Chapter One

Confederation Ground HQ

Just Outside Troyus City

Megara, Olyus III

Year 321 AC

The sky was dark, a grim haze covering all the eye could see. Great pillars of smoke rose, charcoal gray and obsidian black towers, rising over a macabre skyline, where shining buildings had once stood, reaching optimistically toward the heavens. Troyus City was the capital of a nation of more than two hundred billion people, and it had once boasted with unspoken pride of the greatness and glory of the Confederation.

Now, it testified only to the nightmare of war.

As far as the eye could see, the once-magnificent city lay in ruins, its buildings smashed to rubble, its people driven away or killed, or hiding terrified in the shattered rubble of their homes. In the shadow of war that lay everywhere, remained only the soldiers, the grim fighters who had liberated what remained of the vast metropolis.

The clouds were thick, floating everywhere, blocking the sun, save for the occasional trickling ray that reached the ground for a few fleeting moments. Even where Tyler Barron stood, kilometers away, the air was acidic, pungent. He blinked two or three times—again—and he wiped his sleeve across his face, blotting the moisture from his red and aching eyes.

“Is the city secure, Bryan?” Barron’s tone was deep, the darkness and aching pain he felt inside clear with every word.

Is Troyus even a city anymore, as it once was…or is it only a graveyard?

“Yes, Admiral. For all practical purposes, at least. I can’t guarantee there aren’t a few Kriegeri still dug in, deep in some cellar or pile of rubble. We won’t be sure of that until we can finish meter by meter sweeps, and that’s going to take some time. Maybe a week…more if I need to transfer troops from here to the front to the south.” Bryan Rogan stood next to Barron, on the summit of a small hill, a position of no real value, save for the wide-open view it offered of the Confederation’s dying capital. “There’s not much left standing, Admiral, but Troyus is big. That’s a lot of ground to cover, especially one wrecked building at a time.”

“Make it a priority, Bryan. The victory in the fleet battle gave us a nice morale boost, but that’s fading now. Getting the capital back in operation…” Barron paused for a few seconds and looked back out over the ruins of the city. “…or at least some semblance of operation…will be a help in that department.”

The fleet’s triumph of the previous year had been used extensively by Gary Holsten’s propaganda machine that was working around the clock to hold the Confederation’s citizens back from despair, to keep them in the fight. News of the liberation of Megara had proven to be very effective in rousing the public, but it hadn’t done much for Barron’s spirits. He was determined, committed to fight to the end, but in the shrinking part of him that was still his—the vanishing vestige of Tyler Barron the man, and not the great admiral, the hero—there was only fatigue. Bone deep exhaustion, physical, mental, and emotional.

“Of course, Admiral.” Rogan turned and walked back a couple meters, a pronounced limp, and obvious pain, evident with each step. He gestured to a nearby officer. “Major Simonsen, Colonel Fitz is to begin final clearing operations in Troyus City at once.” Rogan turned back to Barron, clearly catching a hint of the admiral’s surprise at Rogan’s apparent prescience regarding his just-issued orders. “I knew that’s what you’d want, Admiral, so I worked out the final plans early this morning.” Rogan stood quietly after his answer to Barron’s unspoken question.

Barron nodded, still surprised—mostly with himself for underestimating Rogan. He should have known the Marine would be ready for whatever he ordered.

Ordered…is that what I’m doing? Issuing orders?

Barron officially commanded the fleet. That was where the permanent authority of his rank theoretically ended, and the temporary provisions of the state of martial law in effect on Megara came in. He could lawfully order almost anything at that moment, at least on the surface of the planet, but his influence went far beyond that, or the standard prerogatives of his rank.

Barron’s unofficial powers had expanded rapidly over the past several years of war. His threat to resign, followed by his victory in the Second Battle of Megara, had rendered any who opposed him effectively powerless. Not even the Senate, nor the Grand Alliance Council itself, dared to challenge him—though he imagined no small number of the politicians there were secretly waiting for his comeuppance, for their chance at petty revenge for what they no doubt perceived as his poaching in their backyards.

They would just as soon wait for their vengeance, he suspected, until his downfall didn’t put them in further danger, however. Still, despite that quasi-aligning of interests, Tyler Barron had never been one to confuse allies of convenience with true friends. His trust was a rare and precious commodity, and only those who had truly earned it got any at all.

Bryan Rogan was one of those rare few.

The Senate, the Council, and the legions of politicians, vacillating between fear and lust for power got none.

Barron sighed, softly, hoping it hadn’t been too evident to the Marine. It hadn’t been directed at Rogan, nor at anything the Marine had said or done. Barron had given himself over entirely to the war effort, but he was only human, and he realized his reward for final victory in the war—if such an unthinkable goal was now, even remotely within reach—would be endless investigations and harassments from the restored Senate. The politicians, once relieved from their paralyzing fear of the Hegemony, would do whatever was necessary to restore and defend their power and prerogatives, and a military officer like Tyler Barron, who had handled them so roughly during the war, could expect nothing but retribution once he had saved them all.

Barron’s frustration was enhanced by his realization that he could, if he chose, seize total control, make himself the Confederation’s dictator. The fleet would follow him anywhere, and the Marines would, too. Even the populations of a hundred worlds would welcome him to rule them, sacrificing their freedoms with open arms and frenzied shouts. They would storm the public offices and tear any politicians that opposed him into bloody chunks if he bade them to. It was heady stuff, and tempting, even to one like Tyler Barron, who’d never had the slightest crazing for political power.

Clint Winters had almost suggested he do just that, that he throw the Senate in chains and dispense with the pointless effort of humoring them. That had come after one particularly difficult session with the provisional Senate, and it had been spoken only in total privacy. But the exchange had left no doubt where the Sledgehammer stood.

Still, Barron wasn’t going to do it. He’d fought as he had for many reasons, to stand with the men and women who served with him, because he’d been raised to follow wherever duty led him…and because the Confederation, in spite of the corruption and foulness so endemic in it government and its political leaders, was the freest, most enlightened society anywhere in human-inhabited space. Barron had been unable to stand aside, to let that spark of liberty, however flickering, die. He’d be damned if he was going to kill it himself.

“We need to wrap up this operation, Bryan. We’ve got to get past the reconquest, and start on the rebuilding, at least in a symbolic sense.” Barron knew there were no meaningful resources available for reconstruction projects. The entire Confederation was existing at near sustenance levels, as every scrap of available production went into the war effort. Not even the desperate fights against the Union had been so hard on the average citizen, and Barron knew he only had so much time to win the war, so many months, so many casualties…before the people of the Confederation would begin to wonder if life under the Hegemony would really be so bad after all.

“I’m trying, Admiral. These Kriegeri…they know their stuff.”

“They should. They’re picked out from vast populations for their military aptitude, and they’re trained from a young age. Not exactly the same as the Foudre Rouge, but similar, at least from the perspective of one of our boys or girls, who probably walked into a recruiting center on their homeworld when they were eighteen or nineteen.” Barron detested the Hegemony, and all it stood for, but he was too much a warrior at heart not to respect an adversary’s abilities. The Kriegeri were deadly in battle, and their armament was more advanced than the kit the Confederation Marines carried. The Marines had distinguished themselves, and they’d faced off against the enemy, winning their share of fights. But they had paid dearly for that.

“The latest reserves will be some help. I’ve got units that have been in the line for six months without a break, some that have lost a third or more of their strength. A few that are under half strength. I might be able to push fresh units a little harder.”

Barron wasn’t sure he agreed completely, nor that Rogan really did either. The newer forces—and he had done everything possible to find ground units and ships to carry them over the past ten months—were mostly new recruits or former garrison troops, mostly raw and untested. Rogan’s line units might be depleted and tired, but there was no question they were hardened veterans.

“Whatever you have to do, Bryan. We need the planet pacified. I hate to push, to risk even heavier casualties among your Marines, but we need another victory for the people. We need to keep everyone in the fight, believing that we can prevail. Or, we’re as good as defeated, victory at Megara or no.” Barron knew what the people needed to see, even though he wasn’t sure he himself believed they had a chance.

There was more at stake than just morale, but Barron kept that to himself. The Hegemony forces had been licking their wounds since their retreat from Megara, as had Barron’s victorious fleet units. But the respite couldn’t last much longer. The Hegemony had to break the Rim’s resistance, Barron knew that much. They were still strong, likely powerful enough to turn the tide and complete their conquest after their period of reorganization and reinforcement. Barron had no delusions about the condition of his own forces, as weakened from victory as the Hegemony’s were from defeat. He was going to need Bryan Rogan before long, he suspected, and he wanted his favorite Marine general to finish the work on Megara, so he’d be free for the next mission.

Barron felt guilty even thinking that as he looked at his friend. Rogan had been badly wounded in the raid against Hegemony communications that had made the naval victory and the planet’s reconquest, possible. He’d been hit again in the subsequent liberation operations, and he’d only partially recovered from his injuries. He was a living contradiction, pure stubbornness, looking at once as immovable as a granite block and exhausted enough that he might fall over at any second.

But Bryan Rogan would do his duty as long as he drew breath. Barron knew that with unshakable certainty. It was familiarity that fueled that unquestioned faith, and his confidence in his friend was unshakeable.

Barron was about to wrap things up with some kind of encouraging words for Rogan. Keeping his people motivated was number one in his job description, but he never got to it. His peripheral vision caught something unexpected, Gary Holsten jogging up the hill, followed by a pair of Marine guards who clearly didn’t know how to deal with the Intelligence chief’s utter disregard for battlefield procedure.

“It’s okay, Sergeant. Let Mr. Holsten through.” Barron had shouted out the command, but of course, by the time he did, Holsten was already through. If the Confederation’s intel chief had been an assassin coming for the navy’s commander and the Marine general in charge of the Megara campaign, he’d have earned his pay already.

Of course, if they hadn’t known just who Gary Holsten was, the guards would have blown him away down at the base of the hill…

“What is it, Gary? Something important enough to rile up the Marines?” Barron managed a bit of humor, but as Holsten approached, and he caught a good glimpse of his comrade’s expression, whatever scraps of mirth he’d managed had vanished.

“It’s important, Ty…” Holsten came to a stop about two meters from Barron. He stood, looking uncomfortable as his eyes darted back and forth between Rogan and Barron.

“General Rogan has top security clearance, Gary. It’s okay, you can…”

“I need to check on the status reports anyway, Admiral. With your permission, I’ll head down to headquarters, while you discuss things with Mr. Holsten.” Rogan stepped back and saluted, and then he nodded toward Holsten, with no signs at all of resentment for being excluded. Then he raced down the hill.

“I meant no disrespect to the general, Tyler, but…” He paused for a moment. “I just thought that we should keep this on a need to know basis, at least for now.”

“I understand. And, don’t worry about Bryan. He’s a Marine through and through, and he’s focused now on the ground campaign here right now. He was probably relieved to be left out of it.” Barron inhaled deeply. “You’ve got me nervous as hell, though, so out with it. What’s going on?”

“It’s the communication intercepts, Ty. You know I was sending reconnaissance units to spy on Dannith, trying to pick up on any Hegemony communications. It’s hard to figure what they’ll do next, except I don’t think there’s any doubt they’ll hit us somewhere once they’re finished licking their wounds.”

“I think you’ll have a hard time finding somebody to take the other side of that bet. So, I’m guessing you got something else? Something useful?” The words came out with more edge than Barron had intended.

“Well, yes. You know the loss rates have been extreme. We’re using the new batch of stealth units, the smaller ones. I think they’ll be useful as hell once they’re perfected, but for now, they’re spotty. Maybe one in three ships gets in, maintains coverage for a while, and gets out. But we just got lucky. The last three ships have all made it back.”

“And?”

“You remember that earlier traffic referring to something called ‘Project Zed?”

“Of course. You think I can forget anything about this war? Are we picking up mentions of that again?”

“More than just messages, Ty. An enormous uptick in traffic, and a change in context, too. The earlier instances referred to some kind of research or development project. At least, we were pretty sure about that.”

“And that’s changed?”

“There’s guesswork to all of this, you know that. Our ability to decrypt their code is limited at best, and the intel is still damned spotty.”

“Just give me your conclusions, Gary. You know your guesses have always been good enough for me.” Barron considered Holsten one of his closest friends, but their relationship had changed considerably over the past few years. Barron had always been the clear subordinate, even though their chains of command weren’t directly aligned. But Tyler Barron’s stature and position had grown, and he was now, by most measures, the more powerful of the two. Holsten hadn’t shown any problems with such a shift, but it still made Barron uncomfortable.

“The change in traffic frequency and context suggests strongly that whatever ‘Project Zed’ is, it is active now, and present on the Rim. Ready to go. At Dannith…or damned close.”

Barron sighed again, louder this time, and with no effort to hold it back. “So, this—what is it, weapon, system, fleet?—called ‘Project Zed,’ it’s real and its coming at us? And we still have no idea what it is?”

“That’s essentially correct.” A moment of tense silence. “I’ve done everything possible to get more data, Ty, but whatever the hell this is, they’ve got it clamped down hard. Even my assets on Dannith, the few I’ve got left, don’t know anything. Nothing but the code name, ‘Project Zed.’”

“Well, if that’s all we know, we’re just going to have to go on the assumption that its some kind of new fleet or weapons upgrade…or something similar. Whatever the specifics, it probably means we’re looking at another Hegemony offensive, and sooner rather than later. So, we’d better get ready. It would help if we had any idea where they were planning to hit. A push back to Megara? Or a move on the Iron Belt? Maybe an offensive on some of the border and fringe worlds?”

Holsten shook his head. “I wish I knew, Ty, but there hasn’t been a peep from them, not one communique suggesting a target.” Holsten shifted his feet nervously.

“What? You haven’t told me everything.” Barron wondered if he’d become more perceptive, or if everyone who came to see him simply had a bottomless bucket full of bad news.

“We’ve picked up another code name. It seems to be related to Zed, but there’s no way to be sure. And, we’ve got absolutely no details at all about it.”

“What do we know then?”

“Just the name. Red Storm.”

Chapter Two

Hegemony Supreme Headquarters

Port Royal City

Planet Dannith, Ventica III

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“Zed command reports all diagnostic routines completed, Commander. All systems have been certified ready for action, and all personnel are in place and prepared to commence full operations.”

Chronos sat in his seat, listening, at least some part of his mind focused on what the officer was saying. He knew it all already, of course. After all the testing, the years of development, he hadn’t doubted Zed would work as expected…though he knew the awesome new weapon could only be reliable and controlled to a point. Imperial technology was a was a dangerous force to employ, something akin to riding a harnessed wildcat, and for all his people had been training and preparing, he didn’t lie to himself about the reasons for the sudden deployment.

Desperation.

The Hegemony forces on the Rim were still strong, and they’d been reinforced by what little Akella had been able to spare from the already stripped-down home area forces. They were still stronger than the combined Rim fleets they faced, almost certainly, though Chronos’s days of underestimating the fighting power of the Rimdwellers were behind him. Victory was still attainable without Zed—probably—but the duration of such a fight would be interminable, and the cost unimaginable. The Hegemony had already lost too many of its ships, along with millions of its trained warriors. Chronos needed to defeat the Confederation, and he needed to do it soon. He couldn’t afford to chase his opponents from system to system, fight until the last enemy ship was destroyed. He had to break their morale, compel a surrender.

Or at least a negotiated peace, one favorable enough for the Hegemony to accept.

That last bit was new, something he’d discussed with Akella, just before she’d returned to the capital. He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else, save for Ilius. It went against the most basic tenets of the Hegemony and its sacred obligation to absorb and protect humanity’s remnants. But he and Akella had agreed that the war could not continue on endlessly, that at some point, the erosion of both Hegemony and Rim strength ran counter to the purpose of uniting and defending humanity.

They had decided, if the Confederation’s morale could be eroded enough that they would accept status as a Hegemony protectorate of sorts, retaining some level of self-governance, they would find a way to accept such a peace. Perhaps time would wear down their independence. The lure of Hegemony technology, and the security of being part of a greater and stronger nation, just might achieve what war had so far failed to accomplish.

Project Zed was a weapon of tremendous power, but even more so, it was the ideal tool to shatter Rim morale, to batter them until they accepted the terms. To create the hopelessness that would drain away their formidable tenacity.

Such a result would be a partial victory only, he knew, far from what he’d expected when he had first accepted the supreme command for the invasion. That would be a temporary limitation on the success of the operation, he told himself, with some conviction, but rather less than he’d have liked.

The Rimdwellers would be absorbed eventually. That was the official position, the justification for falling back from official Hegemony policy, from the mandate that all human populations be absorbed unconditionally. Chronos wanted to believe it, and to an extent, he did. Once stripped of the need for stubborn resistance against an active enemy, the Rimdwellers’ strength would atrophy, and they would eventually come to see the advantages of Hegemony society. They would be enticed by technology, by lucrative trade, by wealth and prosperity…by all the advantages of Hegemonic culture. They might not come into their rightful place in a year, nor even fully in ten. But they would move steadily in that direction, and one day, they would arrive there. As all previous groups of survivors had done before them.

Chronos wasn’t sure if such a sequence of events, if victory by such extended means, adhered more than superficially to the Hegemony’s sacred mandate to unite humankind, but he countered those doubts with the realization that a faster end to the war would strengthen the Hegemony, leave if better prepared to fulfill its role, both to defend the human populations it already controlled, and those on the Rim as well. There would be blowback, he knew, even more on Akella than on him, but she had agreed completely. If the Rim’s will could be broken by Colossus, the Hegemony would offer terms unlike any that had been given before. They would take a longer-term view of absorption, one that ended the carnage, and the continual drain on the strength of both the Hegemony and the Rim.

Chronos had other misgivings, as well, concerns that, for as long as Zed had been in development, it wasn’t truly ready, it wasn’t properly crewed, its systems hadn’t been thoroughly tested. His worries all shared a single, overriding concern…that they were rushing to commit Colossus to the fight.

That was true, almost certainly, but equally unassailable was another, grimmer reality. There was no other choice. The Rimdwellers had proven far more difficult to defeat than he’d imagined, and he was out of time.

“Kiloron, inform Commander Ilius that I wish to see him in my Sanctum. At once.” Ilius had been the obvious choice to command Zed—at least after Akella had made it clear that Chronos was not to risk taking the post himself. He trusted the other Master, and called him friend, as much as he did anyone, but he couldn’t help but obsess on the operation, repeating to himself the same concerns again and again, and reviewing the tactical plan half a dozen times. It was a combination, perhaps, of concern over Zed’s uncertainties, along with perhaps a touch of fear for one of his few true comrades. Commanding Zed might be a tremendous opportunity, a chance to win the greatest victory in Hegemony history…but one thing it was certain to be was dangerous.

“Yes, Commander. At once.”

Chronos was already on his feet, walking back from the control center. He called the room his Sanctum, following the normal form, but the space he’d claimed for his private workspace provided little of the solace his facility on Hegemony’s Glory offered. Hegemony headquarters on Dannith had been set up in previously existing buildings, with as little modification as possible to save scant resources, and amid the simmering resentments toward the enemy and his creations, natural enough psychological results of war and sacrifice, Chronos had come to the simple conclusion that he despised Confederation architecture. It had none of the curves or spirals to which he was accustomed, little of the artistic perfection of Hegemony design.

He walked into the room, redesigned and outfitted to his exact specifications, as much as the basic structure and its limitations allowed. It had been his one true indulgence upon his return from Megara, little enough for one of his rank, but in the end, it had proven to be mostly wasted effort.

Still, satisfactory or not, he needed someplace private, both for private discussions, and to escape the constant stress that besieged him everywhere else he went. He was a somber and thoughtful man, one whose judgment had always been best after quiet and uninterrupted solitude and thought.

He walked across the room and sat down in his chair, letting out a long exhale as he did. There was a tablet lying on the large table he used as a desk. Akella had sent him photos and videos, the closest he had come to seeing his new daughter. Ariane was almost three months old, and the glowing images on the small screen were as much as he’d seen of her. He’d been sorry when Akella had left Dannith, but relieved as well. She was far safer back on the capital, as was Ariane, and he wasn’t about to wish either of them was in greater danger simply because he was lonely. Such emotions were beneath one of his rank and responsibilities, and he wasn’t about to indulge that kind of fault in himself. He would see Akella again, and Ariane too, when he finished his task on the Rim. Duty came first.

“Commander Ilius is at the door requesting entry.” The AI’s voice was soft, soothing. He’d programmed it himself, and he denied, even to himself, any suggestions that it sounded like Akella.

“Let him in.” He leaned back and took another deep breath, nodding as soon as his subordinate—and second in command—entered.

“Commander.” Ilius snapped off a perfect salute. Chronos had considerable military experience, and a lofty genetic ranking of eight, but his friend, a Master himself, if of somewhat less altitudinous stature, was a true warrior, born with a natural talent for military science.

“Sit, Ilius. Let’s keep this informal. I just wanted to have one last talk before you leave.”

“So then, Zed is a go?” Ilius’s enthusiasm slipped into his tone, something uncharacteristic for the normally-disciplined solder.

“Yes.” A pause. “I’m afraid so.” Chronos’ voice was different in cadence. He regretted his choice of words almost immediately. He saw the downside looming before them, the dangers of Project Zed, and of the conflict in general. He’d allowed overconfidence to get the better of him at the war’s outset. That had been six years before, and all he had to show since then, for constant fighting and enormous casualties, was a toehold in the Confederation, half a dozen occupied worlds, and only one truly major system. Ulion remained in Hegemony hands, a notable conquest no doubt, but insignificant in terms of subjugating the entire Rim.

Ilius was no fool, Chronos knew, and his second in command was as aware of those facts as he was. But the chance to gain the victory, and to secure a place in Hegemony history, had clearly exerted its pull on his friend. Chronos understood. The burdens of the losses incurred, of the damage to the Hegemony’s defensive capability, lay far more heavily on Chronos, who’d held the supreme command from the outset.

Chronos knew what had to be done, but even as he’d moved in the inevitable direction, his doubts had begun to grow. He wished Akella was still there. He could have talked honestly with her, shared his concerns without fear of displaying weakness. He couldn’t do that with anyone else, not even Ilius. He trusted the other Master, but he also knew he was in command, that he owed Ilius, no less than he did the lowest-ranked Kriegeri serving in the fleet, his full support. That meant not filling the officer’s head with doubts before sending him back into battle.

“Sorry, old friend. I’m afraid I’m a little worn down.” That was believable enough. Chronos had spent a good portion of the last ten months in the hospital or in subsequent rehab and follow up treatments. He’d come close to meeting his end during the fighting at Megara, very close, and he knew it. It wasn’t fear exactly, perhaps more of a cautious realism, but he had a different viewpoint on things than he’d had before that desperate struggle, and the ignominious retreat that had followed.

“None of us thought the war would last so long. The Rim dwellers have proven to be far tougher adversaries than I’d expected. They are…different…from the inhabitants of the other worlds we have absorbed.”

“Yes, they are…which in one way in makes it even more imperative that we prevail and bring them into the Hegemony, and add their strength to ours. Their worlds are far from the center of the empire, and the results of the Great Death, while no doubt unpleasant enough out here, were far less severe. The technology levels fell of course, below even what we have maintained and recovered, but they are mostly free from the curses of mutated genetics and damaged DNA lines that so plagued the areas coreward. Perhaps our error was in expecting them to be similar to the other nascent nations and worlds we have brought under our care.”

Chronos knew his weariness meant nothing. There were reasons, perhaps many, to consider abandoning the war on the Rim, even good ones. But none could override the Hegemony’s sacred purpose, to unite and protect all humanity that survived the Great Death. To fail in that duty was unthinkable.

“We must gather our strength, Number Eight…inside us as well as in our military forces. We underestimated the enemy, all of us, but we will not do that again. We are wiser now, more aware. And Project Zed is vastly more powerful than anything we have used against the enemy to date. They will fall now, we will see to that. It will not be easy, but it must be done. We must remember that, for all the disruption we feel, the pain of loss, they too have had their forces ravaged and their production strained to the limits.”

“That is true, of course, my friend. Yet, they lack one restraining factor that weighs upon us. They do not know of the Others, they do not face the shadowy threat that haunts us. They are blissfully ignorant of the danger looming in the deeps of space.” A pause, long and tense. “They have no idea of the doom they face, and they see us as their greatest enemy, and in our defeat, they imagine salvation. We hide from them their worst nightmare, for if the Others return and we fall, they will most surely be next.”

“Are you truly concerned about the Others returning? It has been more than a century.”

“I never feared it as some do, Ilius, but I will not lie to you. It has lain heavily over my thoughts recently, a dark shadow. I have had dreams…nightmares. I do not know what to think, but yes, I have come to…worry…that they may, in fact, return. Sometime soon.” Chronos hadn’t confided his concerns before to anyone except Akella. He’d long been a skeptic of committing vast resources to the construction of ships and defenses to face a renewed attack by an enemy not seen for more than a century, and he was still adjusting to the change in his mindset.

“Then the commitment of Zed is even more vital. We must end this conflict as quickly as we can, and with as few additional losses as possible. The Rimdwellers are determined and highly resistant to surrender, but surely, when they see the capabilities we are about to unleash, they will have no choice but to yield.” Ilius sounded confident, at least until the last part. Chronos caught the waver in his friend’s voice, and it was a reflection of his own thoughts. Everyone at the Hegemony high command clearly believed the enemy would surrender once they truly understood the power of Zed, and the grim implications of continuing the fight. Almost everyone.

Chronos hoped the plan would work as expected, but he was haunted by doubts. Still, there was no choice…and no room for morale-crushing negativism.

“Well, old friend, we all know what we must do. It is time to see the plan through, and to end this terrible conflict…in victory. There is no one I trust more with our greatest weapon, no one else I would choose at so crucial a time.”

Chronos paused for a few seconds. Then he stood up. “Go now, Commander Ilius, and lead Project Zed…lead it to victory. Then, perhaps we can all go home.”

Chapter Three

Hotel Royale

Liberte City

Planet Montmirail, Ghassara IV

Union Year 225 (321 AC)

“Are you sure it’s safe to talk here?” Alexander Kerevsky sat in a plush chair in front of a roaring fire. The hotel suite was luxurious, even by Megaran standards. The indulgences of the Confederation’s elite had always made him somewhat uncomfortable, and the capital at Troyus City had no shortage of opulent hotels and restaurants frequented by the political classes. But the Union was, or claimed to be, an egalitarian worker’s society, a place where all wealth was shared equally. Kerevsky was no stranger to hypocrisy. He considered it one of mankind’s primary personality traits, but even with that cynical point of view, he found himself appalled at the blatant double standards in the Union, a place where the average worker and his or her family were lucky to have enough to eat.

“It is safe. When Minister Villieneuve decided to move you and your people to the hotel, I was able to get my own people in here to sweep the listening devices.” Ciara sat in the chair opposite Kerevsky’s, an odd smile on her face.

“That is all well and good, but that will cause suspicion itself, will it not?”

“It would, certainly. Indeed, you would long ago have had a visit from Sector Nine if I had been so careless and slipshod as to simply remove the devices. No, my good Ambassador Kerevsky, I know my craft better than that. I simply installed an AI with a sufficiently large database of voice samplings—yours, mine, those of your staff. The unit is quite ingenious, one of Sector Nine’s most advanced bits of tech. It constructs entire conversations, normal sounds, everything that might be expected to be said in here. Indeed, even our screams of passion.”

“Our what?” Kerevsky was a veteran agent and a diplomat, but Ciara had taken him by surprise with that last bit.

“We are lovers, you and I…at least as far as Gaston Villieneuve is aware. I have reported in great detail as to your…prowess in that area.”

Kerevsky’s mouth opened, but then it closed again. He was taken aback, confused at what he was hearing.

“Surely you can see, Ambassador…it is the best cover we could have. Sex is a key component in a Sector Nine operative’s toolkit, and an ideal one for this circumstance. I am ostensibly working my way closer to you, into your trust, trying to obtain as much information as possible. Why do you think you have been allowed to remain here for so long?”

“But don’t you have to show something for your…efforts?”

“Of course, Ambassador, but don’t forget the AI. The operatives listening in to our…activities…and the pillow talk following, have gotten quite an earful. I have been persuading you to aid a team of operatives to apprehend Admiral Denisov. The plan is to send a diplomatic team back to your fleet headquarters, as cover to arrange for the admiral’s capture…or, failing that, his assassination. I’m afraid our good admiral’s…choices…over the past two years, have been difficult for the First Citizen to accept. He has become quite deranged, and that has been enormously useful in moving forward with our…” She caught a disapproving glance from Kerevsky, and she rephrased herself. “…with my plans.”

“I have already vastly exceeded my mandate and authority here, Sandrine. You know I am sympathetic, and certainly no fan of Villieneuve or his government, but this has been going on too long. If Gaston Villieneuve is not going to agree to send the remainder of the Union’s forces to the Hegemony front, I have to be going.”

“Patience, my good ambassador. Gaston Villieneuve is insane, but he is brilliant and ruthless as well. It has taken time to approach potential co-conspirators, to make all the arrangements for the coup. You were not shy about providing funding for our scheme, and I urge you not to falter now, when we are close to fruition.”

“Perhaps it was a mistake becoming so involved. I wish you well in your endeavors, but I can’t allow the Confederation to be…”

“I understand all of that. We have been through this all before, Ambassador, and yet you remain here, on Montmirail. Why? Because you know your Alliance needs every ship it can get…and there is no escaping the fact that the Union is the largest nation on the Rim, and the second strongest.” Kerevsky held back a frown. The Union had been arguably the most powerful at one time, but the events of the last decade had changed that dramatically, and reduced Montmirail and its enslaved planets to a likely third spot, behind the Palatian Alliance.

“I understand the situation, Ambassador, the danger we all face from the Hegemony. If we are…if I am…successful, I will immediately commit all of our forces to the Grand Alliance. Can you afford to walk away from that possibility, to return home empty handed after such a long stay on Montmirail?”

Kerevsky held back a sigh. Ciara was right, of course, and as frustrating as it was, and as dangerous, he knew he had to pursue any way at all to bring Union reinforcements into the war.

Even if it meant participating—in the most discreet manner possible—in a coup attempt.

“Cheer up, Alexander…help me in what I have to do, and I will help you. And, maybe we will even upgrade our cover story, add some realism, perhaps even give the AI a night off and do a live show for the agents listening on the other end.”

Kerevsky wasn’t terribly surprised at the seduction effort added as an incentive. Ciara was already deep into her plans, far too deep to stop. And the stakes were life and death. He knew she would do whatever she had to do to ensure success, and he was equally certain she’d caught him sneaking a glance at her more than once. She was very attractive, and just the type he liked, but Kerevsky was too old and experienced an agent to be led by such desires in any direction he didn’t want to go.

It just so happened, he needed her coup to succeed, almost as much as she did, even if he needed to stay coy and do all he could to make the Confederation appear uninvolved.

If that work turned out to have its pleasant side to it, well, once in a while, things turned out better than expected.

*

“I had hoped you would use your considerable…talents…to good purpose in dealing with our friend, the ambassador, but I must say, Minister, I am disappointed at the progress you have made. The information you have extracted has, to date, been mostly useless.”

Ciara sat on the other side of Villieneuve’s desk, struggling with all her self-control to remain calm. Dealing with the Union’s psychotic and paranoid First Citizen was nerve-wracking under the best of circumstances, but she was sitting there, deep into planning a desperately dangerous coup, trying to defend the mostly-fictional portfolio of intelligence she had provided as the supposed gains from her “affair” with the Confederation diplomat. All in the presence of a man, brutal at best, and now possibly insane. A man who could call for guards at any instant and order them to kill her on the spot.

It wasn’t a recipe for calm.

But Ciara was a pro, and in her own way, she was no less brutal than Villieneuve. She was no fired up rebel, no wild partisan shouting out about equality for the people, at least until a taste of power brought the inevitable corruption. She craved Villieneuve’s position, lusted after the power that came with it, certainly, but she would never have taken the risks she had, that she was still taking, just for that.

Not if she hadn’t been convinced of the deadly danger of the Hegemony.

“Alexander has a history as an agent as well as a diplomat, First Citizen. He has proven to be a difficult target, though I believe some of what I have discovered has been useful. Perhaps more importantly, I believe I have eroded his defenses. Given a little more time, I am sure I can deliver more detailed information on the status of the Confederation forces and their war plans.”

Villieneuve frowned, and for an instant, Ciara’s insides tightened. She was sure, for two seconds, perhaps three, that he was going to shout out for the guards. But then he just nodded and said, “See to it that we are talking about a very little time.” He paused for a moment, staring at her. Then he added, “Perhaps you need to up your game, Sandrine. Someone with your talents and abilities should be able to turn some Confed ambassador into our slave, regardless of whether or not he was an agent once long ago.”

She sat, holding back any reaction. Villieneuve was baiting her, testing her with his insult. She’d always been unemotional in her bearing, and she couldn’t show anything else just then, no matter how scared—or angry—she was.

“I will see to it, First Citizen, whatever it takes. Give me another two months.”

“Two weeks, Minister Ciara. We have wasted enough time already. If there is an opportunity to move against the Confeds, we must see it done while they are still heavily engaged against the Hegemony. That does not allow us the luxury of wasting time.”

It was hard to keep the reaction from her face this time. Gaston Villieneuve seemed entirely oblivious to what the Hegemony invasion meant for the entire Rim, the Union included. He saw the mysterious power as simply a distraction, a means to an end to take his vengeance on the Confederation. Ciara feared the invaders, nearly as much as she did Villieneuve.

She didn’t react, however, didn’t let any of her stress or fear escape. She had to stay on point. She needed more than two weeks, and she had to convince Villieneuve to give it to her. “One month.” Her eyes darted to his, trying to gauge his reaction. She needed at least four weeks to complete her plans.

Villieneuve sat silent, stern, looking for all the world as though he wasn’t going to budge from two weeks. But then he said, “Three weeks.”

Ciara felt relief and tension, somehow intermixed. Three weeks would be tight, perhaps too tight. But she knew she couldn’t push Villieneuve much farther. Perhaps not any farther.

“Thank you, First Citizen. I will see it done in three weeks.”

You will see it done, or you will end up dead in your office. That was one thing she’d promised herself. If thinks went bad, she would swallow the poison capsule she carried before Villieneuve’s people came for her.

She feared death as much as anyone, but the thought of ending up in a Sector Nine cell on the receiving end of whatever nightmares Villieneuve would concoct in answer to her treachery went beyond simple terror. She would take her own life before things came to that.

Chapter Four

CFS Dauntless

Orbiting Megara

Olyus III

Year 321 AC

“Andi, how are you? I didn’t expect to see you here.” Gary Holsten stepped up, and he hugged her. “I thought you’d be busy back on Craydon keeping the industrialists in line.”

Andi smiled. She knew Holsten meant well. They all meant well. But she was done putting up with it. She’d made the desperate, secret run to Megara, gotten the message to Bryan Rogan that had made the victory possible, and then she’d managed to bring most of her people back out. She’d been rewarded, of course, given medals and congratulations, and a lot of other stuff that didn’t mean a damn thing to her.

She’d gotten Tyler Barron’s sincere thanks and admiration as well, and that did mean something to her. But then he did what he always tried to do. He sent her back to Craydon to scare the hell out of the industrial princes who ran the place, a job of no small importance, perhaps, but one also glaringly obvious in its true intent.

To keep her safe.

She couldn’t hate Barron for loving her and wanting to protect her, she couldn’t even resent him for it. But she damned well could tell him what he could do with it. She’d humored his efforts before, worried that she might distract him from focusing on the battles he had to fight, and put him in greater danger. But the Second Battle of Megara had made it clear to her, that the Confederation—hell, the entire damned Rim—needed every bit of help it could get.

She also realized, if she’d remained back on Craydon a year earlier, as Barron had wanted, if she hadn’t taken Hermes to Megara and gotten word to Bryan Rogan, the attack would probably have failed. Barron and a lot of other spacers would likely be dead. That was something she would never allow, not while she could do anything to prevent it.

“I was just chatting with Atara, Gary.” Andi gestured toward Dauntless’s commander…though Atara now wore a pair of long-deserved admiral’s stars. Even with the promotion, she’d turned down command of a task force to remain on Dauntless, and serve a dual role as the ship’s commander and Tyler Barron’s chief of staff. With Barron’s official appointment as supreme commander, he rated another flag officer as his top aide anyway, and he and Atara had served so long together, they were almost like right and left hands.

“Mr. Holsten.” Travis nodded, and then she glanced back at Andi. The two had been close friends for years now, the two women closest to Tyler Barron. Travis had been there first, and in every way that mattered, she’d long been the sister Tyler never had. Andi had been something…different…and the fiery nature of her relationship with Barron had done nothing to convince anyone they knew that they didn’t belong together.

“Admiral Travis…and I must say, your promotion was far too late in coming.”

Travis smiled. “That is very kind.” A pause. “Well, I have quite a pile of work waiting for me, so I think I’ll take my leave. Andi.” She nodded toward her friend. “Mr. Holsten.” Another nod. Then she turned and slipped out through the door, leaving Andi and Holsten alone.

“So…when did you arrive?”

“Pegasus docked about an hour ago.”

“Did you come to see Tyler?”

“No…well, not primarily, though I am anxious to spend at least a little time with him.” She looked right at Holsten. “I actually came to see you.”

She could see the surprise in Holsten’s expression. She found it satisfying. It wasn’t easy to take the Confederation’s top spy unawares.

“Me? I’m flattered, but what can I possibly do for you?”

“It’s what I can do for you, Gary. Or, more accurately, for all of us, for the war effort.”

“I’m intrigued. Please go on.” She knew what he really meant was, ‘I’m concerned about what you’ve got in mind, and after what happened last time you ran intel for me, I want to get you back to Craydon as quickly as possible,’ but she decided to simply ignore that interpretation.

“I know you’re starved for intelligence from Dannith.”

“We do have assets in place there, but you’re correct. They have been unable to get any detailed information, or at least they haven’t managed to transmit it back to us. But I’m working on that problem.”

“Let me work on it for you.”

Holsten was silent for a few seconds. “What do you mean?” She was sure he knew just what she meant.

“I mean let me go to Dannith, and take over intelligence operations there.”

Holsten looked as though he’d been hit with a bat. “Andi, that’s impossible.”

“I’m not sure, but I think you may need to look up the definition of that word. You just said, you were working on it. That means sending operatives, does it not? Which doesn’t seem to be functionally any different than me going.”

“Well…yes, but…”

“I know you’re Tyler’s friend, and I know he won’t want me to go, but this isn’t his decision, Gary.”

“He is the fleet admiral now, Andi.”

“If that’s the problem, I’ll give back this commission you guys gave me. It’s not like I’m in this for the navy pension.” Her fingers moved over the small circles on her collar. “You think I ever thought I’d be a naval officer, even a sort of honorary one?” She smiled. “There was a time, I’d have shot you where you stand if you’d even suggested it. I ran from my share of naval patrols back in the day, after all, probably a first for Confederation navy captains.”

“It’s not the commission, Andi. It’s…”

“It’s what? Pegasus isn’t a navy ship. She’s mine, lock, stock, and barrel, from bow to stern, and I can take her wherever I want.” She stared right at him. “Let me put this another way. I’m going to Dannith, and my crew is coming with me. We know that planet better than your entire intelligence agency combined, I’d wager, and that means every shady character, every two-bit gangster who’s probably laying low under the Hegemony occupation. If anybody can get the intelligence you need, it’s the crew of Pegasus.”

Holsten was clearly troubled. “Andi, what you’re talking about is dangerous. Even borderline suicidal. You can’t possibly…”

“I’m going, Gary. The only question is, are you going to hook me up with the people you’ve got there, and whatever pipelines you have for getting data out, or are my people and I on our own?” A pause. “And, I don’t do suicide missions. I’ll be back…count on it.”

“Andi…” She could hear the tension in his voice, as his response petered out to silence. Part of it, much of it, no doubt, was loyalty to Barron and concern for how he would react. But there was something else. The last time Gary Holsten had lured her to Dannith, she’d barely escaped, and only after she’d been tortured and interrogated by Sector Nine. She’d almost been broken, permanently, and she’d barely made it back from the dark place she’d been after her escape. She knew letting her go back as part of his intelligence operation would be hard on him, that it would pour gas on the fire of old guilt and regret. It would be as difficult for Holsten, she suspected, in a way at least, as it would be for Tyler.

She just didn’t care. She didn’t wish either of the two men pain, but Andromeda Lafarge wasn’t the kind to sit in the back when people she loved were fighting for their lives. Even if helping them meant telling them to shove it when they tried to stop her.

“Gary, we’re all fighting for our lives. Let’s just accept that, and agree we’ll all do what we can, what we have to do. With some luck, we’ll all survive to reminisce about it someday.” The idea of sitting around a table, talking about the old days and wild escapes they’d all made, was immensely appealing to her, but she didn’t really believe it would happen. If she was certain of one thing, it was that not all of them were going to make it. She’d lost close comrades before, and she knew she would lose more. But no more friends of hers would die because she hadn’t done something she might have done to help bring the struggle to an end.

“You have to talk to Tyler about this, Andi.” A pause, then, before she could speak up again, he added, “Whether you’re going to listen to him or not. He deserves that, Andi…and you do, too. You’ll both be in terrible danger before this is all over. What if you didn’t see him, and…”

Andi felt as though a hammer had slammed into her resolve, and she found herself struggling to hold back a wave of tears. She stood, silent for a moment, regaining control of herself, through pure, iron will more than anything else. She didn’t want to die, not when she finally had so much in her life…but the thought of watching Tyler killed was even worse. She’d lived a difficult life, first consumed by deprivation and then by constant danger. But she’d never faced a more dire situation than they all did just then.

“I will see him, Gary.” She had considered just slipping away, but she’d realized she could never go through with that. She had to see Tyler, because he deserved to know, because she missed him, because she loved him.

And because she knew it might be the last time.

*

Tyler Barron lay in his bunk on Dauntless, his eyes wide open, looking at the stark whiteness of the ceiling. He’d been happy moments before, at least as happy as he’d been since the long nightmare with the Hegemony had begun. Andi had surprised him. She’d been waiting in his quarters when he shuttled back up to Dauntless, and they’d spent a few hours alone together. As though the universe had decided he deserved a short break, no one had needed him, no new crises had struck. The comm had not even buzzed once. They’d had perhaps half the night, just to themselves. It was little enough, but it had given him joy, the first in as long as he could easily remember.

And then Andi’s words took it all away.

He understood her, better than she thought he did, better than anyone else did. He knew exactly why she wanted to go to Dannith, why she had to go. She was so much like him in some ways, it drove him crazy. It was easy for him to think it was different when he went into danger, and she stayed behind worrying about him, but he knew it wasn’t. He could tell himself his work was more important, but even that claim was weak and pointless. Her role in the battle at Megara—her crucial role—dumped a bucket of cold water on any suggestion that she’d served in a capacity anything beneath utterly essential. She was smart—eerily so sometimes—and tough. Andi Lafarge wasn’t the sort of person to do what she was told, or to stay back and let others deal with problems. Often, telling her ‘no’ was the surest way to get her to do something. She was infuriatingly stubborn, difficult, almost an unstoppable force when she got going.

As frustrating as he sometimes found all that—and as inconvenient as it was just then—he knew those traits were precisely the reasons he loved her. He thought of a hundred ways to keep her from going to Dannith, including ordering the Marines to take her into custody right outside his door. But he knew he couldn’t do any of it. He had to let her go. If he tried to keep her back, he would lose her. He’d give up her love to save her, if that was the choice he knew he faced, and whatever happened, he could never endure her hating him.

Worse, perhaps, if he tried to stop her and she slipped away, which was likely in any instance short of throwing her in the brig, she would go to Dannith thinking he didn’t have enough confidence in her. She might even die with such thoughts on her mind. Barron had faced death before himself, and he couldn’t imagine anything more painful and soul-killing than that.

“Tyler…I know this is hard for you, and the last thing I want to do is cause you pain. But I know Dannith well, very well, and if I can get any real intelligence back from Dannith, it might save lives…” She fell silent, but he could hear the rest of it, almost as though he was reading her thoughts. It might save your life, and that is reason enough why I have to go. “It might make a difference in the war, and you know it. How can I not go?”

The two were silent for a moment, lying side by side, and then she continued, “You know I’m the one to do this. None of Gary’s people know their way around Dannith like I do. I was prowling around the Port Royal City spacedocks when I was seventeen years old. I can do this…and I need to know you believe in me.”

Barron felt the sting of that last blow. Andi was playing dirty, though his realization of that fact didn’t change anything. How could he let her go feeling she lacked his understanding, if not his outright approval?

“I know all of that is true, Andi…but the thought of you behind enemy lines, hiding from the Kriegeri, relying on old Spacer’s District lowlifes to get information, to stay hidden. Do you realize how dangerous that will be?”

“And how dangerous is it when you lead Dauntless and the fleet into battle? How many spacers have died in this war?” She was silent, and then her tone deepened. “How close have you come to death?”

Her words cut deep, striking their mark. He couldn’t argue, nor deny that he’d put her time and time again in the exact position she was putting him. She had endured, and she’d done her best to support his efforts. And, as much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, she was right. They did need intelligence from Dannith. They needed it badly.

“I understand,” he muttered, his voice soft, subdued.

Andi lifted her head and turned to look over at him. “You’re okay with my going?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I’ll never be okay with you going into something like this…but I know why you feel you have to do it.”

He inhaled a deep breath and the exhale came out as a mournful sigh.

“Go,” he said, so softly, he wasn’t sure she could have heard it.

“Go,” he repeated, the volume just a hair above that of the first whisper.

Letting her go was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and the fear that he’d never see her again was a dark and ominous shadow, blacker than any the enemy had cast over him.

Chapter Five

Toscana Ridge

600 Kilometers South of Troyus City

Megara, Olyus III

Year 321 AC

The Battle of Toscana-Capella

A pair of hypersonic rockets ripped across the darkening sky, visible only as streaks of glowing, ionized atmosphere as they zipped just over the heads of the crouching Marines and slammed into a hillside half a kilometer behind the lines. A few of the Marines dove lower into their makeshift foxholes and trenches, instinctive but mostly pointless efforts to hide from the deadly ordnance. Most of them stayed firm, however, rigid, grimly aware that no clawed-out ditch in the ground was going to save them from a projectile moving at more than five thousand meters per second. There was no rookie panic in the line, no uncontrolled fear. Many of the Marines had come to Megara less than a year before as new recruits, fresh from makeshift training camps scattered around the Confederation, but they were all veterans now, hardened by months of incessant and brutal combat.

Bryan Rogan was prone just behind the forward formations, a location that had prompted urges from not one, but three other officers for him to pull back. Rogan was the planetary ground commander, and more than four million Marines looked to him for direction, orders…and inspiration. They were close to victory now, they all knew, but the ones who had been there the longest remembered the dark days at the beginning of the liberation, when barely two hundred fifty thousand of them had fought like wildcats to secure a foothold against almost ten times their number of enemy soldiers.

Not many of that first wave were still with the colors. Some had been transferred out, for well deserved leave, and others, vastly more in number, were in hospitals on ships and a dozen nearby planets, including Craydon.

And more than one hundred twenty thousand of them were dead, along with over a million of those who had come after. The fighting had been intense, terrible, and it had scarred every man and women who’d taken part in it, Rogan included. The Marine general had been wounded already when the reconquest operation began, and he had directed those initial battles from a portable field hospital bed, one his Marines carried around the field, to wherever he was needed. He’d been in terrible pain, too weak to stand…but his Marines had gone in, and he’d insisted on going with them, or at least as close to that as he could come.

He’d been in the thick of the fighting since then, hobbling back and forth along the battle lines, first on a cane, and then unaided, if still a bit wobbly. He’d abused stims and painkillers wildly, done anything he could to keep himself in the field, in action with his Marines. And as those months passed, more and more troop transports and hastily-modified freighters shipped fresh Marines to Megara from every point in the Confederation, fresh meat for the slaughterhouse. Rogan had thrown those rookies right into the fire, with some guilt but no hesitation, and the battle changed gradually from a fight to hang on to a planetary beachhead to a steadily intensifying drive to take back key locations and to break through the Kriegeri defenses on a dozen fronts.

The cost, the carnage of the desperate battle, had been like nothing most of the Marines fighting had ever seen. But it had been nothing new to Bryan Rogan. He’d seen over a million of his Marines killed in the hopeless attempt to hold the planet two years before. He’d commanded the shattered remnants of that great force, hiding in the ancient ruins, struggling to keep a few thousand of his fighters still under arms.

Then he’d lost most of the few that had survived in the desperate attack on the enemy communications center. That fight, for all its cost and horror, had at least been a victory of sorts, one that had opened the door for the fleet to reclaim the system, and for his current force to be landed and to begin the grim business of clearing almost three million Kriegeri from Megara.

Rogan looked out over the field, soon to be further bloodied and torn apart as his forces surged forward, line after line of solemn Marine veterans pushing toward the far hills to drive the enemy from their final stronghold. He knew he should pull back from his current position, that if a random artillery shell or rocket took him out, the disruption to the chain of command and the campaign would be significant. But he’d made a promise to Tyler Barron, a pledge to wrap up the fighting and complete the liberation of Megara as quickly as possible. The current battle along the Toscana hills, and the Capella ridgeline six kilometers to the south, would be the final major attack. When the enemy was broken there, the reconquest of the Confederation’s capital planet would be all but complete.

The Kriegeri dug in on the low hills facing Rogan’s army were the last of the major formations still in action. There were small teams dug in all around the planet, no doubt, probably hundreds of them, and it would be months, if not years, before the killing stopped completely on Megara. But once the enemy forces over on the Capella were defeated, Rogan’s work would be done. He could turn the mopping up over to his subordinates, and he could go wherever Barron needed him next.

He didn’t know where that would be, but he knew the admiral would almost certainly need him somewhere. There was only one thing he knew with greater certainty than that.

When Tyler Barron called, he would be there.

*

“Get your heads down, now!” Dylan Ward had one hand on top of his helmet, holding it in place. It was annoying, especially in the middle of a battle, but considering the chunk of shrapnel that had sliced his chinstrap would have taken his head off instead if it had been a few centimeters closer, he’d decided he could tolerate the inconvenience.

Ward’s major’s insignia had been sparkling new just hours before, but his battalion had been deep in the middle of the shit since morning, and now everything was filthy, just like his uniform, covered in mud and blood and God knew what else.

He held his assault rifle in his other hand. This was no fight for an officer to prance around with only a sidearm, and besides, the less he looked like a figure of significant rank, the better. The Marines on Megara had come to both hate and respect the Kriegeri snipers. Some fool running around with a pistol in his hand and visibly shouting out orders was just asking for a quick headshot.

He tapped at the small comm unit hanging from his helmet. “All company commanders, stay on your Marines. I see too many heads begging to get taken off. I want everybody low, hugging dirt, and I mean now.”

He took his own orders, and he dropped down himself, crouching forward to keep his own head below the small berm his Marines were using as cover. They had started the day as the attackers, but now they were getting hit from all sides. The Kriegeri were counterattacking like wild demons, coming at his shrinking command from three sides. He knew his people had just drawn the short straw, that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The enemy was desperate, but they weren’t strong enough for this kind of massive push all along the line. Ward knew exactly what they were doing. They were trying to break through his lines, to escape from the trap General Rogan had set for them.

And he was far from sure his people could stop them.

The enemy’s escaping wouldn’t change the outcome of the battle for Megara, not in the end. But if they could scatter, spread out and dig in, they would extend the bloody job of pacifying the planet. Ward knew Rogan wanted them stopped cold, that he wanted the bulk of the fighting to end right there, on the Capella Ridge.

The newly minted major couldn’t guarantee his Marines could hold long enough, but was damned sure if they didn’t, none of them were going to leave their assigned spot.

His eyes darted up as he saw a pair of airships diving hard from the sky. He knew they were friendlies—the last of the Kriegeri airpower had been suppressed months before, mostly by strike wings launched from orbiting battleships. Still, he had an edgy feeling, until he saw the two birds loosing their rockets on the enemy position. They were hitting the Kriegeri rear areas, which was just as well, since the enemy front line was too damned close to his own people for him to want to see ordnance coming down all around.

Friendly fire killed just as effectively as enemy action.

His eyes caught movement to the front, and he froze for a few seconds, staring, trying to get a feel for what he was seeing.

The enemy. They were coming…and in force.

“Here they come, Marines. You all know what to do.” He was shouting into his comm, and to the two dozen or so of his people close enough to hear him directly. “We stand here, remember that. Whatever happens, they don’t get us off this hill.” That was the kind of thing that was easy to say, and more difficult to execute, especially if following the command meant every Marine in his battalion died. But he wanted his people fighting with every scrap of fierce determination they could muster. If death was the only alternative to defeat, then, as far as he was concerned, so be it.

He swung his own rifle around, bringing it to bear. He couldn’t see the enemy yet, not through the dusky haze. The Kriegeri had chosen their moment well, and he knew they would make the most of the poor visibility, get as close as they could to his line before his people pinpointed them.

General Rogan had deployed scanners, of course, but the Kriegeri had their jammers operating on full, and they’d bombarded the main field with radioactive isotopes to further degrade the Marines’ ability to track them. It was a dangerous and dirty way to fight, and he knew running through the nightmare they’d created on the field would not be without cost. His own radiation detectors had gone off half a dozen times, and he guessed the levels in the lowlying areas were three or four times greater than on the ridge. The Kriegeri would have some cover for their attack, but any survivors of the battle were going to be dealing with radiation sickness when it was done.

Ward listened, trying to block out the noise of his troops, every sound but those the enemy was making. He thought he had a fix on them. They were close, maybe a half kilometer away, he guessed.

Well within range…

“All units, target range zero point five kilometers, directly to the front. Open fire!”

He followed his own order, blasting three round bursts, his sights set for exactly five hundred meters. He maintained that fire, dropping the range every ten seconds or so. It was frustrating, not knowing if his people were hitting the enemy, causing any damage, but it was all he could do.

Then, suddenly, he could see them, the Kriegeri, marching forward, as relentless as usual. But their line was irregular, and even as troops from behind raced forward to fill the gaps, he could see that his Marines had already taken their toll.

“Keep it on them, Marines. At two hundred meters, switch to full auto. We’re gonna take these bastards down, every damned one of them!” The excitement in his tone was for his peoples’ benefit, mostly. But he was beginning to work himself up, too. He fired, and then again, each time dropping one enemy soldier.

He hated the Kriegeri, despised them as his enemy, as the monsters who had killed more of his friends than he dared to count. But it was impossible not to respect them. Their skill, their unfailing courage…they had proven themselves the equals of his own people.

Though no real Marine could entirely admit any enemy was quite a match.

He switched to automatic, and he watched as dozens of the enemy fell under the relentless fire of his Marines. Hundreds. The field was covered with bodies, but even as entire sections of the line were cut down, reserves moved forward to take their places. The enemy showed no fear, no failure of morale. They were fighting a losing effort, and even if they prevailed against Ward and his forces, their time was limited, their fates sealed. The Confederation—no, the Grand Alliance, he reminded himself—fleet held the space around the planet, and the liberation forces on Megara outnumbered the shattered remnants of the Hegemony’s once mighty invasion force.

What dedication, what incredibly bravery…

Despite his hatred, he felt loss at so many fighters being cut down. It was such…waste.

Why did they come here? Why did they start this war?

He didn’t have answers to questions like that, and it wasn’t his place to try to formulate them. He was there for one reason, and that needed all his attention. Even as he watched his Marines cut down so many of the enemy, he came to a cold realization.

They’re going to make it up the hill. They’re not going to stop.

He popped out a spent clip and slammed a new one in place. The enemy was less than a hundred meters away, and they were returning fire now. A dozen or more of his Marines had been hit already, and he pulled his hand toward the comm unit, intending to shout out yet another reminder to watch their cover.

But it was too late for that. The Kriegeri were going to reach his line any second.

“Prepare to defend yourselves,” he shouted into the comm, even as he saw a dark wave of Kriegeri lurching up the hill, and over the small berm. He fired wildly, gunning down as many as he could, and then he swung his rifle up, as one of the enemy was suddenly in front of him, bringing his own weapon down like a club.

Chapter Six

CFS Dauntless

Orbiting Megara

Olyus III

Year 321 AC

“I have a bad feeling, Clint. We got more of a respite than I’d dared to expect after Megara, but we know something was coming, and I think we can safely say, it’s coming soon. We just don’t know what the hell it is.” Tyler Barron was sitting behind his desk, looking across at Clint Winters. His number two had become one of his closest friends, and somewhat of a confidante. The two of them, and Atara Travis—one of the two people he trusted most—were alone in his office, reviewing the latest intelligence reports. He was giving it his all to stay focused, to keep his mind off Andi, and what she was planning to do. He’d agreed to let her go, but every fiber in him was straining, desperate to take that back, to stop her from leaving, somehow.

Nothing less than the survival of the Confederation and the future of hundreds of billions of people would have been important enough to tear his mind from worrying about her, but fortunately—if that word could be considered appropriate—that’s just what was in front of him.

“I just wish we knew more, Ty. I agree something is coming. I haven’t slept in weeks, at least not for more than an hour at a time. I’ve been tossing and turning and wondering what the hell Project Zed could be, or Red Storm. I’ve gone over every scouting report, every shred of intel Gary Holsten has provided. But we’ve still got nothing more than a bunch of wild guesses.”

Barron winced, hoping neither of his companions noticed. The lack of decent intel was exactly the impetus for Andi’s mission to Dannith. He couldn’t argue it wasn’t important, even downright crucial to find out more, before it was too late. He couldn’t even make a decent case that Andi wasn’t the best one to go, the most qualified and experienced on Dannith and its underworld and the network of lowlifes that inhabited it. Those were just the kind of resources that might be useful to an intelligence operation, assuming, of course, the creatures in places like the Spacer’s District had managed to slither into some dark place to survive the occupation. He knew no one else was better qualified, if only because he’d wracked his brain trying to come up with someone or something, any way at all he could make a case to keep her from going.

But there was nothing.

“Our experiences with the Hegemony have taught us not to underestimate them. So, the best we can do is to assume we’re going to face something we haven’t before. A new fleet, different types of ships, something. And lacking any more detailed information, the best we can do is to bring the fleet to full alert and move it forward…to some chosen system, someplace we think they will come, where we can meet them—when they unleash Project Zed and Red Storm, whatever they are. In the end, we’re going to have to fight whatever they’ve got, so there’s no point in sitting here complaining about what we don’t know.”

Barron’s edginess was on display. He couldn’t help it. He loved Andi, and he wanted her safe, but it was more than that. The Hegemony had controlled Dannith for six years, and he could only imagine what they had done with the civilian population, what efforts they had begun to indoctrinate them into their genetically-driven system. Andi knew Dannith—at least what it had been—and she was as capable a fighter and a spy as anyone he’d ever known. But he believed, in his heart, and deep in his aching gut, that if she went to Dannith, she would die there.

“I agree.” Winters’ voice was deep, his tone bordering on grave. Barron understood. No skilled commander liked going into action not knowing what he would face. But there was no choice, and both of them knew that.

“We should do everything we can to ensure the fighter wings are at maximum strength.” Atara Travis spoke up. She’d been silent for most of the meeting. Barron had seen that she had gotten her long-overdue stars, but she was still by far the most junior of the three officers assembled, and the only one who had never held an independent fleet command. “They’ve been our greatest asset in the war so far, and if the enemy has brought something new into the battle, it’s a good bet they made it’s resistant to bomber attacks as possible. Jake’s going to need every ship he can get.”

Barron and Winters both nodded their agreement. None of the three of them mentioned that any improvements in anti-fighter defenses the enemy put into play would only increase the already devastating losses the wings had borne in shouldering so much of the fighting. There was no point, just as there was no choice but to send the bombers against whatever the enemy put forth.

“I’ve basically given Jake a blank check. He can pull ships from anywhere, assembly lines, storage facilities, planetary defense garrisons. Even museums if he wants. Though pilots are more of a problem right now than hardware.” He paused for a moment, and then he continued, his voice more subdued. “Andi…did a very good job whipping the industrialists in shape, on Craydon and some of the other Belt worlds, too. We’ve got more ships coming off the lines now than we do trained pilots. Though Jake’s got carte blanche there, too. If he wants to pull upper classmen from the academies before they complete their last year…or if he wants to take raw inductees and give them a two-hour class himself before sending them out, that’s his call.”

Barron knew just what the result would be if Stockton was forced to draw even less experienced pilots than they’d all already thrown into the maelstrom. But he filed that along with the rest of the things he didn’t want to think about.

“We should get him in on the next planning session.” Atara looked over at Barron, and then at Winters. Barron thought he caught something in the look she gave the his second in command. He’d seen it before, at least two or three times over the past month. He wasn’t sure if there was something going on between the two of them or not, but his gut told him there was. That was fine with him. He’d served alongside Atara for more than a decade, and they’d been inseparably close that entire time. But there had never been the slightest romantic spark between them. He loved Atara deeply, but in a brotherly fashion. From almost the day he’d met her, Tyler Barron had thought of Atara as a sister, and if she could find happiness, or even a pleasant diversion, amid the chaos and horror of war, he wished her well, as he did Clint Winters.

Still, he was surprised she hadn’t told him. Then, he understood. Andi.

Andi and Atara had become close friends. Atara knew what Andi’s determination to go to Dannith was doing to Barron. She’d been cautious around him, trying—and mostly failing—to hide her concern. He’d been under enormous pressure, and it was wearing him down. Seeing the reflection of his weariness in Atara’s eyes only made him feel the weight even more. Her efforts to protect him had only made things worse. He’d tried to tell her a couple times, but some things were just difficult, damned near impossible, to put into words. So, he’d done his best to take her efforts in the spirit he knew they were intended.

“Okay, if we all agree, we will issue the fleet alert status at once, and order all ships still at Craydon to join the rest of the fleet here in Olyus. I’ll also send a message to Craydon, ordering Admiral Stockton to join us here. Then we can finish putting together our final plan. Whatever that will be.” Winters paused and looked at his two comrades. “Maybe we’ll know more by the time Jake arrives.” He added the last part, but it lacked any real conviction. It was pretty clear he didn’t believe that any more than Tyler Barron did.

*

“Vig, are you sure about this? You don’t have to come, really.” Andi looked at her old friend, her face a mask of worry and guilt. She appreciated the irony, and she knew Tyler felt the same way about her going to Dannith as she did about bringing her crew with her. She’d almost lied to Vig, told him the idea had been scrubbed, but something had held her back. She understood just how important it might be to get information on the Hegemony’s plans, and she wasn’t sure she could do it alone.

She wasn’t sure she could do it at all. But she knew she had to try.

“I know you know me better than that, Andi.” Vig Merrick had been part of her crew from the first Badlands expedition she’d made as a ship’s captain, and he’d come to her as the younger brother of a trusted comrade. He’d been with her for years, risked his life alongside hers, saved her from certain death more than once, as she had done for him.

She knew he was going to go no matter what she said. Trying to convince him to stay was for her more than it was for him. Anything that lessened the guilt she felt about leading people she cared about into almost absurd levels of danger. She would do it with the others, too, and with no more success, she suspected. She doubted she’d even make herself feel much better about it, but she was going to try anyway.

