As the Apollo pulled out of Al-Qaum's atmosphere Captain Littlecrow noticed what the oligarchs had been trying to keep from her: the planetary defense fleet was gone. No doubt it was currently en route towards Ceres. They must have had spies with the rebels. They knew the whole time.

Unfortunately the Captain was only partially right. Most of the defense fleet was gone but, as she quickly realized as it pulled into range, one of the starcruisers remained.

"Shields!" yelled Captain Littlecrow.

"Way ahead of you, Captain," said Mitzner.

She was in the co-pilot seat and had initialized shields the very moment they broke atmosphere. Littlecrow was piloting.

"They've powered up their weapons and they're looking for a sensor lock," said Mitzner.

"Taking evasive actions," said the Captain.

She began to pilot the tiny ship in an erratic pattern. The Sultan's sluggish targeting computers couldn't keep up, and the crew was not skilled enough to compensate. The gunner began taking wild shots at the tiny shuttle, which flew past it as it made for the Armstrong.

"Hail the Armstrong," said the Captain.

"Marceaux what are you doing? We're being fired on down here!" Mitzner yelled over the Ansible.

"We've brought both the ion cannons and the mass drivers online, waiting for the order to fire," said Marceaux.

"Fire at will," yelled Captain Littlecrow "Target weapons first."

The Captain continued to fly as chaotically as possible but the targeting computers were learning her patterns and beginning to compensate. The next shot hit home, rocking the shuttle.

"We've lost shields," said Mitzner "Another hit like that and we're theoretical particles."

"I apologize in advance for this," said the Captain, and pulled back hard on the controls. The little shuttle shot up in a fierce arc as fast as it's engines could take it. Everyone besides the Captain and Mitzner, the only ones wearing seat-belts, fell in a heap at the back of the shuttle as it shot upward like a bullet.

The Armstrong fired ion cannons, searing through the Sultan's shields and knocking out it's primary weapons array. It followed with a salvo from the mass drivers, shredding massive holes in the hull. The surviving crew would have to abandon ship.

"You've lowered shields, right Marceaux?" asked Mitzner over the Ansible.

"Er," said Marceaux "Lowering now."

The Armstrong's shields snapped off a full three and a half seconds before they would have vaporized the tiny shuttle. It came flying into the shuttlebay at unsafe speeds, and the Captain cut engines the second it was through. The shuttle still had enough momentum left to crash into the roof, then down onto the floor of the shuttlebay.

The shuttle had very good crash safety systems. All of the crew walked away. The Apollo, however, was trashed.

* * *

Gibson hailed the Armstrong via Ansible while the Armstrong was still in transit.

"Commander Gibson," said the Captain, as soon as the hail came through "I need you to get all of our people on Manticore ready for transport to the Armstrong as soon as we arrive. We're racing the Al-Qaum fleet. We'll outrun them but they'll be right behind us. They're on their way to destroy Ceres and they've already tried to kill several members of the crew to prevent us from interfering. Is the tachyon relay station operational? I would be helpful to be able to contact Mars."

"Actually," said Gibson "I can do you one better than just a direct tachyon stream to Mars. That's what I was contacting you about. I authorized Dr. Kang to deviate from procedure in order to expediate the T-Net connection. We've had T-Net access for a day and a half."

"You broke the law?" asked the Captain.

"Nothing serious, a little signal piracy," said Gibson "But thanks to it Dr. Kang was able to pull some strings on Mars and get Ceres member world status. The Huxley Foundation now claims the entire star system and recognizes the local governments on the agri-moons."

"So now you're in league with Dr. Kang?" asked the Captain "You may have really saved us here too. He's going to be completely unmanageable after this."

"I've heard him speak at length about his role on the ship and it is my opinion that he should never be left alone without a supervising officer ever again," said Gibson.

"Agreed," said the Captain.