Patrick smiled, then nodded his head to Captain Vandermeer at the far end of the table. "Well done, Janos."

Dan twitched as though the praise for the Captain had stung him. He shook his head and Patrick Kell reached over with his right hand to pat the MechWarrior on the arm. "Calm yourself, Dan. There is method in our madness." Kell winced with pain, then raised his left hand to quiet concerned inquiries. "It hurt more when they shaved my chest to tape these bandages on. Thank God the Kuritans use sharp swords."

He looked around the room and met the combined gaze of his subordinates. "Janos and I hatched this plan after the physicians sewed me up. Desperate situations require desperate measures. What I will reveal to you now must be held in strictest confidence." Kell waited for everyone to nod agreement before he continued.

"Janos's people intercepted messages from the incoming Kurita ships to their forces on the ground. When the incoming attackers learned of the action around our base, they demanded confirmation of our destruction." He narrowed his eyes for emphasis. "They didn't want troop positions or strength estimates. They just wanted to know we were dead!"

"Payback," Cat mumbled.

Kell nodded solemnly. "That's it exactly."

Richard O'Cieran frowned. "If they want us dead, this little trick isn't going to do anything. They'll backtrack and find us here. Hell, we're close enough to Dieron for scout ships to flood this and any other uncolonized star in the area." The jump troop commander nodded at Dan. "Dan's right, we've dodged lasers and waltzed into PPC fire."

Salome Ward nodded sympathetically. "It'll take a week for us to recharge the K-F drive .. ."

Dan shook his head. "This is a K8 star, not a G. It'll take just over 199 hours, but we're not at the optimum recharging point, and we've not unfurled the solar collector yet. That adds another five hours to deploy and recover."

Major Fitzpatrick looked at Janos, who nodded slowly. With a frown, Fitzpatrick turned to Kell. "Forgive me, Patrick, but spending a week and a half here will get us killed."

"I know." Patrick leaned back and another wave of pain twisted his features. "We're going to try something dangerous. It's as likely to kill us as all the Kuritans who are after us, but it's also got a higher margin of success. Janos, please explain."

The Cucamulus'sCaptain stood and pressed a button to dim the lights. He slid a panel at his end of the table toward himself, then flipped it to reveal a computer keyboard. He slid the keyboard back into place and typed in a command. Hovering above the center of the table, a holographic diagram of the Cucamulusglowed to life.

"You all know that it is the Kearny-Fuchida drive that allows us to travel so rapidly between stars. And you know, too, that the K-F drive can translocate us up to thirty light years from our current location. Those drives require an incredible amount of power to rip a hole in the fabric of space, and then project the ship through to its destination."

Janos typed another command into the computer linked to the keyboard, and the image shifted. A chart appeared and slowly rotated so that everyone at the table could read it easily. "As Dan has pointed out—doubtless because he had to memorize such material while at the New Avalon Military Academy—A2341CA is a K Class star. Were we positioned at the optimum charging point, it would take us just over 195 hours to power the drives. Adding two hours to deploy and three to recover the solar collector, we would be here more than eight days."

Dan shook his head. Eight days if we were in the right position, which we're not.He swallowed but said nothing aloud. I haven't had such a feeling of doom since Morgan Kell broke up the regiment eleven years ago. Hell, the Defection was a simulator battle compared to this mess.

Janos smiled uneasily. "The reason it takes so long to charge a Kearny-Fuchida drive is not because of the amount of energy needed to fuel the equipment." His fingers flew across the keys and a series of equations flashed up. "We could actually do it in sixteen hours."

Fitzpatrick laughed. "Now we're cooking with magnetic induction."

Janos shook his head. "Not exactly, Seamus. The K-F drive is a delicate instrument. The charge must be fed into it slowly. 'Hot-loading' an engine causes damage on the molecular level, or so some whiz kids at the New Avalon Institute of Science believe."

Dan frowned. "They don't know?"

Janos shook his head quickly. "No. A couple of people have reported successfully 'hot-loading' their engines, but no one can prove it. Other attempts have, apparently, been utter failures."

Salome shivered. "What happened to the ships?"

"We don't know," Janos said with a shrug.

Patrick Kell leaned forward. "We do know, however, that it's possible to use our in-system engine to power up the K-F drive."

Cat smiled slyly. "So we'll jump-start our K-F drive and leave here before it is 'theoretically' possible for us to be gone. The Draconians will be left assuming we died in a misjump."

Patrick nodded slowly. "There it is."

Dan shook his head. "I don't like it. If we try this, we arelikely to die in a misjump." He turned to Janos. "What happens if the K-F drive just quits? Can we fix it?"

"I doubt it." The Captain sat down. "The Cucamulusis more than 300 years old, and has worked—if the translations of the early Kurita logs are correct—like a charm since its maiden voyage. All the while this ship has been hopping between stars, no one has rediscovered what makes the K-F drive tick. If it goes, we stay here."

Fitzpatrick leaned back. "Until Kurita comes for us."

Patrick nodded. "Right again. What I want is for all of you to put your people to work. Seamus, your Techs and aerojocks are to make sure our fighters are ready to deploy at a moment's notice. If a Kurita ship arrives—and if they've got Janos's knowledge of non-standard jump points—we'll need them ready to go. Salome, I want all 'Mechs fully operational, and as many of those captured Panthersworking as possible. I want anyone without a jump-capable 'Mech checked out on a Panther."

Patrick turned to the jump troop commander. "Rick, I need your troops looking sharp. Have them check out all their equipment, especially anything they need to go outside a ship."

Dan narrowed his eyes. "It sounds as though you expect trouble."

Patrick pursed his lips. "First of all, Dan, I don't want a bunch of people running around thinking they're going to die when we jump out of here. No one is to know about our plan to leave quickly. Granted, few folks know enough about the K-F drives to be worried, but I don't want an undercurrent of fatalism sapping morale. Giving everyone something to do will keep them too busy to speculate about our plans. All they'll know is that we're getting out of here."

Salome cleared her voice. "I don't think that was Dan's question, Patrick. Have you and Janos decided where we're going, and do you expect trouble when we get there?"

Kell nodded. He looked toward Janos, but the Captain shook his head and pointed at a blue light flashing on his keyboard. "I must report to the bridge. I'll let you know what is happening."

"Very well." Patrick waited for the hatch to slide shut behind Vandermeer before he continued. "We're going to appear in a system that is little more than an asteroid belt. It was home to a mining company until the firm collapsed a year ago. Wayland Smith, whom some of you may remember from his time with us before the ... Well, he conned a great deal of money from the Kurita authorities using this played-out system as collateral. Since then, certain people have moved in ..."