“Communique ready, sir.” The speed of Jaymes response told Simpson that he had been preparing the transmission since the first sighting.

  Simpson paused, just for a minute. Then he reached down and touched the mike, causing a rippling sound. A second later, he was talking.

  “Alright, everybody…we’ve got seven ships so far, and they don’t look like they’re going to stop anytime soon. It looks like this is the attack we’ve been waiting for. You all knew it was coming…so just do your best.”

  He nodded over to Jaymes, who cut the line. His message had been short, very short, but he knew he’d told his people what to do at least fifty times before. They all knew what was coming…and from the look of things, ten enemy ships now, and still coming, it had arrived.

  Simpson realized something that he’d considered at least a hundred times over the past month. The enemy was almost certainly too big for his force to hold back again. Holding the position was still the stated purpose, but Simpson knew his job was something else.

  To damage the enemy before he was driven away—or destroyed outright. To buy the Confederation at least a few more months, maybe half a year, before it was attacked at the core…and likely destroyed. His survival, or that of any of his people, any of his ships, would be a positive.

  But it wasn’t essential.

  * * *

  Sam Taggart sat in her chair and watched. She hadn’t doubted the attack was the final one she’d been waiting for, not when it was only two enemy ships. But now, there were more than sixty, and the number kept increasing. Whatever minor questions she’d had, any hope that what she was watching was anything but the attack she’d expected for six months, was completely gone.

  She harbored some vestigial hope that the force they’d managed to assemble could hold out against the enemy attack, but in her heart of hearts, she’d never really believed that. She considered the ‘victory’ won six months before as pure luck. She’d known that Simpson was close to calling it, to ordering what remained of the defending forces to withdraw…but the enemy had retreated first. There were ways to call that legitimate, to applaud her side’s stamina, just a bit better than the other side’s, but to her it was just luck.

  “Gravamere, Hermes, and Scintilla…one-quarter thrust. Back up, and form with the line.” She understood the pull some of her people felt, the urge to advance and force the conclusion that much more quickly, but it didn’t make any sense for her ships to be spread out. Whatever happened—and she saw it as more or less as a loss, no matter what took place—she needed to get the most out of her force. And that meant everything in line, and not a bit farther forward. Her line would hit together, as quickly as possible, and the fight would be on.

  “All three ships have responded, Commodore.”

  She heard the sound of Lieutenant-Commander Johnson. He’d been with her for a long time, and he’d followed her escalation in rank. He was a terribly efficient officer, and a great aide too, she had discovered, but she could hear that part of him agreed with her…and part of him didn’t. He knew the fight was probably a mismatch, that the enemy wouldn’t have attacked without enough force to push her people out of the system. But he was charged up for battle now, and at least part of him had forgotten that the fight was hopeless. He understood her orders to the ships to pull back…but it was clear he harbored some thoughts about outright victory.

  “Very well, Lieutenant-Commander…we want to hit the enemy together.” She hadn’t intended to answer at all, but she found herself trying to justify her actions to her subordinate. She knew it was pointless. Whether he completely understood or not, he would execute her commands flawlessly. But she needed someone to understand. Most of her people had worked themselves up, convinced that they had a real chance. She was jealous, in part…and also sorry. But she didn’t see any way to win.

  She just wanted to damage the enemy, hurt them badly enough that their advance stopped where it was, that they didn’t push on, through whatever wreckage was left of her fleet toward the Core and beyond. That would buy some more months at least, and as long as time stretched on, so did hope.

  Whether or not she survived.

  “Alright, everybody…the enemy has a longer range than us, so be ready. We’ll be taking fire for two and a half minutes, maybe three…so jazz up your engines and do your best not to get hit. Starting now.” She turned toward her assistant, and she issued the orders for Constellation. The massive ship was the biggest on either side, and while she hadn’t been able to repair it totally from the last battle, it was in surprisingly good shape.

  For another few minutes at least…

  She knew the enemy would target her vessel. It was by far the largest on her side, and size wasn’t something that could be easily hidden. In another battle, she might have kept her flagship out of range, but Constellation was a massive part of her force. It had to be right in the center…and that was exactly where she had it.

  “Commander, engage engines…plan alpha-3.” She was Constellation’s commander as well as that of much of the fleet, and she remembered her duties.

  “Yes, Commodore…engaging now.”

  A few seconds later, she felt a strange sensation, the engine running ahead of the dampeners. It only lasted a second, but it told her she was in battle once again.

  About twenty seconds later, the enemy barrage opened up…and she really knew.

  * * *

  “It’s alright…just stay on the enemy fleet. Fire all weapons in range, and be ready to open up with the shorter ranged guns the instant the enemy is close enough.” Colin Simpson sat on Grimaldi’s bridge, directing the base’s defenders. Vast sections of the base were still in ruins, left over from the past battle just over six months before. Simpson was amazed at the weaponry—and it was mostly weapons that had been restored—that was operational, but as the battle commenced, he had quickly realized just how much hadn’t even been touched. The enemy’s third hit in as many minutes had only dimmed his hopes. He didn’t expect to win the battle, not really. But he was hopeful his forces would badly damage the enemy. Damage them enough to halt them at Grimaldi, at least for a while.

