Caitlin waved her hand at the plain ahead of them, littered with wrecked tanks, many of them still burning. "Looks like fighting to me."

Juliana shook her head scornfully. "You ought to be able to look your enemy in the eye. Three inch shells at a mile and a half? Where's the fun in that? Give me cold steel any day."

Caitlin patted the side of the command vehicle they rode in. "I'd think this would be enough steel for anyone."

Juliana snorted. "Composite polymer, more like. There's probably not enough steel in this thing to make a decent dagger. Why do you bother with this, anyway? You've said this stuff," her gesture encompassed both the ruined tanks in front of them and the armored column behind, "doesn't even work where you come from."

"Not all battles are defensive. We may someday face an enemy who hails from a world where this sort of thing works and we want to be able to take the fight to their home ground. I don't know whether or not my father is skilled in the art of armored warfare. It may be something I can contribute."

It was an old argument -- fought, in this case, more out of reflex and nerves than genuine passion -- and Juliana knew better than to push it any further. Caitlin's ambitions, and the likelihood that she'd ever be able to fulfill them, were dangerous territory.

Caitlin's attention returned to the battlefield around her. She'd accomplished a great deal. A year ago she'd started with nothing: A bunch of guerillas with automatic rifles and little enough ammunition even for them. Now she lead a force of captured armor in a three-pronged assault on the enemy capital.

The first line of the enemy defense was already broken. If there was a second line, it would likely be just beyond the hill her tanks were now climbing to catch them silhouetted against the sky as they came over the top. She relaxed slightly as the first few vehicles crested the hill without incident. Then the command track followed and she had her own view.

Five miles ahead, the plain abruptly gave way to suburbs and beyond them rose the spires of Dar Thayleen. The plain between the hill and the city was dotted with retreating enemy tanks. There was no second line of defense. Not here, anyway. It was possible the government forces would surrender, rather than risk the devastation a battle would bring to the capital city. Somehow she doubted that. More likely, they'd reform a new line somewhere inside the city. That could be bad. As she'd demonstrated in the mountains a year ago, rugged terrain and limited sight lines could be used against armored vehicles -- of which the government now had few remaining -- to devastating effect. If they'd learned the lessons of those first campaigns, they could do her forces a lot of damage. She doubted they had, though. Like surrender, that level of subtlety seemed out of character.

Behind the command track, several of her artillery pieces had gone into firing positions and were shelling the retreating government tanks. They weren't having much effect, but that was mostly because there weren't many targets left to hit.

She turned back to Juliana. "I'm going below. Yell if you see anything."

Without waiting for an answer she ducked back into the command track, pulling herself through the cramped interior until she came up behind the radio tech. "Status?"

"Second Division's run into heavy resistance. They're not making much headway."

Caitlin nodded, though the tech couldn't see her. Second Div was her diversion. Under General Mazov, the guerilla leader, it had attacked early and in strength along the obvious route, advancing along the main highway proudly flying the banners of the United Tribes. Mazov didn't have to make any progress, all he had to do was keep enemy resources occupied on his front so they weren't hassling her and Derek.

"Third Div's advancing well. They're already into the suburbs." The tech glanced over his shoulder at her, "Do you want me to slow them up?"

She was tempted. If Derek reached the Presidential Palace first, he'd be insufferable. But if she held him back for no good reason, he'd be outraged. "Just tell them to keep their eyes open. I suspect the President still has some surprises in store for us."

"Air strike coming in."

That was the radar tech. Caitlin couldn't see his screen well from where she stood behind the radioman, but the pattern of dots moving onto the screen didn't require much analysis. Her efforts had been in capturing armor, not aircraft. Anything in the sky belonged to the enemy.

"Transfer targeting data to the AA guns." She glanced back over her shoulder and yelled back towards the hatch, "Get your head down, Julie! We've got incoming!"

Juliana dropped into the track, but left the hatch open behind her in deference to the gunner. The guerillas had generally taken to armored warfare quite well, except that they couldn't stand the restricted visibility inside the vehicles. A lifetime of mountain warfare had beaten into them the importance of being able to spot their enemy and radar displays, computer ranging displays, and external cameras proved an inadequate psychological substitute. If the gunner found a target he liked, he'd stick his head out the hatch and sight visually, air strike or no.

Juliana crowded behind the radar tech, virtually the only space left in the command compartment, watching the enemy planes approach. The strike, when it came, was a clatter like hail stones against the hull, a scream of jet engines, then silence.

"Damage report?" Caitlin asked.

"Nothing," the radio tech answered. "Superficial damage only. A couple injuries from shell fragments, but all vehicles reporting operational. AA claims half a dozen kills."

"That's it?" Caitlin hadn't been expecting the air strike to break their attack, but she'd figured on something a little more substantial than this.

"Looks like fighters only," the radar tech explained. "They may not have any bombers left."

In the old days, that would have been enough. The fighters' nose guns could wreak havoc on any guerillas caught in the open. Against armored vehicles, though, the guns were next to useless.

"What's that?" Juliana pointed to a single blip lagging behind the others on the radar display.

"Evac flight, probably," the tech answered. He laughed, "Maybe it's the President. He knows we'll string him up by the ears in Market Square if we get a hold of him."

"You sure?" Caitlin asked.

"He's above 40,000. A smart missile won't track from that high up."

Juliana wasn't convinced, either. "Cluster bombs?"

Caitlin shook her head. "We're dispersed and moving. If they got lucky, they might hit one tank. Waste of a good cluster bomb. Fighters?"

"Still outbound," the radar tech answered. "No sign that they're coming around for another pass. Either they didn't like what we did to them the first time or maybe they're escorts for the evac flight and they were just taking pot shots at us on their way out."

The radio operator cut in. "I've lost Third Div."

Something twisted in Caitlin's stomach. Derek.

Juliana felt it, too. "He could have just lost his radio."

Her voice revealed it as a lie. She was right, though. There were all sorts of survivable reasons for losing radio contact. Derek had been through far worse in campaigns across half a dozen Shadows. There was no reason 'missing' necessarily equaled 'dead'.

Time enough to worry about that later, either way. "Get me the division XO."

"No response."

"Air strike is still outbound," the radar tech interjected.

"General frequency, then. I need some kind of report about what's going on over there."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, ma'am. I can't raise anybody in Third Division."

The knot in Caitlin's stomach turned to ice. Her gaze flicked back to the radar display with its retreating fighters and single high altitude target now almost directly over them.

"Close the hatch!" she shouted at the bewildered gunner. "Close the hatch!"

Outside, the sky burned with the light of a second sun.

They stand on a ruined plain under a gray sky. Ruins dot a landscape pockmarked with craters, the scars of some great battle. Nothing breathes, nothing moves. Even the atmosphere seems thin.

Akihara: This is almost right. There's only one thing missing. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it. Do you know what radiation is?

Galen: I'm familiar with it.

Akihara: Can you, what do you call it, shift for it?

Galen: I don't know. I've never tried. I don't see why not, though.

Caitlin: Have you ever been nuked, Galen?

Galen: No.

Caitlin: I have. I'll lead from here.