The Sirian Pearl, along with the other ships of the Shubran civilian relief squadron, had seen no actual fighting and had sustained no damage while shuttling from one disaster to another.  Such minor refitting as was required to get her perfectly ready for action had already been taken care of at the base.  The Space Force had been eager to help with the maintenance.  Gennadius wanted every human ship in the nebula to be as fully armed and equipped and ready for combat as possible.

More combat was expected soon, though with berserkers you never knew.  Anyway, it was certain to come eventually.


The Pearl was almost alone in the docks, except for a few Space Force ships, a couple of them undergoing routine maintenance, a couple of others being held in reserve as transport and for defense in the unlikely event of a berserker attack on the base itself.  Four Twenty-five had truly awesome ground defenses.  From the enemy's point of calculation, there had to be more tempting targets out there in the nebula, colonies only lightly defended now after the years of relative peace and quiet.

Domingo's ship was solidly down in dock, with Gujar Sidoruk and Iskander Baza walking and climbing over and around her, giving everything on the outside a looking over, probing with tools and fingers into missile-launching ports and tubes, field projectors, the snouts and nozzles of beam weapons.  The checkout was really unnecessary, but Gujar at least was nervous enough to need something to do.  Iskander had come along, and they talked while they conducted an extra inspection.

Iskander, hands on hips, stood tall on the uppermost curve of hull.  He said: "You know, Sid?"

"What?"

"I'm really looking forward to taking this ship into action."  He sounded more serious than usual.

Gujar straightened up from a beam nozzle and looked about restlessly, swinging his electronic probe in one huge hand.  He responded that he himself was not looking forward to anything.  Going after Leviathan was just something he had to do, and he wanted to get it over with.

Sidoruk was not as familiar with this ship as the other crew members were.  He had a few questions to ask about the new weapons and systems Domingo had insisted on having built into his ship.

Gujar had been taking it for granted that the Pearl's armaments were adequate for the formidable task Domingo was planning.  But now it seemed to him that, in answer to a couple of his questions, Iskander was slyly trying to raise some doubt in his mind, as if just for fun.