WarAvocat watched track data develop. Moving closer to the Web. And not sneaking. "Find its closest point of approach to the strand. Redirect the strike there."

The strand marked the apex of a triangle. The shortest leg ran to VII Gemina. Time passed. The Outsider spotted the secondaries. It accelerated.

"That bastard can move!"

"Attack speed," WarAvocat directed.

Minutes later, "WarAvocat, target has launched two riders and four fighters."

He asked Aleas, "Why? They can't handle what I sent." He studied the geometry. His secondaries would reach CPA moments behind the Outsiders.

A pinpoint of light appeared in the main action tank, waxed, waned, between converging forces. A breakaway.

On the time lag mark, Gemina piped, "... emergency. Guardship, this is Lieutenant Jo Klass TAD off Guardship VII Gemina aboard Pioyugov Traveler Dawn Watch. I have a bogie on my tail. Emergency. Emergency."

"Red One!" WarAvocat snapped. "Aleas. Missiles and interceptors." Alarms wailed, "Access, OpsAvocat. Stand by to move ship."

A second breakaway came. The speaker added to her message, "The bogie is off the Web and launching. I have you fixed. I'm coming in hard."

Missile tracks moved toward the action at accelerations that would cause ordinary steel to creep like heated wax.

Aleas remarked, "She's cool."

"She's a good soldier." Jo Klass. Out here. With two top-tech Outsiders trying to keep her from getting home. What the hell?

They were shooting out there now.

His secondaries brushed the insystem group away from the Traveler. Others met the breakaway in a head-on firing pass. A fighter died on each side. The breakaway had not put out its riders. It was gaining on the Traveler fast. No way his secondaries could turn and catch up. The Traveler would live or die depending on Aleas's missiles.

The voice from the Traveler calmly announced, "Bogie is launching missiles."

WarAvocat watched his own streak closer, chased by lagging interceptors. He did not ask Gemina for the probabilities. He had a bad feeling and did not want it confirmed.

Klass must have had a bad feeling, too. "WarAvocat, we're getting a coded squirt from the Traveler."

"WarAvocat, the Outsider has done a rollover and is using full thrust to dump velocity."

They believed they had their kill.

He checked his secondaries. Most were maneuvering to face the Outsider's escape run. The other and its riders had climbed onto the Web, to safety, leaving its fighters to fend for themselves.

His first missiles streaked past the Traveler as the enemy's arrived. That fraction of the universe turned to fire.

"Guardship, we have damage aft. The ship is starting to break..." A roaring blast of static. Then nothing.

— 124 —

Excluding Delicate Harmony, all ships of the new class had names like Sword of Shadow, Fang of Darkness, Voice of Doom. Turtle thought the Outsiders a real uplifting, cheerful bunch.

He had been summoned to combat because Hunger of the Destroyer, shadowing VII Gemina, and Edge of Night, chasing a mystery Traveler, had them a situation.

He entered combat, glanced at a display of that remote encounter. "What have we got?"

An Outsider brought him the brittle yellow paper they used for hard copy. "Transcript of in-clear messages from the Traveler to the Guardship. They transmitted more by coded squirt."

The Traveler had been fading when he arrived. Now a missile, making an appreciable percentage of the velocity of light, caught Edge of Night. End of that story.

Hunger of the Destroyer sat on the Web nearby, recovering its riders. It would resume shadowing VII Gemina once it had its riders aboard.

He scanned the intercepted messages. "Klass?" That did not seem possible. How much had she passed to the Guardship?

Enough, probably.

"Who has seen these?" he asked.

One of his own said, "You and the tech who transcribed them."

Good. The tech would say nothing. He would not. No telling what the Tregesser hostages would do if they heard.

Something suicidal, surely. This meant the game was up for House Tregesser.

What else it might mean remained to be seen. The wizard would have to chew on it.

Delicate Harmony continued its headlong plunge toward Canon space.

— 125 —

WarAvocat let Klass's decrypted report scroll a few lines, stopped it. He glanced over to see how they were doing rounding up the chunks of the Pioyugov Traveler, to see if they were keeping that in the Guardship's shadow relative to the Outsider, which had broken off the Web again. Then he looked up.

The Deified had abandoned their screens. All but the Deified Kole Marmigus, who grinned a monster of a grin. Marmigus winked.

WarAvocat rolled the message back to start. "Aleas. Read this with me."

She did not look pleased but joined him. He let the message scroll. It ran a half hour at his reading speed, hitting the high points of Klass's adventures.

Aleas had nothing to say.

If it stunned her, how much more impact on those Deified after his gonads? "Access, OpsAvocat. WarAvocat here. We'll be returning to Canon space as soon as we've completed recovery. Destination is P. Benetonica 3. Out."

Aleas said, "So. You win a big round with the Deified."

"I sure do. May take them weeks to start aggravating me again." He rose, confident that his power never had been greater or more secure, faced a ragged and badly aged Lieutenant Klass, who'd come into WarCentral with the other survivors from the Pioyugov Traveler.

Aleas asked, "What'll you do about the other Klass?"

Jo nearly lost it when she saw WarAvocat. AnyKaat caught her arm and steadied her. "Not yet, Jo. We're almost there."

Seeker touched her with a similar sentiment, though most of his attention was on Amber Soul, who was on her way to Hospital with several injured Pioyugovs.

Even the crew had been lucky, relatively. Only eight were missing.

Jo got hold of herself, advanced toward Strate, pleased that he was still in charge. Could she keep from smashing his face if he came up with some typical tight-ass officer's crap about her appearance?

He came to meet her. He wrapped his arms around her and held her. Must be shipwide cameras watching, she thought. "Welcome home, Colonel."

The bastard had her confused with Haget!

But she accepted his welcome, and enjoyed it till she collapsed.

— 126 —

Turtle followed VII Gemina's progress closely. The Guardship zigged, zagged, ducked in and out of starspace, doubled back, tried to ambush Hunger of the Destroyer. And could neither shake its shadow nor catch it. Hunger hung on like a tail.

Its commander deserved a commendation. Not only was he carrying out his assignment, he was causing VII Gemina to fall farther and farther behind by taunting it into wasting time on those maneuvers.

The wizard had reasoned it out. There had been a Meddinian aboard the Traveler. Probably one of the two he had talked Provik into sending home. Having concluded that, he studied the messages that had crossed the Web since the countdown began.

They might have gotten enough to anticipate the strike at Capitola Primagenia.

If they'd just break off to vent their spleen on Tregesser Prime...He could advance the S. Alisonica attack. All units would be in position early. If VII Gemina could be drawn to Capitola Primagenia it would be too far away to interfere at Starbase.

This would be delicate.

Delicate Harmony crossed the Rim into Canon space. He shifted the countdown from a daily to an every four hour count on the chance the Meddinian had survived the destruction of its Traveler. He would not put that hope to the test till VII Gemina had paid its respects at Tregesser Prime. If it did.