STARSHIP FREEDOM VII

The Guns of Freedom

by

Daniel Arenson

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

AFTERWORD

NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

KEEP IN TOUCH

Illustration © Tom Edwards - TomEdwardsDesign.com

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CHAPTER ONE

The starships of humanity charged to war, all guns blazing. Before them rose the alien armada: a wall of steel and plasma and blades the size of skyscrapers, hiding the stars.

Earth burned below. The good blue planet had turned red. But she had not yet fallen.

Humanity still fought.

"Fly!" Admiral King shouted from the bridge of the starship Freedom. "Fly for Earth! Fly for humanity! Fly for freedom!"

The starship Freedom led the charge. She was a dreadnought, the largest in the fleet, a mile long from stern to stem. Her fourteen cannons, the fabled Angels of Liberty, were booming, launching torpedoes at the enemy formations. Her starfighters, the legendary Freedom's Flock, raced at her sides, as small as piranhas racing alongside a whale. She was the ship that had defeated the Red Dawn forty years ago, that had destroyed the motherclaw Hunger at Pluto, that had traveled across the stars and come back with hope. She was the flagship of the Free Alliance of democratic nations. She was the hope of mankind. She blazed ahead of the fleet like a pillar of fire, lighting the way to the promised land.

Behind her, the fleet rallied.

Thousands of starships.

Some were frigates, mighty warships with thick hulls and powerful cannons. If the Freedom were a whale, the frigates were mighty sharks, ready to bite their enemies. Many corvettes flew here too, smaller than frigates but no less deadly—sleek machines of war like barracudas. Even a few starfighter carriers flew here, monsters of brutal force, smaller than the Freedom but still massive, easily the size of the Empire State Building.

And other ships flew with them. Civilian ships. Space yachts, once the toys of the rich, their hulls now mounted with cannons. Mining ships that had once dug through asteroids, that now aimed their drills and claws at the enemy. Space racers, vessels even smaller than starfighters, with crude Gatling guns welded onto their prows. Cargo haulers and freighters, some nearly as large as the starfighter carriers. Instead of carrying commodities to trade, they carried torpedoes. The crews of these civilian vessels had volunteered to join the Alliance, to fly with the armed fleet to war. Every ship counted. Every pilot was another light that joined into a great fire.

And this was just the Free Alliance. Just the democratic nations of Earth. Just part of the human tapestry.

The Desert Thorns flew here too, leading a thousand ships. They came from countries across the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. They were smaller than the Alliance, but their ships were fast, graceful, and deadly, modeled after the dhow sailing ships of old. Queen Laila, ruler of the Desert Thorns, led them from aboard the Dune, her silvery flagship.

If the Desert Thorns were graceful, the Red Dawn—the third great union of humans—was anything but. Their ships were painted gold and red, machines of extravagant brutality, boasting of both their wealth and deadliness. Their design combined the boldness of Art Deco with the grandeur of imperial Russia, a style called Krem Deco. King didn't care how they decorated their ships. They could be covered in pink polka dots for all he cared. So long as they could take out the enemy.

The Red Dawn brought thousands of starships to the fight. It was a force equal to the Alliance Fleet. Half a century ago, an ideology known as equalism had spread across the globe, consuming nations like gangrene. The bastard child of fascism and communism, equalism took over Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, and many other nations. At one point, the Red Dawn had even conquered Mars—at least until King had shown up in the Freedom to drive them back to Earth. As a young man, King had fought a long, hard war against the Red Dawn. And now they flew at his side, allies in the great war against the Empire of Arakavish.

This was it. The full strength of humanity, this fledgling civilization just reaching out toward the stars.

Before them rose the might of Arakavish, the dread alien empire that brutalized the galaxy.

Myriads of their ships flew ahead, dwarfing the human fleet. The enemy didn't just outnumber them. Their ships were far larger, far deadlier. Many were clawships, bristling with blades. Those metal spikes could slice through enemy ships or bloom open like petals, revealing geysers of plasma. The clawships came in different sizes: small clawfighters, hulking warclaws, and enormous motherclaws the size of cities. These were the ships of the rahs, the alien spiders who had been tormenting Earth for years. Earth had faced them before, knew how to defeat them.

But new terrors flew here today. Something worse. Something that chilled King to the bone.

Arachtaur ships.

They were shaped like spiders, each leg a railgun. Spiders large enough to swallow a frigate. The shape was ironic. The arachtaurs were not true spiders. They had spider bodies, but from their abdomens grew the torsos, arms, and heads of humans. Hybrids. Empress Elder'rah had genetically engineered them, crafting monstrosities who could think like humans, who understood humanity well enough to destroy it. King decided he would call their starships arachships.

Just one arachship, the Tyranny, had faced the Freedom and five other Alliance ships in deep space. The five other ships fell. Freedom barely survived. It was the toughest battle King had fought in four decades of service. Now thousands of these terrors, clones of the Tyranny, flew ahead.

Above this combined host of rahs and arachtaurs loomed a unique terror. The largest starship King had ever seen. A ship the size of a small moon. She was one of a kind. A class of her own.

The Atrocity.

The enormous starship was shaped like a human skull. Red flames burned in the eye sockets. A crown of cannons rose from the metal head. King had seen those cannons pulverize frigates. The gargantuan ship rose like a dark god overseeing his demonic hosts.

"How the hell is she still flying?" said Larry "Phantom" Jordan, XO of the starship Freedom. He stood on the bridge, staring ahead grimly. He was a tall man in his early sixties, his skin dark, his hair white, and his baritone voice rumbled like the engines deep inside the ship. "We fired the Fist of Freedom into her. A weapon that can wipe out a city. And we only left a dent in her hull."

As the fleet charged closer, Admiral James "Bulldog" King snarled. He clenched his fists, both the real fist and the prosthetic, which was shaped like a medieval gauntlet. "We've never seen shields like this. But the wrath of the human fleet will destroy her. Alliance Fleet—form battle formations and take out that skull!"

The starships of the Alliance charged.

At their side roared the ships of the Red Dawn, red and gold and rumbling.

Above flew the graceful fleet of the Desert Thorns, their cannons unleashing hell.

The ships of Arakavish charged to meet them. From ahead. From below. From above. They were everywhere. Tens of thousands. A cluster of clawships raced toward the Freedom, their bladed prows opening to reveal plasma hearts.

"For freedom!" King shouted.

The two fleets slammed together like colliding stars.

Blazes of light and clouds of shrapnel flew everywhere.

The galaxy trembled.

Down on Earth, the night sky turned bright as day. They probably saw the flare from Mars.

The Freedom charged through the storm like a stallion through a host of barbarians. King's fleet followed, crashing into the enemy lines.

* * * * *

As the Freedom charged through the enemy lines, her many monitors displayed information about the ships—their size, their names, their armaments. The data was dizzying. Thousands of enemy ships swirled around them. They were everywhere.

King chose two nearby targets: the Cocoon of Bones, a spiky warclaw lumbering off Freedom's port bow; and the Black Lullaby, an arachship rising off the starboard beam.

"Port gunnery team!" King shouted. "Aim your cannons at the Cocoon of Bones. Starboard gunnery team! Aim at the Black Lullaby. Fire!"

The Freedom's cannons boomed. Seven Maccabee torpedoes flew to the left, seven to the right. The bridge trembled.

All around them, thousands of other human ships were choosing targets and firing. Torpedoes, missiles, plasma bolts, laser beams, bullets—the fusillade spread around the human fleet in a shower of fury. Every moment, another ship exploded. The hulks of starships careened into deep space or crashed down to Earth.

King watched his torpedoes fly. He knew that Arakavish ships had thick shields. It would take several torpedoes to break through.

The port broadside struck first, slamming into the Cocoon of Bones.

An electric shield materialized around the clawship, a web woven of laser threads. Several torpedoes detonated against the shield. The luminous web trembled. Another torpedo hit, and the shield shattered. The last two torpedoes plowed through the warclaw's hull and exploded inside.

In the last second, just before the Cocoon of Bones exploded, the clawship managed to fire a stream of plasma. The inferno blazed across Freedom's port shield, forming a hemisphere of fire. The Freedom trembled but the shields held.

Meanwhile, seven more Maccabee-class torpedoes still raced toward the Black Lullaby, the hulking arachship.

The enormous mechanical spider reared in space. Her eight portholes blazed like eyes. A spinneret thrust out from a hangar, firing webs large enough to ensnare a blue whale. The webs caught one torpedo, a second, a third. The warheads exploded in space, scattering cobwebs everywhere. Shrapnel hit other torpedoes, detonating them before they could reach the enemy. One torpedo managed to hit the Black Lullaby, cracking her hull. But the great spider was not dead. She raised her eight legs, each one a railgun, and fired.

Silver spears the size of telephone poles flew toward the Freedom.

"Divert power to starboard shields!" King cried.

The deck thrummed as electricity raced below his feet, moving toward the starboard, thickening the electromagnetic bubble that engulfed the Freedom.

"Firing interceptors!" shouted Major Motti Kaplan from the corner of the bridge. He operated the Shield of David missile-defense system, tasked with shooting down incoming torpedoes. His fingers fluttered over the controls, and a storm of interceptors flew from the Freedom, curving and corkscrewing through space as they adjusted their flight, drawing spirals of light.

Black Lullaby's spears streaked closer, moving too fast to dodge. But the interceptors hit one! Then another! And three more! The spears exploded in space.

But three spears survived. And they slammed into the Freedom.

The dreadnought shook.

Klaxons wailed.

The deck cracked beneath King's feet. He gritted his teeth, balled his fists, and stayed standing. A monitor shattered. A pipe burst out from a bulkhead like a broken bone through flesh, venting steam.

"Damage report!" King barked.

"Shields holding!" Mimori cried from her station. The flashing lights from the monitors danced over the android's face. "Down to twenty-eight percent but still up! The impact just shook us, that's all."

"Freedom's Flock—keep the Black Lullaby back. Mimori—keep charging at the Atrocity." He stared at the great metal skull looming above the battle like a moon. "That's our target."

Two hundred F-77 Eagles composed Freedom's Flock, the dreadnought's complement of starfighters. They now raced around their mothership, streaking toward the Black Lullaby.

The metal spider reared, exposing her hangar bays, and spewed a cloud of spiderwings. The little starfighters looked like baby spiders, complete with eight legs. Each was large enough for a single arachtaur pilot. They raced to meet the Eagles, trailing lines of fire. The two fleets of starfighters collided like galaxies.

The Eagles could not take down an arachship. But they held the Black Lullaby back. The spidery ship could not fly past the cloud of dogfights. Whenever an Eagle got a chance, it launched missiles at the Black Lullaby, chipping away at her shields.

The Freedom soared.

"Stern cannons!" King said. "Aim at the Black Lullaby and fire!"

The cannons boomed.

The Black Lullaby saw the torpedoes coming. She aimed her spinneret. But just then, three intrepid Eagles seemed to … vanish from reality.

They reappeared by Black Lullaby's spinneret, fired their missiles, and destroyed the web launcher. The Eagles scattered. A second later, Freedom's torpedoes slammed into the Black Lullaby.

Her shields shattered. The massive starship tore apart. Her arachnid legs flew through space, carving through smaller clawships.

Black Lullaby was gone.

Voices came over MindWeb, filling King's ears.

"Whoa, did you see that?" cried Spitfire from her Eagle's cockpit.

"These hopscotch drives are incredible!" said Katana, another Eagle pilot.

"Dudes, we literally just hopped through space," said Pickles, flying a third Eagle. "Mind blown."

King huffed. At the Aeolian star system, the mysterious Aeolians had upgraded the Freedom and her starfighters with hopscotch drives. King didn't understand how the technology worked. No human did. But work it did. Hopscotch drives let them jump short distances through space—up to a hundred klicks. Impractical for interstellar travel but deadly in battle.

"Pilots!" King said. "Remember—hopscotch drives are risky. Each jump carries a seventeen percent chance of failure. That means you die. Hopscotch only in life-and-death situations."

"Sir, with all due respect, I think this kinda qualifies," said Pickles from his Eagle. "Whoa, whoa!"

An enemy missile came flying his way.

Pickles hopscotched again. His starfighter vanished. The missile flew by. Pickles reappeared an instant later.

"Did that qualify?" Pickles said.

"Just be careful," King growled. "Starfighters—stay near the Freedom. We're still trying to reach the Atrocity. Don't get sidetracked."

* * * * *

All around the Freedom, other ships were fighting. The battle stormed around them like a nebula. Humanity's fleet was scoring some victories, destroying some enemy ships. But not enough. With sheer numbers and unrelenting brutality, the enemy kept bombarding them. The clawships blew streams of plasma like dragonfire. The arachships fired their deadly spears from their metal legs. More and more human ships fell, burning up, cracking open, spilling spacers into the depths.

The battle surrounded Earth's orbit. The ships were spinning around the planet like water around a drain. Every second, another ship exploded. A hailstorm of hulks crashed into Earth. Mangled chunks of metal plowed into forests, setting the trees ablaze. Clawships and frigates splashed into the oceans, raising tidal waves. Water flowed over coastal cities. The severed blades of clawships, some as large as skyscrapers, slammed into cities, carving through entire neighborhoods.

All the while, even as Earth burned, the enemy dropships kept descending. Arakavish did not wait to win the battle in space. Under fire, they released shuttle after shuttle. The spiky little vessels descended toward Earth in lines like ants traveling to a morsel.

Reports from Earth kept flooding Alliance channels. On the side monitors, King caught glimpses of video streams from the surface. The alien shuttles were touching down—in fields, deserts, and cities. Earth's artillery took out hundreds of the spiderlike dropships, but thousands kept raining down.

As each dropship landed, its hatches opened, disgorging screaming hordes of arachtaurs.

Battles flared across Earth. But King had no time to monitor them. The ground forces were on their own. King had his hands full in space.

He looked at the central monitor. Thousands of clawships and arachships filled space. Beyond them, the Atrocity rose over Earth's horizon like a demonic moon. The metal skull seemed to smile, and flames blazed in her eye sockets. Her crown kept firing white beams, searing through starships.

Three clawships charged toward Freedom. The dreadnought's cannons boomed, knocking the enemy back. Freedom's Flock charged like a pack of wolves at wounded buffaloes. Their missiles flew, finishing the job. More enemy ships rose at once, replacing their fallen brethren. The Angels of Liberty kept firing. The Freedom kept charging forth, blasting her way through the storm. But she never seemed to get closer to the Atrocity. The colossal metal skull forever loomed on the horizon, an astral face in the darkness.

"We have to destroy that skull ship!" King said.

Jordan pursed his lips. "We can't break through. The enemy forces are too strong."

Three more arachships charged at them. The Angels of Liberty fired, bombarding the enemy shields. But the arachships kept coming. Their spinnerets slung sticky webs, attempting to ensnare the Freedom. But the defensive Shield of David batteries fired, slicing through the nets. The arachships changed tactics, retracting their spinnerets and firing their railguns. Silver spears streaked toward Freedom. One made its way through the Shield of David interceptors and slammed into Freedom's force field. The dreadnought wobbled inside the force field like a concussed brain inside a skull. A blast of kinetic energy dented the hull. The ship shook. The deck cracked.

"Shields down to seventeen percent!" Mimori cried. The android clutched her belly as if she felt the blow. She was connected to the ship, a personification of the Freedom. Every missile that scarred Freedom's hull blazed across her body.

"Mimori, get a grip!" King shouted. "Charge at those arachships and break our way through!"

Jordan caught his arm. "Dammit, Jim, we can't defeat three of those things. Remember what the Tyranny, just one arachship, did to us?"

But the three arachships were flying closer. More silver spears flew. Major Kaplan worked in a fury, his fingers blindingly fast, firing more and more interceptors, knocking back more and more spears.

Another spear hit the Freedom.

The bridge trembled.

"Shields at two percent!" Mimori cried through the pain. "We might not survive another blow."

One arachship loomed ahead—a monstrosity named the Gravedigger. Two more arachships flanked the Freedom, coming in fast off their port and starboard beams, legs ready to fire.

King wished he could fire the Fist of Freedom, his fabled railgun. It would make short work of an arachship. But the damn thing took a full day to load, and he had already fired it during this battle, for all the good the damn thing did. The great railgun, a weapon that could wipe out cities, had left barely more than a pockmark on the Atrocity.

Gravedigger unleashed more silver spears.

The Eagles soared into action, firing missiles, destroying many spears in midflight. The interceptors took out more.

But one spear made it through.

It plowed through what remained of Freedom's electromagnetic shield and slammed into her hull.

The dreadnought rocked through space.

The bulkheads creaked.

Viewports collapsed. Bulkheads buckled and cracked. Smoke filled the bridge.

"Damage report!" King managed, coughing.

"Our armored hull held, sir!" Mimori said. "We got a crater in the hull, but it held!"

The Eagles were attacking Gravedigger, the arachship that had hurt them. Two other arachships still flanked the Freedom, and they were coming in fast, one at each side. The HUD displayed their names. The Web of Fire loomed off their starboard beam. The Spider Under the Bed lurked off their port beam.

"Fire our cannons, dammit, destroy those ships!" King shouted.

The Angels of Liberty boomed. Maccabee torpedoes plowed into the two arachships that flanked Freedom, knocking them back in space.

The Web of Fire tumbled through a nearby formation of French corvettes. Les petite warships leaped onto her like hungry piranhas, bombing what remained of her hull. Flames filled the spiderlike ship.

Meanwhile, the Spider Under the Bed careened too close to Earth. The planet's gravity caught her, began pulling her downward. The dented, burning ship tried to rise, to fly back into battle. Another broadside from the Freedom shoved her down into the atmosphere. The Spider Under the Bed plunged through the sky, breaking up. Her pieces slammed into the Pacific, pulverizing on impact. Tidal waves and clouds of steam washed over islands.

That left one arachship. Gravedigger. The one right off Freedom's prow.

She charged from ahead, coming in fast. King winced. Freedom's shields were flickering, barely staying on. Gravedigger came charging through their interceptors, through their point-defense bullets, moving faster and faster, preparing to ram into the Freedom … then exploded.

King blinked.

The Gravedigger was … gone. Nothing but shrapnel hit Freedom's armor, embedding into the thick metal plates.

"Did we do that?"

"No, our cannons are aimed sideways," Jordan said, head tilted.

A voice came over MindWeb. "You're welcome, James King! Katyusha saves your American backside yet again!"

Dammit, King thought. Katyusha.

* * * * *

King looked at the deckhead viewport, which sprawled above like a sunroof. The RDS Baba Yaga, flagship of the Red Dawn, rumbled overhead. She was a dreadnought, as large and heavy as the Freedom. But the two starships looked nothing alike. The Freedom was all functionality, her hull thick with armor and bristling with sensors, cannons, and machine guns. The Baba Yaga, like all Red Dawn ships, prided herself on her appearance. Her hull was painted crimson and trimmed with filigree. Golden equal signs adorned her, glittering in the light of the battle. Her brass cannons were shaped like snarling bears.

Even as she charged to battle, Katyusha took a moment to broadcast her avatar to Freedom's bridge. She materialized beside King, clad in the resplendent uniform of the Red Dawn. Her red coat sported coattails, gilded buttons, and cuff links shaped like equal signs. Tasseled epaulets adorned her shoulders, and a ceremonial saber hung from her side, the scabbard clattering against her tall boots. Her black hair was cut the length of her chin, and a naval cap topped her head, a ruby glinting above the visor.

"Zdravstvuyte, Jamechka, darling!" she said, her Russian accent thick. "Did you miss Katyusha on your adventure in deep space? So nice to fight with you again, dear American cowboy!"

King growled. Katya "Katyusha" Petrova was the premier of the Red Dawn, commanding nearly half of Earth. And she looked no older than twenty.

"Did you implant your brain into a new clone already?" King said.

Katyusha tossed back her head and laughed. "Oh, Jamechka! Please! Katyusha's brain has been in this beautiful, sexy clone for two years now." She passed her hands over her body. "It still has another two or three years before it gets worn out." She patted his cheek. "You sure you don't want clone therapy too? You are looking so old and wrinkly."

He shoved her hand away. "Katyusha, listen to me. We have to take out the Atrocity. That giant skull ship."

Her face hardened. Her eyes blazed and she bared her teeth. "You keep away from that skull! That is Katyusha's prize. She will claim it!"

The Freedom rocked as plasma jets hit the tenuous shields. Down in engineering, they were doing everything they could to keep the force field replenished. Jordan was barking orders, choosing targets for the cannons. King didn't have time to bandy words with the premier right now.

"Dammit, Katyusha, this isn't about personal glory. This is about the survival of Earth. We'll have to join forces. You can take the credit. I don't give a damn. You charge at the Atrocity from the left. I'll charge from above. The Desert Thorns can attack from the right flank."

Another blast rocked the Freedom. Reports came streaming up from engineering. The engineers, under the command of Colonel Kim Fletcher, were doing all they could to keep the shields up, diverting more and more power to maintain the protective bubble around the starship.

Kim's face appeared in King's mind. Just a quick glimpse on MindWeb. Her face was sooty, but her blue eyes shone with determination. She was scrambling through the engineering deck, welding, rewiring cables, shouting orders. But she took a second to flash King a smile.

I'm here for you, her eyes said. I'll keep our ship flying.

Then she faded, back to her work. God, King loved that woman.

"What's a matter, Jamechka?" Katyusha said. "You daydreaming about some American woman while you have Russian goddess here?"

King gripped her arm with his metal prosthetic, digging the clawed fingers into her. Of course, she was just a hallucination. Her physical body—or clone, at least—was aboard the Baba Yaga. But he took some satisfaction sinking his claws into her flesh, hallucinatory or not.

"Katyusha, are you in? On the plan to assault the Atrocity?"

She nodded. "Da, da, Katyusha is in. Let's get Cleopatra in here." She coned a gloved hand around her mouth. "Oh, Queen Laila! Can you join us? The cowboy James King needs our help." She traced an imaginary tear down her cheek. "Poor little American. Maybe Katyusha can cut your meat for you too?"

The cannons kept booming. The battle raged all around. The frigate FAS Yoshino charged ahead into enemy lines, then exploded like a supernova. The kamikaze attack took out several clawships. Shrapnel pounded the Freedom. A brave Taiwanese flotilla surrounded an arachship and bombarded her, severing one leg at a time. More clawships came screaming in, and the Eagles swirled all around, doing whatever they could to defend their mothership.

Right now Jordan was commanding the Freedom. He was ranked a full-fledged commander. Technically, the ship was his. When King wasn't busy, Jordan deferred to him, allowing King to command his beloved dreadnought, the ship where both men had been serving for over forty years. But when King was busy with his duties as admiral, Jordan took the wheel.

As chaos raged, King invited a few more people to join the bridge via MindWeb—a dozen commanders of his flotillas and squadrons. Katyusha snapped her fingers, summoning twenty Red Dawn rear admirals, all resplendent in coats of red and gold.

Queen Laila appeared too, commander of the Desert Thorns. She wore a white uniform trimmed with gold, and a scimitar hung at her side. Hailing from Dubai, she was the youngest leader here, not yet forty. She was a striking woman with long black hair and brown skin. The queen had brought no officers with her. Her avatar suddenly swayed, and she held her arms out for balance. On a monitor, King saw a plasma bolt slamming into the Dune, the starship where her physical body was standing.

All around them, the bridge officers of the Freedom were shouting orders, engaged in bitter battle. The viewports flashed with laser beams, streaking torpedoes, and exploding starships. In the heart of this chaos, as the Freedom jolted with every boom of the cannons and blast to the shields, the assembly met.

"We're going to organize an assault against the Atrocity," King said. "Katyusha, lead the Red Fleet against Atrocity's port and starboard hull. Laila, lead the Desert Thorns against her prow. My tactical team is communicating with the ground forces of Earth. They're going to lob a massive artillery assault from the planet at Atrocity's underbelly. Meanwhile, I'll lead the Alliance Fleet from above. We'll surround the skull. And bombard her with everything we've got. The Atrocity leads this fleet. We cut off the head, and the body will wither."

Katyusha fumed, fists clenched at her sides. "Katyusha does not attack from the sides! The glorious Red Dawn will charge against the Atrocity head-on!"

"Your fleet is larger than Queen Laila's," King said. "You have enough ships to flank the Atrocity on—"

"Red Dawn will charge from the front!" Katyusha drew her saber, teeth bared. "And from sides. Katyusha is strong enough. Stronger than you! She needs no other fleets. The Red Dawn is the mightiest force in—"

"The Desert Thorns can slip behind the Atrocity and prevent her from escaping," Laila suggested.

Katyusha waved dismissively. "Yes, yes, you attack from behind like a coward. It suits you. All right. Cleopatra sneaks and skulks in the back. James King the cowboy dives down from above like dead bird. The glorious Red Dawn will lead the assault from the flanks and prow. Glory will belong to Katyusha! Soon the Red Dawn will rule Earth, then the galaxy, and all shall know that Katyusha is—"

"Let's roll," King said. "Godspeed, everyone. Let the assault begin."

Queen Laila bowed her head and vanished.

The others followed, dissipating like smoke. Katyusha remained just long enough to blow King a kiss, then she too vanished, her consciousness returning to the Baba Yaga.

The three fleets stormed forward, barreling through the swarms of clawships and arachships.

The great assault on the Atrocity began.

CHAPTER TWO

Colonel Gal "Spitfire" Levy flew her starfighter through hell.

She had never seen a battle like this.

A storm of light and devastation raged around her. The enemy ships surrounded Earth like enraged wasps around a nest. Spiky little spiderwings, vessels no larger than her Eagle starfighter, streaked everywhere, hurling furious balls of white plasma. Gargantuan clawships, clusters of cruel metal blades, raced around Earth, ramming into smaller ships and ripping them apart. The arachships trawled through space, casting webs from their spinnerets and firing silver missiles from their legs. Above them all hovered the Atrocity, the face of death itself, looming like a cursed moon.

It reminded Spitfire of a Hieronymus Bosch nightmare. In this hellish reality, humanity's fleet nearly drowned.

Nearly.

Spitfire bared her teeth and tightened her grip on her joystick.

So long as there is still breath in my lungs, I fight, she thought. I am Gal Levy. I am the daughter of a great starfighter pilot. And I am a daughter of Earth. So long as I live, Earth is defended.

She shoved down the joystick, racing toward a squadron of spiderwings, and unleashed four missiles.

They were called David's Stone missiles. Small, lightweight, easy to carry on a starfighter's wings. And the warheads could destroy the thickest enemy hull.

The spiderwings raced toward her, little vessels shaped like spiders. They aimed their many legs at her. Plasma bolts flew her way.

Spitfire rose, fell, rolled, and pitched, dodging the assaults. The Aeolians had equipped her Eagle with graviton engines. She was faster and more agile than ever. She kept charging at the enemy through the storm.

Every pilot in Freedom's Flock got to name their starfighter. Spitfire had named hers Yael's Nail. In the Book of Judges, the heroine Yael drove a nail into the head of Sisera, delivering Israel from destruction. In this starfighter, Spitfire would do her best to deliver Earth from the scourge of Arakavish.

Her missiles kept streaking ahead of her.

The spiderwings tried to escape, to dodge her assault. But the David's Stones chased them. Explosions bloomed through space as four spiderwings exploded. Their shrapnel flew every which way. Severed legs pounded the nearby Freedom, breaking apart against the dreadnought's shield. One metal leg flew over Spitfire's Eagle. She pitched downward, barely dodging it.

"Whoa, whoa, watch it there!" Pickles cried behind her. His Eagle blinked out of reality. The severed spiderwing leg tumbled into the distance. The Eagle reappeared, safe and sound. "You nearly impaled me."

"Dammit, Pickles, you heard the admiral!" Spitfire said. "Only use hopscotch in life-and-death situations."

"That was a life-and-death situation!" Pickles cried. "You lobbed a giant spider leg at me."

Spitfire checked her rearview monitor. Freedom's Flock flew behind her, spinning around the Freedom like moons orbiting a planet. Normally, warships the size of Freedom did not fly alone in battle. Smaller warships, usually corvettes, secured them. But Freedom had just returned from the Aeolian system via a portal, emerging alone right into this battle. So it was up to Freedom's Flock, two hundred plucky little starfighters, to defend her.

At least … they had been two hundred when the battle had begun.

Eight Eagles had already fallen to enemy fire. Eight pilots—Spitfire's friends—had fallen with them.

And just then, as she watched, a clawship came roaring down, spewing an avalanche of plasma. The fiery red stream washed through a squadron of Eagles.

Several Eagles managed to scatter, dodging the flames.

The inferno washed over one Eagle, melting the cockpit, burning the pilot inside. His screams filled MindWeb, then faded to tragic silence.

Three other Eagles engaged their hopscotch drives. Two reappeared a few kilometers away, wingtips singed but otherwise unharmed.

The third Eagle never returned.

Spitfire soared toward the clawship, firing another barrage of missiles—the last she carried on her wings. The clawship had paused from spewing plasma like a dragon taking a breath before blowing more fire. The David's Stones flew into the clawship's open plasma port.

Explosions rocked the enormous ship. It split open. The Eagles scattered again, dodging the debris.

Spitfire frowned, checking MindWeb for the locations of the Flock.

That third Eagle, the one that had hopscotched, was nowhere around.

"Cobra?" she said, using the pilot's call sign. "Cobra, come in!"

Nothing.

A chill washed over Spitfire. She remembered the admiral's warnings. Spitfire had never tried it herself. Not yet. But she knew that hopscotching involved traveling … somewhere else. A different reality. A place not everyone returned from.

* * * * *

Spitfire had no time to contemplate the Otherworld now. More spiderwings were coming in hot—in this reality.

"I need more ammo!" she shouted. "Drones, where are you?"

There. She saw them. A swarm of Freedom's armory drones came flying toward her Eagle, carrying more David's Stones. But they were still seconds away. An eternity in battle. Spitfire didn't have time to wait. She fired her rotary cannon, peppering the spiderwings with bullets. Unfortunately, bullets didn't do much against these arachnid starfighters.

"I got you covered!" Pickles shouted, soaring over her.

"I'm with ya, Spitfire!" said Katana, another pilot. Her Eagle streaked overhead.

The two Eagles bombarded the spiderwings as the drones loaded up Spitfire with fresh missiles.

Meanwhile, the Freedom was dealing with the larger enemies. The dreadnought was barreling through the enemy fleet. The great Angels of Liberty, cannons so large that Spitfire could probably fly her Eagle down the bores, were bombarding the enemy warclaws. Spitfire watched the enormous Maccabee torpedoes flying overhead. They were as large as her starfighter, and their warheads ravaged enemy hulls.

Dead rahs spilled out. One of the spiders thumped into Yael's Nail, and a clawed leg scraped across the cockpit, leaving a long white scar. The alien tumbled down to Earth and burned up in the atmosphere.

Spitfire knew she should be aboard the Freedom now, helping King and Jordan command the dreadnought from the bridge. The admiral had chosen Spitfire to someday inherit the Freedom. He had promoted her to bridge officer—to train her, to groom her for eventual command.

But dammit—Spitfire had spent years as a fighter pilot. The Flock was her family. She could not abandon them now.

Two flights a week, King had told her. He wanted her to spend most of her time on the bridge, absorbing knowledge like a sponge. But twice a week, she got to fly in Yael's Nail. And she would not miss this battle for the world.

A thought flitted into her mind.

The world might not last much longer.

She saw it happening below. The enemy dropships descending. The arachtaurs spilling out onto the planet.

Many of them were landing in her own home country. The enemy dropships were falling onto Israel like black hail.

My family, Spitfire thought. They're coming for my family.

King's voice interrupted her thoughts, transmitting to everyone in the Flock.

"Pilots! The Freedom is about to lead the fleet to deep orbit. Stay near our hull. We're going up."

The Freedom pitched upward. Her three massive exhaust ports shone blue. Each of those ports was so large the entire Freedom's Flock could dock inside. The great Talaria drive of the starship Freedom rumbled, slamming particles together, propelling the ship away from Earth's gravity. Like a whale rising from the ocean, the Freedom soared. The rest of the Alliance Fleet raised their prows to follow.

"Come on, boys and girls, let's see what these new graviton drives can do!" Pickles said, pitching upward. His Eagle began soaring alongside the Freedom. The rest of the Flock followed, occasionally banking to fire a missile at any spiderwing that got too close.

Spitfire glanced upward at the Freedom.

Then down at her home country.

The arachtaur dropships were still descending. Earth's ground forces were firing artillery, taking some out. But when Spitfire zoomed in, she saw many dropships landing. Saw the arachtaurs spilling out.

The hybrids were storming across Haifa, her hometown.

Where her family still lived.

"Spitfire, what's wrong?" Pickles said. "You're straying out of formation."

She pursed her lips. "I'll be right back."

She flipped her Eagle around, pointing the nose at Earth, and plunged down at top speed.

"Spitfire!" Pickles cried.

She cut him off. She kept diving.

I must save my family.

Spitfire had broken formation. During battle, she had disobeyed an order. This was grounds for a court-martial. It could spell the end of her military career, even land her in prison. Right now she wasn't thinking about all that. It was as if the Eagle were moving on autopilot.

"Ima," she whispered.

Her mother was down there. Spitfire plunged into the atmosphere with a blaze of fire.

Maybe Pickles and the others were still calling for her. She had turned off MindWeb calls. She wasn't thinking, just acting. If she faced court-martial later, so be it.

She would not let her family die.

* * * * *

As the battle raged in space, Yael's Nail flew through the blue sky of Earth.

Spitfire had gone AWOL. She had no choice.

She flew toward Haifa, her hometown. The city's white buildings nestled among the pines of the Carmel mountains, sloping down toward the Mediterranean coast. In biblical days, prophets would roam these forested hills, a patch of greenery rising from a desert kingdom. Today a quarter million people made their home here. Spitfire had grown up running along these hilly streets, playing among the pines, and swimming at the beach. It was where she had first fallen in love. Where she hoped to retire someday. Yes, she had spent half her childhood aboard the starship Freedom. She was, after all, the daughter of a starfighter pilot. But whenever she wasn't in space, she was down here, her knees scabbed from many playful tumbles, her hands callused from climbing trees, her skin sun bronzed by the harsh Middle Eastern sun.

Now the arachtaurs were here.

Now her hometown was burning.

Fire swept over the Carmel mountains, consuming the pines. A pall of crimson smoke hung over the city. Haifa University, the tallest building in the city, rose from a sea of flame like a drowning man's hand. The enemy dropships clung to the hills like ticks, and more kept descending. Spitfire glimpsed people fleeing along the streets. Cars clogged the highways. The wealthy, those who could afford shuttles, were flying toward the desert.

Then she saw them.

Arachtaurs.

The hideous hybrids were scuttling down the streets, climbing apartment buildings, scurrying into homes.

Spitfire narrowed her eyes, seeking her home through the smoke. She flew low, skimming the rooftops.

Rumbling engines trembled the air. Three spiderwing fighters, probably here to guard the alien dropships, came roaring her way. Plasma bolts flew through the air.

Spitfire tugged the joystick. Her ship rolled, wings spinning around the hull like a propeller. The bolts passed around her. She rose toward the sun, then swooped, unleashing missiles.

A spiderwing exploded.

Then another.

Spitfire raced by the third, spun around, and charged back at it. Searing white bolts came flying her way. She yawed left, then right, rolled, pitched upward, and avoided every blow. Gritting her teeth, she opened fire with her rotary cannons. Bullets pounded the spiderwing. It careened through the sky, its arachnid legs curling up, and slammed into a hillside. The vessel exploded.

Spitfire exhaled in relief, gliding over the rooftops. She noticed several people on the roofs, cheering and waving. Spitfire couldn't help but smile. Even in the chaos of an alien invasion, the people kept up their spirits. That soothed her. That gave her hope. Even on the ground, humans stood tall. They would keep fighting.

As if to confirm her thoughts, she heard rumbling below, and she saw tanks rolling along the streets of Haifa. Tanks were not meant to move on city streets. Their heavy treadmill tracks cracked the asphalt, leaving deep grooves and potholes. One tank paused before an alien dropship that had just landed. Arachtaurs came spilling out—only for the tank to fire a shell into their midst. Severed spider legs clattered against apartment buildings.

Across many rooftops, snipers were taking position, firing down at arachtaurs on the streets. But many arachtaurs began climbing the walls, moving confidently with their eight legs, and clashing with the snipers. Battles raged across the rooftops, on the streets, among the trees, and on the beaches.

A chunk of starship suddenly fell from the sky, wreathed in fire, and plowed into a house. A few streets away, a ring of metal—perhaps the exhaust port of a frigate—slammed onto a street, shaving a wall off a tall building, revealing apartments within. Smaller debris kept hailing down. These were stark reminders of the battle raging in space. The battle Spitfire should be fighting.

"I'll be back up there soon, Admiral," she whispered. "If you'll still have me."

* * * * *

Spitfire flew onward, seeking her home, when she noticed a dropship descending ahead, bringing down more invaders. She let loose, firing a David's Stone at the vessel. The dropship exploded, showering mangled shrapnel onto the city. Dead arachtaurs rained, splattering against rooftops and trees.

It was a drop in the bucket. Hundreds of the dropships were everywhere, some already on the ground, others on the way down. And Spitfire didn't have much ammunition left. She missed the Flock. With another hundred Eagles here, she could have liberated this city. She felt so alone.

She was still seeking her home, but with all the smoke, she could barely tell neighborhood from neighborhood. Finally she spotted a landmark. The Bahai Temple, the most famous building in the city, rose from the flames.

Built centuries ago, the Bahai Temple sported slender minarets, graceful columns, and a golden dome that shone for miles around. Eighteen terraces, lush with hanging gardens, sprawled below the Temple down the mountainside. At least the terraces had once been lush. The fabled gardens now burned, and arachtaurs were climbing the Temple, covering the golden dome like little spiders over an orange.

Spitfire tightened her lips. She was not of the Bahai faith, but this was a sacred site, and she would not allow the arachtaurs to profane it.

"Not in my city," she said, diving toward the Temple. She sliced through the smoke. The flames crackled below.

The arachtaurs looked up from the golden dome, screeching.

Spitfire opened fire.

Her starfighter's rotary cannon spun, strafing the arachtaurs clinging to the Temple. The hybrids fell, riddled with bullets the size of daggers.

Spitfire knew where she was now. She was near her home. She was rising higher, prepared to fly home, when a surviving arachtaur climbed onto the golden dome and cast a web.

The web caught the tail of her starfighter. Spitfire kept flying, lifting the arachtaur like a fish on the line. But another arachtaur scuttled up a nearby hotel and cast another web. It too caught her starfighter.

Now she definitely felt some resistance. She pushed the throttle, flying harder. But a third, then a fourth arachtaur hooked her with webs. Her engine rumbled. They were pulling her down.

A fifth arachtaur slung a web, grabbing her wing.

Spitfire snarled, left the engine on, and popped open the cockpit.

Her starfighter was still trying to soar, engine roaring. In the old days, flames would be bursting out the exhaust port, roasting the arachtaurs below. But with the new graviton engine, Yael's Nail might as well be a kite. The arachtaurs stood with impunity below, reeling the starfighter down.

Spitfire climbed out the cockpit, clung to the trembling fuselage, and drew her firearm.

Her bullets severed one of the cobwebs.

Then another.

The Eagle jerked upward.

The arachtaurs hissed and raised their spinnerets, ready to fire more webs. But the Eagle was already soaring.

Spitfire clung to the fuselage with all four limbs. The air flattened her skin against her bones. Yael's Nail was flying on her own, dragging three arachtaurs through the air. Grimacing, Spitfire climbed back into the cockpit, dropped into her seat, and closed the canopy.

Three arachtaurs were still clinging to the flying starfighter, dangling from their webs. The spiders were like cans trailing behind a Just Married car. Spitfire narrowed her eyes, flew toward a steep hill, then pitched up sharply.

The three arachtaurs slammed into the granite hillside, releasing Yael's Nail.

Spitfire flew onward, dragging a few fluttering cobwebs like pinions. She circled the hilltop, then dived down through the smoke. She finally reached her street. The place she had grown up. Where her family still lived.

Her belly sank.

The arachtaurs were already there.

The hybrids scuttled down the street, heading toward Spitfire's home.

She saw her mother. She was on the roof, aiming a rifle down at the street. She was pushing seventy, but God bless the woman, she would not go down without a fight. She opened fire. Arachtaurs screeched. One of the creatures fell, but the others raced toward the house.

Spitfire dived low, strafing the street.

The hybrids fell, twitching. This time Spitfire was careful to fly high enough, avoiding their webs. She spun around, dived across the street again, and strafed the survivors. A few had begun to climb the building walls, heading toward Spitfire's mother on the roof. The old woman shot them down. The monstrosities fell onto the street, still alive, but Spitfire finished the job.

When the street was clear, Spitfire lowered her Eagle to hover over her home's roof. With the new graviton engine, she could hang in midair. She popped open the cockpit.

"Hey Ma, get off the dang roof!" Spitfire cried.

"Why are you here?" her mother said. "You should be with your Flock!"

"I had to come save your life, Mom."

"I can take care of myself."

"They were climbing the walls!" Spitfire shouted from the cockpit.

Mother waved dismissively. "Big deal. I had it."

With rumbling and clouds of dust, the army arrived. Tanks came rolling down the street, crushing the dead arachtaurs. Soldiers set up barricades, and snipers positioned themselves on roofs.

"I gotta get back to the Freedom, Mom," Spitfire said.

"Wait. Take a casserole."

"I don't have time—"

"At least let me make you some sandwiches or—"

"Love ya, Mom. Don't get yourself killed." Spitfire closed the canopy and soared.

* * * * *

A few minutes later, she was back in space, soaring through the blazing battle.

No human starships remained in lower orbit anymore.

Thousands of alien ships flew everywhere, as thick as flies over a carcass.

For a terrible second or two, Spitfire was sure that during her absence, the enemy had blown up every human starship. All the thousands of them. But then her Eagle's sensors picked them up. The HUD displayed the positions of the human fleets.

They were far above.

The Red Fleet was charging toward the Atrocity, battling its way through the enemy armada. The Desert Thorns were all the way behind the globe. The Alliance Fleet was in deep orbit, flying above the battle, taking position for the great assault.

Spitfire had to rejoin them. But thousands of clawships and arachships flew in her way.

Spitfire took a deep breath. "Here goes."

She shoved down the throttle and blasted upward.

A gargantuan warclaw rose ahead, a starship the size of a cathedral. Spitfire zipped around her. A smaller clawship streaked from the left, claws slicing through space debris. Spitfire pitched and rolled, whipped around the enemy, and soared higher. An arachship came swooping down, reaching out her mechanical legs. Spitfire flew between the reaching limbs, corkscrewed around the circular hull, and kept rising.

Dodging the larger ships was easy. But soon the enemy's starfighters came racing after her. Some were spiderwings—vessels just large enough for a single pilot. Arachtaurs snarled in the cockpits. Other starfighters were her old friends, the clawfighters, spiky little things with rahs inside. She hated those bastards.

Thousands of these mechanical little horrors came flying in swarms, guns booming.

Spitfire zipped left and right, dodging barrages of plasma bolts and sticky webs.

A bolt hit her wing.

She yowled. Her starfighter careened. She steadied the yoke and kept rising.

A missile streaked overhead. She barely dodged it. A clawship spewed a pillar of fire her way. She swirled around the flaming jet and kept soaring. The Alliance Fleet was just above. She was so close. She was like a mad squirrel racing through a wolf pack, scurrying underfoot.

An arachship came plunging down from above.

It thrust out its spinneret and spewed a massive web. It was a web large enough to drape over a small town.

Spitfire tried to turn left, then right, but clawships came racing in, blasting fire.

Spitfire winced and reached for the brass lever at her side. The one with the crystal on top. The lever she had never pushed.

The net came draping down.

She shoved the lever.

And the hopscotch drive flashed to life.

* * * * *

The battle vanished.

Thousands of starships—gone.

The stars—gone.

Space—gone.

Reality itself … gone.

She flew in the Otherworld.

Indigo and purple clouds hovered around her. It felt like flying inside a nebula. Blobs of light moved all around. At first Spitfire mistook them for stars. But they were nearby and oddly organic. They wriggled around. Some even had stubs like stunted legs. One luminous blob flowed forward, formed soft jaws, and swallowed a smaller blob. Spitfire felt like a microscopic explorer inside a drop of water.

"What the hell?" she muttered.

As if the view weren't unsettling enough, her cockpit was going crazy. The dials were spinning madly. The HUD was displaying strange red symbols. It looked like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. The hopscotch lever was shining bright purple and thrumming so violently it almost dislodged. Spitfire couldn't pick up the Alliance Fleet—or anything for that matter. As far as her sensors were concerned, there was nothing but empty space around her.

Was this all an illusion?

A roar sounded in the distance.

Something was moving in the indigo clouds. Lightning flashed and Spitfire glimpsed some enormous tentacled creature, a beast the size of a dreadnought. It was rising ahead, reaching out a tentacle woven of stars. A great white eye opened, staring at her. But not white like a star. White like emptiness. Like nothing at all. Like what remained after you peeled back the blackness of space and time itself.

Spitfire couldn't breathe.

Without her touching it, the hopscotch lever clanked back into its initial position.

The strange Otherworld vanished.

The battle reappeared around her with streaking missiles and racing starships.

She was back in reality, and at once, she had to jerk the joystick and swerve around a clawship. She checked her coordinates. She had hopped a hundred kilometers up.

But the Alliance Fleet was still thousands of kilometers away. And more clawships came racing down.

She knew it was risky. She knew there was a seventeen percent chance she would never return.

She shoved down the lever, and once more, she hopscotched.

The strange Otherworld reappeared. The great tentacled creature was gone. The clouds were different now, no longer indigo and purple but a deep green strewn with gold. Red rings shone in the distance, vibrating and pulsing. More luminous creatures scurried about, these ones elongated and tipped with silver pincers.

Another roar sounded. Spitfire looked down. It was far below her. A shadow moved among the clouds, tentacles spread out like rivers. At first it seemed almost like a landscape, like some ancient lake weeping its brackish tears in golden deltas, all blurred under a sandstorm haze. It was so far. The beast could not reach her. That white eye did not see her.

The lever clanked back into position.

Spitfire popped back into reality, another hundred kilometers up.

She was still in the midst of the alien armada, but the aliens were perplexed. They had lost her trail. She kept rising, zipping around hulking dreadnoughts. They saw her. But the Red Fleet was plowing through their formations nearby. The clawships were too busy dealing with the Baba Yaga and the other dreadnoughts of the Red Dawn. Ships exploded left and right. The enemy couldn't spare a humble Eagle too much attention.

Spitfire corkscrewed around several diving arachships, swerved past a burning Chinese frigate, and emerged from the chaos. Finally she flew in empty space.

She shoved down the throttle—the regular lever, not the hopscotch drive—and shot upward at dizzying speed.

There they were, right above her. The Alliance ships.

They had soared high toward the sun. The fleet was now changing position, ready to plunge down onto the Arakavish Armada from above.

"Hey, Spitfire is back!" cried Pickles over MindWeb.

Spitfire let out a sob. Her eyes dampened. She was home.

"Miss me, boys?"

CHAPTER THREE

Earth burned.

Arachtaurs swarmed through cities and fields, slaying all in their path. The ground forces of Earth met them with guns and cannons, tanks and artillery, with trained soldiers and simple civilians defending their homes.

As battle consumed the land and sea, Earth's orbit swirled with battling warships and crashing, storming debris. Starships rained down like comets. Missiles and laser beams shot back and forth. Dead humans and aliens tumbled into space along with mangled chunks of metal.

The war engulfed the solar system. Videos came streaming from the other planets. The enemy was hitting humanity everywhere.

The arachtaur invasion had begun. Humanity teetered on extinction.

Above the battle she loomed. The Atrocity grinned a metal grin as if foreseeing her triumph.

Through the fire and darkness, the human fleet split apart, positioning itself for its grand assault.

Katyusha's voice carried over MindWeb. "Red Fleet, attack! Attack, you savage dogs! Kill the spiders! For the justice of equalism, for the glory of Katyusha—attack!"

The Red Fleet split in three. A thousand starships swerved to attack the Atrocity from the left. A thousand swarmed from the right. Katyusha led the remaining thousand from aboard the Baba Yaga, charging at the Atrocity head-on. The enemy fired everything at them. With every heartbeat, another red ship exploded. But the remaining ships raced onward, all guns blazing, engines flaring with light. Alien ships fell back before them. Katyusha's laughter echoed through MindWeb; the Russian was loving this.

"Say what you like about the woman, she's got balls," Commander Jordan muttered, watching from the Freedom's bridge.

While Katyusha was leading her mad banzai attack, the Desert Thorns fleet flew lower, skimming the atmosphere, then gaining speed. Their underbellies grazed the sky, ionizing the air. They seemed to fly on a sea of sparking energy. They intended to slip under the Atrocity. The massive skull could not fly too close to Earth, not at her size. King spoke to the generals down on Earth. Once the Desert Thorns were through, Earth's artillery would begin its assault, lobbing missiles from every battery on Earth at the Atrocity above.

King knew that the Atrocity had interceptors, a powerful shield, and a thick hull. He knew she would withstand most of this punishment. Maybe all of it. But he just needed the others to keep the Atrocity busy.

Then he could rain the might of the Alliance on her from above.

Yes, the Fist of Freedom was a powerful weapon. But the combined firepower of three thousand Alliance warships would make even the Fist of Freedom seem like a peashooter. King intended to bombard the Atrocity with enough firepower to destroy a small moon.

First they had to fly higher.

"Mimori, fly us toward the sun. We'll dive-bomb them from above. Pitch us upward and fly! Fleet—follow!"

Mimori leaned backward, controlling the ship with her body. After all, the Freedom was an extension of her, a huge body they all flew in. The Freedom thrummed as her prow rose. In the old days, the Freedom would struggle to change her course so swiftly, and her roaring thrusters would shake the dreadnought violently. But the Aeolians had installed sophisticated graviton thrusters. The Freedom was a mile long, but she pitched and soared as gracefully as a starfighter.

She flew away from Earth, her three great exhaust ports glowing bright blue. And the fleet followed—thousands of ships, soaring on waves of light, rising toward the sun.

The enemy fired after them. Shields thrummed and flared with every impact. A few Alliance ships exploded. But surprisingly few clawships pursued them. Perhaps the enemy thought the Alliance was fleeing. The aliens concentrated their fire on the charging Red Fleet. Katyusha was a maniac, a tyrant, a bloodthirsty killer, but God bless her, she was charging into enemy fire with admirable heroism, and the Red Fleet took the brunt of Arakavish's punishment.

Thanks to Katyusha's mad charge, the Desert Thorns made it under the Atrocity and rose behind her, ready to block her escape.

The Alliance ships flew higher, higher, blasting aside whatever clawships got in their way. The sun shone above, white and huge and blinding. King kept soaring until Earth shrank to the size of a basketball held at arm's length.

Then it was time.

"Turn and charge at them!" King shouted.

* * * * *

The Freedom seemed to hang in space, then pitched her nose downward, aiming back at Earth. And at the enemy armada clustered there.

Then the Freedom began to swoop.

Behind her, like the crest of a tidal wave, the other ships reached their zenith and came roaring down.

The battle blazed below them, engulfing Earth like a Dyson sphere of destruction. Gaps in the swarm of enemy starships revealed the burning forests and roiling seas of Earth. The Atrocity hung over the North Pole, casting a deep shadow across the planet. The enormous metal skull seemed to be grinning. Thousands of arachships clustered around the Atrocity like true spiders around a charred skull.

The Red Dawn was plowing into the enemy fleet from three sides. They were like three scalpels slicing into diseased flesh. The enemy lines broke, scattering in clouds like disturbed wasps. Meanwhile, the Desert Thorns were striking from the rear like asps, shoving the arachships into Katyusha's crushing grip.

The Alliance Fleet swooped faster, the sun at their backs.

The aliens saw them. Clawships tilted upward and raised geysers of plasma. Spider ships aimed their railguns and fired a storm of silver spears. But the Alliance Fleet kept swooping. Flying so close, their shields morphed together, a thousand little bubbles joining into a thick sphere. The alien barrage slammed into the invisible force field. Plasma scattered. Silver spears snapped in two. The Fleet kept diving through the fire toward their target.

The Atrocity stared up with her flaming red eyes.

"Angels of Liberty—fire!" King shouted.

All fourteen cannons swiveled on their turrets, aiming straight down. The great guns of Freedom boomed.

The Maccabees raced downward like flaming javelins hurled by a god. King had to aim carefully. If this barrage hit Earth, it could devastate the planet like an asteroid impact.

"Fleet—fire!" King cried.

The rest of the fleet fanned out, forming the shape of a swooping hemisphere instead of a javelin. Their guns aimed at the Atrocity and opened fire.

The Maccabees moved fastest. The gunners had programmed them to hit the Atrocity. The torpedoes swerved from side to side, moving faster than any starfighter, zipping between clawships and arachships and the hulks of Red Dawn frigates, racing toward their target.

A few intrepid clawships reacted fast enough, breathing out blazing torrents like dragonfire. One Maccabee melted in the flames. Another Maccabee hit a racing clawfighter and detonated, showering nearby starships with shrapnel.

But a full dozen made their way through the gauntlet.

The torpedoes slammed into the Atrocity like twelve mighty hammers hitting a man's skull.

Explosions rocked the Atrocity, blooming in a crown of fire.

The rest of the Alliance Fleet was still firing. Torpedoes, missiles, shells, laser beams, photon bolts, plasma spheres, and just plain old bullets—they all rained down upon the enemy fleet.

"With fire and brimstone, we will strike you down," King whispered as the fusillade plowed into the Arakavish Armada.

Explosions blazed over Earth's north pole in an aurora of destruction. The barrage ripped the blades off clawships, severed the legs from the hulking arachships, and melted swarms of alien starfighters. Molten, twisted metal streaked through the atmosphere. Alien starships crashed into the Arctic like giant dead insects, cracking icebergs, raising tidal waves, and scattering ice across the pole.

King felt a twinge of guilt. There was life on the Arctic, both animals and humans. He hoped they survived. Though in the pit of his stomach, he wondered if his orders had slain them. He could imagine polar bears, wolves, and Arctic tribes looking at the sky, fleeing as the debris rained down. This was the terrible burden of the soldier. Sometimes a soldier had to sacrifice the few to save the many. The math was easy. The guilt was not.

But most of the barrage hit the Atrocity.

Torpedoes exploded against the metal skull. Shell after shell blazed. Laser beams blasted the gargantuan cranium. Bolts of energy blazed over the Atrocity like a crown of hellfire.

Take that, you son of a bitch, King thought.

The Freedom was getting so close she would soon ram into the Atrocity. From this close, the sheer size of the Atrocity sank in. King was used to the Freedom being the largest ship around. Descending toward this giant mechanical terror, he felt like a skydiver attacking King Kong.

"Mimori, pitch up!" King said as explosions rocked the giant skull.

The android tilted backward so dramatically her hair grazed the floor.

Seconds away from plowing into the Atrocity, the Freedom pitched upward and soared. The rest of the fleet followed, unleashing a rain of bombs onto the Atrocity as they flew by.

The enemy was fighting back. Clawships were spewing fire like a thousand erupting volcanoes. The arachships hurled silver spears. The attack sliced through the Alliance Fleet. Warships exploded. But the survivors kept flying, following the Freedom.

Engulfed in the inferno, the Atrocity was not firing her dreaded neutron cannons. She had vanished in the nebula of destruction. Most likely she was already gone.

The Alliance Fleet rose again toward the sun, leaving Earth below, until they were out of range.

Slowly the explosions below dissipated, revealing what remained of the Atrocity.

King stared. His eye twitched.

Jordan stood at his side, eyes wide. "Impossible. Jim, we unleashed enough munitions onto that ship to blow away the moon."

King had expected to see nothing but a charred chassis at best, most likely just a cloud of dust.

"Impossible," he whispered.

The Atrocity still flew.

* * * * *

Craters dented Atrocity's hull. Three spikes on her crown had cracked, and one had dislodged completely. One of the eye sockets—a cavity so large a frigate could fly inside—had crumbled. Holes pocked the skull, red with internal flame, and smoke wafted from the open jaws.

But she was still flying.

And already, as King watched, thousands of spiders scuttled out the metal jaws of the Atrocity. Rahs. The aliens began to weave webs and weld metal, repairing the ship.

The Atrocity even managed to aim her silver cannons at the Alliance Fleet and open fire.

Six bolts of searing neutron destruction sliced through the Alliance Fleet. Mimori jerked sideways. The graviton engines hummed, and the Freedom rolled, narrowly dodging one of the pillars of blinding white light. Other ships weren't as lucky. The beams sliced through corvettes, frigates, even a carrier. Explosions rocked the fleet.

King snarled and clenched his fists.

"We'll go in for another bombing run, we'll—"

"Sir, the Atrocity is hailing us!" said Mimori.

A chill gripped King. "Hold off on the assault. But keep our cannons hot. Let's hear what they have to say. Patch the Atrocity through."

The aliens had no MindWeb. They could not appear aboard the Freedom's bridge as hallucinations, for which King was grateful. The main viewport, a screen taller than a man, streamed a video from inside the Atrocity.

King grunted and clenched his metal fist until it creaked. Across Freedom's bridge, several officers turned green. Even Jordan, who could retain his cool through an apocalypse, narrowed his eyes in disgust.

A creature appeared on-screen. He wasn't an arachtaur. He wasn't a rah. Certainly he was not human. He had a human form, muscular and male. According to the HUD data, he stood over seven feet tall. Instead of human skin, the alien had a thick, lumpy carapace the color of cigarette butts. One spider leg grew from his side like the limb of a parasitic twin, tipped with a claw. It twitched. But worst of all was the head. While his body was humanoid, the head was arachnid. A rah's head with eight red eyes.

The hideous creature opened a wide, drooling mouth full of fangs. The mouth was nearly as wide as his shoulders. A deep voice bubbled out like tar, slurred and rumbling.

"Hello, Admiral James King. I am Magog'rah, admiral of the Arakavish Armada." He looked King up and down, eyes narrowed, and snorted. "So there you are. The human half my DNA came from. I am not impressed."

Officers looked at King. A few frowned and tilted their heads.

King's eye twitched again. He gritted his teeth. He remembered what Od'rahda, the deformed commander of the Tyranny, had told him. That the rahs had stolen drops of his blood in Darkland, the horror-themed amusement park on the moon. That the empress blended his DNA with rahs, creating a new step in evolution—an arachtaur, a human with the body of a spider. Often King had wondered if Empress Elder'rah had grown more arachtaurs from his blood.

But this creature before him … This was no arachtaur.

"What the hell are you?" King growled.

"I am the destroyer of Earth," said Magog'rah. "And I am your nemesis. I am a god of death. In future generations, if any apes remain upon the charred ruin of Earth, they will speak of Magog'rah in fear. They will cower before my altars and beg for mercy. But no mercy will come, for I am a god of vengeance."

"You're nothing but a cockroach with delusions of grandeur," King said. "A god?" King scoffed. "I've scraped tougher bugs off the sole of my boots."

The other ships all paused from battle, watching the exchange. They were speaking over an open channel. Far below the Alliance Fleet, the Red Dawn and Desert Roses hovered in clouds of debris, many of their ships destroyed, all of them charred and battered. Even the alien armada ceased its bombardments. All eyes were on King and the spiderlike monstrosity.

"Do you know why I called you, Admiral King?" Magog'rah said.

"To ask for my surrender? Well, it's not going to happen. I think you'll find that we humans aren't so easy to defeat. I taught your sister that lesson. I'm going to have to smack you down even harder."

Magog'rah laughed, a sound like tumbling bones in a grave. "No, Father. And you are my father in a strange, sickening way. I do not want you to surrender. It is still so early in the game. I did not call to ask you to surrender. Nor will I accept your surrender when you inevitably call me to beg for mercy. I called to show you something. You are from Nebraska, yes?"

King's upper lip peeled back. He turned away from the monitor. "End this call, Mimori."

The android blinked. "Sir, I can't. He's forcing his way over our interface."

Magog'rah's grin widened. A Cheshire cat's grin. "Look to Nebraska, James King. Keep a close eye on your home."

The call ended.

The viewport showed Earth again.

The Atrocity began to move away from the North Pole.

She was flying toward North America.

"Destroy that ship!" King shouted. "Alliance—charge!"

* * * * *

The ships roared back to battle, all guns blazing. But this time the enemy fleet did not merely cluster around the Atrocity, defending the skull. They charged toward the Alliance, unleashing a holocaust of fire. Freedom shook as spears slammed into her shields.

The Red Fleet came soaring from the Arctic. Katyusha's voice rang across MindWeb.

"For the glory of equalism, charge, charge, comrades! Slay the evil capitalist aliens! Charge at those clawships for eternal glory!"

"Dammit, Katyusha, fly your ships at the Atrocity!" King cried.

The Red Fleet was below the alien hosts. They could simply turn around, race over North America, and destroy the skull-shaped dreadnought. But that damn fool Katyusha was still flying up, heading to deep orbit. A swarm of alien ships awaited there.

"What, Katyusha and mighty Red Fleet face just one measly, wounded ship? No, no, Admiral King. We will fight the entire Arakavish Armada! Charge, comrades, charge!"

The Red Dawn fleet slammed into the Armada from below. The Alliance swooped down from above. But even combined, the two human fleets were minuscule compared to the sprawling mass of Arakavish's might.

King found himself fighting a cloud of arachships. These ones were smaller than the Tyranny, but combined they nearly overwhelmed the Freedom, chipping away at her shields. The Angels of Liberty kept swiveling from side to side, blasting back more and more ships.

Meanwhile, the Atrocity kept flying over North America. Heading over Canada. Moving south.

The Desert Thorns were assaulting the Atrocity in deep orbit. Queen Laila led a thousand slender ships. But they were like a thousand thorns poking at an enraged whale. They weren't causing much damage. The Atrocity plowed through them, her neutron blasts tearing down ship after ship.

King stared down at the Atrocity.

He had to get to that ship. To finally destroy her.

But too many enemies blocked his way. A wall of arachships rose before him, firing silver spears. Major Kaplan was racing from panel to panel, tapping buttons, unleashing more and more interceptors. Clawships came roaring up, blowing plasma. The shields thrummed. The Freedom could not break through.

The Atrocity began crawling over the atmosphere toward Nebraska.

King stared in silent horror.

He knew Atrocity was not bluffing. He had seen those neutron cannons in action. They could carve Nebraska off the map. Unless King got there first. The Atrocity was hurt. Maybe King could ram her. Could fire the Fist of Freedom with whatever little charge it had. Maybe he could save his home. But the damn Armada was in his way!

I can hopscotch, he thought.

The Aeolians had installed a hopscotch drive onto the Freedom. He could fly past the Armada and stop the Atrocity.

Maybe. He remembered the Aeolians' warnings. For a ship as large as Freedom, hopscotching was incredibly risky. It was a coin toss. A fifty percent chance of annihilation. And the longest hopscotch range was only a hundred kilometers. To get through the Armada, King would have to hop several times. Each time—tossing a coin between death and life.

Two million people lived in Nebraska. His people.

Only ten thousand served aboard the Freedom.

It was worth it. He had to risk it!

Yet if the Freedom fell, and likely she would not survive several hopscotch jumps, it would cripple the Alliance Fleet. The Freedom was the largest, most powerful ship they had. Without Freedom, could the Alliance survive? Without Freedom, would the enemy win, then go on to kill billions?

It was the cold math of the soldier again. Which sacrifice would he make? Would he risk the Freedom, his life, and the hope of the Alliance Fleet? Or would he sacrifice his home?

He had seconds to decide.

His crew looked at him. Perhaps they had read his mind. Mimori's hands hovered over the new control panel, the one trimmed with gold. The hopscotch drive.

King shook his head. Mimori pulled her hands back.

The Atrocity reached Nebraska.

"Freedom's Flock!" King said. "Zip through the battle and attack the Atrocity!"

Jordan's eyes widened. "Starfighters against that thing?"

"It's the only chance we have."

"On it, sir!" Spitfire cried from her cockpit. The starfighters bolted forward, leaving the Freedom behind. With their new graviton engines, they easily zipped through the Armada, dodging flying plasma bolts.

In the distance, the Atrocity paused over the middle of Nebraska. She began to tilt forward, aiming her crown at Earth.

The Desert Thorn fleet—what remained of it, at least—charged toward the colossus. The Atrocity's lower jaw dropped open. Swarms of spiders spilled out. Spiderwings—the starfighters of the arachtaurs. Thousands of them swarmed onto the Desert Thorns, holding them back.

Freedom's Flock made it past the Armada. They stormed toward the Atrocity, unleashing their missiles.

The Atrocity's crown of spikes blazed with white light, prepared to fire.

The Flock fired their David's Stones. The missiles slammed into Atrocity. Explosions pocked the enormous ship, barely dinging the thick metal skull.

The crown unleashed a neon beam from each spike. Six in all.

The blasts slammed into Nebraska.

The spikes of the crown moved like soldering irons, etching lines across the surface. Uprooting forests. Boiling rivers and lakes. Burning through towns. Magog'rah was tracing the state's borders—then moving inward, scorching and destroying.

King leaned forward, unable to breathe.

The Flock kept firing missiles. Nothing helped.

The six neutron beams moved closer together, then met over Omaha with a flare that blinded King even from here.

An enormous white explosion blazed over Earth.

Soil and stone flew into space.

"Flock, get out of there, get out!" Jordan was shouting. The Eagles were already fleeing. Flying chunks of stone caught a handful of Eagles, destroying them in space. The Desert Thorns were fleeing too. The shock wave from the explosion washed over several of the Middle Eastern ships, pounding their hulls, pulling them down into the clouds of dust.

Finally the dust settled.

Nebraska was gone.

The entire state—carved out like a patch of skin, leaving a blackened, smoldering square of nothingness.

King trembled. His eyes nearly bugged out. His fury blasted out of him.

"Magog'rah!" he howled. "Damn you, you son of a bitch! God damn you to hell!"

Wreathed in smoke, the floating skull turned toward him. Thousands of rahs were scurrying across her hull, mending the damage, welding new armor into place. The enormous jaws widened. The Atrocity seemed to smile.

Everyone aboard Freedom's bridge stood silently, staring in horror.

Jordan put a hand on King's shoulder. "Jim, I'm sorry."

King stared at the smoldering ruin of his home. His ranch—gone. The farms where he had grown up. His old friends. Nearly two million people—gone. His eyes stung. His fists trembled.

Mimori approached him, hesitant. "Your orders, sir?"

He was shaking—not with fear but with agony, with fury, with grief. He clenched his jaw so tightly a molar cracked.

"We're going to destroy that ship," King growled.

