"Not a single casualty on our side," de Bertholet breathed, almost reverently.

"And now," Antonov said, still unmoved, "as soon as the fighters have rearmed, I want them launched against the second gunboat strike force."

For a moment, silence reigned. No one had been thinking of that other incoming wave of five hundred gunboats.

"Ah, shall we signal the carrier commanders to expedite the rearming, Sir?" Stovall inquired.

"Nyet," Antonov snorted. "They have enough on their minds right now without having pompous admirals and officious staff zalyotniki tell them their jobs. They'll get the fighters turned around as fast as it can be done." He scowled. "Unfortunately, by then there won't be time for them to intercept the enemy at long range. So, Commander," he continued without a break, turning to de Bertholet, "I think it's time to launch the reserve fighters. And yes, Commodore Stovall, I know there's a risk involved. But risk avoidance has become a luxury—one which is going to be in shorter and shorter supply." He paused, considering. "On reflection, I think we'll hold back the fighters that are now being rearmed until the reserve fighters have returned, and then send them all out in a combined strike. They've just conducted two long-range attacks without a break, and pilot exhaustion is a factor we don't need."

The hundred and seventy-six fighters of the reserve were off the mark quickly enough to intercept the second wave of gunboats ten light-minutes out, where they killed seventy-five of them with FM3s before returning to their carriers.

"We're only going to have time for one more strike, Sir," Stovall reminded Antonov as the rearming neared completion.

"Da," the admiral acknowledged. "And they won't be able to get all the remaining gunboats from outside AFHAWK range." He thought in black abstraction for a heartbeat or two. "After they've expended their FM3s, I authorize one, repeat one pass with lasers. Afterwards they're to return directly. We can't afford heavy fighter losses at this stage. There'll be no unrestricted dogfighting, as dearly as I know the young fools would like it." He turned away and gazed into, and beyond, the plot. "The young fools," he repeated in a voice that held infinite sadness.

The gunboats were three light-minutes out when a hurricane of missiles from Antonov's still-undiminished fighter force blasted two hundred and sixty-six of them out of existence. But the others came on, and this time the fighters didn't wheel to flee. They drove in, taking so little time to close that they lost only a few of their number to the AFHAWKs the Bugs were finally able to bring into play. Then the two forces interpenetrated at an unthinkable relative velocity, and that instant of interpenetration was marked by a brief but searingly intense exchange of energy weapon fire in which a hundred and twenty gunboats died. Then, too fast for thought, the fighters were through and commencing the turning maneuver that would take them back to their carriers.

"Sixty-seven fighters lost," Stovall observed grimly as the last squadrons reported in.

"But only thirty-nine gunboats left," de Bertholet breathed. "And still they come on!"

It was true. No more discouraged by losses than any other force of nature, the Bugs drove into the warships' defensive envelopes. Five managed to make attacks before the AFHAWKs obliterated them; none of those attacks even penetrated shields to scratch material defenses.

At the moment of the last gunboat's demise, a strange release of emotion swept Colorado's flag bridge. Stovall caught himself cheering with the rest, and turned an abashed face to Antonov. Amazingly, the admiral was actually smiling a little. He let the smile linger a second, as though savoring it like the last rose of the season, before relinquishing it.

"They won't make that kind of mistake again in coordinating their attacks," he rumbled, shaking his head slowly.

"But, Sir... eleven hundred gunboats!"

"True. But to get them, we shot away ninety percent of our FM3s. The remaining ones won't last long when the next gunboat wave comes."

"If there is one, Sir. Maybe they've shot their bolt."

"You believe that about as much as I do, Commodore. No, they'll be back. And when they do, our fighters will have to meet them armed with short-ranged munitions. Which means they'll have to get through the gunboats' AFHAWK envelope before they can even use their weapons. And when they do get to fire, they'll be doing it at the gunboats' own most effective range."

Stovall started to open his mouth, then closed it and looked around the flag bridge. The shouting was over, but the cheerful back-slapping and story-comparing was still in progress.

Antonov laid a restraining hand on his arm. "Let them enjoy it while they can, Commodore," he said gently, in a voice no one would ever have expected to hear from Ivan the Terrible. "They'll only have a little while."

The fleet had not anticipated such savage losses. The new, longer-ranged missiles of the enemy's attack craft offset the gunboats' defensive missile capability, and the timing which had sent the first two strikes in separately had denied them mutual support.

But none of the destroyed units had come from the Fleet's organic gunboat strength; all had come from one of the adjacent systems, and despite the two botched attacks, a total of almost three thousand remained.

The Fleet would use them more wisely henceforth.

"That's a hundred and sixty kills," de Bertholet declared, looking at the board.

"So," Midori Kozlov said quietly, "that only leaves eleven hundred and forty."

They'd detected the thirteen hundred incoming gunboats twenty hours after the destruction of the earlier waves. This time, Flag Bridge hadn't been blanketed by an aghast silence. It was as though these people had moved beyond all such emotions by now. They simply functioned as modular components of a machine whose purpose was survival.

Antonov's last FM3-armed fighters had gone out and performed what everyone knew would be their last cost-free slaughter. Now they were on the way back, to be rearmed with external laser packs. As they drew closer, the admiral and his staff held a hurried colloquy.

"We can turn them around in time to launch all six hundred and forty remaining fighters for another long-range strike, Sir," de Bertholet reported. "Perhaps we could simultaneously engage with SBMs. They weren't designed as gunboat-killers, I know. But it can be done. And keeping the enemy as busy as possible would help compensate for the fighters' lack of FM3s."

"I've considered that, Commander, but our stocks of SBMs are low. We used many of them against the Bug defensive force that lured me into this system." Antonov's voice remained level as he implicitly assumed full responsibility. "Remember also the SBM's greater vulnerability to point defense." The admiral smiled at de Bertholet's crestfallen look. "Nevertheless, your idea of coordinated missile and fighter strikes has merit. We will hold the fighters back until the enemy is within capital missile range. We still have an abundant supply of those."

So it was that the Bug gunboats approached to within fifteen light-seconds of Second Fleet before the fighters—all that Antonov still possessed—swooped in. The Bugs had a brief time to take advantage of the unaccustomed opportunity to use AFHAWKs, and they made the most of it, killing two hundred and sixteen fighters. But then the deadly little craft were in among them, and swarms of capital missiles came with them, overloading point defense that might otherwise have engaged fighters at what passed for knife range in space combat. The fighters took fearful vengeance, their finely coordinated squadrons going through the serried ranks of gunboats like mowing machines. They slaughtered nine hundred while the missiles that weaved through the defensive laser-lattice claimed another hundred and fifty. On Second Fleet's view screens, as revealed by remote pickups, the rapid-fire immolations resembled a dense swarm of fireflies.