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I'll take Hawking and O'Hara. And Jensen."
    Lathe and Mordecai exchanged glances. "You sure you want Jensen?" Lathe asked.
    "He's fine," Skyler said firmly. "He's just not yet over what happened on Argent, that's all."
    "I understand that," Lathe said. "The fact remains that he's become a little ... unpredictable."
    "He's fine," Skyler said again. "Besides, he's got a lot of specialized skills that none of the rest of us have, not to mention being our best pilot. We may need him."
    Lathe shrugged. "Okay, it's your call. In that case, are you sure you don't want a larger group yourself?
    We do have those new six-man drop pods."
    " I'll theoretically have Kanai and Phoenix to draw on," Skyler said. "Besides, I don't want to leave Plinry any more undefended than it already is. If this works, the Ryq are likely to be very unhappy with us."
    "There's that," Lathe agreed soberly. "We'll need to make sure we've got something in place before we go."
    "I'll get Haven and De Vries to cover that," Skyler said. "But since you mention the six-man pods, let me go ahead and take Flynn, too."
    "You want Pittman or Braune, too?" Lathe asked. "They know the area, at least a little."
    "No, Flynn will do," Skyler said, looking innocently over at Mordecai. "If I can't have Mordecai, I can at least get his bag of bizarre tricks."
    "There's nothing bizarre about any of them," Mordecai protested mildly. "It's all simple, clean combat technique."
    Lathe suppressed a smile. If there were any two blackcollars in his group that were a study in contrasts, it was Skyler and Mordecai. Where Skyler was big, bluff, and pleasantly garrulous, Mordecai was small, wiry, and seldom spoke.
    But when he did, he was usually worth listening to. "You've been very quiet, Mordecai. What do you think about all this?"
    "I was just thinking about a possibility neither of you has mentioned," the smaller man said. "Namely that this could be nothing more than a ploy to split us up and send us charging off in all directions."
    "To what end?" Skyler asked.
    Mordecai shrugged. "They've tried twice to beat us as a group," he said. "Maybe they think breaking us into smaller chunks will help."
    "If they do, they're going to be sorely disappointed," Skyler rumbled. "Even with Caine's trainees aboard we didn't exactly constitute a major assault force last year in Denver."
    "I know," Mordecai said. "I'm just saying that if we do take this on, it may be the last mission for some of us."
    "Maybe even for all of us," Lathe said quietly.
    There was a moment of silence. "Well, no one promised we'd live forever," Skyler said at last. "I vote we go for it."
    Mordecai half lifted a hand. "Agreed."
    "Thank you," Lathe said, nodding to each in turn. "All right, we've got six weeks to prepare before Lepkowski and the Novak get back. Let's get started."
    * * *
    Six weeks later, to Galway's quiet relief, Lathe, Caine, and a group of blackcollars boarded a shuttle at the Capstone 'port and headed into the sky to rendezvous with the massive Nova-class warship waiting for them. An hour later, the Novak left orbit and headed for the stars.
    "Hor long?" Taakh asked as he and Galway watched the departure on the tracking monitor.
    "About eight and a half days," Galway told him. "More, if Lepkowski has other stops to make along the way."
    "Then it is tine to go," Taakh said. "Our Corsair rill take three and a hakh days. Re nust 'e there ren they arri'e."
    "As you command, Your Eminence," Galway said with a sigh. After all the months he'd spent on Earth and Khala, first locating Judas and then overseeing his training, the past six weeks had seemed to fly by. Now, once again, he was going to have to leave his wife, his home, and his world. He wondered if he would ever see any of them again.
    CHAPTER 2
    With a jolt of shattered bolts, the drop pod released itself from the descending shuttle, throwing the five men inside into instant freefall. "Oof!" Flynn grunted as he gripped the straps holding him to his