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  "One dead, four wounded, and one of those probably won't make it," the other man replied soberly, his eyes on the deck.

  McCade winced. One dead and maybe another. For nothing. Bridger had escaped. His searching fingers found a cigar butt which he lit with a trembling hand. He sucked smoke deep into his lungs and blew it toward the deck. "And Van Doren?"

  Swanson-Pierce's expression changed to amusement as he said, "Corporal Van Doren is fine." He paused for effect. "His Captain's Mast adjourned about half an hour ago. It seems he pleaded guilty to drunkenness on duty, issuance of illegal orders, theft of a navy vessel, illegal dueling, and interference with a merchant ship. All things considered, I think he got off easy, don't you?"

  "You really think the press'll buy that?" McCade asked.

  Swanson-Pierce shrugged. "They have so far. It's preferable to censorship, which always makes people even more interested."

  McCade stared wordlessly into the naval officer's gaze, his thoughts still on the marine who had died and the other who probably would.

  After a moment Swanson-Pierce said, "Don't do it, Sam. It won't help. These things just happen sometimes, that's all. Besides, we've gained quite a bit actually. It's true they got away . . . but at least we know they haven't made contact with the Il Ronn. So we've got a chance." He paused. "You'll be interested to know your marine friends took a prisoner." He watched McCade expectantly.

  The silence stretched out. Finally McCade gave in. "And what did you learn from that prisoner?" McCade asked through gritted teeth.

  "I thought you'd never ask," the other man replied with evident satisfaction. "It seems he, along with his stalwart companion, were all port-trash of one kind or another. Ex-mercenaries, beached spacemen, laid-off miners and the like. I'm sure you know the type." His expression made it clear that he thought McCade probably knew the type intimately.

  McCade ignored it. "Then they weren't assassins," he said thoughtfully.

  "Exactly," Swanson-Pierce replied smugly. "Apparently Bridger hired an ex-mercenary named Iverson, who then recruited the rest. Unfortunately Iverson met an untimely end recently while operating an energy cannon. Clever idea that. Anyway it may interest you to know Iverson made the bomb which concluded our luncheon in such a dramatic fashion." He made a microscopic adjustment to his sling.

  McCade frowned thoughtfully. "So let's see, these . . . what did you call them? Port-trash? They infiltrate Naval Intelligence Headquarters, plant a bomb on exactly the right autocart, and then make their escape. All without your fancy hardware and highly trained spooks noticing anything suspicious. I don't know, Walt . . .. It's not the kind of report I'd want to file." He shook his head in mock concern.

  Swanson-Pierce recrossed elegantly clad legs nervously. "Well, ah, yes, naturally we're quite concerned. Unfortunately our prisoner doesn't know how the bomb was placed or detonated. He swore, however, that he helped Iverson put it together. We have our best investigators on the problem."

  "Terrific," McCade said, crushing the cigar butt under his heel. "If Bridger knew, he'd be terrified. While they're at it maybe they can find out where everybody's getting little items like energy cannon, high explosives, and navy-issue space armor."

  Swanson-Pierce coughed and looked slightly embarrassed as he studied the gleaming toe of his right boot. "Actually I think we know the answer to that one. Our prisoner says they all came out of the Leviathan's cargo. Evidently part of a shipment for the marine detachment on Weller's World."

  McCade shook his head in disgust. "Well tell me this . . .. If Iverson's men worked for Bridger . . . who sent the assassins? And why?" Both men stared at each other and silence filled the room.

  Swanson-Pierce broke the silence. "You'll know when we do." He paused as he turned to leave. "They say you'll be discharged in the morning. I trust you've got everything you need?"

  McCade nodded silently.

  "Well, good hunting then." When the other man didn't answer, Swanson-Pierce slipped out of the room closing the door behind him.

