In another war, against another enemy, there might have been other options to ponder. The possibility of honorable surrender might even have existed. But this was the war they had, and however desperately some inner part of him might have longed for it to be otherwise, Major Beryak Na-Pahrthal could no longer truly imagine any other sort.

"Uniform-Three-Seven, this is Alpha-Zero-One." he said into his microphone. "Watch those turns.

You're sliding too high, skylining yourself. Do that closer to the enemy, and he'll blow you right out of the air!"

"Alpha-Zero-One, Uniform-Three-Seven copies. Sorry about that, sir. I'll try not to let it happen again."

"You do that, Tharsal," Na-Pahrthal said. "I'd hate to have to break in a new horrible example to show the others how not to fly a mission."

"Yes, sir. Uniform-Three-Seven, out."

"Alpha-Zero-One, out," Na-Pahrthal acknowledged, and his ears twitched in another flicker of wryly bitter amusement. So they were all still playing the game, still pretending.

Odd how precious that threadbare pretense could be, even now.

"The Bolo is already inside our mediums' effective engagement range, sir," Colonel Na-Lythan said levelly. "It will overtake us completely in no more than another twenty minutes at our relative rates of advance, and this looks like as likely a place as we're going to find, especially if we can keep that ridge line between us and it until we launch. With your permission, I'd like to begin deploying my units."

"Uran, they're your units," Ka-Frahkan replied over the com. "If this is the spot you want, then go ahead and deploy. For what it's worth, I'm formally handing tactical control over to you. May the Nameless Ones send you victory."

"Thank you, sir," Na-Lythan acknowledged. And then, without a pause, he began issuing his orders.

Maneka/Lazarus weren't surprised when the Enemy slowed in his headlong rush. The terrain ahead was as favorable to him as any he might have hoped to find, and she/they slowed her/their own approach, watching to see how the Enemy commander deployed his assets.

"He's not exactly trying for finesse, is he?" her/their human half observed wryly as her individual viewpoint rose briefly above the fusion of their personalities and perceptions.

"It is not a situation which calls for finesse," her/their Bolo half replied. "Their commander is wise enough to recognize that."

Maneka agreed wordlessly, and then her merely human viewpoint vanished once more as she/they bent their attention upon the developing patterns of the Enemy's deployment.

Actually, she/they thought, he was trying for at least a little finesse. The tactical situation was brutally simple for both sides, but he was deliberately placing two of his three "fists" well forward of the third. In essence, he was writing off two thirds of his total strength, positioning those units to take the brunt of her/their assault and accepting that they would be destroyed, rather than bringing his full firepower to bear from the beginning. Clearly, he hoped that before they were destroyed, they would inflict serious damage upon her/them—enough for his own fresh, undamaged fist to finish her/them off without suffering heavy losses of its own. In which case, he would almost certainly come out of the engagement with sufficient remaining combat power to carry through and destroy the colony, after all.

"Probability of our destruction by forward-deployed fists, 36.012 percent; probability of their destruction, 93.562 percent," her/their Lazarus component remarked. "Probability of our destruction by remaining fist after destroying lead fists, 56.912 percent. Probability of colony's survival following our own destruction or incapacitation becomes 73.64 percent, assuming destruction of all remaining Surturs and expenditure of all Fenrises' missile armament against us. Probability of colony's survival, assuming survival of one Surtur becomes 32.035 percent. Probability of colony's survival, assuming survival of two Surturs, becomes 01.056 percent. Survival of each Fenris with no remaining missile armament decreases probability of colony's survival by approximately 06.753 percent. Survival of one Fenris with unexpended missile load-out decreases probability of colony's survival by approximately 32.116 percent.

Survival of two Fenrises with unexpended missile load-out decreases probability of colony's survival to under one percent, exclusive of any consideration of surviving Surturs."

"Then we'll just have to see to it that none of them survive, won't we?" her/their Maneka half replied coldly.

"All units, stand by. Prepare for Fire Plan Alpha on my command."

Uran Na-Lythan's voice was terse, shadowed with tension and yet curiously relaxed, almost calming.

Ka-Frahkan listened to it, hearing an echo of the strange serenity which seemed to hover at his own center, and wondered what the colonel was actually thinking as the Bolo ground steadily towards his units.

His ears folded tight to his skull as the questions rolled through his mind.

But in the end, it doesn't really matter, does it? he told himself sadly. Butcher or champion, I have no choice now. None of us do—Human or of the People. We have saddled the whirlwind; now we must ride it and pray that somehow the bridle holds. That we can stay in the saddle one battle longer, one living star system farther, than they can. And so I will drown this world in blood, because I must. Because I cannot take the chance, cannot risk holding my hand. And in the end, somewhere, some other general—Melconian or Human—will have to make one final decision when the last world of his own race's murderers lies helpless before him.

And that general will not be me. Ka-Frahkan eyes narrowed as he recognized the source of his strange inner serenity at last. It was knowledge, acceptance. I will die here, on this world, he realized.

If not in this minute, or this hour, still, I will die here. Ka-Paldyn is gone, or he would have reported in by standard radio by now. Our inner-system special ops teams are all dead, without securing a single one of the Humans' starships, and Death Descending and Gizhan are gone. We can still ensure that no Humans survive here either, that this is simply one more charnel house world, slaughtered in the cause of racial survival, but there will be no escape for me or for any of my people. And so, either way, this is the end of the killing for me. I will slay no more worlds, murder no more children, face no more nightmares, unless, indeed, the Nameless decree the eternal damnation we all have earned so amply.

I will sleep, he thought, with a sense of infinite, bittersweet relief. I've done my duty, and if that earns damnation, then so be it, yet I long for that final sleep, that end, for I am so tired of the killing. And yet, these are still my troopers, my family. How do I tell them how much they mean to me, when I've brought them all here to die with me?

"All units," he heard his own voice say over the central command channel, surprised to discover that he had depressed the transmit key, "this is General Ka-Frahkan. You are about to engage the enemy.

This is not the planet we were originally tasked to seize, yet these are still the enemies of the People we face, and what happens here may well be far more vital to the People than anything which might have happened at our original objective. I am prouder of you than any poet, any bard, could ever forge the words to say. I am honored to have commanded you, privileged to have fought beside you so many times before, and to fight with you here, today. The Empire may never know what we do here, yet that makes it no less important, no less our duty. Men and women of the 3172nd, you have never flinched, never failed in your duty to me, to yourselves, or to the People. I know you will not fail today."