here was a chance to meet the  enemy  three on
four, with the possible edge that the pilots aboard the enemy ships were not
their first line Guard fighters.
     He had opted for  action,  but with the stipulation  that  his carriers
would not close within ten million clicks and engage at long range only with
fighters.
     The action had  been inconclusive throughout  the day, with the loss of
thirty-eight fighters  in  exchange for two hits on a carrier with  moderate
damage, and three  enemy frigates destroyed  in return for one hit on Moskva
and a destroyer lost.
     But  now  there was no  longer a  question  as  to  Prince  Thrakhath's
strategy. He was indeed coming straight on.
     For the last hour, the jump point covered by the carriers had disgorged
destroyers, frigates, fuel tankers,  and  supply ships. And now at last  the
first of the new carriers had emerged.
     His intelligence officer passed up a  continual stream of  reports, the
hazy  images  from Paladin's recon scan, replaced now  by clear optical  and
radar  images passed up by light Ferret recon fighters moving back  from the
edge of the fleet.
     Tolwyn continued to pull back, his fighters coming in to land, a screen
of escort  ships  guarding  the sterns of the carriers from  enemy fighters,
while dropping out a spray of porcupine mines to slow the relentless advance
of the enemy fleet.
     A fourth carrier appeared and then  a fifth,  each  of  them identical,
each of them terrifying.
     "Sir, we are receiving a hailing from the Kilrathi fleet.
     "What?"
     The communications officer looked back  at his console for a moment and
then turned again to Tolwyn.
     "Confirmed,  sir. It's  an in  the  clear translight  signal from their
fleet."
     "I'll take it in my office."
     He left  the bridge and stepped  into his wardroom. He  spared a  quick
glance at a mirror. The circles under his eyes would tell of  his exhaustion
but there was no helping it.
     He settled into his chair and punched the holo screen to life.
     "Go ahead, comm, patch it in."
     The image of Baron Jukaga appeared.
     "Ah,  Admiral Tolwyn,  our intelligence reports  said that  you were in
command of Third Fleet. My congratulations on your promotion. We have always
admired  you  as  perhaps   the  best  of   the  fighting  admirals  of  the
Confederation."
     "What do you want, Baron?" Geoff replied coldly.
     "Your surrender."
     "I'm a  military  man, not a  diplomat, Baron.  Direct your inquiry  to
President  Quinson.  I'm  sure he  will  tell  you  to  go perform a certain
impossible anatomical act."
     The Baron chuckled.
     "You humans and your sexual  obsession. So strange, we must discuss the
differences some time. But I am asking a military question, Admiral. I'm not
demanding the surrender of your Confederation, merely your fleet."
     Geoff replied with what he assumed the President would have said.
     "Such crudity, Admiral  it's not becoming of one  of your  breeding and
education. You and I are alike in our  study of human warfare. It  creates a
bond between the two of us, a bond I should add that I feel is even stronger
towards you than to many of my  own species. It would  be distressing to see
you defeated and dead."
     "You assume too much,  Baron. Do  not worry about my death until it  is
accomplished, but instead worry about your own.
     "Touchщ. But come, can't we reason this disagreement out?"
     Geoff laughed coldly.
     "My government was  stupid enough to believe you once. It'll be a  very
cold day in  hell before we believe you again. This  time the fight's to the
death, no quarter asked or expected."
     "A shame you put it that way."
     "No, I want it that way, Geoff  snarled, angry with himself that he was
losing his temper.  "You  murdered my  closest friends  in your bomb plot. I
heard as well  about your attempt on the Emperor.  I'm surprised they didn't
rip your guts out for that, you utak."
     He deliberately  chose the  Kilrathi word used  to describe the  lowest
caste  member of Kilrah society, the cleaners of privy  pits for fertilizer,
one considered  so untouchable that it was  a defilement if  his shadow even
touched the shadow of anyone of a higher class.
     He could see that the word caused Jukaga to bristle.
     "I'm surprised the Emperor  even  allowed one such as you to live. I've
heard  that assassination is all  but unknown in your  society. It seems you
learned it from  us. You know nothing of us. You learned but  the  worst and
learned none of  the best. You  are beneath the contempt of both my race and
yours.
     He noticed a change in Jukaga's demeanor and his image disappeared.
     "Communications, what's going on?"
     "Signal shifted, sir, coming back in, on a fleet scramble line."
     Jukaga's image reappeared on the screen
     "I  feel more comfortable  now, Admiral, talking without anyone able to
listen in on my side for the next several minutes. May I have your agreement
that this conversation will be kept strictly between us?"
