Then it was over, and an ashen-faced Andrew Prescott counted his losses. His flotilla was still essentially intact, but the Bugs had succeeded in their primary goal, for Zirk-Ciliwaan and Zirk-Likwyn, his only remaining carriers, had only eleven fighters, less than two full strength squadrons, between them, and only nine of Condor's and Corby's twenty-three gunboats survived. The Bugs had stripped away his long-range striking power . . . and their Antelopes had closed the range sharply while his own ships maneuvered to avoid attack. His sensor crews had their positions clearly plotted now, and that meant that they had his ships plotted just as clearly.

And that he wasn't going to shake them.

The faces on the com screens were grim as Prescott took his place before them. They understood the situation just as well as he did, but he was their commander, and the lack of condemnation in their expressions as they listened to Leopold's summary cut him like a sword. Intellectually, he knew they were right. It wasn't his fault, and even if he'd somehow managed to realize at the last minute what the Etnas were and what would happen if Commander Hiithylwaaan closed with them, there would have been nothing he could have done. The choice of exactly which units to attack, and in what order, had been Hiithylwaaan's; that was what a farshathkhanaak did. And even if Prescott had known all those things, the light-speed communications lag would have prevented him from overriding Hiithylwaaan's decision in time to matter.

But even though his intellect knew that, it didn't matter. Not deep down inside where an officer's responsibility to the men and women under his command lived.

"I believe," he said quietly, when Leopold had finished, "that we have to assume additional Bug units are en route to this system. They may even already have arrived, although they obviously have not yet reached a position from which they can engage us, or they would have done so in support of Alpha and Beta. Further, the fact that Beta hasn't closed the range on us as Alpha has suggests that Beta probably is, as Commander Chau suggests, composed primarily of Adders, which lack the speed to overhaul us.

"But Alpha has us firmly on its sensors, just as we have it, and it has almost three times our long-range missile capability now that Courageous is gone. Worse, it remains between us and our exit warp point, and while we can't be positive that the Bugs know where that warp point lies, it's certainly possible that they do. In either case, the Flotilla's only hope is to somehow break contact with-or cripple or destroy-Alpha and make a break for that warp point. At least," he smiled bitterly, "we appear to have finished off all of their available gunboats, so if we can get beyond Alpha's sensor range, we should be able to go back into cloak and, with a little luck, stay there.

"The problem, of course, is how we deal with Alpha."

Silence hovered for a moment, and in its depths he heard their understanding. They had no idea how deep into Bug territory they were at this moment, how soon or in what strength other enemy forces might sweep down upon them. But they knew what painful losses they'd already taken and that their enemy had them on his sensors.

And they also knew that the information they possessed might mean victory or defeat in the war against the Bugs . . . and that in this war, defeat and extinction were identical.

"With your permission, Admiral?"

Prescott blinked as the unfamiliar voice cut the silence of awareness. He had to sweep his eyes across the com screens before he found the speaker, and then his eyebrows rose. Lieutenant Eleanor Ivashkin was the most junior officer present for the electronic conference. With Hiithylwaaan's death, SF 62 no longer had a farshathkhanaak, but Ivashkin was the senior of TFNS Corby's surviving gunboat skippers. That made her as close to a farshathkhanaak as they were likely to come, and he nodded for her to continue.

"Admiral," she said, dark eyes intent in a thin, severely attractive face, "everyone in this flotilla knows how important an El Dorado is. And everyone in it knows how deep the shit is. But if we're going to break free of Alpha Force long enough to get back into cloak and get anyone home with our data, we have to take out all their fast ships. Or that's the way it looks to me. Would you agree?"

"I would," he said, sitting very still as he met her eyes on the screen. There was something about the young woman's voice, the set of her shoulders. Something frightening, and he felt his jaw tighten as she nodded slowly.

"In that case, Sir, I think it's time to take a page from the Bugs' book." She drew a deep breath. "Admiral, I request permission to load a full load of FRAMs and show the Bugs what it feels like when someone rams them for a change."

Someone started an instant, instinctive protest, but Prescott's raised hand stilled it just as quickly, and he held Ivashkin's eyes steadily.

"Do you realize what you're saying, Lieutenant?" he asked quietly.

"I do, Sir," she replied in a very level tone. "What's more, I believe I speak for the rest of the gunboat skippers and their crews." She smiled ever so slightly. "We're not going home from this one whatever happens to the rest of the Flotilla, Sir. Whether it's fresh Bug gunboats coming after us, or whether we get picked off trying to make conventional attacks on them, every one of us is going to be destroyed." She shrugged, and her smile grew a bit wider, a bit more crooked. "They warned us when we volunteered that gunboats are 'expendable assets,' Admiral, and I guess our luck just crapped out. But if I'm going to be expended against these monsters, then I damned well want to take as many of them to Hell with me as I can!"

Prescott gazed at her for a seeming eternity, and behind his eyes, his brain raced.

She was right, of course. In another war, against another enemy, perhaps she wouldn't have been, but there were no surrenders, no prisoner of war camps, in this one. And her gunboats weren't the flotilla's only "expendable assets," either.

"Very well, Lieutenant," he heard himself say. "I accept your offer. But you know as well as I do how vulnerable to battlegroup missile fire gunboats are, and the Bugs are undamaged and unshaken, while there are only nine of you, even assuming that you're correct and all the gunboat crews volunteer."

In an odd sort of way, he and Ivashkin were completely alone at that moment. He could feel the shock, the stillness of the other conference attendees, but there was no real surprise. Not in this war.

"I think it's unlikely that you or your fellows can break through those defenses and get close enough to ram. Unless, of course," he smiled very thinly, "we arrange to distract the enemy somehow."

"Andy, are you sure you're doing this for the right reasons?" Melanie Soo's eyes searched Prescott's face intently, her expression tight with concern and waiting grief, as they stood in Concorde's boat bay, and he met her gaze squarely.

"Yes," he said simply, and raised one hand, squeezing her shoulder when she tried to speak again. "I know what you're asking, Melly. And, no, I'm not 'throwing my life away' out of any sense of guilt."

"But-" she began, and he gave her a little shake.

"Ivashkin's gunboats would never get through the Bugs' missile fire alive on their own," he said almost patiently. "They need someone to break trail for them. And what Ivashkin said about expendable assets is true for more than just gunboats under these circumstances."