"Seventy days," Ka-Frahkan murmured, kneading the ridge of his muzzle thoughtfully. Then he snorted. "Well, it will just have to be long enough, won't it?"

Na-Tharla said nothing, simply waiting with polite attentiveness, and Ka-Frahkan gave him a harsh chuckle.

"Our primary difficulty, of course, lies in the two Bolos," he said. "If this Human commander proceeds with the same intelligence and forethought he's displayed thus far, he'll leave at least one of the Bolos aboard its transport, orbiting the planet. He has none of the heavy weapons-equipped orbital platforms the Concordiat uses to defend its inhabited worlds, but he does have a pair of Bolos he can use as a substitute. And I'm afraid that if he chooses to leave both of them in orbit, the probability of our succeeding in our mission will be severely curtailed."

He made the admission calmly, much though he disliked doing so. Na-Tharla had more than earned both honesty and openness from him.

"I doubt he'll do that, however," Ka-Frahkan went on after a moment. "He has two general zones which require protection. One is the surface of the planet, where his people intend to settle and make their homes. The second, is the space around that planet, where the Humans will undoubtedly establish their primary industrial nodes. And from which, although I feel confident at this point that it isn't truly foremost in his mind, any outside military threat must come.

"So the most reasonable way for him to proceed is to leave one Bolo in space, probably still mounted on its transport in order to give it full mobility, while he takes the other planet-side, to provide immediate security for the new settlement. In fact, he'll probably leave the Bolo they've already landed to conduct a survey of their future colony site on the planet."

He paused, and Na-Tharla rubbed the side of his own muzzle with a thoughtful frown.

"It would seem to me, sir," he said slowly, "that positioning his Bolos in the way you've described ought to make our task considerably more difficult. Surely the Bolo in space will pose a severe threat to any operation we might attempt to mount?"

"It certainly will," Ka-Frahkan agreed. "Not only will it serve as a most formidable orbital fortress, but its sensors will also be best positioned to give the colony early warning of the approach of any threat.

In addition, it will be mobile. Should we manage to somehow elude its sensors and land an assault force, it will be in a position to maneuver itself and its weapons into position to bombard us from space. With the planet-side Bolo available to mount counterattacks, and with such heavy fire coming down on us from overhead, the Brigade would undoubtedly be wiped out long before it could reach attack range of the colony.

"How, sir?" Na-Tharla asked with simple and genuine curiosity.

"The Brigade includes three special reconnaissance platoons, Captain Na-Tharla. They are equipped with the best EW stealth suits the Empire can provide, and they're trained to operate in all environments .

. . including deep space.

"It's unlikely that the Humans believe for an instant that they're under threat of attack. From what I've observed of their operations, I expect them to act as if they do believe that, taking all prudent precautions against even the most unlikely of eventualities. Any thought they may have of external threats, however, will almost certainly focus upon possible Fleet attacks. A ... brute force threat, one might say. They won't be expecting a stealth attack, and I think the odds are exceedingly good that we'll be able to get at least one recon platoon into range to attack the transport with fusion warheads.

"Destruction of the transport and the Bolo's assault pod will, at the very least, severely damage the Bolo. It's more likely, however, that the attack will catch the Bolo with its battle screen down, in which case a sufficiently powerful warhead—of which we have several in stores—will breach its unprotected war hull. In short, I believe the odds are that we will be able to kill it as the opening gambit in our attack."

He paused once more, watching Na-Tharla's expression closely. The captain was silent for several seconds, obviously thinking hard. Then his ears rose in a gesture which mingled assent with qualified confidence.

"Once we've disabled or destroyed the orbiting Bolo, the mobility advantage shifts to us," Death Descending's commander said slowly, thinking aloud. "The Bolo on the planet will have no choice but to remain close to the colony site, lest we manage to decoy it out of position and make our troop landing behind it or launch a bombardment of our own from space. Of course, we have no bombardment capability, but it won't know that. So it will have to react as if we do, which will allow us to land your Brigade around the curve of the planet from the colony, where it will be unable to engage us on our approach."

"Precisely," the general said, flicking his ears in emphatic agreement. "Any Bolo is always a formidable opponent, but I rather suspect that any Bolos assigned to these colony efforts will be older, less capable models. The demands of the main fronts have been pressing both sides too hard for me to believe the Concordiat is willing to divert first-line Bolos to something like this. After all," he showed his canines in a mirthless grin, "even an 'obsolete' Bolo should be equal to almost any threat—short of, say, an Imperial Heavy Assault Brigade—which might be encountered out here in the depths of unexplored space.

"My combat mechs, on the other hand, while not Bolos, are first-line units. I anticipate heavy losses, but I confidently expect to succeed in destroying the Bolo or at least crippling it sufficiently to prevent it from interfering with our destruction of the Human colony."

"I'm glad, General," Na-Tharla said after a moment. "I would hate to believe we've come so far without a significant chance of victory." He snorted softly. "I take no more pleasure in contemplating the probability of my own death than anyone, but I find I can accept the fact that even if we win, we can never get home, as long as we accomplish what we came for."

"Agreed," Ka-Frahkan said. "On the other hand, Captain, I have no intention of destroying the Humans and then simply sitting down and waiting to die ourselves!"

"Indeed?" Both of Na-Tharla's ears cocked interrogatively.

"But that, as I say, is a worst-case outcome. I believe we stand an excellent chance of capturing the Humans' industrial infrastructure intact, as well. That's one of the reasons I wanted to know how long we can wait before we launch our attack. The longer the Humans have to settle into a sense of security, the lower their guard is likely to become. And our drones have already indicated that their industrial ships are designed on a modular basis."

Na-Tharla's ears flicked agreement. The heavily stealthed platform had shown them that at least three of the Human ships were already being dismantled into three large, independent modules each. From the data they'd been able to gather so far—limited, admittedly; even with the People's stealth technology, getting a platform close enough for detailed looks was out of the question—it appeared that each of those nine modules was intended to serve as the core of its own, separate industrial platform. Given the impressive automation of Human manufacturing capacity, he doubted it would take long for those industrial nodes to come on-line and begin expanding exponentially.

"I want them to have sufficient time to get as much as possible of their base infrastructure in place,"

General Ka-Frahkan said with bleak satisfaction. "By dispersing it, they deprive it of strategic mobility. It won't be able to drop into hyper and run away from us, and I would prefer to see that true of as many of their ships as possible. I want all of those ships taken or destroyed, Captain, but I especially want to gain possession of their manufacturing capacity.