“If you’re sure…I want to move up our launch date.” She’d been planning to go in three days, but she could tell Barron and the other senior officers were worried…really worried. Something was going on, some kind of Hegemony action looming, and if anyone was going to find out what, and in time to do some good, it would be her. There was no time to lose, in fact, she was probably late already.

“When do you want to push off?” Vig asked the question, but his tone suggested he already knew the answer. He’d spent far too long at Andi’s side not to know how she thought.

“Tomorrow…0600 sharp.” She was worried about getting intelligence as quickly as possible, but she had another reason for wanting to leave sooner. Tyler had told her to go, given his consent to her plan, but she knew what those words had cost him. If she stayed longer, she would only sap his strength and increase his sadness. And, she was far from certain he could hold his resolve, that he wouldn’t change his mind and try to stop her from leaving despite his promises to let her go. She would go anyway, if that happened—because he needed her there, because it was how she could help all those she cared about—but the thought of looking into his eyes as she refused his pleas was more than she could bear. Better to leave early…and without warning. If she made it back, they would have time together then. If not, well, he would have to get over her anyway, and if blaming her for slipping away helped him, if some resentment and anger toward her powered his way through the feelings of loss, so much for the better.

“Can we be ready that quickly? We need to have the stealth unit checked out, at least. And supplies loaded.”

“Already done.” She’d been thinking about leaving early for the last two days. Loading food, fuel, and supplies quietly had been relatively easy, but making sure the stealth unit was operating at full effectiveness had been quite another. Without the incredible device, she didn’t have a chance of even reaching Dannith, and she figured even if the thing was in perfect working order, the enemy still had a damned good chance of picking up Pegasus’s approach. Andi had become perhaps the most experienced ship commander at handling a stealth system, and she knew very well how to allocate power output and minimize the chance of detection. Still, she knew the Hegemony had made significant advances in penetrating the cloaking shields of the units, and no amount of care or expertise could guarantee Pegasus wouldn’t be detected.

So, she’d done all she could. She’d gone to the one person who understood how the devices worked better than anyone else. Anya Fritz.

Convincing Tyler Barron’s devoted engineer to keep her secret had been difficult, but she’d finally convinced Fritz that there was no choice. She had to go, the Confederation had to know what the enemy was up to…and once she was gone, it would be done. Barron might be sad, he might be worried, but there would be nothing he could do about it. He would be free to do what he had to do, to lead the fleet into its next great battle.

And, if she didn’t come back, perhaps her abrupt departure would lessen the guilt he felt, even if only a bit.

Fritz had cleared the unit after changing out a few parts, and then she’d hugged Andi. “Be careful, Andi, and come back,” was all she had said. Then she’d turned and walked silently out of the docking bay.

Andi had a moment of doubt as she stood there recalling that moment. There was fear in her hesitation, perhaps, some fraying of her confidence that she had a real chance to do what she intended to do. Mostly, though, it was sadness and uncertainty, a question about whether she could truly bring herself to leave Barron without a goodbye, without a last embrace.

But she’d had made up her mind to sneak off, and she pushed back against the doubts, redoubled her resolve. If she succeeded, if she came back, all would be well. They would be together again, and the relief and joy of their reunion would drive away any lingering guilt or resentment.

If things went wrong, however, if she met her end on Dannith, she knew her final minutes would be the worst of her life, agonizing and unbearably heavy with regret and sorrow for the way she’d left the one man she’d ever loved.

How she’d left without even saying goodbye.

Chapter Seven

Toscana Ridge

600 Kilometers South of Troyus City

Megara, Olyus III

Year 321 AC

The Battle of Toscana-Capella

Ward felt the impact as the Kriegeri’s rifle slammed into his own. The sensation raced all the way up his arms, a jarring pain that almost made his hands go weak. But he managed to hold on to his rifle, somehow, and he brought it around as the enemy soldier pulled his own back to strike again. It was a race, a short one, less than a second in duration, but it was a deadly one.

And Ward won it. His rifle butt smashed into the enemy soldier, just below the breastplate of his armor, hitting a weak spot, and smashing hard into muscle and bone.

Ward could feel the impact, and he knew almost immediately, he’d hit his target, fractured his enemy’s hip. The soldier dropped almost immediately, his stoic silence impressive considering the agony Ward knew he had to be feeling. The Kriegeri landed on his knees and stayed there, wobbling, struggling to bring his weapon around. Ward stared at him, and for a half second that seemingly lasted forever, he saw another human being, a soldier like himself, wounded and in pain.

Then he spun his rifle around and shot the Kriegeri, putting two rounds just under the man’s helmet, shattering his jaw and the front of his neck. It was a level of brutality he once couldn’t have imagined, but now all that mattered was the Kriegeri where there, in the center of the Confederation. They had killed thousands—no, millions—of his comrades. In another time, another place, he might be felt mercy, pity, even some form of comradeship.

But then and there none of that existed. He was death itself, plying his grim trade.

The fighting went on, seemingly without end, his people somehow hanging on, even as more and more Kriegeri stormed up the hill, climbing over the bodies of their comrades to throw themselves into the hideous carnage. Ward could feel the fatigue, the exhaustion, his arms and legs feeling heavier with each passing moment. He knew his people were tired, and a quick look around told him they’d suffered heavy losses, too. He didn’t know how long he could keep them in the fight, just how far beyond imagination lay the limits of human endurance. But he was going to answer that riddle…because he damned well wasn’t going to order a retreat. Not then.

Not ever.

He turned his head, looking up the line, and he saw a group of Kriegeri breaking through a small gap. He turned and began moving toward them, driven almost by pure instinct. He couldn’t see how much enemy strength was behind that breakthrough, but if they had enough force to turn both ways and hit his Marines, they could roll up the whole line. Or at least a good section of it. His battalion, certainly, and probably the ones on either side, would be driven from the hill, the few scattered survivors running for their lives.

Unless his people stopped the enemy cold.

“Colfax, Kendall…pull your people from the line and follow me…the rest of you, spread out and plug the gaps.” He was already running, his hypersonic rifle once again extended forward, ready once more for use as a cutting-edge weapon, and not as a stone age killing implement. He was firing as he ran, careful to target the enemy and not the small group that still remained in front of them, maybe a dozen Marines in a thin line, struggling against hope, against reality, to contain fifty times their number of enemy soldiers.

Ward saw one of the defenders fall, and then another. He was shooting as he ran, and as he closed, he could see two or three of the Kriegeri take notice and turn to face him. His mind raced, calculations flying back and forth. Could they fire in time? Should he stop and aim his rifle, try to take them out…or keep moving, push forward?

He never reached a conscious conclusion, but he lunged toward the enemy, slamming into all three Kriegeri before they could fire. He was just under two meters tall, and he weighed almost one hundred thirty kilograms—and he was moving at a dead run. He hit the enemy soldiers like a cannonball, and all three of them, and Ward himself, tumbled back, landing hard on the ground and taking down another half dozen of the Hegemony troops who stood in their paths.

Ward felt pain as he hit the ground. There hadn’t been nearly enough time to alter his trajectory, to control the fall. He felt the breath expelled from his body as he hit, but somehow, he pushed back against the agony, the distraction. He was in the fight of his life, surrounded by enemy soldiers. He had a vague sense of the two squads that had followed him, some friendlies around, but far more hostiles in his immediate vicinity. He was well aware his life expectancy was likely measured in seconds, probably far too short a time for enough help to arrive to back up the twenty or so Marines he’d led against close to five hundred Kriegeri.

Still, the fear subsided, the sense of doom abated, and suddenly everything was simple. He had no thoughts of the overall battle, of the implications of anything that happened in the next moments. He was a warrior, and nothing but, a stone-cold killer in a blood-soaked orgy of killing. He would fight, for as long as he had strength, as long as he drew breath.

He’d dropped his rifle when he hit the ground, and his eyes darted around, looking for it. It was two meters behind him—too far. He pulled out his pistol instead, and he fired, almost robotically, three shots, right into the thigh of a Kriegeri soldier aiming a rifle at him. The Hegemony fighter fell to the ground, and before Ward could fire again and finish the job, two of his oncoming Marines did it for him.

He turned again, pulling his combat knife out as he searched for more targets. He was surrounded by enemy soldiers, but even as he felt the cold hand of desperation tightening on him, he could see the Hegemony attack slowing, the enemy’s impetus slowly fading.

The fight all around him raged hot, grenades, gunfire, even desperate combat with knives and rocks, adding to the steadily rising toll. They had been a dozen Marines right with him, but as Ward looked around his position, he could see they were down to six. There was something about them, something he couldn’t quite explain, a grim resolution, a refusal to yield. They were all going to die, that much was almost certain. The only question was, would they hold long enough for the surrounding Marine units to reposition, would they buy enough time to blunt the enemy advance.

Ward felt something inside, an overpowering need to try to save as many of those half dozen Marines as he could. He glanced around quickly, looking for his rifle, but he couldn’t find it. He didn’t have time to look, so he tightened his grip on his pistol, and on the nasty thirty-centimeter blade in his other hand, and he pushed forward.

There were two Kriegeri in his way. One of them was distracted, fending off an attack from one of Colfax’s people coming in from the flank, but the other was planted in place, staring right at him.

Ward didn’t stop, didn’t even slow his advance. He brought his pistol to bear, firing three shots, all of which ricocheted off the Kriegeri’s armor.

No, he realized, as he saw a trickle of red moving down the Hegemony soldier’s leg. One of the shots had gotten through, hit the enemy fighter. A flesh wound, he figured from the limited amount of blood, and nowhere near enough to stop a veteran Kriegeri. But Ward was ready to take every edge he could get. His opponent was wounded, and he wasn’t. A huge edge in hand to hand combat.

Unless the enemy got off a shot. Which, Ward thought, he just might.

He pushed himself as hard as he could, the ache racing up his legs as he tried to cover the distance in time. For an instant, he thought he was going to get there before his enemy could fire.

Then he heard the high-pitched sound of the Kriegeri assault rifle. Just one shot, and then he slammed into his foe.

At first, he thought his enemy had missed, or the shot had been deflected by his armor. But then he felt it, more of a sensation than pain, at least at first. He fired his pistol three more times, the muzzle jammed right up against the Kriegeri. He tried to shove it under the soldier’s armor, but he wasn’t sure if he’d managed it. As far as he’d been able to tell in ten months of combat, Kriegeri rarely cried out in pain. His enemy was still struggling with him, and he wasn’t sure if he actually felt the trooper’s strength weakening or if he just wanted to believe it. His own wound had escalated profoundly from sensation to pain, and he winced as he rolled over on his back, the Kriegeri on top of him, the two of them in the middle of a deadly struggle only one could survive.

The enemy soldier reached out, grabbing Ward’s arm, shaking the pistol loose. The weapon fell to the ground, but the effort had caused the Kriegeri to weaken his own defenses. Ward sucked in a rasping breath, and he jammed his knife under his enemy’s breastplate, angling the blade up, driving it into his enemy’s abdomen.

The Kriegeri didn’t scream, but he grunted deeply, and the intensity of his attacks dropped almost instantly. Ward shoved hard, throwing the soldier off of him, and he scrambled to his feet, a move accompanied by his own grunt, as the pain of his wound intensified. He didn’t think it was critical, but there was no question, it hurt like hell.

He grabbed his pistol from the ground and gritted his teeth as he rose to his feet. He extended his arm, ready to fire at the Kriegeri he’d stabbed, but he could see his enemy’s movement slow, and then cease entirely. The knife had done the job, and Ward had lost track of how many rounds remained in his pistol.

Not enough to waste any…

He turned his head, checking on the other Kriegeri nearby. The soldier was facing off against two of Colfax’s Marines now, and a quick glance in the other direction told him the thin line of Marines there needed him more.

He raced over, gritting his teeth against the pain. There were five of the Marines left, but one of them was clearly wounded, staggering, trying to stay on his feet. They were facing a small cluster of Kriegeri, one of the groups of the enemy still pushing forward, desperately trying to sustain the attack.

Ward raced toward the melee, realizing he was oblivious to other threats. Any Kriegeri with a line of sight could have taken him out, but luck spared him, and his gamble paid off. He came up along the flank of the tiny line without further injury. He focused on the closest enemy trooper, and he fired the pistol twice, putting both shots right into the open area beneath the closest Kriegeri’s helmet. The Hegemony soldier recoiled and fell to the ground. Ward was sure he’d managed a kill shot, but he wasn’t looking when the man hit the dirt. He was in the middle of half a dozen enemy soldiers, firing his pistol, stabbing with his blade…fighting like a man possessed.

He’d always been an aggressive warrior, but something new had gripped him, a sense of urgency he couldn’t explain. He had to save those last four Marines. He couldn’t explain why, but there was just something about them.

About one of them.

He took down three more Kriegeri in his wild frenzy, fighting almost purely on instinct. He was struggling to reach the five Marines—four now, a quick glance told him—and also to save himself. He was outnumbered, almost surrounded, but even as he began to lose hope, he could hear movement behind him.

That’s either Colfax and Kendall with their people…or I’ve got three seconds to live…

He was terrified, but his battle frenzy was stronger. He almost turned to see what was coming, but he knew if he did, he’d only provide an opening to the two Kriegeri in front of him. If there were more enemy soldiers coming up, he didn’t have a chance anyway. And, if they were friendlies, they’d know what to do.

Then, even as he realized he was being slowly overcome by the—now three—enemies pressing forward against him, he could feel movement right behind, and on both sides.

He gritted his teeth, an instinctive reaction to the shots, the attacks, he knew might be coming.

But there was nothing.

Nothing except half a dozen of his Marines on each side of him, racing forward, their assault rifles opening up the instant they cleared his own form.

He could see Kendall off to his right, alongside three of his people, still firing, even as the three Kriegeri had dropped to the ground, riddled with assault rifle rounds from so close, their armor might as well have been a thin layer of silk.

“Are you okay, sir?” The voice was familiar, coming from just behind him.

Colfax…

He almost turned and answered, but he remembered why he had come there, why he had plunged into the middle of so many enemies. He raced forward, covering the last few meters to the beleaguered group. The four survivors were standing in a short, ragged line, still firing. But the impetus of the flood against them had passed. Kendall and Colfax and their squads hit the enemy hard, and a few seconds later, a wave of Marines from the adjacent Tenth Battalion slammed into the other flank of the bulge in the enemy line. Kriegeri were grim, determined, courageous to a fault. But they weren’t invincible. As soon as it was clear their breakthrough had failed, they pulled back.

Tried to pull back.

More Marines were streaming to the spot now, coming from both sides. Even as the Hegemony soldiers began their retreat, they were hit from three directions. They fought fiercely, all the more so when it became clear few, if any, of them were going to escape. If they were going to die, they seemed to decide as a group that they would die fighting.

Any Marine, Ward included, had to respect that.

But the major had already turned away, looking toward the four exhausted, battered Marines who had somehow held back the enemy advance…for just long enough.

He opened his mouth, about to ask them if they were okay. Then he saw colonel’s eagles on one, then on a second one. And a single brigadier’s star on the third.

And in the center, covered in mud and blood, holding the same assault rifle every private in the line carried, stood a Marine, tall, his helmet gone, his sandy-colored hair blown back in the breeze.

He wore three platinum stars on his shoulders. The small bits of metal were filthy, and one of them had a bent point, but battered or not, their meaning was instantly clear.

Ward stopped stone cold, ignoring the throbbing pain from his wound. He felt his stomach tighten, tension clamping down like a vise. But it was different than the stress of battle. He slammed his pistol back into its holster, and he brought his hand up, snapping off the best salute he could manage.

The officer nodded, and even managed a smile as he returned the salute. “Are you okay, Major? That wound looks pretty nasty. We’d better get you back to the aid station.”

Ward was silent for a few seconds, unable to speak. Finally, he managed to get out a reply.

“No, sir…I’m fine.” An exaggeration, perhaps, but at least he wasn’t at death’s door. For a Marine, that was close enough to fine.

“I was worried about you, sir. I saw your party over here, right in front of the enemy breakthrough. That stand was amazing. I don’t know how you held them back long enough for my people to come up.”

A pause, and then, “Are you wounded? Do you need anything, General Rogan?”

Chapter Eight

CFS Dauntless

Orbiting Megara

Olyus III

Year 321 AC

Jake Stockton climbed down the ladder from his Lighting and took a deep breath. To most people, the atmosphere on the landing bay of a battleship was far from fresh and invigorating. Engine exhaust fumes, fuel vapors, lubricants and a hundred other chemicals combined to create an air quality most people considered, if not outright caustic, at least poor.

But to Jake Stockton, it was the smell of home. He’d been a pilot his entire adult life, and he’d spent most of the preceding childhood dreaming about flying fighters. His career had been everything he’d imagined and more, though his rank and glory had come at a horrendous cost. He’d tried many times to stop counting the number of pilots killed under his command, but somehow that exact number remained there, immovable, never failing to adjust for any increase. Whether it was a massive battle with hundreds or thousands killed, or a training accident with one lost rookie, the tally continued, a relentless reminder, a demon wedged deep in his mind that refused to allow him to forget. Ever.

He looked around, his eyes squinting to see down to the end of the sporadically-lit deck. There were neat rows of Lightnings, all lined up and looking almost like some kind of parade ground display. It was easy, of course, to keep things neat when there was no battle going on. Fleet units had skirmished with Hegemony patrols out along the edges of the enemy-occupied sections of the Confederation, and some of the fleet’s heavies had provided ground bombardment and support to the Marines recapturing Megara, but Dauntless’s squadrons, and their mostly-veteran pilots, had been idle since the bloody fight to reclaim the capital system. Only the occasional exercise had interrupted the inactivity.

Stockton glanced back at his fighter and he nodded sharply. He’d always found the Lightnings to be beautiful, even in their bulky bomber configurations, but his ship was set up as an interceptor, a vision of sleek magnificence to the pilot’s eyes. He’d used it to travel around from one place to another, sometimes even using it for interstellar transits. Taking a fighter through a transit point was considered dangerous, but Stockton had done it so many times, it had become almost instinctive. Besides, after all the battles he’d been in, the close calls, the ditches and times he’d been wounded, he defied the universe to kill him in something as pedestrian as a botched transit. If such an end lay in his future, he considered it the closest thing to unstoppable fate he could conceive.

His rank as an admiral—and that was something he still couldn’t quite get himself to believe—entitled him to a cutter with escort, of course, but the fighter was a link to his past, to where he had come from, to a time, he now realized, that had been the happiest in his life.

Any bay felt like someplace he belonged, but Dauntless’s was home, the closest thing to one he’d ever had. He knew the battleship wasn’t the original one to bear the name, and many of the memories he superimposed on her were actually from her lost predecessor. The old vessel had been smaller, and its bays had been far less ordered, cramped and inferior by any measure. But Stockton still missed her every day. She was his past, and she’d been filled with friends and comrades, men and women who were mostly gone now, sacrificed to the nearly endless conflict of the past dozen years.

The new Dauntless had one comrade in he was especially anxious to see. Stara Sinclair wore a commodore’s starbursts now, and she was official in the position she had informally held for more than two years, the director of flight control operations for the entire fleet. She was also Stockton’s lover, and he hadn’t seen her in almost six months. His duties had taken him from one end of the Confederation to the other, monitoring the progress at the makeshift flight academies that were feeding a steady flow of new pilots to the fleet, in a wild effort to keep up with Iron Belt production of Lightnings.

Fresh meat. Stockton knew how many of those raw pilots would survive their first battle, their first year of service. He knew it just as surely as he remembered the total death count of his squadrons. But he needed them, as many as he could get, and with Lightning production spiking up, it was going to be trained pilots that limited his strike force’s size, and not lack of hardware.

Stockton was anxious to see Stara, to steal whatever time he could with her before duty took him away again…but first, he had to report to Admiral Barron. His longtime commander—and one of his few true friends—had summoned him, and Stockton knew well enough, that probably meant something was wrong.

That was no real surprise. He hadn’t really expected a year’s respite after the bloodbath of the Second Battle of Megara, but as he looked back, he realized, perhaps he should have. The Hegemony forces had been savaged as badly as the Grand Alliance’s. Their power isn’t limitless. We’ve hurt them, too. Maybe badly.

Stockton had been cocky as a young officer, prone to frequent Dauntless’s officer’s club, where he had held his own in boasting and telling war stories—not to mention developing a hell of a reputation as a card player. That had been his youth, of course, and the older officer he’d become, wise from his close brushes with death and almost crushed by his burdens, was somber, quiet, at least when he wasn’t in battle. He was grim, too, in a way he’d never been years before, the result of too much war, too much death.

He thought about victory, an escape from the seemingly endless nightmare that had engulfed them all, and he wondered if such a thing was actually possible.

He walked toward the bank of lifts, feeling a touch of guilt that he couldn’t go see Stara right away. Duty came first, for both of them, and his would brook no delay.

with any luck, they’d get a few days together before…whatever was next for them all.

*

Barron stared down at his desk, silent, brooding. He knew why Andi had slipped away. He couldn’t even tell himself he wouldn’t have done the same thing in her shoes. But then the cold realization that he might never see her again kept roaring back into his thoughts. Perhaps she had sacrificed their last moments together, the fleeting sliver of time they might have shared. He’d felt flashes of anger, and then almost immediate regret for them. Above all, he wanted to believe that she would return, that they would be together again.

But he didn’t.

He had no reason, save for the nearly absurd level of danger in the operation she was about to commence, but he still had a cold feeling. Something would happen on Dannith, something terrible. He couldn’t drive the thought away.

“Admiral Stockton is here, Admiral Barron.” The AI spoke in a cool, professional tone. The system was programmable, with hundreds of choices, different voices, vocabularies, pseudo personalities. Barron had found this one somehow soothing, and he’d gone with it, in both his office and his quarters.

“Open.”

The door slid to the side, and Jake Stockton stepped into the room. “Hello, Admiral. Reporting as ordered.” The pilot managed a passable salute, and Barron knew just how much effort it had likely taken. He returned it, most likely with no better form. He’d never been one for the formalities, not much more than Stockton ever was, and he couldn’t think of anything that seemed less important just then.

“I could reply just as crisply, Jake, but what do you say we take the formality down a couple notches? My God, how the hell long have we known each other?”

Stockton managed a smile, or at least a reasonable imitation of one. “Well, in fairness, you’ve been my superior that entire time, sir.” A pause. “But it’s been a long while, sir. We’ve been through a lot.”

“Well, as your superior, I’m ordering you to cut the military nonsense, at least for now. We’ve got something to discuss, and these stars on my shoulders have gotten damned heavy. Maybe you can help me forget about them for a while.”

“I’ll try, Tyler.” Stockton stepped forward and took one of the seats facing Barron. “So, I assume you didn’t send for me just so I could come here and tread on regs and call the fleet commander by his first name.”

Barron nodded, managing to return Stockton’s grin. “That’s very insightful of you.” A pause, and something that almost passed for a chuckle. “The enemy is up to something, Jake, something called Project Zed.”

“Project Zed? What is it? A new ship? A fleet?”

“We don’t know, Jake. We’ve taken…” His voice petered out for a few seconds. “…steps…to gather more intelligence. But until then, we’ve got to do what we can to ensure we’re ready to meet whatever the threat may be.”

“That’s not going to be easy when we don’t have any idea what we’ll be facing.”

“No, it won’t be, but when was the last time something was easy?”

“I’m not sure I can remember that far back.”

The two shared a laugh, though it was hollow, carrying the unmistakable sound of gallows humor.

“When are we heading out?”

Barron looked back at his comrade, and his tone was deadpan. “Now.”

The word almost echoed off the room’s walls, and Stockton stared back silently for a moment.

“Now?” he finally replied.

“I’m not sure where we’ll make our stand. That depends on what we discover, and where the enemy goes. But I’d like to keep them as far from Megara—and even more importantly, the Iron Belt—as possible. If we push out, challenge them closer to the frontier, they’ll have to engage us there, or risk us coming in behind them and cutting off their lines of communications. With some luck, we’ll force a fight out somewhere we don’t have crucial strategic assets at risk.”

“It’ll also be someplace we don’t have fortifications to speak of. The whole Union border’s demilitarized by treaty, and the systems close to Dannith, the ones we still control, that is, are lightly protected, mostly agricultural worlds.”

“The lack of fixed defenses is a negative, certainly. But making a stand out there gives us a chance to pull back if things look bad. Remember, we don’t know what we’ll be facing. Do you want to be in some vital system, with no time to react to what they send at us?”

“No, but…” Stockton didn’t continue. He just looked down at his feet for a few seconds, and then he said, “Still, how can we possibly get the fleet ready to go now? A good third of our strength is back at Craydon.”

“Clint Winters is on the way there now, Jake.” Barron glanced at the chronometer. “In fact, he should be arriving just about any time. He’ll be bringing the units at Craydon forward, and we’ll all meet up at Cavenaugh. It’s a centrally-located spot, close enough to Dannith that the enemy will know where we are, but far enough out from the Iron Belt and the truly vital systems deeper in.” Barron didn’t like the ease with which his mind wrote off planets with populations measured ‘only’ in the hundreds of millions as not ‘vital.’ But the cold reality was, millions of people who built spaceships and assembled weapon systems were more important at that moment than those that grew corn or harvested algae.

Stockton looked overwhelmed. Whatever he’d expected, it clearly wasn’t for the fleet to be setting out at once.

“I know, Jake, it’s short notice. I’d have let you know in the initial comm, but I hadn’t completely decided then, and even if I had, I want top security on this. The enemy held Megara for a year, and they’re human just like us. I have to believe they’ve got some kind of assets planted down there, and with the Marines still finishing up the reconquest, we haven’t even begun to root out elements like that. There’s no room for carelessness, not now.”

“It’s just…I’ve got my squadrons all over the place. I was going to reorganize the wings, and…”

“You can do it while we’re in transit, Jake. It’s not ideal, but I’ve seen you do tougher things.” Barron sat quietly for a moment, waiting as his comrade tried to absorb the new developments. “Clint’s going to send your staff members back from Craydon by high-speed transport. They’ll meet up with us at Vintares or Jamison. Meanwhile, I’ve handpicked a few of the strike force officers who were posted here to serve as temporary staff support. They should hold you for a while. I’ll send down orders for them to meet you in the flight control conference room at…oh, let’s say ten hundred hours tomorrow. I seem to have forgotten to tell Stara you were coming…” Barron hadn’t forgotten anything, but he’d wanted to speak with his strike force commander first, and without interruption. “Maybe you could go down to flight control now, and let her know your back.”

Stockton smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

Barron nodded, but the smile slipped off his face as thoughts of Andi flooded back into his mind. “If I had to wager, I’d bet we’re probably heading right into some kind of fiery hell, Jake, so if you can get a few pleasant hours first, don’t waste them. You never know when the last one comes.”

Barron stood up, and he forced half of the smile back onto his face, though there was only darkness behind it.

“That’s an order.”

*

“You look fantastic.” Jake Stockton stood in the open door of the hospital room, a smile on his face that belied the stress he felt inside, the feeling of gloom about just what his people would be facing next. But even in the darkness, with the shadow of death and ruin all around, there were sparks of light. He’d seen Stara, and he’d get to spend at least a couple days on Dauntless with her before he had to leave. That was one ray of pure illumination. Another was seeing an old friend, one he’d thought he had lost.

“Yeah, just fantastic.” Olya Federov’s tone was sarcastic, though not in a nasty way. Stockton didn’t take it that way, either. He knew just how he’d behave in her shoes, and all he could say about that was, the doctors and medical technicians were damned lucky to have her on their hands, rather than him.

“You do, Olya…really. My God, I thought we were going to lose you…for a long time.” The first month after Federov had been rescued from her battered ship had been dicey. She’d died and been revived twice, and it hadn’t been until the thirty-second day in the hospital when her doctors had pronounced that she would indeed survive, though they’d been far from answering the next most important question, at least to an ace Lightning jock.

Would she fly again?

That mystery was still somewhat undecided, though Stockton wasn’t about to bet against her.

Federov hobbled across the room toward Stockton. She was using a cane, one she leaned on heavily, and though she held back the groans he was sure were trying to escape, the grimace on her face announced that each step was a painful exercise. “If I look so good, sign me out of here. And, order the flight deck to give me access to a Lightning. I’ve been stuck here for ten months, and God knows how rusty I am.”

“Olya…be patient. You’ll get there.” Stockton had no reason to be sure about that, but somehow, he was. Just as he would have been about himself. Olya Federov had been through the fire, many times. This wasn’t going to be the end of her career. It couldn’t be.

“I’ll get there quicker if I can get out of here and get some hours in the cockpit.”

“You can barely walk right now, Olya. Give it time.”

“Time? You think we have a lot of time? I’m in the infirmary, not out to pasture somewhere. I know something’s going on. The lull is over, and we all know the stakes when the fighting starts up again. I need to be ready.” She paused, looking down at her cane, and at her legs, both of them wobbling despite a considerable effort to hold them steady. “Who gives a shit about how I’m walking? You of all people should be aware that the Lightning is flown from the seated position.” She was still weak, he could hear that in the hollowness of her tone. But there was strength there, too, and stubbornness, almost to rival his own. That was the Olya Federov he knew so well.

And he did need her. She was one of his Horsemen, the four pilots who shouldered the immense burdens of the war with him. They were five veterans, crack pilots all, and they’d shared the task of leading thousands of pilots, vast numbers of them rookies, into one desperate fight after another. His compassion, his kindness, everything in him that made him human, cried out inside to deny Federov’s request, to tell her to rest, to complete her recovery, before she even thought of flying again.

But the cold steel within him shone hard and bright, and like the clang of sword on sword, it demanded hard action. He needed Olya Federov, and, friend or not, he had to get her back in command of her wings as quickly as possible. He felt a wave of guilt as he made a decision, as he overrode every decent impulse within him and said, “Okay, Olya. I’ll issue orders for you to get two flight hours a day…if and only if you can get the chief surgeon to sign off on it. And you stay here when you’re not there, and do everything else the doctors tell you to do.” He paused and locked his eyes on hers. “Deal?”

She looked up, seeming for a moment like she might argue or debate, make some effort to negotiate further. But finally, she just nodded and uttered a single word.

“Deal.”

Chapter Nine

Hegemony’s Glory

Orbiting Dannith

Ventica III

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“All systems report go, Commander. All fleet units signal readiness to depart.”

Chronos nodded. He’d been on the receiving end of a blizzard of similar reports for the past hour, and they’d started to all sound the same. There was one in particular he’d been waiting for, but until that arrived, he was content to allow his staff to handle the rest of the fleet’s prep. One thing was certain enough. If there were any problems, someone would let him know.

The fleet was vast, reinforced with every unit Akella had been able to spare to send to the Rim. It was the largest force the Hegemony had thrown against the Rimdwellers yet, the greatest single fleet it had fielded in its entire history. Chronos couldn’t begin to imagine how sparse Akella had left the forces on the core frontier to augment his strength, and he’d actively tried not to think about it at all. He’d told himself her actions had nothing to do with any feelings she had for him, but the thought kept nagging at him, nevertheless. He’d long tried to hold back the affection he felt for her, inappropriate emotions for a Master, and certainly one of his rank. Still, it tugged at him to think he might have influenced her judgment, that she might have made decisions based on more than cold, strategic consideration.

“Commander…”

The instant he heard the tone, Chronos knew the transmission he’d been waiting for had come.

“…Commander Ilius for you.”

“On my line,” he snapped, as he pulled his headset on. “Ilius?”

“Yes, Commander. I am in place, and all stations are manned and ready. Colossus is green.”

“Very well, old friend. Now, it is time…time to end this long and destructive conflict.” Chronos hoped the enemy would yield when they saw what they were up against, at least before he was forced to unleash the true power he now commanded. He was determined to end the war, to bring the Rim into the Hegemony, but he had no desire to kill millions.

Or billions.

But he knew he would do what he had to do. The war could not continue endlessly, pulling Hegemony forces from places they were needed.

“Commander…” Illius’s voice again, a bit of edginess working its way in.

“Yes…speak freely.”

“I have all stations active and ready, sir, but…well, this thing is big, and its systems are complex. We’re undercrewed, Commander, badly. And, that doesn’t even address how many more soldiers we should have on here.”

Chronos was silent for a moment before responding. He’d known the crew assignments were light when he’d made them. He’d sent the numbers he had for a simple reason. They were all he had.

“We do what we can, Commander Ilius, and you know as well as I that the losses in this war have vastly exceeded even the direst estimates at the onset of hostilities. Our reserves of trained manpower are stretched to the limit, a situation exacerbated by limited transport capacity. As far as the number of soldiers assigned to Colossus, the situation with the Gray Kriegeri is even worse than with the Red. Three million soldiers left behind on Megara, another million and a half in garrison on Ulion. Two million more on the other worlds we occupy, including five hundred thousand on Dannith.” He paused. “We have what we have, my friend. I know you’re short of reserves, but it is unlikely you will suffer significant casualties. The enemy may try to hit you, but if he does so, he will only be playing into our hands. The chance of Colossus suffering significant damages seems quite small…especially with the surprises we have in store for the Rimdwellers. The likelihood of your needing combat troops for any purposes besides basic security details is even more unlikely.”

“I know you’re right, Commander. It’s just that we’ve underestimated them before, and there’s no question they’ve repeatedly exceeded our estimates of their capabilities.”

“That is true, of course, but I see no reasonable chance that they can match the technology we are putting forth. You command the iron fist, my old friend. Stay focused, use the power you command, and together, we will finally bring the Rim to heel.”

“Yes, Commander.” There was still caution in Ilius’s tone, that was obvious, but Chronos felt he’d made some progress rallying his friend. He couldn’t fault Ilius for retaining some doubts. After all, Chronos had plenty of his own.

“Commander Chronos, we’ve picked up…something…on the deep system scanning array. At least there was something there.”

“Prepare your people, Ilius. The fleet departs in two hours.” Chronos cut the line and turned back toward the officer who’d just spoken. “We picked up what? ‘Something’ is not an acceptable description, Kiloron.”

“Yes, Commander…but it was just a flash, an intermittent contact. I would have disregarded it, but it was close to transit point three.”

Chronos felt something. Curiosity, concern? He wasn’t sure. The contact was in exactly the spot some kind of ship sent by the Confeds would be, but the deep system scanners had picked up hundreds of contacts in the ten months since the fleet had retreated back to Dannith. Six of them had proven to be cloaked Confederation scoutships. The others had been comets and meteors and various other detritus coming through the point…or they remained unexplained, manifestations of a hundred possible phenomenon.

Or Confed ships that eluded our further efforts at tracking them.

“Dispatch a system patrol squadron to search the area.” It wasn’t something he was going to ignore…but he wasn’t about to delay the fleet’s departure over some scanner ghost. If it was a Confed scout, and they managed to get a decent scan of Colossus, no harm done. Let them tell their comrades.

The terror will simply begin that much sooner.

*

“What the holy hell is that?” Andi Lafarge sat on Pegasus’s bridge, staring at the display. The ship was on minimal power, doing everything possible to stay hidden. That meant passive scans only, and as far into the outer system as they were, information was limited to the basics, rough size and mass estimates.

But what she was seeing had to be some kind of malfunction.

“AI gives a range of one point three to one point nine trillion tons.” Vig’s tone left little doubt that Pegasus’s number two was as shocked—and as skeptical—as her commander.

“That’s impossible. Do a system diagnostic, the best you can without increasing power flows. We’re going to stay right here on zero thrust until I’m sure we weren’t spotted coming through.”

“Yes, Andi. Initiating systems check now.”

Andi drew a deep breath and shook her head. She’d come to Dannith to find out what the Hegemony was up to. She’d hadn’t expected to discover anything useful until she got down to the surface, but now she wondered if she should turn back immediately, and report that—thing—her scanners were telling her was out there.

Is that some kind of asteroid or large meteor? They’d have had to tow it there…and I can’t imagine the power that would have taken. And why? Are they building some kind of giant fortress to defend Dannith? No, that’s not positioned well for defensive purposes…

“Passive scanners confirmed fully functional, Andi. I’ve checked and rechecked. Unless we’re getting hit with some kind of deliberate ECM pulse we haven’t detected yet, that thing is there, and it’s that big.”

Andi looked at the screen, her eyes wide. She tried to tell herself it had to be some kind of asteroid. Pegasus was way too far out to give any energy output readings, at least on passive scans, and it was a rational assumption that nothing manmade could be that size.

But Andi knew that wasn’t true, and memories flooded back, cold and ominous. She thought back to the fateful mission, when she’d first met Tyler. The planetkiller had been the biggest construct she’d ever seen—or had seen since. It had been massive, larger even than the current contact, and terrifying. She didn’t know if what she was seeing was something else like that or not, but if the Hegemony had something remotely comparable to the planetkiller, the Rim was in worse trouble even than she’d thought.

She watched, staring, as if her squinting eyes would somehow divine some hidden information, provide her with at least a scrap of clarity. Then, her heart almost stopped.

She didn’t have any energy readings, or anything more detailed on her scanners, but there was one thing she could tell immediately.

The thing was moving.

She watched as the contact pushed away from Dannith, and all around, she could see the units of the Hegemony fleet moving with it. She felt her insides clench, and a wave of nausea almost took her. She still didn’t know what the massive contact was, but she was terrified the suspicions growing in her would prove to be true.

She was looking at a ship, undoubtedly an imperial artifact of some kind.

“Andi, we’ve got contacts moving this way. Eight ships, all escort-sized. They’re coming in on a course almost directly toward us.” After a few seconds of silence, Vig continued, “Their line intersects ours approximately eight thousand kilometers behind our current position.”

They picked us up on their scanners…

Andi gripped the armrests of her chair as the nervous energy bubbling up from inside her became too hard to contain. If the enemy had detected Pegasus, they were all as good as dead.

She almost snapped out a command, ordered Vig to engage the engines for a full thrust dash back through the point. She didn’t like the odds making a run for it offered, but it was better than nothing.

But she stayed silent. Why are they coming in behind us if they can scan us?

Maybe they just got a blip when we transited in. If they can’t pick us up now, and we maintain silent running…

“All power systems down…” Then, a second later. “Except passive scanners…switch them to battery power.”

“Andi, that will cut battery levels available for life support in half. We’ll have four hours, five at most.”

“I understand. Just do it.” They had to stay as quiet as possible, and hope like hell those oncoming ships didn’t find them. If the enemy discovered their position, running out of air and heat would only be two problems of many, and not the most immediately deadly.

But they still needed to get as much data as they could on that behemoth, whatever the hell it was.

She could hear the sound of the air pumps go silent, and come back a few seconds later, clearly running at reduced power levels. It only took a few seconds for the air to become staler, less fresh.

“Life support on minimal levels, Andi. It might get a little cold in here after a while.”

“We’ve got coats and blankets…and we’ll be a damned sight better off shivering a little than we’ll be if those ships find us.” Even as she spoke, her eyes were fixed on the display, watching the Hegemony fleet, and whatever monstrosity was with it, continuing to accelerate toward the outer system.

“Escort ships still on a course to move behind us, Andi. They have to be looking for us, but it doesn’t look like they’ve got a hard fix.” Vig was speaking softly, an instinctive reaction to their need to hide, but also one with no basis in reality. Sound didn’t travel across the vacuum of space, and Andi knew they could bang on drums and shout at the top of their lungs, and it wouldn’t matter at all…and Vig knew it, too. But not all responses to stress and fear were rational ones.

But what did they pick up, a full read or just some kind of scanner flash? If the enemy was sure there was a ship lurking in the outer system, they’d send whatever resources they needed to root out her people. If they weren’t sure what they’d read, if they were just making a pass to check, Pegasus just might be able to lay low until it was over.

She sighed softly, her eyes still on the Hegemony formation. It was immense, bigger even than the fleet at Megara, a quick count told her. That was no surprise. The Confederation had pulled new ships out of the yards, too and redeployed every ship that could be found. There was no reason to expect less of the enemy.

But what the hell is that thing?

She watched, silently, waiting to see if the Pegasus remained hidden, if her people survived for a bit longer. Even as she sat, waiting, holding her breath, unable to blast the engines or send out an active scan pulse, she kept her eyes on the display. The enemy fleet was moving toward one of the transit points, one about three hundred million kilometers from Pegasus’s position. That would bring the new contact closer, perhaps enough for the passive scans to gather some new information.

But not close enough for the kind of data we need.

She thought for a moment about blasting the engines, about trying to bring her ship close enough to get a good look. But one glance at the approaching escorts nixed that. It wouldn’t do her any good to find out what the Confederation was facing, only to get blasted to atoms before she could get word back.

The minutes stretched out, seeming like hours, and the hours felt almost like days, even weeks. One of the escorts came within two million kilometers of Pegasus, and for a few moments, Andi held her breath, thinking they were dead. But the ship moved on, showing no signs it had picked up the small free trader.

Andi’s ship had served her well for years, more a friend than a hunk of steel and circuitry, and she dared to hope the vessel would come through for her again. But even as they all sat, still, waiting to see if Pegasus survived, she watched the Hegemony fleet, and the large contact—clearly some kind of ship from the thrust levels it was able to employ—move through the transit point.

Andi sat helplessly and calculated all the paths an invader could take from there, all the places the enemy could threaten…and compel Tyler and the fleet to come out and fight a desperate—and likely hopeless—battle.

She had to find out all she could, and she had to get the information back to the fleet.

Somehow.

Chapter Ten

Monitor Successor

Icarus Nebula Transit Nexus

Three Transits Coreward of Hegemonic Border

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“All scans are clear, Master Josias. We will complete download of scanner data from the observation stations in three minutes, twenty seconds.”

“Very well, Hectoron. Continue with standard protocols.” Josias made very little effort to disguise the boredom in his voice. His motivation, or more accurately, lack thereof, came from several sources. For one, he was one of only three Masters in the expedition, and the other two were ranked several million below him in genetic rating. The command was beneath him, or at least what he considered his due. He was resentful that he’d been assigned to such pointless duty, venturing beyond the borders of the Hegemony, beyond the farthest worlds found with survivors from the Great Death, save only for those who’d come from the deeps a century before, those behind the incursion that had so shaken a young Hegemony.

The Hegemony was at war on the Rim now, with all the commensurate chances to gain glory and fame, and he was as far as he could be from the front, staring at the Icarus nebula, an old imperial transit nexus, without so much as a star or planet to provide interest. Why the imperials had constructed four points so deep in the depths of empty space, he couldn’t imagine. But the place always made him uneasy.

He’d been there four times now, and he swore to himself, as he had on the last three trips, that this would be his last. Searching for an enemy last seen a century before was the least relevant duty he could imagine, especially when there was actual fighting going on in the Rim. He knew there were those in the government, many in fact, who believed the old claims that the Others would one day return, but Josias was not one of them. If the Others—and he wasn’t even sure what they actually were—had planned to return to Hegemony space, they would have done it already.

And, even if they still exist and they do come back, what are we going to do about it? Half the ships built to face them are out on the Rim, almost two thousand lightyears away. Or they’ve been destroyed.

Josias was prone to exaggeration when it aligned with his opinions, but in this case his thoughts actually understated the gravity of the situation. No less than sixty-two percent of the fleet’s stockpiled strength had been transferred to the Rim front, and nearly forty percent of that had been destroyed or badly damaged. That left just over a third of the strength originally committed to face an attack from the…nothingness was all Josias could call it. But he’d listened for years to alarmists endlessly arguing that even the original force levels would be inadequate when the Others returned.

Josias realized he was shaking his head, and he stopped it abruptly. One thing he did believe in, with absolute sincerity, was the dignity and solemnity of his genetic ranking as a Master. He had emotions, and fears, just like any human being, but that wasn’t for the lesser ones around him to see.

“Downloads complete, Master Josias. Ready to commence analysis on your command.”

Josias almost yawned, but he managed to hold it back. It was absurd to waste someone of his ability on such a pointless mission, flying out to the middle of nowhere to service the scanner buoys stationed there, and to run their pointless—and it was always pointless—data through the ship’s AI. The units had recorded a comet passing nearby once, on his second trip, but since that bit of muted excitement, he’d done little but sit around fighting boredom while Successor’s sophisticated computer system reviewed petabytes of useless scanner readings.

He leaned forward in his chair, and he took a deep breath. Successor was a monitor, one of the largest warships the Hegemony had ever constructed. War had raged on the Rim for six years, but not one of the largest of the Hegemony’s battlewagons had been sent there. Such was the power of ingrained fear, of the way the legend of the Others haunted even the genetically superior masters of the Hegemony. The monitors took too long to build, their cost was too great, to risk the great ships against the enemy’s small attack craft. So, the monitors had remained, stripped of much of their battleship support, and their clouds of small escort ships, standing on the line, staring off into the silent darkness, waiting for an enemy many believed was gone forever.

Until the discovery of survivors on the Rim, the Hegemony had been vastly more powerful than any worlds or polities it had encountered in its two centuries of existence, save only, once again, for the Others.

The monitors were vast ships, very heavily armed and armored. They’d been designed for one purpose, and one purpose only…to fight the mysterious invaders. The first encounter with the Others had been brief. Many said, the enemy had conducted little more than an armed reconnaissance of Hegemony space. For decades after, they had been expected to return, in far greater force. But they never had.

Josias stood up suddenly. He’d been through all of this before and he knew the AI would be hours reviewing the scanning data. He was bored, irritable, resentful of the superiors who’d sent him on such a pointless mission. That was nothing for his people to see. He decided to spent the hours in solitude in his Sanctum. After a period of meditation and reflection—and a cursory review of the AI’s conclusions—he would return to the control center, and issue the orders for Successor to set a course back to Hegemony space, to once again report that all was quiet at the Icarus Nebula.

“I will be in my…” He saw red indicator lights on the display, and he turned his head and froze. The AI was indicating it had found something.

“Master Josias, the system is reporting anomalies in the scanner data.”

“Yes, yes…activate the reporting system.”

Josias sat down. He was edgy, but still not entirely convinced the AI hadn’t simply found some spatial anomaly and was overreacting.

“Successor Control reporting. Scanner data dump AL-2304, partition Z11. Activity at entry point two, energy readings 27.64 gigatechons.”

Josias had been listening without any real interest, but the energy report caught his attention. The figure the AI had given was enormous, far beyond any ship transit he’d ever seen. Or heard of.

“Confirm those numbers,” he snapped.

“Energy readings 27.64 gigatechons. Scanner reports indicate fourteen transits, with intervals of seventeen to one hundred eleven seconds. Analysis of entry pattern suggests a ninety-four-point three percent probability of fleet maneuver.”

Fleet maneuver…

The words hit Josias like a punch in the gut. He could hear talk of the Others in his mind now, old conversations, speeches, lectures in classrooms. He’d discounted them all, considered himself above such children’s tales.

And now, his own AI was telling him a fleet—a fleet with enormous power output—had passed through into the very section of space his own force now occupied.

“Size of transiting ships? Identification?”

“No data available. Scanner readings are incomplete.”

Josias didn’t know what the hell that meant, but he knew better than to argue with a computer. “Review balance of scanner data at accelerated rate. When did subject ships transit out, and through which point?” If something had truly come through as the AI said, Josias knew one thing, at least. They hadn’t continued on toward the Hegemony. Josias’s fleet had come that way, and they’d hadn’t detected anything abnormal, not so much as a solar flare from one of the suns they’d passed.

The area of space around the nebula had been extensively explored fifty years earlier. It was nothing but a vast graveyard, system after system filled with countless dead worlds, planets that had once been home to untold billions. The Great Death had burned hottest there, so near the core of the empire, and it had left little in its wake. No life, none at all, save for insects and mutated scavengers slowly reclaiming the shattered ruins. The obliterated worlds hadn’t even offered much old imperial technology. The people who’d lived in this area of the empire had done a magnificent job of killing each other, and smashing their once exalted civilization into utter nothingness.

“Accelerated scanner review results available.”

“Report.” Josias was nervous. The idea of a fleet, any fleet, operating around the nebula was upsetting, but he held his thoughts in check. Perhaps he’d found some rebels or fugitives from the Hegemony. The Council was devoted to maintaining a sense of order and unity throughout the vast polity, and they weren’t above covering up something like a naval task force going rogue.

“Analysis shows no signs of departure from this location.”

“What?” That was about the last thing Josias had expected to hear. “What are you saying? They headed off into interstellar space?” Even as he said it, he realized the very idea was ridiculous. The transit tubes were the only way to travel faster than light, and the nearest star system was two lightyears away. Moving too far from the transit tubes would be suicide. Was that what the AI was trying to tell him? Some fleet had transited in and then its crews went crazy and plunged into the trackless void?

“Negative. Scanner results show no significant thrust emissions or other readings that would support a conventional maneuver.”

Josias had always found the Hegemony’s advanced AIs to be somewhat annoying, but this time he wanted to smash his fist through the control panel. “So, what are you saying? That they’re still here?” He felt a tightening in his gut as the words left his lips, a touch of panic. He turned toward his chief aide’s station. “Activate fleet scanners on full. Any contacts?”

The officer turned and worked at his controls. Even as he finished, the results came up on the main display. Nothing. Just Josias’s ships, and vast emptiness all around.

“Explain,” he snapped back at the AI.

“inadequate data. No explanation available.”

Josias almost slammed his fist down on the armrest, but he caught himself. “Theories? Suggestions?”

“Insufficient data to speculate with any degree of accuracy. All information indicates the enemy ships that transited into the nexus twelve days ago remain within one million cubic kilometers of our position.”

“And there are no scanner contacts, none at all?”

“No contacts at this time.”

Josias exhaled hard, and he stared at the display. It was dark, blank, nothing at all.

Wait…

He saw something, a speck of light, small, off to the side, suddenly appearing. Then another, and another.

He watched for a second, maybe two, as five more appeared.

Then the klaxons sounded.

“Multiple contacts detected, vector 203.111.034.”

“Identify,” Josias snapped back at the AI.

“Incoming scanner data jumbled, inconsistent. No meaningful analysis possible.”

“You mean you know something’s there, but you have no idea what?”

“Affirmative.” Josias had intended his words to be sarcastic, but the AI had taken them literally.

“All ships, reactors at full power. All weapons arrays online. All engines, prepare for immediate maximum thrust.” Josias didn’t know what to do. For all his rank and stature, he’d never been in combat, not really. Sending a ground force of Kriegeri in assault shuttles to put down rioting Defekts didn’t really count.

His mind raced, desperate thoughts flying around, trying to formulate a plan, to decide what to do. Run? From something he couldn’t identify, from a threat he wasn’t sure existed? If he pulled out now, he’d get back with no meaningful information to report. His duty was clear. He had to get some idea of what he was facing. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe he’d made contact with the Others, but he couldn’t come up with any other options. His mind pounded away at the problem, and he decided it had to be some rebel or outlaw element, something that had been hidden, kept secret, by the Council.

But how did they elude detection? How are they still interfering with our scanners?

“Master Josias…I was transmitting orders to the other ships when…”

When what?” Josias snapped.

“I lost contact.”

“With one of the other ships?”

“With all of them, sir.”

“We’re being jammed?”

The officer was slow to respond, and when he did, the fear was evident in his voice. “Yes, sir…and no. Not conventional jamming. It seems like some kind of field…it’s just absorbing the comm signals, sucking them in and nullifying them.”

Josias wasn’t sure the officer’s words really made sense to him, but he knew it didn’t matter. The Hectoron clearly had no idea what was happening, no more than Josias did, nor Successor’s AI.

Josias sat in his chair, frozen. He felt the urge to issue orders, but he was cut off from the other ships. Whatever was out there, it was likely hostile…hostile enough to provoke a decisive response. “All gunnery stations are to lock scanners onto the nearest contact and open fire at once.” Maybe, just maybe, the other ships would emulate the flagship’s actions. Successor and the three other monitors in his force were massively armed, their quad mounted railguns backed up by over one hundred energy weapon emplacements. Whatever was out there, he had to believe he had the firepower to hurt it.

If he could find it.

Josias was scared and confused, but once his force opened up, whoever out there had started this whole thing was going to be sorry.

“Sir!”

Josias’s eyes whipped around, focusing back on the display. One of the contacts was closer now, and through the jamming—or whatever that field was—Successor was receiving a crystal-clear image…almost as though whoever was out there wanted his people to see.

It was a ship, sort of, but it seemed to be moving all around, its shape changing gradually, even as it stood motionless overall. It was dark, looking almost like the black of space one instant, and then morphing into more of a murky gray. It was sinister looking, and Josias found every fear inside him rising up, his worry about the current situation mixing with childhood memories of terror and despair.

He glanced around and saw his crew was virtually paralyzed, staring at the display, looks of utter horror on their faces. He fought the gloom, the oppressive hopelessness he could feel closing in on him. He was a Hegemony Master, not some savage to be manipulated and controlled by fear. He dragged himself back, and as he did, he roared out a command to his bridge crew, a vicious growl that mustered every feeling of arrogance and superiority he possessed. “Back to your stations, now! Or I will shoot you myself!” He stood up and pulled out his sidearm.

The officers on the bridge were startled, their gazes moving back and forth between the display and their seemingly deranged commander. Finally, the spell seemed to break. Successor’s command staff returned to their posts.

All save one.

The communications officer, a Hectoron named Baris, turned toward Josias, pulling out his own pistol as he did. The Master was stunned, utterly shocked at the mutinous and treasonous action. He brought his own weapon to bear. He had the edge, his pistol already in his hand.

In the end, it wasn’t even close. Josias fired three times, and the officer flew back against his workstation before he slid to the deck, clearly dead.

Josias was stunned, struggling to maintain control. But his fear focused him as well as unnerving him. He didn’t know what was happening, but it was life and death, there didn’t seem to be any doubt about that.

“All batteries, open fire…”

But it was too late. Even as he spoke, he saw the massive energy spike on the display, and a great beam, almost blindingly bright, lance across space…right for his ship.

Chapter Eleven

Confederation SDB (System Defense Boat) 91A3

400,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Eugellius

Phantara System

Year 321 AC

“What the hell is that?” It was a rhetorical question. No one on the defense boat’s bridge had any idea what they were seeing, that much was clear.

Captain Charles Pilson’s eyes were focused on the screen with the same disbelieving stare the other four members on his bridge crew wore. The new contact on the display was the largest he’d ever seen.

The largest he’d ever heard of.

The vast…whatever it was…moved forward behind a line of Hegemony battleships. Pilson thought for a moment it was an asteroid or some other kind of natural occurrence, but it became immediately clear what he was seeing was a spaceship.

An unbelievably vast spaceship.

What is that thing…and what is it doing here?

Pilson had been doing his best for the past hour or so to disguise the stark terror he felt at the continuing succession of Hegemony warships transiting into the system. It had taken him half that time simply to believe what he was seeing. Phantara wasn’t a heavily populated system, nor one that possessed resources of a vital nature. Its two inhabited worlds were sparsely-populated. Belian, the third planet, was mostly agricultural, covered with vast robot-worked farms. Ghoshen, planet number two, was an ocean world, exporting food and products derived from its vast seas. The system was reasonably prosperous, if unspectacular, but it had nothing to justify a massive Hegemony invasion.

Save for one thing. Pilson had realized almost immediately after the initial shock had faded. Phantara was on the most direct route from Dannith toward the coreward heart of the Iron Belt. The enemy had not come for the system’s grain and fish, nor for its two hundred million inhabitants. They were making a move on the densest part of the Iron Belt, stabbing at the productive engine that powered the Confederation war machine.

Pilson and his seventeen defense boats—plus the sixty fighters in Ghoshen’s orbital station—were simply in the way.

Not for long, he grimly realized.

The officer knew his ships and crews were doomed. Their choice was a stark one, death or surrender. Pilson’s first reaction had been one of defiance, a determination to fight to the end. But as more and more Hegemony ships streamed through the transit point, cold realization sunk in. He could order his ships to stand and fight—and if he was lucky, his captains would obey and not simply yield on their own—but such a sacrifice would be to no purpose at all. Every one of his vessels would be blasted to plasma before they got close enough to fire a shot. He would be sending his people, all of them, to pointless death. He might as well order his vessels to self-destruct for all the good a show of resistance would do.

He thought for a moment about pulling back, taking position in front of Ghoshen’s orbital platforms. The ocean world was the better defended of the two inhabited planets, but that only meant it had two platforms instead of just one. And it didn’t take more than a passing glance to realize the stations were no better off than the defense boats. There were no truly heavy guns, none of the massive particle accelerators carried by the large fortresses on the frontier and in the Core and Iron Belt systems. Not one gun on Phantara’s platforms would survive to get off a shot. That was nothing more than mathematical certainty.

Pilson’s choice was a stark one. He and his people could die for no reason, achieving nothing by their sacrifice, or they could try to surrender, and find out what lay in store for them in captivity.

He hated the choice, and if it had been only him, he very well might have fought—and died—in the hopeless struggle. But he had fourteen hundred men and women in his defense boats and on the fortresses. Most of them were planetary militia, not full time Confed navy. Pilson had been in the navy, for ten years before retiring to take the local defense command in his home system, and the streak of defiance in him was strong. But not strong enough to send more than a thousand part-time warriors, friends and neighbors as well as subordinates, to certain death.

He would contact the enemy, ask for terms.

And hope they didn’t just come on and blast his tiny force to dust anyway.

*

“Commander Ilius, the enemy force is attempting to contact us. It appears they wish to surrender.”

Ilius sat in the center of the vast control room, the sprawling nerve center of the vast ship he now commanded. The vessel had been an imperial construct, built centuries before and rediscovered in far better condition than any other old tech vessels yet found. It had been called Project Zed for the years—decades—it had taken to study and repair it, to integrate new Hegemony systems and controls onto the vastly superior old tech foundation the vessel provided.

There had been doubts, and heated debates in the Council about the vast sums expended, and the immense flow of precious resources the project had consumed, but in the end the naysayers, those who claimed the Zed could never succeed, had been proven wrong.

Project Zed was active, the vessel was in space, under its own propulsion, following the fleet. And what had been known for so long by its code designation now had a more conventional name.

The Colossus.

The thing almost defied any normal imagining of a spaceship. Over sixty kilometers in length, it outmassed the largest Hegemony monitors by a factor of nearly five hundred to one. It bristled with weapons, and only partially active as it was, it outgunned the entire Hegemony fleet. It was a doomsday device, a weapon of such withering power, Ilius couldn’t imagine the enemy would choose to continue the fight.

Not after they saw his new command in action.

“Ignore the communications, Kiloron.” Ilius wasn’t a brutal man, and he didn’t enjoy needless killing. But the sooner the Confederation understood what they faced, the quicker their intractable defense would end. His eyes moved over the display, and he shook his head at the motley flotilla floating in space between the Hegemony fleet and the system’s inhabited planets.

The rest of the fleet could easily obliterate so small a force, but they hadn’t come here to demonstrate the power of the battleships and escorts that had fought the Rimdwellers for six bloody years.

They had come to display the power of Colossus.

“Weapons systems online, Kiloron. Target the four closest defense vessels, and establish firelock.”

“Yes, Commander.” A few seconds later. “Main batteries locked on and ready to fire.”

It was ridiculous overkill using the primary weapons system to destroy such tiny and poorly armored ships, but displaying the power of those guns was the entire purpose. Ilius knew he could destroy all seventeen of the defense ships as easily as four, but his goal wasn’t increasing the body count…and the obliteration of four ships would serve his purposes as just as effectively.

He looked at the enormous display, and he felt an instant’s hesitation. He was a Master of the Hegemony, one of the most genetically-perfect human beings in existence. Many of his kind succumbed to arrogance and elitism, but Ilius was serious about executing the responsibilities his position placed on him. The Hegemony itself existed for a higher purpose than conquest and power. It existed to gather all humanity together, where the most capable and intelligent specimens, judged by impartial genetic testing and not corrupt politics, could protect them all.

To prevent another disaster like the Great Death.

That was a vital calling, a higher purpose. And yet, Ilius regretted having to kill another few hundred Rimdwellers.

He regretted it, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Nothing would stop him from completing the Hegemony’s sacred mission.

“Locked batteries…fire.”

*

Pilson recoiled as the flash on the display hit his eyes. For an instant, he thought the screen had overloaded, but then the brightness faded, leaving the same view as before.

Minus four of his ships.

He looked down to his own workstation screen, doublechecking what he saw on the large display, even as cold realization gripped him.

The enemy was well out of range, even the railguns on their largest battleships. But they had fired nevertheless, and utterly destroyed four of his ships.

They didn’t fire…it fired…

He felt as though he couldn’t breathe, and he gasped for air. It was no surprise that the massive contact was a warship, and a vastly powerful one, but just then he realized how much he’d relied on whatever doubts his mind had managed to gather, on false hopes that he was wrong, that the thing was something far less deadly than a gargantuan floating fortress.

“Captain, we’re getting comm signals from…”

Pilson raised his hand, stopping the officer’s report. He was getting communications from the rest of the ships. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that. The only reason the orbital platforms and the planetary governments weren’t also on the line was that they were too far back. The light that would tell them what had happened was still traveling through space on its way to them. It would be another two minutes before they saw…and two more before their frantic calls could reach him.

“Resend the communique…and make sure it’s clear we’re surrendering.” Pilson hated himself as the words came out of his mouth. Yielding was difficult enough, but begging the enemy to accept the surrender made him want to grab his sidearm and blow his brains out.

“Yes, Captain.” He could hear the growing fear in the officer’s voice. It was no surprise. No more than a dozen spacers in his entire command had seen real combat, and the rest had, at most, gotten into a scuffle with a smuggler’s ship or crew. “Resending.”

Pilson felt the urge to order his own guns to fire, but the thought was so ridiculous, it almost made him laugh. He was at least a hundred thousand kilometers out of range still, and he suspected his defense boats’ guns would do little more to the immense enemy vessel than throwing rocks at it would.

Still, if he’d been close enough, he would have fired, if only because it would have made him feel better about himself.

He stared at the display, watching, waiting for the next shot to come. The four ships that had been targeted had been the closest to the enemy behemoth, but he guessed his entire flotilla was in range. But nothing happened, no additional fire, nothing on the comm. Just the entire enemy fleet closing steadily, on his ships, and on the planets beyond.

He felt anger, a simmering rage. They were toying with his people, tormenting them before they finished things. He’d have sacrificed himself and his crew if he’d had a chance at closing and ramming one of the approaching vessels. Anything but sitting still, waiting until the enemy decided to kill them all.

Then, the comm officer spun around. “Captain, we’re receiving a transmission.”

“On speaker, Lieutenant.” Pilson figured his people deserved to hear what their killers had to say.

“…repeat, Confederation force, your surrender is accepted subject to the following terms. You will power down all ships and remain in position. You will evacuate all personnel from the orbital forts around planets two and three, and you will complete said operation in one hour. Both planets will surrender at once and prepare to receive occupation forces. Refusal to any of these terms will result in the immediate destruction of all vessels and fortresses, and invasions of the inhabited worlds.” A short pause. Then, ominously, “You have one minute to respond.”

There was relief, and then Pilson felt sick. He could surrender his ships, but he couldn’t communicate with the planets or the forts in time. He scooped up his headset and pulled it on. “This is Captain Charles Pilson, commanding Phantara defense forces. I accept your surrender terms regarding my ships, but I cannot reach the orbital platforms or planetary authorities within your stated time period.” He hesitated, and then he added, hating himself as he said it, “I do not anticipate any difficulties in securing the surrenders of the fortresses and the planets, subject to the time constraints and distance involved.”

