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.