  At what will be the remnants of Grimaldi that is. One thing he was sure about was, the enemy would gain control of no station, nothing worth anything at least. He intended to fight until Grimaldi was nothing but a hollowed out wreck…but even if he left the station earlier, he would destroy it, or at least any of its functionality.

  It wasn’t going to happen unless his luck got better though…at least destroying the station wouldn’t be his problem. The drives were vastly smaller than those in his ships, but they had been repaired, and the enemy’s sequence of early hits was just luck. A bit more of it, however, and he would have a real problem, much earlier than he’d expected.

  “We’re fixed, sir. All guns in range firing at full speed.” Larson Jaymes sounded remarkably calm, and despite the fact that Simpson knew it was bullshit, he found himself feeding off of it. Just another surprise in Jaymes, who had come very far from the man Simpson had met out along the border.

  “Very well.” Simpson knew he was drawing conclusions from a few lucky early shots, but he was still upset…until another few minutes went by with no hits coming in at all…and his own heavy guns began to find their mark. The base station secured three hits of its own—no, he realized as another struck one of the enemy ships hard, four. And Commodore Taggart’s force was doing even better. He began to realize that, in spite of the damage to the station, his force was actually doing well.

  He sat in his place, watching, waiting. There was often little else to do at this stage of a fight. His people had their orders, and most of them were surprisingly optimistic. He knew that, at least, would fade, that he would be forced to bolster his people’s morale before the day was over. But for the moment, there wasn’t much to do except watch his forces fight…and hope for the best.

  He sat back in his chair, and he looked. There was nothing else he could do, not at the moment, nothing except wait and see how well his people did…and whether they could at least take the strength out of the enemy fleet before they were pushed back.

  Or destroyed utterly.

  * * *

  Samantha Taggert looked out over the force, her eyes moving from the guide that told her of her fleet’s condition to the one that told her of Constellation’s. The super-battleship was doing fairly well, the result of both its size, and its luck. Most of the rest of the fleet was doing substantially worse.

  She took the losses in stride, especially since her ships were causing even more harm to the enemy. The fight had a long way to go, but she was hopeful, at least, that her ships, and the Admiral’s, would manage to at least pause the enemy. She didn’t see any way to win long term, but she’d learned to shift her focus downward, to the matter at hand. She’d settle for any signs her force could seriously damage the enemy…before the survivors, whatever was left, retreated.

  So far, she didn’t have any clear signs that was happening…but she had some fuzzy ones, and just then, that was enough to keep her fighting at her best.

  She thought about the battle, about her ships and weapons. The enemy had advanced for a time, but now they had stopped. And they had ceased their advance outside the range of her smaller guns. She wondered for a moment, debated whether it made sense to advance—and whether she needed permission from the admiral.

  She realized that she probably should check with him, at least, that she should ask him if advancing was reasonable. She looked down at her comm unit.

  Then she just decided.

  “All ships…minor thrust. Let’s move forward thirty thousand klicks, and bring all guns into range.”

  “Yes, Commodore.” She could tell Jaymes, at least, was on her side. Actually, she figured most of her people were. They were not quite as excited as they were at the start of the battle, but they were still in the fight, and most of them were passionately so. She knew that wouldn’t last, that she would end up doing everything in her power to hold them to their posts by the time the battle was over. But this, at least, she would do now, while her people were still with her.

  While they were still in the fight.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  CWS Dauntless

  Beta Draconis System

  Year 329 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  Andi walked slowly through the familiar corridors of Dauntless. She hadn’t spent a lot of time lately in the great ship, but she’d done her time before that, just as she had in the old Dauntless. She knew her husband still thought more of the older vessel as the real Dauntless, but she realized she had come to consider the new vessel the real thing. She understood that. She had spent some time on the older ship, of course, but that vessel had been the first large command for Tyler Barron, and he’d served aboard her until the last battle of the old Union War, when she was sacrificed to win victory. If she’d been in Barron’s shoes, she probably would have felt the same way.

  But she wasn’t.

  She loved Barron, more that she’d loved anyone, save only for her daughter. But she saw things differently than he did. At least some things.

  She’d known for a long time the plan was what she wanted, more or less at least. She also knew things had gotten there only because the other option had been tried and had failed. For herself, she was ready to undertake the operation before the last fight, to allow the fleet to pull back away from the enemy. If she’d been able to do it, she would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the battle. That thought had pressed against her, at least until she’d realized that the entire civilian populations of the Confederation, the Hegemony, and the Alliance, were all on the line. The losses in the recent fight—in all the battles of the war—were almost incalculably small compared to the numbers at risk. She knew the Highborn didn’t want to destroy humanity…they just wanted them passive and docile. To her, at least, and to most of those she knew, that was too much to ask.

  But what would the enemy do when they realized what mankind was up to now? If the plan worked, if they started dying, would they lash out at humankind? They already possessed half of the Hegemony, and the other half was there for the taking too. Would they change their opinions? Would they unleash massive death on the humans under their control?

