Telthorst didn't reply, or even bother to turn around. "Still," Lleshi couldn't resist adding as he turned back to the business at hand, "it's good to know the designers of the Komitadji's hull spent their money well."

"I have the blastpoint now, sir," the sensor officer called.

Lleshi had seen the computer-projected results of a doomsday pod explosion several times, most recently during the planning sessions for this invasion. But he had never seen the actual aftermath of the weapon until now.

On a planet, it would undoubtedly have been an awesome vision of destruction and carnage; a strategic hydrogen warhead multiplied by a thousand. Here, in the middle of an asteroid field, the results were more subtle but just as real.

And, in their own way, just as horrible.

For a thousand kilometers around where the Empyreal net had been, space was empty. Completely and totally empty. Every solid object within that sphere, be it asteroid, sandwich-metal-hulled combat ship, or fragile human body, had been disintegrated down to its component particles. Outside that zone, everything else seemed to be in motion, with small chunks of rock hurling outward and even large asteroids now carrying a vector component away from the point of the blast. Each of the asteroids the telescope screen was able to get a clear view of seemed partially shattered or half melted.

"Move us out of the net area," Lleshi ordered the helm, feeling oddly ill. "What about Lorelei's kickpod catapults?"

"There was one with each net," Campbell said. He sounded as awed as Lleshi felt, though there was no indication of the disquiet the commodore himself was feeling. "There's also the one near Lorelei itself."

The tactical display shifted to a projected schematic of the planet Lorelei, showing the small catapult in high polar orbit around it. Simultaneously, one of the telescope displays lit up with a slightly fuzzy real-time view. "The light from the nearest pod explosion will reach Lorelei in about three minutes," Campbell went on. "That will be the first they'll know about our attack."

And the enemy's first act ought to be to put a quick alert message together and get a kick pod out to that catapult. "Run a confirmation on the catapult location," Lleshi ordered. On one of the aft displays, the Balaniki flickered into view as it was caught in the Pax net. "What about the main catapult?"

"It's orbiting ahead of Lorelei in the planet's leading Lagrange point," Campbell said. "A pretty good distance out; they won't be able to get a ship there very quickly."

Provided there weren't any ships already on the way. But there was nothing Lleshi could do about that. Besides, with the Pax net now the only door into Lorelei system, it wasn't nearly as critical that word of the invasion be delayed.

Still, the more time they had to consolidate their position, the better. Reaching over, he punched his direct feed to the Balaniki. "Captain Horvak?"

"Yes, sir," Horvak replied briskly. "Thunderhead is loaded and ready, awaiting your orders. If the Empyreals are still on the same schedule, their most recent kick pod went out half an hour ago."

Which meant that if they could knock out the kick-pod catapult, it would be another five and a half hours before the other four Empyreal systems would even begin to suspect anything was wrong.

If. "You've received our up-to-date sensor readings?"

"Received and calibrated in," Horvak said. "We're aligned and green."

"Good." Lleshi shifted his gaze to the display showing the Balaniki. "You may fire when ready."

"Yes, sir. Thunderhead: fire."

There was nothing to see, really; only a half-imagined flicker of movement just before the circle of warning lights around the opening in the Balaniki's nose went out. But the sensor display showed what human eyes were too slow to catch: the slender black missile that had been launched from the mass driver running the entire length of the Balaniki's centerline, now hurling toward the distant planet. Lleshi looked back at the main display, silently counting down the seconds; and abruptly, the missile's solid-fuel core ignited, burning with incredible ferocity and adding to the missile's already blistering velocity at an acceleration that would have crushed a human crew.

It would take the Komitadji over two days to reach Lorelei from here. The remnants of the Thunderhead missile would make that same trip in just under an hour.

At which point, if the sensor data and computer calculations were correct, the warhead would fragment into a cloud of ultrafast hundred-gram particles and slam into Lorelei's kick-pod catapult, shattering it and cutting off the Empyreals' fastest method of contacting the outside universe.

On a Pax world, Lleshi knew, confusion and sheer bureaucratic inertia would delay the launch of an emergency kick pod at least that long. On an Empyreal world, under angel influence, there was no way to know if the Thunderhead would be in time.

Or, for that matter, whether the Thunderhead would even hit its target. If it had been misaimed, or if unexpected gravitational or solar wind forces deflected it even slightly off its proper course, those hundred-gram weights could conceivably slam full into the planet Lorelei itself at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

And if they did, the destruction the doomsday pod had caused out here among the small number of EmDef defenders would be multiplied a thousandfold among the people of that world.

Innocent people. People whose salvation from the angel threat was the purported reason for this military activity in the first place.

"We're wasting time, Commodore," Telthorst said impatiently.

Unfortunately, this time the little man was right. The Thunderhead missile and Lorelei were now in the hands of the laughing fates. Whether or not the alert went out on the kick-pod catapult, the Komitadji's next task was the same: to capture and secure the main catapult running in orbit ahead of Lorelei.

Preferably before the Lorelei government got its act together and got a ship up there and out of the system. But to capture and hold it nonetheless. "Acceleration alert," he ordered. "Lay in a minimumtime course for Lorelei."

And as the acceleration warning sounded and the big ship began to move, he wondered vaguely what had happened to Kosta.

The hospital corridor was quiet, its lighting slightly muted to late-night levels, as Chandris slipped in through the stairwell door. More importantly for her purposes, the area also seemed to be deserted.

No, not completely. There was a more brightly lit alcove area just off the center of the corridor behind a wide window-shaped service opening, and as she eased the stairwell door closed behind her she heard the faint sound of shuffling feet and papers.

Still, as long as she stayed at this end of the hallway—and as long as none of the duty nurses poked their heads out through the service window—she ought to make it okay. Moving as quietly as she could, she headed down the corridor, hugging the wall and trying to look all directions at once. It was a job more suited to a kitty-lifter than a lowly con artist like herself, and she was beginning to sweat by the time she reached her target door. Easing it open, she slipped inside.

The room lights had been turned completely off, but there was enough of a glow from the indicators on the various medical monitors for her to make out the outline of the big man lying motionlessly beneath the blankets. She was halfway across the room, concentrating on not finding anything to bang her shins on, when she spotted the other figure sitting half propped up in a chair beside the bed, clearly asleep. Hesitating only a moment, she changed direction and circled the end of the bed to the chair. She reached out to the other's shoulder, wondering belatedly if this had been such a good idea after all, and gently squeezed. "Ornina?" she whispered.