He waited, his stomach doing flops, and for a few seconds, he wondered if he would prefer it if the enemy just blew his ship to plasma without warning. That would be quick, and his pain and shame would be over. But then, a response came in.

“Captain Pilson, your surrender is accepted, subject to your obtaining the agreement to all terms by the commanders of the fortress platforms and the duly constituted planetary authorities. Your vessels are to power down at once, but your flagship may maintain sufficient energy output to facilitate the required communications.”

Pilson let out a deep breath, realizing he’d wanted to survive more than he had realized.

He looked over at the tactical station. “Order all ships to power down immediately.” Then he tapped the side of his headset, and he said, “Understood. All ships are powering down now. I will contact the orbital platforms and ground authorities at once.”

Pilson held back a sigh. He’d retired from the navy to come back, to live a quiet life patrolling the backwater system he called home.

And instead, you end up surrendering to the biggest damned Hegemony ship in space…

*

“Our scans suggest evacuation operations have been completed, but we’re too far out for sufficiently detailed scans to confirm that.”

“They have had sufficient time to comply, Kiloron. I was very clear. If they have failed to complete their evacuations, the consequences are on their heads. Main guns are to target both orbital platforms immediately, and prepare to fire.” Colossus hovered within range of planet two, surrounded by more than a hundred battleships and a vast array of escorts and support ships. It was an almost absurd force to face such a piddling system, but that was the point. If Ilius could make clear to the Confederation’s leaders that further resistance was pointless, he just might be able to end the war sooner, before millions more were killed on both sides. That was one reason he and Chronos had chosen such a small system. Perhaps they could send their message without devastating the massively populated Iron Belt worlds that lay ahead.

It was worth trying, at least.

“Weapons stations report ready, Commander.”

Ilius hesitated, but just for a few seconds. He could easily wait to confirm that everyone was off the two platforms. He’d given the Confeds a very tight schedule to complete the evacuations, and another twenty minutes wasn’t going to make much difference.

But he wasn’t going to wait. If the Hegemony was going to compel the Confederation to surrender, he had to make sure his words were taken seriously. He’d given them sufficient time, and they had to understand he meant what he said.

“Fire.” His voice was almost devoid of emotion.

He watched as the vast main batteries fired, and the two orbital stations, weak as such things went, but still sizable constructs, essentially vanished. One disappeared entirely in a burst of thermonuclear fury, leaving nothing but radiation and heat where millions of tons of steel had been seconds before. The other was ripped into three sections, quickly crumbling into a floating field of twisted wreckage, and molten steel that refroze seconds later and began a slow and tortuous descent toward the planet’s atmosphere.

Ilius sat for a moment, awash in awe for the new weapons, and the awesome firepower the imperial-Hegemony hybrid possessed. Project Zed had not been simply a construction effort, it had required a national push to stockpile sufficient quantities of antimatter to power the vessel. No other energy source could feed its massive engines, its awesome weapons. And, even for the Hegemony, antimatter was a precious and staggeringly expensive commodity. Ilius was a highly-ranked Master, but he was below Chronos’s level, and he wasn’t privy to the most classified information. Still, he was pretty sure completing and fueling the Colossus had pushed the Hegemony’s economy to the brink of collapse.

More pressure, urgency for the great weapon to make the difference, and win the war.

Ilius was quiet for a moment, and then he turned his head toward the communications station. “Send a communique to the enemy flagship. They are free to go. We will allow all ships to depart the system through transit point two. They are to leave at once.”

That would be a surprise to the Confederation commander and his spacers. No doubt they’d all been trying to adapt to the prospect of life as prisoners of war. But Ilius didn’t need a few hundred captives. What he needed was for them to go and find the Confed fleet…and to tell their comrades what had happened.

To begin spreading the fear and hopelessness that would end the war.

Chapter Twelve

CFS Dauntless

750,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Danovar

Santara System

Year 321 AC

“Are you ready, Jake?” Tyler Barron stood in his office less than a meter from his strike force commander. From his friend. Barron had depended on Stockton’s seemingly unmatched abilities for as long as he could remember, back to the days when that reliance manifested itself in things like the command of a particularly important patrol mission. Now, Stockton was an admiral, and as soon as he left Barron, he would go down to Dauntless’s flight deck and await the order to launch over six thousand bombers. When that command came, he would lead every one of them forward, on yet another desperate mission.

Perhaps the most desperate yet.

“As ready as I’m going to be, sir. As I’ve been every other time.” Stockton’s voice was stern, and Barron didn’t doubt for an instant his strike force commander would do whatever was necessary to lead his wings into the fight. Still, he couldn’t help but remember a younger Jake Stockton, one full of piss and vinegar. The older man was by far the better leader, but something had been lost in that transition, the charm of the cocky young officer, the charisma of the pilot who scoffed at death every chance he got.

Barron needed the new Stockton, the grim leader who’d led the squadrons into battle so many times with relentless intensity. But he missed the young officer he’d once known.

That Stockton is no more gone than your own younger self. You’ve both become stern old men, hardened by too much death, moving from duty to duty like automatons, never daring to believe that seemingly eternal war could end, that peace could come once again.

Barron knew how fortunate he was that Stockton had become such a capable leader. The fighter wings had accomplished nothing less than saving the Confederation from utter destruction in the current war. Their status as the only major weapon system the nations of the Rim possessed and the Hegemony did not, made that possible, and ensured that they bore the heaviest part of the load time and time again in battle. The wings had suffered crushing losses, but they had given Barron what he’d needed, enough—if barely so—to keep the fleet in the fight, to save the Confederation from conquest.

Even to take the offensive for a campaign, to liberate the capital.

Now, there was another crisis. Barron had interviewed Captain Pilson himself, along with a half dozen of the spacers and officers from Phantara. He’d reviewed the scanner footage, watching more than twenty times as he evaluated the Hegemony’s newest weapon. The Colossus, as they appeared to call it, was vastly stronger than anything the Confederation, or any of its allies, possessed, including the largest fixed fortresses. The power and range of the great ship’s weaponry was nothing short of astonishing.

The Colossus would obliterate the entire Grand Alliance fleet given the chance, probably all on its own. But it wasn’t on its own. It was surrounded by the Hegemony’s entire invasion fleet, now reinforced after the retreat from Olyus.

Barron had kept his confidence in check, even after the victory at Megara. There had been celebrations, and a lot of careless talk about turning points and victory. But Barron had known the Hegemony wasn’t done. He doubted his people had even seized the advantage in the conflict. He counted his own casualties, somberly paging through production figures, training rosters, struggling to replace losses, to keep the fleet strong and ready for the next battle he knew would come.

For the threat he was sure he would face.

Now it had come, and for all his caution, his focus and unstoppable effort, he found himself stunned, shocked at what the Hegemony had thrown into the fight.

The enemy had learned from their strategic mistakes, as well. They were no longer moving on the Core systems, the wealthy and populated, but mostly unproductive worlds that were the Confederation’s oldest. They were heading right for the richest part of the Iron Belt, toward the systems that pumped out ships and weapons and supplies to feed the war effort. Barron knew if his people lost too many of the Iron Belt systems, the war was as good as lost.

But as he’d listened to the chatter in the conference room, the opinions and arguments hurled back and forth, he’d come to his own conclusion. The Hegemony forces weren’t on their current course because they intended to conquer the Iron Belt. They were coming that way because it was one place—perhaps the only place—that Barron would have to defend.

They didn’t intend to hit the industrial heart of the Confederation. They wanted to destroy the Grand Alliance’s fleet. And, their massive new—warship, fortress, Barron wasn’t sure what to call it—made that seem not only possible, but perhaps unavoidable.

Unless the squadrons could save the day one more time.

“Jake…about these double loads…” Barron let his voice trail off. It didn’t take more words to express his concern. Stockton had ordered every bomber in the strike force equipped with the new external mounting systems. Half his ships, at least his Confederation Lightnings, now carried either two plasma torpedoes, or a full dozen cluster bombs. It almost doubled the force’s destructive power, but it rendered the overloaded craft even less maneuverable than they were normally. The squadrons, their evasive capabilities severely reduced, would suffer increased losses as they moved into firing position.

That meant more pilots would die, but it also meant they were likely to deliver more ordnance. They would hit the enemy formations even harder than they had before. As the words had left his mouth, Barron knew what Stockton’s answer would be. What it had to be.

“They can handle it, Admiral. I’ll get them through.” After a few seconds of silence, “I’ve been considering doubling up on payloads anyway, but with that thing…” Stockton reached out his arm, a pointless gesture, perhaps, directed as it was, toward nothing in particular, but one whose meaning was all too clear. “…what choice do we have? The wings have to hit that ship, Admiral, and hit it hard. We have to take that thing out before it can close with our battle line. Things were bad enough with the railguns, but we both know the only way we’re going to destroy that is with bombers.”

Barron hated dumping yet more on Stockton and his beleaguered pilots, but his strike force commander was right. The entire battle plan—assuming the enemy didn’t suddenly cease their apparent advance toward the Iron Belt—was based on massive, overwhelming bombing assaults. Barron had positioned the rest of the fleet far enough back to allow Stockton’s people to return and rearm for a second attack…before the battleships and escorts came into range, and the final stages of the conflict began.

With any luck, the massive new warship would at least be damaged, its weapons arrays degraded, before it could open fire on Barron’s battleships.

“We’re assuming, of course, that our guess is correct, that this is the course they will take.” Barron had thought about little else for the past several days. He couldn’t afford any mistakes, not against that thing. There were alternate routes toward the Iron Belt the enemy could take, but all the others were longer, and Barron would have time to redeploy if he’d chosen incorrectly. Barely perhaps, but enough time, nevertheless.

But he wasn’t wrong. The enemy would come the way he expected because that’s where his fleet was, and that was what they wanted. They had to know he would throw every bomber he could find at the Colossus, and that told him they thought they could handle it. Perhaps they had more escorts, or enhanced point defense systems he didn’t know about. Whatever it was, he took it as a given Stockton’s people would have a hard time taking on the monster ship, that they would meet perhaps the worst resistance they’d yet encountered. But none of that mattered. There was no choice. The wings had to get to the Colossus, and they had to destroy it.

Or, at the very least, they had to hit it hard.

“They’ll be here, Admiral. I can feel them coming.” Barron couldn’t tell how much of Stockton’s claim was in jest and how much the pilot had come to believe he could sense enemy forces approaching from lightyears away. He didn’t care either. After what he’d been through, Jake Stockton was entitled to a touch of eccentricity.

Besides, there had been times he’d almost believed Stockton could smell hostile forces approaching.

“Jake, I just wanted to tell you…well, without you and your pilots and all you have done, we never would have…”

“Admiral Barron…” Atara’s voice blared through the speaker on the desk. The instant he heard her tone, he knew.

The enemy was there.

*

“Transferring launch control to strike force command. You may initiate when ready.” Stockton sat in his fighter, his mind in the strange, seemingly contradictory state of calm and edginess that came on him before battle. The veteran inside, the warrior who’d been in a hundred battles, was steely, ready, fully aware that nerves and fear could only get him killed.

But however many times he’d fought, how many enemies he’d engaged, killed…there was still a tiny bit of the cadet he’d once been within him, just enough to keep a spark of fear ablaze in his mind.

He’d decided long ago not to fight it. It kept him honest…and just maybe, more than any of his other thoughts and abilities, it had kept him alive.

“Understood, flight command. Initiating launch sequence in ten seconds.” He felt a twinge at Stara’s voice, and at his clinical, professional response. He’d intended to go see her after he’d met with Admiral Barron, but the Hegemony forces seemed to have other ideas. He knew she’d understand. Stara was no less a warrior than he was. But still, even his cool focus gave way to the thought he dreaded, the realization that if he didn’t return, he would have missed his last chance to see her, to hold her.

She knows, already. Anything you would have told her…she knows…

“Grand Alliance strike force…commence launch sequence now.” He gripped the controls of his ship and then he took a deep breath and blasted the engines hard. The thrust threw him back into the cushioning of his seat as the Lightning ripped down the launch tube, accelerating at 20g.

Stockton had reordered his wings, moved pilots around to fill holes, replace casualties. He’d honed the organizational table a dozen times, reordered the launch sequences, and modified every tactic his people used.

But one thing stayed the same.

Jake Stockton launched first.

Always.

The battle about to begin would set yet another milestone for him. The largest force he’d ever led, over six thousand bombers. That record was accompanied by one for the number of combatant nations, and of different ship designs in the force. The largest contingent was made up of Confederation Lightnings, the cutting edge in attack craft, but there were squadrons from the Alliance, the Union, and from a dozen tiny principalities out on the Far Rim. He’d done his best to forge them into a single, cohesive force, to bring standards of training and excellence to a high level, but he knew he had clueless rookies out there, stumbling around alongside his hardened veterans.

But first-timers, or aces with histories tracing back to the Union War, they would do their duty. They knew what was at stake, in the war as a whole…and in the monstrosity they were heading out to face. The Colossus was vastly more powerful than any battleship—than any fleet of battleships—and there wasn’t a doubt in Stockton’s mind the war was as good as lost.

Unless his people took that thing down.

He angled his throttle, lining his ship up on the predetermined approach vector. It was much too straightline for his tastes, too predictable. But there was no choice. He had to allow enough time for his ships to get back and rearm for a second strike before the gargantuan enemy vessel could close and ravage the Grand Alliance’s battle line. And, if Captain Pilson and his people had been right—and Stockton believed them completely—Colossus’s main weapons vastly outranged anything the Confeds, or their allies, possessed.

He brought his ship across at an oblique, moving toward the center of the massive formation still coming together. His wings were launching from more than a hundred platforms, and across forty thousand kilometers of open space, his lines slowly took shape. There were three waves, each of them vast, powerful…and every ship capable of it had been double loaded with bombs and torpedoes. It was the single largest conglomeration of destructive force he had ever seen.

And he was about to lead it to the enemy. The one hope to destroy the enemy’s monstrous fortress ship. To save the Confederation, and the entire Rim.

*

“All fleet units to battlestations.” Chronos stood on the bridge of Hegemony’s Glory, holding onto the edge of his chair as the great ship’s engines decelerated hard. It wasn’t time for the battleships to push forward into the fight. Not yet.

Chronos was the overall theater commander, the officer in charge of the entire war, but just then, he intended to stand aside. Ilius would command the initial fighting, from the vast control center at the core of Colossus. The fleet as a whole would take a secondary role in the coming fight, at least at the outset. Hegemony battleships dueling with their Confederation counterparts would be a bloody affair, but it wouldn’t instill the necessary terror, the abject wave of hopelessness he knew it would take to break the enemy’s will, to compel them to surrender.

To end this cursed war at long last…

Colossus was tasked with just that purpose, and the coming battle, the Santara system, would be the stage for its grand debut. The Confeds would come on, no doubt with their usual tactics, but this time they would meet something different. Colossus was like nothing they’d fought before. It’s main guns vastly outranged even the railguns of the Hegemony line ships, and it mounted hundreds of point defense turrets, all directed by a customized AI designed solely to target small craft.

That could very well be enough right there…but Colossus had one more surprise for the enemy, one ready to go, waiting only for Chronos’s command.

“All ships report full readiness, Commander. Colossus is heading in-system, directly behind its escort screen.” That screen consisted of nearly four hundred frigates and light cruisers, formed up in a tight semi-spherical formation, one the attacking bombers would have to engage—or at least fly through—even to get to Colossus.

Chronos looked over at the display, at the vast array of bombers, thousands of them, wave after wave, coming on already, launched from extreme range. That, also, had been predictable. The enemy would want enough time to launch a second strike, and that meant sending off the first while the launch platforms were still far to the rear.

Chronos managed something like a grin as he watched. The enemy wasn’t going to get that second strike in, not if everything went according to plan.

He looked around the bridge, watching as his officers focused on their tasks, but mostly, he was just trying to pass the time. He looked back at the display, checking the bombing strike’s position, the estimated time until it hit the escort screen…and then Colossus.

Minutes passed by, each one achingly slow, but finally. Chronos realized the lead elements of the Rim strike force were moving into range of his escorts.

He issued no orders. His people already knew what to do.

Point defense batteries erupted from the escorts, sending blistering fire toward the bombers. Flashes of light pulsed out from hundreds of laser turrets, and mag cannon launched expanding clouds of heavy metal particles toward the approaching bombers.

The Rim forces reacted, hundreds of squadrons breaking into intricate evasive maneuvers. The wild vector and velocity changes saved hundreds of ships from the deadly defensive fire.

But for hundreds more, it proved inadequate. The rookies, the unskilled, the unlucky, succumbed, their ships blasted to bits, or heavily damaged and knocked out of action. Some of the victims managed to eject, to wait and see if their side prevailed quickly enough to rescue them. Others died immediately, some never even knowing they were hit.

Two hundred ships vanished in a matter of seconds, but still the vast strike force came on. And, still, the guns of the escorts fired, the death toll growing with each passing second, even as the fighters zipped by and the deadly frigates and cruisers spun around and fired from behind.

Chronos had come to respect the Confeds, their tenacity, their courage, their skill, and none more than the small craft pilots, the men and women who had so badly savaged his forces, and who had paid a nightmarish price to do it. He was focused above all things on winning the war, ending the carnage…but he took no joy in the deaths of such warriors, enemies or no.

His eyes moved to the stream of text and numbers on the side of the large screen. The escorts had destroyed or disabled almost five hundred bombers, a horrendous toll on the attackers. Chronos hadn’t dared to expect so many, and, as he his eyes focused on the remaining waves, he could see a sluggishness to their maneuver. Something was different. Perhaps it was just a higher proportion of rookie pilots, but for some reason, the Rim squadrons looked rougher than he’d seen them.

Even as he felt sorrow for the brave warriors being killed, his lips curling into a carnivorous smile. Whatever it was interfering with the enemy maneuver, it was about to come back at the attackers.

The enemy ships would enter Colossus’ defensive fire arc in less than fifteen minutes. But first, he had one more surprise for them. It was time.

He turned toward the comm station. “Get me a line to Commander Ilius, at once.”

The smile was still on his face when the voice of his second in command poured into his ears.

“Is it time, Commander?” Ilius’s words were a question, but his tone made it clear he already knew the answer.

Chronos sat for just a few seconds, and then, he uttered a single word.

“Yes.”

Chapter Thirteen

Free Trader Pegasus

Orbiting Planet Dannith

Ventica System

Year 321 AC

“We should have gone back, Andi. We should have gone to warn the fleet.”

“We can’t go back, not yet. We need more information, some kind of data the fleet can use.” That Tyler can use. “Besides, we’d never get around—or through—that fleet in time. Not without giving our position away.”

Vig had been making the same argument for days, for more than a week, actually. She understood his rationale, and in some ways, she shared it. But turning around and heading back would have been a pointless effort.

First, it was highly unlikely Pegasus could have reached the fleet in time to accomplish anything. Tyler had positioned scouts all around the Ventica system, covering every route Hegemony forces might take to hit any area of the Confederation they didn’t already occupy. That meant, he’d know what was coming long before she could reach him and tell him about it.

Colossus, she thought. The radio intercepts we picked up called it Colossus.

At least we know what Project Zed means now. And Red Storm, too? Why would it have two code names?

“But, Andi, how are we going to get that intelligence? We’ve been here for days now. Do you really think we can land without being detected? And even if, through some miracle we do that, how the hell are we going to take off again? Stealth unit or no, they’re sure to pick up the full blast we’ll need to get to escape velocity.”

Andi had been sitting in orbit for days, waiting, hoping to pick up some careless transmission. But now she knew, she had to do more.

That meant increased danger, but it didn’t mean leading her people to their deaths.

“You’re right. Pegasus could never take off and get into orbit without being detected. That’s why you’re staying here, Vig.”

“What? Me? What about you? You just going to walk down? Or maybe you’re going to fly…”

“Not fly, at least not exactly. I’m going to use the capsule.”

Vig stared at her, his face a mask of horror. “No, Andi. No way.” The capsule had been on Pegasus for years, so long that it had picked up a half dozen origin stories. Andi had accepted it in trade for something else. She had won it in a poker game. Even that it was old tech, which didn’t even make sense because the name of the manufacturer was stamped right on the thing. But she’d long since stopped expecting pure logic to prevail on such matters.

After a few seconds, Vig continued, throwing more arguments at her. “We don’t even know if that thing will work. It’s too risky. It’s an insane plan, and even if you somehow manage to get to the surface in one piece, how the hell are you going to get back?”

“I’m not.” The words carried a funeral-like finality.

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“I mean I’ll be stuck down there, probably for the duration.” Her voice was deadpan, and it was clear to anyone who knew her at all—and few had known her as long or as well as Vig Merrick—that she was deadly serious.

“What’s the point of you getting stuck down there? Andi, even if you can stay hidden and get some kind of information, it won’t do anyone any good with you stranded on the surface.”

“That’s why you’re going to position Pegasus at a specified location every day at nineteen hundred hours planetary standard time. I’ve already entered the coordinates in the nav computer. It will handle the maneuver, and get you there with the least possible thrust output. With any luck, you’ll stay safely hidden while you’re still here.” Okay, maybe ‘safe’ is a strong word…

“Andi, that’s insane. And what do you mean ‘while we’re still here?’”

“Actually, it’s entirely sane, Vig, and quite well thought out. I’ve been analyzing it from every perspective since we left Megara.”

“Please tell me you don’t expect us to leave you here and go back once you transmit us information, assuming you do manage to find some useful intelligence? Please don’t tell me that.”

“That’s just what you’re going to do, Vig. You’re going to get the information, my ship, and the rest of the crew out of this system. You’re going to nudge slowly out of orbit and work your way back to the point the best you can, using minimal thrust until you’ve transited. Then you’re going to find Tyler and the fleet, and you’re going to see that he gets the full report.”

“And leave you here? Never! I won’t do it, Andi. Not if you order me to, not if a hundred Kriegeri show up and jam shotguns down my throat.” Vig was as upset as she’d ever seen him, and his voice was cracking.

“Vig, old friend…please. Don’t make this harder. You are as loyal as they come, but this is what I have to do. That thing has to be a weapon, a warship of some kind. You know that, I know that…let’s not pretend. If we don’t find some kind of weakness, you know what’s going to happen. It’s going to destroy the fleet. The whole damned fleet. It’s going to kill everyone we care about, and its going to bring the Confederation—the whole Rim—to its knees.”

Andi paused for a few seconds, struggling to regain her control. She was upset, too, scared out of her wits, not only of the danger she knew she’d be in, but that she wouldn’t be able to find anything, that she’d go down there for no reason, and everything she’d seen in her mind, every disaster—every image of Tyler’s death—would actually happen.

“Vig, no one knows the shitholes down on Dannith like I do…you have to admit that, and I’d wager that whatever kind of control the Hegemony has exerted down there, whatever parts of their warped and perverse society they’ve begun to impose, some of those lowlifes we used to deal with are still underground, quiet maybe, trying to go unnoticed, but still there. And if they’re still loose, they still know what’s going on. They’ll have information to sell, I’m almost sure of that. I know you’re worried, but I’ll be better on my own anyway, faster, more agile. It’s not like I’m going to fight my way in and out anyway.” Half of what she said was the pure truth, and the other half was a combination of things she was throwing at her friend in a frantic attempt to get his cooperation. She had enough to deal with struggling with her own fear. She trusted the atmospheric drop capsule about as much as she would a snake in her sleeping bag. But she knew what she had to do, and the last thing she needed was a fight with Vig sapping what strength she had managed to muster.

“Please, Vig.” Her voice was soft, almost shaky. She was straight out pleading with him. She was going to go no matter what, and she’d fight like hell with him if she had to. But she desperately wanted to part with him on good terms. There was too much chance she’d never see him again for their words now to be spoken in anger. “I don’t want to argue with you, not now.”

Merrick had a scowl on his face, but suddenly it slipped off, replaced by a sad, confused stare. “Andi…”

“I know, Vig. But I have to do it. One of us does…and before you jump up and say you should go, be honest. Who has better contacts down there than me? We have no idea who’s still there, who was rounded up, put out of business…killed. I’ve got the best chance of connecting with somebody, and whatever danger is involved, isn’t it worse if nothing is gained? I have a chance, at least, to make a difference. The Confederation needs help. Will I be better off hiding and waiting until we’re conquered, turned into slaves of the Hegemony?”

She could see almost immediately that Vig saw the reason in her words. She could also tell he was trying to fight it. But under his loyalty and devotion—and a good touch of raw stubbornness—Vig Merrick had always been a pragmatist. “Andi…”

“There’s no other way, Vig, and you know it. Now, please…you know I’m going to do this, so help me instead of arguing with me. Or come at me with shackles, because that’s the only way you’re going to stop me.” That was a dirty trick, she knew. Vig would never fight her, not even if he thought he was doing it for her own good.

Besides, she was pretty sure she could take him.

“Okay, Andi.” His voice was like death, filled with grim acceptance.

“Thank you, my friend.” She turned and looked toward the door leading off the bridge. “Let’s go check out the capsule. That thing’s been in there for years, and I’d just as soon make sure it’s in decent working order before I jump. Two hundred kilometers is a long way down.”

It was a joke but, she decided the instant she’d said it, a poorly-timed one.

*

The Spacer’s District hadn’t changed.

That wasn’t true, she realized. It had changed enormously. It was quiet, the ever-present street traffic all but gone. The Kriegeri posted at various street corners had done more than the Troyus City police had ever managed to do to keep order.

Fear will do that…

But at its heart, the place was the same. It wasn’t as visible as it had been, but she could sense it, feel it. The Hegemony had driven them all in—the underworld elements, the adventurers, the sleazy information brokers—but she’d have bet her last credit they hadn’t been driven out. Not all of them. Not yet.

She could find what she’d come for, she was sure of it.

If she was careful.

And lucky.

She walked straight down the street as a pair of Kriegeri guards marched past her. She was sure one of them was looking at her, and she did everything she could to look natural, to blend in. She’d agonized over whether to bring a weapon down with her, and she’d finally decided not to. She’d regretted it almost the instant she’d hit the ground, but even so, intellectually, she was still pretty sure it had been the right decision. There were too many high-tech ways to detect weapons, and the last thing she needed was attention from the occupying forces. And getting caught with a gun was something unlikely to end well.

At least there seems to be some kind of normal activity on the streets. She’d been afraid the population would be confined to their homes for all or most of the day. That would have made getting around unnoticed all but impossible.

The flight down had been…well, it had been all kinds of things. Terrifying was the first one that came to mind, and the one she knew she’d never forget. She’d no sooner stepped out of Pegasus’s airlock and begun the long descent to the surface when she’d decided the whole thing was insane, that there was no way she’d reach the ground in one piece. That moment of doubt had conveniently—or inconveniently, depending on perspective—come a few seconds too late for her to back out of the whole thing. Once she was plunging toward the surface, there was little she could do except hope for the best…and try to keep herself together.

She struggled to breath the entire way down, to keep her stomach from heaving up its contents. She was on bottled air at first, a necessity at such low atmospheric density, and for some reason, that made it harder to breathe normally. The cool, sterile, oxygen rich mixture seemed to heighten her tension.

It had been dark, as well. She wanted all the cover she could get, and the risk of being spotted was exponentially higher in daylight. Still, dropping into a seemingly endless void in the cold darkness was hard on the human psyche. Even Andi’s.

The drop had been mostly freefall, and the only control she’d had over her descent consisted of two condensed air jets, enough to adjust her course, to react if the atmospheric currents pulled her away from her chosen landing spot, but not much more. She had one small portable thruster, with just enough fuel for a single shielded blast, but that was for her landing. It had baffles around the tiny cone, and it was designed for maximum possible stealth. Still, she’d been well aware all along that the final landing would be the most dangerous moment.

She would have preferred to come down right in the Spacer’s District, but she couldn’t risk being seen, so she’d landed outside the city instead, a choice that had created other risks, the most dangerous of which had been a ten kilometer walk back to the city limits.

She’d been worried about enemy patrols, concerned that someone might have spotted her braking thruster, even apprehensive about whether civilians might find her and alert the enemy, intentionally or not. The residents of the occupied world were scared at the very least, she knew, and considering how long Dannith had been controlled by the enemy, some of them were quite possibly brainwashed.

But there had been nothing. No enemy troops, no nosy civilians. She might have been taking a pleasant stroll in the countryside.

Except for the cold. She’d ditched the clunky insulated pod that had kept her—barely—from freezing on the way down, but there hadn’t been room for much in the way of a coat or heavy clothing underneath. She had allocated almost every gram of storage she had to the bags of platinum she’d brought down with her, the currency that would hopefully buy the information she’d come for.

As she walked, she wondered if she couldn’t have done without a few extra hectocredits and managed to cram in a decent coat. It was very early spring on Dannith’s northern hemisphere, and unseasonably chilly at Port Royal City’s latitude.

Good, she’d thought, as her mind considered things from another perspective. She pulled the light jacket she had around her and continued her trek. Anything to keep people inside.

It had taken four hours, long for a hike of that distance, but she’d stopped half a dozen times to scout around and sit quietly, listening for any sounds. There had been nothing, and all her caution seemed almost to no purpose. She was unnerved at the ease of her walk into the city, and even right to the Spacer’s District. She’d expected to encounter more guards, patrols…something.

It was about an hour after dawn, and she continued on her way, maintaining her discipline, only glancing back once to check on the Kriegeri as they continued down the street.

There’s definitely no curfew, at least not during the day. That will help.

She realized she had almost no information on Hegemony occupation protocols, an inexcusable oversight considering the Confederation had just liberated its capital from the enemy. It wasn’t possible to think of everything, of course, but Andi tended to hold herself to high standards, and she was angry at her unpreparedness, at her failure to even inquire. Carelessness could easily get her killed.

Would almost certainly get her killed if she didn’t do the damned best she could to stay sharp.

Nothing to be done about it now. You’ll just have to learn as you go.

She turned around a corner, moving down a dingy side street. The buildings were decidedly more worn down than those on the main thoroughfare—and those had been nothing all that special. But it was all familiar, and more than she’d imagined possible, in some ways that tugged at her memories, it felt almost like home.

She’d been eighteen when she’d arrived on Dannith for the first time, and while she’d been homeless for most of her childhood on the miserable planet of her birth, she’d never sunk quite that low in the Spacer’s District. She’d come close once or twice, though, down to her last few coins, and she’d scouted around, checking for out of the way spots, places she could stay out of sight and not attract attention.

She’d never had to sleep on the street in Port Royal City, or in some abandoned old building, not when she’d been a young, almost destitute girl, and even less so when she’d been a daring Badlands rogue and adventurer.

Now, she was back on Dannith, an immensely wealthy woman, owner of a palatial estate on a paradise world, with a dozen hidden bank accounts on four different planets…and she was about to live the life of a homeless derelict.

Such was the call of duty.

Chapter Fourteen

CFS Dauntless

750,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Danovar

Santara System

Year 321 AC

“Commander, the enemy is…”

“Yes, I see them, Kiloron.” Chronos was already staring at the display, watching in amazement at the force the Rimdwellers had managed to assemble, and at the number of ships that had made it past the first line of defense.

The escorts had fought savagely, cutting down swaths of the enemy attack craft. Six years of refinements and tactical adjustments in the use of the defensive ships had coalesced into a potent and deadly force, and hundreds of enemy fighters were destroyed in a matter of minutes.

The sight encouraged him, to a point. There was cause for pride in how Hegemony forces, from weapons developers to gunners to AI programmers, had adjusted to face a deadly weapon system they didn’t possess, and had never faced before the current war. Six years was a long time to endure carnage and unending conflict, but it was an instant in terms of developing new systems and seeing them deployed.

Still, there was doubt, too. The escorts had inflicted terrible losses, but the Rimdwellers had also performed well over the years, improved their own hardware, developed new tactics to face the Hegemony’s fleets. Chronos’s forces had won more engagements than their enemies, but the commander was the first to acknowledge they had shockingly little to show for it.

He knew the Hegemony’s sacred mission, to steward mankind forward, to ensure that the most intelligent and capable led the others into the future…and most of all, to do whatever was necessary to prevent another disaster like the Great Death.

Chronos still believed in that mission, perhaps more now than ever before, but his resolve was also faltering, and he nursed a growing wish that the Rimdwellers had never ventured into Hegemony space, that they had remained unknown to his people. They would make a fine addition to the Hegemony, certainly, especially the Confeds, a fact that was evidenced by every stubborn stand they made, every reminder of the incredible productive resources they commanded.

But Chronos was weary of war, sick of the endless losses.

Despite the numerical and technological advantages possessed by the Hegemony, every engagement to date had been a bloodbath. The fight now underway looked no different. The fire from the escorts had been withering, but the Rim wings simply pressed on, ignoring casualties, closing ranks as they continued on toward Colossus.

Chronos drew no real satisfaction from the casualties inflicted on the enemy squadrons. He had been a warrior most of his adult life, and it felt somehow…wrong…to cut down such brave fighters, enemy or not. The Hegemony’s sacred purpose was to protect humanity, not to wage endless bloody war against other human civilizations. How many men and women would he have to kill to protect the survivors?

Notwithstanding appearances, though, the current battle was different from the ones that had come before. He believed Colossus could end the nightmare, that the vast construct had enough power to finally win the war. No, he knew it.

Still, he still couldn’t purge the stubborn doubts that floated in his mind. He’d expected victory before, more than once, but for six years, even triumph in the field had failed to produce the desired end of the war.

This time, Chronos wasn’t giving the orders, at least not the direct tactical ones. Hegemony’s Glory was back near the entry transit point, thirty million kilometers from Colossus and her escorts. The behemoth was positioned well forward for a reason. The great ship was strong, perhaps powerful enough to destroy any fleets and fortresses it faced alone. But that wasn’t why the great ship was out in front. Chronos had unleashed Colossus precisely because it offered the possibility of eliminating the necessity of hunting down and obliterating the enemy’s forces. Just maybe, it provided the chance to break the enemy’s morale, to finally convince them resistance was hopeless. He would inflict a devastating defeat on them, and allow them to see Colossus’s full abilities. Then he would offer the terms he and Akella had discussed before she’d returned home, a face-saving way for the Confederation and its allies to yield. A surrender in all but name, perhaps, but from such distinctions, diplomacy was made.

Chronos knew the power of Colossus. As Number Eight and a member of the Council, he’d been aware of Project Zed since its beginning, long before the war with the Rimdwellers had begun. The ship had been found more than twenty years before, floating dead in space, yet another piece of imperial debris, an ancient ruin drifting through the darkness. It had been damaged, but close inspection confirmed it to be the single best-preserved imperial artifact ever retrieved. The technology was advanced, far beyond even Hegemony science, but two decades of relentless effort had succeeded in restoring the vessel to functionality. Some of that work had been research, learning to repair and utilize old imperial technology. More, even, had involved adapting Hegemony science to fill the gaps, replacing damaged imperial systems with inferior, but still effective, Hegemonic replacements.

The result was an amalgam of imperial and Hegemony technology, and as vast and powerful as the restored ship’s systems were, Chrono knew its power had only been partially recovered. Inside its vast hull, there were seemingly endless empty corridors, unused chambers, ancient imperial equipment and mysterious systems that remained dark as they still defied the efforts of Hegemony scientists to uncover their secrets. Colossus was the most powerful thing in known space, yet barely half its potential strength had yet been tapped.

The decision to deploy the great vessel in its current condition had been a difficult one, and Chrono knew Akella had pushed the orders through. The ship had never been intended for use on the Rim. It was the Hegemony’s secret weapon, the core of its efforts to prepare to face the Others, if and when that shadowy threat returned. Chronos knew he had to use the giant vessel to great effect, and do it quickly. He’d never been among those fearful of the Others, but now he realized, the sooner Colossus was back protecting the core side of the Hegemony, the better he would feel.

He inhaled deeply, and he straightened himself in his chair, his back like a ramrod. It was almost time. He knew very well the effectiveness of the enemy’s small craft, the deadly destruction they had unleashed on Hegemony battle lines. But Colossus was different. Its defensive array was incredibly vast, hundreds of point defense turrets positioned all along the vast hull. Those guns would tear into the approaching bombers. They would exact a terrible toll. But the rows of gun emplacements weren’t the only danger waiting for the approaching Rim bombers.

Not this time.

*

“I know these things handle like pigs, with the doubled payloads and all, but that doesn’t mean we just ignore evasive maneuvers. Stay focused, all of you, dammit, and pay attention. I don’t even want to think about the defensive array that thing has. If you fly straight into it, you might as well shoot yourselves right now, and save everybody the trouble.”

Stockton was mad, enraged at the losses his people had suffered coming through the enemy’s escort line. Part of that fury was directed at his pilots—especially the newbs who clearly hadn’t listened well enough when he’d pounded the idea of evasive flight plans into their heads. He hadn’t had time to review the formation statuses closely enough to be sure, but he figured a large percentage of the losses had been among those raw recruits. That had been inevitable, to a point, but he’d trained the new squadrons, repeated his lessons ruthlessly, ran them through endless exercises. He’d let himself believe his tireless efforts would cut down on the horrifying losses among the green pilots, and he was furious at the realization that almost none of it seemed to have accomplished anything.

There was more to his fury, though. He was pushing his own guilt away…and onto the rookies. He had ordered the ships doubled loaded with bombs, all of them, and he knew very well the reduced maneuverability had affected the loss ratios. He would punish himself later for that, but in that moment, he was taking it out on his pilots.

“Stay sharp. We’ve got to hit that thing hard. And I mean hard!” He kicked up his thrust to maximum power even as he finished speaking, blasting his ship out well in front of the formation. It was dangerous, foolhardy even, to expose himself so far out, alone in the front, but his wings had never faced a more important fight, and he wanted them to see their leader taking them in.

Morale would be crucial in the coming moments. He needed his pilots to stay focused, even as they endured the withering fire he knew was coming. Colossus was immense. He had no idea how many hits it would take to seriously damage it, or to destroy it.

Or if his wings could even take the thing down.

And it was just a guess how much anti-fighter firepower the behemoth packed.

His eyes darted down to his controls, checking quickly on the distance to the target. He could only speculate on the range of the Colossus’s defensive batteries, but he figured the shit could hit the fan just about any time.

He was focused, however, and he had managed to keep his fear and uncertainty mostly at bay. Still, the slickness inside his flight suit and the row of beaded sweat along his forehead suggested his efforts hadn’t been entirely successful.

He’d seen the video Captain Pilson and his people had brought back, and he’d reviewed Anya Fritz’s preliminary range and power estimates on Colossus’s main weapons. He was no expert on capital ship power comparisons, but what he did know left little doubt.

That thing would savage the fleet if it got into range.

He tried to tell himself an all-out attack by the combined force of battleships might succeed, but he didn’t really believe it. And such a sacrificial assault, even if, through some miracle, it succeeded, would leave the Hegemony fleet untouched and ready to move forward virtually unopposed.

He had to destroy the monster ship, and he had to do it now. Even if he did, the fleet faced a deadly fight against the enemy battle line. With Colossus still in the mix, the fight would be over before it began.

“With me, all of you. Kick up forward thrust to full. We’re going right through the defensive envelope…and then we’re going to show that thing just what bombers can do.”

*

Ilius stood in the center of Colossus’s control room. The space was vast, and his command staff occupied less than half of it. Unlike the rambling, unrepaired sections throughout the giant vessel, the bridge had been fully updated, and rows of sparkling Hegemony workstations, both occupied and unoccupied, sat in serried ranks.

There were more than five thousand bombers closing on his ship, and veteran that he was, Ilius couldn’t help but feel a coldness inside. He’d faced too many Rim attack wings, seen firsthand just what they had done, even to the large and powerful battleships of the Hegemony line.

The escorts had done well, about on par with his expectations, and Colossus’s point defense array would slice even deeper into the enemy formations. But bombers were difficult to target with ship-mounted weapons, and he knew thousands of them would get through any barrage, however well-executed.

Any enemy that closed to close attach range faced their own challenges, of course. Colossus was immense, and its armor dwarfed anything he’d seen on another warship. The enemy’s bombs and torpedoes, which had so savaged the Hegemony’s battleships in past fights, would have a much harder time drawing blood.

But the incoming strike force was vast. Ilius didn’t know if even Colossus could stand up to that kind of assault on its own, if the vast belts of imperial alloy in the armor could withstand such enormous numbers of warheads slamming into the hull.

And he wasn’t going to find out. Not this time.

Project Zed had been in the works for decades, its deployment to the Rim War just happenstance. But Ilius had something else, something devised purely for use against the Rim dwellers. Something that would change the course of the war, perhaps no less than Colossus itself.

He stood stone still, wishing he could contact Chronos, that he could shift the burden of the momentous orders to the fleet’s supreme commander. Ilius had never been one to shirk from responsibility, but he knew the stakes in the campaign that had just begun, and he was well aware of the importance of the new weapon, one with great promise, but also one that was untested.

But tested or not, it was time. Time to unleash Red Storm.

He turned toward the tactical station, his eyes cold, focused. “Kiloron, activate Red Storm.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Ilius took a deep breath, his mind wandering, deep within Colossus, to the sections now spurring into frenzied action. He understood the gravity of the orders he’d just given, and the importance of what was about to happen.

His eyes moved back to the display, to the hordes of enemy bombers still moving directly for Colossus.

Yes…it is time.

*

“Admiral…I think my scanners are malfunctioning.” Alicia Covington’s voice was halting, shaky. In all the combats he’d fought with her, Stockton had never detected the slightest fear in her.

Until that moment.

He looked down at his own scanner as he replied. “Captain, I don’t know what’s happening with your scanners, but this thing’s so damned big, you should be…” His voice stopped cold.

There was something on his screen, too. Something unknown, unexpected.

His hands moved over the controls, increasing power to the scanners and engaging the AI. Something was appearing next to Colossus. Had there been some kind of ships tucked behind, more escorts hiding in the great vessel’s shadow?

No…they’re not big enough. They almost look like…

His blood froze.

He lurched back, sitting rigid like a statue, unable to pull his eyes from his screen as his hands raced across his controls.

No…no, it can’t be…

“Admiral…” Covington again, but a few seconds later Timmons came on the line as well.

“Raptor, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Dirk Timmons was another hardcore veteran, perhaps the best pilot on the Rim after Stockton. But in that instant, he sounded like a rookie fresh out of flight school, shaken and uncertain.

Stockton’s comm pinged again, half a dozen times, then a dozen…wing commanders, squadron leaders, worried pilots all trying to reach him, to tell him what he already knew.

What he was struggling to face, to accept.

Then his hand moved down to the controls, and he flipped the comm to the general frequency.

“All squadrons, break off at once. Decelerate at full and come around to head back to the fleet.”

But even as he said the words, he knew it was too late. His bombers were coming in at better than five thousand kilometers per second. Even at full thrust, they’d be almost on top of Colossus before they managed to reverse their vectors.

But he didn’t know what else to do, so he just repeated the orders.

“All squadrons, abort. Repeat, abort. Return to base at maximum thrust.”

Even as he spoke, his eyes were fixed, immovable, locked on the small screen.

Watching fighters pouring out of Colossus.

Row after row of fighters, hundreds of them.

Thousands.

Chapter Fifteen

Planet Calpharon

Sigma Nordlin IV

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

Akella walked down the hallway that connected the section of the massive palace that contained her quarters with the wing that housed her offices. She was dressed casually, neither in her uniform, nor the formal suit she often wore to work. Akella had never subscribed to the idea that she should dress how society expected, behave how she was supposed to behave. She’d exhibited that rebellious streak in a number of ways since she’d ascended to the position of the Hegemony’s Number One, nowhere more profoundly than in her disregard for what most people considered her obligation to bear five or six, or more, children. That had been less a deliberate refusal than the result of the pressures of her office, but she’d still heard her fair share of complaints about it—and ignored them all. That, at least, was an important matter, at the core of the Hegemony’s purpose to sustain and advance strong genetic lines. The clothing she wore in her own palace was not. Anyone who was going to object to her rushing to deal with an emergency without first dressing as some expected of Number One of the Hegemony could shove it hard and deep.

She was being followed, as always, by her inseparable guards, and she knew better than to try to convince them she was safe enough in the palace. They were elite Kriegeri, sworn to defend her with their lives, and they took that vow very seriously.

She’d been spending less time with her staff attending to affairs of state in the months since she’d returned from the Rim. That was natural enough, of course, since she’d given birth less than four months before, to her second child, and from the confluence of her age and the events closing in on her, very possibly her last. There were scientific methods, of course, ways to extend her fertility, but Hegemonic law outright banned most such procedures. The rules of the Hegemony were rooted in an acute awareness of the mistakes of the past, and the terrible consequences they had visited on mankind. Genetic engineering of any kind, save only for careful selection of pairs for natural conception, violated the most sacred of Hegemonic laws. Such practices, allowed to spiral wildly out of control, had come close to exterminating humanity, and the society Akella led was dedicated above all to preventing the horrors of the past from recurring.

But post-pregnancy and the desire to spend time with her newborn had been only one of her reasons she had embraced an increased level of seclusion. She had others.

Her visit to the Rim front had left her profoundly shaken. She had presided, during her years as Number One, over a number of minor absorption conflicts, seen a half dozen systems taken into the Hegemony’s all-embracing arms. But she had never even imagined anything remotely like the nightmare on the Rim. She’d read all the reports, of course, seen the casualty lists, but seeing the severity of the losses first hand, witnessing the savagery of the fighting…it had left her troubled, and deeply uncertain. The enemy’s surprise attack to reclaim their capital—when she herself had been there—had shaken her confidence that the Hegemony forces would prevail, at least in any kind of reasonable time and at an acceptable cost.

Her uncertainty extended not just about what to do, or how to proceed on the Rim… but also about the very nature of the Hegemony’s most sacred duty. To unite and defend all humanity. To prevent another nightmare like the Great Death.

She’d always believed in that utterly, accepted it as her solemn charge as the ruler of the Hegemony. She was descended, as most Hegemony residents were, from just such a people, inhabitants a system that was invaded and conquered, and then taken into the Hegemonic structure. She had been a child then, but she remembered it all well. There had been no reprisals, no punitive actions against the conquered. Once her people had ceased resistance, they became citizens of the Hegemony, and the ones whose genetic ratings qualified them became Masters, with all the rights and opportunities such individuals possessed anywhere. She herself, had even risen to the highest position, solely on the basis of her genetic rating, with no prejudice whatsoever against her place of birth.

But now she had doubts about the system over which she presided, at least about the compulsion to absorb all other humans. Her world was better off, certainly, as were most of those she could easily name. But how many people could she justify killing in the name of protecting the survivors before such a high sounding calling lost all meaning? How much relentless death and slaughter was too much?

She knew that every battle, every bloody massacre, every Rimdweller sobbing over the loss of a loved one—only increased and hardened the rage and bitterness among those the Hegemony sought to ‘protect.’ How was she going to bring the Rim into the fold, integrate them into Hegemonic society, when her people had become the blackest of enemies in the minds of the populace?

Such thoughts had plagued her since she’d returned, weighing even on her happiness at the birth of her daughter. She wasn’t accustomed to uncertainty, to flat out not knowing what to do, and she found it profoundly disconcerting. All she could do was hope that Colossus was able to break the will of the Rimdwellers and bring a swift end to the war. Perhaps then, the healing could begin. It might be too late for those who’d fought, who’d borne the brunt of the war, to ever integrate fully, but the young would be educated in Hegemonic tradition and law, and raised to be loyal citizens. If it took a generation, even two, to fully absorb the Rim, so be it.

She’d done all she could to aid in that endeavor, ordering Colossus to the Rim, consenting to concessions in the terms Chronos was authorized to offer the Confeds and their allies. The changes were revolutionary, borderline sacrilegious even, and she knew they would cause an outright scandal on Calpharon and among the ruling Council when they became public. But such were the burdens of war, and she would face all of that when it was necessary. If it was necessary.

But just then, she had other problems, concerns that threatened to overwhelm even her worries about the war on the Rim.

The report had been a short one, concise. Successor had entered the capital system, and it was even then moving toward Calpharon. The ship was clearly badly damaged, and it had failed to respond to multiple contact attempts. Akella had ordered it intercepted and boarded at once. Most likely, she suspected, the ship’s silence was the result of a malfunction. It wasn’t the lack of normal communications that bothered her so much as the rest of the damage the ship had clearly taken. No matter how hard she’d tried to explain that to herself, she could only come up with one explanation. One that terrified her.

And the fact that Successor was alone, with no sign of the task force the flagship had led, only fanned the flames of her fear.

There were innumerable clichés about one’s ‘worst fears coming true,’ but Akella realized that was just what was happening to her.

“Number One…we have received a communique from Santarus.” Sevilla was one of her aides, a Kriegeri of moderately high rating, if one still ranked low enough to make such close service to a Number One seem odd. Akella paid some heed to ratings, of course. That could only be expected from the individual rated first among hundreds of billions, but in actual fact, she tended to judge people by their actions and knowledge. She trusted Sevilla, and the aide had always been reliable and capable. Unlike most of her predecessors, Akella had not replace her lower-ranked staff members and aides when she’d ascended to her place as the head of the Council. She was fiercely loyal by nature, and not prone to becoming starstruck by her own position and power. “They have dispatched a wedge of assault shuttles with a Kriegeri team. They will board Successor in moments.”

That wasn’t exactly news of course, not to Akella’s view. She’d ordered just what the aide had described, and she was accustomed to her orders being carried out. But she knew Sevilla was only keeping her apprised, and she nodded her acknowledgements before taking the last few steps into her Sanctum.

The office was large and opulent, almost embarrassingly so, though that had been the work of the man who had held her post before her. She had inherited many things, in both her work areas and living quarters, but she’d proven to be quite austere for a Hegemonic Number One. Aside from a few personal modifications in her most private quarters—mostly eradicating the worst of the previous occupant’s appalling taste—she had left almost everything as she’d found it.

“Sevilla…” She turned and looked back at her aide. “I do not wish to be disturbed until the boarding party has reported in. And, I want Commander Josias brought to me as soon as he arrives.”

If he arrives…

She had no idea if Josias was still alive. From what she’d seen of the scanner images of Successor, she gave that about a fifty percent chance.

*

“I must commend you on getting back here with your scanner data, Commander. You were quite correct to surmise the urgency of reporting this disturbing development at all costs.” Akella was far from convinced Josias hadn’t been more concerned with saving his own hide than salvaging the intelligence collected by his doomed command. She found it distasteful praising an officer who had abandoned his forces, left his people to die so he could return, but there was little to be gained by pushing the officer onto the defensive. Josias was a Master, and there was little doubt any assertions of cowardice or wrongdoing would spur a pointless defensive reaction, one that would spread to his friends and supporters, and cause dissension at a time when she very likely needed absolute unity among her colleagues. It was better to make him comfortable, to learn everything he knew, and then just to let him go.

She would, at least, make certain he never received another significant command. She could do that quietly, without creating a costly and troublesome scene.

“Thank you, Number One. Your words do me honor.”

Akella watched the fool bow in front of her, so utterly oblivious to her true thoughts. That amazed her, and it confirmed an uncomfortable realization that had been growing in her mind. We Masters are the most genetically-gifted, but too many of us allow arrogance to sap our intellect and cripple our capabilities. A hundred Kriegeri on my staff could see through my words right now, divine my true thoughts toward Josias and his actions. Yet, the fool is oblivious, despite his rankings.

There was no doubt in her mind that Josias was a perfect specimen of a disturbing phenomenon, one that had become increasingly of concern to her. He was clearly intelligent and knowledgeable, but just the same, as far as she could tell, he was close to useless.

“I know you must be exhausted, and that your wounds need further tending, but first I would have you fully debriefed. In light of the area of space in which you were attacked, I feel we must review the situation in the fullest detail.”

She looked over at Josias’s left arm, which he was cradling in his right. She could see a few abrasions, and a small cut that appeared to be fully dressed, but nothing that looked like it needed more than a good washing and a fresh bandage. Still, Josias seemed to be in considerable discomfort.

She compared Josias’s demeanor to that of the Kriegeri veterans she’d seen on Megara and Dannith, or to Masters like Chronos and Ilius, whose type seemed rarer and rarer in recent years. The vibrancy of the Hegemony’s ruling class, the toughness and drive of those who had founded the nation and its ruling principles from the ashes of empire, seemed a dying breed, at least among the Masters. If the enemy from the coreward marches of space had indeed returned—and she couldn’t imagine any other explanation—would they find a Hegemony that was stronger for a century of growth and scientific advancement, or one that had withered into decadence and weakness? Had warriors been replaced by debaters? Heroes by entitled ruling classes who’d shed their devotion to responsibility even as they’d demanded ever more rewards and undeserved respect?

Would a century of preparation be for naught, leaving a Hegemony less prepared to face the threat?

Akella was trying to be as non-committal as she could manage, and as calm. She knew what the attack on Josias’s task force meant, and the mere thought of it made her insides go cold. But she had to stay focused. Her people needed her, and more so, they needed her to remain calm, controlled, to ensure her intellect and wisdom prevailed over fear. They needed her ready to face the threat she was beginning to believe was finally coming.

She tried to imagine what else could have attacked Josias’s task force. Some previously unknown entity, renegade forces of some kind, even first contact with an alien race? Even some Rim force that had managed to sneak all the way across the Hegemony to disrupt things. But she knew in her gut it was none of those things.

She knew what had attacked Josias and his ships, yet even as she followed the logic, realized the inescapable result of her deductive analysis, she found herself struggling to accept her conclusions.

She’d feared it for years, spent late nights staring into the darkness deep in thought, argued with those who’d been skeptical, endured the burning in her stomach as she’d approved one order after another, denuding the Hegemony’s coreward defenses to feed the insatiable appetite of the Rim War.

Now, it had come, her worst fears realized, and even as she faced it, begun to accept it, the whole thing seemed somehow unreal.

But it was real, as real as it was terrifying, and there was no alternative explanation, none that was reasonable.

They were back. They were coming.

The Others had returned.

Chapter Sixteen

Grand Alliance Strike Force

1,150,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Danovar

Santara System

Year 321 AC

“I said all squadrons abort…now!” Stockton repeated the order, his voice fueled by undisguised rage, by pure, caustic fury…as if the sharp edge of his words could somehow overrule the physics at play, the unbreakable laws of motion that stripped him of any viable option to save his people.

He raged inside at himself, recounted how many times he’d worried about the Hegemony developing fighters, about one day encountering enemy squadrons. But those fears had waned as the years passed, as the enemy showed no signs of fielding such forces.

Now he realized, of course, that such things weren’t conjured out of thin air, that it took time to develop a system from nothing. The fact that he’d allowed time to lesson his worries only made him a fool. Each passing year had increased, not decreased, the chance of facing…what his people were now facing.

Every ship in his strike force was outfitted with bombing kits. Worse, most of them were double-loaded. He’d been relieved enough when they’d all managed to launch without incident, but the thought of those thousands of bombers, heavy and unmaneuverable, facing sleek enemy fighters—and he’d confirmed from his first scans, the Hegemony ships looked very much like interceptors—seemed almost ridiculous.

Given some of his own interceptors, he might have relied on the experience of his people to fend off the raw Hegemony pilots. But everyone he had, ace, veteran, or green rookie, was sitting in a clumsy tub, loaded down with ordnance.

His mind raced. Should he send his people in to launch their payloads at Colossus? The empty bombers wouldn’t be what he’d call sleek and maneuverable, but they’d definitely be better off.

And, does it matter…as long as we take out that…thing?

Stockton didn’t think lightly of throwing the lives of his pilots, or his own for that matter, away, but saving the Rim from the new enemy monstrosity was important enough to risk losing every ship he had in exchange for success.

But the thought faded quickly as the enemy fighters formed up and moved out from Colossus. They were fast, their thrust levels at least the equivalent of an unburdened Lightning. They were blasting at full, directly toward his strike force, and his gut told him, before either his mind or his ship’s AI had completed actual calculations, that they were going to reach his wings before any of them got into launch range.

Stockton knew the destructive power his ships carried, and he understood that they were the only thing that had a chance of taking out Colossus. But he didn’t have a single fighter outfitted as an interceptor, and he had some idea what so many enemy fighters—and there were almost two thousand of them out now—could do to a formation of bombers with no interceptors of their own.

He had to get as many of his ships back as possible. He had no idea what portion of the strike force could escape, but it wasn’t going to be many if they were still burdened with their bombing loads. The waste of it all was infuriating, and it cut a deep swath through his morale, but he had no choice.

“All ships, eject bombing ordnance at once.” The words flew from his mouth, almost as though some part of him was forcing them out before he could change his mind. As if to set the example, he reached down and pulled the eject lever under his own control panel. His ship lurched as it expelled the deadly weapons, the warheads he’d been so determined to plant into the guts of the Hegemony’s massive new warship.

His goals had changed in an instant. Gone were images of destroying Colossus, of planting cluster bombs and torpedoes into the heart of the massive battleship. Now, he had only a single hope.

To get his fighters the hell out of there, and back to their base ships.

Some of them, at least.

*

The ship shook hard, jerking in what seemed like every direction. It was uncomfortable, difficult to operate, and it felt almost like being out in deep space itself. But Krimack had adapted quickly to the small cockpit, and to the incredible responsiveness of his new ship.

Fighters—at least that’s what the Confeds called the small attack craft—were something quite different to most of the Red Kriegeri who manned the Hegemony navy, but there was something about the cramped little craft that meshed almost instantly with Krimack.

The kiloron was the overall flight commander, the first warrior in Hegemony history to lead fighters into battle. The ships were new, fresh off the assembly lines. Their design borrowed much from the Confed Lightnings, but it added some bits of advanced Hegemony technology as well, perhaps none of it as profound a potential advantage as the neural link.

The link was an amazing invention, though Krimack had to admit, connecting to it hurt like hell. He’d gone through a surgical procedure to prepare for the linkup, all of his pilots had, but now, he could partially control the tiny ship with his thoughts as well as his hands. Given time to master both the links and the routine of flying the attack craft, Krimack believed his new wings could match, and then exceed, the effectiveness of their Rim foes.

“He sent a thought through the link, directing the ship to increase thrust and alter its vector. He’d been through the rushed training sessions, logged what had seemed like endless hours flying with only mental impulses to control his fighter. In fact, as the designated commander of the Hegemony’s first small craft strike force, he was the single individual who’d logged the most flight time connected to the neural net.

He’d reviewed enough videos and intelligence reports on Rim fighter combat to know he’d have a much harder time when he had to face enemy ships rigged as interceptors, like his own craft were, but in their first mission, his wings faced only bombers, and from the looks of things, overloaded bombers at that. The enemy force was larger than his, but his best guess was, the heavily-loaded strike craft would be virtually helpless when his wings sliced into their confused and frantically-decelerating ranks.

He would know in just a few minutes just how good a guess that was.

“All wings, forward at full thrust. Close and engage.” His two thousand, four hundred fighters were organized into squadrons and wings, borrowing structure and nomenclature from their enemies, who had so badly damaged Hegemony fleets over the past six years. But there and then, in that place and at that time, Krimack’s fighters were copies of the Confederation’s interceptors, craft outfitted not to strike at opposing capital ships but to engage and destroy enemy fighters.

He reached out, his hand grasping his controls. The neural link was still new and uncomfortable. He saw the utility in it, and he knew when he had to face enemy interceptors in the desperate engagements the Rimdwellers called ‘dogfights,’ the enhanced response times would be invaluable. But for his first assault against the confused and disorganized bomber squadrons, he chose to keep most of the controls manual.

Not that the entire exercise of flying a fighter—with hands or with the neural link—wasn’t new. Krimack had been a veteran of ten years when he’d been transferred into the fledgling program, a pilot, but of escorts ships, and in his last posting, a cruiser.

The high command had looked to the ranks of naval pilots to seed the new fighter wings, though Krimack had quickly come to the conclusion that there was little overlap in the two skillsets. He had a minor jump on a Kriegeri who’d served in gunnery or engineering, but not all that much of one. He’d started mostly from scratch learning to fly, and he knew his people had been rushed into battle far too quickly. When the enemy recovered from their surprise, when they launched their own interceptors, he suspected his people would be in desperate danger.

But that didn’t matter, not in that moment. Bombers were lightly-armed, beyond their payloads in any case, but it looked like the ships his wings were approaching had doubled bombing loads…and he guessed that had come at the expense, not only of maneuverability, but also what little fighter-to-fighter weaponry the attack ships normally carried.

The situation was perfect, better than he could have hoped. Maybe—just maybe—if he could hit the enemy hard enough, devastate their wings, the war would end sooner.

Before he had to face the Confeds flying their own interceptors.

His eyes drifted to the display. Less than one minute to attack range. The enemy formation was a complete mess. The bombers were clearly trying to decelerate, to turn about and flee back to their motherships. But their intrinsic velocities were still bringing them forward.

Into the maw of death.

*

“What the hell is going on out there?”

Clint Winters sat on Constitution’s bridge, unmoving, his eyes locked on the horror unfolding on the display. The bombing strike was in trouble, serious trouble. The formation had lost all cohesion, and individual wings and squadrons—and in some cases, pilots, singly and in groups of two or three—were desperately trying to decelerate, to come about and return to the base ships.

But even as he watched in slowly-building horror, Winters realized there was no way they were going to make it. Not in time.

“Get me Admiral Barron on Dauntless!” His voice was loud, with a cutting edge. He could feel the rage growing inside him, the anger and self-recrimination. What he saw happening, he’d imagined a hundred times…but as the years passed, he’d allowed his concerns to slip into the background, pushed aside by more pressing matters.

But now it had happened. The Hegemony had developed their own fighters.

Fielding a force of small attack craft wasn’t a simple thing, and he suspected Jake Stockton and his squadrons could face off and defeat any Hegemony opposition. At least, if every one of them wasn’t in a virtually helpless bomber.

Even in interceptors…how rusty is our ship to ship combat? How many of those pilots have even faced other fighters in battle?

The losses in the war had been brutally heavy, and nowhere more so than in the fighter wings. Thousands of veterans had been lost and, and as he waited for Barron to come on the line, he tried to guess what percentage of the fighter jocks in Stockton’s command had combat experience facing interceptors.

Ten percent? Less?

“Clint, we’ve got a problem…” Barron’s voice was as haggard as Winters knew his was.

“Damn right, we’ve got a problem, all kinds of problems actually, but right now, what the hell are we going to do? The bombers are in big trouble now. We need to move the battle line forward.”

“No.” There was a coldness in Barron’s voice.

“We can’t just leave them up there, Ty.”

“We’re already in trouble. If we let that…thing…get into range of the battle line, then the war’s over, here and now. We’ve got to get however many fighters we can out of this, but not by risking our battleships.”

Winters wanted to argue, but he knew his friend and commander was right. They’d acted quickly, desperately—and recklessly—to face the enemy’s massive new warship. And they’d walked right into a trap. The fighter wings had been their greatest weapon in the war, and now they were faced with the possibility of losing the entire strike force.

“The escorts. If we move the escorts forward…” The smaller ships in the Rim navies had been built largely to face off against enemy fighters, to protect the battleships of the line. That purpose had atrophied somewhat in the years of war against the previously fighter-less Hegemony, but the vessels were still armed with powerful suites of point defense weaponry.

And they’re expendable.

