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.”