Beside him, Taakh pointed a finger at the communications tech. "Yae rill decry't it at runce," he ordered.

"I'm not sure we can, Your Eminence," the tech said carefully. "This sounds like a Chryselli code, and I don't think—"

"Dae yae kestion ne?" Taakh cut him off.

"There's no need for a decryption," Galway spoke up quickly. "Lathe is going to go for it."

"Dae yae s'eak Chryselli encry'ts?" Taakh snapped, shifting his glare to Galway.

"No, Your Eminence, of course not," Galway said, standing his ground. "But I don't need to. I heard the tone of Lathe's voice. He's suspicious, but the possible gains are too tempting for him to pass up."

For a long moment the Ryq stared down his long, openmouthed snout at him. Then, deliberately, he turned back to the tech. "Yae rill decry't it at runce," he repeated.

The tech's mouth twitched. "As you command, Your Eminence," he said.

Taakh turned back to Galway. "How dae yae intend tae learn their 'lans?"

"Unfortunately, at this point we can't," Galway said. "Between their bug stompers and other countermeasures we're not going to get any kind of eavesdropping devices within five klicks of any of them."

"Then rhy is yaer spy not here?"

"It would have been too risky to put in the spy here in their own territory," Galway said. "There'll be time enough for the switch once they're on Khala and too busy to notice any small discrepancies in his behavior or mannerisms."

"Yae are 'ery certain."

Galway hid a grimace. No, he wasn't certain at all.

But it had to work. It wasn't just his own life hanging by a thread here, but also the safety of his world.

Neither Taakh or anyone else had explicitly stated that Plinry would pay the price for any failures, but Galway knew how to read between the lines. "I understand these blackcollars, Your Eminence," he said as calmly as he could. "They are going to go to Khala; and when they do, we'll have the solution we're looking for."

"'Erha's," the Ryq said, clearly not convinced. But he had his orders, and for the moment, at least, Galway was in charge. "Rhat dae re dae next?"

Galway hunched his shoulders slightly. In many ways, this next step was the hardest of them all. "We wait."

Skyler and Mordecai listened in silence as Lathe laid out the situation. "So you think this is it?" Skyler asked when he'd finished.

"Yes, I do," Lathe said. "A tac center is the kind of prize that only comes around once a lifetime."

"Which means it's probably some kind of trap," Skyler said.

"Oh, without a doubt," Lathe agreed calmly. "The point is that this is exactly the sort of thing Galway would set up: challenging, yet ultimately possible."

"If Galway's the one in charge," Skyler warned. "You have any idea what kind of trap it is?"

"Not yet," Lathe said. "But I'm not sure it matters. It's an opportunity we can't afford to pass up."

"And Galway would know that," Skyler pointed out. "But even assuming we can pull this off, it'll take more than a resounding victory on a place as far off as Khala."

"I know," Lathe agreed. "That's why while I'm on Khala, you'll be taking a team to Earth."

Skyler's eyes widened slightly, but he took it in stride. "Where?"

"Back to Denver," Lathe said. "By now Anne Silcox should have her new Phoenix organization up and running, and with the supplies of Whiplash we left them they should have the whole government and Security system riddled with moles. It'll be the perfect place to stage a major uprising."

"Especially with Aegis Mountain in the neighborhood," Skyler said thoughtfully. "I wonder if she's gone back in there since we left."

"Depends on how much she trusts her new recruits," Lathe said. "I don't think she'll push it, though, especially considering that Whiplash was about the only thing of value we found in there."

"At least, the only thing accessible," Skyler agreed with a grimace. "Hopefully Kanai hasn't let anyone try to bull their way through doomsdayed doors."

"You'll find out soon enough," Lathe said. "I want Mordecai, Spadafora, and Caine with me. You can have anyone else."

"You sure you don't want a bigger team?" Skyler asked, frowning.

"We do theoretically have this Tactor Shaw and his blackcollars to draw on," Lathe reminded him.

"Besides, we're certainly not going to take the tac center with a massed blackcollar charge."

"Okay," Skyler said, clearly still not entirely convinced. "In that case, I'll take Hawking and O'Hara. And Jensen."

Lathe and Mordecai exchanged glances. "You sure you want Jensen?" Lathe asked.

"He's fine," Skyler said firmly. "He's just not yet over what happened on Argent, that's all."

"I understand that," Lathe said. "The fact remains that he's become a little ... unpredictable."

"He's fine," Skyler said again. "Besides, he's got a lot of specialized skills that none of the rest of us have, not to mention being our best pilot. We may need him."

Lathe shrugged. "Okay, it's your call. In that case, are you sure you don't want a larger group yourself?

We do have those new six-man drop pods."

"I'll theoretically have Kanai and Phoenix to draw on," Skyler said. "Besides, I don't want to leave Plinry any more undefended than it already is. If this works, the Ryq are likely to be very unhappy with us."

"There's that," Lathe agreed soberly. "We'll need to make sure we've got something in place before we go."

"I'll get Haven and De Vries to cover that," Skyler said. "But since you mention the six-man pods, let me go ahead and take Flynn, too."

"You want Pittman or Braune, too?" Lathe asked. "They know the area, at least a little."

"No, Flynn will do," Skyler said, looking innocently over at Mordecai. "If I can't have Mordecai, I can at least get his bag of bizarre tricks."

"There's nothing bizarre about any of them," Mordecai protested mildly. "It's all simple, clean combat technique."

Lathe suppressed a smile. If there were any two blackcollars in his group that were a study in contrasts, it was Skyler and Mordecai. Where Skyler was big, bluff, and pleasantly garrulous, Mordecai was small, wiry, and seldom spoke.

But when he did, he was usually worth listening to. "You've been very quiet, Mordecai. What do you think about all this?"

"I was just thinking about a possibility neither of you has mentioned," the smaller man said. "Namely that this could be nothing more than a ploy to split us up and send us charging off in all directions."

"To what end?" Skyler asked.

Mordecai shrugged. "They've tried twice to beat us as a group," he said. "Maybe they think breaking us into smaller chunks will help."

"If they do, they're going to be sorely disappointed," Skyler rumbled. "Even with Caine's trainees aboard we didn't exactly constitute a major assault force last year in Denver."

"I know," Mordecai said. "I'm just saying that if we do take this on, it may be the last mission for some of us."

"Maybe even for all of us," Lathe said quietly.

There was a moment of silence. "Well, no one promised we'd live forever," Skyler said at last. "I vote we go for it."

Mordecai half lifted a hand. "Agreed."

"Thank you," Lathe said, nodding to each in turn. "All right, we've got six weeks to prepare before Lepkowski and the Novak get back. Let's get started."

Six weeks later, to Galway's quiet relief, Lathe, Caine, and a group of blackcollars boarded a shuttle at the Capstone 'port and headed into the sky to rendezvous with the massive Nova-class warship waiting for them. An hour later, the Novak left orbit and headed for the stars.

"Hor long?" Taakh asked as he and Galway watched the departure on the tracking monitor.

"About eight and a half days," Galway told him. "More, if Lepkowski has other stops to make along the way."