He heard a call of a brief contact by Doomsday and then two more by colonial pilots, in each case the Stealth was lost. Punching into his nav computer he checked the three sightings and then overlaid the points into a map of the system.

"Combat control, request break of my standard sweep, wish to investigate region around coordinates 233 by ADF."

"Will advise," and the link clicked off.

A moment later it crackled back to life.

"This is Kruger, good thinking, Hunter; proceed at your discretion.

Grinning, he broke off the auto nav, opened his fuel and maneuvering scoops, and turned. The coded coordinate was the location, at the moment, of the Hell Hole system's largest planet, a gas giant named Thor. The three brief sightings roughly matched a standard Kilrathi evasive maneuver called the reverse claw, and it pointed towards Thor, which would be an excellent place to hide out until the patrols simmered down.

Punching in the new nav coordinates, Ian closed his fuel scoops and within minutes was up over three thousand clicks a second and climbing. Thor was nearly twenty million clicks away and he settled back, nearly dozing off as the Sabre closed, half listening to the commlink chatter as the scrambled forces continued to prowl for the needle in a very big haystack.

Approaching within a million clicks of Thor he finally started into reverse thrust, extending his fuel scoops to create drag. The stray hydrogen atoms found in space impacted on the energy field surrounding his ship and were then swept into the fuel tank. Each strike slowed him down by an ever so minute fraction, which built up with each passing second.

He started a close scan of his instruments, knowing that any sweep radar was next to useless.

"Now where would I go," he whispered, as if he could almost he heard by his opponent and he felt that prickly uneasy feeling, knowing that some how the Kilrathi was near. He had learned never to discount "the gut feeling." Any fighter pilot who did not believe in the instinctive feel usually didn't live very long.

Too close into Thor, he reasoned, and the passage of the ship would be noticeable as a disturbance in the intense magnetic fields. If he went into the atmosphere he'd kick up the soup and really give himself away. The one advantage of chasing a Stealth, Ian knew, was that he was just as blind, running on scan shut down, otherwise he'd be given away. He spared a quick look at the map of the system. Two moons, one nearly the size of Earth's, the other half the size.

Get into the lee of the orbit of the moon is what I'd do, Ian thought, blocking direct approach from one entire side, hide out and then wait for the patrols to give up before a final run in on the recon sweep.

But which one? If he had had a coin on him he would have flipped it. Ian shrugged his shoulders and started for the smaller of the two, shutting down all scanning systems. He maneuvered so as to approach the moon from the forward side relative to its orbital direction. He throttled back and then came in a mere hundred clicks above the surface, crossing up over the pole and moving down the other side.

Ian punched up a full high intensity burst scan, diverting nearly all ship's power into radar. If there was anyone within a million clicks the radar burst would damn near rattle the fillings out of his head, Ian thought, suddenly wondering if the Kilrathi even had fillings. He waited, watching his screen. The trick was that, even if it didn't detect a Stealth, it just might panic the pilot into thinking that he had actually been found.

There! Just under two thousand clicks away. Damn, he had found the needle!

A faint echo blipped on his screen, the computer working to gain a lock, narrowing the radar beam down and firing off another pulse, this one concentrating nearly all the energy of the previous pulse into a narrow cone. It was enough energy to fry out every circuit on an unshielded vessel a hundred thousand clicks away.

The second burst hit, painting the enemy ship clearly on his screen at a range of eight hundred clicks. The target acquisition computer, upgraded to handle Stealths, threw a laser lock on the ship. The lock hung on and held as the pilot fired up to full throttle and went into evasive.

"Combat control, this is Hunter. Got him! One Kilrathi Stealth, on his tail and closing."

A high pitched whine suddenly cut in on his headset. The Kilrathi had dumped three missiles which Ian's computer told him were IFFs. Ian countered by punching in an IFF scramble. In a full running fleet engagement such an act could be suicide because the moment his transponder switched there was still no guarantee that the enemy missile which had already gained lock would veer away. On the other hand, everything else flying around, either human or computer guided, would assume that he was not on the same side and act accordingly — but out here it was a safe maneuver.

The computer raced through thousands of possible transponder codes, searching for the right one to throw the missiles off, but they kept closing. Ian toggled off a guided bolt in return, which used the laser beam as a guide in to its target.

He continued the chase, running blind. There was nothing to see, only a blip on the screen.

The Kilrathi ship suddenly dropped out of Stealth mode, flashing full visible, and at the same instant Ian picked up a high energy burst signal. The pilot was good, he realized, never forgetting his mission, even while flying to evade death. Whatever he was sent here to find out, he was making sure word got out.

"Combat control, bogey has sent burst signal, repeat, bogey has sent burst signal."

The first incoming missile closed in. Ian nosed over hard and then banked back up, the missile jinxing down to follow and then shooting past. The second and third missiles, momentarily thrown off by his attempts at jamming, regained lock but missed as well due to the same maneuver. Ian felt the sweat streaking down the small of his back. His own bolt was leaping forward, guiding straight in.

There was a brilliant flash of light as bright as the sun and then darkness. It took Ian a second to realize that his own missile was still a dozen clicks away. The Kilrathi had self-destructed with a small matter/antimatter warhead, vaporizing himself and his ship. Now there would never he any evidence at all of the violation of the armistice since a missile hit tended to leave a lot of wreckage behind which could be evaluated later.

Watching the ship, he momentarily forgot what was now behind him, and suddenly a high undulating warble sounded in his headphones. One of the IFFs had turned around, regained lock and was closing straight in.

He punched hard over, aiming straight back towards the moon, popping out chaff and a noise maker. He turned his transponder off completely, slamming off all energy sources.

The damn thing kept closing, following his every turn and then a high energy ping sounded.

What the hell was this?

"Combat control, combat control!"

"Control here."

"Kilrathi seem to have new prototype weapon. It's ignoring chaff and noise maker. It registered first as an IFF missile but the damn thing must have a smart weapon program that continues to recognize its target once locked," Ian shouted, realizing that even if he bought it, it was essential that his friends knew exactly why and learned from it. It was part of the training and it was loyalty as well.

He had no tail gunner to pop the missile at the last second, or wingman to peel it off his back, or the mad confusion of a hundred fighters and ships filling space with metal and energy. He was naked and alone, the IFF following remorselessly, like a cold deadly shark that could kill without thinking or feeling.

He skimmed down over the moon's airless surface, weaving a low sharp turn into a narrow canyon and the missile impacted against the side of cliff behind him. He breathed a deep sigh of relief and then a second warble kicked in, showing that another of the missiles had regained lock as well.