     "I can't promise that," Geoff replied.
     "Then at least do not let it be shared with my own people. I've managed
to have the signal scrambled from here but soon it might be compromised."
     "I agree then, it will not get back to your side."
     "We don't have  much  time  to  talk,  Admiral. I want  to give  you  a
warning. I was supposed to do this anyhow  but I want you to understand that
my concern in this is genuine."
     "Go on then."
     "If you do not surrender your fleet, Prince Thrakhath has declared that
this  shall  be a  war  of  gatagak'vu.  How  do  you  say, a war  of  total
eradication."
     Geoff felt a cold chill.
     "Has it not always been thus?" he finally ventured.
     "No.  This  is  different. He will not  only slaughter everyone  Ч man,
woman and  child,  but  he will also  slaughter the very worlds  you live on
through the use of high radiation doses. Nothing will be left, nothing. Your
home, your Earth, with all its long  history,  will  be dead, uninhabitable,
lifeless."
     His words trailed  off and Geoff  was startled to realize that Jukaga's
voice was filled with remorse.
     "You wanted us destroyed, enslaved, why your concern now?" Geoff asked.
     Jukaga smiled and shook his head.
     "That is not your concern,  Admiral  Tolwyn,  only my  own. I therefore
implore  you. Surrender. If you do, I will ensure that you and your warriors
are treated with honor, that your Earth will continue to live."
     "Better to die as free men then live as slaves," Geoff replied coldly.
     Jukaga nodded, a smile lighting his features.
     "As any true warrior would reply, he said quietly, "as I knew you would
reply."
     "Then there's nothing more to be said."
     "I  have been  told to  advise you  that  you have twenty  four of your
standard minutes to reply. If  not, the planet you call Warsaw will cease to
live.
     "Go ahead and  do it now,"  Geoff replied coldly, "but  by  God, Baron,
tell Thrakhath that if he does, there'll come a day when we'll come back. If
it  takes a  hundred years, we'll come  back and we'll watch Kilrah  as it's
burned to ashes."
     "Good-bye, Admiral," Jukaga said quietly and  he started to reach  over
to switch off his screen. He paused and looked back up.
     "I'm sorry," and then his image disappeared.
     Shaken, Geoff sat back in his  chair.  He had just  condemned more than
twenty million to death
     "God help me," he  whispered  and  he  lowered  his head for  a moment,
offering a silent prayer for forgiveness and strength.
     He stood back up finally and went back out on the bridge.
     "Warsaw,  now  five  million  clicks  astern  sir,"  the  helm  officer
announced.
     "Make course back towards Sirius,  order destroyer squadron three."  He
paused. "No, make that squadron two, to form rear guard using maneuver delta
for delaying action."
     He settled into  his  command  chair, watching the tactical.  The enemy
carriers,  masked by more than a hundred escorts, continued their relentless
move  forward,  while  one  of the  older carriers,  escorted by  a  cruiser
squadron, broke away, turning towards Warsaw.
     "Get me Mike Polowski on laser link," Geoff said quietly.
     Seconds  later the  commander  of squadron three appeared  on the  holo
screen.  Geoff  felt as if  the commodore  were  in  the room with him.  His
features were pale, jaw quivering.
     "I've got bad news for you, Mike."
     "I can see it, Geoff."
     "I'm sorry. They demanded the surrender of the fleet. If we didn't they
said they'd hit your home world."
     Mike lowered his head
     "You did  what you had to do, Geoff. God help me, I would have done the
same. Anything else, sir?"
     "It's going to be bad,  Mike. They're going to radiation-bombard  it as
well, killing the planet and everything on it.
     Mike's jaw started to tremble  and he turned away from the screen for a
moment and then finally looked back, his eyes filled with anguish.
     "Why? It's not even a military target."
     "To make an example of what's to come."
     Mike stood silently, unable to speak.
     "I'm sorry, Mike."
     Polowski nodded silently and then his image winked off.
     "Give  me  full optical power  on Warsaw,  patch in  to their planetary
defense."
     The orbital base commander appeared  on the  side screen, while optical
locked on the  planet. It  still looked  peaceful, an  illusion  since  with
visual scan it now took more than two minutes for the image to reach him.
     "White Wolf, this  is Warsaw defense. We are under attack. As  per your
orders,  primary station  has  been  abandoned.  Civilian  population are in
shelters. All ground to space missiles have been expended.
     "White Wolf, this is  Warsaw defense.  We have  high speed incoming! We
have . . ."