Winters didn’t like that thought, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to come right out and say it to Barron, but it was true, nevertheless. The Rim was fighting for its life, and Clint Winters was ready to do whatever had to be done, sacrifice anything necessary to hold off defeat. It was cold, ruthless, but he’d never been one to lie to himself. And he was sure Barron felt the same way.

There was a short silence. Winters understood, and he’d have bet he knew what was going through Barron’s mind. The enemy interceptors lacked torpedoes or bombs, and they would be limited in their ability to seriously threaten the frigates and light cruisers.

But moving forward, attempting to create a safe zone for the retreating squadrons, would push the escorts far forward.

Into Colossus’s range.

Winters tried to tell himself the massive superbattleship was newly restored imperial tech, that its targeting systems might not match those of the scratch-built Hegemony warships. But he scolded himself almost immediately.

Clint Winters wasn’t one to believe something just because he wanted to.

He wasn’t one to believe in very much at all, whatever the situation, and now wasn’t the time to retreat from his cold cynicism.

He just had to accept that any losses, any at all, among the escorts and their crews, would be justified if they saved even part of the strike force.

“Of course, the escorts. You’re right. I’ll issue the orders now.”

“Wait, Ty…” Winters was relieved, to an extent, at least, that they were doing something. But he knew they had to do more.

“Let me lead them in.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Admiral…” The switch from familiar to formal address was a subconscious choice, and a pointless one, he realized immediately. Tyler Barron was about the last person on the Rim who would be influenced by something like that. “…you know what we’re asking those ships, those crews, to do. We need the best they can give, and God knows the price they’ll pay. You have to let me go.”

“If Constitution advances into range of that thing, she won’t last five minutes. You’d be the only battleship sitting there. It’s suicide.”

Winters opened his mouth, but then he closed it again. Barron was right. He would only get his ship destroyed, and that would damage the fleet’s morale even more.

“My gig…let me transfer to one of the cruisers. We can send the escorts forward, and I can catch up and lead them in.” Silence. “Tyler, you know this is the right call. If we were talking about anything less important than the fighter wings…but you know just where we’d be now without Stockton and his people.”

Winters sat and listened to the silence on the line. The lack of an immediate response was a good sign, if ‘good’ was a word that could be used in such a situation. But as well as Winters knew Barron, as close as the two had become, he wasn’t sure what his friend would say. Not until he heard the words, as grim as death itself.

“Go…do it. I’ll send the fleet divisions forward. You get to the nearest cruiser and take command.”

“Yes, Admiral…on my way.” He was already standing, his hand on the headset, ready to pull it away.

“I want you on a cruiser, Clint, not a frigate, the biggest one you can reach, at least something with a decent armor belt. No crazy chances, none that aren’t absolutely necessary, you hear me? Getting out of this mess is just the start. We need to find a way to stop that thing, and I can’t do it alone.”

“Understood, Ty.” Winters cut the line and raced across the bridge toward the bank of elevators, snapping out commands as he went. “Tell the landing bay I want my gig ready by the time I get down there. And advise the cruiser…” He stopped for a second and stared at the display. “…Northridge, I’ll be docking with them.”

“Yes, Admiral.” But the response, and the confused tone in which it was delivered, barely registered. The Sledgehammer was on the move, his mind deep at work, focused and distant…and ready to do whatever had to be done.

Chapter Seventeen

Grand Alliance Strike Force

1,150,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Danovar

Santara System

Year 321 AC

Stockton pulled back on the controls, squeezing every bit of thrust he could from his straining engines. He glanced down at the cover of the small control box, the one he’d opened so many times—far too many—the one that contained the safeties that kept his reactor operating within reasonable parameters.

But there was nothing reasonable about the current situation. He’d lost three hundred ships already, and it was clear that was only going to be the beginning. The Hegemony pilots weren’t what he’d call good, but they weren’t as bad as he might have hoped either. For a first effort at putting a strike force into battle, he had to admit, the enemy had done a damned good job.

And we all let ourselves get caught flatfooted, like a bunch of damned fools.

He cringed as he looked at his screen, seeing at least a dozen quick flashes, more of his ships being destroyed. Stockton had always ached for the pilots he’d lost, but there was more at stake than simply mourning casualties. He knew he could lose the entire strike force, and if he did, the Confederation, the entire Rim, could very well fall to the enemy next.

“All units, this is Admiral Stockton. You are all to cut your safety systems immediately, and increase reactor output to one hundred thirty percent.” That was high, even as overpowering reactors went, a wild and reckless thing to do, a move that would almost certainly cost lives. But the situation was beyond all reasonable responses. His people were facing annihilation, and if any of them were going to make it back, he was going to have to get them there.

He reached down, pulling the small lever, and cranking up his own reactor level. He could hear the high-pitched whine as the system went past the energy production level it had been designed to support, throttling up the flow rate of heavy hydrogen and helium-3 through the reactor conduits. He could feel the heat behind him almost immediately, as the output overwhelmed the insulation levels of his shielding. It was uncomfortable, as much for the question of just how much radiation was seeping into his cockpit as it was for the increasing temperature.

He could feel the sweat building on his forehead, rivulets running down over his cheeks. He ignored it all. He’d been there before. But one glance at his display gave him a look at just how his orders were affecting his people. Wings were coming apart, squadrons breaking their formations, as some pilots were quick to fire up their reactors and others hesitated. Fear was at work, Stockton knew, and uncertainty. His pilots had been trained and blooded during years of battle with the Hegemony, but the grievous losses they suffered in those desperate fights ensured that his formations were heavy with inexperienced pilots, and more than a few straight-out rookies.

“Stay with me, all of you.” He was speaking to thousands of pilots, but his tone sounded as though it was addressed to a small group of friends. “I need you all focused. If you haven’t cut your safeties yet, do it now.” He was calm, speaking slowly, methodically. He’d faced many deadly moments in his career, and during the six years of war with the Hegemony, but none quite as desperate as the current one.

Stockton nudged his throttle, feeding the increased power though the engines, and even as he piloted his own fighter, he watched the screen, checking on that the thousands of ships under his command, trying to confirm they were following orders. He was determined to pull his people out of the trap they’d so completely fallen into—that he’d led them into—but even as his steely nerves dug in, the doubts began to grow. He could only do what was possible, and just then, he didn’t see a damned thing that seemed likely to work.

That view only darkened as he watched more enemy fighters moving up, closing on the fringes of his vast formation, and opening fire.

The Hegemony ships had something akin to the Confederation’s fighter to fighter missiles, but they were smaller and faster.

And each ship seemed to carry four instead of two.

He hoped, for a fleeting few seconds, that the enemy had sacrificed something—speed, accuracy, warhead power—to double the number of weapons each of their attack ships carried. But the rockets ripped forward, blasting with thrust levels of nearly 200g, far beyond the Confederation’s comparable weapons. They locked right on to the closest fighters, and they resisted the evasive maneuvers his pilots employed to try and shake them.

It was down to the question of warhead size alone, the desperate—and unlikely—hope that the payloads were too small to take out a fighter with a single hit.

Then, over a hundred of his ships vanished from his screen, as the first wave of rockets slammed into their targets. The explosions were powerful, as strong as the Confed’s anti-fighter missiles, and the accuracy was deadly. Almost forty percent of the first volley of rockets hit their targets, and it didn’t take deep calculation to realize than the Hegemony fighters had almost ten thousand of the warheads.

The first hits benefited from surprise, of course, and even without further orders, his people were reacting to the incoming weapons, kicking up the intensity of their evasion efforts. That would probably help some, but Stockton was acutely aware that the Hegemony interceptors had enough firepower to wipe out the entire strike force just with their rockets.

And, Stockton didn’t have the slightest doubt those ships carried lasers, too.

His mind raced, refusing to give up…but with no idea, none at all. He had to come up with something, but what?

How was he going to get his people home?

Some of his people.

*

“Wolverine will maintain position until I am able to dock. All other ships, forward at full thrust. We need to get into this fight, and we need to do it now.” Clint Winters had spent the last twenty minutes cursing the limited maximum thrust level of his gig, raging at every lost minute—and at the growing casualty figures coming in from Stockton’s wings.

He could see the fleet’s strike force commander had done everything possible. His ships were blasting at full thrust, beyond full thrust even, a fact further evidenced by the more than forty ships disabled or obliterated by reactor failures. That was forty dead pilots, or at least as good as dead, but Winters knew there had been no choice. Stockton’s entire strike force was in mortal danger, and it was still possible the fleet could lose every bomber it had launched.

The evasive maneuvers carried Stockton’s mark as well, and the squadrons were executing them with desperate resolve. Winters was still trying to deal with the shock of seeing thousands of Hegemony fighters, but he knew those bomber pilots out there couldn’t have had a better man leading them in. He also knew Stockton wouldn’t come back if he couldn’t bring a good number of his people back with him.

For all the carnage unfolding on his screen, Winters fixated for a moment on Jake Stockton. He wondered if the death of the best pilot the fleet had ever known would be worse, even, than the loss of most of the deployed wings and squadrons. The academies could train more pilots, given time of course. The factories could produce more ships. But Jake Stockton was one of a kind. Pilots like him were born, not made.

Stockton was doing everything he could do, but none of it was going to be enough. There was a limit, even to Jake Stockton’s abilities, and the vectors and velocities of his ships couldn’t have been worse when the Hegemony fighters appeared. They had to fight their thrust levels before they could even begin to retreat back toward their motherships, but even with every ship on maximum overload, the apparent thrust capabilities of the Hegemony ships led to one inescapable conclusion.

Stockton would be lucky to get one ship in ten back to the landing platforms.

The war’s over if that happens. We have to do better than that…

Winters knew he wasn’t going to avert a disaster with the escorts. It was far too late for that. All he could do—if he could do anything at all—was to mitigate the depths of the catastrophe unfolding in front of him.

“Wolverine on station, Admiral, awaiting your arrival.”

Other acknowledgements flooded in, the various divisions of the escort line responding.

Winters watched as Wolverine moved closer on the screen. He’d be onboard in a matter of minutes, and on the bridge not long after. But he didn’t even have that time to waste.

He moved his hand over the gig’s small display, sliding the scanning focus back toward the enemy force. The Hegemony escorts were already maneuvering themselves, reacting to his own cruisers and frigates. He shook his head, cursing under his breath at the efficiency of the enemy. They were moving to cut him off, to protect their own fighters, or at least buy time for them to blast Stockton’s people to atoms.

Winters didn’t have time for an extended fight with those ships. He had to get into range of the Hegemony fighter squadrons while there was still something left of the Confederation strike force to save.

“Wolverine…I want these orders relayed to all divisions.” He would be landing in less than a minute, and the cruiser’s bulk would interfere with a direct fleetcom transmission from the gig. Better to get Wolverine’s bridge crew to reach the other ships. “All cruiser groups are to form a line and engage the enemy escorts. All frigates and smaller vessels are to push forward, ignoring any enemy attacks.” That was always a tough order to follow…to run through the guns without shooting back. But he had to get at least the smaller ships into range of the Hegemony fighters.

The cruisers would hold their own. The enemy had converted almost all of their smaller ships entirely to point defense—understandable considering the damage Rim squadrons had done to their fleets—but the mid-sized Confed and Alliance ships still carried heavier ordnance. The cruisers would be outnumbered, but desperation was a relative thing, and just then, taking on two or three times their number of enemy ships didn’t make it to the top of the list.

“Bring us in,” Winters snapped, as his head spun around toward the pilot sitting just forward of his position. “I need to get aboard Wolverine. Now.”

*

Krimack’s eyes darted to the long-range screen for about the tenth time. He could see the Rim escorts moving closer, heading directly for his fighter wings. They wouldn’t get there in time to keep him from hurting the fleeing bombers, but they just might make it before his people could finish the enemy off completely.

The kiloron, massively promoted in responsibility, if not yet in rank, knew what was expected of him. Destroy the Rim bombers that had so savaged the fleet for six bloody years. Not defeat them, not drive them off. Destroy. Colossus had brought the enemy together into one massive strike force and enticed them in toward the great superbattleship at high velocity. The trap had been executed perfectly, but Krimack had learned through experience not to underestimate the enemy.

Now, they were throwing their escorts forward, a wild attempt to save their fighters, and one Krimack knew could succeed…if he took too long to carry out his mission. The enemy cruisers were engaging the Hegemony escorts, holding them back to create a clear lane for the lighter escorts to hit his fighters. He’d done all he could to master the techniques of flight operations, but he knew his pilots had been whipped through an accelerated training program, one that lacked its own veterans to teach the newer recruits the realities of combat. If—no, he thought grimly, when—his people had to face Rim craft outfitted as interceptors, they would suffer terrible losses. The only way he could mitigate that was to destroy as many as he could now, while he had them nearly helpless. That was an advantage he doubted he would ever have again. Any fighter that went down in the current fight was one that couldn’t return and slice through his own formations another day.

We have to destroy them. Now.

He brought his ship around, or at least he altered its thrust vector. Krimack had come from the fleet’s shuttle corps. His last posting had been as the commander of a division of landing craft, one of the veteran units that had brought in the Kriegeri to invade Megara. Three million soldiers we left behind…

How many of them are still alive now?

Krimack had been destined for the Hegemony military since his first genetic testing regimen at age seven. He’d begun training at eleven, and he took his first position with the active forces at seventeen. He’d risen steadily in the ranks, though before the current war, his service had been limited to landing ground troops in single planet pacifications and absorptions. He’d been a hectoron when the Rim dwellers had first invaded Hegemony space, the highest rank he’d ever expected to obtain. But six years of struggle had pulled him up, and now he dared to imagine he might one day even wear a megaron’s star cluster on his shoulder.

If you don’t get the Hegemony’s first strike force blasted to bits by those escorts…

He was edgy about his peoples’ ability to evade heavy defensive fire, and each time he redid his estimates, he cut down the time for the Rim ships to arrive. His fighters had mostly expended their rockets, which meant the rest of the slaughter would be achieved by lasers, a slower way to hunt down the cumbersome enemy bombers.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t finish off the targeted bomber wings, but it did mean the enemy escorts would get there while his people were still engaged.

*

Stockton stared at the screen, and for an instant, the blackness that had almost consumed him receded. He knew the Rim battleships weren’t going to come to his rescue. Risking the battle line against something like Colossus was unthinkable, even though the war against the Hegemony had turned many old axioms on their heads. Fighters were far more important in the current conflict than they’d ever been before, but their launch platforms still held primacy in the hierarchy, if only because of the vast time and resources required to replace lost battleships.

Still, his mind flailed around for hope, and he found some, though he wasn’t sure if it was real or imagined. The fleet’s escort ships were moving forward, even as he watched. It was a promise of help, if nothing else. If they could get there in time.

That’s on you. You’ve got to keep your people alive long enough…

Hundreds of his people were dead already, and even as he watched the escorts moving forward, he was wildly maneuvering his own ship in throes of desperate battle. He’d evaded no fewer than three of the enemy rockets, and he’d found them to be unsettlingly difficult to shake, especially with the cumbersome bombing kit in place.

He’d shouted out what directions and commands he could to the squadrons nearest him, hounding his pilots, guiding them, berating them. Anything he thought might help them, might get at least part of his force through the nightmare enveloping them all. But in truth, for all his experience, for the almost overpowering legend that had grown up around him, Stockton didn’t know what to do.

And he hated himself for it.

His body swung hard as he lurched his ship to the side, blasting his thrust at full, first on one vector, and then on an almost opposite one. There was a crazy randomness to his maneuvers, one that kept him away from the two fighters trying to stay on his tail and bring their lasers to bear.

At least the enemy seemed to be out of rockets. The accuracy and power of their primary ship-to-ship weapons had been unsettling, and they’d put aside any hopes he might have had in the inferiority of the Hegemony’s first strike force. Their ships were good, and the rockets were better. If they had a weakness, it was the inexperience of their pilots, but with every ship he had burdened with a double bombing kit, it was almost irrelevant. The bombers weren’t simply difficult to maneuver. The second payload come at another cost, the removal even of the small and difficult to use lasers the ships normally carried. Even if his pilots could overcome the maneuverability deficit, they didn’t have anything to fire at the enemy. And throwing rocks wasn’t exactly practical in space combat.

Stockton jerked his throttle hard to the side again, watching another dozen of his ships go down on the screen as he did. He felt a burst of rage, partially at the enemy…and partially at his own dead pilots for not trying harder, not staying focused. Not remembering what he had taught them. He didn’t feel good about himself for anger at now-dead pilots, but there didn’t seem to be any point in self-delusion. Not when the end seemed so close.

He swung the controls again, then once more almost immediately. He had six enemy ships on him now, coming in from different vectors. It had been years since he’d last been in a dogfight, but the old skills were still there. He’d have had a chance, even against the odds he faced, if only he had a weapon to use, a way to take down his pursuers. But all he could do was run, and hope his frantic maneuvers somehow got him all the way back to Dauntless.

He gave himself about even money. That was upsetting enough, but if he was in that much trouble, what chance did his thousands of pilots have?

He started to try to calculate them, but then he clamped down hard on the thought. It could only distract him when he needed everything he had.

Maybe there was some use for self-delusion after all.

Chapter Eighteen

Spacer’s District

Port Royal City

Dannith, Ventica III

Year 321 AC

“Don’t move, Yantis. Don’t look behind you, don’t cry out, don’t even make a face. You know my voice—yes, it’s me, I’m here. And you know me well enough to realize I’ve got my pistol pointing right at you. The last time I missed from this range, I was six years old. Or was I five?”

It took all Andi could muster to force such cocky arrogance into her tone. In truth, her pistol was thousands of kilometers away, in Pegasus’s weapons locker, up in planetary orbit. She had nothing but a finger pointed at the once-powerful gangster she was threatening. Yantis wouldn’t have been her first choice for a mark—far too violent by nature—but she’d found the pickings to be slim. Most of her old contacts were in deep hiding…or worse. She was sure she could find some of them given enough time, but that was one thing she didn’t have. Colossus was likely raging through Confederation space, pushing Tyler closer and closer to a desperate—and probably suicidal—final battle, and Pegasus was hiding in orbit, risking detection at any time. She was also in constant danger of drawing attention to herself, of winding up in an enemy prison, or worse. She had to find out what she’d come for—something, anything—useful for the fleet to face Colossus. If that meant threatening one of the most cantankerous, dangerous mobsters in the Spacer’s District, and doing it with her finger posing as a gun, so be it.

“Andi Lafarge, what the hell are you doing back here with us poor, occupied scum? Word is, you made a big score and left us all behind, without even a fare thee well, or a round of drinks for old friends. Folks say you spend your days threatening your servants like you used to do with my boys.” There was a combination of resentment and respect in his tone. Andi had made more than a few enemies in her rise from obscurity, but even those with whom she’d clashed understood she had a sort of rogue’s honor. As grouchy and ill-tempered as she herself could be, she kept her word, and that had given her a sort of credibility among those who prowled around the District’s shadowy back alleys.

“Well, I’m here now Yantis, so I guess you’ll have to make of it whatever you can.”

“Maybe it was all bullshit. Maybe you just scored enough for a binge and a bender…and you were back ready to head out again when the Heggies got here.” The gangster’s scratchy voice paused. “But that’s been years now, and I ain’t seen a sign of you in all that time.”

“It seems like you’re still in business, at least. Though things seem pretty lean around here.”

“I do what I can, but the damned Kriegeri keep a close eye on things. I was keeping the ship afloat for a while with the Blast trade, but that all ran out maybe two years back. Since then, things have been really tight.”

Andi’s teeth ground together, and her hand tensed. If she’d actually had her pistol, she put it about even money she’d have shot the bastard between the eyes, and damned the consequences. The Confederation’s most notorious drug had cost her the first real friend she’d ever had. But she regained control over herself. There was no time for personal rage, not then. Not when Tyler and the fleet—and the entire Rim—were at stake.

“Well, you’re in luck, Yantis, my old friend.” ‘Friend’ was an exaggeration of course, but Andi figured she’d never killed the bastard, so that was close enough.

“There ain’t been much of that around here for a long time. What kind of luck?”

“Half a million credits in pure, untraceable platinum.” She’d hid the coins the best she could. She figured she could handle an enemy like Yantis, even without her pistol, but fighting only risked drawing attention from the Kriegeri. Besides, Yantis almost certainly had some of his people still with him. She might be able to fight him off, but if half a dozen thugs came at her all at once…

Better to have the coin stashed away somewhere. Less temptation for lowlifes like Yantis. Besides, even if she could handle the gangsters, fighting was probably the fastest way to attract a Hegemony patrol.

“Half a million…there ain’t been that kind of scratch around here since the occupation.” A pause. “Got it with you?”

“On me? You think I’d trust you with that kind of temptation? I’m thinking your crew’s smaller than it was, but I don’t believe for a second you couldn’t call in some kind of help. Of course, it wouldn’t save you, but that kind of money makes people do stupid shit, doesn’t it?”

“So, what’s the deal? What do you want?”

“Information.”

“What…you mean old tech? How the hell are you going to get past the enemy and out into the Badlands, even if I had somewhere to tell you to look?”

“No, not that kind of information. I want to know about the Hegemony forces. I want to know what they’re saying, maybe get some of their records or intercepts of their transmissions.”

“Are you crazy? I’m still here because I give the Kriegeri a wide berth. You want me to spy on them?”

Andi made a face. She didn’t doubt Yantis tried to keep as low a profile as he could, but she’d have bet her last credit he managed to keep some kind of tabs on the occupation forces. She didn’t like or trust the piece of filth, but she knew he was one of the smartest of his kind. He had contacts all over Port Royal City, or at least he had. She was willing to bet he still got at least a reasonably steady flow of information.

And she wanted it all.

“Well, if you don’t know anything, I guess we’re done here.” She moved her feet around, scraping her boots on the pavement, as if she was leaving.

“Wait…”

“Wait for what? You don’t know anything. I overestimated you, that’s all. Good luck, Yantis. With any luck, you’ll hang on to whatever scraps of your old operation remain. I’ve got to find someone who’s still connected and can get me what I need.”

“Stay…I can help you.”

“I need real information, Yantis…so don’t waste my damned time.”

“I’m not wasting your time, Andi. I can help.”

Andi wasn’t sure she believed him, but his tone sounded sincere. And, she wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with options.

“Don’t even think about double-crossing me, Yantis.” Her voice was cold, the very essence of threatening.

“No way, Andi, you can count on me…but I want to see the coin first.”

“That’s not going to happen. I’m not some damned fool cherry in the District for the first time. You know me. When I say something, you can count on it.” She’d spent years of her life building up a reputation, for a quick temper, certainly, but also for reliability, for honesty. She’d never imagined using it in quite the way she was just then, though.

“I want fifty thousand upfront…I’ll take that as proof the rest of it’s legit.” Andi was about to refuse, when she suddenly realized Yantis needed the money to get the information. He would never admit that to her, of course, but she was close to certain. Things are worse here than I’d imagined.

“Okay, today’s your lucky day, Yantis, but that’s the last favor you’re going to get. I’ll meet you tomorrow, at the usual place. Same time. And no guards, no thugs. Just you and me, you understand? I see one of your apes anywhere, I’m gone.” She hesitated, drawing in a deep breath. “And, I swear to you, Yantis, if you send anyone to follow me out of here trying to find out where I’ve got the swag hidden, I’ll gut the bastard top to bottom…and then I’ll come for you next, and you’ll get it worse. You hear me?”

“Alright, Andi. No tails. I’ll meet you tomorrow morning. And be careful, the night patrols are a lot heavier than the daytime ones, and there’s a curfew after dark. Keep your ass hidden, or you’ll end up in a Kriegeri prison cell where you can’t do either one of us any good.”

*

“Kiloron, platform A-3 reports renewed sporadic scanner contact. They haven’t been able to triangulate on anything, but this is the third sensor shadow they’ve recorded.”

Taragir turned and looked over toward the officer. It was the late-night shift—not that such a thing really mattered on an orbital platform—but Taragir’s staff was the lowest-rated in the rotation. With Kriegeri, such designations usually indicated less experienced personnel rather than shirkers or cowards, and so it was with the control center crew. Kriegeri were all well trained before they began active duty, but they were still green when they first took up their posts, and one common trait was overreacting to unimportant things. Taragir didn’t think there was anything hiding in Dannith orbit, but he was enough of a professional to follow up on any irregularities.

“Increase scanner power to eighty percent. Perform a focused sweep at one-quarter speed.” That would take a couple hours, maybe more. But it was about the best he could do to ensure there was nothing out there.

“Yes, Kiloron.”

Taragir leaned back in his chair, his mind slipping into deeper thoughts. He’d have requested a flight of escorts to do a flyby and doublecheck the area, but the fleet took most of the available frigates when it left, and every ship that remained was on a fixed patrol vector. He almost contacted his superior, but he held back. Flin was a Master, and not a particularly patient one at that. Waking him up to report some junior officer’s phantom contact, with no real evidence to back it up, was certain to be an unpleasant experience.

I will wait, at least until we pick up some kind of confirmation.

He pushed it aside, but it was still there, nagging at him, the thought, the chance, however small, that there really was something out there.

*

Andi dropped down against the crumbling masonry wall and sucked in a deep breath. She was soaked in sweat, and now that she was no longer running, the cold quickly set in, and she began to shiver. She was pretty sure she’d shaken the two Kriegeri. She didn’t know if she’d done something to make the two soldiers suspicious or if her luck had simply run out, but she’d only been a meter past them when one of them turned around and ordered her to stop. She’d told herself she could talk her way out of trouble, but the trooper shattered that confidence with a single demand.

“Your ID card,” he’d snapped out, in a voice that edged between nasty and professional.

Her mind raced. Had the occupiers issued ID cards to planetary residents? It seemed a reasonable enough possibility.

Might have been nice if Yantis could have mentioned that…

Of course, she hadn’t told the gangster she’d just snuck back to Dannith. He had likely rationalized her presence by assuming she’d simply been in hiding the whole time. And that served her purpose well enough. She didn’t trust Yantis, not a bit, and she preferred to avoid the risk he’d betray her to the authorities, a danger that would be greatly compounded if the gangster knew her presence was related to the war effort, to information of military value to the occupiers.

She hadn’t come to Dannith to get captured, but even less to get her people killed or taken prisoner. If the Hegemony forces realized she’d somehow slipped through the system and down to the planet, they’d go crazy searching everywhere they could. She knew the stealth unit on Pegasus was a dicey thing to rely on in the best of circumstances. A wholesale search effort would be far from that, and much closer to the worst. The enemy had been improving their scanning techniques, and if they looked hard enough, they’d probably find the ship. Better that everyone thought she’d been trapped on Dannith during the invasion, and that she’d been in hiding since then.

She looked over toward the battered wall, and the opening she’d come through. One side was nothing but broken concrete, but the other retained the remnants of what had once been a door. The building looked as though it had been the scene of fighting during the invasion, but Andi knew the place well, and it hadn’t looked much better before the Hegemony had arrived. The Spacer’s District had possessed its own sort of prosperity, split between something like evenly between legal and illegal enterprises, but it had always looked worn down, not a ghetto like the one she’d been born in, not quite. But still rough, with more than one abandoned structure, especially on the less-traveled side streets.

It wasn’t the safest place to hide her stash, maybe, but it was the best one she could think of. The banks, even the shadiest ones that had dealt with Badlands adventurers and District criminals, were all closed down. Whatever system the Hegemony used to distribute food and control the population, Confederation currency wasn’t part of it. She’d brought platinum coin because it was private, untraceable, but also because it was the only way to make payments on occupied Dannith, for services legal or otherwise.

What even is legal now? The old laws, the ones that had so often targeted her and her kind, didn’t apply anymore. That didn’t mean things were any freer, quite the contrary she was sure, but it did mean they were different.

She checked the entrance one last time, pausing for a few seconds to listen for anyone approaching. Then she slid a heavy chunk of concrete to the side, revealing a small area of fresh dirt. She grabbed the twisted piece of metal she’d used a few days before to dig the hole, and she uncovered the sacks of platinum coins she’d hidden there. She reached down, pushing her hand into the top bag, and she pulled out a handful.

Fifty thousand…upfront. With a weaselly piece of slime like Yantis…

She didn’t like it, not at all. But even as her natural suspicions kicked in, she realized it made sense. She’d never have given the gangster that much money upfront—or any money at all. She had a reputation of her own, and that should have been enough. But things had changed, and she figured it was actually useful for Yantis to see that she had the funds, to purge any doubts from his mind. She wanted him hooked, his greed serving her purposes. It would make it less likely he’d turn her in to the Hegemony authorities.

She pulled out fifty of the large kilocredit coins, and shoved them in her pocket. Then she put the rest back into the sack and dropped it into the hole, taking another careful look around before she covered it up, and slid the concrete back in place.

She put her hand in her pocket, running her fingers through the coins. She tried to rest her body if not her mind. Sleeping would be too dangerous, but she had to wait until the curfew was over before she could go back into the streets, and there was nothing to do but sit there quietly, watchfully…waiting for morning.

IT proved to be a difficult task in its own way, staving off boredom, holding back sleep. But she managed it, through sheer discipline if nothing else.

Daybreak finally came. It was almost time to meet Yantis.

Almost.

The curfew extended for another twenty minutes, and the last thing she needed was to get caught with a pocket full of platinum coins. She’d be lucky enough if the Kriegeri she’d lost the day before hadn’t managed to get enough of her on their scanners to put together a decent image. Having every trooper in the District searching for her wasn’t going to make things any easier.

She sat and closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply and trying to center herself. She’d known her mission would be dangerous, but even earlier, as she’d realized that she wouldn’t be able to get off the planet, that she would have to send Pegasus back without her, it hadn’t seemed quite real.

She looked around again and tried to suppress a full body shiver, without success. Whatever she managed to do, whatever information she was able to get back to her people, she was stranded.

Sitting there in the cold predawn dusk, alone, it felt very real.

Chapter Nineteen

CFS Wolverine

950,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Danovar

Santara System

Year 321 AC

Clint Winters sat in the captain’s chair on Wolverine. The escort ship hadn’t been built to accommodate an admiral, but the ship’s skipper had vacated his position the instant Winters stepped onto the bridge, casually ignoring the admiral’s efforts to deter him with an intensity that bordered between hard-edged respect and well-meaning insubordination.

“Push up the thrust, Captain. Let’s see if we can get one fifteen out of the reactor.” That was a lot, and Winters knew he was pushing his luck, and that of everyone on Wolverine. But he also knew, if his escorts didn’t get into position soon enough to save at least some of Stockton’s bombers, he would very likely witness the functional end of the war in the next few hours. The escorts had to knock out some of those Hegemony fighters, or at least distract them long enough for Stockton’s wings to escape.

“Engineering reports reactor output at one fifteen, Admiral. The chief engineer warns he cannot guarantee how long we’ll be able to maintain those levels.”

“Understood.” Winters did understand. He just knew it didn’t matter. The engineer would do his best, he was sure of that. But best or not, there was no other option. Getting there too late would be as bad as not getting there at all, and even though the other ships were farther forward, he needed to be up with them, both to cut comm delays in transmitting orders, and simply because he had to be there.

“Admiral, the cruiser line is engaging the Hegemony escorts.”

Winters snapped his head around, watching on the Wolverine’s main display as the cruisers opened fire, ravaging the approaching line of enemy ships. It was something that had been fleetingly rare in the war against the Hegemony, a force of Rim warships fighting with significant weapons superiority. That was an indirect effect of the price the bomber wings had extracted from the enemy. The Hegemony had stripped virtually every ship-to-ship weapon from their smaller craft, replacing them with more point defense batteries to engage fighters. It was a change that had made perfect tactical sense. At least until that moment.

Winters watched, with no small level of satisfaction, as the cruisers tore into their Hegemony counterparts, while enduring only sporadic and largely ineffective return fire. It was the mirror image of the nightmare he knew Stockton’s people were enduring, but it still roused his feral side. He’d always tried to approach war as a professional, but he was only lying to himself when he tried to deny he enjoyed watching thousands of Hegemony spacers blasted to oblivion. They had killed too many of his spacers—too many of his friends—for him to look on things with cold analysis. He didn’t feel good about the thirst for blood he felt, but that didn’t make it any less real.

The cruisers were taking a terrible toll on the enemy, at least on a ship-to-ship basis. But they were vastly outnumbered. The Hegemony point defense armaments weren’t a serious threat, not to cruisers at least, but the fact remained that even after the cruisers took down hundreds of their enemy counterparts, a portion of the Hegemony force was going to get through to hit Stockton’s retreating squadrons.

Winters almost ordered the frigates to come about as well, to join the cruisers in their fight, but he knew that was impossible. The smaller escorts had to hit those Hegemony interceptors, or Stockton’s wings would be exterminated before they even reached the Hegemony escort line. He’d just have to deal with the surviving enemy escorts later. Somehow.

“All point defense batteries…prepare to fire as we enter range.” Winters knew his gunners would have a hard time hitting targets as small as fighter so far out, but the Hegemony pilots were rookies—had to be rookies—and incoming fire would at least distract them from their pursuit of the Rim wings.

At least that’s what Winters was hoping.

“All ships report gunnery stations ready, Admiral.” Wolverine’s captain had settled into an effective role as Winters’s aide, and he was doing a good job of it. The admiral thought about taking the officer with him when he went back to Constitution, but he flashed back to his own days in his first independent command, and the way a pompous admiral would have had to drag him from his con to stick him in a staff position. He let it go. Wolverine’s captain deserved to see the fight through with his people.

And they deserved him. Clint Winters had always prided himself on his focus on the rank and file spacers, and he wasn’t about to change that anytime soon.

His eyes darted back to the display, to the gauge showing the ranges. Wolverine was still well out of range, but the rest of the line was closing fast. They were still maybe ten thousand kilometers too far out, but that was no impediment to seeing how much his people could rile up their green enemies, even if the chance of scoring any hits was slim to none.

“All ships…open fire.”

*

Damn, that was close…

Stockton could feel the sweat pouring down the back of his neck like waves. A quick glance confirmed his own gut calculations. That last shot had come within seventy meters of his ship. That was close. Beyond close in the context of space combat.

The Hegemony pilots were rookies, he could see that well enough in the roughness of their maneuver and in the tentative way they attacked. But their equipment was top-notch. The targeting systems were every bit as good as the ones Stockton and his people had, and maybe even better. And constant retreat and evasion drained any pilot, even star aces like Stockton. You could jerk around and dodge fifty shots, but if you missed the fifty-first, you were just as dead as a pilot who took the first blast amidships.

Stockton had evaded at least fifty close calls over the past hour, but that last one had come a hair’s breadth from finishing his illustrious career then and there.

Over a thousand of his people were gone already, and the Hegemony fighters were sill pursuing, still taking out more with every passing minute. He’d done some rough calculations, and the results were about as grim as they could be. Maybe five hundred of his ships would make it, at least without the intervention of the approaching frigates. The Rim escorts were the last hope most of his people had. Stockton didn’t like seeing the fighter corps desperately waiting for assistance to bail it out of a jam, but just then he was ready to take any help he could get.

A jam you got them into. Stockton knew on one level, the Colossus was a deadly danger, and he’d done the right thing in ordering the double payloads. The only thing he could have done.

He also knew that right thing was getting hundreds of his pilots killed. He’d had no way of knowing the Colossus carried fighters, but he wasn’t in a mood to let himself off the hook…and the more he thought about it, the more it seemed inevitable the Hegemony would eventually deploy their own attack craft. He and his pilots had ensured that with the deadly toll they’d extracted in battle after battle. He’d worried about it a hundred times, tried to imagine how it would happen, how he would deal with it when it did. And then he let himself get caught flatfooted. Worse, even…his scheme of double-loading his ships couldn’t have been timed any worse.

You managed to wait until they were ready to launch their squadrons, and you accommodated them and walked right into a trap, without so much as enough laser power to heat up some soup.

In a strange way, he found the self-hatred useful. Berating himself for the losses, for his lack of perception, somehow helped him stave off the stark terror, not only of what he faced personally, but of what the loss of so many bombers meant to the overall war effort. There was no point of thinking about tomorrow. He wasn’t even sure there would be a tomorrow. The present was his problem, and the only one that mattered.

“All wings, adjust vectors to 320.180.240. We’re going to go right past those friendly escorts, hugging the port side of their formation. Those frigates are already firing, and that’s going to give these Hegemony bastards something to think about besides frying us.”

He tapped his own controls, bringing his ship toward the line of frigates, even as the acknowledgements poured in. His bombers were moving at close to one percent of lightspeed, and that meant it would take some time for the realignment to be completed. But there was enough distance—just—to the escort line. If his people could hold out for another twenty minutes, even fifteen, they just might make it back.

Stockton didn’t know who had sent the escorts forward—probably Admiral Barron or Admiral Winters—but whoever it was just might have saved some of his bombers. “Keep power output maxed the whole way No letup, none at all.” He knew that order would kill some of his pilots. The harder they pushed their reactors, the more would suffer failures and malfunctions. Catastrophic breakdowns would destroy ships in an instant, but with the Hegemony ships tight on the formation’s tail, even minor malfunctions would be fatal. Every one of his pilots who couldn’t run, who couldn’t get away, was going to die.

Even those who escaped the enemy would still be in danger if they took too much damage. The formation would be moving at close to 0.02c when they got past the escort line. Any ship that lost power would be unable to decelerate as they neared the launch platforms. They would zip past their motherships and into the depths of space, far beyond the range of any rescue efforts.

Whatever happened, Stockton knew it would be the darkest day in the history of the fighter corps. For all his fame, all he renown and praise heaped so often upon him…he was the officer who had led the massed fighter wings, not only of the Confederation, but of the entire Rim, to their doom.

To hell with it. We will fight the enemy, in the darkness or in the daylight, a thousand of us, or one alone. Any one of us is a threat to them, unless they can kill us all…

Which, he knew, they just might do.

*

“Stay on the enemy bombers. Ignore the escort craft.” Krimack knew his orders were easier given than followed. His squadrons had enjoyed an unmatched superiority in the combat so far. He’d expected to have a significant advantage against the enemy bombers, but he hadn’t dared to imagine an edge as great as the one destiny had given him.

The bombers were completely without weapons apart from their payloads. Not an anti-fighter missile, not a laser turret, nothing. Not on any of them. His people had swarmed in unopposed, and for the first two hours of the battle his casualties had totaled exactly three, and each of those had resulted from equipment malfunction.

All through training, he’d dreaded facing the enemy squadrons, even in their cumbersome bombers. His pilots were inexperienced, and Hegemony training had always stressed teamwork and deemphasized the importance of individual action, which was the emphasis of effective fighter tactics. He’d had to fight a basketful of preconceived notions just to get his people to where they were, which was nowhere near the equal of their enemies. Not yet, at least.

Now, the easy killing is over. They’re going to get an expensive lesson…

The interceptors had stayed tight on the bombers, gunning them down in whole sections. But now they were in range of the enemy’s escorts.

The point defense batteries had opened fire just two minutes before, and he’d already lost two hundred ships. He’d almost ordered his squadrons to break off. They’d won a great victory, taken out half of the enemy’s bomber wings. That would have a tremendous impact on the war, and on later battles. But it wasn’t decisive, at least not totally so. The Colossus had come to break the enemy’s will to fight, and he’d seen too much of the grim stubbornness of the Rimdwellers to feel confident they would ever yield while they retained the ability to fight. Only the complete destruction of their heretofore unbeaten bomber wings could assure their capitulation.

And that was worth taking any losses necessary.

“Maintain contact and continue fire.” It was a repetitive battle cry, perhaps, but he was going to do whatever was necessary to keep his people in the fight. Kriegeri didn’t run. They were trained for battle from early childhood, and unit and national pride was everything to them. But they were human beings, too, and the pilots were the first of their kind, thrust half-trained into an unfamiliar situation. Krimack wasn’t taking any chances with morale.

He angled his throttle, changing his thrust vector and subtly altering his course, just as a series of laser blasts ripped through the space he would have occupied. He knew the concept of evasive maneuver, and the logic behind it, but it was still far from natural, even for him. The rest of his pilots were worse off, of course, and that was becoming evident in the suddenly growing loss figures.

Krimack turned his head back toward the casualty display. Over four hundred. More than fifteen percent of his total strength. Gone in a matter of minutes.

“All ships, maintain fire. Take down as many of those bombers as possible.” Krimack was beginning to realize he was going to have to withdraw his squadrons. He felt the victory he’d craved, the annihilation of the enemy wings, slipping away. His squadrons were already in range of the escorts and paying a heavy price. And it would take time to decelerate and to pull away. His wings had come to trap the enemy bomber forces, and to destroy them…and to a certain, perhaps partial, extent, they had done just that.

Now they were facing the same situation, engulfed by enemy escorts and being gunned down by relentless fire.

He glanced back at the screen. The Hegemony escorts were pushing through the line of Rim cruisers trying to block them. They’d paid heavily, but they’d massively outnumbered their attackers. Entire sections had been obliterated, but enough had gotten through. The Rim bombers’ ordeal wasn’t over, not by a long shot. The enemy attack craft were moving at extreme velocity. They had no real chance to avoid the oncoming frigates. They were going to endure another attack before they could escape.

The enemy wings wouldn’t be eradicated, perhaps, but they would be shattered, their confidence badly shaken, and their strength reduced to a fraction of what it had been. Krimack didn’t know if that would be enough to compel a surrender, but it wasn’t his job to know that. He’d done all he could. Seeing the Hegemony’s first strike force destroyed would serve no purpose. If he didn’t pull them out soon, there wouldn’t be any more Hegemony fighters.

“All squadrons, full deceleration now. Come about and return to base, evasive courses the entire way.” He didn’t know how well his rookie pilots would dodge the incoming fire, or for that matter, whether he himself would manage it. But it was time for his wings to declare victory and get the hell out.

While he still had any ships left.

Chapter Twenty

Spacer’s District

Port Royal City

Dannith, Ventica III

Year 321 AC

Andi stood utterly straight, her back pressed hard against the wall. She was quiet, as utterly silent as she could manage, even limiting her breath to slow, carefully-executed inhales and exhales. There were Kriegeri out in the street, two or three, at least, and some kind of trouble. For an instant, she’d thought she was done, that they had her. But then she realized they were chasing someone else. She wondered for a few seconds as she hid, whether there was some kind of active resistance operation in the District, but then she realized it was just a pair of drunks or junkies, probably wandering out from whatever wrecked hovel in which they’d spent the night.

A couple of vagrants were hardly a major threat to the occupiers, but she was still surprised there hadn’t been more of a response. Back in the day, if the Port Royal City authorities had decided to round up a couple derelicts from the District, they’d damn sure have brought more than two or three police. She wondered if the Hegemony had the planet wrapped up so tightly, they’d become overconfident or if something else was going on. Yantis had told her to watch the patrols, but she’d actually been surprised at how few troopers she’d seen.

She waited, longer probably than she had to, and then she peered around the corner, her eyes darting all over, scanning the street. Nothing. It looked clear.

She waited another ten minutes anyway. That put her past the official end of the curfew and, theoretically at least, she was now allowed to be walking down the street. She knew well enough that was no guarantee against being hassled by Kriegeri, especially with no place to hide in the brightening daylight. But it was better than being spotted in the middle of the night.

She stepped out into the street, hanging close to the buildings on one side, not hiding exactly, but not trying to stand out either. She looked around, down at the front walls of the buildings where they met the ground, and up into the eaves and other nooks around the rooflines…all the places most likely to contain surveillance devices. She didn’t see anything. That either meant the Kriegeri were behind in wiring the District for monitoring, perhaps focusing on other, more important sections of the city first…or it meant they were better than anyone she’d dealt with before, that the cameras and microphones were there, and she had simply not seen them.

She knew the quickest way to her rendezvous, including a couple cut throughs that could keep her mostly out of sight and shave a few minute’s travel time. But if she was spotted in a back alley, or cutting through a fenced off storage yard, she would draw far more suspicion. In the end, she just stayed in the street, trying to look like any local going about her morning business on Occupied Dannith.

She reached the meeting place about fifteen minutes early, and she could see one of Yantis’s men hiding in an alley across the street, looking out over the entrance to the building. That hadn’t been part of the deal, of course, but she’d have been surprised if the gangster hadn’t brought at least some muscle with him. Andi thought about bailing, but she knew that wasn’t an option. She had to get information, some kind of intel, something Tyler would find useful…and she didn’t have a lot of time to do it. The fleet was in deadly danger, and every hour that passed increased the risk of Pegasus being discovered and destroyed.

Besides, there are no two—or three—of Yantis’s people you can’t handle in a pinch. That sounded like bragging, even to her own sensibilities, but Andi Lafarge was the one who had killed the legendary Ricard Lille in a one on one fight, and once in a while, she let it go to her head.

Just a little.

She walked up to the door, looking around, her recon a lot more focused and effective that she made it look. She assumed there were more of Yantis’s gang around, but she couldn’t spot more than the first one. And standing around in the street any longer could only lead to trouble.

She stepped inside the tavern, a quick glance telling her it had been shut down since the invasion. There was dust everywhere, and chairs piled around and stacked on tables. It looked as though the place had been raided a couple times by scavengers, but nothing looked all that out of order.

It seemed empty, but Andi could feel that someone else was there. She tensed up, feeling uncomfortable at her lack of weaponry. She couldn’t remember ever walking into a seedy District bar, open or closed, without at least her pistol hanging down from her waist, and she didn’t like being unarmed. She didn’t like it at all.

“You’re early, Andi.” The voice was distant, coming from the back room, and it took her a few seconds to confirm to herself it was Yantis.

“Well, you know me. I hate people being late for meetings. Besides, I figured if I waited outside, your man across the street might get edgy. I wouldn’t want to have to kill him…even though he’s not supposed to be here. What the hell don’t you get about the word ‘alone,’ shithead?”

“Sorry, Andi, but be real. You show up outta nowhere, I ain’t seen you in what, seven, eight years? You think I’m out of line to be a little careful?”

Andi stared for a few seconds, the cold look on her face fading slightly. “No, I suppose not. That’s why I left your man alive. But that’s the only courtesy I’m giving. Now, I got the fifty thousand. You got what you promised?”

Yantis shuffled his feet nervously. “Show me.”

“Alright…but you heard me. I see one thing that looks like a setup here, and you’ll be dead before you hit the floor.” Andi could see the partially hidden shock, the controlled rage of her companion. Yantis was far more accustomed to threatening people than he was to being threatened. But Andi’s rep had been pretty heavy even back in the day. If so much as a whispered, scattered rumor about her encounter with Lille had reached the occupied planet, even the District’s old guard would think twice about picking a fight with her. Especially with their organizations in ruins, and only a few of their minions still at their sides.

Not to mention, any kind of fight was likely to attract Kriegeri, and that wouldn’t help either one of them.

She reached down into her pocket and pulled out a pile of shiny platinum coins. “You recognize hectocredit eagles when you see them, I’m sure.”

She could see a glint in Yantis’s eyes, and for an instant, she thought the gangster was going to try something. But then she realized, he was simply distracted by the money.

Wow…things have been lean around here. Fifty thousand credits had always been a sizable amount, especially in platinum, but not enough to almost hypnotize a high-level player like Yantis.

Not until now.

Don’t forget, Yantis, there’s a cool half million in this for you…if you give me what I want.” What I need…

“Alright, Andi…but you’ve got to understand, I don’t have access to the kind of information I used to.”

She frowned. “Are you wasting my damned time?”

“No, no…but you gotta realize…what I’ve got might not seem like much, but it’s all you’re going to get. Anywhere, from anybody.”

She stared at the gangster, her gaze withering. “I’m not going to ask again, Yantis. What do you have?”

“The Heggies…they’re having logistics problems, trouble getting enough supplies—and enough manpower—up here. Especially manpower.”

Andi felt a rush of anger. “That’s what you’ve got? Bullshit about the enemy supply lines? About troop shortages?” He voice was sharp, edgy, her anger on display. But she was interested. Data on enemy logistics could be useful, assuming Yantis had something besides gossip and hearsay. And the idea of manpower shortages was backed up by the seeming sparseness of Kriegeri patrols.

“It’s not bullshit, Andi. I’ve got backup. The patrols out there…a year ago, you wouldn’t have made it to whatever hideaway you found and then back here. The Kriegeri were all over the place, checking IDs, enforcing curfews. But they’ve cut back everywhere, patrol sizes, frequency, even the staffs in the operations centers. About a year ago, they started replacing some of their people with drafted locals. I’m telling you, Andi…I don’t know whether it’s the war—we don’t get much on that here, just rumors about heavy losses on Megara—or what, but they’re really feeling the pinch on personnel.”

Andi frowned, as much for Yantis’s benefit as anything. Keeping the gangster on edge—and hungry for the platinum she had offered—could only help her get what she needed.

Still, she was partially satisfied. If she could determine that the Hegemony forces were indeed seriously struggling to replace losses, at least on the Rim, it might be valuable.

Especially if such shortages reached all the way to the fleet, even to Colossus. Was it possible that monstrous warship was on a skeleton crew? Could that be a tactical advantage?

“What do you know about a huge new battleship?” She’d almost kept silent about that, but there was no point, and no time, for subtlety. She had to find out what she could, and send Pegasus back before some malfunction, or some overzealous Hegemony scanner tech, gave away her ship’s location. She pushed back a shiver, trying to ignore the looming thought of just how it would feel when Pegasus was gone. When she was truly trapped on Dannith. Alone. Part of her mind drifted back to Megara, to Tyler’s clear desire to convince her not to go. She wished she was back there, or wherever else he was…but she knew she had to do what she’d come to do. Without a way to face Colossus, being with Tyler would only ensure that she saw him die. And she couldn’t bear that, especially if she hadn’t done all she could to save him.

Yantis looked around, as much a nervous reaction, Andi guessed, as a deliberate effort to check the room. “Colossus…” He whispered the word, repeating his early gesture and looking around again almost immediately.

“Yes, Colossus. What do you know?” She waited a few seconds, but Yantis remained silent. “It’s worth another hundred thousand if you do know something. But don’t even think about bullshitting me.” Her last words dripped with pure malice.

“You have to understand, Andi…what I’ve got is spotty, things people overheard, a few comm intercepts my people managed to pick up.”

“Yeah, yeah…I get it. Can we stick to the details and forget the lawyer talk?”

“Well, first, it’s something they’ve been working on for a long time, an artifact from imperial times. I don’t know when they found the old imperial hull, but I heard twenty years as the time they’ve been working on it.”

Andi’s face hardened. That wasn’t exactly the tactical secret to facing the thing. “I could have guessed that myself. Seriously, if that’s all you’ve got, I’m wasting my time.” Though she realized that was valuable information, to a point. She’d only suspected Colossus was partially imperial in origins. With Yantis’s references, she bumped that up to a solid ‘likely.’

“There’s something else, not about the ship itself, but…” Yantis hesitated for a few seconds. “There’s some kind of dissension, disagreement. Among their high command.” Another pause. “I’ve got a few contacts among those drafted to work for the occupying forces. Hegemony security is pretty tight, but when someone works there all day, well, you know. They hear things.”

“Hear what?” Andi was getting impatient again.

“I don’t know much about Colossus or its capabilities, but I do know there is disagreement among the Hegemony leadership over deploying it here, on the Rim.”

“Disagreement? Why would there be disagreement?”

“I don’t know. You said you wanted intelligence, Andi, information about the enemy. That’s what I promised you. Figuring out what it means is your problem.” There was almost a touch of empathy in the hardened gangster’s tone. She didn’t imagine he particularly cared about her, or any of the millions of warriors fighting and dying, but she’d have made a pretty large bet Yantis would be far from heartbroken to be rid of the Hegemony, and back to the lackluster and inefficient enforcement efforts of the Port Royal City authorities.

She considered what he had told her. The thought that the Hegemony’s commitment to the war had been less than total was a sobering one in light of the vast fleets and millions of Kriegeri soldiers they had deployed. Did they push us to the edge of ruin with one hand tied behind their backs?

And if they held back, why? Is it possible they have some other enemy out there? The whole thing seemed inconceivable to her, but then she imagined what she’d have thought if someone had described the Hegemony to her eight years earlier.

We thought we were alone, the only survivors. Are there more? Something out there that can challenge the Hegemony?

“Alright, Yantis…you bring me the backup for this, and I mean something that proves all of it to me without my having to take your questionable word for it, and the cash is yours.” She looked around the room. She didn’t like dealing with someone like Yantis alone, without backup. There was too much chance the gangster would try to pull something. If he didn’t think he had what she wanted, it was a dead level certainty he’d try to grab the coins from her anyway.

“Tomorrow. Here. Same time. Bring it all with you, and come alone.” She glanced back toward the door, in the direction of Yantis’s thug. “You do know what alone means, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Alright. Tomorrow, alone. And you make sure you’ve got the coins.”

Now Andi returned the nod. “I’ll have it. I’ll have it all.” It was her turn to lie. She’d bring it, but she intended to stash it somewhere close by. She believed what she’d just heard, but she didn’t trust Yantis. She didn’t trust him at all. And she wasn’t going to walk into that meeting carrying a sack of kilocredit coins.

The whole thing was dangerous, nerve-wracking. But such wary and tense alliances sometimes made for the most productive partnerships, especially when they didn’t have to last too long.

She knew he’d be angry when she walked in without the coins, that he’d accuse her of a double-cross. There was a chance that things would go bad, that blood would be drawn. And if it came to that, she would be alone and unarmed. Against however many of Yantis’s crew the gangster worked into his massaged interpretation of ‘alone.’

It was a chance she’d have to take…and whatever happened, she doubted they would try to kill her, at least not until they had the money.

That was a fair bet, she figured. Which was good, since the stakes were her life…and maybe Tyler’s too, and the freedom of everyone else on the Rim.

Chapter Twenty-One

CFS Dauntless

150,000,000 Kilometers from Planet Danovar

Santara System

Year 321 AC

Tyler Barron sat stone still, watching the battle unfold before his eyes. He was a warrior by nature, practically born into the navy, and he was the veteran of dozens of vicious battles. But as he watched Stockton’s wings torn apart, the pride of the Rim navies blasted to atoms, it took everything he had to maintain the unyielding strength his people needed to see. He had to be a rock, cold, invincible, unbreakable. But inside, he was something very close to broken.

He’d been worried about Andi already, almost distraught over the danger he knew she was almost certainly in. He imagined her captured, tortured, killed. It had tormented him, at least until the impending destruction of the fleet, and with it everything else he cared about, pulled his thoughts away. He’d stopped checking the bomber losses when they’d reached three thousand, but he knew they’d gone up since then.

Three thousand…three thousand bombers, three thousand pilots, almost half of what we launched…

It all seemed unreal. Barron had fought his battles, and he’d been raised in the lore of those his grandfather had endured. But the scale of the killing in the past few years had gone beyond anything he’d ever imagined. He remembered when a dozen fighters lost had been a hard blow. Now, he was ignoring hundreds at a time, almost as though anything below a thousand was unworthy of note.

The cruisers and escorts were a bright spot. They had ravaged the enemy’s small ships, taken advantage of the heavier ordnance they still possessed, and the Hegemony did not. Hundreds of enemy escorts had been blown away, but some of them had gotten through to savage Stockton’s shattered and fleeing formations. Hundreds more bombers vanished as they were struck by the deadly fire, and the Hegemony ships maintained their attacks, even as the Rim cruisers and frigates closed behind them and renewed their own assault.

Every fiber in his body had screamed at him to order the battle line forward. But he’d held firm. He knew that was just what the enemy wanted. For Colossus to destroy the Rim’s battleships. Barron had no idea how he was going to face the monstrous enemy dreadnought, how he was going to avoid the total defeat and surrender that seemed so utterly inevitable. But losing his battleships would have turned desperation to utter hopelessness.

He’d given orders for the heavy ships to remain in the system long enough to recover whatever remnants of the strike force managed to return. Then he would issue the retreat order. The capital ships were close to the transit point. They would escape, he would make sure of that, even if it required the unfathomably painful need to leave behind some of the bombers that had escaped destruction.

The cruisers and frigates, the battered escorts and their exhausted crews, were on their own. They would have to escape the best they could. Some would make it, he knew, and others would not. It was a poor reward for the heroism they had shown, but Barron didn’t have the luxury to think about fairness or honor. The very survival of the Rim was his task now.

“Status on the incoming squadrons?” Barron had a basic idea, but he was fairly certain Atara Travis had calculated it down to the tenth decimal.

“We should begin landing ops in fifteen minutes, Admiral. All incoming bombers retaining full thrust potential should be aboard in forty minutes, assuming no foulups on the flight decks.” She paused for a few seconds. “All ships with thruster damage, or those low on fuel will…”

“They’ll die, Captain,” Barron said grimly, too exhausted to keep up pretenses. “We have no time to spare. The squadrons have forty-five minutes to get into the bays. Then the battle line will transit, and anyone not in the bays will be…” Barron let his voice trail off, but it took nothing from his meaning. He hated himself for effectively pronouncing a death sentence on what could be hundreds of the surviving pilots, but he couldn’t risk the heavy ships of the line. They were irreplaceable, requiring years to construct. He’d find more fighters, more pilots, even more escorts…somewhere, somehow. But if he lost the battleships, it was over.

“Understood, Admiral.” Atara didn’t argue, and her tone made it clear she agreed with him completely. It was just as evident she hated herself as much as he did himself.

Barron almost ordered the comm officer to get Stockton on his line. But the wings were still too far for any reasonable conversation. Besides, Stockton knew what to do, and he understood as well as any officer living, what the battleships would do. Had to do. He would get his people back, as many as he could, as quickly as possible.

There was nothing Barron could do but wait…and hope he wasn’t watching the end of the Confederation, of the entire Rim. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t survive that final defeat, that he would die in battle before he would yield and become a slave to the Hegemony.

But now he was preparing to run, to escape alive again, leaving thousands of his spacers dead behind him. He was retreating to try to find a way to stave off final defeat, to prevent a morale breakdown and the surrender he knew the Senate, the industrialists, even many of his own officers would favor when they found out just what had happened.

What they now faced.

Barron didn’t know how he would hold off that kind of collapse, but he silently prayed for just one thing, to avoid one terrifying eventuality.

Don’t make me turn the guns on my own people…

Because he knew he would do just that if the Senate forced him, if it was the only way to keep the Confederation alive, to avoid surrender and slavery.

*

“Johannes, stay on those controls. You’re so close…you can make it.” Stockton was hunched forward, his hand gripped around his throttle like skeletal claws. His people had made it back, at least some of them had. He didn’t have exact numbers, not because they weren’t available, but because he’d expressly ordered his AI not to tell him. There would be time for that. Just then, he had more important things to do, like keeping that number as high as possible by guiding in his pilots with damaged ships. He’d gotten at least a dozen in through his personal efforts, men and women he knew in his gut would be dead if he hadn’t directed them step by step into the bays.

But this was Johannes Trent, a veteran ace and one of his “Four Horsemen.” Alicia Covington had already landed, getting her battered bird in with what had to be about a gram of fuel to spare, and Dirk Timmons was flying around the battle line, doing the same thing Stockton was. Getting rookie pilots into the bays.

Trent was no rookie. He was one of the best in the fleet, but his ship was a complete wreck, battered by a glancing blow from an enemy laser, and then a partial reactor failure. From what Stockton could see on his instruments, by every reasonable definition, Trent’s ship was unflyable.

But the hardened warrior was still flying the damned thing. And Stockton was determined to get him into Dauntless’s bay, whatever it took. He’d come close to losing one of key commanders—and one of his very few friends—the year before at Megara. He hadn’t known Trent as long as he had Federov, of course, but he liked the ace pilot, and he’d come to rely heavily on him. And he wasn’t going to let him die, not so close to the flight deck.

“My stabilizers are shot, Admiral, and I’m coming in too fast. I need to pull off.”

“No…hold your course. That’s an order.” Stockton snapped out the command almost reflexively. He understood Trent’s impulse, and in most situations, he would agree with the pilot. But there was no time, not just then. Stockton hadn’t been barraged with dire warnings from Dauntless’s bridge, urging him to get his people aboard before the battleship, and all its brethren, made a run for the transit point…but that had only been because Tyler Barron knew Stockton understood those facts, perhaps better than anyone in the fleet.

If Trent didn’t make it onboard in this attempt, he wouldn’t have time to come around again. He’d end up being left behind. To die. That was close to an indisputable fact.

“Keep on it, Johannes. You’ve got this. You’re low on power, so you’re going to have to start your final deceleration early, but you’ve got time.” Stockton was no stranger to emergency landings, and he knew the one facing Trent would be a difficult one. He’d always hated assigning percentages to life or death situations, but the thoughts slipped in, nevertheless. A normal pilot might have had one chance in ten, but Trent was one of the fleet’s best. Stockton figured the odds were better than even, maybe even two in three. That was reassuring, perhaps, at a card table when pushing chips to the center, but far less so watching a valued comrade betting his life on the combination of his skills and the battered machinery bringing him home.

“Is the deck cleared?”

That wasn’t the kind of thought he wanted in Trent’s head. Stockton had ordered full crash protocols, of course. Taking out a dozen techs and crippling Dauntless’s flight deck wouldn’t bring Trent back if the pilot lost it on the way in and wiped out in the bay. But Stockton wanted Trent’s thoughts on his ship and the landing ahead of him, and nothing else.

“You’re fine, Johannes. If I was on Dauntless now, I’d take a nap in that bay a meter or two in front of your landing point.” A lie, but a well-meaning one. He’d delivered it well, better than he’d expected, but he still didn’t think Trent had bought it. A less-experienced pilot might have, but Johannes Trent knew just what he was facing.

“Alright, Jake…and, thanks.” The pilot’s voice was edgy, even a touch shaky. Trent was a veteran, but Stockton could tell he was clearly worried.

No, he was scared.

“You’ve been through worse than this, Johannes. Just push everything else aside, and land that thing like you’ve done a hundred times.” Confidence was a crucial thing, of course, but Stockton knew equipment was equipment, and if it was too badly damaged to function, even the best pilot who’d ever lived would be in trouble.

“One minute to entry, Admiral. Firing reverse thrusters now.”

Stockton remained silent, not wanting to cross over from encouragement to distraction. Trent was a pro, a veteran. He knew what to do. It was time to stay silent and trust his friend’s abilities.

He watched on the screen, seeing the energy spike as Trent’s thrusters kicked in. The pattern was off—probably because the engines were damaged, the port side firing harder than the starboard. For an instant, Stockton thought Trent was going to lose it, but the pilot managed to correct the imbalance in time, and his ship slipped through the open landing bay doors, wobbling a bit and still moving at too high a speed, but maybe, just maybe, controllable.

Stockton found himself holding his breath, watching, his body tense. He lost the image as the fighter moved inside Dauntless’s landing bay, and he sat for a few seconds that seemed to drag on into eternity. Then the com crackled, and Stara’s voice came through.

“He’s in, Jake. It was messy, and we had some damage in the bay, but it’s done. I doubt the ship will ever fly again, but Trent is okay. They’re pulling him out of the cockpit right now. He’s got some cuts and scrapes, and maybe a broken arm, but he’ll be fine.” A pause, very short, and then, “Now get yourself in here, Jake. Now. Use beta bay. Alpha will be closed for a bit while we clean things up.”

Stockton nodded, and he could feel a smile take over his face. It was fleeting, and the overall gloom of the day quickly reasserted itself. Still, there was always cause to celebrate a friend’s escape from what had seemed like certain death, even on a day when thousands of others had died. But it was a fleeting thing.

