Kincaid drew himself up an extra centimeter or two-not the most tactful thing for a human to do around Crucians-and his smile was back in full force.

"Yes, Sir!"

Ever since the Enemy had occupied the Franos System, it had been assumed that Telik was next. But after the initial probes, no attack had materialized. It was puzzling. Those whose business it was to speculate about such things had suggested that might have something to do with the Enemy's inexplicable reluctance-observed on several occasions-to apply maximum force to planets with food sources which had previously exhibited tool-using behavior. But the hypothesis remained unproven.

At any rate, the most recent reconnaissance through the warp point suggested that the Enemy forces in Franos consisted entirely of light starships configured to carry small attack craft-useful for deploying those craft in a defensive role, but quite unable to survive a warp point assault.

So Telik remained isolated but unthreatened. The Fleet would, of course, continue to build up forces to a level limited only by the availability of crews. And a large percentage of the planet-based gunboats and small craft would be kept, on a rotating basis, at the warp point to help cover against any possible surprise attack. But there was no need for any special-

But wait. . . . What was this latest sensor reading . . . ?

No!

The jubilation on the flag bridge at the initial strikes' success had been muted by the fact that it wasn't unexpected. Tension aboard GW 5's cloaked starships had been high as they crept cautiously across the light-minutes, concealed within the cloak of invisibility of their ECM. It had been hard for the Crucian fighter pilots to sit in their launch bays and rely on remote probes rather than their own recon fighters, but Harkka had been determined to keep his presence in the system unknown until he reached strike range of his objective. And unlike starships or recon drones, strikefighters couldn't conceal their drive signatures in cloak.

The wingmaster's caution had paid off. His unsuspected carriers had crept so close to Telik before launching that their fighters had gone in completely undetected until it was too late to mount any effective defense. They'd used their primary packs and standard nuclear warheads as precision instruments, taking out the planetary defense centers without inflicting any appreciable losses on the Telikan livestock-Fujiko gagged on the word-but also without the wholesale immolation of the Bug population in antimatter fires that would have induced psychic shock in the remainder.

No such restraints obtained in space. After the annihilation of the planetary kamikaze nests, the fighters had rearmed with antimatter loads and gone after Telik's titanic space station. But that delay had allowed the station to bring its awesome array of weapons on-line, and now the last vestiges of giddiness had departed the flag bridge as the loss figures rolled in.

Shinhaa Harkka turned away, and his expression was cast in cold iron.

"We must break off the attack," he said, and the two humans stared at him with looks of astonishment and-in Kincaid's case-pained disappointment.

"Wingmaster?" Fujiko queried.

Junior officers didn't generally rate explanations from a full admiral, which was what "wingmaster" meant. But the thinly spread SF 19 people had grown accustomed to filling roles three or more rank levels above their own, and the Crucians had grown accustomed to treating them accordingly.

"I cannot allow my fighter strength to be further depleted at this time. Our intelligence analysis, based on observations from the strike on the planetary defense centers and also the reports of our reconnaissance fighters, indicate that a substantial percentage of the planet's gunboat strength was at Warp Point One, reinforcing the mobile units there against the threat they expected to face. Thus, the Demons retain a substantial deep-space capability. Which is on its way here."

Fujiko glanced at the system-scale display. Yes, the scarlet icon of the deep space force was moving away from its station, on a course to intercept the planet's orbit. Her eyes went to the board showing the estimated composition of that force: only one monitor, but ten superdreadnoughts, twenty battlecruisers, and a hundred and six light cruisers. And a swarm of gunboats from the warp point defense force was en route to rendezvous with them.

"Wingmaster," Kincaid said, pointing at the latter, "they've weakened their warp point defenses. If we can get drones through to Franos, maybe Admiral Sung can step up the timetable and break into the system. He's got six hundred F-4s to reinforce us!"

"But," Fujiko reminded the Marine, "he's got no heavy ships-just light carriers and escort carriers. They wouldn't last a minute in a warp point assault against the defenses the Bugs still have in place." She indicated the breakdown of those defenses: forty orbital fortresses, a hundred and eleven heavy cruisers, and sixteen suicide-rider light cruisers, to say nothing of over twenty-eight hundred armed deep-space buoys and eight thousand patterns of mines. "And," she continued, "he's got no SBMHAWKs to blast him a path through all that, because-"

"Because of the haste with which we of the Star Union organized this offensive," Harkka finished for her calmly.

"The demands of other fronts also played a part, Wingmaster," Fujiko assured him, attempting to dilute the implied criticism.

"No doubt. However, the fact remains that Admiral Sung's task force can't support us until it gets into the system-and it can't get into this system until we clear the way for it."

"Catch-22," Kincaid muttered sotto voce.

"Because of that," Harkka continued, "we must fight the Demon deep space force before we can turn our attention to the planet-and I prefer to do so well away from any surviving planet-based kamikazes. Excuse me while I give the necessary orders."

The wingmaster started to turn away . . . but then he paused, and his gaze lingered on the viewscreen, with the little blue dot that had been his race's seemingly unattainable goal for a standard century.

Fujiko had years of experience in dealing with Crucians. But even without it, she could have read Harkka's mind: So near and yet so far. . . .

Kincaid cleared his throat.

"It's only a temporary delay, Wingmaster. We'll be back as soon as we've established control of the system. The Bugs down there are living on borrowed time."

Well, well! Fujiko thought, impressed in spite of herself, and Harkka gave a gesture of pleased gratitude.

"Thank you. You're very understanding. And I understand your eagerness to turn to our real purpose in coming here." He turned away, now all business.

"I didn't think you had it in you, Captain," Fujiko murmured, and Kincaid's grin reawoke.

"Why, thank you, Commander, for what I suppose was a compliment. By the way, shouldn't you be calling me 'Major'? After all, we're aboard a ship, and-"

"The Crucians don't have that tradition," Fujiko cut in coldly. "And it wasn't so much a compliment as an expression of surprise at your lapse into sensitivity-from which, I'm sure you'll recover."

"Oh, the wingmaster was right. He and I understand each other."

The Marine's eyes strayed, and he looked at the blue dot of Telik in much the same way Harkka had.

And Fujiko, too, understood. For Kincaid, that planet represented the chance to finally take part in a planetside assault out of the Marine legends on which he'd been weaned-a chance this mass butchery misnamed a war had offered in all too short supply. Of course, an excellent chance of being killed went with it . . . but only for other people. Like all young men, he was immortal.