CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Friday 10:16 A.M.

Tanzan Mino closed his eyes and sighed. The financial portions of the protocol would still stand on their own; the arrangement could be salvaged somehow; it would merely require finesse.

The shocked faces of the Soviet brass standing behind him told of their dismay. _Daedalus_, the most marvelous vehicle ever created, had literally been within their grasp, and now . . . both prototypes destroyed.

But at least, at least it hadn't fallen into the hands of the

Americans. No more humiliating episodes like that in 1976 when the traitorous Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected with a MiG 25 Foxbat, exposing all its secret electronics to the West.

Friday 10:16 A.M.

A slam of acceleration hit him, and he felt a circle of black close in on his vision. It was the darkness of eternal night, the music of the spheres. His last sight was the airspeed indicator scrolling past Mach 6.1. Almost four thousand miles per hour.

The starship _Daedalus _had just gone hypersonic.

He didn't see it, but look-down radar had shown the two Acrid AA-9s exploding a thousand feet below. When the scramjets powered in, the infrared-homing AAM lost its lock on them and detonated the other missile, sending a supersonic shock wave through _Daedalus_. AAMs, how- ever, were now the least of their problems.

Skin temperature was pushing 2,200 degrees and the cockpit was becoming an incinerator. At forty-eight thousand feet they were rapidly turning into a meteorite.

His vision was gone, but just before losing consciousness he shoved the hydrogen throttles all the way forward and yanked back on the sidestick, sending them straight up into the freezing black above.

Friday 10:19 A.M.

_Altitude seventy-three thousand feet. Airspeed nine thousand knots."

_"Petra, raise helmet." He was slowly regaining his sight as the G- loads began to recede. The cockpit was an oven, overwhelming its environmental control equipment, clear evidence vehicle skin temperature had exceeded design.