“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 flat-footed, 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.