“I don’t like it,” Horus said grimly, “and neither does the Council. You’re out of your mind, Colin!”

“No, I’m not.” Colin tried hard to sound patient. His experience with Dahak’s tenacity helped, but he was starting to think Horus could have given the starship stubborn lessons. “We’ve been over this and over this, and it still comes out the same. I’ve got to let Dahak know what’s going on. He doesn’t distinguish between any of you people; if he spots you, he’s as likely to open up on you as he is on Anu.”

“That’s a chance we’ll just have to take,” Horus said obstinately.

“That’s a chance we can’t take!” Colin snapped, then made himself relax. “Damn, you’re stubborn! Look, this is an all—or—nothing move; that’s all it can be. We can’t risk having Dahak attack us when we actually move against the enclave, but that’s only part of it. If we manage to get inside and do enough damage their armed parasites lift out, he’s gonna know something is going on. He hasn’t heard a squeak out of me in almost five weeks—how do you think he’s going to react when he sees any Imperial units moving around down here?”

“Well…”

“Exactly! But even that’s not the worst of it. Suppose—heaven forbid—I buy it? Who’s gonna explain any of this to Dahak? You know he won’t believe anything you say, assuming he even listens. So. I’m dead, and you’ve zapped Anu. What happens next?” He met the old man’s eyes levelly.

“The best you people can hope for is that he leaves you alone, but he won’t. He’ll figure it was simply a power play among the mutineers—which, in a sense, is exactly what it will be—and go after you. If the enclave’s shield is down, he’ll get you, too. But even if the shield’s up and you’re inside it, he’ll be in exactly the same position he’s always been in, and the Achuultani are still coming! For God’s sake, man, do you want it all to be for nothing?!”

Horus glared with the fury of a man driven against the wall, and Jiltanith sat beside him, glowering at Colin. Her brooding silence made him appallingly nervous, and he tried to remind himself she was an experienced intelligence analyst. The smooth way she managed her sensor arrays and Nergal’s stealthed auxiliaries proved her competence and ability to think calmly and logically. She might hate him, but she was a professional. Surely she saw the logic of his argument?

She’d said little so far, but he knew how pivotal her opinion might well be and wondered yet again if she resented the fact that MacMahan—who was technically her subordinate—had come straight to him with his plan? He’d half—expected her to throw her weight against him from the start, but now her lips twisted as if she’d just bitten into something spoiled.

“Nay, Father. The captain hath the right of’t.”

Horus turned an “et tu?” expression upon her, and sour amusement glinted in her eyes as Colin blinked in surprise.

“ ’Tis scarce palatable, Father, yet ’twould be grimmest humor and our deeds do naught but doom us all, and the captain doth speak naught but truth. Wi’out word to Dahak, can we e’er be aught save mutineers?” Horus shook his head unwillingly, and she touched his arm gently. “Then there’s an end to’t. Sin we must give it that word and ’twill accept only the captain’s implant code as sooth, then is there naught we may do save bend our heads and yield.”

Colin looked from her to her father, grateful for her support yet aware logic, not enthusiasm, governed her. It showed even in the way she spoke of him. She used only his rank, and that sourly, when speaking of him to others, and she never called him anything when forced to address him directly.

“But they’re bound to spot him!” Horus said almost desperately, and Colin understood perfectly. Colin was the first chance for outright victory Fate had seen fit to offer Horus, and the possibility of losing that chance terrified the old Imperial far more than the thought of his own death ever could.

“Of course they are,” he said. “That’s why it has to be done my way.”

“Granddad,” Hector MacMahan said gently, “I don’t like it very much, myself, but they may be right.”

Horus scowled, and the colonel turned to face Colin.

“If I support you on this one,” the Marine said levelly, “it’ll only be because I have to, and this will be the only raid you go on. Understood?”

Colin considered trying to stare the colonel down, but it would have been impolitic. Worse, it would be an exercise in futility, so he nodded instead.

MacMahan gave one of his patented fractional smiles, and Colin knew it was decided. It might take a while to bring Horus around, but the decision that counted was MacMahan’s, for Colin and the Council had named him operational commander. Success would depend heavily on his Terra-born network, which made it logical for him to run things instead of Jiltanith, and while Colin might be a Senior Fleet Captain (of sorts), it was an interesting legal question whether or not any of “his” personnel still came under his orders. More, he knew his limits, and he simply wasn’t equipped to orchestrate something like this.

“I’m going to have to back Colin on this one, Granddad,” MacMahan said. “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

Horus stared at the table a moment, then nodded unwillingly.

“All right, Colin, you’re on the Cuernavaca strike,” MacMahan continued. “And you’ll make your strike, send your message, and get out, understood?”

“Understood.”

“And,” MacMahan added gently, “ ’Tanni will be your pilot.”

“What?!”

Colin clamped his teeth before he said anything else he would regret, but his eyes were fiery, and Jiltanith’s blazed even hotter.

“ ’Tanni will be your pilot,” MacMahan repeated mildly. “I’m speaking now as the commander of a military operation, and I don’t really have time to be diplomatic, so both of you just shut up and listen.”

Colin pushed back in his chair and nodded. Jiltanith only looked daggers at MacMahan, but he chose to construe her silence as agreement.

“All right. I know there’s some bad blood between you two,” the colonel said with generous understatement, “but there’s no room for that here. This—as all three of us have just pointed out to Granddad—is important.

“Colin, you’re the only person who can initiate the message, and if we send you on the strike, you should be able to hide your fold–space transmission by burying it under an ostensible strike report to our HQ. But we don’t know how quickly or strongly Anu’s people will be able to respond, so we can’t afford anything but our very best pilot behind those controls. You’re good, Colin, and your reaction time is phenomenal even by Imperial standards, but good as you are, you have very little actual experience in an Imperial fighter.

“ ’Tanni, on the other hand, is a natural pilot and the youngest of our Imperials, with reaction time almost as good as yours but far, far more experience. The overall mission will be under your command, but she’s your pilot and you’re her electronics officer, or neither of you goes.”

He regarded them steadily, and Colin glanced over at Jiltanith. He caught her unaware, surprising her own gaze upon him, and a flicker of challenge passed between them.

“All right,” he sighed finally, then grinned. “If I’d known what an iron-assed bastard you are, I’d never have agreed to let you run this op, Hector.”

“Ah, but I’m the best iron-assed bastard you’ve got … Sir,” MacMahan replied.

Colin subsided, and his grin grew as a new thought occurred to him. Once he and Jiltanith were crammed into the same two—man fighter, she was going to have to think of something to call him!

It was amazing how consistently wrong he could be, Colin thought moodily as he checked his gear one last time. He and Jiltanith had worked in the same simulator for a week now, and she still hadn’t chosen to call him anything.