Besides, she was sure the enemy had picked up something from her transmissions. She could feel a heavier state of security, though the still-sporadic nature patrols only reinforced her conclusion that the Hegemony was indeed suffering from severe manpower shortages. That was nice to know, and it fueled the hope that she had sent Tyler information he could use.

  But it didn’t do a damned thing for her just then, save for keeping the number of Kriegeri on the street manageable. At least as long as she kept her scavenging to the garbage heaps, and anything easily snatched and didn’t create too much trouble. Major thefts, or attempted dealings with other gangsters were too dangerous, at least for the time being.

  She closed her eyes and sighed softly. She wasn’t sorry she’d come, at least not mostly. She knew Tyler and the others faced insurmountable odds, and she drew satisfaction from the hope—realistic or not—that the information she’d sent would make a difference. Staying back in the relative safety of Megara or Craydon had been out of the question. She wasn’t the sort who could wait while those she cared about fought a desperate struggle.

  But, as she sat in the quiet of a crumbling old ruin in the Spacer’s District, chewing cautiously on her barely edible dinner, she had doubts, too. It wasn’t the physical discomfort, the cold, the rancid food…not specifically. She was just scared, in a way that seemed new to her. She’d been in one kind of danger or another most of her life, and she’d learned to handle it well enough. But something was different now, something she could never have imagined in her younger days, when she faced danger with reckless abandon.

  She had too much to lose, now. Crazy bravery was easier for a penniless orphan, a creature who knew almost nothing but deprivation. But that wasn’t her anymore, not even close. She was wealthy now, with access to any physical comfort imaginable. She had people who cared about her, people she cared about. And she had Tyler.

  Her lips curled up into a thin smile. He was going to ask her to marry him. He’d been planning to do it for some time, and for all the normal sharpness of his mind and his tactical brilliance, she was fairly sure he had no idea she knew.

  Her grin widened into a full smile, something she hadn’t expected in that grim place. But it didn’t last. Tyler was important to her, the only man she’d ever loved, the only one who’d ever reached her in that way. But just then, he was one more thing she was likely to lose, one more reason to survive, in a place where survival seemed unlikely, and escape almost impossible.

  She wondered how he would react if she was killed. She knew he would suffer terrible pain. He loved her, she had no doubt of that. But she hoped, given time, he would get over her. She wanted, more than anything, to spend the rest of her life with him, but if that life was to be measured in days and not years, she truly hoped he would find some kind of happiness without her.

  Her expression continued morphing, first from a smile to a non-descript look, and then to a grim frown. She wasn’t likely to escape Dannith, but unless the information she’d sent produced a miracle of some kind, she didn’t think Tyler had much chance of a future either. She knew he would fight to the end, that he would never give up. But, against the might of the Hegemony, that only meant he would die before—or during—the final defeat.

  She shook her head slowly, even as she tried to fight off the sadness and despair. She wasn’t one to yield, no more than Tyler. But she’d never been closer to giving up than she was just then.

  Somehow, though, another smile found its way onto her face. Barron had been planning to ask her to marry him for months, yet he’d never done it. He’d come close a few times, but he’d never managed to get the words out. She found it amusing that a man of such decisiveness, of such seemingly limitless courage, would allow himself to be stopped, even intimidated in such a simple thing.

  It only made her love him more, and in that, she felt a new strength inside her. She wasn’t sure she believed she had a chance, that she’d ever see him again. But all thought of surrender, of giving in—to the enemy or to death—were gone.

  She would fight, claw her way to survival. She would get the hell off Dannith and back home, somehow. Or she would die trying.

  * * *

  “Colonel Blanth, you have been with us for quite some time, long enough, I suspect, to realize we are not monsters bent on conquest and destruction. Our purpose is quite clear. To unite humanity, to protect all from another horror like the Great Death…excuse me, the Cataclysm, as your people call it. Surely, you have come to understand how easily the survivors of the old empire, both coreward and on the Rim, could succumb to a repeat of the old disaster, and how vitally important it is to ensure this does not happen.” Carmetia spoke softly, calmly. Blanth had been her prisoner, but over the years she’d supervised his captivity, they’d developed somewhat of a friendly rapport. She’d seen to his comfort, and he’d appreciated that, come to see her as something less than the xenocidal nightmare he’d imagined all Hegemony Masters to be. But he still hadn’t told her a damned thing of value. He was a Marine, to the core, and he’d given her a solid lesson about just what that meant.

  Blanth’s attitude toward his captor had become complex, and he believed the sincerity of what she was saying. She did believe the war was mandated by her people’s duty to protect the Rim and its billions, and while that seemed twisted and perverse to him, it instilled a type of ethical purity in the Hegemony’s actions. Reality was often complex and difficult to fully understand. There was something, he knew, to Carmetia’s words. Hegemony culture was based on safeguarding human knowledge and development, as well as populations. He’d seen enough to believe that. But whatever purity of motives they might possess, Blanth still found their genetic caste system grotesque, and he was determined and ready to resist them any way he could. He had no desire to see the Rim conquered, no more by a power that considered itself well-meaning as it killed millions than a vicious xenocidal enemy whose mass murder came without high-sounding purpose. And, he’d be damned if he would turn traitor and help them achieve their goal, even if it saved lives.

