But he suppressed his instincts, consciously relaxing his feet. His orders were clear. The titanic space station-clearly visible, especially to the remarkably acute Crucian eyesight which counterbalanced a sense of smell even worse than that of Humans-was not the target. Neither were the twenty-seven more-than-monitor-sized fortresses that wove a tracery of orbits mathematically calculated to cover all approaches to Planet II with overlapping fields of fire.

No, his was one of the FRAM-armed squadrons whose role was simply to dash between those fortresses, trusting to the ECM-bearing escorts and the decoy missiles to keep them alive long enough to get within range of the planet. It hadn't worked for the leading elements of the fighter strike, few of which still flew. But the escorts had soaked up more and more of the defensive fire, and now the planet was looming up ahead in Navva's view-forward, close enough for its icy, arid bleakness to be visible.

It was, Navva thought, about to get even bleaker.

He didn't devote much of his mind to the thought, of course. He was a thoroughgoing professional and a seasoned veteran, one of the first to train with the fighter technology the Humans had brought to the Star Union . . . and one of the few of those first to still remain alive. As such, he kept his consciousness focused on checklists, instrument readouts, threat indicators, and the disposition of the other three fighters that remained under his command. But he was still a Crucian, and the planet ahead meant something more to him than it did to his Human and Orion and Ophiuchi comrades. It was as much a place of dark myth as of dry astrophysics, the very Hell from which Iierschtga, evil twin of Kkrullott the god of light, had sent his Demons to torment his brother's children.

Then they were through, and Navva's reduced squadron took its place in the comber of death that began to roll across the surface of Planet II.

The rationalistic high-tech warrior who was Rozatii Navva was now functioning like an automaton, leading his squadron across the terminator into darkness as it swooped toward the planetary defense center that was its target. His innermost self stood apart, and watched with a kind of dreamy exaltation as the uninterceptable FRAMs flashed planetward to burn a reeking foulness out of the universe.

He had time for an instant's fiery elation when the warheads released their tiny specks of antimatter on the surface and the darkness erupted in blue-white hellfire. Then his two selves came crashing together and fell into oblivion as a point-defense missile already launched from the surface found his fighter.

He never knew that missile was one of the last effective defensive actions taken by the Bugs in Home Hive Four.

"Yes! It's happened!"

First Fang Ynaathar ignored Kevin Sanders' youthful enthusiasm as he calmly studied the computer analysis of the Bugs' reaction to his long-range probing of Planet I's defenses. It told him what he wouldn't learn from Robalii Rikka's report for another sixteen minutes: that the fighter strike on Planet II had gone in as scheduled, and that billions of Bugs had abruptly died.

"So it appears," he acknowledged quietly. He turned to his assembled core staff. "The observations of Fangs Presssssscottt and Zhaarnak in two other home hives stand confirmed. The same kind of stunned confusion has clearly overtaken the Bugs here, and done so simultaneously throughout at least the inner system. We will not allow it time to wear off. We will proceed with our primary contingency plan and move our battle-line into Planet I's defensive envelope for close-range bombardment in a single firing pass."

"Ignoring the orbital works, First Fang?" someone queried.

"That is the plan," Ynaathar stated firmly. "Our primary targets are the planetary defense centers."

His orders were carried out. Eighth Fleet's "firing pass," employing strategic bombardment missiles, capital missiles and standard missiles in succession as it approached closer and closer, eventually brought Ynaathar's battle-line within CAM2 range before it broke free of the planet's gravity and receded outward.

By the time Ynaathar received Rikka's report that only a few million Bugs remained alive on Planet II, none of them at all were alive on Planet I.

Kevin Sanders was seriously behind on his sleep.

The wildly varying rotational periods of planets tended to have that effect on interstellar voyagers, far beyond the "jet lag" Terrans had begun to experience in the late twentieth century. And Ynaathar had exercised the worst possible timing in dispatching him to Alpha Centauri with a personal report to the Grand Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But he forced himself to remain alert as he stood in the light of Alpha Centauri A, streaming through the wide window of Kthaara'zarthan's office at a time every weary fiber of his body said-no, screamed-was three in the morning after a couple of sleepless nights. It wouldn't do to fall on one's face in this company.

"So," Fleet Speaker Noraku rumbled, "the First Fang took no further action against the orbital constructs?"

"No, Fleet Speaker. He felt they weren't worth the expenditure of any additional ordnance, orbiting depopulated planets incapable of supplying them."

"It's possible that the space stations have fully self-sustaining lifesystems which will keep their personnel fed," MacGregor objected.

"True, Sky Marshal . . . though it's highly unlikely that the fortresses do. But in both cases, lack of basic maintenance will eventually render them incapable of even what the Bugs consider minimal life support."

"That could take some time," Kthaara commented.

"First Fang Ynaathar's position," Sanders said in measured tones, "was that the same lack of maintenance will reduce their defensive capabilities to total impotence before it results in their starvation. So if we grow impatient, we can simply wait until that eventuality and eliminate them with great economy. Either way . . . Well, Admiral Macomb quoted an old Terran proverb and said they can be left to die on the vine."

Kthaara's tooth-hidden smile showed his Standard English was up to that one.

"So be it. I agree with the First Fang." He shifted his body-stiffly, Sanders, noted; when old age caught up with Tabbies, it tended to catch up abruptly-and turned to look at the holo display that now filled a full end of the spacious office.

It was no wonder the display had grown like ivy, for it depicted all the war fronts, incorporating all the new astrographic information that Prescott, Zhaarnak, and Murakuma-the "Three Musketeers" of the Grand Alliance, as wits had begun calling them-had won. In all that labyrinthine complexity, Sanders instantly recognized one particular icon: the dull reddish-black one, like a burnt ember, that represented a now-lifeless home hive. There were two of them.

Kthaara spoke a command to the computer, and a third one appeared.

Ellen MacGregor spoke grimly into the silence. "And then there were two. . . ."