ght even thus be
in  line  for  the Imperial succession," the  Emperor said  softly. And  Vak
smiled.

     "Jump  transition  on automatic  sequencing and counting  at ten, nine,
eight . . ."
     Jason settled back into his chair and waited. A cold rush of excitement
tingled  down  his spine. No matter how many  times  he had jumped he always
felt the same,  especially when going  into hostile  space.  One  of the key
tactical  points with  jumping was  the simple fact that you never knew what
was on the other side. Inside  secured shipping lanes behind the lines there
were beacons placed at both points, monitoring traffic, sent up to avoid the
possibility of a ship materializing in the same point of space  occupied  by
someone  else, an event that always had spectacular results. But beyond that
was  the question of  just who was waiting. Paladin,  piloting  his new ship
which he had named Bannockburn, with Ian aboard as his co-pilot, had already
gone ahead  to scout. The  fifteen minutes' wait had passed  and now  it was
time  to follow through  and the  potential for  an unpleasant  surprise was
always there.
     He felt Tarawa drop away, and there was a momentary queasiness then the
flash of rematerialization. He looked over at his navigation officer who was
peering intently at her holo display.
     "Correct   jump  alignment  confirmed,"   she  announced.  "Bannockburn
reporting in on laser lock."
     Paladin's image appeared on the screen.
     "This Stealth  works like a charm. We found a remote sensor and took it
out, it never even  put out a signal. Optical scan shows the entire system's
clear right up to the next jump point."
     Jason looked over at Tolwyn and grinned.
     "It looks like we got through. We've crossed from the frontier into the
heart of the Empire."
     He looked up at his aft visual and less  than a minute later his escort
CVE-6 Normandy came through.
     "All ships  through," communications announced,  "all  systems  running
nominal,  Bannockburn  reports successful take-out  of  remote drone without
detect signal being activated."
     Geoff Tolwyn,  standing behind Jason, nodded,  letting  out an  audible
sigh of relief. Jason found that alone to be surprising;  he was used to his
old chief being absolutely unflappable.
     They were now four jumps into the Kilrathi Empire, tracking down one of
the hundreds of transition  points leading from neutral  territory into  the
Empire  in  the  one   direction  and  Confederation  space  on  the  other.
Surveillance drones of  course monitored  these points, but "accidents" like
the one  Paladin had just arranged for the  drone covering  this  jump point
were easy enough  to set up. It could  be days or even weeks before a picket
ship came out to replace the drone with a new one.
     "Let's hit  the flight deck and  see  what ъichards is  up  to," Tolwyn
said, motioning for Jason to follow.
     Excited, Jason came  out of his seat.  He had been waiting  for days to
get a look at what ъichards was doing.
     Leaving the bridge they went down the main corridor to the forward part
of the ship. At the airlock  door two guards came  to attention  at Tolwyn's
approach but did not step aside.
     Internal ship security was nothing new to Jason but this was different.
The two men were not dressed in the usual Marine class B uniform, for  after
all  this  was  not  a  Confederation ship any longer.  There was  something
disquieting about  the  black khaki  uniform the  two  guards  were  wearing
without a single  insignia or marking on them. The easy way they held  their
laser rifles told him that these two were highly trained professionals.
     Only seven  members of the Tarawa's  operating crew were allowed on  to
the hangar  deck,  Tolwyn  and  himself, along with Kevin, Doomsday  and two
Landreich pilots cleared to fly one of the four craft still left in the very
forward  part of  the hangar, and  finally  Sparks  as  the  one  overworked
maintenance officer permitted to  work on the fighters. Everyone else aboard
ship had already  been told that the guards  had  standing orders  to  shoot
first and then ask questions. Jason could tell this was simply not rhetoric,
these two would do it without batting an eye.
