Chapter Three

norlin worked TO keep the small scout ship centered in the vidscreen. The external visuals on his ship were limited; most sensors relayed information in the infrared or the far ultravio-let. Other picket ships carried astronomical gear in the visible spectrum.

"How far?" he asked the computer.

"Another day's travel. The scout ship is at the limit of vidscreen pickup." Norlin snorted. The computer didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. He worked on the image and magnified it as much as he could. The graininess increased to the point of turning the smooth contours of the scout ship into bumps. He backed off and studied the hull. From this distance he saw no trace of damage.

"What about the alien vessel? Report status of detection."

"Lasercom report to base is being main-tained."

"What is the lag time?" Norlin patrolled the outer fringe of the system now. The time delay had risen to eight hours while he had been ac-celerating. The electric ion engines had pro-pelled him at a full gravity outward. The delay time to reach base and get a response amounted to almost twenty hours. His sense of isolation and danger mounted with every passing instant. The sight of the minuscule scout ship, appar-ently undamaged but turned into a spacefaring coffin, bothered him. His attention turned to another sensor. The black ship sliding virtually tracelessly into the Lyman IV

system gave a true sense of forebod-ing. Norlin didn't doubt for a microsecond that the ship had been one of the aliens' Death Fleet mentioned in the scout's report.

"They're coming. Did they follow him? Or have they done their own scouting work?" Norlin kept his far-flung sensory bubble of feeble radiation at its limit. He jerked when a chime sounded, alerting him to another contact.

"Full detail. Turn everything we've got on the alien ship," he ordered.

"This is pointless and counter to instructions," complained the computer. "Many experiments will be ruined if all sensors are used."

"Do it." Norlin's finger hovered by the over-ride button if the computer balked. It didn't. He heard gears grinding as mechanical mounts

shifted to sight on the alien ship. Norlin had no idea what types of radiation the other ship might emit. IR? UV? His densitometers and gravitometers had been designed for use on molecules, not spaceships. He pushed them all to the limits of their design, let the scientists complain later. If this ship—or ships—were the leading element of the Death Fleet, experiments would be can-celed quickly. Survival would be the only important pursuit. His hand hesitated. He almost reran the pix of Penum's rape. Only iron will prevented it. He could see the images too clearly inside his skull —possibly etched there forever.

"The ship is smaller than a cruiser," came the computer's analysis. "There are no outward in-dications of armament. A few waldoes for un-known operations dot the hull. Other than these, there is nothing hostile about the craft."

"What radiation emission?"

"Negligible. Interior shielding for transuranic pile is excellent. Power leakage is minimal."

"Don't you find that suspicious?"

"No, it is efficient."

Norlin cursed. The computer struck to the heart of the matter. Except for the surreptitious entry into the system, the ship had committed no hostile act. It was only his imagination and the evidence from the scout ship that con-demned the vessel as an aggressor.

He almost tried to lasercom the ship. It might be from another race, a fifth intelligent space-faring alien culture. Norlin's fingers danced

over the computer console. The odds against finding two new alien races in such a short time were astronomical. This ship belonged to the same fleet that had devastated Penum. Nothing else made sense.

He magnified the alien ship's outline as much as possible to see the external grapplers men-tioned by the computer. At this range he failed to find them. Norlin leaned back and worried his lower lip as he thought. This wasn't a war-ship. What was its purpose? Grapplers for ma-nipulation of cargo? That served no purpose. What might the ship find that it needed to re-pair so that the crew need not personally exit?

"Scan and find," he ordered. "Scout ship re-port. Initial entry into Penum system." He watched with increasing anxiety as the pilot's report began to relate to what he was ob-serving. He returned to the alien vessel. It wasn't a peaceful scout of a race fearing contact with humanity. This ship crept into the Lyman system and tracelessly sought out the cometary detectors. The small craft sneaked up and used the waldoes to reprogram the detectors to ig-nore the Death Fleet when it entered their range.

The aliens took no chances. Their destruction came swiftly and unexpectedly because of care-ful preparation. Norlin entered his observations and sent them on the lasercom to base, even if it would be twenty or more hours before anyone saw them. Let the emperor's genhanced tacti-cians work on this datum.

