He risked one more, then called for her.

  Riesa retreated to his side.

  “This is going to be fun, bridge crew.”

  As he’d said earlier, they needed to mix things up, or all the ships would just flood engineering with their people and wait for them to show up.

  He created one more plasma ball and shot it out the door into main engineering, then teleported as it exploded. That would take care of the last battleship, and there were only five frigates left.

  A bridge materialized around him. He’d been sure of the destination, since the bridge cameras were part of the fleet network and he had exact coordinates.

  He moved to the tactical station even as his magic struck out. The surprised bridge crew didn’t even have time to pull their weapons.

  Riesa locked down the bridge, and said, “You’re right, this ship already has two units of soldiers in engineering. But they detected the EM pulse of your teleport and are on the way up.”

  He nodded and moved over to the console and loaded his program.

  “Lock onto a few ships in this fleet, and then put the lasers and missiles on continuous fire. I’m going to take out a few frigates in the other three fleets.”

  She laughed, and then got to work.

  Every little bit helped and taking out seventy-two ships wouldn’t be easy or fast. Still, the frigate had overwhelming firepower in comparison to a corvette, no doubt she could take out a few of them before they responded.

  On the bad side, the enemy’s response would be to fire on the ship they were standing on. All the other ships would also be sending soldiers to the bridge and engineering. Unfortunately, his tricks and surprises were about to run out, and soon enough they’d have to really work for it.

  He’d taken out two ships, and Riesa three small corvettes, when the ship shuddered violently, and he heard laser torches cutting into the battle steel of the locked down bridge.

  Riesa said, “They’re all locking on to this ship, we won’t survive a second volley of missiles, and the shields are falling fast to laser fire.”

  He’d been hoping to take down more than that, but he wasn’t going to push things and get them killed. He built the teleport spell even as he moved quickly to the helm, set up a collision course with a destroyer and engaged it. Hopefully ramming the other ship with the one they were on would destroy them both.

  Then he released his spell at the exact timing moment, and they disappeared in a flash.

  The bridge immediately filled with laser fire, and it coruscated harmlessly around his shields. Fortunately, the enemy wasn’t desperate enough yet to destroy the bridge by launching multiple pellets in such a confined and sensitive place, or he and Riesa would likely be dead.

  The bridge crew went down fast, but the cyborgs were another story as they were carrying personal shields, either integrated or as part of their armor, but he was guessing the second. He had no choice but to send vast amounts of magic into creating lightning to short them out, then with another thought they went down.

  It hadn’t been that close, but it had severely depleted his shields. The enemy had reacted as he’d expected, but just a little quicker than he’d hoped.

  “Lock us down.”

  Riesa moved over to tactical to lock down the bridge, while he moved over to the helm. They needed a little breathing room, and the fleet around them would be firing on them any second. So, he sent his magic into the amplifiers and teleported the ship itself. The ship reappeared a light minute away, far enough that it would take the fleet over two hours to reach him.

  “Regret giving them a chance to surrender yet?”

  She did have a point. While on the planet the atmosphere and EM field of the planet had disguised the origin point of his teleports. He could’ve teleported plasma and destroyed ships all day long from command HQ on the planet. It’d only been his transmission which allowed them to pinpoint his location.

  But they didn’t give him the hard jobs to take the easy way out, and to commit a mass slaughter on eighty ships and over four thousand people. There was a right way to do things, and him declaring war and offering to accept their surrender was the right way to do it.

  “We’ll get them, eventually.”

  Save the crew on the ship, they were relatively safe for the moment. He’d also chosen to take a corvette this time around because there were only fifty crewpersons and a very small security detail. No deployable soldiers, just ship security.

  It didn’t take him long to load up the program, and to finish off the frigates. All that was left was fifteen destroyers and twenty-nine corvettes. They’d taken out over thirty ships so far.

  “Let’s rest a minute, and then clear the ship. Actually…”

  He would take the easy way this time, this battle was too long and risky. They had control of the bridge, and it was locked down. It was easy enough to send his magic into the system, and then open up all the airlocks and doors save bridge access.

  He sent out a ping a moment later, and there were two wizards and a handful of cyborgs left on the ship, the rest of them had been blown out into space. They sealed up the ship, lifted the lock down, and hunted down the survivors, which were in two groups. He was heartily tired of all the death.

  “Time for another break. I’m a little low on magic. We’re relatively safe in the moment.”

  He opened a channel over the tactical fleet network, which was faster than light, so it didn’t matter that he was a light minute away.

  “This is Celestial Knight Dacen Black, and this is my final offer. Surrender. Immediately abandon your ships. Your command and capital ships are destroyed, and your leadership have been killed. It’s over. Any ships that fail to comply will be committing suicide, because I will not accept your surrender if you continue to fight me from this point on.”

  He sat in the captain’s chair, and Riesa squeaked in surprise as he pulled her onto his lap and held her.

  She smiled, then kissed him, “PDA during missions?”

  He laughed, “Something like that. You’d think they’d give up, but people can be incredibly stubborn.”