  McCade sat in the darkened control room staring at the viewscreen. Around him, Pegasus hummed and vibrated gently. The air was cool and dry, carrying the faint aroma of cooking. He watched, fascinated, as constellations wheeled slowly along their eternal paths and stars shimmered across the unimaginable distances of space. Of course they weren't real. As long as the ship remained in hyperspace, normal space wasn't visible. These were computer simulations. But they looked real, and he never tired of their beauty. The flickering light of the screen brought back memories of boyhood campfires when the dancing flames had captured his eyes and set his mind free to roam a sky full of mysterious stars. Now the stars no longer seemed mysterious. Just beautiful points of light, none of which were home.

  "Hi, Sam!" Laurie dropped into the seat next to him. He turned, and the brightness of her smile washed away his somber thoughts. Her hair had fallen across her brow again and her eyes flashed as she shook it back into place. "Why so serious?" she asked.

  He smiled. "Just remembering how things were when I was a boy."

  "And how were they?" she asked, drawing her knees up under her chin, regarding him seriously.

  McCade shrugged. "Pretty good actually. I spent my early years on Dorca III, and then my parents were transferred to Terra, and naturally I went with them. They were electrical engineers. They must have been good, because they both taught at the Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dad died a few years ago of a heart attack, and Mom went a year later. I wasn't surprised. She wanted to be with him." He stared at the viewscreen for a moment before speaking again. "I don't think they were very pleased about the way I turned out." He looked across at Laurie. "How 'bout you?"

  A veil fell over her eyes as she replied. "Oh nothing special . . .. I never knew my parents . . .. They were killed in some kind of accident out near the frontier. So I spent a lot of time in various kinds of schools and academies. I did well, and managed to enter the Academy . . .. End of story."

  McCade didn't believe it. Oh, what she'd said was probably true enough, but he felt sure she was leaving a lot out. Why? There was no way to tell.

  Laurie sniffed the air dramatically, her eyes flashing once more. "Smells good! Wait till you see what Amos made for dinner! Who'd of thought a stuffy old marine could cook?"

  "Lucky for us he's an expert with the ship's weapons too," McCade replied dryly.

  "Phooey," she said. "I'm an expert with the weapons . . .. What we needed was a cook!" She made a face and disappeared toward the lounge.

  McCade smiled after her. Swanson-Pierce had insisted she come. She'd volunteered, probably at Swanson-Pierce's request, and the medics had given their approval, also at the naval officer's request no doubt. In any case she'd been sent along to keep an eye on him. McCade had given in with a tremendous show of reluctance.

  The main control monitor buzzed softly. He looked up to see that they would emerge from hyperspace in six standard hours. He punched the "acknowledge" button and began a routine scan of the major system readouts. Of course the ship's computer did the same thing thousands of times a second, but it made him feel better. And once in a while over the years he'd even found something wrong.

  They'd been in hyperspace for three weeks. During that time they'd traversed a distance it would've taken pre-empire ships years to cross. That hadn't stopped the early colonists, though. They'd risen from Terra and disappeared into the blackness of space. Some won through to habitable planets. Many didn't. In time the colonized worlds broke free of Earth and formed their own governments. The Confederation followed. Some said it was the lack of hyperdrive, as much as constant bickering, which caused the Confederation to disintegrate. It takes speedy communication to hold a stellar government together. And since no one had managed to punch a com beam through interstellar distances, ships remained the fastest form of communication.

  It was certainly true that the rise of the first emperor occurred about the time a workable hyperdrive was discovered
. In fact most historians agreed that the first emperor couldn't have won without it. Even though they were vastly outnumbered at the start, hyperdrive enabled his ships to travel vast distances in a fraction of the time required by the Confederates, a tactical advantage he exploited brilliantly. Even so, he'd been forced to amass a great fleet, and fight battle after battle. The empire he'd built was founded on hyperdrive and the blood of those who didn't have it.

  McCade's thoughts were interrupted as the intercom buzzed, followed by Van Doren's basso saying, "Chow's on, sir . . .. I mean boss."

  "Thanks, Amos." McCade grinned. Van Doren was supposed to be his bodyguard, not an Imperial marine. But old habits die hard and Van Doren was still having trouble ridding himself of his military mannerisms. McCade had asked Swanson-Pierce to restore the marine's former rank, and the naval officer had agreed—but only if McCade would take the man along on detached duty. All the marines who'd been in the fight with Bridger's men were being reassigned far from Terra's inquisitive press— except for the two buried with full honors, McCade thought soberly.

