"Hot," Sands replied.

"Did you get the cable?"

He nodded. "They'll have to rely on lower bandwidth comm circuits for the next few hours. That should slow them up some."

Sands had no illusions about the significance of what they had just done. The loss of the data cable would prevent the Alliance from linking their tactical computers in Cloudcroft directly to those aboard their fleet flagship. Its loss would be an inconvenience rather than a disaster. Even so, battles are usually won by an accumulation of small victories.

"Let's get away from here," Caen said. "They'll throw a cordon around this entire area as soon as they realize it was sabotage.""They may already have done so," Halley reported.

"Nonsense! They can't have localized the break this quickly."

"While you two were outside, a Marine patrol swept the corridor."

"Did they see you?"

"No. We heard them coming and doused our lights."

"How many does that make?" Sands asked.

"Six in the last hour."

He whistled. It had been nearly a day since the battle around Government Tower. The four of them had reached the rendezvous point where they were to have met the two remaining members of the infiltration team without incident. Neither had showed up. After an hour's wait, Caen ordered them all to the factory compartment where he'd first met Lars. There they had laid low until the "begin preparations" code came through on the satellite channel.

Short handed as he was, Caen had agreed to allow Kimber and Halley help destroy the data link. They four of them had masqueraded as two couples returning home after a long trip. Inside the luggage they dragged behind them had been environment suits, climbing lines, explosives, weapons, and ammunition.

En route, they had encountered a number of Fleet Marine patrols. After the fifth such encounter, Caen had remarked on the number of men the Alliance seemed able to spare for security duty with a major battle looming.

Something about the comment had struck a responsive chord in Sands. Now Halley's report that the patrols had reached the very bowels of the city triggered a wild thought -- one so preposterous that he had to think it over before voicing it.

"How many men do you think they have on security duty?" he asked Caen.

"I don't know," the team leader replied as he paused from stripping off his environment suit. "A couple of thousand, I would guess."

"As you yourself noted, that's a hell of a lot of troops with the fleet gone!"

"What are you getting at?"

Sands explained his idea. Caen listened without comment while Kimber's eyes filled with horror.

"You can't be serious," she said.

He shrugged. "We were sent here to disrupt things. Can you think of anything that will disrupt them more? What do you think, Caen?"

The team leader gave out with a hollow laugh. "I'll say one thing for you, Sands. You've got balls! What you're suggesting is crazier than that stunt you pulled in raiding this place the first time."

"But will it work?"

Caen shrugged. "Whether it works or not, we'll certainly throw them into a panic. I suppose that makes it worth a try. Now then, where can we find appropriate costumes on such short notice...?"# Grand Admiral Jerzy Samorset sat before his console and gazed at a tactical display remarkably similar to the one Envon Crawford was watching six hundred kilometers to the east. The screen showed two masses of ships divided into several groups. One mass hugged the southern edge of the flyway, hiding in the scattered cloud formations. The other was moving diagonally toward them, steadily closing the gap.

In the no-man's-land between were the scattered survivors of the scout action just completed.

"Send in the Third Squadron," Samorset ordered. "Have them attack the cluster between the two large cloud formations.

Unlike his enemies, Samorset had not yet identified the opposing flagship. It could be any of the six large craft on his screen. He suspected, however, that the enemy command ship was at the center of the largest cluster. That was the deployment he would have favored had he been commanding Strike Force Redemption.

Samorset shifted his gaze fractionally to look at the deployment of his own forces. The Alliance fleet was in two groups. The larger of these was aimed directly at the enemy concentration and advancing across a sixty-kilometer front. These were the lead squadrons. It was their job to break the coalition of ships arrayed against them.

Behind the lead squadrons, still largely isolated in the center of the flyway, wereCloud Dancer and her covey of supporting craft. Samorset was holding his reserve forces around the flagship to handle a breakout anywhere along the line.

"Admiral, Cloudcroft reports that the Titanian freighters have begun to break orbit."

"Acknowledge and tell them they will have to deal with the threat themselves."

"Aye aye, sir."

Thirty thousand kilometers west of the Alliance, the formation of spacecraft that had so worried the battle staff were beginning to let down. Samorset had detailed two full squadrons to take up blocking positions west of the cluster to handle the threat. Whatever weapons the freighters carried, they could not be too formidable. Besides, the Titanians were victims of their own velocity. They would have to shed 23 kilometers per second of orbital velocity before they could join the fray. That would take several hours, by which time the battle would be over.

