"But I als6 know what we're defending--and so do you! Our own homes, our own societies... the kind of societies that let humans be people, not just well-fed, two-legged domestic animals producing for Corporate World masters!" His vehemence had shaken them all, and Naomi had felt her resistance waver. Then he'd paused and looked at them sadly. When he resumed, his voice was very soft.

"I know what you're thinking. Do we have the right to do this, even in self-defense? I don't know how you'll answer that, but I know how I will. They say a flower will grow toward sunlight through ceramacrete, and pe.rhaps they're right. But... what if everything is covered with ceramacrete? What ff the flower finally breaks through, but there's no one left who can recognize a flower when he sees one?" Naomi had bent over her hands, feeling his eyes on the crown of her head as his will beat against her, and realized how pivotal her own decision was.

They'd endured one mutiny--perhaps they had another in them yet. But the first had cost her too much. Whatever God demanded of her, it couldn't be another spasm of the bloodshed which had taken Earnest. Her head remained bent, her eyes locked on her fingers, and the moment for rebellion passed.

"We've got a good chance of pulling it off," Toshiba had said softly as Naomi silently withdrew her opposition. "No one knows we've mutinied. We can put into Galloway's World for new orders, carry out the strike, and run. It's even possible "he'd tried to sound as ff he meant it --com?some of us may get home. We're fast and well-armed; we may be able to split up and avoid action.

But"-- his voice had grown somber once more-- "that's not what's important. Whether we can get away or not, we have to do it." And every rebellious o@.cer in his cabin had nodded silently.

"Warp in five seconds," Astrogation said softly. "Four @u.. Three... Two.

One... Warp!" Naomi flinched as the indescribable surge of warp transit gripped her. She knew it was impossible, but in that instant she thought she felt the child within her. Thank God Doc Sevridge had understood. Losing her command would have left her a mere spectator, and no matter what her private purgatory, she had to do something. So he'd wiped the pregnancy report from the data banks with a tired smile@u, "Might's well carry mutiny to its logical conclusion," he'd said.

"I have a challenge, Captain!" The voice in Naomi's implant jerked her back to the present.

"Standard query for ID and purpose." "Stand by, Gunnery," she said through dry lips, watching the warp point forts on her tactical display. "Commodore Toshiba will roll the tape any minute now. Then we'll know." Her anxious eyes moved to a secondary screen as the carefully crafted composite of Prien's recorded messages went out over the corn channels. It was good, she thought distantly. The electronics boys had done a bang-up job.

Shape your course for Skeavwatch Three. They'll have new orders cut by the time you get there."

"Aye, aye, sir," the recorded composite said. "Commodore Prien out." "And thank God for that," someone muttered as the admiral disappeared. Naomi heard but didn't respond. If God were truly kind, that fathead would have been suspicious. They would have had to fight or flee well clear of the planet. She knew she could die happily in a ship-to-ship action, and she found that she'd been secretly hoping for just that.

She watched the plot as Kongo led the squadron system. Revenge and Oslabya fell in astern, followed by Naomi's own ship and then the two DD'S. It all looked harmlessly normal, but Poramern's battle board glowed a steady scarlet. All but the shields. They still blinked green and amber, for to raise them would raise questions, as well.

The hours dragged endlessly past, Galloway's World looming slowly before them, and Naomi considered the bitter irony which brought Pommern back to the yards which had birthed her in a terrible act of matricide.

No one down there would spare a thought for the holocaust lurking in the belly of her ship, she thought bitterly. Fleet missiles were to protect them, not kill them.

And then, finally, Skywatch Three loomed close aboard of them, and she gritted her teeth, watching her board, waiting for what she knew must come.

It came. Command codes flashed over the data net from Kongo. The squadron's shields slammed up. Hetlasers swiveled in their bays. As one ship, drives and engines slaved to the flagship, they charged the orbiting fortress, minnows against its bulk. The external ordnance racks belched their deadly loads, joined by the internal launchers, and Naomi Hezikiah was a spectator as the Tenth Cruiser Squadron, TFN, blew Skywatch Three to half-vaporized rubble in less than thirty seconds.

The corn channels went wild as incredulous loyalists realized what was happening. Naomi's battlephone hummed and whined as hastily-tuned jammers came on line, fighting to shatter the squadron's datalink, but the cruisers drove onward, drives howling at max as they arrowed towards the planet.

The first defensive missiles lanced out to meet them, and Naomi Watched her display as point defense stations spewed counter missiles against them and space burned with detonating warheads. They were fast on their feet, those gunners, but where were the beams?

"Communications seizure attempt!" her eom ocer shouted, and her battlephone shrieked into her mastoid for a fraction of a second before the filters damped the sound.

"Data net jammed," the ensign snapped. "Independent targeting," Naomi ordered, feeling her shock frame tighten about her. You should be ,ny husband, her brain screamed at the gunnery officer, but she strangled the thought as she scanned the battle plot. "Take those destroyers ahead of us. We have to hold them off the flag." "Aye, aye, sir!" Naomi fgg@ddund it easier to cling to her sanity as her ship's weapons moved independently at last, reaching out to rake the oncoming ships with hetlasers and missiles. Kongo's own ECM must be jamming the tineans' data net, for their point defense was late, and Pommern's fire tore the lead ship apart.

"Shields one through three down," Gunnery reported. "Incoming missiles tracking Kongo from astern, sir. There's somebody on our ass. Somebody bstg. Those are capital missiles." "Understood," Naomi said coldly, and under her crisp surface, a little girl recited ancient words. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." She shook free of the thoughts.

She'd wanted a ship-to-ship action; perhaps she had one.

"New course!" she snapped. "Bring us around on a reciprocal. Let the commodore deal with those cans--we've got bigger fish to fry!"

Pommern snarled around in a tight turn. Even through the drive field, she felt the lateral motion as her ship fought inertia and momentum.

"Communications!" she barked. "Advise the commodore of our heading and intent." They steadied on course, and the author of the capital missile fire was before her.

"Battle-cruiser at eleven light seconds!" Gunnery yelped. "Computer reads her as the Krsts." Naomi knew her well. She'd served on her as a lieutenant -coman eternity ago.

Homeported on the Yard, and no doubt as fanatically Corporate World as her own madmen were Fringer.

"Gunnery," she said softly, "there's your target. Maneuvering, I want a random evasion course and I want it now. We're up against some heavy metal; let's be where it isn't!" The acknowledgments came, and she watched her missiles going out as the range closed. More capital missiles scorched in, but they were no longer targeted on Kongo. Krsts had accepted Pommern's frail challenge.

"Kongo's opened fire on the planet, sir!

Track looks good for the Taliaferro Yard!" Naomi shut it out. She no longer wanted to think of the two cities clustered tight against the Taliaferro Yard, of the civilians with seconds to live. She no longer wanted to think of the mark of Cain sho wore. She pressed one palm over the Bible in her vac suit and sealed her helmet as they entered laser range, and Pommern shook and quivered to the fury of missiles and counter-missiles bursting around her hull.