  Riesa frowned at the display, “Almost half the ships are launching life pods, and they’re heading for the planet. Nine destroyers and fifteen corvettes are still crewed.”

  He nodded.

  Riesa asked, “What do you suppose they’re doing?”

  He said, “At a guess, they’ve probably figured out how I’m doing it, and trying to remove their ships from the tactical net. But it’s too integrated with the command systems to easily do it. It would take hours. I’m also tempted to take the abandoned ships, the Kingdom could use them, but I bet they’re all set to self-destruct if they detect my teleport.”

  He decided to test that, and he picked up a data pad. It didn’t take the program long to pick one and give coordinates. He teleported the data pad, and sure enough the ship went up immediately like a small Nova above the planet.

  He shook his head, “Like I said, they never listen. I warned them not to sabotage anything. I also told them what I’d do if they did, that I’d kill them all. The ships might be salvageable by a team in a shuttle, but it’s not worth the risk to find out any foreign EM signal on the ship would blow it up. We’ll destroy them too. Time to get back to work.”

  It took quite a while, but he was done taking chances. He stayed right where he was, and he took out every remaining ship over the next couple of hours, mostly because he had to stop after every six or so to rest and regain his magic. He destroyed all the ships, even the abandoned ones.

  Many more of the ships had abandoned ship as well, and he ignored those for the moment.

  Once they were all destroyed, he teleported the ship they were on, the last ship, above the Lincoln holding where all the life pods had landed. It was a sprawling complex of buildings, from housing to medical. More a military base than a civilian setup.

  Feeling a bit petty and angry, he opened a channel.

  “By leaving behind traps, you have violated the terms of the offered surrender. I promised you all death should you do that, and I’m here to fulfill it. As promised, the Lincoln mercenaries have met their end in less than a day, a lesson for any others that would think to test the Moiroi kingdom’s might and resolve.”

  If there were any remnants of that mercenary company elsewhere, without leadership and a fleet the other three companies ruling this planet would absorb them. Only the strong survived on the free planets, and they wouldn’t be given the opportunity to rebuild by their competitors.

  He set the helm on the ship to crash into that base, and the ship leapt for the surface. It would keep his promise, and it’d also destroy the last ship. He also programmed the fusion reactor to shut down moments before impact, since he didn’t want to actually destroy the planet’s atmosphere. It would be a kinetic impact, a very large one, but without the release of nuclear energy. It would wipe out everything within two hundred miles, the faithless bastards below had no chance of escaping it.

  He felt no guilt over it. They’d lied and tried to kill him with trickery, and it was a military base, not a civilian town or city, they were all part of the mercenary group down there.

  Then they teleported back to the command ship.

  Chapter Eleven

  He felt better after a shower, quite a long one, with Riesa for company. Daniella was smiling proudly at him as they walked into the conference room.

  “I take it that’s what you had in mind?”

  She nodded, “Yes, and well done, Dacen, Riesa. The representatives from Blackwood and Carmichael have been very polite. I don’t think we’ll be here much longer. We’re still haggling over details, but they’re both outfitting two fleets each for an extended campaign far from their home bases.

  “The prelate’s fleets are on the way to their task as well, and Admiral Kimberly has finished building the joint attack plan in the six systems. They’re just waiting for word from us to coordinate the exact time of the strike.”

  “How long will we have them?”

  She waved at the chairs and they both sat.

  She said, “Two months, quarter ship losses per fleet, or eight tactical missions, whichever comes first. Once we wipe out the six fleets in orbit of Brightstar with our combined seven fleets, we can decide what to do with the four mercenary fleets for their remaining time with us. I want our fleets all back where they belong once the six worlds are reclaimed. It depends on what we’re looking at when the battles are all done.”

  That made sense. If any of the six worlds failed to be reclaimed the four fleets could be used to rectify that. If not… in the best-case scenario perhaps they could be used for a punitive expedition to ensure the current rulers in the Confederacy don’t just start all over again. Or if some of the enemy fleets escape, they could be utilized to chase them down so they don’t come up with another counterattack plan. The options were almost endless, but he was sure his queen would come up with something.

  She added, “Admirals Myers and Bertram should be back in a minute, they’re conferring with the bosses on my latest counteroffer. Myers is with Blackwood, Bertram with Carmichael.”

  He brought them up on the display, so he’d recognize them and their mercenary group. Myers had black hair, hard dark gray eyes, and he was wiry in stature. He looked like he had a stick up his ass, like most high-ranking officers in the Kingdom navy. Bertram was a light brunette with doe eyes, athletic body, and in her picture she had a thousand yard stare that told him she’d seen a lot of battles. She looked in her mid-twenties, but her eyes told him she was a lot older than that.

  “Both at once?”

  She nodded, “I wanted to make sure they’d work well together, observing them in a mixed group tells me they’ve worked together before. We won’t have any troubles with their fleets playing nice together. Secondly, to drive down the price, if one of them goes too high, the other could suggest just hiring all four of their fleets for a lower number, undercutting the competition. It’s a bit obvious, but it still works even though they know exactly what I’m doing.”

