e a landing on
Malverton while it was turned away from us. Makann announced that
they were RMN units from the trade-planets that had joined him. I
suppose the planet-side public swallowed that. He also announced that
their commander, Admiral Dunnan, was in command of the People's
Armed Forces."

Dunnan's ground-fighters would be in control of Malverton. By now,
the odds were that Makann was as much his prisoner as King Mikhyl
VIII had been Makann's.

"So Dunnan has conquered Marduk. All he has to do, now, is make it
stick," he said. "I see four ships off Moonbase; how many more have
they?"

"These are _Bolide_ and _Eclipse_, Dunnan's ships, and former Royal
Mardukan Navy ships _Champion_ and _Guardian_. There are five
orbiting off the planet: Ex-RMNS _Paladin_, and Dunnan ships
_Starhopper_, _Banshee_, _Reliable_ and _Exporter_. The last
two are listed as merchantmen, but they're performing like
regulation battlecraft."

The four that had been circling Moonbase broke orbit and started
toward the relieving fleet; one took a hit from a Moonbase missile,
which staggered her but did no evident damage. Two ships which had
been orbiting the planet also changed course and started out. The
command room was silent except for a subdued chuckling from a
computer which was estimating enemy intentions by observed data and
Games Theory. Three more came hurrying out from the planet, and the
two in the lead slowed to let them catch up. He wanted to be able
to engage the four from off the satellite before the five from the
planet joined them, but Karffard's computers said it couldn't be done.

"All right, we have to take all our bad eggs in one basket," he
said. "Try to hit them as soon after they join as possible."

* * * * *

The computers began chuckling again. The serving-robots were doing
a rush business in hot coffee. Prince Bentrik's son, sitting beside
his father, had stopped being Ruthless Ravary the Demon of the
Spaceways and was a very young officer going into his first space
battle, more scared and at the same time happier than he had ever
been in his short life. Captain Garravay of the _Vindex_ was making
signal to the other ships from Gimli: "_Royal Navy; smash the
traitors first!_" He could understand and sympathize, even if
he couldn't approve of putting personal ahead of tactical
considerations, and made a quick sealed-beam call to Harkaman to be
prepared to plug any holes they