Jordan spoke carefully. "Jim, we lobbed everything at her. The entire firepower of the Alliance Fleet. Her shields held."

"We're not going to bomb her hull. We're going to destroy her from the inside. The Atrocity withstood our firepower. Now she will meet the Freedom Brigade."

CHAPTER FOUR

Colonel Bastian King stood before the Freedom Brigade, the greatest infantry force in the galaxy. Two thousand men and women. The bravest souls he knew. They were not just his soldiers. They were his family.

Many would die today.

Bastian knew it. They knew it. But nobody cowered. They stood ready for war. Ready to sacrifice everything, even their very lives, for the freedom of Earth.

The army mustered in the Courtyard. Outside the hangar bays, it was the largest open deck aboard the Freedom. The troops stood organized into their battalions. Each battalion was further divided into companies and platoons. They wore armored battlesuits and helmets. They carried Gideon assault rifles, Mordecai plasma guns, laser blades, grenades, and the hopes of humanity.

This was not the full Freedom Brigade. Only two battalions among five stood here. Nova Battalion and Typhoon Battalion. Combined, they were the commando strike force of the starship Freedom, elites among elites. The other three battalions specialized in ground operations and defense. Right now they were spread across the starship Freedom, defending the hull from enemy boardings. They would remain aboard the Freedom for now, protecting the mothership and available, if necessary, to descend to Earth.

Nova and Typhoon would be heading out on their own into battle.

"Freedom Brigade!" Bastian shouted, voice echoing through the towering deck. "You've been watching the MindWeb feeds. You know about the Atrocity. You know what she did to Nebraska. The entire fleet of humanity bombarded that skull, and still she flies. We, the Freebies, are going to take her down."

Five thousand fists rose in the air. Five thousand voices filled the Courtyard. "For freedom!"

"The plan is simple," Bastian said. "The Freedom will bring us close. As close as she can get. Then we launch in our Rhino dropships. We will meet resistance. Thousands of spiderwings swarm around the Atrocity like wasps around a hive. Our Rhinos will blast the way through. And Freedom's Flock will be right there with us, watching our backs. We'll attach the Rhinos to the Atrocity's hull. We'll meet resistance there too. Rahs are scuttling all over the Atrocity like spiders over a real skull. We'll shoot 'em down, drill into the hull, and board the ship."

The soldiers stood still, staring at him. Eyes hardened. Fists clenched. The earlier excitement petered off. Cold determination replaced it.

Every moment or two, a boom echoed through the ship. The deck jolted. Soldiers swayed. Sometimes it was the Angels of Liberty firing. Sometimes it was enemy ordnance hitting the shields. The lights kept dying, then flickering back on. Cracks were spreading across bulkheads.

"We don't have a map of Atrocity's insides," Bastian said. "We're going in blind. Our mission is to disable the ship. We'll search for vulnerable spots. The engine room. The reactor core. The bridge. We'll do whatever we can to bring that ship down. Are there any questions?"

For a long moment, everyone just stood still, silent. No fists rose now. A few soldiers had tears in their eyes.

Finally, hesitantly, one soldier raised his hand.

Bastian looked at him, and his heart seemed to break. It was Private Evan Fletcher. Son of Colonel Kim Fletcher, the ship's engineer.

Our parents are secret lovers, Bastian thought. Evan is almost like a little brother.

The kid was half his age. Just a private while Bastian was a colonel. But he was practically family. No, not just practically. He was family. All his soldiers were. To Bastian, he was a true brother.

"Sir?" Evan was very pale, and his voice shook. "If we bring the ship down from the inside, does that mean that we … that we …" He gulped. "Go down with it?"

Bastian stared at him, silent. Nobody else stirred.

Evan winced. "I'm ready for that, sir. When I joined the Freedom Brigade, I took my vows. I vowed to give my life if I must. I just … wanted to ask, sir."

A tear rolled down the boy's pale cheek. Just a damn kid. Eighteen years old. A kid with his whole life ahead of him. A life that might only last a few hours more.

The Freedom jolted. A boom reverberated through the deck. Everyone swayed on their feet.

"Some of us will die," Bastian said. "But this is not a suicide mission. We will cripple the Atrocity, then evacuate. I know what you're thinking. With the Atrocity crashing down, how would we reach the Rhinos in time? We'd be in the middle of a starship the size of a city, and the Rhinos would still be clinging to the outer hull. Well, we're not going to evacuate by Rhino. We have something new." He turned his head. "Sergeant Major Allenby! Bring 'em in."

A hatch opened.

A mecha came thumping in, shaking the deck. The machine stood ten feet tall, roughly humanoid. Flaking yellow paint covered its metal chassis.

Alice Allenby-King stood in the cockpit, clasping a joystick with each hand. Two blond braids spilled out from under her helmet, and freckles adorned her broad, honest face.

Bastian looked at her, and as always, whenever Alice was around, he felt better.

His wife. The love of his life. She carried his child in her womb. She wasn't showing yet. But Bastian could already imagine the baby, their life together after the war, the family they would raise in a cozy little house on Earth.

But not in Nebraska, he thought. A lump filled his throat. Our home is gone. He took a deep breath and clenched his jaw. We will avenge it.

Alice thumped closer in the mecha. Her footfalls boomed almost as loudly as the battle outside. The mecha's metal arms were outstretched. A dozen metal rings hung on each arm like bracelets. Each ring was about the size of a Hula-Hoop and adorned with glowing spheres like gemstones.

"Portal generators, fresh outta the oven!" Alice cried. "Get your fresh, hot portal generators here! Step right up! One per company please. No refunds."

Each company sent a soldier to collect their portal generator. Each ring weighed about forty pounds. Light enough to roll along with the company or carry slung around the shoulders.

"These are our portals out!" Bastian said. "Keep them safe. When our mission is completed, and the Atrocity is crashing down to Earth, you'll activate the portals by pressing the blue button on the top. The battery will drain quickly. So don't press that button until you're ready to evacuate. The portal will take you back here to the Courtyard."

Kin Fletcher had created the portal generators only last week. The technology was new. At least for humans. The rahs had invented it. The humans had captured their portal generators, reverse engineered them, and found a thousand uses for them. Three years ago, tunnels through spacetime were science fiction. Today they were everywhere. Nostril inserts were one example. Why carry oxygen tanks when you could simply open tiny portals in your nostrils, connecting to a starship or planetary surface lush with air? Communication was another area where portals were now used extensively. Radio waves didn't cut it anymore. They could be monitored. And they were slow across long distances. But little portals could be opened like cosmic telephone lines, allowing instantaneous and secure communication. Massive portal generators, like the one Freedom carried on her hull, required equally massive energy, but they allowed ships to travel between the stars. Down on Earth, clever engineers were coming up with many civilian applications too. Apparently one grocery store chain was already rolling out portal delivery. Get your food delivered directly into your kitchen! One dubious doctor had claimed to invent diet portals; eat as much as you like, then teleport the food right out your belly.

Right now Bastian hoped the "portal Hula-Hoops" could save their lives. And let the Freedom Brigade save all of Earth.

"One more thing!" Bastian said. "The Freedom Brigade is powerful. But we need help. The Red Raiders will join us."

Dark looks passed among the troops. The Red Raiders were a commando brigade that served aboard the Baba Yaga, Katyusha's flagship. They were the Red Dawn's version of the Freedom Brigade—just without the honor. Some called them Katyusha's Killers. Often the Red Raiders carried out missions to exterminate Katyusha's enemies at home. Human enemies. They served only one god—equalism. But strange times made for strange bedfellows.

The deck lurched and swayed. The powerful g-force shoved the troops a step or two back. Bastian held out his arms for balance. The ship was accelerating fast. The new graviton engines were struggling to balance Earth's gravitational tug.

Bastian's MindLink implant chimed. His father was calling him.

"Bastian?" said Admiral King. "We're flying in. Get your troops into the Rhinos. It's almost time."

The call ended.

"Freedom Brigade—to your Rhinos!" Bastian shouted. "Move it, now, full deploy alert! Let's go win this thing!"

* * * * *

Red lights flashed. Alarms blared. It was time for battle.

Round hatches opened on the deck, revealing poles. Like firemen, the marines slid down to the Rhino deck below.

The original Rhinos, the dropships of the Freedom Brigade, had been lost in battle against the Tyranny. Also lost were their pilots—brave soldiers who charged at Tyranny, giving their lives so that Freedom might survive. The Aeolians had built a brand-new fleet of Rhinos, using specs found in Freedom's database. And like typical Aeolians, they added many improvements.

The new dropships looked more like real rhinos than ever. Like before, they had thick plates of armor. Now they had horns too—massive drills that could carve through enemy hulls. Rotary cannons thrust out from their tops and underbellies, able to spin and fire at any target. The new Rhinos were faster, tougher, meaner. Each Rhino was large enough to transport an entire marine platoon and all their equipment. Forty of these heavy machines rumbled inside the Freedom, ready to charge to battle.

The Freebies raced inside, each into their preassigned Rhinos. Bastian joined one unit: Fourth Platoon, Badgers Company, Nova Battalion. His old unit. Almost twenty years ago, he had begun his military career with this platoon.

Now I might end it with them, he thought grimly.

The Rhinos were cramped vessels. There were no seats. The soldiers stood crammed inside like commuters on a subway from an old movie. Bastian saw some familiar faces. Private Evan Fletcher was here, the rookie of the group.

Master Sergeant Meytal Koren stood in the Rhino too. She was a tall, tattooed soldier with brown hair, mocking eyes, and a crooked smile. Her battlesuit hugged her body, and she carried an assortment of assault rifles, grenade launchers, and even a katana. A bandoleer of grenades hung across her chest. Meytal had served aboard the Caracal, but the Israeli warship had fallen battling the Tyranny. Like a handful of other Caracal survivors, she had integrated into the starship Freedom. She now served as a proud Freedom Brigade marine.

Bastian nodded to her. Meytal was a veteran of many battles, and outside the military, she was an accomplished martial artist and Olympic wrestler. He was glad to have her here. She gave him a wink.

Bastian was about to pull the Rhino's hatch shut when Alice hopped in too. Instead of a mecha, she now wore a battlesuit. She was carrying one of the portal hoops.

Bastian sent her a private telepathic message. "Alice, not you. You're pregnant."

"Bastian, the Freedom is no safer than the Atrocity right now. Or anywhere in the galaxy. I'm going." She pulled the hatch shut. "End of discussion."

Bastian sighed. "I love you, you crazy lunatic."

She blew him a kiss. "Let's go save the world."

Everyone took positions in the Rhino, standing atop circles drawn on the deck. Metal harnesses rose from the floor and snapped around their armor like fists, securing them in place. The other Rhinos reported in. They were ready, two thousand soldiers in all.

Lee Eun-Yu stepped forward between the Rhinos, wearing a reflective vest and hardhat. As bay boss, she oversaw Freedom's airlocks and hangars. The petite Korean woman coned her hands around her mouth and let out a deafening roar: "Airlocks—open!"

Across the hangar, eight airlocks opened wide, revealing a view of the battle. They were so close to the surface. Earth was racing by below, smoldering. Starfighters zipped back and forth, battling just over the atmosphere. A spiderwing crashed down, shattered against the atmosphere, and blew up.

The Freedom rolled a few degrees, and there she came into view, hovering above the sky. A metal skull the size of a mountain. The Atrocity.

"Rhinos—launch!" Bastian shouted.

They burst out of the Freedom, fifty roaring and rumbling Rhinos, and charged to battle.

* * * * *

Bastian wobbled in his harness as the Rhinos flew. His armored battlesuit kept banging against the bars holding him in place. He felt like a thief trapped in a gibbet, swinging in a storm. His head rattled inside his helmet like dice inside a cup.

He connected telepathically to the cameras on the Rhino's hull, giving him a view of space all around.

A chill washed over him.

They were in low orbit, flying into the sunset. The sunbeams painted the battle orange, red, and gold. Nearby, an Alliance frigate was diving toward Earth, almost languid, almost graceful. It shattered into a billion pieces when it hit the sky, becoming a storm cloud of molten metal and dust and corpses. A formation of Eagles raced ahead, chasing a group of spiderwings. Above flew the Red Fleet, its ships of crimson and gold like the skyscrapers of some mythical city. Clawships flew at them, their rings of blades opening like jaws, blowing out streams of fire. The arachships flew higher up, legs dipping down to clutch victims. The sunbeams shone between them, glittering where they struck floating corpses. Lasers and missiles flashed everywhere like lightning.

The picture was silent. Bastian could only hear his rumbling Rhino, nothing beyond it. The view was almost beautiful, a painting in the thousand colors of sunset. From out here, the dead were just specks. You didn't see the guts, smell the blood, hear the screams. This was how admirals and commanders saw war. Sterile. The marines had to get up close and personal.

The Rhinos were chasing the sunset. But the light dimmed. Atrocity rose ahead, eclipsing the sun. Darkness fell over the Rhinos like a cloak. Back in the hangar, the dropships had seemed so large, beastly rhinoceroses of metal ready to charge into enemy lines. Now, facing the Atrocity head-on, Bastian imagined them as gadflies flying toward the head of a giant.

The skull's crown of cannons towered above, etched in blazing sunset. Each of those metal spikes rose taller than the Burj Khalifa. The Atrocity didn't bother aiming or firing her cannons at the Rhinos. It would be like a samurai slicing at mosquitoes with a katana. Instead, the skull opened its metal jaws, spewing a cloud of spiders.

"Spiderwings," Bastian muttered.

The starfighters swarmed toward the Rhinos. Hundreds of them. Bastian, who was watching through a MindWeb window, zoomed in. Arachtaurs sat in the cockpits. Their gray skin, bloodshot eyes, and toothy snarls sickened him. He had fought these creatures before. He still had the scars. Now they came charging in their arachnid starfighters. Each spiderwing raised eight legs, revealing cannon bores, and opened fire.

Streams of white plasma bolts flew toward the Rhinos. They were no larger than Ping-Pong balls, but there were a lot of them, and they were damn hot. The Rhino pilot swerved. The dropship rose higher, nearly slamming into another Rhino. A line of plasma bolts streaked below them like traffic racing along a highway.

The other Rhinos were trying to dodge the barrage too. A plasma bolt slammed into one Rhino, cracking the prow, but the heavy dropship kept charging. Two Rhinos, each trying to swerve around plasma streams, banged into each other. Armored plates detached and crashed down toward Earth.

Bastian's Rhino shook as the machine guns on the prow and underbelly opened fire. Streams of bullets raced toward the enemy. A spiderwing exploded ahead. The Rhino swerved around the debris.

Bastian wrenched himself out of his harness and stepped into the cockpit. A pilot, copilot, and gunner sat there. The spiderwings were racing everywhere. Streams of white bolts filled the sky. Ahead loomed the Atrocity, blocking the stars. The enormous skull grinned. The hideous visage was as large as Mount Everest.

The Rhino's gunner, a beefy sergeant with a stubbly jaw and cigar in his mouth, was gripping two joysticks. Each of his hairy hands was aiming another rotary cannon. A spiderwing exploded again. The sergeant grunted in satisfaction and turned toward another target.

A spiderwing flashed toward them.

"Watch ou—" Bastian began when a bolt slammed into them.

The blow knocked the Rhino back in space. The deck shook. The viewport rattled. Thankfully the armor held.

Ten more spiderwings raced toward them. Too many to dodge. Their cannons aimed at the Rhino. Bastian winced.

A spiderwing exploded. Then another. And a third.

Eagles streaked overhead, missiles flying.

Spitfire waved from a cockpit. "Got your back, Bas!"

Pickles raced by next, moving so fast he was only a blur. More spiderwings exploded.

"Go break that skull, boys!" the tall, one-eyed pilot said. "We got you covered."

Katana shot overhead, her Eagle's cannons firing. "Go save the world, fellas!"

Bastian saluted the pilots. "Thank you."

His throat tightened and his eyes stung. Freedom's Flock and the Freedom Brigade rarely worked together. There was a bit of a rivalry between them. Pilots were all officers. Most marines were enlisted. The pilots were celebrities. The marines were just grunts. But tonight they were one team. One family.

The Rhinos were almost at the Atrocity now. The heavy ship was moving backward, trying to slink behind the horizon, perhaps to find a new target on Earth to obliterate. The metal jaws opened again, unleashing a fresh cloud of spiderwings. It seemed to carry an inexhaustible supply.

The new swarm raced toward the Rhinos. The alien starfighters outnumbered the Eagles ten to one. Bastian cursed and braced himself for more punishment.

A Rhino exploded nearby. Shrapnel pattered against the Rhino where Bastian flew.

Plasma took out a second Rhino.

Two Rhinos down. That was a hundred soldiers. Gone in an instant. A hundred lives cut short. A hundred families on Earth—destroyed.

More enemy fire blasted their way.

A Rhino cracked open. Soldiers spilled out, screaming, and tumbled down toward Earth. In their battlesuits, they could survive the vacuum. But not the air. At this speed, hitting the atmosphere was like hitting concrete. They slammed into the sky and broke apart.

More plasma came. A chill flooded Bastian.

Even with the Eagles, we're not even going to reach the Atrocity, he realized.

Red lights flashed above.

New ships raced forth, flying so low over the Rhinos they almost hit them.

Explosions bloomed through space like poppies in the dark. Spiderwings disintegrated.

A powerful signal washed over space. The Rhino's speakers crackled. Music emerged. It was the Red Dawn anthem, bombastic and booming. The male choir filled the cabin. They sang in Russian, but Bastian's MindLink translated.

The Red Dawn rises

Glorious and mighty

To light all the world

And cast back the dark!

Katyusha our leader

Forever triumphant

Will smite the Rah empire

For the glory of—

Bastian switched it off. At least they had revised the lyrics. They used to sing about smiting America. Nice change.

The Red Reavers, the commando unit of the Red Dawn, flew overhead. They were mostly Russian, Chinese, and North Korean, all elite killers, the deadliest in the empire.

Their dropships were known as Bears. Like Rhinos, they were big and bulky. But while Rhinos were crude and ugly, built purely for functionality, the Red Dawn designed their ships with a flair for the dramatic. Their Bears were painted crimson, filigreed with brass, and golden equal signs shone on their hulls. Their prows were designed to look like actual bear jaws, complete with metal teeth that could drill through enemy hulls.

Sickle starfighters joined the flight too. They were the Red Dawn's version of Eagles. They raced alongside the Bears, protecting them. Once deadly enemies of the Eagles, the Sickles now flew at their sides. They fought the spiders together.

Bastian looked at the Atrocity. The Desert Thorns were pestering the giant skull, swooping in for more and more attacks. They were no larger than bees attacking a man. But they were annoying the Atrocity, herding her toward the path of the Rhinos and Bears.

Meanwhile, the main Alliance and Red Dawn fleets were not idle. Thousands of their warships fought above, keeping the Arakavish Armada busy. Every few moments, another human warship exploded, taking hundreds, even thousands of lives. They were sacrificing themselves to isolate the Atrocity, to give Bastian and his soldiers a chance.

I won't let them down, he vowed.

The marines flew onward, carving their way through the swarm of spiderwings, and finally reached the Atrocity.

CHAPTER FIVE

The war consumed the solar system. And even the Queen of England was fighting.

While the Freedom Brigade and Freedom's Flock were attacking the Atrocity, Queen Emily remained aboard the Freedom. But she did not hunker in her royal suite. She did not cower in an armored cabin. She stood on the artillery deck, firing the great guns of Freedom.

She had only reported for duty here a few days ago. And already she was thrust into battle.

"Hurry, hurry, another one!" shouted Major Hook, commander of the Pandora.

The major stood by a massive loading tube. A tube? It looked more like a tunnel. You could drive a car into it. The shaft led toward Pandora, one of the Angels of Liberty. Fourteen of the colossal cannons topped Freedom's dorsal hull. Fourteen goddesses. Each had their own name, their own history, their own ledger of enemies destroyed.

From this deck, Hook and his crew operated Pandora. She was a legendary cannon. It was Pandora who had destroyed the Red Dawn starship Rasputin during the Third World War. In the ongoing Spider War, Pandora had destroyed her fair share of enemies too, including the Cocooned God, a colossal motherclaw. Pandora was as large as the Statue of Liberty, and she was ready to fire again.

It was the greatest honor of Emily's life to serve here. Perhaps even more than being queen. She had inherited the throne. But she would earn her position here on this deck.

"Coming!" she said to Hook.

She nudged her two joysticks, one in each hand. Kronos, the mighty mecha, thumped across the deck. Emily sat in the cockpit, strapped into her seat, wearing a hardhat. The towering mecha held out his hydraulic arms. With his clamp-like hands, Kronos held a Maccabee torpedo. The Maccabees, the great projectiles of the Angels of Liberty, were the size of trucks. It took a giant like Kronos to lift them.

Kronos was forty years old. The mecha had certainly seen better days. He looked like a beat-up tractor the shape of a man. His chassis was charred, scratched, and dented in a thousand places and covered with flaking yellow paint. He had fought in the Third World War. Then, for decades, he was a museum piece, standing behind velvet ropes as tourists snapped photos. Now Kronos—with a little help from Emily—was back in action.

"Come on, come on, while the war is on!" Hook cried.

Emily nodded and tried to walk faster. But operating Kronos was delicate business. The last thing Emily wanted to do was drop the Maccabee, detonate the warhead, and blow up Freedom from within. She took step after careful step.

Yes, she was still a rookie. She had been thrust into battle too quickly. But the Tyranny had wiped out half of Freedom's artillery team. So here she was. The Queen of England. Operating a mecha the size of a T-Rex, carrying a torpedo that could wipe out a neighborhood.

A boom rocked the ship. The deck wobbled. Another blast must have hit the shields. The mecha swayed, tilted backward, and the Maccabee rolled around in the forklift hands. For a moment of panic, Emily was sure she'd drop the torpedo. She wrestled with the joysticks, finally steadying Kronos. Her heart pounded against her ribs, and sweat trickled down her back.

Finally she reached the launch tube, nudged the controls, and Kronos knelt. The mecha held out the Maccabee. Three soldiers stood below, raising magnetic grabbers—poles with magnets on the tips. The soldiers gently guided the torpedo into the launching tube.

It took several spacers to operate an Angel of Liberty. They needed to maintain, load, aim, and finally fire the cannon. It was a team effort. Major Hook took orders directly from Commander Jordan on the bridge, then passed them on to his crew. The team needed to locate the target, choose the right warhead, calculate the ideal flight path, and program each Maccabee individually. Different battle conditions required different firing procedures. They had to work with the ATLAS teams to collect data on the enemy, take the movements of the Freedom into consideration, adjust for nearby gravity wells, consider potential hazards like floating shrapnel that could detonate a missile prematurely, and a million other details. They even had to synchronize the firing with the shield team, making sure the shield bubble around Freedom could open a hole for them to fire through, then seal up again.

And the list went on. Parts of the system were automated. But humans still had to oversee it and make constant tweaks. Each time they fired it was an entire operation, requiring multiple specialties and split-second decisions.

Emily didn't understand half of it. It was certainly more complicated than simply pulling a trigger. Until now, Emily had never appreciated how complex firing the cannons were. From the bridge, it all seemed much simpler. The commander gave the order and the cannons went boom. Well, up here at artillery, things were a lot more complicated. Thankfully, her own job was simple enough for now, but she was trying to learn more.

The torpedo moved up the launching tube, entering the cannon's bore. Spacers worked on control panels. Monitors showed the battle from several angles. Tens of thousands of enemy ships flew all around.

"Target acquired," said a gunner.

On a monitor, one arachship—the Arch Enemy—glowed red.

"Aiming cannon!" said another gunner, typing on his controls. Gears spun as the cannon wheeled toward position.

"Fire!" Hook commanded.

Emily was up to bat again. A lever the height of a man rose nearby. It was too heavy for a human to shove down. But inside Kronos, Emily had the strength of many men. She grabbed the lever with Kronos's clamps and pushed down hard.

Pandora boomed.

The sound was deafening. Even wearing earmuffs, Emily winced. Only Major Hook seemed unaffected by the sound. But the Australian gunner had spent the past ten years in here. Apparently he didn't hear much of anything anymore.

The Maccabee flew out.

The crew watched, holding their breath.

A few spiderwings fired on the torpedo. But the Maccabee, sensing the alien starfighters, swerved around the bolts of plasma. Freedom's Flock swooped in, bombarding the spiderwings, shoving them back.

The torpedo kept racing forward.

The Arch Enemy saw it coming. The arachship reared like a living spider, revealing a spinneret, and shot a web that could drape across a stadium. A year ago, a Maccabee would have flown right into that net. But the engineers had learned from battling the Tyranny. Small lasers were mounted onto the Maccabee, surrounding the warhead. They opened fire, carving a perfect hole through the incoming web. The Maccabee flew right through.

The web splattered against Freedom's hull, clogging up a few sensors. A monitor on the gunnery deck went dark. Within seconds, drones clattered along the outer hull, reached the web, and began peeling it off. The monitor came back to life. Just in time to show the Maccabee slamming into the Arch Enemy.

The arachship exploded.

Cheers rose across the gunnery room. Emily cheered the loudest.

They all knew how important this battle was. The Freedom Brigade was boarding the Atrocity. Everyone else—the starfighter pilots, the gunners, the rest of the fleet—had to buy them time. They had to hold back the Armada until the marines could blow the flagship to kingdom come.

"Go get 'em, Bastian," Emily whispered. "I've got your back."

* * * * *

"Will you be quiet?" rose a voice from behind. "I have highly sensitive audio sensors, and I cannot abide by these loud booms!"

Niles flew toward the cannon. The royal drone had suffered many scrapes and dents during the war. But the Aeolians had restored him to his former glory. Or at least former ostentatiousness. He was about the size of a football—the same shape too—but his pride was certainly king-sized. Once more, his shell was smooth, polished silver, not a dent to be seen. Gemstones of every color shone across him. The Aeolians came from a crystalline world, and they had simply given him some everyday crystals, no rarer on their world than pebbles on Earth. Yet Niles strutted around as if he wore the finest diamonds. For a floating drone without legs, strutting should have been impossible, but somehow Niles managed it.

"Niles, it's a bit hard to keep quiet while we're firing a cannon the size of Big Ben," Emily said.

"I don't care." The drone raised the pointed part of his shell as if raising a nose. "Fire your cannon elsewhere. I was trying to read the Oxford Post."

Emily was already trudging in her mecha toward the pile of Maccabees. "Niles, this is not the time!"

The drone fluttered after her like an annoying bee. "I disagree. There is a fascinating article in today's Oxford Post reexamining the Battle of Trafalgar. Admiral Nelson certainly taught the dastardly French a thing or two that day! Nelson, ah, there was a proper admiral! Not like that so-called Admiral King. Did you know he's not even English? Why, if it were up to me, I'd have the entire bridge crew sacked. Aside perhaps from Oliver Darjeeling. We need a good butler after all. And I would—"

"Niles, not now!" Emily lifted another Maccabee.

"Come on, come on!" Hook shouted.

Emily thumped back toward the launching tube and loaded the new torpedo.

The spacers worked at their controls.

"Target acquired."

"Cannon aiming."

"Fire!"

Emily shoved the lever and the great Pandora boomed. The sound waves were so powerful they knocked Niles against the bulkhead. Several of his crystals dislodged and clattered across the deck.

"My diamonds!" he cried.

An HVAC vent opened on the deck.

A scruffy figure emerged, scurried across the deck, and grabbed the gems. "Mine!"

"An arachtaur!" Niles cried, racing behind the mecha. "Kill it, kill it!"

The figure stood up. She was a young woman, probably about twenty years old, though it was hard to tell with the amount of dirt covering her. Her brown hair hung across her face. Large ears stuck out between the strands, and big green eyes shone with mirth. She wore a ragged dress with many pockets sewn on like patches. She had only one stocking, striped and full of holes. The other leg was bare. A mouse rode on her shoulder.

"I'm not an arachtaur." She curtsied. "It's me, Stowy!"

"Kill it, kill it!" Niles cried.

The stowaway stuffed the gemstones into her pockets. "Finders keepers, losers weepers."

Emily ignored them both. Orders kept coming in from the bridge. More and more enemy ships kept charging at them. Every few moments, the Freedom thrummed and shook as the Shield of David batteries fired. Thousands of interceptor missiles, smaller and more agile than Maccabees, kept flying from the Freedom, parrying enemy projectiles. The slender missiles hit the great silver spears the arachships fired, knocking them off course. Other interceptors flew into the streams of plasma the clawships spewed, dispersing concentrated jets of heat into clouds of fire that washed harmlessly over Freedom's force field.

In a sense, the Freedom had returned from the Aeolia system with three levels of shields. As always, the Freedom boasted a thick, armored hull—one line of defense. And she still could generate a force field around her, her second defensive layer. Now the Shield of David system, installed only weeks ago, provided a third shield around the ship. That joined a host of technological improvements Freedom gained at Aeolia, including graviton thrusters, the hopscotch drive, and a host of upgrades to everything from the particle accelerator to the plumbing. Already the engineers were working on a defensive laser system, which they hoped to roll out within three months. QT the engineering android had even floated the idea of a portal defense system. She proposed opening small portals to capture incoming projectiles, then propel them back at the enemy, a sort of galactic Uno card.

War is like that, Emily thought. War is the great accelerator. Technology that would normally take a century to develop can spring up within weeks. Necessity is the mother of invention. And nothing is as necessary as winning a war.

"Come on, move it!" Major Hook shouted.

Emily nodded and operated Kronos faster, thumping across the deck, carrying a new Maccabee. She could see the battle on the viewports. Three clawships were coming in fast, plasma flaring. The interceptor team, which was located on another deck, was barely keeping up. Emily didn't envy them. The Shield of David had to fire much faster than the Angels of Liberty.

Plasma was washing over the interceptors. The clawships kept charging.

"Hurry!" Hook cried.

Carrying the enormous torpedo, Emily reached the loading tube. She knelt to load it, perhaps too fast. The Maccabee wobbled in Kronos's metal hands.

A jet of plasma hit the Freedom.

The force field flickered, then peeled back.

The stream hit the hull.

The dreadnought shook.

And Emily dropped the Maccabee onto the deck. The thump shook the ship.

Everyone froze and stared.

The Maccabee began to hiss. Smoke rose from where the warhead met the casing.

"She's gonna blow--run!" Hook shouted.

Gunners raced for cover. Emily struggled with the joysticks, trying to spin Kronos around. It was a big, bulky machine, and it moved so damn slowly. She had to get out of here! But the damn mecha was like a ten-ton snail.

Niles wailed in fright. To his credit, the drone did not flee for cover but flew toward Emily. "Climb out of the mecha!" Niles cried. "Just run!"

The other Angels of Liberty were booming. The ship shook. Maccabees flew toward the incoming clawships. Thankfully, there were multiple gunnery teams aboard the Freedom. With Pandora out of the game, the others picked up the slack.

But none of that would matter if they blew up the Freedom from the inside. Emily struggled with the straps of her harness, knowing it didn't matter. She could run as fast as she liked. When that torpedo blew, it would kill her.

"I got this!" rose a cry.

Stowy raced across the deck. But unlike everyone else, she was running toward the Maccabee. She seemed so small beside the torpedo. The warhead alone—just the crest of the torpedo—was larger than her.

The stowaway climbed onto the fallen missile, ripped a panel off, and yanked out a bunch of cables.

The hissing stopped.

The smoke died.

"There!" Stowy said. "They're easy to disable. We're fine. Come back, everyone! We're all right."

Emily was halfway out of Kronos's cockpit. She climbed back in, drenched in sweat. The other gunners, some of whom had already made it into the hallway, returned to their posts.

"How do you know how to disable torpedoes?" Emily said.

Standing on the torpedo, the stowaway flashed a smile. "I used to hang out on the Libertas artillery deck all the time. Back with the original crew. We were good buddies. The gunners would play Risk with me sometimes." Her smile faded. "They're all dead now. The Tyranny wiped them out. You guys are new here. I guess I can teach you a few things."

Emily was already grabbing a new torpedo.

The battle continued. To hold back the Armada. To isolate the Atrocity until Bastian could destroy it. To save humanity itself from extinction. Emily shoved down the lever, and another torpedo flew.

CHAPTER SIX

The Rhinos were large vessels. You could squeeze three or four school buses inside one. But the Atrocity dwarfed them. The heavy armored dropships landed on Atrocity's hull like mere mosquitoes.

Bastian's Rhino thumped onto the Atrocity with a jolt that knocked him onto his backside. There was a reason Rhinos came with harnesses. He had left his harness to enter the cockpit, and his tailbone was now paying the price. Hooks thrust out from the Rhino and clutched onto Atrocity's hull, securing the dropship in place like a tick.

"Start the drilling!" Bastian said, ignoring the dizzying pain.

The great Rhino's horn tilted forward—a drill the size of a man. The Aeolians had designed and built the drill, coating it with diamonds. It could, the Aeolians assured them, cut through anything.

The drill began to spin.

Sparks flew.

The drill roared and spun faster.

Bastian stood in the cockpit, watching.

Nothing was happening. He frowned. The drill wasn't cutting through.

Bastian leaned over the dashboard. "What's wrong?"

The copilot, a slender young officer with flaming red hair, leaned against the drill controls.

"It's not cutting through," she said.

"No shit." Bastian chewed his lip. "The Aeolians said it would cut through anything."

Then again, the little bastards had also claimed they never invented books. Until Bastian discovered their forbidden library.

Bastian looked at the side monitors. Rhinos had no windows. Thick armor encircled them. But exterior cameras, peeking through slits in the armor, showed him the view. Atrocity's hull spread into the distance like a jagged landscape. The ship was so massive it felt like landing on an alien world.

Other Rhinos clung to the hull like barnacles on a whale. Their drills buzzed and showered sparks. The Russian Bears descended onto the hull next, clung on, and began chomping at the hull with their metal jaws. They weren't having much more success.

"We're not getting through, sir," said the officer at the drill. "I'm giving it all she's got, but—"

The Rhino jolted.

The diamond drill shattered.

Chunks of diamond cascaded into space.

"Dammit!" Bastian said. "There goes our—"

Suddenly round hatches opened across the Atrocity's hull.

For a split second, Bastian could not believe his good fortune. Who needed a drill? Holes were opening right up!

Of course, nothing was that easy.

Swarms of spiders bubbled out through the holes.

Rahs. Thousands, maybe millions of rahs.

Each of those alien arachnids was the size of a cow. And they came scuttling toward the dropships, claws gleaming.

The Rhino's gunner grabbed his joystick and opened fire. He could only fire one of the Rhino's machine guns now, the one on the top. The underbelly gun was trapped against the Atrocity's hull. Bullets slammed into rahs, knocking them into space. But more kept coming.

Moving at incredible speed, the giant spiders reached the Rhino. They began climbing the dropship. Their claws rose and fell like pistons, cracking the hull. A few rahs grabbed armored plates in their powerful jaws and began peeling them off.

One powerful leg punched through the hull, entering the cockpit, then pulled back. Air began whistling out. Bastian lowered his helmet's visor. His nostril inserts connected to the Freedom via portal, allowing him to breathe without an oxygen tank.

"Marines, out of your harnesses!" Bastian shouted into the hold. "Get ready for battle."

Dammit. They weren't even inside the Atrocity yet, and already they were facing the spiders.

The rahs were rocking the Rhino, ripping off more and more armor. They were attacking dropships across Atrocity's hull. No marines had managed to board the alien ship yet. A few Rhinos were still trying to drill their way in. But the diamond drills shattered. The Red Dawn Bears weren't having any more success. Their powerful jaws kept biting at the Atrocity, but the teeth dented and broke. Bastian didn't know what the Atrocity's hull was built of. But it was apparently stronger than diamond, which he had thought impossible.

Shrieking air sounded from behind Bastian. His Rhino's hold was breached!

A rah bellowed.

Marines shouted and opened fire.

Bastian left the cockpit, returning to his platoon in the hold. A rah had ripped off a chunk of hull. The massive spider was trying to shove his way in. Two claws slashed through the air. The mighty jaws of the beast thrust inside, teeth snapping. A marine lay dead, throat sliced open.

Alice, Meytal, and Evan stood together, firing on the creature. The rah screeched, pounded with bullets. Three of its eyeballs burst. As the air kept fleeing, the sounds faded and faded … until Bastian only heard the screams through the vibrations in the deck.

Finally the bullets slew the beast. The great spider slumped forward. But other rahs simply yanked the corpse away, then kept assaulting the dropship.

Reports kept flooding in from other dropships. The rahs were attacking them all. The Alliance marines hunkered inside their dropships, firing at the rahs, shoving them back out. The aliens covered the dropships like ants over fallen bits of meat.

The Red Dawn troops were taking a different approach. They were leaping out of their dropships, landing on Atrocity's hull, and fighting in the open. Their graviton boots clung to the hull. They were shouting, firing their assault rifles, and making their way toward the open hatches. It was a hard slog. Bastian watched as rahs swarmed over a squad of Chinese soldiers, ripping them apart.

He could not help them. Rahs were rocking the dropship Bastian was in. The spiders carved a hole open at the stern. Marines were firing, trying to hold them back. But sooner or later the spiders would break in. This Rhino was a death trap.

Bastian pursed his lips. He might have to take the Red Dawn approach, charge onto the Atrocity's hull, and try to fight his way into the hatches. But the Red Reavers weren't doing too well, and they were elite warriors, on par with the Freedom Brigade. He watched as rahs bulldozed over a red platoon, chomping off limbs.

An idea struck Bastian.

There was an easier way.

Risky, yes. It might kill his entire platoon. But right now it might be their only hope.

He rushed back into the cockpit. The pilot was pale, bleeding from a gash on his arm. The copilot was dead. A rah claw had thrust through the prow and driven into her chest. The gunner had abandoned the cannons. Instead, he was firing his assault rifle through the hole in the prow, driving back rah claws.

Bastian shoved the dead copilot aside and took her seat.

"We're going to hopscotch in," he said.

* * * * *

Bastian sat in the cockpit as the rahs swarmed over the dropship, clawing, biting, breaking their way in.

He looked at the lever on the dashboard. A brass lever covered with gears and crystals.

The hopscotch drive.

A claw burst through the deck like a zombie hand from a grave. Bastian cursed, drew his sidearm, and fired between his feet. Bullets punched through the claw, pulverizing the soft flesh inside. The claw retracted.

Bastian tapped on the control panel. The upgraded software suite came with a hopscotch calculator. Letters flashed across the monitor.

Distance to hop?

Bastian thought for a moment. He just needed to get past Atrocity's hull and into the ship. Say, a klick. Even a ship this big wouldn't have a hull thicker than that. Plenty of wiggle room. Hopscotching with a Rhino was riskier than with an Eagle. Rhinos were heavier. The heavier the mass, the greater the risk. But he just needed to skip one kilometer, that was all.

He typed in his answer: 1 km.

The dashboard hummed, then spat out some digits.

Ninety percent success rate.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Normally, a ten percent chance of death would terrify Bastian. Right now these were the best odds in town.

Well, that was just the risk of surviving the Otherworld. Other things could go wrong. He could, for example, hopscotch straight into a bulkhead or deckhead. He thought the Rhino's armor could survive that. So long as he didn't hop into an engine core. He'd have to risk it.

Rah claws grabbed the crack in the prow, widening it, and alien mouths howled, spraying saliva. More claws reached up from the hole in the deck, scrabbling around Bastian's boots.

"Hold on, everyone!" Bastian said.

A fresh swarm of spiders raced toward the Rhino. Rah snouts thrust inside, teeth snapping.

Bastian shoved down the hopscotch lever.

The Atrocity's hull vanished.

The Rhino floated in the Otherworld.

It was a realm of blue clouds in indigo darkness. Strange, translucent beings floated all around. Some were blobby, others elongated. A few had stubby little nubs that wriggled around like limbs. One blob connected to a large, oval creature full of glowing spheres. The blob thrust out a slender tube, pierced its victim's skin, and began sucking up its innards. The tiny glowing spheres flowed from the large prey to the small predator.

Bastian remembered a science experiment as a child, gazing into a drop of water and seeing all the microbes inside. That's what this place felt like.

Rahs were still clinging to the Rhino's hull. They cried out in terror. A few of the glowing blobs darted toward the spiders, landed on them, and began sucking out their insides. The rahs screeched and fell off the Rhino into the stew of clouds.

A massive predator came swimming toward the Rhino. It was larger than the dropship. The corpses of glowing blobs shone inside its translucent abdomen. A tube thrust forward, ready to stick into the Rhino and suck out the marines.

The hopscotch lever clattered back to its original position.

The Rhino hopped back into reality, and—

Crack!

Boom!

Metal shattered.

A monitor exploded.

The Rhino shrieked and rumbled and groaned. The hull dented. The deck cracked. The dropship shook madly. Chunks of metal and dust flew everywhere. Screeches sounded in the dark.

It took Bastian a moment to realize what had happened. They were inside the Atrocity. They had hopscotched into a solid part of the alien ship—probably a bulkhead. The Rhino had survived the encounter. The alien bulkhead had exploded. Bits of mangled metal clattered down around them.

Yes, the Rhino had survived. More or less. But the engine coughed, snorted, then died. The port hull had peeled right off, and the chassis was warped. Likely, the ship would never fly again.

The marines inside survived the trip, at least. Bastian breathed in relief. Thank God for that.

But his relief was short-lived.

Howls rose in the darkness. Eyes shone. And a swarm of arachtaurs raced forward.

"Marines—out of the Rhino and charge!" Bastian shouted.

They roared for battle, raised their guns, and leaped into hell.

* * * * *

Bastian hopped out the Rhino into … a forest?

For a moment, he just stood there, disoriented. They must have hopscotched to the wrong place. They weren't in the Atrocity at all! Roots coiled underfoot and slithered across metal walls like serpents. Mist hung in the air. Mushrooms grew everywhere, and ferns rustled. What he had mistaken for sparks from the crash were actually fireflies.

The eyes of arachtaurs shone in the darkness. The creatures raced toward him. He had no time to make sense of things, just to fight.

He shouldered his Mordecai rifle and fired plasma bolts into the enemy. Soldiers stood at his sides, their backs to the Rhino, firing with him.

The arachtaurs fell before them, screaming and twitching, only for more to climb the corpses, to hurl themselves onto the marines.

Bastian roared in wordless fury as he fought. He had one large plasma rifle, one smaller gun for bullets, and he was firing them both. Arachtaurs fell before him. He paused to load a fresh plasma pack, then kept shooting. He couldn't see Alice. But he thought he could hear her shouting. It was a shout of rage, not pain. The enemies kept coming.

"Alice!" he shouted.

She ran through the darkness, her plasma gun lighting her way. The pillar of white flames roasted an arachtaur. The light illuminated twisting roots and branches.

"Where the hell are we?" Alice shouted. She fired again, destroying another arachtaur, and came to stand beside Bastian. "Are we on a planet? Where did you hopscotch us to, dumbass?"

Another arachtaur leaped at them. Bastian fired a stream of plasma. The barrage blasted out the arachtaur's ribs. The creature thumped down at his feet, its human half dead, its spider half still twitching. A claw hit Bastian's chest, scratching the armor. He fired again, perforating the arachtaur's abdomen. It deflated like a balloon.

For a second, Bastian could look around, taking in soil and rocks on the deck, roots on the bulkheads, mushrooms soaked in blood. But yes—there was a deck. Yes—there were bulkheads. He understood.

"We're inside the Atrocity!" he shouted back to Alice, hoping she heard him over the roar of battle. "I guess arachtaurs love house plants."

There was probably a more logical explanation. Perhaps the arachtaurs wanted to mimic their native environment even in their starships. Or perhaps the Atrocity was more than a starship but a gargantuan biodome, a sort of floating planet complete with an ecosystem. Well, whatever the case, Bastian must find a way to bring it down.

They had brought no nuclear weapons. Only smaller explosives. This was not a suicide mission. If they left a bomb with a timer, the rahs would simply disable it—or lob it back at Freedom. No. Bastian must find a weak spot on the Atrocity. An engine room. A reactor core. Even a bridge. Something he could sabotage or commandeer. There must be a way to cripple this ship and make it out alive.

Alice seemed to have the same thought. "I don't suppose we'll find any maps to the core."

An arachtaur leaped at them. It barreled into Bastian, slamming him against the Rhino's hull. The beast's mouth opened wide, full of sharp fangs. Its legs slammed into the hull around Bastian, trapping him like a cage.

"I will eat your flesh!" the creature screeched, leaning in to bite.

But it ended up eating nothing but a knuckle sandwich. Bastian's armored fist shattered its teeth. He shoved the hybrid back and prepared to shoot it dead. Before he could pull the trigger, red light flashed. A laser blade sliced the arachtaur's head clean off, leaving a cauterized stump of a neck. The body collapsed a second later.

Alice shook blood off her blade. "As I was saying. Unless we find a map, we're lost. This ship is the size of a goddamn city. How are we going to find any critical systems in here?"

She hurled a grenade at a group of arachtaurs. The grenade burst, scattering spider legs everywhere.

"We need to interrogate an arachtaur," Bastian said.

Alice nodded. "Let me grab one."

Around them, the other marines were all fighting, trying to shove their way deeper into the strange alien ship. A marine fell, neck slit open. Evan Fletcher stood with his back to coiling tree roots, his face very pale. But when an arachtaur leaped at him, the boy did not run. He filled the beast with bullets. Meytal, meanwhile, was having the time of her life. The Israeli commando stood atop a pile of dead arachtaurs, laughing and firing an assault rifle with each hand.

The arachtaurs seemed to realize the folly of attacking guns with claws and teeth. Instead, they began slinging webs. One of the sticky webs slammed into Evan, gluing him to the bulkhead. Some webs flew at Meytal, but she drew a flamethrower nozzle from her hip and roasted them. More of the gooey strands flew everywhere—grabbing guns, entangling legs, knocking marines down.

Alice ran, ducked under an arachtaur's swinging claws, and grabbed a strand of webbing. She twirled it like a lasso.

"Alice, watch out!" Bastian shouted and fired his gun. An arachtaur slammed down dead at Alice's feet.

"Dammit, Bas, I was trying to catch that one alive!"

"Sorry. Force of habit."

"Yeah, well, you can force your habit up your—"

"Behind you!" Bastian shouted, this time not firing.

Alice spun around and stumbled back.

A gargantuan arachtaur was racing toward her, shoving smaller arachtaurs aside.

* * * * *

The beast was enormous.

His human half was beefy. Muscles rippled below his gray skin. Alice was no slouch. She stood over six feet tall and could wrestle a bull to submission, but this creature towered over her. She took another step back, going very pale.

"Alice?" Bastian said, aiming his plasma rifle as the creature charged forward.

A few marines ran toward the arachtaur, only for the mighty claws to knock them aside like rag dolls. Evan managed to free himself from the cobwebs. Howling a battle cry, the young soldier ran toward the enormous arachtaur, gun firing. The arachtaur lashed his claws, lacerating Evan's legs. The private fell, screaming in agony, and crawled away, leaving a trail of blood.

Bastian ran toward the private. Evan lay in blood, pale and trembling. "It hurts …"

Bastian quickly applied bandages to the kid's legs. They were cut up badly.

As Bastian tended to the boy, Alice stepped closer to the towering arachtaur.

"I got this!" she said, swinging her lasso.

The giant arachtaur finally noticed Alice. A grin spread across his pasty face, and he licked his lips.

"You look like a delectable morsel."

His lower jaw unhinged, growing wider and wider, revealing rings of teeth. He lunged toward Alice.

She sidestepped. The beast bit down on air.

Alice leaped up. There wasn't much gravity inside the Atrocity, and she soared toward the ceiling, then landed on the arachtaur's back. She wrapped the cobweb lasso around his meaty neck and pulled back hard.

The alien bucked and kicked, nearly knocking Alice off. She clung, straining, trying to suffocate the creature. A few marines, determined to help, ran forward with makeshift lassos of their own. But the arachtaur kicked wildly. His sharp spider legs drove into soldiers, cut off limbs, sliced off flesh. Marines fell dead around the enormous arachtaur. Yet still Alice clung on, riding the beast.

The arachtaur could not shake her loose. Instead, he leaped up, slamming Alice against the ceiling. Her armor creaked. She groaned.

Bastian was putting an end to this. Alice was pregnant. This had gone far enough. Leaving Evan for a moment, he raised his plasma rifle and fired.

Blasts hit the arachtaur. The gray skin burned and peeled back. The hybrid roared and leaped again, crushing Alice against the ceiling. Her cry broke Bastian's heart. He stepped closer, gritting his teeth, firing on automatic. A stream of heat and light slammed into the arachtaur, peeling back his skin, eating up the muscles. Finally the internal organs caught fire and the arachtaur fell to the deck. His eight legs curled up.

Alice leaped off the dead arachtaur's back.

"Dammit, Bastian, I told you I had him!"

"No, you did not have him." Bastian was surprised to find tears in his eyes. His voice was hoarse. "He was going to kill you."

She scoffed. "Bastian! I'm fine."

"You're not fine!" Suddenly he was shaking. "Your armor is cracked. You're in pain. I can tell." A tear ran down his cheek. He stepped closer and his voice dropped to a whisper. "I can't lose you, Alice, okay? I've already lost so many people. I can't lose you too."

For a moment, the battle died down. No more arachtaurs were attacking. Most of the marines stood panting. But some lay wounded. One man was clutching his stomach, trying to keep his entrails inside. Another marine had lost three limbs. He called out for his mother as his lifeblood flowed away. The medic was moving between them, but there was little she could do. Other marines lay dead. Evan sat in a corner, shivering, blood covering his lacerated legs. His skin was ashen, his eyes sunken.

Alice looked at the scene, her blue eyes wet and haunted, then back at Bastian. For a moment, she just stared at him. Then she pulled him into an embrace.

"I love you," she whispered.

Meytal trudged up to them. Arachtaur blood covered her body armor. She held a rifle in one hand, a dripping katana in the other. "Guys, we gotta move. Before more arachtaurs show up. We gotta push deeper."

"We don't know where we're going!" Alice said. "We can't just go blindly."

"Well, we can't stay here, princess!" Meytal said.

"I'm not Emily. Don't call me a princess."

Meytal snorted. "You're a pampered American. You're all princesses."

Alice raised her fist. "I swear, Meytal, I'm going to—"

"What, fight me? We already did that at the 2198 Olympics. And I beat your ass."

"Ladies?" Bastian said.

They turned toward him, fists raised.

"Butt out of this," Alice said.

Meytal nodded. "This is between me and—"

"He's still alive," Bastian said. "The big arachtaur I roasted. He's still alive. We might finally get some information."

* * * * *

Bastian set a squad to guard the perimeter. Then he and Alice knelt by the giant arachtaur.

The beast's arachnid abdomen had deflated and lay across the deck in a sticky puddle. The spider legs, which had moments ago lacerated several men, were now curled up and charred. The hybrid's human half hunched over, dangling from the rancid abdomen. The holes Bastian had burned into the torso were still leaking. But amazingly, the creature was taking raspy breaths. He even managed a weak cough.

Bastian grabbed the creature's chin, lifted the head, and stared into bloodshot eyes.

"What is the way to the engine room?" Bastian said.

The dying creature began to laugh. "Do you think you can destroy this ship from within, human?" He coughed blood. "We lured you inside, fool. We let you in. The exits are already sealed. There is no escape. Goodbye, ape."

The hybrid began to tick.

Bastian frowned.

Then he saw it. His blasts to the arachtaur's torso had ripped the skin, peeled back some muscle. There inside his torso it was.

The bomb.

A boom sounded in the distance, echoing through the Atrocity. Then another boom. A third. The tunnel shook.

The arachtaur near him was still ticking. These explosions were far. Other bombs.

Screams sounded over MindWeb. Human screams.

As colonel, Bastian could connect to any neural implant in the brigade. He could see through soldiers' eyes, hear through their ears. Right now different platoons were fighting in different locations inside the Atrocity. Their telepathic signals were weak. Too much interference. But Bastian could make a few flickering connections.

He leaped into a few minds. And he saw it.

Arachtaurs were running into marine platoons—and exploding.

The explosions were massive. Burning through entire platoons. Mind after mind went dark.

The arachtaur near Bastian was still ticking.

"Fire in the hole!" he shouted.

The marines began running down the tunnel. But they hit a solid stone wall. Dead end.

"There's gotta be a door somewhere!" Alice cried.

Marines scampered around, looking for an exit. They found none. Trapped!

Bastian cursed. He ran back to the dying arachtaur. He grabbed the ticking creature. "Where is the exit?" He shook the creature. "Where did you come from?"

The arachtaur laughed. "The hatches are closed. The locks are melted. I will see you in hell, human."

More booms sounded in the depths.

Bastian knew they had only seconds. He considered sheltering in the Rhino, but the hull had blown to shreds. There was no shelter in there.

Goddammit.

"Abort mission!" he shouted. "Alice, get the portal open. We're portaling home!"

He hated himself for this. For running from battle. There were few things that shamed him more than fleeing from a fight.

But he could not let Alice die. Or Evan. Or anyone else here. This mission was over.

Alice lay down the portal hoop, hit a button, and lights around the ring shone. The portal opened, leading home to Freedom.

"Go!" Bastian said.

Alice shook her head. "Not yet. The others first."

The marines had never moved faster. One by one, they dived through the portal like men jumping into a manhole, falling into the Freedom. Two marines had to carry Evan; the boy would not be walking anytime soon. If he ever walked again.

Soon enough, it was just Alice and Bastian.

The bomb stopped ticking.

Bastian pulled Alice to him, and they jumped together into the portal.

The explosion blazed above them. Shrapnel flew. Fire roared.

Holding each other, Bastian and Alice fell into the Courtyard, the marines' deck aboard the Freedom.

Fire blazed from the portal above, raining onto the deck. Bastian and Alice raced away, their armor singed and bubbling with heat.

Then the explosions wiped out the portal generator, and the portal vanished. Ashes and a few chunks of arachtaur flesh fell to the deck.

Bastian knelt, groaning with pain. Shrapnel bristled from his body armor. The shock wave had slammed into him like a bus.

"Alice?" He held her. "Alice, are you all right?"

She nodded and pulled off her helmet. Tears ran down her cheeks. There was no blood. She was unharmed. And she was so beautiful.

The other marines of their platoon lay around them, some wounded, some dying. Their Rhino had flown into the Atrocity with fifty marines. Twelve remained behind.

Another portal opened above.

More marines—these ones from another platoon—dropped into the Courtyard. Blood covered them. One man was missing an arm.

Then another portal opened. And another. More and more marines came back, defeated.

Many never returned.

Some platoons only sent two or three men back. Some platoons did not come back at all.

Bastian rose to his feet, ignoring the pain, and pulled up MindPlay. Hallucinatory windows floated in a carousel around him, showing him views of his companies, his Rhinos, and a few exterior shots of the Atrocity.

Explosions were rocking the Atrocity from within. Fire blazed out the hulls. But these blasts were not hurting the ship. They were clearing out the invaders.

MindWeb showed Bastian the vitals of every soldier in the Freedom Brigade. He had invaded the Atrocity with two thousand warriors in all.

Half those avatars went dark.

A thousand soldiers. Gone.

The Freedom Brigade had never suffered a catastrophe like this. Not in all their battles.

The horror was not sinking in yet. A thousand soldiers Bastian had trained, mentored, led. Gone.

I should have died with them. I should have died in there.

He stared at one of the hallucinatory windows that floated before him, the one showing the Atrocity's exterior.

The Red Raiders were trying to flee too. Unlike the Freebies, the Raiders had no portal generators. No easy way out. But a few bloodied, terrified Raiders must have reached their dropships. The charred, dented Bears detached from the Atrocity's hull and began flying away.

And then Bastian saw something that terrified him more than any arachtaur.

"Oh God," he whispered.

CHAPTER SEVEN

King stood on the Freedom's bridge, watching the fiasco unfold.

Half his attention was on the fleet. To say things were going poorly was a kindness. Thousands of Earthling ships were engaging the Arakavish Armada, desperately holding them away from the Atrocity. The mission was simple. Isolate the Atrocity. Give the marines room to work.

The fear was that Magog'rah would summon backup. That alien dropships would dock onto the Atrocity, spilling out troops, trapping the marines inside. So the human starships fought united, surrounding the Atrocity, holding back alien reinforcements. The Desert Thorns guarded Atrocity's underbelly, the Red Dawn fought on the flanks, while the Alliance Fleet hovered above the skull's cruel crown.

And that crown kept firing.

Over the past hour alone, the Atrocity had fired over a hundred neutron beams, destroying many Alliance starships. Some were corvettes with fifty spacers aboard. A handful were frigates with crews of hundreds. One had been a starfighter carrier with over a thousand spacers aboard.

All gone. Seared away by Magog'rah's cruel white crown.

King gave the other half of his attention to the boarding operation.

It was disastrous from the start.

King had watched, feeling helpless, as the spiderwings took out several Rhinos before they ever reached the Atrocity.

He had watched, sick to his stomach, as spiders poured out of hatches to storm over the troops.

Then the commandos entered the Atrocity, and for an agonizing hour, King lost contact with them. They were in too deep, hidden from him. Radio and telepathic signals went dead in there. A handful of officers carried expensive, experimental portal communicators, and those still worked. But King only heard screams.

One portal communicator streamed the brigade's vitals. King watched them drop. Every second or two—another soldier dying. And it went on and on. Death after death. From two thousand commandos, they were cut down to a thousand, and explosions rocked the Atrocity, and that's when King realized his folly.

It had been a trap.

The Atrocity had let them in.

I sent them there, he thought, throat constricting. Without a map. Without a proper plan. I sent my soldiers to die.

The survivors portaled back to the Courtyard. Some at least had survived. Relief washed over King when he saw Bastian and Alice back aboard. Grief flowed through him at everyone left behind.

"Send medics down to the Courtyard!" King barked into his comlink, calling the medical bay. "Multiple casualties! Send every medic down there!"

Major Albert Sultan, chief medic aboard the Freedom, nodded on MindWeb. Burly, bald, and bearded, he raced through the corridors of the Freedom. Dozens of other first responders raced with them. Within minutes, they were at the Courtyard. Too slow. King made a note to install portals in the infirmary. For next time. If there was a next time. Everything was happening too fast. Too chaotically. He was making too many mistakes. Forgetting too many things. Dammit, he didn't have time to catch his breath.

Down in the Courtyard, the medics began resuscitating, bandaging, and loading marines onto litters. Dr. Annie, Jordan's daughter and chief ship doctor, was waiting in the medical bay with her team of surgeons.

Standing on the bridge, King returned his attention to the Atrocity. On the viewport, he watched the Red Raiders attempt to flee too.

A handful of Bear ships detached from the hull, likely carrying wounded Red Raiders. Apparently the Red Dawn did not possess portable portals. They had to flee by shuttle. The Bears were flying toward the Baba Yaga, their mothership, a massive dreadnought the size of the Freedom. A cloud of spiderwings pursued, smelling blood. But the Bears were faster. They were halfway already toward the Baba Yaga. They were going to make it.

A beam flashed.

A Bear exploded.

Debris and dead Red Raiders flew through space.

King frowned. Had the Atrocity used her crown—her mightiest weapon—to destroy a mere dropship? That was a colossal amount of energy to spend on a single transport shuttle, let alone one fleeing.

Then a second Bear exploded.

And King saw where the blasts were coming from.

The RDS Baba Yaga, Katyusha's flagship, was firing on her own shuttles.

* * * * *

"Get her on MindWeb!" King shouted, his hoarse voice echoing through the bridge.

"Aye, sir!" Mimori said. "Hailing the Baba Yaga right now."

As the call went out, the Red Dawn dreadnought fired again. A third Bear exploded, scattering the corpses of Russian commandos.

The other Bears—only three remained—turned to flee their mothership. But there was nowhere to run. To one side flew the spiderwings, and they were coming in hot. On the other side was their own murderous mother.

Mimori turned toward King. "Sir, the hailing frequency is o—"

"What the hell are you doing, Katyusha?" King roared.

Katyusha's avatar materialized on Freedom's bridge. The Red Dawn premier looked as resplendent as ever, clad in her imperial uniform. She smiled crookedly.

"You called, Jamechka?" She blew him a kiss. "Miss Katyusha so much?"

"You're killing your own goddamn troops!" he shouted.

Her face hardened. "Traitors, you mean. Cowards who flee from battle. The Red Dawn does not tolerate cowardice."

"Firing on fleeing shuttles is the ultimate cowardice, Katyusha. This is a crime against humanity! This is low. Even for you."

She tossed back her head and laughed. "Oh, sweet, innocent Jamechka. You know the code of the Red Dawn! Fleeing from battle is a capital offense. That has always been our creed."

"That hasn't been implemented since the Third World War, and it was wrong then too," King said.

He was trying to buy time. As he spoke to Katyusha, he was also sending telepathic messages to Spitfire. The pilot still flew outside with Freedom's Flock.

"Spitfire?" he telepathized silently. "This is King. I want you to herd the surviving Bears into Freedom's hangars. Keep the spiderwings back."

Spitfire gulped. "And the Baba Yaga?"

"She won't fire on Alliance ships," King telepathized. "Katyusha doesn't want two wars on her hands."

While he was secretly communicating with Spitfire, Katyusha was shaking her fist in the air, delivering some speech about Red Dawn courage. King caught the last bits of it.

"… only the strong survive! That has always been our creed. We do not need cowardly soldiers. We are not weak Americans. We are the Red Dawn! We are made of iron and fire! We …" She paused. Her face flushed red, and her voice rose to a shout. "What are you doing, King?"

"Saving lives," King said.

They could all see it happening now. The Eagles were racing around the Bears, shielding them from their enemies. A few Sickle starfighters, most likely disobeying orders, joined the protective shield. The flotilla began flying away from the Baba Yaga and toward the Freedom.

"This is treason!" Katyusha shouted, spraying saliva.

"This is humanity," King replied. And hung up on her. Her avatar, fists clenched and teeth grinding, vanished from the bridge. At once, she called him back. King blocked the call.

"If the Baba Yaga opens fire on our Eagles," King said to his crew, "we will return fire."

Katyusha was furious. But she was no longer firing.

Good. The last thing King needed now was to fight both Elder'rah and Katyusha. Evidently Katyusha wanted to avoid an interhuman war too.

The spiderwings had no such restraints. They pestered the flotilla of human vessels. But working together, the Eagles and Sickles did a good job, holding back the swarm.

The Freedom opened her hangars, and in flew the Bears, complete with the Red Raider survivors.

At once, the Eagles and Sickles charged back to battle, firing on the spiderwings, pushing them away from the Freedom. Ammunition drones kept flying to the starfighters, restocking their wings with missiles.

King watched on video as the Red Raiders—wounded, haunted—limped out of their shuttles. The Freedom's medics treated them. Just as they would treat their own.

This was a war for the freedom of humanity. And a stark reminder that not all humans were free. That not all humans were good. And right now, flying between the Atrocity and Baba Yaga, King didn't know who the true monsters were.

He didn't have much time to contemplate this.

The Atrocity, cleansed of boarders and still hungry for death, charged toward the Alliance Fleet.

* * * * *

The Atrocity plowed into the battle like a prizefighter into a schoolyard scuffle.

Until now, outnumbered as they were, the human starships had held back the Arakavish Armada. Now their lines crumbled. The enormous skull bulldozed through defensive formations, knocking corvettes, even frigates aside. Her crown kept firing. Neutron beams carved through armored hulls like arrows through paper planes.

The Sun Never Sets, a British frigate, exploded.

The Himmelspanzer, a German warship, split in two, spilling screaming spacers.

A swarm of Red Dawn corvettes tried to regroup, only for the Atrocity to barrel through them. Beams fired every which way, roasting the red ships one by one.

King had spent the past forty years in space. But he had grown up on a Nebraska ranch. He remembered once seeing a coyote break into the chicken coop. The canine had run wild, slaying bird after bird as the poor flock panicked. That was what this reminded him of.

Nebraska is gone now, he thought. The ranch, the chickens, the millions of people who lived there—all gone. And we might be gone next.

He clenched his fists so tightly his metal prosthetic cracked. His fury washed over him. He would not go down like a goddamn chicken.

"Re-form the lines!" King shouted. "Battle formations! Charge at her and take that ship down!" He turned toward Mimori. "Lead the charge! Full speed ahead!"

"Aye, sir!" Mimori cried. She tilted on the deck, then leaned forward. The Freedom matched her movements, charging toward the Atrocity. The skull-shaped ship loomed ahead. The Freedom was a mile long, the largest Alliance ship by far. Atrocity dwarfed her. She could open her metal jaws and swallow the Freedom whole.

"Angels of Liberty!" King said, calling the gunnery crews. "Aim above the Atrocity's left eye. The place the Fist of Freedom struck. Concentrate your power there. Fire!"

The deck vibrated as the great cannons aimed. Gears the size of windmills were moving inside the ship. King wished he could fire the Fist of Freedom a second time. The legendary railgun was more powerful than the fourteen Angels combined. But he had already fired it only a few hours ago. It took a full day to charge. If he fired the Fist again now, the projectile would move too slowly, not carry enough kinetic energy. Better to wait. In a few hours, his doomsday weapon would reach its full power.

Yes. A doomsday weapon. That was what the Fist of Freedom was. A weapon so powerful it could wipe out a city. It could blow up a small moon. King had seen the Fist of Freedom destroy alien clawships larger than the Freedom with a single blow. It had given the Atrocity a black eye. No more.

What the hell are we dealing with here? he thought.

A ship that could withstand the Fist of Freedom. A ship whose hull broke diamond drills. What was this terror?

The fleet rallied behind the Freedom. And they charged right at the Atrocity. The skull's beams kept firing. Warship after warship exploded. Sometimes small corvettes. Sometimes frigates with hundreds aboard. King had begun this battle with three thousand starships. Hundreds were gone already.

So many dead.

So many grieving families.

All while Earth burned below, while the ground troops of Arakavish swarmed through cities and wilderness.

Maybe we lost already, King thought. Maybe this is the end of humanity. If so, let this be an end Arakavish will not soon forget. Let us go down with glory.

"Charge and fire everything!" King cried.

The guns of the Alliance boomed. The fusillade slammed into the Atrocity, drenching the skull with destruction.

Meanwhile, the Red Fleet was charging too. Their national anthem blasted on their open channel—a bombastic choir singing of glorious victory. For now, Katyusha put aside her feud with King. All her wrath flew toward the Atrocity. Thousands of red ships unleashed hell.

The rest of the Arakavish Armada roared to battle. As Earth's fleets raced toward Atrocity, the fleets of the rahs and arachtaurs bombarded them. The Atrocity loomed ahead, her neutron crown firing. The Armada roared from behind.

