"Well, keep your tail down, son," Tung advised "In the long run more mercenaries have had their asses shot off by their contractors than by their enemies."

Miles took his leave courteously; Tung ushered him out with the panache of a genial host.

"Is there anything else you need?" asked Miles.

"A screwdriver," said Tung promptly.

Miles shook his head and smiled regretfully as the door was closed on the Eurasian. "Damned if I'm not tempted to send him one," said Miles to Bothari. "I'm dying to see what he thinks he can do with that light."

"Just what did all that accomplish?" asked Bothari. "He burned up your time with ancient history and didn't give away anything."

Miles smiled. "Nothing unimportant."

The Pelians attacked from the ecliptic, opposite the sun, taking advantage of the scattered masses of the asteroid belt for what cover they provided. They came decelerating, telegraphing their intention to capture, not destroy; and they came alone, without their Oseran employees.

Miles laughed delight under his breath as he limped through the scramble of men and equipment in the refinery docking station corridors. The Pelians could scarcely be following his pet scenario more closely if he'd given them their orders himself. There had been some argument when he'd insisted on placing his farthest outlying pickets and his major weapons on the belt and not the planet side of the refinery. But it was inevitable. Barring subterfuge, a tactic currently exhausted, it was the Pelian's only hope of gaining a measure of surprise. A week ago, it would have done them some good.

Miles dodged some of his galloping troops hurrying to their posts. Pray God he would never find himself on foot in a retreat. He might as well volunteer for the rear guard in the first place, and save being trampled by his own side as well as by the enemy.

He dashed through the flex tube into the Triumph. The waiting soldier clanged the lock shut behind him, and hastily blew off the tube seals. As he'd guessed, he was the last aboard. He made his way to the tactics room as the ship maneuvered free of the refinery.

The Triumph's tactics room was noticeably larger than the Ariel's, and quite as sleek. Miles quailed at the number of empty padded swivel chairs. A scant half of Auson's old crew, even augmented by a few volunteer refinery techs, made scarcely a skeleton crew for the new ship.

Holograph displays were up and working in all their bright confusion. Auson looked up from trying to man two stations at once with relief in his eyes.

"Glad you made it, my lord."

Miles slid into a station chair. "Me too. But please—just 'Mr. Naismith'. No 'my lord'."

Auson looked puzzled. "The others all call you that."

"Yes, but, um—it's not just a courtesy. It denotes a specific legal relationship. You wouldn't call me 'my husband' even if you heard my wife do so, eh? So what have we got out here?"

"Looks like maybe ten little ships—all Pelian local stuff." Auson studied his readouts, worry creasing his broad face. "I don't know where our guys are. This sort of thing should be just their style."

Miles correctly interpreted "our guys" to mean Auson's former comrades, the Oserans. The slip of tongue did not disturb him; Auson was committed, now. Miles glanced sideways at him, and thought he knew exactly why the Pelians hadn't brought their hired guns. For all the Pelians knew to the contrary, an Oseran ship had turned on them. Miles's eyes glittered at the thought of the dismay and distrust that must now be reverberating through the Pelian high command.

Their ship dove in a high arc toward their attackers. Miles keyed Nav and Com.

"You all right, Arde?"

"For flying blind, deaf, dumb, and paralyzed, not bad," Mayhew said. "Manual piloting is a pain. It's like the machine is operating me. It feels awful."

"Keep up the good work," Miles said cheerfully. "Remember, we're more interested in herding them into range of our stationary weapons than in knocking them off ourselves."

Miles sat back and regarded the ever-changing displays. "I don't think they quite realize how much ordinance Daum brought. They're just repeating the same tactics the Felician officers reported they used the last time. Of course, it worked once . . ."

The lead Pelian ships were just coming into range of the refinery. Miles held his breath as though it could force his people to hold their fire. They were spread lonely, thin, and nervous out there. There were more weapons in place than Miles had personnel to man them, even with computer-controlled fire—especially since control systems had been plagued with bugs during installation that were still not all worked out. Baz had labored to the last instant—was still laboring, for all Miles knew, and Elena alongside him. Miles wished he could have justified keeping her beside himself, instead.

The lead Pelian spewed a glittering string of dandelion bombs, arcing toward the solar collectors. Not again, Miles groaned inwardly, seeing two weeks' repairs about to be wasted. The bombs puffed into their thousands of separate needles. Space was suddenly laced with threads of fire as the defense weaponry labored to knock them out. Should have fired an instant sooner. The Pelian ship itself exploded into pelting debris as someone on Miles's side scored a direct, perhaps lucky, hit. A portion of the debris continued on its former track and speed, almost as dangerous in its mindless momentum as the clever guided weapons.

The ships coming up behind it began to peel and swerve, shocked out of their bee-line complacency. Auson and Thorne in their respective ships now swung in from either side, like a pair of sheepdogs gone mad and attacking their flock. Miles beat his fist on the panel before him in a paroxysm of joy at the beauty of the formation. If only he'd had a third warship to completely box their flanks, none of the Pelians would make it home to complain. As it was, they were squeezed into a flat layer, carefully pre-calculated to present its maximum target area to the refinery's defenses.

Auson, beside him, shared his enthusiasm. "Lookatem! Lookatem! Right down the gullet, just like you claimed they would—and Gamad swore you were crazy to strip the solar side—Shorty, you're a frigging genius!"

Miles's thrill was mitigated by the sober reflection of what names he'd have earned by guessing wrong. Relief made him dizzy. He leaned back in the station chair and let out a long, long breath.

A second Pelian ship burst into oblivion, and a third. A numeral buried in a crowded corner of Miles's readouts flipped quietly from a minus to a plus figure. "Ah ha!" Miles pointed. "We've got 'em now! They're starting to accelerate again. They re breaking off the attack."

Their momentum gave the Pelians no choice but to sweep through the refinery area. But all their attention now was on making it as fast a trip as possible. Thorne and Auson swung in behind to speed them on their way.

A Pelian ship corkscrewed past the installation, and fired—what? Miles's computers could present no interpretation of the—beam? Not plasma, not laser, not driven mass, for which the central factory was able to generate some shielding, the huge solar collectors necessarily being left to fend for themselves. It was not immediately apparent what damage it had done, or even if it were a hit. Strange . ..

Miles closed his hand gently around the Pelian ship's representation in his hologram, as if he could work sympathetic magic. "Captain Auson. Let's try and catch this one."

"Why bother? He's scooting for home with his buddies—"

Miles lowered his voice to a whisper. "That's an order."

Auson braced. "Yes, sir!"

Well, it works sometimes, Miles reflected.