Stockton angled his ship around, realigning toward Dauntless’s beta bay. He was the last one of his people still out, and he took one look behind, into the seemingly endless void of what had been a battlefield. Thirty-four hundred of his pilots were out there, most of them dead, the others floating helplessly, doomed and without hope. It was by far the worst defeat the Confederation’s fighter corps had ever endured, and it had happened on his watch. He had led them all in…and he had brought fewer than half of them back.

It wasn’t his fault, he knew…but then it was, too. He’d ordered the double loads, and he’d led his people right at the mysterious enemy dreadnought. He hadn’t even considered that the enemy might have developed their own fighters, that they might have waited to deploy them until they would have the most devastating effect.

He wretched his mind from such thoughts, focused his attention on the task at hand as his ship slipped inside the bay. There was nothing to be gained by worsening the disaster through his own carelessness. He didn’t know what was next, or how he would deal with the shattered remnants of his fighter corps. If it still was his fighter corps. The only thing certain to him was the need to accept full responsibility for the disaster, to go see Tyler Barron…and to offer the admiral is immediate resignation.

But before any of that, there was one thing he needed to do. He had to shake Johannes Trent’s hand.

And he had to feel Stara in his arms, even if only for a few fleeting moments before reality’s cold hand grabbed him and drove him to bridge, to stand before Admiral Barron and endure the darkness of accountability for what he’d done.

*

“Commander, we might be able to engage the enemy battle line before it is able to transit out of the system.” The kiloron’s voice was stern, professional, but Ilius could hear the venom in it, too. The Kriegeri were professionals, trained from childhood to keep their emotions firmly under control, but six years of bloodletting had placed enormous strain on them all. They were beginning to hate their enemies, and in the process, they were becoming more like them, bloodthirsty, often driven by emotion instead of reason. The enemy had killed millions of their comrades, and for many of them, the war had become not a crusade to absorb and protect the Rimdwellers, but one to avenge their own dead.

That was not good, Ilius knew, even though, when his own guard slipped, he sometimes felt the same way. The whole point of the conflict was to unite the Rimdwellers with the rest of humanity, to forge them all into one. But he couldn’t ignore the rage he’d felt himself, and he’d even seen Chronos’s disciplined mind struggling to keep out the resentment and fury the war had kindled. They had all lost, suffered, shed blood at the hands of the enemy. The reactions were natural enough, but they were also toxic. Such things had helped lead to the Great Death, and brought mankind to the brink of extinction. Humanity would not survive another such disaster. In his more philosophical moments, Ilius wondered if it was too early yet to declare that they had survived the first nightmare. In many ways, it seemed still to be going on.

“Negative, Kiloron.” There was a heaviness to his response. He wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to condemn the officer for his feelings, but he couldn’t encourage such things either. “Continue recovery operations for the fighter squadrons. We will face the enemy line another day.” It took considerable effort for Ilius not to second his subordinate’s desire and order Colossus forward against the disordered Rim fleet. But the great ship’s purpose wasn’t to destroy the remaining forces of the Rim, nor to blast their defenses and their industry to dust. It was to break them emotionally, to crush their morale, to convince them of the utter pointlessness of further bloody resistance. To achieve that, he had to let them go, to give them a moment of solace, enough time to recover from their shock and to coldly evaluate what they now faced.

Then they would accept the terms Chronos would offer. They would have to, surely. Any other course of action would be tantamount to suicide. The Rimdwellers were brave and tenacious, certainly, but they weren’t fools. They wouldn’t fight on when they realized there was no chance to win. No chance whatsoever.

Would they?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Planet Calpharon

Sigma Nordlin IV

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“The deadly danger we have feared through all living memory has returned, and in all the time since the Others last struck, we have never been as vulnerable as we are now. The conflict on the Rim, as rationally planned and executed as it appeared to be, may now prove to be the source of our doom.” Thantor sat at the opposite end of the table, staring down its full length toward Akella. He was Number Two, the most genetically perfect human being in the galaxy, save only for her. They had position in common, the experience of being held above all others. And something more, a child. Thantor was the father of Akella’s firstborn. But in the Hegemony’s ordered and genetically-focused society, that didn’t mean they were companions, or even friends. Thantor had become her bitter rival over the past few years, and she now saw clearly that he viewed her as the only thing standing between him and the highest posting in the Hegemony.

Whatever their connections, including many times when he’d been her political ally, and even during the sexual relations that preceded her pregnancy, Akella had never trusted her immediate subordinate. She’d mated with him because of his genes, because it was her sacred duty to achieve the best possible pairings to create the next generation of humanity’s leaders. There was no affection at all between them, not like there was between her and Chronos.

Not that there need be any. Allowing emotions to interfere with important choices such as breeding selections was the kind of foolishness that had almost destroyed humanity. She understood that, and she believed in it without reservation. Yet, she’d selected Chronos at Number Eight for her second pairing, when she knew both Number Three and Number Seven were available and receptive. That had been an emotional decision, she knew, even if she had convinced herself the differences between two individuals of such lofty statuses were statistically irrelevant. She also knew the problems rarely came at the start of such deviations from orthodoxy, but rather, farther down the sequence of events. It had been a weakness, perhaps a small one, but a chink in her armor she could ill afford. The worst part was, she knew she would make the same choice again if given the opportunity.

“Your conclusions are valid, Thantor, as always, though I submit it is far too early to speak of doom. Master Josias’s expedition met with disaster, and we have no alternate explanation for what threat fell on his fleet. But that, in and of itself, is no conclusive proof that the Others have returned. We have sent four more expeditions to the subject area, and none have encountered any material threats. We must consider these facts as well, before we reach any hasty conclusions.” Her words were for public consumption. She didn’t have a doubt in her mind the Others had returned. The only force ever to threaten the Hegemony with total destruction. She’d feared their return her entire adult life, but only as she sat there, did she realize she’d never truly believed it would happen. At least not in her lifetime. She was still struggling with realization, with true comprehension of what likely faced them all.

“We hear your words, Number One, and we all respect your intellect. Yet, I must ask my colleagues on this Council, what else could have so obliterated a Hegemony fleet? And, what are we to do now, with so many of our forces committed to the seemingly endless conflict on the Rim?” Thantor was pushing her hard, and it was pissing her off. She’d long known her old breeding partner coveted her position, that he was jealous over his own Number Two status. Why is he coming at me so hard? The Test is the Test…he can only take my place if I am driven out in disgrace.

Such action was unprecedented in Hegemony history, and it would take a nearly unanimous vote of the Council even to begin such momentous proceedings. What are you up to, Thantor?

“The action on the Rim is not elective in nature, Number Two. We live by laws and first among those is our sacred duty to shepherd and protect humanity. There are hundreds of billions of people on the Rim, a vast concentration of population that defies any previous knowledge or expectations. I will acknowledge that the conflict had proven more difficult to conclude than we had hoped at first, but I maintain that any other choice but to pursue assimilation would have been unthinkable, and a sacrilegious violation of our primary purpose.” She wished she felt as certain as she sounded, but in truth, she was almost overcome with doubts. Had she erred in sending the fleet to assault the Rim? Had she allowed her feelings for Chronos to color her decisions in dispatching reinforcements?

“And if the Others have returned, as it appears to me, they have, what will become of our sacred purpose, or indeed, of the Hegemony itself? Your pursuit of our central mission may well have led us to utter ruin.”

Akella barely restrained her anger. Thantor was making a move against her, and it triggered immense rage inside her. She’d never even wanted to be Number One, but the Test didn’t lie…and it hadn’t given her a choice. Her genes had brought her ability and privilege, but they had also built a prison for her. She was obligated to hold her post, to assume the duty her bloodlines placed on her. She had never craved power, never sought to rise to the top of the Council. But she had no more choice in that than any who’d come before her, and if Thantor thought she was going to let him use a desperate threat to the Hegemony as a political tool to topple her, he was badly mistaken.

“First, we do not know the Others have returned…” She said it again, but she still didn’t believe it. “…and, the sacred duty of the Hegemony is not a choice. There was no option regarding the Rim. We did there only what we had to do. What we were compelled to do, regardless of risk or cost.”

“And what do you propose now, Number One, if, indeed, the old enemy has returned? Withdraw the fleets from the Rim, reduced in strength as they are? Order the Colossus back, so soon after committing it to the conflict there? And what of this previously unknown population on the Rim, which now, still unassimilated, can only be considered an active enemy? What will they do if we withdraw to face the Others? Will we faced invasion on two fronts?”

Akella was furious, but she held it back. She knew Thantor was trying to discredit her, to lay the groundwork for a move against her at some point. That didn’t mean there was no truth to what he said, of course, but she wasn’t going to do his work for him by losing her composure in front of the other Council members.

She had nothing material to offer anyway. There were no good options. She was hopeful Colossus would end the war on the Rim, soon enough to make a difference, but how long could she risk leaving the massive warship there? Josias was a fool, but he’d had thousands of officers and crews under him, and many of them were veterans and distinguished professionals. Something had destroyed them, obliterated the entire force, almost without a trace.

What could that be, save for the enemy so long feared?

The Others.

“I propose that we analyze the matter, that we craft a strategy to address all the threats that face us. We are the greatest conclave of minds the galaxy has ever seen. Surely, we can leave fear and pointless ‘what ifs’ aside and determine our best course of action.” It was indirect, perhaps, but she figured she’d just called Thantor a coward, or at least something to that effect. At least she managed to hold back the grim smile that tried to escape. “We must take seriously the possibility that the Others have indeed returned, but we must not lose our reason or rationality.” She hesitated for a moment, clinging to her own hopes, her view toward the future. She believed Colossus could win the war on the Rim, that the great superweapon might very well compel the Rimdwellers to realize there was no hope in further resistance. If they surrendered soon enough, Colossus and most of the fleet could return and take up positions on the coreward frontier…just in case the Others were coming.

But if she ordered Colossus back too soon…

She’d taken the threat of the Others seriously for many years, but now, she wondered if she had enough evidence to risk what seemed like impending victory on the Rim. She had no answers to what could have destroyed Josias’s fleet, but neither could she explain the seeming delay if the attack had been made by the Others. Why had they not come on? If they’d scouted the frontier, they had to know the Hegemony’s forces positioned there were weak, the fleets smaller even than those they had faced a century before.

She turned her head, first to the right, and then to the left, making eye contact with the rest of her Council colleagues. “I have called you all together for just these reasons, to determine our course of action. The situation, both on the Rim and along the coreward frontier, is too complex, too intertwined for me to proceed with summary action. This is a matter for the Council to decide, and I strongly believe whatever decision issues forth should be unanimous.” She stared down the table toward Thantor, the intensity of her gaze leaving no doubt she understood he was trying to undermine her. She didn’t fear Thantor’s maneuverings. Part of her would even be relieved to be removed from her responsibilities, from the endless, crushing stress.

But she was a creature of duty, and Thantor was not fit to lead the Hegemony. That meant she had to, and it even compelled her to fight to retain the office she so despised.

“Do we have a recent report from the Rim front? A reliable estimate on the time needed to secure the enemy surrender?” Hallis was Number Nine, and the closest thing Akella had to a friend on the Council with Chronos still out on the Rim.

Akella could see doubt on many of the faces around the table. Chronos was extremely capable, and by far the most accomplished warrior among the Council members. But, like everyone, he had grossly underestimated the Rimdwellers’ ability to resist, and his repeated revisions to his estimates and timetables had cost him a considerable amount of his credibility, at least with some of his colleagues. Akella knew that wasn’t entirely fair, especially since none of those doubting Chronos had been any more correct in their own assessments and predictions. But it was reality nevertheless, and likely one more obstacle she would face in the coming weeks and months.

“Commander Chronos’s latest dispatch has just arrived. I will read it in its entirely before we adjourn, but for now, I will address the highlights. The commander confirms that the new Red Storm fighters were a total surprise and a complete success. They have badly damaged the bomber wings of the Rimdwellers, inflicting loss rates of sixty to seventy percent. The enemy battle line withdrew rather than engage Colossus, and it seems probable that they will capitulate rather than face assured destruction.” Akella didn’t expect anyone to believe what she was saying, at least not in its entirety. She didn’t herself. But Chronos had included a private note to her, and he’d been emphatic that the enemy attack squadrons had indeed been very badly damaged, and possibly rendered combat unworthy. She wasn’t sure Colossus—along with the modified peace terms she’d authorized Chronos to offer—would bring the war to a successful conclusion, but she saw reason for hope.

She just worried about how long it would take…and if she’d have that much time.

If any of them would.

“That sounds like good news, Number One, but while I don’t doubt our esteemed Number Eight, we must consider previous slippage in expected milestones on the Rim, up to and including the recent loss of and retreat from the enemy’s capital.”

Akella looked over at the speaker, doing her best to keep a grimace off her face. Lothar was Number Ten, and after his ally Thantor, her greatest opponent on the Council.

“It is unreasonable to expect precise scheduling during a conflict as large and as distant as the war on the Rim, especially one fought against an adversary about whom so very little was known at the outset. We can spend time arguing over what previous assertions may have been overly optimistic, but the news that the Rimdwellers have lost well over half of their small attack craft—very likely the sole combat system that has prolonged the war—is objectively significant. Coupled with the immense power of Colossus, and the renewed strength of our main battle line vessels in light of the lessened danger of enemy bombing attacks, any empirical analysis must conclude that we are far closer to victory on the Rim than we have ever been. If we are able to secure that victory by compelling surrender rather than through the destruction of the remaining Rim forces, we may even be able to add that strength to our own, if indeed, we do face imminent attack by the Others.”

Thantor had a sour look on his face, and as she looked around the room at the rest of her comrades, she understood why. She had them, most of them, at least for the moment.

“I would urge this Council to at least take some action. We have sent several expeditions to the Icarus Nebula to investigate, but I believe we must do more. We must send a force deeper toward the core, to complete intensive scans of the systems approaching Icarus. If the Others are on the move, we must do everything possible to detect them…before they are upon us.”

Akella nodded immediately. She wasn’t on good terms with Thantor, but she couldn’t argue with his proposal. “Agreed, Number Two. We shall prepare a reinforced exploration fleet at once and order it to proceed four jumps beyond Icarus, executing a complete scan of each system in turn. All in favor?”

She ran her eyes up and down the table, confirming that all present had raised their hands, signaling their assent. The vote was unanimous.

“I will issue the orders at once.” Akella paused, and before she could continue, Thantor spoke again.

“Before we adjourn, I have one other proposal. I believe we must recall either Chronos or Ilius from the Rim. They are our two most experienced commanders of Master rank, and we need one of them here, assuming command of the forces that remain on the coreward border.”

Akella hesitated. The forces on the Rim were vast in scale, the conflict the bloodiest and most complex in Hegemony history, save only for the first incursion by the Others. She was loath to pull back either commander. But a quick glance at her comrades suggested Thantor had the numbers on this one. She might delay implementation, but unless she was prepared to override the Council, she wasn’t going to be able to stop it.

Hopefully, a delay will be enough…

“I will give due consideration to which of our esteemed colleagues is best suited to each duty, and I will issue the appropriate orders.” There was enough vagueness in her statement for her to work with…as long as Chronos managed to wrap things up on the Rim quickly enough.

“If that is all, I believe we may…”

“I have one other item, Number One.” Thantor again, obviously not done with his plotting.

“By all means, Number Two, speak.” She managed to hold back her impatience, most of it.

“The fleet units deployed to the Rim constitute a massive percentage of our overall strength. We must recall some portion of those forces now to bolster our coreward units. Perhaps half the battle line…or, alternatively, Colossus.”

Akella felt her stomach tense, and she struggled again to contain her anger. Of course…failure on the Rim was Thantor’s likeliest path to removing her from power. It was difficult under Hegemony law to overrule genetic rankings, to remove a senior Council member for cause. It had never been successfully done, though it had been tried twice. But if more than six years of war ended only in massive losses and no gains, she would be hard pressed to sustain sufficient support, especially with Chronos absent. Failure on the Rim combined with a renewed threat of invasion by the Others just might form a perfect storm, one that would make her the first Number One ever expelled from the Council. The nearly unanimous vote required for removal, the one that seemed so unlikely, just might be possible in such a scenario.

Fear of the Others was building all around, and even on the Council she could see panic beginning to take hold. The best she could do was play for time. And, probably, very little time.

“I will have the senior staff analyze these options and make a recommendation as to which offers optimal results.” That would buy some time, at least.

She’d never cared much for task forces and endless analysis, but for the first time, she saw the usefulness of lumbering bureaucracy.

Chapter Twenty-Three

CFS Dauntless

Orbiting Harkon

Wellington System

Year 321 AC

Tyler Barron stepped into the room, still trying to suppress the stunned look he was barely managing to keep off his face. It had been almost a week since the fleet had fled the Santara system, just over six days by Megara reckoning, time enough to count the gruesome cost of the failed attack, to number and label the dead. He’d barely allowed himself to think forward too far ahead, to evaluate just what to do next, how to salvage the utter disaster that had fallen him, and those who followed him. Even Barron’s cool and analytical mind struggled to accept the stark realities.

The fleet’s strike force had been ravaged, crippled, almost broken. After the slaughter, with the wounded in the infirmaries and the shattered equipment discarded, fewer than thirty percent of its former ships and pilots were ready for duty. Perhaps another ten percent were in the sickbays, most with some hope, at least, of returning to duty, or they were pilots waiting for replacements for wrecked ships. Whatever the final numbers, there was no escaping the overwhelming conclusion. The most effective weapon Barron had to use against the Hegemony was gutted, almost crippled, a shadow of its former self. And, while he hadn’t lost any ships of the line, neither had the enemy paid for its devastation of his fighter corps with so much as a single battleship.

Perhaps worst of all, the Rim’s monopoly on fighters, the sole advantage it had possessed in the desperate struggle, and likely the one factor that had kept it in the war so long, was a thing of the past. The enemy had not only managed to develop their own craft, but from what he’d seen, both in Santara and on video at least a hundred times they had produced a top-quality design. Their pilots were still green—though gunning down more than three thousand Rim bombers had likely taken them some distance from pure rookie status.

The threat was as clear as it was ominous.

Those two facts alone would have been enough to destroy the fleet’s morale, without even the most devastating development of all.

Colossus.

That monstrous, incredible combination of Hegemony and old imperial technology. The thing was gargantuan in size, immensely powerful, and his best weapon to use against it—the only way he could even imagine defeating it—had been shattered. Any strike force he threw at the gigantic warship would have to get through thousands of interceptors and whatever withering point defense array a sixty-kilometer-long ship possessed. It was hopeless, and all the more with so much of the cream of his bomber wings gone.

Barron had no idea what to do. None.

All he could do was try to hide that fact when he met with his command staff.

“Thank you all for coming.” He’d ordered them all to be there, but he didn’t imagine politeness was misplaced, even amid the disaster unfolding all around.

The other officers, the men and women most responsible for holding the Hegemony back for six years, nodded and muttered back their own greetings and acknowledgements. The mood was dark, something Barron had expected, and saw confirmed in the downcast eyes and low energy level in the room. If he couldn’t get the officers—the veteran warriors—present in a better frame of mind, he couldn’t expect any better from the thousands of spacers in the fleet. The Confederation, and the rest of the Rim along with it, was truly doomed.

“I think we can skip any pointless recap of events in Santara. Suffice it to say, the enemy’s stronger than they were, and we’re weaker.” A pause. “And that doesn’t change a damned thing…except we’ve got even more work to do. Now, we’re not leaving this room until we develop a strategy for dealing with this Colossus. And just to be clear, by ‘dealing with,’ I mean destroying.” Barron surprised himself with the strength and determination in his voice. It was amazing what rage could do…because there was one thing he knew for sure. It wasn’t hope driving him. That was a power source he’d long ago exhausted.

“Now, what weaknesses does that thing have?” Barron had decided to start with Colossus. He was just as worried about the enemy fighters, but his people knew how to deal with enemy squadrons, at least those still alive from the Union War. Barron had already spoken to Jake Stockton, and he’d given him one thing to do, and one thing only.

Train his newer pilots in dogfighting tactics.

Barron had guessed less than twenty percent of the pilots still remaining had any experience at all in fighter vs. fighter action. He was right, at least that there were fewer than twenty percent. Stockton had hit him with the real number. Just over twelve percent.

“Admiral, we’ve gamed every possible attack plan. We’re guessing somewhat at the power of Colossus’s heavy armament, but I think we’re damned fools if we don’t assume whatever it’s got is stronger even than the heavy railguns of their frontline battleships. The line doesn’t have a chance in any kind of straight up fight. It’s likely we’ll lose every ship we’ve got before we even get into our own firing range.” Clint Winters sounded solid, determined, even as he essentially recapped the hopelessness of the situation. Barron suspected his friend was as full of shit in that regard as he himself was.

It was their duty just then, to be full of shit, to lie to their people, instill them with false hope. If that was all you had, that’s what you used.

“I’m inclined to agree with that assessment, Admiral.”

“The clear choice would be a massive bomber strike…which, of course is what we already tried. We let ourselves be surprised by the enemy’s interceptors.” Winters sounded as furious with himself for that as Barron was at his own lack of preparedness. But the two top admirals beating themselves up was a counterproductive effort. “There will be no surprise next time, of course, but we simply lack the strength to mount the kind of operation required. We will be compelled to match their interceptors with our own, and we cannot forget the enemy’s battle line as well. Those ships held position in reserve at Santara, but we cannot assume they will do so in the next engagement. And, with our squadrons facing both the enemy interceptors and Colossus, we have nothing to deploy against the Hegemony battle line. That means advancing our own battleships against theirs, and every one of those vessels will have fully operational railguns.”

Barron tended to see the dark sides of things himself, but Winters’s assessment had him ready to step out of the airlock. He’d have felt better, perhaps, if every black, negative word hadn’t been the simple truth. “Thank you, Admiral, for that complete assessment of our situation.” He hadn’t been sure Winters was done, but he was sure he couldn’t take much more. “Perhaps we can move on now from what we cannot do to what we can do.” Assuming there is anything we can do. Tyler Barron wasn’t one to rely on others to step in and do his job, but he had nothing.

The room was silent, eerily so. Then, a single voice rose up.

“We have to use the stealth devices against Colossus, Admiral. It’s the only way.”

Barron looked down the table, his eyes settling on Sara Eaton. Eaton had been one of his most trusted comrades, ever since the two had joined forces behind enemy lines in the early stages of the last Union War. The old Dauntless, and Eaton’s Intrepid, had fought desperately, and they’d managed to slow the enemy advance long enough for the disordered Confederation fleets to reform. Both of those ships were gone now, but Barron and Eaton were still there…and they were still fighting, still trying desperately to hold off disaster.

“I see where you’re going with that, Admiral Eaton, but even if we were going to take the risk that the stealth units are still effective, we don’t have nearly enough for an attack force large enough to destroy something like that thing.” Barron had watched the crazy race over the past several years, the Hegemony research efforts improving their scanning capabilities, learning to penetrate the stealth fields…and the Confed teams, led as often as not by Anya Fritz, struggling to stay a step ahead. They’d tinkered with frequencies and energy field settings, and they’d managed, as often as not, to maintain some level of effectiveness. But that wasn’t the kind of assurance Barron would need to throw his core battleships into a wild gamble.

“No, Admiral. Not battleships. Escorts. Modified.”

Eaton’s plan piqued his interest. “Modified?”

“Yes, sir. Strip out the weapons, and crank up the reactors to redline levels, with all power going to the engines. And load the things with fusion bombs. I’ll lead teams of skeleton crews to blast the ships in on direct collision courses. We’ll bail out in shuttles at the last minute. With any luck, the Colossus will be engulfed by thermonuclear blasts, very close in, just as we’re making our escape. Even a ship that large will be damaged by that many gigatons…maybe even destroyed.”

Barron sat silent for a moment, as did everyone else present. He had heard some desperate and dangerous schemes before. He’d come up with a few himself. But he’d never heard anything as certifiably insane as Eaton’s plan.

Worse, deep down, he knew there were no other options.

“Sara, I’ll give you points for thinking out of the box, but that’s a pretty wild plan. The risk to the crews would be off the charts. We don’t know if the stealth units will even work at all against Colossus. Who knows what kind of scanner suite that thing packs?” He paused and looked right at her. “And who said you’re going to lead the ships in, even if we do it?”

She looked right back at him and replied, her tone deadpan. “It was my idea, sir.”

Barron hesitated, and he felt a passing urge to laugh. Eaton’s response had hints of the playground to it, the kind of thing one kid might say to another. But the logic was profound. It had been her idea, and she was supremely qualified to lead it.

Barron shook his head slowly. “Does anyone else have another idea? Anything?” We can’t be this desperate, can we?

There was nothing but silence in the room.

Barron had his answer.

*

“No, no, no…you need to listen to what I’m telling you. Going up against enemy fighters is vastly different than executing bombing runs. You ignored what I told you, flew that thing like a bomber, and you’re dead now. Assuming the guy on your tail knows what the hell he’s doing.” At least there’s a chance the Hegemony pilots can’t really fly those things, at least not yet…but I don’t like counting on that…

Stockton damn well hoped the enemy didn’t know what they were doing, because not one in seven of his own people did. His depleted ranks were filled with young pilots, raced through abridged training programs, men and women who’d never flown anything but a ship fitted out with a bomber kit. They’d never faced enemy fighters in action, never experienced a dogfight.

Stockton felt a spark inside him, an enthusiasm he knew ignored almost every facet of reality. The appearance of Hegemony fighters had been an utter disaster in every measurable way, but Stockton couldn’t entirely drive away his own quivering anxiousness to get back into an interceptor, to fight it out in the blackness of space, matching himself against enemy pilots instead of trying to derive ever more bizarre and random sequences to avoid point defense batteries. Jake Stockton had friends, he had loyalties, he even had a woman he loved. He had a future if the war ever ended, the hope of a happy and peaceful life. But he’d never felt as at home—never—as he had behind the controls of his Lightning in a dogfight. It was what he’d been born to do, and in the Union War, he’d been the scourge of space, Dauntless’s engravers almost unable to keep up with the need to add the small kill markings to his ship.

It was misplaced enthusiasm, he knew. His skill, his ferocity, however strong they were, wouldn’t be enough to make a difference. If he’d been able to end the war by challenging the enemy’s best pilot to a one on one exchange—even their best three to an uneven contest—he’d have done it in an instant. But now he had to get thousands of shaken and demoralized pilots, most of whom had never flown against other fighters, ready.

Ready for what?

Even if he got them ready, even if they could hold their own…what could they do? He’d lost more than sixty percent of his strength. His wings and squadrons were shattered, many virtually wiped out. He’d consolidated some of them, tried to make sense of the almost obliterated order of battle. But casing a unit’s colors was never good for morale…doing it a hundred times was bound to crush the spirit of any group of warriors.

Even if his people maintained their spirits, there simply weren’t enough of them. They had to deal with the enemy fighters, the Hegemony’s battle line, and Colossus. With less than half the strength they’d had when they failed to even reach the massive superbattleship.

It would be different next time, he knew. His double loaded bombers had been sitting ducks against ships outfitted as interceptors, and the enemy fighters would be no surprise when his people met them again. The next fight would indeed be different, though just how different depended on what he could pound into his pilots’ heads in whatever—likely very short—time he had.

“You need to watch your scanners in all directions. It’s not always a one on one fight. You can have enemies coming in from every direction, and if evading one puts you right in the line of fire of another, you’re going to end up just as dead.”

Stockton exhaled hard. He didn’t know what role his squadrons would have in the next battle, but it was clear enough that ignoring the Hegemony interceptors wasn’t an option. At least some of his people would have to be ready to dogfight, and very possibly all of them.

He shook his head as he watched an entire wing fall into a disordered mass, as a single makeshift squadron of veterans moved in on them.

He had a lot of work to do, and not enough time to do it.

But at least the endless stress and effort of training his pilots would kept him too busy to think about the losses he’d suffered. He knew his duty, understood just how likely it was his next battle would be his last, but at least thoughts like that kept the dead faces at bay. For a while.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Spacer’s District

Port Royal City

Dannith, Ventica III

Year 321 AC

Andi slipped through the gully, hunched over, careful to keep her head and shoulders below the earthen walls of the old drainage ditch. It was dark—very dark with neither of Dannith’s two moons ascendant—but she wasn’t taking any chances. She was less than thrilled with the limits on what she’d been able to find, but she was out of time. She couldn’t leave Pegasus sitting in orbit any longer, not without risking the vessel’s discovery. And, besides, any data she got back to the fleet would be useless if it arrived after the final battle was over. She’d learned enough to convince herself that Colossus could easily destroy the fleet, probably by itself and certainly leading the Hegemony fleet into the fight, and even as she raced out of the city, she worried that the miserable scraps of intelligence she’d managed to gather were already too late.

Yantis had been true to his word, something of a first for the notorious gangster, at least in her experience. I guess invasion and occupation, and the destruction of most of one’s life’s work, legal or otherwise, is enough to shake up anyone. Andi realized she was a point of familiarity to Yantis, a link back to a time when things made more sense to him. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t betray her if it was in his interests, but just maybe it suggested he would try to avoid that necessity.

Then, of course, there was the money. The way Yantis had almost salivated when she’d handed it over told her just how much he had lost. Six hundred thousand credits was a lot of money to anyone, but she suspected the gangster’s monthly payroll had been that much back in the day. That was something to remember…since she still had close to half a million stashed away, and she herself was going to be stuck on Dannith for the foreseeable future. After she made her transmission, and sent Pegasus on its way, she would be working for herself, her duties to the fleet and the Confederation discharged. There would be no point in hunting for further intel, since, with the departure of Pegasus, her only way of getting information back would be gone. She could concentrate on finding someplace to stay, and maybe getting phony ID documentation. Maybe she could find someplace to stay, someplace where she could lay low…for as long as she had to.

Keep telling yourself that…it’s better than thinking all day about what a Hegemony prison cell looks like.

Or worse…

She stopped and looked behind her. Then she climbed up the edge of the ditch and peered out. She could only see few meters into the darkness, and only that because of the faint light from the stars. She held her breath and listened. Nothing.

At least nothing she could hear. And, while she’d come to respect the Kriegeri and their fighting abilities, she had yet to encounter one who met her definition of ‘quiet on his feet.’

She slid back down to the bottom of the ditch and continued on. She tried to convince herself what she’d discovered would be of some help, but her skeptical nature intervened. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find, if some quasi-insanity inside her had convinced a part of her mind she was going to sneak into Hegemony headquarters and emerge with a copy of their super-secret battle plans and technical specifications of Colossus, including the exploitable weakness that would bring the great ship down. What info she had resembled actual intelligence much more closely than some fantasy secret that would bring doom to the enemy. And the fact that the Hegemony was suffering severe manpower shortages at the front was a bit of data with considerable military significance. It was something Tyler needed to know…and she was determined to see he got it.

Even if the price was never seeing him again. If she had to die to protect him, she was ready to do just that.

She walked another kilometer and a half, and then she climbed up the edge of the ditch, peering around again before she scrambled out and raced up a nearby hillside. She’d remembered the spot from her days on Dannith. It was secluded, someplace she was unlikely to be bothered by patrols.

Until you fire up the transmitter…

She knelt down, and pulled the small unit from her pack. Aside from the coins, it constituted most of the mass she’d been able to bring down in her wild descent to the surface. She’d checked it out three times already, confirming it hadn’t been damaged during the drop, but she knew she’d only believe the thing was truly functional after she’d transmitted her data.

She assembled the radio set, pausing every few minutes to scan the area, to listen silently, alert for any signs of approach, any clues that she’d been spotted.

But there was nothing.

She finished, and she flipped the switch the activate the unit. If Vig had been able to follow her orders, Pegasus would be in position at any moment.

“Pegasus, Andi here. Prepare to receive transmission.”

The status readouts were all green, but Andi knew she was going to have to take it on faith Vig and the others were hearing her. She’d expressly forbidden them from sending any signals, not even a brief confirmation. It was risky enough sending them the tight signal transmission, but she’d been utterly unprepared to put her ship and her people at increased risk of detection resulting from sending outgoing communications beams.

The lack of an acknowledgement wouldn’t affect the chances of the mission’s success, but it wouldn’t do anything to ease Andi’s mind, to at least give her some assurance her sacrifices had not been in vain. When she finished, and left the hillside, she would have no idea if she’d succeeded, and she’d be trapped on the surface, trying to avoid capture. It was a frustrating prospect, and part of her, the human places inside where she still felt fear and longing and a desire to live out the rest of her life happily, cried out that she shouldn’t have come.

But she had been born in a place much like hell, and she doubted the real thing held many surprises for her. She was strong, determined. She would not yield. Not ever.

She was a warrior, right down to the core of her being, and she would be as long as she drew breath.

“Pegasus…prepare to receive transmission…”

*

Vig Merrick stared at the screen, struggling to convince himself his eyes weren’t moist, that he wasn’t expending much of his energy trying to hold back tears.

Merrick had long been at home in the rough and tumble world of the Badlands frontier, and he was no stranger to hazards, to danger, even to mortal combat. But he’d never done anything harder than what he had to do next.

Andi Lafarge was his friend, a sister to him in every way that mattered. She had taken him in when he had nothing, and she’d taught him most of what he knew. In her service—her comradeship—he had gone from the youngest member of a scandal-plagued family, impoverished and without prospects, to an enormously wealthy man, one who could live anywhere he wanted, do anything he desired. He owed all of that to Andi.

And now, he had to leave her behind, trapped in a swarming nest full of enemies with no prospect for escape, and perhaps not much more for survival. It seemed impossible, and he’d almost succumbed several times to the uncertainty, the doubts about whether he could go through with it. Only one thing drove him, kept him at his station, his hands moving over the controls, prepping Pegasus to slip out of orbit and sneak out of the system. To go back, to find the fleet and deliver the data they’d just received.

To go and leave Andi behind.

Nothing short of his sacred oath, given to Andi Lafarge herself, could have bound him inescapably to such a course of action. But that was just what he’d done.

If there’d been a way to rescue her, to get her back aboard, even his word given to his closest friend couldn’t have bound him to his current course. But there was no way to get to Andi. All he could do was get Pegasus destroyed or captured…to no effect at all.

Andi would still be on the surface, but then, the enemy would know she was there, or at least suspect. He would only make things harder for her…and, worse, he would have failed her.

He knew what he had to do, and if he hated himself for doing it, he knew his self-directed fury would be far greater if he failed to do what she’d bade him to do.

He had to get Pegasus out of the system. He had to find the fleet.

And he had to have faith in Andi, confidence that she could remain hidden, that she could survive…however long it took for the fleet to one day return to Dannith and retake the planet.

Chapter Twenty-Five

CFS Dauntless

Tellurus System

Year 321 AC

Tyler Barron sat on Dauntless’s bridge, staring at the battleship’s massive main display. He was tense, fighting to hold back the nausea threatening to overcome his defenses. He hated the plan. He’d hated it from the instant Sara Eaton had suggested it, but, in the end, he’d approved it…not because he believed in it, nor because he could reconcile with the terrible risks it held for Eaton and so many of her people, but for the simple reason that he hadn’t been able to think of anything else.

It was primitive, coarse, blunt. It felt like using a club or a bottle in a fight, though he knew it actually relied on the leading-edge technology of the stealth generators.

There was validity to the idea, he’d realized that at once. The warheads crammed onto the ships Eaton was leading forward were enormous, with payloads so large they were nearly unstable even before they were armed. The bombs were powerful enough to make city-killing missiles look like pop guns, their destructive force measured not in so prosaic a set of increments as megatons, but rather in gigatons. No physical construct, no matter how advanced, could survive that kind of detonation occurring at or near the point of impact…or at least so the plan’s specs stated. And it was true, Barron knew. If those ships could reach Colossus, if their stealth units maintained their secrecy, if they managed to impact with the vessel, or at least detonate in its immediate vicinity, they could destroy the monstrosity that threatened the Rim with total defeat and submission. Not even imperial technology could withstand the violent release of such energies.

And if Sara Eaton and her people are able to get into their escape pods, and we can get enough ships forward to retrieve them, maybe they won’t pay a terrible price for such an audacious attack.

His problem was, he didn’t believe any of that. He couldn’t imagine destroying Colossus with such relative ease, and he definitely couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of somehow rescuing the brave crews after they’d ditched their ships at the last moment.

There were too many things that could go wrong, and Barron had found in his career that things that could cause problems usually did.

Eaton’s ships weren’t on the display as his eyes bored into the 3D hologram. That was a good sign, at least, evidence that the worst hadn’t happened. Yet. If Dauntless’s scanners couldn’t detect the vessels, perhaps the enemy’s wouldn’t either, though he knew that was a false equivalency. Dauntless’s scanners’ failure to detect the cloaked ships was far from a guarantee the far superior Hegemony-imperial hybrids on the massive vessel wouldn’t. Barron was relieved nevertheless—slightly—but he was far too familiar with the advantages of Hegemony technology compared to that of the Confederation.

He looked away, his eyes moving toward Atara’s station. He had other problems to worry about, and the most pressing was directing the first fighter strike since the disaster at Santara. His throat was dry, and it tightened when the time came to give the launch order. The last time he’d issued such a command, thousands of his pilots had died. Fewer than half the men and women he’d ordered out had returned. It had been the worst catastrophe in the history of the fighter corps, and it had happened under his command.

But he had no choice. He had to give the order. At least this time, the strike was only a diversion. With any luck, the fighters might never even engage. They would just give the impression the Rim fleet was there to fight it out, and provide some cover for the cloaked ships as they approached Colossus.

At least this time the wings had interceptors in their ranks, fast, maneuverable craft ready to show the Hegemony’s new pilots just what a dogfight could be. Barron had almost ordered the entire strike force outfitted for fighter versus fighter combat, but he hadn’t wanted to take any chances, to do anything that might trigger the enemy’s suspicions, warn them that something else was going on. If he’d really intended to meet the Hegemony fleet in Tellurus in a straight up fight to the finish, he would have heavy attack ships in the mix. So, there were bombers out there, too.

The strike force was still weak, its numbers severely affected by the losses suffered at Santara. There had been no way to resolve that problem, not in the short time that had been available. He’d transferred what reserves were available, put fleets of newly-manufactured Lightnings into service, but all his efforts had failed to undo the disaster in Santara. The strike force was a pale shadow of what it had been, though, at least this time, the interceptors were ready to meet the Hegemony fighters on more even terms.

Barron was watching, waiting for the enemy to launch, feeling the tension increase with every passing moment. Still, despite his readiness, he felt some surprise when the first reports came in.

“Colossus is launching fighters, Admiral. And the enemy battle line is moving forward.”

Barron disregarded the news about the enemy battleships. They were a threat, certainly, but not one he intended to face. His fleet wasn’t there to fight, not really. They were there to create a diversion, to buy enough time for Sara Eaton and her people to close, and to launch their ship-bomb conglomerations toward Colossus. Even the rescue attempts, the desperate effort to scoop up the lifeboats containing Eaton and her volunteer crews, would be made by escort ships, faster and more maneuverable than the great beasts of the battle line…and more expendable, too.

No one is expendable, he thought to himself. But he didn’t really believe it. His years at war all screamed to him from his memories, and from his nightmares, contrary images flooded his mind, examples of warriors who’d been left to die, sent to die, all for the greater good. On some level, Barron knew the real question wasn’t who was expendable, but, given a dire enough situation, who wasn’t.

He was far from confident the rescue ships could succeed, that they could collect Eaton’s survivors and escape the system, but he tried not to think about it. There was nothing he could do, nothing he hadn’t already done, and it wasn’t going to help him to obsess now about whether he was sending Sara Eaton to her death. Such painful exercises served no purpose. If he could destroy Colossus at the cost of every man and woman in his command—himself included—he understood he would do it, that he would have to do it. Risk was no cause to hold back, not when the alternative was disaster and utter defeat for all of his people.

For everyone on the Rim.

Still, that didn’t make it any easier.

Barron watched as the enemy strike force assembled around the massive warship and began to move forward, toward Stockton and the Rim’s fighter wings. The Hegemony approach vector varied a bit from what Barron’s staff had projected, and as he watched them, he felt a tightness in his gut, and a cold realization formed.

He was about to say something when Atara turned and spoke first. “Admiral Stockton on your line, sir.”

Stockton knows it…just like you do.

He shook his head as he tapped the comm unit. “Jake…” He stopped, struggling to force himself to say what he knew he had to say. Then, Stockton rescued him.

“I need authorization to accelerate and engage, Admiral. Those fighters are…” The strike force commander stopped abruptly, clearly unwilling to mention Eaton’s ships, even over an encrypted, direct line.

But Barron already knew. The Hegemony squadrons were close to Eaton’s line of approach, too close. If Barron left them alone, two thousand ships strong, all of them scanning the area around their line of advance…

Around Eaton’s cloaked ships…

“Go, Jake. But watch your approach velocity. I want you to joust with them, keep them distracted…not dive in for a fight to the finish. When I give the word, I want you to break off and get back here immediately, so keep your velocities and vectors under control. Understood?”

Barron listened to the silence, extending a bit longer than the transmission time explained. Barron knew Stockton, and he understood his top pilot was seething with rage, desperate to avenge the pilots he’d lost at Santara. Stockton had always been a vicious fighter, and Barron knew every fiber in his body wanted to plunge in, to make the enemy pay for the pilots they’d butchered.

Barron was completely sure that’s how Stockton felt, if for no other reason than he would have felt no differently in the pilot’s shoes. But there was more at stake than vengeance or pride. The future of the Rim was on the line, and that was above all other considerations.

The fleet simply couldn’t afford to lose any more pilots than absolutely necessary.

He was about to repeat what he’d said when the pilot’s response finally came. “Understood, Admiral.” Stockton clearly wasn’t happy with the reality, but Barron could tell from his tone, he would do what he had to do, what he’d been ordered to do.

“We need those fighters, Jake, remember that. We just can’t afford another round of heavy casualties.” Barron felt a touch of guilt at reminding Stockton how many people had been lost at Santara. He was sure his strike force commander knew the exact tally, probably updated from the latest report of fatalities from the infirmaries, and that the veteran pilot blamed himself, for the double loading of the ships if nothing else. But there was no room for compassion, nor for confusion. Barron had to know Stockton understood him perfectly, and a few seconds later, he did.

“I know the situation, sir. You can count on me.”

Barron nodded silently for a few seconds. Then he replied, simply, “I know that, Jake. I’ve always known that.” He cut the line. Now stay focused and come back. I need you. Barron had seen too many pilots killed more by their own distraction and despair than by enemy action, and he couldn’t afford to lose Stockton.

Then he turned back toward the display, trying to guess just where Eaton’s force was. If they were on schedule, they’d be hitting Colossus in less than twenty minutes.

*

“Alright, bombers stay back. I want all of you on reverse thrust. Bring your velocity down to five hundred kilometers per second. Interceptors, you’re all with me. Those of you who’ve been in dogfights before, it’s time to rouse those memories, recharge the old reflexes. Those who are flying interceptors for the first time in combat, follow the lead of the veterans. And remember, dogfighting is new to all those Kriegeri pilots, too, so stay focused…and remember, it’s time to avenge those we left behind in Santara.”

Stockton wasn’t sure he should have added that last part, not after Barron’s orders. But the admiral had only restricted how far forward his ships went, how much velocity they built up heading away from the fleet. He hadn’t said a word about the ferocity of the fighting while it lasted, and Stockton intended to make use of every second he had.

To kill Hegemony pilots. To make them pay for all of his people who’d died at Santara.

“Here they come…let’s show these bastards what Rim strikefighters can do.” Stockton blasted his own thruster, pushing forward, toward a small cluster of Hegemony ships in the lead of their formation. He didn’t know if the commanders of the enemy strike force were there, but if they were, he was planning to chop the head right off.

He flipped a pair of switches, arming his ship-to-ship missiles. The Confederation weapons were heavier than the Hegemony rockets, but his ship only carried two, while the enemy craft mounted four. Stockton didn’t care. He was going to blast two ships with his longer-ranged weapons, and then he was going to show those Kriegeri sons of bitches just what a real pilot could do with his lasers.

He saw a large formation of fighters—his own—coming around, moving toward the Hegemony force’s flank. He knew who it was before he even saw it.

Warrior…

Dirk Timmons, once a rival, now one of his closest friends…and the best pilot in the fleet, save perhaps only for Stockton himself.

And behind the bluster and the cockiness that went with the trade, Stockton knew very well just how valid that ‘perhaps’ was.

Timmons had his wings accelerating hard. It seemed the officer was ignoring the orders against getting too committed, but Stockton realized at once that the vector against the enemy flank was partially back toward the fleet as well. Timmons was about to hit the enemy hard, and when the order to withdraw came, his ships would be able to quickly bring their vectors around on a course back to the fleet.

He was obeying the spirit of Barron’s orders, if not the literal words.

Stockton cursed himself for a moment, wondering if he should have tried something like the with the entire strike force. But he quickly realized, a flanking move couldn’t really work, not without a pinning force in front. Besides, Timmons had most of the real veterans, pilots who’d faced other fighters in melee before. If Stockton had given the rookies complex maneuvers, he would have overloaded them. He needed them focusing on what he’d taught them in the few weeks he’d had to prepare them.

He needed them to kill Hegemony fighters.

Stockton’s fingers tightened, and his ship shook once, then a few seconds later, again, as he loosed his two missiles. The Hegemony fighters were bunched together—a rookie mistake, and one he intended to take full advantage of. He might have felt something like sympathy for the Kriegeri in those things, rushed through training, thrown into combat too soon, and about to die at the hands of a hardened veteran.

He might have, but he didn’t.

He smiled as he saw the first target disappear, and his grin widened as the second one followed.

No, he didn’t feel sympathy for the enemy.

Not one bit.

Chapter Twenty-Six

CFS Zephyr

Tellurus System

Year 321 AC

Sara Eaton leaned forward, her body tight with tension. Zephyr was close to Colossus, closer than any Confederation vessel had yet come to the Hegemony’s new superweapon. There were eleven other vessels in her small command, each of them accelerating hard toward the monstrous vessel, increasing thrust levels as the distance dropped.

And everyone onboard each of them as nervous as I am…

She knew ‘nervous’ was her own internal code, a word that allowed her to avoid admitting to herself that she was terrified. She’d faced deadly danger before, and been scared each time, but there was something different about the current mission. She was staring into the maw of ancient imperial might, of the manifestation of the power mankind had possessed before the Cataclysm, and it felt like looking into the angry eyes of some vengeful, old god.

The mission had been her idea. She still saw the need for it, and the lack of other alternatives, but now her eyes were opened to the terrible risk, to the almost absurd desperation of the whole thing.

“Two hundred thousand kilometers, Admiral. Closing at three thousand kilometers per second, and still accelerating. All ships appear to be fully operational.” The officer’s voice betrayed her fear. That didn’t surprise Eaton, and she thought nothing less of her for it. She was just as scared herself. She just hoped she was hiding it better. One of the duties of her rank.

“Very well. Maintain course and acceleration.” She nodded as she acknowledged the report. ‘Appear to be fully operational’ was far from the specificity and accuracy she usually expected in status reports. But her people were restricted to what their passive scanners showed them. She didn’t dare allow any of her ships to communicate with each other, not even on direct laser comm links, nor to run any active scans. Secrecy was the only thing keeping any of them alive. It was dangerous enough that her ships were blasting their engines at full, but that at least, had been a tradeoff between increasing the risk of detection while reducing the time to close the distance.

She wondered for a moment, a fleeting instant of weakness, if she’d really had to come at all. There was nothing really to command, not without communications between the ships, and her orders were simple. Basically, to ram the damned thing, or come as close to that as possible. Even the detonations would be controlled by the ships’ AIs.

She imagined sitting back in her command chair, on the bridge of her battleship, watching and waiting as Tyler and the others were doing even then. She knew that wasn’t an easy thing to do, either, to sit and wait to see if those you sent forward returned. But as much as a veteran like Eaton tried to push aside the sheer terror, it preyed on her relentlessly. She had gone into battle many times, always knowing the risks. That didn’t mean she wanted to die, or that she wanted any of her people to die.

But what they were doing just then, the desperate mission they were executing, had to go in, and she would have led it even if she’d know every one of her people would die. There was too much at stake to think of personal fears and desires. The Colossus could destroy every ship in the Rim navies, blast every orbital fortress to rubble from far beyond the range of return fire. For six years, she and her comrades had battled relentlessly, fought to maintain their freedom, to beat back the invader. If she failed, if her desperate attack didn’t destroy the massive superbattleship, all was lost.

“All lifeboats, power up. All non-essential crew are to board at once.” It was almost time. Time to get her people out.

Eaton had timed everything perfectly, down to the last second. The boats would begin their escapes with the intrinsic velocities of the ships that launched them. That meant, even after they escaped, her people would be racing toward Colossus at tremendous velocity. The small survival craft lacked the thrust to decelerate significantly, but she’d allowed enough time to alter their vectors, to keep the ships out of the danger zone when the massive warheads went off.

Just enough.

“Non-essential personnel boarding now, Admiral.”

‘Non-essential’ had a different definition on the current mission than it usually did. There was no one on any of her ships that fit the usual parameters. But now, no one at all was essential, unless they were at the controls, guiding the ships in over the last fifty thousand kilometers. Even that duty would soon be turned over to the AIs, the computers that would bring the ships in on their final approaches, until their final demise in the unimaginable fury the detonations would unleash.

In a moment or two, she would give the final orders, and the pilots and skeletal engineering teams—and she and her immediate staff—would board the lifeboats as well.

None of the boats could launch yet, of course, not until the final moment. The small lifeboats would show up on Colossus’s scanners once they cleared the stealth zone, and Eaton had no intentions of taking any chances of giving the enemy time to intercept the incoming bomb ships.

No matter how tight that made the final escape.

She could feel the tension building as the ships moved closer and closer to Colossus. She dared to let herself imagine the mission’s success, even to think of a successful escape for her people. A return to her chair, surrounded by her staff and command crew.

Then she saw a flash on the screen, and she felt as though some phantom hand had reached down her throat and ripped out her insides. The AI was still chewing on the sparse passive scan data, but Eaton knew instantly what had happened.

Colossus had detected her ships, one of them at least, and opened fire. A quick glance to the display confirmed her fears. Clarkson was gone, obliterated by the immense power of Colossus’s guns at close range.

She sucked in deep breath, trying to ignore the nausea roiling her stomach.

There was just one thing she didn’t know. Had Clarkson’s stealth unit failed? Had Colossus just discovered the one ship?

Or were all her vessels about to be destroyed so close to success.

So close…

“Activate AI control. All personnel to the lifeboats. Now!”

*

‘Warrior’ Timmons pressed the firing stud, three times in rapid succession, and each shot obliterated a Hegemony fighter. Timmons had watched his people gunned down in Santara, surprised and virtually helpless in their clunky bombers. Now it was payback time.

It had been years since Timmons had been in a dogfight, and this was his first with his prosthetic legs, but his skill and his reflexes came back quickly. He’d scored half a dozen kills already, something unheard of in the normal annals of fighter versus fighter combat. But it was the first time he’d faced thousands of pilots who’d never fought other interceptors before, and he and his people were giving the still-green Hegemony pilots a lesson in just what properly-equipped veterans could do.

At least he had veterans throughout his ranks. He couldn’t say that for the entire strike force.

Jake Stockton had entrusted Timmons with most of the fighter corps’ experienced interceptor pilots, and he knew great responsibility came with that kind of favor. Timmons’ veterans were going to do the most damage to the enemy, and the more ferocious an attack they executed, the more pressure they would take off the less experienced pilots in the other wings…and the more they would distract the enemy to prevent them from finding Admiral Eaton’s cloaked vessels, which was the primary mission, the entire reason the battered strike force had launched.

Revenge for Santara was strictly a bonus.

Timmons checked his scanners, his eyes moving to his next target, even as he confirmed there was still no sign of Eaton’s force. Just a few more minutes…then they’ll be there…

His orders were clear. The instant the bomb carriers detonated, he was to break off, to pull his forces back and return to their base ships. He understood the logic at play. First, a withdrawal would minimize losses among the already-ravaged squadrons, and second, it would draw the enemy fighters away from Colossus—or the position where Colossus had been—and hopefully open the way for the small, swift rescue ships to slip in and retrieve Admiral Eaton and her people from their vulnerable lifeboats.

Those facts added up to a single conclusion for Timmons. He didn’t have much time left to kill, to gun down the enemies who had done so much damage to the strike force in Santara.

And he was damned sure going to make the most out of what he did have.

He fired again, taking down another yet ship almost immediately. He knew the enemy had never faced interceptors before, that they had been rushed through training, and had never experienced a dogfight. Things would quickly become more even, he knew, as the Hegemony pilots were forged into veterans, but for that fleeting moment Timmons and his people had a battle cry.

Remember Santara.

He had a fair number of aces in the formation, veterans from the Union War, and beyond those old hands, he suspected many of his less experienced pilots would gain distinction in the day’s fighting They would learn from their comrades who had been there, who had faced enemy interceptors in battle before. To Timmons, it was no more than a return to normalcy, to the kind of combat he’d seen through most of his career.

He brought his ship around, blasting his thrusters hard to make another pass through the enemy’s main formation, when his eyes caught something on his screen.

An explosion.

He thought for an instant one of the enemy fighters had been destroyed in a particularly spectacular fashion, but he quickly realized the blast had been too large, the energy released too powerful.

That was an escort, a frigate or something similar…

But there were no escorts in that sector, neither friendly nor enemy.

But it was about where Eaton’s cloaked ships were supposed to be.

He felt his stomach clench, and he lurched forward, sucking in a deep breath to center himself, to adjust to what he suddenly knew was happening.

No, not now, not so close…

*

“What the hell is going on out there?” Barron’s voice was raw, a touch of something approaching panic slipping into his tone. He’d been looking right at the display when the first energy spike came through, and even while he was asking for more information—and resisting the conclusions already forming in his mind—the cold reality was still there.

Colossus was firing at Eaton’s ships.

He knew, with a grim sense of finality, that he’d just seen one of the attack force’s vessels destroyed. The escorts had been stripped down to skeleton crews for their desperate runs at Colossus, but that was still sixty men and women gone. After the millions who’d died so far in the war, part of him almost ignored the new toll, wrote it off as irrelevant. But no warrior who volunteered, who stepped forward into the fire, was irrelevant. They were all his people, and they deserved the best he could give them, even his grief, if that was all he had to offer.

Sara Eaton. His longtime comrade, his friend. They had served closely since the earliest days of the Union War, and they’d come to share an immense bond of trust and admiration for each other.

And she was out there, in one of those ships.

Barron felt an overwhelming urge to snap out a rapid series of orders, to send the fleet forward to the aid of Eaton’s force. But that was impossible. The fleet was all that stood between the Hegemony and utter domination of the Rim. He couldn’t risk what remained of the Rim’s defenses, not even for a war hero, for one of his closest friends. There was nothing he could do but watch and wait…and hope that didn’t mean sitting still while Sara Eaton and all her people died.

That hope, fleeting from the start, was almost entirely dashed seconds later, as another energy surge appeared on the display, and then, a third. Eaton’s ships—save for the explosions marking the destruction of three of them—were still invisible on Dauntless’s display, but it was gut-wrenchingly obvious that Colossus had detected them.

Pull back, Sara…

The words almost escaped his lips, but he held them back. There was no gain in them. What he was seeing had occurred nearly a minute before, and any orders he sent would take that long to reach Eaton’s ship.

Even if he’d been able to transmit his thoughts to his friend instantly, they would be of no use. Eaton’s ships were moving toward Colossus at more than one percent of lightspeed. It would take far too long to come to a stop, and even longer to pull away.

He sat, watching helplessly, and hoping against hope that Eaton managed to think of something that had eluded him, some way out he couldn’t see. Her people could eject, if they hurried, before their ships were destroyed. But there was little to be gained. There was no way the uncloaked rescue ships could retrieve them.

The idea of being captured by the enemy was unthinkable to him, and he’d imagined numerous times that he would fight to the death before he would ever yield. But he found himself hoping Eaton’s people could make it to their lifeboats, that they would have the chance to surrender. The warriors of the Hegemony were relentless enemies, but they’d never shown themselves prone to pointless brutality.

Two more of the attack ships vanished into bursts of pure energy, even as a few small contacts emerged.

Lifeboats…some of them are escaping…

He imagined Eaton on one of the small vessels, destined perhaps for captivity, but not for imminent death. It was something to cling to, a thought Barron couldn’t drive from his mind, not after all the friends and comrades he’d lost. He knew there had to be a limit somewhere, a maximum to the loss a man could endure. Images of Andi drifted into his thoughts, even as he struggled watching Eaton’s attack force destroyed.

He clung to hope that at least a few of the ships would reach their target, that their massive payloads would detonate. He’d hoped to destroy the Hegemony behemoth, but now he wondered if simply damaging the thing could be enough. But his count of destroyed vessels was up to eight, and that mean there were only four ships left out there.

Three, he thought, as another hit registered on the scanner.

Then, he saw it. A ship on the scanner, even as a tenth was destroyed nearby. The ship he saw was damaged, that was clear. It had likely taken an indirect hit—one that hadn’t obliterated it, but had clearly knocked out its stealth generator. It was coming on, its immense velocity bringing it relentlessly toward Colossus. Barron held his breath, feeling as though an iron fist had punched him in the gut as the eleventh vessel was destroyed. The one on the display was the last one, and an instant later, it’s beacon, somehow still functioning, provided its name.

Sephyr.

Eaton’s ship.

The crippled vessel was streaming atmosphere, its energy readings low and failing. But it was still coming on.

Barron’s eyes darted around the display, looking for small points of light, contacts that might be the ship’s lifeboats fleeing from the dying vessel. But there was nothing.

He found himself counting down, watching, knowing the ship getting through might be the only thing that could save the Rim…but also realizing his friend was still onboard, still at her post, staring into the maw of death.

He felt a wave of self-loathing for allowing Eaton to go, for letting her lead the ships in. Her tactical wizardry had added little, if anything to the mission. He could have sent someone more…expendable. He disgusted himself with that thought, and yet he believed it completely. He’d lost too many friends, and the Confederation had lost too many of its greatest warriors. The thought of yielding to the Hegemony had always been anathema to him, and it still was. But for the first time, he could feel himself looking at it with different eyes. If surrender could have stopped the tragedy he saw unfolding, if it could save Sara Eaton, bring Andi back to him…he wasn’t sure what he might have done. Would he have said, Enough!” Would he have yielded?

He didn’t know. He would never know.

His eyes were fixed on the screen as Eaton’s ship vanished in a storm of nuclear fire vastly larger than those that had taken her other ships. She’d gotten close, as close as she could, and Barron understood with sickening certainty what had happened.

She had detonated her payload as the enemy weapons tore into her ship, desperately trying to damage Colossus before the battleship’s fire completely obliterated her small ship. For an instant, Barron reeled in shock at the energy readings, at the vast and nearly unimaginable fury let loose by the combined blasts. Dauntless lost every other scanner contact in the area, save for that searing hot miniature sun, and he let himself imagine that Colossus had been destroyed, or at least badly damaged, that Eaton had gotten close enough to the immense dreadnought.

But, as the energy faded, and the scanners again began to pick up other contacts, Colossus was still there. Barron searched for any readings that indicated damage, but a few seconds later, the AI stopped him cold.

“Minor melting along surface armor, destruction of localized exterior scanning dishes…” As he listened, he could feel his heart sinking. Realization hardened slowly, his thoughts coming together like pieces of a puzzle. Then, the AI cast aside any doubt. “No significant damage to Colossus indicated by scans.”

The words were cold as they hit him, and they left him with two unavoidable realizations. They had already been there, but he’d shoved them aside in his quest to believe the enemy battleship had been damaged.

But Colossus was still there.

And Sara Eaton was dead.

His friend, his comrade in a dozen campaigns, his second in command on the White Fleet’s disastrous mission…an officer who had saved his life more than once. She was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

CFS Dauntless

Tellurus System

Year 321 AC

“All fighters wings, return to base at once. All ships prepare for full thrust on my command. The fleet is pulling out.” Barron’s orders were firm, his voice hard and cold. He wasn’t human just then, a man who felt pain, who ached for lost friends. He was a robot, cold, forged from steel, focused with relentless intensity on what he had to do.

He’d given Sara Eaton a tribute of perhaps ten seconds, time he’d spent in stunned silence, feeling the intense pain of loss, staring into the maw of hopeless despair. Then he snapped back to the cold automaton endless war had made of him, the commander who was responsible for tens of thousands of spacers, even for the future of Rim itself. He slammed the door on his emotions—all save one. The rage he left unfettered, burning hot in uncontrolled fury. It would serve him. It demanded he save the fleet, not out of compassion, nor even loyalty to his spacers, nor duty to the Confederation…but so it could survive and one day avenge what had just happened. He might have acknowledged a shakiness in the logic of it all, but there was no time then, not for such considerations, nor for reasoned thought. He had to get his people out of there, so they could live.

So they could live to kill.

And there wasn’t a second to waste.

“Admiral Stockton acknowledges, Admiral. His wings are breaking off.” A few seconds later. “All fleet units acknowledge as well, sir.”

“Ships not waiting for squadrons to land are to move at once. Destination Comarra transit point.” It defied all provisions of ‘the book’ to send escorts back ahead of the base ships they were tasked to defend, but there wasn’t time for orthodoxy. Colossus would obliterate anything still there when it came into range, and a battleship would be just as helpless surrounded by frigates and cruisers as it would be alone. Barron had no idea what to do next, how to even attempt to defend against the grave new threat. But he knew he—or anyone who took his place—would need every ship they could get. Every battleship, every cruiser, every frigate.

Every damned fighter, too, he thought, as the inevitable consideration of being forced to leave the squadrons behind crossed his mind. No, we can’t lose the rest of the strike force, especially not when the enemy has fighters…

He had faced that kind of decision too many times, but he was resolved that every one of Stockton’s fighters would be back aboard their motherships before the fleet transited. Still, as he watched the wings on the display, he wondered if he could hold to that, if they would all make it back before he was out of time.

He expected Colossus, and the rest of the enemy fleet, to come on at full speed. But the great superbattleship, and the other vessels of the Hegemony line, hadn’t moved at all. Barron couldn’t understand it. The enemy had always acted in accordance with sound principles of war, even if they were sometimes a bit staid and by the book. But there was no argument against closing with everything they had, not with their massive superiority. If they could catch Barron’s fleet and destroy it right there, the war would be all but over.

Yet they stayed in place. No signs of engine output, nor any effort to advance.

It doesn’t make sense…what are they up to?

Barron stared at the display, his mind racing, analyzing every possibility, every guess he could make about what might happen. But he came up blank. It was looking very much like the enemy was going to let him escape without even an effort to trap his fleet. Perhaps they’d calculated and concluded they couldn’t catch his ships before they transited. But they could certainly pursue into the next system, catch his ships in wholesale flight, their bays full of depleted fighters. Indeed, that had been Barron’s greatest fear.

But still, the enemy remained in place. Then, Atara turned toward Barron, her face twisted into a grimace that spoke of anger, confusion, uncertainty. “We’re receiving a communique, Admiral.”

Barron turned to face her, just as she added, “From Colossus.”

Barron stared back at his longtime friend and comrade, each of them looking for support, for some kind of explanation. But they had nothing for each other. Only grim uncertainty.

