etely concealed and armored.
     "The first of the carriers is already operational," Thrakhath announced
proudly,  "and undergoing final testing in the far reaches of Hari space far
beyond any prying eyes of the Confederation."
     He  looked back  at  Jukaga as if saying that  it was  also  beyond the
prying eyes of anyone else.
     "What is its capability?" Vak asked.
     "When fully  loaded it carries three eighties and six eights  of strike
craft and fighters, launching  from six separately contained bays.  Its ship
defense capabilities include four eights of mass driver quad batteries, four
eights  of  neutron and  laser  batteries, and six gatling launch tubes  for
anti-torpedo defense. It has three concentric layers  of interior armor, and
all six  bays are self  contained. Thus we can take hits on three, even four
bays and keep on fighting shifting fighters from one part of the ship to the
other  by internal access corridors.  As you  can well  guess, the  material
required to build this carrier equals over six times that of  a normal fleet
attack carrier. In addition we are building more than eighty escort ships of
frigate, destroyer and cruiser design. That  is why we suffer the  transport
shortage now. More than two hundred of them were committed to the hauling of
all that was needed from the Empire to the far side of Hari."
     He looked around the room and saw the nods of understanding.
     I  think, my comrades," he  said smoothly,  "that is  why  you can also
understand why my clan alone took full responsibilities for the construction
of these ships. We had to  maintain  the tightest of security. The knowledge
of this leaking to our enemies would give them time to analyze our new ships
and perhaps find a counter."
     He stared defiantly at Jukaga.
     "That is why  my clan placed such  security around the project and kept
it hidden for so long."
     Jukaga wanted to reply with a challenge, that it also insured the power
of the Imperial throne  with such ships  solely  in its hands,  but realized
that now was not  the time, even though the subtle insult to the other clans
had not gone unnoticed.
     "Then  commit  it  now and block this human offensive," Buktag'ka said,
pounding the table excitedly.
     Jukaga looked at  Buktag'ka and  wanted to  laugh at the boot  licker's
enthusiasm.
     "That is not the way to win war," Thrakhath replied, an edge of sarcasm
in  his voice revealing his sense that though Buktag'ka was a family leader,
he was  still of a  lower cast.  Buktag'ka quickly  looked around the  room,
hoping for  some sign of support and  saw nothing but mocking  stares and he
swallowed his rage.
     "In eighty and forty days four  more carriers of the  Hakaga class will
be ready for  their operational  tests, in  three eighty and forty days,  we
will have a full fleet of eight and four Hakaga carriers fully operational.
     "That means we will have a need for over forty  eighties of fighter and
strike craft pilots. In spite  of what the Baron might think, that  is why I
had fully intended to reveal this information to you today. The first ship's
fighter crews were drawn from my clan, but as new ships come on line we will
need  to  draw the best pilots from all clans out  of the training academies
and off existing  fleet ships. All of your hrai, your clans, are to share in
the glory of this new fleet."
     He looked  over at  the Baron and  suppressed  a scornful laugh. Though
indeed the Baron had pressured him into revealing the project  too  soon, it
was amusing to not let him think so.
     "Only  then will I release  them, when the entire fleet is ready, using
them to cleave straight through the human defenses. Our war simulations have
gone  over  the plan  repeatedly and our projection is that at least half of
these new ships  will survive to  reach Earth, while in the process smashing
the  Confederation Fleet in one final climatic battle. Within one hour after
gaining orbit above their home  planet either the  Terran Confederation will
surrender or  more than one eight  and a half hundred  of our fighters  will
deliver antimatter bombs, leaving the planet a burned out cinder.
     "The tides of  this war have shifted back and forth for more than  half
my reign,  the  Emperor interjected,  his  voice  commanding total  silence.
"Before I return to  my  ancestors,  I wish to see my grandson destroy these
low born scum and the ball of offal that they call their world."
     "I am  moved  to  joy by this plan  of Thrakhath," Jukaga  interrupted,
"however, it  is  at least eighty days,  more likely two of eighty days till
five of the  new ships are ready, and three eighty and a half days until the
other seven  he believes are required  for  victory are operational. Yet you
can all see that even if it  is not a fatal blow, the humans will succeed in
penetrating  our defenses  and  sowing a wave of destruction within the next
five  of eight  days. In this penetration, they will cripple  our logistical
support, which will still  be needed to keep Prince  Thrakhath's  new  ships
supplied  in their drive towards  victory.  If that  is crippled  the  final
offensive to Earth is crippled."