Another warship exploded. And another. They kept winking out like dying stars, debris crashing down on Earth as humanity watched, crying out for salvation that would not come.

King realized his folly.

We're trapped. And I led us into this trap.

He had chosen to send the marines into the Atrocity—a disaster that resulted in half the force dead.

He had ordered this fresh assault on the Atrocity, even after seeing what that ship could do, allowing the clawships and arachships to regroup.

I did this. My bad decisions are killing us.

He had let his emotions overwhelm him. The grief over Nebraska. The fear of human extinction. The terror of losing so many troops.

This is a fiasco. And it's my own doing. My mistakes doomed us. My mistakes cause millions to die. My mistakes can drive humanity to extinction and—

He took a deep breath.

Enough. Stop this! So you made mistakes. Correct them! Learn from them! Change course! Both the smart and the foolish make mistakes. Only the fools refuse to correct them.

"Fall back," King said.

Mimori looked at him. "Sir?"

The FAS Kumiho, a South Korean warship, streaked overhead, charging at the Atrocity. A neutron beam sliced through her. Chunks of the warship—along with charred bodies—thudded onto Freedom's dorsal hull.

"We're falling back." King tapped his comlink, sending the message to the fleet. "All commanders! Form defensive formations and fall back to Mars. We'll regroup there."

A few objections sounded from the commanders. Variations of "We won't abandon Earth!" and "We didn't join the Alliance to run!"

"You have your orders!" King said. "Obey them. Fall back to Mars or I will court-martial you!"

But most of the commanders understood. They knew this was a lost battle. They must live to fight another day. The ships arranged themselves into retreat positions. A ring of ships faced outward, blasting the enemy with repressive fire. The others cranked their engines to the max, shooting into the distance.

The enemy did not pursue. The Armada was still focused on Earth—destroying more defensive satellites, landing more troops, and battling what ships remained.

"What is the meaning of this!" Katyusha materialized on Freedom's bridge, face flushed with fury. "You flee like coward? This is pathetic, Admiral! Even for you."

King glowered at her. As more Alliance ships kept fleeing, the brunt of Arakavish's assault concentrated on the ships that remained. Which included the Red Fleet. Katyusha often boasted of the glorious might of her fleet, but she had lost just as many ships as the Alliance. And she was losing more with every blaze of Atrocity's crown.

"I suggest you join us," King said. "Unless you want to see the Red Fleet destroyed."

She clenched her fists and snarled at him like a wild animal. "Katyusha will not run from a fight! Only cowards flee. Katyusha will stay and fight to the death!"

"That death won't be far off!" King snapped.

She laughed. "Katyusha welcomes death in battle."

King doubted that. Katyusha almost certainly had an escape portal installed aboard the Baba Yaga. She would not go down with the ship. She had already fled her old dreadnought, the infamous Lenin, after sacrificing it at Operation Perseus. For all her talk of glorious death in battle, she wouldn't hesitate to abandon ship again.

Let her keep fighting then! said a voice inside King. And if she wipes out her fleet, so be it.

But he could not allow that. Katyusha was a monster. But right now he needed a monster on his side.

A neutron beam fired just below them. Another corvette shattered. While King was talking to Katyusha, Jordan was commanding the Freedom, shouting orders. The Freedom had taken position as the central defender, leading two hundred other warships. They faced the enemy, covering the rest of the fleet, allowing them to flee. Mimori was flying madly, rising and falling, swerving around the neutron streams. The gunners kept pounding the enemy, but it was all they could do to hold back the Armada.

"Fine, escape like cowards!" Katyusha said. "Katyusha will keep fighting forever!"

"Katyusha, listen to me." King grabbed her arm. "Just listen for one goddamn minute. We're not fleeing this war. We're falling back. For now."

"Yes, yes, a 'strategic retreat' as you Americans call it. It is still shameful." Her avatar began to dissipate.

"No." A bitter smile twitched King's upper lip. "This is only seemingly a retreat. A ruse, if you will. From Mars, we're going to hit the enemy hard."

Katyusha's avatar solidified again. She narrowed her eyes. "Elaborate."

"We can't defend Earth right now. But we can defend Mars. And from there, we will strike hard. Right at the heart of Empress Elder'rah."

Katyusha's eyes brightened. Then a grin spread across her face.

"With portals," she whispered. "Of course! Jamechka, this is why Katyusha loves you so much."

She grabbed his cheeks with both hands, planted a wet kiss on his lips, and vanished off the bridge. A moment later, the Red Fleet began to leave Earth, streaking toward Mars.

Jordan looked at him, raised an eyebrow. King wiped his lips with disgust.

His MindLink chimed.

It was High Commander Godwin.

* * * * *

"Admiral King!" Godwin boomed. His avatar materialized on the bridge. Dust covered his three-piece suit and round face. Pebbles rested on the rim of his top hat. "What is happening up there?"

Suddenly Godwin swayed. More dust fell onto him. He grabbed something—the hallucination didn't show what—to steady himself. He must have been in a bomb shelter down on Earth, but MindWeb only showed the man, not his surroundings.

"Sir, I'm leading the fleet to Mars," King said. "I have a plan."

He spent a while detailing his ideas to Godwin. The high commander listened, his lower lip thrust out in thought. Finally he nodded.

"Yes. Proceed, Admiral King. The ground forces will continue to fight. We haven't lost this planet yet. The enemy perhaps has an advantage in space. But we know our planet better than they ever will. We know every boulder, every tree, every hole to strike from. We will resist."

"Godspeed, sir." King saluted his commander.

Godwin saluted back. "Send the empress my regards. Godwin out."

His avatar vanished.

King felt a little better. The retreat from Earth still felt shameful. But they all knew the truth.

The human fleet was no match to the Arakavish Armada. If they had any hope of victory, they must stop defending Earth … and strike the empress on her own soil.

More and more ships were fleeing. Barely anyone remained. The Desert Thorns had already all left. Reports were coming in from Mars now. Only a hundred clawships were attacking the Red Planet. The humans' ships there were blasting them apart. The news from Mars came over radio waves, meaning a fifteen-minute lag, but it sounded promising.

But King did not join the flight to Mars yet. The Freedom still flew over Earth. He would wait until every other Alliance ship had left.

Only four hundred human ships remained above Earth. Then only three hundred. The enemy grew bolder, concentrating their attack on the shrinking fleet. The Shield of David operators could barely keep up. More and more enemy blasts were making their way past the interceptors, hitting the force field. Some even made it to the hull, leaving ugly dents.

An arachship's laser spear pounded the stern, glancing off an exhaust port. The Freedom jerked through space. Another spear hit the dorsal hull, breaking the armor.

Klaxons wailed. Red alerts flooded the bridge.

"Hull breach!" Mimori cried.

Casualty reports came flooding in. Hatches slammed shut, sealing the breach. Medics, who had been treating the marines, now ran toward the upper decks.

Clawships shrieked toward them. Plasma washed over the hull, melting sensors, heating and cracking the armor. More enemies kept coming. Crowds of spiderwings surrounded them, pounding the Freedom.

"We have to get out of here—now!" Jordan said.

King nodded. "All Eagles, return home to roost."

"Heading back home, sir!" Spitfire cried, sounding relieved.

Freedom's Flock had lost sixty starfighters. Almost a third of their number. The survivors raced back into the hangars, leaving trails of debris and smoke.

Meanwhile, more Alliance ships were blasting toward Mars, leaving behind streaks of light and clouds of bolts and screws. Only a hundred ships remained at Earth now. Then even fewer.

"Mimori, we're almost ready to retreat," King said. "We're going to keep firing until the last second. The Atrocity thinks we'll turn around, exposing our port, and fly after the others. We're not going to. We're going to charge right at the Atrocity, race under her, then slingshot around Earth."

Mimori nodded. "That'll confuse the enemy and give us a boost of speed."

"If we survive it," Jordan muttered.

Suddenly the enemy stopped firing.

The Atrocity's crown darkened. The swarms of clawships and arachships cooled their cannons. The enemy floated around the Freedom and the last handful of human ships.

"What the hell?" King whispered.

Alerts flashed on a few monitors.

"Sir?" Mimori said. "A call is coming in. From Earth, sir."

He frowned. "Is it Godwin again? He's not using MindWeb?"

"Sir." Mimori looked at him, and though she was an android, she seemed to pale in fear. "It's not a human frequency. The arachtaurs are calling us."

* * * * *

Not only the battle froze. For a moment, everyone on the bridge froze too, staring at King.

The alert flashed on the central viewport. A call from Earth.

"On screen," King rasped.

Dozens of side monitors still showed views of space. Myriads of alien starships surrounded the Freedom, watching, waiting. The central viewport, the largest on the bridge, began streaming a video from Earth.

King frowned.

The video showed a desert. Eleven people knelt on the sand, their hands bound behind their backs, sacks on their heads. Their shadows stretched across the dunes like black blades.

"Where is this?" King demanded.

Mimori's fingers danced over her control panel. "I can't tell. They're masking the origin. Judging by the length and direction of the shadows, though, it's somewhere in the Middle East. The dunes seem to confirm it."

An arachtaur scuttled into the frame.

She faced the prisoners, her back to King. Her spider abdomen gleamed in the sunlight, sporting a red stain shaped like a skull. Her eight clawed legs pierced the sand. The upper human half wore silken garments lined with tassels. Long black hair billowed in the wind. Bracelets shaped as serpents encircled the arachtaur's human arms, and rings shone on her fingers.

"Your admiral is watching you now," the arachtaur said, speaking to the prisoners. "Is there anything you wanted to say to him?"

The arachtaur, her back still turned toward the camera, ripped the sack off one prisoner's head.

The prisoner was a man, King thought, but it was hard to tell. The face was bruised, swollen, and bleeding.

"Please," the man whispered. "Surrender to the blessed Arakavish empire." He glanced at the arachtaur, then lowered his head. "Human aggression must end. You must cease your cowardly attacks against Arakavish and kneel. The benevolent Empress Elder'rah will—"

"Enough of this farce!" King said. "Arachtaur! Show your face!"

Slowly, the arachtaur turned toward the camera.

King stared.

He felt the blood drain from his face.

"Impossible!" Jordan whispered.

More whispers sounded from the rest of the bridge crew.

King's eye twitched.

"Hello, old friend," the arachtaur said.

The arachtaur had gray skin marbled with purple veins. Her face was young, feminine, the lips full and pouty. When she smiled, she revealed fangs. King would never forget that face. It was seared into his brain. It haunted his nightmares.

Od'rahda. Commander of the Tyranny.

"We killed you," he rasped, barely able to speak above a whisper. "We hurled your ship into a star. We saw you die. What are you? A clone? A joke?"

She licked her lips, and her eyes shone with mirth. "You burned the Tyranny in a star. But it will take more to kill me, old friend. What a battle that was! Just you and me. The Freedom and the Tyranny. Two captains. Two iron wills. Just us in a distant system, far from the crowds. We made the heavens tremble, did we not? You won that game, King. You played so beautifully. But now we play again, a game with millions of pieces. A game for Earth."

"Is that all this is to you—a game?" King said. "Very well. I will defeat you again."

She laughed. "You cannot. You do not face one ship now, King, you face an armada. You face the greatest fleet that has ever flown among the stars. No one has defeated us. Not even your precious Aeolians. You should have hidden like them, Admiral King. You should have hidden in the shadows like the cowardly worm that you are. You should never have sent your ships into the galaxy that belongs to my empress."

"Why did you call me?" King said. "Do you really think I will kneel before you?"

"No, King. I know you will not. So long as you have legs to stand on, you will not kneel. Your foolish honor forbids it. That's why I called. To show you what I'll do to you." She turned toward the bound prisoners. "Stand up! All of you! On your feet!"

The prisoners kept kneeling, whimpering. One was begging to go home. A few rahs scuttled forth, grabbed the humans, and pulled them up.

"Watch, King," Od'rahda said.

She moved so swiftly King's eyes barely registered it. She raced across the dune, one long claw raised like a scythe.

It all happened within seconds. Severed legs pattered onto the sand. The prisoners fell, disfigured, bleeding into the desert.

"You goddamn monster!" King growled. "Throwing you into a star was too good for you!"

Od'rahda raised her clawed leg and licked the blood. Then she pointed that claw at the prisoners. "No legs, no standing. You already lost one hand, Admiral King. Soon I will take your legs too. And then, King, then you will kneel."

The video died.

The viewport once more showed a view of space.

King ground his teeth. During the call, the other Alliance ships had seized the chance and fled to Mars, joining the rest of the fleet. The Freedom remained alone, hovering among the Armada.

"Mimori!" King barked. "Let's get the hell out of here."

* * * * *

Every other human starship had evacuated to Mars.

The Freedom remained alone, hovering above Earth like a lone angel in a sea of demons. The Arakavish Armada hid the stars. Below, Earth was smoldering. From up here, King could see that the battle still raged across the surface. Artillery fire flew back and forth like slender threads.

King had to hope that the ground troops could survive without him.

I do not abandon you, Earth, he thought. But I cannot defend you here.

The arachships raised their mechanical legs, aiming them at the Freedom. The clawships dilated their rings of blades, revealing their plasma ports. They were just waiting for the order, and then a barrage of silver spears and plasma would destroy the Freedom. The Atrocity hovered in the distance over Europe, grinning a macabre metal smile.

"Mimori, remember the plan," King said. "When I give the order—charge at the Atrocity. Slide beneath her. Then slingshot around Earth."

Slingshot maneuvers were standard. They involved racing over a planet, spinning around one hemisphere, then allowing gravity to propel the ship into the distance. But they normally occurred in deeper orbit and with much longer acceleration distance.

The plasma ports began to crackle. The arachship legs lit up.

Mimori looked at King. "Sir, the odds of a successful slingshot at such low orbit are below the standards set by the Safe Space Transport Protocols Committee, and I must—"

"Mimori—now!" King shouted.

"Aye, sir!"

The Freedom's Talaria drive roared. A blast of energy like exploding stars flared out the three exhaust ports.

The Freedom bolted forward at incredible speed. King grabbed a handrail for support, but he still fell to one knee. Jordan clutched a control panel with both hands, struggling to stay upright. One young bridge officer, not used to the stresses of battle flight, passed out.

The Freedom raced toward the thin stretch of space between the Atrocity and Earth's atmosphere. The Freedom could not fly in air. If she touched that atmosphere at such speed, it would likely break her apart. It was a tight squeeze, and the maneuver had to be done within mere seconds. If anyone could do it, it was Mimori. The android stood in the center of the bridge, eyes closed. She didn't need to hold on to anything, keeping perfect balance as the bridge swayed and the g-force pummeled them. The light of the monitors bathed her with a blue gleaming light. For these terrifying few seconds, flying through hell, she looked to King like an electric angel.

They pitched lower, prepared to slide under Atrocity, when the gargantuan alien warship descended to block them.

It all happened so fast. King barely registered it.

Mimori could think much faster than a human. To her, everything probably seemed to move in slow motion. But even Mimori could not disobey the laws of physics. The Freedom was charging forward at breakneck speed, the Atrocity was plunging down to stop her, and no steering mechanism in the universe was fast enough to avoid collision.

"Impact in three seconds!" Mimori cried. "Two, one—"

The blast tossed King through the air. His back hit a bulkhead.

Monitors shattered.

The deck cracked open like a canyon, revealing decks below. The central viewport crashed down. Control panels exploded. For a second, all power died. Then the batteries kicked in and the alarms sang.

They were still moving.

They were still flying!

"We knocked her back!" Jordan shouted. "By God, we knocked her back!"

"We're going to slingshot!" Mimori shouted.

Most of the monitors were dead. But King's neural implant was still receiving signals from sensors on the hull.

The engines were roaring. The great exhaust ports flared with blue fury. Flames blazed over the atmosphere like an aurora.

A sensor on the prow showed … Dear Lord. The Fist of Freedom. The legendary railgun—crumpled! One of the two rails—snapped off!

The Atrocity spun above. Red fire burned in the skull's eye sockets. She was blasting her thrusters, trying to reposition herself. Her neutron crown lit up, ready to fire.

The Freedom was sinking. Dipping toward the sky.

The underbelly hit the atmosphere, ionizing the air. A shower of sparks flew across the Freedom. Down on Earth the sky would seem to burn.

"Here we go!" Mimori cried.

They raced at dizzying speed over Europe, then the Arctic, then curved over Russia, and the plains raced below, and they gained speed, faster, faster, skimming over fire, and . . .

The gravity well of Earth hurled them into the distance like a sling stone.

Neutron blasts flew around them. But Freedom was moving too fast.

The Freedom streaked over the southern hemisphere within a split second, almost too fast to see, then shot into the distance.

They blazed between the Armada ships so fast King's eyes could barely register it. Debris, satellites, maybe small starships too shattered against their force field, but their Talaria drive and the sheer force of Earth's gravity propelled them onward.

Earth shrank behind them. The Talaria drive thrummed, flooding the force field with blue light. From a distance, the Freedom must appear like a luminous oval. They moved faster, faster. Within two minutes, they raced past the moon. A flight that had taken Neil Armstrong days.

King stared at the rear viewport, watching Earth shrink smaller and smaller, soon becoming just a speck. From here, you couldn't see the war. The fires were invisible. Earth seemed blue again.

King turned to look at his crew. They stared back, sooty, charred, some bleeding, many with tears in their eyes.

"It hurts to leave Earth behind," King said. "This pain digs through us all. But we do not abandon our homeworld. Earth's orbit has fallen. We fought hard. We lost. But losing one battle does not mean we lost the war. We fly now to another battle. A battle to save Earth from afar. Elder'rah thinks she can invade our star system with impunity. I say we give her a taste of her own medicine."

The Freedom flew onward, her dorsal hull breached, her railgun bent and broken, heading to Mars.

CHAPTER EIGHT

For a few moments, Gal "Spitfire" Levy could not move. She had just landed Yael's Nail, her beloved starfighter, in the hangar. The other pilots had landed around her.

But not all.

Sixty-three pilots had not returned.

Sixty-three of her brothers and sisters.

The Freedom was accelerating at full capacity. The graviton dampeners were doing their best, keeping the crew alive. But even so, the enormous g-force pressed Spitfire against her seat. She could not raise her arm to pop the cockpit, let alone climb out onto the deck. Even breathing was a chore. Spitfire was a fighter pilot. She was no stranger to the punishing effect of acceleration, and even she battled for each breath.

We must have slingshot around Earth, she thought.

The other pilots sat in their cockpits too. A few Eagles even slid across the deck and clanged against the hull. Deckhands crouched, grabbed onto handles, and waited for the storm to end.

After a few moments, the punishing pressure eased up. Perhaps they had slowed their acceleration. More likely, the graviton stabilizers had finally caught up, easing the force inside the ship.

And still Spitfire could not move.

The deckhands began bustling about the hangar, busy at their tasks. The other pilots climbed out of their starfighters, somber. One pilot had blood over his flight suit.

Spitfire just sat there, still strapped in. She gazed through the canopy at the deck, and she saw the battle again. She saw the starfighters exploding. The avatars of fellow pilots going dark.

I should never have flown again. I'm a bridge officer. I should have stayed on the bridge. Why did I fly back into hell?

Cold sweat began trickling down her back. Her vision blurred, and everything seemed so distant, the sounds muffled. The deck grew larger and larger, or perhaps she was shrinking, falling into a hole. Soon she could barely see at all.

With a deep breath, Spitfire took herself back to the present. That was a panic attack coming on. It had been a while, but she still remembered her old friend Panic, still recognized the dizzying agony of his caresses. Panic was like a parasite, forever inside her, sometimes dormant, sometimes clawing her apart.

A knock sounded on her cockpit.

Spitfire nearly jumped from her seat.

Major Yoshino "Katana" Maki stood on a ladder. She waved through the steelglass canopy. "You okay, boss?"

Spitfire took another deep breath, steadying her nerves. Katana had just been promoted to major a few days ago. She was a young pilot, not yet thirty, and already commanded a squadron.

"I'm fine." Spitfire popped the canopy. "What do you want?"

Katana shrugged. "Thought you must be stuck." She raised a crowbar and winked. "I figured I'd pry you out of your seat."

Spitfire snorted. "I might not be as skinny as you, but I'm still a few meals away from getting stuck in the seat of a starfighter." She unbuckled herself and made to climb out. "You're in my way."

Katana remained on the ladder. "Spitfire, if you're not all right … you can talk to me. You know that, right?"

Spitfire raised an eyebrow. Katana was ten years her junior, two ranks below her, and about a foot shorter. "Thanks for the offer. But if I need a shoulder to cry on, there are ship counselors. And I don't need a shoulder to cry on," she added hurriedly.

Katana just stood there on the ladder, still blocking her way. And suddenly a tear flowed down the young Japanese pilot's cheek.

Spitfire tried to hide her surprise. People whispered about Katana's past. She had grown up in the criminal underworld of Tokyo, raised as an assassin for the Yakuza. It was said that Katana's soul was made of the same steel as her blade.

"How do you do it?" Katana whispered. "How do you lose friends?" She lowered her head, letting her hair fall over her face. "I don't mind losing a battle. But to lose Bam-Bam. And Striker. And Jazz. And sixty others. How do you do it, Spitfire? How do you lose people you love and fight on?"

Spitfire placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Katana, I thought you'd know more than anyone. You . . . well, you …"

"I was Yakuza, yes," she whispered. A fresh tear fell. "I ran from that world. But you don't run. You came from the bridge to fly with us again. How do you do it? Teach me because I'm afraid."

Standing inside her cockpit, Spitfire looked across the bridge. Pickles was hugging a young pilot, comforting him. Snoopy was tending to Mongoose's wounds. Over a hundred pilots remained—haunted, grieving, but there for one another.

"Look at them, Katana," Spitfire said softly. "Our family. We survive because we are family. We signed up to be stunt pilots, to fly aerobatic shows for tourists. Somehow we found ourselves fighting a war. But we also found a family. You never forget those you lose. The grief stays with you always. It's like a hole inside you. A hollowness. Some people think grief is all agony and despair and pain, and it can be. But for me it always felt like a hole. An empty part of me where love should be."

"Do you ever get used to it?" Katana said. "I lost a dear friend many years ago. Back in Tokyo. I still think about her. How do we deal with so much loss?"

"By filling the emptiness with those we love," Spitfire said.

Katana embraced her. "Older sister. Thank you for teaching me, Spitfire-senpai."

"Hey, you shot down eight spiderwings this battle. I shot down five. Maybe you need to be teaching me."

A grin split Katana's face. "I'm only a few kills away from beating your record. I already own the Flock Cup, I know. But only because you're a bridge officer now, and you're disqualified from the race. I plan on beating your record this war."

Spitfire bristled. "Hey! If you keep talking like that, I'll become a full-time pilot again. Just to beat your skinny little butt."

Katana laughed and wiped away her tears.

A deckhand approached, wearing a reflective vest and hardhat. "Are you two done? I need to service this starfighter before the next battle. Come on, ladies!"

Spitfire and Katana looked at each other, then burst out laughing. Normally, they would chew out a sergeant for talking that way to officers. But they knew the deckhand. He was a good friend, and he had saved their lives many times. The two pilots climbed down the ladder to the deck.

"Come on, into the aerie," Spitfire said, putting an arm around the younger pilot. "Let's grab a beer before the next battle. We'll drink one for the fallen."

They gathered in the aerie, the pilot lounge off the main hangar deck. It was like stepping into another world. The aerie's pool table, jukebox, and wooden bar all spoke of an older, simpler time. From here, they could run to their cockpits within instants, leap back to battle if they must. Spitfire hoped the gods of war gave them some time, if only a few minutes to drink for fallen friends.

Jelly, the bartender drone, fluttered from pilot to pilot. He was essentially a floating tray with arms that trailed underneath, looking like some mechanical jellyfish. Soon everyone held a bottle. All eyes turned toward Spitfire. Solemn eyes. Some with tears.

"To the fallen." Spitfire raised her bottle. "They flew to where we can't follow. We will never forget them."

As Spitfire held the bottle, she saw the beer inside tilting, pushing against one side of the bottle like a wave. The Freedom was still accelerating hard. She knew they were flying to another battle. She knew that once more the Flock would fly out to fight … and that not everyone would come home.

* * * * *

While the pilots comforted themselves with beer and good fellowship, Bastian walked through the Freedom's infirmary, talking to the wounded marines.

There were so many wounded.

A thousand marines had died aboard the Atrocity. A part of the survivors had died too. They would never be the same.

This was not a neat, sterile hospital. There was no smiling receptionist. No flowers in vases. No soothing rooms with pastel walls where soldiers could relax and heal. The Freedom's infirmary was hell.

The infirmary had ten beds. Over three hundred marines were here now. They lay in the hallways. They covered the floor. One man leaned against a counter, the stump of his arm bleeding. A woman sat slumped in a chair, her legs severed beneath the knees. A young private lay by the door, begging for his mother, trying to hold his organs inside. Screams echoed. The stench filled the air. One man wandered the corridor, whispering. His skin hung from him in charred, blistered strips.

There were proper hospital ships in the fleet. But they were all far ahead of Freedom, racing to Mars. The ship's little infirmary did what it could.

"Outta the way!" boomed Major Sultan, the chief medic. He was a bear of a man, burlier than many marines. He carried a wounded sergeant over his broad shoulders. A claw had split the poor sergeant nearly in half, but he still breathed raggedly.

Bastian stepped aside, letting Sultan pass. Nurses raced everywhere, applying tourniquets, stitching wounds. One woman with a head wound was talking to a nurse but fading, fading so fast, then finally falling silent. She died right there on the floor.

Dr. Annie Jordan emerged from an operating room, her scrubs covered in blood. She pulled off her gloves, then walked among the wounded, triaging. A few nurses followed with hallucinatory clipboards.

"Stomach wound—he can last another hour. Orange." She took another step. "He'll need an amputation. Keep a tourniquet on for now. Orange." Another step. "She's hemorrhaging fast. Wheel her into surgery. Red."

The ship had three other doctors. They were all in operating rooms right now, trying to save lives.

Bastian didn't want to get in the way. He helped as best he could. He was no medic, no nurse, certainly no doctor. But he needed to be here. These were his troops. His brothers and sisters. There were simply too many wounded for the professionals to handle, so Bastian applied bandages and tourniquets. One man began to convulse. Bastian held him, talked to him, then closed the man's eyes when he died.

"Bastian?"

Alice was calling him telepathically. She was in their cabin with Rowan. Bastian saw an image of them in his mind. Alice sat on the bed, Rowan beside her. The little girl stared with wide eyes.

"Daddy?"

Bastian quickly shut off visual telepathy. But Rowan had already seen the blood covering his uniform.

"Daddy, are you hurt?" Rowan whispered in his mind.

"No, sweetie. I'm fine. It's not my blood. It's alien blood. I'm fine."

Alice spoke next, her disembodied voice filling his mind. "Bas, I'm sorry, I didn't know where you were, or I wouldn't have called with Rowan here. I wanted to see if you're okay. Because …" She sniffed. "I just wanted to see."

Because Alice needed him too, Bastian knew. Because his daughter needed him. Yet the wounded here—begging, praying, afraid—they needed him more right now.

"I'll be back soon," he promised. "I love you both so much."

"I love you," Alice whispered.

"I love you, Daddy," said Rowan.

The call ended. Dr. Annie returned to the hallway, walking among the wounded, triaging. She gave Bastian a weary look, then got back to work. But in that one look, Bastian thought he detected condemnation.

You led them to another battle, the doctor seemed to be saying. You did this. You caused this agony.

Bastian was probably imagining it, reading too much into her look. But he couldn't stop the guilt. Yes, he had commanded this mission. This fiasco. This descent into hell.

"Sir?" whispered a wounded private on the floor.

It was Private Evan Fletcher. Kim's son.

Both his legs were a mess. There wasn't much left below the knees. The rah claws had ripped them to ribbons.

Tears welled up in Bastian's eyes. He knelt by the boy.

"Evan!" He clasped the private's hand. "How you doing, buddy?"

Evan managed a shaky smile. "The nurse put tourniquets on me. But they said I need blood. And no doctor has seen me. I'm cold, sir. I'm so cold."

His skin was gray, his eyes sunken. It was hard to believe he still lived. He was the color of a corpse.

Bastian struggled not to weep. Still holding Evan's hand, he looked over his shoulder. "We need a doctor here! This private needs a blood transfusion!"

Dr. Annie looked at him from down the hall. "He's code orange. I have code reds." Beside the doctor, Sultan the medic was lifting a badly burned soldier onto a table. "We'll get to him when we can."

Bastian trembled, rage and fear flowing through him. "This is Kim Fletcher's son! This is—"

But Dr. Annie vanished into an operating room. Screams sounded from inside.

"S-sir?" Evan whispered. "I'm so cold, sir. So cold. Don't let me go, sir. Please."

"I'm not letting go, soldier. I'm right here." Bastian tightened his grip on Evan's hand. "You're my soldier, Fletcher. I'm not going to let you go."

"Thank you, sir. I . . . I killed one, sir. An arachtaur. Another one got my legs. Just before we got on the shuttle, sir." Tears ran down his cheeks. "If I die, tell my mom that I killed one, okay? Tell her I was brave."

"You're not going to die, soldier. C'mon! Just some leg wounds. Big deal. You got this, soldier."

Evan's eyes closed.

His hand slackened.

Bastian shook him. "Evan. Evan! Stay with me!"

But Evan was still. Tears filled Bastian's eyes. Dead?

No. No! There was faint breath. The hint of a pulse.

"Keep fighting, soldier!" Bastian said. "Do you hear me? Keep fighting! That is an order, mister. You stay alive!"

Evan did not open his eyes. But he managed to tighten his grip on Bastian's hand.

It seemed forever before a nurse got to him. They got him a blood transfusion, then finally wheeled him into surgery. Bastian stood outside the operating room, covered in blood, waiting.

"Where is he?" rose a cry from behind. "Where is my son?"

Colonel Kim Fletcher, chief engineer aboard the Freedom, burst into the infirmary.

Soot covered her steel-tipped boots, hardhat, and coveralls. Strands of her blond hair clung to her cheeks, wet with sweat and tears. She still held a soldering iron, and wrenches and hammers hung from her tool belt. She had clearly run here all the way from engineering.

"Where is Evan?" she demanded.

Bastian approached her. "Kim. He's in surgery."

She looked at him, fresh tears flooding her eyes. "I saw his avatar. His vitals were dropping fast. Oh God, Bastian, is he … Is he hurt horribly, or …?"

"He's going to live."

I think, he added silently. I hope. I pray.

Kim nodded, tears drawing white lines down her cheeks. "What happened?"

Bastian suddenly felt woozy. He was a marine colonel in a war. Many times before, he had delivered bad news to mothers. This time was different. Kim was a dear friend.

"Kim, they told me he'll lose both legs. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But he will live. He will come home to you."

She let out a huge sob, and Bastian pulled her into his arms. She laid her cheek against his chest, crying.

* * * * *

The Freedom was a fast ship, among the fastest in the fleet. With her famous Talaria drive, she could reach one percent the speed of light—a miracle of engineering. Moving this fast, she could travel from Earth to the moon within minutes. But Mars was a lot farther than the moon. Even moving so fast, it was a two-day flight to Mars.

The Freedom had a portal generator, but the collision with the Atrocity had damaged it. Besides, they didn't have the energy to operate it. To open a portal, they needed to be plugged into an energy ship. At the Aeolia system, with their energy ship destroyed, Kim had charged the portal generator by trawling energy sails through a nebula. Given the distinct lack of nebulae between Earth and Mars, a two-day trip it would be.

Two days.

Bastian spent the first day in the infirmary. Talking to his soldiers. Joking with them. Comforting them. Praying with them. He was there when Evan came out of surgery, his legs gone above the knees, the stumps bandaged. He was there for the soldiers who didn't make it, and he held their hands as they died.

His father joined him that evening. The admiral visited the wounded, did what he could to encourage and comfort them. Then King returned to his duties as admiral. Bastian stayed the night, sleeping in the corridor.

Bastian spent the second day of their journey with his family.

He played dolls with Rowan, cooked her a meal, read her a book. When she smiled at him, for a moment Bastian could forget the blood. Rowan was his angel in hell, and she kept the demons away.

"Daddy, you're not going to die, are you?" she whispered.

"Never," he lied. He knew the odds. He would likely not survive this war. But how could he tell her that? She was only nine years old, too young to lose her father.

And too young to fool, apparently.

"Liar." She hugged him. "Everyone dies. But please stay with me a while longer, Dad."

He heaved a sigh. Rowan should not be growing up on a warship. She should be down on Earth like a normal kid. But what remained of Earth? Death. War. Destruction.

"Someday, Rowan, there will be peace. Heaven is hard to imagine as you're going through hell. It must have felt like this during the Third World War. People back then must have thought the long night would never end. You're nine years old, Rowan, no longer a little kid. So I'll be honest with you. I might die. But I'll do my damn best to stay alive. So that when the war does end, we can go back to Earth together. We'll get a little house by the water. We'll go fishing, get a pet dog, and just be happy."

"But not in Nebraska," Rowan whispered. "I heard what happened." Tears rolled down her cheeks. "Our home is gone, isn't it?"

Bastian pulled her into his arms. "Earth is our home. No enemy can take it from us."

He slept for a few hours, his arms around Alice, seeking some comfort in her warmth, in the softness of her hair against his face. But in his dreams he was back inside the Atrocity, and the arachtaurs were chewing on his severed legs.

* * * * *

Emily returned to the royal suite, prepared to sleep until they reached Mars.

She stood in the doorway of the suite but did not enter.

She looked at the opulence awaiting her. Renaissance paintings adorned the walls, a chandelier gleamed, and fresh fruit waited in silver bowls. Platinum statues of cranes guarded a marble fireplace. Curtains embroidered with stars cocooned a canopy bed carved from giltwood.

Emily did not enter.

The royal suite was a relic from Freedom's days as a museum. For decades, Freedom had been a premier tourist destination. The legendary dreadnought that had defeated the Red Dawn—now with spas, magicians, a galaxy-class casino, and a wave pool. Right up there with Disneyworld. Most tourists stayed in the marine cabins, thrilled to "live like soldiers" between visits to the buffet. But sometimes important guests came to visit. The pope had visited once to bless the ship. The Dalai Lama had spent a week here in 2192, meditating among the stars. Trillionaire CEOs sometimes hosted business meetings here. When they visited the Freedom, these august guests stayed in the royal suite.

When the rahs had attacked three years ago, Emily had been here as a mere tourist. A royal, yes, but one far down the line of succession. Barely worthy of the tabloids. Then the aliens attacked. Then Earth burned. She had found herself a refugee, her family slain, her home destroyed. Suddenly, at seventeen, she was the Queen of England, her palaces in ruin. So they had stuck her in Freedom's royal suite. And here she had remained.

Niles floated into the suite. "Ah, home sweet home! This is so much better than that dreaded artillery deck where the commoners dwell." The drone paused over the coffee table, turned around, and looked at Emily. "Well, come on! Are you just going to stand there in the doorway like a soggy sausage? You'll let in the stench of the ship." He began looking around. "Now where is that butler Darjeeling? He must fetch us some tea."

"This isn't right," Emily said, standing in the hallway.

"I'll say! The fireplace is cold, there are no mints on the pillows, and the butler is nowhere to be found." A hatch opened on Niles's body. A little metal arm emerged and lifted a tray of teacups. "I'm forced to make our own tea. Like a commoner. Oh, look away! Do not gaze upon me in my hour of shame!"

"Niles?" Emily turned away from the suite. "I'm moving in with the other gunners."

The sound of shattering teacups sounded behind her.

Niles rushed out the door, zipped around her, and blocked her way down the corridor. "Excuse me, but have you lost your mind?"

"Maybe," she confessed. "My mind might be lost, but it's also made up. I'm a gunner now, Niles. So I'll live with my fellow gunners."

Niles raised his nose. "You are the Queen of England. You are a symbol of hope to humanity. Why do you think the admiral gave you the royal suite? He understands this."

"Niles, with all due respect, the admiral has more important things to worry about. I don't think he put much thought into my living accommodations. A symbol to humanity? Hardly. Maybe only to my own country. And I dare say my own country has more important things to worry about right now. Earth doesn't need me to sit in the royal suite, drinking tea and eating biscuits. It needs me to fire the guns of Freedom and kill arachtaurs."

She nudged him aside and walked down the hall.

He hurried after her. "Can't we at least live in the suite between shifts at the cannon?"

"No!" She walked faster, heading toward the elevator. "If I'm to be a proper gunner, I'm to live with them."

Niles hovered close behind. "At least pack some necessities! We can take a few golden vases, a few oil paintings—we can skip the French ones if you like. Oh, can't we at least take the chandelier?"

Emily reached the elevator and stepped inside. "If you can't part from the suite, stay there."

The doors began to close.

Niles rushed into the elevator.

The doors closed and the elevator began descending.

"Oh, I curse the day that stowaway ever crawled into our lives!" Niles said. "That common chimney sweep is a bad influence. She ruined you, the ragamuffin."

Emily frowned. "Who, Stowy?"

Niles shuddered. "Don't even utter that name. This is all her fault."

Emily couldn't help but laugh. "Well, I had thought the Arakavish empire carried some of the blame, but I guess not."

The elevator dinged. The doors opened to deck 25 in the midsection. In all her time aboard the Freedom, Emily had never visited deck 25, which the artillery corps shared with the military police and the medical staff. They were sandwiched here between other professionals. Below them, deck 24 housed the sappers, mechanics, and construction workers who kept the ship in one piece, while deck 23 was home to scientists, navigators, programmers, and engineers. Above them lived more spacers. Deck 26 was home to the logistics corps, including the cooks and janitors and warehouse workers, while deck 27 was home to the pilots and hangar bay deckhands. The senior officers, including Admiral King and Commander Jordan, lived up on deck 28. That was where the royal suite was too.

At full capacity, ten thousand spacers served aboard the Freedom. About half were marines, who had eleven decks of their own. The other half was everyone else. For the first time, Emily would live among "everyone else."

Deck 25, her new home, was almost like a town. A little community within the larger cosmos of the Freedom. Rows of doors lined the corridor, leading to humble living berths. A commissary sold everything from toiletries to prepackaged pastries. Music sounded from a lounge while the aroma of cooking meals rose from a galley, blending with the soapy smells from a nearby laundromat. Spacers moved back and forth and crowded the common areas, chatting, comforting one another, sharing ship gossip. Service drones scurried underfoot. Posters hung on the walls, featuring adorable animals, alluring pinups, and safety precautions.

"It's not so bad," Emily said. "Like a little street down on Earth."

"It's ghastly," Niles said. "Is there no tea shop?"

"There's a galley. I'm sure you can find tea there."

Niles bristled. "Pah! Galley tea! I'd sooner drink engine oil."

A service drone floated up toward Niles. "Attention! Toilet overflowing in latrine A5. Please assist with cleaning procedure." A little arm stretched out, handing Niles a rag.

Niles gasped. "What? I've never been so offended in my life! I am no service drone! Away with you, foul contraption, away! Lest you infect me with your germs."

The service drone huffed, turned around, and flew off to find help elsewhere.

Emily laughed. "I'm going to like it here."

She walked down the corridor, greeting people on the way. Everyone recognized her. But not everyone stopped to chat. Some people were nurses fresh off their shift, their faces pale, their scrubs still bloody. A few gunners just sat in the corridor, staring with empty eyes at horrors only they could see. A military policeman sat in the galley, head in his hands, crying softly.

Emily passed by a wall covered with photographs. Hundreds of them. Photos of smiling faces. It took her a moment to realize what she was looking at.

Photos of the dead.

Dead spacers who had fallen in battle. Dead family members down on Earth. The victims of the war, mourned by the denizens of deck 24. This was a community in mourning.

With so many fallen, there were vacant bunks to spare. Darjeeling had told her she could choose any bunk she liked. Emily found a little room beside the other gunners on her team, her fellow Pandora operators. It was a humble home, no larger than the royal suite's closet. Six bunks folded down from the walls, though Emily had the place to herself. The six previous occupants had died in the Tyranny's assault on the starboard hull.

Emily found their memories everywhere. A child's drawings pinned above one bunk. A few clothes in a basket. A bottle of aftershave. A teddy bear. A journal. The things of ghosts.

"It's rather sad, isn't it?" Emily said. "Moving into the home of the dead."

Niles nuzzled her, and he spoke softly. "Emily, we can still return to the royal suite."

"I know. But I'd like to stay here. To make this place a home again." She took a deep breath. "Gunners once lived here. A gunner will live here again."

They were only a few hours from Mars. Once they arrived, it would be battle again, Emily knew. She decided to get some sleep. After pulling down one bunk from the bulkhead, she realized she had forgotten to pack her pajamas. Or anything else, for that matter. She had been so worried about the war, so eager to leave the glittering cage of the royal suite. So she lay down in her uniform, dimmed the lights, and closed her eyes. Niles found space on a shelf, muttering about how this place was a pigsty, and he'd sack the maid service first thing tomorrow morning.

Emily could not sleep. She was used to a sumptuous bed, not a thin cot that folded down from the wall like an ironing board. That was part of it. But mostly it was the ghosts that kept her awake. Some ghosts were old. Her parents, calling out from the fire. Her grandfather, sitting on the throne as he burned, staring at her between the flames. Other ghosts were new. Friends she had lost in battle.

Creaks sounded above.

Something was breathing.

Emily inhaled sharply but remained in bed. Her hand inched toward the bedside table, pawing in the darkness for her handgun.

A scraping sounded from the deckhead. Some creature in the darkness. Perhaps a small arachtaur like the ones that had invaded Freedom at Aeolia. Emily's heart thudded.

The HVAC grate opened above, and a shadow dropped down.

Emily leaped from bed, flicked on the lights, and aimed her gun.

Stowy stared at her, eyes wide with fear. "B-boss?"

With a relieved sigh, Emily lowered her gun. Thankfully, Niles was still asleep on the shelf, or he'd be screaming bloody murder.

"Sorry, Stowy." Emily placed her gun back on the table. "I'm so jumpy. After the battle, you know." She frowned. "How did you find me?"

Stowy reached into one of her many pockets. She pulled out a device the size of a playing card with two antennae. "MindLink detector. QT gave it to me. Since I don't have a MindLink installed in my noggin, I can use this to track you down." She grinned. "You moved without telling me. But you can't hide from me. I'm your best friend forever. And ever." She waved the device. "And ever."

"Um … how heartwarming."

Stowy's smile vanished. "I couldn't sleep. I was in my regular spot, in the nice warm HVAC duct above deck 14, right above the furnace vent. I had my favorite blanket and mice and everything. But …" Tears filled her eyes. "I got scared. That I'd have bad dreams."

Emily took a deep breath. "That makes two of us, Stowy. We almost died in that artillery station. I'd be surprised if we slept well tonight. I couldn't sleep either. I probably fear the same dreams you do."

Stowy's eyes widened. "You also dream about going to school and catching lice, and all the other kids laugh at you, and then you realize you're wearing your underwear, and then your teeth fall out, and you can't find the bathroom?"

Emily blinked. "Not as such."

Stowy blushed. "Me neither. Especially not the underwear part. I was just wondering. But can I stay here anyway? For the night? To keep you safe."

"Of course. My home is your home."

Thankfully, Niles was asleep in a drawer, or he'd be having a meltdown.

Emily returned to bed, tucked herself in, and switched off the lights with a MindLink command. A moment later, Stowy wriggled into bed with her. It was a small cot, and Stowy's bony elbows dug into Emily.

"Um, Stowy?" Emily whispered. "You realize there are six cots in this room, right?"

"I know, boss. But you're scared. Can I stay here with you?" Stowy shivered. "To protect you."

Emily sighed. "Very well. To protect me."

Stowy smiled, closed her eyes, and soon fell asleep. Emily stayed up a little longer. When she closed her eyes, she saw the torpedo falling. She saw the starships exploding all around like fireworks. But soon the sound of Stowy's breath lulled Emily into her own sleep. Thankfully, it was dreamless.

* * * * *

King had planned to sleep that night. Tomorrow they would reach Mars, and it would perhaps be a while before he could sleep again. Instead of going to bed, he returned to the infirmary.

Gently he stepped into Evan Fletcher's room.

The kid was asleep, the stumps of his legs bandaged, his face peaceful in the shadows. IVs were attached to him, and machines beeped above his head like digital angels, ever watchful, keeping him alive.

Kim sat by his side, holding her son's hand. She did not even look up at King. Bags hung under her sunken eyes. She looked wearier than King had ever seen her, and he had seen her after four shifts of nonstop battle.

He pulled up a chair and sat beside her. "Evan is a strong kid. Dr. Annie says he'll pull through."

Still Kim didn't look at him. She wouldn't remove her eyes from her sleeping son.

She needs space, King thought. She needs time alone with her son.

He stood up. "If you need me, I'm here for you, Kim. I love you."

He was turning away when she spoke.

"How do you do this?" Her voice was fragile.

King looked back at her. He said nothing.

"I'm an engineer," she said. "My job is to fix things. The doctors and nurses in this infirmary—their job is to heal. But you, Jim …" She sighed and shook her head. "You and my son. Your job is to break. To hurt. To kill. How do you do this? How do you live a life dedicated to breaking things?"

For a moment, King bristled, but the anger flowed right over him. He could not be mad at Kim. He sat down beside her again.

"I do not think of myself as a sword," King said. "I am not an arrow nor a spear nor a club. I am a shield. Evan Fletcher is a shield. Every soldier in the Alliance, every spacer who chose to step onto a warship and face the enemy—we are all shields. Whether we are marines, admirals, engineers, or doctors. Because we all wear this uniform, and we all serve the same goal." His voice hardened. "To hold back the enemy. At any cost."

"At any cost," Kim repeated softly, holding Evan's hand. "In this case, the cost was my son's legs."

"And he would have given his life had he needed to," King said. "As a thousand other marines did that day. We are combat soldiers. We do not fix. We do not heal. We are a shield. And a shield takes the blows and cuts and fire, sometimes cracking, sometimes shattering, so that those behind can remain safe." His voice softened. "I know why we do it, but it never makes it easier."

She nodded and smiled as tears flowed down her cheeks. "I'm glad he survived. He's so strong. And I'm so blessed to have him." She finally looked at King. "And I'm blessed to have you. Thank you for being here, Jim."

King wanted to say more. But instead, he yawned.

Kim patted his hand. "Get some sleep."

"I'm staying right here with you. A drone is bringing a couple of cots. Ah, here they are now."

Drones floated into the room, carrying two folding cots, and placed them beside Evan's bed. One drone—Jelly from the aerie—carried a box of MREs.

"You don't have to stay here all night for Evan," Kim said.

"I know. But I want to stay for you."

She lowered her eyes. "People will talk. We're supposed to keep things secret."

"Right now, Kim, I don't give a damn about secrecy. The world might end any moment. Let me spend tonight with the people I care about."

They ate the MREs. Mac and cheese with chunks of meat inside and a side of broccoli. Not fine dining but surprisingly digestible. Then they lay down on their cots. King was asleep at once, not even waking when nurses entered to check on Evan.

A few hours later, his MindLink chimed, waking him up.

They were at Mars.

These brief two days of grief and healing had ended. It was time again for war.

CHAPTER NINE

Dented, charred, her railgun bent, the Freedom limped into orbit around Mars. There she joined the tattered remains of humanity's fleets.

The other ships were in no better shape. The FAS Kentucky, a heavy battle cruiser, had been peeled open along her port beam. The missing hull revealed a honeycomb of cabins open to space. The FAS Kshatriya, an Indian starfighter carrier, had flown through a plasma bath. Her airlocks were melted shut, trapping her starfighters. The RDS Dostoyevsky, a hulking Russian troop carrier, had blown out her engines. No fewer than twenty tug ships were pulling her along. The RDS Amazonia, a heavy Brazilian destroyer, had lost half her cannons. The enormous bores hung loosely behind her on cables like cans dragging behind a newlywed couple's car.

A hundred or so Arakavish hulks floated between them. A massive arachship slewed by, its abdomen cracked open, three of its legs severed. A few clawships glided toward Mars like dead metal flowers. They slammed into the red deserts, raising clouds of sand.

"Looks like we missed the fun," King muttered.

He stood on the Freedom's bridge, surveying his battered fleet. It went on and on. One damaged ship after another.

So many ships had not made it. Humanity had begun this war with eight thousand starships. Five thousand remained.

King knew the terrible math. On average, a human starship contained a hundred spacers. Some were small corvettes with only ten people. Others were enormous dreadnoughts like the Freedom with ten thousand aboard. But on average—about a hundred.

Three thousand starships destroyed. Three hundred thousand spacers dead. In one battle.

Down on Earth, the casualties were surely worse. Nebraska alone had been home to two million people. And the enemy was swarming across the globe. King didn't know how many humans had died in the Spider War so far, this bloodbath that had begun on Christmas day three years ago. Certainly in the tens of millions. Maybe in the hundreds of millions. It was most likely the bloodiest war in human history, even eclipsing World War Three. Probably bloodier than all three world wars combined.

Today was a catastrophe. A terrible setback in the war. Maybe the beginning of their end. Within only a day, the arachtaurs had crippled the fleet, sent them fleeing to Mars, and overwhelmed Earth.

King clenched his metal fist until it creaked.

"But it ain't over till it's over," he said softly.

Jordan came to stand at his side. The tall commander heaved a sigh. "Do you really want to go through with this crazy plan of yours, Jim?"

"Crazy?" King said. "Maybe we need to be a little crazy to win this war."

"Jim, the Arakavish Empire …" Jordan shook his head. "You saw their fleets. To attack them on their own soil is—"

"Sirs!" Mimori turned from her console. "I'm getting reports from the far side of Mars. A squadron of arachships are hitting the Desert Thorns."

King nodded. "Probably the last Arakavish holdouts putting up some resistance. Mimori, fly us over there."

He called several Alliance squadrons, mustering a strike force. A hundred warships, they charged over the Martian pole, then dived toward the battle.

Half the Desert Thorn fleet had fallen at Earth. Only five hundred of the graceful white ships remained. Seven arachships flew among them, causing the Thorns some serious trouble. The seven spiders kept firing their railguns, destroying the smaller, weaker human ships. The arachships were outnumbered, but each one was colossal, a ship as large and powerful as any human dreadnought.

The Freedom changed the tide.

She swooped from the sun, cannons booming. An arachship exploded.

The rest of the fleet charged, and missiles lit the darkness. A second arachship tore apart. Then a third. Freedom flew nimbly through the battle, rising, falling, yawing with ease. She was a starship larger than some towns, yet she flew as gracefully as a starfighter. The new graviton thrusters gave her an agility never seen in a dreadnought before. Soon only three arachships remained. Then two.

A new starship raced toward the battle. A dreadnought, her crimson hull filigreed with gold, her cannons thrusting out like the brass guns of old sailing ships. The gilded statues of equalist heroes lined the prow like gargoyles, pointing the way to victory.

The Baba Yaga. The Red Dawn flagship.

"What is going on here?" Katyusha demanded, materializing beside King on Freedom's bridge. "You fight battle and not invite Katyusha? Naughty, naughty, Jamechka."

The other Alliance ships bombarded an arachship, destroying the hulking vessel. With a blast of her cannons, Freedom took out the last enemy.

King dusted his hands. "Mars is secure."

Katyusha leaned forward, snarling, her fists clenched at her sides. "Katyusha destroyed two hundred arachships before you arrived! You came late as usual, American. Just like in Second World War. Always show up late, you Americans, after dirty work is already done. You think you saved Mars? Ha! Katyusha won this planet. This is her glory! The Red Dawn will always triumph, and—"

"Sir, a portal opening!" Mimori shouted, pointing at a monitor.

King's heart froze.

* * * * *

The enormous black sphere began materializing above Mars. The portal was the size of Phobos, the largest Martian moon.

Large enough to teleport a spider fleet, King thought.

"Fire everything on that portal!" King ordered.

While Freedom's guns were still aiming, the Baba Yaga opened fire.

She was a newer dreadnought, and her guns were ferocious. On the surface, the Baba Yaga looked a lot like the Lenin, Katyusha's previous flagship. Both were enormous, lavish ships, boasting all the extravagance of Krem Deco design. The Russians liked to show up to war in style. But while the Lenin had come from the World War Three era of big, clunky, slow-moving dreadnoughts, the Baba Yaga was a modern ship. Instead of torpedoes, she fired concentrated particle beams. The red blades sliced into the opening portal.

A few clawships were trying to emerge. The tips of their bladed hulls thrust into Martian space. Katyusha's red beams carved through them.

The Alliance guns joined the assault. Soon a hundred Alliance warships were bombarding the portal.

The sphere of warped spacetime cracked, then imploded. The emerging clawships shattered. Severed blades the size of office towers flew through space. Freedom's interceptors had to shoot one blade that came tumbling too close.

"Another victory to Katyusha!" the premier shouted, drawing her saber. "Once more, you Americans are late, and Katyusha claims the glory!" She tossed back her head and laughed.

King ignored her. He looked at Mimori. "Any signs of more portals opening?"

The android tapped on her control panel. "No, sir."

King nodded. "Very well. It could be Arakavish's forces are spread thin. Remember that they rule thousands of stars, and they might be fighting elsewhere in their empire. Maybe they can't afford a major assault on Mars just yet. But I'm expecting raids." He called a few more starship commanders. "I want constant patrols around Mars. My engineer has invented a system—we call it the Fletcher Detector—to foresee portals opening seven seconds in advance. I'm sending you all the specs. Your engineers can create their own Fletcher Detectors. Any portal that begins to open—shoot it down at once."

The commanders nodded. Mimori began streaming the specs for the portal detector. King took a moment to bask in his pride for Kim. Her invention was already proving itself.

He had chosen the name—Fletcher Detector—just now on the fly. He hoped Kim Fletcher didn't mind.

Katyusha lowered her saber. She stared at him, eyes narrowed. "You have a portal detector?"

King nodded. "Yes. We only recently invented it. It can foresee an enemy portal opening seven seconds in advance. That doesn't sound like much, but it's crucial in battle. I'll send you the specs too. You can begin integrating the technology into Red Dawn ships."

Katyusha's eyes lit up but then hardened again. She let out a brittle laugh. "You only now invented this portal detector? Ha! Katyusha invented it months and months ago. Poor Americans, late again!"

King grumbled a few curses. "Katyusha, if this is about your pride, you don't need to—"

"Yes, Katyusha is very proud to have invented her own portal detector! Red Dawn scientists helped her a little, of course. They are best scientists in galaxy. Far better than you Americans—who were late into space too, by the way. Ha! Katyusha needs no favors from you, James King. Now goodbye, my beloved cowboy! Katyusha is too busy for you."

But while her avatar was dissipating, King caught her shouting something in Russian at her crew aboard the Baba Yaga. Something about needing to invent portal detectors before she stripped off their hides.

King took a deep breath. There was a lot to do.

"Jordan, you have the bridge. I'll be in my stateroom."

* * * * *

King walked down the corridors of the starship, giving brief nods as spacers stood at attention. He entered his stateroom, closed the door, and stood there for a moment.

King's Library, as they called the quarters, could always soothe him. It looked like a captain's cabin from an old sailing ship. Hardwood covered the deck. Leather-bound books, naval instruments, and fossils covered the shelves, and the fireplace crackled. But today the place brought King no comfort. He closed his eyes, and he saw again the Atrocity, floating above Earth, grinning her metal grin as Nebraska burned below. He heard the screams of disfigured marines. He saw the explosions as Katyusha destroyed her own dropships, punishing her raiders for fleeing the meat grinder.

He took a deep breath, allowing the horror to pass through him.

Toughen up, he told himself. You are the admiral of this fleet. These people depend on you for strength. For leadership. For courage. You have no time for fear, no use for grief. You are a shield.

He turned on MindPlay. The hallucinatory operating system floated around him, forming a carousel of windows and control panels.

He began making calls.

He spoke to several rear admirals, working out the finer details of the Martian defenses. He talked to the FAS Sirona, the nearby hospital ship, about transferring over the critically wounded soldiers. For a while, he spoke to Kim about the broken Fist of Freedom. It was a big repair job, beyond what they could handle at Mars. They worked out a plan to open a portal to Aeolia, hire a bunch of Aeolian workers, and bring them back to assist with repairs.

He also spoke to Sylvia Ruby, governor of Mars. She was a tall, willowy woman of about sixty years. She wore her long white hair down, and a plum-sized ruby shone on her necklace. Like many Martians, she wore a reddish shirt—the same color of the Martian landscape—with golden filigree along the collar. Mars was a new colony, its independence only dating back forty years, but its denizens were already developing their own fashion, even their own accent.

"Some arachtaurs made it down to the surface," the Martian told him. "My security forces are holding them back. A few are still putting up resistance, but we got them surrounded in the desert. We'll take care of them. But Admiral, we lost many men. If any more portals open, we can't hold back another invasion."

King nodded. "Understood. The Alliance, with help from the Red Dawn and Desert Thorns, are patrolling your orbit. We suspect that the enemy cannot spare enough forces to attack Mars. We couldn't defend Earth. But we can defend Mars."

"It's a terrible thing that happened to Earth," Governor Ruby said. "I heard about Nebraska. I'm sorry, Admiral."

"I appreciate it, Ms. Ruby."

"Call me Sylvia. I also heard about the Freedom Brigade's losses. Such a tragedy. Allow me to send you some of my Martian troops. Just to refill your brigade for now."

"Thank you, Sylvia, but no. Freebies are highly trained for space operations. Your troops would not fit in the brigade. And you need your troops down on the Martian surface."

"Is there anything I can do, Admiral?"

"Yes, there is. I need room for a meeting. A secure meeting. No MindWeb, no cameras, no recorders. Can you provide me with such a place?"

Calling it a meeting was an understatement. King was calling a summit of the Fleet leaders. Every admiral and rear admiral in the Fleet would be there, not to mention the Queen of England. But he would not say that over a radio channel, no matter how secure they said it was.

Governor Ruby nodded. "Yes. I can offer you the—"

"You can tell me the location in person once I'm on the surface," King said. "Expect my arrival. King out."

The last thing he needed was some egghead arachtaur cracking their encryption and crashing the party. According to the mathematicians, human codes were impossible to crack. Well, they had said that about the Enigma machine too.

Next, King sent out some invitations. For this task, he avoided MindWeb or comlink signals altogether. Instead, he sent envoys via shuttle to deliver the invites. Maybe he was paranoid. But if any of this got back to the enemy, it could doom humanity.

He thought back to the Sirona Summit at the beginning of the war. He, Godwin, Katyusha, and Queen Laila had met aboard the Sirona hospital ship, a meeting of enemies forced to become allies. Only days before that summit in 2200, aliens had been something out of science fiction, not an actual threat. That had been only three years ago. How much things had changed since then.

His door chimed. Mimori stepped inside and saluted. "Sir! We've received answers from the admirals. They're all ready to meet on the surface. Should I organize a security detail for you, sir?"

King didn't turn to face her. He stood by the fireplace for a moment, studying the light reflecting on the medieval suit of armor.

We are a shield.

"Three years ago, we beat back the invasion," King said, speaking to the flames. "We won one war. Only for the enemy to regroup and strike us harder than ever."

Mimori stood silently.

King lifted a book from his shelf. A history of twentieth-century wars. He hefted it in his hands. He had read this book cover to cover multiple times. He finally looked at Mimori.

"This is our Yom Kippur War."

The android tilted her head. "Sir?"

"In 1967, the Israelis won a war against their enemies. They defeated Syria, Jordan, and Egypt within six days. It was a stunning victory that shocked the world. An underdog defeating three giants. On the seventh day, Israel rested. But her enemies did not rest. They regrouped. Six years later, they attacked Israel on Yom Kippur. The holiest day of the Jewish year. A day when Israelis did not turn on electricity, did not drive, did not listen to radio or watch TV. They were in the dark. Literally and figuratively. The attacks brought them to their knees. Within hours, the enemy was deep within Israeli territory. The end seemed near."

Still Mimori said nothing, waiting for him to finish. King paused, holding the book, watching the firelight dance over the leather cover.

"We rested, Mimori. We were too complacent. We hunkered down and defended ourselves when we should have kept striking, relentlessly, until we brought Arakavish to its knees. We should have learned from history. But we made the same mistakes. And now Earth is no longer ours."

"Sir, the Israelis won the Yom Kippur War," Mimori reminded him.

"Eventually. But with great cost. With too much loss, too many scars. They did not win by defending themselves to death. Eventually they won—once they took the war to their enemy. Once they struck their foes on their own soil. When we poured trillions of dollars into the Jangseung Orbital Ring, Mimori, we made a terrible mistake. The same mistake France made when building the Maginot Line. The same mistake many other leaders made. We defended for three years when we should have attacked, attacked, attacked." He looked into his android's eyes. "So that is what we will do now."

"You don't have to tell me, sir. I will obey whatever orders you give me."

"I do have to tell you," King said. "Because in a few hours, I have to tell these things to the leaders of humanity. To my rear admirals. To my high commander. To the premier of the Red Dawn and the queen of the Desert Thorns. And Mimori … I want to hear your opinion first."

The android considered for a second, which for an android was like a day of deep thought.

"Sir, may I speak freely?"

"Always."

She looked into his eyes. Surprising him, she put her hands on his shoulders.

"Sir, hit them hard. Hit them on their own soil. Hit them with everything you've got. I'll be there with you. We'll do this together. You and me."

Looking into her eyes, King realized something. She was no longer speaking as Mimori, the friendly avatar of the starship's central computer systems. Right now she was speaking as the ship herself. Freedom was telling him she was ready to fly into hell.

"You're the best damn ship in the galaxy," he told her.

Mimori smiled. "And you're not a bad commander, sir."

He barked a laugh. "But not the best."

Her smile softened. "I still remember your father."

King did something he rarely did. He smiled. "I miss him."

Then Mimori did something she rarely did. She hugged him. "He would be proud of you. As I am."

* * * * *

King took a shuttle down to the Martian surface. He took a handful of people with him.

The first was Jordan. Not only because the man was King's oldest friend. In many ways, Larry "Phantom" Jordan had become the de facto commander of the starship Freedom. Not only because he was ranked a full-fledged commander now. More and more, King was busy leading the entire fleet. The last battle had truly driven that home. In the chaos of battle, King had found himself standing aside, communicating with his rear admirals and strike-group commanders. During this time, Jordan had taken command of the Freedom, leading the dreadnought through the Armada swarm.

The Freedom was the flagship of the Alliance. Which made Commander Jordan among their most important military leaders. He needed to be here at the summit.

Queen Emily was also here. She was only an ensign. The lowest rank of officer. But she was the leader of a nation. Other heads of state remained on Earth, hunkered down in bunkers. But Queen Emily was here in space, fighting the enemy. King knew that she didn't like being a figurehead. Well, too bad. Like it or not, Emily was a symbol of human resistance. He wanted her at his summit.

Finally, he took Sergeant Meytal Koren. As always, she carried an assortment of rifles, swords, flamethrowers, and even a bazooka. She was a one-woman army. Why take a full security detail when he could just take Meytal?

It was just them in the shuttle. King was flying, descending toward the thin atmosphere of Mars.

While they were away, Spitfire commanded the Freedom. She had commanded it before at Aeolia, though never in battle. King trusted her. But she was untested. Perhaps he should have left Jordan behind after all.

The tall commander seemed to read his thoughts.

"Spitfire will be fine," Jordan said. "And Mimori is there to help her."

They descended toward Tyr, the largest city on Mars, home to ten thousand people. Hundreds of domes rose across the red desert, containing terrariums, farms, and homes. A few domes were small and isolated—research labs, military outposts, or the homes of recluses, perhaps rich and eccentric Earthlings seeking solitude. But most of the domes clustered together, forming a city like a clump of bubbles. The largest dome was so big it could have engulfed the Freedom.

Perhaps someday humans would figure out terraforming. They had been talking about it for centuries. Easier said than done. So far it was still a dream for another generation. So domes it was. But only a few years ago, aliens and portals had seemed like dreams too. Sometimes the distance between a dream and reality was no greater than from the bedside to the floor.

"It looks so different today," King said. "Back when we fought here, there were only seven domes."

"Hard to believe that was forty years ago," Jordan said. "God, you're old."

King barked a laugh. "You were there with me too, Grampa."

Jordan sighed, looking out the shuttle window. "Even harder to believe we were ever that young. We were only in our twenties."

King thought of himself back during the Third World War. A young, cocky starfighter pilot. Just a dumb kid. A kid who flew too fast, took too many risks. There was a war going on, a world war that spread out to include several worlds, but to young James "Bulldog" King, it was an adventure.

His three best friends were always at his side. Larry "Phantom" Jordan. Yehuda "Lion" Levy. Prince "Charming" Robert. Fellow starfighter pilots. Brothers.

They had left Yehuda in the sands of Mars.

Robert lived for decades longer, a shell of himself, a prince who became a haunted king, then died in a spider's web.

"I miss them," King said softly. "Our old friends."

"Me too," Jordan said. He understood.

"It's a cruel thing that we can grow old while so many never did," King said.

"In a way, Yehuda and Robert are still with us," Jordan said. "Spitfire and Emily are here."

King smiled. Yes. That was true. Yehuda's daughter, Spitfire, was now third-in-command of the starship Freedom. Robert's granddaughter, Emily, was twenty years younger than Spitfire, but she was already a promising young officer with a bright future. King had taken them in. Mentored them, nurtured them. And he was proud of them both.

Then again …

"Last time we left Spitfire in charge of the Freedom," he said, "she nearly caused an intergalactic war."

Jordan laughed. "Give her a break. She'll make an excellent commander someday."

"I hope not, because I intend to live forever," King said.

"Jim, you're circling the colony. I think it's time to land."

King checked his wristwatch, an anachronism he sometimes endured some ribbing over. "The meeting isn't for another few moments. We have time. Let me fly for a while, Larry. Let me fly where we once flew."

Emily entered the shuttle cockpit. The young queen wore a service uniform like any other officer, showing no sign of her royalty. Her blond hair was gathered into a sensible braid that spilled out from under her cap.

"Forgive me, sirs, but I couldn't help overhear you reminiscing about old times. I know that my grandfather was a starfighter pilot in the Third World War. I know he flew with you too. Was he good friends with Spitfire's father? I mean, before … before what happened."

She lowered her head. They all knew the story. How Prince Robert had fled, leaving Yehuda to die.

King leaned back in his seat, smiling wistfully. "Prince Robert was friends with everyone. I don't think the man ever met somebody he didn't like."

Emily smiled softly, head still lowered. "That is what I hear from others as well. But that is not the man I know. King Robert—and I only knew him as king—was a dour man. Reclusive. Hiding in his chambers all day. I never saw him smile. Sometimes when I visited his chambers, he seemed to soften a bit, but there was always sadness in his eyes. I was afraid of him, I do admit it. It's such a horrible thing to say about your grandfather. But it's true. As a child, I feared him. And now I fear that he died before I ever got to truly know him."

