He looked around at the interior damage, then dropped back into the ship to retrieve the tool kit. After that it was, fortunately, only a matter of minutes until he had Paula cut free and delivered into the aft stateroom. He rolled the traumabot out of its closet, stripped Paula naked, then stepped back to let the machine's hands and expert system sort out what to do about the girl.

He could hear the radio chiming like crazy in the control bubble. "I'm going to go up front to get that," he told Paula.

"I understand," she said. "It's my looks. But I usually look much better than this when I'm naked. Ask Rick," she said weakly, attempting a smile.

Bob took that as a good sign and went up front.

The call was coming from the High Command.

The Hyperlight II was light-minutes away from Luna, so there was no way for Bob to have a back-andforth conversation. What came over the screen and through the voice channel was the entire account of what had happened since the KKVs hit the Phinons. Bob found himself grinning through most of it, right up until the end when he saw the images and trajectory plots of the four remaining ships.

"Damn. Dammit!" he cursed.

The anonymous narration continued. "Though no communication has been detected from these ships, minor course correction bursts have been observed. It is assumed the crews are alive and intend to carry out their original mission.

"Your ship is the only one in a position to attempt an intercept."

"Son-of-a-bitch," Bob said.

Along with the exodus from Earth of the citizenry with the means to do so came, later, the exodus of the System Patrol fleet. Those ships needed to attack the Phinons had been the last to depart Earth-Luna. If they failed, there seemed little point in having the remains of the fleet hanging around to be decimated along with the planets. Instead, all ships were sent into the myriad of tiny worldlets that was the Belt, most of them carrying vast quantities of equipment to set up spacedocks to convert over every available ship to mass conversion power and Dykstra-Hague impellers. This included the planetary defenses of the Earth. In an era of cheap artificial gravity, there was no reason to build huge orbital battle stations and not add a powerful propulsion system "just in case." The case had come, and these stations, too, had departed for the Belt. That meant that the only defensive systems left in the Earth-Luna system were the ground installations on the Moon.

Had things gone as planned, Bob would have been whisking his ship out to the Belt right now, too, along with all the others that had attacked the fleet. Paula's plight had slowed them up.

The Moon might be able to take out one or two ships. But not all four, Bob thought. I don't think I can get all of them either. They don't know back there that I have a skiff stuck on the back of my ship.

Bob ran the coordinates and trajectory data of the ships through his navigational computer, then did a scan through the structural data on the construction of the Hyperlight II. He had to know what kind of acceleration he could do before the skiff would rip off-it lay outside the effects of his ship's compensation fields. One thing was certain-he didn't have time to cut the skiff away. The Phinon ships would be past the Earth long before he could get there if he took the time to do that.

He ran the data three times, each time giving himself more optimistic assumptions.

There was no way.

"Shit, son-of-a-bitch! The skiff rips off above twenty gees no matter how much wishful thinking I throw at the problem." But there had to be a way. He couldn't believe that they'd turned the Phinon fleet aside, only to have a few ships with huge bombs still manage to kill-what? millions? billions?-on Earth.

That's the problem with atmospheres-they're so damn easy to screw up.

Bob was running out of time. Over twenty gees, the skiff rips off . . . Then what? It will open the ship to vacuum. Wait!

Did it have to open the whole ship to vacuum?

He had an idea. He also had another passenger. He raced from the control bubble to the aft stateroom.

Paula still looked like hell, but at least now bandages were covering some of the lower circles of the inferno. She had tubes sticking into her in five different places, and Bob knew from personal experience that at least three of those places hurt no matter what the doctors might say.

"Paula, we got a call from the High Command. Some of the Phinon ships didn't turn away. We're the only ship that can intercept," he told her.

She smiled up at him weakly. "But my skiff is glued on, right?" Even in pain and all banged up, Paula was sharp.

Miss Bouncy-wouncy indeed! Sammi, when I get back I'm going to make you buy this girl dinner. "That's right. But I have an idea. Damn risky, though. I want to seal up your stateroom and my control bubble, then open up the middeck to vacuum. Then when the skiff tears away we may hardly notice."

"Don't make me laugh," Paula said. "You don't know what the failure modes are in this situation. We could come to pieces, too."

"That's why I need you to agree that we should try it."

"You didn't honestly think I'd say 'no,' did you?"

He closed her door on his way through and hit the button that sealed it against vacuum. Again he ran to the control bubble, sealed himself in, and opened up the airlock to the middeck. He could hear the air whistle out for a few moments before silence descended.