     He paused  for a moment to look at Thrakhath  who was forced to  nod in
agreement.
     "We  have  heard  Talmak  suggest  that  the  frontier  be  temporarily
abandoned and all defenses  pulled into the center,"  Jukaga  said reviewing
the earlier suggestions, "but we cannot allow such a stain on our honor, nor
can the Caxki clan, which owns many of the frontier  worlds,  allow it.  Our
Prince  has explained  how  a counter offensive into Enigma or through Munro
towards Earth  is difficult if not impossible due to the question of supply,
and that  the humans  might  ignore the threat anyhow  and still ravage  our
worlds."
     He took a deep breath and looked around the room.
     Now  it was to the true heart of  the meeting. Thrakhath  had  revealed
what his  clan  had  been planning,  but  no real  suggestions  as to how to
overcome the crisis of the moment.
     "You have brought me out of exile saying that with  my understanding of
humans I might suggest a third way and I have such away  which will bring us
victory."
     "And that is?" Buktag'ka asked, glad that it was obvious that soon this
talk would be over and the mid-day feasting could begin.
     "Sue for an armistice and promise peace."
     A roar of disbelief thundered from all the clan leaders.
     Jukaga waited for several minutes for the anger to die down and thought
for a moment that  more than one clan leader would  call for a blood duel to
avenge what they saw as an obscene slight of honor.
     "You  have been driven mad by your reading of  human books of filth and
weakness," Buktag'ka roared, coming up to Jukaga's side as if to strike him.
     There was a  moment of silence as all  waited for the ritual first blow
to  be struck across Jukaga's face and then all turned to look at the screen
behind which the Emperor sat.
     The Emperor was laughing.
     "Tell  us your plan Baron, I think I  see its merit even  though I know
the gods will not be pleased."
     "But even the gods are not immune to bribery,"  Jukaga said, a smile of
cunning  lighting his features.  "When my plan works, and is finished, Sivar
will be more than pleased with the final offerings."
     And in  the doing  of  it,  I will  be  pleased  as  well,  when Prince
Thrakhath's victory becomes mine instead, the Baron thought with a smile.


        CHAPTEъ ONE

     Captain Ian "Hunter" St. John crossed through the final nav check point
and turned in  on attack  approach. The lone  habitable  planet of the Munro
system was  now straight ahead. A  flurry of matter-antimatter bombs snapped
across the world, winking brightly even from thirty thousand clicks out, the
bombardment suppressing the Kilrathi ground defense systems. He clicked into
the  Marine  channel  and  listened  for  a moment  as the  second and third
divisions started their descent into their landing points. Ian switched back
to his main channel.
     "ъed squadron, arm all torpedoes, Blue and Green squadrons, keep  close
in for support. Let's get the carrier!"
     Off  his  port  quarter he saw  the Yellow, Orange, and Black squadrons
comprising the  rest of the attack group fanning out into the standard delta
formation, while the red squadron Broadsword bombers lined up for a  classic
anvil attack,  swinging out to hit the Kilrathi carrier on its  X, Y,  and Z
axis.
     They were going  to lose people in the next  couple of minutes, but the
light carrier straight ahead was going to be dead as well.
     He did a quick scan on to the main tactical commlink net to check in on
how the  rest of  the  fight was going, ready to  divert part of his  attack
force, which  was  damn  near overwhelming,  if  something  was  going wrong
somewhere else.
     The  Marines  were going into their drop right on  schedule, no serious
opposition, the landing area already saturated by the heavy bombardment from
four destroyers and a cruiser which had turned a thousand square  kilometers
of the  primary landing point  into  scorched rubble. What was left  of  the
Kilrathi bases on the planet continued to glow from the antimatter strikes.
     This was a raid on one Kilrathi base which was going like clockwork and
that alone was troubling. Across the last thirty years Munro, ever since its
seizure by the Kilrathi during the open stages of  the war, had been  a long
standing  goal for recapture. Beyond the simple fact that  it was once human
territory it  also stood  as  the  primary approach  into the heart  of  the
Empire.  Conversely,  from this base the Kilrathi stood astride a  main jump
point terminus into the middle  regions of the Confederation  and from there
the main jump line straight back to Sirius and then on to  Earth. It was the
front door to both the Empire and the Confederation. A lot of good ships and
a hell of a lot of personnel had died in six  attempts to retake the planet.