King nodded. "The war was hard on him. It was hard on everyone. But I think he blamed himself for what happened to Yehuda. And I think that broke him."

A tear ran down Emily's cheek. "When I first met Spitfire, she hated me. She blamed me for her father's death. Or at least, she blamed my grandfather, and she transferred that hatred over to me. Oh, Spitfire and I are now close friends, of course. She's like an older sister. But I know there will always be shame in my family. That brave Prince Robert fled from battle. That he left the Lion of Freedom to die."

King and Jordan both listened to this quietly, thinking back, remembering.

"Prince Robert fled," King finally said. "As we flee Earth now. Yehuda never fled from battle. And he died. Some choices in war are not so obvious, and what might seem like cowardice might prove to be circumspection, and what seems at first like courage might later reveal itself to be foolhardiness. We don't have the benefit of hindsight in battle. We have only seconds to make decisions that might bring life or death to millions. Both Robert and Yehuda were good men. They both made different choices. Only God can judge them now. As someday he will judge me."

Emily wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. "You're a wise and honorable officer." She suddenly stepped back, flushing furiously. "I'm sorry for overstepping, sir."

"Oh, don't worry, he loves it," Jordan said. "Our gruff old bulldog is a softie."

Meytal stepped into the cockpit too, her weapons clattering. "Luckily I'm not a softie. I'm getting bored back there in the hold though. Is there anyone I can kill yet?"

"All right, I'm landing the shuttle," King grumbled. "Before you all drive me crazy."

* * * * *

They met in the open desert.

Domes were expensive to maintain and keep full of air. On Mars, they all served important purposes. Domes for farms. For homes. For the casinos, sports venues, and shopping malls that kept the tourist money flowing. But one dome was different. It enclosed nothing but a few charred wrecks in the sand.

King stood on that red sand, the city at his back, staring at the desert. The dome was transparent. It felt like standing in the open, gazing at the wilderness of Mars.

A few starfighters lay in the sand, so dented and rusty you couldn't even tell what models they were. A few boxy dropships rusted farther back like the shells of some ancient crustaceans. They were vessels from the Third World War. Memories. They had crashed here. And they had lain here since. Across Earth, they had cleaned the rubble of the war, reclaimed any bit of scrap metal, plowed over every battlefield, and planted poppies. But Mars preserved this place. They left the starfighters and dropships to rust. It was a living museum of the horrors of war, of the sacrifice of free men and women to liberate Mars from tyranny.

This was where King had fought.

This was where his father had died in his arms.

"They tried to preserve the battle for future generations," King rasped. "But this is nothing like what it was. There's no stench of blood. There are no screams of the dying. There are no bodies in the sand. They sterilized it."

Standing at his side, Jordan took a deep breath. "Perhaps it's best this way. We don't need to remember the blood and screams. We need to remember the sacrifices our fallen friends made. Perhaps this tribute is fitting. It's sterilized, yes, but it's somber and dignified." His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. "And I can still hear the screams."

Other shuttles were landing outside, then taxiing through an airlock in the dome. Rear Admiral Clara Nightingale arrived with a coterie of bodyguards. Her primary starship, the Churchill, had been crippled in the war, but she commanded hundreds of other ships. She was a tall, icy woman with platinum-blond hair and eyes like chips of a glacier. She gave King a small nod and smile with all the warmth of winter. She was ambitious and ruthless in battle. Many believed Nightingale to be a candidate for next admiral. King could practically feel her breathing down his neck.

Other rear admirals arrived by shuttle. The Alliance high command gathered in the desert. With every dignitary that arrived, another squadron of starfighters circled above, providing security. The dome was fortified with powerful shields, and thousands of starships flew above. Security was so tight even Stowy had not managed to sneak down—and not for lack of trying. Now that was saying something.

If need be, hatches were hidden among the dunes, leading to bunkers. For now, the senior officers remained in the desert. It seemed appropriate to meet here among the memories of a past war to plan victory in a new one.

The Desert Thorns arrived next. Their shuttles gracefully glided over the red desert like dhows over the sea. The generals emerged onto the dunes, wearing resplendent white uniforms with golden epaulets, and ceremonial scimitars hung at their sides. Queen Laila arrived last. A veil trimmed with gold covered her long black hair, and she wore tall boots over her white trousers. She came to stand by King atop the dunes.

"Good morning, Admiral."

King nodded to the queen. "Good morning, Your Majesty."

"Call me Laila." She looked across the desert, her dark eyes pensive. "I heard stories of this battle. You fought here, didn't you?"

"It was a long time ago."

A thin smile touched Laila's lips. "I wasn't even born. But my grandfather served in the Alliance. He was a gunner aboard the FAS Patton. Back then, the Desert Thorns had not yet existed as a political pact. But my country fought alongside yours. There is still a memorial in Dubai for the fallen."

"Your grandfather fought bravely. As you did in the—"

Deafening music boomed to life, overpowering King's words.

Drums beat. Horns blew. King turned to see a military band marching across the dunes. They wore red coats with golden buttons, embroidered sashes, and military caps. Flag bearers raised banners displaying golden equal signs on crimson fields. A male choir marched with the band, their baritone voices singing the Red Dawn anthem.

The Red Dawn rises

Glorious and mighty

To light all the world

And cast back the dark!

Katyusha our leader

Forever triumphant …

King sighed. He looked at Jordan. "Remind me again. Why did we invite her?"

A voice sounded behind them, booming through a megaphone.

"Da, da, sbasiba, loyal subjects! You bow so beautifully before Katyusha!"

Six burly men walked across the sand, carrying a palanquin engraved with rampant bears and coiling dragons. A golden throne rose atop the palanquin, encrusted with rubies. Katyusha sat there, legs slung across an armrest, sipping from a goblet of wine and waving to the crowd. Her crimson coat chinked with dozens of medals.

King glowered. "Katyusha, stop this! They can probably hear your damn marching band at Arakavish."

She looked down at him from her throne, and her face split into a grin. "Jamechka! You came to the party! Katyusha is so pleased. Look at you standing down there, so small before Katyusha!"

"Get the hell off that ridiculous chair of yours," King said.

"Of course. Katyusha did not come here to relax. She is here to lead humanity to ultimate victory against the evil capitalist spiders."

She looked down at her men and gave some quick orders in Russian. They placed the palanquin down on the sand. Katyusha rose languidly from her throne, stretched, and sauntered toward King. Her medals chinked with every step.

"Looks like you've given yourself a few new medals," King said.

"You noticed! How sweet, Jamechka! Yes, Katyusha won many victories in battles since we last met." She tapped a medal on her breast. "This one is new. Katyusha earned it battling these new arachships over Earth. She destroyed far more arachships than measly little Freedom did." She tapped a medal lower on her chest. It looked older, its engravings worn down. "And do you recognize this medal, Jamechka? Katyusha earned it right here. On these very dunes. Forty years ago, when Katyusha defeated you capitalists."

King remembered.

Suddenly these peaceful dunes seemed to vanish, and he saw again the war.

The starfighters weren't just rusting in the sand. They were crashing from a sky full of fire. Blood drenched the dunes. Alliance soldiers were charging into the Red Dawn lines.

King was there. A junior officer, his starfighter smoldering in the sand. He ran with the troops to liberate Mars and win the war.

He saw Katyusha again on the dunes. Her fine uniform was bloodied and tattered, and she grinned maniacally. Soldiers lay dead around her, and she was out of bullets, but she ran into the Alliance formations.

She grabbed the knife from Ulysses King.

She slit his throat.

King howled, holding his dead father, as Katyusha lashed the knife again, and pain blazed across King's neck, and …

He took a deep breath, crushing the memories. He returned to the present.

The burning starfighters were just rusting relics again. The blood and troops were gone. Only Katyusha looked the same. For the past fifty-odd years, she had been growing clones of herself. Every few years, she transplanted her brain into a new clone, reclaiming her youth. She still looked like a woman in her twenties.

King was old now. But the scar still stretched across his neck. The scar Katyusha had given him.

"It was right here," Katyusha said softly. "Right here where we stand." She looked at him, and it almost seemed as if concern filled her eyes. "Does it still hurt, Jamechka? Your neck?"

"No more than it hurt the Red Raiders when you shot them down."

Her eyes hardened. "Traitors, all of them." Her upper lip peeled back in a snarl. "And you give them sanctuary. Perhaps you are still the enemy of the Red Dawn, James King."

"Perhaps," King said. "But right now we both face a greater enemy. And we're here to discuss how to strike that enemy down. Let the summit begin."

* * * * *

As the sun began to set, they gathered atop the dunes. They were great leaders. They were shamed. They were in exile. They had lost a battle. But they were all ready to fight again.

King addressed the crowd.

"We fought in Earth's orbit. We fought with all the might we have. And we lost. The enemy savaged our fleet, tore through our lines, and drove us from our homes. We lost the battle for Earth. So now I propose that we take the battle to Arakavish."

As he had expected, the crowd erupted.

A few generals cried that King was foolhardy, that this would be the death of them all.

One Desert Thorns commander announced that clearly King had lost his mind. "Assaulting the empire? This is suicide!"

Katyusha was swinging her saber through the air. "Da, da! Katyusha is not afraid. She will lead the glorious charge! We will crush the enemy! We will conquer Arakavish, and Katyusha will slay Empress Elder'rah with her blade!"

"Conquer Arakavish?" said Clara Nightingale. "This is madness! We couldn't even defend Earth! Now you suggest we assault the center of a galactic empire that rules a thousand worlds!"

Everyone was shouting at once.

King raised his metal fist. "Hear me!" he roared. "Silence and listen!"

They all fell silent and faced him. Even Katyusha, though she still panted, a grin plastered across her face.

King took a deep breath. "I didn't say anything about conquering Arakavish. Nor about killing the empress. We all know what happened to Hannibal when he tried crossing the Alps. And to many others who took on the might of Rome. I'm not suggesting we topple an empire. We cannot. What we can do, however, is hurt Elder'rah on her own soil. I propose that we choose a target at Arakavish. A target critical to their war effort. Perhaps a shipyard. And assault it."

Katyusha's smile vanished. "What? Just bite her like mosquito? Nyet! This is cowardice! Katyusha does not go on raids like some common brigand. Katyusha conquers worlds!"

But the other leaders seemed thoughtful. A few were nodding, stroking their chins. Even the Desert Thorns general who had shouted so loudly.

"Do you think such a strike can truly weaken Arakavish?" said Queen Laila. "They are an empire, after all. They rule a thousand planets. Would our strike really hurt them?"

"It would certainly hurt Elder'rah's pride," King said. "And more importantly—it would prove that her home front is vulnerable. Elder'rah would be forced to pull troops back from Earth, to defend her turf. She sent a massive armada to conquer Earth. She must have stretched herself thin. This is our chance to strike."

Laila heaved a sigh. "Admiral, this is Arakavish we're dealing with. The empire that conquered the Orion arm of the galaxy. Can we truly win where so many before us lost?"

"We have an advantage now," King said. "A new technology. One we didn't have when the war began. We have portals. We captured clawships. We reverse engineered their technology. Now we can portal like them. I wager that most of the civilizations Arakavish defeated did not have portal technology. This must have given Elder'rah an edge in her conquest. Similar to how the first Iron Age civilizations bulldozed over kingdoms that merely wielded bronze. But now we have learned how to forge our own iron blades. And I say we lift our blades not only to parry—but to strike!"

Katyusha sliced the air with her saber. "Katyusha will slice off the head of Elder'rah! It will hang above her glorious throne! Soon it will be Katyusha who rules the Arakavish empire!"

Queen Emily had been silent until now, cloaked in evening's shadows. She was younger than everyone else here, and in her simple military uniform, she looked like any other ensign. Just another junior officer, no different from a hundred thousand others in the Alliance. It was easy to forget she was a head of state. Now she stepped forward and spoke for the first time.

"Katyusha, may I suggest that we hold back on conquering the entire Arakavish empire for now?" Emily said. "We should begin, as Admiral King suggests, with assaulting a smaller target. Personally, I think we should avoid assaulting planet Arakavish altogether. It is the rah homeworld, after all. It will be heavily defended. Perhaps a target close to Arakavish—another planet or moon in the same star system—would be more achievable. And it will still drive home the point that we can strike Elder'rah anywhere. Even in her own backyard."

People considered in silence for a while. The sun dipped behind the horizon, and a brilliant starscape glittered overhead.

"Agreed," King finally said. "Maybe assaulting Arakavish itself is biting off more than we can chew. Queen Emily is right. A target near Arakavish is more achievable."

"What is this cowardly talk!" Katyusha cried. "What is this American nonsense of not chewing big bites? Katyusha can chew anything! She will destroy Arakavish the way she destroyed capitalism on Mars!"

King cleared his throat. "Katyusha, you do realize you're standing a hundred meters away from a shopping mall, don't you?"

She snorted and waved dismissively. "That is just your American embassy in my colony. Katyusha will destroy it later."

Laila quickly stepped between them. She spoke loudly for all to hear. "The question is: How do we locate a target? We know very little about Arakavish. We don't even know where their planet is located."

King smiled thinly. "Oh, but we do."

The crowd hushed. Everyone looked at him. Only Jordan had known this. The tall officer gave King a little wink.

"You lie again!" Katyusha cried. "Nobody knows where rahs come from."

King ignored her. "We've been studying the enemy portals. As you all know, portals distort light. Since portals warp space and time, they severely distort electromagnetic radiation. Sort of like the galaxy's craziest fun house mirror. Well, Alliance scientists created devices that can smooth out these distorted light waves, restoring them to the original wavelengths. This is all a fancy way of saying: We figured out how to peek through the rah portals. And we saw a scene of stars."

Laila's eyes widened. "And by studying the stars, you pinpointed their location."

King nodded. "Yes. Planet Arakavish is orbiting the star Achernar, forty-three parsecs away. It's located in the Eridanus constellation. Ladies and gentlemen, you can see it in the sky tonight. You may ask your MindLinks to point it out for you."

They all looked up. Their MindLinks painted silver lines between the stars of the Eridanus constellation. The star Achernar pulsed bright blue.

"It's so close," Emily whispered, neck craned back. "Only forty-three parsecs away!"

"Right in their backyard," King said. "We were probably not important enough to attack until now. Once we started sending spaceships up, we had to be beaten back down."

Katyusha tossed back her head and laughed. "Silly capitalists! You think you discovered something new? Katyusha knew a year ago that rahs come from Acrux star!"

"Achernar," King corrected her.

She waved dismissively. "That is what Katyusha said. Listen more carefully next time. Okay, what are we waiting for? Let us open portals and fly our fleets through! The Red Dawn will reach the alien palace first. Katyusha will be sitting on Elder'rah's throne while you capitalists are still—"

"Katyusha, we're only attacking a small target, remember?" Emily said. "We want to force Elder'rah to withdraw some of her ships. We're not looking to conquer their planet."

"Speak for yourself, you decadent English leech on society!" Katyusha said. "In Mother Russia, we shoot royal parasites like you. Katyusha cares not for sissy capitalist strategies. She will conquer Arakavish—and then the galaxy!"

A few Alliance officers actually laughed. Katyusha blushed, clenched her fists, and muttered under her breath. Something about how she'd skin their hides once she ruled the galaxy.

"We know where their planet is," King said. "But we don't know much else. That's why before we strike, we will send over a spy. Somebody who has spied for us before. Who collected priceless information about the motherclaw Hunger's schematics. Who found the Aeolian homeworld. Who will now travel behind enemy lines and return with targets to strike."

King turned to his left. Emily stood there, arms limp, gaping at him.

She sent him a private telepathic message. "I'm a gunner now, sir. And I'm scared. I'm scared to death of flying behind enemy lines. But if you ask me, sir, I'll do it."

"I won't order you to go," King telepathized back. "But I do ask it. We have professional spies in the Alliance. But to be honest, none have your experience. Will you do this, knowing that you risk your life?"

"In a heartbeat," she said. "When do I leave?"

"Tonight," King said. "You'll take the Raven. We'll open a portal for you."

The young queen saluted, though her hand trembled. "Yes, sir. I'll do my best. I—"

Their MindLinks suddenly flashed with red alerts.

Spitfire's voice filled their minds.

"A portal is opening right above you! Arachtaurs are coming through!"

CHAPTER TEN

Spitfire stood on the bridge of the Freedom, watching the arachships spilling out the portal.

And King was down on Mars.

And Jordan was down on Mars.

She was commanding the Freedom. She was meant to just watch the ship for a while. Like she had at Aeolia. An easy gig. Part of her training.

Now enemies were attacking. And she had to do something.

Klaxons wailed across the Freedom's bridge. Red alerts flashed. Cold sweat trickled down Spitfire's back. Her heart pounded and her knees shook. Spitfire had fought many battles in a starfighter. A starfighter! A vessel no larger than a school bus. Now she had to command a dreadnought the size of a town.

She had never been more scared.

Other Alliance ships were already firing. But their missiles couldn't break the enemy's shields. Hundreds of silver spears were flying from the portal, slamming into the Alliance warships. A corvette exploded and went plunging down toward Mars.

The first arachship made it out the portal. The Alliance responded with an unrelenting fusillade. Explosions rocked the gargantuan alien ship, tearing through its hull, exposing the cabins within. Soon it was nothing but a hulk, but with its sheer mass, it shielded the portal, allowing more arachships to emerge.

Silver spears flew.

The FAS Chandra tore apart. Spacers spilled out, flailing until the vacuum stilled them. Space was silent, but in her mind, Spitfire could hear the screams. The screams of the dying. The screams from the past. From the mouths of friends burning in the inferno.

"Two more portals opening!" cried a bridge officer. "One over the Red Dawn fleet, one over the Desert Thorns."

"More arachships coming in fast!" somebody else cried.

"Ma'am!" Mimori was shouting over the klaxons. "What are your orders?"

Spitfire just stood there. She tried to speak. No words came out. Her jaw was locked solid with fear.

Mimori turned toward the bridge. "We're going to fly in and take those arachships head-on! Gunners! Prepare to lock on the larger arachship and—"

"Belay those orders!" Spitfire said. She took a deep, shaky breath. "Mimori, fly us behind the portal. Gunners—prepare to fire graviton disrupters onto that portal! Not Maccabees. Graviton disrupters. Eagles! Launch and blast the portal with electromagnetic pulses." She looked at Mimori. "There's no use fighting arachships if more can keep coming. Our priority is to destroy the portal."

Mimori nodded. "Aye, ma'am. Racing to position."

The Freedom soared. Her engines thrummed. Her exhaust ports lit the darkness with blue light. Corvettes rallied behind her.

The arachships noticed them rising. A gargantuan arachtaur ship ascended before them. A terror. A goddess risen from the darkness between the stars. She was like a giant squid approaching an ancient sailing ship, so large she could wrap the Freedom in her grip and crush her, splintering her armored hull like wooden beams.

The mechanical legs pointed.

The silver spears flew.

"Raising shields to max!" Mimori said.

"Negative!" Spitfire said. "Divert power to graviton engines on our underbelly and rise! Rise, Mimori!"

Eight spears raced toward them. One slammed into a frigate ahead of the Freedom. The missile tore through the heavy warship and just kept flying toward the Freedom.

Power thrummed through cables and decks and bulkheads, raising hackles across Spitfire's skin. Serpents of electricity flowed from the shields to the underbelly thrusters. The new graviton engines did their magic, and Freedom soared like a kite on a gust of air. She was a ship the size of the Dead Sea, but she rose so quickly she seemed weightless.

Another arachship flew at them.

Freedom rose like a hummingbird taking flight, dodging the silver spears, her engines almost silent. A third arachship charged. Freedom dipped, rolled, and shot forward.

She's a starfighter now, Spitfire realized. With these new thrusters, she's a starfighter. I know this. I can do this.

"The enemy lines are too thick!" Mimori said. "I can't break through."

Spitfire clasped Mimori's hand.

"Fly with me," Spitfire whispered.

She tilted to the left. Mimori tilted with her. And Freedom rolled.

Spitfire moved her hand upward, guiding Mimori's hand like a joystick.

Freedom pitched upward.

Three arachships flew toward them.

"Spitfire, we can't—" Mimori began.

"Let me fly," Spitfire whispered, then tilted to the right.

Mimori rolled the ship.

Freedom had no joysticks, no yoke. Normally Mimori flew her. But Mimori was not a pilot. She was an interface. Conscious, feeling, alive, yes—but still an interface. She was a joystick. And the Freedom was a starfighter. And Spitfire flew this massive dreadnought like she had flown so many times in her Eagle. No computers. No navigational charts. Pure instinct.

Two arachships raced toward them, silver spears flying. Spitfire flew from side to side, zigzagging, rising, falling, dodging the assault. They had reduced the shields to minimum. All the power was in the thrusters now. All the power was in Spitfire's hands.

She squeezed Mimori's hands in her own.

"Corvettes, cover our stern!" Spitfire said, but she could spare the smaller warships only the briefest of glances.

Three arachships reached their claws toward Freedom, prepared to clutch her and crush her.

Spitfire narrowed her eyes, staring at the viewport, and yanked Mimori's hands down hard.

Freedom dived.

Spitfire yanked violently on Mimori's hands, and Freedom soared so rapidly her belly flipped. At once, she yawed left, then right, then pitched just a bit up and rolled.

They slipped between the reaching spider legs and emerged through the gauntlet into open space.

There ahead it rose. A dark moon. The portal.

"Fire," Spitfire said softly.

The Angels of Liberty boomed.

Instead of Maccabees, graviton disrupters flew from the cannons. They had been sitting around for years, collecting dust. Originally designed to disable graviton shields, they rarely saw use in battle. They didn't do much against alien ships. Now they flew into the portal and detonated, sucking up gravity like hungry bacteria gobbling sugar.

The Eagles streaked by, releasing electromagnetic pulses like whales blasting out sonar waves. The pulses hit the portal, pulverizing chunks of it.

The sphere imploded. An arachship, which was halfway through, shattered and spilled squirming arachtaurs.

But Spitfire wasn't done.

She pulled Mimori's hands.

The Freedom flew a swift loop, then raced back toward the battle, her dorsal hull facing Mars.

Two more portals were still open. The Red Dawn and Desert Thorns were bombarding them but with little success. Clawships were emerging, blasting plasma, holding the human ships back.

Spitfire raced toward one portal.

She was a starfighter pilot again.

She was Yael's Nail.

She smiled and she whispered, "Fire."

The guns of Freedom boomed. The graviton warheads drove into another portal, and the sphere of warped spacetime wobbled and tore apart into a thousand little portals, each large enough to spill some chunks of broken clawships.

Finally, only after destroying the final portal, did Spitfire release Mimori's hands. She noticed that one of the android's fingers was cracked.

"Sorry that I crushed your hands." Spitfire blushed. "I've broken several joysticks this way. My mechanics hate me."

But Mimori didn't even seem to notice her cracked finger. Her eyes were wide. "You were wonderful." Now it was the android's turn to blush. "Nobody's ever flown me like that."

Spitfire shrugged. "Well, I've never had a turn before."

A few arachships and clawships had made it out the portals, but the human fleets were mopping them up. Thankfully, no more portals were appearing. Portals took a lot of energy to open, even for an empire like Arakavish. Perhaps Spitfire had bought humanity more time.

But we can't stay here forever, she knew. Sooner or later, Elder'rah will plan a major assault on Mars. And then all the fancy flying in the world won't make a difference.

Her MindLink chimed. A call from King.

"Spitfire?"

"Sir!"

"Spitfire, I saw it all from my shuttle. Why the hell are you flying my dreadnought like she's an Eagle?"

Spitfire winced. "How did you know it was me, sir? Normally it's Mimori who—"

"Spitfire, you were magnificent. Now open an airlock. I'm coming in. And I want my bridge back before you fly my ship into a moon while doing loop-the-loops."

She couldn't suppress a grin. "See you soon, sir."

Moments later, King stepped onto the bridge. The red sand of Mars still clung to his boots. He marched to his post. A cleaner drone buzzed at his heels, furtively sweeping up the sand.

Spitfire snapped to attention and saluted him. "Admiral, the bridge is yours."

He returned the salute. "Spitfire, you have the next shift off. You may return to your quarters." He took a few steps away, then paused and looked back at her. "Or you can stick around for a while longer. Maybe learn a few things. Or maybe teach an old man some new tricks." He winked.

Spitfire's grin widened. "I'd love to, but right now I need to go change my pants."

* * * * *

Once more, Emily flew out in the Raven.

Her usual companions came with her. Sergeant Major Oliver Darjeeling was flying the little stealth ship. As always, the aging soldier wore a meticulous service uniform, the buttons polished to a sheen, the boots so reflective they were practically mirrors. His soldiers liked to joke that he ironed each thread individually. He certainly combed each hair in his snowy-white mustache with care.

And again, Master Sergeant Meytal Koren manned the stern. During the mission to find the Aeolians, Meytal had installed a grenade launcher and two laser shooters onto the hull. Her work had been crude—she had drilled holes right into the hull during battle. But since then, the Freedom's engineers had improved the installation. Today the Raven's stern boasted a proper weapons station, complete with a comfy leather chair and controls to fire an assortment of grenades, bullets, and lasers. Meytal was in heaven. She had strapped herself into the chair and announced that Emily could bury her in it.

Niles had joined them, of course. Not without a diatribe about how this adventure was far too dangerous, and the Raven didn't even have a chandelier. The drone was currently in the hold, seeking a maid or butler to make the tea.

And again, Stowy was here. This time they had invited her. Might as well, since she would have just smuggled herself aboard anyway. The girl had no official job for the mission. She wasn't even a soldier. But somehow Stowy had gotten into her mind that she was now Emily's bodyguard. And she took her task seriously. The girl stood in the cockpit, wearing her ragged dress of many pockets, her one stocking full of holes, her hair a fright, and in her hand she held a hammer.

"If anyone tries to harm you—bam!" Stowy said, hammering the air.

"I don't think anyone will try to harm the queen aboard the Raven," said Darjeeling, gently tugging the yoke. The Raven flew from Freedom's airlock, gliding into open space above the sprawling deserts of Mars.

Stowy frowned at him. "You better not harm her, old man. Or—bam! I'm watching you."

Darjeeling frowned. "Is that my hammer? The one from my tool kit?"

Stowy gasped. "I knew it! Queen Emily, Queen Emily! The old man smuggled aboard a dangerous weapon to assassinate you with. Luckily I confiscated it."

Darjeeling was about to explode when a call came in. King's raspy voice emerged from the speakers.

"FAS Raven, this is Freedom actual. Please position yourself at the vectors we're sending you. Portal opening in ten minutes."

Darjeeling lifted his comlink. "Freedom, this is Raven. Acknowledged. Flying to position now, sir."

As Darjeeling flew, Emily leaned back in her seat, looking at the view. Thousands of battered, burnt starships hovered all around her, filling Mars's orbit. A few were nothing but charred ruins. The husk of a dead clawship was gliding into deep space like a dry black rose caught on the wind. The landscapes of Mars rolled by below. Humans had been traveling here for centuries, but most of Mars was still untouched wilderness. Emily imagined rahs swarming over the deserts and mountains of Mars, and she shuddered.

The Raven flew into deeper orbit. The stealth ship hovered about ten thousand klicks above the Freedom and the other large warships. From up here, Emily could make out the Red Fleet guarding the dark hemisphere of Mars.

"In position now, Freedom," Darjeeling said.

King's voice came over comlink. "Raven, we are initiating portal assembly."

Opening portals large enough for a starship, even a small starship like the Raven, required colossal energy. Standard practice was to plug into an energy ship. Energy ships were essentially floating power plants. Enormous cores fused atoms inside their thick hulls, providing enough energy to open portals. But sadly, humans had built only one energy ship so far. The Wandering Sun. And Od'rahda had blown her up, scattering her atoms across the Aeolia system. To return from Aeolia, Freedom had needed to collect the energy of a nebula.

There were no nebulae near Mars. And while the Alliance was building more energy ships, they were still under construction. One had been under construction in Earth's orbit. Most likely, it was gone by now. The other two were being assembled at Jupiter and Saturn. Perhaps they were gone too.

The Freedom had a portal generator mounted onto her prow. The circular structure surrounded the dented railgun. Kim Fletcher had kludged it together at Aeolia, and since then, she had been making improvements. But it still required more energy than Freedom could generate on her own. To meet the energy requirements, several frigates now hovered around Freedom. Cables ran from them into outlets on Freedom's hull. Ten ships would combine their energy to open a portal for the Raven.

The cables thrummed and flailed like angry snakes, pushing power into the Freedom. Kim's portal generator began to spin like a Ferris wheel around the dented railgun. A funnel of warped spacetime began to form like water circling a drain. The spout stretched out like a tornado, reaching toward a spot ahead of the Raven. The very fabric of space and time bent, forming a bubble ahead of the little stealth ship. Emily leaned forward, squinting, trying to see through the portal. She could make out only smudges and streaks of starlight.

"A portal to Achernar." A chill ran through her. "The star system of Arakavish."

She glanced away from the portal toward the eastern night sky. She could see Achernar from here with the naked eye, a blueish star, merciless and cold like a glaring eye.

"We've been living with this terror at our doorstep all this time," she whispered. "Never knowing. Never suspecting. Never believing that monsters were real. Until we opened the door and stepped outside into the dark."

Stowy trembled. "Don't talk like that, boss. I'm frightened."

"Frightened?" Darjeeling raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were her bodyguard."

The stowaway gulped. "I changed my mind. How about you be the bodyguard and I fly the ship?"

"No, thank you," said Darjeeling. "I don't feel like crashing into the sun today."

The comlink crackled, and King's raspy voice emerged. "Raven, this is Freedom. The portal is fully formed. It will remain open for another sixty seconds. Godspeed, soldiers of Earth."

Emily couldn't help but shiver. It was time.

Stowy beamed. "I'm a soldier of Earth!" she whispered.

"The admiral doesn't even know you're here," Emily whispered back.

Darjeeling shoved down the throttle, and the Raven leaped forth. Suddenly Emily's heart began to pound. Her fingers shook. Trickles of sweat raced down her spine like slugs.

Oh God, she thought. We're flying to the very heart of the empire. Why did I agree to this? We have to turn back. This is madness. This is suicide. We—

Then the Raven entered the portal.

Everything smudged and swirled. Emily's fingers grew the length of walking sticks, then curved into spirals. Stowy's eyes stretched out, forming blinking tubes. Darjeeling's entire body coiled into the shape of a giant pretzel.

Then, in an instant, everything snapped back to normal.

And they were flying just outside the Achernar system. The heart of the alien empire.

* * * * *

The portal closed.

The Raven was gone.

King stood on the bridge, watching the empty spot of space where the Raven had flown moments before.

"Godspeed, soldiers," he said softly.

He was sending them behind enemy lines. To the most dangerous place in the galaxy. Darjeeling—one of his oldest friends. Emily, Meytal, and Stowy—they were like daughters to him.

"I sent them to the heart of an alien empire," he said. "I sent them to their deaths."

Jordan shook his head. "No. Not to their deaths. They've escaped tight spots before, those ones. They'll come back."

While the spies were away, King turned his attention to another urgent problem. The dented railgun.

Colliding with the Atrocity had bent one of the rails like a spoon hitting hard ice cream. The Fist of Freedom could only fire once a day, perhaps, but it was still the ship's primary weapon. Without the Fist, the Freedom could not win this war.

He had to fix it. Fast. Faster than humanly possible.

He got on MindWeb and called his engineer.

"Kim, are you ready?"

Colonel Kim Fletcher materialized on the bridge. As always, she wore her engineering coveralls, a hard hat, and a tool belt. "I'm ready, sir."

"Are you sure about this, Kim?"

"Absolutely. Evan . . ." She hesitated. "Evan is strong. He'll be okay without me for a few hours. I need to do this."

"Very well then. I'll meet you at the Sparrow bay in fifteen minutes."

Thankfully, they were communicating on a private telepathic channel. It was highly unusual for the admiral to send off a shuttle in person. He knew the crew would whisper. But dammit, he wanted to see Kim again. In person, not over the goddamn MindWeb. As realistic as the hallucination was, it wasn't the real thing. He missed her.

He walked through the ship, nodding at his crew. He couldn't help but notice the pale faces. The damp eyes. A thousand crew members—gone. Millions on Earth—dead. Everyone was afraid. Everyone was grieving. That was another reason King wanted to walk to the shuttle bay in person. He wanted the crew to see him, to know he was still standing tall, still in charge. He wanted to meet their eyes, to return their salutes, to offer whatever courage he could.

Kim was waiting in the shuttle bay when King got there. King silently cursed the deckhands walking all around. He wanted to pull Kim into his arms. As it were, he simply gave her a nod. Even so, it was so good to see her.

God, she was beautiful. She had removed her hard hat, and her blond hair was pulled into a sensible ponytail. Her face was gaunt, her eyes sunken. She had not slept since Evan's injury. But when she saw King, those weary blue eyes lit up, and her smile shone through her grief.

She sent him a private telepathic message. "I wish I could hug you."

"I was just thinking the same thing."

Of course, they could not reveal their relationship. It was illegal, even for an admiral, to date a spacer under his command. But the heart loved who it loved. And King could not deny that his heart beat for her.

His wife had died twenty years ago. Since then, King had loved just one woman. The starship Freedom. Until he met Kim Fletcher. For the first time, he allowed his heart to open to another, and she returned his love in full.

He realized they were still gazing into each other's eyes.

"I love you," she telepathized.

"And I was just thinking that too."

A familiar figure wobbled toward them on five legs. Those legs stuck out from a rocky shell covered with crystals. A little head emerged from the top, ringed with eyes and topped with tentacles.

"Hello, Bully Dog!" the alien said.

King, who was famous for having a face like an iron statue, couldn't help but smile. "Hello, Selly."

The Aeolian had joined the Freedom to learn more about human society. And now humanity needed his help.

The alien's tentacles fluttered, his way of communicating. The Aeolians had mouths on the tops of their heads, and they even had vocal cords, but they only spoke to their children and pets. The fluttering tentacles sent King telepathic messages. With his neural implant and some translation software, King was able to understand the alien.

"Bully Dog, I was studying views of Mars through the Freedom's sensors, and it's fascinating!" The alien hopped with excitement. "Your giant terrariums are a marvel of engineering for a species as new as yours to space exploration. What molecules do the transparent domes use? Oh, and I saw some humans leaving the domes into the open desert, and they wore shells! Artificial shells in the shape of a human body! We Aeolians of course have natural shells. I would love to visit the planet. I would particularly enjoy exploring the greenhouses to analyze how your scientists genetically modified the crops to survive on Mars. Oh, and if you have any theater or music halls, I would much enjoy visiting them. My hypothesis, which I was working on at Heaven's Geode University, is that one can learn everything about a civilization by analyzing its performance arts, though my rivals at the university claim that—"

"Selly, after the war, I promise to take you on a tour of Mars," King said. "And Earth. And anywhere else you like. Right now we need to repair the Freedom."

The alien tilted his head, a human mannerism he had picked up. "Again, Bully Dog?"

"We seem to have bent our railgun." He sent the alien telepathic images of the damage.

"Oh my, Bully Dog, this is very concerning. You won't be able to fire your railgun like this."

"Selly, my human mechanics are miracle workers. But they work at human speed. If we opened a portal for you, could you summon an Aeolian crew? We'll pay, of course. We can trade in any human goods you like."

"Knowledge," Selly said. "We require only knowledge. Perhaps a selection of books?"

Kim smiled. "You're lucky, Selly, Admiral King has many books in his office."

King felt the blood drain from his face. "Those are rare, antique editions."

"Wonderful!" Selly said. "How generous of you, Bully Dog! I am sure my university would much appreciate this gift. Now then, let me summon the workers of Aeolia! Do you have a shuttle I can use?"

The frigates were still attached to the Freedom, cables running from their reactors to the portal generator on Freedom's prow. Once more, the portal generator spun like a Ferris wheel. Another portal formed. This one going to Aeolia, a thousand light-years away.

A Sparrow shuttle flew out. Kim was flying. Selly rode shotgun.

King returned to the bridge. His anxiety was building. He worried about the Raven on her mission to Achernar. He worried about Kim running into an arachtaur ambush. He worried about the people down on Earth. He spent the next hour tackling his ever-growing to-do list, trying to bury the fear under work.

After only that one hour, Kim and Selly returned in the Sparrow.

With them came oval Aeolian shuttles. They looked like eggs floating into Martian space.

Kim sent him a telepathic message.

"Jim, we're back, and we brought friends. A crew of a hundred Aeolian workers!"

Relief flooded King. Finally—something going right. "We can dock their shuttles in the Rhino bays, and the workers can stay in the vacant marine quarters."

"No need," Kim said. "They're eager to get to work at once."

Standing on the bridge, King watched as the oval shuttles floated toward the dented railgun. Hatches opened, and Aeolians spilled out into space. They remained inside their shells, which could withstand the vacuum and radiation. Black fabric covered their legs and thick toes, protecting them, while their little heads emerged into glass bulbs. A hundred of the rocky aliens covered the dented railgun like ants on a log. And they got to work.

And indeed they worked fast. It was like watching a time-lapse video. The round, rocky aliens bustled around the enormous railgun. They had brought tools and equipment, and within moments, they were already erecting scaffolds around the damaged areas. Soon saws were whirring and blowtorches were flaring. Kim hovered in the shuttle, supervising the work.

King knew what this cost her. Time away from her wounded son. But Kim understood what King did.

If they lost this war, Evan would die. They would all die. For a few hours, they had time to prepare, to heal, to rebuild.

And then the fire would blaze again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Emily had never seen a place like this.

Everyone aboard the Raven just stared silently, too shocked for words.

So this is what the star system of an empire looks like, Emily thought.

Their entire assumption had been wrong, Emily realized. They hoped that by striking near Arakavish, Empress Elder'rah would be forced to pull some of her starships home. But there was certainly no shortage of starships here. Thousands, maybe millions of clawships flew everywhere through the Achernar system. They swarmed around planets and moons like hornets around their hives. They traveled to and fro in lines like the paths of ants. Myriads simply orbited the star system like an Oort cloud.

And the clawships were the least of it.

The rahs had built megastructures throughout their system. Gargantuan metal beams caged one of the system's two stars. It looked like a colossal lantern, the star burning inside like a candle. Chains stretched out from the lantern, millions of kilometers long, leading to planets, moons, and space stations. Were those energy cables? Bridges? Tunnels? Habitats? Emily did not know. But that metal cage was so large, just one of its bars was probably wider than Earth's diameter. The entire structure looked like some giant web, powered by a star.

Some of the space stations were the size of planets. They were forged of dark metal and sprouted spikes. They looked like metal sea urchins. Meanwhile, huge structures floated along the edge of the system. They were larger than planets, thin and gently curved, like pieces of broken pottery. Emily could not guess their purpose. Defensive walls? Perhaps giant solar panels? Thousands of these enormous devices orbited the star system.

When viewed from Earth, Achernar appeared as one star. But like most star systems in the galaxy, this was a binary system. The smaller star shone inside the metal cage. The primary star shone freely ahead, blue and blinding.

Emily frowned. "That star … It's not round. It's shaped like an American football."

Stowy gasped. "It's shaped like Niles!"

The drone flew into the cockpit, having abandoned his quest to find a butler. "I am a prolate spheroid. Not a football. Certainly not a colonial one." He swiveled his cameras toward the star. "Why, you were right! That star is shaped like me. What a wonderful star it is! Perhaps the rahs aren't as bad after all. They worship a giant, glowing Niles."

Emily frowned. "How did it get that shape?"

"I believe I can answer that, ma'am," Darjeeling said. "I read up on Achernar before our trip. It is the least spherical star in the Milky Way galaxy. It spins so rapidly that it squeezed itself, forming an elongated shape. Indeed, much like an American football. It's hard to tell from this distance, but it's also thousands of times brighter than our sun back home. Thankfully, the viewport is dimming the light. Achernar is also extremely hot, which is why it's blue. In many ways, it's the oddest star we know of."

"Not least because it's the center of an alien empire," Emily said.

Stowy gulped and tightened her grip on her hammer.

The Raven floated on the edge of the system. The ship had always been stealthy, though as they learned in Aeolia, not perfectly invisible. The enemy had spotted the minute amount of graviton particles the Raven discharged. Thankfully, the Aeolians had improved the Raven. It now blocked the release of heat, energy, gravitons, or any other particle or wave, storing them in batteries for later release. Starlight bent around it. The ship was truly invisible.

Unfortunately, it cost a fortune. Probably more than an entire fleet of starfighters. The Alliance would not be getting an army of invisible warships anytime soon. The Raven was one of a kind.

Alarms flashed.

Emily bolted up in her seat.

A squadron of clawfighters raced by only fifty thousand klicks away. So close they practically rocked the Raven. Heart pounding, Emily watched them race by.

"Did they see us?" she whispered, reaching for the gun controls. She hesitated, her fingers on the triggers. Once she opened fire, their cover would be blown.

"I don't think so, ma'am," said Darjeeling. "Probably just a standard patrol. Look, they're flying onward."

Emily exhaled in relief and slumped in her seat. "Good. Hopefully we truly are invisible this time." She took a shaky breath, steeling herself. "All right. We're here to gather some reconnaissance. To learn about the empire. And find a place to strike."

"Emily?" Stowy whispered, voice trembling. "Is that … Is that Arakavish?"

They had not seen it at first. In this system of megastructures, caged stars, spinning blue stars the shape of footballs, and chains the length of solar orbits, one barely noticed something as humble as a planet. But indeed, a planet rose ahead, orbiting the central star.

The HUD displayed some data. It was a massive planet, about the size of Jupiter, but rocky instead of gaseous. Emily zoomed in as far as the sensors would allow. The image was still blurry. They were simply too far away for a clear picture. She did, however, detect swarms of millions of objects orbiting the planet. The objects were giving off a lot of energy. Clawships. Hundreds of thousands of them.

"Earth is nothing to them," Emily said softly. "We're barely a little skirmish on the far corner of their empire. Just an insignificant rebellion for them to swat aside as an afterthought. Everything that we are, everything that we've built, our colonies in space, our starships, our technology … It's nothing. We're barbarians with spears facing the might of ancient Rome. What chance do we have against the empire that built something like this?"

"Rome fell," Darjeeling reminded her. "The barbarians with their spears toppled it."

Emily smiled thinly. "Perhaps there is hope for us barbarians yet."

The portal had vanished behind them. King would reopen it in exactly eight hours. Emily had until then to collect as much data as she could. Ideally about potential targets to strike.

"We can't see very much from here," Emily said. "We can see that structure like a cage around the star. But what does it do? Or those cables that stretch from the cave to planets and space stations. What are they? And what is on those space stations? We need to fly closer."

"Are you sure about that, ma'am?" Darjeeling said. "We've improved the Raven's visibility. But the enemy might still have sensors we're unfamiliar with."

"The clawships flew right by us and saw nothing," Emily said. "Let's fly closer. We need a better look. We didn't come all this way to just stand by the door."

Darjeeling nodded, and amazingly, the hardened warrior seemed pale. Almost afraid. Darjeeling, the hero of the Third World War? The man who had been fighting the rahs and arachtaurs every day for three years? Afraid?

Yes. She saw the sweat on his brow. And Emily felt the same fear. It chilled her fingers and froze her very bones. But she had to push on. Humanity depended on it.

* * * * *

They flew closer in tense silence. Darjeeling piloted while Emily rode shotgun. Meytal remained in the stern, manning her array of machine guns, laser cannons, and grenade launchers. Stowy stood in the cockpit, holding her somewhat-less-effective hammer.

"Let's take a closer look at that caged star, Mr. Darjeeling," Emily said. "It's some kind of giant machine. I want to learn more."

"Ma'am, pardon, but the portal home will open in just under eight hours. Even flying at top speed, it would take us several days to reach the star."

Emily blushed. "Of course. How foolish of me. But the star looks so close, doesn't it? Like a lantern in space. I can almost imagine myself reaching out the cockpit and grabbing it. Heavens, Mr. Darjeeling, those bars around the star must be wider than Earth."

Stowy gasped. "Look! A giant squid!" She pointed.

Emily frowned. "Where?"

"There." Stowy tapped the viewport. "Well, it looks tiny from here. But it must be giant."

Emily zoomed in, and her eyes widened. Indeed, a giant squid-like creature was floating through space, heading toward one of the cables stretching out from the caged star. For a moment, Emily was convinced it was some enormous animal. Its movements were organic. An animal this big? No, surely this was a starship! A ring formed the main hull. Luminous bulbs lined the ring's inner surface, pulsing and shining blue and white. Tentacles stretched out from the ring, tipped with dots of light. The strange starship almost seemed to swim through the air, propelling itself with its tentacles. Of course that was ridiculous; they were in a vacuum. Yet the impression of some bioluminescent creature swimming in the ocean depths was difficult to ignore.

"It's moving toward one of those cables," Emily said. "Mr. Darjeeling, can we fly in for a closer look?"

"Aye, ma'am. Flying in closer."

The Raven accelerated. Until now, they had been floating outside the heliopause. Every star system was believed to have a heliopause—a sort of "bubble" engulfing the entire system, created where the solar wind could no longer penetrate the interstellar medium. Now the Raven pierced this bubble and entered the Achernar star system. Emily could not suppress a shudder.

A formation of clawships flew overhead. Emily winced and held her breath as if the aliens might hear her. Stowy flexed her fingers around her hammer for all the good it did. Hundreds of clawships glided above, casting dark shadows. Each of those ships was a mile long. The Raven glided beneath them, and Emily kept waiting to learn the stealth technology failed, for the clawships to burn her. Or worse—to be captured, taken before the empress, cocooned and tortured.

Her memories flashed back to her time in Darkland on the moon. The rahs had glued her and Stowy to the wall, lifted their claws, prepared to torture them. Yes, the rahs enjoyed causing pain. They were not just predators. They were sadists. If they caught her here, they would—

Stop, she told herself.

Her heart was pounding. She took deep breaths, trying to quell her panic.

The ships passed them by, and the Raven flew onward, a minnow that had just swum past a shiver of sharks.

"There are so many clawships here," Emily said. "I wonder why Elder'rah doesn't send more to Mars."

"That's a good question," Darjeeling said. "Maybe because the empress rules thousands of stars, and she must be prepared to crush rebellions at a moment's notice. Maybe the rahs have many enemies, not just Earth, and this many clawships are required to defend the system."

Emily's eyes widened. "Do you think so, Mr. Darjeeling? More enemies? That means Earth might have more allies out there. Not just the Aeolians. Imagine if we could find them. If we could work together."

"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but remember what the Aeolians told us? The other civilizations are all in hiding. If they can hide from the rahs, they can hide from us."

"The Aeolians were hiding and we found them," Emily said. "Maybe we can find others. There must be a reason so many clawships are defending this system."

Darjeeling spoke in a low voice. "Maybe the good aliens—like the Aeolians—are not the threat. Maybe there are other predatory empires out there. Maybe there's something so horrible even the rahs are scared of it."

Emily hugged herself. "The Aeolians said something about that, didn't they? That the rahs weren't even the worst thing out there. Maybe we humans are the least of Elder'rah's concern. Just a little dispute on an unimportant fringe world. Everywhere I look here, I see warships. There might be great galactic wars going on which we know nothing about."

"Earth might be just a speck in the grand scheme of things, but to me, she means everything," Darjeeling said.

"And to me," Emily said softly.

"Not to me!" Niles announced. "In fact, the rahs can go ahead and blow it up. I prefer to stay here, a living personification of Achernar. Do you think the rahs would build me a temple?"

"First of all, Niles, you're not a living anything, you're a robot," Emily said. "Secondly, Earth is the only planet that manufactures the batteries you need, so you better reconsider your allegiances."

He raised his nose. "You won't speak that way when I'm a god."

Stowy pointed at the starboard viewport. "Look, look, everyone!"

Emily's heart skipped a beat. She was expecting to see another flight of clawships. Instead, she saw the strangest sight.

It took her a moment to understand what she was looking at. Several spiky starships were flying in formation. Like clawships, they sprouted blades, but only a few small ones on the front. Their hulls were round, and their exhaust ports were enormous, taking up half their bulk. It was as if somebody had taken clawships, blown them up like a balloon, shrank their spikes, and tripled the size of their engines. With their glowing red exhaust ports, they reminded Emily of bleeding pustules.

Cables stretched from their hulls, connecting to an enormous … something. Was it a starship? Emily wasn't sure. It looked like a giant, translucent blob. A thin membrane gleamed in the starlight like an amniotic sac. Spheres pulsed and wriggled inside. Each sphere was the size of a house. The entire blobby sac was easily the size of a town.

The spiky ships were tugging the blob through space. As the Raven flew closer, Emily noticed holes, scratches, and burn marks on the sac. A few of the pulsing spheres spilled through a rent in the membrane, tumbling into space. A spiky ship hurried toward them, thrust out metal claws, and stuffed the spheres back into the wriggling sac.

Emily zoomed in on one sphere that still tumbled freely. A gasp fled her lips. There were creatures moving inside the sphere! They looked like slender black starfish with dozens of arms.

"It's an alien spaceship!" Emily whispered. "A captured alien spaceship!" She hugged herself. "The rahs must be bringing the aliens back as prisoners."

"Or as food," Darjeeling said.

"I wonder if these starfish aliens have an army of their own," Emily said. "Whether they fight back or whether they're merely prey."

"Their starship doesn't look very powerful," Darjeeling said. "They might be cosmic prey. Maybe not particularly intelligent. Maybe not even sentient."

"Not sentient?" Emily said. "But they can build ships."

"Animals can build things. Maybe they build spaceships like birds building nests or, well, spiders weaving webs."

Emily was glad they were recording all this. There was so much to learn here! Not just about the rahs but the galaxy. There was an entire galactic ecosystem, it seemed, which Earth knew nothing about. They were like some rare beetle that only ever lived under a single rock, then suddenly ventured out into the forest and discovered a dizzying array of life. Emily just hoped they didn't end up crushed under somebody's boot.

She looked away from the poor captured aliens. The Raven was flying closer toward Achernar B, the secondary star in the system. From here, Emily saw more clearly the cage that enclosed the star. What she had thought of as cage bars was actually some kind of machinery. At maximum zoom, Emily could just make out lights along the dark rods. Elevators seemed to be moving up and down, zipping across the enormous cage.

"How did they ever build this?" Darjeeling said, voice tinged with wonder. "The mass requirements alone. The structure is gargantuan. It must include more mass than Earth. Probably more than a thousand Earths. Where did they get all the raw material?"

"From a thousand destroyed worlds," Emily said.

Dozens of cables stretched out from the cage, spanning the ecliptic plane. Some cables led directly to planets. Others connected to space stations. Viewed from above, it must look like a huge web. A cobweb. Emily shuddered to remember the rah tales of a cosmic web that spanned the galaxy. A web spanning a solar system was bad enough.

They flew closer to one of the cables, and Emily saw that blobs of light were moving along it like cars along a bridge. The cables were impossibly large. Millions of kilometers long. A thousand kilometers thick. If planets were the size of baseballs, these cables would be ropes stretching the length of a neighborhood.

"Some kind of highway system?" Emily wondered aloud.

"Nobody is watching the giant squid!" Stowy stamped her feet. "I want to see it. Can you zoom in?"

It was true. With everything else going on, Emily had nearly forgotten about the giant mechanical squid. She tapped her controls, zooming in on the … whatever it was.

"Hmm." Emily scratched her chin. "It looks like that giant tentacled starship (if it is a starship) is swimming (if you can call it swimming) toward the cable." She sighed. "It's hard to choose the right words when I don't know what I'm looking at."

"There seem to be more squids in the distance," Darjeeling said.

Emily saw lights hovering at various other locations along the cable. Farther out, more lights moved toward other cables. Emily imagined the entire structure as a giant web. The caged star was like a glowing spider in the center. The squid-like things were like flies about to get trapped.

She zoomed in on some of the distant lights. Yes, definitely more squids. They all looked the same. A ring full of glowing lights. Tentacles that propelled the entire structure onward.

"I wonder if they're starships, space stations, or even some giant animal," Emily said.

"They're incredibly large for animals," Darjeeling said. "The Raven can't give us exact measurements. But from what our computers can tell, each squid is as big as Belsize Park. You could fly the Freedom through their ringed bodies."

"Look!" Emily said. "The one closest to us has almost reached the cable. Let's fly in for a closer look."

The Raven glided onward through space. As they approached the cable, more details emerged. Blobs of light were racing along the cable like blood cells inside a vein. Each blob shone blindingly bright.

Emily gasped. "The cable is transporting energy from the star! It's an energy delivery system!"

"Each of those blobs of light is larger than the Raven," Darjeeling said. "Maybe even larger than the Freedom."

Indeed, flying toward the cable, the Raven was like a bumblebee hovering toward the George Washington bridge. Humans were nowhere near being able to construct anything like this. The Jangseung Orbital Ring had been the most ambitious project in human history. It was nothing compared to this.

The squid reached the cable. The Raven floated nearby, an invisible minnow in this strange ocean, and watched the squid. The long, slender tentacles wrapped around the cable. Emily imagined it as a true squid wrapping around an anchor chain.

Then something happened that made Emily's eyes nearly pop out.

"It's … eating?"

Darjeeling blinked and rubbed his eyes. "So it would seem."

The squid was sucking blobs of light from the cable. It reminded Emily of somebody sucking tapioca pearls through a straw. Each blob flowed into the squid's ring-shaped body. The squid grew brighter and brighter. At the same time, it disgorged empty shells. The dark blobs floated into the distance, empty husks.

"So the cage around the star traps energy," Emily said. "Then the energy flows in blobs along the cables. And the squids collect full blobs, suck them dry, and discard empty blobs. What for?"

Finally the squid was full. Its ringed body shone brightly like a halo. Its tentacles released the cable, and the squid floated backward, engorged. Emily zoomed in on one tentacle. She wasn't sure, since the light smudged the image, but she thought she saw metal joints along the tentacle.

"It's not an animal," Emily said.

"But it swims and eats like an animal," Stowy said.

"I think it's a machine," Emily said. "A huge machine the rahs built."

The squid machine continued flying backward, tentacles propelling it away from the cable. After a while, it stopped and hovered in space. Its halo-shaped body glowed bright yellow. The tentacles spread out like sunbeams in a child's drawing. The machine just hung there in the open, a ring of light sprouting dark tendrils.

"What is it doing?" Emily whispered.

"Nothing, it seems," Darjeeling said. "Just floating there."

"Maybe it's digesting its meal," Stowy said.

Alarms flashed on the Raven's monitor. Darjeeling pursed his lips. "Lots of ships coming in fast off our port beam."

They all looked at the portside monitor. It displayed an array of spider-shaped icons racing across the screen, heading to their position.

"Arachships!" Emily said.

* * * * *

"They saw us!" Stowy cried. She swung her hammer through the air. "I'll defend you, my queen!"

"Stowy, it's all right—" Emily began.

"Put that hammer down before you knock somebody's head off!" Darjeeling snapped. "The arachships aren't heading toward the Raven. Look at their vector path." The old sergeant tapped a few buttons, and dotted lines appeared on the screen. "Their target is seven degrees above us."

Emily understood. "They're flying toward the squid machine."

"And passing right over our heads!" Stowy cried, raising her hammer.

Meytal cried out from the stern. "I'm loading our weapons and preparing to—"

"Belay that!" Emily shouted over her shoulder. "You'll blow our cover. Stowy, Meytal, both of you—calm down."

Meytal's head popped out of the stern. She stared across the hold toward the cockpit where Emily sat.

"We have to fight, dammit, we can't just—"

"They're not attacking us!" Emily said. "Sit tight."

Meytal cursed and her head retreated into the hold. Stowy growled and clutched her hammer, but she was no longer swinging it.

The arachships streaked overhead, charging toward the glowing ring. Emily counted fifteen of the spider-shaped dreadnoughts. Each was a clone of the Tyranny, the starship that had hunted, tormented, and nearly destroyed the Freedom. Arachtaur ships. Each one of those arachships scared Emily more than a flotilla of clawships and all the rahs inside them.

Everyone inside the Raven watched.

The squid began to shine brighter. And then, inside the glowing ring, the view changed.

The starlight swirled.

A black hole seemed to form inside the ring.

"A portal," Emily whispered. "The squid is a portal generator!"

The first arachship reached the squid-like machine, flew through the glowing ring, and vanished.

A shudder passed through Emily. "Do you think they're flying to Earth? Or to Mars?"

"Arakavish controls a vast empire, ma'am," Darjeeling said. "They might be flying to any one of their thousands of star systems."

Emily chewed her bottom lip. "Kim created a sensor that can look through portals. It takes the smudged, warped light and rebuilds the image. I wish we had one of her sensors here. We'd be able to see where the portal leads." She sighed. "As it is, we can't look through."

Another arachship reached the portal. The dreadnought was so large it had to fold its eight railguns. It looked like a wounded spider curling up its legs. The gargantuan starship flew through the glowing ring, heading on its way.

More arachships flew overhead, casting dark shadows. They hid the two suns, the stars, and the cables of energy. Only the halo shone ahead, a cruel ring of fire like the eye of a god. One arachship flew close enough to trigger proximity alerts across Raven's HUD.

"Maybe we should start heading back," Emily suggested.

Darjeeling nodded. "I think that's a good idea." He began flipping switches and toggling dials. "The portal home is due to open in three hours. Just enough time to return to the rendezvous point. I'm plotting a course to—"

"Watch out!" Emily cried.

A cloud of spiderwings came swarming out of the shadows. Hundreds of them. The little starfighters were like a colony of bats bursting out from the cave. They must have launched from one of the towering arachships.

They were flying right at the Raven.

"They saw us!" Meytal cried from the stern.

"Not yet," Emily said. "We're just in their path."

"Well, get us out of their path!" Meytal shouted.

Stowy swung her hammer through the air. "Bring it on, spiders! I'll clobber ya! I'll hammer ya to—" Her hammer slammed into Niles, scattering gemstones across the deck. "Oops. Sorry, old boy."

The drone wailed. "I've been savaged!"

Darjeeling ignored the chaos. Eyes narrowed, he was working the yoke, descending through the clouds of spiderwings. The alien starfighters raced everywhere around them. The Raven, invisible, descended, pitched, and yawed, worming her way through the swarm.

The first few spiderwings were passing through the portal. The Raven kept descending, almost out of the cloud, and Emily allowed herself a breath of relief when—

An alarm wailed.

Letters flashed on the HUD.

Proximity Alert!

A spiderwing streaked out of nowhere, and one of its eight legs banged against the top of the Raven.

The thump reverberated through the ship. The monitors flickered and died. The Raven careened.

The spiderwing tumbled into the distance, its leg shattered.

Backup power kicked in. The monitors began rebooting. For now, the crew had to rely on the naked eye.

The wounded arachship rolled into the distance, then paused. Slowly, it began moving back toward the Raven.

Darjeeling was wrestling with the yoke, steadying their sway.

The spiderwing flew closer. It circled them, slowly, like a wolf in a moonless night, sniffing for prey. Everyone aboard the Raven held their breath. Emily gripped the armrests of her chair. Even Niles stopped moaning.

The other spiderwings—the hundred or more who still remained on this side of the portal—paused. They all turned around together. Emily could see the faces inside the cockpits. Arachtaur faces. Staring right at her.

Darjeeling had managed to slow the ship. The Raven floated among the swarm.

"Did they see us?" Emily whispered.

"We'd be dead if they saw us," Darjeeling said.

The spiderwings flew a little closer, surrounding the Raven. The one with the dented leg came closest. So close Emily could clearly see the pilot. An arachtaur, female, with desiccated gray skin, hair like straw, and a mouth full of fangs. The creature's eyes blazed yellow, scanning the darkness. Those sickly eyes stared right at the Raven.

Emily's heart pounded so loudly she worried the arachtaur would hear.

The arachtaur's nostrils flared. A huntress's instinct.

She pitched her spiderwing downward, raising the spinneret on the stern, and fired a web.

Darjeeling pulled the yoke, dodging the web. It flew harmlessly into the distance. The spiderwing hesitated. The arachtaur pilot still wasn't sure. She still scanned the darkness, eyes narrowed.

Lights began to flash on the tentacled portal, pulsing blue. The arachtaurs turned around, facing it. Most of the enemy ships had flown through already.

"That's it … Go to your portal," Emily whispered.

"They're not leaving!" Meytal shouted from the back.

"They'll leave," Emily said.

The portal flashed again, brighter this time. A last call? Was the portal summoning the lingering arachtaurs?

Suddenly every spiderwing burst into flight.

A second later, Meytal opened fire.

The machine gun on Raven's stern roared, firing on one spiderwing. Bullets tore through the cockpit, ripping into the arachtaur inside.

"What the hell are you doing?" Emily shouted.

"They were flying at us!" Meytal shouted.

"They were flying to the portal!"

"Those were attack formations, dammit!" Meytal cried.

With the guns sticking out their stern, their cover was blown. Dozens of spiderwings charged at the Raven, plasma bolts flying.

* * * * *

"We're getting outta here!" Darjeeling said, spinning the Raven around. He shoved down the throttle, and they burst ahead. The spiderwings shrieked in pursuit. Meytal laughed in the stern, firing her machine gun, grenade launcher, and lasers—all at once.

"They're catching up," Emily said, gripping the controls of the prow cannon. At the moment, all the enemies were behind them. She had nobody to fire on.

"We'll see about that." Darjeeling flipped a switch, and the Raven bolted forward on a blast of afterburner, blazing like a comet. No need for graviton engines now. Their cover was already blown. The spiderwings fell behind.

Niles flew backward and hit the bulkhead.

"Slow down, man, you'll get us killed!" the drone shouted.

"Niles, shut up!" everyone said together.

They raced through space, and the spiderwings followed. The aliens were gaining speed. They were catching up.

And not just the little spiderwings. The gargantuan arachships had noticed them too. The alien dreadnoughts lumbered forth, raised their railguns, and fired.

Silver spears flew. They moved so fast Emily's eyes barely registered them. One silver spear streaked overhead. It was longer than the entire Raven. More plasma bolts flew. One glanced off their dorsal hull. The ship jolted. The upper hull dented but held. That was too close.

"This is all the stowaway's fault!" Niles cried. "Oh, why did she have to make noise with that infernal hammer? Now we're doomed, and—"

"Niles, shut up, or I'll hammer you again!" Stowy said. He shut up.

"Clawships!" Emily cried, pointing. They came swooping from above, a hundred or more.

"More below," Darjeeling said. Emily saw them on a monitor. Hundreds of them.

Across the system, alien starships began to move. Thousands.

Back in the stern, Meytal was firing everything she had. Another spiderwing exploded. Then another. But she'd run out of ammo long before she made even a dent in these massive hosts.

Plasma bolts flew above, below, everywhere. Darjeeling swerved from side to side, but a plasma bolt glanced off their hull. Flames blazed. The ship rattled.

"I told you to slow down!" Niles cried. Stowy made good of her threat, pounding him hard with the hammer. The drone wailed and hit the deck.

"There are three hours until Freedom will open the portal home," Emily said. "We'll never last that long."

"We don't have a choice," Darjeeling said. "We must last!"

Emily pursed her lips. She would have given her kingdom for a portal communicator. But the Raven had none. Portal communicators were brand-new tech. They worked by opening tiny portals, no wider than a pin, and transmitting information through them faster than light. It was the only way to talk between star systems. But portal generators, even very small ones, would not work with the Raven's stealth cloak, so QT and her engineers had not installed one. What a colossal mistake! Now the enemy could see them, and they had no way to call home.

More clawships came flying in. Jets of plasma blasted their way. The Raven soared, barely dodging the barrage of superheated energy. The deck heated up. Emily had to raise her feet. Niles, who was lying on the deck with a dent in his casing, wailed and flew toward the bulkhead.

"I thought we were invisible!" the drone cried.

"Once Meytal opened fire, they saw our location," Emily said.

"So disappear again!" Niles demanded. "Mr. Darjeeling, I order you to disappear!"

"We can't, Niles!" Emily said. "There are scratches and burns across our hull now. Our invisibility cloak is peeling."

"Oh, we're doomed!" Niles said. "I tried to warn you. If only you had obeyed my orders, I—"

Stowy hit him so hard with the hammer Niles flew into the hold, clattered onto the deck, and rose no more. The drone was down for the count.

A hundred alien ships rose ahead, claws outstretched, forming a wall in space.

Darjeeling narrowed his eyes, gripped the yoke, and flew toward them. "I can slip between their legs."

"We won't survive three hours until Freedom opens a portal home for us," Emily said.

"We must survive!" said Darjeeling.

More and more clawships flew to block their way. They moved closer together, weaving their blades together, forming a huge chain-link fence in space, blocking all escape. Their plasma ports churned and seemed to glare like red eyes. Emily stared back, and she realized she was staring at her death.

"Turn around," she said.

"The rendezvous point is past them, ma'am. We must fly past them! We must reach the portal!"

"There is a portal behind us. Turn around, Mr. Darjeeling."

He glanced at her. "Ma'am, that squid ring could be leading anywhere. It could be leading ten thousand light-years away, it—"

"Turn around!" Emily said. "That is an order, Mr. Darjeeling. Fly toward the ring—and through it!"

The old sergeant nodded. "Aye, ma'am."

She had never given him an order before. But she had no time to explain. Darjeeling pulled the yoke with both hands. The Raven looped around and shot back toward the enormous glowing ring.

The group of arachships and spiderwings had mostly flown into the portal. The enormous ring was dimming, no longer white-hot but fading to a cooler red. The blobs of energy it had swallowed were nearly fully digested now. Only a handful of spiderwings still waited to fly through.

The Raven shot toward the portal at top speed.

Behind them, thousands of clawships chased. Jets of plasma roared like dragonfire. Meytal was firing, but it was like shooting a handgun at an erupting volcano.

Darjeeling flew up and down, side to side, dodging the flaming spears. The portal dimmed even more. Emily grimaced and clutched the armrests. This was it. Life or death.

The portal began to collapse.

A jet of fire shot at their side, melting the starboard hull.

The Raven tumbled off course.

The portal was going dark.

Darjeeling yanked the yoke hard, shoved down the throttle, and they blasted through the dimming ring.

The portal tore apart.

The ring went dark.

The Raven shot forward through space.

And there ahead—spiderwings. And there below—Mars.

They were home. Not at Earth perhaps. But the entire solar system now felt like home. Funny. Only a few years ago, home had been only Britain, just one country. How her horizons had expanded!

And tonight war consumed Emily's home.

