He stared at Eisen's image on his comm screen, his mind racing. Flint had a huge head start, and by the time he mounted any sort of rescue mission she might be dead. Gold Squadron was battered, exhausted, with missile stocks low and battle damage plaguing every one of the Thunderbolts. Common sense dictated that they cut their losses now and let Flint have her final, suicidal gesture. No matter how upset she might be, Robin Peters was no fool. She just wanted to go down fighting.

But there was another part of Blair that couldn't just give up on her. The same part that prolonged the search for Sandman. Good pilots don't give up on their own, especially not on their wingmen.

"I'll go after her, sir," he said at last. "See if there's anything I can do."

Eisen didn't respond right away. "Understood, Colonel," he said at last. "And . . . Godspeed."

"This is Leader," Blair said, more crisp than before. "If Sanders had managed to eject, we would have found him by now. Pack it in, people. Hobbes, get them down to the deck I'm going after Flint."

"My friend, you cannot go alone —" Hobbes protested.

"I'm with you, Colonel," Cobra overrode Ralgha's soft voice. "Lets move!"

"I'm alone on this one," Blair said firmly. "That's a direct order. All fighters return to Victory. One rogue pilot in a day is enough."

"But —" Cobra sounded ready to start another war.

"A direct order, I said." Blair paused. "But . . . Cobra, you and Vagabond have the least damage, after me. Get down on the deck, let the techs patch anything essential that's damaged, and then rearm and refuel. Prep another fuel shuttle and escort it toward the Ariel jump point. Flint and I will be needing fuel before we get back."

"If you get back" Ralgha said. "I do not understand why you are doing this, my friend. You are putting yourself in danger for no good purpose . . ."

"She's my wingman, Hobbes. I have to go. Now carry out your orders." He cut the channel with a savage stab at the comm button, then switched on the navigation computer to plot a course after Flint.

Blair's only hope was that he wasn't making the same empty gesture as she was.

Flint glanced mechanically from her sensor board to the weapon status display, hardly aware of what she was doing any more. Somehow the shock of what had happened was dull and distant, as though she was watching someone else react in her place. The emotion that nearly overpowered her as she had realized her planet was under a slow, savage death sentence faded away now, replaced by grim determination.

It felt the same way when Davie died . . . and when the news came in to the Academy about her father. The grief and pain were there, but they were suppressed by the overwhelming need to act, to do something.

She must do something, even though she knew it was hopeless. If she didn't die on the firing line, her career would probably be over anyway by the time Blair got through with her. She had disobeyed orders and let her vengeance get in the way of the mission once again, even after the Colonel gave her a second chance. This was the last time she would be in the cockpit, facing the Kilrathi, one way or another.

Robin Peters intended to make this last time count.

Her navigational computer signaled that she was fast approaching the Ariel jump point. Her autopilot cut out instantaneously, and Flint forced herself to relax and let her combat training take over.

The sensor board came alive with targets.

"Blair to Peters. Blair to Peters. Respond, please." Blair closed his eyes for a moment, caught somewhere between anger and concern and fear. "For God's sake, Flint, answer me. Break off and head for home before it's too late."

But his autopilot told him it probably was too late already. With her head start, she would have reached the jump point zone eight minutes ago, and eight minutes could be an eternity in a dogfight. By his best estimate Blair's Thunderbolt was still two minutes from contact.

He ran a quick inventory of his weaponry. There was still one fire-and-forget missile slung under his wing and both his gun turrets were fully charged. If there was any real opposition waiting ahead, it would be all too inadequate, but he didn't plan to remain for a long dogfight. Blair wanted to find Flint in one piece, then persuade her to withdraw in a hurry. Hopefully, the Kilrathi would be too concerned with getting their fighters back to Sar'hrai so she could jump to worry about chasing two foolhardy Terrans . . .

If not . . . well, it wasn't likely to be a long battle in any event.

The computer beeped a warning and cut the autopilot, and Blair focused on the sensor board as it began to register targets. The view before him wasn't encouraging.

The Kilrathi carrier dominated the scene, huge and menacing, hovering near the jump point. There was a great deal of activity around the big ship, and for a moment, Blair feared that Flint had driven straight in to attack the capital ship, a brave but utterly futile gesture indeed. But the blips he was registering were all Kilrathi, and after a moment, he realized that the bulk of the targets were keeping close to the carrier to protect incoming fighters attempting to land on Sar'hrai's flight deck.

Then he picked up Flint. She had not pursued the carrier after all, but she was heavily involved with a trio of Vaktoth fighters which locked her in a classic wheel attack circling her fighter and pounding at her shields without mercy. Flint handled her Thunderbolt impressively, managing somehow to dodge and turn out of the line of fire again and again, but inevitably some of those enemy beams penetrated her defenses. It was only a matter of time before her shields finally failed, leaving her fighter exposed to the full fury of the Kilrathi attack.

Blair took in the scene in an instant and cut in his afterburners. The Thunderbolt surged forward as if eager for battle, and in mere seconds his targeting computer locked on to one of the heavy fighters ahead. He would have to make this fast before any of the other Imperial fighters decided to intervene.

His blasters caught the Vaktoth at its weakest point, in the rear section just above the engines. There was a flaw in the shield pattern there, making the fighter vulnerable to a concentrated attack, but even the weak spot on a Vaktoth was formidable by anyone's standards. Blasters could punch through the shields, perhaps even damage armor underneath, but they didn't cycle fast enough to allow the Thunderbolt to exploit a successful hit. The usual tactic was to add a missile to the mix, preferably a heat-seeker that could fly light up the enemys main thruster outlet while the shields were off-line . . . or, lacking missiles, to rely on a wingman to finish the attack.

Blair couldn't count on his wingman, not until she snapped out of her crazy urge for vengeance. He must use his last missile.

It was over in an instant. The Vaktoth came apart in a blinding fireball. The other two Kilrathi pilots broke the wheel and turned away, but Blair knew they weren't ready to run yet. They just wanted to regroup, assess the new threat.

And perhaps call in reinforcements.

"Flint!" he called. "This is the only chance we're going to get. Break off now!"

"Break off. . . Colonel? What are you doing? You're supposed to be back at the ship . . ."

"So are you," he snapped. "I decided you needed a personal invitation." On his screen he saw the two Vaktoth making slow, wide, outer loops to launch a converging attack from two directions. There was no sign that others planned to join them, but it would only be a matter of time. Sooner or later more fighters would reinforce these two, unless the two Terrans abandoned the battle.