The rumble of ingots being dumped amidships was joined by a series of slower, hull-shaking clangs. Kawalec was trying to clear the vessel's own cargo-shifting apparatus in order to straighten the recent jumble. Ortschugin frowned and touched the communicator. "Excellency," he said, "they'll probably make another pass. It might be best to keep yourself and the crew under cover until this has all blown over."

The response came on the Power Room line. Nadia Kawalec had not risked herown life among possible live ordnance. "Don't act stupider than you already are, Ortschugin," she snapped. "They're bombing here just to scatter the locals and keep them from blowing the place up. Well, that may work, but they're not going to catch us too!"

Why the hell not? the First Officer wondered silently. The copper would not be paid for until it was delivered on Novaya Swoboda. The Rubes would be just as glad of that golden egg as the Federals had been. TheKatynForest and her crew had little to fear on that score.

He looked at the screens. The dazzling flash of the starship blowing up chilled Ortschugin as it would have chilled any spaceman who saw it.

The starship in fact destroyed itself. It had been adapted to a job for which it was not intended in the belief that its hyperspace envelope and its high real-space velocity would be adequate protection. Starships were not armored in the technical sense, but their hulls were of braced steel a hand's breadth thick. That was needed to withstand the torque of hyperspace inversion. The momentary friction of Mach 5 in an atmosphere made the attacking vessel's nose glow, but it was intended that the ship be back in her envelope before any structural damage occurred.