For an instant, the resentment that had been smoldering in Kthaara threatened to ignite. But only for an instant. After all, he reminded himself, why should he even have to ask me? Operation Ivan was Ynaathar's show-that had been made clear enough. And as First Fang, Ynaathar was his service superior.

And yet it wasn't that simple. Kthaara chaired the Joint Staff of the Grand Alliance, of which the Khanate was a part. Ynaathar and MacGregor might have already made up their minds that they were going to seize the inexplicable opportunity the Bugs had offered them with both hands, but they understood the need for coordination among allies. Their request for Kthaara's presence hadn't been an empty gesture, still less an insult. This had to be cleared with him.

"Very well," he said after only a moment's pause. "I concur. You should proceed as soon as possible. Which means," he continued briskly, rising to his feet, "that I should be returning to Nova Terra at once."

"One request, Lord Talphon," said Ynaathar. He turned to LeBlanc, who had risen with Kthaara. "Ahhdmiraaaal LeBlaaanc, I believe your subordinate Lyooo . . . Leyowoo . . . Cub Saaanderzz accompanied you here."

"Why, yes, First Fang. He's still closeted with your intelligence people, trying to make some sense of the RD2 findings. I was just on my way to collect him."

"My request is that you not do so. I would like him attached to my staff for the duration of this offensive."

Nonplussed, LeBlanc looked from Ynaathar to Kthaara and back again.

"But, First Fang, Lieutenant Sanders has only recently returned from temporary detached duty with Sixth Fleet-and that came hard on the heels of a similar assignment with Seventh Fleet!"

"Precisely the point, Ahhdmiraaaal. He has had much experience acting as your alter ego. And I know Lord Talphon cannot spare you." Ynaathar grew more somber. "What is happening in Aaahnnderrssson One is bizarre even for Bahgs. This disturbs me. I need an intelligence officer with experience in making sense of Bahg behavior."

Kthaara turned to LeBlanc. "Ahhdmiraaaal . . . ?"

"I'll break it to him, Sir."

It had finally happened.

And at the worst possible moment, as things continued so inexplicably to unravel.

The destruction of two of the five Systems Which Must Be Defended had been bad enough. But then the New Enemies had cut one of the remaining three off from all outside contact. So in effect there were only two left. And only two fragile lines of communication linked those two. And now the New Enemies were unwittingly threatening two systems through which those lines of communication ran.

And-the final blow-the Old Enemies, had fought their way through to one of those systems, as well.

If those systems fell, the Fleet would no longer exist as such. Instead, there would be three separate fleets, each with its own System Which Must Be Defended, each alone in the cosmos with no knowledge of how the other two fared-an unthinkable logical contradiction.

Furthermore, the New Enemies and the Old Enemies would at last know of each others' existence, and doubtless join forces. This must not be.

So, from every standpoint, there'd been no alternative. The Deep Space Force must hurl its full strength at the Old Enemies before they could establish themselves in this system beyond any possibility of being dislodged. With that decision, it had departed from its station, leaving the fixed defenses and the mobile warp point defense to watch the warp point beyond which the New Enemies crouched.

But the New Enemies had chosen that very moment to send through a cascade of their robot probes.

The intelligences which directed the Fleet shared nothing like their enemies' belief in fate, or karma, or even the Demon Murphy. Yet as the probes poured through the warp point the Deep Space Force had just left, something very like those beliefs flickered at the edge of their awareness. Unfortunately, the Deep Space Force had already been far beyond any range at which it might have changed plan and course and returned to defend the warp point. It had had no choice but to continue on its current mission, and the New Enemies had seized the opportunity without delay, smashing the fortresses and burning swathes through the buoys and mines with the assorted weapons their warp-transiting launch pods spewed forth in such abundance. Now their ships had followed and were shaking themselves out into their organizational components: thirty-one monitors, eighty-four superdreadnoughts, seventy-eight battlecruisers, sixty lesser cruisers, and forty-four carriers for their small strike craft, twenty of which belonged to the superdreadnought-sized variety.

It was unquestionably a more formidable force than the one the Old Enemies had put into this system. So it became imperative to obliterate the latter before the New Enemies could intervene on their behalf. The Deep Space Force's gunboats and assault craft would continue on their assigned course.

Admiral Francis Macomb, TFN, broke the stunned silence. "Who are those people?!"

Ynaathar turned to the bank of com screens which held the faces of his task force commanders. Macomb, commanding TF 81, Eighth Fleet's primary battle-line component, was a crusty war-dog of the old school, outspoken to a fault. Trust him to blurt out what everyone was thinking. The only surprising thing was that his ejaculation hadn't contained two or three obscenities.

Ynaathar, however, felt he owed it to his position to maintain a façade of imperturbability.

"Unknown, Ahhdmiraaaal. All our drones have been able to tell us is that the Bahg mobile force is engaged against a fleet of unknown origin. Is this not correct?" He turned to a bewildered-looking knot of intelligence officers. Kevin Sanders, with questionable propriety, spoke up first.

"Correct, First Fang. We haven't a clue as to who the unknowns are, but at least we can give you a rough count of their order of battle by ship types: twelve monitors, sixty superdreadnoughts, sixteen assault carriers, twenty fleet carriers, sixty battlecruisers and forty-eight heavy cruisers."

"A formidable force," Fifth Fang Shiiaarnaow'maahzaak, commanding Task Force 82, commented.

"But not in the same class as ours," Vice Admiral Samantha Enwright, CO Task Force 85, added.

"No, Sir," Sanders confirmed. "Which is probably why the Bugs are trying to defeat it in detail before turning on us. They're sending in what appears to be their entire complement of gunboats and kamikazes. Our analysis doesn't give the strangers a high probability of survival."

"I should think not," Ynaathar murmured as he studied the statistics of the tsunami of death sweeping down on . . . whoever it was that had emerged from Warp Point Two. He reached a decision and turned to face the com screen holding the Ophiuchi face of his carrier commander. "Ahhdmiraaaal Haaathaaaahn, am I correct in believing that our fighters, if launched without delay, can intercept the Bahg gunboat strike before it can reach the unknowns?"

Haathaahn recovered quickly, and responded after a hurried consultation with someone outside the pickup. "Ittt woulllld be exxxxtremely clossssse, Firsssst Ffffang. Nnnneedlesssss to ssssay, it woulllld require the fightttters to operrrrate at exxxxtreeme rrrrange, evvvven withhhh maxxxximummm llllload llllife ssssupport paccccks."

"Get them so loaded at once, then."

"You mean, Sir-?" Macomb's dangling question spoke for them all, and Ynaathar flicked his ears affirmitively.