Grayson looked from her to the navscreen. The fighters were outbound, but slowing. In hours, Verthandi's gravity would drag them to a halt, would drag them into the long fall back. Pick-up would be possible, of course. It would take long hours more for the crippled Chippewato fall into Verthandi's atmosphere.

- But what would be happening in the meantime? The LeopardDropShip was already emerging from behind Verthandi's horizon, closer to the Chippewasman the Chippewaswere to Phobos.The Phobosmight make it past the enemy DropShip if she could maintain her present speed and course toward the planet, not decelerating until the final plunge into Vermandi's atmosphere. But the Chippewaswere on another vector, outbound. To match course and speed with them...

Grayson balanced the life of one wounded fighter pilot against the lives of all aboard the Phobos.No longer was it a question of mission. This was sheer survival. He gestured toward the microphone, and Martinez handed it to him. He took a deep breath, held the device to his lips, and spoke. "Chip One, this is Carlyle. Phoboscannot rendezvous, do you understand? We cannot make pick-up on Chip Two."

"He's dying!You can't leave us!"

"Chip One, this is an order." Grayson had not believed the words would hurt so much. He scarcely knew Klein and Sherman, but the pain was knife-sharp. "Abandon Chip Two and return to Phobos.The enemy DropShip is shaping an intercept orbit and we must meet her. Do you copy?"

"Carlyle, damn you, you can't do this to us!"

"Lieutenant Klein! There's nothing you can do for him! Return to Phobos,and take your station!"

"I'll tell youwhat you can do with your damn station! I'll see you in hell, Grayson Carlyle! In hell!"

As if to underscore her words, the Phobos'shull rang anew with the impact and thundering bellow of autocannon rounds. Somewhere, far down the curve of the DropShip's hull, a storage compartment had been breached, its atmosphere erupting explosively into vacuum.

The deltaform SL- 15s passed again. The Phobos'slasers sought and found. The drive of one stuttered and winked out at the touch of three beams sweeping across its after hull. The craft began a slow tumble into Darkness.

Now it was the Leopardbearing down, driving toward the Phobosat three Gs. LRMs struck her lower hull, rupturing a ‘Mech storage bay, smashing a starboard laser turret. The bay door blew out into space, winking off and on as it dwindled into the black. The Phobos'smissiles swarmed back along the same path. Laser beams, visible only on the bridge combat screens as lances of green and red, stabbed, probed, and struck. From somewhere, an alarm shrilled, but the sound was dull behind the babble of voices of the bridge crew. A computer voice announced pressure loss in Compartment Three.

Martinez looked up from her console. "Better take your seat, Major," she said. "We're committed, and here's where things get rough!"

Grayson strapped himself into his observer's chair. Events were beyond his control now, which gave him a moment to spare a thought for the two Chippewapilots. Could he have done anything differently? If the Phoboshad rendezvoused with Jeffrie Sherman's fighter, all of them would have died... or they would have been forced to surrender. Computer imaging showed the Leopardhuge on the main screen. A pair of now familiar delta shapes streaked past the larger form, those Slayersclosing for another run. Somewhere a voice recited range figures for a fire control station. "Nine-zero-zero, eight zero-zero, seven-zero-zero..." Was the voice a computer, or was it the unnaturally calm voice of a trained professional rising above the surge of emotions, of pain, of fear?

Surrender was unthinkable. Possibly, possibly,in a declared war with established sides, the Gray Death Legion might have considered it in hopes of being exchanged or pledged. Mercenaries aiding a rebellion on a world already conquered by the Draconis Combine was a different matter altogether. The Dracos' simplest solution would be to arrange for the entire unit to quietly vanish. Besides, these Combine forces fought under the banner of Duke Hassid Ricol, the Red Duke, mastermind of the plot that had resulted in the death of Grayson's father. How could he ever quietly surrender, knowing there was a chance to strike at Ricol, to attack him, to hurt him...Grayson's will to vengeance was not yet dead, but he'd abandoned Jeffrie Sherman to die. Where was right in all of this?

The Phobosbucked wildly. The noise of atmosphere rose outside, a distant susurration that built and surged, then built again into an overwhelming roar.

'Targets, incoming!" Someone's voice rose above the roar, sharp with new fear. "Bearing oh-five-oh, mark ten, high! He's coming in!"

As the DropShip plunged deeper into thickening atmosphere, it met this new attack with concentrated laser fire. The Slayer'smassive nose and belly armor absorbed most of the onslaught, as its own lasers sliced into the pocked and cratered target growing large in its pilot's sights.

One laser struck the Slayerfull in the cockpit, at a range too short to allow polarization of the canopy to rob the beam of more than a fraction of its strength. The fighter's cockpit turned brilliant under the beam's megajoule caress. The canopy fragmented, giving the pilot no time to scream or even comprehend before his body transformed into superheated vapor. Though the Slayerpilot was dead, his fighter bore on at three kilometers per second, a gaping scar now glowing red across its upper hull.

The impact caught the Phobos aglancing blow, but it was enough to stagger the larger ship and to lay open its fuel tanks in a ragged gash across the ship's flank. The wreckage of the dead Slayersprayed outward in a final blossoming of destructive brilliance that kicked the Phobosforward and down. The jolt sent the bridge crew reeling against consoles or lurching against the restraining straps of their harnesses as lights failed and damage alarms shrilled. The ionization shell of re-entry flickered wildly about the stricken, helpless Drop-Ship as it plunged and rolled uncontrollably toward the planet below.

9

Sue Ellen Klein followed Jeff's crippled Chippewainto atmosphere. Re-entry friction had heated the wildly bucking craft to a cherry glow, and fragments from the damaged ship began flaking off in a glittering stream of fiery particles. Fifty kilometers behind, the larger fragments tapped against Klein's cockpit like the beginnings of a summer's shower. Pit...pat...pit-pit...pitter-pat.:..

She could no longer use her radio. Her ship-to-ship frequency was jammed by Jeffs soul-searing shrieks as his ruptured cockpit began melting around him. There was one final duty she could perform for Jeffrie, her friend...her lover. Tears wet her face and smeared the inside of her helmet visor as she brought the HUD targeting display up one last time. Crosshairs centered on the other Chippewa,now almost consumed in a billowing fireball, brilliant against Verthandi's cloud cover. Over the radio, the shrill screams continued, more desperate, chopped and broken now by the growing static from the ionization of superheated air.

"Goodbye, Jeff," she said softly, knowing that he could no longer hear her. "I love you..." Then her thumb came down on the firing button, sending paired Exostar short-range missiles across the gap between her ship and Jeffrie's. The fireball erupted in flaming, hurtling fragments, then Jeff’s screams ended with a suddenness that made her gasp.