“Orders?”

  Daniella said, “Get to the bridge, and take tactical control of the lasers and shields.”

  He frowned, “My queen, I suggest leaving Kimberly in charge and joining me there.”

  The captain probably wouldn’t put the flagship in great danger, to keep Kimberly and the Queen safe, but he wasn’t going to bet her life on that. He’d be damned if they were on the same ship, and she wasn’t close enough to him so that he could teleport them all off the ship if it was about to be destroyed. She was the kingdom, and she was a woman he loved more than life itself and his future wife. Love and duty both would do anything to keep her safe.

  Daniella’s seductively dark brown eyes danced with authority, lust, and a deep love all at the same time somehow, as she studied him for a moment.

  “We will join you on the captain’s bridge, and we’ll assist in the protection of the ship should it be necessary. Kimberly, you have command of the fleets.”

  It was totally wrong, but her use of the royal we made him stir below, although the claiming look of love and lust on her seductively beautiful face also had something to do with that. It wouldn’t be obvious to anyone else, but he’d known his queen for a long time. She truly was the rarest beauty of the kingdom, as Leanne had been of the Communion. It still struck him at times, just how exquisite she really was. It was shallow, and not why he loved her, but it was a part of them.

  They headed out, and once they reached the dubious privacy of the halls Daniella turned to him.

  “Unfortunate, but not your fault for not divining it. It’s a trick you’d expect from a pirate, not a traitor who worked for one government then another. I bet his allies are furious, losing an entire battleship and damaging over half the rest of the fleet.”

  “Yes, your majesty. I’m angry about it, but not quite beathing myself up either. I just regret the lives lost, the men and women serving on the kingdom’s flagship deserved better. They’ll pay for those lives lost, along with all the others they’ve taken with their schemes.”

  Including the royal guards and loyal nobility that had been killed in the palace coup. Not to mention the king and dear Christabel, the only other knight that Breanne had failed to corrupt. He’d always liked Christa, not in an intimate way, they’d just worked well together and shared the same core loyalty to the royal family.

  They had to destroy these fleets, and that was just the first step. Wilde needed to be taken down, her factories on Proposition’s moon destroyed, and raiding fleets sent into their territory to make sure they wouldn’t do it again.

  They arrived at the bridge and stepped inside, it’d been in the next corridor over, both bridges in the center of the ship.

  Daniella said, “Ignore me captain, and fight your ship. My knight is here to take over tactical on lasers and shields, we won’t gainsay your orders otherwise. Between the four of us, our shields and lasers should be extremely powerful, so keep that in mind.”

  The captain looked nervous, but he nodded once in agreement.

  He couldn’t blame the guy, he was responsible for the queen herself and kingdom, the fleet admiral, and the last surviving celestial knight in the Moiroi Star-Kingdom. If the man wasn’t nervous having all three of them aboard, then he’d have thought there was something wrong with him.

  He’d rather Daniella wasn’t there as well, but it was honestly about the safest place for her in the moment. If she went to the palace the enemy would no doubt destroy it just to kill her. Ironically, she was probably far safer in the coming battle than she would be on the surface of the planet, and politically she couldn’t afford to take a ship and hide in the void until the end of all of it.

  The officer at tactical got up and stepped away at the captain’s gesture, and he slid into the seat and started to configure the console to his preferences.

  It wouldn’t be long now.

  It was just fifteen minutes later, when the enemy made their move, with a hail.

  The Captain put it up on the screen, but it would be the Admiral of the Fleet Kimberly that spoke to him, they were just watching.

  Kimberly said, “This is admiral of fleet. Surrender now, and your people will be treated well and returned to the confederacy. Your ships will be forfeit, but you’ll have your lives.”

  The man sneered, “This is Admiral Holmes and interim governor of this world. Surrender? I don’t think so. You have a numbers advantage, but four of your fleets are mercenary scum. I think I like my chances, so whenever you feel ready, come try to take your world back. We’re not going anywhere, and it’ll save us the trouble of hunting you down later.”

  He shook his head, that was what he was hoping to hear, it meant they wouldn’t flee. Of course, Holmes wasn’t entirely wrong, which is why their three fleets were taking the vanguard. Retaking Bright Star would be the hardest battle because more than half their ships were mercenaries. The other five worlds would be reclaimed by one hundred percent kingdom fleets, and with a one fleet advantage.

  Admiral Kimberly disconnected, then gave the order, and the fleets started moving into the system.

  The sensor officer said, “Captain, I’m picking up some strange intermittent readings on two of the enemy battlecruisers.”

  He frowned, and he brought up the data. He’d fallen back on his usual casual confidence like putting on a favorite coat, but he had to admit having five hot ladies looking over his shoulder in front of the bridge crew felt a little surreal.

  He couldn’t figure it out, but Daniella did.

  “Captain, I believe they’re firing missiles that have been cloaked by magic. I expect they’ll start hitting us an hour in.”

  The officer said, “That could explain the data, captain.”