Now it was falling like a ripe apple into their laps.
     He wondered how the  rest of the assault plan was going. This attack on
Munro,  though crucial, was actually  not the primary goal  of Operation ъed
Three. They were to act as a focal  point for the Kilrathi to counter-strike
on and thus be drawn  away  from the main thrust of  the  offensive.  Across
fifteen hundred light years  of  frontline  that divided the Empire from the
Confederation, eight Task Groups,  each  comprised of  an escort  carrier, a
light cruiser, and four destroyers  were  poised to leap deep into the Heart
of  the Empire. Their mission  was to  strike far into  the rear to  destroy
convoys,  shatter  bases, and smash construction  yards.  It  was a tactical
innovation evolving  out of Vukar Tag which appeared to be bearing  fruit, a
constant harassing of the enemy that some claimed  was actually beginning to
wear the cats down.  He could only  hope that the politicians were not about
to blow it as latest rumors indicated they would.
     "Hunter, we got traffic, vectoring in on 032 degrees your heading true,
plus 060 degrees."
     Hunter looked at his short range tactical scan and saw the swarm of red
blips snap on.
     "Blue squadron, you on them?"
     "Lone Wolf here, sir, vectoring in, you're covered."
     "Get that double ace strip, boy, good hunting."
     "Don't worry, you'll get your bottle of scotch off me when I do,"  Lone
Wolf replied. "Wish it was a carrier in my sights instead."
     Hunter chuckled to himself. Admiral Tolwyn's nephew was eager for  this
fight and he could understand why.
     "The kid's been going nuts trying to get that strip."
     Hunter spared a  quick  glance to Griffin, his  co-pilot,  and  nodded.
Kevin Tolwyn's escort carrier, Tarawa, had  joined up with the  strike group
after the mission had already  set out. In the skirmishes leading into Munro
young Tolwyn had drawn a blank hand in half a dozen fights and was eager for
a  kill  to round up his number  to  ten. Such eagerness  could get  a pilot
wasted but Hunter could understand it.
     Hunter  looked  back down at  his  computer information  screen,  which
showed  the other  two  Broadsword  strike groups lining into  position. All
three groups  hit their jump-off marks precisely and started in on the final
attack.
     "ъange one thousand clicks, speed down to 110 kps," and Griffin started
the  chant, marking off range and speed. The computer  could do the  job  as
well, but a machine  could always glitch off at a key moment and besides, he
preferred Griffin's soft feminine voice.
     Hunter watched straight  ahead, the planet filling space before him. He
could  make  out a sliver  of  reflected  light,  standing  out  against the
blue-green ocean below. The light shifted into a thin pencil-like form.
     "Target is turning, following standard evasive maneuver alpha," Griffin
announced, "coming about to a heading 002 positive 80 degrees."
     "ъight on to a broadside target for us," Hunter chortled. That was  the
beauty of a well timed attack on the three axis points, no  matter which way
the enemy turned, someone would have a full broadside strike.
     A low piercing hum  echoed in his headset, the initial locking tone for
his torpedo.
     "ъange fifteen kilometers, closing speed eight hundred  fifty meters  a
second and holding."
     He was damn near hanging still in space, sparing a quick glance  to his
tactical  display, filled now with  a swarm of blue and red dots. A Kilrathi
Gratha  heavy  fighter flashed by, followed by  a ъapier. He heard Jonesy in
the turret  behind him, stammering  out a curse as she snapped off  a  quick
volley.  His Broadsword shuddered, damage information blipping  red  for his
rear starboard stabilizer. A spray of mass driver  rounds arched up from the
carrier as it twisted away, and he nudged up the throttle to follow the ship
as it continued to turn.
     The  tone  in his headset started to slide up the scale, signaling that
his  torpedo  guidance  system  was breaking through  the Kilrathi  carriers
phased shielding distortion defense, the weapon gaining a secured lock.
     The  Broadsword to  his right disappeared  in a  flash. He tried not to
think about  the friends inside. A split second later Jonesy let out a whoop
from the rear turret.
     "Got the furball bastard. Burn, damn you, burn."
     Damn,  she was bloodthirsty. But then, who  could blame a nineteen year
old girl whose brothers were all dead in the war?
     The tone in his  headset started to  warble and then set off three high
pitched beeps, the  last beep going into a steady tone, indicating  that the
heavy Mark IV torpedo  was locked and armed. He felt his ship shudder as the
torpedo  broke free  from its  pylon  and streaked off towards  the  target.
