At which point they would be able to send word back to the Pax that Kosta's drop had been successful. And the Empyrean would be on its slow, leisurely way to defeat.

"Tell engineering that as soon as the kick pod is away they're to put triple shifts on the main catapult construction," he instructed the comm officer. "I want it ready in four months."

"Yes, sir."

With a grimace, Lleshi keyed for a copy of the Lorelei data pulse. To be trapped out here for four months, only marginally in touch with what was going on with his task force, was going to be an unpleasant exercise in patience. But for the moment, at least, he possessed information that no one else in the Pax had. Plus five days to decide how much of that information would go out with the kick pod.

Settling himself in his seat in the ship's slowly returning gravity, he began to read.

The timer pinged quietly, and Kosta looked up from his reading. The twelve hours Lleshi had insisted on were up, and a careful look at the displays showed no Empyreal ships within inner scan range.

It was time to go.

Unhinging the control cover, he turned and then pressed a button; and with an awful racket of explosive springs he was shoved back into his seat as his tiny ship was thrown forward through a tunnel that magically appeared in the rock-textured surface of the cocoon. He held his breath, waiting tensely for the inevitable enemy fighter ship that must surely have been skulking behind an asteroid waiting for him.

But nothing. Not as the tiny ship oriented itself; not as it began its preprogrammed flight inward toward the Empyreal world of Lorelei; not even as Kosta breathed a sigh of relief and dared to relax.

The gambit had worked, and he was on his way. Heading to Lorelei, and a rendezvous with a little automated spy system the Pax had managed to set up before their last talks with the Empyreal leaders broke off some months back.

And after that it would be on to Seraph. To Seraph, and Angelmass.