"Tallaan," Piris said. "We'd know if Kuat was building them."

"Well, they're not going to level Coruscant with those, but they certainly will spread us thin if they've got as many as Intelligence estimates."

Admiral Niathal shared a number of military philosophies with Jacen Solo, and being seen on the front line was one of them. She also liked to see things for herself, especially if Galactic Alliance Intelligence was involved. The current overstretch gave her cause to wonder what Cal Omas was playing at—an anxiety that might have been visible to the bridge crew as she paced up and down, glancing over shoulders to check screens and readouts.

"We need every hull we can hang on to, Admiral." Bounty's commanding officer, Piris, had been on the bridge far too long. He was a Quarren, evolved for an amphibious existence, and the atmosphere on board was too dry to keep pulling double watches; his uniform was sealed tightly at the cuffs and neck, but he kept wiping his face with a moist cloth. He needed a rest in his humid cabin. "If the Bothan fleet is growing as fast now as Intelligence suggests, then I fail to see how we're going to contain it if we have to support Sika and every other local skirmish, too."

"Looks like the Kem Stor Ai dispute will be the next to boil over."

Niathal had a brief moment of wishing that she could target one world, reduce its surface to slag from orbit just to make her point, and then ask who else wanted some of the same. But it passed. It always did.

"Every backworld with a grievance is resurrecting old fights in the guise of Alliance loyalty and asking us to help out. And Omas thinks he can hold the Alliance together by placating every call for a backup fleet across the galaxy."

"When is he going to admit he can't?"

"When I give him no other option, I think."

Maybe the Bothans were ahead of the curve. Instead of commissioning more capital ships—juicy, high-value targets in battle—they'd opted for a big fleet of smaller, more agile warships that could be stockpiled without anyone panicking about the escalation in arms.

"It's a different kind of war. Flexibility and rapid response, that's the name of the game now." Piris put his hand on the ship's comm control. "Let's see what they're made of. Mothma Squadron, launch when ready. Qaresi Squadron, remain on alert five. Confine them to their own space, but attack if fired upon."

Niathal still wondered who'd assassinated the Bothans and kicked off this escalation. Could have been our assets, if we'd played the Bothans right. Some Intel moron, she decided. She'd get to the bottom of that sooner or later. If she was going to be Chief of State one day, she'd weed out the loose cannons first.

"If you can get our furry friends to give us a ship's tour, in one piece . . . ," she suggested. But intercepting and boarding the new frigate in these circumstances was next to impossible. The best break they'd get would be to retrieve debris for inspection. "I'd love to know their top speed."

Niathal quite liked Bothans, even if she didn't trust them as far as she could spit, which was a lot farther than anyone might have believed.

She didn't dislike Quarren, either, even if it was almost expected of Mon Calamari. Quarren were a rare sight on ships; she knew Mon Cal officers who made every effort to avoid being assigned Quarren crew, and few Quarren wanted to serve alongside Mon Cals even now. But when they were good, they were very, very good. Piris was outstanding. If she caught any Mon Cal referring to him as Squid Head, they'd answer to her, and she didn't care how many whispered that she was an apologist.

Did we have the right to take their kids for some social engineering experiment—-for our benefit?

She asked herself that question more often these days, and the answer always came up negative. Jacen Solo would think she was a hopeless wet liberal.

She wondered how she was going to wipe him off her boots when the time came. It wouldn't be easy.

"Bounty, Daring, stand by."

Twelve fighters shot out of the Bounty's hangar bay, spiraling away from the warship and streaking off in pursuit of the Bothan frigate. Then the three flights separated. Observation cams in each cockpit gave Bounty's combined bridge and combat information center a composite view of the engagement. Daring sat off Bounty's starboard bow, ready to divert any Bothan retaliation from her larger charge.

"Did you ever train as a pilot, ma'am?" Piris asked.

"No. You?"

"Indeed I did. At times like this, I miss it."

"If we get any busier, Captain, there'll be a droid running this ship and you'll be flying sorties. Where that leaves me I have no idea."

"You'll be Chief of State, ma'am," said Piris.

The worst thing about Quarren was that their amusement wasn't as easy to spot as a human's. With a human, all those teeth on display made life easier. Quarren face-tentacles could hide a multitude of emotions.

"That'll be the day," she said, hoping to avoid more gossip about her ambitions. Right then being Chief of State didn't matter at all. She had a battle, and all her training and instinct kicked in to say this was where she wanted to be, not behind a desk.

The first flight to come within range of the Bothan frigate shadowed it, cutting back and forth across its path at a thousand meters.

The second flight trailed aft of it, scanning the hull and sending back data.

It took a few seconds for the Bothans to react; perhaps some of their systems were still offline. The ship picked up speed and began to move out of the Bothawui limits, its accompanying tenders trailing like escort fish.

So the Bothans thought they had a nice new asset to surprise the Alliance, but the Alliance had spotted it. Niathal waited for the reaction while the third flight of Mothma Squadron monitored the situation, weapons trained but not locked. There was no point blowing it to pieces before they'd taken the measure of the new class.

"Very heavy hull plating for a frigate," said Niathal, looking at the recce scans coming back from the starfighters. Piris pored over the images and penetrating scans, too. "At least a dozen turbolasers and twenty cannons."

"Not exceptional."

"Depends how many hulls they have."

They didn't have long to wait to find out how many vessels were out there. The weapons officer shouted at the same time as the sensor warning Klaxon sounded.

"Sir, enemy contact at—correction, multiple contacts in range.

We've got trade."

"Bounty, Daring, close up at battle stations, synchronize command information. Helm, all ahead. Qaresi Squadron, launch—Bronzium and remainder of air group, launch when ready."

Nobody said ambush. The cockpit chatter from the pilots broke in.

"Copy that. . . five, six . . . correction, ten—detecting cannons charging, will engage—"

"Targeting source."

"I make that nineteen—"

"He's got a lock on me."

"Got your six. Deploying chaff."

Piris's face-tentacles were completely still. It gave him a commendable look of calm. "Cannons, engage all Bothan vessels in range, in your own time, go on . . ."

One moment they'd been watching a single fresh-out-of-the-box frigate, and the next more were dropping out of hyperspace at regular five-second intervals. Mothma Squadron picked up images on their cockpit cams: all in the same Bothan livery, all brand spanking new and unmarked by debris pocks and scrapes.

A flare of red laser blazed on the screens as one XJ cam view winked out and the fighter broke up into spinning, red-hot debris.