He dropped the ring, lined up on the target and toggled off the one missile strapped beneath his fighter. Even as it streaked away he knew the game had finally caught up with him at last. He bit down hard on his cigar and closed his eyes.

Six Kilrathi IFF's impacted across the stern of Ian Hunter St. John's Ferret.

Jason leaned over the tactical display on the screen, watching as Normandy launched her fighters. Already one of the cruisers was turning back around as he cleared the north pole of the planet at an altitude of three hundred clicks, just barely skimming above the edge of the atmosphere, accelerating fast.

If only I had a full bay of fighters, he cursed silently, we'd swamp them under. Normandy had already launched her full load of fighters, twenty, and Doomsday along with two other pilots had taken out the remaining three fighters in his own bay. He could already sense that this was going to he a ship-to-ship action and he didn't relish the idea of facing a cruiser head on with a light escort carrier.

"Knew you wouldn't leave me in the lurch, laddie."

Paladin's wavery image appeared on the screen.

"You certainly brought along enough company, Paladin."

"Aye, that I did. Get ready for a coded burst, unscramble it and you'll see why."

Seconds later the signal came through and Jason turned to watch his communications officer decode it. He started to see the holo read out and turned to one of his watch officers.

"Get down that corridor fast and tell those gorillas guarding the door to send Vance up here on the double!"

"Fighters are breaking off from attack on Paladin, returning to cover cruiser," the combat information officer announced, looking back at Jason.

They must have detected the burst signal and realized we're carrying the football now, Jason thought.

"I already got it on our system," Vance said, coming on to the bridge and Jason realized that with the gear down in the fighter bay Vance would already know.

"Look at the size of those damn ships," Jason whispered, and he looked back at Vance who was intently studying the screen.

"Should we send the signal?" Vance asked.

Jason looked back at the holo. Their cover was fully blown now. He knew that was the end result the moment he made the decision to come up and save Paladin. He knew as well that if Paladin had come back empty-handed he would be in very hot water for having blown the mission cover just to save a friend. But then again it was extremely difficult to argue with success, and his decision would now be viewed as the right move and the personal reasons for Paladin and Ian forgotten.

The Kilrathi already had a visual lock on his ship. Within seconds they'd known the type and model and would quickly figure out it was Tarawa with Normandy right alongside. The antenna array atop his carrier would definitely tip them off as well as to the mission of his ship. If not for the information they had, it would be a diplomatic explosion. There was no sense in giving the Kilrathi the first jump on that front. If the information was released after the Kilrathi started screaming about the border violation the information might be dismissed as an attempt to cover up.

"Send it out now," Jason said.

"Good decision, son," Vance said with a grin and he turned back towards the flight deck. A minute later Jason noticed the momentary flicker in the ship's— battle lighting as the translight burst signal went out, repeated a minute later by a second burst for good measure.

All three cruisers had now come about and were closing in, the ranging indicator marking down the rapid drop in range. The forward spread of Normandy's fighters closed with the Kilrathi fighters launched from the cruiser and the fight was on. The edge on skill was clearly on the side of the colonial and ex-fleet pilots, deployed out to take on the heavy cruiser and its lighter escort.

One of the cruisers, however, pushed on through and Jason felt the cold sweat start to streak down his back as he sat on the bridge, waiting for the Kilrathi cruiser batteries to open up. He had never fought a carrier in a head to head engagement and he longed for a joystick and throttle, rather than the cumbersome relaying of orders.

The first volley of missiles spread out from the lead cruiser, even while the second one in line exploded from the direct hit of a torpedo spread from a Broadsword.

We've got four incoming warheads," the combat information center officer announced, "blowing chaff, flares, and radar noise makers."

"All weapons fire," Jason announced, struggling to keep his voice calm.

Mass driver cannon mounted forward went into action, a volley of torpedoes leaping out from the forward launch tubes. The range was below a hundred kilometers and closing.

"Helm ten degrees to port, fifty degrees down." He started a curving turn downwards and then countered the order, bringing his carrier straight back up towards the underside of the rear cruiser.

"Torpedo attack diverting," combat information announced, "regaining lock on Normandy."

Several Kilrathi fighters raced across his bow, dropping missiles, the weapons impacting on the forward shield.

"Normandy's in trouble!"

Jason turned to look back at his communications officer and then toggled over to a damage display of his sister ship.

A torpedo from the first spread impacted on his sister ship's bow. Forward shielding was gone. Two colonial fighters on close in escort maneuvered and rammed two of the next spread of torpedoes coming out from the Kilrathi cruiser while Normandy fired a spread in return.

The torpedoes crossed each other's paths and seconds later Normandy and the enemy cruiser fireballed, the two ships so close that the explosion merged into one vast expanding cloud of white hot flame.

A colonial fighter came through the wreckage, spinning wildly. The pilot, however, was still able to maintain some control and he aimed his craft straight in at the cruiser in front of Jason. Punching on afterburners the modified Ferret slammed straight into the Kilrathi bridge.

"Damn," Jason whispered. Within seconds he had seen three colonial pilots go kamikaze.

The enemy cruiser started to rupture along its bow, internal explosions detonating off from the blow. Half a dozen fighters swung in front of the cruiser, matching speed so as to hover, and ignoring the defensive fire they poured mass driver rounds into the ruptured hull. The cruiser started to disintegrate, mass driver rounds punching clean through the hull and the ship detonated, taking another colonial fighter with it.

The explosion from Normandy was still spreading out and Jason realized he had just under twenty strike craft out there, some of them still engaged in eliminating the rest of the fighters, others moving forward to provide cover for Bannockburn, or pursuing the light corvettes and patrol craft.

Jason left the bridge and headed down the corridor to the fighter bay, stopping before the ever present guards and waiting impatiently until they brought Vance out.

"I want your gear torn up and moved out of the way for fighter recovery," Jason said.

"What?"

"You heard me, Admiral. I've got twenty fighters out there, some of them undoubtably hurt and I plan to recover them."

"Jason, it'll take days to disassemble the D-5. Most of it is hard wired into the floor."

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't have days, for some of those ships I might only have minutes. D-5 has to be moved."

Vance started to bristle.

"Son, there's billions of dollars' worth of equipment in there. Enough money to buy a couple of hundred fighters. Tell your pilots to eject and we'll pick them up."

"I'm sorry, sir, that's not the way it's going to be. Those are colonial fighters and I'm not going to go back and tell Kruger that we ditched them to save a surveillance computer which has already done its job. Beyond that, if we don't have those fighters for the run back home, I don't think we'll make it. We've put a real burr in the ear of the Cats and they'll want our hides as vengeance. This is going to be a running fight all the way home."