  For his part Van Doren was eager to go along. He wanted to be there when they caught up with Bridger. But by way of an added incentive he'd been told that otherwise his next duty station would be on a planet called Swamp. A small detachment of marines was stationed there to protect resident scientists from their specimens.

  After an excellent meal of smoked Fola on a bed of steamed Zuma, with chocolate torte for dessert, courtesy of the ship's stasis locker, the three of them relaxed over coffee in the lounge. McCade rolled rich cigar smoke off his tongue filling the air with an evil-looking blue haze.

  "Remind me to renew my anticancer treatments," Laurie said, wrinkling her nose in disgust and turning the lounge's air scrubber up a notch.

  "If there are twelve torpedoes waiting at the nav beacon," McCade replied, "there isn't much chance we'll die of cancer."

  She stuck out her tongue at him but knew he was right. They'd gone through Leviathan's cargo manifest together before launch. Besides explosives, energy weapons and space armor, the huge ship carried five hundred Interceptor-class torpedoes bound for the Naval Arms Depot on Weller's World. After the giant hulk was caught and towed back to Earth orbit, a quick inventory revealed that twelve of the torpedoes were missing.

  McCade considered the torpedoes as he sipped his coffee. Each needle-shaped black hull would be ten feet long. Aboard would be a very sophisticated minicomputer, an array of sensors, and a tidy little nuclear warhead. Usually they were carried and launched by Interceptors, small one-person fighters like the one tucked away in the bay where Pegasus normally carried her lifeboat. Trading the lifeboat for the Interceptor was a calculated risk. The lifeboat could save their lives in case of trouble, but so could the fighter; it all depended on which way things went.

  To make matters worse, before they had left, naval armorers had confirmed that an expert could rig the torpedoes for an ambush. It had been done once or twice before. Was Bridger an expert? No one knew for sure— but they'd have to assume he was. He'd certainly had access to the necessary information.

  If Bridger laid an ambush, the nav beacon would be the logical place to do it. Though technically a ship equipped with hyperdrive could enter and depart hyperspace anywhere, doing so entailed an element of risk. What if you happened to pick an exit point right in the middle of a large asteroid, for example? No one ever lived to report such incidents, of course, but there was little doubt they occasionally happened. As a result, a far-flung network of nav beacons had been established along the Empire's main trade routes. Each emitted its own distinctive code while entering and exiting hyperspace at one minute intervals. That way the beacon could be located by ships traveling in either normal space or hyperspace.

  So while scouts and prospectors took pride in playing cosmic roulette and rarely had the luxury of using nav beacons, ships using established lanes always did. Therefore Bridger could expect his pursuit to emerge from hyperspace soon after he did and in proximity to the nav beacon. They'd considered sending an unmanned drone through first, but naval experts had agreed the torpedoes' sensors were too sophisticated to fall for such a ploy. And when McCade had suggested a destroyer, Swanson-Pierce had laughed, saying the Empire couldn't spare warships to chase after torpedoes which might or might not be there.

  Van Doren spoke as if he'd read McCade's mind. "With all due respect, boss, you shouldn't worry so much." He patted the bulkhead next to him. "She's sound as an Imperial credit, not to mention that I've checked her personally, and when the time comes she'll show 'em a thing or two!" It was a long speech for the big marine. He leaned back, eyes bright under bushy brows, lips curved in a smile which held little humor. McCade smiled and nodded, wishing he shared the marine's confidence.

  A few hours later McCade was reclining in the pilot's seat wearing full armor. Laurie occupied the copilot's position beside him, her face hidden by her visor. He wondered what she was thinking. Did she feel she should be sitting in the pilot's position? It had been a long time since he had taken a ship into combat. But damn it, Pegasus was his ship. He wouldn't always have Laurie to lean on. At least that's what he was telling himself.