     The image snapped off.
     Geoff  watched the optical scan in silence, and then  the first blossom
of light  snapped  across the  northern  continent's surface.  Seconds later
hundreds of snaps of light erupted, blanketing the continent. the snake-like
chain of islands in the southern hemisphere erupting as well.
     "We are picking up thermonuclear air bursts in the five hundred megaton
range.  The  nukes  are  emitting  strontium  ninety," the tactical  officer
announced, her voice hard-edged with rage.
     "The bastards," Geoff whispered, "the damn bastards."
     It  had  gone even  beyond genocide.  The planet was seeded with enough
strontium 90  to wipe out the entire biosphere. The Kilrathi were destroying
an entire planet simply as a demonstration of what was to come.

     "I  know  why you're here,  Captain, excuse me,  I think I  made  you a
Commodore. Anyhow, Commodore, you're wasting your time."
     Without even waiting for an invitation Jason went over  to the refridge
in Kruger's wardroom, pulled out a container of beer and popped it open.
     "Help yourself," Kruger said quietly and then paused, "you deserve it."
     "You did well out there," Jason replied.
     "Not  good enough," and Kruger motioned  to a flat screen projecting an
image from a drone probe that was circling above  the main airfield and town
on the Hell Hole, at least what was left of it.
     "Four  antimatter warheads and one  thermonuclear  airburst loaded with
strontium ninety. The world's a write-off."
     "The bastards," Jason hissed, looking at the radiation read-outs. There
had been an unwritten and unspoken agreement between the two sides since the
start of the  war, that no matter how  grim the conflict was, the deliberate
destruction of life-bearing capability of a planet was beyond the limits. It
had  been in part a self-serving  rule for both sides,  for both sides hoped
for ultimate victory and with it the worlds inhabited by their foes.
     "We  just got  this burst signal from the Confeds," and he switched the
screen.
     It was an official government news service report on the opening action
in the Warsaw system  and Jason watched, seething with  rage as  an  optical
scan showed the  annihilation  of Warsaw. The report finished with a  demand
from Baron Jukaga, delivered in the most sincere of voices, as if he were on
the human side of the  conflict,  calling for an end  to hostilities through
the surrender of the Third Fleet.  The  closing  comment came from President
Quinson,  a  wonderfully  crude  response, delivered before a  packed Senate
meeting, and as he said the words the Senate came to its feet, roaring their
support.
     "I actually rather like Quinson," Kruger said, turning the  screen off.
"Too bad he's going to get his ass kicked."
     "At least he'll go down fighting."
     "A gallant gesture but useless in the end, С Kruger said quietly.
     Jason spared a look over at the holo tactical display.
     "The Cats have pulled back?"
     "Into  the next  system already. I've got  a squadron of  destroyers in
pursuit.  They're  circled  around the  crippled  carrier like a  wolf  pack
defending its  pups.  Just what I wanted,  they're shaken and are  afraid of
losing a second carrier.
     "Now what?"
     "Ah, what you came to hear."
     Jason nodded.
     "Stay here. The bastards will be back. We know where seven of their old
carriers are now, rather six, thanks to the kill  your pilots helped put in.
That  still leaves at least ten unaccounted for.  They  might  hit  us  from
another direction at any moment."
     Kruger paused and looked up at Jason.
     "Go on, I'm expecting to hear it.  Even old ъichards  on that frigate I
gave him is mumbling about it."
     "Head for  Sirius or Earth.  Look, I'll  admit when  I first got here I
didn't think  much of your Landreich fleet and pilots. But by God I'll admit
it now, they're the best I've ever seen. Brave to the point of suicidal."
     "Sometimes I  even  have  to ask  that,"  Kruger  replied  quietly.  "A
trade-off of a couple of lives for many."
     "They might help tip the scale."
     "First of all, action will be joined there by then."
     Jason nodded.
     "But it still might be going on and we could help."
     "And while I go  running off what  about my own people out here? You're
proposing  that  I leave  the  planets  and orbital colonies  of  my  system
defenseless and go riding off  to help the Confederation? Your Confederation
was  willing  to write us off thirty years back, and they did it again  this
time. Why the hell should I care?"
     "Because the Confederation needs  you, needs  your leadership and  your
pilots."
     Kruger snorted with disdain.
     "Oh, solidarity of race against the Cats, is that your next pitch?"