  He said, “It also suggests they have at least two celestial mages in the fleet.”

  Given how rare celestial mages were, he’d have to guess that was a third to a half of all the celestial mages in the entire confederacy.

  The captain said, “Suggestions?”

  Daniella said, “I can strip the illusions once they’re close, point defense can pick them off from there. There won’t be that many, probably hoping to catch us off guard and with our defensive shields not fully engaged. I expect they’ll be hitting our six battleships with six to ten missiles each.”

  The captain frowned, “Why so few, your majesty?”

  Daniella said, “Because they have to maintain all the spells. I know I’d start struggling at about thirty missiles, and if there’s two that’s around sixty. Enough to hurt our fleets command ships, maybe even take them out if we were caught napping. It’s not a power limitation, it’s one of concentration, maintaining that many spells at once for a whole hour, I wouldn’t want to do it, but I could if I was willing to drop into a trance state and ignore the world around me totally…” she stopped midsentence, then she started to laugh in delight.

  She patted him on his shoulder, “Go get the bastards.”

  He snorted, “Yes, your majesty.”

  He got up from the console, and Daniella took his place.

  The captain asked, “What’s going on? I need to update the admiral.”

  Daniella said, “To do what they’re doing, even a celestial would be so deep in a trance they’d have to trust others to watch their backs. Which means they won’t see my knight coming. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer not to face my and Dacen’s equals when we arrive. Dacen should be able to take out two ships fast enough and get out, before the fleets wizards get on his tail. Don’t worry, he’ll be back before the battle starts.”

  She turned to him, “Be careful.”

  Sure, he’d very carefully blow up two of the enemy’s battleships, that were surrounded by a hundred and five other enemy vessels. Piece of cake, not.

  Of course, he only winked confidently, and then sauntered off the bridge with his other ladies trailing behind him…

  It wasn’t the first time he’d wished Daisy was with him still, as he worked out the best coordinates. To make things more difficult, he only had a vague idea of a confederacy battleship’s layout. He did know the celestials should be in the fire control room, since they’d have to see the missiles to cast the spell on them, before they were loaded into the launchers.

  Of course, his plan was to destroy the whole vessel, not just kill the meditating celestial. If the ship went up, so would they. If he was lucky, it might even damage a few other ships in the bargain. It was also a slight gamble, that they wouldn’t recognize the teleport energy flare that deep in trance. If they did, they’d abandon the spells and immediately locate him and attack. They’d lose their assumed surprise attack, but self-defense always came first.

  The ships would pick up the flare, but he could work with that. If only for as Daniella said, a short time before they could get organized and kill him. Chances were that they wouldn’t disturb their celestials when they picked it up, not without an admiral’s order. It would give him and the ladies a small time window to cause a core breach. He’d have to do something different this time, thirty seconds was too long if one of the celestials detected the blaring alarm warnings and snaped out of their trance.

  A delayed earth spell instead, that would suppress the containment rather than a heating issue to cause it to fail in time. It would be immediate, so it had to be a timed spell, so he could be gone before it went off.

  He had it all planned out, except of course pinpointing the reactor in engineering. He didn’t have time to board and search for engineering. The plants, spies, and traitors had ensured their enemy’s newest ship designs weren’t stolen, or at least the data if it had been taken had never made it to the kingdom’s secure military data-net.

  He shook his head. The plan wouldn’t work.

  He explained the problem, “Any ideas?”

  Leanne frowned, “How about just taking out the celestials?”

  He pondered that a moment. That was the stated mission. Was he trying to be the hero again, and just putting all their lives in too much danger by trying to take out the ships too? Taking out the mercenary fleets had been difficult, but maybe it was just too much of a risk to attempt to take even two of their ships down. There was no ground station to sneak onto their tactical net in this situation, and all of the wizards serving on that ship would be close to his power level and highly trained.

  He worked it through in his head, “We can take down the celestials in eight to ten seconds. We might also manage to take down one of the fire control rooms, which would take down part of their missile launch capacity for the battle. It’ll be a quick teleport in and out, with no chance of running into their crewman, so you and Gia should stay here and keep an eye on the queen.”

  Leanne frowned, “Are you sure?”

  He nodded, “We won’t even be boarding the ship.”

  She was smart enough to work out that if the enemy managed to get a lock on them and fire a point defense laser they’d all be in trouble. His personal shields were powerful, but nowhere in the range of a starship’s shields of any size. There was nothing she’d be able to add to that equation, so her only contribution would be to risk her life for keeping their company.

  Gia didn’t look happy either, but they both reluctantly nodded, “We’ll return to the bridge.”

  He kissed them both, and then turned to Allison and Riesa as they left the room. He knew the others were probably upset, but this was a mission, not a group date.

  “Ready to go? We’ll be stationary for three seconds, in two different positions, but we’ll also be behind a ship’s shield grid near their engines. Their own weapons won’t be able to get line of sight with us kissing the hull, and another ship would require they lower the shields first before taking us out. I believe that will take them a lot longer than three seconds to coordinate, it won’t be an automatic computerized response. Hell, it’ll take longer than that just to explain the issue to the captain and get orders.”

