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• XI •

KLYN SHANGA GRINNED a humorless grin. “Well, Bern, you’ve really put your foot in it this time, old friend.”

The wiry little man on the fold-down cot spread his skinny arms and shrugged, returning his commander’s rueful smile. He wore a dark-green military shipsuit with a well-abraded band around the waist where he was used to carrying a gunbelt. Shanga’s low-slung holster was likewise empty; no weapons were permitted in the cell-block of the Wennis’ detention sector.

“You know what they say, Boss, sometimes you trick the sorcerer, sometimes the sorcerer tricks you.” He pursed his lips, tongue protruding generously, and made a rude and juicy noise.

An alarmed look playing momentarily over his broad and deeply seamed features, Shanga glanced around reflexively for listening devices.

His smaller associate laughed. “What’re they gonna do, throw me in the clink for insubordination? That’d be like jailing a murderer for littering.” Harsh light from the naked overhead bulb reflected from the man’s equally naked scalp. Where he did have hair, on the sides and back, it was clipped into a dirty gray stubble.

Shanga sat down on the cot beside his friend, extracted a pair of cigars from a pocket. There was a brief silence while they got them lit. “Well, I’ve got to admit, when you tried hijacking that auxiliary, you climbed pretty high on the wanted list. I wish to the Core you’d consulted me before you—”

“What, and have you wind up here, yourself? Boss, you know you’d have done the same thing I did. There are five pinnaces tucked away aboard this scow with the capability for faster-than-light travel, and our fighters can’t hack it. If that blockade fleet moves in before we get to the nebula, we’re gonna lose the Butcher!”

And our reason for living, Shanga thought, reading the same thoughts displayed on his friend’s face. Bern Nuladeg was the only member of his squadron who went back with him to before his original retirement. They’d served their country together in a brief but bloody conflict with one of its neighbors, earning their wings, both of them becoming aces. When Shanga retired, Nuladeg had gone on to become a flight instructor, finally the commander of his nation-state’s flight academy. The invasion from the stars had changed all of that.

Now they flew together in a squadron made up not only of their fellow countrymen but of personnel belonging to their former enemy, individuals from other nations, other planets in their system. They were all Renatasians, and they all wanted the same thing. Vengeance.

“I know, Bern, I know. That’s why you did it on your own, didn’t take any of the others along. You were going to steal that lighter yourself—then what?”

The small, bald-headed figure chuckled. “Hadn’t gotten that far along in my plans. Days before we reach the ThonBoka at this speed, Klyn, days! What can Gepta be thinking of, permitting the invasion to begin before we get there? I heard the story—had the ring of truth to it—and acted. Guess I would have swung around and offered you fellows a ride, if I’d had the chance. I dunno. What’re they gonna do to me, do you suppose?”

Shanga shook his head. “I have a meeting—an ‘audience,’ he’d like to style it—with our gray-robed cousin in an hour or so. We’re going to talk about it then. I won’t lie to you, it doesn’t look good. You should see the way he treats his own people.”

Nuladeg’s laughter was practically a giggle now. “I know! That’s what made swiping that machine so blasted easy: everybody was afraid to move for fear of getting terminally reprimanded! Whoever said dictatorship’s efficient, Boss? It’d be funny if it weren’t so downright stupid.” He drew on his cigar, blew a smoke ring toward the bulb in the ceiling. Then his laughter died along with the smile creasing his face.

“Klyn, promise me one thing: don’t worry about me enough to stop this mission. Whatever you do. I mean it. I can take whatever they dish out, but I can’t stand the thought …”

Bern Nuladeg’s entire family had been killed by Imperial troopers enjoying a