"Admiral!" A scanner rating stiffened at his console as the second wave of HBM'S came in.

He was a veteran, but his voice wavered on the edge of hysteria. "Admiral! Those misses from the first salvo are coming back!" Kellerman was still turning towards him in disbelief when he, the rating, and the rest of Unicorn's 180,000-tonne hull ceased to be.

A ripple of shock ran through the rebel fleet as it realized what had happened. Unlike normal missiles, these new monsters didn't simply self-destruct when they overran their targets and lost their vectors. Instead, they turned, and on-board seeking systems of unheard of power quested with insensate malevolence to reacquire the targets they'd missed and bring the HBM'S slashing back around in repeated attack runs.

The Republican Navy's appetite for surprise died with its commander. Too many links in the chain of command had already been ground to powder by Skywatch's savage defiance. No one above the rank of rear admiral survived, and the terror of the Rim's new weapons was upon them. The attack force began shedding battlegroups as carriers and battle-cruisers, destroyers and heavy cruisers -comthe ships with the speed to run--turned and fled. It didn't happen instanfiy, but the first desertion was like a tiny hole in a straining dike, and the ugly stench of fear was contagious. It swept the Republican command bridges like pestilence, proving that even the most courageous could be panicked by the unexpected.

The Gehenrm-bound flotilla had already turned back, and would make it through the Back Door. So would the fastest ships of the main force--those with skippers ruthless enough to abandon their fellows. But for the battleships and the handful of monitors and surviving super-dreadnoughts there was no escape.

Only two of them stood to die with the rebel battle line, and their fighters were hideously outnumbered by the fighter strength Trevayne could bring to bear.

Stripped of their supporting elements, the rebel capital ships stood no chance against the firepower he commanded--especially since his every ship had been refitted with an improved force beam armament.

More salvos of HBM'S were launched, targeted with cold to logic on the lighter battleships and superdreadnoughts. If any ship was to be retaken for the Federation, it would be those monitorson that Trevayne was savagely determined. The range fell, and space was ugly with the butchery of ships and humans as whoever was in command over there fought to close to SBM range, matching futile gallantry against the deadly technical superiority slaughtering his ships with machinelike precision.

But Fourth Fleet smelled victory in the blood, and Trevayne slewed his ships away, holding the range five light-seconds beyond SBM range while his deadly salvos went out again and again.

Yet another was readying when the surrender signal finally arrived, Yoshinaka's face lit and he turned to Trevayne... who sat in the admiral's chair and said nothing.

In default of a cease-fire order, the gray drivers flung the waiting sal@.o outward.

The surrender signal was repeated frantically.

The rebels launched deep-space flares which dazzled visual observers and stabbed the com links with screeching static from radioactive components; there could be no mistake.

His staff officers stared at Trevayne. His face was a mask of dark iron set in an indescribable expression none of them had ever seen as he sat absorbed by the tale his battle plot told, saying nothing.

The HBM'S continued to home on the monitor da Silva, now the rebel flagship. What, Yoshinaka wondered, must those poor bastards be feeling?

Trevayne continued to stare fixedly at the impending final carnage. And on the other side of his eyes, a little girl with chestnut hair played on a beach beside a sunlit sea, and the world was young.

Yoshinaka felt the almost physical force with which everyone else on the bridge pled silently with him to intercede.

He sighed and reached out towards his admiral, turning over in his mind the appeal he wanted to make.. disIan, right now you're the hero of the age.

Don't ruin it. And don't ruin the Rim Federation, which will always be your lengthened shadow.

But, of course, that wasn't the thing to say. Instead, he touched his friend's shoulder and said, very firmly: "Admiral, they have surrendered." Trevayne looked up, and his eyes were suddenly clear. "Quite," he said conversationally. "Cease firing.

"qhis is Fleet Admiral Ian Trevaeavne, Provisional Governor-General of the Rim Systems. Am I addressing the rebel commander?" Fifty long, endless seconds trickled past between question and reply.

"As the senior surviving officer of this force, I can nego--was The face of the small woman in the screen was shocked, her voice dull, but she paused suddenly, realizing exactly how he had addressed her, and a flicker of pride reignited in the olive-dark, almond eyes. "I am Rear Admiral Li Hah, of the Terran Republican Navy, sir!" she said sharply.

Trevayne's voice did not rise appreciably in volume, but it left no room for any other sound. "Spare me your comic-opera political pretensions, Captain. There will be no negotiations. Your ships will lower their shields and heave to for boarding by officers who will take command of them in the name of the legitimate Federation government.

Any resistance to our boarding parties on any ship will be construed as a hostile act, terminating the present cease-fire. Is that understood?" He stood rigidly, watching the screen, waiting as his words winged across to that other bridge, and when they reached it, it was as ff he had slapped the rebel commander across the face. Fury flashed in her eyes as she remembered another time and another commander who had faced her with the same option. Yet far more than a single battle-cruiser's fate hung on her decision this day, and the factors she'd gambled on then weren't present now. Thousands of Republican personnel had died already; the death of her remaining ships would achieve nothing. 'Btt Trevayne read her rage and leaned forward with a tight, merciless smile.

"I wish you would, Captain," he said, and his voice was a soft, hungry whisper.

It is not pleasant to see the beaten face of a human who accepts defeat neither easily nor often. Most on Ortega's bridge looked away in something akin to embarrassment as his words burned across the light-seconds. They stared at their consoles, waiting, as Li Han faced their admiral and saved the lives of her crews by forcing herself to say: "Understood." Trevayne broke the connection and spoke in a drained, almost inaudible voice. "Commodore Yoshinaka, please take charge of the surrender arrangements. I'll be in my quarters." He turned on his heel and strode away.

He had barely stepped off the flag bridge when the cheering Ifegan, and spread, and grew until the mobile fortress rang with its echoes. He never heard it.

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