If the aliens risked exposure slinking in to reprogram the detectors, that meant they could be defeated in all-out battle. They minimized their danger of finding a world ready to defend itself. Norlin shuddered. They had reduced genocide to an efficient program of entry, alteration of sensors, full-scale invasion and destruction, and complete looting. He finished his report and dropped off to an uneasy sleep, trying to keep both the alien craft and the scout ship on the split-view vidscreen. When he awakened, his neck muscles had knot-ted and his shoulders throbbed with tenseness.

The scout ship hung only a few thousand kilo-meters away. The computer had approached, decelerated, and matched relative velocities.

"Full scan," he ordered.

"Performed," came the computer's answer. "Do you wish to enter? It is dangerous and not recommended."

"I'll do it anyway. We need all the data we can get on the aliens."

"Base has confirmed your speculation on the aliens' operating plan. You are to return directly to base with minimum delay."

"How long?" Norlin asked. He slipped into the transfer skin hanging by the airlock. The thin plastic clung to him with electric tenacity. He smoothed the wrinkles and slung the backpack containing the oxyhelium breathing mixture. Around his waist he fastened a tool belt.

"With maximum acceleration," the computer answered, "eight days."

"Eight? But—"

"You will sustain an acceleration of two point three gravities."

"Fuel?"

"Sufficient," said the computer. "Hurry in your current mission. We must launch in forty-seven minutes."

"Don't leave without me," Norlin said almost flippantly. He experienced a curious euphoria as he cycled through the airlock, sighted on the distant scout ship, and triggered his backpack's chemical jet. With constant thrust he reached the ship in less than ten minutes. All the while he thought about the alien advance craft and how it must be locating and modifying the de-tectors. He touched down easily and shuffled toward the airlock. He frowned when he saw fabric in the locking mechanism. He cycled it open. No familiar gush of air met him. The lock itself had been vacated and never refilled. He pulled the cloth free and saw by the name patch that it belonged to a maintenance tech named Benks. He tucked it into a pocket once he got inside the airlock. He had more worries than how this had fouled the locking mechanism.

Inside the cramped ship he checked the atmo-sphere. The carbon dioxide levels were danger-ously high and the oxygen too low to sustain life. The pilot lay sprawled across the control console, a notebook clutched in his hand.

Norlin quickly examined the small cockpit and took the cerampix and the computer mem-ory blocks. He tucked them into his pack. As he

worked, an automatic camera recorded what he saw.

"Poor bastard," he muttered when he finally came to the pilot. On impulse, he turned off his recorders before prying the notebook free from the man's death grip.

Norlin read silently of how there had been four; then two, who shifted for Lyman IV. The pilot had been afraid of the other man, espe-cially after he had cold-bloodedly murdered his two coworkers. Norlin's heart went out to the pilot, who had known his own life hung sus-pended on a spider's strand. The last page in the notebook detailed how he had murdered the maintenance man Benks and shoved him through the airlock in shift space.

He straightened, sticking the notebook into his belt. Norlin turned on his recorders again and established a comlink with his own ship. "Time, please," he requested. "Launch window opens in fourteen minutes," came the computer's immediate reply. "It will remain open for seven."

"I'm returning. Prepare for launch but do not initiate the final sequence without my direct command."

"Understood."

Norlin wondered if there was anything more he could do for the pilot. The man lay across his console, killed in the commission of his duty. Norlin couldn't think of a more fitting testa-ment. He saluted and cycled back through the airlock. For a moment he paused, then bled out the gas inside the ship. The pilot would remain

in this crypt for eternity, never decaying, always at his post where he had died. As a final gesture, Norlin took the notebook from his belt and flung it away from the ship as hard as he could. He doubted the ship's puny gravitational attraction would pull it back—or that anyone would ever find this silent tomb again for it to matter.

But to Pier Norlin it did matter.

He jetted back to his picket ship and prepared for a week of double-gravity hell.

"I don't understand," Norlin said. "Please re-peat." He frowned as he scanned the orbital docking station. His was the only picket ship locked into the spiral. The emptiness of a once-busy station coupled with the odd orders wor-ried him. Norlin checked under his seat for his Empire Service-issue pistol. The magazine opened easily, and he saw the neat lines of self-propelled caseless rockets inside. He rammed it back into the pistol butt and thrust the weapon into his belt.