     "I knew that  wouldn't  work," Jason  replied. "But you know  damn well
that when Earth and the inner worlds  fall it's  finished. What happened  to
Warsaw  will happen to them. The Kilrathi are on a  killing frenzy and  they
won't stop. They've levered  the war up another notch. When  they're done in
there, they'll come out here and  follow you and your people no matter where
you flee."
     Kruger  said nothing, as if having heard the  argument  too  many times
before.
     "So you won't go?"
     "You guessed it."
     "Will you release me and  my  people, give  us at least  Tarawa to head
back?"
     "No."
     Jason had already calculated the chance of doing a Kruger on Kruger, of
hijacking  his carrier out  of  the  fleet and knew  it  was impossible  and
useless. Nearly all the pilots and over half his crew were Landreich. Kruger
had  shrewdly  made  sure  that  none  of  the carriers  had  a majority  of
Confederation crews on board.
     "You  just  can t forgive, can you?"  Jason asked coldly. "Thirty years
ago the Confederation made a mistake and I'd  admit you made the right  move
in response. You know enough about me to know I did the same thing.  I led a
mutiny against an officer who ordered us to murder Kilrathi civilians and it
would have destroyed my career if it hadn't been for Admiral Tolwyn.
     "I  went  through  hell  because  of  that,  but  I  never  blamed  the
Confederation.  I blamed  the  bastard who forced me  to mutiny. For  thirty
years you ve  been carrying a grudge and because of your damned stupid blind
pride you'll condemn humanity to death.
     "I'm not  going  to mutiny against you, Kruger, but  when the  Kilrathi
finish with you, if I'm still alive, I'll spit on whatever is left of you."
     Without waiting for a reply Jason Bondarevsky  stormed out of President
Kruger's office.


        CHAPTEъ TWELVE


     The two inhabited worlds of Sirius glimmered in the aft screen, showing
themselves  as two  pale green  points  of  light in the  middle of the holo
display of the system. Geoff jacked up the magnification  level of  the holo
and the further of  the two planets disappeared. On the far side of the holo
display  a  nearly solid swarm of red  blips  were  arrayed  in  five  large
clusters. Hundreds  of  smaller  red lights,  Kilrathi  strike fighters  and
interceptors,  were moving ahead, coming  straight  in  at his own thin blue
line,  behind  which were positioned  four  large  blue  dots. In the middle
region of space between the two groups, two V wedges of small blue dots were
aiming straight in at the heart of the enemy fleet.
     "Strike  forces  crossing into  Kilrathi  controlled  space,"  a  voice
whispered.
     The Combat  Information  Center,  buried in  the heart of Concordia was
almost like a tomb, encased in  a double layering of  durasteel, illuminated
by soft diffused light and the  shimmer of holo  displays and  flat screens.
Outside a battle was raging, in  here, where the  decisions were being made,
the  cool professionalism of his staff made it seem almost like an exercise.
Yet, as he spared a glance from the holo and looked around the room he could
see the grim determination. After retreating through three star systems, and
impotently  witnessing the annihilation of the worlds he had been  forced to
abandon, Geoff Tolwyn  had finally  turned his  fleet  about.  The Battle of
Sirius had begun.

     "Blue Squadron, this is Lone Wolf. Close it  up. ъemember,  we want the
big ones, nothing else, so cover your Broadswords."
     "Lone Wolf, this is ъound Top, read me?"
     Kevin Tolwyn smiled; it was his old comrade from the Tarawa days.
     "Where are you, Chamberlain?"
     "ъight above you in Broadsword Two off Moskva, so be  sure to cover  my
butt, son, while I win the glory.
     "With you all the way, ъound Top."
     Kevin tightened the  grip  on  his  joystick,  his  ъapier  G  jiggling
slightly  from  his nervous hold on the stick. It was certainly  the biggest
strike group  he  had  ever flown  with,  more  than two hundred  and  fifty
fighters  and attack bombers  launched from four  carriers. The  extra fifty
heavy strike  craft from Saratoga were  missed,  the  carrier  still  half a
system away  with a main  engine fuel pump acting up. Two hundred and eighty
fighters were being held in reserve as protection for the fleet carriers and
as a second strike wave.
     Kevin  looked  down  at  his  tactical  display.  Straight   ahead  the
individual blips of  enemy fighters, corvettes, frigates  and destroyers had
merged into a solid wall of red.
     He clicked into  a side band to the main  fleet  communications line. A
real  time  image  of  Gilead,  the  second  inhabited  planet,   was  being
transferred out to the fleet even while the battle was about to be joined.
     He  was  past  the  point of rage. The planet  flickered on his screen,
bursts of five hundred megaton  th