His opponent seemed to realize then that Blair represented too great a threat to ignore any longer. He started turning away from Flint to bring his weapons to bear and to cover his exposed rear, but as he turned, Flint took the opening without hesitation. Her blasters continued where Blair's ended, and a moment later the Vaktoth exploded in a thousand whirling fragments.

"Nice shooting, Lieutenant," Blair called. "Good to have you back on my wing."

"Its where I belong Colonel," she replied.

"Somebody get this bastard off me! Hobbes! Colonel!" Flash's voice was hoarse with panic. "I can't shake him!"

On his scanner, Blair saw Flash trying to break away from the Vaktoth he challenged, but the enemy pilot was right on his tail. Hobbes was closing in, but slowly, cautiously, as if the Kilrathi renegade was afraid of getting too close to the dogfighting pair. Blair banked the Thunderbolt, increasing his speed, but he knew he wouldn't be able to reach Flash in time to do any good.

Hobbes took up a position behind the enemy fighter and opened fire, but his first shots went wild. The Vaktoth unleashed another attack. This time a deadly hail of energy bolts and missiles rained on Flash's ship as the young pilot tried to turn out of the Vaktoth's line of fire.

He was too late. Blair heard him scream as a fireball consumed his craft.

Once again Hobbes fired, but this time his opponent rolled sideways and accelerated back toward the rest of the Kilrathi formation. More Vaktoth were on their way.

"Five minutes to Jump Sequence start," Rollins announced. "Captain wants to know if we should launch additional fighters?"

"Negative," Blair grated. His sensors showed that the other two Vaktoth from the first flight had both been destroyed. The Terran fighters were regrouping again, ready to meet the next threat. "Hobbes, without a wingman you'll be a sitting duck. Retreat to the carrier and land."

"I should remain, my friend."

For a moment Blair considered having the Kilrathi switch positions with one of the other pilots, someone less steady, less reliable. Flint, or Vaquero, or perhaps Maniac. But the way Hobbes had been handling himself today, he was no more reliable than any of them. Even Marshall seemed to have himself under control, but Ralgha was plainly off his game. And Flash had paid the price. "No, Hobbes. Pack it in. That's an order."

"As you command." Ralgha's Thunderbolt broke away and headed toward the carrier. Now there were only six Terran fighters to face the next wave of Kilrathi.

This time four Imperial craft came at once, holding a tight formation all the way. Blair waited until they were just outside of weapons range before ordering Gold Squadron to turn from the oncoming Vaktoth and go to afterburners. The Kilrathi gave chase.

"Maintain course," Blair said quietly. It was almost a mantra. "Maintain course . . . Break! Break and attack! Victory, pour it on!"

The Terran fighters split up, each pair of wingmen peeling off in a different direction and looping back toward the pursuing Kilrathi. At the same time, Victory's defensive batteries opened fire, filling the void with searing bursts of raw energy. A pair of hits took out one of the enemy ships in the blink of an eye, and another suffered heavy damage as it tried to dodge the carrier's beams and pursue Cobra. Vaquero, on her wing, finished the attacker off with a well-placed missile.

Maniac dove straight towards his target, all guns blazing, passing bare meters away from his opponent before the Kilrathi pilot could even react. Slowly, carefully, Vagabond trailed him, and his blasters exploited the weakened shields to burn through the fighter's cockpit and kill the pilot. The Vaktoth plunged on, uncontrolled, until Victory destroyed it a few seconds later.

Meanwhile, Flint and Blair split and circled the last Imperial fighter from opposite sides, hammering the hull with blasters as they sped past. As a parting shot, Blair dropped a fire-and-forget missile. It hit the Vaktoth's starboard wing moments later. The explosion didn't destroy the enemy craft, but it was visibly damaged as it turned and ran, trailing debris and leaking atmosphere. Maniac caught the fighter as it tried to flee and finished it with a few well-placed blaster shots.

"Three minutes," Rollins said.

Blair studied his scanners. The Kilrathi fighters were still out there, but the countdown was getting close enough that he had to start thinking about getting the rest of the squadron on board. Anyway, the Imperial ships wouldn't be inclined to cut things too fine by staging an attack now. The energy discharge of a carrier going into jump could do terrible damage to fighters close enough to be caught by the creation of the Transition Field.

"Take them in, people," he ordered "Maniac, Vagabond, you two first. Don't miss the first approach. You might not get another one. Cobra and Vaquero, you go as soon as they're clear. Flint, you're with me."

No one argued, though he thought he heard Maniac muttering a protest. The first two Thunderbolts peeled off and headed back for the carrier; the second two followed, but more slowly, to give Marshall and Chang time to set down and clear the flight deck. Time passed with agonizing slowness, with no further moves from the Kilrathi. But Blair was tense. He was sure Thrakhath wouldn't let them leave without some kind of final shot.

"Two minutes," Rollins announced at length. "Maniac and Vagabond are aboard. Vaquero's in the beam now."

"You're up, Flint," he said. "Take her inside."

"Don't be slow following me, Colonel," she responded. "I'm getting too used to flying on your wing."

She left him, and Blair started a quick checklist for his own approach and landing. It was starting to look like Thrakhath wasn't planning a last push after all . . .

"Jump Sequence start in ninety seconds," Rollins said. "Better bring her in now, Colonel."

As he started to turn, Thrakhath's voice boomed loud in his speakers. "So, I was right, ape. In the end you do run. You did not meet my challenge. . . Even your lair-mate showed more courage, facing death."

"Seventy-five seconds, Colonel."

Blair tried to shut Thrakhath's words out of his mind, but the Kilrathi's mocking voice went on. "We misnamed you, perhaps, in calling you the Heart of the Tiger. You are weak. . . a coward. . . a failure. Not worthy of your lair-mate at all." The Kilrathi's voice took on a harsher edge now. "I enjoyed the feel of her blood running over my hands, Terran. As I enjoyed the taste of her flesh, in the victory feast."

The words hammered at him on a level below conscious thought, and blind rage threatened to claim him. The carrier was looming large ahead of his fighter, but Blair hardly saw it through the red haze that clouded his eyes. He wanted to turn around, accept the Kilrathi's challenge, batter through Thrakhath's defenses and silence his taunts once and for all. That thing, that animal, had killed Angel and served her up at one of the barbaric Kilrathi ritual feasts.

"Almost in the beams, Colonel." Rollins said. "Keep her steady . . . steady . . . Reduce your speed! If you don't cut your speed you'll overshoot!"

"For Gods sake, skipper, don't let him get to you!" That was Flint's voice. "If you take his challenge, you're stuck out there! Thrakhath'll wait . . . you'll get another chance at him!"

The words penetrated his fog, and Blair killed his forward momentum with a hard braking thrust, like a kick from a horse. Almost sobbing, he stabbed at the landing gear controls as the beams took hold. Slowly gently, the fighter dropped toward the deck and touched down.

He hardly noticed as the fighter was drawn into the hangar area. A pair of spacesuited figures released his cockpit, urging him to get out even before gravity or pressure were restored, and Blair neither helped nor resisted them. They guided him across the open space in long, low-G bounds. Pressure was restored as they reached the door, and one of them-Blair vaguely realized it was Flint, still clad in flight suit and combat helmet — helped him remove his own helmet as they guided him into the corridor. His other helper fumbled with helmet releases and finally freed the bulky headgear. It was Rachel Coriolis.