The Outsider looked at him hard, but fearfully, not suspiciously.

"This is your chance to be heroes. You plan to live forever? Wessel, Staich, the rest of you," he told his own people, "clear away as the combat crew cornes on."

He got arguments. He snapped, "I want the best people at every post. That isn't you. Wait in your quarters till I need you. Comm. Has that order gone out?"

"Yes sir."

"Alarm given? Secondaries manning?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." The battle crew began replacing the watch. "Tell the secondaries they may separate at their discretion, but they're to stay close so we cast one shadow."

Twelve men aboard the fighters. Forty-two aboard the rider. That improved the odds. Not enough if the toxin failed, but some.

Detection reported, "Two ships headed this way, sir."

Turtle watched the data develop till he was sure they faced a standard Guardship rider and a courier that would be fast but lightly armed and screened. He ran simulations, chose his method of attack.

The Godspeakers reported the fleet on the strand, coming.

Time passed. Detection found two more riders outbound, running in the red. The first two had begun decelerating. Turtle said, "They see we're like nothing they've faced before. They're probably everything Starbase has left. We'll take the first two before we have to fight all four."

His attack was straightforward, the fighters going for the messenger, Delicate Harmony and its rider bracketing the enemy ridership. The fighters finished the courier immediately. The rider was more stubborn. It got in one lucky hit before retiring with heavy damage. The second pair closed fast.

Turtle checked the time. His own people should be in place. "Man the number two rider." He got no arguments.

He prepped detailed orders for the battle groups when the fleet came sleeting in.

The backside force was closing fast. The second rider launched.

For a moment he felt lonely. Now he was the only non-Outsider on the main. How long till they figured it out? "Are those orders loaded?"

"Yes sir."

"Key them as soon as they break away. Don't wait for my order." He disposed his riders and fighters for attack passes meant to look innovative but designed to let the number two rider behave oddly.

He asked for time marks. Just over six minutes till the projectiles arrived. "Anyone has personal business, now is the time." He left them smirking. Strange people.

He hurried along a passageway, brushed the timer arm on a device his people had installed where the Godspeakers were blind. There was a lot they could not see. They had concentrated on obvious areas, like the bridge.

He had to pass the hatches that led to the number two rider bay. That was an area the Godspeakers did not monitor. Odd, their tapestry of concerns and fears.

He collected a sidearm his people had left, taken from one of the ridership crew, whom they had overcome as they had reported aboard.

Lot of good the weapon would do, him alone with one hundred sixteen Outsiders and six Godspeakers. But great raw material for the Ku legend weavers, the lone hero staying to buy time for his comrades.

Great stuff in stories. Not so great when you were there. But certainly an appropriate end for a dragonslayer who had stepped out of the obscurity of ages to raise the sword of honor one last time and script a cataclysm that would devour empires....

Whoa!

He was amused with himself. Had he developed a mild megalomania?

He returned to combat. Things had gone predictably outside. Crew concentrated on their jobs. They were not yet suspicious.

In a few minutes it would not matter who suspected what. In a few minutes he would have won.

One of Starbase's satellite fortresses shed a blast of light.

First projectile was in.

Delicate Harmony went into its attack run. "Stand by. Fire as you bear."

Another orbital fortress vanished in fire. The first was a hulk with a hole punched through.

The lighting dimmed as Delicate Harmony fired.

"Breakaway! Breakaway!" someone shouted, excited as a child. "The fleet is coming in!"

They all grinned. For a moment some humanity shone through.

Delicate Harmony lurched. Turtle felt a touch of sadness. Such a beautiful machine to waste. "What was that?" he demanded.

Techs looked puzzled. "Were we hit?" one asked.

"I can't get through to the bridge."

Turtle said, "Look at the hull. See where we're hit."

A man screamed. Others yelled. The techs who talked to the Godspeakers went crazy. Turtle yelled, "Help those men!" Provik's toxin worked! "What's happening?"

The ship lurched. A real hit. Panic shone in nearby faces.

"Calm down. Do your jobs. Get those men out of here if they're injured." One of the fighters did a suicide smash into an enemy ship. Another fighter had vanished. Turtle's number one rider limped badly.

A third orbital fortress took a hit. A projectile streaked through, hitting nothing. A fifth smashed into Starbase itself, with so much energy it started a slow rotation.

Turtle asked, "Comm, did you get that squirt off to the fleet?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." That damned number two rider was not cutting around the action to head for the tag end. Were those fools going to try to get him out? "I want a message run to Damage Control. We need communications back."

One officer frowned. The first hint of suspicion. He wondered why the Gqdspeakers had become the first casualties.

Why didn't those halfwits get out? Soon it would be too late to slide around the fleet. If the Outsider crew figured it out... He made sure his back was clear.

Two more orbital fortresses went. A badly diminuated projectile hit Starbase. Delicate Harmony stood toe to toe with the remaining enemy. Armaments exhausted, the surviving fighters watched. The number two rider drifted closer but remained silent.

A tech gobbled, "All dying! Poison."

Turtle shot the three ranking officers before they finished turning. "Get to work." The crewman stared. "Work! Or none of us get out alive."

Delicate Harmony staggered.

— 132 —

WarAvocat tried to think like Kez Maefele. Starbase was vulnerable, obviously. Else the Ku would not have engineered an all-out assault... Or would he? Or would he?

Breath of a suspicion.

"Alert! Red One! Prepare for magnum launch!"

Now. He would see if he could think like the Ku.

VII Gemina broke away at T. Rogolica.

"Damn me! I was right!" The system swarmed with the weakest and oldest units of the Outsider fleet.

In minutes he knew. The fleet had attacked, drawn off the Guardship covering the Barbican, and had fled just before that Guardship arrived. And had come back after the Guardship departed.

The Outsiders had no pickets watching for trouble from deeper inside Canon.

Only a few Outsiders escaped the Guardship's fury. Afterward, WarAvocat said, "Aleas, the Ku isn't quite the monster I supposed. Unless he's something worse."

"What?"

"I was gloating because I'd screwed up his schemes. But what if I am his scheme?"

"He sent those ships here hoping you'd destroy them?"

"I'm beginning to think so."

The Barbican was scrap and gas. Outsiders had not destroyed it.

They had captured it somehow. The Guardship returning from T. Rogolica had destroyed it—and it had destroyed the Guardship. Local space was empty. No defenders. No attackers. No watchers. No Horigawas. Nothing but silence.

WarAvocat told Aleas, "I'm not sure I want to see what comes next."

"We have to go. VII Gemina needs repairs."

Not just because Gemina had spoken. Seventy percent of the secondaries were gone. The Guardship's skin was an encyclopedia of battle damage. VII Gemina ought not to risk another engagement before undergoing repairs.