothing to see, only a
blip on the screen.
     The Kilrathi ship suddenly  dropped out of Stealth mode, flashing  full
visible,  and at the same instant Ian picked  up a high energy burst signal.
The  pilot was good, he  realized, never forgetting his mission,  even while
flying  to evade death. Whatever he was sent here to find out, he was making
sure word got out.
     "Combat  control,  bogey  has sent burst signal, repeat, bogey has sent
burst signal."
     The first incoming  missile  closed in. Ian nosed  over  hard and  then
banked back up,  the missile jinxing down to follow  and then shooting past.
The  second and  third missiles, momentarily thrown off  by  his attempts at
jamming, regained lock but missed as well due to the same maneuver. Ian felt
the  sweat streaking down the small of  his back.  His own bolt  was leaping
forward, guiding straight in.
     There  was a brilliant flash of  light as  bright  as the  sun and then
darkness. It took Ian a second to  realize that his own missile was still  a
dozen  clicks   away.  The  Kilrathi  had  self-destructed   with   a  small
matter/antimatter warhead, vaporizing himself  and his ship. Now there would
never he any evidence  at  all of the violation  of  the armistice  since  a
missile hit  tended  to  leave  a  lot  of  wreckage  behind which  could be
evaluated later.
     Watching the ship, he momentarily forgot  what  was now behind him, and
suddenly a high undulating warble sounded in his headphones. One of the IFFs
had turned around, regained lock and was closing straight in.
     He punched hard over,  aiming straight back  towards the  moon, popping
out  chaff and a noise  maker.  He  turned  his transponder off  completely,
slamming off all energy sources.
     The damn thing  kept closing, following his  every turn and then a high
energy ping sounded.
     What the hell was this?
     "Combat control, combat control!"
     "Control here."
     "Kilrathi seem to have new  prototype weapon.  It's ignoring  chaff and
noise maker. It registered  first as an IFF missile but the  damn thing must
have  a  smart weapon program that continues  to  recognize its  target once
locked," Ian  shouted, realizing that even if he bought it, it was essential
that his friends knew exactly why and  learned from it. It was part  of  the
training and it was loyalty as well.
     He had no tail gunner to pop the missile at the last second, or wingman
to  peel it  off his  back, or  the mad confusion of  a hundred fighters and
ships filling space  with metal and  energy. He was naked and alone, the IFF
following remorselessly, like  a  cold deadly shark that  could kill without
thinking or feeling.
     He skimmed down over the  moon's  airless surface, weaving a  low sharp
turn into a narrow canyon and the missile impacted against the side of cliff
behind  him. He  breathed  a deep  sigh  of relief and then a second  warble
kicked in, showi