* * * * *

From above charged the Alliance Fleet, all guns roaring. Explosions blazed against the arachships. The Freedom swooped, the sun at her back, cannons booming. Freedom's Flock launched from the hangars, charging at the clouds of spiderwings. Emily's chest swelled with pride.

"This is human might," she whispered. "This is human courage."

The Raven had been like a prey animal, hiding and fleeing in the dark. But the Eagles were predators. And their rage knocked the spiders from the sky.

Silver spears flew around them. But this time the enemy was not aiming at the Raven. The Freedom fired her mighty Maccabees. One torpedo shot just over Raven's dorsal hull, hit an arachship, and an explosion bloomed through space. More cannons fired all around. Projectiles streaked back and forth. Dogfights zipped around everywhere like the mating dances of fireflies.

Darjeeling flew confidently, navigating through the inferno, until he emerged from the cloud of battle. Raven hovered in deep orbit, overlooking the battle below.

Darjeeling released the yoke. Finally he allowed himself a deep breath, and his body slackened. Emily saw how pale he was, and his hands shook. He suddenly looked a decade older.

"Forgive me, ma'am," Darjeeling said. "Forgive me for doubting you. The path I chose would have led to our deaths. You saved our lives." He lowered his head. "I'm ashamed."

"There's nothing to forgive." Emily touched his shoulder and smiled. "You flew wonderfully. You saved our lives a hundred times out there."

Niles flew into the cockpit, dented and cracked. "Well, I personally do not forgive you, old man. You almost got us killed with your reckless flying! I'm of half a mind to replace you with another butler."

Stowy raised her hammer. Niles whimpered and fled.

Darjeeling took a deep breath, still rattled. "Ma'am, if I may ask, how did you know the ring portal would lead here? And not to any other star in the empire?"

"Because arachtaur ships were flying through. Elder'rah genetically engineered the arachtaurs to fight humans specifically. I knew they must be flying here."

She looked at the battle raging in lower Martian orbit. Only several arachships had flown through, but they were wreaking havoc, destroying quite a few human starships. Emily took a deep breath.

"Meytal?" she said.

The commando stepped into the cockpit. "You rang?"

Emily smiled up at the taller woman. "Got any ammo left?"

A grin spread across Meytal's face. "A bit."

"Feel like fighting?"

"Hell yeah."

Emily nodded. "Mr. Darjeeling? Are you ready for more flying?"

He returned his hands to the yoke. They were steady again. "Yes, ma'am."

The Raven turned in space, then swooped toward the battle. Emily fired the prow cannon. They joined the Alliance Fleet, fighting for Mars.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Three Earthlings met on Mars.

Just three who would plan the most brazen military attack in human history.

Olympus Mons was the tallest mountain in the solar system. Rising twenty-two kilometers from the Martian surface, it dwarfed Mount Everest. From foothill to foothill, the mountain was the size of France.

A cave delved into Olympus Mons near the surface, then corkscrewed downward into the depths of Mars. A robotic rover had discovered the cave in 2057, drove inside to explore, and fell down a pit to its untimely demise. The scientists who studied the footage named the cave the Mouth of Cronus. In Goya's masterpiece painting, Cronus greedily devoured his son. An appropriate name for a cave that devoured rovers.

The cave was a natural wonder of Mars. And a piece of history. For a while, it had been open to the public. But once Earthling tourists began graffitiing the walls and chipping off bits of stalagmites for souvenirs, Mars decided to close it. Today it was a protected nature reserve. A perfect place to meet away from prying eyes and curious ears.

The stalactites and stalagmites formed a city of melting stone. A few old lamps hung from the ceiling, their batteries not yet empty, casting golden light across the cave. A stone bridge, a remnant of the cave's tourism days, spanned a chasm leading into the depths. Binoculars were mounted onto the railing. For a fee, you could gaze down and see the rusting old rover. If you ignored the lewd graffiti and a few paper cups nobody had ever collected, the place was beautiful.

They met on the stone bridge, wearing spacesuits. Three great leaders. Three who would determine the future of their species.

Admiral James "Bulldog" King, representing the Free Alliance.

Katya "Katyusha" Petrova, premier of the Red Dawn.

And Laila, queen of the Desert Thorns.

They led the three great unions of nations. Billions of humans on Earth looked to them for salvation.

"We have the first pictures and videos of the Achernar star system," King said. "I would like to share them with you. If you'll activate your neural implants, I will—"

"Katyusha cannot see it!" Katyusha was leaning over the railing, squinting down at the darkness.

"Katyusha, turn on your neural implant so I can send you the—"

"Oh, not your silly pictures!" The Russian leaned so far over the railing her boots rose off the bridge. "Katyusha is looking for famous rover that fell into pit. Too dark! Katyusha cannot see a thing down there."

Queen Laila pulled the Russian premier back onto the bridge. "I think you're supposed to use those binoculars."

Katyusha waved dismissively. "What, like tourist? Katyusha needs no binoculars! She has eyes of hawk." She squinted some more. "Rover not down there. Whole thing a sham."

King cleared his throat. "Ladies, we're not here as tourists. We've come to discuss an assault on Achernar."

Katyusha stepped away from the railing, and a grin spread across her face. "Ah, yes! That is far more exciting. Katyusha will smite the alien star system! The Red Army will bomb their cities to dust! Just like Comrade Stalin did to Berlin—but even more glorious! Katyusha will march across the ruins and climb a mountain of dead rahs, a mountain higher than Olympus Mons. And from the mountaintop, Katyusha will rule the galax—"

"Katyusha, let's not get ahead of ourselves," King said. "How about we start with one target?"

Katyusha pouted and crossed her arms. "But Katyusha is hungry for conquest!"

Deep in the cave, they didn't have a connection to MindWeb, the great network that linked billions of humans telepathically. But they could connect to one another's MindLink implants on a small, private network. King sent both women the information the Raven had brought back from Achernar.

For a while, the three stood silently, reviewing the videos. They saw the swarms of alien fleets, the caged star, the cables full of energy, and the squid-like portal generators.

Katyusha gazed with wide eyes, sometimes gasping, sometimes cursing in Russian, sometimes letting out little cries of surprise. Yet when the video finally ended, the premier composed herself and even managed to yawn. "Boring! Katyusha's spies already bring back much better videos."

King, who had been monitoring the solar system for any unexplained portals, seriously doubted that. But he let it slide.

"So many clawships," Laila whispered. "The Armada they sent to Earth is but one wave from their ocean."

Katyusha snorted. "Ocean? Please. Red Fleet will smash through them! Soon they will be ocean of corpses."

Laila ignored the Russian premier. She kept speaking to King. "Our plan was to assault an asset close to Arakavish, forcing Elder'rah to pull back some ships from Earth. But if she has so many ships there already, our plan is doomed to fail."

"Maybe," King said. "Maybe not. The abundance of starships around Arakavish might look intimidating. But to me, it does not speak of Elder'rah's might. To me, it shows that Arakavish is scared. Maybe even vulnerable. Only one surrounded by enemies builds great defenses."

"Of course!" Katyusha said. "Elder'rah is scared of Katyusha. It's obvious!"

Again the other two ignored her.

"So Elder'rah is fighting wars elsewhere." Laila tapped her chin. "Or at least worried about invasion from a powerful foe."

King nodded. "Exactly. I doubt Elder'rah has hundreds of thousands of starships defending Achernar because she's so scared of humans. Not even of our dear Katyusha. No. There is some other threat out there. Something stronger than us, maybe stronger than Elder'rah. Perhaps a strike from humanity, one that hits hard and deep, will hurt more than we think. When barbarians surround your castle, any chink in the wall is terrifying. I suggest we blow a hole out of that wall."

Katyusha stretched and yawned. "You two, so cautious!" She mimicked King's gravelly voice. "Oh, I am only weak American, and I am too sissy to conquer another world. Maybe if I just blow tiny hole the mean bugs won't hurt me." She sighed. "Fine! Since you two are so cowardly, Katyusha will come along to protect you."

King pulled up a still frame from the video. The image showed one of the ringed portal generators drawing energy from the cable delivery system. It looked like a squid eating from a trough.

"See this cable?" King said. "There's a whole network of these in the system. They stretch from Achernar B, the smaller star, to planets and space stations. They act as energy delivery systems. We know this energy powers their portals. It probably powers other important elements in the system. I propose we open a portal of our own, send a small but deadly strike force to Achernar, and destroy one of these cables."

Katyusha slammed her fist against the bridge railing. "And then we fly onward, and we destroy planet Arakavish! The spider tunnels will flow with blood! By nightfall, we will be marching through their capital city, and by dawn, the galaxy will—"

"Those cables are enormous," Laila said, ignoring the premier. "If the scale of this photo is correct, the cable is as thick as Earth. This won't be like cutting a ribbon, Admiral King. Even cutting a little hole in one of these cables would be like, well … like blowing up a planet."

King smiled grimly. "It's a good thing the Freedom has a weapon that can blow up a planet."

"The Fist of Freedom," Laila whispered.

"To be fair, the Fist of Freedom probably can't blow up a planet," King admitted. "But it can hit a planet hard. Think 'the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs' hard. It'll rip this cable."

Katyusha snorted. "While you rip through little alien cable, the Baba Yaga—which is greatest ship in galaxy, far greater than Freedom—will fly to Arakavish and destroy the whole planet for the glory of—"

"Katyusha, while I'm attacking the cable, I need you to watch my back," King said. "That will be your task. To hold off the enemy."

She considered. "Then you admit, King, that you are so weak you require Katyusha to protect you? Like baby in schoolyard needing mommy to protect him from bullies?"

King struggled not to roll his eyes. "Yes. Exactly like that."

"Ha! Very well then." Katyusha smacked her hands together. "Katyusha will protect you, little Jamechka. Do not worry. Freedom can fire that ridiculous thing you call a cannon. The Baba Yaga will do the actual fighting, holding back the enemy." She glanced at Laila. "What about you, Cleopatra? What will you do? Build a pyramid on Arakavish?"

Laila stiffened. "I'm Emeriti, not Egyptian. And I'm fairly confident that Cleopatra was Greek."

Katyusha snorted. "None of those are Russian. All the same to me."

"While the Freedom attacks the cable, and the Baba Yaga guards her, I will guard our portal," Laila said. "After all, we need a way home. My flagship, the Dune, is not as mighty as Freedom or Baba Yaga. But she's swift and deadly and can hold her own."

"I suggest we each bring backup," King said. "We can't portal too many ships. We don't have enough energy to keep a portal open for long. But we can each bring several other starships with us. Small, agile corvettes would do well."

Laila nodded. "And I suggest we strike the cable in the middle point. There seem to be fewer defenders posted there, at least in this video."

They spent a while in the cave, going over the details, fine-tuning the plan.

Suddenly, when they were almost done, an Alliance soldier burst into the cave and ran onto the bridge.

"A spy!" Katyusha cried and drew her handgun.

"Wait!" King pulled her arm down. "He's one of mine."

It was Sergeant Gilliam, the kid who had flown King here in a Sparrow. Normally King flew his own shuttles, but he had needed somebody to guard the cave entrance, so Gilliam had come along. A good kid. Came from Manchester. So blond you barely saw his eyebrows. He had worked his way up from deckhand to shuttle pilot. Had shot an arachtaur dead at Aeolia.

"Sir!" The young soldier reached King, snapped to quick attention, and saluted. "I couldn't reach you by comlink or MindWeb. I got word from the Freedom. The news is urgent, so I had to enter the cave and interrupt your meeting, but—"

"Out with it!" King snapped.

Sergeant Gilliam was sweating and panting. "An arachship, sir. It burst out a portal just over the Martian atmosphere and released dropships. An arachtaur battalion has landed on Mars." He wiped sweat off his brow. "Sir, they're coming in fast. Toward this cave."

King nodded. He looked at his companions. "Ladies, we have another battle on our hands. Let's go."

Laila nodded solemnly and drew her sidearm.

Katyusha grinned and licked her teeth. "Yes!"

They ran along the bridge, past the stalagmites, and down the tunnel, heading to battle.

* * * * *

Jordan was on the bridge, commanding the Freedom in deep orbit around Mars, when the alarms flashed.

Portals opening.

Enemy portals.

His shift aboard the bridge had begun uneventfully. By now, Jordan had clocked thousands of hours of command aboard Freedom's bridge. When King had been a commander, Jordan would command the bridge when his boss was asleep, eating, or simply taking a day off—which almost never happened. Now, with King an admiral, Jordan spent more and more time commanding the bridge. With the war blazing white-hot, he was busier than ever. He had barely left the bridge in days.

Thankfully, Gal "Spitfire" Levy was here to ease some of the load. After a few initial blunders, she was already proving herself an excellent commander. All day, she had been shadowing Jordan, observing, asking questions, learning. For the past few hours, Jordan had talked to department heads, processed a handful of diagnostic reports, and reviewed battle maps from Earth. Spitfire stood always at his side, soaking it up. Soon she would be ready to take longer shifts on her own.

I'm not getting any younger, Jordan thought during his coffee break that noon. And neither is the bulldog. Spitfire will someday replace us.

"Sir." Spitfire approached him, frowning, holding a hallucinatory monitor. "Did you see this graph from the surveillance boys? The one measuring gamma radiation? Sorry to interrupt your break. But I noticed that it's logarithmic instead of linear, and I was wondering whether—"

That was when the alarms wailed.

Red lights flashed.

The Fletcher Detector, used to foresee portals, was triggered.

"Portals opening in seven seconds!" Mimori said.

"Where?" Jordan said.

The android hesitated. "I'm not …" Her eyes widened. "Below us! In low orbit! Right over the Martian atmosphere!"

Impossible. It was too close to the planet! The gravity would rip the portals apart. Even if the portals held, any warship that emerged would burn up.

But then it happened. Jordan watched it happen.

Portals opened in low orbit. Right over the thin sky of Mars.

But no alien starships emerged. No lumbering clawships with crowns of blades and hearts of fire. No colossal arachships with their many clutching legs. Just spiky little ships. So small you could fit one onto Freedom's bridge.

Dropships.

"They're landing troops on Mars," Jordan said. "On the foothills of Olympus Mons."

Spitfire went pale. "They're going after the bulldog." She spun toward Mimori. "How is this possible? They shouldn't be able to open portals so close to a planet."

But Jordan already understood. He knew the answer. Knew what they had missed. They were still thinking in Earth terms. Earth had a larger gravity than Mars. It would rip apart any portal too close to the surface. But on Mars the variables were different. Small portals, just large enough for dropships—they were possible.

And he had missed it. He had failed to prepare.

"Take us into position directly above those portals!" Jordan said.

"Already on it, sir."

Yet as Freedom was lumbering across space, and as other starships raced to join her, the arachtaurs were already landing. Their spiky dropships pierced the desert like caltrops. Hosts of arachtaurs spilled out, racing across the Martian planes. Spiderwings spilled out of the portals too. The spider-shaped starfighters hovered over the ground troops, protecting them.

Freedom positioned herself only ten thousand klicks above the scene, then began descending even lower. Other starships—some from the Red Dawn, others from the Desert Thorns—rushed to join Freedom. They clustered above the desert.

Big ships like Freedom had trouble flying too close to the planet. But several corvettes raced along the atmosphere, firing on the portals. One portal imploded. Then another. Then they were all gone, but enough spiderwings were already in the sky. Their plasma bolts flew. Explosions blazed across one corvette, and it crashed through the atmosphere, burning up.

On the surface, a full arachtaur battalion was racing across the desert and climbing the mountainside. They were heading to the Mouth of Cronus.

Elder'rah learned about the meeting in the cave, Jordan thought. Now she hopes to wipe out our high command in one fell swoop.

Spitfire cracked her knuckles. "A single Maccabee should wipe them out. I suggest we fire one right into the middle of their battalion." She laughed. "Without any arachships here, we can—"

"No Maccabees!" Jordan said. "A torpedo like that? It would shake the desert like a fist slamming onto a poker table. It could cause avalanches on the mountainside."

"So?" Spitfire shrugged.

"Admiral King is in that cave!" Jordan said. "Any torpedo we launch is likely to topple the cave on top of him."

Spitfire fell silent. Her cheeks flushed. Finally she blurted out, "We'll send out Freedom's Flock. They'll engage the spiderwings and strafe the arachtaurs below."

"Strafing will be difficult with this many spiderwings. The Eagles can fight in the air. We'll send the Freebies to the surface." Jordan cursed. "I can't get ahold of the admiral. He's too deep in the cave."

Mimori looked up from her station. "Captain Jansen just called me, sir. He's got drones watching the mountainside. The admiral is hunkering down in the cave."

Jordan nodded and called up Robby "Pickles" Cooper, commander of Freedom's Flock. "Pickles, this is Jordan, are you seeing this?"

"Aye, sir."

"Launch the Flock and take care of those spiderwings."

Jordan hung up. He called Bastian next. "Bastian, you watching this?"

"Aye, sir, the Freebies are already inside their Rhinos, awaiting your order to launch."

"You got it. Launch and destroy those arachtaurs!"

Jordan stood on the bridge, watching the Rhinos and Eagles launch, watching the arachtaurs race toward the cave. The Baba Yaga was deploying shuttles too. Other ships were flying closer, prepared to dispatch their own troops.

Jordan just hoped they were not too late.

* * * * *

Daylight shone at the end of the tunnel. King ran, his breath sawing through his wounded throat. The others ran just one step behind.

Finally, his heart pounding, King burst out the cave onto the foothills of Olympus Mons. He stood on the rocky surface, staring down at the red desert of Amazonis Planitia.

Spiky landing craft speckled the plain like sea urchins swept onto the shore. A full arachtaur battalion, a thousand warriors strong, was swarming across the desert.

They were heading toward the cave.

King's upper lip twitched. He took a few steps back. Standing in the cave opening, he drew his sidearm.

Katyusha stared down at the plains. With her young clone body, she was barely out of breath. A smile spread across her face. "Ah, look at them! So many! Plenty for Katyusha to kill." She licked her lips and drew her gun.

Laila caught up with them. "Are you two insane? We can't hold back a thousand arachtaurs!"

Sergeant Gilliam joined them, breathing heavily. He was the only one here with an assault rifle. He aimed the weapon at the desert.

"You're all crazy!" Laila said. The Emeriti queen pointed down the foothills. "We should run for the shuttles."

They had landed their shuttles on the plains, then climbed the mountainside toward the cave. It was a long dash.

The sky rumbled. King looked up and saw Rhinos and Eagles descend. Good. The cavalry was here.

At once, spiderwings raced to meet them. Explosions filled the sky. An Eagle fell, leaving a path of smoke, and exploded against the mountainside. A spiderwing whirled out of control, then plowed into the desert. The arachtaur ground troops kept advancing, undeterred.

Down at the foothills, three shuttles awaited. The shuttles that had carried King, Katyusha, and Laila here. King's shuttle was empty. Sergeant Gilliam, his pilot, stood here at his side. But a few Russian and Emeriti soldiers—the men who had flown Katyusha and Laila to the surface—were still down there. They took cover behind the vehicles, firing at the enemy. Nothing more than pot shots. Within seconds, the arachtaurs would overwhelm them.

"Why aren't they taking off, dammit?" King said.

"They're loyal to us," Laila whispered, face pale. "They're willing to die for us."

Katyusha puffed out her chest. "That is what Katyusha likes to see!"

"We can make it to our shuttles!" Gilliam said. "Come on, we can make it!"

The sergeant began running downhill, leaving the cave behind.

"Wait!" King cried, but his voice drowned under the roaring battle. A symphony of racing starfighters, rumbling clawships, and screeching arachtaurs filled the thin atmosphere.

Gilliam was halfway there already, kicking up dust as he raced down the mountainside. The arachtaurs were still climbing from below. For a second, King thought the kid would make it.

Then an arachtaur climbed onto a boulder and raised a silver javelin. It caught the sunlight and gleamed like a shard of starlight.

The arachtaur hurled the weapon.

The javelin thrust into Gilliam and pinned the sergeant onto the mountainside.

Seconds later, the arachtaur hosts reached the shuttles at the foothills. The soldiers, by then, had abandoned all thoughts of noble sacrifice for their masters. They had reentered the shuttles and were taking flight, leaving King, Katyusha, and Laila behind. Standing in the cave entrance, Katyusha was waving her fist and shouting about all the ways she'd torture the cowardly traitors.

Sadly, the escape attempt was too belated. The shuttles only rose a few meters into the air before the arachtaurs, standing below, fired up webs. They caught the shuttles like chameleons catching flies with their tongues, and they pulled them down to the desert.

Standing at the cave opening, King opened fire with his handgun. He scored a direct hit into one arachtaur's head. The beast fell, but it was a grain of sand in the desert.

The arachtaurs swarmed over the shuttles, ripped the hatches off, and pulled out the soldiers. They tore the soldiers apart. They pulled limbs off torsos. They twisted heads off necks. They cracked open rib cages and dug out organs. They splashed in the blood and fed on the flesh.

But while some arachtaurs fed, hundreds came swarming up the mountainside toward the cave.

King, Katyusha, and Laila were all firing their handguns. But there were more arachtaurs than they had bullets.

Katyusha snarled, released one magazine, and loaded another. "We go down fighting. Charge with Katyusha! For glory and death in battle!"

She made to race down the mountainside. King grabbed her and pulled her back.

"We can defend ourselves better inside the cave," he said. "Look! The marines are landing. We just need to hold out a little longer."

King kept pulling Katyusha deeper into the cave. Laila joined them, walking backward, aiming her gun at the cave opening. Katyusha allowed herself to be dragged, putting up only nominal resistance.

"Katyusha is only retreating because you are pulling her!" she said. "She is not coward like you. Unhand Katyusha now, traitor to humanity!"

She gave a little shake, ostensibly trying to free herself. But not trying too hard.

About a hundred meters deep, they found two thick stalagmites. Laila knelt behind one, gun in hand. King took cover behind the other stone column, pulling Katyusha with him.

"Let go, capitalist pig!" she said.

King finally released her. But he noticed she stayed behind the stalagmite.

They crouched there under cover, waiting.

They could hear the arachtaurs. A distant clatter. A hiss on the wind. Thousands of spider legs were racing across the mountainside. The cave shook and dust rained from the ceiling. Any moment now, King knew, they would break into the cave. He kept his finger on the trigger, peering around the stalagmite, waiting.

For a second or two—silence.

The pattering claws, the raspy breath, the calls for blood—they died.

Nothing but silence.

King didn't even dare breathe.

And then the first arachtaur burst into the cave and came racing down the tunnel.

* * * * *

Leaning around the stalagmite, King fired his handgun. A bullet hit the creature. But the arachtaur kept running. It was a big male, a brute with skin the color of waterlogged corpses. His bloodshot eyes bugged out from a bloated face, and his cry of hunger echoed through the tunnel. King fired again and again. Bullets drove into the beefy torso, and Katyusha and Laila were firing too, and still the creature ran. It was only a few steps away when a bullet hit one of those red eyes, and finally the creature fell.

Katyusha laughed. "That one was my bullet!"

More arachtaurs entered the cave. Three of them this time. Three females, their hair golden, their skin the color of old parchment. Triplets with yellow eyes. They were smaller than the male but faster. Two scuttled along the walls, and one came running across the ceiling.

"Why don't they just bomb the caves?" Laila said, firing from around her stalagmite.

"They want us alive," King muttered.

"They will never catch Katyusha alive," the premier vowed. And amazingly, her voice shook. And her face was pale.

Oh, even if you do die, you probably have a clone stashed somewhere, King thought, but he said nothing. He was too busy firing at the triplets. His bullets knocked one off the wall, but the hideous hybrid bounced back up and kept racing, her eight legs tearing into the stone floor. King finally shot out her throat. She crashed down, slid, and slammed into the stalagmite. The rock formation cracked, tilted, and fell over.

Laila had managed to slay a second arachtaur. But the third triplet, the one on the ceiling, reached them. They all fired, but the bullets did not faze the beast. With a deafening shriek, the arachtaur landed on them.

Her claws lashed, shattering stones. One claw sliced Laila's arm, and blood splattered the wall. The arachtaur sniffed the blood, grinned, and leaped onto Laila for more. The queen fell, kicking and screaming.

King dared not shoot. He risked hitting Laila. Instead, he grabbed the arachtaur with his prosthetic hand. His metal fist tightened, the fingers digging into the arachtaur's flesh. He pulled her back from Laila, tossed the hybrid onto the ground, then stepped down hard, crushing the creature's grin under his boot. Teeth clattered across the floor. King kept stomping, snapping the jaw, cracking the eye sockets, finally shattering the skull.

Katyusha gasped, eyes wide, then grinned. "Oh, Jamechka! That was absolutely disgusting. Katyusha is impressed!"

King helped Laila back up. "You okay?"

The young queen nodded. "Yes. But I'm low on ammo. And more are coming."

* * * * *

King saw them.

Several big males this time, all carrying spears. Perhaps they did not want the humans alive after all. And the stalagmite King had taken cover behind had cracked and fallen.

"Fall back!" he said to Katyusha and Laila. "Deeper into the cave. We need better cover."

Firing their handguns, they walked backward, retreating down the tunnel into the depths. King loaded another magazine, his second to last. Pretty soon he'd be fighting with his metal fist alone.

One of the chasing arachtaurs paused, raised his front legs, and exposed spinnerets. He fired a web.

King lifted a heavy stone from the ground and hurled it. The web hit the stone, wrapped around it, and crashed onto the tunnel floor.

"Paper beats rock," Laila said.

They kept retreating. Finally the three companions returned to the towering cavern where they had held their meeting. The stalagmites and stalagmites rose everywhere, gleaming in the lamplight. The bridge spanned the pit where the rover had fallen two centuries ago. This was a tomb for an early explorer of Mars, an ancestor of androids like Mimori. King just hoped it wouldn't become his tomb too.

They were just stepping onto the bridge when the arachtaurs burst into the cavern.

Dozens of them. They bubbled out of the tunnel like cockroaches from a drain.

King fired a few more rounds, slaying another arachtaur, then released the magazine.

"That's it. I'm out of ammo." He raised his metal fist.

"Same," said Katyusha. She tossed her empty gun aside in disgust. It clattered off the bridge and vanished into the pit.

"I still have one bullet," Laila said. She fired, hitting an arachtaur in the head. It fell from the ceiling, impaling itself on a stalagmite. "Well, now I'm out too."

More arachtaurs kept coming. The first few arachtaurs made it onto the bridge. A few arachtaurs slung webs. One sticky strand caught Katyusha's arm. She yowled, drew a knife, and slashed at the webbing. She shook her arm, but strands of the cobweb still clung to her.

As Katyusha was struggling like a kitten trapped in yarn, King widened his stance, facing the beasts.

There were plenty of arachtaurs here. But only one bridge. The aliens must fight him one at a time. Maybe, just maybe, King could fight them long enough for the Freedom Brigade to arrive and save them.

"Keep behind me," he told his companions. He flexed his metal fingers. "I'll take care of them."

Laila raised her own small fists, but King doubted they'd do any good against the arachtaurs. Meanwhile, his prosthetic fist could punch through a brick wall.

The first arachtaur reached them, leaping toward the humans.

King swung his fist. The metal gauntlet connected with the arachtaur's jaw, spinning the beast's head around. The hybrid tumbled off the bridge, dead before the darkness even swallowed it.

Another arachtaur came running.

"This is hopeless!" Katyusha cried. "Goodbye, James King. Goodbye, Cleopatra."

She tied strands of cobwebs around the railing. Then, with a wink, she leaped off the bridge. She vanished into the darkness, clinging to the webbing like a Bungee jumper.

"I thought you were a warrior, Katyusha!" Laila cried over the railing. "Now you flee from battle?"

King didn't have time to shout into the pit. Another arachtaur lunged at him. He crushed another skull. Blood and bits of skin covered his gauntlet. Laila knelt by the corpse. A javelin hung across the dead arachtaur's back. Laila wrenched it free and hefted the weapon.

"It's no gun, but it'll do," she said.

A third arachtaur scuttled along the bridge, a massive female, easily eight feet tall. Her arachnid abdomen was bloated and purple, while her human half was the color of bleached bones. She raced toward King, a spider goddess, her claws like shards of starlight, and her eyes were black holes.

King swung his metal fist, but he could not reach her face. She slashed claws like katanas, and King parried with his gauntlet. The impact drove pain up his arm, and he fell to his knees.

The enormous arachtaur rose above him, her grin full of fangs, and her saliva dripped onto him.

"You will scream so beautifully for me," she hissed.

Laila was shouting, thrusting her javelin at the creature, but the arachtaur kept slapping the weapon aside. The giant hybrid grabbed King with her front claws, lifted him overhead, and began turning him like a roasting ham. With every spin, she wrapped him with cobwebs. She was trussing him up. Cocooning him like a fly in a web. He struggled, ripping off webs with his metal fingers. But the cobwebs stuck to the metal. And she kept spinning him, wrapping him up.

Motors hummed.

Headlights pierced the shadows.

A little horn honked.

It was impossible. King must be hallucinating. The arachtaurs could cause hallucinations with their pheromones. Apparently the MindLink update which was supposed to prevent them was malfunctioning. Because out of the darkness rose the long-lost rover. Its treadmill tracks clasped the cave wall, clinging to bumps and cracks. The vehicle emerged from the pit, drove along a ledge of stone, and came rumbling toward the bridge.

And Katyusha was riding it.

"For the glory of the Red Dawn!" the premier cried, tooting her horn.

Riding the rover like some medieval knight, Katyusha charged across the bridge and rammed into the towering pale arachtaur.

The creature stumbled, screamed, and dropped King onto the bridge. Forgetting the cocooned admiral, the arachtaur raised her claws over the rover. Her jaws opened in fury.

"Get off that machine, you little human vermin!" the beast screeched.

Smiling crookedly, Katyusha kept driving. The rover rammed into the arachtaur again, snapping her front legs. The arachtaur howled. Katyusha drove onward, shoving the creature back a step, another step, then finally shoving her off the bridge.

Her broken legs flailing, the hideous hybrid vanished into the depths.

King struggled to his feet, ripping off the cobwebs.

"How is this possible?" Laila whispered. "How is the rover still working?"

Katyusha spun the rover around to face the remaining arachtaurs. Her eyes narrowed, and her upper lip rose in a snarl. The premier was ready for battle again. "Katyusha always carries around extra batteries. This American machine is weak compared to Russian tanks. But Katyusha is strong. She will win! For the Red Dawn—charge!"

She drove the rover along the bridge and plowed into a sea of arachtaurs.

King cracked his neck. "Well, this is the best chance we'll get."

He raised his metal fist and ran to battle.

Laila gave a battle cry and ran too, javelin in hand.

On a narrow ledge of stone, trapped between bridge and tunnel, they clashed. King grabbed one arachtaur and hurled it into a pit. Laila stabbed one in the chest. Katyusha ran over several before the others shot webs, grabbed her, and pulled her off the rover. Three arachtaurs leaped onto King, knocking him down. He tilted over the ledge. The creatures drooled above him, faces twisted with hunger.

Roars sounded in the tunnel, and feet pounded.

Human roars.

Human feet.

Bullets sang and plasma bolts lit the shadows.

The Freedom Brigade burst into the cave.

* * * * *

Relief flowed over King.

The Freebies were here.

Everything would be okay.

Plasma bolts slammed into the three arachtaurs kneeling over King, knocking them off. The corpses collapsed, smoldering.

King shoved himself up, brushing white-hot droplets of plasma off his armored spacesuit. Bastian stood before him, wearing a battlesuit, holding a smoking rifle.

"Be careful!" King snapped. "You almost shot me."

Bastian rolled his eyes. "A thank-you might be nice."

An arachtaur loomed behind the burly marine. King knelt, grabbed a fallen javelin, and hurled it. The spear impaled the arachtaur, knocking it back. Bastian looked behind him, saw the corpse fall, then looked at King again.

"There, that's my thanks," King growled.

"Oh, real nice, Dad." Bastian shot another arachtaur.

"What do you want, a hug? Give me a gun instead."

Bastian passed him his sidearm. "A note of appreciation would be nice once in a while. You know, when I save you from certain death maybe?"

Father and son stood side by side, firing on the arachtaurs.

"Fine." King shot another arachtaur, hitting the creature in the neck. "Thank you. I appreciate you. Now please don't fire plasma bolts so close to me again."

A squad of marines was there with them, smiting the arachtaurs. Then more soldiers joined them—these ones Chinese troops in Red Raider suits. It didn't take long and the cave belonged to humanity.

The last arachtaur fell, twitching, bullets in its chest.

King leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. He winced with pain. The cave spun around him. "I'm too old for this."

Katyusha walked toward him, brushing dust off her legs. "Katyusha must admit. You not too bad a warrior. For an old man."

King took a few more ragged breaths. "You're not too bad yourself. For an old woman."

She snorted dismissively. "Old? Please. Katyusha is in the bloom of her youth."

"Only because you keep implanting your brain into clones," he muttered.

Katyusha was silent for a moment, gazing down into the pit, lost in thought. Then she looked back at King, stepped closer, and stared into his eyes.

"Forty years ago, James King, Katyusha killed your papa in battle on this planet. And Katyusha gave you this." She traced her finger across his neck. "Today we are back on Mars, the two of us. And today Katyusha saved your life. We are … How you say in American? Square."

He glared at her, and the wound on his neck hurt again. And the wound on his heart hurt even more. "You think you can absolve yourself with an old rover? You killed my father."

"Katyusha took the life of one King. She saved the life of another. Any wrong Katyusha has done to you—it is equalized." She tapped the equal sign engraved onto her spacesuit, symbol of her ideology. "That is equalism, James King. It is not the evil you think it is. It is not communism or fascism or tyranny. It is the paying of debts, and it is the righting of wrongs. We are now equalized."

She turned and walked away, leaving him leaning against the wall. And now it was King's turn to gaze into the pit, lost in his own thoughts.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A handful of ships gathered above Mars, prepared for the most dangerous military mission in human history.

The FAS Freedom hovered in the center. Cables ran from her to several nearby frigates. She would need to suck on the power of several starships when opening the portal to Achernar. The portal generator was idle now, but on King's order, it would begin to spin around the prow, weaving spacetime into a funnel, and open the path to battle.

Very soon Freedom would fly to the center of the Arakavish empire—and stab its blackened, pulsing heart.

The Aeolians had completed their repairs on the Fist of Freedom. The railgun pointed the way. A gun the size of a skyscraper. A doomsday weapon. With this fabled weapon, King would destroy one of Elder'rah's energy cables. It wouldn't topple the empire. But it would hurt Elder'rah. It would hurt her pride. For the first time, after years of devastating war, humanity would move from defense to offense.

You will learn, Elder'rah, that you cannot mess with Earth and go unpunished, King thought.

Two other great starships flanked the Freedom, prepared for the mission.

The RDS Baba Yaga hovered off Freedom's port beam. Flagship of the Red Dawn, she was a mechanical terror. Engravings of snarling bears and coiling dragons adorned her hull, and her brass cannons thrust from her sides like centipede legs. She was as big as the Freedom, a mile long, and just as mean. The Aeolians had fixed her too, and now Baba Yaga was fiercer than ever.

Katyusha sent King a telepathic message from the ship.

"Zdravstvuyte, Jamechka! Are you ready to fight? Maybe Katyusha can save your life again."

He caught a glimpse of the inside of her dreadnought. Katyusha was sitting on a golden throne atop a crimson dais, her legs slung across an armrest, a goblet in her hand. The deck looked like a cathedral. Guards in red and gold stood in neat lines, and frescoes sprawled across the vaulted ceiling, depicting legendary battles. Katyusha blew him a kiss and winked.

It would be Katyusha's job to cover King while he blew up the energy cable. And he had a feeling she'd be insufferable about it.

King shoved away her hallucination. He looked at the starboard monitor. The Dune, flagship of the Desert Thorns, hovered there. She was only a quarter of Freedom's size. But she was still a powerful frigate, graceful and agile. Her hull was shaped like an old sailing ship, painted white and gold, the colors of the Desert Thorns.

Queen Laila sent him a telepathic message. She wore a military uniform in the same colors as her ship: white trousers, white shirt, golden aiguillettes and pauldrons.

"I'm ready, Admiral King," she said. "May the God of Abraham bless you."

"May we all be blessed," King said.

Their escorts flew up to join them. Each flagship brought ten smaller warships for security. They were small corvettes. Each was under a hundred meters long and carried fewer than a hundred spacers. It was as big a fleet as they could muster. Once Freedom opened a portal, it would not remain open for long. They simply didn't have the energy to transport a larger force. But the three flagships were like mobile armies, and the corvettes were fast and deadly. It should be enough for a single, fast, ruthless strike.

King hoped so at least. If not, humanity would lose its three flagships. And would likely lose the war.

The countdown began.

Ten minutes to the portal opening.

Ten minutes to one of the most pivotal moments in human history.

His crew came to stand at his side. Jordan, tall and dependable. Spitfire, young and eager. Mimori, the soul of the ship. Ten thousand others across the Freedom. His family.

"If we win this war, it won't be because our weapons are mightier," King said. "But because we are braver. Because we believe in our cause. And I believe in you all. Godspeed, children of Earth."

Energy flowed into the Freedom from the nearby frigates.

The portal generator began to spin. The Freedom thrummed, sucking up energy from the other ships.

A portal formed in space. The largest, most solid portal Freedom had ever generated. A sphere of molten darkness streaked with starlight.

Kim's avatar materialized beside him. The sooty scent of the engineering department clung to her coveralls. "Portal is fully formed!" the engineer announced. "I gave it all the energy I could. It will remain open for thirty-two minutes, then implode. You have just over half an hour."

King nodded. "Thank you, Kim." He turned toward Mimori. "Fly us through."

"Aye, sir, flying us through," the android replied.

Thuds sounded across the hull as cables detached, unplugging Freedom from the ships she had tapped for extra energy. The Freedom's engine hummed. She moved forward.

King braced himself.

The Freedom's railgun slid into the portal. And suddenly the rails looked like spaghetti, coiling and wobbling. Then the prow entered the portal, and warped spacetime flowed over the bridge. Mimori suddenly looked like a twentieth-century robot, complete with coiling antennae and clamp-like hands. Darjeeling, standing near the door, shrank into a squat little dwarf, some fantasy creature who guarded the gates of a fairy castle. A few disembodied eyes, plucked from their smudging faces, floated in the air, blinking and looking around confusedly. Spitfire, oddly, became a young girl, drowning in her adult-sized uniform.

Then they were through the portal. Space and time straightened again. Everything snapped back into place.

King stared through the viewport, and the reality he found was no less terrifying.

They were at Achernar.

* * * * *

King saw the same view from Emily's videos.

Achernar A shone ahead, a spinning blue star, thousands of times brighter than the sun. It spun so fast it flattened itself like clay pounded down on a potter's wheel. Achernar B, the smaller star in the system, shone nearby, a ball of crackling white plasma enclosed within an iron cage. The cables spread out from that cage, heading to planets and space stations. From here, they looked as slender as cobwebs. But those cables were as wide as Earth.

Countless clawships were here.

Thousands. Maybe millions. They flew around planets. They raced to and fro along invisible lanes. They orbited the blue star like moths around a flame. In the distance, King could see Arakavish, homeworld of the rahs. Or rather—he could see the swarm of clawships that orbited it, as thick as bees around their hive. They were so thick he could barely see the planet itself.

King had seen these images before on video. But seeing this in real life, right here before him—it chilled him to the bone. It was surreal. Impossible. Such a place could not exist. Yet there it was before him.

"Mimori," King said softly. "Release one of our new stealth ATLAS probes. The one with a portal communicator."

Kim Fletcher had invented them only last week. Traditionally, ATLAS probes were simply orbs, about the size of a pumpkin, with sensors and antennae. They delivered telemetry information back to the Freedom via old-fashioned radio waves. Across interstellar distances, radio waves were impractical; they only moved at the speed of light. The new prototype contained a tiny portal, no larger than a needle's eye, inside its shell. With this portal, it could deliver information to Freedom instantly. A stealthy shell, similar to the plates that covered the Raven, hid the sensor from prying eyes.

Until now, portals could not be kept under a stealth cloak. Stealthy portal generators were a new invention, fresh off the engineering deck. King planned to roll out this new technology to the Raven, all his probes, eventually all his Eagles and Rhinos too. At wartime, technology galloped. One year of war could generate a century of technological innovation. It was ironic that from such destruction and loss could spring new invention and creativity.

"Launching probe now, sir," Mimori said.

King watched the probe fly out. At once, it began sending Freedom data via portal, updating its location for the viewports to display. Any other ship would see nothing at all. To everyone but Freedom, the probe was invisible.

But the Freedom herself was not stealthy. And a few clawships noticed her emerging from the portal.

Their blades dilated, revealing the blazing red eyes in their centers. And they came charging at Freedom.

King had hoped to emerge closer to one of the cables. But the cage spun around the star. The cables' tether points were always orbiting, moving the cables around Achernar B like ribbons around a maypole. They had not known the speed of orbit. And they had emerged too far.

The clawships came flying closer. Hundreds of them. Soon it would be thousands.

King stared at the distant cable.

"Sir, should we fire the Fist of Freedom?" Mimori said.

King shook his head. "We're too far. Too damn far! They would intercept the Goliath projectile. We must get closer."

Alarms began to wail. The enemy was getting close.

Behind Freedom, more ships were emerging from the portal. Ten Alliance corvettes positioned themselves around Freedom. Where the hell was Katyusha? Dammit! King would skin her alive. He couldn't wait any longer.

"Charge!" King cried. "Alliance ships—fly through the enemy! Full speed ahead!"

The Freedom's exhaust ports flared as blue and bright as Achernar A. The ship charged into the enemy lines, cannons booming.

And the enemy was everywhere. Their plasma washed over Freedom's force field. Their blades slashed her hull, showering sparks. Explosions flared all around but Freedom kept charging. Her guns kept firing, knocking clawships back, carving a path. Her railgun rammed into a warclaw, tearing her open, scattering her remains across space. The bridge rattled. The shield warped. Damage reports came flooding in.

But Freedom kept flying. Full speed ahead.

The corvettes flew at her sides, cannons booming.

A corvette exploded. Then another.

And then cannons roared overhead, and clawships exploded, and the Baba Yaga was soaring above the Freedom, her engines bathing space with showers of golden light. Around her flew her smaller warships, hungry little dragons with sharp teeth and flaming breath. Katyusha laughed as she charged into the sea of enemies.

"Forward, comrades! Smite the enemy for the glory of the Red Dawn! Onward! Fear no evil! Charge!"

The Desert Thorns remained behind to guard the portal. King could barely spare them a glance. He prayed their defenses held. Humans had only one portal generator large enough for a fleet. And it was mounted on Freedom's prow, flying into the flame. If the portal behind them collapsed, that was it. Nobody back home could open another one. They were dead.

They had to move fast.

Thankfully, they had caught the enemy by surprise. Hundreds of clawships were assaulting them. But millions of the spiky warships flew in this system. It would take them time to reach the battle. King hoped to be long gone by then.

Another corvette exploded off their port bow.

Fifty lives—gone dark.

A plasma bolt hit the Freedom's underbelly, jolting the ship, breaching into one deck. But they kept flying.

A clawship charged right at them, intending to slam into their prow. A blast from the Pandora, Emily's cannon, knocked the ship aside. The Freedom plowed through her smoldering remains.

And there ahead, King saw it. A metal highway stretching across the heavens. The energy cable.

* * * * *

For a moment, King stared at the cable, trying to comprehend what he saw.

It seemed like several "lanes" stretched along this space highway. In each lane, blobs were racing back and forth. Some blobs glowed, full of energy, heading away from the star toward a distant planet or station. Other lanes ran back toward the star. Empty blobs rolled along, heading back home for replenishing.

Or maybe a highway was the wrong analogy, King thought. It was like a giant artery, the blobs were like blood cells, and the star was the heart.

And vampires had come to feed.

King recognized them from Emily's videos. The giant squids. Their bodies were giant rings—so large the Freedom could fly through them like a trained seal through a Hula-Hoop. From each ring extended a corona of metallic tentacles. Several squids had attached themselves to the cable. They were sucking up energy. The glowing blobs flowed into them, filling their ringed bodies.

King knew they were portal generators. Just machines. But they looked so organic he couldn't help but think of them as squids.

The human fleet was almost at the cable now. Almost ready to fire the Fist of Freedom and—

"Swarms of spiderwings coming in fast!" Mimori cried.

King saw them on the monitor. Thousands of the little vessels schooled through space, racing toward the human fleet. Arachtaur starfighters. Each fired streams of white plasma bolts from their eight legs. On its own, each spiderwing didn't pose a threat. Combined, they could take down a dreadnought.

"Freedom's Flock—launch and destroy them!" King said.

The Eagles raced from the airlocks into the enemy fire. Two Eagles exploded right out the gates. Their mangled remains banged against Freedom's hull. The airlocks weren't even closed yet. The other Eagles soared, dodging enemy fire, and charged at the incoming spiderwings.

Spitfire was already running toward the bridge door.

"Spitfire, not you!" King said.

"But—"

"You're staying on the bridge!" King growled. She was a bridge officer, dammit. And a lieutenant commander. He couldn't have her running off for every starfighter battle.

Spitfire fumed but returned to her post.

Another Eagle shattered. And another. More pilots—gone. But the Flock was doing its job. Its missiles were pounding the spiderwings. Squadrons of Eagles crashed into spiderwing formations, scattering them, hunting them across space. The Baba Yaga opened her airlocks, expelling clouds of Sickle starfighters.

King had spent the Third World War in the cockpit of an Eagle, fighting the Sickles. He knew how deadly they were. The Eagles and Sickles, once bitter enemies, now fought side by side. They cleared a path forward. And the Freedom kept charging.

The energy cable rose ahead like a metal rainbow.

They were close enough.

"Mimori! Slow us down and bring us into position to fire. Katyusha! Cover me!"

Thousands of enemy clawships still flew all around. In the distance, King saw the larger, deadlier arachships flying closer. They would be here in moments. Blasts of plasma washed over his shields. Some of the plasma made it through the force field. The Freedom jolted. Armored plates on the stern melted.

The graviton thrusters hummed as Mimori slowed the dreadnought. The ship pitched upward, raising the railgun toward that enormous cable. The Freedom seemed no larger than a mouse approaching a highway. The MAG cannons, the Angels of Liberty, the starfighters with their missiles—none of them would hurt this megastructure.

But the Fist of Freedom would.

The last few Alliance corvettes were spinning around Freedom. Katyusha and her ships hovered all around, pounding the clawships, giving King time. The Baba Yaga was truly a terror to behold. The dreadnought moved with surprising agility for a ship so large. Her starboard and port cannons fired broadside after broadside, smashing clawships. The particle beam on her prow seared through enemy shields, peeling them away, then driving through the iron hulls.

But King could only spare that battle a glance. He was focused on his target. The cable ahead.

"Mimori, aim the Fist of Freedom."

The android nodded. "Locked on target, sir."

King nodded. They only got one shot at this.

"Mimori, fire the—"

Proximity alerts howled.

A metal tentacle, longer than the Freedom, arched through space and slapped the dreadnought.

Freedom tumbled.

Another tentacle lashed out. But this one didn't smack the Freedom. It wrapped around the ship and squeezed.

"One of the squids!" Jordan cried.

"Where the hell did it come from?" King shouted.

"It must have portaled in!" Jordan said. "After all, it's a portal generating machine."

Another tentacle wrapped around them. This strange machine was larger than the Freedom and squeezing tight. It was like a kraken from old Earth legends crushing a sailing ship.

The gunners were aiming their cannons.

"Angels of Liberty, hold your fire!" King shouted. If the Maccabee torpedoes hit the squid this close, the explosions would splash back onto Freedom, possibly ripping her hull open.

"Holding fire!" came Emily's voice from a gunnery station. King caught a brief hallucination of her. The young queen was inside her mecha, ready to load a new torpedo.

"Point-defense system, shoot it down!" King said.

A hundred machine-gun nests hid across the Freedom's hull. They now emerged from their shells like hatching reptiles and opened fire. Bullets flew into the squid.

The enormous machine roared and flailed like an enraged animal. The squid swung a tentacle, scraping it across Freedom's hull like a razor blade, shaving off machine guns. It wrapped another tentacle around Freedom's prow, squeezing harder. The hull creaked and dented. Air fled through cracks.

"Hull breach!" a bridge officer cried.

"Sealing starboard cabins in decks 13 to 17!"

"Shoot it off us, dammit!" King shouted.

"We can't, sir!" a tactical officer replied. "It's tearing off our guns!"

The bridge rattled. A bulkhead bulged. A monitor shattered.

"We have to fire the Angels!" Spitfire said.

"We can't or we'll blow ourselves up with the squid!" King said.

"Freedom's Flock, where are you?" Spitfire shouted into a comlink.

"Trying to make our way over!" Pickles cried from his cockpit. "A lot of enemies out here and—" He screamed and his voice died.

"Katyusha, where are you?" King shouted, sending her a MindLink call. "You're supposed to be watching our back, dammit."

But the Russian premier was laughing maniacally, charging in Baba Yaga into a cloud of clawships. She was shouting something about eternal glory as around her the Red Dawn anthem played. King didn't even think she noticed the Freedom's plight. Damn the woman to hell!

The squid tightened its grip on Freedom. It pulled the dreadnought closer, closer, and pressed its enormous ringed body against Freedom's dented hull.

For a moment, the mechanical kraken stopped shaking the dreadnought. Freedom hung in its grip. The squid almost seemed to be cradling the ship.

"What the hell is it doing?" Spitfire whispered.

Then the squid squeezed them even tighter … and began to feed.

Across the bridge monitors, energy counters dropped bar by bar. The lights dimmed. Machinery moaned. There was always background noise on the ship—rumbling engines, humming computers, a million mechanical parts singing together. Now that eternal song became fainter, fainter.

"What the hell?" King said.

Mimori blinked. She stared at her monitor in disbelief, then up at King. "It's sucking our energy."

"Like a vampire sucking blood," Jordan said.

Off their starboard beam, another corvette burned. Fifty-three more spacers. Gone.

A Red Dawn warship exploded, scattering shrapnel across space.

Thousands of clawships were racing in. And Freedom was trapped in the grip of this beast.

"It likes energy, does it?" King muttered. He got on MindLink. "Colonel Fletcher!"

A hallucination of Kim appeared on the bridge. She was kneeling, covered in soot, her face ashy. She held a welding torch. "Sir! We've suffered heavy damage to the stern, and—"

"Kim, listen to me. Flood starboard deck 13 with electricity. Overload the system. Blow out every socket. I want a lightning storm in there."

Her eyes widened. "That would fry everyone in those cabins."

"Those cabins have already been breached to space," King said. "If anyone is in there, they're dead. Now flood 'em!"

"Yes, sir!"

King looked at his crew. "Brace yourselves."

For a moment, nothing happened. The squid kept sucking, sucking, draining them of energy. The power charts dropped another bar.

And then it happened.

King's hackles rose. The hairs stood up across his good arm. His teeth ached. Across the bridge, people winced. The monitors flickered. Massive amounts of electricity were pumping out of the reactor, flowing into the breached decks like a thousand serpents of lightning.

The squid recoiled with a shriek.

Its tentacles released the ship. It retreated in shock—literally.

"Angels—fire!" King shouted.

The starboard Angels of Liberty aimed at the crackling squid.

Maccabee torpedoes slammed into it.

The glowing ring shattered.

The squid was carrying a lot of energy. Now that energy flared in a massive explosion. The Freedom's shields groaned. The hull expanded in the heat and cracked. The dreadnought rocked backward in space. Nearby clawships melted.

"We're free!" King said. "Mimori, aim the Fist of Freedom at the cable again and fire!"

"Sir?" the android said. "We can't. Our energy levels are too low. We don't have enough power to fire the Fist."

King felt as if spacetime were twisting around him again.

The Fist of Freedom—drained.

The only weapon that could destroy the cable—out of order.

Off the port bow, another one of his corvettes ripped apart, scattering debris and bodies.

The clawships were closing in all around, blocking escape.

A chill flooded King.

* * * * *

King forced down the panic.

"Jordan. Spitfire. Mimori. Give me options."

They looked at him. Jordan's eyes were dark. Mimori's eyes flashed with lines of code. Spitfire chewed her lip. The bridge crew's tactical officers were engaged in battle while the senior commanders talked.

"We fire every Maccabee we can at the cable," Jordan said. "We might detonate the energy reserves inside. The explosion might be enough to rip the cable."

"Mimori?" King said.

The lines of code sped up, racing across her eyeballs. "I'm not sure. I don't think it'll be enough. Maccabees are powerful torpedoes. And we can detonate some of those energy blobs. But even the most optimistic simulations don't generate enough explosive energy to rip the cable. We'll leave a big crater though."

"Not good enough," King said. "What about the Baba Yaga's particle beam? I've seen it carve through clawship hulls."

More numbers flashed across Mimori's eyes. "I don't have the exact specs, but judging from what we know about Red Dawn capabilities, the particle beam will cut a hundred klicks into the cable."

"How thick is that cable?" King asked.

"Ten thousand klicks, sir."

"The Baba Yaga would barely scratch it," Jordan said.

King pursed his lips. There was only one choice now, he knew.

"We fall back," he said. "We lost this one."

"Sir, wait." Spitfire grabbed his arm. "There's a way. The antimatter missile."

"No," King said.

"It'll work!" Spitfire insisted.

"And it could wipe out the Freedom along with that cable!" King said.

The Freedom carried a single antimatter missile deep inside her armory. Just one. A doomsday weapon.

King had seen the Churchill use antimatter missiles over Earth. They had destroyed many enemy ships, yes. But the fallout had wiped out several human starships—and chunks of Earth's surface.

Mimori ran more calculations. "Spitfire is right, sir. The antimatter missile will likely snap the cable in half."

"And if any fallout reaches the Freedom—or our other ships—we'll blink out of existence."

"So we'll fire it from afar," Spitfire said.

"And have the enemy intercept it? And have the fallout wash over us?" King said. "Too dangerous. We'll fall back, charge the Fist, and—"

"I'll do it," Spitfire said. "Yael's Nail, my starfighter, is still in the hangar. I'll mount the missile onto the wing. I'll fly out. I'll zip around the enemy. And I'll blow that cable to hell."

She looked at him, panting, eyes pleading. Jordan and Mimori looked at him too.

"It might work," Jordan said softly. "It's crazy, but it might work. It's your choice, Jim."

"There isn't time," King said. "You'll barely be in your starfighter before the portal starts closing."

"I can do it," Spitfire whispered.

King looked at her. How could he send her into such danger? How could he risk her life? She was his little Gal. The daughter of his fallen friend. A girl who was like a daughter to him.

No. Not a girl. A woman. A warrior. An officer.

King nodded.

"Get down to the hangar. I'll have Timori bring the missile up. Run."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Spitfire raced through the Freedom, arms pumping, heart pounding.

Every few steps, the ship shook as blasts hit the shields. Spitfire knew the Freedom wouldn't take much more punishment. She willed her legs to move faster, faster.

"Outta my way, outta my way!"

In the twisting corridors, soldiers stepped out of her way. When they didn't, she shoved them back. Sweating, panting, she made it to the elevator in record time.

The elevator moved down frustratingly slow. Whenever it stopped at a deck for some junior officer, Spitfire almost screamed. Dammit, they needed to install some deck-to-deck portals!

Finally—after a torturous eternity—she burst into the hangar bay.

Timori, the logistics android, was already there. She was carrying the antimatter missile. It was larger than her, but the android was freakishly strong.

"Clip it onto the port wing, front position!" Spitfire cried, boots thumping across the deck. A blast hit the Freedom's dorsal hull, and the hangar bay shook and tilted. The shock wave reverberated under Spitfire's feet, but she kept running.

She reached Yael's Nail, her scarred and dented Eagle, and scrambled into the cockpit.

Timori clipped the missile into place.

Spitfire shoved down the throttle.

"Airlock—open!" cried the bay boss.

The airlock doors slid open.

Yael's Nail roared out into a hellscape of fire and destruction.

The battle was everywhere, a painting in red and gold and shattering grays. Spitfire couldn't even see the stars. Just the devastation of thousands of starships flying, firing, burning.

For a terrible moment, vertigo swept over Spitfire. Her heart pounded against her ribs. Darkness was closing in.

She tightened her hand on her joystick.

I am a starfighter. I am Spitfire. I am Yael's nail.

She flew.

A spiderwing charged at her, plasma bolts flying. Spitfire barrel-rolled, dodging the assault, and flew onward.

A clawship breathed its dragonfire, and she dived below the inferno, raced under a rain of fire, and shot past the bladed maw of the beast.

Clouds of human and alien starfighters battled ahead. Spitfire flew through their swarm, dodging attacks left and right. Two spiderwings flew at her, guns alight.

Spitfire gritted her teeth, zigzagging and rising and falling.

A plasma bolt hit her tail, tossing Yael's Nail into a tailspin. She yowled, struggling to steady her Eagle.

The spiderwings charged closer, some from ahead, one from above. For a terrible second, as her Eagle careened, Spitfire saw the face of an arachtaur inside one cockpit. Desiccated flesh. A lipless mouth and fangs like the teeth of some primordial beast of the seas.

Then its cockpit shattered.

The arachtaur tore apart.

An instant later, the second spiderwing exploded too.

An Eagle streaked overhead, and Pickles spoke in her mind. "I got ya covered, buddy! Go get 'em!"

Spitfire exhaled shakily. "Thanks, Picky."

"Just hurry, babe. Portal's about to close."

She flew over the cloud of debris, heading through the battle. The Baba Yaga was fighting ahead. Her corvettes had all fallen. The Red Dawn dreadnought was badly scarred, burnt, her hull crumpled in places. She was rolling like an alligator in shallow water, firing cannons every which way, holding the enemy back. Spitfire took a moment to marvel at Katyusha's mad courage—the woman was insane but truly a fantastic commander. Then Spitfire flew past the Russian dreadnought.

King's voice rose over the comlink. He was calling the Flock home. "Portal closing in two minutes! All birds come home to roost."

Even Baba Yaga was turning away from battle, heading back toward the portal.

Spitfire tightened her lips. She kept flying. Farther from the portal. Toward the cable.

And there ahead she saw it, stretching across space. A highway for gods. The energy cable. It was enormous. Towering. Stretching for trillions of kilometers. The blobs of energy raced along its thousand lanes, powering the empire. Spitfire felt smaller than an ant before an interstate.

In the Old Testament, Yael was a woman of valor. After seducing Sisera, she drove a tent peg into his temple, slaying him and delivering Israel. Spitfire had named her Eagle after that old heroine. And tonight she fired her own iron spike at her enemy.

The antimatter missile glided through space, almost slow, almost graceful.

A doomsday weapon.

The peg of a tent.

Deliverance.

The enemy didn't even bother trying to shoot it down. They did not know the horrors it contained.

As it flew closer to the massive highway among the stars, the missile shrank, becoming just a speck, a pixel in Spitfire's eye, than nothing at all. Too small to see. A microscopic terror like the first virus of a plague.

Then it hit the highway.

She could no longer see the missile. But she could see the terrible damage unfolding. The destruction of matter. The canceling out of reality.

At first it was just a little hole. Like a cigarette burning a hole through a sheet of paper.

Then the hole curled outward, burning and glowing on the edges, widening and widening. The entire cable bucked and dented. And the hole kept spreading. The most powerful blow from the Fist of Freedom could destroy an object down to its individual atoms. A nuclear bomb could rip atoms apart. This was worse. The antimatter was destroying the very subatomic particles. The spreading hole shone around the edges like a corona around an eclipse, like one of the squids that fed upon it. The blobs of energy, running along their lanes, tumbled into this terrible hole in reality—and exploded.

Light.

Inferno.

An undoing.

"Spitfire, get back here, dammit!" King said over MindWeb. "The portal is about to close!"

She barely heard them. She stared ahead in numb horror.

I drove a hole through the universe.

The explosion flared outward in white waves. A few clawships, who were hovering near the cable, tried to flee. The explosion washed over them, and they vanished. A metal kraken, one of the great parasites who was feeding on the cable, turned to escape. But the white undoing grabbed its tentacles, consuming them, then spread through the mechanical creature until nothing remained.

Flames were now racing across the cable from the center of the devastation. More and more blobs of energy exploded. A chain reaction was eating up the cable. It was like a burning serpent, twisting, flailing, unable to shake off the fire. The terrible vision transfixed Spitfire. She felt like Ezekiel gazing upon chariots of fire and spinning wheels. She must have stared for only a few seconds, but the ruin seemed to consume time itself.

She blinked, pulling herself back to reality.

Time to get outta Dodge.

She spun her Eagle around, shoved down the throttle, and raced forward.

Only then did she realize how far she had flown. The Freedom was just a speck in the distance. Thousands of clawships flew between her and her mothership. The portal home called to her, a dark beacon, a hole in the universe, impossibly far.

Everyone was there.

They were about to leave.

She was alone.

She glanced at the hopscotch lever in her starfighter, but hopscotch would only let her jump a hundred klicks at once, and each jump risked her life. She would need hundreds of hopscotches to reach the portal. She would not survive them. She had to fly the old-fashioned way.

She narrowed her eyes, flexed her fingers around her joystick, and flew.

The clawships charged at her. She zipped around them. A plasma bolt dented her hull. She steadied her Eagle and flew onward. She felt like a rabbit racing through a wolf pack.

Another bolt hit her starfighter.

She tumbled backward in space, her prow dented.

She gritted her teeth, shoved down the afterburner lever, and bolted forward.

She leaped over an enormous clawship larger than the Freedom, spun between its flaring spikes, and flew onward.

Pillars of fire rose everywhere. She swerved between them.

Behind her, the cable was still burning. The universe was splitting apart across a seam of flame and devastation.

Debris flew everywhere. Chunks of the cable flew through space, slamming into clawships and arachships, ripping through them. The cable was the size of a million planets, and they were falling apart.

She fled the inferno.

She was a girl fleeing Earth.

She was Gal Levy, a teenager with skinned knees and sun-bronzed skin, escaping tattered love.

She was Spitfire, a young stunt pilot, hiding in the darkness and drawing spirals of fire across space to blind her past.

She was a woman who barely knew her name, lost in bottles and cups, trying to drown the nightmares but only drowning herself.

Behind her the universe was falling apart, but perhaps that had always been her truth. Perhaps she had always been fleeing destruction.

"Spitfire!" King was saying. "Spitfire, the portal is about to close!"

She flew onward through the light and storm.

"Spitfire, we have to leave. We have to go."

Millions of clawships flew all around her, hiding space, closing in, a gauntlet of blades. The Baba Yaga had already left. So had the Dune. Light spun around the black sphere of the portal. It appeared like a great eye, a shrinking pupil within an iris of starlight. Only the Freedom remained, hovering aside the portal, a mote in the eye of God.

"Spitfire, we'll keep the portal open as long as possible. Spitfire, hurry, hurry …"

She could barely hear his voice. It distorted like a recorder with dying batteries. Ahead, she saw the Freedom flying into the portal, stretching out, then vanishing, leaving only an echo.

"We'll come back for you … back for you …"

A lie. She would not survive here.

She was alone.

The only human in Achernar.

She kept flying.

The portal was shrinking, twisting, imploding. She shoved the lever with a wordless cry, giving the Eagle another burst of speed. The clawships were everywhere. She rose above, around, below, between them, heading toward that shrinking pupil, that closing eye.

Behind her, the explosion was still flaring. The cable was burning across the star system. Waves of fire rose behind her, white and shimmering, a nebula, a typhoon, a wound in space bleeding light, storming closer. Winds buffeted her Eagle. Particles of antimatter filled the storm. The waves rolled over clawships, eating them up, melting their hulls.

She flew, a single starfighter fleeing the storm.

Antimatter dust, like spray from waves, landed on her stern.

The pollution began eating up the atoms of her Eagle with little pops of light, consuming the fins, the tail, the stern, the engine. She raced forward on momentum alone.

The last vestiges of the portal rose before her. Barely larger than a person now.

The Eagle was disintegrating around her.

Spitfire shoved a button, ejecting herself from whatever remained of Yael's Nail.

She tumbled through space, a lone woman in a spacesuit, as behind her the tidal wave of destruction washed over reality.

She flew through the portal.

She rolled into open space.

Mars shone below, a red crescent, and Freedom flew above.

She held out her arms and just floated, breathing deeply. A smile spread across her face, and the stars shone above, and they were beautiful. Voices were laughing in her ears, celebrating, cheering. The voices of her fellow pilots. Of her family.

"Whoo, Spitfire! That was amazing!" Snoopy cried.

"Spitfire, you kicked ass!" said Katana.

"Damn! One for the record books!" said Pickles.

She muted them, and she simply floated among the stars, taking deep breaths. She should have died out there. Died with the hundreds of spacers left in that void. The antimatter had consumed them, but Spitfire vowed to remember the fallen. To remember how close she had come to drowning. She had seen the terrible void where matter itself found annihilation, and she had seen the eye of God. And floating here among familiar constellations, she gazed toward a distant blue star, and she thought that it stared back.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

King was in the hangar when the Saint Bernard rescue shuttle brought Spitfire home.

The medics had flown out, pulled her into the Saint Bernard, and placed her on a litter. But as soon as the rescue shuttle docked, Spitfire was on her feet.

"I'm fine, I'm fine! Get away from me, leeches."

The medics were fussing over her, trying to check her vitals, to scan her for wounds. But she pushed them aside and marched across the deck—right toward King.

He pulled her into his arms, crushing her in his embrace.

"I'm proud of you, Spitfire," he whispered. "I'm so proud of you."

She wept, holding him, trembling like a child. Then she composed herself and smiled through her tears. "I was pretty amazing, wasn't I?"

"The most amazing pilot I've ever seen," he said.

"I heard that!" Pickles said, walking by.

King held Spitfire at arm's length. He looked into her eyes. "And your father is proud of you too. He's looking down at you now, Gal. And he's proud."

Fresh tears filled her eyes. She hugged him again. "You've been like a father to me since he died. I love you, sir."

King's MindLink chimed.

"Sir!"

It was Mimori, calling from the bridge. She materialized in the hangar bay before him.

"What is it?"

"Sir, we just received word from Earth. Portals are opening there."

King inhaled sharply. "Is Elder'rah streaming more forces to Earth? How many? Are they arachtaur ships or—"

"Sir, clawships are leaving Earth," Mimori said. "Not all of them. Only a few hundred."

King left the hangar at once, heading through the corridors toward the bridge. Spitfire hurried after him. Mimori's avatar hovered alongside like a ghost.

"Any word from our probe at Achernar?" King said.

"Not yet, sir. It's still operational and scanning the system. We'll have data soon."

King and Spitfire finally reached the bridge. The door sentry snapped to attention, and the two officers stepped into a flood of monitor light. Some monitors were streaming data from their position over Mars. Others showed the battle in Earth's orbit and on the surface. And one monitor was displaying a stream from Achernar.

