TSR, Inc. is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. All rights reserved. Made in the U.S.A.Cover Art by rk postFirst Printing: March 1999Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-857879 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 ISBN: 0-7869-1334-7 21334XXX1501Visit our web-site at When Heaven is about to confer great office upon a man, it first exercises his mind withsuffering, and his sinews andbones with toil:it exposes him to poverty and confounds all his undertakings. Then it is seen if he is ready.Meng-Tse, Sol, 6 B.C.Chapter OneSTRUGGLING INSIDE Sunshine's fighting field, Gabriel Connor flung himself and their small ship through space while the plasma bolts of their pursuers arrowed past on either side of him, so close he could have sworn he could feel the heat straight through the hull. He stared frantically around him into the darkness, but there was nowhere to go. They were surrounded.This time, for sure, this time we 're going to die.We cannot keep this up much longer, Enda's seemingly disembodied voice came to him from somewhere on the other side of the field. She was handling gunnery, having a talent for it, but the gift seemed not to be serving her well today.There are too many of them left, she said, and we are running low on power. Gabriel glanced at the power readouts inside the gunnery field. They were down to ten percent on both sets of weapons. His big gun, the rail cannon on top of Sunshine, was recharging, but not quickly enough. It wanted another thirty seconds, and whether it was going to get them was uncertain. Gabriel tumbled the ship to make sure of the field of fire. One of the little ball bearing ships that had chased them out into the depths of the Corrivale system came plunging through his sights. He took aim with the plasma cannon and fired. Clear miss.
