Under normal circumstances, Melconian ships avoided action unless they were committed to the defense of a crucial objective ... or the Concordiat was. When a Concordiat task force was free to maneuver, it held the range open, decimating any Melconian attempt to close with it with its superior weaponry. But when the Concordiat Navy was on the offensive, attacking a Melconian-held star system or planet, its ships had to come to the defenders, entering their range if they intended to attack the objective the Puppies were defending. And by the same token, when the Concordiat was pinned by an objective it had to defend, it had no choice but to stand and fight as the Melconians closed in.

Like now, she thought grimly. The convoy was so slow, so unwieldy, that it might as well have been a planet. And so she was anchored, forced to accept action. So why weren't the Puppies charging forward?

It's probably the battlecruiser, she told herself. The sheer range of its missiles reverses the usual reach advantage, and the convoy sure as hell isn't going to be able to run away fast enough to hide, no matter what happens. So maybe the Dog Boys figure they've got the time to wear us down at extended ranges before they close in for the kill.

She couldn't let that happen, and she turned her attention to that portion of the neural net which was her tactical officer.

"Concentrate on the cruisers. Let's tear some holes in their screen."

"Their firing patterns are shifting, sir," Na-Kahlan reported tersely. "They are no longer engaging us.

They are concentrating on the screen, instead."

"And continuing to close, yes?" Na-Izhaaran responded calmly.

"Yes, sir."

"As I anticipated," Na-Izhaaran said softly. "It is an ill choice, but the least ill one he possesses. He gives Emperor Larnahr III the opportunity to engage him unmolested, but he anticipates that his superior defenses will allow him to survive while his own fire strips away our screening platforms. In his position, I would do the same."

The admiral brooded down at the tactical plot, rubbing the bridge of his snout, then sighed.

"How much longer before Captain Ka-Sharan and Death Stalker are in position?" he asked.

"Approximately twenty-five minutes," Na-Mahlahk replied. "It could be slightly longer than that. At the moment, we cannot fix his fist's position accurately."

"I should hope not!" Na-Izhaaran snorted. "But I know Ka-Sharan. He will be at the assigned position at the assigned time. In the meantime, it is our responsibility to deal with these."

He gestured at the plot, then looked at Na-Kahlan.

"We cannot continue to retreat much longer without making this one suspicious," he said. "Besides, if we allow the gap between us and the convoy to open much further, it will be safely beyond even Emperor Larnahr III's effective range, and he will have no more motive to come after us. So in another

... twelve minutes, I think, we will reverse course and see if he truly wishes to dance with us."

"Up to something." Lakshmaniah spun the thought off into the corporate net of her staff as the destroyer Cutlass took a direct hit. Most of her attention was on the tactical relay, reading Cutlass'

damages. It could have been worse. The destroyer's main weapons remained intact, and she was already altering course slightly and rolling ship to hold the damaged aspect of her battle screen away from the enemy. Yet the Puppies' uncharacteristic maneuvers fed her growing suspicion, and she felt its echoes rippling throughout the composite brain. Agreement came back to her from most of them; doubt from a few.

"Drawing us away from the convoy?" the suggestion came from her tactical officer.

"Possible." Lakshmaniah frowned, then grimaced. "Doesn't matter. Committed. Up to Trevor and Chin."

Agreement, though far from happy, came back to her, and she felt his attention turning with hers to study the enemy formation. The Puppies' rate of retreat was slowing. It looked as if they were preparing to stand, or possibly even to counterattack, and she considered her own damages. Cutlass, Dagger, and Halberd had all taken hits, though so far their damage remained far from critical. More seriously, Foudroyant had lost almost half her port energy battery and a third of her missile tubes. In return, one of the Melconian combat divisions had been driven to retreat behind the battlecruiser, with heavy damage to both its heavy and light cruisers. But the battlecruiser was beginning to get the range, and she felt Valiant shudder as a pair of missiles slipped through her active defenses and ripped savagely at her battle screen.

Two of the three remaining Puppy divisions had also taken damage, although it was impossible for CIC to give her hard estimates on how badly they were hurt. But the battlecruiser remained virtually untouched, and her heavy missile armament and deep magazine capacity were beginning to come into play. Lakshmaniah's ships had been forced to expend a much higher percentage of their ammunition than usual to achieve the damage they'd inflicted. She couldn't keep this up much longer.

Worry hummed behind her eyes as she contemplated her increasingly unpalatable alternatives. This long-range sparring ought to have favored her command. As it was, her dwindling magazines were paring away her options.

It wasn't enough simply to drive off the Melconians. She had to be certain of their destruction, because they could trail the painfully unstealthy transports from a range at which not even the Concordiat Navy's sensors could penetrate their own stealth systems. She could not afford the possibility that a surviving Puppy warship might trail them to their new colony's site and return to the Empire to bring back a sufficiently heavy force to slaughter it to the last man, woman, and child. But if this long-range, attritional duel continued as it was, her squadron would be ground away while at least two or three Melconian ships survived.

Ultimately, the survival of her own warships was a purely secondary consideration. There was no point in husbanding them if the Melconians were able to follow them to the colony's new home, because she couldn't possibly stand off a force the size any spy would bring down upon them. Which, in a way, made her limited options brutally simple ...

"Course change!"

The announcement from Tactical snatched her up out of her thoughts. The Dog Boys were indeed altering course. They were no longer backing away. She watched their entire force, including the battlecruiser, lunge straight towards her squadron, and her jaw tightened.

"Hold course," she ordered. "This time we take them at energy range."

"Sir, the enemy is maintaining course!" Ka-Sharan reported.

Na-Izhaaran looked at him, then pushed himself up out of his command chair and stalked over to the master plot.

It was true. The Human warships remained on their pursuit vector even though his command had turned to face them, and his eyes narrowed and his ears pressed tight to his skull. It was preposterous!

Human ships never closed with those of the People until after their infernal missiles had decisively weakened their opponents. But this Human squadron was charging straight for him, as though its units were warships of the People themselves!

"Admiral, should we pull back once more?" Na-Mahlahk asked softly, and Na-Izhaaran shot him a sharp glance. The chief of staff returned his gaze steadily, and Na-Izhaaran showed just an edge of canine. Not at Na-Mahlahk for asking the question, but because the question was so valid. And one whose answer he would have to produce quickly.

He looked back at the plot. In the final analysis, it didn't matter what happened to these Human warships. The destruction of the convoy they were escorting was what truly mattered, and he had already lured them far enough away from the transports to make that destruction certain. So there was no need for him to continue this engagement at all, unless the enemy forced it upon him. His battle plan had accepted that from the beginning. But that plan had also anticipated that the Humans would perform as their standard tactical doctrine dictated and maneuver to hold the range open.