  Behind and slightly above them, Van Doren sat enclosed in a gun blister. Without sufficient crew to fully man the ship's secondary armament, most of it had been slaved to his position. Of course if there was an ambush, most of the battle would be fought by the ship's computer using the main armament. No human eye and brain could track tiny targets traveling at thousands of miles an hour. Not unless they got very close. Then the secondary armament would be their last chance.

  "Do you think it'll work?" Laurie asked, her voice unnaturally casual.

  "Sure I do," McCade lied.

  After all, it could work, he thought. They had programmed the ship's computer to overshoot the nav beacon slightly. If there were torpedoes waiting, hopefully they'd be aimed at the next exit area immediately around the beacon. It would take the torpedoes a moment to detect Pegasus outside that area, recompute attack trajectories, and launch. That moment would be their edge.

  McCade's eyes were locked on the main control monitor as the final seconds ticked away. At its center the nav beacon was represented by a white light. It appeared and disappeared as it jumped in and out of hyperspace. Then there was the second of disorientation and nausea he always felt during a hyperspace shift, followed by subtle changes in the viewscreens as the computer switched from simulated to actual images.

  Now they were in normal space . . . and for a moment . . . so was the nav beacon. Close by, a yellow light blinked, probably Leviathan's power-control module. Around it appeared a globe of red dots. Each represented a torpedo. Just inside the perimeter of the globe, almost touching a red dot, was a green light symbolizing Pegasus. Their plan hadn't worked. They were practically sitting on a torpedo. The torpedo vanished in a flash of intense white light before McCade could utter a sound. Van Doren's battle cry was still ringing in his ears when it was replaced by a calm but unfamiliar female voice.

  "This ship is under attack. Please prepare for high-stress evasive action. The bar and all recreational facilities are closed."

  McCade would have laughed, but a crushing weight was suddenly added to his chest. Pegasus accelerated and began to execute a series of intricate evasive maneuvers. Through blurred vision he saw the remaining red dots reorient themselves and begin inexorably to close on Pegasus. McCade felt a slight jolt as the ship launched torpedoes of its own. To his satisfaction he watched two red dots disappear in explosions so bright the ship's sensors were forced to dampen down or bum out. But a third red dot was closing fast.

  "Enemy target now leaving primary defensive zone sector four-eight.

  Engage with secondaries," the calm computer voice said. "Due to immediate defensive energy requirements, there will be no hot water for showers until two standard hours after termination of engagement."

  "I've got it," McCade said as he struggled to
clear his vision and concentrate.

  As his hand closed around the control grip for the bow energy cannon, he heard a double "Roger" from Laurie and Van Doren. The control worked much like the stick in an atmosphere flier. As he squeezed it, a target monitor came to life in front of him. When he rotated the handle to the right the target grid moved right on the screen. McCade lined up on the growing red dot. His thumb pressed the button at the top of the handle and pulses of blue light raced out to meet the torpedo. The powerful defensive screens of the Pegasus flared to the edge of burnout and then held. As McCade's eyes returned to the main control monitor, he counted five red dots still hurtling toward them. Apparently either Pegasus or Van Doren had nailed two more. But it wasn't enough. One or more torpedoes would almost certainly get through.

  "Prepare for emergency damage control," the pleasant voice said. "Due to this vessel's current tactical situation, it seems advisable that both passengers and crew seek alternate transportation as soon as possible." McCade gritted his teeth and promised himself that if he survived, the computer wouldn't. Now he knew why the ship's previous owner had restricted the computer's use of voice simulation.

  "Sam! There's a chance. Hit it now!" Laurie pointed at the bright red cover located in the very center of the control console.

  McCade understood immediately. Without hesitation he flipped up the cover and hit the switch it protected. This time the disorientation and nausea of the hyperspace shift was a welcome relief. The moment the shift was complete, he hit the computer override switch again, felt his stomach lurch, and watched as the screen adjusted back to normal space. Their forward motion had carried them away from the nav beacon. The light created by the five torpedoes' mutual annihilation was just starting to fade behind them. McCade felt a muscle in his left cheek begin to twitch as he thought about the odds against surviving both the torpedoes and two random hyperspace shifts.