"We have a breakout from the south wall!" Samorset's operations chief reported to him.

The admiral glanced once more at his screen. A single squadron of enemy craft had emerged from where they had been hiding in the southern cloud wall. He wondered briefly whether he should order his own hidden squadrons to engage, then quickly decided against it. That would be playing his hole card too soon. Instead, he ordered one of the reserve squadrons to reinforce the flank. Moments later, one of Cloud Dancer 's coterie split off and headed south at high speed.

"We have another breakout," one of his combat technicians reported. "This time from the north wall."

"Say again!"

"Thenorth wall, Admiral."

"What the hell are they doing over there?""Unknown. Maybe they expected us to stay on that side of the flyway to make our approach."

"That doesn't make sense..." Samorset muttered before breaking off the comment. It bothered him whenever an enemy's tactics seemed to be foolish. Still, if those in command of the task force wished to weaken themselves by placing their forces on both sides of a 6000-kilometer wide flyway, they could hardly object to his taking advantage of their mistake. He ordered another of his reserve squadrons to move north to meet the new threat.

"Admiral, we've lost our high speed data link with headquarters."

A chill went through Samorset. "Other communications?"

"We still have voice contact and other non-computer communications."

He let out a deep sigh of relief. For a moment, he had wondered if the enemy had destroyed the capital.

If it were merely their link to the headquarters tactical computer, then it was probably the work of enemy infiltration teams. He had no doubt the break would be found and repaired quickly. In the meantime, the flagship computers ought to be capable of handling the battle without assistance.

"Tell headquarters that we are going to autonomous computing."

"Aye aye, sir."

Samorset turned his attention to the business at hand. The Third Squadron had just entered firing range and the screen filled with missile icons. As in the battle between the scouts, most were destroyed nearly as quickly as they were launched. Most, but not all. Two Alliance ships and three enemy ones disappeared in warhead detonations. Then the Third Squadron was inside the enemy ranks and the battle became a brawl. Nearly identical warcraft twisted and turned through the sky, spitting death at one another. The Third was taking casualties, but also doing damage in return. Samorset gave the order for his main battle line to close and engage.

Then it was out of his hands. Only the skill and luck of individual pilots counted any longer. For ten minutes, men and ships died in the maelstrom. At first, the enemy seemed to be holding their own against the horde of Alliance aircraft. Then slowly, they began to give way. Enemy ships began to break off combat and retire toward their airships. The gradual disengagement soon became a general rout.

"That's it. We've got them on the run," Samorset said to no one in particular. He glanced at the chronometer and discovered it had been half an hour since the scouts had made first contact. "Commit half the remaining reserves and the hidden squadrons. I want them engaged before the enemy has time to rally."

While the orders went out, Samorset's eyes flicked to the long-range screen where the blocking force he'd sent north was engaged. They needed no help from him. They were pursuing the survivors back toward the cloud wall.

Seeing his ships successful everywhere, he ordered the flagship to close with the main battle. A moment later,Cloud Dancer shook with the power of her engines as the giant airship accelerated forward.

"Unidentified contacts, high up and closing!"

"Where?"

"West!" came the frightened reply.Samorset glanced at his screen. At first, he saw nothing. He switched to extreme long range, and there they were. At the far edge of his screen were twelve blips with impossibly high altitude readings. They were fifty kilometers up and diving nearly straight down.

"Where the hell did they come from?" someone demanded over the command circuit.

"Cut the chatter!" Samorset ordered. He knew the precise origin of this new threat. These were the Titanian space freighters they had been warned about. Somehow, they had managed to shed nearly all of their velocity in less than half-an-hour. He pondered the problem and decided that they must have decelerated outside the atmosphere, probably running their tanks dry in an attempt to kill all of their orbital speed. It was an expensive, but quick way to enter Saturn's atmosphere.

"Get someone back here to cover us," he ordered his operations officer.

"I'm recalling the Seventh through Tenth Squadrons now. They'll be here in ten minutes."

"Tell them to hurry. We won't have long, not the way those freighters are diving."

The dozen blips began to multiply. Samorset felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. The freighter captains had opened their cargo bays in high-speed flight, probably tearing them off in the process. They were spilling their cargo to atmosphere. Samorset did not need a visual sighting to know that each freighter had disgorged four single seat fighters. Nor did he doubt that they were loaded down with long-range missiles.

