And then the first laser flicked out toward us, and the time for that kind of thought was thankfully over.

The shot was a clean miss. We'd been dropped along one of the Drymnu's flanks, as planned, and it was quickly clear that lasers designed for shooting oncoming meteors weren't at their best trying to fire sideways. But the Drymnu was a hive mind, and hive minds learned fast. The second and third shots missed, too, but the fourth bubbled the reflective paint on our nose. "Let's get moving," I snapped.

Kelly, our pilot, didn't need any coaxing. The words weren't even out of my mouth when she had us jammed against our restraints in a tight spiraling turn that sent us back toward the stern. Not too close; the drive that could actually move this floating mountain would fry us in nano-seconds if it occurred to the Drymnu to turn it on. But Kelly knew her job, and when we finally pulled into a

more or less inertial path again, we were no more than two-thirds of the way back toward the stern and maybe three hundred meters from the textured hull.

This close to a true warship, we would be dead in seconds. But the Drymnu wasn't a warship... and as we flew on unvaporized, I finally knew for a fact that my gamble had paid off. We were inside the alien's defenses, and he couldn't touch us.

Now if we could only turn that advantage into something concrete.

"Fromm, get the laser going," I ordered. "The rest of you, let's find some targets for him to hit. Sensors, intakes, surface radiator equipment—anything that looks weak."

My headset crackled suddenly. "Volga to Travis," the captain's voice said.

"Neutrino emission's suddenly gone up—I think he's running up his drive."

"Acknowledged," I said. "You out of his laser range yet?"

"We will be soon. So far he seems to be ignoring us."