In twelve simultaneous flashes, they did... and surrounded by light and fire and expanding clouds of debris, the Komitadji was momentarily hidden from enemy view. "Cocoon: launch!" he snapped.

The Komitadji didn't lurch—it was far too big for that—but Lleshi imagined he could feel the dull thud of the explosive springs as their cargo was blown clear of the Number Six hold. "Third Spearhawks away," Campbell called.

"Fire Harpies," Lleshi ordered. "Random minus one pattern."

"Acknowledged. First Harpies away."

On the tactical the twelve Spearhawk trails were abruptly joined by fifty more, bursting outward from the Komitadji like the time-lapse flowering of a strange and exotic plant. Almost lost among them was the tiny spot drifting with maddening leisure from the Komitadji's starboard side. "Hard aport," Lleshi ordered. "Draw the catapult focus away from the cocoon."

He was pushed into the side of his chair as the helmsman complied. With plasma and missile debris blocking their view it took a few seconds for the Empyreal ships to notice the maneuver and move to match it; simultaneously, the Harpy missiles began exploding. "They've found the Harpies' code,"

Campbell said. "Second Harpies ready."

"Focus forming," the helmsman called. "Five seconds: mark."

"Hold second Harpies," Lleshi ordered. If Kosta and the cocoon weren't in the clear now, wasting another batch of expensive missiles on what was little more than a fireworks display wasn't going to make the difference. "Stand ready for catapult."

And with the usual stuttering from the hull, the universe vanished.

Automatically, Lleshi started counting the seconds; but he'd barely begun when the stars returned.

The stars, and a dull red sun barely visible to one side.

Carefully, he let out a quiet breath. That had been the final gamble of this phase of the operation, and now it too had come up clean. "Secure from battle stations," he ordered. "Location check, and scan for the cocoon."

"Location computed, Commodore," the navigator said briskly. "We're fifty-four point seven lightyears from the Lorelei system; running a hundred thirty million klicks out from the local sun. I'll have an orbit profile in a moment."

"No trace of the cocoon within inner scan limit," the scanner chief added. Shifting to midrange, but looks like a clean drop."

"Good. Get us some rotation, and have engineering start putting the kick pod catapult together."

The weight warning trilled through the command deck; and as the huge ship started almost imperceptibly to rotate, Lleshi turned to look at Telthorst. "You see now why we weren't all that worried about risking the Komitadji."

The Adjutor gazed back, his eyes hard. "Two hundred million kilometers further and you wouldn't be in a position to gloat," he said pointedly. "Our vector would have passed straight through that star out there and we'd all be very, very dead."

"Agreed," Lleshi nodded. "Which I imagine is why it took the Empyreals so long to get rid of us.

Laser-point precision on top of a fast field reconfiguration."

Telthorst looked at the dim star on the viewscreen. "I suppose they expect us to be impressed by that."

Lleshi shrugged. "I'm impressed. Aren't you?"

The Adjutor looked back at him, his lip twisted in contempt. "Impressed, Commodore? Impressed by a people who've become so sheep-like that they won't kill even in their own defense? You're too easy to please."

"Am I?" Lleshi countered, the slow unprofessional burn starting again. "Those Empyreals were risking their lives, Adjutor—make no mistake about that. If those Spearhawks had hit them they'd have died, with or without those fancy sandwich-metal hulls of theirs. In my experience, sheep seldom come equipped with that degree of courage."

Telthorst's expression didn't change... but abruptly Lleshi felt a chill in the air. "Admiration of one's opponents is said to be a useful trait in diplomats," the Adjutor said softly. "The same doesn't apply to soldiers. Bear in mind, Commodore, that we're not dealing with men here. We're dealing with men under alien control. There's a considerable difference."

"I'm aware of what we're up against," Lleshi said, keeping a firm grip on his temper. "But then, that's why we're here, isn't it? To rescue our fellow human beings from these dangerous angels?"

The lines around Telthorst's mouth deepened. "Don't mock me, Commodore," he warned. "I may not profess admiration for their soldiers the way you do. But I wasn't the one who set up a dry scorch run, complete with a full complement of fighters and Hellfire missiles ready in their launch tubes."

Lleshi swallowed a curse. He'd hoped that in all the excitement Telthorst would have forgotten about the Beta simulation. Not only hadn't he forgotten, he'd obviously even taken the time to monitor that part of the exercise. "My orders are to subdue the Empyrean and bring it under the Pax umbrella," he said stiffly. "I intend for my crew to be ready for any contingency that may arise in the act of carrying out those orders."

"I applaud your foresight," Telthorst said. "Just remember that the operative word is 'subdue.' Not

'destroy'; 'subdue.' "

"Understood," Lleshi growled. No, of course the operative word wasn't "destroy." You could put an Adjutor into a cold sweat simply by suggesting something with cash value or money-making potential might be damaged. "Let me remind you in turn that that was the main reason we chose the Kosta feint over the other scenarios Spec Ops suggested. If he isn't caught, he may be able to provide us with valuable information on the angels."

Telthorst snorted. "Of course he'll be caught. Isn't that the whole purpose of a feint? To get caught?"

Lleshi nodded reluctantly, feeling a twinge of discomfort. Dangerous situations were hardly anything new to him, and he'd had his fair share of ordering men onto what were little more than suicide missions. But always before they'd been military men, who had known what they were getting into and had had the best possible chance of getting out alive. Not a civilian with barely eight weeks of training.

Especially not a civilian who'd been lied to straight from square one about what his contribution was expected to be. "He may get lucky," he said.

Telthorst eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. "Perhaps. I'd like a copy of that Lorelei data pulse."

Lleshi caught Campbell's eye, nodded. Wordlessly, the other stepped over to Telthorst and handed him a data cyl. "Thank you," the Adjutor said, getting to his feet. "If you need me, Commodore, I'll be in my stateroom."

He went to the bridge lift platform; paused there. "By the way, you'll want to do a complete survey of this system," he added over his shoulder. "As long as we have to leave a functioning catapult here anyway, we might as well see if there's anything worth coming back for."

"Thank you," Lleshi said. "I am familiar with standing orders."

"Good." For a moment Telthorst let his gaze drift leisurely around the balcony, as if to remind them all who was ultimately in charge of this operation. Then, without another word, he disappeared down the lift plate shaft to the lower command deck and left.

Bastards, Lleshi thought after him. Carved-ice bastards, every one of them. He turned back to his console, keyed for an engineering status report. Work on the kick pod catapult was already underway, with an estimated completion time of five days.

At which point they would be able to send word back to the Pax that Kosta's drop had been successful. And the Empyrean would be on its slow, leisurely way to defeat.

"Tell engineering that as soon as the kick pod is away they're to put triple shifts on the main catapult construction," he instructed the comm officer. "I want it ready in four months."