Nagumo paused, considering. "Get me Colonel Kevlavic."

Mayhap the intruder could be stopped before it entered atmosphere. If not, it would be up to Kevlavic to eliminate the danger as soon as the ship touched down on Verthandi's surface.

Mercenaries',he muttered inwardly. Damnation'.

* * * *

Grayson and the bridge crew of the Phoboshad been listening in to the radio transmissions between the two Shilonefighters and then-base ship. The transmissions were unintelligible without the computer codes that would unscramble an enemy's battlespeech, but the sudden surge of emotion in the Draco pilot's voice had been unmistakable.

The alarm had been sounded. Use Martinez glanced across at Grayson and with a raising of her eyebrows asked his permission to fire.

"You may fire, Captain," he said with studied formality, and a lance of coherent light from the Phobos's single heavy laser gutted one of the Shilones.

"Stand by for high-G maneuvers," Martinez said, her voice sharp but calm. Grayson scarcely had time to lower himself into an empty bridge observer's chair before the Phobos'sdrives throbbed to a full two Gs, and her captain gave the orders that swung her onto a new course.

The damaged Shilonewas out of the fight. The other was boosting at a back-breaking 4 Gs, angling for maneuvering room.

Missiles blossomed from the Phobos'smissile bays in the next instant. Two struck the accelerating fighter, disintegrating one wing and sending the craft off, powerless and tumbling end over end. Either or both fighters might yet still be in the fight, but their radios and radars were silenced, their power plants momentarily stilled. At twenty meters per second squared, the Phobossped toward the swelling golden globe of Verthandi.

Moments later, Martinez cut the ship's boost and the Phobosfell free, saving fuel against the maneuvers that would soon be necessary. Radar and imaging cameras showed the LeopardClass DropShip, with a pair of fighters flanking her, now balanced on dazzling drive flares in an attempt to cut the Phobosoff from Verthandi. The Leopardwas already cutting between Phobosand the planet, in a position to anticipate her maneuvers. All Captain Martinez could do was to make those maneuvers unpredictable enough to keep that Combine DropShip guessing.

At a range of 90,000 kilometers, the LeopardClass vessel opened fire.

The endless Succession Wars that had engulfed humanity for centuries had claimed many victims. One of the first was the high-level of technology required to manufacture the sophisticated electronic gear necessary to keep both warships and BattleMechs in operation. Mankind had long ago lost the know-how to construct the comparatively simple computer chips needed to direct self-targeting and fire-and-forget homer missiles, for example. Space battles now resembled the maneuver and broadside exchanges of gunfire characteristic of the ancient Age of Sail more than they did battles of the 20th and 21st centuries. Missiles arced across intervening space along courses and at velocities set by heavier shipboard computers, aiming for predicted impact points. Would-be targets combined random bursts of powered flight or deceleration with free fall so that predicted impact points were always someplace other than where the missile actually exploded.

The first enemy volley missed. The enemy DropShip and its two tiny escorts, in close orbit now around Verthandi, passed around the curvature of the planet and out of sight. Verthandi's moon slowly settled behind the sweep of the planet's green-patched north pole as the Phobosdropped ever nearer.

Grayson swam to the captain's console, weightless now as the Phobosdrifted in unpowered freefall, her drives silent. "We'll need our screen out, Captain," he said. Martinez nodded.

"Those fighters will try to close when they come around the planet's curve again," she said. "They'll try to pin us down to let the DropShip move in and work us over at leisure. We can't let any of them get too close."

Devic Erudin was clinging to a stanchion, looking deathly ill. Grayson did not particularly enjoy freefall, but he was not as badly affected by it as some. Combat, especially, could be rough on anyone not used to being shipboard during rough maneuvers. He swam across to Erudin's side.

"Do you want to go below?"

Erudin managed a greenish smile, and shook his head. "Strange to talk about below,when I seem to have lost my grip on up and down," he said. He belched once, heavily, and added, "I seem to have lost my grip on my stomach as well."

"If you feel sick," Grayson warned, "leave the bridge. These people can't take the time to clean up after you."

Erudin nodded and seemed to make an effort to collect himself. "What's happening now? What's the Captain doing?"

Grayson glanced across at Martinez, who was speaking with steady urgency into a microphone at her console.

"We're dropping our pups...the two Chippewafighters we brought on board at Galatea. We'll need them to screen us from the Combine fighters. We're releasing them while the enemy blockading vessels are hidden on the other side of the planet, along with the planet's moon." He shrugged. "We're probably under observation from the ground, so what we're doing won't be much of a surprise. You never know, though. Every little bit, they say..."

"And...and the enemy DropShip I heard them talking about?"

Grayson shook his head. "We'll have to wait and see about that one. It's going to be a squeaker, though." He raised one eyebrow. "So much for the nonexistent blockade, Citizen."

"I...I don't understand. They haven't been this vigilant."

"You've been away for awhile. Or maybe it was just bad luck that we ran into their patrol."

"Will...will we get through?"

Grayson looked across the deck toward the bridge viewscreen, which showed the bulk of the planet whose golden light now flooded the crowded bridge.

"Well, Citizen, I guess we'll find out in a few minutes."

When the Combine ships emerged again from behind the planet, they would strike.

8

Sue Ellen Klein was wedged so tightly into the narrow cockpit of her Chippewathat she could scarcely move, but it was times like this when she felt most free and alive. The Chippewawas large for a fighter, massing 90 tons, yet most of that was in the broad, knife-lean wing-body of the craft. The cockpit was perched at the wing's center, between the aft-jutting, boom-joined double tail. From that vantage point, the pilot had an unobstructed view of Glory through the transplex cockpit bubble. The stars crowded close, and the golden light of Verthandi bathed Sue Ellen's face when she unsealed and raised the visor of her helmet.

The wing-body of Jeffrie Sherman's Chippewaglittered sharp and bright against the stars a kilometer distant. She knew, too, that the Phoboswas again balanced on white fire, decelerating at over two Gs aft and beneath the sweep of her own wing.

The two fighters had been launched while at a higher intrinsic velocity, which was carrying them now beyond the Phobosand deeper into Verthandi's gravitational field. Instruments strained to glean tidbits of data from random noise. Of the multitude of probabilities spilling across the computer screen, which would be the vector of the enemy ships when they reappeared on the Chippewa'sscanners?

Klein opened a ship-to-ship direct beam microwave channel. It allowed short-ranged communications for coordinating fighter maneuvers without letting the enemy listen in.