"Leave your ship and report immediately to Captain Emuna."

"I want to report directly to Commander Clarkson."

"Sublieutenant Norlin, do as you are or-dered."

"I don't know Captain Emuna. What division is he assigned to?" He almost repeated his ques-tion because of the time it took to receive his answer.

"He was deputy supply officer."

Norlin shook his head. A supply officer? Emuna didn't even rank in the table of organi-zation. He was little more than a nuts-and-bolts counter, a bureaucrat and not a line officer. Norlin powered down the picket ship, leaving it on standby. As tiny as it was, he thought of it as his own—his first command. Deep down he knew that he might never see it again.

"Goodbye," he said softly. Then he checked the pistol stuck in his belt, and made sure a rocket had been properly chambered and the safety thrown. He left without a backward glance and wiggled into the spiral.

The corkscrew design provided easy docking for more than fifty small picket ships. He went "down" the zero-g spiral toward the main sta-tion, every sense straining for a clue about what had happened. This area was usually filled with workers and pilots, coming and going and just loitering. He saw no one. Even the robot workers had been deactivated.

The situation turned even grimmer when he entered the main station. On a slow day there might be five hundred men and women working in the dispatching center. It was empty. A few computer vidscreens winked and flashed but their operators were gone. Even the quiet whir of the electrostatic precipitators constantly cleaning the air of all dust particles had fallen mute. The station had been turned to standby condition, just as he had left his picket ship.

Tense, hand on his pistol, Norlin walked slowly along the echoing, curved corridors. The only sounds he heard were ones normally hid-den by the bustle of activity. Air circulated. Lights emitted a high voltage hum. And his boot soles with their magnetic strips clicked as he carefully measured each step.

The farther from the center of the station he went, the more the spin tugged at him and cre-ated pseudogravity. After a full week at more than twice normal gravity, he felt strong, quick, able to contend with any problem.

He stopped in front of Commander Clarkson's office. When he saw the laser-burn marks on the steel door, he drew his pistol. He checked cau-tiously and found the office empty. Someone had staged a major battle inside, though. Holes had been blasted through the walls using weapons similar to the one he clutched so tightly in his hand. Energy weapons had re-duced portions of the bulkhead and decking to molten puddles that had recrystallized. But Norlin found no trace of his commander and his staff—or their fate.

He stopped by a console that had been knocked from an underofficer's desk. A few sec-onds' tinkering brought up a display he could use.

"Query," he said. "Identify. Captain Emuna."

The voice response required adjustment; he barely understood it. He switched to full vidtext and scanned the information. He let out a lung-ful of air he hadn't even known he had been holding when he saw that Emuna was an army supply officer and nothing more.

For the chain of command to have come to him, all senior staff—and most of the junior of-ficers, as well—had to be gone. From the car-nage in the commander's office, Norlin guessed that "gone" meant

"dead."

"Details of mutiny, please," he requested.

The rapid flood of text told him the worst. There had not been one mutiny but four, each more violent than the preceding one.

"Every two days for the past week," came a tired voice from the doorway behind him. Nor-lin spun, pistol ready.

"There's no need," the man said. His shoulders slumped, and the dark circles under his eyes showed sleep had eluded him for some time. His uniform hung in wrinkled folds, and his hands shook uncontrollably.

"Captain Emuna?"

"When you didn't report directly to my office, I knew you'd come here. Not a pretty sight now. You should have seen it when Clarkson made his first stand."

"He survived the first mutiny?"

"The second, too. He and the genhanced of-ficers the emperor sent. They were the ones the staff objected to. What they did to them when the third attack was successful is something you'll have to find in the files. I can't bear the thought." He swallowed hard, a scrawny neck showing a prominently bobbing Adam's apple. Emuna wiped sweat from his upper lip and sank into a chair.

"You're the ranking officer?"

"Out of almost a thousand, I'm it. There are a few lieutenants running around—all were in my division. Ironic, isn't it? The noncombatant unit on-station survived. I don't know space dust about running things. I order, I deliver, I make sure everyone has toilet paper and fatten-ing food and porno cerampix. And here I am, station commander."

