"Why tell me now?" he demanded.

"Because they'll never get away with it! But if they try, Anu will know someone gave them the code, and I'll be one of the ones who get killed for it!"

"And you think there's something I can do about it? You're a bigger fool than I thought, Ramman!"

"No, listen! I've thought about it, and there's a way," Ramman said eagerly. "A way that'll help both of us!"

"How? No, wait. I see it. You tell me, I trap their courier, and we pass it off as a counter-intelligence ploy, is that it?"

"Exactly!"

"Hmmmmmm." Ganhar stared down at his holo map, then shook his head. "No, there's a better way," he said slowly. "You could go ahead and make the drop. We could give them the code, then wait for them with everybody in armor and all our equipment on line and wipe them out—gut them once and for all."

"Yes. Yes!" Ramman said eagerly.

"Very neat," Ganhar said, trying to picture what would follow such an overwhelming triumph. Nergal's people would be neutralized, but what would happen then? He'd be a hero, but even as a hero, his life would hang in the balance, for Inanna knew how he thought of the "Chief." Perhaps Anu knew, as well. And he remembered his other thoughts, how his own actions had come to sicken him. And he still didn't know what had prompted Nergal's people to start their offensive, even if he knew how they meant to end it. But if he and Ramman trapped them, they could end the long, covert war. He'd have no more need to slaughter innocents... not that there weren't enough Kirinals and Girrus to go on doing it for the fun of it... .

"When are you supposed to make the drop?" he asked finally.

"I already have," Ramman admitted.

"I see," Ganhar said, and nodded absently as he opened a desk drawer. "I'm glad you told me about this. I'm finally going to be able to do something effective about the situation on this planet, Ramman, and I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you."

His hand came out of the drawer, and Ramman gaped at the small, heavy energy pistol it held. He was still gaping when Ganhar blew his head to paste.

BOOK FOUR

Chapter Twenty

Jiltanith and Rohantha settled into their flight couches and checked their computers with extraordinary care, for the stakes were higher this night than they had ever been before, and not just for them.

They were not in a fighter, but in a specially modified pinnace. Larger even than one of the twenty-man cutters, the pinnace (one of only two Nergal carried) was crammed with stealth systems, three times the normal missile load, and the extra computers linked to the two cutters and matching pair of fighters beside it in the launch bay. A third fighter sat behind them while Hanalat and Carhana carried out their own pre-flight checks. Even if Stalking-Horse was a total success, it was going to make a terrible hole in Nergal's equipment list.

Jiltanith nodded, satisfied with the reports of her own flight systems and the ready signals flowing through her cross links to Rohantha's equipment, and opened a channel to flight operations.

"Ready," was all she said.

"Good hunting," a voice responded, and she smiled down at her console, for the response came not from Hector but from Colin MacIntrye. Since admitting he'd chosen her to succeed him, he seemed to have been constantly at hand, almost hovering there, and she knew he'd resigned himself to letting her fly this mission without really accepting it. She thought about saying something back to him, but their new relationship—whatever it was—remained too fragile, too unexplored. There would be time for that later. She hoped.

Instead, she lifted the pinnace off the hangar deck and led the procession of vehicles up the long, sloping tunnel. Freedom was upon her once more... and the hunger. But it was different this time. Her hunger was less dark and consuming, and there was no simmering tension between her and her weaponeer.

More than that, she was heavier, less fleet of wing. Slower and shorter-ranged than a fighter in vacuum, the pinnace was actually faster in atmosphere where its drive, thanks to its heavier generators, could bull through air resistance without being slowed to the same extent. But it had no atmospheric control surfaces for use in the stealth regime, and its very power made it slower to accelerate or decelerate, less maneuverable... and harder to hide.

They floated up the shaft, alert for any last-minute warning from Nergal's scan crews. But there were no alarms, and the small craft slipped undetected into the open atmosphere. Calm, cool thoughts flowed to the computers, and they turned to the east.

Under the false tranquillity of her surface thoughts, Jiltanith's mind whirred like yet another computer, probing even now for any last-minute awareness of error. She expected to find none, but she could not stop searching, and that irritated her. It wasn't the mark of the confident person she liked to believe she was.

For all the equipment committed to Stalking-Horse, there were only four people involved in the mission. She and Rohantha in the pinnace; Hanalat and Carhana in the only manned fighter. But that was all right... assuming she and Hector had accurately gauged Anu's new dispositions. If they hadn't...

The use of the pinnace was the part that bothered her most, she admitted to herself, leading the procession towards their target at just under mach one. Its designers had never intended it for the cut and thrust of close combat. Its single energy gun was a toy beside the powerful multiple batteries of a fighter, and though her electronics were much more capable and her upgraded missile armament gave her a respectable punch at longer range, she knew what would happen if she was forced into short-range combat with a proper fighter.

Yet only a pinnace had the power plant, speed, and cargo capacity they needed. She could only trust in Rohantha and her stealth systems and pray.

She stiffened as a warning tingled in her link to Rohantha. Hostile fighters—two of them—to the south. They were higher and moving faster than her own formation, degrading the performance of their stealth systems, and had she piloted a fighter of her own, Jiltanith would have asked nothing better than to scream up after them in pursuit. As it was, she stifled a sudden desire to cram on power and run and held her breath as her mind joined with Rohantha's, following the enemy's movements. They swept on upon their own mission and faded from the passive scanners.

Jiltanith made herself relax, trying to forget her dread of which new innocents they were to kill. She altered course minutely, swinging north of Ottawa before turning back on a south-southwest heading, and managed to push such thoughts to the back of her mind. The need for purposeful concentration helped, and her navigation systems purred to her, the controls of her pinnace caressed her like a lover, and the target area swept closer with every moment. Soon. Soon...

Shirhansu yawned, then took a quick turn around the camouflaged bunker. If Ganhar was right (and his analysts had done a bang-up job so far), they might see some more action soon. She hoped so. The shoot-out in La Paz, what there'd been of it, had been a relief despite the frustration of knowing so many enemies had escaped, and this time she'd left Tarban behind. Of course, there were always risks, but her own position was well protected, and she had plenty of firepower on hand this time. In fact, it would be—

"We're getting something, 'Hansu!"