     Clearing the doorway, they stepped out into the hangar  deck. Equipment
was spread out across almost all the floor space  which once was occupied by
forty-four fighters. He  realized that he  was, in fact,  looking at perhaps
the  single  largest  concentration  of  computing  power  anywhere  in  the
Confederation except, perhaps,  for the administrative centers of Earth  and
the moon,  and even then he wondered.  Banks of storage systems were arrayed
along one wall, dozens of holo display fields  were already up and  running,
and he approached one of them,  a  field nearly half a dozen meters cubed. A
technician  was standing  inside  the  display  field, which showed a  three
dimensional model of what he recognized as the near space environment around
Kilrah.  Bright  hovering  points  of  light  represented the  stars,  their
planets, and transition jump  points,  with  blocks of  data appearing above
them, the  information  readable  from  any  angle  one  looked  at  it. The
technician  standing inside  the holo display looked  almost godlike as  she
walked about inside it.  He was totally  mystified by what she was  doing as
she pulled out what looked like a laser pointer, aimed it at the orange size
planet floating in the middle of the field and squeezed.
     Another holo field popped into  action  next to the  first,  this one a
close up of the planet the first technician had pointed at. The entire field
was occupied by what looked  like a solid ball, its continents covered  with
hundreds of flashing lights
     "That's Kilrah," Jason whispered.
     "Using this,  they can lock in on any one of  millions of sources  even
while continuing to scan all  other traffic and look for new sources  at the
same time," Tolwyn replied softly,
     Several  white  overall clad techs gathered around the globe, pointing,
talking  softly, arguing, and then  aiming  pointers at particular  flashing
lights. Behind them, two dimensional flat screens flared into light, streams
of  data flashing across some, others  showing pictures, one of which caught
Jason's eye, of Kilrathi  wearing heavy leather armor slashing at each other
with swords.
     Vance came up to the two and nodded a greeting.
     "Say, what the hell is that on the  monitor?" Jason asked,  pointing to
the screen.
     "A Kilrathi drama from the Gakarg Period."
     "What?"
     "Their ancient history. They love holos about the ancient wars when the
various  clans  were feuding  with each other  before  the  unification.  We
monitor every such  station from Kilrah,  their media links  are  translight
signalled throughout  the Empire. It  cost them  a bundle but it helps  keep
them unified. Watching their  stations might give us clues  as  to  internal
politics. We have a lot of software  tied  up with analysis of their popular
shows, since there might  be some subtle clues as to  what's  going on based
upon the type of entertainment the  government is broadcasting. In  the last
three days we've  noticed an increase of  Gakarg Period dramas dealing  with
Emperor Y'taa'gu.
     "Who?"
     Vance chuckled.
     "I never  heard  of him  either.  Seems to  be an evil emperor  who was
insane and finally killed by a virtuous warrior in order to save his people.
It's worth watching.  It's interesting that since the armistice we never see
a single  drama about the  war with us, or any of their previous ones,  only
ancient history. Their news programs are the same, really  tight on war news
and only  one brief announcement of  the  armistice and then nothing.  These
furballs are mighty  security conscious on  such things, but  we still gleam
occasional facts; that's why it's worth monitoring."
     Lance  led them around the holo display of  Kilrah raised a pointer and
aimed it at a flashing blue light
     "Blue means  commercial communication line," and  he nodded  back  to a
screen  which was filled  with what looked  like shipping  orders, instantly
translated into standard English.
     "This D-5 is monitoring  everything that's reaching the antenna  arrays
mounted outside this ship. If it's  non-coded it immediately translates  it.
We  have the  computers  programmed  to  look  for  certain  things  on  the
commercial channels.  For instance,  a  shipping order for IFF missiles gets
tagged into a higher priority slot. We can even look for  orders  related to
just one  component  of  an  IFF missile. If  certain  patterns  of shipping
develop or if something  outside of the ordinary happens, the computer  will
alert a human operator who then analyzes it and decides if there's something
important enough  that it has  to be kicked  upstairs. That's the  key  job,
looking for the little nugget of gold inside the tons of gravel and mud.
     "One of the first things that started  to tip us off  to  the fact that
the Kilrathi might  be building something  was that certain commercial links
for the ordering of  military  parts suddenly went into a new  code  system,
which was  changed every eight days. Significant orders for supplies, parts,
and shipping became highly classified.
     "That started  some  real  questions being  asked. The problem was that
they shifted this  classified work to the  part  of  the  Empire  out beyond
Kilrah, as  far  from  our listening posts as possible The  question  of why
really put the pressure on us to get this D-5 on  line and  also caused  the
loss of  a lot  of  good  intel people  behind the lines. The  jump  we just
completed  is  the deepest in  we've ever  been able to take equipment  like
this. You can see already the streams of data pouring in.