Norlin pushed the safety on and thrust the pistol back into his belt. Captain Emuna pre-sented no threat. Norlin could spit on the man and knock him over. The strain of command showed in every line indelibly etched on his gaunt face.

"You received my report?"

"That's one reason all this happened." Emuna gestured at the ruined office. "Emperor Arian has been less and less popular out here, you know."

"But mutiny?"

"Why not? Who wants to defend a world under the emperor's thumb? Better to shift out and find a rebel world where you can be free and away from all the madness passed along by the genhanced geniuses he sends."

"Some are geniuses," Norlin said.

"Most are deranged—and that is being polite. Unstable is the word I hear most. But they're all space crazy. Dangerously so. Who wants to die for them?"

"You saw the report. The alien Death Fleet will wipe out all human life in the system when they arrive. I've discovered a scout ship tamper-ing with the cometary detectors."

"That triggered the last mutiny. Anything that could space was hijacked. I swear some men put out in packing crates. Anything that might be spaceworthy was stolen. Clarkson had already died, him and the genhanced Earthers. I forget who tried to stop that uprising."

"The vice-commander was—"

"He died the first day. Someone used a pistol like the one you've got on him. Right through the head." Emuna tapped his temple. "Blew his brains all over a bulkhead. We sealed the cabin up rather than clean it."

"You realize that I'm ranking officer," Norlin said. "I'm in the line of command since I'm a pilot."

"It's yours. No arguments. Take it. The whole damned station is yours to do with as you please." Norlin stood and stared, openmouthed. He had expected argument. He received only full cooperation.

"I don't know what's going on. I try to keep things working. Most of the station is shut down or on standby, not that it matters. There are fewer than a hundred left to man it."

"A hundred? But the full complement is eight thousand!"

Captain Emuna shrugged. "They left. They died. They're no longer around for one reason or another. And you're in charge. What're your orders, Commandant?"

pier norlin tried to speak again, then clamped his mouth shut. Everything Captain Emuna had just said looped infinitely through his mind. A supply captain—an army supply officer, at that —could never be in the chain of command for a station, much less a space-command base. Hearing the man so easily pass over command, and to a sublieutenant, shook him.

"I...I know you're right," Norlin said care-fully. "You've been running the station for how long now?"

"Almost forty-eight hours. That's the last time I slept, at any rate." Emuna yawned and stretched. "I was never psychologically stable enough for command. I try to do everything my-self. No sense of delegating authority. What are your orders, Commandant?"

Again Norlin held back his shock. A sublieu-tenant outranked no officer except ensign. For him to take command of a major Empire Ser-vice facility, he had to be called something other than his true rank. Commandant Norlin. He liked the sound of it —and it frightened him. He had neither the ex-perience nor the ability to command the immense station. The notion of preparing it to defend the entire system frightened him even more.

He stared hard at Emuna. The man had be-come a psychological mess in just two days. He 39

could do better. He was a space pilot. He had the training and the ambition. The promotion had just come at a time when no one was likely to appreciate whatever he accomplished.

"What were Commander Clarkson's standing orders?" he asked.

"Can't say. His vault was completely de-stroyed. It wouldn't do much good getting in, anyway. We'd need the code to decipher the memory block once we got it into a reader. I tried to contact sector base on Sutton II, but I had to send a message packet. There weren't any couriers available."

"An automated packet?" Norlin swallowed when he realized that this was the least reliable method of reporting. Important messages were sent by courier ship. The missile with the mes-sage might not arrive precisely on target, it might be ignored for days or even weeks—or it might vanish during shift. Fully 50

percent of the robot probes never shifted free at the end of their flight.

"What ships are in dock? I can refit my picket ship and shift out. It'll be cramped but enough supplies can be squeezed in." Norlin dreaded the idea of shifting almost forty light years to Sutton II by himself. The trip would take almost a month. He had been alone too much lately.

A new thought filled him with dread. "Wait. What about conditions on-planet?"

"Can't say. The last report I saw carried a time stamp of five days ago. With the station in mu-tiny, the ground bases lost control. Two were in the hands of rebels—or mutineers."

"Widespread civil unrest?" Norlin thought of Neela Cosarrian at the university.