  Andi thought about that, and it came as close as anything to derailing her. But there was no way she wanted to live, if the only way to do it was as a slave to the Highborn. She knew other people would disagree with her on that, but she didn’t care. She was right, at least as far as she was concerned…and she was going to do her best to carry out the mission.

  To infect as many of the Highborn as possible…all of them, if it was doable somehow…and if not, as many as possible, in the likely event that she couldn’t get them all.

  She waved her hand in front of the door, and it opened. Tyler’s quarters on Dauntless hadn’t been altered since the day he’d first taken command. They weren’t enormous, but they were large by military standards. Atara could have taken them, of course, should have in fact, but Andi knew Travis wouldn’t seize Barron’s quarters in ten years or a hundred, at least not while he was still alive. The two had an odd relationship, one she had come to understand, at least partially. She’d had a tiny bit of jealousy, early on, but then she’d realized the two didn’t have any kind of attraction between them. They were comrades, and friends, nothing more.

  And nothing less.

  “Andi?”

  She heard Barron’s voice, and she was as attracted to it as ever. She might disagree with Barron at times, she might even be forced to fight him, as she had almost been over the method to fight the enemy. But she loved him, regardless of whether they agreed or not.

  “Yes, Tyler…it’s me.” A stupid statement, of course. Who the hell else would it be?

  “Are you getting ready to go?” Barron walked out from the room next door, and he continued toward her.

  “Yes…we’re leaving in about an hour. I just wanted to stop and see you first.” She didn’t feel it was necessary to say, ‘in case we don’t meet again,’ despite the fact that either of them could easily be killed, almost at any time. Tyler was drawing together the remnants of the fleet…and pulling back. He didn’t know what he was going to do, not really. Except retreat…and try to keep the enemy’s attention while Andi and Clint Winters led the effort to impregnate as many occupied Hegemony worlds as possible with the still unproven virus. Andi had been in favor of the plan for a long while, so much so that she’d overlooked the difficulty of it, the numerous chances that it wouldn’t work. Now that she had the approval to go, however, she found her doubts growing. It wouldn’t stop her—nothing would—but she realized that she was far from certain the plan would work.

  But she knew it was their last chance at survival.

  “Andi…I just wanted to say, good luck. You know I was against your plan, but my effort has failed. Your alternative is the only chance we’ve got. And on that basis, I’m completely aboard. Go…go with the best wishes of everyone in the fleet.”

  Andi was stout, and she rarely lost control. But now she was wavering. “Thank you, Tyler…really.” She managed to keep her tears in, but she knew he understood how difficult things had become.

  He leaned forward, taking her in his arms…and he hugged her. She lost track of the time, of everything, for just a few moments. Then he pulled back slightly, and he told her, “Go now. Get this done…and then we can go and just live.” He didn’t believe it, and she knew it, but she tried to think the best.

  She knew he might have come to the conclusion that the effort was the only one with a chance of success, but that didn’t mean he really believed it would work. But whatever he believed, whatever she believed, the only thing that mattered was it was the only option with a plan for success. And that meant they had to do it.

  “Goodbye, Tyler…I will see you soon.” She truly meant the first part of the statement. The second bit was hopeful, but she wasn’t sure she really believed it. She thought for a moment that this might be her last moment with Tyler…and she came close to losing it. Very close.

  “Goodbye, Andi…and I will see you soon, too.” Somehow, she knew that Tyler felt exactly the same, that the chance they would meet again seemed somehow small, that the two of them would both be engaging in desperately dangerous proceedings. The odds were against them both surviving and returning to each other…and Cassiopeia. But she fought against that, told herself that both she and Tyler would survive, that the three of them would live years together, quiet and free of danger.

  She knew she didn’t really believe that…but she managed to push herself enough that she imagined it was true.

  * * *

  “Andi…I just wanted to contact you, and make sure you’re okay.” Clint Winters spoke softly, as cool and calm as she had ever heard him. She knew part of it was his effort to retain his composure in front of her…and part was because, while he was convinced the effort was the only way to go, he was also almost sure it would fail. That last part didn’t make sense to most people, but she understood…and she was glad that her own hopes for success, while weak, seemed better than his.

  “Yes, Clint…I’m fine. How about you?” Andi was in better shape than he was, at least since the force had pulled back from the fleet…and from Tyler. She’d always had a way of pushing aside her personal thoughts and focusing on what she had to do. She suspected that had come from her upbringing, from the terrible experiences of her early life, and despite the fact that it had ebbed somewhat in recent years, she was still able to focus on the matter at hand…most of the time.

  The mission was clear enough, even if it seemed more difficult now that it was in process than it did before. They had 340 ships, divided into four groups. Every ship was loaded with the virus…and they would hit four planets at a time. They would cover all the easiest worlds first, all the locations decided to have few if any defenses. It would take many weeks to cover only half of the Hegemony—half of the half the enemy occupied—and by then, the first subjects, the planet she had bombarded over a month before, would probably start to show symptoms.