D'Trelna opened the commlink. "Commander K'Raoda." K'Raoda's face filled the small desk screen. "Commodore?"

"Copy these coordinates and read back." He held the paper up to the scan.

K'Raoda touched the complink. "Print screen, my commlink," he ordered.

"Commander." It was K'Lana's voice, from somewhere off scan.

K'Raoda turned.

"Automatic transmission on Fleet distress channel. Lifepod Thirty-six," she reported.

"Zahava!" John almost leaped from the chair. "Where?" he called, hovering over D'Trelna's shoulder.

K'Raoda took the nav figures from a yeoman, then frowned, looking down at something outside the pickup. "Here," he said, holding up the commslip from K'Lana and the printout from D'Trelna. The figures were the same.

"How long?" asked D'Trelna.

K'Raoda did some quick calculations. "About a week," he said. "Give or take a jump."

"Plot and execute," said the commodore, switching off.

L'Wrona and Harrison excused themselves and left for the bridge.

"You know," said R'Gal after a moment, "you really ought to give Egg a medal-posthumously, of course."

D'Trelna's acerbic reply was drowned out by the jump klaxon echoing from the corridor.

The small bit of Blue Nine that had held three ships was empty again.

13.

"Alert! Alert! Alert!"

The voice p.r.i.c.ked her mind, rousing her from the coils of a gray-white sleep.

"Alert! Alert! Alert!"

Zahava sat up.

"Your urgent attention is directed to the tacscan," said the voice. Computer, she thought. The universe was a blur, half-visible through tearing eyes. Rubbing the tears away, Zahava saw she was in the center flight chair of the lifepod's command tier. Above her the main screen held a tri-dee tactical scan: asteroid-ringed moon circling a green planet, the planet itself orbited by eleven silver blips. As she watched, two of the blips detached themselves and began closing on a single yellow dot that sped toward the planet. A tactical summary flowed across the bottom of the screen. It would have meant something to a K'Ronarin Fleet officer.

"Those silver blips-are they ships?" asked Zahava. She was shocked at how dry and hoa.r.s.e she sounded.

"Yes," said the as.e.xual voice. "Identified as deep-s.p.a.ce exploration vessels of a K'Ronarin industrial combine."

"Which combine?"

"Combine T'Lan," said the computer.

"Armed?"

"Heavily armed. They have answered our automatic distress signal. We are instructed to dock with the lead ship now approaching."

The silver blips were halfway to the lifepod.

"Disregard," said Zahava. "Vessels are hostile. Take evasive action."

"Evading. We will have to land on the planet. It would be impossible to escape both the hostile vessels and the planet's gravitational field."

"What planet is that?" she asked, dialing up a cup of water from the chairarm.

"It is the planet D'Lin," said the computer. "Former capital of Imperial Quadrant Blue Nine. Charts and all other regional data have not been updated since the Fall."

On the screen the yellow blip of the lifepod was now accelerating away from the combine ships-and away from D'Lin. "You're going to miss the planet!" said Zahava.

"No," said the computer. "We'll draw them off, loop back, land on the nightside."

"Can we outdistance them?" she asked, dubiously eyeing the tacscan. The lead combine ships were turning in pursuit, with three more breaking orbit to join the chase.

"Long enough. But there will be a missile salvo."

"Can you show me D'Lin?" she asked.

Shrinking, the tacscan moved screen-right. Screen-left now showed a world of green-blue oceans and swirling clouds. A string of brown spread north and south from the equator.

"Archipelago," said Zahava.

"Yes. D'Lin's mostly water," said the computer. "I'll put the stats on your comm screen."

"Don't bother," she said, looking at the screen-left. "I won't have time to read them."

Silver needles were spanning the gap between the lifepod and the combine ships.

Faster than the machine spoke them, Zahava read the flame-red letters beneath the tacscan: .

NUCLEAR ORDNANCE LAUNCHED.

TARGET: THIS VESSEL-INTERCEPT PROBABILITY 93.4 PERCENT.

Cursing, arms flailing, Zahava fell backward as her flight chair dropped into crash position, water spilling across her chest. Then she forgot about it as the flight chair became a white coc.o.o.n, its sides sweeping up, expanding to enfold her in a thick-padded crash sh.e.l.l. Suddenly giddy, she found herself rising, b.u.t.ting into the soft quilting of the coc.o.o.n.

"Broaching atmosphere at max speed, full evasive pattern," the computer whispered near her ear. "N-gravs going off-line until landing-missiles home on it at final approach,"

The sudden shock of G-plus gravity pressed her deep into the coc.o.o.n, fighting for breath. From outside, the hull screamed as the pod knifed into atmosphere, plunging toward the charted location of the old quadrant capital. The computer thought it odd that most of the area scanned as rain forest, but committed to its pattern, missiles closing, it said nothing.

What was left of the 103rd Border Battalion lay hidden in the ruins, hoping the thick, old stone and the night would keep death away.

Major L'Kor sat at the head of what once had been an impressive stairway-a long, graceful sweep of alabaster-white stone, broken long ago by fusion fire, the torn slabs of rock smoothed by millennia of wind and rain.

"How many?" he asked, steeling himself.

"Seven," said G'Sol, looking not at him but at the spectacular night sky, high above the canopy of jungle. She was a captain, even younger than L'Kor, but just as thin and worn. It would have been hard to judge, there in the starlight, whose mottled-green uniform was the more patched.

"Sit," he said, jerking his head to the right. "You look like you're about to fall down."

G'Sol sat. Like the rest, she'd been on quarter rations and brackish water for a week. Sickness and short rations were going to finish what the invaders had missed.

"Jungle fever?" he asked wearily.

