"Chip One to Chip Two," she said. It was cold in her cockpit. The life support systems were deliberately kept at a low setting to conserve power that would be needed later. Besides that, the Chippewa'sproblem would soon be too much heat, not too little. Sue Ellen's breath puffed in wispy clouds before her face.

"Go ahead. One."

"In position. Keep alert, love."

"Right. Watch it, though. We're still pretty close to the Phobos.We may be monitored."

"The hellwith them," she said. "If that bastard wants to eavesdrop, he's welcome." She said it loudly but deliberately, and when no third voice came across the com, she giggled. "I think we're safe, darling, but we're really going to haveto stop meeting like this!"

"I'll go along with you there. I'd rather meet you in a nice warm bed, with a bottle of Chateau Davion '09. This gives us more privacy than we had on the Phobos,but I'm afraid it still leaves a little something to be desired."

"Well, I'll tell you. When we get back to the Phobos,we'll open up the watchstander's bunkroom on the fighter bay level and we'll—"

"Hold it. Sue! Bogies! Recorders on!" There was a breathless moment, then she heard, "Two enemy fighters, vectoring low across the planet. Jumping hell, they must be skimming atmosphere!"

Her own instruments showed the same story, close-paired Kurita fighters angling up from Verthandi's atmosphere. Her onboard computer cycled through scanner data and sketched out the ID schematics. They were SL-15 Slayers,delta-winged and sleek, each massing 80 tons and carrying six medium lasers and a heavy autocannon apiece. Slayerswere deadly at close combat, fully capable of shredding her heavier Chippewain a single pass.

A long-range com channel opened. "Phobosto pups," the voice said. "Bandit Slayersvectoring toward Phobos,bearing thu-ree-four-niner, mark two. Intercept and—"

Klein cut the voice off with a savage slap on the power switch, but kept her ship-to-ship microwave channel open. "Arming weapons," she said, then brought the visor down across her face and sealed it. A touch of a switch brought her fighter's heads-up display into glowing brightness an arm's length before her eyes.

"Arming weapons," Jeffrie replied. "Luck, my love..."

"Luck..."

Blood sang in her ears wth the racing of her pulse. She lived! That exhilaration was edged with fear that something might happen to Jeff. As always, she managed to dismiss the thought. Even then, the memory of her brother crowded to the fore. Alec...She shook her head, inwardly commanding herself, No!Instead, she gave in to the raw consuming passion of coming battle. Personal extinction, the memory of Alec, the possibility of the death of her lover, all were unthinkable with the surge of battle in heart and hands, with the senses so alive, so charged with excitement. Even the sweet thrill of sex paled by comparison.

Her instrument panel flashed red warning; the enemy had fired, but missed.

The Chippewawas not nearly as heavily armored as the Slayer,but the weapons mounted in its broad wings more than made up for it. A pair of light lasers guarded aft, six medium and heavy lasers aimed forward, and the space beneath the pilot's feet extending into the nose contained bundles of short and long-ranged missiles. At a range of 20,000 kilometers. Sue Ellen triggered a spread of SRMs, then punched her PlasmaStar 270 drive into throbbing life. Jeff's drives flared blue-white in almost the same instant. The miniature suns of missile drives intertwined into the distance against Verthandi's growing disk.

With her eyes locked on the readings of her HUD display, Klein counted off seconds, then flipped her Chippewaend for end. Five Gs crushed her into her seat, the roar of the drive hammering through her vessel's hull to pound and claw at her body through the padded seat. The maneuver was precisely timed. Her Chippewafell tail-first past the approaching Slayers,then accelerated after them with rapidly compounding speed. Missiles laced the sky with burning traceries; a hit flooded her cockpit with silent, white light that polarized her helmet visor black.

"Sue! I got one!" Jeff's voice over the microwave channel was ragged with excitement.

"He's still kicking," she replied. Her heads-up display pinpointed the damaged Slayer,tumbling out of control but struggling to regain flight attitude with its control thrusters. She locked onto the target and triggered her fighter's heavy, wing-mounted lasers in rapid succession. Spectroscopic scanners told of metal vapor boiling into space. She fired her own thrusters again to align her craft for another shot.

"Sue! More company! Planetward, three-five-five, mark two!"

She cursed as she glanced from doppler radar to computer ID, then caught her lower lip between her teeth. There were two more SL-15s climbing out of Verthandi's atmosphere. They must have been waiting for just such an opportunity to catch the Legion's fighter screen between the two halves of their forces. It was a trap!

"They’re boxing us, Jeff! We'll have to bull past the first two and close with the Phobosl"

"Affirmative! Punch it!"

The Chippewashad drifted apart by several hundred kilometers in the brief fight. They swung now to align with the distance-dimmed flare of the Phobos's drive just above the baleful orange eye of Norn, then boosted hard. One Slayerdrew across Klein's HUD sights, lasers scoring hits along her starboard wing. Flakes of paint and metal glittered in the sunlight, streaming aft in a metallic cascade as she continued to accelerate.

She checked Jeff's position quickly. He was under drive, slipping past the dead hulk of the Slayerthey'd already killed, angling for a deflection shot at the Slayerthat was attacking her. She triggered another salvo of missiles and another burst of laser fire. The heat in the cockpit was already beginning to penetrate her suit, and she was slick with sweat. A fighter's biggest problem in combat was excess heat, and every thruster burn, every discharge of laser or missile, added to the problem. Sue Ellen ignored the growing discomfort, held stock-still as her Chippewaclosed on the target with agonizing slowness, then shrieked victory as her lasers scored multiple hits on the enemy's charred and scored armor plate.

The Slayer'sthrusters fired frantically, knocking the damaged ship onto a new course. Seconds later, Sue's Chippewaplowed through the expanding cloud of paint chips and solidified droplets of recently vaporized metal from the enemy ship hit a moment before. Thousands of tiny, high-speed impacts sounded against her hull, like flung handsful of gravel. The target was aft now, boosting planet-ward at high-G.

Where was Jeff? She ignored the fireworks cascade across her HUD scanner display. Her instruments were temporarily blinded by the cloud of debris and would not be reliable for several seconds. Instead, she craned her neck, searching the black sky until she saw a. moving glitter of light reflected from what might have been Jeffs wing surface.

If it weren't Jeffs Chippewa,then it was the first enemy Slayer,now dead and drifting in the sunlight.

* * * *

That first Slayer wasnot dead, only damaged. Alive and cunning, its pilot watched Jeffrie Sherman's Chippewadrift across his own HUD at point-blank range. The Slayer'smain drive was out, and his life support was failing. He still had a positive power feed to his lasers, and his autocannon was loaded and ready.