Everyone was enthused with the new battle system, with the admiral less expectant than most. Simulation was simulation. Reality was reality.

Almost at the instant they emerged from warpspace, the Wyzhnyny launched an all-out attack. But except for selecting their opening gambit, they left their actions entirely to their battlecomps, coordinated by their flagship's battlecomp. Even against Apraxin's superior force, that opening gambit provided an initial advantage. But the twists and turns of battle required better extrapolations and coordination than the Wyzhnyny flagship provided. Apraxin's Liberation Task Force won decisively. Of the ten battleships she'd committed, seven survived, along with twenty-three of thirty cruisers and thirteen of twenty corvettes.

During the battle, several Wyzhnyny ships had ducked back into warpspace, and not all had returned to resume action. When it was over, Uinta's shipsmind "accounted" for them all, based on their signatures. When last seen, those not definitely accounted for had already been rated seriously damaged, and were probably no longer functional, lost irretrieveably in hyperspace.

It appeared to be a wipeout, but Apraxin accepted her success guardedly. The purpose of the Wyzhnyny's system defense force had surely been to protect their colony from incursions. And given that purpose, if she'd been the Wyzhnyny admiral, she'd have broken off contact as soon as it became apparent her force would otherwise be wiped out. She'd have disappeared into warpspace with what she had left, to begin a guerrilla campaign, harassing and bleeding the human invaders. In fact, that kind of warfare had been her greatest worry-hers and War House's.

That the Wyzhnyny admiral had pressed his attack till his force had been destroyed was suspicious. What had she missed? What ace had he hidden under the table? Or did he simply lack flexibility? She'd keep her force alert.

Meanwhile her principal concern had to be a successful planetary assault. Commodore Kereenyaga, in charge of the assault flotilla, had been a classmate of hers at the Academy, and graduated with honors. While Vice Admiral Ver Hoeven, in charge of the escort, was an excellent officer. Each knew his job. She knew next to nothing about the Sikh general in charge of the ground forces, but she had confidence in War House's personnel judgements. He'd at least be competent.

She turned her attention to the real-time view on the bridge's central screen: myriads of stars against bottomless black. Serenely beautiful and utterly deadly, she told herself, a sort of Uma and Kali dichotomy. But the dangers of the universe tended to be passive: vacuum, stellar temperatures, abrupt gravitational gradients were predictable and avoidable to varying degrees. Sophonts like Homo sapiens, using observation and imagination, developed systems of avoidances and protections within which they could live, grow, and explore quite nicely. Most of the time.

But within those safeguards, the powers of imagination and knowledge that provided them could also spring all sorts of deadly surprises on competing or disliked sophonts-of one's own life-form or others.

Jilchuk shu-Tosk was both gosthodar and commanding general on what had been New Jerusalem. Just now he was peering intently at his wall screen, which showed a representation of the local solar system. Orbits were indicated by fine lines. The primary was near the bottom, and several planets were shown at various removes. All out of scale, the separations greatly reduced. "Jiluursok"-the name the Wyzhnyny had given New Jerusalem-was centered near the bottom.

"There, my lord," said his aide. Near the top, where the captain's light arrow pointed, a redness pulsed. It looks like a small red cloud, thought the gosthodar, a spray of blood.

The aide thumbed a projection, and a small window framed the redness, then expanded to occupy the entire screen. The spray of blood became a ragged formation of ships, 127 of them according to the readout. Reducing the separations further showed each ship marked by the icon of a Wyzhnyny warship class appropriate to its mass.

The gosthodar did not for a moment doubt what he was looking at: an alien task force, outnumbering and presumably outgunning the system defense force. Humans they called themselves, according to the grand admiral's chief scholar. It was satisfying to have a name for them.

"When did they emerge?" he asked.

The pointer indicated a digital event time posted unchangingly in a lower corner. "There, sir: 023.61."

The gosthodar looked, then moved his gaze to the familiar real-time read in an upper corner. "Hmm. Less than five minutes ago. Well done, Captain." He pressed a key, and his amplified voice boomed unexpectedly from every speaker in every office, barracks, barn, workplace, vehicle, infirmary, armory… on the planet. "An unidentified fleet has arrived in the near fringe," he announced. "It is presumed hostile. All personnel will carry out their Procedure One duties immediately."

In his mind he imagined the groans. Most would think it a needless drill. "Supervisors will ensure full compliance," he continued. "Anyone who fails to properly complete their checklist on schedule will be assigned to a penal platoon." There, he thought. Now they'll take it seriously.

He'd visited the great limestone caves right after they'd been discovered, and had seen their potential at once. As soon as their refugees had been rooted out, he'd assigned the necessary resources to make them accessible and habitable. "Captain," he said, "see to the transfer of my personal goods. I will stay here till my emergency headquarters has been activated."

The captain saluted sharply. "Yes, General!" he said, and left. This, thought Jilchuk, will be interesting.

Like all his tribe, he'd never fought in a battle. Now he would command one. The cleansing of this world had been quick and easy, and his warriors had been disappointed. Not that they'd complained; that would be inappropriate. But he knew his genders and their psychology, the warriors especially. Now they'd get their wish.

The gosthodar didn't worry about the enemy war fleet 900 million miles away. That was Admiral Zhokdos's responsibility. His immediate concern was the enemy's bombards that even now must be moving insystem in warpdrive. When they emerged, of course, they'd have to deal with Commodore Xarsku's planetary defense group, but even so, the humans might have a bombard overhead by nightfall. His defense forces needed to be underground or widely dispersed by then.

To prepare for a possible counterinvasion was standard procedure, and he'd begun while his warriors were still mopping up the scattered surviving natives. With the swarm still in the planning stage, he'd requested a full division of warriors. They'd given him a brigade; in times of swarming, warriors of fighting age were always in short supply. If he'd asked for a brigade, they'd have given him two battalions, three at most, and reminded him he'd have some 65,000 colonists of other genders, all of military age, all well-trained for war.

But they were not warriors.

On the other hand, he doubted the humans even had a warrior gender. If they did, there'd have been some sign of them. And while the sophonts here had been enduring and elusive, they'd also been primitive, and definitely not warriors.

Major General Pyong Pak Singh, and his operations aide, Major Etienne Stuart Singh, watched the action from sixteen miles up. The command compartment of the HQC-1-his armored command floater-had split-screen monitors showing the New Jerusalem surface. One window displayed a real view, magnified to show the details he wanted. The other showed a military map, generated by his shipsmind from real-time sensor data, with a window locating the real-view scene on the map.