“On my line, Atara…” His voice was soft.

“Yes, Admiral.” She turned toward her station, her fingers moving over the controls as Barron pulled his headset on.

“Admiral Tyler Barron, I am Commander Ilius of the Hegemony, second of the Grand Fleet, and currently in command of the vessel known as Colossus. We have fought each other for years now, and I salute your courage and ability. You have viewed us as an invader, a conqueror, as a force that has come to enslave you, but we are nothing of the kind. The sacred purpose of the Hegemony is to unite humanity, and to protect it from disasters such as the Great Death, what you call the Cataclysm. We do not wish to kill more of your people, nor to reduce your worlds to rubble or servitude. We want only to protect you, both from repetition of the mistakes of the past, and also from enemies darker than any you can imagine. While we fight each other, remain locked in this costly confrontation, grave dangers lurk in the darkness. I urge you to consider the terms I am about to transmit…terms for a cessation of hostilities. Terms for a union of our peoples, our cultures. We have suffered greatly in this war, as you have, and we would see it end. We would see a united humanity rebuild and reclaim the wonders of the empire, and stride boldly into the future beyond. I ask you to put aside jingoistic platitudes and pointless lust for vengeance, urges that cannot return a single lost warrior to either side. I ask you to consider these terms. You were unlikely to win this conflict before, and with the deployment of Colossus in support of our fleet, you have no chance. You must realize this, especially after the failure of your assault here. Accept the respect of a fellow warrior, along with my pleas that you truly and thoughtfully review the document I am transmitting. Let us end this war with dignity on both sides, and we can move forward, together, to a brighter future. We should be side by side, and not senselessly killing each other. You can see our forces have not moved forward, that no attempt has been made to interfere with your withdrawal, nor even, to molest you in any way if you remain in the system. Your tactical skill and ability leaves me no doubt that you understand the advantage we are yielding, that you can plainly see the tactical imperative for us to strike you here, to prevent your escape, or to pursue you into the next system. Please accept our restraint in this as a show of good faith.”

The transmission cut off, leaving Barron silent and stunned, as, he suspected, everyone else would be when he shared what he had just heard.

He gestured to Atara, for her to listen to the recording, and he watched as her face, as hard and weary as his own, turned gradually to astonishment. He knew she felt the same thing he did.

“Have we received any other transmissions, Atara?”

“Yes, Admiral…the…document…Ilius referred to. I am sending it to your screen.”

Barron looked down, and a few seconds later, text began to scroll across the small display. He read it, becoming more stunned and more confused with each line. He’d come to Tellurus to fight, to make a desperate attempt to destroy Colossus, even to die trying if need be.

But he had never, in his wildest imaginings, seen anything like what was happening in front of him.

“Get those wings aboard, Atara…and let’s get the hell out of here…in case this is some kind of trick.”

“Yes, sir.” Atara leaned forward and snapped out orders, to the ships of the fleet, and to Dauntless’s crew as well.

Barron just stared forward at the display, his eyes alert for any signs of treachery, any indications the Hegemony forces were trying to trick his people, to take them by surprise. But there was nothing. Every ship stood where it was, Colossus included. Even the enemy fighters held back while Stockton’s squadrons broke off and headed back to their mother ships.

Barron was suspicious, no, more than that. He expected treachery. But there was none.

He stared silently, as the squadrons returned, as they landed, and then, as every ship in his fleet moved toward the transit point and left the system. Dauntless was the last in line, its place mandated by his own iron-hard command, and then his flagship moved forward, its engines blasting hard, its course right for the transit point leading out of the system.

The final thing he saw in the Tellurus system was the Hegemony fleet, sitting idle, no so much as a frigate following his ships.

Just as promised.

*

“It’s polite and respectful, at least as much as such a document can be, and it’s full of quasi-guarantees and assurances about maintaining aspects of our culture, but in the end, it’s a surrender demand. Made to look more like an alliance of sorts, a combination of equals, but most of that is all show. If we agree, we will become part of the Hegemony. Perhaps not at once, but almost certainly in the end. The terms are undoubtedly better than what we would have received if we’d surrendered at the start of the war, but don’t fool yourselves…it’s still defeat and surrender, if with a bit of window dressing.”

Clint Winters’s tone left no doubt of his opinion, both on the Hegemony proposal and on the response he wanted to give the enemy. Barron wasn’t surprised that an officer known as the ‘Sledgehammer’ was ready to fight to the end, but even without the nickname, he agreed completely. He’d just lost one of his closest friends, watched helplessly as her ship was blasted to atoms…and in his gut, and in his deepest thoughts that resided beneath pointless hope, he was sure he would never see Andi again. He had nothing left, not enough at least to detract from a grim willingness to fight on to the finish. For him, it would mean only the end to his pain.

Agreeing to the terms, however palatable the enemy had clearly tried to make them, would be surrender, and that was just something Tyler Barron didn’t have in him.

He leaned back, pausing for a moment before he responded. “I agree with Admiral Winters. A surrender by any other name…” He looked around the room, seeing immediately that most of those present were with him. The nods, and the defiant glances, spoke volumes, and he felt a moment of pride that his people could remain defiant, even as they stared into the abyss. “Still, we must consider all of the ramifications of this offer. Do we present it to the Senate?” It was a question Barron once couldn’t have imagined asking. Withholding a treaty offer extended by a foreign power from the Senate was beyond insubordination. By most definitions, it was treason. But he knew only too well how the Senate would likely respond. The document specifically offered protections for those in positions of authority, and coming on the heels of the failure of Eaton’s attack on Colossus, he doubted more than a handful of the politicians would display the grit and courage his officers just had. If he sent the offer to the Senate, they would likely agree to it, or at least begin negotiations. The Confederation, for all intents and purposes, would be gone.

And, if he didn’t send it, he would be a traitor in the eyes of many, perhaps most. Such a course came dangerously close to the coup he’d refused to consider, and his mind raced with how he would respond when word reached the Senate—as it inevitably would—that he had withheld an enemy peace offer. He would quickly find himself in open conflict with the civil authorities, and worse, perhaps, in such a situation, he had little doubt the navy and Marines would rally to him. It was almost an intoxicant, the realization of the power that lay at his fingertips, and it was becoming more and more difficult to ignore it, to stay true to what he believed, to what he expected of himself.

“The hell with the Senate, Tyler. How many of our comrades have died in this fight? Was it all for nothing more than some flimsy guarantee that Senators and planetary governors will be able to stay in their mansions and enjoy their luxuries and elevated positions? Is that what we say to the loved ones of the dead? To ourselves when we think of lost friends, of men and women who followed us, only to find pain and death along that road?” Winters was driving away any remaining doubt that may have lingered about how he felt, and he was doing it in a reckless, open manner. Barron almost winced, but then he saw a clarity he hadn’t before, one he found upsetting. It didn’t make any difference, not anymore. Concern for careers, and for the politics involved in advancing or maintaining them, seemed utterly unimportant. Losing the Confederation, falling under the dominion of the Hegemony, even if he believed their promises were reliable, was anathema to him. He was ready to die before he allowed that to happen, to fight on, no matter what the Senate decided to do. To fight the Senate as well, if need be.

But was he ready to leads thousands, perhaps millions who followed him, to that same grim fate? Did he have the right to make that kind of decision, to choose a future as a rebel and traitor not just for himself, but for his legions of warriors? And for what? Victory? For all his posturing and his grim defiance, he didn’t really believe his people had a chance. Not against a nightmare like Colossus.

“Admiral Barron…” The officer’s voice startled Barron, and he turned toward the small comm unit on the table. He’d left orders that the meeting was not to be disturbed. “What is it, Lieutenant?” His tone did little to hide his irritation.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but I was sure you would want to know this as soon as possible. A ship just transited into the system, Admiral. We just completed scans and verified their beacon.” Barron was barely listening. The lack of a warning klaxon had already told him it wasn’t an enemy ship…and he didn’t consider some supply vessel, or worse, a courier ship carrying some nonsense from the Senate, to rise to the level of sufficient urgency to override his orders.

But he froze where he sat when the nervous officer continued.

“It’s Pegasus, Admiral. We’ve confirmed that. She just transited into the system.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Planet Calpharon

Sigma Nordlin IV

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“Are you sure, Akella? The Council is in disarray. Thantor has been working them all, individually and in groups. I believe you still retain sufficient support, but if I leave now, that is one guaranteed vote gone…in addition to Chronos’s.”

The Hegemony government was defined by a very simple set of rules and organizational structures. The lack of a provision for proxies or assigned substitutes to represent Council members who weren’t present was giving Akella fits. If a Council member wasn’t at a meeting, by virtue of other duties, illness, or any other cause, their Chair simply did not vote. Hallis was correct that Akella was already down one in support, with Chronos in command of the forces on the Rim. If she sent Hallis as her courier, to bring her message to Chronos, she would be down two votes. But duty came first to her, certainly before politics, and anyone less than one of the Ten might bring insufficient authority to a series of orders as complex and crucial as those she planned to send.

“I am sure, Hallis, if only because I do not see any other way.” A pause. “Though, by all means, return as quickly as you can. You will be sorely missed.”

Hallis nodded, and managed a facsimile of a smile, though not one with any real sincerity behind it. Akella’s friend and ally was clearly still worried.

Akella understood, and she even shared Hallis’s concerns, but she needed Chronos to understand exactly what was happening. He had to send Colossus back to Hegemony core space, and she needed him to do it soon. But she didn’t want to worsen the situation through panic and haste, to risk throwing away victory on the Rim at the moment it came into reach. If Chronos was close to securing the Rim’s capitulation, truly close, she wanted to give him more time, what little she could spare.

She was extremely concerned about the reports from the coreward borders, and, frankly, scared to death that the Others were not only very real, but also that they had returned. The war on the Rim was an unimportant commitment compared to the need to adequately defend prime Hegemony space, but the billions living there, with there dogged stubbornness and their impressive industry, would greatly strengthen the Hegemony…something that would be useful indeed, if a new conflict with the Others was beginning.

In short, Chronos had a short time to wrap things up…or the fleet would simply have to withdraw, leaving the Rim unabsorbed.

That was an upsetting prospect after so much combat and so many losses. It was even more disturbing, perhaps, in the sense that a Hegemony that included the Rim nations would be much stronger and better prepared to face a new conflict with the Others. She’d tormented herself, reviewed all her decisions, wondered what she might have done differently, if there had been a way to move things more quickly on the Rim. She didn’t doubt eventual success, nor the benefits of that ultimate victory, so she’d continued to pour resources to Chronos, far more than she’d initially intended to commit to the effort. She wasn’t out of ships or bombs or even antimatter, not yet, but it was looking very much like her supply of time had nearly reached its end.

Chronos would listen to Hallis. He would take her seriously, both about recent developments in the coreward sectors, and about the political situation on the Council. There was no choice. Political ally or not, she had to send Hallis.

“Very well, Akella, I will do as you ask. But I urge you to exercise great care while I am gone. You must avoid the calling of any sessions of the Council until I return. With both Number Eight and I gone, the chance Thantor might sway the others is too great.”

Akella just nodded, looking convincing, but feeling empty inside. She’d never desired position or power. It had come to her as a result of her genetics. Now, she was trapped in a political battle, a struggle to retain something she’d never wanted in the first place. The thought of giving up, of yielding to Thantor’s maneuvers and retiring to private life, floated in her thoughts, seductive and enticing. She might have resigned and left the conclusion of the struggle on the Rim to Thantor, but the Others presented an entirely different danger, a threat orders of magnitude greater, one that endangered every man and woman in the Hegemony, and those on the Rim, too, even then struggling against Chronos’s forces, in blissful ignorance of the true danger that was coming. She was not a political creature by nature, but she was one of duty. And hers was clear. She had to ensure her people were ready.

She had to face the Others, and to do that, she had to hold off her political rivals.

*

“Akella is an admirable woman, and an intelligent and genetically-gifted specimen, but she has never tried to hide her contempt for politics. She has held her position on the Council out of a sense of obligation, and not from any true desire to do so. That was acceptable, perhaps, when we faced normal challenges, and it would remain so, if the conquest of the Rim was all that faced us. But if the old danger has indeed returned, we must have a Number One who truly wishes to be in the position. Akella’s failures have included more than leaving us vulnerable to the Others. She has failed to meet her reproduction quota, setting a poor example to the entire cadre of Masters, on whose mating discipline the future of the Hegemony depends.”

Thantor paused for a moment, his eyes moving around the table, trying to gauge the reactions of those present. Lothar was nodding, but Number Ten had long been his loyal ally. It was to the others present, especially Kobath and Allara, to whom his words had been directed. They were the fulcrum, he knew, the two Council members least aligned with either him or with Akella. Many of the others would be moved by their open declaration for one side or the other when the split came.

“Some of your words are persuasive, Thantor, yet what you seek has never been done before, not since the Hegemony’s founding. No Number One has ever been expelled from the Council. I question if now is the time to risk disunity and internal strife with such strident action. And yet, while one can explain away missteps on the Rim and lack of preparedness to face the Others, Akella’s failure to produce the expected number of children lies heavily on her, and almost speaks of a contempt for our sacred system and the duty it places upon us. There are few enough of us of exalted genetic stature, and vast billions whose DNA carries the scars of the Great Death. It is more than a requirement that we see to the distribution of such elite genetic profiles, it is a sacred duty. Still, I harbor doubts. A move against a Number One of the Hegemony is unprecedented, almost sacrilegious. There must be more than concern and suspicion. There must be certainty that there is no other option.”

Thantor listened, cataloging Ellaria’s comments. Number Six had borne eleven children herself, more even than the highest number expected of one of her stature. It was clear, her resentment toward Akella was based predominantly on Number One’s seeming flouting of her mating responsibility, and not on her political and military decisions. But support was support, however gained, and he added Ellaria to his mental list of potential allies. Indeed, bitterness of such a sort, based on personal disapproval, was often stronger than that borne of strategic disagreement.

“I am uncomfortable with this entire topic.” Kobath, Number Four, rose as he spoke. “I will not be party to any effort to harm Number One, or to expel her, or any member of this Council.”

Thantor could see some of the others begin to stir. Kobath carried considerable influence with the unaligned members of the Council, and that made him a crucial vote if any move against Akella was to succeed.

“Kobath, esteemed colleague, I assure you most earnestly, I intend no physical harm to Akella. She is mother to my seventh-born, and one I value and esteem greatly. I would, rather, save her from the continuance of her disastrous policies, and perhaps, in relieving her of her Council responsibilities, free her to make maximum use of her last mating years.” He glanced over at Ellaria, gauging her reaction to his last words. She was nodding, clearly approving, and he was fairly certain he had gained her support.

He was less certain about Kobath. He couldn’t get a good read on his colleague’s thoughts, and while he was hopeful Number Four would eventually align with him, it was also possible he would go to Akella, and inform her of the plot forming against her.

That was a risk he would have to take. There was no choice. The time for action was on him, and waiting was no longer an option.

*

Akella sat in her Sanctum, savoring the silence. She’d always enjoyed time to herself, solitude and quiet, but such pleasures had become ever rarer since the Test had proclaimed her the Hegemony’s Number One. The responsibility that had placed on her was crushing, and the relentless public debate and Council meetings wore heavily on her introverted nature. She did what she had to do, as she’d been raised to do, as Hegemony culture demanded of her. But she hated it, and with each passing year, she knew less and less of such simple pleasures as happiness and contentment.

Her genes were nothing of her own doing. They were the results of providence, and of the mating choices of her parents and grandparents. And, in some ways, they were a curse as well. The prospect of a violent death aside, she could expect to live a long and fruitful life. Her natural resistance to disease, and the absence of genetic maladies and predispositions to disease, removed much of the chance she would die naturally at a young age. Her genetics were a great gift, but one she’d always believed had come with tremendous responsibility. She’d long before accepted that fact, and she’d done her best to rise to the challenges her position placed on her, even as each passing year made her lot seem more of a curse than anything else.

Now, a new reality, one far grimmer than simply the demands of governance, had settled on her. Serving as Number One, at least until someone tested higher and came to take her place, had been difficult enough for her to accept. But to lead the Hegemony at the most fateful moment in its history, to stand at the head of her people when the Others seemed about to return, it shook her to her core.

For the first years of her leadership, she’d longed for a quiet life, spent perhaps in her laboratories, researching old technology, or in her library, educating herself and exploring the collected knowledge of humanity. She’d come to accept the role fate had decreed for her, and she’d even managed to stop missing the existence she’d once wanted, mostly at least. It had been harder to adapt to leading her people into a conflict like that on the Rim, but the return of the Others would be a nightmare far more profound. However strongly the peoples of the Rim had resisted absorption attempts, there had never been any real danger of them invading the Hegemony.

The Others were different. If the annals were correct, and she had no reason to doubt them, the old enemy’s technology was superior to the Hegemony’s, as powerful in some ways as the old tech of the empire. They were a terrifying enemy, a grave threat to all who lived under Hegemony protection, and to those on the Rim, who still resisted that guardianship.

“Number One…” The voice on the comm was tentative, uncomfortable.

Something is wrong…

“What is it, Kiloron?” Her stomach had tensed up, and she had no time for pleasantries. She knew what the officer was going to say before the words came through the small speaker.

“We have received word from the coreward fleets, Number One. There has been another attack…in the Deltaron system. A single ship escaped and transmitted scanner footage. It is the same as the other reports, Number One. Dark ships, with sleek scanner profiles, emerging almost as if from nowhere, with overpowering weapons.”

“Very well, Kiloron. Issue a code one alert. I will meet with the tactical team in thirty minutes.”

“Yes, Number One.”

Akella switched off the comm and sighed. Any thought of keeping Hallis on Calpharon was gone…along with even the tattered hopes to which she had clung for so long.

There wasn’t any doubt, none her intellect could countenance. It had happened, what she’d feared for so long.

The Others had returned.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

CFS Dauntless

Lyra System

Year 321 AC

“You did the right thing, Vig.” It was the hardest statement Tyler Barron had ever made.

He’d felt a spark of hope amid the dark despair when he’d heard the name ‘Pegasus’ on the comm unit. For a fleeting few moments, he’d imagined Andi had returned, that she’d aborted her dangerous mission, or somehow managed to escape from Dannith.

But that bit of light illuminating the darkness had proven to be fleeting, fate’s cruel trick. Pegasus had indeed returned, but Andromeda Lafarge was not on her ship.

She’d sent her people back with the intel she’d gathered, but all Barron could think as he stared at Vig Merrick was, you left her there.

And then, a voice from the depths of his mind, even more damning, damning him for his unfairness to Merrick. He may have left her, but you let her go.

He’d seen the devastation in Vig’s eyes, the despair the man felt at having left without Andi. Barron knew better than anyone what she was like, how impossible it was to stop her from doing what she was determined to do. It still took all he had not to blame the clearly shattered Merrick, but he took control and kept it all inside.

“There was no way to get her back onboard, Admiral. If we tried, we just would have been caught, and she would have too. She knows Dannith better than anyone I’ve ever seen. She’ll manage to stay hidden.”

Barron wished Vig sounded more certain, or even that he’d done a better job of keeping the doubt from his voice. In the absence of an appealing truth, some part of him, at least, craved a reassuring lie. But he could hear how scared Vig was, and Barron’s insides froze at the thought of Andi, alone, behind enemy lines, trying to find someplace e to hide, to avoid the Kriegeri.

“Admiral…” Atara walked up behind him, her voice soft, tentative, as though she’d been hesitant to interrupt.

“What is it, Atara?” Barron felt some relief at his comrade’s arrival. He’d been feeling terribly alone, and his longtime friend’s presence eased that, just a bit.

“I…” She paused, clearly hesitant to continue. “I finished reviewing the material Andi sent. There is nothing decisive, not in terms of technical weaknesses of the Colossus, but she was quite clear that the Hegemony forces were very thinly spread out, that they were suffering severe manpower shortages, even to the point of reducing patrols on Dannith and conscripting locals to work in their facilities.”

“Well, it’s reassuring to know we’re not the only ones losing people faster than we can replace them.” Barron felt a shadow of disappointment. The data was useful, he supposed, but not something he’d have sent Andi into such danger to obtain. If that was all she’d managed to find, he had one more cause to despise himself for not stopping her.

“Admiral…I believe the information may be more useful than we might think at first. She included some specifics, up to and including the fact that the Hegemony officers were concerned about the crew levels on their ships…and even on Colossus. Andi was able to gather a number of references to such discussions from Dannite residents working in Hegemony installations.”

Barron tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back a sigh. “That might have some bearing in a protracted fight, Atara, but we’re facing Colossus and the enemy fleet, and our fighters, the one thing that kept us in the fight this long, are more than half gone. There isn’t going to be a protracted battle. When we finally face them…” And, despite his grim outlook, that was still a firm ‘when’ to Barron, and not an ‘if.’ “…it’s going to be over very quickly. I don’t see any way we can defeat them now, even if their efficiency is reduced by skeleton crews.”

“I’m not suggesting a pitched battle, Tyler. What if we boarded Colossus? What if we got Marines onboard and they managed to get some explosives onboard?”

Barron stared back at her like she was crazy. “How is that even possible? We already tried to sneak up on the damned thing, and you saw what happened. We’d never get a single transport close enough to force dock.” His tone was far harsher than any he normally used with Atara, but images of Sara Eaton had forced their way into his head, stoking his anger. The idea of a repeat of the disastrous effort, seemed almost insane to him.

“We don’t know what gave Eaton’s ships away, Admiral.” It was a different voice, one just as familiar. Barron had been so distracted, he hadn’t noticed Anya Fritz slipping into the room after Atara. “The stealth units appeared to be working, at least until they got close. There was no sign of a reaction, not until the end. It could have been radiation from the nuclear warheads, or the concentration of heavy elements in those massive nukes. Or the heavy acceleration, the massive thrust output. Any of those things could be responsible, or a combination of them. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t get a group of ships close without detection. We’d have to leave out the nukes, and the ships would have to use minimal thrust as they moved forward. That means a slow approach. And, I think I can make a few adjustments, alter the frequencies of the cloaking fields, maybe enough to counter some of the enemy’s advances in detection. We have some fresh data from the recent…effort. I think I can make use of some of it.”

“You mean you want to try again? After everything that happened?” Barron didn’t blame Fritz for the disaster, or for Eaton’s death. She’d expressed her concerns, and her significant reservations, before he’d given the go ahead. But he was stunned to see her seeming to lobby for a repeat effort.

“We can’t risk coming in fast like we did last time, nor can we carry a boatload of nukes. So, assuming we do this, the Marines are not only going to have to hope like hell the enemy doesn’t pick up their ships in spite of everything we do to prevent it, they’re going to have to go in without nuclear weapons. And they’re not going to destroy that thing with conventional explosives, even from the inside, not unless they get them positioned in just the right place.”

Barron knew immediately what Fritz was talking about. The reactors, the antimatter storage…someplace where even a small bomb could wreak havoc, and even destroy something as large as Colossus.

“So, you’re suggesting we send—what, it has to be thousands of Marines, just to explore that thing, not to mention fighting whatever internal security they do have on there, reduced manpower or no. That we repeat the exact strategy that just lost us Admiral Eaton and twelve hundred of her spacers? And, the grand plan is, no nukes and no rapid acceleration? So, it ends up taking even longer to close, and when they get there—if they get there—they hunt around for something vulnerable enough that they can destroy Colossus with a few satchel bombs?”

“Tyler, Anya is right.” There was a surprising degree of confidence in Atara’s voice. “It had to be the acceleration the enemy picked up, or the warheads. Or both. If they’d completely broken through the stealth technology, they’d have spotted the ships much farther out. Sara and her people wouldn’t have gotten inside a quarter million kilometers, and you know it. The enemy discovered the ships, and the mission failed, but it was a close-run thing. A damned close-run thing. If we do what Anya is saying, cut down on the likeliest factors allowing the enemy scanners to penetrate the fields, we just might be able to get a Marine strike force inside.”

“Close-run?” Barron was horrified at the terminology, even though he knew she was factually accurate. Eaton’s people had been less than a minute from completing their mission. They were all dead, every spacer who’d left on the doomed strike force, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t almost succeeded. They had.

But Barron was still angry.

“So now you’re saying I should send more people in, do the same thing again? Lose more spacers, more friends?”

“What else are we going to do?” Atara’s voice was soft, calm.

Barron’s initial reaction had been an angry one, but by the time he spoke, the gentleness of her tone, and the undeniable sense of her statement, blunted his rage. “Do you believe an operation like that would really have a chance?” He was looking at Atara when he spoke, but then he turned. The question had really been directed at Fritz.

“I don’t know, Admiral. I don’t think anyone does. But Admiral Travis is right. We don’t have anything else, and if we can get a Marine force aboard, and if Colossus’s crew is significantly understrength, if there are fewer combat soldiers stationed onboard…maybe, just maybe, we can destroy that thing from inside. Because I’ve reviewed every scan and every spec, sir, and I can tell you for a fact, we’re not going to do it from outside. The nukes were our only chance. Every ship in the fleet will probably get blasted to rubble before they get a shot off, and that doesn’t even take their battle line into consideration. Either we try again with a stealth attack, this way…or we need to take a harder look at those surrender terms.”

Fritz’s words hit him like a club, especially the part about surrendering. It was plain logic, of course, but the starkness of it took him unawares. There were three choices looming in front of him. Yield, accept the surrender, or at least try to negotiate the best final terms possible. Lead his forces in a suicidal attack that would achieve nothing but mass slaughter, and have no chance at all of success.

Or do what he had just done. Send a stealth force against the monstrous warship, and hope against hope, this time they made it in without getting blasted to atoms.

They were bad choices, all of them, horrible…but as much as he wracked his brain, he couldn’t come up with anything else.

“It’s the only way, Tyler. The only chance we’ve got, however bad you think it is. And, you know we’ll get enough volunteers from the Marines and the piloting crews…so, you won’t be ordering anyone in. You’ll be allowing them to try.”

“You think that makes it easier, Atara? Would it for you?”

“No,” she admitted, “probably not. But I’m with you in this. I’m urging you to do it. I’ll share in the guilt for what happens. And you know Clint Winters will agree. There’s just no other choice.”

Barron was silent for a few seconds, and before he could respond, Fritz spoke up again. “I can modify some light escorts, Admiral. Cut the power output to bare minimums. The ships will have to go in at low velocities, without much thrust, but Colossus’s strengths don’t seem to include maneuverability. If we bring the battle line close enough, keep the escorts hidden in the energy signatures of the big ships…they just might be able to do course mods that far out, and glide the rest of the way. They’ll have to do some minor adjustments, of course, but they might even get by with just the positioning jets, especially if I can crank up their power a bit. Compressed gas expulsion is going to be a lot harder to pick up than conventional engine output, and if Colossus is mostly stationary, it could work. Especially if the enemy is slow to move to engage us, as they were at Tellurus. They’re hoping we’ll take the deal they offered. We might be able to gain an advantage from that…maybe even encourage it.”

Fritz’s words made sense, though they were still having problems pushing their way through Barron’s thick skepticism. But he was at his heart a realist, and as much as that made him acutely aware of the risks of the proposed operation, it also reminded him of one brutally intractable fact.

They had no other options. None he could accept.

“Alright, let’s get ready, at least…in case we decide to go this way.” Barron turned toward Fritz. “Pick out the best ships, Fritzie. Nobody knows the stealth units better than you do. I want…how many stealth units do we have left? I mean only ones you’re sure are in top condition.”

“Twelve, Admiral.”

“I want you to pick out the twelve ships you think will work the best with the units, ones that are maneuverable enough to bring in with just compressed air jets for positional realignments. We’ll cram them full of Marines armed with conventional explosives…and send them in with instructions to find the reactors or antimatter storage and plant the bombs, and then get out.” He felt a twinge of guilt at those last words. He didn’t think the attacking Marines were going to have much chance of getting aboard Colossus at all. They had even worse prospects of getting off the monster ship, whether their mission was successful or not.

Fritz nodded. “I’ll see it done right away, Admiral. If you’ll excuse me, I’d better get started. We don’t have a lot of time.”

Barron nodded, and he watched for a few seconds as Fritz walked out of the room. Then he turned toward Atara. “You know there’s only one person who can lead this boarding force, don’t you?” He felt his insides tightened even as the words escaped his lips. Bryan Rogan was still in an infirmary bed, recovering from the ordeal and the wounds he’d suffered on Megara. If anything less than the survival of the Confederation was at stake, Barron wouldn’t even consider sending Rogan.

But the future of the Confederation was at stake, along with that of the rest of the Rim.

“You won’t have to order him, Tyler.” Atara seemed to understand how painful the whole idea was to Barron. “He’ll insist on going as soon as he knows what we’re planning.”

“You’re right, of course. He’d go for a dozen reasons, and my only solace is ‘for me’ is only one of them. He’d never let his Marines try something like this without him.” He paused. “Have we really become this desperate?” Atara didn’t respond, but she didn’t have to. Barron knew the answer before he’d asked the question.

“Atara…” Barron paused, almost as though he was hoping the reality would change if he stayed silent for a few more seconds. “Send word to Bryan. Get him here as quickly as possible…and do what you can to begin assembling a Marine strike force. We need all veterans for this one, Atara, the best we’ve got. And…all volunteers, okay? That goes for the spacers crewing the ships, too. Nobody gets ordered in on this one.”

“Yes, sir.” Travis nodded her head slowly, and then she hesitated, standing still for a moment, her eyes locked on Barron’s. They had served together for a very long time, and he understood just what her gaze was saying to him, as he knew she understood his. Then, she turned abruptly and left, leaving Barron alone with Vig Merrick, who’d remained silent during the entire discussion.

“I have something to ask of you, too, Vig. You and the rest of Pegasus’s crew.”

“What can we do, Admiral?”

“I’m going to send an elite Marine tactical team to Pegasus. I know this is dangerous, foolhardy even, but I don’t know who else I could send.” A nervous pause. “I want you to go back to Dannith. You know that planet as well as Andi, or nearly so. Take whatever equipment you need, whatever supplies…but try to find her, please. Try to get her back.”

Vig stared back with a strange look on his face. Barron wasn’t sure at first, but then he decided. It was relief. Not at all what he’d expected.

“Yes, Admiral…of course we’ll go back. Hell, I was afraid you were going to ask something else, something that would have delayed our departure. I had to do what she asked, get the info she found back here, but now that we’ve done that, there’s no way I’m leaving her there.”

Barron felt relieved, and gratified at the loyalty of Andi’s crew. “Whatever you need, Vig…if we’ve got it, it’s yours. I’d send someone else, but I don’t think anybody has the chance you do of pulling it off, of finding her and getting her out of there. And sending any more ships with you only increases the chance you’ll be caught.”

“Hell, Admiral, you could send anybody you want, but I’d damned sure be there no matter what, and probably ahead of all of them. Andi Lafarge gave me a life, and then she saved it, more than once. I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave her trapped down there…whatever tit takes. Whatever the risk.”

“Thank you, Vig. Anything I can give you is yours, but go and find her. Bring her back. Please.”

“I’ll do everything possible, Admiral, and I’ll promise you one thing. If I don’t come back with her…I won’t come back at all.

Chapter Thirty

Spacer’s District

Port Royal City

Dannith, Ventica III

Year 321 AC

Andi lay back against the cold concrete wall, closing her eyes for a moment. She was tired, but even more than that, she was hungry. She’d come a long way since her days on the streets of the Gut, but fate had somehow managed to bring her around full circle, and the meager meal laid out in front of her had come mostly from the garbage, a place from which she hadn’t scavenged for food since she’d grown large enough to fend for herself in other, more aggressive, ways.

Her mother had died when she was ten, leaving her alone in the worst slum in the Confederation, but she’d been tough and hard, even then. She’d taken what she could find, subsisted on maggot-infested refuse…until she’d truly learned to survive. At first that had been mostly theft, thievery to obtain what she needed. Later, she’d added combat to the list, and the ability to defend herself, to keep what was hers once she’d attained it. To kill when she had to.

She poked at the scraps laid out on a small cloth, picking out the bits that looked least spoiled. She had plenty of coin left, more than enough to live like a queen for quite some time, which is just what she would have done, save for the inconvenient fact that she was hiding on a world controlled by the enemy. The hotels had all been converted to barracks for the Kriegeri, and food seemed to be distributed by a rationing system, making her money virtually useless. It was still good in the black market, of course, what was left of the illicit trade in the shadows of Port Royal City, but anyone she might have bargained with would have been even less trustworthy than Yantis. She’d had no choice except to trust—after a fashion—the Spacer’s District hoodlum on her intel gathering efforts, but she wasn’t going to push her luck, either with him again, or with any of the others who remained. It was bad enough most of them would find out that Yantis had come into a significant amount of coin. They were rivals, and while she liked to think they would come together when faced with an outside enemy, she knew most of them would be happy to run to the Kriegeri to rat out their colleague, gaining favor with the occupiers while settling old scores.

Besides, she was sure the enemy had picked up something from her transmissions. She could feel a heavier state of security, though the still-sporadic nature patrols only reinforced her conclusion that the Hegemony was indeed suffering from severe manpower shortages. That was nice to know, and it fueled the hope that she had sent Tyler information he could use.

But it didn’t do a damned thing for her just then, save for keeping the number of Kriegeri on the street manageable. At least as long as she kept her scavenging to the garbage heaps, and anything easily snatched and didn’t create too much trouble. Major thefts, or attempted dealings with other gangsters were too dangerous, at least for the time being.

She closed her eyes and sighed softly. She wasn’t sorry she’d come, at least not mostly. She knew Tyler and the others faced insurmountable odds, and she drew satisfaction from the hope—realistic or not—that the information she’d sent would make a difference. Staying back in the relative safety of Megara or Craydon had been out of the question. She wasn’t the sort who could wait while those she cared about fought a desperate struggle.

But, as she sat in the quiet of a crumbling old ruin in the Spacer’s District, chewing cautiously on her barely edible dinner, she had doubts, too. It wasn’t the physical discomfort, the cold, the rancid food…not specifically. She was just scared, in a way that seemed new to her. She’d been in one kind of danger or another most of her life, and she’d learned to handle it well enough. But something was different now, something she could never have imagined in her younger days, when she faced danger with reckless abandon.

She had too much to lose, now. Crazy bravery was easier for a penniless orphan, a creature who knew almost nothing but deprivation. But that wasn’t her anymore, not even close. She was wealthy now, with access to any physical comfort imaginable. She had people who cared about her, people she cared about. And she had Tyler.

Her lips curled up into a thin smile. He was going to ask her to marry him. He’d been planning to do it for some time, and for all the normal sharpness of his mind and his tactical brilliance, she was fairly sure he had no idea she knew.

Her grin widened into a full smile, something she hadn’t expected in that grim place. But it didn’t last. Tyler was important to her, the only man she’d ever loved, the only one who’d ever reached her in that way. But just then, he was one more thing she was likely to lose, one more reason to survive, in a place where survival seemed unlikely, and escape almost impossible.

She wondered how he would react if she was killed. She knew he would suffer terrible pain. He loved her, she had no doubt of that. But she hoped, given time, he would get over her. She wanted, more than anything, to spend the rest of her life with him, but if that life was to be measured in days and not years, she truly hoped he would find some kind of happiness without her.

Her expression continued morphing, first from a smile to a non-descript look, and then to a grim frown. She wasn’t likely to escape Dannith, but unless the information she’d sent produced a miracle of some kind, she didn’t think Tyler had much chance of a future either. She knew he would fight to the end, that he would never give up. But, against the might of the Hegemony, that only meant he would die before—or during—the final defeat.

She shook her head slowly, even as she tried to fight off the sadness and despair. She wasn’t one to yield, no more than Tyler. But she’d never been closer to giving up than she was just then.

Somehow, though, another smile found its way onto her face. Barron had been planning to ask her to marry him for months, yet he’d never done it. He’d come close a few times, but he’d never managed to get the words out. She found it amusing that a man of such decisiveness, of such seemingly limitless courage, would allow himself to be stopped, even intimidated in such a simple thing.

It only made her love him more, and in that, she felt a new strength inside her. She wasn’t sure she believed she had a chance, that she’d ever see him again. But all thought of surrender, of giving in—to the enemy or to death—were gone.

She would fight, claw her way to survival. She would get the hell off Dannith and back home, somehow. Or she would die trying.

*

“Colonel Blanth, you have been with us for quite some time, long enough, I suspect, to realize we are not monsters bent on conquest and destruction. Our purpose is quite clear. To unite humanity, to protect all from another horror like the Great Death…excuse me, the Cataclysm, as your people call it. Surely, you have come to understand how easily the survivors of the old empire, both coreward and on the Rim, could succumb to a repeat of the old disaster, and how vitally important it is to ensure this does not happen.” Carmetia spoke softly, calmly. Blanth had been her prisoner, but over the years she’d supervised his captivity, they’d developed somewhat of a friendly rapport. She’d seen to his comfort, and he’d appreciated that, come to see her as something less than the xenocidal nightmare he’d imagined all Hegemony Masters to be. But he still hadn’t told her a damned thing of value. He was a Marine, to the core, and he’d given her a solid lesson about just what that meant.

Blanth’s attitude toward his captor had become complex, and he believed the sincerity of what she was saying. She did believe the war was mandated by her people’s duty to protect the Rim and its billions, and while that seemed twisted and perverse to him, it instilled a type of ethical purity in the Hegemony’s actions. Reality was often complex and difficult to fully understand. There was something, he knew, to Carmetia’s words. Hegemony culture was based on safeguarding human knowledge and development, as well as populations. He’d seen enough to believe that. But whatever purity of motives they might possess, Blanth still found their genetic caste system grotesque, and he was determined and ready to resist them any way he could. He had no desire to see the Rim conquered, no more by a power that considered itself well-meaning as it killed millions than a vicious xenocidal enemy whose mass murder came without high-sounding purpose. And, he’d be damned if he would turn traitor and help them achieve their goal, even if it saved lives.

“Carmetia, my people will never accept conquest, they will never adopt your system and become part of the Hegemony. You may destroy us, wipe us out entirely, if your force proves sufficient, but in so doing, you expose the hypocrisy of your stated mission. You cannot defeat us without destroying us, and you cannot save us by annihilating us.”

“I have no doubt that some of your people, a small cross section, share your stubbornness. Your warriors certainly possess toughness and tenacity However, our experiences here on Dannith and on Ulion, and to a lesser extent, Megara in the time we were there, suggest a far greater degree of pliability in most of your people that your words suggest. Given some level of physical comfort and promises of future security, they show clear signs of accepting the new order, given time. Perhaps you would serve them better by considering what terms you could accept to end your pointless resistance, and assisting us in persuading your comrades to do the same. Such an effort would save many lives.”

“Even if I would ever do something like that—and I wouldn’t, not if you strapped me to a table and started dissecting me—my comrades would never listen to such counsel. They would despise me as a traitor, curse my name. But they would never heed any urgings to yield.”

Carmetia shook her head, an involuntary response, born of the dozens, if not hundreds of times she’d had some version of the same conversation with Blanth. The prisoner had mellowed from inveterate hostility to a sort of acceptance of his own situation, but he’d resolutely refused all suggestions that he intervene, that he urge his people to cease their ultimately hopeless defense.

“Colonel, I know you have come to understand my people better than you did before your capture. You have seen how we have waged war, how we have tried whenever possible to minimize civilian losses. You have not been mistreated, nor have any of your comrades. I think, on some level, you believe the Hegemony’s purpose, that you know we are true to our ideals, and that we exist not to destroy, but to protect your people.” She paused, seeming uncertain for a moment. “I am going to show you something now, Colonel, something I believe might change your point of view. There are dangers in the galaxy far greater than we of the Hegemony, malevolent forces that would enslave or destroy your people, as they would mine. Your warriors have fought mine to preserve independence you could never retain against the true enemy, and in doing so, you have damaged our ability to face the real threat, to protect ourselves as well as you. I am exceeding my authority in sharing this with you, but I fear time is short. You must understand, now. You must see what is coming.” She turned and pointed a small remote-control unit she held toward a large screen at the end of the room. An image of space appeared.

Blanth looked, squinting, seeing only the inky blackness of the stellar deeps.

No…there was something else. Something moving. Dark, shadowy images.

Blanth was a combat veteran, a career Marine, and he’d remained resolute through years of captivity. But as his eyes followed the strange shapes—some kind of ships, he realized—he began to feel true fear, colder and deeper than any he’d endured before.

Chapter Thirty-One

CFS Dauntless

Lyra System

Year 321 AC

Barron walked up behind his friend, reaching out and putting his hand on the Marine’s shoulder. “Bryan, I’m so sorry. This is the last place you should be right now, after all you’ve been through.”

Rogan turned, and he looked right back at Barron. The Marine stood up, something close to straight. His posture was reasonable by normal standards, but Barron instantly saw the difference from Rogan’s normal arrow-straight bearing. He could see through his friend’s mask as well, detect the pain Rogan was trying so diligently to hide. Barron knew the Marine general should still be in the infirmary, or at least in his quarters resting, that the noble warrior was far from fit for another operation. But this was no normal command, no routine mission. If the desperate plan—and Barron knew just how crazy the whole thing truly was—failed, the Confederation was probably finished. Colossus would destroy the fleet, and the Rim would fall. Almost certainly.

Fit or no, there was no one Barron trusted more than Bryan Rogan. He assuaged his guilt by telling himself Rogan had a right to be involved, that the mission would decide his fate whether he went or not, and excluding him from it would be a worse offense than sending him into the fire. That rationale worked sometimes, and others it didn’t. But it was all Barron had.

“No, sir…please don’t think that way. There is no place else for me to be now. I would have been hurt if you sent someone else in my place. I know what is at stake here, and I will see it done, Admiral. Somehow.”

“I know you will.” That was a lie. Barron had immense faith in his Marine general, but deep down, he didn’t believe the desperate plan would succeed. He was sure he was sending his friend to his death, and only the realization that Bryan Rogan would fare no better in defeat and captivity than he would himself had made it possible for him to do what he was about to do.

“I knew we wouldn’t have any time to waste, Bryan, so I had Atara assemble your attack force. I would have preferred to let you choose your own Marines, of course, but there just wasn’t time. They’re all here and ready, just waiting for you to take command.”

“No worries, sir. There aren’t many people whose judgment I trust more than Admiral Travis’s…and I reviewed the roster when I first debarked from the shuttle. I think she did an excellent job. I doubt I could have done any better.”

Barron nodded, and then he hesitated for a few seconds. “Bryan, you know how difficult this mission will be, how dangerous. After what happened with the last operation…” He paused, the pain of Eaton’s loss still fresh. “…I can’t send you in with any high yield ordnance. Everything’s got to be low-power, minimal detection profile. That means, you’re going to have to find the reactors, or the antimatter storage tanks…something you can hit with conventional explosives, something with enough destructive power to take out the whole damned ship. I know it’s going to be hard to find your target, Bryan. We’ll do the best we can to pinpoint your docking location, but that thing’s almost sixty kilometers long, and all we’ve got on its interior layout are wild guesses. However far you’ve got to go, remember, you’ll have to set the explosives, and then get out before they blow.”

Rogan stared back at Barron for a while, ten seconds, perhaps twenty. Then, he just nodded and said, “I understand, Admiral.”

Barron felt a coldness in his gut, a wave of guilt that came upon him as he looked back at his friend, the Marine who’d served him loyally since the day he’d first taken command of the old Dauntless. The realization was grim, painful. He knew he was very likely sending Bryan Rogan on a suicide mission, that it was probable not one of the Marines who set out for Colossus would return.

And, as his eyes stared into his friend’s, he realized Rogan knew it too.

*

“You know I have to go, Tyler. For the same reason Sara had to lead the last strike. It’s not about a spreadsheet of what I can do, of decisions I might make, or whether I can do any good when the ships are operating under radio silence. It’s none of that, and you know it. I have to go because those men and women going in, the spacers in the ships and the Marines in the strike force, deserve it. They need to know they aren’t being thrown away, that they’re not expendable.” Clint Winters stood on the shuttle bay flight deck, looking right at Barron.

“I should go. I’m the one sending them in, after all. I should be with them. You can command the fleet.”

“You know that’s not possible, Tyler.” Clint Winters’ voice was hard, but there was sadness there, too, a grim realization of the desperation they all faced. “We’ve fought well together, my friend. We make a good team. But there’s no way I can replace you…and we both know that. If this mission fails, you know what’s going to happen. The fleet’s either going to surrender, or it’s going to fight its last battle. Either way, it’s got to be your call. The officers and spacers, all the men and women who have fought so hard, they deserve to have you with them at the end, whatever that end is.”

Barron wanted to argue with his friend, the only other officer who came close to bearing the same crushing load he did, but he didn’t. He knew Winters was right on everything he’d said, and, if they were all facing a likely end to their desperate struggle, Winters deserved to choose how he died. If this was a last, desperate attempt to stop Colossus, to claw after what shards of hope remained for victory, how could he refuse to send Winters?

He really wished he could go himself. That would be a chance to assuage the guilt, the anguish at sending so many to their deaths. He would lead his people to victory in the desperate operation, or he would die with them. That, at least, would be an end to the pain, an escape from seeing the Confederation fall. It was a grim realization, but Tyler Barron knew death held only relief for him, escape. The only one he could see.

It was duty again that stopped him, the realization that it would be selfish, even cowardly, to leave his spacers behind, to abandon his fleet before it faced its final test. The men and women on those ships, from the Confederation, and from the Alliance and the Union, and even the small kingdoms of the Far Rim…they had all followed him, they had served with distinction. And many had died. He had to see it through to the end with them. Anything else was unthinkable.

And that meant, if one of them was going to go take on Colossus, Clint Winters had to lead the Marines in.

“Go.” It was one word, but it took all the strength Barron could muster to utter it. He turned and looked over at his comrade, his second-in-command—and his friend. “Do what you can, whatever you have to do. Just get those Marines there. Somehow. I know you can do it.”

Winters nodded. “I’ll get them through, Tyler. You just make sure the fleet’s ready, because even if we manage to destroy that thing, you’ve still got one hell of a fight here against the Hegemony line, fighters and all.”

Barron nodded, and then he reached his arm out, gasping Winters’s hand. “Fortune go with you, my friend. And those you command.”

*

“It appears to be the entire combined Rim fleet, Commander. Certainly, their battle line is present at full strength.”

Ilius stood next to his chair on Colossus’s bridge, staring out at the huge bank of screens. The forces of the Confederation and its allies were arrayed on one side, and the Hegemony fleet on the other. Colossus was by itself, a little over ten light minutes forward of Chronos’s position on Hegemony’s Glory. The massed might of both sides was drawn up, hundreds of warships facing each other, as if about to fight a legendary battle.

Which they were.

But every ship in the system was stationary at that moment. There was no movement, no forces advancing, only an eerie calm, as though the moments passing were those before some titanic storm about to strike.

“Place the fighter wings on alert. I want all squadrons ready to launch on command.” Ilius knew the enemy well enough after six years of war to suspect anything. He didn’t see any way they could seriously threaten Colossus, not after the utter disaster of their last attempt. Chronos had been concerned about the stealth ships, about the ongoing research war the two sides had fought, each modification to the units countered by improvements in scanners and detection. he had feared above all things precisely what had happened, an attempt to sneak high yield weaponry close enough to seriously damage the immense battleship. His relief had been considerable when the scanners picked up the approaching attack, detecting both the radiation and the concentration of heavy metals in the warheads and the massive thrust output of the ships as they raced toward Colossus.

In the end, it hadn’t even been close. Every one of the incoming ships had been wiped out before a single one had reached effective detonation range.

Still, Ilius didn’t intend to take any chances. He had his share of bitterness against the enemy after the losses of six years of endless struggle, but he’d come to respect them as well. The Hegemony was close to victory, it had brought overwhelming strength to bear.

But the Rimdwellers were not defeated, not yet.

“We’re receiving a transmission from the enemy flagship, Commander.”

Ilius’s head snapped around abruptly. A communique? That was a surprise.

“On my line, Hectoron.” He put his hand to the side of his head, checking to ensure that the earpiece was snuggly in place, just as the words began.

“This is Admiral Tyler Barron, commanding the fleet of the Grand Alliance. This communique is directed at the Hegemony supreme commander or any other officers with authority to discuss the peace terms previously provided.”

Ilius listened, his suspicion growing with every word. The Rimdwellers, at least their military commanders, had remained intractable, unwavering in their dedication to drive the Hegemony from he Rim at all costs. There was something about the transmission he didn’t like, something wrong somehow.

Still, they have to realize they are beaten, that Colossus is stronger than anything they’ve got to face it. Even the greatest warrior knows when the fight is over, when more death and destruction can serve no purpose.

That all made sense, and he’d long known the day might come, the moment when the Rim finally capitulated. That was the true purpose of Colossus, the primary goal of his mission. It was why the great warship had been held back, why it hadn’t turned its enormous guns on inhabited worlds. Why Chronos had allowed the Rim fleet to escape after the last fight.

The Hegemony was there to bring the Rimdwellers back into the fold, to protect them, lead them to an enlightened future, not to destroy them. But now that the very goal of his mission seemed to be in reach, he found it difficult to accept.

He tapped his earpiece, pausing the playback. “All scanners on full power, Hectoron. Frequency regulation targeted to detect radioactives. I want the slightest contact reported, I don’t care if it’s a meteor the size of my fist.” He’d be damned if he was going to let the enemy slip another bombing strike past him. Colossus was huge, but a small escort ship packed with high-yield nukes was a threat, even to the monstrous vessel. If he let it get close enough.

“Yes, Commander.”

Ilius restarted the comm unit. He listened as Tyler Barron spoke, and the words pouring out into his ears startled him, even more than the initial transmission itself had. Barron was reading off the terms of the peace proposal the Hegemony had offered. Then he began stating counter-positions, proposed changes to the treaty that might end the terrible war on the Rim.

Tyler Barron was negotiating terms of surrender.

Ilius had been skeptical of the chance the Rim would yield, even faced with the might of Colossus, and when a capitulation finally occurred, he expected it to come from the political leaders, probably over the objections of Barron and his officers. Or after the Rim military forced had been smashed into oblivion.

Tyler Barron had been an intractable enemy, a military genius who’d found one way after another to counter everything the Hegemony had thrown at the Rim. If he was beaten, perhaps the war was near its end.

Ilius let himself believe that, for a few seconds. But something still didn’t feel right. He found himself strangely disappointed to think that Barron had been broken…and then he began to doubt it entirely.

Why would he be talking surrender terms? Is he really beaten? Or is he planning something?

*

Jake Stockton sat in the cockpit of his fighter, waiting for the orders. He was nervous, edgy, as he always was before a combat launch, and he could feel the familiar moistness of perspiration under his survival suit. Stockton was a cold, focused veteran, but he wasn’t a robot. He was tense and scared, as anyone would be. As every pilot under his command no doubt was.

Still, despite the familiarity, the memories of similar situations, there was something different to what he felt. There was a finality to it this time, a sense that the battle about to begin might very well be the final struggle. He was anxious, too, twitching in his seat as he awaited the final launch orders.

One thing was missing. Stockton usually had an eagerness to get into the fight, and urgency born of his deep confidence in himself, and in his people. That wasn’t there this time, at least not to the extent it usually was. He knew his pilots would fight hard, but didn’t have any real hope of victory remaining. Even if his people obliterated the ranks of the enemy fighters, his bomber force was a fraction of what it had been…and the fleet had never faced a more overpowering enemy.

If, through some miracle, Admiral Winters’s desperate operation succeeded, if Colossus was destroyed, that still wouldn’t win the war…it would just leave the Confederation back where it was, facing the full might and power of the main Hegemony fleet, and it would do so minus whatever ships it lost defeating the massive superbattleship. Any future conflicts would take place in the new reality, where the Hegemony fielded its own fighter squadrons, where huge waves of bombers could no longer move unescorted against the enemy battle line. Even if Colossus housed the only Hegemony squadrons at the moment, there was no doubt that would change if the war continued.

Whatever happened in the coming hours, the monopoly his people had possessed in small craft was already gone. Tactical reality would revert back to past norms, with interceptors engaging in massive dogfights, struggling to open the way for focused and targeted bombing runs. The bombers, vastly fewer in number, would deliver a fraction of the ordnance they once had, and they would still have to face ever-improving Hegemony point defense arrays.

The vast bombing attacks of the war that had been so central to the Rim’s survival were a thing of the past, and even at their best, they had only served to create a kind of shaky stalemate.

Stockton knew he had to find a way. A way to keep training his people to fight enemy fighters. A way to make much smaller bombing attacks succeed. A way to do his part to stave off defeat.

Assuming he survived the day. That seemed a questionable enough proposition as he looked at his screen, then projecting a copy of Dauntless’s main scanner feed.

Stockton’s mind raced, trying to think of anything he might have forgotten. But there was nothing. He had done all he could to prepare his people. He’d put every pilot who’d been around long enough to have dogfighting experience in an interceptor, and he’d relentlessly drilled the others, the ones who had never engaged in fighter versus fighter duels. It was far from perfect, but if it came down to a full-scale battle between strike forces, as it looked like it was going to, Stockton’s people would be far readier than they had been at Santara.

His eyes caught a flashing light on the edge of his screen. A fighter showing as active and occupied, one of the spares not on the launch roster. He reached down to his controls, about to activate the comm unit, when the mysterious new pilot beat him to it.

“Captain Federov reporting for duty, Admiral.”

Stockton was surprised. Federov was still in sickbay, at least she was supposed to be. “Captain, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in the infirmary?”

“I’m fine…and I figured you could use every bit of help you could get, Admiral. A quick check of the flight database told me you had more ships than pilots. I can push that back toward balance, at least by one.”

Stockton could hear the fatigue in her voice, and the pain he knew she still felt. By any reasonable measure, she wasn’t fit for duty, and he almost ordered her out of the ship immediately.

Almost.

Then, he put himself in her place, imagined how he would feel sitting in a hospital bed while all of his comrades launched for what very well might be the final battle. He wanted to tell her to stay. He wanted her to be safe, to keep her from the rigors of battle, at least until she was truly recovered.

But he couldn’t do it.

She wouldn’t be safe anywhere, not even in sickbay, and at least in her fighter, she could play a role in what happened. He couldn’t deny her that. To Stockton, such a thing was a basic right.

“Welcome back, Captain Federov.” The words fought him as he spoke them, but got them out anyway. Anya Federov deserved to launch with the strike force, and whatever his personal feelings, his fear for his friend, he couldn’t stop her.

He wouldn’t.

“Take command of your old wing, Captain. The formation is still mostly intact, if smaller than they were.” Then he paused, and a dark smile crept onto his face, grim yet also appreciative. “It’s good to have you back, Olya.”

Back where you belong…

*

“The terms offered already represent significant concessions on the part of the Hegemony. While I am gratified at your interest in seeking an end to the terrible hostilities that have engulfed our peoples, I must decline your requested modifications and insist that the terms be accepted as presented.”

Tyler Barron sat in his chair, listening to the response from Colossus. The officer’s tone was patrician, clearly someone who’d lived his entire life at or near the pinnacles of power. Barron recognized it well, and he saw in it a familiarity to his own life as the descendant of the Confederation’s greatest hero. The man speaking was used to being obeyed, yet his words were gentle, his refusal firm, but soft in some ways as well.

They really mean it…they want us to accept their terms. Still, despite the refusal he’d just heard, he suspected the Hegemony would negotiate further, that they would offer some concessions as part of true peace talks.

The only problem with that was, they were going to have to march over Tyler Barron’s broken body before his people accepted any kind of surrender, no matter how softened it was or how dressed up with pointless frivolities. His strength had wavered, his body and spirit nearing the end of their endurance. But such things had brought him farther from yielding, not closer. He had lost too much, and he wasn’t sure he even knew how to look ahead to the rest of his life, even if the Hegemony forces withdrew and left the Rim unmolested. He’d truly begun to wonder if there was any real end to the nightmare for him, save the death in battle he seemed born to meet.

He was a trapped animal, and he wondered if Hegemonic lore had any fables about such a beast.

Still, it served his purposes for them to believe—or even suspect—that he might be serious. That his people were ready to surrender, that they were simply trying to save face before they did. He needed their attention diverted from Winters’s ships, and their refusal of his modified terms gave him just what he needed.

What the hell would you have done if they’d accepted?

He looked up at the display. There were shadowy gray ovals, symbols representing the projected positions of Winter’s troop ships. The AI was displaying them where the schedule showed they should be, but the fleet’s scanners hadn’t picked up a sign of any of them since they’d moved out toward Colossus.

That was crucial, of course. If Dauntless’s scanners had picked the ships up, there was no doubt Colossus’s would have, too. They still might. They’re better than yours…

If the enemy behemoth detected so much as a hint that Winters’s ships were there, the whole plan was shot. Those transports needed to reach Colossus, and they needed to force board before whatever Kriegeri were inside that thing could react and repel them at their points of entry. Whatever chance Rogan and his Marines had depended on surprise…and on Andi being correct about reduced Hegemony crew levels. Colossus could carry a million ground troops, Barron had figured, maybe more. If the enemy had managed to place even a fraction of that number aboard, Rogan’s Marines wouldn’t last more than a few minutes, even if they made it onboard.

He sat and listened as the voice continued, sounding very much like a combat officer trying to act like a diplomat. He sympathized, deep on some involuntary level, with his counterpart. Barron was no diplomat either, and largely, he despised the breed. He fancied his adversary felt much the same, and he could hear the discomfort in the otherwise cold and confident voice.

His mind dredged up some old and lost lines, scraps of something very ancient and mostly lost that he’d once read. If he and I had met by some old ancient inn…

He felt anger, at himself, at the thoughts in his head, the feelings of familiarity, of understanding toward his enemy. He preferred the cold simplicity of hatred, yet the voice in his ears sounded entirely too reasonable, too honorable.

He’d come to grasp at the threads of the cause of the conflict, to understand, that the Hegemony’s motivations, in their own way, were as principled as his, at least from their perspective. He’d tried to resist such thoughts, but they had proven to be as stubborn as they were pointless. He would never yield, and seeing his enemy as human, even as honorable after a fashion, offered him nothing. Better to battle monsters, to kill barely human savages drunk on destruction and conquest. Fewer ghosts haunting his sleep.

Still, reasonable or not, honorable or not…his adversary had given him what he needed. Now, he would give them something to think about, something other than the dozen troopships even then creeping forward, their power systems at minimal levels, their velocities slow, their stealth units working as well as Anya Fritz’s fine tuning had allowed.

Here’s something to divert your attention…

He tapped his headset, and he pulled the small microphone around, in front of his mouth. He wanted his enemy to hear every word he said.

“I regret that you have rejected our offer of a peaceful resolution. Your position leaves us no alternative, no choice but to continue the struggle to repel your invasion from the Rim.” He cut the line, and then he turned toward Atara.

“Admiral Travis, all fighter wings are to launch at once.”

“Yes, sir.” Travis hesitated for just a few seconds, a shared glance between two old friends, about to go once more into battle together. Then she turned and relayed the command to flight control. A few seconds later, gentle vibrations marked the launch of Dauntless’s squadrons, and the display began to fill with the hazy clouds of massed fighter formations, as a hundred battleships sent their wings forth into the fight.

Barron took a few deep breaths, watching as Stockton’s people, all that remained of the mighty strike force that had fought so courageously through six years of war, set out toward Colossus. But that wasn’t all he had to distract the enemy.

It was time to go all in, to bet everything.

“Alright, Atara…I think it’s time. Fleet order, all battleships are to move forward toward Colossus.”

“Yes, sir,” came the instant reply, sharp with aggression and defiance. A moment later, after the relayed command had reached the ships spread out over nearly five light seconds of space and their acknowledgements had returned, she turned back toward Barron and simply nodded.

Barron could see the immensity of the battle line, the combined might of the Rim, moving forward.

It looked like a grand attack, a great battle unfolding, but it was all a ruse, a distraction, designed only to draw the enemy’s attention away from Winters’s handful of ships. Barron had no idea if it would work, if the enemy would be distracted, and even if they were, if the great battleships of the Rim would be able to pull away in time, before Colossus blasted them to scrap. But whatever lay just ahead, whatever realities would determine the outcome, there was one thought in Barron’s head, one realization that tore through the fear and gloom like a razor.

Damn, it was a beautiful sight. All the power he’d been able to muster, moving forward, the greatest fleet the Rim had ever seen, advancing as one. Former neighbors, enemies, come together as allies to face the enemy. Kat Rigellus’s people were here, massed and ready for battle. His enemy from so many years past, the one whose defeat and death still plagued him. She was there, somehow…there with her people. It didn’t make sense, but somehow, he believed it.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Colossus

Lyra System

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

Ilius was transfixed by what he saw on the display. The Rim fleet, all of it, advancing directly toward Colossus, and in the forefront of the formation, the fighter squadrons, formed up in successive lines, bombers following interceptors. It had all happened very quickly, and he was still trying to comprehend what was happening. He’d no sooner rejected the changes the Rimdwellers had requested in the terms than they’d cut off discussions and formed up to attack.

It was aggressive, wildly so for a force that had moments before been discussing surrender. He wondered at what was happening inside the enemy command ships, the discussions, the debates. The arguments. He’d been stunned when the enemy had even responded to the terms they’d been offered. He knew why Chronos had extended them, and why the commander had at least hoped they would elicit a response, but he had expected nothing but silence. The Rimdwellers were a lot of things, some of them admirable, some less so, but they’d always fought like cornered wildcats, and the idea of them surrendering, even with terms that softened the sting of capitulation, seemed unlikely to him, at least while they maintained forces under arms. He’d been sure Colossus and the rest of he invasion force would have to obliterate their military, crush their ability, if not their will, to resist…but he hadn’t expected that fight to come so soon, so abruptly.

His mind raced. Had the Rim militaries been compelled to explore surrender by their civilian leaders? The politicians who ran the Confederation, and no doubt the other Rim polities, seemed to show considerably less will than the soldiers and spacers, especially toward terms that ensured their continued comfort and some degree of authority and perceived power. Had the modifications the enemy had proposed been some kind of compromise, and were the commanders now taking advantage of the Hegemony refusal to launch an attack before their political masters could restrain them?

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed a possible scenario, even a likely one. It explained all that he was seeing. It wasn’t difficult to imagine a scenario where the warriors had set certain terms as an uncrossable line. This far, and no farther, he imagined they had said, or something of the sort.

He wondered if they should have tried to negotiate, perhaps made some minor concessions to attempt to reach agreement. Could that have succeeded, or would the Rim warriors have used any refused change at all as an excuse to commence hostilities? They were courageous, he couldn’t believe they thought they had a chance. Was this a last gesture, a choice among the Rim militaries to face death in battle over capitulation.

If so, it would be a terrible loss. Ilius had no doubt, some of the Rim’s very best was on those ships.

And now, he would have to kill them all.

Perhaps this is what raw determination looks like at the end. Is there a place where relentless, admirable courage morphs inescapably into suicidal insanity?

If the enemy came on as they were doing, if they met Colossus, and the rest of the Hegemony fleet, head on, Ilius had no doubt about the final result. The cost might be high, though if Colossus could devastate the enemy formation before their ships moved into their own firing range, perhaps losses could be kept to a minimum. Either way, however, the clash looming in the Lyra system looked very much like it would be the final battle.