Nearly a score of  silver blips appeared on his tactical screen, showing the
inbound strike. The timing was damn near perfect.
     Now was the time to test out the new weapons system
     He  slammed  up  throttle,  yanked the stick into  his gut and  punched
straight up, exposing the laser guidance system strapped  on to the belly of
his Broadsword.
     "Have  laser lock on torpedo," Griffin announced quietly, hunching over
her read-out screen. The new  laser system was designed  to provide in-bound
guidance for the  torpedo, the  designator locking on to the torpedo's tail.
If target lock should be lost, the weapons officer could  now  guide it  in,
while  also  providing  evasive  for  any  anti-torpedo  missiles and shield
jamming  by the  target's defensive  systems.  The only problem  was that it
meant that the Broadsword had to loiter in the target area,  belly  exposed,
until impact.
     It might work, Ian thought, but I'd like to take the idiot who designed
it and have him fly the wait out with me to see what it's like.
     The  Kilrathi carrier's point defenses slammed on miniguns sending  out
sprays of  marble  size  mass driver  bolts.  Several  torpedoes  detonated.
Anti-torpedo missiles streaked out  from launch bays mounted fore and aft on
the ship.
     "Still tracking, still tracking,"  Griffin chanted,  grimacing slightly
and swinging  a small joy stick over to put the torpedo into  an evasive  as
two anti-missiles closed. The evasive threw them off and they continued on.
     Still tracking, impact in five, four . . ."
     And  suddenly it  didn't seem quite right.  They were  using their  old
single bolt anti-torpedo missiles.  Hell, for nearly six months now Kilrathi
carriers  had  been  carrying  their  damn  new  sub-munitions  anti-torpedo
missiles which could break into half a dozen shots. The damn things had been
a nasty surprise. Ships armed with them were almost  invulnerable to torpedo
strikes if they could get enough of them out there.
     Fleet ordnance had been working like mad to come up with a counter, but
so far no one  had been able to snag a round for evaluation since they  were
armed with a timed detonator if they failed to strike a target, thus blowing
up anyhow and confounding the munitions experts.
     The drama played  out in seconds. Four more  torpedoes, all of them the
older  unguided models,  went down to the counter-missile strike; it  looked
like several more were hit by miniguns and then  the silver  blips converged
in on a single point two, one, got it!"
     Space erupted with  a  brilliant flash  as bright  as  the sun  and the
carrier  was  gone,  internal munitions  stores  and  fuel detonating  in  a
firecracker string of secondary explosions that ripped the ship apart.
     "Scratch one  flattop," Ian shouted, comm channel  discipline  breaking
down  as  nearly  everyone came on yelling and  cheering. He rolled his ship
over,  coming in  on  a  banking turn,  careful to  avoid  the  edge of  the
expanding cloud of debris, making sure his gun cameras  were running at high
gain. A lot  could  be learned when  the holo  tapes were  played  back  and
inspected Ч did  the torpedo guidance  systems  function correctly,  exactly
where were the impact points, were any structural weaknesses revealed as the
enemy ship ruptured . . . even ship contents were important.
     Several years back one  of his old buddies, Paladin, had jumped a light
transport and wasted  it while raiding inside enemy  lines. An evaluation of
the explosion had shown a brief single frame  image  of several space  suits
blowing  out of  the  erupting  hull. It was  still  a wonder  how the  holo
evaluation  crowd had  enhanced,  magnified  and fiddled  with the shot  and
finally  figured  that  the suits  were  specifically designed  for  a  high
radiation high gravity planet. The Hot Pit, a forward base in the  Zarnobian
System fit the bill as the only military target in the sector  that  matched
up  with  the  suits.  A Marine  raider battalion was rushed in, set  up  an
ambush,  and  nailed a  landing raid  bagging a  regiment of  elite Kilrathi
Imperial shock troops.
     Hunter  swept  past  the edge  of the fireball,  and then  turned  back
towards  Munro,  ready to  offer  backup  support  for  the  Marine  landing
operation. The red blips of the few remaining Kilrathi fighters covering the
carrier were winking off the screen as  the  ъapier squadrons  finished them
off.
     Hunter clicked  back on to the main commlink  channel, knowing that his
exuberant  cry, "scratch one flattop," the fleet's  traditional announcement
that  a carrier had  been killed, had  already been  received  by the combat
information control officer and sent up to the other shi