     ъichards led  them  over to  his command booth and offered a  couple of
cups of coffee to his guests. Jason noticed that these people seemed to live
on  caffeine,  and a  fair number of  them were addicted to  Ian's habit  of
tobacco, a practice he found totally mystifying and somewhat disgusting.
     "The D-5 can monitor any signal within its six hundred light year range
and pinpoint its origin. The hard part is programming  it to figure out what
is worth looking  at out of  the billions of messages it picks up  every day
and then passing it to a human analyst for evaluation.
     "The analyst's job is the toughest. It takes someone with a sixth sense
to decipher  what appear  to be unrelated facts but  actually  are part of a
pattern.
     "We do the same thing for the media channels, the public  communication
lines, and of course the military  and government lines," and  he pointed to
the flashing red and yellow lights back on the holo display of Kilrah.
     "Those are the tough buggers, a lot of it is burst signalled and highly
encoded."
     "Damn, there's hundreds of them," Jason said. "Something must be up."
     Vance laughed softly.
     "Over  ninety  percent  are  dummy  channels,   broadcasting   complete
gibberish, total  nonsense words that actually tie  up most  of our decoding
equipment since we're not sure  if its garbage  or the real thing. Sometimes
you might have a burst signal with a  million  words in it, all encoded, and
the real message is twenty words in the middle, each word separated from the
next by say six thousand four hundred words.
     "Why that number?"
     "ъemember they  have eight fingers and we have ten, so their  numerical
system is  base  eight. We tend to look a bit more  intensely at  base eight
numerical lines as a result. What gets frustrating is that they are using at
least a dozen  different  codes  at  any  given time, with the highest level
material going on  what we call Fleet  Code A,  which tends to  change every
twenty-four to forty days. The real messages are hidden in a lot  of garbage
and we have to wade through each message and might spend weeks tracking down
promising stuff only to discover its a decoy."
     "Some of their people even have a sense of humor about it. One message,
when  finally  translated,  was a simple  СHey,  stupid, we fooled you,' and
another  was  a long  excerpt from what I guess  was  a Kilrathi dirty book.
Decoding and translating each of those things took up time and equipment. We
can't ignore a single message because we never know if  we might hit paydirt
or not. So we wade through all of this, figure out the real signals from the
fake, then spend a hell of a lot of time cracking the code, and just when we
think  we've got  it, they go and change the code and we're  back to  square
one. Then to top it off they might have a station that's quiet for weeks  or
months, and it pops off a lone burst  signal then shuts down. Trying to even
figure  out where it  came from  out of a billion cubic light years of space
was nuts until the  D4 model, which could do a Doppler analysis and at least
do a probable trace."
     "I'd go mad," Tolwyn said.
     "Some of us do," Vance replied. "It takes a special  kind of person  to
do  this. You fighter jockeys, your battle is one of skill and wits, but  it
gets played out in seconds. Some of our battles last years.
     Vance smiled.
     "I've  been in this game  for twenty-nine years. I've dreamed all those
years of having something like this  D-5. With the new antenna array  we can
pick up  bursts  from up to  six  hundred light  years out; only a couple of
generations  back in  the system we were lucky to get consistent reads  from
ten light years away. We  used to spend billions on recon drones which would
go in, store up data  for  a week,  then send out  a burst signal.  Once  it
signalled the Kilrathi would be onto it and take it out. Now this one system
can cover an area that would have required thousands of drones.
     "The big  problem  now is that  counter intel believes they knew of the
D-4 and maybe suspected our D-5. We've noticed a decrease  in signal traffic
and suspect they're shifting more to courier. So far we've yet to figure out
how to read a dispatch pouch six hundred light years behind the lines."
     As they continued to talk, Vance led them around the flight deck. Small
cubicles had been set up in the center of the room, and hunched over in each
was an operator, going through data that the computer felt was of sufficient
importance to bring to the attention of a human operator.
     "I've got a hundred and three analysts with me on this mission, each of
them a specialist  and the best in  his field  with eight or more  years  of
training behind him.  There are  another  forty programmers who  feed in the
requests  and  another  twenty just  to  troubleshoot  any glitches  in  the
machine."
