'Snarking game of live pool,' the pilot murmured, and intently slapped a control.

    The Shearborn veered, narrowly missing the expanding nebu1osity of a plasma burst vessel. Debris pattered against the hull, and something clanged against the port gun housing. Then they were past and screaming a tortuous course through the flank of the Fleet offensive.

    Jensen barely noted the glittering bursts of fire on the analog screens. Harris's wizardry at the helm escaped him utterly. He saw only the white streak that was the Marity, twisting now with the immunity of a miracle through the thick of the Khalian fleet. Dead Star lay beyond, a disk sharp as a compass cut through a backdrop of scattered stars. As if that dark body were a magnet, MacKenzie James steered his craft for the core.

    'Crazy,' Harris muttered over the scream of the gravity drive. 'Slag his coils for sure, if he doesn't slow down to shed heat.'

    Jensen sweated with his uniform fastened to the chin. The course Mac James had chosen was too predictable not to be deliberate. The lieutenant reaffirmed his intent to capture the space pirate. No price was too great to see the Marity's captain brought to justice. 'Don't lose him, Harris.'

    The pilot half spun from the controls. 'I won't melt down an engine for anybody's pleasure, sir. Not to capture the devil himself.'

    Jensen knew Marity's master was the devil incarnate. His shout for Harris to continue was cut off by the rising wail of the proximity alarm.

    The pilot shrugged, stabbed the switch to raise the chaser's shields. The alarms went silent. Seated like a stone image and half-lighted by the angry yellow glitter of the monitors, he continued his silence, clearly challenging his superior to pull rank.

    Jensen refused argument. Ruled by the need to evade the fire of Fleet and foe alike, Harris could not abandon their new course all at once; and a slight change on the analog screens offered a telling reason why the Shearborn should continue.

    Absorbed with planning an evasive maneuver, Harris took longer to notice that the Marity appeared to be braking. If the skip-runner captain who flew her intended to slip pursuit, deceleration cost him the chance. Past Dead Star and the forefront of the battle lines, the Fleet chaser would be on him like a wasp.

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