The security protection on this system, she quickly discovered, was far looser than she'd had to cut through on the Xirrus. And for good reason: the particular hand computer she'd scored could only access the most basic of Stardust's housekeeping programs.

But that was all right. Basic housekeeping was exactly what she wanted. A simple work order, logged in for a specific time, and she was done. Poking around the menus, she spotted an unexpected bonus among the more routine areas and logged that in, too. Another brief dip into the clerical chaos to return the computer, and she was finished.

She waited until she was back on the lobby floor and had some quiet s.p.a.ce around her before she called Ornina. "It's set," she told the older woman. "I'll have the money tomorrow afternoon."

"Good," Ornina said. Her voice sounded anything but relieved, though. "Chandris..."

"It's all right," Chandris said. "Really. A simple trade, all legal and ethical and aboveboard."

"And what exactly are we trading?"

"Nothing we can't do without," Chandris a.s.sured her.

"Mm," Ornina said. "Jereko is worried about you. Worried that you're going to, in his words, sell your soul for this."

Chandris sighed. "Not my soul, no," she said. "Trust me, Ornina. Please."

"You know I do, dear," Ornina said. "I just don't want you bearing more than your share of the burden for this."

"I'm heading back," Chandris said. "You have the repair crews going?"

"As Hanan would say, they're going at it like their pants are on fire," Ornina said. "With enough people, the foreman says they can be finished in three days. Two and a half if we get a miracle or two."

"That's why we're paying them the big money," Chandris reminded her. "Anything you want me to pick up on the way back?"

Ornina hesitated. Chandris could visualize her face, lined with age and care and worries. Some of those lines and worries for Chandris herself. "No, I don't think so," she said. "Unless you want to stop at the hospital and see how Hanan is doing."

"I could," Chandris said. "I was thinking instead that I'd take over for you at the Gazelle and let you go see him."

"That would be very nice," Ornina admitted. "If it won't be too much trouble."

"No trouble at all," Chandris said. "Go get ready. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"All right. Thank you, Chandris."

"Good-bye," Chandris said, and hung up. She keyed a call for a line car, then headed across the lobby and back out to the street.

She would take over for Ornina, all right. Ornina was a first-rate pilot and ship manager, and a sweet, kind woman besides. She didn't have the kind of finesse and sheer underhanded skullduggery necessary to get work crews to do their best and their fastest.

Chandris did. And miracles or not, the ship would be ready in two and a half days.

She'd stood by and watched as two men died out at Angelma.s.s. No one else was going to die that way. Not if she could help it.

Trilling had been walking the streets of Shikari City for hours; and he was just about to give up for the morning when there she was.

His heart leaped, his throat tightening with excitement. She was dressed in some outlandish would-be upper-cla.s.s outfit that made her look like a little girl playing dress-up, her hair tied up into the kind of fancy swirls and braids he'd always hated. But it was her, all right, standing there across the street halfway down the block. He would know her anywhere.

The one true love of his life, and he'd found her.

Peering down her side of the street, she didn't seem to have spotted him yet. Grinning like a friendly tiger, he started casually toward her. He would stay on this side of the street, he decided, waiting until he was directly across from her before crossing. That way, he would have a clear view of her face and her own excitement when she realized they were back together again.

She had missed him so very much. He could hardly wait to see her face.

He was halfway there when a line car pulled up to the curb beside her and stopped. Chandris got in, and the car pulled away again.

"No," Trilling breathed, staring in disbelief. To lose her again, here, now, just as they were about to get back together? "No!" he snarled, breaking into a run. A middle-aged pedestrian gaped at him; without a second thought, Trilling shoved him viciously out of his way, every gram of his concentration focused on the accelerating line car. He had to catch it. He had to.

But it was no use. He was too far away, and the line car's computer brain too stupid to recognize true love when it saw it. The vehicle picked up speed and vanished around a corner.

And she was gone.

Slowly, reluctantly, Trilling slowed down, trotting to a bitter halt. After all this time...

