Angelmass

Telthorst's forehead creased, just a bit—"I'm sure you'll do fine, Kosta," Lleshi put in before Telthorst could speak. "But enough talk. Your ship is in the Number Six cargo hold—you'll be taken there directly from here. You know how to handle it?"

"Yes, sir," Kosta said. He did, too, after a fashion, though almost everything the ship would need to do should already have been pre-programmed into it.

"Good," the commodore said. "Remember that you're not to leave the cocoon for a minimum of twelve hours after you've been dropped. That's a minimum—if Empyreal ships are still poking around you'll obviously need to sit tight longer. Just take your time and don't panic. You should be totally undetectable inside the cocoon, and if we do our job properly they'll never even notice you leaving the Komitadji. We should also be getting a data pulse from the automated sleeper drop on Lorelei as soon as we arrive, provided we're grabbed by the proper net and our timing is on mark. If there's time, I'll dump a copy to you before you're dropped. Once you're down, go to the coordinates programmed into your ship's computer and pick up the final current-conditions compilation, the false identity papers that should be waiting for you, and the access information for your credit line."

"A very limited credit line," Telthorst put in. "Keep that in mind, and try to find ways to be economical."

"Yes, sir, I will," Kosta said, trying not to grimace. Money again. With Adjutors, it was always money. "If that's all, Commodore," he added, "I'll get down to my ship."

Lleshi nodded. "Go ahead. And good luck on your little trip to heaven."

"Thank you." Kosta looked the commodore square in the eye. "I won't fail, sir."

"Scintara Catapult Control, Commodore," the man at the communications board called up to the balcony. "We have signal green."

"Acknowledged." Lleshi gave his status board a leisurely scan. Ship's rotation was at zero, energy weapons charged and ready, missiles loaded into their tubes and stand-by armed. Everything in place for a little jaunt into enemy territory. "SeTO?"

"All green, Commodore," Senior Tactical Officer Campbell reported from his console. "Alpha and Beta both. Ship and crew at full battle stations."

Peripherally, Lleshi saw Telthorst swivel around from his observer's console at one side of the balcony. "Beta?" he asked, a suspicious overtone in his voice. "What's Beta?"

"It's a simulation run," Lleshi told him. "Fighters at station; that sort of thing. We do intend an eventual invasion of these systems." He eyed the Adjutor, noting the other's tight-lipped expression.

"Your last chance to get off here if you'd rather," he offered.

Telthorst returned his gaze without blinking. "Your last chance, Commodore, to not risk this ship."

Lleshi looked back at his board, fighting back a flash of very unprofessional anger. Zero hour was not the time to reopen old arguments. They had no choice but to use the Komitadji on this, for reasons Telthorst already knew. "Helmsman: Move us into position."

"Yes, sir."

A visual representation of the focal point of Scintara's hyperspace catapult sat directly in front of the Komitadji on the helm display: a hazy red ellipsoid hanging in space, undulating slowly as its three axes rhythmically fed from and into each other. In the early days of catapult travel—and it was a thought that always intruded into Lleshi's mind at this point—a ship that didn't fit entirely within that focal area risked leaving pieces of itself behind while the rest was thrown across the light-years.

Without the discovery of paraconducting metal, a ship the size of the Komitadji would never have been possible.

Such a wonderful thing, progress.

The proximity alarm trilled: the Komitadji's bow had touched the focal ellipsoid. "Stand by," Lleshi ordered. "Scintara Catapult, you have the timer. Launch at T-zero."

Scintara acknowledged. Thirty-eight seconds later, with a metallic stutter of stress from the paraconducting underskin, the stars abruptly disappeared from the viewscreens.

Lleshi took a careful breath, mind and body slipping automatically into full combat mode. It was nearly three hundred light-years from Scintara to the Empyreal world of Lorelei: just under six seconds of hyperspace travel. "Stand by," he murmured, more from habit than any expectation that his crew wasn't ready. He settled himself... and, as abruptly as they'd disappeared, the stars were back.

"Location check," he ordered. The nav display had sprouted multicolored relative-V arrows now: many of the "stars" on the visual were, in fact, asteroids. But that didn't necessarily put them in the right net—all the nets around Lorelei seemed to be deep in the system's extensive asteroid belts. "If we're in the right net, key for data retrieval."

"Focused pulse transmissions from the planet, Commodore," the comm officer reported. "We're in the right net. Copying now."

"Campbell?"

"Tactical coming up now, sir," the SeTO said. "Defenses as expected."

Lleshi nodded, his eyes on the tac display... and it was indeed as expected. Arrayed in a rough triangular pyramid two hundred kilometers on an edge around the Komitadji were four small ships.

Each of them carried the pole of a hyperspace catapult; together, they guarded the center of the net field that had—somehow—snatched the Komitadji from its original hyperspace vector and deflected it to this precise point. Any three of those ships, acting together, could throw the Komitadji right back out of the system, in any direction they chose.

And if they did so immediately, young Kosta might as well not have bothered coming aboard.

"Message, Commodore," the comm officer a

Lleshi smiled tightly. So the first part of the gamble had succeeded: the Komitadji's sheer size had caught the Empyreals off guard. Even now they were scrambling to recalibrate their catapult as they tried to make the invaders waste time with useless conversation. He threw a glance in Telthorst's direction, saw only the back of the Adjutor's head. "No return message," he said quietly. "Attack pattern Alpha."

The Komitadji's lights dimmed slightly as, on the tactical, four lines of blue light lanced out, one focused on each of the distant catapult ships. Behind the laser beams four yellow plasma jets boiled out; following right on their heels the red lines of a dozen Spearhawk missiles shot similarly outward. Lleshi was pushed back into his chair as the Komitadji's engines roared to life, driving the ship away from the center of the pyramid. The Empyreal ships moved to stay with them, the Spearhawk missiles shifting vectors in turn to match the movement. The Komitadji's computers refocused the lasers, launched new plasma clouds—

And a second later, almost in unison and at least thirty kilometers out from their targets, all twelve Spearhawks exploded.

"Premature detonation; all missiles," Campbell reported. "Plasma and lasers having no discernible effect; catapult ships still tracking us. Second Spearhawks away."

"Data pulse retrieval complete," the comm officer called as another set of twelve Spearhawks appeared on the tactical, arcing toward the defenders. "Copy dumped to cocoon."

Behind the four beleaguered catapult ships eight similar spacecraft had now appeared on the tactical, emerging from cover behind various asteroids. Back-ups, already starting to configure themselves into catapult arrangement. "Cocoon launch on my command," Lleshi ordered, frowning with concentration as he watched the second group of Spearhawks climb toward their targets. With the detonation codes already computed by the Empyreals, this set ought to go considerably closer to the Komitadji than the previous ones had—