The aide did some fast figuring. "If we use everything, including our tactical computers, about ten minutes."

"Very well, put everything you have on the problem. We'll jump one of our battlewagons."

"Yes, Puissance--"

"But, Puissance, what about the Mush-faces? If we don't use the tactical computers for minimal defense, they'll tear our fleet apart."

Lal scarcely hesitated. "We'll have to take those losses. If we can't stop that... thing... near the sun, we'll all be dead anyway and the Dorvik empire will be destroyed in less than ten centuries." He noticed that the aide was still waiting nervously. Lal turned to the man's image and shrilled, "Move!" The aide bowed spastically and the image vanished.

The prince struggled to bring his voice back into control. "General, evacuate one of your battlewagons. We'll annihilate its entire mass right next to the Enemy." His emphasis capitalized the word; the Mush-faces were merely an enemy.

"Yes, Puissance."

"Ten minutes."

Harl nodded, began giving orders on his private comm. In the presence of a member of the Imperial Family he was reduced to the status of a messenger boy.

Lal had given his orders, and now had to endure a small eternity as they were executed. Somewhere he knew mountainous computers were ticking away at the calculations involved in even the shortest jump. Somewhere else, ten thousand men were trying to abandon their battle wagon before the deadline he had set. And somewhere, twelve billion kilometers away, was an object that had to be destroyed else the galaxy would die.

A brilliant red star appeared just above the garden's pseudo-horizon. The dot expanded, becoming fainter as it grew, the mad red eye of a monster. Almost simultaneously, three closely spaced red "starts" shone just two degrees away from the first. Lal recognized the characteristic glow of fusion bombs. The Mush-faces must have discovered that the Darvik defense patterns were no longer adaptive. Without tactical computers, the Dorvik were squatting milvaks before the attack. Those bombs couldn't have been closer than 100,000 kilometers, but the enemy was moving in.