A video from the probe.

Incredible, King thought. It was forty-three parsecs away. And they were getting a livestream. That was the power of portals. The rah invasion had nearly destroyed humanity. But the science humans were learning, the technology they were developing—it was already changing civilization. If they survived this war, they would grieve for the terrible loss, would mourn with a pain that would never heal. But humanity would also become a true interstellar species.

War is like a wildfire, he thought. It burns and kills and destroys. From the ashes the forest rises anew, stronger than before. Fire cannot burn deep roots. We will rise again.

He returned his attention to the video from the probe. It was grainy, but considering the distance, seeing anything at all was miraculous. Right now the probe was pointing at the cable Spitfire had destroyed. The flame was still spreading. The entire cable, which stretched between the caged star and a distant rocky planet, was burning up. Countless clawships were flying everywhere, bustling around like panicked ants after a boot stepped on their hive.

King frowned at the monitor. "Stream me a 360-degree view."

"Aye, sir."

The probe had cameras all around it, recording in every direction at once. Mimori streamed the full video to his MindLink. The bridge vanished around him. King hallucinated himself standing where the probe was. He could look side to side, up and down, seeing what the drone saw. He was still vaguely aware of himself standing aboard the Freedom's bridge. He felt his feet on the deck, heard the hum of machinery and conversation. But visually, he appeared to be floating in the Achernar system, a lone astronaut marooned in the void.

In many ways, he had a better view of Achernar now than when actually flying there. During the battle, there wasn't much time for sightseeing. But now he was a fly on the wall.

Millions of clawships flew all around. Surprisingly, he saw few arachships. Clearly the arachtaurs were still a minority in the Arakavish empire. Most of them were probably fighting at Earth right now, not hanging around their home system. After all, they had been genetically engineered specifically for the war at Earth. But King had seen how fast they could breed. Within a few years, they might outnumber the rahs.

Right now thousands of spiky round ships were hovering around the burning cable. Not clawships. Some kind of maintenance vessels, King thought. They began spraying the cable with webs, trying to stop the chain reaction of explosions. Squids were moving through space, tentacles propelling them onward as if they swam underwater. They were heading toward the other cables that flared out from the caged star. Unfortunately, the bastards still had many energy sources.

Still, we hurt them, King thought. We hurt them bad. Worse than they expected.

More and more clawships were moving toward planet Arakavish, thickening the already-substantial defenses around the planet. Elder'rah was nervous. Humans had just stomped on the hive, and the warrior ants were racing to protect the queen.

That's all you are, isn't it? he thought. Just bugs.

He looked at Mimori through the hallucinatory haze. "Any update on the portals around Earth?"

"Yes, sir," the android replied. "Another hundred clawships just left. There are still many thousands of clawships and arachships in Earth's orbit. But a substantial number departed."

King looked at the video again, especially at Arakavish. He narrowed his eyes. He zoomed in on the planet. The image was pixelated. At this distance, the probe couldn't generate a high-res video. The planet appeared like a featureless blob. Each clawship was just a pixel or two. They were all buzzing around their rocky planet.

A new pixel appeared.

Then another one. And then a bunch of them.

Clawships?

King zoomed in, but just then, the new pixels vanished behind the horizon as Arakavish rotated. King paused the video, rewound, and zoomed in as far as he could.

"There it is," he said. "A portal."

He rewound the video again, found a few more instances of new pixels appearing around Arakavish out of nowhere. More clawships.

He shut down the hallucination. The bridge reappeared around him, and the feed from Arakavish remained within a single monitor.

"Mimori, can you match the time stamp of each clawship appearing at Arakavish with clawships leaving Earth?"

"Aye, sir. We're missing some data from behind the planets, but from what ATLAS can detect, there is a nearly perfect match. Sir, we can confirm it. The clawships are leaving Earth and returning to Arakavish."

King looked at the monitors showing Earth. Even more clawships were departing to strengthen Arakavish's defenses.

Spitfire laughed. "They're retreating! Running away! We won!"

"No," King said. "Only the clawships are leaving. Just the rahs. The arachships remain."

The video showed the giant, spider-shaped dreadnoughts still orbiting Earth. The arachtaurs remained to fight.

King nodded. "Our plan succeeded. Elder'rah is pulling back troops to defend her system. This is the best chance we're gonna get. It's time to retake Earth."

Spitfire raised her fist. "To Earth! And to victory!"

"To the war room," King said. "The high command will meet. Let's come up with a plan first."

Spitfire sighed. "More meetings? I really prefer battle."

"So does everyone. Now come on."

* * * * *

The Freedom's war room was like a bunker. The thick bulkheads were designed to withstand a nuclear blast. A force field added another layer of security. Telepathic, electronic, and radio signals could not enter nor leave. The chamber was located in the heart of the ship. The Freedom would have to fly into a star for the war room to crack open. On the inside, it was austere, stark, functional. There was a long table. A few monitors. No guards. The topics discussed here were above the security clearance for any guard, indeed anyone other than the high command.

King held court, sitting at the front of the table. He had brought only a handful of senior officers with him. Lieutenant Command Gal "Spitfire" Levy sat at his right-hand side. After her recent promotion, she was third-in-command of the Freedom, and she had earned her spot here. Colonel Bastian King was here too. As commander of the Freedom Brigade, he would lead any ground or boarding operations in the battles ahead. Colonel Robby "Pickles" Cooper had come too. As commander of Freedom's Flock, he would enforce Freedom's superiority in space and air. Sergeant Major Oliver Darjeeling was in attendance as well. As the senior NCO aboard, he represented King's authority across the starship, and he needed to remain in the loop. Finally, Mimori was here, representing the Freedom herself.

A good team, King thought, looking at his senior commanders. The best damn team in the galaxy.

He only wished Jordan could have come, but somebody needed to man the bridge. Normally he'd give Spitfire a shift. But this hour felt tense. Attacks might come any second. And King wanted an experienced commander on the bridge. He would fill in his old friend as soon as the meeting ended.

Queen Laila had come too, along with several generals. She was here in the flesh. Not a hallucination. King didn't want to rely on telepathy or comlinks for this. Call him a technophobe, but these discussions were far too sensitive for good old talking. Even Stowy would have a hard time sneaking in; Darjeeling had recently installed fortified, Stowy-proof grates into the air ducts.

Laila and her retinue still wore their fine service uniforms, but soot stained the white fabric, and the golden tassels on the epaulets were charred. The battle at Achernar had only raged an hour ago, and the Dune had taken some direct hits. Several of the Desert Thorn generals were bandaged, and Laila had her arm in a sling.

"How are you feeling, Laila?" King said.

"Ready for more," she said.

A voice rose from outside, so loud it passed even through the thick walls. "Out of the way, guard! Do you not recognize the premier of the Red Dawn? Bow, bow before the conqueror!"

King heaved a sigh. "Looks like Katyusha finally showed up."

The guard opened the door, flustered, and gulped. He looked at King, sweat on his brow. "Sir, the premier of the—"

"He knows who Katyusha is!" Katyusha shoved the young man out of the way, strutted into the room, and slammed the door behind her.

"Good evening, Katyusha," Laila said politely, bowing her head.

"Hello, Cleopatra." The premier looked around her, frowning. "Where is the war room? Katyusha was promised a war room. She sees only waiting room."

King growled deep in his throat. "This is the war room."

Katyusha raised an eyebrow, then guffawed. "What? This is war room? Where is throne? Where are swords on walls? Where are statues of great warriors and paintings of legendary battles?" She shook her head. "You Alliance. No style! Might as well run a war from a gulag." She looked at Laila. "Cleopatra, you are a queen. You understand, yes? We need pizzazz!"

Spitfire leaned toward King and whispered, "She'd get along with Niles, that one."

"Exactly!" Katyusha said. "Cleopatra has wonderful palaces along the Niles."

"I'm Emeriti, remember?" Laila said. "And my name is La—"

"Yes, yes, Katyusha is bored already. Let's get to planning galactic conquest." She slumped into a chair, banged her boots against the tabletop, and began picking her teeth with a knife.

"Did you not bring any generals?" Laila asked the premier.

Katyusha waved her knife dismissively. "Katyusha can conquer galaxy by herself. She is greatest general. She only here to babysit you."

King glowered. "We're here to discuss saving Earth. Not conquering the galaxy."

The premier shrugged. "Baby steps. First the world, then the galaxy."

King activated the table. The tabletop crackled to life, displaying a map of Earth, Mars, and the starships around them. The planets hovered over the tabletop, along with the tiny starships orbiting them.

Katyusha nodded. "Ah, nice table! This is a little better. Still—could use some gold trimmings."

"As you've probably noticed, the clawships have left our solar system. Our mission to Achernar succeeded. The empress is afraid. And she's thickening the defenses around Arakavish."

Katyusha leaped onto the tabletop and raised her fist. "But it will not help her! Katyusha will lead the fleet to Arakavish, and smash through her defenses, and—"

"Katyusha, focus!" King said. "Earth, remember? We're talking about Earth."

The premier sat back down, her cheeks flushed. "Sorry, sorry. Katyusha gets excited when talking about conquest."

King cleared his throat. "The clawships might have left the system, taking the rahs with them. But the arachships are still here. And Earth is still swarming with arachtaurs. Their ships are deadlier. Their claws are sharper—and so are their minds. It will not be easy to defeat the arachtaurs occupying Earth. But this is the best chance we're going to get."

King zoomed in on Earth. The enemy ships around the planet grew. Largest among them was the Atrocity. The great dreadnought shaped like a skull.

"Our great challenge will be the Atrocity," King said. "Magog'rah, commander of the Arakavish Armada, is aboard that monster."

A hologram of the creature appeared beside the ship, hovering above the tabletop. Most arachtaurs had the lower body of a spider, the upper body of a human, which was bad enough. In Magog'rah's case, it was reversed. Lumpy, hard carapace covered his humanoid body. Eight red eyes blinked on his spider head, and his jaws dripped saliva. A shudder passed through the room.

Katyusha made a gagging noise. "Ugh, disgusting."

With a swipe of his hand, King deleted the floating avatar of Magog'rah. But the Atrocity still remained, hovering above the table, the size of a real human skull.

"We've bombarded this starship with all the firepower we have," King said. "Even the Fist of Freedom. And we could not break it."

Katyusha shrugged. "Antimatter. Same as Katyusha used to destroy Achernar bridge."

"Hey!" Spitfire said. "That was me."

Katyusha mussed her hair. "Aww, so sweet of you to come to Papa's meeting."

Spitfire fumed. Before she could explode, King interjected. "No. We will not be using antimatter weapons. Too dangerous. Too close to Earth."

They all stared at the hologram of the Atrocity, lost in thought for a moment.

Katyusha sucked her teeth. "No ship is too big to destroy. There is way. There is always way." Her eyes brightened. "Katyusha knows way. We use Atrocity's size against her."

Laila frowned. "How do you mean?"

The premier stretched languorously. "Katyusha is delicate, petite woman. But she has defeated many big foes. Like this giant handsome bear here." She pointed at Bastian, who blushed. "Katyusha always uses enemy's own size against them. Let gravity do the work."

King thought he understood. "You suggest using Earth's gravity?"

Katyusha nodded. "Exactly, Jamechka! We hurl Atrocity down into Earth. Like asteroid that wiped out dinozavry! Not much of that asteroid remained. Not much of Atrocity will remain either."

"And wipe out humanity with it?" Spitfire cried.

Katyusha shrugged. "Eh, maybe. Who knows? Dinozavry were big and stupid. Humans small. Maybe survive. Maybe not. Either case we win."

King turned toward Mimori. "What do you think?"

Lines of code, graphs, and numbers floated around the android's head. "It requires delicate balance. An impact with Earth releases kinetic energy. The amount increases with the object's mass and speed. The Atrocity is clearly massive. If she also crashes with great speed, the kinetic energy would be devastating. Enough to cause an extinction event."

"But if she crashes, for lack of a better word, slowly?" King said.

More numbers raced around Mimori. "It's possible such a crash would release enough kinetic energy to destroy the Atrocity—and probably leave a deep impact crater—but spare the planet. But sir, she would have to crash very—as you say, for lack of a better word—slowly."

"So flinging Atrocity down from the heavens like a ball of brimstone won't do," King said.

Mimori smiled thinly. "No, sir. We'd have to get Atrocity close to Earth. Just above the atmosphere. Ideally over an unpopulated area. Then nudge her down."

Katyusha leaped onto the tabletop again. She drew her saber. "Katyusha does not nudge! She rams! She destroys! She—"

"Given that Russia is the largest country on Earth, odds are Atrocity will crash there," King said.

Katyusha bit her lip. "Maybe Katyusha can nudge."

"We'll aim for Antarctica," King said. "It's the only continent without humans. We'll smash her down there."

Katyusha gasped. "But pingviny live there!" Her eyes softened. "Cute, adorable, fluffy pingviny."

"A moment ago, you were willing to slam Atrocity down onto populated areas, killing millions of humans," King said. "Now you're worried about penguins?"

She shrugged. "Katyusha likes animals." Her eyes actually dampened. "How could anyone harm fuzzy, innocent pingviny?

Bastian rose to his feet. He cleared his throat, and all eyes turned toward him. He was a big, burly soldier, larger and stronger than anyone in the room, but he blushed. He was used to speaking to other marines, not to the high command.

"The Armada is one problem," Bastian said. "But there are also millions of arachtaurs on the surface of Earth we must worry about."

Katyusha sidled up toward the marine. She wrapped her hands around his bicep, caressing. "My, my, you are big, strong American. Almost strong like Russian. Maybe you defect, join Katyusha's army instead? You would do well in Red Dawn." She waggled her eyebrows. "Maybe Katyusha give you special bodyguard duties."

Bastian's blush deepened. He extricated himself from her caresses and took a step aside.

"Anyway." Bastian cleared his throat again, louder this time. "While Magog'rah commands the fleet from aboard the Atrocity, his sister commands the ground troops. We've met her before. Od'rahda."

A hallucination of Od'rahda now materialized above the table. Unlike her brother, she was oddly beautiful. Her spider body wasn't lumpy like a rah, nor warty and gray like Magog'rah's carapace. Her abdomen was smooth and black, the legs gleaming and tipped with purple claws. Her womanly body was graceful, curved, adorned with lavender silk and golden jewels. King remembered her commanding the Tyranny, battling him a thousand light-years from home. His old nemesis, reborn from the flames of a star.

Katyusha made another gagging sound. "Ugh, disgusting!"

Bastian shrugged. "Well, she's not as ugly as her brother."

"Who is not as ugly?" Katyusha said. "Katyusha is not sharing your silly MindWeb hallucinations. This room is disgusting!" She looked around her and cringed. "Not a single throne for Katyusha to sit on. Disgusting."

Bastian sighed. "As I was saying, Od'rahda commands the ground troops. She is currently down on Earth, overseeing the occupation. We've pinpointed her location."

Spitfire balled her fists. "So we bomb her. We bomb her into the ground. We cut off the snake's head, and the body will wither."

Katyusha slung her arm around Spitfire. "Katyusha likes this one! Such spirit! She is like baby Katyusha. Maybe you want to defect too like the big American bear? Come work for Katyusha?"

"Katyusha, please stop trying to poach my officers," King said. "And Spitfire, bombing Od'rahda won't be that easy."

"The Flock will get it done," Spitfire said. "Wherever she is, we'll reach her. We have bunker busters. Drill bombs. Wherever she's hiding, we'll destroy her."

King spoke in a low voice. "Spitfire, Od'rahda is not in a bunker. She's not in hiding. She's in Jerusalem. She had draped a web across the Wailing Wall on the Temple Mount, and from there, like a spider goddess, she commands her minions."

Spitfire went pale. "You're joking, aren't you?"

King shook his head. "I wish I was."

Katyusha tilted her head. "What is problem? We know where Od'rahda is. Let's bomb her." She pounded her fist onto the tabletop, shaking the map. "Katyusha will drop world's biggest bomb on Jerusalem, wipe out whole city, and kill that arachtaur!"

"You're not going to bomb Jerusalem!" King snapped.

Katyusha groaned. "Fine, fine! You silly Alliance with your weak, pathetic morals. Katyusha will use tiny little small bombs, okay? Just destroy that wall of yours. And maybe the mountain it's on. And maybe a few neighborhoods. Not more. City mostly be okay, happy?"

"That's a sacred site!" Spitfire cried. "The Temple Mount is holy to several major religions. My own included! The Wailing Wall, where Od'rahda built her web, is all that remains of the Jewish temple. The Mount is also holy to Islam, Christianity, the Samaritans, and—"

"All just silly superstitions." Katyusha waved her hand dismissively. "Please! There is no such thing as God. There is only the glory of Katyusha! The only true ideology is equalism. Abrahamic religions?" She snorted. "You mean fairy tales. Katyusha will be doing you a favor, wiping out that pile of rocks."

Spitfire fumed, fists clenched at her sides. "You dismiss religion yet then champion equalism? That's a religion too!"

"Maybe, malishka, maybe," Katyusha said. "But Katyusha is its goddess, and rest assured, unlike your silly God from your old scrolls, Katyusha is very real." A wicked grin spread across her face. "And very vengeful."

Spitfire looked at King entreatingly.

King took a deep breath. Everyone was looking at him, waiting for his decision. Even Katyusha.

"Od'rahda did not choose her nesting place at random," King said. "She knows Jerusalem is holy to most humans on Earth. Myself included. Even if we were all atheists, we still could not destroy the Temple Mount. It would be a devastating blow to billions of believers. We can debate religion and atheism until the cows come home. But one thing we can agree on. Whether religion is true or merely superstition, most humans find inspiration, comfort, and courage in faith. Destroying a holy site would crush morale. It could lose us the war."

Laila and her generals sounded their agreements, speaking of the holy city. Bastian and Darjeeling both nodded.

"But those are only old stones!" Katyusha blurted out. "What about victory?"

"A minute ago you were willing to blow up the entire planet!" Spitfire cried back.

Katyusha pounded her fist into her palm. "Exactly! For victory, I would burn down the entire world!"

"That is what the Aeolians did," King said quietly.

Everyone stopped talking. They all looked at him again.

"The Aeolians faced the same crossroads," King said. "The hosts of the enemy swarmed over their homeworld. So they blew it up. They destroyed their planet. Only a few of them fled in starships. That is not what we will do. We will choose a different path."

Bastian nodded and crossed his arms. "The Freedom Brigade will drop onto Jerusalem. We will kill every arachtaur in our path. And we will kill Od'rahda. We will rededicate the city."

"To God?" Katyusha snorted. "You sound like a crusader."

"To humanity," Bastian said.

"Sometimes if a limb is infected, you must chop it off," Katyusha said, swinging her saber through the air. Spitfire had to duck, glared at the sword-wielding Russian, and muttered curses.

"But one does not chop out the heart," Bastian said.

Katyusha licked her lips. "Katyusha loves ripping out hearts. But okay. Because you are all such superstitious bible humpers, Katyusha agrees. We will use ground troops."

"You mean bible thumpers," Bastian said. "Not humpers."

"You heard Katyusha."

They got down to planning the nitty-gritty. A battle in space. A battle on the ground. A battle to save Earth.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was New Year's Eve aboard the Freedom, but nobody felt much like celebrating. Tomorrow, on the first day of 2303, they would be flying back to Earth. Back to war. It was hard to celebrate when you were terrified.

Emily sat in her bunk on deck 25. Six beds could fold down from the bulkheads, but five were folded up tonight. She had been living here alone. Well, alone aside from Niles, who didn't need a bed. And from Stowy, who came and went as she pleased, popping in and out from the vent.

The young stowaway was here now. "Come on, boss!" She tugged Emily's hand. "Let's go down to the aerie. The pilots are having a New Year's party."

Niles cleared his throat—or at least made the appropriate sound. The drone sat on a shelf over the bunks. Slender metal digits extended from his body, holding a paperback copy of A Passage to India. Reading glasses perched over his two cameras.

"I've seen their parties," the drone said. "Ha! The Queen of England will not spend her time carousing with drunken commoners. We shall remain here, enjoy some good novels, and perhaps later indulge in a cup of tea. If you're a good girl, Stowy, I'll recite some Keats for you."

"As wild as that sounds, I prefer the pilots," Stowy said. She popped open the vent on the wall and placed a leg in. "You coming, Em?"

"You go on," Emily said. She sat on her bunk, wrapped in a checkered blanket, reading a copy of Middlemarch. "I don't quite feel up to partying tonight, my dear."

Stowy waggled her eyebrows. "There'll be poker. And lots of beer."

"Go away!" Niles said.

Stowy shrugged. "Your loss." She vanished into the ducts.

Emily sighed. "This isn't quite the New Year's Eve we're used to, is it, Niles?" She smiled wistfully. "Do you remember New Year's back in England? We used to holiday at Sandringham House. I remember the lights that still shone on the Christmas trees, riding horses through the snow, and the family gathering around the fireplace. Even the king would join us."

"I remember," Niles said softly.

"Sandringham House still stands. We'll return there someday, Niles. There will be better days than these."

Niles flipped a page in his book. "Well, things certainly can't get any worse."

Emily returned to her novel, but she could not focus. She found herself reading the same paragraph over and over. Her mind kept straying to the battle tomorrow. The Freedom would charge through a portal to Earth, and it would be her task to keep the Pandora firing. What if she failed? What if she could not load the cannon fast enough? Thousands of spacers aboard this ship depended on her.

She closed the book. "I can't focus. Maybe I should have gone drinking with Stowy."

"The only drink I care to indulge in is a strong cup of Earl Grey," Niles said. "Now where is the butler? Mr. Darjeeling! Mr. Darjeeling, where are you?"

"He's not a butler!" Emily said.

"Not much of one, that's certain."

She too, however, wondered where Darjeeling was. Suddenly she felt trapped in this cabin, no buffer between herself and her fears. On the eve of war, Emily missed the wise old sergeant. Darjeeling was always a comfort to her, a mentor and protector.

As a mere ensign, Emily did not have access to scan MindWeb for the location of the crew. If she wanted to find Darjeeling, she must seek him herself.

She walked along the narrow hallways of deck 25. Things were quiet this evening. Most spacers kept to their bunks. A few were praying in the chapel. Somebody had hung up a Happy New Year sign over the mess doors, but nobody seemed particularly happy.

One soldier she passed, a young private, bowed to her.

"Your Majesty."

"You don't need to bow. I'm only an ensign."

The private straightened his back, but he kept his head bowed. "Yes, ma'am." He glanced up at her and blushed. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to embarrass you. I know you're only an ensign here aboard this ship. But I'm Canadian. From Saskatoon. Which makes you my queen. And …" Suddenly tears filled his eyes. "I guess I just miss home."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Noah, ma'am. I work in the galley for Abercrombie." His blush deepened. "It's nothing too important. I peel potatoes, clean the pots and trays, lay out the cutlery."

"There are no unimportant jobs aboard the Freedom, Noah. I thank you for your service."

He wiped his eyes. "Do you think we'll ever get back there, ma'am? To our home?"

She squeezed his shoulder and smiled. "I'm sure of it."

She took the elevator up to deck 28, where the high command lived. It was here that Admiral King, Commander Jordan, Lieutenant Commander Gal "Spitfire" Levy, and the other senior officers kept their quarters. Emily had once lived here in the royal suite. It was strange to be back. The corridors seemed wider, cleaner, and twice she had to stand at attention as a colonel walked by.

There was a little observatory at the back of the deck. Just a place to grab a hot drink, sit down, and watch the stars. The portholes were fake. They were just round monitors attached to cameras on the hull, but the illusion was perfect. Oliver Darjeeling sat there, gazing out at the stars, sipping a cup of tea.

"I thought I'd find you here, Mr. Darjeeling," Emily said. "I don't mean to intrude. I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year."

He turned toward her, and she was surprised. He seemed sad, even when he smiled.

"Happy New Year, Emily. Care to join an old man for tea?"

"I would love some," Niles said. "Fetch me a cup of Earl Grey, and make sure you add three sugars—three—and let it brew for a full four minutes before adding a dash of skim milk, but make sure you remove the tea bag without squeezing it, and—"

"I'll fetch the tea," Emily said. "Niles, why don't you fly to the galley and fetch some biscuits?"

The drone gasped. "What, like a common servant? Me, a royal drone? I'll have you know that I was built by the very master of the Robotics Guild of Oxford Street, and—"

"Niles, now!" Emily said.

Muttering to himself, the drone flew off. Emily brewed two more cups of tea, one for herself, one for Niles. The drone couldn't actually drink it, but he claimed to enjoy the smell. Emily thought he just didn't like being left out.

She sat beside Darjeeling and gazed at the stars. For a moment, they sat in silence, sipping their tea. The Martian surface curved below, and above spread the panoply of stars.

Emily squinted and pointed. "Look there, Mr. Darjeeling. That's it, isn't it? Earth."

"Indeed it is, ma'am."

She smiled wistfully. "It looks like a star from here. Just a small blue star." She shuddered. "It looks like Achernar."

They turned their gaze and looked at that other blue dot in the sky. Achernar. Two blue dots among countless white stars. Two enemies. Two worlds at war.

"Whatever happens tomorrow, Emily, I'm here for you," Darjeeling said. "You have brought more joy into an old man's heart than you'll ever know."

She leaned against him. "After my family was killed in the war, I felt so lost. You were there for me, Mr. Darjeeling. A teacher. A father. A friend. I would be lost without you."

The clock chimed twelve. A few distant cheers sounded from other cabins on the ship. Down on Mars, a few tiny lights flashed. Fireworks rising from the colony. Even on Mars, they were celebrating the new Earth year. Emily and Darjeeling sat quietly, watching the lights, and Emily thought of the family she had lost … and the family she had gained.

She smiled at Darjeeling and raised her cup of tea. "Happy New Year, Mr. Darjeeling."

He raised his cup. "Happy New Year, Queen Emily."

Niles flew into the cabin, flustered. Silly string draped over him, and sparkles glittered across his silver casing.

"Why, you would not believe what happened!" the drone said. "I went into the galley to fetch the biscuits, and some ruffians attacked me! They slimed me!"

"I do believe that's only silly string," Emily said. "They were celebrating."

"I've been savaged!" Niles tossed a box onto the table. "Here's your biscuits. I hope you enjoy them. I nearly died fetching them."

Emily hugged the drone. "Happy New Year, Niles, old boy."

The drone nuzzled her, and his voice softened. "Happy New Year."

She glanced at the box on the table. He had fetched a package of raw cookie dough.

* * * * *

Rowan had insisted on staying up for New Year's. By midnight, the nine-year-old was yawning and could barely keep her eyes open. Of course, there was no real midnight in space. The ship kept to Greenwich Mean Time, adjusting for time dilation, and Rowan normally slept throughout the night shift.

"Can we watch Dinosaur Island II now?" Rowan asked, trying to hide a yawn. It was her favorite movie.

"I think one little girl watched enough movies today," Bastian said. "It's time for bed."

"But I'm not ti—" A huge yawn interrupted her sentence.

"You were saying?" Bastian asked.

Father and daughter had just finished watching the first Dinosaur Island movie. Alice had joined them, cuddling in bed beside them. Empty popcorn bowls and cookie boxes covered the bed.

Rowan began nodding off, and Bastian carried her into her room, tucked her in, and kissed her forehead. He paused for a moment, looking at her.

"In a few hours, we're flying to Earth," he whispered. "And I'll be going to battle. I don't want to leave you, Rowan. But I go fight for you. To save Earth for you. I love you. More than anything."

She smiled in her sleep and hugged her plush octopus a little tighter.

Bastian returned to his room. Alice was tidying up. Bastian helped her. For a moment they worked in silence, taking longer than they needed to, brushing the sheets even after all the crumbs were gone.

Finally Bastian looked into her eyes. "Alice, tomorrow … you don't have to go."

"We've been over this, Bastian." She tossed an empty box of cookies into the trash bin.

"Alice, you're pregnant. You don't need to go fight a war. I can—"

"I'm not even showing yet. And I do need to go. I'm a marine, Bas. I signed up to fight."

"Not while pregnant!"

Her eyes flashed. "Everyone needs to fight now. This war … this is a war for our survival. The survival of humanity. If we lose, we all die. Every one of us." Her eyes dampened. "So I'm going."

He hugged her. "I'm just worried. Okay, more than worried. Terrified."

She hugged him back. "I know. I am too." She stroked his cheek. "We've gone through a lot together, haven't we? We'll get through this too."

He kissed her, and they lay down in bed, spooning under the blankets. Alice fell asleep, but Bastian remained awake for a long time, thinking of tomorrow.

* * * * *

Down in the aerie, the pilots were having their traditional New Year's Eve party. Jelly, the bartender drone, buzzed back and forth, carrying trays of drinks. The jukebox was blasting classic rock, fitting with the bar's twentieth-century theme. Pilots were shooting pool, throwing darts, and shouting at the foosball table. Retro televisions hung over the bar, broadcasting space races and baseball games.

Normally Pickles would be drinking, shooting pool, playing poker, making noise. Today he just sat at the bar, silent, nursing a drink. When the midnight clock rang and 2203 rolled in, he simply sat there, staring at the bar. Somebody tossed confetti, and a few pilots drunkenly cheered. But in the confetti Pickles saw the shrapnel of exploding starfighters, and in the cheers he heard the screams of the dying.

The barstool beside him creaked. Katana sat down, confetti strewn through her long black hair. Silly string clung to her flight suit.

"Jelly, my good man!" The petite pilot slammed her fist against the bar. "Bring me a sake." She glanced at Pickles, then back at the drone. "Make it two."

"I'm fine, thank you," Pickles said.

Katana snorted. "Both are for me. I need a double after seeing your glum face." She punched his arm. "This is a party, not a funeral."

He said nothing.

She nudged him. She spoke softer this time. "Picky, you all right?"

He turned toward her and looked into her eyes.

She's so young, he thought. Not yet thirty.

"Hey, if I don't make it tomorrow—" he began.

"Picky!"

"If I don't make it, take your sword back."

Katana heaved a sigh. "You won my sword in poker. Fair and square."

"I know, which is why I've kept it." He rolled his eyes. "If I don't make it tomorrow, take it back." He glanced at the pilots partying behind them. "Before these scavengers go through my things."

Katana placed a hand on his knee. "You're gonna make it tomorrow. You're the best damn pilot in the Flock." She grinned. "Well, after me."

Jelly floated over and placed two glasses of sake on the bar. Katana grabbed one, nudged the other toward Pickles. Reluctantly he took the glass.

"Cheers," Katana said. They drank.

Pickles placed his cup down. The drink warmed him, soothed his fear. Maybe Katana's smile did too.

"Happy New Year, Katana."

She leaned forward and kissed him. Right on the corner of the mouth. "Happy New Year, my dear Picky."

* * * * *

Commander Larry Jordan did not attend any New Year's party. He did not visit the aerie, though as a former starfighter pilot, he was more than welcome there. He did not spend time with his daughter; Annie was busy in the infirmary, saving lives. Instead, Jordan volunteered to take a shift on the bridge, giving King and Spitfire some time off.

The bridge was quiet tonight. Only a skeletal crew manned the critical workstations. The surveillance officer on duty was sipping coffee while reviewing the latest ATLAS graphs. Two tactical officers were putting together a report, speaking in hushed tones. An IT technician was using the quiet time to upgrade and reboot a few systems. The hum of the computers filled the room, and the glow of the monitors reminded Jordan of childhood nights in Los Angeles, watching the lights of shuttles flying by outside his apartment window. He had spent many nights gazing outside at those passing lights, dreaming of flying someday too.

I was a fool, he thought. What has flying ever brought me? Nothing but loss.

His mother had been a schoolteacher. Jordan should have followed her example. He could be teaching somewhere down on Earth now. Free from this cursed war.

Then again—maybe not. There was no safety anywhere these days, and the enemy swarmed through the cities of Earth. Down there, a teacher, he would have been helpless. Here in space, a commander of a starship—he could fight back. Yes, he had made the right choice, he knew that. But knowing never made it easier. Not in battle. Not when a soldier under his command didn't make it home.

It was too quiet on this bridge. His mind was taking him to dark places. In the shadows he saw the faces of the dead. Young pilots from this war. Young pilots from a war long ago. Jordan was in his sixties now, and it seemed unfair that he should grow old while so many spacers never did.

He barely noticed when midnight came and went. It was a new year. And Jordan knew it would be another year of war. Of loss.

Dammit, he hated times like this. Waiting for battle. The quiet before the storm. It was always when he felt worse. Under fire, in the heat of battle, Jordan was famous for staying calm, in control. It was the quiet hours before battle that got to him.

Finally his shift ended. Spitfire relieved him on the bridge, and Jordan returned to his quarters.

At once, he turned on MindPlay, scrolled to Timori's avatar, and called her.

"Where are you?"

Her voice came from the bedroom. "Right here."

She stepped into the living room. His sweet Timori. His timid logistics android. She wore a little black dress, and she held a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine.

"Happy New Year." She gave him a shaky smile.

His eyes widened. "You were waiting for me?" He checked the time. "I'm a few hours late."

"I would wait forever for you." She placed the chocolates and wine on the table, stepped closer, and embraced him.

She felt so warm, so lifelike, indistinguishable from a living human. He kissed her soft synthetic hair. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you too." Tears shone in her eyes. "I ate some of the chocolates."

He laughed. "I didn't think androids ate chocolates. Or anything."

She blushed. "I had QT install the new taste sensors in my mouth. I can't actually digest anything. But I can taste now."

"First the heating pads under your skin, now the taste buds?" he said.

Timori nodded. "I want to be more human for you. Mimori, my sister on the bridge, has cold skin and cannot taste food. She is purely functional, but I've chosen to take a human lover. So I want to become more of a woman."

Jordan heaved a sigh. "You've chosen a tired old man, Timori. Meanwhile, you are for all intents and purposes immortal. What have I done to deserve you?"

"Deserve me?" Timori blinked. "I'm not some prize. I'm a woman. A woman who loves you. You're brave, kind, and wise. You make me want to be better. For that and many other reasons—I love you." She lifted the box of chocolates. "Try one! Try a few."

Jordan grinned. "Unfortunately we humans can digest food. And gain weight."

She bit her lip. "You'll work it off later." She glanced toward the bedroom, then back at him.

He ate the chocolates, and he drank the wine, and he made love to her, and as he lay in bed, holding her in his arms, the anxiety faded. Here was one he fought for. Here was one he loved.

"You make me better too," he whispered to her. "With you, I am the man I want to be."

She kissed his cheek. "Tomorrow, during the battle, I'll be in the midsection, doing my work, keeping the ship running. But I'll also be with you. I love you forever."

And I hope forever does not end today, Jordan thought. It was past midnight. Very soon they would fly to Earth. And he knew he might never see his beloved logistics android again.

* * * * *

As the New Year rang in, Kim Fletcher sat in the infirmary at her son's side. She held his hand as he slept. She only knew it was midnight because a few nurses down the hall gave a little cheer. Maybe a few patients too. But few people in the infirmary were celebrating tonight. Too many marines had lost limbs. Lost skin, ears, eyes. Lost brothers and sisters in arms.

Kim looked at her son. Evan seemed peaceful in sleep, a small smile on his lips. She remembered herself in a hospital eighteen years ago, giving birth to him. A difficult birth. The baby had spent two months in the NICU, had almost died, but Evan had always been a fighter. He was still small and thin, especially for a marine, and still so damn tough. He had lost his legs but not his will to live.

I'm the lucky one, Kim knew. My son is alive. So many mothers are grieving tonight.

She still had duties in engineering. She could not stay here long. But whenever she could, she came here. To sit at his side. To sleep in this chair by his bed. She had always been here for her son, and she always would be.

A knock sounded on the door, and Dr. Annie Jordan stepped in, wearing scrubs and a medical hat. A glowing clipboard hovered at her side.

"Well, how is our young marine?" the doctor said.

Kim smiled wanly. "Strong. He has more color tonight."

Dr. Annie checked his vitals, checked his bandages, and nodded. "He's a tough one. He'll pull through. Have you decided lab-grown limbs or prosthetics yet?"

"Evan will decide when he's ready. Right now he mostly sleeps and reads and tolerates his worried mother."

Annie smiled. "And how is his mother holding up?"

Kim looked up wearily at the doctor. Annie was not yet forty, young for the job. But she was not here because Commander Jordan was her father. She was a remarkably talented doctor, and she had saved the lives of hundreds of soldiers during this war. She had her father's dark complexion and her mother's green Irish eyes, and those eyes now gazed at Kim kindly.

"Tired and scared," Kim said. "As we all are."

Annie pulled out a chair and sat down. She was quiet for a long moment, watching Evan sleep. "He's eighteen, isn't he?"

"Turning nineteen soon," Kim said. "Do you have children of your own?"

The doctor shook her head. "No. No, I never … never had the time, I suppose. Too busy being a doctor. I've given my life to this ship. The Freedom is like my child."

"I know something about that," Kim said. "I'm chief engineer, after all. It's my job to keep this ship flying."

"We're both healers," Annie said. "You heal the ship, and I heal the poor souls who serve aboard her."

Soon the doctor had to resume her rounds, and Kim remained in the room by her sleeping son. Not ten minutes later, the door opened again, and Admiral King stepped into the room.

"Hello, Kim." He held a bottle of wine and three boxes of food. "I'm sorry I'm late. I didn't mean to miss New Year. I brought some dinner for everyone. Not MREs. Abercrombie cooked some real food. Steak pies. He says it's traditional to eat in Scotland on Hogmanay. I figured you and Evan might like some. I brought three."

Kim's heart seemed to melt in her chest.

They decided to let Evan sleep and left his meal on the bedside. Kim and King stepped into the infirmary's little kitchen. They ate their steak pies, drank the wine, and King told some stories of New Year's back on Earth. Kim realized how much she needed this. A break from the war. From the endless worry and grief. Just good comfort food and the man she loved. If only for an hour.

At one point, while he was in the middle of a story, she reached across the table and placed her hands on his.

"I love you, Jim," she said.

He paused from his story, and his eyes softened. "I love you too, Kim. More than you know."

He had to return to the bridge, but they paused in the doorway, and she embraced him and cried a few tears onto his shoulder. He held her in his wide arms and stroked her hair.

"I can't wait for this war to end," Kim mumbled onto his chest. "I can't wait to just be with you. Somewhere warm and safe."

King kissed the top of her head. "We'll get there. I promise. A life awaits us after this. We just need to pass through this storm."

She slept that night at her son's side. When she woke up in the morning, it was time to fly home.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Most of the fleet took the long way to Earth. They flew from Mars the old-fashioned way. Blasting through regular spacetime. Same method Neil Armstrong used to reach the moon. Faster, yes. Larger spaceships, certainly. But essentially the same method.

It would take a few days. That would probably seem like breakneck speed to good old Neil, who had needed several days just to fly to the moon—a distance far, far smaller. But to King, it seemed intolerably slow. During this war for survival, every day was an eternity.

Things moved fast when you fought Arakavish.

King stood on the bridge of the Freedom, hovering over Mars. He watched the bulk of the Free Alliance Fleet fly off. Starfighter carriers lit the darkness, their exhaust ports like furious blue stars. They were smaller than the Freedom, the only dreadnought in the Alliance Fleet. But the carriers were still enormous beasts, gravid with starfighters and marines. Frigates flew around them—the backbone of the fleet. If Freedom were a flying city, and carriers were flying towns, a frigate was a city block. They were small enough to be maneuverable, large enough to carry serious firepower, and affordable enough to build without bankrupting the treasury. This combination made them a popular class of warship. Smaller still were the corvettes, warships no larger than the sailing ships of old. Only starfighters were smaller.

A thousand of these ships flew in defensive formations, taking the long way home. But King remained behind at Mars. Hands clasped behind his back, he watched them leave.

Many Red Dawn and Desert Thorn ships were also leaving Mars. They flew in their own formations. They had their own classifications, their own tactics, their own leaders. And they gave the Alliance a wide berth. One species but three distinct fleets.

Even now, we cannot unite as one civilization, King thought. Not fully. The rahs divide themselves biologically. Big hunter, little orbweaver, pale gazer, or hybrid. We humans divide ourselves by ideology, religion, nationality. Things we simply imagine. Elder'rah must think us so petty, so primitive.

Yet despite their flaws, despite the evil he had seen in men, King loved humanity. He was proud of humanity. He believed in humanity. Forty years ago, he had fought against other humans, had seen the purging camps, the torture chambers, the killing fields. Nobody knew the evil of man more than a veteran. But all the death King had seen, even death dealt by human hands, taught him how precious life was. Every bomb that fell, every city that crumbled, every forest that burned—they taught him the beauty of Earth, for one cannot grieve over loss unless one loved what was lost, and one cannot mourn the fallen unless one knew life to be precious. The horror of war was a mirror to the beauty of peace, and the cruelty of man was a mirror to his compassion. Elder'rah might call humanity petty, cruel, vindictive; the Aeolians certainly had. But King, who had flown through fire and marched through rain, knew that humanity's light was a torch, and that he would always carry it before him into the darkness.

Spitfire sidled up to him on the bridge. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"I'm thinking that I'm hungry," King said. It somehow all seemed too much to explain.

While the bulk of the fleet was traveling to Earth, three hundred starships were still orbiting Mars. The Freedom had remained here. So had the Baba Yaga, the Dune, and other handpicked warships. The deadliest, the fastest, the vanguard of humanity's might in space—they had remained.

They were not flying back to Earth.

Not yet.

They had enough energy to open a portal. Just one. They could keep it open for half an hour. Any more would drain the fleet. They couldn't even plug into the power stations on Mars, not unless they wanted to leave the colonists dry.

One portal. Thirty minutes. Three hundred ships. Enough for a quick, fast strike against the arachtaurs. A gambit to their game.

Before giving the order, King made a call.

He made the call over radio waves, heavily encrypted. A call to his boss.

"Hello, High Commander Godwin. This is Admiral James King, speaking from aboard the starship Freedom. How are you holding out?"

It took radio waves three minutes to reach Earth. Then, once Godwin replied, another three minutes to get back to Mars. King waited patiently.

Finally a video came from Earth, appearing on the front viewport.

Godwin was in his bunker. But this was no humble concrete cell. Dozens of desks stood between brick columns, viewports hung on every wall, and officers marched back and forth, busy at countless urgent tasks. Maps hovered everywhere, showing military positions. Here were the war rooms of the Alliance Earth Forces. The place where Godwin and his generals oversaw the war on the ground, in the sky, and on the high seas. King commanded the war in space from aboard the Freedom. Godwin commanded Earth from underground.

The old high commander still wore his three-piece suit, a monocle, and a top hat. He took the cigar out of his mouth.

"King, old boy! It's good to see you." Though he was pushing eighty, his voice was as deep and booming as ever. "And it will be better still to see your ships arrive. Are you still prepared for your own mission, King? The one you and three hundred ships are to undertake?"

King nodded. "Yes, sir. We'll be opening the portal soon. The Freedom, the Baba Yaga, and the Dune will be leading three hundred ships to Arakavish. This time we're not just going to destroy an energy cable. We'll assault Arakavish itself. Elder'rah's homeworld. Our bombs can drill deep enough to reach her lair and slay the empress on her web."

King waited six minutes for Godwin's reply.

"Excellent, Admiral King! The best of our ships will get the job done. God bless you, Admiral King. God bless us all."

The call ended.

King took a deep breath. He looked at Mimori. "Are you sure the encryption isn't too complicated?"

Mimori smiled. "I could crack it."

"Yes, but you're smarter than rahs," he said.

"Perhaps not smarter than arachtaurs though," Mimori said. "After all, they have human minds. And humans made me."

"You're smarter than humans too, Mimori. I hope this works."

He had talked to High Commander Godwin earlier that day via an atomic portal communicator. Portal communication was much harder to hack. Messages traveled directly through a warped tunnel, not open space. The only way the arachtaurs could hack a portal conversation was if they had Godwin's bunker or King's bridge bugged.

King and Godwin had worked out the ruse together. Let the empress think they planned an assault on Arakavish. Let her pull her clawships close. They knew she would see the bulk of the fleet traveling the slow way from Mars to Earth. They could not prevent that. So they wanted to keep her on the defensive, hunkered down in her lair, timid, afraid.

While we actually fly to Earth, King thought. Faster than the bulk of our fleet. We travel by portal.

He called Kim Fletcher. "Kim?"

She materialized on the bridge with the familiar smell of engine oil. Her blue eyes shone with intelligence and courage, and they could always make King feel better.

"Yes, sir."

"We're ready to open the portal when you are," King said.

She nodded. "We're ready, sir. I'll have it open in ten minutes."

"Excellent work, Colonel Fletcher." He switched to private telepathy. "I love you, Kim. Whatever happens—I'm with you."

Tears filled those beautiful blue eyes of hers. She wiped them, only smearing soot across her cheek. "I love you, Jim. Now let's go win this thing."

King called his leaders.

"Ready?"

Queen Laila appeared on the bridge and nodded solemnly. "Ready. Let's go win our planet back." She faded with a cloud of sparkling gold.

Katyusha materialized beside King. She slung an arm across his shoulders. "Katyusha is ready to conquer!" She kissed his cheek, then vanished with a shower of red confetti.

Jordan raised an eyebrow. "Why doesn't she ever kiss me?"

"She doesn't hate you as much," King said.

The portal generator began spinning. Like before, several frigates were streaming energy to the Freedom, combining their power. They had also borrowed enormous batteries from Mars, representing a year of solar energy surplus. The portal generator began spinning around Freedom's prow. The sound and movement vibrated through the bridge.

The portal began to materialize, weaving a sphere above Mars like a dark moon.

King looked at his crew. The bridge officers looked at him from their stations. Jordan and Darjeeling, his two oldest friends. Spitfire, an adopted daughter. Others materialized on the bridge from elsewhere in the ship. Kim from engineering, covered in dust, a wrench in her hand. Dr. Annie, wearing scrubs, a stethoscope around her neck. Emily, Queen of England, standing inside her mecha. Stowy, wearing her dress of many pockets and one tattered stocking. Bastian and Alice, warriors in armor. Sultan, ship medic. Abercrombie the cook. Pickles, Katana, Snoopy, and all the other pilots. QT, the eccentric engineering android, still wearing her Freedom the Frog mascot. Jelly, the robotic bartender. Timid Timori, the logistic android, who kept the ship running. Lee Eun-Yu, bay boss, mistress of airlocks. And many, many others. Pilots, sappers, mechanics, janitors, warehouse workers, scientists, engineers, warriors all. Ten thousand souls aboard the starship Freedom. His crew. His family.

They were all listening.

"Crew of the starship Freedom. None of you signed up for a war. You came here to work in a museum. To fire blanks from the cannons as tourists clapped. To operate arcade games and rides. To fly stunts as the cameras flashed. To work the cash registers at gift shops, entertain children with puppet shows, and weave cotton candy. But three years ago, the enemy attacked. And for these three years, you have been fighting! Relentlessly. With courage. With honor. I've watched you become the finest crew, the finest soldiers I have ever known. I am proud of every one of you."

Tears filled many eyes. They saluted him. All of them.

"The enemy drove us from Earth," King said. "But now we return. More determined and courageous than ever. This war will be hard. The enemy is strong, intelligent, and merciless. There will be sacrifices to pay. There will be ships that fall. Lives that are lost. But you will face your fear. You will fight on even as the fire burns all around you, even as it seems that the stars themselves fall. Earth is our home! We will liberate her. We call our endeavor Operation Gaia's Flame, for we will be as a flaming sword of Earth. We fly for humanity. And for freedom. Godspeed, soldiers of Earth."

He ended his speech. The portal was fully formed.

"Mimori," King said, "prime our engines and prepare to lead the charge. We'll—"

The Baba Yaga streaked above them, moving so close the Freedom's proximity alarms blared. The dorsal thrusters kicked in automatically, shoving the Freedom downward. The dreadnought rocked in space.

"For equalism!" Katyusha cried over MindWeb, racing toward the portal. "Death to freedom and glory to Katyusha!"

Her exhaust ports bathed Freedom with fire, igniting her shields in a blazing hemisphere. The Baba Yaga streaked into the portal and vanished.

King sighed. "I really hate that woman. Mimori! Full speed ahead!"

"Aye, sir, full speed ahead through the portal."

The engines rumbled.

The Freedom bolted forward, charging through the portal … and into the burning orbit of Earth.

Operation Gaia's Flame began.

* * * * *

The clawships had perhaps returned to Arakavish, taking the rahs with them. But Earth's orbit was still full of spiders. Arachships filled space—dreadnoughts shaped like spiders. Clones of the Tyranny.

Just one of those ships had nearly destroyed the Freedom. Hundreds flew here. And with them flew thousands of vicious little spiderwings.

The ruins of battle still floated around Earth. Dead satellites orbited the planet like a crown of mangled metal. Every moment or two, more debris rained down into the atmosphere or drifted into the void. Most of Jangseung Orbital Ring was gone, lying in smoldering ruins below. One curved chunk of the megastructure still orbited Earth, draped with cobwebs. Lights still shone in Jangseung's portholes, but now the defensive structure was home to the arachtaurs. The hulks of a thousand human starships, the victims of the arachtaur onslaught, floated around the planet like the husks of dead flowers strewn across a winter garden.

Earth herself was burning. When a viewport zoomed in on the planet, the crew could see the fires crawling across the forests, the craters in the plains, the ruins where cities had been. Slender lines of fire leaped across the planet—artillery fire. Earth was hurt but she was still alive, still fighting.

We will liberate you, King vowed.

The portal had opened in deep orbit, a significant distance from Earth. They could not open the portal any closer. Earth's gravity would rip it apart. King needed to reach Earth, lower himself over Jerusalem, and launch his Rhinos. But first he must make his way through a swarm of enemy warships.

Baba Yaga was ahead, charging at the enemy fleet, all guns blazing. Her particle beam carved the leg off one arachship. Already, her Sickle fighters were surrounding another arachship, bombarding it. The assault had caught the enemy by complete surprise. The arachships were scrambling to re-form their lines, to hold back the Red Dawn dreadnought. That gave Freedom time to emerge from the portal.

As Freedom flew forth, a little object sparked against their force field, burning up.

Then another. And a third and a fourth. Every second—another little flare of fire.

King realized what they were.

Bodies.

The floating, frozen bodies of humans.

The horror only lasted a moment. Then the arachships charged toward them.

The spider-shaped ships raised their mechanical legs. The silver spears streaked forth.

Freedom flew faster.

Her Shield of David system kicked into action. Interceptors flew. Silver spears exploded, scattering pale shards like dandelion fluff.

Freedom kept charging through the fire.

More arachships flew at her. The silver spears raced through space. The spiderwings swarmed. In the distance, Atrocity rose over the horizon, a starship like a small moon, a metal goddess overseeing her kingdom of destruction.

A spear plowed into Freedom's force field, rocking the ship.

"Shields down to sixty-four percent!" Kim cried, speaking from engineering.

"Keep flying!" King said. "Return fire!"

Another spear drove into their side. The ship careened.

"Shields down to forty-five percent!"

They kept flying. The Angels of Liberty boomed. Maccabees pounded the enemy. Explosions bloomed across one arachship, but scores were racing closer, closer.

Another spear rocked the Freedom. Red strobe lights filled the bridge. A few crew members fell to their knees.

"Shields down to—"

And another spear. The ship jolted. The deck trembled. A monitor exploded, the lights dimmed, and alarms wailed.

Beams of white light streaked overhead. The Dune had emerged from the portal, all guns blazing. Her laser cannons seared a chunk off an arachship, exposing the decks within.

"I got your back, Admiral!" Laila cried, soaring above.

And then another human ship emerged—the FAS Gojira, a powerful Japanese frigate that charged with booming cannons.

Then came the RDS Tianlong, a Chinese carrier, nearly a kilometer long. Engraved dragons coiled across her hull, and her airlocks launched Dragon-class starfighters.

Then more ships emerged. Three hundred ships. Ships from every continent, every nation, every faith or ideology. The ships of humanity. Here in space, they were just one race. One species. Finally, emerging from this portal into battle, they were not three fleets but one.

The enemy stormed toward them. The arachships outnumbered them twenty to one. But Earth's fleet formed a spear in space, Freedom at the tip, and they drove into the enemy lines like a true spear into flesh.

Battle exploded all around.

King had one goal.

To break through and reach Jerusalem. There in the holy city Od'rahda lurked upon her web. There lay victory.

The silver spears flew all around.

The spiderwings fired their endless streams of white plasma.

Explosions blazed across space, and the enemy ships charged from the sides, from below, from above. A corvette exploded. Then another.

"Onward!" King cried. "Do not get drawn into skirmishes. Hold the lines! Damn the plasma, full speed ahead!"

Another ship exploded. And another.

But the fleet kept flying.

Hundreds were dying—but the survivors flew onward. Into the fire. Into the enemy lines. They could barely see Earth beyond the enemy hosts. But they knew it was there. The promised land beyond the storming sea. Zion awaited behind a thousand pillars of smoke and flame.

Darjeeling raised his chin, and he began to sing the "Song of Freedom." The anthem of the ship.

Let all free souls salute her flight

Let her engines bathe the dark with light

A blast hit the shields. And another. And another and the shields dropped to five percent. And the ship trembled as the enemy bombarded them from all around.

And they kept flying through the storm.

King could barely hear the song now. But over the roaring engines and the trembling hull, the old soldier's voice could still be heard.

Let her cannons sing the song of freedom

The fleet will gather; she will lead them

A silver spear sliced along their port side, carving through the force field. The ship trembled and creaked and almost seemed to scream.

"Force field down!" rose Kim's distant cry.

"Gunners, keep firing, faster!" Jordan cried out.

King clenched his fists. "Keep flying! Full speed ahead! Faster, dammit! I said full speed ahead!"

Crew members joined the song. Their voices were barely heard, an echoing psalm from another world.

Our flagship sails into the flame

As poets weep and sing her name

A silver spear hit the prow. The armored hull cracked. The spear drove inside, cutting the flesh of the ship. Mimori screamed. Casualty counters soared on monitors. Hatches sealed shut. A few spacers spilled out the ship. Their corpses thumped into cameras, for a second hiding the view of the battle, then sliding off to reveal a nightmare of a thousand arachships, of flying missiles, of exploding starships, of a distant, burning Earth. And still the song filled the bridge.

For liberty's light! For glory's hymn!

Praise the Freedom, she will win!

The Dune wobbled forward, one side cracked open, and came into position off Freedom's port bow.

"I'm here with you, Freedom!" rose Laila's cry.

The Baba Yaga charged, ramming into one arachship, knocking it into another one, and her particle beam blazed forward, carving through a third enemy dreadnought. The gargantuan Red Dawn flagship took position off Freedom's starboard beam.

"Do not fear, Freedom!" rose Katyusha's voice. "Katyusha is here!"

The enemy bombarded them again. Another spear hit Freedom, scraping across her dorsal hull. A blast grazed the Baba Yaga, ripping through filigree and armored plates and knocking off one brass cannon.

The flagships were hurt. Leaking air. Leaking fire. Leaking life.

But they kept flying nonetheless.

They could turn back. They could flee to Mars. They could find another world far from Earth and settle down.

But not one commander, not one spacer, not one proud admiral or lowly deckhand considered retreat for a second.

They had run from battle once. Not again. Never again.

"For Earth!" King cried.

"For Earth!" said Laila.

"For Katyusha!" said Katyusha. "Fine, fine, for Earth!"

Through a storm of spears they flew. Their interceptors deflected a few. Their shields blocked some. But some spears made it through. Some spears carved holes into their ships. Sliced through decks. Took lives. And the ships of humanity flew onward, and their cannons led the way.

Three hundred warships. One spear of fury driving ever forward. The Angels of Liberty kept lighting the darkness. Baba Yaga kept firing her crackling, furious particle beam. The Dune sliced through enemy hulls with her lasers. From the other starships flew an endless salvo of missiles and torpedoes. They concentrated all their fire ahead, burning a path through the enemy lines.

And the enemy lines broke.

The portal imploded behind the human fleet.

The arachships flew all around. There was no escaping now. The enemy was behind them, below, above, raining their terrible spears and bolts of plasma.

A corvette tumbled and smashed into a carrier. Explosions blazed.

A frigate caught fire, then streaked forward in its death throes, ramming into an arachship. Four hundred human lives instantly pulverized in a white-hot explosion that tossed chunks of metal across orbit.

And the Freedom still flew. Because they were in the heart of the storm now. And beyond this black bleeding heart she awaited. Earth. King could not see the planet, could not see the stars above or the moon behind him. All he saw was the storm.

And he sailed onward through it, steering his ship, clutching onto the wheel like a mad captain, but his crew believed in him. They stood tall, chins raised, fighting with him over every wave.

And then she was there.

Crashing through the battle. Blotting out the firelight.

The Atrocity.

The arachships parted, letting their flagship fly forth. The mechanical spiders paused their devastating assault.

Magog'rah was on that ship.

King snarled and clenched his fists.

The giant skull grinned. Her enormous metal jaws opened, and Atrocity vomited a thousand spiderwings. The little vessels flew toward the human fleet, plasma bolts flying.

"Freedom's Flock—launch!" King cried.

Spitfire made to run off the bridge.

King stopped her with a telepathic order. "Not you, Spitfire."

She paused, fuming. "Two flights a week!"

"Not you."

This was among the greatest battles in the war so far. He needed Spitfire on the bridge. To learn how to command the dreadnought through hell. She understood. She stayed.

The Eagles flew from the hangars. The Baba Yaga launched her Sickle starfighters. Other warships, the great carriers, launched their own starfighters. Each nation built its own class of starfighters. There were Chinese Dragons, Indian Tigerclaws, Brazilian Smoking Serpents, Egyptian Sphinxes, and more. Tonight they all flew together. Thousands of pilots, united against the spiders.

Space exploded with a storm of dogfights.

As the starfighters battled, the Atrocity rumbled forward. The largest ships had their own battle to fight.

The Atrocity lowered her metal head, aiming her crown of spikes. Each of those spikes was the size of a skyscraper. They heated up, prepared to fire.

"Mimori, evasive action!" King said.

The Freedom swerved as the spikes fired.

One neutron beam sliced along their port hull, scraping off sensors, chunks of armor, and breaching two decks. The casualty counters climbed.

Another beam seared a line across Baba Yaga's dorsal hull.

One beam slammed right into the Dune.

The neutron beam drove through the graceful ship's prow and out her stern.

Laila's avatar appeared on Freedom's bridge. White flame burned around her.

"Fight on, King," Laila whispered.

"Sir!" Mimori said. "Dune's internal reactor is burning!"

"Laila, you have to get out of there!" King said. "You must abandon ship!"

A tear ran down Laila's cheek. "Fight for Ear—"

Another particle beam slammed into the Dune.

The frigate exploded.

King howled in grief and rage.

"Damn you, Magog'rah!" he cried. "Damn you to hell!"

The giant skull hovered before them, seeming to smile.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Robby "Pickles" Cooper flew into hell.

He had never seen a battle like this.

Hundreds of arachships, each the size of a city, floated ahead. The Atrocity, a starship the size of a mountain, loomed above them, her jaws opening and closing, disgorging spiders. Clouds of spiderwings swarmed to battle, each with a psychotic, murderous arachtaur inside. The HUD displayed an enemy count: 32,443 enemy starfighters.

It had to be a bug. A sensor malfunction. There could not be so many.

Pickles flew toward them in the Born to Run, his dented old Eagle. Two hundred Eagles flew around him. The fabled Freedom's Flock.

Was this their last flight?

The enemy flew closer. Myriads of mechanical spiders. The arachtaurs stared from their cockpits, their demonic faces twisted with bloodlust. A tidal wave of hell rolled toward him, and Pickles trembled.

I'm only a stunt pilot, he thought. I'm not a warrior. I have to run. I have to hide! Maybe the Aeolians will accept me. I can live in Heaven's Geode. Find a quiet life as a librarian. I can't face this hell.

The enemy opened fire.

Plasma bolts flew at the Flock.

The starfighters swerved. Bolts passed between them, furious and blinding. One bolt hit Tiger Eye, and the young pilot screamed as her starfighter exploded. The rest kept flying, but the enemy rose before them, a storm of spiders, surging forth.

Pickles's hands were shaking and clammy. But he tightened them around the joysticks.

He charged forward into the flame.

He had run once. At Darkland. He had fled battle and hidden as braver men fought. He would not run again.

"Onward—and fight!" he cried.

He tried to sound inspiring like King, but his voice was shaking, a little too high, a little too squeaky. But he flew onward. And the others followed.

Their missiles streaked forth, and explosions rocked the alien fleet. Spiderwings shattered.

"Onward!" rose a cry behind him.

"Forward!"

"For Earth!"

"For humanity!"

It took Pickles a moment to realize—those weren't his own pilots. They were voices in foreign languages, which his MindLink was translating for him. The voices of other starfighter fleets. Voices of pilots from other nations—united here, flying with him.

The Flock was not alone.

Pickles unleashed more missiles. Two spiderwings exploded before him. He rolled around their shrapnel and charged at two more.

"Hey, Pickles!" Katana cried. The young Japanese pilot was flying her Eagle nearby. "Seven already!"

He cursed. He was only at two. "Shut up! This isn't a contest."

"Sure it is. And I'm beating your ass." Her Eagle streaked overhead, rotary cannon firing, and a spiderwing shattered before her.

Two spiderwings were roaring behind her, right on her stern. Pickles soared, fired his own rotary gun, and tore through one, then the other.

"Four!" he said.

"Is that it? Pathetic." Katana laughed.

"I just saved your life, you know."

Katana unleashed a missile. It streaked over Born to Run and exploded against a spiderwing behind Pickles. "Eight. And now we're even."

"Ah, both you guys are losers," said Battle Axe, a stocky pilot from the upper hangar. His Eagle soared above them. "I'm at eleven already, and—"

Spiderwings charged at him, and plasma bolts slammed into his starfighter. Battle Axe screamed—and then his scream fell silent.

A jolt of memory pounded through Pickles.

Suddenly he was back in his first battle. Christmas, 2199. The rahs had invaded Earth, and the warships had burned, and all the real warriors were dead, so the stunt pilots flew out. And his friend. The beefy pilot they called Meatball. Screaming. Dying. And Pickles couldn't do this. He was just a stunt pilot, he was—

No.

He took a deep breath.

That was three years ago, he told himself. You are a warrior now. You are a leader of warriors. Fight!

He gritted his teeth, dodged streams of plasma, and fought on.

Far below him, no larger than a beach ball held at arm's length, he could see Earth. It was the planet they were all fighting for. Yet for a terrible moment, as Pickles gazed at Earth through the storm of battle, it seemed to him a foreign planet. What was Earth to him? He had left Earth twenty-three years ago. At first he had done odd jobs on space mines and cargo haulers, saving up money for his first space racer. Then he had competed in the Asteroid Belt Races, sleeping in his racer among the stars. When he visited Earth, there were only bad memories. The drunken stepfather. The mother's grave. The schoolyard bullies who still smirked when they saw him. He always returned to space, finally becoming a stunt pilot, then a fighter pilot, and for two decades, he avoided that blue planet below. So yes, what was Earth to him? He was a man of space.

Then he looked above, and he saw the Freedom.

The great starship rumbled above, her cannons booming, and the great warships of humanity rallied behind her.

That was his home. That was why Pickles fought. For Freedom. For Katana and Snoopy and Trash Panda and Spitfire and all the other pilots. For Admiral King, who believed in him, who gave him another chance. For the deckhands who worked in the starfighter hangars, for the marines who fought the spiders, for ten thousand souls who served aboard that ship. The only family he ever had.

Tears filled his eyes. On Earth, they hated him. They beat him. They spat on him. No, perhaps Earth had never been his home, and the patriotic songs about Earth's green hills did not inspire him. But Freedom was his home, and she was a home worth fighting for.

"Watch your ass, Pickles!" Katana swooped, bombarding a spiderwing that was chasing the Born to Run. "Stop daydreaming!"

He nodded and kept fighting.

For Freedom. For his family.

A swarm of spiderwings soared above the Flock, heading toward the Freedom. The dreadnought was busy fighting several arachships. Pickles narrowed his eyes and charged toward the swarm. He fired a missile at one spiderwing, his rotary cannon at another. Katana and Snoopy flew at his sides, guns booming. Spiderwings exploded. One spiderwing lost control, careened, and shattered against Freedom's force field.

While the Eagles were flying so close to Freedom's hull, an enormous spiderwing charged toward them. Or maybe she was a small arachship. In any case, she was much bigger than the Born to Run. Several arachtaurs could be seen inside the cockpit, tugging webs. A hundred legs stretched out from the ship, each firing plasma bolts. The HUD displayed the ship's name: The Dissector.

Streams of plasma blazed from each of those arachnid legs. Pickles managed to dodge several jets, and so did Katana, but one gushing torrent of white plasma washed over Snoopy's Eagle.

The young pilot screamed.

"Snoopy!" Pickles cried.

But her Eagle had melted.

Snoopy was gone.

Amy "Snoopy" Walls. The youngest pilot in the Flock, always so shy, so gentle. The sweetheart of the Flock. Gone.

The Dissector turned toward Pickles, flying closer, trying to pin him against Freedom. The arachtaurs in the cockpit grinned.

Pickles could not flee. The Freedom was at his back.

He sneered and charged at the arachtaur warship.

A second before ramming into the much-larger vessel, he shoved down the new lever in his cockpit. The brass lever with the crystals on it.

And the Dissector vanished. The Freedom vanished. Earth vanished.

He was in the Otherworld.

* * * * *

Pickles blinked, staring around curiously.

He knew hopscotching was risky. The Aeolians had run the numbers. A starfighter jumping the maximum distance, a mere hundred klicks, had a seventeen percent chance of never making it home. Not great odds. But when facing a gargantuan spiderwing about to squash him against a dreadnought's hull—well, Pickles had rolled the dice. And here he was.

Some pilots described the Otherworld as a universe inside a drop of water. And indeed, that was what it reminded Pickles of. Here was a murky world full of turquoise mist and distant red rings around crescent stars. Luminous creatures swam all around. Some were just featureless blobs, but some had stumpy legs, while others looked like mites the size of warships. They were all translucent. Pickles could see their pulsing organs, the meals inside their bellies, and fluids flowing through tubes. They seemed made of glass and light.

A rumble sounded in the distance.

Pickles stared and a chill flooded him.

A shadow rose within the clouds, and an eye like a star stared through the mist. Tentacles moved like the funnels of a storm.

The brass lever clicked back into place.

The Born to Run reappeared in reality. Earth was ahead, the Dissector behind.

At once, Pickles spun his starfighter around, then unleashed his last two missiles.