Is it possible? Could this really be the end of the war, or at least the beginning of the end, a conclusion brought about not by the enemy’s surrender, but by a desperate, last-ditch, almost suicidal assault provoked by that very peace offer? Have the Rim warriors decided they have no chance? Have they chosen death above surrender?

He felt some hesitation, second thoughts about killing so many noble enemies. But that wasn’t his decision, nor even Chronos’s. It was the enemy’s. He couldn’t stop them from advancing, from attacking. He could only destroy them if they did.

He would do it, of course, with as much quiet competence as he possessed. But he would regret it, deeply.

“All fighter wings are to commence launch operations and move to engage the approaching Rim squadrons.”

‘Yes, Commander.” The response was immediate, precise. His people were well-trained, as were all Hegemony Kriegeri, but in his weeks in command of Colossus, he’d whipped them into a shape they’d never imagined. Ilius had never been one to suffer fools, but six years of war had hardened him into an irresistible instrument, a weapon of pure iron. And he had ordained that those entrusted with the Hegemony’s great superweapon would excel at all times.

“Send a communique to Commander Chronos on Hegemony’s Glory. Advise him we request immediate fleet support against the approaching enemy attack.” Ilius had almost decided to forego requesting reinforcements, but his cold rationality won out over pointless pride. He couldn’t risk Colossus being seriously damaged, and as unlikely as that eventuality might have seemed, it was even less of a prospect if the full fleet was engaged alongside the behemoth. He was not going to underestimate the enemy. Not now. Not when the end was finally in sight.

It was time. Time for the final battle.

*

“The stealth unit is working perfectly, Admiral…and as far as I can tell from the passive scans, the other ships are all securely cloaked.”

“Very well, Captain. That’s good news.” Clint Winters glanced down at the comm unit as Anya Fritz’s voice came through. Winters was glad to have the legendary engineer with him, though he was still surprised Barron had agreed and allowed her to join the attack force. That reluctant call hadn’t had much to do with his part of the operation, getting the Marines to Colossus.

But assuming he got his ships through and managed to dock with Colossus, Bryan Rogan and his Marines were going to have to find the reactors or something else vital, and they were going to have to do it quickly, and in the face of resistance from the Kriegeri inside. Anya Fritz was there to aid them in that effort, to evaluate the Colossus’s innards, and try to find the antimatter storage or the power plants or some type of volatile weapons magazine. It was wildly dangerous, but Fritz was a veteran, just like Winters and Barron and the rest of the key Confederation officers. She knew what was at stake, and she’d insisted Barron allow her to go. In the end, Winters decided, Barron simply hadn’t been able to refuse her. There was no one in the fleet more likely to sniff out some kind of vulnerability inside Colossus than Fritz.

He appreciated Fritz’s dedication, even as the escort ship moved slowly toward its target. He doubted even she could intervene quickly enough if the stealth unit failed—and there was absolutely nothing she could do to ensure the other eleven continued to remain operational. There was no doubt in his mind he enemy scanners would be banging away at full power, and it wouldn’t take more than a brief failure of the stealth generator for Colossus to lock on and blast the small transport to dust. The strike force was well into the superbattleship’s range envelope, and staying hidden was the only defense his people had.

The only chance they had.

He looked up at the display, watching the fleet move up behind his small force. He’d discussed the tactic with Barron, the idea of sending everything in, creating a massive distraction to draw as many eyes as possible from the hidden troopships. It was wild, reckless, and if the fleet was actually forced to engage while Colossus was still operational, it would be a bloodbath.

But anything that increased the chance of getting the troopships in was worth almost any risk.

The fleet’s approach was one more pressure point, another need to push Rogan’s Marines, to drive them to find Colossus’s weakness quickly, and to exploit it before the great ship destroyed the entire fleet.

Winters had reviewed the plan a hundred times, the boarding action as well as the withdrawal and extrication of the Marines after they’d planted their explosives. He had played along with that last part, as everyone involved had, but he didn’t think any of them, Marines or his own spacers, really believed they were coming back. He couldn’t imagine a situation where the Kriegeri would allow Rogan’s people to plant their explosives and then leave them on timers while they pulled back. No, if the Marines made it to some vital location, they would no doubt end up surrounded there, and forced to detonate the charges they had planted, killing themselves, and just maybe, Colossus.

They were all very likely on a one-way mission. The Marines, certainly, and probably Winters and his spacers as well. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where he would leave Rogan’s people while there was any hope of their escape…and it didn’t seem likely he’d get any advance warning when the Marines were forced to detonate their bombs.

That assumes the Kriegeri don’t just smash their way aboard and kill us all, or that we can escape from the blast radius quickly enough, even if this whole crazy effort succeeds.

Winters knew, with something very close to cold certainty, there was no way out, despite what they’d all been telling themselves.

And, if he was going to die, if all the Marines and spacers with him were going to die, he’d be damned if it would be for no reason. They were going to take that damned thing down with them…and then Tyler and the fleet could fight their own desperate battle. The odds wouldn’t be much better there, but with Colossus gone, they’d have at least some kind of chance.

Winters had decided to tell himself that, anyway. If he had to die, above all things, he wanted it to be for something, and not for nothing.

*

“Interceptor squadrons, you all know what to do. Veterans, I know it’s been a long time since you’ve been in a dogfight, but some things stay with you for life. Just open your minds, let the reflexes come back, and you’ll rip through these green bastards like a scythe through straw. And, those who haven’t fought enemy fighters before, follow the lead of the pilots who have. Stay sharp, focused, and you’ll come through fine.” Stockton knew that last part was the purest bullshit. He was going to lose a lot of pilots in the next few hours no matter what happened.

But the enemy is going to lose more. A lot more.

He glanced down at the small screen, watching as Colossus’s fighter wings formed up and began moving toward his squadrons. He let out a small sigh, a show of relief that none of the other Hegemony ships had launched any interceptors. He’d been uncertain, hopeful that Colossus was the only enemy ship that carried fighters. It looked like his people were going to catch a break on that.

One more reason to fight it out here, to win or die now. If we give the enemy more time, they’ll retrofit their battleships to carry fighters. They’ll overwhelm us, strip us of our only advantage. Stockton didn’t want to die, but given a choice between a slow, inevitable decline and a swift death fighting to the end, he knew the route he would pick.

He watched as the enemy formation approached. He still had more total ships than the Hegemony force, though half his birds were outfitted as bombers. His interceptors were outnumbered maybe three to two, and they had to defend the bombers as well as themselves. But Stockton had never allowed the numbers to get to him. The Confederation had faced larger Union forces again and again, and they had won more fights than they’d lost. They could do it again.

His eyes narrowed as a line of enemy interceptors moved toward his position. The Hegemony rockets were a potent weapon, and he knew they would hit his wings hard. But the missiles on his Confederation ships were longer-ranged. They’d get the first shot. They’d draw first blood.

“We’re moving up to missile range…I want all of you to stay sharp, check and double check those fire locks. You’ve got two missiles, and that means I expect you to take out two enemy ships. Anybody who misses, you can forget about the enemy…you’d better worry about dealing with me when we’re done here.”

Stockton reached out as he spoke, arming his own missiles. His eyes darted around, searching for potential targets. He was the Confederation’s number one ace, both among those still active, and in its entire history. His two hundred four kills had long made him a legend in the fighter corps, though he knew many of the pilots now flying lacked any real perspective on the fighter against fighter duels that had been the heart of the service for so long.

They’ll come to understand it, though. Our monopoly is gone, and anybody who wants to survive this war is going to learn—or relearn—dogfighting.

He blasted his thrusters hard, pushing his fighter out in front of the formation. It was a foolhardy move, and he would have skinned one of his pilots alive for trying it. But he needed to lead his people, to set the example, even if that meant facing almost two thousand oncoming enemy fighters, alone for a few seconds.

He brought his ship around, adjusting his sights, setting his first target lock. He could see warning lights all over his dashboard, enemy rocket launches. Good…fire your rockets too soon. The more of them you waste, the fewer you’ll have to fire at my pilots.

He pressed the firing stud, letting his first missile fly, even as he jammed the throttle hard to the side, modifying his vector, and bringing himself well out of the approach angles of the closest oncoming rockets. The weapons would adjust their own courses, he knew, and pursue him, but he’d watched the Hegemony rockets closely at Santara, and he’d assessed their capabilities. Most of them were going to run out of fuel before they could get to him.

Hegemony science was impressive, and on the whole, superior to that of the Confederation. But the anti-fighter rockets were still rough, their thrust capacities and onboard AIs not quite up to snuff. At least not against a pilot with two hundred four kills.

He jerked his hand wildly back and forth, changing the angles of his thrust and, he imagined, giving splitting headaches to the green Hegemony pilots trying to target him.

He was putting on a show as well, one intended to motivate his people, to inspire them and bolster their confidence. It would work, no doubt, and almost as certainly, it would drive some of his people too far, encourage them into situations beyond their abilities. It would kill some of them, perhaps a lot of them. But Stockton knew what was at stake just then, and anything he could do to distract the enemy, to keep eyes off the cloaked strike force, was worthwhile.

Whatever the cost.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Colossus

Lyra System

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“We’ve got multiple hull breaches, Commander. Confirmed. Sections AZ-219 and AZ-220.”

Ilius listened to the report, struggling to understand what was happening as the words hit him, seeming almost to make no sense. His first thought was the enemy had somehow launched another stealth attack, and this time gotten their warheads close enough to damage Colossus. He’d felt a brief wave of panic, quickly contained, without, he was fairly certain, any external signs. After a few tense seconds passed with no indications of major explosions, no damage reports, he knew his fears had groundless. If the enemy had managed to drive high-yield warheads into Colossus’s hull, he would know it. The great ship would be damaged, its hull lurching wildly from the blasts. It might even be destroyed. But there was nothing.

Still, something was happening.

“Concentrate local scans on the exterior of affected areas. Order fighter wing eight to break off from attack formation and investigate.” Ilius could feel the tension, the caustic worry. He’d come to respect the enemy’s abilities, and he didn’t like what was happening. He didn’t like it one bit.

“Yes, Commander.” The officer snapped out his commands, passing them on.

Almost immediately after the aide had finished, he added, “Dispatch Kriegeri strike teams to the affected sectors, and all adjoining ones. Full combat gear. I want on the scene reports of any incursions or hull damage.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Ilius’s mind raced. If the enemy had gotten warheads past Colossus’s scanners, they wouldn’t wait long before detonating them. They would have done that already. And the scanners would have picked up any escape boats as soon as they cleared the stealth fields. Massive nukes were a deadly threat, even to Colossus, but Ilius had ordered the scanners honed to detect radiation and heavy elements, and focused with even greater intensity than he’d employed at Tellurus. They hadn’t detected a thing.

Maybe they developed some kind of shielding…

He shook his head. In the few weeks since Tellurus? No, that’s not it. If they got that close, they’re not carrying heavy nukes. But, what then?

He didn’t know what was happening, but he was sure it was something. “Advise Kriegeri team commanders, I want reports on anything. If they think they hear something—anything—they are to report it directly to me. Is that understood?”

“Understood, Commander.” The officer repeated Ilius’s command into his comm. Then the Kriegeri turned back. “Preliminary scanner results negative, Commander. No sign of…” The man paused and looked back at his workstation. Then he turned toward Ilius, a stunned look on his face. “Commander, we have internal alarms triggered in affected sections. The AI is reporting enemy soldiers aboard, in corridors AZR-316, AZR-317, AZR-440, AZR-441…”

The officer continued with his report, but Ilius already knew. He couldn’t understand how it had happened, or the audacity such an insane effort had required. But he had no doubt.

The enemy had boarded Colossus.

*

“Move out, now. Sergeant Till, get your squad down to the end of that corridor and set up a defensive position covering the perpendiculars. Sergeant Harris, your platoon is responsible for protecting Captain Fritz. You follow her wherever she goes, and make damned sure I know where you are at all times.” Rogan paused for a moment, looking behind him and catching his comm officer shaking her head as he did. Whatever material Colossus was constructed from—and it looked like some kind of metal the Marine had never seen before—it seemed to play havoc with scanners and communications. He turned back toward Harris and added, “Send runner back if you have to, but I need to know your status at all times.”

He hated the idea of letting Anya Fritz loose, running around the enemy superbattleship with a single platoon of Marines all that was standing between her and whatever Kriegeri were out there. But there was no choice. If the engineer couldn’t find someplace vulnerable, a spot where his Marines could position their meager explosives, where they could cause enough of a chain reaction to cripple or destroy Colossus, the mission was doomed. He would have led her, and all his Marines, to their deaths for no gain.

If he was sure of one thing, it was that the tiny explosives his people had been able to bring weren’t going to take out, or seriously damage, a sixty-kilometer long spaceship.

Not unless they were placed under a reactor or next to an antimatter storage unit.

Rogan knew he was on a suicide mission, or at least that few of his people were likely to get off Colossus alive. Failure almost certainly meant death for all, but even if he succeeded, if Fritz found what they were looking for and his people placed their bombs where they needed to be…how long could he really wait before detonating them? Could he risk giving the enemy time to find and disarm them while his people raced back to their ships?

He knew the answer, but there was no point worrying about it, not until his people found what they were looking for. If Colossus was undercrewed, if the manpower shortages the intel reports had noted were real, just maybe they had a chance. Perhaps he was reaping the gain from facing so many Kriegeri on Megara. Those deadly battles, the terrible losses his Marines had suffered, might hurt just a bit less if they proved to be the key to destroying Colossus. If the massive ship had been fully-crewed, Rogan knew his Marines would have been overrun already. He had no conclusive proof, but he was convinced the intel on he manpower shortages was completely accurate.

Rogan turned, about to snap out another series of orders when he heard the sound of gunfire down the corridor. He turned, and he looked, tapping his helmet, dropping the small scope down in front of his eyes. He cranked up the magnification, and he stared down the long corridor, watching as a cluster of his Marines fell back, carrying two of their own, wounded at least, and possibly dead.

The fighting had begun, and he suspected it wouldn’t stop, not before Colossus was destroyed or the Kriegeri had hunted down every one of his Marines.

*

“Way to fly that thing, Lynx!” Stockton’s eyes were still fixed on his screen, watching as Olya Federov brought her interceptor around, back toward a cluster of Hegemony fighters. Stockton had been worried about his friend, concerned about how well she’d fly after her injuries—and considering the partial status of her recovery. By any normal medical standards, she had no place in the cockpit, but after what he’d just watched, he decided anyone spouting about ‘medical standards’ could shove it. She had six kills already, the last two in an amazing maneuver that saw her fly right by one ship on the way toward one just behind, and spinning around after blasting the first target, taking down the one she’d left behind seconds later. It was beyond textbook, something the instructors at flight school were likely to call impossible.

But Stockton had just watched it, and that proved surer than anything that is was possible.

“Thanks, Raptor.” The response brought him down a bit from his high. For all her skill, and the focused intensity of her flying, Federov couldn’t hide the pain and fatigue in her voice. Stockton knew just what an effort she was making, how difficult it was for her to maintain the withering intensity she’d shown. He suspected she was jacked up on stims, too, and he knew she’d pay a price for that later. But, at that moment, she was what he needed, another example to the masses of his pilots new to fighter duels…a stunning image of just what a veteran could do to green enemies.

Stockton had three kills himself, the first two from his missiles, and the third the result of a well-placed laser hit. He was used to being at the top of the list, the deadliest pilot in space, but he was glad to yield that mantle to Federov.

Mostly glad. No pilot got as good as Stockton without some ego driving him.

The fighter combat was raging all around, and the Hegemony pilots were getting a lesson of sorts, one they had escaped at Santara. They’d had their chance to maximize surprise, to take advantage of catching unescorted bombers. Now they were seeing the other side of fighter combat.

Stockton’s twelve hundred interceptors were outnumbered almost two to one, or at least they had been before they’d torn into the enemy formations. Stockton didn’t know what would happen in the overall battle, whether the desperate attack on Colossus would succeed, or if the fleet could get through the superbattleship’s deadly weapons to engage the Hegemony line…but he knew his people were teaching the Kriegeri pilots just what it felt like to take a good, solid beating. Stockton had hoped for a loss ratio of at least two to one. He’d even dared to imagine three to one. But his pilots had not obliged his numbers. They were taking down almost five of the enemy fighters for every one of their own they lost, and Stockton’s chest swelled with pride. War was terrible, a nightmare that stripped friend from friend, and left desolation and despair in its wake…but he’d be damned if it didn’t often bring out the best in some of its participants.

This will teach you to get the hell out of the Rim…and stay out!

Stockton hated the loss and waste of war, but some part of him loved it, too. He was drawn to it, as though it was his home, his natural habitat. He’d never been better at anything in his life than he was behind the controls of his Lightning. He’d never felt more natural anywhere.

He was deep in the battle, his focus on his wings and on the enemy fighters he was pursuing, the Kriegeri he intended to kill. But he could also see Colossus moving steadily forward. In a few minutes, the massive ship’s point defense would come into range and open up on his formations. His pilots would be bracketed between the enemy squadrons and the withering fire from Colossus’s point defense. And, a few minutes after that, the escort line from the Hegemony fleet would move into the fight.

We’ve got to break their squadrons by then…

His people were doing well, exceeding his wildest hopes, but he kept his excitement in check. Nothing that happened in the fighter battle mattered if Bryan Rogan’s Marines didn’t manage to destroy Colossus from the inside. The mission had always seemed hopeless, and as much as it invigorated him to see his people gaining the upper hand, the sense of near-hopelessness was never far away.

*

“Please, Captain Fritz, stay back. We have to scout the corridor up ahead.”

Anya Fritz almost told the Marine to shut the hell up, that she’d go wherever the hell she damn well pleased, but she managed to hold it back. She was edgy, scared, and more than anything, focused on her mission, to the exclusion of all else. But she could still see the folly in berating someone whose only offense was trying desperately to keep her alive.

“I appreciate your concern for me, Sergeant, but we don’t have a second to waste. You know how big this thing is, and we don’t have time to cover more than a small section. I don’t care if every Kriegeri in the Hegemony army is up there, we’ve got to push ahead. If we don’t find someplace to plant the explosives, and soon, we’ve all come here for nothing.”

And none of us are getting out, no matter how diligently you try to protect me…

She’d never considered herself the sort to volunteer for suicide missions, but she understood, perhaps even better even than Barron and the command staff did, just how hopeless the fight would be with Colossus in the enemy line. If they didn’t manage to destroy the thing, they were going to lose the war anyway, and Anya Fritz had no desire to survive that kind of nightmare.

She’d been looking all around as she moved forward, her eyes searching for clues, heavy conduits, thick radiation-proof doors. Anything that might suggest she was moving toward the reactors, or at least the main engineering spaces.

She’d studied every scanner report on Colossus she’d been able to lay her hands on, analyzing every exterior detail, trying to ascertain the likely locations of vulnerable systems. Anya Fritz ate, drank, and slept engineering, and she could pick out any internal system on a Confederation ship with the most fleeting glance at the hull. But Colossus was different, the product of a more advanced technology, and a vessel of such scale, she had no real sense of where anything should be.

So, she’d guessed. Clint Winters had brought the troopships in just where she’d specified, so if they were in the wrong place, it was one hundred percent on her.

More stress…driving her to find what she’d come to find.

She’d done the best she could in choosing the boarding points, and she still harbored some hope she’d gotten the Marines aboard close to what they sought. She hadn’t confirmed that yet, but she’d seen some signs of it. Given enough time, she was sure she could root out the main antimatter storage. That wasn’t the important question.

The crucial unknown was, how much time would she get?

Not enough to waste while the Marines clear the corridors ahead one at a time…

She moved forward again, almost feeling the sergeant’s tension. She ignored it, though. It was his problem. Hers was finding something he Marines could blow up, something powerful enough to take the ship with it. And, if she could locate her target near enough to the docking points, just maybe they’d all get a chance to escape before that happened.

Fritz took another few steps forward, and then she stopped, suddenly.

She’d heard something. Gunfire. Coming from down the corridor. An instant later, she heard a grunt behind her, and spun around to see one of her Marines falling backwards, blood spraying out from a pair of holes on his chest.

She hesitated, just for an instant, and then she let her instincts take control and send her diving through an open hatch just to her side…as the corridor erupted in a hail of enemy fire.

Chapter Thirty-Four

500,000 Kilometers from Colossus

Lyra System

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“Wings seven and nine, increase forward thrust to maximum. Come around, and try to hit the enemy flank.” Krimack had known there would be a reckoning, that the easy victory surprise had given his wings at Santara would not be repeated. He’d read all the accounts taken from captured Hegemony records, and he knew the Rim forces had a rich history of fighter combat, one that would give them an inevitable advantage when his forces met theirs on closer to equal terms.

But he hadn’t been prepared for what was happening all around him. The Rim fighters were tearing into his formations, and even outnumbered as they were, they were killing five, even ten of his ships for every one of their own they lost. The sharp edge of their assault was clearly their seasoned veterans, experienced flyers who obliterated his still-raw pilots with maneuvers that seemed almost effortless. He’d held his own, taking down two Rim fighters personally, but most of his people were struggling badly.

They are dying…

He still had the numerical advantage, though by less than he’d had when the fight began. He knew it didn’t matter, not really. Not in a strategic sense. The enemy bombers lined up behind their interceptors were dangerous, as always, but they were not sufficient in number to get past the escorts and the withering point defense Colossus could put out, not in sufficient force to threaten the giant ship. His squadrons had done their job simply by being there, by compelling the enemy to outfit most of its already-depleted fighter force as interceptors. The mere existence of the great dogfight had served its purpose.

But Krimack was still angry, utterly furious at the losses he had suffered. He was determined to hurt the enemy, if not to win the exchange, at least to send the survivors back knowing they’d been in one hell of a fight.

He brought his ship around with nothing more than a thought. The neural net was a tremendous innovation, or at least it would be when he and his pilots finally adapted to it, and figured out how to really use the thing. It was difficult to employ properly, more because it felt strangely unnatural than for any operational failure. He’d been assured by the research teams that, eventually, it would feel no different to move his fighter around than it did to reach out his hand and grab some object in front of him. He wasn’t sure he believed that, but he could see the potential edge in reaction time. That was something that could make an immense difference in a duel against an enemy interceptor.

He brought his ship around, partially with thoughts and partially by manhandling the controls. It was clumsy maybe, to mix the two, but it was where he was, midway between conventional pilot and a brain flying the fighter with pure thoughts. His eyes were on the screen, on a pair of interceptors coming in at him. They were accelerating hard, looking very much like their flyers knew what they were doing. Krimack suspected the ships he’d taken down had been flown by relatively inexperienced pilots. He’d watched the moves of some of the enemy veterans, and he knew none of his people—including himself—were ready yet to face them. They needed time. Time to learn, to become used to the fighters…to truly embrace the neural nets. There would be a day, he knew, when the fight would be much more evenly matched, but for the moment, he could see his wings were being routed. They’d had their moment of surprise, and they’d used it to gun down thousands of defenseless bombers. But now they were paying the price, and the Rim pilots were out for blood.

He swung around, overruling his instinct to face the approaching fighters. It was a hit to his pride to back down, but he was Kriegeri, and nothing came before discipline. If his wings were to gain parity with their foes, and even one day best them, they had to survive, endure long enough to develop the skills and reflexes they would need. Focus, intellect, good decision-making…all of those traits contributed to survival prospects.

Uncontrolled pride, on the other hand, led to death more often than not, and there was no place for it in the Hegemony battle plan. Kriegeri existed to fight, to serve. Dying pointlessly would be a failure of his purpose, his mission.

Still, he looked at the two small specks, even as they became ever more distant. Next time, he thought to himself, as he pulled away as quickly as he could. He’d been a creature of duty his entire life, and he knew what was expected of him. Getting himself killed going up against enemy aces wasn’t it.

But there would be another day.

*

Anya Fritz bit down hard, her hand wet and warm as she held it tightly over the wound. She’d taken a round in the side, not critical, she thought, as she looked down and made a snap judgment.

But damn it hurts…

She leaned back against the wall, gulping a few breaths of air and trying to put the pain out of her mind. She knew she should get out of the corridor, dive into the room off to the side, but she still hesitated. She’d been in desperate danger before, braved radiation leaks, exploding conduits, laser pulses larger than her body cutting through a ship’s hull…but this was her first real firefight.

She’d wondered how deep into Colossus they’d get before the Kriegeri came to stop them. Now, she had her answer. Not very far.

She staggered to the side, toward the open hatch, even as more Marines pushed past her, moving forward toward the sounds of fighting—now two-sided—coming from up ahead. She was about halfway in when she felt an arm grab her and shove her the rest of the way. She stumbled, barely catching herself, and as her head came around, she saw Bryan Rogan’s face looking at her.

“Stay here, Captain…please. I know we don’t have time to waste, but getting yourself killed isn’t going to help. You’re the only one with a real chance to find what we need.” He turned toward the corridor and shouted, “Medic!” and then he spun back around toward Fritz. “We’ll have that corridor clear in a few minutes. It’s just one patrol group up there, no more than six or eight Kriegeri. I can’t vouch for how long it will be before we’ve got a thousand down here, but so far, the security looks like something we can handle.” He paused, looking at the wound on her side. “As long as we’re careful. Please, Captain…you have to listen to me. We’re done, finished without you. So, remember that, and stay back a little. You’re the only one we can’t lose and still complete the mission. If you want to get yourself killed, wait until you find us a good place to set the charges, okay?”

Fritz stared back at the Marine, seeing the strange look on his face and realizing his words hadn’t come out exactly as he’d intended. She almost laughed. Hell, she did laugh, at least enough to send a shudder of pain down her side.

“Okay, Bryan. Understood.” Anya Fritz had a reputation for impatience, and for driving those under her command hard. But she had known Rogan for a long time, since their days on the old Dauntless, and he was one of the few people she actually listened to.

Rogan nodded and turned back toward the door. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he raced back out into the corridor, squeezing past the medic and directing the man toward Fritz as he did.

The med tech walked over and dropped down next to her, his eyes focused on the bloody stain on her tunic. He reached down, pulling away the fabric, and unzipping the survival suit underneath. He looked at the wound. “Okay…it seems pretty clean. The projectile went in and right back out. Didn’t hit anything vital. I’ll give you something for the pain, and then I’ll seal it, so you don’t lose any more blood.”

“No painkiller. No drugs at all. I need to stay alert, Lieutenant.” Fritz wasn’t exactly looking forward to feeling everything the tech was about to do in full intensity, but she’d be damned if she’d allow any chance of the fleet being destroyed because her mind was less than razor sharp.

“Okay, I can give you a local. It’ll knock out most of the discomfort, and it won’t affect your thinking at all.” The tech didn’t even wait for an answer. He pulled out an injector and gave her a shot, just below the wound. She felt a pinch, and more pain as he started working on the wound itself. And then, nothing. Numbness, relief.

She sighed softly, realizing only then just how distracted she’d been by the pain. She sat still, quiet, unmoving, as the tech dressed the wound and sealed it. She hated the loss of the time, but it wouldn’t do her any good to rush out into the raging firefight in the hall, and even less if she bled to death before she found what she was looking for.

“Okay, Captain, that should hold for now. I’d say go easy on it for a while, but considering the circumstances, just try not to tear it all the way open.”

She could feel a little pressure, but nothing too bad.

Fritz nodded. “Thanks, Lieutenant. It’s much better.” She started to get up, but then she stopped halfway, slowing down and moving with greater care. She needed all she had, and she wasn’t going to get it if she ripped the wound open and bled like a faucet.

She walked over to the door, pausing just before she stepped back out of the room. She was impatient, tense, anxious to get started tracking down Colossus’s reactors and antimatter. But Rogan was right, she wasn’t going to accomplish anything if she got herself killed. She didn’t like being second guessed about engineering matters, and she imagined Rogan didn’t care for it much more regarding combat. He was the expert, there to open the way, to get her where she had to go, and all she could do by not listening to him was mess things up.

She stopped at the door and sighed loudly. She would wait.

At least for a little while.

*

Tyler Barron stared at the display, trying desperately to hide the misery he was feeling. Stockton’s fighters were performing well, tearing into the Hegemony wings with a cold vengeance born of the ordeal they’d endured in Santara. They were taking losses, of course, but they were absolutely gutting the enemy formation. It wouldn’t have much effect on the outcome of the battle, but he still felt satisfaction watching it. The enemy fighters had done their damage already, forcing him to outfit two-thirds of his ships in interceptor mode. The bombers he’d been able to deploy were too few to take on the enemy battle line, much less make a serious run at Colossus and its immense point defense array.

Perhaps even worse, he’d stripped the most experienced pilots from the bomber squadrons, placing them into interceptors to take on the Hegemony fighters. They had done that, with distinction, but the deployment left the rest of the fleet, his battleships and the various escorts that remained operational, to face both Colossus and the enemy line. It was a hopeless fight, probably against either one, and certainly both. Whatever chance remained, not just for the battle in Lyra, but for the Rim’s very survival, rested with Bryan Rogan and his Marines…and with the best engineer the Confederation service had ever seen.

It was a grim reality, made all the more crushing by the realization that, even if they were successful, Fritz, Rogan, and the Marines would likely die with Colossus. Barron clung to a hope, fading and tattered, that they would manage to find a way to get out in time…just as some part of him still believed Andi would escape from Dannith and return to him.

He tended to consider such thoughts pointless in other people, a weakness he’d always resisted in himself. He’d long prided himself on his realism, his ability to see things as they were, upsetting or not. But he’d let that go for the moment. He needed whatever he could get to force himself through the next hours and days, and if self-delusion was part of what got him there, so be it.

“We just received Admiral Winters’s confirmation, Admiral. All Marines have landed.”

Barron turned toward Atara, and he nodded. The troopships had made it through. Against all odds, they’d escaped the detection that had spelled doom for Sara Eaton and her people, and they’d docked with the great enemy vessel.

That was a victory of sorts, or at least the start to one. The Marines were aboard Colossus. That feat alone exceeded his initial expectations, and he wanted to feel some kind of satisfaction. But he knew what lay ahead for Rogan and his people, the odds they would need to overcome to complete their mission…and the even greater obstacles lying between them and an escape from the Hegemony warship. He felt desperation on top of desperation, one level of near-despair building on the one’s that had come before. Even if Colossus was destroyed, at whatever cost to Rogan’s Marines, his people would still have to face the Hegemony fleet…with a bare fraction of the bomber forces they’d deployed in previous battles. He could almost see his ships being torn apart by the deadly railguns, battleships splitting open like eggs, or disappearing in the violent spasms of unleashed fusion.

“Atara…issue a fleet order. All ships are to decelerate to zero velocity and hold positions.” The fleet had been advancing to distract the enemy, to divert attention from Winters’s troop transports. But the ships had gotten through, the Marines were onboard. There was nothing more Barron could do for Winters, for Rogan. For Anya Fritz. Pushing the fleet forward, toward Colossus wouldn’t accomplish a thing except to put his battleships in desperate danger.

There was nothing he could do, nothing the fleet could do. Except wait.

Wait to see if a thousand Marines could do the near-impossible.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Colossus

Lyra System

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“Redirect all reserves from adjacent sectors. I want them pinned down now!” Illius was a commander with a reputation for coolness under fire, one whose emotions were rarely visible, much less out of control. But he was clearly unnerved as he spoke, and his usual iron discipline was failing him.

“Yes, Commander.”

Ilius shook his head angrily. He was upset with himself, and as his mind raced to fill the gaps in his knowledge with fresh analysis, he began to understand just what was happening. Colossus’s scanners had picked up the bomb ships the enemy had used previously, locking on to their massive thruster output, and to the radiation and heavy elements from the warheads themselves. He’d assumed that had discounted the possibility of another stealth assault, that there was no way the enemy was going to sneak anything powerful enough to seriously damage Colossus through the scanner net.

So, they sent soldiers. They boarded us!

It seemed almost insane, and yet his thoughts responded caustically, reminding him of the audacity the Rim warriors had displayed in the war. They figured out what happened last time, the vulnerabilities that gave their ships away. So, they sent soldiers this time…and no heavy nukes.

As he considered the situation, the details filled in. Of course…they came in slowly, with minimal thrust. That is why their fighters launched, why their entire battle line moved forward. Distraction. They wanted us to believe they were throwing all into one, last desperate effort.

Anything to divert our attention from their real attack…

And now there were enemy soldiers on Colossus. It seemed impossible, and for all the time Ilius had spent trying to guess what the enemy might do, such a thing had never entered his mind.

It was desperate, a flailing, wild, low-percentage lunge for victory. And it just might work.

Colossus was almost invulnerable to external attack, its weapons vast and irresistible, its fighter squadrons and massive point defense array ready to counter the tactics the enemy had used so often against the Hegemony’s battle line. But inside, the great ship was vulnerable. It was vast, dwarfing the battleships of the line, but it had been rushed into service, and great sections of it remained inoperative. The network of functioning intraship transit lines was a skeletal framework. Entire sections of the ship could only be reached on foot, through kilometer after kilometer of seemingly endless corridor.

Transferring troops to threatened areas would be a nightmare, and, perhaps worse, Ilius didn’t have that many soldiers onboard. Colossus, when completed, would have carried a virtual army, tens or hundreds of thousands strong, along with landing craft, heavy weapons, and vast storehouses of ordnance and supplies.

But Colossus wasn’t finished, and perhaps worse, the vast manpower shortages plaguing the entire operation on the Rim had not spared the great ship. Ilius had less than three thousand combat Kriegeri aboard, and many of them were dozens of kilometers from the threatened areas. He’d already sent in all the force he had near the boarding points, but at best, he would be feeding in small groups of reinforcements as they were able to reach the threatened zones. For the time being, until he could move a large number of units through endless mazes of internal corridors, the invading enemy might even enjoy numerical superiority at the points of contact.

That was a deadly danger, all the more because he’d analyzed the Rim attack plan, the locations where their landers had breached the hull. He didn’t see how they could possibly have any real intelligence on the ship’s layout, but whoever had chosen the incursion points either knew their stuff, or they were lucky as hell. His last reports showed Confederation Marine forces moving down no fewer than three vital corridors. They were less than a thousand meters from two different antimatter storage facilities, either one of which was large enough to destroy the entire ship if containment was breached.

The facts in his mind crystalized quickly, the enemy’s plan becoming suddenly clear to him. That’s why they’re here. They’re going to sabotage the containment systems and try to destroy the ship from inside.

“Commander, Kiloron Krimack reports his forces are unable to prevent enemy bombers from penetrating to attack range.”

Ilius turned back toward the main display, shifting his attention with some difficulty from his dread at the boarding force. The enemy bombing attack was unimportant, more diversion. The real danger was in the ship already. “Activate all point defense batteries. Prepare to open fire as soon as the enemy wings move into range.”

The enemy’s shrunken bomber force would never get past Colossus’s heavy defensive fire, at least not in sufficient strength to inflict serious damage on the behemoth. The imperial steel armor would present a strong defense to the enemy bombs and torpedoes. They would find it much more difficult to badly damage Colossus than they did with the line battleships.

Still, he wasn’t going to take any chances.

“All escorts are to advance and form a line fifty thousand kilometers in front of Colossus, and prepare to receive incoming bombers.”

Ilius could hear the acknowledgements in the background, but his attention was already diverted, focused once again on the schematics of the giant warship, and on the updated reports of enemy movements. He shook his head as he stared down at the maze of corridors. His mind was full of questions. How did they know we’re so undercrewed? The Hegemony’s manpower shortage was the result of a combination of factors, available shipping, poor planning, and casualties, especially the three million Kriegeri left behind on Megara. It was possible, he supposed, that the enemy had simply guessed that Colossus might be operating with a skeleton crew, that the monstrous ship would be especially low on combat troops. The losses at Megara, and the garrisons on Ulion and Dannith—and a dozen other occupied planets—added up to a considerable number of troops. It was possible, he supposed, that the enemy had simply guessed. But that seemed a tenuous basis for such an all-out assault.

Sending Colossus with so small a defensive contingent hadn’t seemed overly dangerous to him when the decision had been made, but the enemy now seemed almost prescient in their approach to engaging the great vessel. They’d found a weakness, possibly the only one Colossus had. Their attack was a desperate attempt, and they still faced long odds. But the tension twisting his guts into knots was telling him something else. There was a danger, and he had to do something, anything, to contain it. Immediately.

He jumped up suddenly, and he turned to face the next senior officer on the bridge. “You have command, Kiloron. Monitor all incoming fighter squadrons, and manage our point defense array. Not one of those attack ships gets through to launch, is that understood?”

“Yes, Megaron.” The veteran Kriegeri’s voice displayed determination, but also some level of doubt. The Rimdwellers had pulled off far too many desperate operations, and no one who had battled them for the past six years could afford cockiness.

“When the escort line is in position, link them in with our battle net, and coordinate all fire from here. And, right now, I want every laser turret fire arc analyzed. All turrets with fields of fire on the docked enemy ships, are to establish target locks, and prepare to open fire.”

“Megaron, those ships are attached to the hull. Even with the most precise targeting…”

“You have your orders, Kiloron. Destroy those ships. Without regard to damage caused to Colossus.” The superbattleship was enormous, and Ilius was willing to inflict a few minor hits in order to blow away the troop carriers affixed to the hull. Anything to disrupt the boarders, to weaken their attack, to cut them off from whatever reserves, supplies, and support they possessed.

“Yes, Megaron, identifying all applicable weapons stations now.” A few seconds of silence, then the officer saw Ilius walking toward the hatch leading off the bridge. “Megaron?”

“I’m going down to the threatened sectors. I’m going to direct the fight against these boarders myself, firsthand. See to the point defense efforts…and blast those troopships as soon as fire locks are established.”

Ilius could see the horrified look on the officer’s face, but he ignored it. Wherever those enemy Marines were on his ship, that was where the true threat lay, not with the approaching bombers. He was sure of that. And there was no one he trusted more than himself to handle it, to see that the enemy Marines were driven back.

Before it was too late.

*

“Please, Captain Fritz, stay in the center. We don’t know what’s up ahead, and we can’t take any chances.” Garret Simonsen was Bryan Rogan’s chief aide. The general had detached him, with explicit orders, she suspected, to do whatever he had to do to keep her alive. Fritz didn’t object to that goal, of course, at least not in its essence. But she was uncomfortable being treated like something special, even though he knew she was, at least in terms of the current operation. No one was more likely to sniff out what they were looking for, the vulnerability they needed to destroy the vast ship. The small bombs the Marines had been able to bring onboard weren’t going to do a damned thing to Colossus as a whole, not unless she found an antimatter storage tank or a reactor for them to take out. Something that could unleash a chain reaction of sorts, and obliterate the monster ship.

She understood the Marines’ concern, their protectiveness, however uncomfortable it made her. She’d already been wounded once. The hit hadn’t been in a vital enough area to truly threaten her life, but it had been enough to add an unwelcome and pronounced jab of pain to just about every step she took.

She was well aware of the danger, and of her own role in seeing the mission to a successful conclusion. Still, she didn’t like the thought of Marines sacrificing themselves to protect her, and she knew very well they would do just that if the situation arose. That fact, the grim understanding that if she didn’t listen, if she took too many chances, she would endanger her protectors as much as herself, ate away at her.

The idea of getting a Marine killed because she was rushing forward, denying them enough time to advance with care, was an upsetting one, but she also knew they didn’t have—couldn’t possibly have—much time to complete the mission. Every Kriegeri soldier on Colossus was probably heading their way, and even if Andi Lafarge’s intelligence was entirely correct, she couldn’t imagine the enemy soldiers aboard still didn’t outnumber the Marines.

The fleet was in danger, too. Barron would have to make a run for it soon, or he would be committed to a decisive battle in Lyra, one he was very likely to lose. That thought cut through Fritz like a razor-sharp blade, and she quickened her pace again, gritted her teeth against the pain. She said, calmly but resolutely, “Major, we don’t have time to be careful. We’ve got to find what we’re looking for, and we’ve got to do it soon. I appreciate your attempts to protect me, but we don’t have time for that either.” She pushed forward, shoving the two Marines in front of her to the side, and she walked down the corridor.

Simonsen lurched forward, barely managing to position himself in front of her, even as he waved for the Marines on either side to pick up their pace and keep up with their charge.

Fritz’s attention had already turned toward the corridor, and the compartments on either side. She had some idea that they were heading in the right direction. At least the conduits along the edge of the ceiling looked a lot like heavy power transmission lines. That was far from definitive, of course, but it was a damned sight better than nothing. Which is what she’d had a few minutes before. Her eyes followed the line of large steel pipes, down the hallway, and around an intersection to the right.

But this thing’s huge. Those conduits could go on for kilometers, even if we’re going in the right direction. Still, her instincts told her they were close. She’d have preferred a map or some kind of reliable hard data, but her gut had come through for her before, especially on engineering matters. There were worse things for her to trust.

She glanced down at the portable scanner she carried, looking for signs of radiation or energy output nearby. She wasn’t surprised that it showed nothing at all. The old imperial metals Colossus had been built from were highly resistant to scanner beams, especially from a unit as small and low-power as the one she had with her. One of the Marines carried a larger semi-portable setup, and she almost stopped and told Simonsen to set it up. But she knew they were as short of time as they were reliable information, and besides, her gut told her even the larger unit would come up blank.

She took another half dozen steps forward, and then she heard something. An explosion, from behind, back toward the docked troopships. The bombers? Attacking already?

The thought popped into her mind, but almost as quickly, she pushed it aside. It was too soon. The bombing wings couldn’t possibly have gotten into launch range, not yet. But what then?

Another rumble rolled down the corridor, and she could feel vibrations under her feet. Something had hit Colossus. She had no idea what it could be, but any doubt was banished from her mind when she felt her survival suit tighten, the high-tech fabric expanding to adjust internal pressure, even as the visor on her helmet slammed shut. She could feel the supplemental oxygen flowing, the cool air giving her a quick energy boost as she inhaled deeply.

She looked down at the gauge strapped to her arm, but she already knew what had happened. Something had hit Colossus…hard enough to penetrate the hull and create a localized loss of pressure and atmosphere.

That might be useful…any Kriegeri sent down here without survival suits will be stuck until they’re properly equipped.

She turned toward Simonsen, tapping to activate her external speaker. But before she could say anything, a Marine came running down the corridor, shouting as he approached the group.

“Colossus opened fire, Major. The enemy is shooting at the landing ships on the hull.”

Fritz liked to think she wasn’t often surprised, but she was just then. She’d wondered what could possibly be attacking the massive ship, but she’d never imagined it was Colossus itself.

Of course…

Suddenly it all made sense. Colossus was a massive vessel. A few minor hits in the outer sections weren’t going to amount to anything significant.

But the loss of the troopships would throw a wrench into the boarders’ support and supply, and take out any ordnance still on the ships. And half the explosives were still there…

It would do one other thing, though, Fritz realized with grim determination. The loss of the transports trapped over a thousand Marines—and one very pissed off engineer—on Colossus, with no way out, no hope of escape.

No alternative but to fight like wild demons…to the end. And find a place they could hurt the giant warship, at any cost.

Anya Fritz understood the tactical reasoning that had led to the Hegemony superbattleship targeting the landers, even at the cost of inflicting some damage on itself. But she wondered if the enemy had thought it through, if they had truly considered the effect being trapped would have on the Marines on Colossus. Fritz was still sorting it all out in her head, but she’d already come to one inevitable conclusion. They were all trapped, with no way out.

They were as good as dead, with nothing to do but destroy the damned thing.

If the choice was between dying in failure, or in success, taking her enemy with her, she didn’t need any time at all to think about it. And she suspected the Marines required even less.

She looked back up at the heavy conduit, staring at every centimeter in her view, allowing her intellect and engineering knowledge to combine with her gut feel and guide her on.

“Up around that corner, Major,” she said, with renewed certainty. She was trying not to dwell on the greatly reduced likelihood of her surviving out the day. It’s not like your odds were all that good before.

She concentrated her thoughts, focused them like a laser. She didn’t know what was going to happen next, save for one thing.

She was going to find someplace vulnerable in Colossus, someplace she and the Marines could rig to rip the guts out of the big ship, and nobody was going to stop her.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Approaching Colossus

Lyra System

Year 321 AC

“They’re shooting at themselves, Admiral…” It was the third comm Stockton had received in the past few seconds, but the subject was the same. Half the approaching strike force had picked up the fire. He’d been waiting for Colossus’s point defense to open up on his bombing wings, but the attack force was still out of range—at least what he thought was their range. For an instant, he’d feared the Hegemony ship had a longer effective firing distance. But then he’d realized—confirmed by the flurry of almost simultaneous reports—that Colossus was firing at itself.

No, not itself. They’re taking out the troopships.

It was an audacious move, and Stockton couldn’t help but respect the enemy for it. With any luck, the Marines had mostly boarded already, though the crews of the troopships were almost certainly dead.

And any supplies left in them are lost.

Stockton wasn’t proud he was worried more about ordnance and supplies than dead ship crews, but he knew what was at stake, and perhaps more, he realized the Marines’ nearly suicidal attack had just become fully-suicidal. There was no way for anyone on Colossus to escape. All they could do was try to complete their mission, an act that would give the Rim a chance, at least…but kill every one of them in the process.

“Alright, all of you…let’s stay focused on our jobs and let the Marines do theirs. We’ve got to get the bombers through, and that means finishing off these enemy interceptors…or at least driving them the hell off. So, let’s keep at it!” Stockton was chasing down yet another Hegemony fighter. He was still just outside laser range, but he was closing fast. He’d done an elaborate dance with his prey—one of the better Hegemony pilots he’d encountered—but he’d finally gained an edge in positioning, one that allowed him to close, to get into effective fire range and bring the duel to a close.

He could feel his heart pounding, the rage at the Marines’ impending fat, building inside him. He’d known Bryan Rogan for years, of course, and had nothing but respect for the Marine. The thought that the general’s life span was likely measured in hours, if not minutes, gored at him, even as his pilots fought desperately for their own lives.

He stared at the ship in front of him, his anger hardening, freezing into something dark and sinister. Killing one more Hegemony pilot wouldn’t do a thing—to save Bryan Rogan and the Marines, or to even to destroy Colossus. But at that moment, it was the most important thing in the universe to him, the only way he could lash out, strike back.

He stared at the screen, cold eyes focused on his target, and his hand tightened slowly on the firing controls.

He felt the resistance of the firing stud give way, and he heard the high-pitched sounds of his lasers firing, a quick burst, five pulses. He watched, waited for the screen to confirm he had destroyed yet another enemy fighter.

But there was nothing. His target had changed its vector, suddenly, unpredictably, and his shots tore through empty space where the Hegemony fighter would have been.

Stockton felt the fury inside him erupt, even as he adjusted his own vector, matching he evasive maneuvers of his target.

He fired again. And again. But the enemy ship continued to evade, managing to stay just ahead of his attacks.

He wanted that pilot dead. He needed to kill him. He wasn’t proud of the blood lust ruling him at that moment, but he couldn’t fight it either. It was irresistible.

But he couldn’t hold a target lock. The enemy kept dodging, evading, staying one step ahead of him. Whoever is flying that thing is a lot better than most of his comrades.

He imagined the enemy he was chasing had killed some of his people, and that realization only inflamed his fury. But, still, his prey eluded him, the ship’s position moving slightly, just in time to dodge every shot he took.

He was determined, ready to chase his target to the edge of the galaxy if he had to. But discipline crept in. The wise, older pilot who sat in the seat that had once held a brash young ace was firmly in control, and he had more to worry about than chasing down one enemy fighter. It was time to lead the bombers in. His people had to push through into Colossus’s point defense envelope, now supplemented by a ragged line of enemy escorts, adding even more firepower to the storm set to break all around his attacking wings.

He ached to kill his enemy, and his bruised pride almost pushed him to ignore everything else, to stay on his target’s tail for as long as it took to gain the victory. But he couldn’t abandon his bombers. They needed him. They were about to plunge into the maelstrom, and they deserved to have their commander with them, even if his interceptor lacked a bomb or a torpedo.

And Admiral Barron needed him. The Marines needed him.

The attack wasn’t really about the ordnance involved or the damage his bombes could do. The strike wasn’t going to take down Colossus, not under in any scenario he could imagine. Nothing really mattered except providing any kind of distraction he could for the Marines inside that thing. They were the true hope, the slim chance at a victory, at saving the fleet and the Rim from destruction in the path of the mighty Colossus.

And, they’re all likely to pay with their lives for their chance to take that thing down. The least we can do is help, try to take some pressure off them. Regardless of the cost.

That last, grim thought shook him from his obsession. The Marines need you…you can’t let them down.

He took one last shot at his prey, missing again. He slammed his hand against the control panel, and then he let out a loud and guttural shout. But the stars Barron had put on his shoulder weighed heavily, and he knew what he had to do. He pulled his eyes from his target, from the Hegemony ship he’d tried to desperately to destroy…and then he blasted his thrusters, and brought his ship around, moving to realign his course with the approaching bombers.

He glanced back for an instant at the fighter he’d been pursuing, and a single thought forced its way into his mind.

Another day…

*

Krimack could feel the sweat pouring down the back of his neck. He’d heard casual talk during his career, comments that veteran Kriegeri were immune to fear, that they were single-minded and unstoppable, and utterly oblivious to danger.

If he hadn’t known before, now he was sure. That was utter nonsense.

He’d been certain he was dead. The pilot on his tail had been relentless, capable, the best he had ever faced. He’d tried every evasive maneuver he could manage, every wild move he could think of…but he’d been unable to escape the deadly pursuit. He’d barely managed to stay half a second ahead of death.

He’d been sure he was going to lose the duel, that the enemy would eventually best him, hit his ship. He’d been mere moments from death, that was the closest thing he knew to absolute certainty.

And then his pursuer broke off.

He’d been stunned at first, and only then had he realized just how terrified he’d been. He’d remained still in his cockpit, totally frozen for perhaps thirty seconds by paralyzing fear—so much for unbreakable Kriegeri discipline—and then he’d looked all around, checking the scanner for any other dangers. But there was nothing.

Nothing comparable to the shadow of death who’d been on his tail seconds before.

He tried to regain his concentration, his focus on the battle. His people had been roughly handled in the dogfight, and any doubt he’d had about how difficult it would be to face the enemy when they were prepared was gone, from his own mind, and, he suspected, from those of every pilot in the strike force. They’d all known the enemy was good, of course. The savage bombing assaults on the fleet’s battle line over the past six years had proven that well enough. But now they all realized just how skilled those pilots were. The Hegemony had its first strike force, and that was a great step forward to victory on the Rim. But they still had a long way to go before they could match their enemies in small attack craft operations.

He looked down at his screen, and he could see the enemy bomber wings moving toward Colossus. He knew his duty, and he intended to see it done, but he found it took considerable effort to restore his focus. He’d just escaped from a desperate struggle, and despite his years of training and experience, and his devotion to duty, he had to fight back against an almost overpowering desire to return to Colossus. The fight he’d just escaped had drained him, in more ways than one, and it took all he had to keep himself in the fight.

Finally, he reached out and flipped on the comm unit. “All squadrons…break off and move to engage the enemy bombing wings.” That was going to be costly, he knew. His pilots would suffer heavy losses as they attempted to disengage from the enemy interceptors. But his orders were clear, as was his duty. Protect Colossus, at all costs. His fighters had to hit those bombers. No matter how many were gunned down by Rim interceptors as they did.

*

Colossus shook, a vibration somewhat gentler than those Ilius recalled from the battleships he’d commanded. The Hegemony-imperial hybrid was massively larger than any ship of the line, Rim or Hegemony, and even the power of a plasma torpedo—so dangerous to a battleship—seemed almost irrelevant.

It wasn’t irrelevant, he knew. Colossus was immense, and it could take enormous damage and still keep on fighting, but it wasn’t indestructible. It could be destroyed, from outside or inside, and just then, it faced challenges from both directions. Still, Ilius felt confident the bombing strike underway would prove inadequate to seriously threaten the great vessel. He’d paused for a few seconds when he’d felt the first impact, considered returning to the bridge, but then he continued forward, toward the intraship transit line. It was a command decision, a tense one, but he was sure about his conclusion.

The Marines who had boarded the ship were the greatest danger, and that was where he was needed most.

He stepped inside the small car, and snapped out a set of coordinates to the AI that controlled the line. The doors slid shut, and the car began to move, accelerating quickly and sliding down a long, straight tube toward the rear of the great ship.

Ilius glanced down at his side, suddenly aware he was unarmed. He hadn’t worn his sidearm when he’d reported to the bridge. His command chair was narrow, and it shoved the pistol uncomfortably into his side, so he’d left it in his quarters that morning. It had hardly seemed important. The last thing he’d imagined was fighting at close quarters in the corridors of the superbattleship.

He put his hand on top of his helmet, checking to make sure it was in place. Fortunately, he hadn’t left his survival suit behind as well as his sidearm. The skintight garment was in place, and his helmet was securely attached. He didn’t know what he’d find when he reached the contested area of the ship, but his own orders to destroy the enemy assault ships had almost certainly breached the hull in a few locations. The suit didn’t carry an extensive supply of air or power, but it could keep him alive for a couple hours if he encountered vacuum conditions.

A couple hours was all he needed. Either he’d stop the invading enemy forces long before then…or they would complete their mission. Part of him couldn’t believe it was possible for the enemy to actually destroy Colossus, for their whole insane plan to actually work…but his stomach was twisted into a tight knot, and that told him he was very worried about it.

He closed his eyes, centering himself, trying to focus, to decide what he would do when he reached his destination.

Then, the car slowed abruptly, and came to a complete stop. The door remained closed, and the AI said, “Breach in life support controls in this sector. Vacuum conditions outside car.”

Ilius just nodded. For an instant, he wondered if the enemy Marines had brought their own life support, or if the hull breaches had already won the fight for his people.

No, that would be too easy. Of course, they brought survival gear. They’d never have tried a boarding operation without it.

He tapped his own controls, activating his own support. The pressure suit expanded, and air began flowing the instant his helmet closed. He could feel the small microphone right in front of his lips, and he said, “Evacuate the car’s interior, and open the doors.”

“Yes, Commander,” the AI responded.

Ilius could hear the sound of air being pumped out, the feeling of his suit reacting to the reduced outside pressure. Then, the door slid open…and he could hear the sounds of gunfire…

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Dannith Orbit

Ventica III

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“Concentrate a scan along coordinates 230.114.009. Activate satellites D11, D12, and D15.” Taragir sat at his workstation, his eyes focused on the small screen in front of him. He’d been watching for weeks, searching for a repeat of the anomalies he’d seen. But there had been nothing.

He’d reported his suspicions to his superiors, but after a cursory review of orbital space around Dannith, they’d discounted his suspicions. Still, Taragir had not given up. He was convinced he’d seen something, and he wasn’t as confident as most of his colleagues in the effectiveness of the recently developed counter-stealth measures.

“Yes, Kiloron. Commencing scan now.”

Taragir stared intently at the screen, his hands moving over his controls, tracking the scanner beams as they moved methodically through the space around the orbital station. He’d found something weeks earlier, he was still convinced of it, even if no one else believed him. He’d reviewed the data again and again, analyzing the anomalies until his eyes were red and raw. There was nothing conclusive about any of it, and he could think of a number of natural causes. But still, he believed he had tracked a cloaked ship, one that had come to Dannith, for purposes he couldn’t even guess. But whatever had brought an enemy vessel to the occupied planet, it couldn’t be good. He’d decided then and there he had to be ready if it happened again.

Ready to track the interloper. Ready to intercept.

He’d worked long hours, in quiet times during his duty periods, and in most of his personal hours, too. His rank was sufficient to give him access to the systems and the specialists he needed, and if his superior officers thought he was paranoid, they didn’t interfere either. He was wasting his own time, as far as they were concerned, and almost without exception, they’d seemed to feel there was no harm in closer scrutiny.

He’d reprogrammed he scanning algorithms, written new sequences, tuned the instruments to search for the specific frequencies he’d picked up before. He’d reconfigured the instruments, even authorized retasking of two of the satellites. His coverage area was heaviest around the station to which he was assigned, but he had at least some resources along every angle of approach to planetary orbit. He also had half a dozen patrol ships linked in, sharing data from and with the satellites, and remaining on low level alerts, ready to respond to any signal.

He didn’t know if what he’d tracked before would return, but if it did, he was going to be ready for it. He wasn’t going to let them slip past him again.

But there had been nothing yet, no more than a few stray meteors entering the atmosphere. His confidence was slowly eroding, but not his determination. Not yet. The Rimdwellers had been difficult adversaries and highly capable warriors. Vigilance was an essential tool in the battle against such an enemy, and Taragir intended to maintain his.

For as long as it took.

*

“Okay, listen up. Admiral Barron gave us three entry pods…and the recovery shuttle. The pods should work fine, but we’re going to be careful, and use them one at a time. Andi got down without being discovered, so hopefully, we will too. The shuttle’s a different story. The admiral managed to find us a second stealth generator for it, but it’s anybody’s guess if the tiny ship can produce enough power to run it properly. So, we wait to launch the shuttle until we’ve got Andi, and we’re set for a quick extraction at a fixed time.” Vig Merrick stood on Pegasus’s lower deck, next to the airlock. He’d already deployed one of the pods and prepped it for use. And he’d decided which one of the crew was going down first to try to find Andi.

“I don’t know how you figured you should go, Vig. You’re the best pilot on the ship. Of everybody, you should stay here.” It was Ross Tarren’s voice, but Merrick knew it could just as easily been any of the others. The crew was fiercely loyal to Andi Lafarge. Most of them owed their lives to their old commander, and all of them their fortunes. Merrick knew that, and he understood Tarren spoke for all the others. Every one of them would climb into the clunky pod and drop down to the surface to find her, and they’d probably fight for the right to go.

He also knew he didn’t care. He was going down to find Andi, and he didn’t give a shit if the others liked it or not. They’d complain, but in the end, he was pretty sure they’d obey his orders. Pegasus had never had a formal command structure, except that Andi was the ship’s owner and captain. But everyone had always accepted Merrick as the informal second in command.

“Next to Andi, I know my way around the District the best. I’m the best one to find out where she is hiding, and to make contact. We won’t have much time. I feel like we barely got out of here last time, and the longer we’re in orbit, the less chance we have of getting Andi out of here…or any of us, for that matter.” Merrick turned his gaze from one of his comrades to the next. None of them looked particularly happy, but none seemed like they were going to argue any further.

That was good enough, and he didn’t have time to waste trying for anything better. He turned toward the weapons locker and reached out for the pair of pistols he wore on missions. But before he could grab the weapons, the AI’s voice blared through the speakers.

“Passive scanners picking up increased scanning intensity. Multiple beams from different vectors.”

Merrick paused for a moment, his hand halfway toward his guns. He was debating whether to return to the bridge or to get in the pod and launch as quickly as possible.

He took one step toward the pod, and then Pegasus lurched hard to port, and he lost his footing and slammed into the bulkhead. He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

*

“Patrol ship D3, concentrate your field of fire on the coordinates I am transmitting. Ship C4, lay down your fire on an area one to three kilometers below ship D3’s zone.” Taragir was snapping commands into his comm unit. He’d found the ship, the same one he’d detected weeks earlier. He was sure of it.

The data was far from conclusive, nothing he could bring to his superiors with any degree of certainty. But he was positive…and his rank and position gave him authority over the local patrol boats and the power to act on his own initiative.

“Orbital command, we’re not picking up any targets at those coordinates.”

“It’s cloaked ship, Hectoron. I’m tracking it from here. You probably won’t get anything on your scanners, so lock on the targeting data I’m feeding you. And maintain constant fire. There’s something out there, and this is at least the second time they’ve tried to sneak by us.

And it’s going to be the last…

Taragir sat and watched, checking his scanner reports for the slightest signs of the enemy…thrust, energy generation, even disruptions to dust and particle levels in high orbit. There was something there. He knew it…and he was damned well going to get it.

The patrol ships came in on steep approach angles, and they opened fire, their bright but brief laser pulses ripping through space at the locations Taragir had specified. He was staring at the screen, watching for any signs of a hit. But there was nothing.

“Maintain full fire. Same coordinates.”

He continued his cold stare, his eyes unmoving. He doubted any of his colleagues believed he had found anything, nor, possibly, did the officers on the ships. But he didn’t care. There was a ship out there, and he knew it.

And then he saw it. Not the ship, but a trail of gas, a stream of atmosphere that quickly dissipated in the near vacuum of high orbit. It was no more decisive than some of the other readings he’d tracked over the past few weeks, but coming right on the heels of the laser fire, it was too coincidental for his tastes. One of the shots had hit the target. He recalculated the data, and he sent updated firing programs to the attacking ships.

Nothing happened, not for another minute. Then his screen flashed brightly.

It was energy, an explosion…and almost immediately, a flare of radiation. An instant later, there was a contact on his screen, a ship, just as he’d suspected.

It was wounded, and it looked like it was slipping from its orbit.

The patrol ships had scored a hit. There was a ship out there, and he’d found it. He’d proven himself right. And he had the contact on his scanners now, solid enough to give the patrol ships precise coordinates.

It was time to finish what he’d started.

*

“Lex, get down to engineering now. We’re going down, and I need engine power now!” Merrick hauled himself up the ladder to the bridge as he snapped out the command, and he leapt into the pilot’s station. Pegasus had been hit, twice. The first shot had been a glancing blow, doing little except rupturing an atmospheric line. But the second shot had come right after, and it was bad. Bad enough that he could feel the ship’s orbit decaying, before he’d even managed to confirm it on the instruments. Worse, perhaps, he was sure the stealth unit had been knocked out, and that meant every Hegemony ship near Dannith would be after Pegasus, not to mention the guns on the orbital platforms.

He felt an urge to leave orbit, to make a run for it, but he realized almost immediately that wouldn’t work. First, Pegasus didn’t have the power to break orbit, not unless Lex could work some kind of miracle down in engineering. And, even if Pegasus could get out of orbit, the ship would never make it out of the system, not without the stealth generator. There were too many patrols, too dense a network of scanning stations. They’d be blasted to plasma before they were a million kilometers from Dannith.

There was no way out, no chance to escape. The best he could hope for was to bring the ship down safely, and for the crew to scatter, to get away and hide somewhere before enemy troops arrived. It was a bad option, but still the best one they had…assuming Merrick even could bring the wounded ship down without burning up in the atmosphere or crashing.

He flipped on the comm. “We’re hit…and it’s bad. I’m going to try to bring the ship down and land it somewhere. As soon as we hit ground, I need you all to be ready to move out. We’re going to have a few minutes, if we’re lucky, before half the Kriegeri on Dannith get there and surround us.” Merrick’s hands were on the controls, and he could tell immediately it was going to be a tough landing. The ship was bucking hard, and power levels were fluctuating like crazy. Worse, Dannith had a thick upper atmosphere, one more impediment to getting Pegasus safely down.

But there was no other choice, and that meant there was no point in worrying about what he couldn’t change. He had to deal with reality…and find a way to save his ship and people.

Andi’s ship and people.

“Everybody, strap yourselves in. It’s going to be a rough ride.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Colossus

Lyra System

Year 321 AC

“This is it…I’m sure of it.” Anya Fritz stood still, looking all around. The room was large, vaster than anything on Dauntless or another of the Confederation’s line battleships. The ceiling was twenty meters above her head, and she could barely see the far end of the chamber. There were rows of silver tanks, extending almost as far as she could see in the dim light. They were antimatter storage units, she was sure of it. But they weren’t all in use. They couldn’t be. No existing civilization she could imagine was capable of producing so much of the precious substance, not even the Hegemony.