     Jason  looked around the room, wondering just who indeed was paying for
all of this. He had his suspicions but knew it was best not to ask. What was
equally  troubling was the matter-antimatter mine that  was  almost casually
brought aboard with the rest of the  equipment. It was placed in the  center
of the  room and would be activated if it  appeared as  if Tarawa  might  be
captured.  In  this  case   there  was  definitely  no  surrender  although,
technically, they were not even at war.
     A technician came up  to  Vance's side, looked over at Jason and Tolwyn
and said nothing. Vance smiled and nodded.
     "I think Jenkins here has something to tell me that he'd rather not say
in front of the two of you," Vance said quietly.
     Tolwyn, smiling, nodded and turned and walked away.
     "Hey, we're  on the same  team," Jason finally said as  they  went back
down the corridor to the bridge.
     "Just  remember,  Jason,  if there's  no need to really know,  then you
definitely better not know. Believe me, son, there's a hell of a lot I  wish
I didn't know at this moment."
     Tolwyn looked over at him and smiled.
     "Come on, I think  it's  safe  for  us to  have a short drink, help  us
unwind. It's going to be a boring float out here until something comes up."

     Jason was awakened by a gentle, but insistent shaking.
     Damn, what was it  now, and then  he was instantly awake. The  room was
dark,  there   was  no  klaxon,  no  attack.   He   suffered   a  moment  of
disorientation, the  old  dream  had  come  back,  the  explosions  silently
bursting across the surface of the moon orbiting Kilrah. Svetlana . . .
     "Jason, it's Tolwyn, something's up."
     He stood up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and snapped on the light.
     "What's wrong?"
     "Nothing, but I want you in on this."
     Jason reached into his closet, pulled on a fresh jumpsuit, slipped into
a pair of shoes and followed Tolwyn out the door.
     It  was  the  midnight  to  four  watch,  one officer and four enlisted
personnel  manning  the  controls.  Actually, the  time  was  an  artificial
creation, complete to the dimming of all  lights aboard  ship except in work
areas. He looked over at the chronometer,  0308  Confederation standard time
and it certainly felt like it. He realized it had to be  important if Tolwyn
was pulling him  out of the sack  now. Well, at least it was some excitement
for a change. They'd been on station eight jump points inside the Empire for
twenty days, the three ships of  their fleet rigged down for complete silent
running, tucked into  an asteroid field in a  small system  that didn't even
rate a name on the charts, only a numbered designation.
     Jason  followed Tolwyn on  to the  flight deck  and saw  a small  crowd
gathered  around a monitor.  They quietly approached. Vance  looked  up  and
nodded a greeting.
     "We've just had a break  on cracking  their  latest  A code  and  we've
caught a burst signal from  Kilrah but  again it was garbled, emanating from
the  far side of the planet aimed  towards Hari.  They're only  sending this
particular burst when this one station is facing towards the Hari system and
thus turned  directly away  from us. We get bounce reflections off of  their
moon, but the  signal is degraded  to  near  gibberish  as a result. It's  a
pattern which seems to be adding up to something. We've also had a couple of
partial locks on a burst coming out of the Hari system but it's still beyond
our range to get a clear read and fix on it."
     "So?" Jason asked, wondering why he had been pulled  out of bed to hear
what was not any of his business to know anyhow.
     "I want to take us closer in," Vance replied  casually, as if asking to
do a little  jaunt from  Earth  to the  moon and back as a Sunday  afternoon
pleasure ride.
     Vance motioned for the two to go into an empty cubicle. He punched up a
holo display and then a two dimensional screen on one wall.
     "This is why I wanted to get in  closer,"  Vance said quietly, pointing
at the holo map  which floated in the corner  of the cubicle and then to the
flat screen where a long string of what  appeared to be gibberish, marked by
occasional intelligible words scrolled by.
     "It's definitely fleet code, their highest grade. We had a twenty-three
percent decipher on the last one, then  this  new code came  on line but  is
being used only by this  one station aimed at Hari. It has all  the markings
of a highest priority  fleet code. We got really lucky when one of my people
saw a similarity to a code they used  nearly  eight years ago and  pulled it
for comparison. We immediately  broke a string of words and  can  do  a  six
percent translation and it's less than twelve hours old. In five or six days
I can bring that up to thirty  percent and  from there  comp