  They both nodded, and the three of them sealed their ship suits. His shield would also be containing atmosphere, enough for a half hour, never mind a mission lasting less than ten seconds.

  This plan would never work during battle while the ships were in motion, but while at an all-stop and waiting over two more hours for the enemy’s arrival, it was possible.

  He took a deep breath as he got his head in the right space. All the spells being used were in his specialties. He’d also be casting three spells almost simultaneously in a repeating way, so he really didn’t have the mental power to spare on a stealth spell which his mind had trouble holding.

  They started to feed him their magic, and he checked the scans again. The two coordinates were still exact, the enemy fleets weren’t moving at all.

  He built all three spells at once, then they teleported.

  It was almost jarring mentally, as they appeared right above the baffles for the candle drives on the stern of the first battleship that had been launching invisible missiles. He released the ready ping spell even as he started to form the second teleport around the third spell, which was a quickly forming plasma explosion in the form of a ball that grew to the size of a medicine ball. With their magic added to his own, the plasma explosions would be three times as powerful than he’d have risked making them on his own.

  Enough to kill a celestial who was ready for it, never mind one that was in a trance.

  It would also completely trash the fire control room they were in and likely slag several of the missiles as well. Unfortunately, the missiles wouldn’t explode and take down the ship that way, they weren’t armed until fired and well away from the ship firing them.

  The information from the ping flooded his mind. The celestial was in the port fire control bay, which fed the four missile launchers on that side of the ship. With that spell, he had exact distance, so teleported the plasma ball straight to the celestial.

  Then he was working on the second plasma ball, second ping spell, and third teleport. Unless they were both ready for it, and they specialized in teleport as he did, there was just no way they’d be able to avoid it. That made the odds of mission success incredibly good.

  The teleport went off, and they appeared next to the candle drive on the second ship they’d picked up launching those invisible missiles. He released the ping, already building that fourth teleport spell around the second plasma ball, and it teleported away as soon as his ping gave him the data he needed to finish the spell.

  Then one more teleport spell, and despite the odds of them responding to the threat in the last six seconds being almost nil, it was the longest two seconds of his life as he waited for a laser to erase them from existence. He’d have liked to send a second ping spell to verify the target was down, but he didn’t dare tarry. They’d find out when they got back to the ship. Then his spell took them back to the ship, and they appeared in the empty conference room they’d been using with the ship’s interface to determine the teleport coordinates he’d needed.

  Allison looked really worked up, and he was tempted for a moment, but now wasn’t the time.

  “Bridge, let’s go see what kind of damage we just delivered.”

  Allison said breathily, “That took nine seconds, not eight.”

  He snorted, close enough, and they’d made it back, which was the important part.

  The bridge all stared at him as he sauntered in like he owned it all, and Daniella beamed his way.

  “We’re tracking sixty missiles, which seem to be targeted to our six battleships as I’d guessed. So, well done. The two battleships also registered damage on their four portside missile launchers, so that might help a bit too.”

  Daniella got up, and he slipped back into the chair. They still had over two hours to go, so their magic would be back up to full long before battle was met.

  He nodded, “I have an idea, if they aren’t already moving their ships to stop me from doing more than I already have. I should’ve thought of it earlier. Do you have mines aboard, captain?”

  The sensor officer said, “The ships are still at an all-stop.”

  The captain said, “A few hundred, I think.”

  The first officer, a lovely blonde said, “Three hundred and twenty, sir.”

  He nodded, “Given the mission I just ran, and the information gained with my ping spell. I should be able to extrapolate the port fire control bay coordinates for all of their battleships from the exact coordinates of their central candle drive baffles. I doubt we’ll get the remaining eleven of them, someone over there has to be smart enough to order a burn in our direction. Even a forward velocity of a mere thousand KPS will be enough to frustrate any such attempts from succeeding.”

  The captain said, “You’re suggesting arming a mine and teleporting it directly inside their ships. The explosion would likely completely disable if not destroy the vessel.”

  He said, “Yes, captain. An anti-matter mine would be far more devastating than my plasma spell was, I’d be surprised if the ship wasn’t blown up. Unless it appears inside one of their crew on accident, then it likely won’t go off. Still, the room is huge, and there should only be three people in it all at their stations. Failure is negligible until they start moving the ships.”

  The admiral spoke over the comms, “I approve the plan, but let’s wait until thirty minutes before intercept. If we take out all their command ships, along with the admirals and senior captains, the rest of the ships might just flee. At this point, we’re both too far in and too far away to intercept escape vectors, and they’d easily escape. It’s a risk, since they might start moving their ships before then making the plan impossible, but we can’t allow ninety-six of their ships to escape, plus whatever battleships survive the attack. I think it’s a good gamble however, they won’t start moving their ships until we’re close to weapons range, unless one of them divines the danger they’re currently in they’ll conserve fuel.”