He looked across the street. That was the building Chandris had come out of. Stardust Metals, Inc., the bronze plaque beside the door said. Some hoity corporation, probably, with more money than anyone had a right to have.

So what had Chandris been doing in there?

He smiled. No, he hadn't lost her again. Of course not. Far from it. The outfit she'd been wearing had to be for some track she was scoring in there. Unless the whole thing was finished and she was ready to hop, she'd be back.

And when she did, they'd be together again. They'd have the cash from this track to run away with, and they would never be apart again. That was probably what Chandris had in mind, in fact. To score a track right here and now so that she and Trilling could run away together.

She was always so thoughtful that way. It proved just how much she loved him.

He glanced around, then headed down the street toward a narrow alleyway where the corner of a trash bin was visible. No, she would be back. All he had to do was find someplace to settle down and wait.

And then they would be together again. Forever.

CHAPTER 33.

"ETA to catapult, five minutes," Campbell announced. "Speed has eased up to twenty-one hundred. Looks like we've picked up a little gravitational acceleration."

"Acknowledged," Lleshi said, glancing over his own boards. Everything was ready; all systems showed green. For the past two days the Komitadji had been following a standard, minimum-time acc/dec course, driving at constant acceleration toward the distant catapult for the first half of the distance, then flipping over and decelerating at the same rate. Trying to beat the slower s.p.a.celiner to the catapult.

It had been a long, hard race, and it was coming down now to a laser-etched finish. But Lleshi had run the numbers, and the Komitadji was going to win.

"Commodore Lleshi!"

Lleshi bit down hard on the first words that sprang to mind. "Yes, Mr. Telthorst?"

"What in the name of the laughing fates is going on here?" the Adjutor snarled, hobbling to an awkward stop in the slight gravity of the Komitadji's slow rotation. "We're supposed to be heading for that catapult out there."

"And we are," Lleshi said. "Our ETA is just under five minutes."

"Then why are we in free-flight?" Telthorst demanded. "Our speed relative to the catapult-" he squinted at Lleshi's board "-it's over two thousand kilometers per hour. We should be decelerating-should have been decelerating the whole way."

He jabbed an accusing finger toward the tactical display. "Now we're too close. We can't possibly decelerate the rest of our speed away fast enough."

"No, we can't," Lleshi agreed. "I didn't intend to."

"Really," Telthorst said frostily. "May I ask what exactly you did intend to do, then? Wave at the station as we shot past it?"

Lleshi gestured to the tactical display. "The s.p.a.celiner out there has a catapult ETA of nineteen minutes," he said. "A standard acc/dec run, if I had stayed with that, would have had us arriving nearly ten minutes behind it."

"The Empyreals already know we're here, Commodore," Telthorst bit out. "They sent a courier ship into the system, remember?"

"Two of them, actually," Lleshi corrected. "A second courier hit the net about eighteen hours ago, while you were sleeping."

Telthorst's eyes narrowed. "Why wasn't I told?"

"It wasn't necessary," Lleshi said. "As with the first, the Balaniki captured it without trouble. Captain Horvak has the crew aboard for questioning; if he'd learned anything he would have relayed it to me."

"And of course you would have relayed it to me?"

"Of course." Lleshi felt the corner of his lip twist. "Don't worry, this ship was also captured undamaged," he couldn't resist adding.

For a moment Telthorst just looked at him. "We'll ignore that for the moment, Commodore," he said at last. "You're supposed to keep me fully informed-fully informed-on all aspects of this operation. But we'll ignore that."

He jabbed again at the tactical display. "What we will not ignore is that this whole silly race has been a waste from the very first. A waste of time and fuel, neither of which we have to spare. It doesn't make a half-penny's worth of difference if that s.p.a.celiner gets away; and now it appears you aren't even going to get that half-penny's worth of profit out of it."

"On the contrary," Lleshi told him. "It could make a great deal of difference. And the s.p.a.celiner isn't going to get away."

"Really." Telthorst looked over at the main display, now showing the view aft toward the catapult they were racing toward. "Then you'd better plan to wave extra hard at it," he said. "Because in a few seconds you're going to have your first and last close-up look at it."