As each fighter cleared its carrier ship, it lined up onCloud Dancer . Suddenly there was no doubt as to their target. They were coming after him!

Chapter 36: Headquarters.

Once again, Larson Sands dangled from the Cloudcroft support truss like a spider spinning its web. He and Caen were several kilometers from where they had severed the data cable. The equipment in this part of the truss was more massive, with an air of permanence that rivaled even the energy screen laboratory on Earth. Portions of Cloudcroft's massive drive engines were visible through the thicket of girders, and a black cube bulked large beneath them. The scale was such that Sands was reminded of a phrase he had once read. It was as though the two of them were rummaging in "God's toy box."

Except for its size, the cube was outwardly no different from the hundreds of other "below deck" habitats that made up the bulk of the city. One had to look carefully to see the long, swaying access tubes that isolated it and the outward facing weapons that guarded it. Unseen were the personnel locks and alarm systems that made any attempt at forced entry suicidal. The giant black cube was a self-contained city in its own right. It was Alliance Naval Headquarters.

That the Militarists were attempting to take control had been obvious since the attack on Government Tower. Nor was acoup d' etat surprising. Whatwas surprising was the number of Marine patrols in the city. They were everywhere! Such an effort would have strained the Navy's resources in peacetime.

With the fleet arrayed for battle, Sands had wondered how many remained inside the massive base at the Alliance Navy's heart.

That had been the source of the sudden inspiration that had so horrified Kimber. In normal times, the idea of two enemy agents infiltrating thesanctum sanctorum would have been unthinkable. However, thesewere not normal times. That had been the thought that intrigued Lars. If they could slip inside, what havoc might they wreak before they were caught? It had been the sheer audacity of the idea that had won over Rugillio Caen.

Like Sands, Caen was suspended from the support truss far above Navy H.Q. A thin, nearly invisible line ran from his gauntlet to a small cloth bag, the exterior of which had been liberally smeared with adhesive. Inside the bag was a timed explosive charge. Caen carefully maneuvered the bag until it brushed up against the wall of the headquarters enclosure. The bag adhered instantly. Caen tugged gently on the line to break it at the point of attachment. He then touched a control on his belt to wind the line back into its storage reel.

"That does it," he said. "See any movement?"

"None."

"Good, then we probably haven't triggered any alarms." They had set six of the small bombs against the roof and walls of Naval Headquarters. "Come on, let's get into position before those timers count down to zero."

The plan was for all six bombs to explode simultaneously at widely spaced points around the headquarters perimeter. They hoped the explosions would produce enough confusion to allow them to slip through one of the facility's maintenance hatches unnoticed. Caen's special city map showed a hatch that led directly into the heart of one of the two computer complexes in headquarters. Once inside, they would plant more explosives. This would be no bee sting attack like their destruction of the data link.

They would damage the Alliance's ability to make war for months to come.

The two saboteurs worked their way along a support truss girder until they were a hundred meters above headquarters. They looped climbing lines around the girder, and then suspended themselves once more in space. Sands checked his helmet chronometer display. They had another minute before their bombs were to go off. His mouth had that familiar dryness as he waited for the action to begin.

Caen, too, was watching the clock. When the timer reached T minus 20 seconds, he gave the order to begin the descent. Both men dropped with reckless abandon. They were nearly in free fall, with only occasional touches to their line brakes to slow themselves. They reached the headquarters enclosure with five seconds to spare. They were now shielded by the bulk of the massive structure. Somewhere inside, Sands knew, alarms were already going off, telling the occupants that there were intruders beyond their walls.

They jerked to a halt in front of the round hatch that was their objective. A moment later, the entire structure shivered from the impact of multiple explosions. Caen lowered himself to the landing stage in front of the hatch and went to work to disable the lock. He had the hatch open in less than five seconds.

Sands lowered himself to the stage, unclipped, and surged forward, rocket pistol at the ready. Caen followed, pausing only to close the hatch. They found themselves at the end of a short passageway. They moved quickly to the equipment-loading hatch at the opposite end.

Beyond the hatch was a compartment bathed in red light into which thousands of optical cables converged on a single squat cylinder. Sands recognized the cylinder as a particularly capable computer manufactured aboard the Kyoto-Nagoya Cloud City. Here then was one of the Alliance Navy's main tactical computers.