They flew into the Dissector's exhaust ports and detonated. Explosions rocked the alien ship, shattering her into a million pieces. The shrapnel burned against Freedom's force field like flies landing on electric fly traps.

Katana flew toward him, bringing her starfighter to hover beside his. She looked at him from her cockpit.

"Good work, Picky."

"Watch out for that Otherworld," Pickles said. "Nasty place."

"Can't be worse than here."

Pickles thought of the tentacled creature he had seen and shuddered. He hovered beside the Freedom for a moment, anxiously waiting as the ammunition drones flew out to resupply his Eagle.

No sooner were the drones done than a storm of spiderwings came racing toward him. A hundred or more. And most of the Flock was farther out. Bolts of plasma streamed their way.

"Ah, hell," Pickles said and shoved the lever again.

He returned to that strange realm in a drop of water. The clouds were a darker shade of blue now, and the distant red rings burned brighter. The luminous beings now had stubby little teeth, and they chased one another ruthlessly, eating, devouring. Worst of all was the great beast ahead. It loomed in the storm, tentacles stretching above and below like roots growing inside a terrarium. The distant roars of the beast echoed like thunder.

The lever snapped back into place.

Pickles returned to reality—now behind the swarm of spiderwings. The alien starfighters cornered Katana and several other Eagles, shoving them into the path of an arachship the size of a town.

"I got your backs!" Pickles called to his friends.

He raced toward the swarm from behind, missiles flying. Spiderwings exploded, careened, slammed into one another. A few clumsily tried to turn toward him. They had no idea how he had suddenly appeared. The arachtaurs knew about portals, but only the great interstellar portals that took massive amounts of energy, bent spacetime, and formed blobby spheres in deep space. They had never seen an Eagle simply disappear, then reappear.

The Aeolians used this technology to defeat the rahs, Pickles thought. And I'll use it to defeat these hybrid monstrosities. To save my home. My family.

He kept firing his missiles, destroying the enemy starfighters from behind. Finally the swarm changed position. Leaving Katana and the others, the spiderwings flew toward the Born to Run. White bolts of energy raced his way.

Pickles let out a howl and shoved the hopscotch lever yet again.

He flew into the Otherworld, and he barely recognized the place. If this were indeed some universe in a drop of water, that water was now caught in a storm. The clouds swirled all around, and the distant red rings crackled like great halos of fire, raining ash. The creatures had grown long, curved fangs and many legs tipped with claws. Instead of merely swallowing their prey, they ripped them apart, sucking out their innards. One little predator, probably no larger than a dog, burrowed into a giant, blobby beast and devoured its organs from the inside.

In the distance, Pickles saw a floating Eagle, its engine blown out, its cockpit shattered. One from his Flock, lost here in the Otherworld. Blobby creatures were ripping the fuselage apart. One creature stuck a tubular tongue into the pilot and began sucking out his insides. Pickles didn't even know who it was. The face was already gone.

A deafening roar sounded, and tentacles rushed toward him, and—

Clack.

On its own, the lever moved back into place. Pickles had made it out alive. But he was in no less danger.

He had hopscotched right into a swarm of spiderwings.

* * * * *

"Pickles, what the hell are you doing?" It was Spitfire, shouting from Freedom's bridge. "Slow down with your hopscotching!"

He didn't have time to acknowledge her. The spiderwings surrounded him.

Pickles yanked the joystick and engaged his new graviton thrusters, tossing the Born to Run into a spin. As he spun at mad speed, he fired his rotary gun, spraying bullets every which way. The spiderwings fell back. A few cockpits shattered. Arachtaurs screamed silently, voices lost in the vacuum, as bullets drove into them. They tried to regroup, to fire plasma. One bolt hit Pickles on the wing. Another bolt seared off his tail fin. More plasma bolts flew and—

He shoved the lever.

He flew through a raging storm.

The strange, translucent creatures had grown clusters of red eyes. They lunged at his Eagle. Claws ripped along the hull. A claw punched a hole through the cockpit's steelglass canopy, and Pickles screamed and fired his rotary gun, but the bullets moved so slowly. He might as well be firing through syrup. The great tentacled being rose before him, opening a jaw the size of a cave, full of slender sharp teeth.

Pickles grabbed the lever himself and pulled it back into place, prematurely returning to the universe. He sat for a moment in the cockpit, shaky, covered with sweat.

He surveyed the battle around him. The Freedom flew nearby, bombarding several arachships. The rest of the human fleet battled all around, from the mighty dreadnoughts to the humble starfighters. The Atrocity loomed above the battle like Satan overseeing hell.

"Pickles?" It was Katana. Her voice was shaking. "Pickles, are you all right? Your canopy is broken."

"I'm fine. I got my helmet on, got my oxygen tank, I'm good." Floaters of light hovered around him.

"Pickles, don't hopscotch so much," Katana said. "All right, buddy?"

"Hey, you're just jealous that I'm beating you in my kill count." He waved at her Eagle. "You're way behind me, baby."

"I don't care about that," she said. "Just be careful, all right?"

He nodded. "I will. No more hopscotching. If I die, I wanna die like a proper man—in a flaming wreck."

"Don't even joke about that," Katana said, and her voice choked. Then she had to swerve as a spiderwing flew at her. She fled around the Freedom, then rose over the dreadnought's dorsal hull, missiles flying. The spiderwing exploded.

As thousands of starships battled all around, Pickles paused for a moment and looked at the seat beside him.

The claw that had shattered his canopy had also pierced the chair an inch from his neck.

He had almost died. Another inch—he'd be dead.

And he felt nothing. The fear had left him. There was only numbness. Maybe his trips to the Otherworld had broken something inside him. This all seemed like a dream now. That strange realm was certainly dreamlike—but this reality too. Maybe this universe he had always known was just one in many. Just another nightmare. He looked around him at the spider-shaped ships, at the flying missiles, at the smoldering hulks of dead starships, and his own reality seemed like a dreamworld.

He missed his days working on a cargo hauler. Just operating that mecha, day in a day out, stocking boxes. Just a kid with big dreams and dirty hands. Life had seemed so much simpler. And there had been Maki. Sweet Maki, the girl he had kissed behind the crates that day. Her lips had tasted like marzipan.

He blinked, realized that he was almost falling asleep, that his mind was wandering.

That's when he noticed it.

When the claw had thrust into his canopy, it had sliced along his arm. It had ripped his flight suit. Just a tiny hairline rip. But the air was fleeing.

Maki. Sweet Maki with stars in her eyes and lips of marzipan …

He forced a breath. His oxygen was low. He was in the mecha again, on that cargo hauler, and he was lifting a giant roll of tape, repairing his suit, sealing in the air, and—

A deep breath from his oxygen tank.

His mind cleared.

A spiderwing flew at him, and plasma roared, and he pitched to the left, then yawed hard and fired. A David's Stone missile flew, and the spiderwing was no more.

He took a few more deep breaths, realizing how close he had come to losing consciousness. He would have slipped away without even noticing his death. Maybe that would have been a kindness.

He gasped, forgetting all about his own mortality.

An enormous arachship was charging at Freedom from behind.

The Freedom was busy battling three arachships ahead of her. She could not spare any firepower on the enemy approaching her stern.

"Freedom!" Pickles said into his cockpit. "Freedom, do you hear me?" Nobody answered. "Spitfire!" He tried her channel directly. "There's an arachship—huge one—approaching off your stern!"

The arachships off Freedom's prow were firing. Silver spears streaked toward the dreadnought. The Shield of David interceptors boomed across the hull, launching interceptors. But more spears flew, and one hit the prow, ripping the shield, blasting a hole through the armor.

"Freedom!" Pickles said, but he heard only screaming and cursing from the bridge.

The arachship moved closer behind the Freedom.

A few corvettes, tasked with defending the Freedom, charged at the enormous arachship, but the silver spears flew. A corvette exploded. Then another. The arachship kept moving. Her eight legs extended, aiming at Freedom's exhaust ports.

If the spears flew in there, Pickles knew, the entire Freedom would blow up.

He shoved down the throttle, charging at the arachship in his broken little Eagle.

* * * * *

"Pickles, what are you doing?" Katana cried, racing up in her starfighter.

"Taking on that ship!"

"Pickles, you're flying an Eagle!" Katana shouted, flying at his side. "You're like a wasp attacking an elephant!"

"A wasp can kill an elephant if it stabs the beast's heart," he said. He thought of the tiny predator he had seen in the underworld, devouring the larger creature from the inside.

"What? Pickles! What are you talking about?"

He looked to his left. Katana was flying there—only a few meters away. He made eye contact with her.

"Katana, if I don't make it home … the Flock is yours. Take good care of our family. Tell Spitfire goodbye. That girl taught me everything I know."

"Pickles!" Katana had tears in her eyes. "Stop talking like you're going to—"

Pickles shoved the hopscotch lever. Just a bit. Just a few angles forward. Not a far jump. And—

He was flying in a storming sea of clawed, fanged, hungry blobs. Mouths opened to scream. A luminous claw lashed his starfighter, peeling off a chunk of fuselage. Another claw drove into Pickles's belly, and he cried out in agony. A creature rose before him, gurgling hungrily, and extended tubes tipped with blades. One tube snaked toward Pickles, and—

He pulled the lever back. He reappeared in reality.

But he didn't see the stars. He didn't see the Freedom.

He was flying inside the arachship.

As planned—he had jumped right into it.

His Eagle was flying through an enormous deck full of strange, coiling trees and hanging webs, and arachtaurs screamed all around, eyes alight. Before him, fire rose from a pit. A cauldron of hellfire. A reactor.

Arachtaurs leaped toward his Eagle, and he fired his rotary cannon, tearing them apart, and kept flying inside the cavernous deck. He tugged the thruster controls, slowing his Eagle down, then gently glided over the gurgling, rumbling, churning pit of molten fire. The reactor belched up flames and terrible heat, and the arachtaurs recoiled. Pickles hovered over the caldera.

In the Otherworld, the glowing claw had ripped open his stomach. He was leaking. Draining. His lifeblood was spilling into the cockpit, and he wept.

"Mom," he whispered, tears in his eyes. "I miss you. I want to go home. I miss you, Mom."

Blind with tears, he pulled the little red lever to his left, releasing bombs from under his wings.

They fell into the cauldron.

Pickles shoved the hopscotch drive again.

For the briefest of instants, he was aware of the cauldron exploding, of the arachship collapsing, but by then, he was already hopscotching.

As the arachship exploded around him, an echo of reality a split second long … He made it to the realm beyond.

He was in the Otherworld.

He was alive.

The horrors swam around him, but he was almost done. This was his last jump. He could make it home. He could reach the infirmary. Dr. Annie could stitch him up, and he could be with his family again.

He reached for the hopscotch lever, ready to pull it back, to return to reality.

But it didn't work.

The tentacled god was there. The beast had grabbed his starfighter. Pickles pulled again on the lever, but the tentacles had a grip on him, and his Eagle would not jump.

The creature pulled him down and down, and Pickles screamed, shoved at the lever again and again, and his Eagle thrummed and crackled but could not jump. He looked below him, and instead of a caldera of fire he saw a mouth. The huge mouth of the beast. Just as large and cruel and full of red, quivering flesh and sharp teeth. The tentacles pulled him down and down into that soft red pit.

As the horror engulfed him, Robby "Pickles" Cooper closed his eyes.

It was just a dream, after all. Just a nightmare. He was back aboard the Airavata, that creaky old cargo hauler. The rumbles were just the engines, not monsters. He was holding Maki in his arms, and her lips tasted of marzipan.

"Robby," she said between sweet kisses, "you're not gonna break my heart, are you?"

"I'll be with you always, Maki. Until the day I die."

When the rahs had fallen from the sky, when the millions perished on Earth, she had died with them, but Pickles had kept his promise. He was with her always. Through the war and the loss. With his new family in his new home. Maki with the marzipan lips. Until the day he died.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

King stood on the bridge of the Freedom, watching the horror unfold.

The debris of the Dune floated ahead, some chunks of the ship gliding into deep space, others falling to Earth and burning up in the atmosphere. Queen Laila. Leader of the Desert Thorns. His friend. Gone.

Freedom's Flock was being decimated. Robby "Pickles" Cooper, Flock Father—gone. The surviving starfighters—in disarray.

Earth below—burning.

We are losing this war, King knew. Then he inhaled sharply and gritted his teeth. Not yet! We can turn the tide.

There was one weapon they had not yet deployed. The Freedom Brigade.

King called his son. Bastian was already down in the Rhino bay. He stood on the deck, arms crossed, overseeing his fleet of dropships. Thousands of his marines were inside their Rhinos, wearing battle armor, carrying assault rifles, ready to launch.

"Bastian, the time is near," King said. "Be ready to launch on my order."

Bastian nodded. "We're ready. Just say the word."

"Hold tight. Once we're a little closer to Earth. We'll try to get you as close as possible to Jerusalem."

"We'll secure that city. I swear it." Bastian hesitated. "Dad, in case I don't make it back—"

"You'll make it back!"

"In case I don't, Dad … I love you."

King's eyes dampened. Dammit. He didn't have time for sentimentality. But he found himself answering with a choked voice. "I love you too, son. You'll—"

A crackling shriek filled his ears.

King winced. His call to Bastian died.

"Sir!" Mimori looked up from her station, her face awash with the blues, greens, and purples of the monitors around her. "The Atrocity is hailing us. Should I—" She grimaced. "He's forcing himself in, he's—"

The central viewport crackled. Magog'rah's arachnid visage appeared on the screen. The hideous hybrid grinned, revealing rows of fangs. He was standing on the cavernous bridge of the Atrocity. Young women hung around him, trussed up in cobwebs, some dead, some still alive. His trophies of war.

"Ah, hello again, old friend," Magog'rah said. "Did you care for the Arabian queen? Are you still grieving her death? I will kill your granddaughter next, King. Then your son. You I will keep alive for—"

"Get that son of a bitch off my screen!" King barked.

Mimori was tapping on the controls furiously, her fingers blurring. Finally she got the viewport to reboot. Magog'rah vanished.

"Mimori!" King said. "Aim at the Atrocity. And fire the Fist of Freedom."

"Confirmed," said Jordan. "Fire the Fist!"

The enormous railgun switched on. Electricity lit up the rails. Blinding white light washed over the bridge, over the battle all around.

The Atrocity saw what was happening. She still had a crater above one eye socket, the gift of the Fist. She tried to flee. But Freedom had graviton thrusters now, and she was faster than ever, and her light burned with furious vengeance.

The Fist of Freedom fired.

A Gideon projectile, a hunk of pure metal, shot between the rails at hypersonic speed. The missile moved so fast it rippled spacetime, casting out gravitational waves.

A split second later, far too fast for the eye to see or the mind to comprehend, the Gideon slammed into the Atrocity and exploded.

They hit the same spot. The crater where they had punched the Atrocity before. This time they carved a hole right through the giant skull.

A cloud of metal shards tumbled out the back of Atrocity's head.

Across the Freedom's bridge, they cheered.

But slowly the cheers died. They all stared at the Atrocity. The ship was still flying. Even with a hole clear through her hull, she was still operational. And … something was happening. King frowned.

"Mimori, zoom in on the damage."

The viewport zoomed in, and then they saw it.

Spiders were bubbling out the hole. They filled the wound like maggots, scurrying through the hole, weaving webs, sealing breaches. It was like watching a time lapse of a growing scab.

"They survived a second blow of the Fist of Freedom," Spitfire said, shaking her head in wonder. "How the hell can they sur—"

A high-pitched shriek like feedback from a speaker filled the bridge. Everyone winced. A powerful transmission washed over them. Electricity leaped from Mimori's control panel. The android stumbled back, shaking sparks off her fingers.

Once more, Magog'rah appeared on the viewport.

"So rude, Admiral King!" the deformed creature said. "To hang up on me, then fire your little gun?" His eight eyes narrowed. "I called to tell you something, Admiral King. You abandoned Mars. You abandoned the humans who live there. Run back now, King! Scurry behind that red planet of yours once more. Or I will wipe out your precious Martian colony."

A portal began to form above.

Arachships began moving toward it.

King glared at the monstrous hybrid. "You're bluffing. You wouldn't dare pull ships away from Earth."

"Is that so, Admiral?" Magog'rah licked his chops. "The defenses you left at Mars are feeble. Just a handful of ships. A few armed satellites. A squadron of my arachships will be enough to take that planet."

A chill ran down King's back. It was true.

"You need every arachship here at Earth," King said. "Your clawships are gone! The rahs left you!"

Magog'rah tossed back his head and laughed, a sound like an avalanche of bones. "Do you really think two of your pathetic human planets are too much for me, ape? You watched as I destroyed your friend's flagship. You watched as I wiped out your hometown. Now watch as I destroy the planet you abandoned."

The call died.

Several arachships were still moving toward the portal.

Mimori had moved to another console. The android was typing furiously. Lights from the monitor flashed across her face. She looked up at King.

"Sir, we don't have enough energy to generate a new portal to Mars. Not after firing the Fist. I suggest we charge forward through the enemy's portal. We can chase them to Mars."

The first arachship moved through the portal.

Mars was three light-minutes away. They would not hear news for another three minutes.

A second arachship flew through.

"Sir! Should I proceed?" Mimori said.

King shook his head. "No. We're staying here. Send orders to the bulk of the fleet, which is flying through regular spacetime. Send five squadrons back to Mars."

"Jim, dammit!" Jordan grabbed his arm. "They're an hour away from Mars. In an hour, the planet might be gone. If we fly through Magog'rah's portal, we can be there within seconds."

"Our mission is to liberate Earth," King said. "We will stick to this mission." His voice dropped. "Even if we must sacrifice Mars."

Everyone was staring at him.

Spitfire had tears in her eyes.

Tens of thousands of colonists lived on Mars.

"Sometimes in chess, you must sacrifice a rook to capture the king," King said softly.

"This isn't a game!" Spitfire cried. "Those are living people on Mars! People with families, with—"

"Spitfire!" Jordan snapped.

"I will not be silent!" Spitfire knuckled her eyes. "Let me fly out! I'll take a starfighter, I'll—"

"Spitfire, calm down now, or I'll relieve you from duty!" Jordan said.

She glowered. "I'm a lieutenant commander now, sir. I will speak my mind. This is a betrayal!"

King listened to them talk.

"It is a sacrifice," he said. "A terrible sacrifice."

A few more arachships flew through the portal—and then it closed.

The first reports were coming in from Mars now. Panicked reports. Videos of raining fire. People burning. Screaming.

He had sacrificed a piece on the board. A necessary move. But King knew those screams would always haunt him.

* * * * *

As Mars burned, King stared ahead at the Atrocity. Still hovering over Earth, the giant skull seemed to grin. Magog'rah was gloating. He was loving this. But there was something this monstrosity did not know.

At Mars, when launching Operation Gaia's Flame, the human fleet had opened one portal for half an hour. Enough to send three hundred ships through to Earth for a swift, advance strike. Humans simply didn't control enough energy to open as many portals as the Arakavish Armada. The rest of the fleet—thousands of ships—were taking the long flight to Earth. They were not due to arrive for days.

Magog'rah had seen the thousands of ships depart Mars. He knew how long it would take them to arrive. Let them languish in space for days! Until then, Magog'rah had only to deal with King and his ragtag flotilla. A tiny force. Nothing to concern him. By the time the bulk of the human fleet arrived, nothing would remain of the famous Admiral James King and his ragged band of heroes.

But King had not used all their reserve energy.

He had not emptied the enormous batteries Mars had delivered to his fleet. He had saved enough energy for one more portal.

And now King gave the order. And that portal materialized.

Right behind the Atrocity.

And more human ships came pouring out, cannons booming.

Alliance torpedoes slammed into Atrocity, and explosions flared across the colossus. Red Dawn particle beams seared through arachships. Desert Thorn ships streaked forward, lasers flashing, determined to avenge their fallen queen.

"Charge and fire!" King cried.

The Freedom roared back to action, cannons booming. Behind her, over two hundred ships unleashed their fury.

They were bombarding the enemy from both sides, trapping Atrocity and her hosts.

The enemy lines crumbled. A cluster of arachships tumbled into space and scrambled to regroup. But Rear Admiral Clara Nightingale flew at them, leading two squadrons of frigates, and drove them into the darkness. Another group of arachships tried to descend, perhaps to loop around Earth and slingshot back to battle. But the Baba Yaga swooped, blocked their flight, and opened fire with a glorious display of blazing cannons. A squadron of Red Dawn corvettes surprised the enemy from above, shoving them against Katyusha's fire.

The battle flared all around, human and arachtaur starships blasting one another apart.

King stared through the battle at the Atrocity.

Even a second blast from the Fist, even all their torpedoes, had not destroyed that ship. Any damage they did—the rahs quickly repaired it. It was like battling a hydra that kept regrowing her heads. They must proceed with their plan to ram the Atrocity into Earth. It would take a planet to destroy that ship.

But first King needed to get closer to Earth. To deploy his troops to Jerusalem. He must win the war in space—but also help Godwin win the war on the ground.

He sent out a fleet-wide message.

"Begin herding the Atrocity closer to Earth. We're going to ram her into Antarctica. It's the only way to destroy her."

Katyusha's voice came over MindWeb, soft and trembling. "Poor pingviny. Can't we ram Atrocity into America instead?"

"No!" King snapped.

The fleet changed position. The bulk of the frigates and corvettes guarded the perimeter. The dreadnoughts and carriers, Freedom and Baba Yaga the largest among them, forced an offensive wedge. They drove toward Atrocity, bombarding her with their cannons. Every blast shoved the Atrocity back in space—closer to Earth.

"Watch out for those neutron cannons!" King said.

The Atrocity's crown of cannons was heating up again.

Neutron beams blasted out, blinding. One beam slammed into the Gojira head-on, carving through the Japanese frigate. Another beam sliced into the FAS Edmund Hillary, destroying the New Zealand frigate with a single blast. A beam shot toward Freedom too, but with her new graviton thrusters, she nimbly dodged the assault. The beam shot into the distance, searing the antennae off the FAS Vishnu but sparing the Indian warship's hull.

"Charge onward!" King said. "Fire everything at the Atrocity. Drive her back!"

"Smash her into America!" Katyusha cried.

"Antarctica!" King shouted.

Their cannons boomed. More torpedoes slammed into the Atrocity, shoving her back in space—closer, closer to Earth.

And it was time.

They were close enough.

This was the best chance King would get.

He called his son again. "Bastian, launch the Rhinos!"

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Rhinos launched from the Freedom airlocks.

"To Earth!" Bastian cried to his troops. "To—"

A Rhino exploded beside him. Shrapnel flew everywhere. Corpses thudded against Freedom's hull. A few corpses tumbled back into the airlock; the door hadn't even slid shut yet.

The surviving Rhinos flew onward, and—

Plasma bolts streamed.

Another Rhino tore open. Burning marines flew into space, a few still alive and screaming, only for more bolts to tear through them.

Bastian stood in his harness, rattling, his head banging from side to side. He watched through MindWeb, connecting to cameras on his Rhino, on other Rhinos, and on Freedom's hull.

He had never seen anything like this.

Earth smoldered below. The Rhinos dived through the storm in space, heading toward the planet. The Freedom had flown as close as she could. But it was still a long drop. And hell spread between them and their destination.

They had no choice but to fly through hell.

The Rhinos flew around the silver spears. They flew through swarms of spiderwings, ramming into the little alien starfighters, knocking them back. They flew through the plasma. They swept around the remains of the Jangseung Orbital Ring. The arachtaurs had hijacked the ruins of the megastructure. The hybrids were now firing the gargantuan ring's remaining cannons.

Another Rhino exploded.

A silver spear from an arachship drove through another.

Every Rhino contained a platoon. Every one destroyed—fifty lives lost.

And the survivors kept flying.

Forty shuttles had left the starship Freedom. Thirty-four reached the atmosphere of Earth.

Three hundred soldiers—gone before they even reached Earth. Bastian's eyes stung, and he balled his fists, but he would mourn them later.

"I'm with you, Bas," Alice said, standing at his side. "I love you."

Their Rhinos dived into the stratosphere with showers of sparks. For a moment, all Bastian could see was the smoke and flame. They kept diving, lower and lower, down through the mesosphere, through the stratosphere, then descending farther still into the troposphere, and the flames weren't clearing. And Bastian realized it wasn't the fire of reentry. It was fire and smoke rising from below.

Earth was burning.

Through the haze, he beheld a line of fire streaking across the land, ending with forks of flame. A delta. A burning delta.

"The Nile," he said. "We're over the Nile."

The banks of the ancient river were ablaze. Smoke rolled over the desert, hiding the pyramids. Bastian caught glimpses of fires scattered across Cairo.

Then the Rhinos pitched, leveling their flight, no longer descending but flying parallel to the ground. They raced over the Sinai. Moses and the children of Israel had spent forty years lost in this desert. The Rhinos blazed across it within minutes, heading to the holy land.

Once they crossed the Suez, they saw them.

Arachtaurs.

Swarms of arachtaurs covered the land of Israel. From up here, they appeared like locust spreading across the desert. They were a biblical plague. But the Freedom Brigade were angels from heaven, riding chariots of fire.

"Look at them," Alice whispered. They were both deep inside the Rhino, surrounded by thick walls and metal harnesses, but MindWeb showed them the view from the cameras on the hull. "There must be millions of them."

"They breed fast," Bastian muttered.

"How can we defeat millions?" Alice said. "We're only a couple thousand marines."

"We're not alone," Bastian said. "Look."

More dropships were descending. Crimson dropships with snarling bears on their prows. Red Dawn troops! And more shuttles, farther out—Alliance shuttles from other warships. And Desert Thorn dropships too. Hundreds of dropships from the human fleet, all descending here to the land of Israel. To face Od'rahda, mistress of spiders, leader of the enemy's ground troops.

In the distance, Bastian could see it now. The holy city on the mountain. Jerusalem. The arachtaurs had draped her ancient walls with cobwebs, and blood flowed down her cobbled streets. But hope was here. The Rhinos slowed down, flying over the desert toward the shining city.

"It's Gog and Magog," Bastian whispered, eyes damp.

Alice tilted her head. "What?"

"There's an ancient prophecy called Gog and Magog," Bastian said. "The prophecy is thousands of years old. It speaks of a day when evil will cover the land, when the world seems about to end. At this time, it is said, the armies of the world will all invade Israel. Every nation will converge in this land, and in a climactic battle, evil will be vanquished. For all these thousands of years, people thought it meant that nations would invade Israel to destroy it. That humans will be the villains in this morality play, and that God will strike them down and deliver the nation of Israel from destruction. But we got it wrong. Humans are not the evil of prophecy. We are those who will deliver Israel from evil."

Alice looked at him like he was crazy. "Sounds like a lot of superstition to me. Since when have you been religious?"

His cheeks flushed. "I never was much. But this does all seem biblical, doesn't it?"

Alice shoved a magazine into her assault rifle. "I'm ready to deliver some biblical punishment on my enemies. I can tell you that much."

A click sounded behind them. A harness opening. A small figure walked toward them through the hold.

"I'm here to help!" Stowy said, raising a crystal dagger. "Where are the bad guys? Point me at 'em!"

Bastian's eyes widened. "Dammit, Stowy! What are you doing here?"

"What do you think?" the girl said. "Stowing away. As usual. I should think it's obvious."

"Well, stop it!" Bastian said. "We're flying into a war zone."

The stowaway raised her eyebrows. "Uh, newsflash, genius, but the Freedom is a war zone too. It can't be any worse down here. And at least I get shore leave this way." She sighed. "Besides, it's so boring on the Freedom since Emily got a proper job."

The girl still wore her ragged dress with many pockets, her brown hair was a mess, and her feet were bare. Her mouse, Algernon, was peeking from one pocket.

Bastian sighed. "Well, at least grab a proper helmet and boots from the back. And a gun."

"No need. I got this." She raised the crystal dagger. "An Aeolian dagger. Selly gave it to me. It shoots blue lasers. Wanna see?"

"Please don't shoot lasers in the Rhino."

"Bastian." Alice grabbed his arm. "Look!"

They were flying over the Judaean Mountains toward the walls of Jerusalem. Arachtaurs swarmed across the hillsides and covered the city walls. The hideous hybrids were aiming cannons at the Rhinos. Bolts of plasma streaked through the air at dizzying speed.

A bolt slammed into a nearby Rhino, ripping the hull. The armored ship careened, then dived down and crashed into the walls of the city. Those walls had stood for thousands of years, and now the Rhino plowed a hole through them, scattering bricks. The smoldering wreck barreled through the biblical city.

More plasma kept racing up from below, a dizzying storm, the bolts moving faster than bullets. One bolt pinged against the side of Bastian's Rhino, cracking open the hull. Wind and sand and flames roared inside. Marines screamed and leaped from their harnesses. One man fell, burning.

"Fire on those cannons, dammit, take them out!" Bastian shouted.

His Rhino's gunner opened fire. The dropship's heavy Gatling gun roared, spraying bullets onto the arachtaurs on the walls. The creatures fell onto the city rooftops.

The Rhino flew over the walls and raced above the city streets. The arachtaurs were everywhere. They fired cannons from the roofs of churches, synagogues, and mosques. Some raced along the narrow, cobbled streets, firing crude grenade launchers at the human fleet.

The barrage destroyed a Red Dawn dropship in midair. Chinese soldiers spilled out, screaming. Another dropship burst into flames and crashed into the city like a comet, pulverizing several houses. More and more dropships burned. A hellscape of fire rose from the city, filling the sky with death. Bastian could no longer tell which nations the dropships came from. They were all the same in the flames and smoke. Another ship exploded just above his. Corpses thumped onto his Rhino, rocking the vessel.

But the survivors kept flying through the fire.

And then Bastian noticed something.

There was fighting on the streets of Jerusalem.

Soldiers—human soldiers—were still fighting! He couldn't tell if they were Alliance, Red Dawn, or Desert Thorns. Not with the dust covering them. It didn't matter. They were human, and they were resisting.

"Earth has not yet fallen," he said. "Earth still fights."

Ahead rose the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Jerusalem. Thousands of years ago, King Solomon had built a great temple here to God. According to legend, the Ark of the Covenant was kept below the Temple. The Babylonians had destroyed Solomon's Temple. The children of Israel, once freed from Babylon's chains, had rebuilt the Temple, bigger and grander than before. The Romans, aping their Babylonian predecessors, had demolished it. Today only a single wall remained. The Wailing Wall. To some—just old stones. To others—an anchor to the past. To many—a holy relic blessed by God.

Cobwebs shrouded the Temple Mount, hiding the ancient complex. Bastian squinted, seeking Od'rahda. Where was the queen of spiders? He couldn't even see the Wailing Wall beyond the cloak of cobwebs.

"Where—" he began when a cannon opened fire below, and plasma slammed into his Rhino.

The cockpit shattered.

The pilot let out a scream, then fell silent, and air whooshed into the dropship.

The Rhino began plunging down.

Bastian yanked himself out of his harness, ran into the cockpit, and found three burnt corpses. The pilot, the copilot, and the gunner—all dead. He grabbed the yoke and screamed. The heat burned him even through his armored gloves. Air whooshed over him, and the ground was racing up toward him.

"We're going down!" he shouted.

"No shit!" Alice shouted from the hold.

Bastian wrestled the yoke, raising the nose of the ship, trying to slow down. Trailing fire, they overshot the Temple Mount, roared over a necropolis, crashed through the steeple of a church, peeled the tiled roofs off several brick houses, and finally crashed down into a cobbled courtyard.

Bastian took a deep breath, shaking.

He killed the engine.

For a moment, an eerie silence filled the Rhino. They could all hear the distant boom of cannons, the engines of dropships roaring far above, but here inside the Rhino, nobody dared speak.

Then Bastian heard it.

Hisses. Clattering claws.

He saw them outside, bubbling up from alleyways, emerging from a well, and crawling across rooftops.

"Arachtaurs!" he shouted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

As the big, bulky marines roared for battle, Stowy stood among them, suddenly feeling very foolish for stowing away on this mission. They were tall, powerful soldiers. She barely scraped five feet tall in boots. They wore battle armor like some futuristic knights. She wore her old dress, one stocking, and no shoes. They held grenade launchers and machine guns. Stowy had her little knife.

A voice spoke in her mind.

Of all the harebrained adventures you've gone on, this one takes the cake! You've gone and done it now, Stowy. Gotten yourself into a mess that'll be the end of you.

She frowned.

"Are you my conscience?" she whispered.

Yes, the voice answered.

"Why do you sound exactly like Niles? You even have the accent."

Don't ask me! It's your brain.

"You said I have a hairy brain, did you?"

I said you're harebrained! It means— Oh, never mind. Move, girl! Unless you want this Rhino to be your coffin.

Bastian was repeating the sentiment, shouting at his troops to "Move move move!" and "Go go go!" Not the most eloquent of leaders was dear old Bastian. A Churchill speech this was not. But he did know how to motivate his troops. They leaped from the Rhino, guns roaring, and clashed with the arachtaurs in the courtyard.

A few arachtaurs made it past the marines. They clawed at the Rhino. They climbed the walls. One crawled into the cockpit.

Stowy gulped and raised her crystal dagger. Her hand trembled.

Hisses sounded all around the Rhino. The marines had left already. They were fighting outside, shouting, firing their guns. Stowy was alone in here.

The hisses grew louder. Claws scraped on metal. A spider leg emerged from the cockpit. And another. Slowly. Poking, feeling. Then, in a sudden burst of movement, an arachtaur rushed into the hold.

A hideous creature. The abdomen and legs of a spider. The torso, arms, and head of a woman. A chimera. A monster. A creature with gray skin and bulging blue veins and a hungry mouth. The hybrid lunged at Stowy, jaws open in a ravenous roar.

Stowy pressed the button on her dagger's hilt.

A laser beam flashed, slicing through the arachtaur's chest, then the neck, then the head.

The monster thumped down dead, split nearly in half.

Stowy shuddered and a tear rolled down her cheek. She missed Emily. She missed Darjeeling. She even missed Niles—sort of.

Then she heard the drone again. Or at least her conscience, which for some reason sounded the same.

Go on, move! Get out of the Rhino! Hide in the city, foolish girl!

"All right, Niles," she whispered.

She gulped and approached the hatch on the stern. But several arachtaurs were right outside. One of the beasts saw her, then crawled into the Rhino, hissing.

Stowy fired again. The arachtaur fell, chest smoking. But she could not kill them all. Stowy turned and raced into the cockpit.

There were corpses in there. Three burnt corpses. Human ones.

Stowy's trembling grew. Nausea rose in her. The corpses stared at her, eyes blank in red faces.

And suddenly it was ten years ago. Stowy was a little girl again, a Canadian child named Samantha, a child shaking her parents, begging them to please wake up, please wake up. Cuddling them in winter even as their bodies turned so cold.

Don't think of that now! Niles said. Go on, you've seen dead bodies before. Move!

She nodded. The cockpit's hatch had shattered, and Stowy was able to climb outside.

A few dead arachtaurs and marines lay strewn across the sunlit courtyard. Blood flowed between the cobblestones. The living were fighting farther out. Buildings made from craggy sandstone rose all around, tilting this way and that. Golden domes, brick archways, and minarets peeked from behind them. Alleyways snaked between the homes, too narrow for cars. The roads were no wider than sidewalks. They dated back to the days when people walked afoot.

Well, Stowy was used to crawling through ducts, so narrow alleyways were luxury. She raced across the cobblestones, swerved around a dead arachtaur whose legs were still twitching, and entered a shadowy alley.

She ran, her bare feet confident on the cobblestones. The brick walls of shops rose at her sides. It was a marketplace. Stalls alongside the alleyway sold spices from brass bowls, rosaries and tiny camels carved from olive wood, silver hookahs embedded with gemstones, curving scimitars and antler hilts, veils adorned with tassels and embroidery, and countless other items. But now cobwebs draped over the wares. Blood gunked up the spices. The corpse of a silk monger lay on the ground, draped in his wares. A little girl, a broom in hand, lay dead outside a shop that sold silver pots and a thousand teas.

Stowy looked up, not wanting to see the bodies on the street. Archways curved above like tiny bridges. Awnings rose overhead, but they had been reduced to burnt, fluttering scraps. Between them, Stowy could glimpse the battle far above. The great starships like Freedom were barely slivers from down here, but she could clearly see the Atrocity, a skull the size of the moon, leering in the blue sky.

Claws clattered above. Roof tiles slid into the alleyway, shattering against the cobblestones. An arachtaur leaped down, grinning, and shot a web toward Stowy.

She fired her dagger, slicing the web in midair. Strands of cobwebs reached the blade, gumming it up.

The arachtaur kept running. The beast leaped into the air. Stowy tried to fire, but with cobwebs wrapped around the blade, the laser broke into several smaller beams that scattered in various directions. They all missed the arachtaur, who laughed in delight.

"Nice human flesh to feed on!" the creature said, voice like clattering bones in a coffin.

Stowy stumbled backward, fell, and the creature came swooping down, jaws open to feed.

She thrust the crystal dagger upward, sinking it into the arachtaur's flesh, then hit the switch on the hilt.

The dagger lit up, sizzling, burning the arachtaur from the inside. It thumped down dead, burying Stowy.

Foolish girl! said the Niles in her head. Why are you walking in the open? This city is swarming with arachtaurs! You'll get killed!

She groaned, trapped under the corpse. "Shut up and help me push this thing off!" She struggled, wriggling under the dead hybrid.

You just had to stow away again, didn't you? Well, now look at you. Trapped. As good as dead. And it's all your fault. If only you had listened to me, none of this would have—

"Oh, shut up!" she said, finally managing to shove the arachtaur off.

She looked around her. The voice in her head was right. Even this narrow alleyway was too exposed. She had to vanish into the shadows. Like she always did in the Freedom. Like she always did as a stowaway.

She ran between curtains of beads into one shop. It sold souvenirs and religious artifacts to pilgrims—or had before the war. Scarves, rosaries, and curtains of gleaming glass beads hung from the ceiling. Rugs were stacked against one wall, rolled up like cigars, while curved swords and daggers covered another wall. As Stowy walked through the shop, she hit strings of dangling fish made of copper and tin, their scales meticulously carved and chinking, their eyes little jewels. The smells of cardamom, cloves, and tobacco filled the air.

Then she saw the shopkeeper. He lay on the floor, his chest slashed open. A thousand rosaries had fallen from the ceiling and covered his corpse.

A hiss sounded.

A creak.

Warm breath stirred the hairs on the back of her head.

Stowy spun around and saw the arachtaur there. It leaped down from the ceiling, and a claw slashed across her arm. She stumbled back, wiped cobwebs and blood off her blade, and fired.

A laser beam shot forward, slicing through the arachtaur's chest. It kept coming, and Stowy swung her blade from side to side, slicing the beast apart. Chunks of flesh thumped onto the floor. Finally only the big spider abdomen remained, still standing on eight legs. Then it too collapsed, and the legs curled inward.

Stowy stumbled back, wincing, her arm bleeding. She grabbed a scarf from the ceiling and bandaged the wound. It hurt. Bad. She found a bottle of booze on a shelf, took a long draft, then stuck out her tongue in disgust. Whiskey. She hated the stuff, but it dulled the pain.

So the shops weren't safe either. She must find a better place to hide.

She dashed out the back door into another alleyway, then into a shop that sold a dizzying array of hookahs. Hookahs that were taller than her, adorned with gold and silver. Hookahs she could hide in a pocket, full of purple smoke. Hookahs shaped like coiling serpents with glittering eyes or lions with manes of topaz. She knocked a few over as she ran, raising a racket, and arachtaurs shrieked in the distance. Stowy cursed and hopped out the shop, finding herself in yet another alleyway.

She was lost. She had to make it to the Temple Mount, she knew. That's where Bastian was going. To fight Od'rahda, the arachtaur queen. So Stowy would go there too. But what was the way? She scampered up a brick wall and stared into the distance. The sun was setting, painting the city gold. Minarets shone like gilded blades. The domes of temples flared with light. It was a city of gold, copper, stone, and blood, a city like a sea of rooftops, spreading into the distance. The alleyways were so narrow you could not see them from above. Just a patchwork of rooftops and towers.

There! In the distance she saw a hilltop crowned with ancient runes and draped with cobwebs. A shadow hung upon it, and Stowy shuddered. It was like looking into a black hole. There was evil there but also light that still shone through. It was the Temple Mount, and it seemed so far.

Movement on the rooftops caught her eye. Arachtaurs were moving atop the city, leaping from roof to roof, hungry locusts seeking to feed. Stowy scurried down, disappearing into the labyrinth of alleyways, lest they saw her. She ran, her bare feet pattering atop the cobblestones, and noticed decorative signs on the brick walls. Maybe one sign would lead her to the Temple Mount?

One sign denoted a station of the cross. It was here that Jesus had fallen, nearly crushed under his burden. Another sign pointed up an alleyway. There atop that hill he had been crucified. Another sign pointed to a valley below. Gehenna. The valley of death. A place where ancient idolaters would place their children into the bellies of brass bulls, then light fires beneath, heating the bulls until the children cooked within, sacrifices to Moloch. These roads were ancient. Growing up in Canada, Stowy had owned a book about the Middle Ages. She had read it often, fascinated with the illustrations of dueling knights. She had thought those days ancient, but they were like yesterday compared to this place. People had been walking here for thousands of years before the first knight's lance broke against a foe's shield.

Finally she found something helpful. A plaque, likely here for tourists, hung over a narrow tunnel entrance. Stowy paused from running, breathing heavily, to read the big letters engraved on the plaque.

The Western Wall Tunnel

The Western Wall. She wondered if that was the same as the Weeping Wall, which she sought. Smaller text appeared on the plaque too. Stowy read aloud.

"Take a tunnel to the ancient world! The Second Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70 AD. The Western Wall, the last remains of the Temple, stretches along for half a kilometer. But today only seventy meters are aboveground. The tunnel tour takes you underground … to see parts of the Temple you cannot see anywhere else. Touch the original and special stones that tell the story of Jerusalem! Learn about Jerusalem's secret past! View exquisite archaeological findings, such as stone arches, water pits, ancient aqueducts, and more! Please book your tour today with a licensed guide. And remember to visit our gift shop for a variety of holy artifacts you will treasure forever."

Stowy finished reading and tapped her chin. Hmm, a tunnel, eh? Sounded almost like the ducts she was used to. But learning? Religion? Stowy was less a fan of those.

A screech from behind crushed her reservations. She grabbed some curtains from a nearby shop, found some old strands of cobwebs, and quickly hid the sign and tunnel. The screech sounded again, closer now. The shadows of spider legs moved across a brick wall. With a gulp, Stowy hurried behind the curtain and into the tunnel.

She paused for a moment, heart pounding, sweat trickling down her back. An arachtaur clattered into the alleyway. She could see its bloated shadow across the curtain. The creature sniffed and hissed, and its claws scraped the cobblestones. Stowy was thankful for the spice shops all along the alleyway. Niles often complained that Stowy stank to high heaven, but it would be tough to smell her here.

More arachtaurs thudded down the alleyway. Then came the sound of bullets roaring. Soldiers shouting. Arachtaurs screaming and leaping to battle.

Stowy hurried down the tunnel. Craggy bricks rose beside her, the remnants of the ancient Temple. She scurried down the tunnel like a mouse disappearing into a wall. It felt like home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Operation Gaia's Flame flared around the planet.

The Rhinos were launched. Bastian and his troops were heading to fight the arachtaurs on Earth. Worry for his son consumed King. The best thing he could do for Bastian now, he knew, was to win the war in space.

"Fire!" he cried. The Angels of Liberty boomed again, destroying another arachship. Thousands of starships, human and alien, flew all around, firing missiles and lasers and particle beams, killing, destroying, falling apart.

In the chaos of battle, the Baba Yaga moved ahead of the Freedom.

Katyusha was flying recklessly, shouting about the glory of her empire. Over MindWeb, King saw her on the bridge of her ship. She stood before her crew, saber raised like some ancient general leading a cavalry charge. The Atrocity dominated her viewport, a mocking skull with a crown of white fire. But Katyusha just shouted curses at the hellish apparition and charged onward. Her cannons blasted, and explosions flared across the skull. Her particle beam shot the skull's forehead, carving through the hull. For a moment, King wondered if they'd even need to drive Atrocity into Earth. Katyusha seemed ready to destroy the ship herself.

The Atrocity aimed her cannons at Baba Yaga.

Neutron beams blasted out.

The Baba Yaga fired laser interceptors. Several neutron beams scattered across space. But one beam hit the Red Dawn flagship, tearing into her port beam.

The Baba Yaga rolled away from the assault, and the beam sliced across her hull, peeling the dreadnought like a piece of fruit, exposing a network of decks and corridors within.

Katyusha screamed and vanished off MindWeb. The Baba Yaga fell back, leaking air, spilling corpses. Her port cannons were gone. Yet somehow the dreadnought managed to steady herself, then blast another particle beam, hitting the Atrocity in the jaw.

Freedom charged, guns booming. A hundred other warships roared with her, unleashing everything they had, shoving the Atrocity into lower orbit.

Earth was dangerously close now, consuming their field of vision. West Africa was facing them. To avoid hitting civilian centers, they must nudge Atrocity farther south.

"Fleet!" King said. "We need to change position, to attack Atrocity from above her dorsal hull, driving her down south."

Clara Nightingale replied from the Churchill. The starship had been quickly repaired and was back in action. "Attack her from her dorsal hull? That'll bring us directly into the path of her neutron cannons."

"We have no choice," King replied. "Follow my lead. All ships—confirm."

Confirmations flooded his MindLink, coming from all Alliance commanders.

"Katyusha, are you with me?" King said.

A flickering image of the premier appeared on MindWeb. The bridge of the Baba Yaga was burning, cracked, crumbling. Katyusha's uniform was charred, her face sooty, and she cradled one arm.

"Katyusha is with you, James King. Now let us charge together, old friend."

The Freedom blasted off, engines bathing low orbit with blue fire. The Baba Yaga followed, wobbly, leaving a trail of steam and loose screws. The red dreadnought had battened down her hatches, and she was still flying, albeit badly hurt. The other ships charged with them, swerving around Atrocity and bombarding her from above.

The human fleet was flying above Brazil now, charging toward the Atrocity. The great skull's crown faced them. This was the worst position for an attack. But unless King wanted to ram the Atrocity into populated areas, killing millions, he had to shove the alien colossus to Antarctica. The fleet charged at the skull. Thousands of missiles flew, blasting off chunks of Atrocity. Mangled metal rained into the atmosphere.

The Atrocity fell back, moving down over Uruguay, then over Argentina.

"Keep pushing!" King said. "Get her down to the South Pole, then—"

The skull's eyes shone.

The crown flared with light.

Beam after beam flew at the human fleet.

One neutron beam crashed through the FAS Moose Jaw, pulverizing the Canadian frigate. The FAS Wildebeest, a Kenyan rammer, shattered into several pieces. Meanwhile, as the human fleet was blinded, the arachships regrouped and launched an assault from above, bombarding the fleet with silver spears, shoving them toward Earth. A barrage of spears drove into the Kanaloa, a Hawaiian corvette, and dunked her into the atmosphere. The ship broke up in midair, raining down onto Argentina in flaming hunks of metal.

"Jim, we have to get out of here." Jordan grabbed his arm.

King sneered. "Not yet. We keep pushing! Ships, keep charging at the Atrocity! Fly around her beams! Push her—"

A neutron beam flew at Freedom.

For a split second, King glimpsed the Freedom's interceptors flying out, then melting in the searing white blaze.

Then the beam hit them.

It ripped through their force field. It carved through their hull. It drove into the upper decks, eating everything in its path.

The bridge shook. Diagrams on the monitors showed the beam carving through the ship. The beam of white hellfire blazed through the library and chapel on deck 31, then sloped downward into deck 30, melting the mess hall and kitchens, then carving farther downward into deck 29, burning through the infirmary. Finally the beam tore through crew quarters on deck 28 and blasted out the stern—just above the exhaust port.

King stared in silent horror. Only by pure luck—or perhaps a miracle—had the beam missed critical components such as the reactor, the armory, or the engine. A few meters down, and the entire Freedom would have blown apart.

Jordan let out a strangled cry, staring at the monitors. One monitor showed the destruction of the infirmary. His daughter, Dr. Annie Jordan, was stationed there.

Evan Fletcher is there too, King thought.

But he had no time to check the casualty reports. The Atrocity had changed course. Instead of retreating south, she was now charging at the human fleet, crown blazing white-hot, ready for another assault.

* * * * *

The Atrocity barreled between the smaller human starships.

The skull's crown of blades ripped through several starships, carving them open. The ship's metal cheekbone slammed into Baba Yaga, hurling her into the distance.

Proximity alarms blared across Freedom's bridge.

"Mimori!" King shouted over the din.

The android was already leaning sideways, rolling hard, trying to dodge the Atrocity, but the skull moved closer, her enormous jaw opening, and—

Atrocity rammed into them.

Freedom tumbled.

Mimori screamed.

Everyone hit the deck.

They careened through space, and their port hull kissed the atmosphere, ionizing the air with showers of fire. Engines roared. Mimori was on all fours, crying out, grimacing. The thruster engines screamed in protest, trying to pull Freedom out of Earth's gravity well.

"Incoming fire!" King shouted.

Arachships were charging from above, railguns firing.

Motti Kaplan, the Shield of David operator, was out cold on the deck.

Silver spears flew at them.

King crawled across the deck, pulled himself into Kaplan's seat, and tapped on the keyboard. The Shield of David system fired dozens of interceptors. The enemy's spears exploded only meters away.

The motors rumbled, roared, and the entire deck creaked and bent. Gravity was pulling them down and down. They rose a bit over the atmosphere, but gravity tugged them downward again.

"Mimori, fire up the Talaria drive!" King cried.

"Sir, it's too fas—"

"Do it!"

The great Talaria drive, used for propelling Freedom between planets, roared to life. The three exhaust ports, each the size of a hockey arena, blazed with blue fury.

The Freedom jolted forward, bathing the atmosphere with a rain of superhot particles, and shot across the Atlantic and into space.

Fifty thousand klicks away, Mimori spun the ship around, facing Earth again.

King beheld devastation.

Half his fleet was gone.

And the Atrocity was plowing through whoever remained, moving toward Europe.

"Charge back at her!" King said. "Commander Jordan, are you with me?"

Jordan was scanning the damage reports, looking for lists of the dead. "Yes, I just— I can't get the casualty reports up, and—"

"To your battle post, Commander!" King barked.

Jordan nodded. He returned to his post in the center of the bridge, began communicating with the gunners.

If Annie is dead, we'll mourn her later, King thought. Our hearts will shatter. Our lives will never be the same. But right now we must save Earth.

They charged at Atrocity and launched more torpedoes. But they couldn't get through. The arachships surrounded their leader, flinging webs, detonating the torpedoes in midair.

King knew he was running low on ammo. He might not last until the rest of the fleet arrived by the long way home.

Moving through a rain of missiles, the Atrocity positioned herself over Europe.

A hailing message flowed over Freedom, so powerful it ripped through their defenses. The main viewport crackled to life.

A video of Magog'rah appeared there.

The bridge of the Atrocity was cracked and full of smoke. Fire had blackened the cobwebs. The female prisoners still hung there, flesh charred black, revealing glimpses of bones. One prisoner was still alive, moaning through blackened lips. The others were barely more than burnt skeletons.

Magog'rah was injured too. Freedom's barrage had cracked his exoskeleton along the right side of his rib cage. His flesh had heated and bubbled out, white and soft like cooked crab meat. The heat had warped his spider head, melting one eye, and raising one corner of his mouth into a caustic grimace.

"Hello, Admiral King!" Magog'rah said. "You have been fighting well. But you should not have driven me so close to Earth. A big mistake, King. Now watch. Watch what I do to your precious planet."

He vanished and the viewport again showed Earth. The Atrocity tilted her crown toward Europe. The spikes lit up. Seven neutron beams fired, joining into one terrible pillar.

"Stop her, charge forward!" King cried.

But they were too late.

An explosion rocked Earth. A mushroom cloud rose to the edge of the sky. A cloud of dust spread over Europe, hiding the view.

Alarms flashed across Freedom's monitors. Reports came streaming in from every Earth station.

"It was Berlin," Jordan whispered, looking up from his monitor. "Berlin is gone."

King's jaw clenched. Three million people lived in Berlin.

Gone.

Three million lives—gone under his watch.

Magog'rah reappeared on-screen. This time he was broadcasting to the entire human fleet.

"Did you enjoy that show, humans? That was your punishment for defying me. Continue to defy me and I will punish you again and again. I came here to conquer you, but I'm also pleased to destroy. I'll wipe out London next. Then Paris. Then Moscow. I will keep moving across the globe, destroying city by city, until nothing is left of Earth but—"

"You will not touch Moskva!" rose a cry.

King could see her over MindWeb. Katyusha was snarling, face red. The Baba Yaga's bridge was smoking around her. The deck was cracked below her feet. Scratches and welts covered her. But the Russian premier pointed her saber ahead and cried out: "Fly! Ram into that ship!"

Her helmsman turned toward her, face pale. "But … but premier, our prow is already damaged. The armor is gone. If we ram the Atrocity, we'll—"

Katyusha yanked the man out of his seat. She grabbed the Baba Yaga's helm controls, leaned forward, and an insane smile trembled across her face, mingling with her snarl.

"Listen carefully, Magog'rah," she said. "Do you hear Katyusha? Good. Now she will teach you a lesson. Nobody messes with Mother Russia!"

With a battle cry, Katyusha shoved a lever down.

The Baba Yaga shot forward.

The dreadnought moved at incredible speed, a hundred times faster than a bullet. She plowed through the debris of battle, racing toward Atrocity.

A few arachships tried to stop her. They fired silver spears. Explosions bloomed across Baba Yaga. Decks tore open. Fire blazed across her stern. And still she shot forward, gaining speed, a red streak across the sky.

Ten thousand kilometers above Europe, the dreadnought Baba Yaga, flagship of the Red Dawn, plowed into the Atrocity.

Light flared like a supernova.

King narrowed his eyes, momentarily blinded. White flight filled Freedom's bridge.

When the light faded, everyone stared at the viewport in disbelief.

The Baba Yaga was gone.

Nothing but a few shards of her hull, still flaked with crimson paint, floated in space.

She had rammed into the top of Atrocity's skull, destroying her crown of cannons. The spikes had shattered and tumbled into the distance, leaving sparking stumps.

The entire crown was gone. The Atrocity had lost her neutron cannons. She would never bomb another city again.

Spitfire stared at the viewport, blinked, and rubbed her eyes. "Katyusha gave her life."

Suddenly the bridge deck cracked. The bulkheads warped. A monitor shattered. Everything seemed to be bending, twisting.

"Sir, I'm detecting an anomaly of spacetime inside the bridge!" Mimori cried, and the android suddenly seemed ten feet tall.

Then King saw it.

A portal forming on Freedom's bridge.

Katyusha tumbled onto the deck, and the portal vanished behind her. Space and time returned to normal.

"Katyusha!" King roared. "Did you just open a portal on my ship? You could have torn us apart, dammit!"

The premier rose to her feet and dusted off her uniform. "Zdravstvuyte, Jamechka! Yes, Katyusha is safe!" She looked at the viewport, which still displayed the damage to Atrocity, and nodded. "Not bad, not bad. Katyusha did good job, da?"

King growled deep in his throat. "I noticed nobody else in your crew had an escape portal. How many people served aboard the Baba Yaga?"

"Ten thousand comrades." Katyusha placed her cap against her chest. "We will remember their noble sacrifice."

"You're the one who sacrificed them!" King snapped.

She nodded. "True. We will forever remember Katyusha's noble sacrifice."

"Get this woman off my bridge!" King roared.

Darjeeling stepped forward, placed a hand on Katyusha's shoulder, and guided her toward the door. Firmly.

"Dasvidaniya, Jamechka!" She blew him a kiss. "Katyusha saves your life yet again! Visit Katyusha tonight if you feel lonely!"

But King had no intention of leaving his bridge anytime soon.

The Atrocity had lost her cannons. But the ship was still flying. And Magog'rah was still commanding his Armada. The battle for Earth was not over yet.

Suddenly King frowned. He looked at Mimori. "I thought our shields were calibrated to prevent portals opening inside the Freedom. Didn't we implement this fix three years ago, after Hel'rah portaled into my granddaughter's room?"

Mimori frowned, tapping on the controls, reading damage reports. Schematics of the Freedom and her shields floated around her. "Yes, sir. The spears severely damaged our shields. They must have disabled that protective feature."

The horror sank in. "That means that the arachtaurs can …"

Alerts flashed from decks across the ship.

Screams rose through MindWeb.

They were crying out from the gunnery stations, from the crew bunks, from engineering.

"Arachtaurs on the ship! Arachtaurs aboard!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Dr. Annie Jordan was in surgery, fixing a wounded marine's perforated intestines, when the silver spear plowed through her infirmary.

The missile tore through the reception room, sliced through the outpatient ward, destroyed the rehabilitation room, and knocked the wall off the operating room where Annie now stood, her hands inside a marine's guts.

She kept working.

"Nurse, pass me the B3 laser lancet please," she said.

The nurse blinked at her, looked at the destroyed bulkhead, at the smoke rising from the other rooms, then back at Annie.

"I … But doctor, the …"

"Now please. B3 lancet. I still need to make that incision."

The nurse gulped and passed her the tool.

Screams began to rise from the rest of the infirmary. Medics and nurses ran back and forth. Hatches slammed shut in the distance, reverberating through the ship, sealing the breaches. Annie kept working. A nineteen-year-old corporal lay on her operating table. He needed help or he'd die. Annie would save his life.

Finally she stitched up her patient. The corporal would live.

Her job done, Annie left the operating room and saw the devastation to her infirmary.

Entire rooms—destroyed. Patients—dead. Patients she had just operated on hours ago. Lives she had just saved. Gone.

Her MindLink chimed.

"Annie! Oh, thank God, Annie, you're alive." Jordan spoke to her telepathically from the bridge.

"I'm fine, Dad. Love you a lot. Gotta go." She ended the call.

Evan wheeled himself out of his room, slumped in a wheelchair. His stumps were wrapped in bandages, and fresh scrapes covered his cheeks and arms. He looked around at the ruined infirmary, eyes haunted. A few other patients emerged from their rooms, some crying, others praying, many simply looking around in shock.

One man lay in the corridor. The silver spear had sliced his arm clean off, but he was still alive, staring in shock at his injury. Annie rushed toward him. She had more work to do. More lives to save. Even with a hole in her infirmary, she was still this ship's doctor. Even if the enemy kept taking more and more lives from her, she would fight back. This was war, and she was a soldier.

* * * * *

Emily was in the gunnery deck, strapped into her mecha, when the portal appeared beside her and the horrors swarmed out.

She was exhausted. Every muscle hurt. For hours now, she had been operating Kronos, the hulking mecha of the gunnery deck. Carrying torpedoes the size of starfighters. Loading. Firing. Repeating. With every moment dodging death. Niles wasn't helping. He kept floating above her mecha, making suggestions.

How long ago had the Freedom portaled to Earth, hurling herself into battle? Hours? Days? Time lost all meaning in this hell. The enemy starships would not stop coming. Arachship after arachship rose from the flames of war, bombarding the human fleet. It was all Emily could do to load Pandora fast enough. The gunnery crew toiled around her, aiming, calculating, picking targets—and Emily fired. Across the starship, thirteen other gunnery crews operated the other Angels of Liberty. Other gunners operated the point-defense system of a hundred machine guns, while others manned the Shield of David batteries. The Freedom was a mobile army, complete with a dedicated artillery corps. She had more ammunition in her hangars than some entire nations. And she was firing everything she had.

But she was not prepared for a boarding.

Not like this.

The portal formed right beside Emily, a swirling sphere of darkness. It looked like a black hole, sucking in the light, bending reality around its horizons.

And from inside they came.

Arachtaurs, howling for blood.

One leaped at Major Hook, the deck commander. The deaf officer scrambled back, reaching for his sidearm. He never got a chance to draw it. The claws ripped through him.

Another arachtaur lunged at Sergeant Blaze, who aimed the great cannon. Blaze did manage to draw his gun and fire, but the bullets only glanced off the arachtaur's gleaming legs. The spider hybrid landed on the sergeant, biting, ripping, tearing out the throat.

Niles cried out in terror. But to his credit, the drone did not flee. He thrust out his assortment of corkscrews, cocktail forks, and bottle openers.

"Have at you!" the drone cried and flew to battle. He never made it very far. An arachtaur fired a bundle of webs, knocking the drone back and gluing him to a bulkhead.

Three of the creatures pounced at Emily.

But she was strapped into Kronos. In here, she was not just a young woman. She was a twenty-ton machine with hydraulic arms that could lift a truck. She swung one of those arms now, knocking an arachtaur aside. The force of the blow tore several of the creature's legs off. What remained of the arachtaur splattered against the bulkhead.

The two other arachtaurs started climbing the mecha's legs. Kronos was built for lifting heavy loads, not for fighting. The mecha didn't offer much protection. Strapped inside the robot's torso, Emily was fully exposed.

She moved one joystick, manipulating Kronos's hydraulic arm, then pulled two levers, curling the mecha's forklift-like fingers. Each of those fingers was larger than her arm, and they grabbed one of the arachtaurs climbing the mecha. Emily shoved the joystick, yanking the creature off the mecha, then pressed the levers harder. Kronos's metal fist tightened, crushing the arachtaur. The creature's abdomen popped, leaking fluids onto the deck.

The second arachtaur kept climbing the mecha's metal frame. The hybrid reached what Emily called the cockpit—the hollow area in Kronos's torso where the operator sat. The arachtaur snarled at her, saliva dripping down his fangs. The creature's eyes bugged out, yellow and bloodshot, and veins pulsed across his forehead like worms. The hideous chimera reached into the cockpit with a bloated hand. He grabbed Emily's throat and squeezed.

"I'll break your neck and eat your corpse," he hissed.

Her neck creaked. She could not breathe. Darkness was closing in.

But Emily managed to operate the joystick. Kronos's metal hand grabbed the arachtaur.

Emily tapped a button. Kronos formed a fist, crushing the arachtaur into a pulp. Emily pried the arachtaur's dead fingers off her neck and took a shaky breath.

But her relief was short-lived.

More arachtaurs were pouring through the portal.

A deep voice spoke in her mind. She recognized Jordan's baritone.

"Gunnery station!" the commander said. "Why aren't we firing? Major Hook, are you there?"

Emily rubbed her aching throat. She probably couldn't speak out loud right now, but she could still telepathize. "This is Emily. Arachtaurs! They came through a portal. Hook and Blaze are dead. I—"

"Emily, listen to me!" Jordan said. "I need the Pandora to keep firing! There is an arachship off our starboard beam. Shoot it down!"

"But—" she began, looking at more arachtaurs creeping forth. "I—"

"Keep that gun firing or we're all dead," Jordan said. He ended the call.

An arachtaur leaped at her. Emily yelped, swung Kronos's arm, and knocked the monstrosity back. Another arachtaur lunged. Then three were climbing her, and she screamed, trying to rip them off. The mecha stumbled backward, shaking the deck. A few gunners were still alive. They crouched behind the launching tube, firing rifles at the arachtaurs.

Pandora, the legendary Angel, was cold.

More arachtaurs emerged from the portal. Emily had to close that sphere!

Covered in arachtaurs, she pulled joysticks and levers. Kronos ran, his powerful feet shaking the deck. One foot crushed an arachtaur like a man crushing a spider. She reached the portal. The dark sphere hovered before her, as wide as Emily was tall. Another arachtaur leaped from the darkness—right onto her.

She grabbed the beast, swung it off. More climbed her. Spider legs thrust into the cockpit. A claw ripped along her leg, and Emily screamed. Tears budded in her eyes. But she didn't attack the arachtaurs. She swung Kronos's huge metal arms at the portal.

The portal bent. She swung the arms left and right, opening and closing the metal fists, disrupting the gravity field. Kronos had graviton generators in his fingers, there to help lift his heavy loads. They warped the portal and tore it apart.

The instant the portal was gone, she was back to ripping arachtaurs off Kronos.

"Emily, we need another torpedo loaded!" cried a gunner. The surviving gunners were still crouched behind the launch tube. Instead of firing Pandora at enemy ships, they were busy firing handguns at the boarders. But they had access to Pandora's computer system. If Emily could load a torpedo, they could still fire it.

Emily looked at the pile of torpedoes. A swarm of arachtaurs blocked her way, and more were still climbing Kronos's legs. Her own leg was bleeding. Cobwebs draped the mecha's arms and forklift hands.

I can't do this. I can't.

She took a step toward the torpedoes. The arachtaurs clung to Kronos's legs. They kept weaving webs, disabling her, and two scurried up until they reached the cockpit.

"Die now …," hissed an arachtaur.

The other arachtaur licked her lips. "It's feeding ti—"

The arachtaur's head exploded.

A second later, the second arachtaur's head blew into a red haze.

Emily blinked and looked around.

The door to the gunnery station was open. Sergeant Major Oliver Darjeeling stood in the doorway, a smoking rifle in each hand.

"Your Majesty, I am here to help."

* * * * *

He did not wear battle armor like a marine. He wore the same service uniform he always did, the navy-blue fabric meticulously ironed, the buttons polished to a sheen, the boots so clean they were like mirrors. His saber hung at his side, and every white hair in his mustache was combed to perfection. Oliver Darjeeling took pride in his appearance, and he insisted that all soldiers under his command present themselves just as well. Yet nobody looking at this aging English gentleman would doubt his deadliness. And it wasn't just the smoking rifles in his hands. It was a fierceness in his eyes. The fierceness of a gentle man was the most dangerous force in the universe, mightier than cannons, hotter than the flames of crashing starships. And right now Oliver Darjeeling's eyes were ablaze.

The arachtaurs, recognizing Darjeeling as their main threat, turned away from Emily in her mecha. That was how fierce he looked—more dangerous than a mecha. The hideous hybrids scuttled toward the old sergeant.

Darjeeling fired again. Two shots. Both direct hits. Two more arachtaurs fell, holes in their heads.

"Mr. Darjeeling!" Emily whispered in awe.

He stared at her. "My queen! Get the cannon firing again. I'll hold them off."

Emily nodded and rushed toward the stack of torpedoes. That was when she noticed it. The portal had warped Kronos's fingers. They curled outward like overcooked hot dogs. But when she manipulated the controls, Kronos's hands still opened and closed. Gingerly she lifted a Maccabee torpedo. It slipped in Kronos's grip, and Emily's heart burst into a gallop, but she managed to tighten the warped fingers around the torpedo.

"Come on, come on!" shouted the gunners.