"You know someone down there? Better see if you can't arrange to have them lifted to orbit. Reports are sketchy but it doesn't look good— and it has been five days." Norlin considered the matter. He was in com-mand now. The idea still shocked him that he could do anything he wanted, within reason. A slow smile crossed his face. It didn't even have to be reasonable. Commander Clarkson had is-sued orders often that bordered on the illogical. Norlin stiffened and pulled his shoulders back. He could do better.

He would do better. He was an officer in the Empire Service.

"Send a ferry down to the university. I want several students and faculty brought to the sta-tion immediately."

Emuna shook his head sadly. "There's nothing to send. Your picket ship could land. Maybe take off again, though I can't say."

"It's equipped for planetary landing," Norlin said.

"You're the only pilot left on the station. The rest are dead or gone. Where do you think all the ships went?"

"They all mutinied?"

"The only reason the hundred are left is in-ability to find a way off the station. Who wants to be at ground zero when your Death Fleet ar-rives?"

"It's not my Death Fleet," Norlin said defen-sively.

"You learned of it. You're the only one who has seen any of their ships." Captain Emuna wiped the sweat from his upper lip again, his eyes taking on a frightened-animal aspect. "You probably beat them here by a day at the most. We don't have long to live. They're going to kill us all, just as they did on Penum. I saw the pix. I know what they did. Radiation beam us to death, then strip the entire damned world." The officer's voice rose shrilly.

Norlin edged toward the door, uncomfortable facing the growing madness in his fellow officer. He backed outside the office and then went ex-ploring in an attempt to find anyone else who might be in charge. The few pitiful souls he found were all civilians and were more fright-ened than Emuna had been. Norlin went to his personal quarters and punched in his access code. The interior hadn't been looted as had many of the rooms. He snorted contemptuously. He had nothing worth stealing, even if the mob had broken in. Settling in front of his console, he began his inspection of the station. The conditions at the base were worse than Norlin anticipated. Within days all life-support systems would fail through lack of maintenance. He ignored getting the robot workers back to their duties and tried to contact other humans. He failed. Those he reached wanted nothing to do with him. Without the infrastructure of a military base to back his orders, he was power-less. Even if they acknowledged his command

position, and only a handful of the hundred sur-vivors did, they wanted nothing to do with him. Norlin didn't blame them. The Empire Ser-vice had brought on this crisis. Ignoring the ones left in power might not restore order, but it prevented further dissolution.

"Attention, all personnel," he called after cut-ting into the public-address system. "This is Commandant Norlin. Report to the officers mess, ring fourteen, sector nine within the hour for a briefing." He checked his pistol and immediately went to the mess. He had thought this would be a suitable spot for his briefing. Now he wasn't sure. A fire fight had melted most of a bulkhead. He climbed through the slagged wall and crouched on the far side. It gave scant protec-tion against heavy armament but ought to keep him safe from hand weapons.

Norlin ducked when he heard the whisper of cloth against metal. Someone slid along the cor-ridor wall, trying not to be seen.

"Drop the weapon," Norlin ordered as he thrust his pistol through the hole in the wall. The smallish man he frightened spun and brought up a pistol like Norlin's.

The training he had received in data analysis caused him to proceed through a chain of rea-soning that almost cost him his life. He saw the pistol: it was a full automatic version of his, with a clip carrying twice the rockets. He saw the gunman: beady eyes squinting hard, a mouth pulled into a thin line, finger turning white as it pulled back on the trigger.

He estimated time and distance and intent. He should have fired before the other man. A stream of self-propelled rockets blasted from the pistol and blew through the bulkhead all around him. His response came from sur-prise rather than thought or training. Norlin's finger jerked back. The single rocket he fired caught the gunman in midchest and blew white bones and red blood all over the corridor.

"Why'd you do that?" Norlin asked aloud, be-wildered. His gorge started to rise when he saw the body. Then he forgot the man entirely. Four others pushed through the door, all armed. This time he did not think: he reacted.

Eight rockets finished the first three. By the time his comrades lay blown apart on the deck, the remaining mutineer had his laserifle up and firing. The continuous beam hummed and sput-tered. Molten steel spattered Norlin's back.