"Yes," she said, hugging her knees, looking out into the night. "It's going to get us all-water's bad, food's low, medicine's gone. I give us a month. The rains start then, anyway."

"Maybe we'll get lucky, S'Yin," said L'Kor softly. "Maybe they'll find us." He looked toward the night sky, brilliant with a million stars. Some of the lights were moving-more tonight than before, thought the major. But who knew what they did, or why?

"I'm not going to sit here, waiting to die," said G'Sol, a sudden fire to her voice. She stood, looking at L'Kor. "There are ninety-eight of us left. Let's buy something with our lives."

"What?" said the major with a bitter smile. He stabbed his carbine toward the sky. "They're invulnerable to our weapons, their ships track us from s.p.a.ce, their little ships hunt us down and slaughter us like v'arx." He looked up at the angry young woman. "What can we do against that, Captain?"

"Y'Gar," she hissed. "He's back."

L'Kor was on his feet, grabbing her by her shoulders. "Where?" he said tightly. "He was in that impregnable processing center they built."

"K'Lorg and S'Lig came in at dusk. Y'Gar feels safe enough to have moved back into the Residence. Are you trying to hurt me?" she added.

"Sorry," said L'Kor, dropping his hands. He picked up his weapon. "Must be a thousand ways into the Residence. Let's go talk with the troops."

Together they turned toward the great collapse of stone behind them. Ma.s.sive, white-columned, the old palace had been home to every Imperial governor from J'Kol, the first, through thirty-two centuries of Empire, to the last and best remembered.

Only the front portico had survived bombardment and a.s.sault-the pillars and wall still stood, though roofless now, choked by jungle creepers that were finally winning their long battle with the growth r.e.t.a.r.dants. Half seen, two sentries stood behind the huge pillars flanking the central doorway. The metal doors were centuries gone, scavenged for sc.r.a.p.

Major and captain were picking their way around the craters in the plaza when the too-familiar whine of n-gravs sent them whirling about, carbines raised.

Something large and silver was setting down on the broken highway fronting the stairs. The raucous night sounds of the jungle stopped.

"Get everyone out the back-disperse into the jungle," L'Kor ordered the sentries.

"It doesn't look like one of their ships," said G'Sol. Resting on four landing struts, the craft's rounded top was almost level with where the two officers stood. Bright red lights flickered along its top and sides.

"Whose ship does it look like?" snapped the major. "See to the dispersal. I'll get you a little time." Working the carbine, he chambered a round.

"But . . ."

"Do it," he said, eyes on the ship. "Cut Y'Gar's jewels off for me, S'Yin."

The captain hesitated for an instant, then smiled tightly. "For you, S'Ta," she said, slapping her knife, and was gone.

"Luck," he whispered after her.

The night sounds resumed as Major L'Kor trotted briskly down the stairs, carbine on his hip, resolved they wouldn't take him alive. He just wanted, before he pulled the trigger, to ask them why.

"We are approaching our landing point," said the computer, retracting the coc.o.o.n. "Pursuing vessels have withdrawn."

"Why?" asked Zahava, sitting up. "What about the pursuing missiles?"

"One is a function of the other," said the machine. ' 'The missiles homed on an echo projection of this lifepod, detonating at intercept. The combine commander, believing us wiped, has withdrawn to orbital station."

"And why don't they detect this rather large piece of metal?" asked the Terran, waving her hand about the pod.

"We have sensor deflectors," said the computer. "Without our n-gravs, hostile vessels were presented with only one possible target."

A suspicion was growing in Zahava's mind, but before she could voice it, the screen came on.

"The good news is that civilization continued on D'Lin," said the computer. "The bad news is that it appears to be under a firm but subtle occupation." The nightscan of the archipelago highlighted the largest island in blue. "D'Lin's population center, once the island of I'Kol, after the first exarch." A small red triangle appeared north of the blue, beside a winding river. "Detention camp, shuttle park." Green blips moved over island and camp. "Patrol craft-cla.s.s one E-a modified Fleet shuttle design used by Combine T'Lan. I detect no street patrols or evidence of curfew. Commercial broadcasts give no indication of an occupying power. Yet, they are there."

"Where are we landing?" she asked.

"Here." A marker flashed along the northern coastline, far from the red square. A bay, Zahava noted.

"The landing area used to be headquarters of the Imperial Governor of Quadrant Blue Nine. It's been abandoned since Fleet stormed R'Actol's headquarters. Jungle appears to be taking over."

"Jungle?"

"See for yourself," said the computer. "We've landed." There was a faint tremor as struts took over from n-gravs, then the screen changed to outside view, the darkness swept away by the pod's sensors. Jungle, broken roadway, tumbled ruins, shattered stairway and a man, walking down the stairway-a man in jungle combat dress, carrying a rifle.

"Friend or foe?" said Zahava.

"No data," said the computer.

"Lotta good you are," she said, checking her blaster-full charge. "Open up. I'm going out. Can you cover me?"

"Cover you?"

"Covering fire?"

"Certainly."

L'Kor stood just outside the soft circle of pulsing red glow thrown by the lifepod's navlights, watching Zahava clamber down the long duralloy ladder from the airlock.

This one looks human, he thought. And wearing a uniform and side arm. Perhaps a senior officer. Human beings could be sending those things things against their own kind. . . . L'Kor clenched the carbine's stock, knuckles white. against their own kind. . . . L'Kor clenched the carbine's stock, knuckles white.

Zahava jumped the final four rungs, landing on soft, leafy earth. Turning, she found herself staring down L'Kor's carbine. "Is it always this humid here?" she asked, looking past him. There didn't seem to be any more. "How about pointing that weapon somewhere else?"