  The door swished open and they walked in. Blackwood had an all-black navy uniform, Jacket and pants over ship suit, while Bertram was wearing a white jacket and skirt, with a dark blue ship suit beneath. They both gave him a glance as they returned to the table and took their seats. They both looked sharp.

  Myers said, “My leadership has accepted your terms, and we’ll be ready to go in two days. The two months will start then, your majesty.”

  Bertram nodded, “The same. Our fleets are yours for the duration. When can we expect to see the battle plans for our first mission?”

  Daniella said, “No time like the present,” and got on the comm device to invite in Admiral Kimberly.

  It didn’t take long for her to show up and sit at the table.

  She nodded at the queen.

  Daniella said, “Start the briefing.”

  Kimberly replied, “Yes, your majesty,” before looking each of them momentarily in the eyes. Then she said, “Reclaiming the systems isn’t enough to end this invasion and war, to do that we’ll need to destroy all the Leshien Confederacy’s expansion fleets. As such, what we do will depend a great deal on what they do when we drop out of FTL three light minutes from Bright Star.

  “If they stand their ground, we’ll move in with kingdom fleets in the vanguard, while your ships will come in on the flanks. If they flee, we’ll wait until their course is far enough along they’re committed, then FTL along the line to move to intercept. If they flee and split up their fleets, we’ll have to let one go. Each of our fleets will take on one, and your two fleets each will take on one.”

  Bertram nodded, and she didn’t seem insulted at all at Kimberly’s implications that one of their fleets alone wasn’t a match for a single Confederacy fleet. It was just true, given the quality of mages an interstellar government could bring to bear rather than a mercenary company.

  “What if they demand your surrender, and hold hostages, or threaten to bomb a city?”

  Huh, she didn’t pull her punches.

  Kimberly shook her head, “I don’t believe the Confederacy would countenance war crimes.”

  Daniella said, “They’d better not, or we’ll be going to their home planet instead, and we’ll remove the government when we get there. I wouldn’t be able to annex it, or hold it if I did, but if they start acting like corsairs instead of a government, then they will be treated as such and be executed. But I agree with Kimberly, they’d be insane to try such forbidden tactics, it would ensure both the Moiroi Kingdom and the Grand Communion acted in concert to destroy the Confederacy.”

  She had a point. Such tactics and orbital bombardments were anathema and illegal in all three governments. Bombing a tactical military building wasn’t off the board, but attacking a city full of civilians would be against the rules of engagement and conventions of war.

  Kimberly nodded, “As to the hostage idea, the Kingdom doesn’t bow to terror tactics. The attack will go forward to reclaim the kingdom worlds even if they threaten innocent blood. Regardless, all the various contingencies all have detailed plans, they’ll be provided to you to go over the next few days when you return to your commands. We attack in five days, once your fleets are ready it’ll take us three days to get there. I trust you will meet your stated departure time, I have five other battles to coordinate, and we’ll all be attacking at the same moment.”

  Myers said, “It won’t be a problem.”

  Kimberly said, “If you have any suggestions or anything is unclear in the provided plans, the next two days while your fleets prepare is the time to ask. There’ll be no comms on the way, and once we arrive no time for changes to our plans.”

  Bertram replied, “Understood.”

  Kimberly nodded sharply, “Good, now let’s go over the details.”

  It was the next day when he entered the admiral’s office with Gia. The last day was a bit busy for the fleet, but all he’d really been doing was keeping up with the five women in his life. They were a hell of a distraction, and they’d also ensured he didn’t have time to go into a spiral of grief. At least one of them had been with him every moment, and in that one it was his lovely cyborg healer. He still felt denial at the idea that Daisy was really gone, he’d resented her, but he’d also loved her, and he was full of regret that so much had been left unsaid between them.

  Still, he was focused on the mission, the job, and of course keeping them as sated as possible. As distractions went, he couldn’t imagine a better one.

  “Admiral?”

  Kimberly said, “Celestial. Take a seat. The queen and I have been discussing you and your team’s role in the upcoming fight.”

  He grunted as he sat, and Gia sat close to him.

  “I’d assumed I’d be on the flagship and keeping the queen safe by ensuring it wasn’t destroyed, and getting her off of it if it was… inevitable.”

  Kimberly nodded, “That will happen, unless Vincent and the Dreadnought Royal is back and among the Confederacy’s fleets. In that case you’ll take your team in, you’ve been onboard so should be able to teleport in even without coordinates, as long as it’s in the same system.”

  He grimaced. He was going to have to spank the queen. No doubt she’d put the admiral up to delivering these orders, to avoid a personal argument. Of course, he’d do whatever she wanted, and maybe the best way to keep her safe was to utilize him fully against the enemy. But he didn’t like that she’d be relatively unprotected, save her own not inconsiderable power, if he was off on an external mission with his whole team.

  He’d thought that part of his life was over, but apparently not until the kingdom was once again secured, then he could guard her and the palace. Perhaps it was a necessary risk, keeping her safe meant keeping the kingdom safe, but only if they had a kingdom to begin with.