"I'm aware of the timing, thank you," Lleshi said. "SeTO?"

"Board is green, Commodore," Campbell said briskly. "Long tubes ready for launch."

"Long tubes?" Telthorst echoed, looking like he'd been hit in the face. "You're wasting h.e.l.lfire missiles on a s.p.a.celiner?"

"Hardly," Lleshi said, smiling tightly. "h.e.l.lfires aren't the only things on a warship that can be launched through the long tubes."

Telthorst's face was a twist of confusion. "What in h.e.l.l's bank are you talking about?"

"Just watch," Lleshi advised. The timer clicked down to zero-"Fighters: launch."

From the cl.u.s.ter of tubes along the big ship's centerline came a faint rumbling growl, more felt than heard, as the ma.s.s-driver launching electromagnets activated. In his mind's eye Lleshi could see the wave of fighters riding that magnetic wave, accelerating through the Komitadji's core at a punishing ten gravities. They reached speed and shot out the bow of the ship, traveling at twenty-one hundred kilometers per hour.

Or rather, they came from the tubes at twenty-one hundred relative to the Komitadji. Since the Komitadji was traveling backwards at that same speed, the fighters emerged effectively stationary between the catapult and incoming s.p.a.celiner.

In perfect position to draw a line in the sand.

"Full deceleration," Lleshi ordered. "Fighter command?"

"Fighters moving to interdiction positions," the fighter commander called as the roar of the

Komitadji's engines began to rattle the command deck. "Giving challenge to the s.p.a.celiner."

"Catapult lasers responding," Campbell reported, a touch of contempt in his voice. "Looks like basic meteor defenses. Pitiful."

"They're still powerful enough to cause damage," Telthorst pointed out stiffly. "Those fighters are

expensive, too."

"Instruct the fighters to stay clear as best they can," Lleshi ordered. Telthorst's precious money be

d.a.m.ned; he simply didn't want to waste valuable pilots. "We'll have plenty of time to deal with the catapult defenses once we've finished decelerating and can get back to the station."

"And then?" Telthorst demanded, challenge in his voice.

Lleshi smiled. "Then perhaps I can make you that half-penny's worth of profit."

"We've shut down all the nets except the one here," General Akhmed said, tapping a spot on the tactical display. "That will give us only one entrypoint to defend. Our destroyers are arranged thusly-" he indicated the green triangles hovering protectively around each of the four catapult ships "-with support ships and fighters forming defensive screens. It's a standard three-layer defense, easily capable of holding long enough for the catapult ships to send any intruder packing."

"What about the Seraph and Central huntership nets?" Pirbazari asked.

"Binary linked to each other," Akhmed said. "They don't enter into the calculation."

Forsythe shook his head. "Not good enough," he said.

Akhmed's eyebrows lifted politely. "I beg your pardon, High Senator?"

"A standard containment approach may be good enough to deal with the occasional Pax military probe," Forsythe told him, gesturing toward the schematic. "But we're talking full-bore invasion here. The Pax may not be willing to play your game with them."

Pirbazari cleared his throat. "It's not a matter of playing games, sir," he said. "The nets are the only way into the system. If they can't get out of the net area before they're 'pulted away, that's that. They don't have a lot of say in it."

"Then how did they get into Lorelei system?" Forsythe retorted. "Because they are there, Zar. That courier we sent has been silent for over twenty hours. How long does it take to put together a collapsible skeeter catapult?"

Pirbazari's mouth tightened. "Ten hours," he conceded. "Twelve at the outside."

"Leaving them plenty of time to have looked around and written up a report," Forsythe said. "If they aren't talking, it's because someone has shut them up. You have any candidates in mind other than the Pax?"

"With all due respect, High Senator," Akhmed said politely, "what exactly is it you want us to do?"

"For a start, how about arming the hunterships?" Forsythe said, reaching over and pulling up another list. "They have the best shielding of anything in the Empyrean."