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ship."
The controller's eyes widened as she saw the size of the new ship as it arced toward the battle. It was
unbelievably huge, twice the size of any Larissan ship herJane'sheld, almost the size of some of the old
Confederation warships she'd read about.
"We have five missile launches from this unknown ship," an electronics officer said. "All aimed at this
ship. Five spoofers launched, no effect. Making counterlaunch."
The Kane's antimissile battery tracked the incoming missiles, blew up four of them. The fifth exploded
close in, and circuits in the war room flashed into black, then secondaries recovered.
"All Charner elements," the controller began, real-izing the battle was lost, then a pulse swept all
frequencies, and she lost contact with her ships.
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The ECM was enough to alert the attacking Cumbrians, though, and they broke contact with the
Laris-sans and went for hyperspace, even as missiles from the great ship exploded around them.
The two Kellys and onevelv, against all orders, stayed in normal space, and counterlaunched. Their first
strike was destroyed, and a second made as the lighter ships attacked the huge Larissan vessel.
One missile blew up close to the monstrous new ship, and very suddenly it, and its two escorts,
disappeared.
"Son of a bitch," a Kelly's CO marveled into his com, realizing he was still alive. "He ran out on us."
"Must've been a mistake, Charner Five," the CO of thevelvsaid. "His, not ours. You want to give me a
hand with these freighters and that other destroyer? It's just lying there, leaking."
"Backing you, Two. I guess we're living right."
The three Cumbrian ships went after the scattering Larissans.
The first of the kilometer-long Naarohn-class battle cruisers that Redruth had dreamed of was a reality.
But no one with the Force could understand why the cruiser had retreated, with victory clear in its sights.
Cumbre/D-Cumbre
"Thank you for dinner," Ho Kang said. She and Danfin Froude were outside her quarters, a small
apartment in a BOQ block.
"Certainly my pleasure," Froude said. "It was nice to not have to talk just about science, which is what
usually happens when I dine with my colleagues. An old widower like myself loses his social graces fairly
easily."
"You could have talked more," Ho said. "Better that than the usual barracks chat. I just realized I haven't
said anything obscene since we went out."
"Yes, well& " Danfin Froude looked around. "It's a very nice night, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"If I weren't three times your age," he said wistfully, "I'd feel like kissing you."
"You're only two-point-seven-four times that," Ho said. "And I wouldn't mind at all."
She slid her glasses into her uniform pocket, then leaned forward. After a time, her arms went around
his, and the kiss went on.
When it finished, Kang found herself breathing a little hard.
"Would you," and her voice was a little throaty, "like to come in?"
Danfin Froude smiled. "I would, Ho. I would very much."
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The huge cruiser appeared again as Cumbre attacked another convoy. This time, it appeared bolder,
and drove the raiders off, with a loss of one Kelly, onevelv.
Aweek later, another convoy attack was broken, and this time there were two of the great ships.
Perhaps there was something in the air.
Haut Jon Hedley sat, nursing a drink in the Shel-burne's main lounge, watching the dancers in a not
unpleasant melancholy and tapping a foot to the band.
A woman approached him. He admired her, graceful in a sleek, simple gown that iridesced slightly from
purple to black at irregular intervals, with an occasional star-flash here and there.A Rentier's wife& no,
not old enough, not hard-looking enough, more likely his daughter. Or mistress. Now why don't I ever
get lucky and&
The woman stopped at his table, and he recognized her, stood hastily.
"Dr. Heiser!"
"HautHedley," the physicist, cohead of the Force's Scientific Analysis Section, said. "May I join you?"
"Of course, of course. What are you drinking?"
"I'm not," she said. "I came here to dance."
"Oh," Hedley said.
"Which is why I came over. It's difficult when you're as tall as I am, finding someone the proper height to
trip the light whatever with."
"Actually," Hedley said, "I suppose being tall& at an early age& is why I never learned to dance. My
coordination took a few years to catch up to my body."
"You don't know how to dance& Jon?"
Hedley shook his head.
"Then," Heiser said firmly, "it's time you learned."
Hedley blinked, then a slow smile came as he stood and held out a hand.
"Maybe it is, Ann. Maybe it is."
"When I was a wee tot," Njangu said thoughtfully, "my mother gave me a present. That didn't happen
very much. Like never. Very expensive it was, and now I don't want to think about where she got the
credits to pay for it."
Garvin listened carefully. It was very seldom Yoshi-taro said anything about his family.
"It was a little spaceship, and when you touched little sensors, it would make a drive whine, and landing
lights would go on, and a little voice would say 'preparing for takeoff,' or landing, or whatever.
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"I loved it a lot," he said. "Which is why I was afraid to take it outside and let the other kids play with it,
or even show it to them, for fear somebody bigger'd take it away from me."
He stared out the window, across the parade ground on Chance Island at Leggett.
"So?"
"Protector Redruth's got a brand-new couple of toys, doesn't he?" Yoshitaro said.
"Oh. That's why he's so damned cautious with those cruisers. Afraid to use them, for fear they'll get
blown apart."
"Maybe"
"That's worth developing a scenario, isn't it, to maybe confirm our buddy Redruth in his caution?"
"Maybe."
"By the way," Garvin said. "Whatever happened to your little spaceship?"
"My father came home drunk and stepped on it." Njangu's voice was flat, as if it didn't matter.
Larix/Off Larix Prime
Now this is real remote control, Ben Dill thought. He hung, in anaksaianodized and given special fittings
and ECM capabilities not to reflect much of anything, from normal light to radar to any other detection
device or so the Force scientists thought about one AU off Larix Prime.
Farther off the planet was his controllingvelv, which hopefully wouldn't be found out by Larissan
detectors.
Puppet strings from Cumbre to thevelv,from thevelvto me, from me to&
Dill's normal control helmet was in a niche beside him. He wore a larger, fatter headpiece that
completely covered his eyes, and held a small box, with a single control stick with a small wheel atop it.
And he wasn't seeing the space around him, but rather the surface of Larix Prime, rushing toward him.
Far below, a tiny reconnaissance drone dived into the planet's atmosphere, over one of its small seas.
Dill flew the drone through the control box, and saw what it saw, through a realtime camera in the
drone's nose.
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