"No." Sommers' quiet monosyllable wiped the chief of staffs face clean of every expression but bewilderment. "Our other groups are all closer to it than we are—and we have no knowledge of the Bugs' strength in their vicinity." She shook her head. "No, we'll continue to try to draw the Bugs after us. Order all other elements of the flotilla to clear the system ASAP."

For a moment that stretched, Hafezi stared at her. Then he spoke levelly. "Admiral, have you considered the effect this order will have on our personnel's morale? There's no way we can keep the rumor from circulating through this ship that a warp point's been found."

And that I'm slamming that doorway out of Hell shut in their faces. She forced herself to smile. "Feridoun, you've been a naval officer long enough to know that the only antidote to rumor is forthrightness." (Although, her familiar imp reminded her, some officers never learned it.) "I'll address the crew, and have it patched through to the other three ships. I'll tell them the situation, and explain to them that this is the way to maximize the chance of survival for some of our people, and that it is therefore our duty."

"With great respect, Admiral, are you sure it's our duty? Are you certain this doesn't go just a little beyond it? Is it possible that you're... trying to prove something?"

"I'll ignore that last question, Commodore. But as to the nature of our duty... yes, this is my interpretation of it. And my interpretation is the one that counts, isn't it?"

"Of course, Admiral. I'll give the necessary orders." Hafezi turned to go, then paused and faced her, and a smile flashed in the beard he'd managed through everything to keep as precisely sculpted as ever. (She recalled the Prophet's admonition to the faithful to grow beards so as not to be mistaken for Romans but to trim them so as not to be mistaken for Jews.) "By the way, I meant it: you were right and I was wrong, and those who do get out of this will owe their lives entirely to you." Then he was gone before she could think of a response.

The battlegroups led by Thémis and Belvedera had transited the newly discovered warp point, and both times Jamaica had rung with cheering that had promptly subsided as they'd all gone back to awaiting the approaching gunboats. Finally, the red and green icons crawled together in the holotank, and time seemed to accelerate.

Twenty-odd gunboats swept in from the blackness, sprinkling the battlegroup with missile fire that point defense could deal with. Then they came on through a storm of second-generation close assault missiles, seeking self-immolation. Three of them survived long enough to find it.

A starship's first line of defense against collisions—intended and otherwise—is its electromagnetic shields. Its second line of defense is its space-distorting drive field, without which any physical impact at such velocities would be totally and spectacularly fatal. It is only after both of these are overloaded that the occupants are affected in any way, for any violence—however horrific—that expends itself against them has no physical medium through which to transmit shock waves to the ship itself. Thus Sommers, Hafezi and the rest of the flag bridge's complement sat in their cocooning shock frames and felt no concussion as the gunboat that had approached far too swiftly to be seen was consumed. They also saw nothing, for the viewscreen went black at the moment of impact. When it came back on, a few bits of still white-hot debris could briefly be glimpsed as they spun away and were swallowed by infinity.

"Roma got two kamikazes, Sir," Hafezi reported. "Fortunately, there was an interval between them, and there was no physical damage. A near thing, though; she took a lot more shield overload than we did."

"Tell them to get the shields restored as quickly as possible," Sommers ordered. "Same goes for this ship. The next wave—" she waved at the plot "—isn't going to be nearly as easy."

Hafezi moved away. But he was intercepted by the duty com rating. (In a quiet voice; he'd had words with them about blurting things out.) He turned back to Sommers with a frown.

"Admiral, we've gotten a signal from Captain Kabilovic. They've detected a Bug gunboat force vectoring in on the carriers and freighters. In light of the overwhelming probability that they've been detected, he's asking for permission to launch his fighters."

She had to smile. "Yes, that's the way Milos would put it. Permission granted, of course." She sighed deeply. "Well, Feridoun, there's no further point in trying to draw the Bugs off them, is there? Get us headed for the warp point at max. We'll rendezvous with Milos on our way."

For an absurd instant, Hafezi actually looked embarrassed by the fact that the course of action he'd recommended had turned out to be the only viable one. But it only lasted an instant. Then he was off, and Sommers was left looking at the holotank in which the Bug battle-cruiser formations at the entry warp point had moved off station and proceeded to intercept this newly detected group of prey.

Even Hafezi was looking a little disheveled—he'd developed a nervous habit of running his fingers through his beard—as they approached their rendezvous with the carriers.

It had been a terrifying chase. For a while it had looked as though the battle-cruisers that had been pursuing them—faster than Bug battle-cruisers had a right to move—would be able to swerve aside and intercept the carriers at a time when the fighters were otherwise occupied. But then the third survey battlegroup, led by TFNS Imperieuse, struggling to reach the warp point, had maneuvered into the Bugs' blind zone and given them a serious load of missiles up the ass. The subsequent degradation in Bug fire control suggested that they'd gotten the command ship—something had to go right every now and then—and the subsequent demolition of the unreasonably fast battle-cruisers had followed as a matter of course.

Stung, the Bugs had diverted their available gunboats to the new threat, and TFNS Caio Duilio had vanished in multiple fireballs of kamikaze attacks. But Sommers had used the time that had been won and was now coming into datalink range of the carriers—

"Incoming gunboats!"

With practiced precision, they all flung themselves into their command chairs and locked their shock frames. Sommers and Hafezi had a chance to make quick eye contact before the flood of data and horror flowed over them.

The gunboats were barely even bothering with extended-range missile fire anymore. With nightmarish persistence, they sought out ramming targets, and this time they came in a wave that swamped the little battlegroup's defenses. With almost physical pain, Sommers watched the readouts that told of Uzbek's cataclysmic destruction, of damage to Roma and Marblehead, of one course after another of Jamaica's own shields giving up in showers of sparks and clouds of acrid smoke as their generators overloaded...

"Incoming!"

As though struck by a war-god's hammer, Jamaica shuddered as a gunboat's death agony smashed down the last of her shields and rended hull metal. Sommers barely heard the apocalyptic noise, for her vision began to dim as she was whiplashed back and forth within the life-saving confines of her shock frame. Then came another hammer-stroke, and another, and another...

Her next awareness was of shouting that seemed to come from a great distance. She shook her head to clear it, tasting the brassy tang of blood. Vision returned, and she found that the shouts hadn't been coming from so far away after all. In fact, Hafezi's face was only a few inches from hers, and those of the medics crowding in behind him weren't much further. At first she thought the ship was still shuddering, but it was only Hafezi, shaking her.