The harnessing of enough power to produce antimatter not by the gram, but in vast, unending tons, had belonged only to the fallen empire, at least in Fritz’s knowledge. If the Hegemony had retained such capabilities, the war would have ended years before.

“Where do we put the charges?” Bryan Rogan was standing right behind her. The Marine’s survival suit was stained red, and he winced slightly as he spoke. There was a rough bump on the outside of his gear, a patch he’d applied after he’d taken a round in the fighting moments before. Fritz had one, too, applied for the same reason, the purposes in both cases to seal the suits and maintain life support. They’d come through whole sections of the ship that had lost pressure and air, and while the storage facility seemed to have full heat and atmosphere, she knew that could change the instant some Hegemony officer decided to cut it off.

Andi popped her helmet and nodded toward Rogan. “Life support is okay in here, General. We’re getting word it’s back in the corridor outside, too. It looks like this ship’s got some kind of automated repair system. It seems to be patching up the breaches in the hull. At least until some Kriegeri decides to shut it down and try to freeze or suffocate us.” Rogan nodded his acknowledgement, and then he popped open his helmet.

Fritz took a breath, and she winced. It was slightly caustic, nothing too serious, but whatever systems Colossus had, it still took time to clear the air of chemicals and toxins released when a ship took a hit. She felt an urge to snap the visor shut again, but she decided it was safe enough.

What is ‘safe’ anyway? The whole concept seemed a little silly. They were trapped on the enemy’s massive battleship, which was even then being attacked by their own bombers. And they were there to find a way to destroy it from the inside. As she looked down at the closest row of cylinders, she dared to hope they had just found what they’d come for. But whether they’d found what they needed or not, the word ‘safe’ had no place around anything they were doing.

She reached around and pulled out a small scanner, flipping it on as her eyes focused on the small screen. She’d followed her instincts, fed by her knowledge, to find the storage facility, but she willingly acknowledged luck had played a part as well. But when she held out the scanner and read the results, her hope faded.

Any antimatter in the place would be in magnetic bottles inside the tanks. If any had leaked, anything more than a few particles, they wouldn’t be there. Nothing would, except a cloud of hard radiation. But the scanner wasn’t picking up any magnetic readings, at least not from the closest tanks. The storage units were empty, shut down.

She moved forward, her walk morphing into a slow jog, gradually increasing in speed and tension as she raced passed the large cylinders, checking each one, searching for signs—any signs—of active fields.

Nothing.

“Captain…” She heard Rogan’s voice, but she ignored it. It wasn’t possible. They hadn’t come all this way, fought so hard, come to the right place…only to find it devoid of the antimatter they needed. Fritz had endured all six years of the war. She’d lost friends, people she admired. She’d been wounded, felt terror so stark, she knew she’d never forget the slightest detail of how it felt.

But now it was hopelessness, something she’d held off all that time, finally closing in on her. She’d come with Rogan and his Marines, to carry out her plan. She’d brought them very likely to their deaths, and she couldn’t imagine it would all be for nothing. The miserable little charges they’d managed to bring with them wouldn’t do a damned thing, not to a monster like Colossus.

Not unless she could find some antimatter they could release.

She was running now, driven by increasing desperation. The chamber was massive, clearly intended to store immense amounts of the precious fuel. If there was another facility, as she suspected there was, it would be far from this one, kilometers away…and she had no idea how to even begin to find it.

“Captain…” She could hear Rogan’s boots on the deck as he hurried after her. She stopped and turned slowly, about to respond when her eyes caught it.

A reading. Magnetic activity.

It was weak at first, but she turned and moved toward it. The signal grew in strength, and she followed it, moving almost to the far end of the chamber. She stopped suddenly, looking up at one of the tall, silver cylinders.

The readings were clear. And positive.

There was an intense magnetic field inside the tank—and in the ones adjacent to it. She would have to run more tests, she knew, make absolutely sure. But she didn’t have any doubt…and she didn’t have time to waste.

“General,” she shouted out, turning toward Rogan as she did. “Here…there is antimatter in this tank. This is where we need to set the charges.”

*

“Commander, please. I urge you to fall back. There are enemies right around that next corner.”

Ilius just shook his head, wondering if the hectoron imagined he hadn’t come to that conclusion from the audible gunfire.

“Don’t worry about me, Hectoron. Focus on your troopers. You’ve got what, fifty? In this entire sector?” Ilius had already sent for reinforcements, but he knew it would take some time for them to arrive. The lack of sufficient troop strength, and the half-finished intraship transit system, were wreaking havoc on his defensive efforts. If the enemy had come to seize control of the ship, he would have had time to move his troops around, get them where he needed them. But that wasn’t the purpose of the boarding action, he was sure of that.

The enemy had come to destroy Colossus, and they’d managed to land fairly close to the main engineering spaces. Ilius had fought the tendency to think of the great superbattleship as invincible, reminding himself again and again that nothing was unbeatable. But whatever hazard Colossus faced from outside attacks, including the bomber squadrons even then coming in, it paled in comparison to the danger from the Marines who’d forced their way aboard. Ilius didn’t fool himself. Colossus was powered by antimatter, and its storage facilities and reactors were well protected from exterior attack…but highly vulnerable from the inside. Especially if the troops who had come aboard were prepared to die along with Colossus if they had to.

They’re all volunteers, almost certainly…so that means…

He had to stop the boarders, and he had no time to waste.

“Megaron…”

“Don’t tell me to leave again, Hectoron. We’re past that now. If the enemy is in the sector just in front of your people, they’re in the one beyond, too. And, there’s antimatter storage there. We don’t have time. We can’t wait. We have to hit them now, before they can sabotage the ship. Get your troopers ready…we attack in one minute. We hit anything in front of us, and we keep pushing forward, whatever the cost. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” The officer nodded, clearly trying to hide his uncertainty in the presence of an officer of Ilius’s rank.

“I need a weapon. I left my sidearm in my quarters earlier.”

The hectoron turned and snapped out a command, reaching out and taking a rifle from one of the troopers standing behind him. He handed it to Ilius, and then he reached down, pulling his own ammunition belt off and giving that to the megaron as well.

Ilius nodded a quick acknowledgement, and he bumped up his estimation of the officer. He’d figured it was at last fifty-fifty the hectoron would try at least once more to get him to leave, but it seemed the man understood the gravity of the danger.

Ilius took the assault rifle, checking quickly to confirm it had a full clip in place. He draped the ammo belt over his shoulder, and he looked back at the officer. “Ready, Hectoron?”

“Yes, sir.” Ilius thought the response was well-executed…even though he knew the officer was full of shit. No one was ready for what was about to happen. Not the officer, not the Kriegeri, not the Marines on the other side. Not even Ilius himself.

He wasn’t ready, but he was going in anyway. They all were.

They had no choice.

He leapt forward, rifle extended out in front, and as he did, he turned back toward the hectoron. He nodded once, a quick sharp snap of his head. Then he shouted out, “Forward, all units. Attack!”

*

“Right there…that’s the conduit that pulls the antimatter from the tank and feeds it into the power units. That’s going to be the weak spot, the best place to breach this thing.” Fritz looked down at the three Marines, the demolitions team she had to help her destroy the most powerful weapon on the Rim, perhaps in all of known space. The Marines were calm and focused—something that wasn’t particularly easy when there was desperate fighting less than twenty meters from the entrance to the room. Fritz was far from sure the small charges would be powerful enough to breach the imperial alloys and rupture the containment system, but she knew it was their only chance.

If she, or any of the Marines, were still on Colossus when that happened, they’d be dead in an instant. That had always been a danger, but with their assault landers destroyed it was something more than that. They would pull back before the charges blew, she told herself, in the hope that some of their escape craft had survived Colossus’s self-immolation, but she didn’t like the odds of that at all.

She saw the emotionless expressions on her helpers, and she wondered if the Marines simply hadn’t thought things through, or if they were that stone cold about facing their own deaths. Danger was one thing…certain death was another, and Fritz found it hard to concentrate as she stared into that abyss.

“We’ve got six charges with us, Captain. Do we cluster them all on one unit, or do we spread our bets?”

Fritz didn’t have an answer for that question, not until she looked all around. The other tanks seemed identical to the one next to her. It felt like the better option to pick out two or three and spread out the charges, but her mathematical mind extinguished that thought right away. If they were all the same, there was no reasonable expectation of finding a weaker one, one that might be more easily compromised. Besides, she had no idea how many of the units actually held antimatter. She’d found one, and she didn’t have time to look for others.

“No, we concentrate everything here. If this one goes, if we can breach it enough to release the antimatter inside, it will cripple or destroy Colossus.” Actually, even the slightest compromise would almost certainly destroy the great ship. Even if only a small amount of antimatter escaped, it would create a kind of chain reaction, with the annihilation of a small amount increasing the intensity of the explosive force, and expanding the breach, releasing yet more antimatter.

That would all happen very quickly, she knew, faster than anyone watching could perceive. Anyone left on Colossus would die instantly, in a cataclysmic explosion so violent as to rival, for a short time, the death of a star.

It’s a grandiose exit, if you have to go…

Her own gallows humor was lost, even on her, and she spared the Marines from hearing it.

“Okay, Lieutenant. Let’s get all the charges here. We’ve got to rig them for simultaneous detonation, and I want to calculate the best locations, the spots likeliest to crack.”

It was time. Time to destroy the greatest manmade wonder she’d ever seen…and herself and the Marines along with it.

Her head snapped around as the sounds of fighting moved closer. She had no idea what was happening out there, how many Marines were fighting how many Kriegeri, but she was pretty sure of one thing.

Time wasn’t her ally.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Colossus

Lyra System

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“I want all reserves down here now. All Kriegeri, even the reds. I don’t care if you pull a programmer from his workstation and hand him a rifle. We need more force here…immediately.” Ilius’s voice was betraying the tension that was driving him. He didn’t know if it was luck favoring the enemy, or some kind of successful analysis, but the boarding Rim troopers had landed reasonably close to an antimatter storage area. They’d had to come deeper into the ship to reach it, about three kilometers from where their assault craft had docked, but they’d made it. There was a firefight going on, even as he stood there, listening to the sounds of battle just down the corridor.

“Yes, Megaron. All personnel in the designated sector and all adjacent ones have been ordered to report to your location. Weapons and ammunition are also en route.”

Ilius nodded and snapped out a quick reply. “As quickly as possible, Kiloron. As quickly as possible.” He almost asked for more detailed status reports on exact locations of relief forces on the way. But he didn’t have time. Every second he let go by could be the one when the Rim forces lost all hope of escape, when they detonated whatever explosives they had and released kilograms of antimatter from containment. The greatest old tech find in Hegemony history, twenty years of massive restoration efforts, and the most powerful weapon in the Hegemony and on the Rim would be lost in a nanosecond…along with him and every officer and spacer onboard.

He’d have been worried enough if his Kriegeri were fighting to keep the enemy away from the storage facility, struggling to maintain a perimeter around the vulnerable point. But that wasn’t the case. Things were far worse than that. The sheer surprise of the enemy’s attack…and their uncanny targeting of just where to board, had yielded dividends. Colossus’s soldiers, the understrength Kriegeri in charge of internal security, had been caught flatfooted. There were enough of them to defeat the enemy boarding parties, Ilius was sure of that, at least if they could be massed and concentrated. But they were scattered all over the vast ship, some of them thirty or more kilometers away, with much of that area still inaccessible via the intraship transit system. It might take hours for them to reach the combat area, and by then, whatever happened, it would be over. The Kriegeri who’d been close enough at the onset would have defeated the invaders.

Or Colossus would be gone, blasted, for all its staggering immensity, to atoms.

His people were counterattacking, struggling to drive the enemy out. To retake the storage facility and the magnetic bottles that held the precious—and deadly—antimatter. The section the boarders had seized was mostly unused, but not entirely so. There was antimatter there, he’d confirmed that. Five bottles of it, and for all the scope of Colossus, the kilometers of dense imperial alloy that comprised its billions of tons, it would be almost as nothing against the gigatons of force released by the annihilation of even a hundred kilograms of antimatter. There was no defense against such an explosion, no way to survive it…the only choice was to prevent it. And that meant taking out the boarders, whatever it took.

Ilius was typically calm, supremely confident in his knowledge and abilities, but that discipline was failing him. He was trying to discern if the sounds of battle were advancing toward the storage facility, or if they were static. He was trying to decide what to do—what he could do—even as he railed against himself for once again underestimating the Rimdwellers. The sheer audacity of the plan shook him to his core, and he wondered how to beat such a resourceful, inveterate enemy.

One thing he knew…there was no place for arrogance. He’d always believed that, and yet he realized he’d allowed hubris to affect his own decisions. He should have been ready for the enemy attack, should have seen it coming. But he’d let Colossus’s seemingly overwhelming might warp his judgment, blind him to dangers.

Now, there was only one way to avert disaster, one way to redeem himself…and possibly to save the great ship he commanded.

He turned toward the officers surrounding him, both kilorons, and as he pulled his rifle off his back, he said, “Alright, both of you. With me now. We need every gun we’ve got up there.”

The officers looked like they were going to argue, most likely that he should remain behind, but he silenced them with a gaze so withering, it might have bored through the steel of the hull if he’d held it a few seconds longer. Then he gripped his rifle tightly.

He looked over again at the two officers, and he said, “Let’s go.” Then he raced forward and around the corner.

Into battle.

*

“No, not like that…we need it up here, where the conduit is narrowest. We’re going to have one chance with this, and we’ve got to make it count.” If we’re going to kill ourselves, let’s at least do it for victory and not some foulup because we weren’t careful enough.

The Marines reached up, moving two of the charges, placing them exactly where Fritz was pointing. She watched them, hoping like hell she was right, that she’d chosen the correct spot, the most vulnerable. She’d have preferred to have some intensive metallurgy done on the strange imperial alloy, but without the specifics she would have liked, she’d fallen back on simple physics. She was pretty sure they’d chosen the best spot.

What she didn’t know was, would the small satchel charges the Marines had be enough to penetrate a structure that had been designed and built to contain the most dangerous substance in the universe? That remained to be seen, but from the sounds of the fighting—not only getting closer, but also blocking every escape route her people had, it didn’t seem like any of them would be there to see it. If the explosives worked, it would take some time for the antimatter to leak out, to annihilate with the surrounding matter. But that period would be measured in nanoseconds, and none of those present, not her, nor the Marines, nor the Hegemony crew of Colossus, would recognize that almost theoretical period from the instant the explosives breached containment until the destructive fury of matter-antimatter annihilation obliterated them all.

It’s your duty. You’ll never get out of here anyway, and if you don’t do it, the Rim is doomed. Fritz had seen heroism up close before, watched as warriors had sacrificed themselves, to win battles, to save their comrades. It all seemed quite poetic, small scraps of pure heroism from the bravest of the brave.

It felt very different to be staring at her own death, to facing the prospect of issuing the orders—or flipping the switch herself. She understood all the rationale, the reasons she had to do it, even the pointlessness of not doing it, the near impossibility of escape. But that didn’t make it any easier, and it became ever more difficult as the fateful moment approached.

She scanned the charges as the Marines finished securing them in place, checked and rechecked the connections, the wires, the positioning. It was a relief in its own way, to have something to do, and for a few seconds, she felt almost as if she was checking some system on Dauntless, rewiring a damaged relay. It was an instant of normalcy, fake or not, and on some level, she was grateful for it.

But reality reasserted itself quickly. She could hear the sounds of battle, and any doubt she’d harbored that they were getting closer vanished. The fight was almost there. They were out of time. She looked at her Marines helpers, sharing an extended glance with each, a series of quick nods, thank yous for their assistance, their courage.

And goodbyes.

She plugged the wire into the small detonator she’d rigged up, and she checked the status light.

A single small light showed the device’s status.

Ready.

*

Bryan Rogan crouched down on one knee, leaning just around the corner, his rifle extended in front of him, firing as Kriegeri raced down the corridor. He knew he was horrifying his officers being so far forward, but he didn’t have much choice. His Marines were scattered all over the place, and with the Kriegeri pushing toward the antimatter storage area, they’d cut the force there off from the rest of the boarders. Rogan had no idea how many of his people were still in the fight. He was pretty sure half, at least, were dead or seriously wounded, but that was nothing more than a guess. What he knew was, thirty-one of his Marines were still in the fight in front of the storage facility, and half of them were trying desperately to save ammunition, holding their fire until they had clean shots. That had saved bullets, but it had also allowed the enemy to push forward. The Kriegeri were moving in from three directions, and they were no more than thirty meters from the antimatter storage.

His people could hold for maybe ten minutes, less if more Kriegeri arrived. And, any chance of escape was completely gone. He’d clung to the hope that a few of the assault ships had survived the enemy bombardment, but that didn’t matter anymore. Not for the Marines with him, standing firm and trying to hold the tide back while Anya Fritz rigged the storage tanks to blow. There was no way out, not anymore. His people could never fight their way back to their ships, even if any were still there.

Even if they could, leaving the explosives on timer and pulling out was unthinkable. The Kriegeri would be in the storage area long before his people could make it back to the docking zones. They couldn’t risk the chance that the enemy would find and disarm the charges.

Hell, they don’t even have to disarm them. All they have to do is move them off of the tank. They’re too weak to do any damage to something so well protected…unless they’re positioned correctly.

He caught something down the corridor. A Kriegeri, peering around the corner. An officer…

The Kriegeri had made two all-out attacks already, and the last one had been repelled by the slimmest of margins. He was far from sure his people could bat back another.”

He turned, calling out to the Marines around him, warning them. Then he heard something from down the corridor, in the direction of the storage facility. It was one of the Marines who’d been working with Anya Fritz. The voice was hoarse and difficult to hear so far down the hall. But Rogan’s mind pieced the words together, and an instant later, the meaning was clear.

The bomb was ready.

Rogan felt strange. It was almost like relief, at least that the mission was less likely to end in failure. But his satisfaction was offset by the realization that he and his Marines—and Anya Fritz—were almost certainly about to die.

How much of a fight is it worth to buy a few more minutes? Did it even matter? It was going to end the same way no matter what his people did, how desperately they fought. He was a Marine to the core, and he’d been a warrior his entire adult life. He despised nothing more than surrender. But in that moment, he wondered if his people should just stand where they were, if they wouldn’t all spare themselves more pain and fear if Anya Fritz just detonated the charges immediately, instead of waiting until the enemy broke through. What were a few more moments of life worth, especially ones filled with pain and fear and bitter struggle?

He came close to giving in, but then something inside him came alive, some spirit deep within him, demanding he fight…insisting that he battle the enemy to the very end.

He was going to die, he knew that…but he would never surrender.

He heard sounds, boots slamming on the metal decking…Kriegeri approaching. The enemy was attacking. He snapped back an order, sent a messenger to tell Fritz what was happening. It was almost time. Almost time to detonate the charges.

But first, he had some Kriegeri to gun down. It was pointless. The soldiers he would kill were all going to die anyway when the antimatter blew. But that realization didn’t stop him. He swung his rifle around and opened fire on full auto.

Damn the ammunition…better to die with an empty gun than unspent rounds…

Chapter Forty

Hegemony’s Glory

Lyra System

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“What the hell is going on over there?” Chronos’s voice was hard with rage and frustration. The report from Colossus, news that the great ship had been boarded by Confederation Marines, had stunned him. He almost hadn’t believed it at first, but then the confirmations came in. There were Confederation Marines on the great superbattleship, and after a moment of confusion and analysis, it became sickeningly clear to him. The enemy had gotten a strike team aboard…no doubt hoping to find a weakness inside of a vessel that had none from without.

His stomach tightened as he realized they just might manage it. It seemed absurd at first glance, an almost impossibly-desperate effort. But the attackers had advantages. Colossus had a fraction of the security forces it should have possessed, and its interior shuttle system was half-finished at best. The ship was immensely protected from outside, its armor of imperial alloy highly resistant to attack. But inside, it was highly vulnerable, as any ship was, and especially one dependent on antimatter for its power generation.

Chronos had considered any possible vulnerabilities before he’d deployed Colossus, but he’d never even imagined the enemy would send soldiers to board, especially after the disastrous failure of their attempt to attack with cloaked bomb ships.

They stripped out everything that might show up on a scanner penetrating their cloak. That means no nukes, probably not even any heavy weaponry at all.

But they don’t need heavy weapons, not to blow up antimatter storage…

He turned toward his aide’s station, about to order a direct line to Colossus. But the kiloron beat him to it. “Commander, we have a vessel emerging into the system. We’re receiving a communication. It’s a Level One Priority addressed to you, sir.”

Chronos grabbed his headset and put it on. He’d thought his stomach had been tense before, but if he knew anything for certain in that moment, it was that the newly emerged ship had not brought good news. “Put it through, Kiloron.”

The instant he heard the voice, he knew he was right.

“Commander Chronos, this is Hallis, Number Nine of the Hegemony. Akella sent me to deliver you an urgent message. You are to order Colossus to withdraw at once, and return to Hegemony core space at maximum possible speed.”

“That is not possible, Hallis.”

“It is a level one command from Number One, Commander.”

Chronos felt as though he was trapped in a confined space, as though everything was closing in on him. Akella didn’t give pointless orders, and normally, he wouldn’t hesitate to obey. But Colossus was in trouble, and his mind was fixed on that. He’d been about to order Kriegeri transferred from the nearest ships to reinforce the great vessel’s meager internal defense force. But now he didn’t know what to do. For all his intellect and sharpness of mind, he was frozen, unsure how to proceed.

“Why did Akella send these orders?” He snapped out the question, though he suspected the twisted knot in his gut already knew the answer.

“I am authorized to brief you fully as soon as I am aboard, but not over open comm lines.”

“Tell me now, dammit!” He regretted the harshness of his response almost immediately. Hallis was a friend, and the member of the Council he was closest to after Akella. But the stress was eating away at him, gnawing at his self-control, his discipline. The idea of losing Colossus was almost unthinkable. And yet he feared that was exactly what was happening. The last report from the great ship’s control center had only inflamed his concerns. If Ilius left the bridge…things are in very bad shape.

“Apologies, Number Eight, but my instructions are highly specific. The information I have for you cannot be transmitted over an open line.”

“Hallis…Colossus has been boarded. The enemy has exploited our low crew levels, and the ship is in extreme danger.” He knew he shouldn’t be discussing the tactical situation in such detail over open comm lines either, but there was no choice. Akella wouldn’t have sent Hallis unless the message was of extreme importance. He had to know…and he had to know immediately.

“You must save Colossus, Commander. The ship must return to Calpharon immediately.” There was a pause, and then Hallis reluctantly continued.

“It is the Others, Number Eight. They have returned. They have attacked and destroyed one of our fleets.”

*

Barron sat on Dauntless’s bridge, his eyes on the main display, moving back and forth between Colossus, and the approaching Hegemony fleet. Rogan and his Marines were aboard, and the desperate attempt to somehow stop the enemy behemoth was underway. Barron had felt a brief burst of relief when the cloaked ships made it through. The Marines’ mission was a difficult one, still a longshot, but at least they’d gotten to Colossus.

Now it was time to pull the fleet back, to avoid a deadly confrontation if possible. At least until he knew if Rogan’s people had succeeded. Even if the mission was a massive success, if Colossus was destroyed, the enemy fleet was still a terrible danger to his own. His strike force had been gutted at Santara, and most of the fighters he’d had left were outfitted as interceptors to face the new Hegemony squadrons. His bombers were weak, and currently deployed against Colossus. He had nothing left to throw at the enemy battle line, nothing to degrade the awesome power of their railguns.

He’d watched as Stockton and the interceptor wings cut into the Hegemony fighters, repaying the enemy for the damage they had done at Santara. That at least, had been gratifying, if not terribly material to the outcome of the battle.

Most of his thoughts were with the Marines he’d sent to board the enemy superbattleship. Bryan Rogan was one of his few real friends, and he’d long counted Anya Fritz on that list as well. Both of them were aboard Colossus, and despite his repeated attempts to hope for the best, the grim realist inside him couldn’t see a way they could get off the massive enemy vessel, even if they somehow managed to destroy it.

Barron had lost comrades before, and friends, and he’d endured it all. But he suspected every man had his limits, and his agony over Andi’s unknown fate had him close to his.

Andi, at least, had some chance to hide on Dannith. That gave her better survival prospects than Rogan and Fritz had, but Barron still couldn’t bring himself to believe she would make it back. He’d tried, worked hard to turn pointless, scattered hopes into some kind of faith that Vig Merrick and the others would somehow succeed. But whatever success he’d managed to attain had been fleeting, passing instants, followed only by renewed despair.

“Admiral…we’ve got an incoming communique.”

Barron turned toward Atara’s station. Her words were nothing extraordinary or unexpected, not with the whole fleet mobilized in the system…but there was something in her tone…

“Yes, Atara…who is it?” Was it a report from the Marines aboard Colossus, he wondered? No, he didn’t see how that was possible. Their portable comm units would never penetrate the imperial alloy in the hull. One of the other ships, one of his unit commanders, reporting some new development or asking for further orders? Or Jake Stockton?

“It’s from the Hegemony flagship, Admiral. A Commander Chronos. He says he is the supreme Hegemony commander on the Rim.”

Barron heard the words, but they didn’t register, not at first. “Commander Chronos?” Barron had heard the name, and he knew, from what meager intelligence had been gathered on the enemy’s command structure, that Chronos was indeed the name of the Hegemony commander in chief.

“On my line, Admiral.” Barron slid his headset over his ears from where he’d shoved it back on his head. He was tense, edgy. Was Chronos going to repeat the terms that had been offered before, to try to convince him to accept surrender?

Or had his communique ben prompted by what was happening on Colossus?

Barron felt a fleeting hope, a passing thought that there might be a way to save his people on the great ship, at least until reality reasserted itself. There was no way. Nothing the Hegemony commander could say to him would eliminate the need to destroy Colossus.

Or, so he thought.

“Admiral Barron, this is Chronos, Eighth of the Hegemony and commander of all Hegemony forces on the Rim. I will spare us any preamble and state my purpose directly. I am prepared to offer a truce, a cessation of all hostilities on the Rim, effective immediately.”

The words hit Barron like a hammer. That was the last thing he’d expected to hear, and he was immediately suspicious. Was the enemy trying to push him to accept their previous terms?

“We have already informed you that your proposed terms are not acceptable, Commander Chronos. There can be no peace while your forces remain anywhere on the Rim. If you withdraw your fleets and evacuate all occupied worlds, I am sure the governments of the Grand Alliance will be prepared to discuss terms of a lasting peace. Until that time…”

“We will withdraw all forces from the Rim, immediately or as close to such as shipping capacity will allow.”

Barron sat silent, stunned. His thoughts dueled each other, his mind struggling to accept what it had just heard.

“You will leave the Rim?” The words just blurted out. Barron had heard Chronos, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe any of it. It had to a be a trick…and he had no intention of allowing the enemy to deceive him.

“Yes, we will leave. The war will end immediately.”

“You will withdraw your battle line at once?”

“Yes, Admiral. We will recall all fighters, and as soon as they have landed, Colossus and our fleet will transit. All our forces will head to Dannith. From there, we will organize our withdrawal from all occupied worlds, and once complete, we will leave that world as well.”

“And I’m supposed to trust you?” Barron’s mind raced, trying to understand what was happening. Then, it came to him.

Colossus. The boarding teams must be in place…they must be close to destroying that monster from inside. They’re afraid they’re going to lose their superweapon.

“If you review your incoming scans, you will see that our fighter squadrons are all breaking off, and our battle line is decelerating at maximum thrust. All that remains is to contact your boarding parties on Colossus, and arrange for their return to your fleet.”

That is it. Colossus. Bryan and Anya must be close to completing their mission.

He felt a wave of pride, mixed with sadness. Destroying Colossus would be an immense victory, but it was going to cost a thousand Marines…and two of his closest friends.

“You expect me to allow that…thing…to leave this system? On your word of a truce?” Barron’s voice turned caustic, his growing anger driven by images of his friends and comrades, those lost, and those he was likely to lose in the next moments. The Hegemony had invaded the Rim, killed millions. He despised the enemy, and beneath his controlled exterior and his disciplined command persona, he wanted them all dead. One thing he damned sure wouldn’t do—couldn’t do—was allow Colossus to leave. Not if his people truly were on the verge of destroying the great ship.

“Admiral…we face a grave threat, one you know nothing about, but one that will endanger your people as it will mine. You must prevent your warriors from completing whatever insane attempts they have underway to damage or destroy Colossus. You must let us withdraw the vessel, so we can deploy it against the greater danger.”

“You think I’m going to believe you, accept this claim of some ‘greater danger’ out there…and let you withdraw that monstrous ship when my people can destroy it? Do you think I’m a fool?”

“I do not think you are a fool, Admiral Barron. Quite to the contrary, I have been profoundly impressed with the abilities you and your comrades have displayed. But it is essential that Colossus survive to face the true enemy. The ship is irreplaceable, and it must not be destroyed.”

“I’m afraid we have a different perspective on this, Commander. If there is any way we can destroy that thing, we’re going to do it.”

“Admiral, you must listen to me. Surely you can see you are outgunned in this system, that even without Colossus, our fleet can destroy yours. Such a struggle, desperate and bloody, would serve no purpose. Many of your people would die, and many of mine, and victory would be pointless, as we would all be helpless before the true enemy.”

“You speak of some enemy…but you are the enemy I know, the enemy that has killed our people, invaded our worlds. Your efforts to scare me with some unseen threat are not going to convince me to allow Colossus to escape, not if I can stop it.” He’s scared…scared Colossus is going to be destroyed. Bryan and Anya must be in position, ready to detonate the antimatter stores…

Colossus is one of a kind, Admiral…the greatest imperial technology either of our nations possesses. It can’t be destroyed. It must be preserved. You know nothing of the Others, of the threat they pose to all surviving humans, but you must listen to me. Please. We cannot lose the sole weapon strong enough to face them, to fight to save both the Hegemony and the Rim.” There was a pause. Then: “I will show you our good faith, Admiral. I will return the spies you sent to Dannith. They are here now, on my ship.”

Barron held himself stone still, every bit of his strength devoted to controlling his emotions. Spies on Dannith…could it be?

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Commander. I will accept your ceasefire terms, but I will not allow Colossus to escape, not if I can prevent it.”

“If Colossus is destroyed, if your desperate boarding attempt succeeds, we will lose the most advanced technology we have. My people will lose it, and your people will, too. We never came here to be your enemies. We came to bring you into the Hegemony, to safeguard your worlds and people, and I regret we attempted to do so by force.”

“I see things a little differently, Commander. You are invaders.” Barron felt rage swelling up from within, but his mind was still fixed on Chronos’s words. Spies? Was it possible? Was Andi alive? Did they have her?

He felt his strength, so powerfully fueled by rage and hatred for the enemy, begin to waver. It took all he had within him to remain firm, to stand ready to sacrifice Rogan and Fritz to see Colossus destroyed, and then to throw his fleet into a final battle, on that was likely to be nothing short of apocalyptic. Was he now going to have to sacrifice Andi, too? He’d feared for her life, convinced himself she would never return from Dannith, but if Chronos did have her, and he refused the Hegemony commander…

Even as his thoughts warred with each other, as he tried to convince himself Chronos was lying, that it was all some kind of bluff to confuse him, to divert his focus…the screen displayed a signal from Hegemony’s Glory. The image of a ship, battered, parts of its hull twisted into wreckage. Barron recognized it at once.

Pegasus…

And next to it, being led in chains from the crash site, Vig Merrick and the rest of Andi’s crew.

“I will put your comrades on a shuttle at once, Admiral, and send them back to you. They are unharmed.”

But do they have Andi…or is she still on Dannith? Or is she… He stopped himself, unwilling to even consider the possibility she was dead.

He struggled to hold back nausea, as his mind fought with itself. Everything in him that was human, the parts that made him a man, with emotions and wants and dreams, the place inside where his love for Andi lived, where his loyalty to his friends and comrades originated…cried at him to accept the terms, to take Chronos’s word the Hegemony would leave.

But there was something else there even deeper, a cold presence, a shadow of ruthlessness, the part that made him Admiral Barron, the source of his strength, of his discipline and his dedication to duty. His grandfather was there, too, and the faces of the warriors he’d sent to their deaths in his many battles. And from this part of him, the cold, rigid half of Tyler Barron, the response was a resounding ‘no.’ No, he would not believe Chronos. No, he would not allow Colossus to escape, not if there was any chance the desperate boarding action would succeed. He would not leave the Rim open to conquest, not bet away the last chance he had to save his people. Not on the word of an enemy. Not for Anya Fritz or Bryan Rogan.

Not even for Andi’s crew.

I’m so sorry my love, but I just can’t…

“No.” It was a single word, one syllable…and uttering it was the most profoundly difficult thing Tyler Barron had ever done. He stared straight ahead, and inside he felt cold, robotic, as though the man he’d been was gone, and only an icy warrior remained.

“You cannot destroy Colossus, Admiral Barron!” He could hear the tension in Chronos’s voice, almost a stark fear. He would have felt something like pleasure at his enemy’s distress. If he’d still been capable of feeling anything at all.

“If you are so worried about Colossus, Commander…here are my terms. Order your people aboard to surrender to the boarding parties, and depart this system at once with the rest of your forces.” His voice was cold, hard, desperate rage mixing with granite toughness. As a junior officer he’d been the scourge of the fleet’s poker games, a player known for his unpredictable play, and his stone-cold guts. But he’d never called an opponent’s bet on such a vast scale, challenged an adversary to call a bluff of such immensity.

But it wasn’t a bluff. He didn’t know what was happening on the enemy ship, but Chronos’s fear told him what he needed to know. He would spare Colossus, but only if the Hegemony leader surrendered the vast ship to him.

“That is ridiculous, Admiral. Colossus will withdraw from your space at once, but…”

“Colossus will never leave this system, Commander. Not unless you surrender it immediately.” The poker player was fully in command, and his eyes stared into the comm unit, every millimeter of his cold stare sending a message to his counterpart.

He didn’t know what was happening on Colossus, if the boarding parties would actually succeed in destroying the great ship, and if so, how long it would be before Fritz detonated the behemoth’s antimatter. But he was playing on Chronos’s tension and fear…and ignoring his own.

“Admiral Barron, I urge you to reconsider and order your troops on Colossus to stand down. I will arrange for immediate transport, both for your people from Dannith and your personnel aboard Colossus. We can end this bloody war now…”

“You started this ‘bloody war,’ Commander…if someone is going to trust, it is going to have to be you, because it’s not going to be me. You are here, in our space, with the blood of our people on your hands. Surrender Colossus now…or my people will destroy it from within.”

Barron seemed almost a spectator, watching the words come from his own mouth. It was fury, rage, frozen solid. He was ready to finish things, there and then, to commit his forces to the final battle, a desperate fight to the end.

But he wasn’t going to allow Colossus to leave the system, not if Rogan and Fritz and their people could destroy the thing.

No matter what it cost him.

Chapter Forty-One

Hegemony’s Glory

Lyra System

Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

“Chronos was silent, listening to Tyler Barron’s words…even more, to the iron in the admiral’s voice, the unmistakable grit of a man who would not yield. The Hegemony commander was frustrated and angry, but he couldn’t help but admire the strength evident in his adversary’s tone. Barron’s terms were unthinkable. Surrender Colossus? Leave the great imperial vessel in the hands of the Rimdwellers? It was impossible. But even as his thoughts raged against such an idea, he came to a harsh conclusion.

He didn’t have a choice.

Tyler Barron wasn’t going to yield. The Rim leader was resolute, hard as steel. Chronos had always considered himself a good judge of people, and he was confident in his read on Barron. The Confederation admiral would withstand any pressure, refuse any offer, respond to any threat with one of his own. Chronos wondered now at the wisdom of the original decision to commit to a military absorption of the Rim. The Council had clearly underestimated the Rimdwellers. He had underestimated them. He regretted now that subtler, longer term methods hadn’t been employed, that the Hegemony hadn’t worked to lure the Rim nations into its sphere instead of trying to conquer it. More than a century of easy conquests, of forcible absorptions feeding Hegemonic growth, had led to arrogance, to overconfidence. And now, he faced the prospect of surrendering the Hegemony’s greatest construct, its most massive warship…or seeing it destroyed.

He held his hand over the microphone and turned toward his aide. “I need an updated report from Colossus, Kiloron. I want to hear from Commander Ilius…so tell them to find him. Now!”

“Commander…I have Commander Ilius on your line. They patched him through.”

Chronos muted the connection to Barron. “Ilius, what the hell is going on over there?” Chronos could hear gunfire…not far from Ilius’s location. Whatever was happening on Colossus, the fighting was real…and hot.

“The boarders have taken control of one of the antimatter storage facilities, sir. We have them cut off, surrounded, and we’re pushing forward. But…”

Chronos frowned as Ilius’s voice faded to silence.

“But what, Commander?”

“Sir…we can overrun the enemy, but I do not believe we can stop them from attempting to breach antimatter containment. There are several full tanks in the space they control. It is only a guess as to whether they have sufficient ordnance to break through the imperial alloy shells…but…”

“But you believe they can?”

“I believe there is an unacceptable danger. But I see no alternative.”

Chronos had never been indecisive, but as he sat there, he realized he had no idea what to do. He almost flipped the comm back, to threaten Barron, try to batter down the admiral’s resolve. But there was no point in that. He’d heard it in Barron’s voice. There was something dead in the admiral, some part of him killed by war and pain. Barron had no doubt suffered losses in the desperate fighting, terrible losses. He would never back down, Chronos realized, never take The Hegemony leader’s word that his forces would withdraw. Part of Barron wanted a final battle, a fight to the finish.

Chronos would never before have considered anything like surrendering…but Colossus was unique, irreplaceable. It was an irresistible weapon in war, and in peace it was a researcher’s dream, a path to reclaiming humanity’s lost technology. He couldn’t allow it to be destroyed, no matter what he had to do to prevent it.

But surrendering the vast ship? How could he do that? How could he ever explain such a thing?

Barron had turned the tables on him. The Rim admiral would not trust him…but Barron’s demands put it to Chronos to trust his adversary. The Rim had no designs on invading the Hegemony, he was fairly sure of that. Even if their warriors harbored visions of revenge, their civil governments would surely exert some level of restraint.

But would the Rim join the Hegemony to fight against the Others? It would be in their interests to do so. The deadly invaders would make no distinction between Hegemony worlds and those on the Rim. The Hegemony’s current enemies would eventually be compelled to ally with the Hegemony against the Others…but would it be too late?

He could yield Colossus to the Rimdwellers, rely on his faith they would eventually join forces with their former enemies to face the Others. Or, he could sit and watch as Colossus was destroyed, as the precious artifact was lost, to his people and to all humanity.

But how could he build trust with an enemy? How could he reach the Rimdwellers after so many had died, after such brutal combat? Would they ever join his people, come to their aid against the Others?

He didn’t have those answers. But he knew how to begin, his only option, really. He simply couldn’t allow Colossus to be destroyed, not with the Others on the move. Not with he deadliest danger yet still coming.

He flipped the comm back to Barron’s line, and he leaned back in his chair, drawing in a deep breath.

“Admiral Barron…I offer you my sincere assurance that if you order your boarding parties to stand down, I will see to their immediate safe transfer to your fleet, along with the spies we hold. As I promised before, our withdrawal will begin at once, and I assure you the Hegemony will initiate no further hostilities on the Rim.”

Chronos knew what the response would be, but couldn’t stop his hopes from building up…at least until they were dashed by Barron’s cold and unyielding voice.

“No, Commander. The answer is an unequivocal and non-negotiable ‘no.’ You will surrender Colossus immediately, or my people will destroy it.”

Chronos knew Barron was bluffing, at least partially. His comm beams almost certainly couldn’t penetrate Colossus’s imperial steel hull, and that meant he had no real idea what was happening aboard. Except that you told him…your peace offer alone was an admission you were afraid of his boarders. Chronos was a stubborn man, like Barron, and he felt the urge to engage in a battle of wills with his counterpart, to test how confident the Rim admiral was in his people, in their ability to actually destroy Colossus.

But there wasn’t time. And he couldn’t risk the stakes such a wager would entail. Colossus was essential to facing the Others. As long as the great ship survived, there was a chance it would be so deployed. The Rimdwellers were angry, bitter and vengeful after the losses they had suffered. But they were rational. When they understood, when they knew more of the danger they all faced, they would come around.

Tyler Barron was unwilling to bet on Chronos, to take the Hegemony leader’s word…but Chronos had no choice but to trust in Barron’s, to take it on faith the threat from the Others would soon force the Rim into the Hegemony’s embrace, as six years of war had failed to do.

He knew what he had to do, what he had to say. But he wasn’t sure he could do it, force out the words.

He wasn’t sure until he heard them coming from his own mouth.

“Very well, Admiral Barron…I will surrender Colossus to you. But call off your Marines. The vessel is yours…but please, do not destroy it. We will all need it, more than you can now imagine. I am trusting in you, in your wisdom, your honesty.” Chronos didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of it, either as a matter of pride, or one of intellect. But there was no choice.

He couldn’t risk Colossus’s destruction, not after Akella’s warning.

*

Ilius raced back from the forward area, his face a twisted scowl. His people were making their final push, driving toward the storage facility from two directions. He’d poured every trooper he could find into the fight, and he had the local superiority he needed to finally push past the last remaining defenders. He had to get his people through as quickly as possible, so they could stop the enemy from detonating whatever charges they’d put in place. It was a desperate, dangerous tactic, but it was all he had. And time wasn’t his ally.

Nothing would have pulled him from the front edge of the attack, nothing except Chronos’s direct order. He moved right toward the comm unit, pushing back the anger and frustration. Chronos was still his superior, the only one in the entire Rim theater, and he was a creature of duty, one who always showed respect to an officer above him, and certainly to one as highly ranked as Number Eight of the Hegemony.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t angry.

He tapped the comm unit on the wall, and said, “Commander…my troops are about to assault the storage facility. With your permission, I will return…”

“Shut up, Ilius, and listen. Yes, go back to your troops at once…and stop the attack. I have new orders for you, ones you will find difficult to obey. But it is my command, and I expect you to execute it to the letter.” Ilius felt a cold tension. He didn’t know what Chronos was about to say, but he’d never heard Number Eight sounding as…defeated…as he had just then.

“You are to cease all hostilities at once…and you are to surrender Colossus to the Confederation Marines.”

Ilius stood, silent, stunned. “Commander…I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand, Ilius! Just do it. Now! Or the enemy will blast the antimatter storage, and Colossus will be lost.” Chronos paused again, and Ilius remained where he was, unmoving, no response escaping his lips. He was frozen, uncertain what to do. What he could do.

“Damn you, Ilius, listen to me. The Others have returned! They have invaded Hegemony space and obliterated one of our coreward fleets. We cannot risk Colossus being destroyed…even if we must surrender the vessel to the Rimdwellers to prevent that. Now, do what I command, Ilius…before it is too late.”

Ilius felt dizzy, as though his legs might drop out from under him. The Others…back. An attack, a fleet destroyed. His head was spinning, confusion taking hold of him…and then his entire body clenched.

There was no time. If his people broke through and they weren’t quick enough, the enemy would detonate their charges. And if their sabotage worked, if their small explosives proved powerful enough to rupture one of the tanks…

“Yes, Commander…I understand.”

He turned and raced back down the corridor, without another word to Chronos, without waiting for his guards. He ran as quickly as he could, almost losing his balance as he whipped around the corner. He raced down the hallway, shouting as he ran, “Kiloron…stop the attack. Stop the attack at once!”

He kept running until he reached the rear of his small column, coming back upon the Kriegeri who’d been about to assault the storage facility. “Stand down, all of you,” he shouted as he pushed his way forward, toward the front of the formation. “Stand down…cease fire.”

The officer in front of the column moved toward him, but he waved the Kriegeri aside. “All troopers, cease fire and remain in position.” He turned toward the closest officer. “No one advances, Kiloron. Understood? No one follows me.” Ilius barely caught the confused officer’s acknowledgement before he slid the rifle off his shoulder let it drop to the deck, before he started forward, unarmed.

“Rim forces, this is Megaron Ilius, commander of Colossus. I am unarmed and advancing alone. I request a parley with your commanding officer. Again, I am unarmed, and my forces have been ordered to stand down.”

Ilius took a deep breath and pushed back against the nausea roiling his stomach. The tension and fear of battle had morphed into something else. His mind was racing, his thoughts wild, almost uncontrollable. He’d imagined victory, even defeat…but the thought that he’d be walking toward the enemy with no weapons, to surrender Colossus…it still seemed unreal. “I am Commander Ilius. I am unarmed. I request a parley with your commanding officer.”

*

“Captain, stay focused, stay ready. There are more Kriegeri coming into the fight. My people can’t hold much longer…and you’ve got to blow this thing before they get in here.” Bryan Rogan looked over at Anya Fritz, and for a few seconds, amid chaos and war and hopelessness, he managed a smile for his longtime comrade. “We’ve come a long way from the old Dauntless, Anya, haven’t we?”

“We have, Bryan…” Fritz was prone next to the large cylinder, holding the makeshift detonator in her hand. She’d checked the connections three times. It was ready. She was going to wait, hold out for however many moments they had left, hoping for a miracle, but expecting none. She looked up at her comrade and smiled sweetly, something not too many of her shipmates had ever seen. “Fortune go with you, Bryan.”

“And with you, Anya.” He hesitated, just for a few seconds, steeling himself up for what he knew would be—had to be—his final battle. Then he nodded to Fritz, and he turned around and walked across the room.

He stepped out into the corridor…and he realized it was quiet. The sounds of gunfire were gone, and as he moved forward, he turned toward the first officer he found. “Lieutenant, what is going on?”

“The enemy stopped, sir. We’ve got some Heggie officer down there, saying something about a parley with our commander. The rest of the Kriegeri appear to have pulled back, General.”

Rogan didn’t know what to think or how to respond. He just nodded to the officer, and he pushed his way farther forward. He could see three of his Marines standing about ten meters down the corridor. Two of them were flanking an unfamiliar figure. Rogan took one more step and then he stopped again. The man was a Hegemony officer…a high-ranking one from the look of his uniform.

He hurried the rest of the way, stopping about two meters from the enemy officer. “I am General Bryan Rogan…Megaron.” Rogan had become quite familiar with Hegemony ranks and insignia during the fighting on Megara, though perhaps somewhat less so with such lofty positions as the one held by his…counterpart? Prisoner?

“I am Megaron Ilius, General…commander of Colossus. I am here…” The man hesitated, clearly having difficulty saying what he’d come to say. He cleared his throat, and then he paused, clearly trying to steel himself to complete what he’d come to say.

“I am here to…surrender Colossus to you. My Kriegeri and I are your prisoners.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Troyus City

Megara, Olyus III

Carmetia walked up the steps into the main hall of the Senate. It felt strange to be back on Megara, all the more so, because she and her small staff were the only Hegemony personnel on the entire planet. The last Kriegeri prisoners—few in number, as usual for the Kriegeri, even in defeat—had been shipped back to Hegemony space, even as she had returned, not as a warrior, but as the Hegemony’s first ambassador to the Confederation. Her job was a daunting one, her mandate far beyond completing the treaty negotiations and similar steps toward a formal ending to the war. She was there to make allies of former enemies, to convince the Rimdwellers of the threat from the Others. That was going to be difficult—but not impossible, she kept telling herself. Whatever it took, she knew the importance of it. The Hegemony was exhausted from the war, its resources depleted. Even Colossus was in Confederation hands. Her people needed allies, and they needed them quickly…before the Others surged through the Hegemony, and then descended on the Rim, destroying all in their path.

“This is the first time I’ve been to the Senate Compound.” Steven Blanth was at her side as she walked up the steps. Her once-prisoner was now a liaison of sorts—though Blanth’s position hadn’t been formalized yet. Tyler Barron had decided the Marine was the most suited to accompany the new Hegemony ambassador back to the Confederation capital, and he’d simply ordered Blanth to go. His command had been clear, but it had also been devoid of title or a specific description of duties.

“I am glad Admiral Barron assigned you to work with me. We were enemies, certainly, but I believe we have come to understand each other, after a fashion at least. And I believe you appreciate the danger we all face, or at least you do not join most of your people in their belief the Others are some myth or nightmare.” She knew she overstated Blanth’s view. She doubted he truly understood the danger both the Hegemony and the Rim faced…but she was sure he took her seriously, and that was a starting point.

“I am glad to be here, too, Carmetia. There is much to be gained by ensuring our people remain at peace.” He paused. “Are you ready to take your place as your people’s first ambassador to the Confederation?

She looked at Blanth and she nodded. “Yes, I believe so.” That was a lie, of course. Carmetia doubted she had the temperament for diplomacy, and she considered her mission to be almost impossible. But she was one of the few Hegemony Masters who had developed any kind of relationship with a Rimdweller, and while she wouldn’t go so far as to say she and Blanth were friends, she was sure they could communicate, even cooperate. Convincing him of the danger would be the first step to success.

And if she could do as well as Chronos seemed to believe she could, perhaps she could convince more of the Rimdwellers of the terrible danger…and convert them from enemies to allies.

Before it was too late.

Port Royal City

Planet Dannith, Ventica III

The ship lay in a wide gully, a great gouge in the ground it had created itself when it came down. The landing—or crash, Barron figured it was something dead in between the two—had been a hard one, and the vessel carried great wounds from it.

Pegasus had multiple gashes in the hull, and a large chunk of the forward section was crushed. There were marks along one side where conflagrations had blackened the hull, though it appeared whatever else had been destroyed on impact, the fire control systems had survived and functioned.

“I’m so sorry, Andi…I know what you’re feeling.” That was the kind of thing people often said, but Barron really did know. He remembered watching Dauntless’s death as though it had happened the day before. Time was supposed to heal such wounds, but his was still open and painful years later. He knew the agony Andi felt looking at the broken form of her tortured ship…but Pegasus hadn’t been destroyed like Dauntless had, and with Dannith back in Confederation hands, she could be recovered and repaired.

The Confederation owed Andi a massive debt. No one would never know just how large a role her operation had played, if anyone would even have thought of boarding Colossus without word of the Hegemony’s manpower shortages. That alone was worth the repair costs for a small free trader, even one with certain…upgrades…as Pegasus had. Hell, Andi could afford it herself.

She would have her ship back, as good a new, Barron promised himself that.

Barron held her, his arms grasping her tightly, and for a moment, he was silent. He’d been sure he would never see her again, and he was still trying to convince himself it was real, that she was there with him. She didn’t respond to his words about Pegasus. She just pressed her head against his shoulder and looked out over her ship. Barron could see a tear running down her cheek, but he pretended not to notice.

It felt strange to be back on Dannith. The Hegemony withdrawal was almost complete. Barron had been stunned at the efficiency of the operation, and he suspected the enemy—were they still his enemy?—would have been gone entirely if they’d had enough ships to carry everyone and everything back to Hegemony space in one trip. They’d withdrawn their strongest vessels and units first, showing a considerable amount of trust in the Confederation honoring the terms of the ceasefire.

Barron had fought the war with a grim stubbornness, though he’d pushed forward, mostly devoid of any real belief his people could win the conflict in the end. He wasn’t sure the strange events of the past weeks qualified as victory, exactly, but the invaders were leaving the Rim, and that was close enough for him. At least no more of his people were dying.

And, Andi was there, alive, and reasonably well…and in his arms. Even Pegasus, battered and half-charred, was salvageable. With a little work—or a lot of work—Andi’s ship would be as good as new…and after some rest and given some time to gather her thoughts, she would realize that.

“You can’t do that to me again, Andi…I was sure I’d lost you this time. Your days of snooping around behind enemy lines are over.”

She didn’t move, her head still pressing against his shoulder. “I’d promise you that, Admiral Barron, but what’s the point? You wouldn’t believe it, and I don’t want to lie to you. Maybe we’ll be lucky, and we’ll finally have some peace now that the war seems to be over.” Barron didn’t believe that, and Andi’s tone when she uttered the words suggested she didn’t either. But it was pleasant self-delusion, and Barron figured they both deserved at least that. “So, let’s just be happy we’re together right now, Tyler my love.”

He leaned his own head toward hers, and he spoke softly. “Okay…for now. But we’re going to discuss this later.”

Barron sucked in a deep breath, his mind somewhere between contentment and foreboding. The Hegemony was mostly gone from the Rim. The war truly seemed to be over…and yet, his insides were still tight and twisted into knots. He didn’t know much about Chronos, except that he was one of the highest-ranking Masters in the Hegemony. But he didn’t seem like a man easily scared…and he had been scared when Barron spoke with him. Barron didn’t know anything about…what had Chronos called them, the Others? But he found himself thinking about the sound in the Hegemony commander’s voice, fear, yes, but something more. Awe.

Barron wanted peace above all things. He wanted to escape from the fighting, the constant misery and death. He wanted to share some quiet place with Andi, where they could get up each day without fear, without some battle to fight. But as the name—the Others—bounced around his head, and he wondered if he would ever know peace again.

Andi lifted her head, and she looked up at Barron, her eyes meeting his. She smiled at him, silent for a moment. Then she spoke.

“So, Admiral Barron…are you ever going to ask me to marry you, or are you just going to carry that ring around from one end of the galaxy to the other?”

Crendara City

Alphalax, Sendeval II

Artheron stood on the balcony, looking out over the expanse of the city. Crendara was the primary metropolis on Alphalax, and the sector capital. It was the farthest coreward world among the Hegemony’s vast domains, and its great scanner arrays looked out toward the black silence and almost endless death of the ancient imperial core.

Artheron had never believed much in stories of phantoms and ghosts from the lost imperial past coming back to once again smite humanity. He didn’t doubt the conflict with the Others had occurred, though he suspected the enemy in that fight had actually been no more than another group of survivors, much like those who had founded the Hegemony. Perhaps this particular group had retained a bit more imperial technology, and the ferocity of the fighting had left its scar on the Hegemonic psyche, but he didn’t believe in some nightmare from the darkest deeps of space. He’d long scoffed at the vast resources poured into building ships and defenses, preparing to fight an enemy that was gone, defeated, one that was never coming back.

But now, as he looked out over the city from which he governed the entire sector, his blood froze.

There were ships—at least he believed they must be ships of some kind—flying across the sky, dense, shadowy images, blocking the morning sun and casting a shade of darkness across the city.

He tried to focus, to get a good look at the vessels, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if it was their speed, or the distance, but mostly, it just felt as though he couldn’t fix his eyes on them, that something about the strange shapes was beyond his ability to comprehend.

Artheron was a Master of the Hegemony, a scholar whose career in research and archeology had been interrupted by his appointment as sector governor. It wasn’t a job he’d particularly wanted, but he was ‘old Hegemony’ to his core, and he’d felt a sense of obligation to accept the responsibility his genetics had placed upon him.

He had expected his term to be uneventful, but now he looked out on the strange shapes in the sky, and he could feel his fear growing. There was something dark and sinister in the shadowy images, and they stirred a primal fear deep within him.

There was panic developing in the streets, Arbeiter of all ranks streaming out of their workplaces, terrified, rushing for home, or to get out of the city. Artheron had ordered the Kriegeri deployed to keep order, and to prevent the terrified mobs from getting any more out of control, but even the warriors, sterner and more accustomed to danger, seemed overwhelmed.

Artheron himself felt the urge to flee. Only his dignity as a Master—and his realization that no place would be safe—held him where he was. His hands shook, and he could feel the sweat pooling up on his neck and shoulders. It was fear, a stark terror like nothing he’d ever felt. Whatever those things were, they seemed almost conjured from some dark dream.

He knew his duty, even as he realized all the stories about the Others, the terrified accounts of those who’d survived the deadly encounters so long ago, had been true all along.

He knew then, what he faced, and in his clear, strong intellect, he understood one other thing. He was about to die.

They had returned, the old enemy, shrouded in darkness, as so many had long feared.

The Others were back, and they brought death and darkness in their wake.

Blood on the Stars will Continue with

The Others

Book 13

Appendix

Strata of the Hegemony

The Hegemony is an interstellar polity located far closer to the center of what had once been the old empire than Rimward nations such as the Confederation. The Rim nations and the Hegemony were unaware of each other’s existence until the White Fleet arrived at Planet Zero and established contact.

Relatively little is known of the Hegemony, save that their technology appears to be significantly more advanced than the Confederation’s in most areas, though still behind that of the old empire.

The culture of the Hegemony is based almost exclusively on genetics, with an individual’s status being entirely dependent on an established method of evaluating genetic “quality.” Generations of selective breeding have produced a caste of “Masters,” who occupy an elite position above all others. There are several descending tiers below the Master class, all of which are categorized as “Inferiors.”

The Hegemony’s culture likely developed as a result of its location much closer to the center of hostilities during the Cataclysm. Many surviving inhabitants of the inward systems suffered from horrific mutations and damage to genetic materials, placing a premium on any bloodlines lacking such effects.

The Rimward nations find the Hegemony’s society to be almost alien in nature, while its rulers consider the inhabitants of the Confederation and other nations to be just another strain of Inferiors, fit only to obey their commands without question.

Masters

The Masters are the descendants of those few humans spared genetic damage from the nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare that destroyed the old empire during the series of events known as the Cataclysm. The Masters sit at the top of the Hegemony’s societal structure and, in a sense, are its only true full members or citizens.

The Masters’ culture is based almost entirely on what they call “genetic purity and quality,” and even their leadership and ranking structure is structured solely on genetic rankings. Every master is assigned a number based on his or her place in a population-wide chromosomal analysis. An individual’s designation is thus subject to change once per year, to adjust for masters dying and for new adults being added into the database. The top ten thousand individuals in each year’s ratings are referred to as “High Masters,” and they are paired for breeding matchups far more frequently than the larger number of lower-rated Masters.

Masters reproduce by natural means, through strict genetic pairings based on an extensive study of ideal matches. The central goal of Master society is to steadily improve the human race by breeding the most perfect specimens available and relegating all others to a subservient status. The Masters consider any genetic manipulation or artificial processes like cloning to be grievously sinful, and all such practices are banned in the Hegemony on pain of death to all involved. This belief structure traces from the experiences of the Cataclysm, and the terrible damage inflicted on the populations of imperial worlds by genetically-engineered pathogens and cloned and genetically-engineered soldiers.

All humans not designated as Masters are referred to as Inferiors, and they serve the Masters in various capacities. All Masters have the power of life and death over Inferiors. It is not a crime for a Master to kill an Inferior who has injured or offended that Master in any way.

Kriegeri

The Kriegeri are the Hegemony’s soldiers. They are drawn from the strongest and most physically capable specimens of the populations of Inferiors on Hegemony worlds. Kriegeri are not genetically-modified, though in most cases, Master supervisors enforce specific breeding arrangements in selected population groups to increase the quality of future generations of Kriegeri stock.

The Kriegeri are trained from infancy to serve as the Hegemony’s soldiers and spaceship crews, and are divided in two categories, red and gray, named for the colors of their uniforms. The “red” Kriegeri serve aboard the Hegemony’s ships, under the command of a small number of Master officers. They are surgically modified to increase their resistance to radiation and zero gravity.

The “gray” Kriegeri are the Hegemony’s ground soldiers. They are selected from large and physically powerful specimens and are subject to extensive surgical enhancements to increase strength, endurance, and dexterity. They also receive significant artificial implants, including many components of their armor, which becomes a permanent partial exoskeleton of sorts. They are trained and conditioned from childhood to obey orders and to fight. The top several percent of Kriegeri surviving twenty years of service are retired to breeding colonies. Their offspring are Krieger-Edel, a pool of elite specimens serving as mid-level officers and filling a command role between the ruling Masters and the rank and file Kriegeri.

Arbeiter

Arbeiter are the workers and laborers of the Hegemony. They are drawn from populations on the Hegemony’s many worlds, and typically either exhibit some level of genetic damage inherited from the original survivors or simply lack genetic ratings sufficient for Master status. Arbeiter are from the same general group as the Kriegeri, though the soldier class includes the very best candidates, and the Arbeiter pool consists of the remnants.

Arbeiter are assigned roles in the Hegemony based on rigid assessments of their genetic status and ability. These positions range from supervisory posts in production facilities and similar establishments to pure physical labor, often working in difficult and hazardous conditions.

Defekts

Defekts are individuals—often populations of entire worlds—exhibiting severe genetic damage. They are typically found on planets that suffered the most extensive bombardments and bacteriological attacks during the Cataclysm.

Defekts have no legal standing in the Hegemony, and they are considered completely expendable. On worlds inhabited by populations of Masters, Kriegeri, and Arbeiters, Defekts are typically assigned to the lowest level, most dangerous labor, and any excess populations are exterminated.

The largest number of Defekts exist on planets on the fringes of Hegemony space, where they are often used for such purposes as mining radioactives and other similarly dangerous operations. Often, the Defekts themselves have no knowledge at all of the Hegemony and regard the Masters as gods or demigods descending from the heavens. On such planets, the Masters often demand ores and other raw materials as offerings, and severely punish any failures or shortfalls. Pliant and obedient populations are provided with rough clothing and low-quality manufactured foodstuffs, enabling them to devote nearly all labor to the gathering of whatever material the Masters demand. Resistant population groups are exterminated, as, frequently, are Defekt populations on worlds without useful resources to exploit.

Hegemony Military Ranks

Commander

Not a permanent rank, but a designation for a high-level officer in command of a large ship or a ground operation.

Decaron

A non-commissioned officer rank, the term defines a trooper commanding ten soldiers, including or not including himself. Decarons are almost always chosen from the best of the base level legionaries, pulled from combat units and put through extensive supplemental training before being returned to take their command positions.

Quinquaron

The lowest rank truly considered an officer. A quinquaron officially commands fifty troopers, though such officers are often assigned as few as twenty and as many as one hundred. Quinquarons can also be posted to executive officer positions, serving as the second-in-command to Hectorons. Such postings are common with officers on the fast track for promotion to Hectoron level themselves.

Hectoron

The commander of approximately one hundred soldiers, or a force equivalence of armored combat vehicles or other assets. As with other ranks, there is considerable latitude in the field, and Hectorons can command larger or smaller forces. The Hectoron is considered, in many ways, the backbone of the Hegemony armed forces.

Quingeneron

An officer commanding a combat force of five hundred soldiers or a comparable-strength force of heavy combat or support assets. In recent decades, the Quingeneron rank has been used more as a stepping stone to Kiloron status. Quingenerons also frequently serve as executive officers under Kilorons.

Kiloron

The commander of one thousand soldiers, or a posting of comparable responsibility. Despite the defined command responsibility, Kilorons often command significant larger forces, with senior officers of the rank sometimes directing combat units as large as twenty to fifty thousand. Kiloron is usually the highest level available to Kriegeri, though a small number have managed to reach Megaron status.

Megaron

The title suggests the command of one million combat soldiers or the equivalent power in tanks and other assets, however, in practice, Megarons exercise overall commands in combat theaters, with force sizes ranging from a few hundred thousand to many millions. Megarons are almost always of the Master class.

Blood on the Stars will Continue with

The Others

Book 13

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Table of Contents

Blood on the Stars Series

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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

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Appendix

The Crimson Worlds Series