He dived forward, skidded, and got off three more shots. One rocket blew apart the bulkhead beside the rifleman. This distracted the man long enough for Norlin to get in a killing shot. Norlin picked himself up off the floor and walked on shaky legs to view the carnage he had caused. He stared at the exploded bodies, as if looking at a distant, barely recognized trivid picture. Then he vomited.

When he recovered, he picked up the last man's laserifle and slung it over his shoulder. He felt the need for more firepower. If Captain Emuna's estimate had been right, he had just killed off 4 percent of all those remaining on the station.

"Neela. I've got to get to her. It must be even worse on-planet." Norlin wandered in shock, his mind refusing to focus properly. He rounded a corner and stopped, hand jerking out his pistol and aiming it at a bulky woman sitting on a low table, her short, stocky legs crossed and her col-orless eyes fixed on him with a hot intensity that made his skin crawl.

"Don't shoot me, hero. I'm not armed." She held out her hands, palms up. He saw grease and calluses. This startled him enough to burn away the shock. No one got their hands dirty with robots and waldoes everywhere, and she looked as if this was a regular condition.

"Who are you?" he asked. She wore shapeless regulation overalls, but he thought he saw tar-nished lieutenant's bars under the grime on her collars.

"You the pilot of the picket ship? The one who detected the Empire Service spy boat?"

"Yes." Norlin shook himself. He was in com-mand of the station, not her. He'd ask the ques-tions. "Who are you? You never answered. You look like a repair tech."

"Not even close. Ship's Engineer Barse." She hopped down. Her square-cut hair and curi-ously pale eyes were under his by a full twenty centimeters. She shoved out her hand. He shook it, almost gasping at the power in her grip.

"I watched as you docked. Without the mag-netic grapples, you did a good job. Real smart piloting."

"Thanks," he said. "I do what I have to."

"You ever been on anything bigger?" Her col-orless eyes fixed on his rank and stayed there. She seemed to be evaluating him and wasn't liking everything she saw.

"I've never piloted anything larger," he said, "but at the academy I copiloted a hunter-killer."

"Those pieces of space debris?" Barse spat a thick glob of brownish scum that stuck to a wall and sluggishly flowed to the deck. "Not fit for man nor beast."

"They're fast and deadly. Kilo for kilo, there's nothing with more armament. They are cer-tainly better than an unarmed picket ship," he said.

"But not better than a cruiser."

"Nothing's better than a cruiser, except a bat-tleship."

"Not even those hunks of slow armor," Barse said positively. "They're easy targets. Can't shift as fast. Big profiles. Heat signature that makes me puke. Leak radiation up and down the spec-trum. Any genius bomb can take them out. Too easy to spot. Not a cruiser. Not one like the Pre-ceptor. It's state of the art." She puffed out her considerable chest in pride. "And / helped refit her."

"I've never heard of the Preceptor," Norlin said. "Is it a new arrival? I'd heard rumors of a couple new ships due in."

"It's been in dry dock for months. Captain Dukker's private toy. Or it was."

"Dukker? Isn't he one of Emperor Arian's—"

"One of the emperor's toadies? He was. Son of

a bitch got his head blown off in the first mu-tiny. For a genhanced genius"—Barse openly sneered when she spoke of him—"he was one damn fool. Walked right into the middle of a mob, demanding they disperse. They tried to rip him apart, but he was too strong, so they blew his head off."

"Who's in command now?" Norlin asked, cu-rious. Captain Emuna had said no one in the chain of command was left. The copilot could assume command of the station, being a space officer.

"No one. That's our problem."

"You've got a copilot? Or was he killed, too?"

"Dukker was one pathetic son of a bitch," Barse said, "but I'll give him this. He could pilot his way through a black hole if he had to. Never liked the notion of someone sitting at his elbow. No copilot. Just crew."

"Crew?"

"Miza, Sarov, and Liottey, in order of their smarts."

"Where do you rank?" Norlin asked, a slight smile curling his lips.

"At—" Barse stopped and stared at him. Her expression altered subtly and her eyes took on a glitter.

"You're all right, Norlin. We're going to get on just fine."

"What are you talking about? I'm in com-mand of the station, and you're assigned to a cruiser."