  “Carmetia, my people will never accept conquest, they will never adopt your system and become part of the Hegemony. You may destroy us, wipe us out entirely, if your force proves sufficient, but in so doing, you expose the hypocrisy of your stated mission. You cannot defeat us without destroying us, and you cannot save us by annihilating us.”

  “I have no doubt that some of your people, a small cross section, share your stubbornness. Your warriors certainly possess toughness and tenacity However, our experiences here on Dannith and on Ulion, and to a lesser extent, Megara in the time we were there, suggest a far greater degree of pliability in most of your people that your words suggest. Given some level of physical comfort and promises of future security, they show clear signs of accepting the new order, given time. Perhaps you would serve them better by considering what terms you could accept to end your pointless resistance, and assisting us in persuading your comrades to do the same. Such an effort would save many lives.”

  “Even if I would ever do something like that—and I wouldn’t, not if you strapped me to a table and started dissecting me—my comrades would never listen to such counsel. They would despise me as a traitor, curse my name. But they would never heed any urgings to yield.”

  Carmetia shook her head, an involuntary response, born of the dozens, if not hundreds of times she’d had some version of the same conversation with Blanth. The prisoner had mellowed from inveterate hostility to a sort of acceptance of his own situation, but he’d resolutely refused all suggestions that he intervene, that he urge his people to cease their ultimately hopeless defense.

  “Colonel, I know you have come to understand my people better than you did before your capture. You have seen how we have waged war, how we have tried whenever possible to minimize civilian losses. You have not been mistreated, nor have any of your comrades. I think, on some level, you believe the Hegemony’s purpose, that you know we are true to our ideals, and that we exist not to destroy, but to protect your people.” She paused, seeming uncertain for a moment. “I am going to show you something now, Colonel, something I believe might change your point of view. There are dangers in the galaxy far greater than we of the Hegemony, malevolent forces that would enslave or destroy your people, as they would mine. Your warriors have fought mine to preserve independence you could never retain against the true enemy, and in doing so, you have damaged our ability to face the real threat, to protect ourselves as well as you. I am exceeding my authority in sharing this with you, but I fear time is short. You must understand, now. You must see what is coming.” She turned and pointed a small remote-control unit she held toward a large screen at the end of the room. An image of space appeared.

  Blanth looked, squinting, seeing only the inky blackness of the stellar deeps.

  No…there was something else. Something moving. Dark, shadowy images.

  Blanth was a combat veteran, a career Marine, and he’d remained resolute through years of captivity. But as his eyes followed the strange shapes—some kind of ships, he realized—he began to feel true fear, colder and deeper than any he’d endured before.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  CFS Dauntless

  Lyra System

  Year 321 AC

  Barron walked up behind his friend, reaching out and putting his hand on the Marine’s shoulder. “Bryan, I’m so sorry. This is the last place you should be right now, after all you’ve been through.”

  Rogan turned, and he looked right back at Barron. The Marine stood up, something close to straight. His posture was reasonable by normal standards, but Barron instantly saw the difference from Rogan’s normal arrow-straight bearing. He could see through his friend’s mask as well, detect the pain Rogan was trying so diligently to hide. Barron knew the Marine general should still be in the infirmary, or at least in his quarters resting, that the noble warrior was far from fit for another operation. But this was no normal command, no routine mission. If the desperate plan—and Barron knew just how crazy the whole thing truly was—failed, the Confederation was probably finished. Colossus would destroy the fleet, and the Rim would fall. Almost certainly.

  Fit or no, there was no one Barron trusted more than Bryan Rogan. He assuaged his guilt by telling himself Rogan had a right to be involved, that the mission would decide his fate whether he went or not, and excluding him from it would be a worse offense than sending him into the fire. That rationale worked sometimes, and others it didn’t. But it was all Barron had.

  “No, sir…please don’t think that way. There is no place else for me to be now. I would have been hurt if you sent someone else in my place. I know what is at stake here, and I will see it done, Admiral. Somehow.”

  “I know you will.” That was a lie. Barron had immense faith in his Marine general, but deep down, he didn’t believe the desperate plan would succeed. He was sure he was sending his friend to his death, and only the realization that Bryan Rogan would fare no better in defeat and captivity than he would himself had made it possible for him to do what he was about to do.

  “I knew we wouldn’t have any time to waste, Bryan, so I had Atara assemble your attack force. I would have preferred to let you choose your own Marines, of course, but there just wasn’t time. They’re all here and ready, just waiting for you to take command.”

  “No worries, sir. There aren’t many people whose judgment I trust more than Admiral Travis’s…and I reviewed the roster when I first debarked from the shuttle. I think she did an excellent job. I doubt I could have done any better.”

