Telthorst snorted. "Of course he'll be caught. Isn't that the whole purpose of a feint? To get caught?"

Lleshi nodded reluctantly, feeling a twinge of discomfort. Dangerous situations were hardly anything new to him, and he'd had his fair share of ordering men onto what were little more than suicide missions. But always before they'd been military men, who had known what they were getting into and had had the best possible chance of getting out alive. Not a civilian with barely eight weeks of training.

Especially not a civilian who'd been lied to straight from square one about what his contribution was expected to be. "He may get lucky," he said.

Telthorst eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. "Perhaps. I'd like a copy of that Lorelei data pulse."

Lleshi caught Campbell's eye, nodded. Wordlessly, the other stepped over to Telthorst and handed him a data cyl. "Thank you," the Adjutor said, getting to his feet. "If you need me, Commodore, I'll be in my stateroom."

He went to the bridge lift platform; paused there. "By the way, you'll want to do a complete survey of this system," he added over his shoulder. "As long as we have to leave a functioning catapult here anyway, we might as well see if there's anything worth coming back for."

"Thank you," Lleshi said. "I am familiar with standing orders."

"Good." For a moment Telthorst let his gaze drift leisurely around the balcony, as if to remind them all who was ultimately in charge of this operation. Then, without another word, he disappeared down the lift plate shaft to the lower command deck and left.

Bastards, Lleshi thought after him. Carved-ice bastards, every one of them. He turned back to his console, keyed for an engineering status report. Work on the kick pod catapult was already underway, with an estimated completion time of five days.