Emily hurried toward them. Kronos's feet thumped. As she raced toward the launch tube, she glanced at Darjeeling. A gang of arachtaurs faced him, a semicircle of claws and fangs. He kept firing his guns, holding them back. His bullets drove into one arachtaur's chest.

Emily could not spare the battle more than a glance. She reached the launch tube and loaded the torpedo.

"Are the coordinates set?" she called down to the gunners. She had to shout over the roar of battle. Arachtaurs were screeching and gunshots booming.

"Yes, fire!" shouted a gunner.

Emily shoved down the lever. The deck shook. The torpedo flew out. A monitor showed the scene. In the distance, the Maccabee hit an arachship, and an explosion tore a hole through its hull.

Jordan's voice spoke in her mind. "That was too slow! Hurry up, Pandora!"

With a gulp, Emily hurried toward the stack of torpedoes. On her way there, she looked at Darjeeling again. Several dead arachtaurs lay at his feet, but more were still attacking him. His arm was bleeding. But he still managed to wield two guns at once. Blood trickled around his boots.

"We need the marines in here!" she cried.

She checked MindWeb for the marines force. But half of them were on Earth. Bastian, Meytal, Alice—all the marines she knew were down on the surface. Some marines had remained aboard the ship, but they were protecting the engine room, the reactor, the bridge, and other more critical parts of the ship.

Here on the Pandora gunnery deck, they were alone.

Darjeeling was alone.

Emily considered pausing from her duties, helping the old sergeant, but Jordan called out in her mind again, urging her to load another torpedo. More enemy ships were coming in fast.

As he fought, Darjeeling sent her a telepathic message. "Go on, Emily. Keep firing that cannon. I've got your back, ma'am."

She grabbed another torpedo.

She rushed toward the launch tube.

More arachtaurs lay dead on the floor. And more blood covered Darjeeling. It was dripping from his leg now too. Claw marks ran down his thigh. But the old sergeant's eyes still burned bright. He kept firing until he emptied his magazines. The arachtaurs screamed with delight and leaped at him, but Darjeeling swung his rifles, clubbing their heads, knocking them down, and loaded new magazines. He kept firing.

Emily loaded another torpedo. She shoved the lever down. The deck shook as the Maccabee sailed out.

The arachtaurs roared in frustration. Half their comrades had fallen already. Blood sluiced along the deck. Giving up on claws, they began firing webs at Darjeeling. But the old sergeant dropped one rifle, drew his saber, and swung the sword in wide arcs. Tattered webs fell onto the deck.

Another Maccabee flew.

Darjeeling screamed. A claw had pierced his thigh.

Kronos thumped across the deck. Emily grabbed another torpedo.

Darjeeling reloaded, fired, slew another arachtaur.

Emily loaded the Maccabee. Just off the starboard bow, an arachship exploded.

Darjeeling's rifle clicked. Out of bullets.

Kronos's feet thudded.

A claw tore open Darjeeling's arm. He bellowed. His blood fell. But he managed to swing the rifle, to knock the arachtaur aside, then load another magazine. The arachtaur's head exploded into red mist.

Tears flowed down Emily's cheeks. She lifted another torpedo.

Darjeeling roared, firing a gun in only one hand now. His other arm hung at his side, covered in blood.

The cannon fired. The deck shook.

A claw lashed.

Darjeeling fell to one knee, roaring in pain and fury, firing, killing. The dead arachtaurs piled up.

Emily wept as she worked. Loading. Firing. More and more enemy ships—coming in.

"Darjeeling!"

"I'll hold them back, my dear. Keep firing! I've got your back, my queen. I—"

He screamed as an arachtaur thrust a claw into his shoulder. He clubbed the creature with his rifle, knocked it down, shattered its skull. So few arachtaurs remained now. Hills of dead corpses rose across the deck, spider legs twitching.

Emily fired another torpedo.

Another claw slashed.

She fired again.

More blood spilled.

The Pandora boomed.

A claw thrust into Darjeeling's belly.

Emily wept as she fired the cannon.

On his knees in blood, Darjeeling fired his gun, and the last arachtaur fell down dead.

Emily fired the last torpedo. The deck was empty.

Voices spoke in her mind. Timori was telling her that they were delivering more torpedoes from the armory. They would be there in only moments, to please hold on. The other Angels of Liberty would hold the enemy back for now.

Emily barely listened. She only understood that she had a few moments of freedom, and she leaped out of Kronos. She landed in blood.

"Darjeeling!"

She hurried toward him across the red deck. She reached the old man just as he swayed and fell. Emily caught him in her arms, gently lay him down.

"Mr. Darjeeling?" she whispered, voice cracked, tears falling.

He lay in her arms, smiling up at her. "Hello, Emily. You performed your duty … spectacularly."

He was bleeding from many wounds. Emily cried out for a medic. Over her comlink. Over MindWeb. She simply called out into the room. "Medic, medic!" But nobody came. The arachtaurs were everywhere. A hundred or more across the ship. Kim Fletcher was saying something over MindWeb about fixing the shields, about the portals blocked now. But for Emily it no longer made any difference.

Darjeeling. All she cared about was him. About this brave, noble man dying in her arms.

"The medics will be here soon," she whispered. "Hold on, Mr. Darjeeling."

Niles managed to free himself from the cobwebs. He floated closer but hesitated, saying nothing.

Darjeeling's skin was so pale. It went beyond pale, turning gray now. His eyes were glassy. But beneath his proud mustache, he smiled.

"I still remember that day," he whispered. "Christmas 2199. The day you first came aboard the starship Freedom."

Emily sniffed and her tears splashed his bloodied chest. "I remember. You picked me up in a shuttle."

"It was my honor to serve you that day, my queen. And it has been my honor to serve you over the years since that day. It has been the honor of my life, my dear Emily. My soldier. My queen."

His eyes froze. His breathing stilled. He died with a smile on his face. Emily lowered her head, holding her dear Darjeeling, and wept.

Three minutes later, the transport shuttles arrived from the warehouse, carrying new torpedoes. And she had to leave him there. She had to leave her beloved Darjeeling, her mentor, her friend—she had to leave him on that deck among the dead. And she got back to firing Pandora, the great Angel of Liberty. Because he had given his life not only to her, to his queen. But to his ship. To his beloved Freedom. And Emily swore to honor his memory and his life's purpose. She would give his death meaning. She would win this war. And after that, when the war was won, she would allow herself to grieve.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Bastian ran through the streets of Jerusalem, leading the Freedom Brigade toward the Temple Mount.

"Onward—with me!" he cried.

Behind him, thousands of soldiers cried out and ran. An onlooker would not see one large army charging together. They spread across the labyrinth of ancient alleyways—a platoon here, a platoon there. But Bastian saw them all on MindWeb, and they saw him. They fought as one force.

"Onward!" he cried.

Thousands of other soldiers charged with them. Marines from other Alliance warships. Marines from the Red Dawn and Desert Thorns. And many were local Earthling soldiers; they had been fighting the arachtaurs here for long days, hunkered down, unable to break through until help arrived. Soldiers from all nations and faiths gathered here. Some came from just down the block. Others had been born and raised on Mars. The old divisions of ethnicity, religion, race—they all vanished in the dust of war. Right now only one thing mattered. Whether you were human or arachtaur.

And the arachtaurs were everywhere.

They scurried atop roofs, shooting down webs. They leaped from inside houses, slashing claws. They bubbled up from sewers to rip legs off running soldiers. They rose from wells and swooped from church steeples. The soldiers had to fight for every step. And every step, another soldier fell. They fought from door to door. And every door another human died.

Bastian fought with his old company. With Bastian's Badgers. Only three years ago, they had been a group of bored Nebraskans, languishing in some prairie fort. Most of them had never been to space. Bastian had been only a junior officer, divorced, lazying through his thirties, eating too much, feeling sorry for himself, stuck. It was hard to believe only three years had gone by. In these past three years, he had fought countless battles on Earth and in space. He had become a colonel. He had remarried. He had found new purpose and seen new horrors. Now he was back with them. Back with the Badgers. His family.

They barged into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the oldest and holiest church in Christianity. Two thousand years ago, the crumbling brick church had been built over the site of the crucifixion. At one side of the church, candles shone where the cross had stood. At the other side, more candles illuminated the empty tomb where Jesus had been buried. Pilgrims came here from across the world to pray.

Today the pilgrims lay dead, their blood spilling across Calvary like the blood of their savior long ago, and they clutched their rosaries in cold, dead hands. Arachtaurs hissed upon the holy sites, claws glinting, demons risen from hell to profane and slaughter. The candles reflected in their bulging eyes and rising claws. They had crucified the priest of this church, nailing him to the wall in a mock passion play.

But now the Freedom Brigade was here. They were big, brutish, wearing dented armor and carrying heavy guns. They cursed too much, drank too much. They were certainly not pretty. But right now, when Bastian looked at his troops, he saw angels.

Their guns lit the church. Bullets like the spears of seraphs tore into the beasts. The arachtaurs screamed, wincing in the light of the roaring muzzles. They fell back, cowering. A few tried to flee into the dungeons. Others tried to scurry out the windows. But the Freedom Brigade chased them down and slew them upon the ancient stones.

An enormous arachtaur, three times the normal size, stood upon the Stone of Anointing, the place where Christ's body had been laid down after being removed from the cross. He was different from other arachtaurs. Bat wings grew from his back, and a halo of fire blazed atop his head. Dead pilgrims lay around him, hand in hand, a macabre ring. Bullets plowed into the winged beast, but it would not die. With every bullet, his halo burned brighter, crackling and casting out smoke.

The gargantuan arachtaur lunged to battle, shooting webs, grabbing soldiers, pulling them closer, ripping them apart. Severed limbs fell and soldiers screamed, and Bastian roared and charged to battle. Candles overturned and the robes of dead pilgrims caught fire. The winged arachtaur stood among the flames, head tossed back, laughing as he fed upon a dead marine.

Bastian stepped over the corpses and ran toward the demonic creature. A web caught his rifle, pulled it free. Bastian drew his firearm, but the arachtaur slung another web, catching that gun too. Bastian kept running, leaped forward, and plowed into the haloed apparition, knocking it off the holy stone.

They tumbled into the flames. Bastian's armor heated up, but he pummeled the beast with his fists, shattering fangs, destroying an eye, slamming the haloed head against the ancient boulder again and again. Finally the creature's head shattered on the stone where Jesus had lain. The halo shattered and dispersed in a cloud of smoke, and the great bat wings curled up. Bastian tumbled back, his armor expanding and cracking in the heat.

"Bastian! Are you all right?" Alice hurried toward him. In a church full of angels, she was the fairest.

Bastian nodded. "Let's keep going. It's still a long way to the Temple Mount."

"Wait." Alice pulled him close. "Hug me first. Tell me you love me."

"Alice, not now . . ."

Bastian looked around the church, hoping no other soldier saw and would snicker. But they were blind with tears. A few soldiers were weeping over the fallen. Others knelt around the site of the crucifixion, praying, holding crosses in bloodstained hands. And when Bastian looked at Alice, he saw the tears in her eyes. She was not being sappy. She was terrified.

Bastian hugged her. He lifted his helmet's visor and kissed the tears off her cheeks. "I love you, Alice. More than I can ever say with words."

She nodded and sniffed. "I love you. Now let's go win this city."

* * * * *

They ran out the Church of the Holy Sepulchre into a sandstone courtyard covered with dead pilgrims. A camel raced by, baying in terror, a dead rider dangling from the saddle. A stray dog sniffed at the hand of a dead priest.

They stood on Mount Calvary, gazing down at the city. The setting sun gilded the minarets, steeples, and domes of Jerusalem. The symphony of war sounded everywhere. Soldiers and arachtaurs battled in temples and marketplaces, atop towers and ancient walls. The city wept this evening. The city bled.

Not far away, across the warren of Old Jerusalem, rose the Temple Mount. Where Bastian stood now, the hill where Jesus had been crucified, was the holiest site to Christianity. He must make his way to the Temple Mount, the holiest site to Judaism, where the Temple had once protected the Ark of the Covenant. Only one wall remained of that ancient temple. The Wailing Wall, among the holiest sites on Earth.

Standing on Mount Calvary, Bastian lowered his visor—it protected his eyes and could also function as binoculars. With a telepathic command, he zoomed in. He could see it. Cobwebs draped the ancient wall. Steeples and domes blocked Bastian's view, hiding the spider on the center of the web.

He raised his visor. "It'll be a long, hard fight."

Thumping boots and clattering weapons sounded behind him. Bastian turned to see Master Sergeant Meytal Koren walking through a stone gateway. Spitfire's half sister. The Israeli warrior had lost her entire crew aboard the Caracal. She now proudly served in the Freedom Brigade. The symbol of the starship Freedom—a blue star with three red stripes like wings—was painted onto her breastplate. Her armor was dented, cracked in places, stained with blood. She held an assault rifle with one hand, a katana with the other. The blade was wet. A bandoleer of grenades hung across her chest, and an assortment of guns peeked over her shoulders.

"I know the way to the Temple Mount," she said.

"What happened to your squad?" Bastian said.

Meytal's eyes darkened. "An arachtaur booby trap. In an alleyway. Only I escaped. Figured I'd join you guys. You need a guide."

"We have MindWeb maps," Bastian said.

She snorted. "I know more than some stale maps. I grew up here."

"I thought you grew up in Haifa, a city north from here."

"So? That's just next door. I spent my childhood running along these streets." Meytal pointed. "That path will take us to the Temple Mount."

Bastian looked where she pointed. Past a stone archway snaked an alleyway. An alleyway? It looked more like a tunnel. The roofs of the adjacent buildings nearly touched. Arches sprang between balconies, forming vaults like the ceiling of a church.

A sign hung over the entrance to the alleyway. Via Dolorosa. Bastian remembered his days at Sunday school. The Way of Sorrow. It was the path Jesus had taken, carrying the cross from the Temple Mount to Calvary. Bastian could now follow this same path in reverse.

"All right, Badgers!" Bastian said. "Gather here! Leave the dead. We'll return to them when we can."

His soldiers approached. Some were nursing wounds. All had haunted eyes. They mustered in the courtyard.

"But sir," a corporal said. "We can't just leave them. We saw arachtaurs eating corpses, and—"

"I know, Corporal." Bastian put a hand on the man's shoulder. "I know. But we must keep going. We must push forward." He took a step. "Badgers, are you with me?"

They raised their fists and cried out.

Bastian led the way, and the Badgers Company entered the Way of Sorrow.

Their boots thudded on limestone cobblestones. These streets were thousands of years old. When Jesus had carried his cross here, Jerusalem had already been ancient beyond measure, among the oldest cities in the world. King David had fought and bled for this city, and King Solomon had lived here in splendor. The Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Ottomans, the British, and many others—they had all attacked, sometimes conquered this city, only to fade down the mountainside like a wave retreating into the sea. As history washed over it again and again, Jerusalem remained upon the mountaintop. Bastian hoped that in time, the arachtaurs would be just another entry on that list of failed conquerors.

The old streets remained, but over time, they had changed. The path Jesus had taken had become a bazaar, catering to tourists and pilgrims. Brick walls surrounded the alleyway, and little shops nestled inside these walls like glittering caves. Many shops sold crosses. Crosses of every kind and size. Tiny silver crosses on chains, dangling rosaries carved from olive wood, huge golden crosses set on plaques and studded with gemstones, and everything in between, millions of crosses that covered shop walls and dangled from the ceiling like glittering rain suspended in the air. Other shops sold other wares. One shop sold hookahs forged of silver, shaped like cranes and coiling dragons. Another shop sold blades of every type. Heavy crusader swords hung alongside elegant scimitars. Shelves overflowed with daggers, their hilts carved from wood, stone, or antlers. One shop sold nothing but horns of rams, gazelles, even (according to a little sign) the scrimshawed tusk of a Hannibal elephant. Wooden stalls sold prayer shawls, religious icons, and skirts strewn with bells. Bowls overflowed with cardamom, cumin, caraway seeds, and coffee beans.

If you peeled back the bazaar, you could still see the ancient city. Columns rose between jewelry stalls, supporting crumbling balustrades. Stray cats, shabby and scarred, walked along the balustrades—catwalks they had been prowling for a thousand years. Curtains fluttered from balconies with limestone archways, every stone laid down by ancient hands. Behind layers of Persian rugs slept old walls of unadorned stone. Rose windows peered like eyes above the shop awnings, full of stained glass. In some spots, rows of archways fused above the alley walls, forming tunnels. In other spots, if one gazed past a thousand fluttering banners, one could see the domes of ancient temples.

Once, no doubt, this place had brimmed with the calls of merchants, chattering of shoppers, and laughter of children. But now corpses lay strewn across the Way of Sorrows. Nuns lay in one corner, still clutching holy books to their bleeding chests. A Hassidic family lay fallen outside a scroll shop, while a mustached tea monger lay dead among a thousand jars of exotic, aromatic leaves. His fez rolled down the alley. But not all were dead. Children peered behind the embroidered curtains of a fabric shop. An old monk was praying over a dead woman. A group of Israeli soldiers, wearing olive drab, ran up to the Freedom Brigade, nodded, then ran off in pursuit of a fleeing arachtaur.

"This is the first arachtaur we've seen since leaving the church," Bastian said to his wife.

Alice nodded. "It does seem unusually quiet."

Bastian and his marines kept walking down the alleyway. They reached a curve in the road. A sign hung on a brick wall, denoting this the tenth station of the cross. The place where Jesus was stripped of his garments. They were traveling back in time, step by step.

"Come on, we're almost there," Bastian said. "Let's get this—"

"Wait." Meytal grabbed him. "Freeze! Nobody move." She pointed. "Look."

A slender cobweb, just a single strand, stretched between the houses. Bastian would normally not see it, but the sunset gleamed on the strand.

Alice shrugged. "It's just a cobweb."

Meytal nodded. "Like the cobweb that took out my old squad. Step back, everyone. Back. Farther. Behind this archway."

They all retreated, gazing at the empty alleyway.

Suddenly a child emerged from a shop. Scabs covered his brown skin, and dust clung to his shabby clothes.

"Americans?" the boy said. He began running down the alleyway. "You are Americans? Can you help? My sister, she—"

"Stop!" Bastian shouted.

But the child kept running. His skinny legs tore the cobweb.

An explosion ripped across the alleyway.

Archways crumbled. A rose window shattered, spraying stained glass confetti. A fabric shop caught fire, and a dog burst out from a chandlery, tail ablaze, and fled into the distance. Cracks spread across a wall, a stone balustrade plunged downward, and seconds later the entire wall following, dousing the flames and raising clouds of dust. Of the child nothing remained.

Meytal looked at Bastian. "Watch out for cobwebs."

They climbed over the rubble. There was nothing they could do for the boy. They kept walking down Via Dolorosa, following this cursed path of tears.

* * * * *

They continued snaking through the bazaar, backtracking along Jesus's footsteps. At the ninth station of the cross, the place Jesus had fallen under his burden, arachtaurs leaped from the rooftops. The marines opened fire, riddling the creatures with bullets. Stray bullets pounded the shops, ripping through sacks of flour, shattering hookahs, and perforating tasseled rugs. Some arachtaurs fell, bleeding and twitching. Others reached the soldiers, and their claws swung like scythes, and the blood of men splashed the brick walls of Jerusalem. Long ago, these stones had wept. Long ago, the blood of Israel had splashed these weary walls. Today the blood flowed again—as it always had in the streets of Jerusalem.

The marines slew the arachtaurs and pressed onward.

They reached the eighth station of the cross, the place where Jesus had spoken to the women of Jerusalem. And today they found dead women here, stacked together, bound in webs, arachtaurs feasting upon them. Bullets flew and the creatures screamed. Fangs ripped out a marine's throat. And they kept pushing onward.

Bastian's boots sluiced through blood. And he imagined the sandaled feet of King David marching through the city, and when embroidered curtains flew in the wind, he envisioned King Solomon upon his palanquin. As he fought the devils under arches of stone, Bastian thought of the Babylonians racing down these streets, slaughtering men, taking women and children captive.

They reached the seventh station of the cross where Jesus had fallen, bleeding and bent. Arachtaurs leaped from spice and olive shops, and bullets filled the alley, and Bastian thought of the ancient Greeks marching here, carrying the statues of Zeus to place in the desecrated Temple. And more marines died. And the survivors fought on.

At the sixth station of the cross, Veronica had wiped the face of tortured Jesus, and Bastian grappled with an arachtaur, shoving the creature's claws back, roaring, clubbing it with his rifle, finally beating it back and opening fire. And he thought of the Romans burning the city, sacking, looting, stealing the jewels from the Temple to fund the building of the Colosseum—and then force the slaves of Jerusalem to fight within.

At the fifth station of the cross, Simon had helped Jesus carry his cross, and Bastian carried a wounded comrade across his shoulders. At least until another arachtaur leaped from above, clawing the wounded private apart, knocking Bastian down. Alice and Meytal opened fire, slaying the beast. They could not save the private. As Bastian ran onward, he thought about the Byzantines and Templars storming the city in the name of God, but falling, never capturing their prize.

At the fourth station of the cross, Jesus had met his mother, and they found a child clinging to the corpse of his mother, weeping, trying to wake her up. They could not take the child with them, but Bastian allowed one of his soldiers to remain behind and tend to the boy. In his mind, Bastian imagined the Ottoman empire conquering the city of God, leaving a trail of orphans.

At the third station, Jesus had fallen under the cross for the first time, and the arachtaurs stormed toward them, and thirteen marines fell. Thirteen died on the cobblestones, praying, calling out to wives and mothers, dying under the claws. And still the survivors pushed onward until they reached the second station, the place where Christ had been given his cross to bear. And as more marines fell, Bastian knew he would forever bear their memory. So close to the end, he imagined Jewish soldiers, freed from the furnaces of a Holocaust, running along these streets, claiming what they had lost to the fire of Rome.

Because as he moved backward along Via Dolorosa, in his mind, Bastian was moving forward in time. In this city of history, he knew his place. He was just another one of those soldiers throughout history. He fought another battle in a city that had seen battles for five thousand years. But unlike all those other soldiers, he had not come to conquer. He was here to liberate. And with every station he passed, with every historic era, Bastian felt the antiquity of the city. Yet it also seemed to him so fast, so relentless this rushing river of time. The generations were like the pages in an open book, flipping in the wind. All of human history seemed both very old and very young to him, a tale older than any other yet a story that perhaps was only beginning.

Finally, after this long path of tears, they reached the first station of the cross. The place where Jesus had been condemned to death. Where David had written his psalms a thousand years before that. Where the high priests would sacrifice burnt offerings. Where the Ark of the Covenant hid under stone. Where so many had fought and prayed and died.

There ahead it rose. The holiest site in the city, the center of its unfolding light and grace, the heart of its miracle and tragedy. The Temple Mount.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

As they emerged from the warren of alleyways, Bastian could see the sky again. The sun had set, but the battle in space lit the night sky. Thousands of starships, appearing from here as mere slivers of light, were racing across the heavens, bombarding one another. The moon seemed to Bastian like a mocking skull. After a second he realized that was not the moon. It was the Atrocity hovering in the sky, grinning her deathly grin.

He returned his gaze to the Temple Mount. Cobwebs covered the necropolis of ancient graves, the domes, and the olive trees. Thousands of arachtaurs squirmed over the blanket of webs like spiders over a dead man's shroud. Ahead, atop the Mount, Bastian saw it. The only wall that remained from the Temple. The Wailing Wall. Webs draped across it.

And there in its center—she. Spider mistress. Goddess of hosts. The spider in the center of the web that engulfed this city, this world, this solar system. Bastian had first known her as the commander of the Tyranny, the dreadnought that had hunted the Freedom a thousand light-years from home. Today she commanded the arachtaur ground forces.

Od'rahda. Daughter of Elder'rah, empress of Arakavish. A princess of silk and poison.

The arachtaurs across the great web noticed the Badgers Company emerge from the labyrinth. They hissed and bared their fangs and raised their claws in the night. Od'rahda looked up from her web and smiled.

Bastian felt small before this monument of ancient stones and the goddess on the web. Only a hundred soldiers from the Badgers Company had made it this far. They gathered behind Bastian, armor cracked and leaking blood, their helmets dented, their hearts broken. Alice stood at his one side, Meytal at the other. Just a handful of people before this might that had descended from the stars.

Then, from other alleyways, more soldiers emerged.

First came another company from the Freedom Brigade. Then a third company of Freebies and a fourth. Then, from under an archway, came battered Red Raiders. Their crimson armor was cracked and dented, and horrors swam in their eyes. But the Red Dawn troops stepped forward, loaded new magazines into their guns, and stood alongside their brothers and sisters of the Alliance. Desert Thorn troops came too, their dusty uniforms tattered, their eyes hard, staring at the holy hilltop and its unholy web.

They were all soldiers from space, deployed by dropships. But the soldiers of Earth came too. Soldiers who had been fighting on Earth while the Freedom Brigade had been fighting in space. Some were local soldiers, Jerusalemites who had grown up here, who knew this city and its winding streets. Others had come from nations around the world. Indian soldiers stepped forward, holding guns in their callused hands. Japanese soldiers emerged from under an archway, carrying the tattered banner of the rising sun. Egyptian troops trudged forward, covered in sand and scars. They kept coming. Soldiers from every continent, from every faith. They surrounded the Temple Mount. Hundreds of thousands of them. United.

Alice leaned toward Bastian. "Gog and Magog, huh, Bas?"

"I don't know. But whatever this is, let's go win it." He lifted his visor, raised his rifle overhead, and shouted for the city to hear. "Soldiers of Earth—charge!"

He started running toward the Mount.

Alice and Meytal let out battle cries and ran with him.

A second later, everyone started to run. Hundreds of thousands of troops roared for battle and shook the city as they charged toward the mountaintop.

They fought for every step. Bastian led the Badgers through a necropolis that draped across the southern hillside of the Temple Mount. This was not a cemetery like he was used to from America, a place of grass, trees, and serenity. There was no blade of grass here, no flower or marble angel. Ancient tombstones cluttered together like rocky scales on the back of some primordial behemoth. They were ancient graves, containing the old kings and judges of biblical Israel. If any names were engraved upon them, Bastian could not see. Cobwebs covered the necropolis, and the arachtaurs were more numerous than the graves.

A claw dented Bastian's armor. Another claw tore through. The snapping jaws and scuttling legs of the beasts were everywhere. But he fought on. Grave by grave. Soldiers fell dead around him, joining the ancient kings of Israel. And suddenly, as he fought up that hill, Bastian wasn't thinking of history, wasn't thinking of the epic story of humanity that still unfolded in Jerusalem. He wasn't thinking of old prophecies or the union of nations. As he bled, as he killed, as he moved ever onward, he thought of Rowan. Of his daughter. Her sweet smile shone through the darkness, and his love for her flowed over the pain.

All around, the soldiers were climbing the Temple Mount, rising higher and higher, climbing over their dead brothers-in-arms. The arachtaurs had filled their webs with hidden blades tipped with poison. Soldiers lay down upon them, allowing their comrades to climb over their convulsing, dying bodies. Pits opened up, plunging soldiers down onto spikes. The bodies filled the pits, and soldiers raced over them. Mines exploded, shattering tombstones and soldiers. Wounded crawled without limbs. The survivors ran on, shouting and firing their guns. Plasma cannons fired from atop the Mount, searing through platoons, leaving charred pathways of death. The soldiers ran along these burnt paths toward the hilltop.

They fought all night. Their bodies littered the hillsides. Thousands fell in the battle for the Temple Mount. Bastian would not know the final death count for many days. He only knew that Rowan needed him. That Alice, the love of his life, was at his side. And he fought until he reached the Wailing Wall and faced the creature that lurked there.

* * * * *

A courtyard spread before the Wailing Wall. Bastian limped across the flagstones, bleeding from cracks in his armor. Everything hurt. Every part of him was bruised, battered, or bleeding. He could barely stand, but he pushed himself across the courtyard and stood facing her.

Od'rahda.

It was said that behind this wall, in a cavern inside the hill, hid the Ark of the Covenant and the spirit of God. But here upon the wall hung the devil herself.

The human part of her body was oddly beautiful, unusual for an arachtaur. Her skin was smooth gray marbled with purple, her body curved and comely, her breasts and fingers tipped with gold. Her full lips smiled, and a string of golden coins hung upon her brow. Her black hair was scented with frankincense, and precious stones adorned her bracelets. Her spider's abdomen was pressed against the wall, revealing the crimson stain upon it, shaped as a skull, a twin to the Atrocity that hung above. Her eight legs spread out around her like a crown of thorns.

She stared at Bastian, smiled, and licked her lips.

"You should have bombed me from above, fool," she said. "These are nothing but old rocks. We have countless of them on Arakavish. Because of your superstitions, you came here and hundreds of thousands died. Now you will join them."

Bastian shook his head. "These are more than just stones. I don't know if I believe in God. I don't know if any place here is truly holy. Maybe you're right and these are only superstitions. But I believe in humanity. I believe in our story that still unfolds. Here upon these stones are written our earliest chapters. And here upon these stones I will end your chapter."

Bastian was carrying two rifles—one that fired bullets, the other that fired plasma. He aimed the plasma gun and opened fire.

Never moving from the center of her web, Od'rahda slung silky nets, trapping the plasma bolts in midair. Bursts of burning cobwebs scattered like luminous dandelion seeds.

Alice and Meytal ran up to Bastian's sides. Panting, they shouldered their rifles and fired too. Od'rahda slung more webs, stopping their bullets in midair.

Then thousands of soldiers came racing into the courtyard, guns blazing.

And from behind the Wailing Wall scuttled thousands of rahs.

Atop the Temple Mount, the two armies clashed.

The battle became a brawl. Arachtaur claws lashed all around, bullets whistled, and bodies hit the ancient flagstones. Blood splashed the Wailing Wall.

"Come on!" Bastian said to Alice and Meytal. "We gotta reach Od'rahda."

They fought their way through the crowd, sometimes firing their guns, sometimes just clubbing leaping arachtaurs. It was not a large courtyard, but every step was a war.

Finally the three reached the wall. The battle raged behind them. Ahead, just a few steps away, cobwebs draped across the Wailing Wall. Between the strands, Bastian could see folded notes worshippers had placed between the bricks, sealing their prayers. Od'rahda hung above the paper dreams, grinning, an antichrist guarding the holy of holies.

"Hello, Bastian," she hissed. "You've come right into my web."

Bastian, Alice, and Meytal all opened fire. Bullets and plasma bolts slammed into Od'rahda, sparked, and shattered. A glowing red web appeared around Od'rahda, hugging the contours of her body.

Bastian's eyes widened.

"A web shield! She's wearing a web shield!"

He had only seen such shields around clawships before. Then he noticed it. Leather straps hung across Od'rahda's chest. He glimpsed something behind her back. A battery pack.

Alice and Meytal were still firing their guns. But the bullets shattered uselessly against the shield engulfing Od'rahda. The arachtaur laughed. A few bullets ricocheted, and one hit Bastian on the chest, denting his breastplate and knocking him back a step.

"Alice, Meytal." He sent them telepathic messages. "See that pack on her back? That's generating her shield. We have to disable it."

Alice cracked her knuckles. "I got this."

Roaring, she ran toward Od'rahda. But the arachtaur fired a dense bundle of webs. The sticky sphere slammed into Alice like a wrecking ball, tossing her across the courtyard. She thumped onto the flagstones, moaning, only for more webs to hit her. The sticky strands draped over her, gluing her down.

Meytal ran next, her sword raised in both hands. Od'rahda fired webs at her too, but the Israeli commando swung her katana from side to side, slicing the cobwebs. She managed to reach Od'rahda, leaped toward the arachtaur, and slashed her blade again and again.

Bastian knew he should be attacking too, helping Meytal.

But Alice lay on the ground, moaning. She wasn't struggling. Just lying there.

Our baby, Bastian thought. He could think of nothing else right now. Not even of Od'rahda. Just of the child in Alice's belly.

Terror filled him. He ran and knelt by her side. "Alice!"

She lay on the flagstones, draped in cobwebs, only her face free. Sweat covered her brow. "I'm fine. Go, Bastian. Go kill her!"

He nodded. She was right. He turned back toward Od'rahda.

* * * * *

By now, the arachtaur had captured Meytal. With several legs, Od'rahda held the commando aloft, spinning her around and around, cocooning her in webs. The katana lay on the ground, shattered into several gleaming shards.

Bastian leaped toward Od'rahda, hoping to climb the web, to cut off her battery pack. But the arachtaur was faster. She hurled Meytal. The cocooned commando slammed into Bastian, knocking him onto the flagstones. He struggled to his feet, only for webs to splatter him, wrap around him like sticky lassos, and pin his arms to his sides.

He stumbled and fell. He glimpsed the battle farther back in the courtyard. The arachtaurs were gaining the upper hand, slaying more and more soldiers. Piles of dead mounted. There would be no help for Bastian now. Maybe no hope for Earth. Not unless he could kill Od'rahda.

He struggled to free himself but could not. The cobwebs bound him too tightly. His rifle was pinned to his side. He couldn't even fire it. Only the fingers of his left hand were free. As he wriggled on the ground, something sharp stabbed his gloved fingers. He had touched one of the katana's shards. Furtively, as he lay wrapped in cobwebs, Bastian palmed the sharp chunk of steel.

He looked back at Od'rahda. She was moving down her web, grinning and licking her lips. As she detached herself from the wall, her cobwebs made little sucking sounds like bandages pulled off wet wounds. Her claws scraped over the flagstones. She came to stand above Bastian and looked down at him, a sad smile on her lips.

"Poor boy." Od'rahda knelt and stroked his cheek. "To have come so far, only to fail now …"

Bastian wriggled madly, but the more he struggled, the more the cobwebs tightened around him. Desperately, he turned his head to call for help. But the arachtaurs were winning the battle. They were pushing the human forces down the mountain. Alice lay on the ground, moaning. Already some arachtaurs were approaching her, sniffing.

"Don't look at her." Od'rahda knelt, grabbed Bastian's head, and turned it toward her. "Look only at me. I am your only woman now. You are mine. Mine to breed with. Mine to torment. I will not kill you quickly, Bastian. No. First I will bear your children. First you will watch them slay humans. Your sons will hatch from my eggs with the claws of spiders. Claws that will tear your human daughter apart."

As she spoke, Bastian clasped the shard of katana. It cut through his glove and stung his fingers. He ignored the pain and worked at the cobwebs binding him, cutting, sawing through them, hiding his work.

Just a few more strands, he thought. A few more strands and my hand is free.

Od'rahda raised an eyebrow. "What is this, human? You still struggle in your bonds? You still think you can draw your gun, fire, and kill me? Oh, sweet boy. You cannot break through my shield. See? Feel it."

She leaned closer and kissed his cheek.

The web shield crackled to life, clinging to the contours of her body like a dress. The laser web burned Bastian's cheek like a sizzling hot griddle. He roared.

Od'rahda pulled back, laughing. The shield shimmered around her for a moment, then faded. Bastian groaned, his cheek charred.

"I will kiss you many times, Bastian. I will breed with you over and over. And I will keep my shield on. How you will burn! How I will savor the aroma of your cooking flesh as we mate!"

He had to keep her talking, to buy himself time. He still worked with the hidden shard of katana, sawing away at his bonds.

"This isn't over yet!" he said. "The Freedom still flies. The ship that destroyed your precious Tyranny!"

Her smile faded. Rage flickered across her lavender eyes.

"Yes, the Freedom won that battle. But I will win this war!"

Her face twisted into a snarl, baring her fangs, and she shoved a claw downward, through the cobwebs and into Bastian's thigh.

He howled in agony.

"Bas!" Alice cried, but she was trapped in the webs.

Od'rahda leaned close to Bastian, twisting her claw in his leg. She grinned maniacally, and saliva dripped down her fangs to drizzle onto his face.

"You have only begun to suffer, boy," she hissed. "What wonderful torments await you!"

She bit his shoulder, and he bellowed. She dug her teeth deeper.

Through the pain, he gazed at the Wailing Wall. It rose from the devastation, standing as it had stood for thousands of years.

Please, God, Bastian thought. If this is a holy place, please help us.

And then he saw it.

He could barely believe it. Surely it was just a hallucination brought on by his pain.

One of the bricks in the Wailing Wall was moving.

It was impossible! A miracle!

The brick was large. The size of a vintage microwave. It wobbled, then popped out of the wall, scattering hundreds of prayers on folded bits of paper. Where the brick had been, Bastian saw a tunnel.

And then something truly bizarre happened. This had to be a hallucination.

Stowy came crawling out from the tunnel.

Grime covered her face, hair, and dress of many pockets. She had no gun, but she held her crystal dagger. One of the Aeolian laser daggers. She crept up behind Od'rahda. The arachtaur was busy biting Bastian's shoulder. She did not notice the stowaway. Stowy inched closer and closer, then raised her dagger.

"The battery pack!" Bastian cried. "Destroy it!"

Stowy nodded and leaped onto Od'rahda's bloated abdomen. With a wordless cry, Stowy plunged her dagger into the battery pack, igniting the laser at the same time.

Electricity crackled.

The laser lit the Wailing Wall.

The battery pack burst, knocking Stowy to the ground.

The web shield shimmered around Od'rahda for a second, then collapsed into a million red sparks.

The arachtaur screamed, pulling back from Bastian, leaving his shoulder bloodied.

Bastian gave a last slice with the katana shard, freeing his arm, and drew his sidearm.

He aimed the pistol at Od'rahda and opened fire.

One bullet pierced her neck. Another plowed through her forehead. A third bullet pulverized her eye.

She gave Bastian a last look with one eye. A look of shock and utter confusion. Then she collapsed, hit the flagstones, and her spider legs curled up.

Bastian pulled off the remains of his cobwebs, wincing with pain. His leg and shoulder were still bleeding. He knew he should treat the wounds. Blood loss could kill him within minutes. But he trudged toward Od'rahda, knelt, and checked for a pulse.

Dead.

Od'rahda was dead.

Still Bastian refused to tend to his wounds. He limped toward his wife and collapsed beside her. He tried to cut her cobwebs free, but his hands shook, and he fell. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the cobblestones, and Stowy was fussing over him, pulling off his battle armor, pressing cobwebs against his wounds, stanching his blood. The webs clung to his wounds, acting as bandages. It was good enough for now.

Soon they had freed Meytal and Alice, and Bastian pulled his wife into his arms.

"Are you all right?" he whispered.

Alice nodded, tears in her eyes, and they looked across the battlefield. The news was spreading. Arachtaurs cried out in terror.

"She's dead!"

"Od'rahda is dead!"

The human soldiers cried out in triumph. They fought harder, driving the arachtaurs to the Western Wall and firing, slaying them against the ancient stones. A few arachtaurs fled, vanishing into holes and shadows like frightened spiders.

Bastian struggled to his feet, pulling Alice up with him. He had to lean against her. But he knew the battle was won. They did it.

Then a rumble sounded above.

Bastian looked up and his heart sank.

The Atrocity was descending toward Jerusalem.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Bastian stood by the Wailing Wall, bleeding, barely standing, watching as Atrocity descended over Jerusalem.

The skull-shaped ship was enormous. Even larger than the Freedom. Yet she was moving through the atmosphere. She must have graviton drives beyond anything humans could engineer. Atrocity flew lower and lower, filling the sky. Bastian had always known she was large. But now he understood the true scale of the Atrocity. She was larger than Jerusalem's Old City.

Across the city, soldiers and arachtaurs alike paused from fighting and looked up. Some arachtaurs cried out in triumph, but others fled, fearing the giant skull from the heavens. A few humans were fleeing too, while some plucky soldiers climbed onto rooftops and began firing their guns at the Atrocity. Bastian knew they might as well be tossing stones.

The Atrocity descended even lower, so low her underbelly shattered minarets and church steeples. Bastian thought she meant to land and crush the entire city. But then the Atrocity paused and hovered. The center of her underbelly hung just above the Temple Mount where Bastian stood. The stench of the starship wafted onto the city. It smelled like burnt flesh and oily metal.

Alice and Meytal came to stand at his sides. They stared up at the Atrocity together. Meytal, God bless her, fired a few bullets at the dreadnought's underbelly for all the good it did.

"Why doesn't she just blow up the city?" Alice said.

Bastian checked MindWeb for updates on the battle in space. He understood. "She can't. Katyusha rammed into her cannons and destroyed them."

The Atrocity hung frozen for long moments, and nobody was fighting anymore. Those who had not fled stared up, waiting to see what happened.

Hatches dilated on Atrocity's underbelly.

Bastian stared into the ship and knew it was hopeless. He knew they had lost.

Rahs were inside. Thousands of rahs.

Silk strands dropped from the hatches, and the horse-sized spiders began scuttling down. Bastian knew they would sweep over this city. It was over.

And then—a rumble in the sky.

A sonic boom.

The roar of engines.

Alice squinted. "What is it?" she shouted over the din.

Bastian didn't need to see her. He knew her song. Tears leaped into his eyes.

"The Freedom."

* * * * *

Admiral King stood on the bridge, clutching his control panel, as the starship Freedom dived into the atmosphere of Earth.

The ship rattled. The deck shook. The bulkheads vibrated and cracked. The engines roared, a deafening sound, and the flames of reentry blazed over the shields.

"Are you sure about this?" Jordan shouted at the top of his lungs. He stood beside King, clutching a railing for dear life.

"No!" King shouted back. "But it's our only chance!"

Freedom was not meant to fly in an atmosphere. They had built her in space. For nearly half a century, she had remained in space. Now she plunged through the stratosphere, spreading a trail of fire across the night sky. From the ground, she probably looked like a comet. At a mile long, if Freedom were a comet, she could destroy nations.

Now she streaked lower, lower into the sky, blazing with fury as she carved into the troposphere. Immense kinetic energy was ripping molecules apart all around them, tearing particles from atoms, burning the sky. The shields could only do so much. Antennae snapped across Freedom's hull. Sensors tore free. One of the Angels of Liberty broke off and tumbled into the sky behind them, a cannon the size of the Eiffel Tower. The hull dented like a tin can.

"Jim, it's tearing us apart, dammit!" Jordan shouted.

The bridge was wobbling madly. Crew members fell. Monitors flew through the air. Mimori clutched her station with both hands, eyes closed, flying the ship. Lines of code swirled around her head. Other crew members simply clung to their posts, trying not to pass out. A few were whispering prayers. A crack raced across the deck floor. The ceiling tore open. And still they flew. Lower. Lower. The graviton engines rumbled across the ship, desperately trying to steady her. The kinetic energy ripped off the Shield of David batteries, scattering them onto the Sahara. Earth gravity was grabbing them, squeezing them. Armored plates peeled off the hull.

"Kim, how are we doing?" King telepathized down to engineering. But she didn't answer. MindWeb had shut down. Another monitor exploded. The ship's systems would not handle this.

"Mimori, how are we?" King shouted over the roar.

But the android didn't open her eyes, didn't reply, and the ship kept plunging down, down. Many monitors had shattered, but the central viewport was still working, showing the view ahead of the ship. They were plunging toward Egypt, and King got a shocking view of the pyramids below, and then—

Mimori leaned back hard, curving her back, raising her chin toward the deckhead.

The Freedom pitched upward over Cairo, then shot over the Nile and streamed across the Sinai at hypersonic speed.

And there King saw her.

Looming just ahead, hovering over the mountains of Jerusalem.

The Atrocity.

The skull was larger than the Old City.

King stared in horror.

This was crazy. They had to turn back. They had to—

He gritted his teeth, banishing his fear.

"Mimori—ram her!" he shouted.

The Talaria engines roared with new life. Flames rained upon the ground below. The Freedom shot forward.

Everyone held on to their stations.

The enormous skull began turning toward them.

Then the Freedom slammed into her.

The Fist of Freedom drove into the Atrocity like a blade. The rails sank down to the prow. At the same instant, Mimori switched on the railgun. It didn't have enough charge to fire a projectile. But enough to flood the Atrocity with electricity, frying the ship from the inside, instantly killing everyone aboard. The Talaria drive roared louder, shone brighter, and Freedom kept flying, shoving the Atrocity into the northeast. Off the city. Into the desert.

They shoved the gargantuan skull onto the surface and shattered her upon the rocky plains of Jordan.

"Now!" King shouted at the top of his lungs. "Hopscotch now!"

The Talaria drive was mighty. But it could not fly them back into space. Gravity here was simply too strong. In a second, they would crash into the desert too, joining Atrocity in her devastation.

But then Mimori engaged the starship Freedom's new hopscotch drive.

They had never tested it. It was too risky. They had to jump a full one hundred kilometers. From the surface to the edge of space. For a ship this large? There was a fifty percent chance that hopscotching would destroy them.

They had to toss that coin.

The hopscotch engine engaged, the ship jerked, and …

They vanished from reality.

Of the starship Freedom, only a trail of fire remained in the sky, gliding over the desert, landing on the million shattered pieces of Atrocity.

* * * * *

The din of rattling decks and shattering bulkheads faded.

The Freedom found herself flying in an alien dimension.

Like the starfighters before her, Freedom flew through the Otherworld. Glowing, blobby creatures fled from her flight. Purple clouds streaked with lightning roiled around the dreadnought. The Freedom plowed through some of the creatures, breaking their thin skin, scattering their glowing organs.

King allowed himself a deep breath. They were still alive. And the Atrocity was gone.

They might yet win this thing.

A rumble sounded behind them.

The rearview monitor was busted. King frowned. "Mimori, switch the main viewport to show a view from our stern."

"Yes, sir."

The image switched and gasps sounded across the bridge.

"Dear Lord, Jim, what is that?" Jordan said.

A colossal creature rose behind the Freedom. It was larger than the ship. A blazing white eye like a star shone among the swirling purple clouds. Lightning bolts illuminated a bloated body like a mountain in a storm. Tentacles reached through the cloudscape, lined with rows of claws, and a hellmouth opened like a pit to the abyss.

A tentacle grabbed the Freedom.

Then another tentacle wrapped around them, squeezing, crushing them.

The strange tentacled god began pulling them down toward its hungry maw.

"Kim, give our engines a blast!" King cried. MindWeb was finally back up.

"I'm trying, Jim!" Kim said. "I'm giving her everything! It's got us in its grip!"

King clenched his metal fist. "Angels of Liberty—aim over our stern and fire!"

The gears rumbled. The ship creaked. A third tentacle wrapped around the ship, and the creature pulled them lower. The stern dipped into the gargantuan mouth.

"Why aren't we firing?" King demanded.

Jordan cursed and looked up from his control panel. "Half the cannons broke down in the atmosphere. The others are buried under tentacles. There's only one operational. The Pandora."

"Emily!" King said.

She answered over MindWeb. He saw a brief hallucination of her inside her mecha, shoving a torpedo into a launch tube. The ship was trembling. Breaking apart. The strange creature's mouth began to close. The teeth sank into their stern.

"I'm here, sir!" Emily said. "Half my crew is gone, but—"

"Fire—now!" King shouted.

Emily shoved down a huge lever.

The Pandora boomed.

A Maccabee torpedo flew and detonated against the tentacled titan.

The kraken opened its mouth to roar, releasing them. The tentacles pulled back. The Freedom shot forward. The hopscotch drive thrummed. Blue lights flashed across the bridge.

And they leaped back into reality.

Alarms wailed. Alerts flashed across the remaining monitors. King saw it on the main viewport. Earth's atmosphere. Their underbelly was grazing it. They had leaped a hundred kilometers from the surface into space, but they were still dangerously close.

"Get us out of here!" King said.

"Aye, sir!" said Mimori, and the Talaria drive roared, bathing the edge of the sky with light, and the ship leaped into the distance.

They flew, rumbling, barreling through the husks of destroyed starships, out of the gravity well of Earth … and into open space.

King took deep breaths, loosening his fists.

"We made it," he whispered. "We did it. Good work, everyone."

Spitfire burst into tears, ran toward him, and hugged him. Other crew members wept.

The Atrocity was gone.

Magog'rah and Od'rahda were dead.

King held Spitfire close, and his own eyes dampened. He thought of all those he had lost. All those who had given their lives for this moment. He took a few more deep breaths, steadying himself.

There was still work to do. There were still arachtaurs on the surface. Still arachships in space. But King knew that once more, Earth belonged to humanity.

* * * * *

"Sir?" Mimori looked at him. "Sir! It's incredible! The arachships, sir! They're fleeing!"

They watched it happen on the viewport. Portals were opening around Earth. But this time, no enemies emerged. These were escape portals.

As the arachships flew toward the portals, the human starships chased them, cannons firing. The arachships put up no defense. Ship after ship exploded under the human bombardment, never even reaching the portals.

"Should we join the assault, sir?" Mimori said.

King shook his head. "You need time to recover. Let's sit this one out." He wasn't just talking to Mimori but the ship herself. His beloved Freedom.

Only a handful of arachships even reached the portals. Dented, trailing fire and smoke, they vanished through the portals. The spy drone on Achernar showed them emerging back home, defeated.

And then something happened that chilled King to the bone. As soon as the arachships returned to their home system, thousands of clawships swarmed them. The rah warships opened fire, drenching the arachtaur vessels with plasma, twisting their hulls, burning their innards.

"It seems Katyusha isn't the only one who doesn't tolerate defeat," Jordan said, watching the scene with dark eyes.

"May we never be as cruel as rahs or Katyusha," King said.

But perhaps that was unfair. Katyusha had fought nobly in this war. King had to admit that. She had destroyed many enemy warships. She had saved the Freedom more than once. She had flown the Baba Yaga into Atrocity's crown. Without her, Earth would likely have lost the war.

Humanity was like that. Not all humans were noble. Not all humans were good. In some ways, they could be as vicious as the rahs and arachtaurs. This war, like the ones before it, had revealed to King the cruelty of humanity. He had seen it when Katyusha murdered her fleeing soldiers. But he had seen the nobility of humanity too. In his crew. In his family. And yes, even in Katyusha.

A voice rose behind him, filling the bridge.

"Jamechka! We won!"

"Speak of the devil," King muttered.

Katyusha strutted onto the bridge, beaming. She still wore the red-and-gold uniform of the Red Dawn, and her saber hung at her side. She ran toward King and, surprising him, pulled him into an embrace and kissed him full on the lips.

"Get off, dammit!" he roared.

"But we won the war! Katyusha feels like celebrating!" She began kissing his cheek again and again.

He shoved her away. "Go celebrate somewhere else, goddammit." But then his voice softened. He heaved a sigh. "Katyusha, we fought well together." He gave her a salute.

"Aww, you do love Katyusha!" She returned the salute, then leaped onto him and began kissing him again.

"Get her off my bridge!" King bellowed.

Security had to escort her away. Katyusha gave King a wink and blew him a kiss before they dragged her out.

A call came from Earth. It was High Commander Godwin. He materialized on the bridge, his plump cheeks rosy. The old man was beaming. He dusted off his three-piece suit and adjusted his top hat.

"Good show, Admiral King! Jolly good show. You gave the enemy the beating of a lifetime, I dare say. We're mopping up their troops down on Earth. The war will last a while longer. But without the enemy in space, we're going to win it."

King nodded and saluted his high commander. But he knew the old man was wrong. They could reclaim Earth, yes. But they could not win this war. Not so long as Elder'rah still ruled in Arakavish. Not so long as that empire still sprawled across the stars, spreading its web.

But King would worry about that another day. For today, his battle had ended. And King had time to mourn the loss of a dear old friend.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

There were many funerals to hold after Operation Gaia's Flame.

This was a victory. But a hard one. Perhaps the hardest victory King had won since the Third World War. Back then, he had lost his father. Today, forty years later, he lost a best friend.

They held communal funerals for the others. But for Sergeant Major Oliver Darjeeling, King ordered full military honors. His friend deserved a dedicated goodbye.

The ship was flying in deep orbit, halfway between Earth and the moon, and the survivors gathered in the hangar bay. The Sparrow shuttles had been relocated. The deck was converted into a funeral hall. Marines in service uniforms stood in neat rows. The senior officers all gathered here, leaving Mimori to command the bridge alone. Dignitaries had come from Earth and many starships. High Commander Godwin was here, wearing his three-piece suit, clutching his cane. Katyusha stood among the guests, wearing her fine uniform of crimson and gold. For once, she was not scoffing or mocking or boasting. Her face was stern, her head lowered. Rear admirals, world leaders, generals—they gathered to say goodbye.

Perhaps nobody among the guests grieved more than Queen Emily. She stood in the front row, wearing black. A veil hid everything but her eyes, which shone with tears.

King stood beside the coffin of his friend. The coffin was closed, draped with a Union Jack. King looked at the coffin, and he did not feel crushing grief, not agony, not despair. Those would come later, he knew. Right now he simply felt hollow. As if a great part of his soul had been ripped out, leaving only emptiness.

He looked at the crowd.

"If Oliver Darjeeling were here, I think he would be surprised that he was so popular." Awkward laughter passed through the crowd. King continued speaking. "You see, he was a humble man. In some ways an introverted man. He never married, never had children, he had no family left on Earth. But we on this ship—we were his family. To many of us, he was like a father, sometimes stern, always wise and fair. To others he was like a brother. That's how I myself considered him. I'm proud that …" His voice suddenly choked. "I'm proud that he considered me a friend. I fought at his side for forty years. And it seems too short. I wish we could have had longer together. He was the finest man I knew. Goodbye, Oliver. Goodbye, my friend."

Normally, during funerals, it was Darjeeling—the senior NCO of the ship—who ordered the cannon salutes. This time it was Alice who took up this grim duty. It was rare to see Alice Allenby out of her fatigues, but today she wore a formal service uniform—along with quite a few bandages. She marched forward, stood by the coffin, and saluted.

The portside bulkhead vanished. A MindWeb hallucination. They seemed to be staring into open space. The Angels of Liberty faced the darkness. Normally they fired only one cannon during a funeral. Today they would fire all the cannons that still remained.

"Ten'shun!" Alice cried, voice echoing across the deck. Hundreds watched from the crowd. Thousands more watched via MindWeb from across the ship. They all snapped to attention.

Alice turned toward King, and her eyes were red with tears. She saluted him. King's lips were tight. He saw himself on a monitor, his face hard as a granite cliff, but inside he was breaking apart. He returned the salute, his lips a thin line, his eyes chips of stone.

Alice spun on her heel, took a few steps, and cried out: "Prepare for cannon salute!"

Her voice echoed across the bay. Many in the crowd shed fresh tears.

The deck vibrated as the gears of the cannons rumbled, raising the great bores. They all watched through MindWeb.

"All guns—load!" Alice cried.

The gunnery crews worked in their mechas, loading black torpedoes with angel wings painted upon them.

For a moment, silence filled the ship.

"Fire!" Alice cried out. And the great cannons fired. The dreadnought shook. The funerary torpedoes flew into the darkness, and Emily started and burst into tears. Standing beside her, Jordan put a hand on her shoulder, but tears were pouring from his eyes too.

"Fire!" Alice cried again, and again the guns boomed.

"Fire!" she cried a third time, and the Angels of Liberty roared for a fallen soldier.

As Chef Abercrombie played his bagpipes, the marines carried the coffin into an airlock. When the coffin sailed out into space, finally a tear streamed down King's cheek too.

He watched the coffin glide into the distance, and finally King did not feel hollow. Grief filled him.

* * * * *

Earth smoldered.

The battle was won.

The last arachtaurs on Earth fled in their shuttles. A handful remained but did not breed. They knew they had lost. Their mission was over. Humanity's ground forces hunted them down.

When the smoke settled, it revealed the scope of the devastation. Millions of dead civilians in Nebraska. Millions dead in Berlin. Millions of soldiers dead across Earth and in space. They would not know the final death toll for a while, maybe never. But it was too terrible to comprehend.

The Freedom docked at Delain Prime Shipyard, her port of call, located at Earth's L2 Lagrange point. Here she had been built half a century ago, and here she underwent repairs. Selly and his fellow Aeolians worked alongside the human mechanics, restoring Freedom to health.

Most of the regular crew took shore leave. They were down on Earth with their families, leaving only a skeleton crew aboard. Many of these spacers had not left the ship in months. A handful had not left since the war began over three years ago.

King could have taken shore leave. But he chose to remain aboard the Freedom. He had saved Earth. But not his home. His family ranch was gone. Nebraska, his home, lay in ruin. There was nothing left for him on Earth. This was a victory, he knew. But it felt so much like defeat.

How did one go on? How could he keep fighting when his home lay in ruin? For so many years, he had clung to the dream of returning to Nebraska, retiring to his ranch, spending his dotage on the patio, sometimes fishing or whittling, watching the corn grow and listening to the birds sing.

That dream had burned in the flames of war.

So he remained aboard the Freedom and wandered the empty halls like a ghost. He was used to these corridors bustling with spacers. It had been years since he'd seen the Freedom so empty. His footsteps echoed eerily, and a strange anxiety brewed inside him. He worried about Elder'rah attacking again while his crew was on Earth. But it was more than that. That hollow feeling he had felt when losing Darjeeling had returned. The emptiness of the Freedom accentuated the emptiness inside King. This ship would never feel the same. Not without his friend.

King paused by a porthole and gazed out at the stars. He imagined he could see Darjeeling's coffin still floating into the distance.

"I should have told you how much you meant to me," King said softly. "You were so much more than another soldier."

There were so few spacers left of their generation. Soldiers who had fought World War III together. Who had grown up on a different world. Suddenly King desperately needed Jordan at his side. He was the only other World War III veteran who served aboard the Freedom. But Jordan too had taken shore leave. He and Annie were down in California, visiting family and friends.

King felt alone. The emptiness inside him grew and grew like a cancer, consuming him from the inside. Perhaps for the first time, he was truly, fully aware of his mortality. Darjeeling was gone. How easy it would be to follow. Another battle, a stray bullet, the claw of an enemy—and that was it. With the hollowness inside, he felt like a fragile shell, liable to shatter.

Maybe he was only strong during battle. Maybe he didn't know how to live when the cannons were silent. Maybe he only knew how to kill, not how to heal.

"Dad?"

The voice came from behind him. King turned to see his son. Bastian wore simple fatigues. The sides of his head were freshly shaved, and his trademark mohawk and chinstrap beard were neatly trimmed. He looked as big, tough, and brave as ever. But there was something different about Bastian today. Something haunted, even vulnerable in his eyes.

"Son. You didn't take shore leave either."

Bastian shook his head. "No."

King stepped closer. He stared into his son's eyes. "Listen to me, Bastian. Listen carefully. We will rebuild." Some of the old anger returned, filling the emptiness inside him like fire in a furnace. "We will rebuild our home. I promise you. We will—"

"Our home isn't gone, Dad," Bastian said. "It's right here. We're home. Aboard the starship Freedom."

Feet pattered around the corner, and Rowan burst into the hallway, grinning. "Pop Pop!"

She leaped onto King and hugged him.

"Rowie, you're getting heavy!" King said.

She giggled. "No I'm not. My dad says I'm skinny."

"You are skinny," Bastian said. "You better eat a big dinner tonight." He looked at King. "Dad, how about you come over for dinner?"

"Abercrombie is on shore leave," King said. "It's MREs for us tonight."

Bastian shook his head. "No, it's not. Alice and I cooked. Deck 22's galley is free tonight. We made lasagna. Enough to feed an army. So come over and help."

"I sprinkled the cheese on," Rowan said. "I wanted to cut the vegetables, but my dad doesn't trust me with a sharp knife, even though I'm nine."

And now that emptiness inside King filled with something other than anger. With warmth. With love.

They gathered in the galley on deck 22. Alice was already there, setting a table. Bastian placed steaming lasagna, garlic bread, and salad on the table, along with a bottle of wine.

Before they began to feast, Kim showed up. For the first time in months, she wasn't wearing sooty coveralls. Her fatigues were clean, and she wore her blond hair in a neat ponytail. She was so beautiful, and when she smiled at King, his heart melted. A surprise guest joined them too. Evan wheeled into the galley in a wheelchair. The private managed to smile too. He had lost his pallor, and aside from the missing legs, he seemed healthy and strong.

"I invited them too," Bastian telepathized to King. "I hope that's okay." He hesitated. "I figure the Fletchers are family."

"They are," King said softly.

He approached Kim. And without sneaking off to hide, he hugged her and kissed her on the lips. Let people see. They all knew already. And King was tired of hiding it.

The galley door opened and Spitfire walked in. She stood at the doorway for a moment, hesitating. "Sorry. Bastian invited me, but … I didn't realize it's a family affair."

"Get over here," King said. "You're family."

They sat down at the table. Before they could cut into the lasagna, a vent opened on the floor. Stowy popped up like a mole, sniffing.

"I knew I smelled something," the stowaway said.

King sighed. "Grab a seat, Stowy."

The galley door opened again, and Emily stepped inside.

King rose to his feet. "Emily! You didn't take shore leave?"

The young queen stood there, silent for a moment. "I … I wanted to stay. Though I can't explain why, I don't feel like I can face Earth just now. Not without him."

King smiled softly, approached her, and accompanied her to the table. "Join us."

Niles floated in after her. "Ah, finally a proper banquet! But where are the maids?"

Since so many people were already here, King called Mimori over too. The android did not eat or drink, but she sat at the table, and she was good company. She too was family. Spitfire invited Meytal, and her sister showed up with her stomach growling. QT crashed the party, wearing her Freedom the Frog plush costume. Soon Jordan and Annie showed up too, and it was truly a full house.

Thankfully, Bastian and Rowan had cooked enough food for an army. Soon they were all eating, drinking, and laughing. They did not speak of tragedy. This was a time for good cheer. Yet when they poured the wine (grape juice for Rowan and Alice), King stood up and raised his cup.

"A toast to Oliver Darjeeling. To Robby 'Pickles' Cooper. And to all those we lost. They are here with us in spirit."

They all stood up, raised their cups, and drank.

Alice raised her cup again. "And to family and friends."

Kim raised her cup and looked at King. "To those we love."

They all drank again.

"Now enough toasts, I want to focus on eating!" Bastian said. "Somebody pass me more garlic bread."

They laughed and kept eating. As they ate, they swapped old stories of the fallen. Only funny tales. Good memories. Spitfire told about the time Pickles tried cheating at poker, only for bundles of aces to fall out of his sleeves. Stowy reminded everyone of that time she had eaten the Prince of Monaco's wedding cake, and how poor Darjeeling, who had been overseeing the wedding, had tried to bake a new one. They were old stories. Stories from Freedom's days as a museum ship. Happy memories. But they did not forget the honor of their fallen friends in war. They did not forget the sacrifice of those who had given their lives so this dinner could take place, so that Freedom could fly on.

That night, King took Kim back to his quarters, and he made love to her by the fireplace. Afterward, he held her in his arms, and she pillowed her head against his chest, and they talked for hours about many things. The grief was still there. And the loss would always leave holes inside him. But King knew that her love, and the love his family, would carry him on through the darkness.

After Kim had fallen asleep, King rose gently from bed. He walked past his bookshelves, the suit of armor, and the fireplace, then stood by the porthole and gazed out toward the stars.

A blue star shone in the distance. Achernar.

They had won another great battle. They had liberated Earth from the scourge of the arachtaurs. But Elder'rah was still out there. The Arakavish empire still spread across the Orion arm of the galaxy. And King knew that Elder'rah would not rest until Earth was hers.

He could not hunker down and defend Earth forever. He must switch to offense.

He had portal technology now. He had thousands of ships and battle-hardened commanders. The best of the best. Survivors. Killers.

And they were not alone.

There were other species out there. Aliens who were hiding from Arakavish. Who had suffered the scourge of the rahs. Aliens like the Aeolians—who might be willing to help. Even to fight. King must find them. He must raise a coalition. And he must destroy Arakavish.

"I'm coming for you, Elder'rah." His upper lip twitched and he balled his fists. "You destroyed my home. You killed my friends. You've started a fire you cannot control. I will not rest until I burn you down."

Perhaps hearing him, Kim mumbled in her sleep. King looked at her, and he loosened his fists.

Okay, maybe I can rest for one night, he thought. With the woman I love.

He returned to bed, and she cuddled against him. He held her in his arms until he drifted off to a long, well-earned sleep.

The story concludes in …

STARSHIP FREEDOM VIII

A Time for Freedom

DanielArenson.com/StarshipFreedomVIII

AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading Starship Freedom VII.

Starship Freedom VIII continues the tale.

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Thank you again, dear reader, and I hope we meet again between the pages of another book.

Daniel

NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

STARSHIP FREEDOM

Starship Freedom

Starship Freedom II: The Cost of Freedom

Starship Freedom III: We Fight for Freedom

Starship Freedom IV: For Death or Freedom

Starship Freedom V: Let Freedom Ring

Starship Freedom VI: In Pursuit of Freedom

Starship Freedom VII: The Guns of Freedom

Starship Freedom VIII: A Time for Freedom

EARTHRISE

Earth Alone

Earth Lost

Earth Rising

Earth Fire

Earth Shadows

Earth Valor

Earth Reborn

Earth Honor

Earth Eternal

Earth Machines

Earth Aflame

Earth Unleashed

Earth Remembers

Earth in Darkness

Earth, Our Home

SOLDIERS OF EARTHRISE

The Earthling

Earthlings

Earthling's War

I, Earthling

The Earthling's Daughter

We Are Earthlings

CHILDREN OF EARTHRISE

The Heirs of Earth

A Memory of Earth

An Echo of Earth

The War for Earth

The Song of Earth

The Legacy of Earth

KINGDOMS OF SAND

Kings of Ruin

Crowns of Rust

Thrones of Ash

Temples of Dust

Halls of Shadows

Echoes of Light

THE MOTH SAGA

Moth

Empires of Moth

Secrets of Moth

Daughter of Moth

Shadows of Moth

Legacy of Moth

REQUIEM

Dawn of Dragons

Requiem's Song

Requiem's Hope

Requiem's Prayer

The Complete Trilogy

Song of Dragons

Blood of Requiem

Tears of Requiem

Light of Requiem

The Complete Trilogy

Dragonlore

A Dawn of Dragonfire

A Day of Dragon Blood

A Night of Dragon Wings

The Complete Trilogy

The Dragon War

A Legacy of Light

A Birthright of Blood

A Memory of Fire

The Complete Trilogy

Requiem for Dragons

Dragons Lost

Dragons Reborn

Dragons Rising

The Complete Trilogy

Flame of Requiem

Forged in Dragonfire

Crown of Dragonfire

Pillars of Dragonfire

The Complete Trilogy

ALIEN HUNTERS

Alien Hunters

Alien Sky

Alien Shadows

OTHER WORLDS

Utopia 58

Eye of the Wizard

Wand of the Witch

Firefly Island

The Gods of Dream

Flaming Dove

KEEP IN TOUCH

www.DanielArenson.com

Daniel@DanielArenson.com

Facebook.com/DanielArenson

Twitter.com/DanielArenson