So I'll have to be myself.

"You've probably all heard the jokes going around," she resumed in a more conversational tone of voice. "Like the one about how they've had to add potty training to the curriculum at Brisbane."

The laughter was uncertain, with an undercurrent of resentment. But the miasma of unfocused fear was suddenly gone.

"Yeah," she continued. "All the lifers in this strikegroup-to say nothing of all the ship's company pricks on this goddamned fat-assed monitor-think you people are a big joke. And you know what? They think I'm a joke, too-that I haven't got any more business commanding the squadron than you've got being in one. They think VF-94's idea of flying in formation is two of us going in the same direction on the same day!"

All the uncertainty was gone, and the resentment had come fully into its own, but with no sullenness about it. Their laughter was as real as their anger.

"Well, it happens that I know better. We had a chance to train together back in AP-5, and I know what you can do, green as you are. And now, we're going to prove it to everybody. We're going to prove it by killing so many Bugs that they'll have to take us seriously. And we're going to come back from all that Bugs-killing alive, because we're going to do it the Navy way, by the numbers." My God, is this me talking? she wondered with a small part of her mind. "Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir," they chorused.

"What's that? I can't hear you."

It wouldn't have played with people who'd been around a while. But these pilots weren't far removed from OCS.

"Yes, SIR!"

Irma leaned forward to face Ensign Davra Lennart, who'd had some problems keeping up with rapidly changing tactical configurations.

"Ensign, do you think you're up to it?"

"I . . . I think so, Sir," Leonard said, and Irma smiled.

"I understand Sergeant Kelso is still at Brisbane, Ensign," she said, and Lennart's eyes grew round.

"You mean she was there way back when you were, Sir?"

"Hell, they built the place around her! Yeah, she was my drill instructor, too. And I'll bet I can guess what she used to tell you: 'Lennart, when I give the command 'About face,' I want to hear your pussy snap!'"

It wasn't really much of a guess, as Irma merely had to substitute the name. But Lennart's jaw dropped, and the gales of laughter swept the last vestiges of tension from the ready room. Irma let the guffaws die down, then spoke seriously.

"Well, that's all behind you now. Out here, all that counts is doing the job. And I know you can all do it. You can do it because you have the training, because you have the motivation, and because if any one of you doesn't do it, I'll personally tear him or her a new asshole.

"Now, let's suit up!"

Sorry, Skipper . . . Bruno, I mean, Irma thought as the ready room emptied. I know that wasn't the way you would have done it. But I had to do it any way I could-any way that will make VF-94 live up to your memory today.

Prescott kept his expression one of calm satisfaction as he read the final tally. He hoped none of his staffers had heard his long, relieved sigh.

The fighters had done better than he'd let himself hope. They'd knifed into a gunboat wave that dwarfed those they'd faced four months earlier in AP-5, and killed and killed and gone on killing. Behind them had been the waves of SBMHAWK4 pods with their loads of CAM2s. Little more than two hundred of the gunboats had gotten through that outer barrier-only to be blasted apart by the short-range fire of still more CAM2s, this time from the capital ships' external ordnance racks, as they entered the inner defensive envelope.

The close assault missiles were the capital missile-sized equivalent of a sprint-mode standard missile-a weapon which streaked in at velocities too high for point defense to engage it effectively. Like a normal capital missile, it carried a significantly heavier warhead than missiles fired from lesser launchers, and it also had a longer effective range than standard sprint-mode missiles. It had originally been designed as a means to give capital missile-armed warships, like the TFN's Dunkerque-class battlecruisers, a weapon to use in close-in combat. Once it was available, it hadn't taken long for the Navy to recognize the increased effectiveness which an interception-proof missile could provide for its standard SBMHAWK pods, and the combination had proved deadly to any defending unit in close proximity to a warp point. The use of SBMHAWK pods under shipboard fire control was also one way to permit battle-line units to lay down heavy volumes of missile fire on incoming gunboat waves at extended range, and the CAM2's ability to pierce even starships' point defense like an awl made it an ideal gunboat-killer.

Fifteen gunboats had lasted long enough to perform the horribly familiar FRAM ripple-launch, followed by a suicide run. They'd taken TFNS Banshee with them, which hurt. But no other ship had suffered more than superficial damage, if that.

"Your fighter pilots did very well, Commodore Landrum," he said formally. "Including the young, inexperienced ones."

"Thank you, Admiral. I'll convey that to the CSGs, if I may."

"By all means." Prescott turned to the holo display, now set on system scale. He gave a command, and it zoomed in on Warp Point Five and the array of scarlet icons deploying slowly away from it in support of the fortresses. "It's possible, ladies and gentlemen, that the Bugs don't consider the gunboat strike to have been a total waste."

"Sir?" Mandagalla sounded puzzled. "I realize that they think of gunboats-and their crews-as expendable pawns. But eighteen hundred of them certainly outweigh Banshee and our fighter losses."

"We also had to expend more depletable ordnance that I would have liked," Sandy Ruiz mumbled with the pessimism that went with a logistics officer's billet.

"All true," Prescott acknowledged. "But I suspect that the main objective was simply to keep us occupied while the heavy forces completed their transit into the system. If that's true, they've succeeded."

No one remarked on the mind-set behind such a sacrifice for such an objective. They'd all been fighting Bugs so long that it was no longer a subject for shock, or even for comment.

"But," Prescott continued, "we've also achieved an objective. Amos, am I correct in supposing you've positively identified these hostiles as belonging to the forces facing Fang Zhaarnak?"

"You are, Sir," the spook replied, and indicated the icons in the sphere: twenty-five monitors, thirty-two superdreadnoughts, twenty-five battlecruisers. "It's the same strength as the organic mobile force that's been shuttling back and forth between this system and AP-5 since the start of the campaign. Analysis of the exact mix of ship classes confirms it."

"Very well. We'll dispatch an ICN message immediately to inform Fang Zhaarnak that we've succeeded in drawing away part of his opposition, and ordering him to commence his offensive."

"In the meantime, Sir," Bichet inquired, "shall we advance toward Warp Point Five?"

"Why should we, Jacques?" Prescott asked with a smile. "I'm in no hurry to engage them. The longer we can put off an engagement, the longer we keep them tied down in this system. Furthermore, it would be to our advantage to draw them out to engage us, away from the support of the Warp Point Five fortresses."

The staffers exchanged glances which contained several emotions, of which the uppermost was relief. Not that they'd dreaded seeking battle-that was a formidable Bug force, but over the past eight months they, along with the rest of TF 71, had gained an absolute confidence in themselves and their commander. No, their feelings concerned that commander himself. They hadn't been certain Raymond Prescott was psychologically able to forego an opportunity to seek battle with his brother's killers, however advantageous such restraint might be.