#Lieutenant Martin Solari of the Corwin Confederation screamed with joy as he dove on the whale shape below. The scream was both a release and a way to clear his ears as the rising atmospheric pressure threatened to puncture his eardrums. Solari felt the joy of battle surging through him. The exhilaration of the moment drove all remembrance of the weeks of boredom aboard the Titanian freighterOmnia from his brain.

Like most of his fellow pilots in the Twelfth Corwin Attack Squadron, Solari had been vocal in his opposition to having his ship placed aboard a Titanian ore carrier and then hauled into orbit. The idea of delivering strike aircraft with spacecraft had seemed harebrained. Even now, Solari was surprised that he had survived the separation maneuver. He'd always considered himself a hardened warrior, yet he'd come damned close to wetting himself when the cargo bay doors exploded outward and his ship had been thrown free into a supersonic maelstrom.

Then he had been too busy to be frightened. He spent several seconds getting his single seat fighter under control in the thin hydrogen/helium atmosphere. His controls felt unusually mushy as he put distance between himself and his mother ship. Then he deployed speed brakes to keep from pulling his wings off.

Once his speed stabilized, he settled into a high angle dive toward the cluster of tiny airships so far below.

If it had not been for his electronic targeting display, he might have lost them in the haze and clutter of the flyway.

Solari had been fully briefed on the mission. He knew he was attacking the Northern Alliance flagship from its most vulnerable quarter.Cloud Dancer had been designed to engage enemies at long range and within forty vertical degrees of the ship's horizon line. Thus, there were relatively few anti-aircraft lasers studding the upper works of the great dirigible.

"High Dive Leader, to High Dive Squadron. Five seconds to defense range. Engage attack programs now!" came the command in Solari's earphones.

With the normal trepidation that comes from placing one's life in the hands of an inanimate machine, Lieutenant Solari reached out to engage his combat computer. His fighter began to jink erratically up and down, right and left, banging his helmet into the canopy with each movement. At the same time, a nozzle began pumping a silvery fluid out through nozzles in the fighter's pointed nose.

Suddenly he was flying through cloud, one of his own making. A glance at his screen showed dozens of long silver trails descending around him. The silver cloud consisted of billions of reflecting particles to scatter any laser beam that might impinge on the mass. With luck, it would defocus the beam sufficiently for his ship's reflecting armor to handle the resulting energy concentration, at least for a few seconds.

The cloud brightened for a brief instant as his ship jerked violently to the right. Some laser gunner had tried to destroy him at maximum range, and had been defeated ... for now. Solari reached down and triggered the program that would begin releasing his first echelon of missiles. These would dive on the enemy craft, jinking erratically as his ship was doing. Although primarily intended for defense suppression, each missile carried an explosive warhead that made it a priority target for the laser gunners.

Solari had launched well beyond the normal range of such missiles, but his diving attack made normal weapons ranges nearly irrelevant.

Solari glanced at his forward display.Cloud Dancer and her attendant airships were growing precipitously. He could see the swarms of defending prowlers and destroyers climbing frantically to intercept the attack. He smiled, knowing their task to be hopeless. None of the flagship's accompanying squadrons would be in position before he and his mates pounced.

A sudden flash to starboard told him the defenders were far from helpless. One of his squadron had justperished in a blinding beam of light. Either his deflection cloud had not worked, or else the laser beam had been able to hold too long.

Then Solari was in range, falling behind his two dozen missiles that were being systematically wiped out by defensive fire. He smiled as he triggered the remainder of his missiles. Two dozen more deadly arrows tipped with high explosive raced for the target.

He grinned wildly as he watched them overwhelm the defense. Three survived long enough to penetrate the gas bag of the giant ship and explode within, puncturing the vital envelope that keptCloud Dancer aloft. After that he pulled back on his control and sank into his acceleration couch as the fighter screamed out of its dive. He headed off in a random direction, caring less about his course than the fact that it carried him out of the zone of maximum danger.

He had just achieved level flight and had begun to breathe again when a lance of light flashed across his tail planes. His fighter bucked once, and then began to tumble uncontrollably. He had no time to react. A millisecond later, his craft was a shapeless mass of torn metal about to begin its long dive to the hydrogen sea.