He turned the ship toward Earth, could see the twin planet Earth-Luna system looking like a pair of exquisite gemstones lying on black velvet sprinkled with diamond dust. He ramped up the acceleration. Ten gees. Fifteen. Eighteen. At 19.5 there came a shredding sound and the ship shuddered, then a horrendous shriek transmitted through the hull and the ship was still again.

"Paula, we seem to have survived," he told her through the comm.

The Hyperlight II was still hours from Earth, but now that he was sure he'd get there, he acknowledged the call from the High Command.

"This is Lieutenant Robert Nachtegall of the streakbomber Hyperlight II. Message received and acknowledged. I'm on my way."The Phinons were fleeing. This should have been a time of jubilation. The parties should have started. They should have all been shit-faced by now. They're fleeing except for four. And that makes all the difference, Rick thought.

No one had left the tracking room that Rick could see. At least, not permanently. Sammi and Dykstra had gone back to their rooms and returned a couple of times. No doubt others had, too. But now Sammi was pacing back and forth along the rail. Dykstra had finally decided to have a chair brought for him and was sitting with his arms resting on the rail, his chin on his arms, just staring at the main screen. Hague was still monitoring Phinon chatter, but there was nothing new to report. The men down below were busy observing the Phinon fleet, confirming that the main body of ships was still leaving, and also tracking the four incoming vessels and sending the data to Bob.

Thank God Bob and Paula made it. What would I do without her? Or even him?

To pass the hours before the final encounter, Rick had set for himself the task of analyzing the abrupt ending of the transmission from the Honeymoon. The others had been saddened to learn about that. Reviews of tracking data showed that at the time of LOS, the colonel's ship was still traveling at .42c, seemingly intact. But that doesn't mean they're not dead. And everyone knew it.

But even after the long hours of analysis, all Rick still could say for certain was that their signal had stopped, but he had no idea why.

"Chris, how many of the Phinon ships could Bob possibly destroy?" Sammi asked.

"I've been following the tracking data," Dykstra answered, looking at her and catching Rick's eye, too. "Bob is only some few light-seconds away now. No matter what he does, he's only going to be able to get two of the Phinon ships. Obviously, the second ship will be one of those on its way to Earth. The first could have been either the one headed for us, or another of those going to Earth. But he'll have to pursue the Earth-bound one. The Moon is an airless world-what's another big crater? And even if everyone on her dies, it's only a trivial fraction of those who would die if the other ship makes it to Earth."

Dykstra had turned back toward the screen. "Ah, look," he said, pointing. There was a small kink in the line on the display that showed the trajectory trace of the Hyperlight II. "If the question wasn't moot to begin with, it would be now."

The Moon had to fend for itself.

The Hyperlight II was closing to within range. Flashbacks to his encounters out in the Oort cloud flickered through Bob's mind, but now the stakes, unbelievably high, were readily apparent.

The Phinon ship knew he was coming, too. Bob had already ridden through two blasts of X-ray laser fire. Despite the hole in his ship, the shields were holding just fine.

He kept up a running commentary to the High Command. "Closing. I want to be close. I want to disintegrate the bastard so none of his bomb load is left intact." His superiors at the High Command knew all this, of course. But he had no one else to talk to. Not even Paula-the traumabot had put her into a deep sleep.

Nothing left behind, Bob thought as he activated both the particle beam weaponry and the lasers. He also armed the missiles in the weapons array in case there were any pieces left big enough to warrant destruction.

The Phinon ship was under full thrust, and Bob was closing from above. He remembered the Phinon ship out in the Oort cloud that had self-destructed. Of course, that one had spent itself and didn't have any bigger fish to fry, either.

Bob fired. The Phinon's shields lit up, glowing brightly, an incandescent pearl, her color climbing up the spectrum. Then catastrophic failure and a most satisfying explosion.

"Nothing left bigger than a marble," Bob radioed to the High Command.

"They're acting differently than they did at Jupiter," Dykstra said, concerned. "But they didn't meet any opposition there. The ship Bob just destroyed was under drive. Let's hope there aren't too many more surprises from them this late in the game."

"We don't understand the Phinons as well as we thought we did, do we?" Sammi commented. She had wearied of pacing and Dykstra had summoned another chair for her so she could sit beside him as they watched the unfolding final Phinon encounters on the screen. She pointed at the screen. "Looks like Bob is close to catching up with the second one now. But when are we going to do something?"

Rick came over. "Arie still hasn't heard anything from the remaining three ships. But all the other ones really are fleeing, including a bunch of those we infected. Looks like we scared the hell out of them," he told them. He looked over the rail. "I see they have guys at the battle console now. Won't be long and they'll go after the lead Earth-bound ship."

