"Right," Pirbazari said. "You want me to bring the others, too?"

"Just Kosta," Forsythe said. "And watch him, Zar. Watch him very closely."

"Don't worry," Pirbazari said. "I will."

The stars emerged from the blackness, and the Harmonic had arrived.

"Seraph EmDef Command to liner," a tart voice came from the bridge speaker. "Identify yourself."

Captain Djuabi turned his head toward the bridge master screen, where the net and catapult ships showed in a tactical-type display. Each of the four catapult ships had three or four Empyreal Defense Force ships hovering watchfully nearby. "This is Captain Djuabi of the liner Harmonic," he said, his voice stiff.

Far too stiff for Lleshi's taste. From his vantage point directly in front of the captain, carefully outside of the range of the visual comm camera, the commodore lifted a warning finger. Djuabi's lip twitched, just noticeably, and he gave a microscopic nod.

He would cooperate, all right. Not that he had many other options. With his liner's command areas all under Pax control, Djuabi had no choice but to comply with Lleshi's orders. At least, not if he valued the lives of his crew and passengers.

Djuabi shifted slightly in his chair, the movement sending a faint glint off the gold pendant and chain around his neck. Telthorst had wondered, rather pointedly, whether any number of human lives would even be a consideration for a man wearing an angel.

Perhaps they were about to find out.

"Point of origin?" Seraph Command asked.

"Balmoral," Djuabi said. Apparently it was still possible for a man to lie with an angel around his neck, at least under duress.

"Please transmit your papers," Seraph Command ordered.

Djuabi nodded to the man at the comm station. The Pax officer at the board set to work, fumbling only slightly with the unfamiliar control layout.

Lleshi rubbed his thumb slowly along the side of his index finger, striving to release some of the tension churning through his stomach. Everything was balanced together on this moment, a moment in which there was nothing he could do but watch and wait. The Balmoral papers the officer was sending out were as good a forgery as the Komitadji's Crypto Group had been able to create, but nothing was perfect. If Seraph Command had a particularly sharp eye, or a particularly wellprogrammed computer, this gamble would crumble like soft stone under a mason's sledgehammer.

And if it crumbled, so would the entire mission. Plus, undoubtedly, the rest of his career. Telthorst would see to that.

For perhaps half a minute nothing happened. Lleshi gazed at the master screen, watching the slow drift of the catapult ships across the starry background and wondering about the capabilities of those EmDef ships escorting them. The defenders were destroyer sized; small but heavily shielded and undoubtedly well armed.

And this time around Lleshi didn't have any doomsday pods available to use against them. Still, they surely wouldn't be able to stand up against the full might of the Komitadji.

Assuming he was able to make such a confrontation happen.

The vector on one of the distant ships shifted momentarily as it moved to keep the Harmonic within the catapult focal area. They were playing this cautious, all right. Lleshi took careful, measured breaths as he kept his eyes moving around the bridge. Win or lose, there was no way he was going to show nervousness in front of the Empyreals.

"Harmonic, you're cleared for Seraph," the voice came. "Fly safe."

"Thank you," Captain Djuabi said. He touched a switch, and the comm light went dark.

"Instructions, Commodore?" he asked calmly.

"You heard the man," Lleshi said. "Standard course toward Seraph."

A slight frown creased Djuabi's forehead. But he nodded and gave the helm the order without comment or question.

With a distant rumble of engines the Harmonic began accelerating. Lleshi kept his eyes on the master screen as the liner moved out of the net focal area, watching for any signs of suspicion from the EmDef ships.

But they were still just sitting there, drifting unconcernedly beside their assigned catapult spacecraft.

Completely oblivious to what had just happened.

Telthorst would undoubtedly have called them fools. Lleshi couldn't help but feel sorry for them.

He gave the Harmonic five more minutes worth of distance before nodding to Djuabi. "Far enough," he said. "Open the lifeboat bays."

"Lifeboat bays open, aye," the captain said formally, gesturing the order to the appropriate station.

"Acknowledge."

"Bays open," the officer at the station growled. Unlike his captain, this one was making no effort to hide his rage and shame. But then, he wasn't wearing an angel, either. "All bays show open."

Djuabi looked back at Lleshi. "Your move, Commodore."

"Thank you." Lleshi lifted his hand comm to his lips and clicked it on. "First wave: launch."

And on the board, the Harmonics outer hull erupted with drive trails as a hundred small spacecraft blew outward like spores from a flowering plant, using the liner's rotation to give them an extra boost.

But they weren't the liner's lifeboats. Those had all been offloaded at Lorelei.

These were Pax Vlad-class fighters.

"Attack pattern Alpha," Lleshi ordered. "All fighters."

The EmDef ships were on the move now, shifting to intercept vectors and accelerating to meet the enemy. "Remember your targets," Lleshi reminded them softly. "Not the destroyers, but the catapult ships."

In quick succession, the squadron leaders acknowledged... and as he watched the master screen Lleshi felt a tight smile touching the corners of his mouth. The gamble was still balanced on a knife's edge, but the waiting was over. Now, at least, he had some control over the outcome.

Taking a deep breath, holding the hand comm ready, he watched the ships prepare to engage.

"They came out of the Harmonics lifeboat bays," Pirbazari told Forsythe as he held open the door to the Government Building's executive conference room. "The EmDef guard ships have engaged."

The conference room was surprisingly crowded, particularly for eight o'clock at night when everything was supposed to be closed and senior governmental officials were supposed to be at home. Either all of them had been working late, or else word of the attack had passed quickly enough for them to come back here to take advantage of the direct EmDef information feed.

Some of the officials were speaking urgently on their phones. Others were talking tensely among themselves or just standing in stunned silence as they gazed at the main comm screen at the far end of the room. The screen had been rigged with a multi-view array taken from the various ships and monitor satellites in the net region, giving them all a front-row seat to the battle.

"Tactics?" Forsythe asked quietly as he and Pirbazari pushed their way between the conversational knots. Ideally, a High Senator would have been instantly and deferentially ushered to the best vantage point in the room. The fact that no one had apparently even noticed him said a lot about the stunned state they were all in.

"Looks like they're going for the two closest catapult ships," Pirbazari said. "Numbers One and Three. Their first goal will be to disable the catapult so that the rest of their force can come in."

"Or so that we can't throw out the fighters," Forsythe said. "Or maybe they don't want us throwing out the liner?"

Pirbazari shook his head. "It would take some serious reconfiguration of the catapult ships to get to the liner now," he said. "You can see the Harmonic was careful to get well out of the center of the pyramid before launching the fighters."