  Barron nodded, and then he hesitated for a few seconds. “Bryan, you know how difficult this mission will be, how dangerous. After what happened with the last operation…” He paused, the pain of Eaton’s loss still fresh. “…I can’t send you in with any high yield ordnance. Everything’s got to be low-power, minimal detection profile. That means, you’re going to have to find the reactors, or the antimatter storage tanks…something you can hit with conventional explosives, something with enough destructive power to take out the whole damned ship. I know it’s going to be hard to find your target, Bryan. We’ll do the best we can to pinpoint your docking location, but that thing’s almost sixty kilometers long, and all we’ve got on its interior layout are wild guesses. However far you’ve got to go, remember, you’ll have to set the explosives, and then get out before they blow.”

  Rogan stared back at Barron for a while, ten seconds, perhaps twenty. Then, he just nodded and said, “I understand, Admiral.”

  Barron felt a coldness in his gut, a wave of guilt that came upon him as he looked back at his friend, the Marine who’d served him loyally since the day he’d first taken command of the old Dauntless. The realization was grim, painful. He knew he was very likely sending Bryan Rogan on a suicide mission, that it was probable not one of the Marines who set out for Colossus would return.

  And, as his eyes stared into his friend’s, he realized Rogan knew it too.

  * * *

  “You know I have to go, Tyler. For the same reason Sara had to lead the last strike. It’s not about a spreadsheet of what I can do, of decisions I might make, or whether I can do any good when the ships are operating under radio silence. It’s none of that, and you know it. I have to go because those men and women going in, the spacers in the ships and the Marines in the strike force, deserve it. They need to know they aren’t being thrown away, that they’re not expendable.” Clint Winters stood on the shuttle bay flight deck, looking right at Barron.

  “I should go. I’m the one sending them in, after all. I should be with them. You can command the fleet.”

  “You know that’s not possible, Tyler.” Clint Winters’ voice was hard, but there was sadness there, too, a grim realization of the desperation they all faced. “We’ve fought well together, my friend. We make a good team. But there’s no way I can replace you…and we both know that. If this mission fails, you know what’s going to happen. The fleet’s either going to surrender, or it’s going to fight its last battle. Either way, it’s got to be your call. The officers and spacers, all the men and women who have fought so hard, they deserve to have you with them at the end, whatever that end is.”

  Barron wanted to argue with his friend, the only other officer who came close to bearing the same crushing load he did, but he didn’t. He knew Winters was right on everything he’d said, and, if they were all facing a likely end to their desperate struggle, Winters deserved to choose how he died. If this was a last, desperate attempt to stop Colossus, to claw after what shards of hope remained for victory, how could he refuse to send Winters?

  He really wished he could go himself. That would be a chance to assuage the guilt, the anguish at sending so many to their deaths. He would lead his people to victory in the desperate operation, or he would die with them. That, at least, would be an end to the pain, an escape from seeing the Confederation fall. It was a grim realization, but Tyler Barron knew death held only relief for him, escape. The only one he could see.

  It was duty again that stopped him, the realization that it would be selfish, even cowardly, to leave his spacers behind, to abandon his fleet before it faced its final test. The men and women on those ships, from the Confederation, and from the Alliance and the Union, and even the small kingdoms of the Far Rim…they had all followed him, they had served with distinction. And many had died. He had to see it through to the end with them. Anything else was unthinkable.

  And that meant, if one of them was going to go take on Colossus, Clint Winters had to lead the Marines in.

  “Go.” It was one word, but it took all the strength Barron could muster to utter it. He turned and looked over at his comrade, his second-in-command—and his friend. “Do what you can, whatever you have to do. Just get those Marines there. Somehow. I know you can do it.”

  Winters nodded. “I’ll get them through, Tyler. You just make sure the fleet’s ready, because even if we manage to destroy that thing, you’ve still got one hell of a fight here against the Hegemony line, fighters and all.”

  Barron nodded, and then he reached his arm out, gasping Winters’s hand. “Fortune go with you, my friend. And those you command.”

  * * *

  “It appears to be the entire combined Rim fleet, Commander. Certainly, their battle line is present at full strength.”

  Ilius stood next to his chair on Colossus’s bridge, staring out at the huge bank of screens. The forces of the Confederation and its allies were arrayed on one side, and the Hegemony fleet on the other. Colossus was by itself, a little over ten light minutes forward of Chronos’s position on Hegemony’s Glory. The massed might of both sides was drawn up, hundreds of warships facing each other, as if about to fight a legendary battle.

  Which they were.

  But every ship in the system was stationary at that moment. There was no movement, no forces advancing, only an eerie calm, as though the moments passing were those before some titanic storm about to strike.

  “Place the fighter wings on alert. I want all squadrons ready to launch on command.” Ilius knew the enemy well enough after six years of war to suspect anything. He didn’t see any way they could seriously threaten Colossus, not after the utter disaster of their last attempt. Chronos had been concerned about the stealth ships, about the ongoing research war the two sides had fought, each modification to the units countered by improvements in scanners and detection. he had feared above all things precisely what had happened, an attempt to sneak high yield weaponry close enough to seriously damage the immense battleship. His relief had been considerable when the scanners picked up the approaching attack, detecting both the radiation and the concentration of heavy metals in the warheads and the massive thrust output of the ships as they raced toward Colossus.