This wouldn't be easy. The ground batteries of the High Command were both particle beam weapons and lasers. The particle beams could lance out at nearly the speed of light, but not quite. To have both the lasers and the PBWs hit the swiftly moving target at the same instant from a distance of almost a light- second required a degree of coordination seldom attempted. Nothing the Belt had ever thrown at Luna had required both beams to hit the same target simultaneously. The High Command wanted to kill the ship with one shot. They didn't want to risk needing two.

"They're preparing to fire," Rick said, and then all three just watched the screen, again. The war with the

Phinons was in the hands of others now.

A white and a green line appeared on the screen, the white, representing the particle beams, beginning a split second sooner. In one second the two beams converged on the red blip that was the Phinon ship, following it. A few seconds later the tracking data returned and the screen reported the Phinon ship destroyed.

A cheer went up from below.

"That's another one killed!" Rick exclaimed. "All right!"

"But what are those three new little red spots?" Sammi asked. The spots were diverging, but still heading

for Earth.

"Oh, shit."

The chatter from the floor brought them the bad news.

"Three bombs survived our attack," Dykstra said. "And these bombs are shielded. We didn't see that at

Jupiter, either."

"What do we do now?" Sammi asked, watching the screen in horror.

"They're doing it," Rick said in resignation. "They're aiming our beams at the Moon-bound ship."

There was nothing anyone could do to prevent the Earth from still getting a taste of the destruction the

Phinons had intended. Nothing at all. * * *

This geometry sucks! Bob thought as he checked the scanner display. He, too, could see the bombs released by the destroyed ship, but there was no way he could intercept them. Dammit!

He continued his pursuit of the second ship, again closing rapidly. The Hyperlight II was nearly two light-seconds from Earth. At her velocity, the Phinon ship would cover that distance in about three minutes. The Moon-bound Phinon was about the same distance from her target. Bob knew that the High Command would be redirecting its firepower at that one, now.

"Ready to fire on target two," Bob radioed to the High Command. Just a little closer. Just like last time.

A beam shot out from the Phinon ship. Bob could see it as it destroyed the sparse dust of interplanetary vacuum.

All the way down to the High Command.

What the hell? "What the hell!" he yelled. "Tracking center, what the hell just got hit!"

In the several second interval before the reply, Bob let loose with his own weapons. But this ship fought back with all the fury it had left in it.

After it dropped its bombs.

"Oh, God dammit! Bastard! Shit!" Bob screamed to the space outside his bubble as he saw that the bombs were under their own power, shielded, and on diverging courses. We underestimated these devils.

All Bob could do was to return fire on the ship, using lasers and PBWs of his own. He had no doubt that he would take it, and in fact opened up some distance between the two craft now that its bomb load was gone. He fired a salvo of four missiles which converged on the ship. But the ship self-destructed before they got there and their detonations were nearly unnoticeable.

"High Command to Hyperlight II. The beam hit the PBW batteries, and the explosion took out half of the laser cannons as well," the reply from Luna came in.

Just like with OEV 1. They saw Luna fire and they nailed the spot from over a light-second away. But they ignored me during that time. Why?

There was no time to think about it. He went after the closest of the bombs. * * *

It was structured chaos in the tracking room. Men and women were hustling from station to station. Orders were being yelled across the main floor. The big screen had been split-the right side showed the oncoming Phinon ship, the left, the image of Earth as the first of the three bombs approached.

"No, Arie says the two ships were not communicating with each other. They still haven't said anything since the genanites hit them," Rick told Sammi.

"But that had to be coordinated, didn't it? It had to be," she said. "Chris-didn't it?" Dykstra was slowly tapping his cane on the floor, no doubt obliviously. He couldn't take his eyes off the screen. Still, he heard Sammi's question. "Maybe it was coordinated millions of years ago," he said. "Or maybe 'soul' is a more subtle concept than even I ever thought." And then to the Universe in general it seemed, he added, "We were expecting Jupiter all over again. Oops."

"We have a couple laser cannons left," Rick said. "They should still be able to get the incoming ship, now that Bob took out the other one."

"That one's bombs got away, too," Dykstra noted.

"We'll have to hold off firing to see if the ship drops its bombs. Hit the bombs instead," Rick added.

"They'll be coming right down our throat. We can probably hit most of them."

"Hold off for how long?" Sammi asked.

Seconds passed.

They watched the left side of the screen as the three bombs impacted the Earth. Two came down in the