"You're in command of space junk." Barse spat again. "Is there anything worth saving here? You just turned the guts of five men into novae. Think there are any better left?"

"You scanned the information on the Death Fleet. We've got to prepare a defense for Lyman IV. The station has heavy artillery. I don't know how much and I can't remember when it was used last—not since I've been here."

"Never is my guess. There's rust on the lasing tubes." Barse spoke with such authority that Norlin hesitated to argue. Lasing tubes weren't likely candidates for rusting. Most were formed from carbon composite materials and the chambers were highly silvered. The chemical shells that fitted into the firing compartments might have deteriorated, but he doubted this. Storage in the hard vacuum of space had defi-nite advantages.

"There are civilians on-planet. Our oath of duty is to protect citizens of the Empire."

"Piss on the Empire."

Barse watched as he lifted the pistol. He aimed it unwaveringly at her chest.

"That's treason," he said. "We are both officers in the Empire Service and have duty and honor to uphold."

"Piss on the Empire," Barse repeated, "but you're right. I did swear to keep its stupid civil-ians from getting blown into decaying atoms. You've got a choice to make."

"What choice is that?" Norlin asked. He low-ered his pistol but did not put on the safety. Barse wasn't hostile enough to be a mutineer— he hoped.

"You can stay with this outmoded, outgunned

hunk of junk." She pointed to the station around them. "Or you can come aboard the Preceptor. We've got a full complement of crew—except for a pilot."

"Me? Pilot a cruiser?"

"I was outvoted. The other three want a human on the bridge. I know a computer can do it all and better. It'd take a bit of tinkering, but I could jury-rig one together in a few days."

"We may not have a few days. There may be only hours before the alien fleet comes in, radia-tion cannon firing."

"Dammit, I know. That's why I decided to go along with them. You want to pilot a top-of-the-line cruiser or not? It's going to be your last chance."

"Command a cruiser? I'm better qualified for that than garrison duty." Norlin's heart skipped a beat. Piloting the Empire Service's line vessels was the goal of every officer.

"No one said anything about command. You'd be under my command." Norlin looked at her, then laughed out loud. He tried to stop and couldn't. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he clutched his sides. "That's the funniest thing I ever heard. An engineer can't command."

"Calm down. You're hysterical," she said, ac-curately assessing the true source of his mirth. "And that's the way it's got to be aboard the Pre-ceptor."

"What do the others say about that?"

"They agree."

"Then you'll have to look for another pilot."

"You'd stay on this derelict and let the Death Fleet blow you into undifferentiated proto-plasm?" Barse's eyebrows arched in disbelief.

"We'd all be dead in seconds if I agreed and tried to let you command. What do you really know? I may not have much experience, but I've been trained."

"I'm the best damned engineer in the Empire Service—and I outrank you."

"You probably are the best engineer," Norlin said. "That's not got a damned thing to do with commanding a ship's crew, though. You're right about a computer being able to operate better. A good pilot lets the computer do what it does best. A commander knows how to keep humans and machines working together smoothly. There's more to keeping a ship running than being able to navigate or steer."

"Damned little else."

Norlin heard the vacillation entering Barse's voice. She knew he was right and was reluctant to admit it. He turned the argument against her, proving his point as he did so.

"Decisions. They have to be made by reaction, not conscious thought. An expert-systems com-puter can come close, but there's always the un-known."

"You might make the wrong decision," she ac-cused.

"Maybe, but the odds are still on a disciplined pilot." Norlin remembered the long, arduous training he had endured. Most of what he did at the console came as second nature. A cruiser would be a challenge, but he was better qualified to accept it than an engineer or a computer operator.

"We got fed up with Dukker pushing us around."

"He might have been a good pilot, but he sounds like a lousy commander."

"You ever been in command?"

"Not before an hour ago." Norlin smiled crookedly as he stared down the station's long corridor. "It's been a challenge, but it's time to move on. I'd like the chance to be the Preceptor's pilot—and commanding officer."

"Damn," muttered Barse. She wrung her hands together, then stared up into his purple eyes as if she scanned his soul. Norlin could al-most see the decision process she went through.

"Call me Tia," she said finally. "We run an in-formal ship."

"Call me Captain Norlin. I don't."