But it would put her side back in the race, of that she was sure.

  If the first two items held. If it worked, and if the enemy didn’t have a cure.

  One minute…

  She watched, waited, each second passing like an hour. The enemy was firing at full, and another of her ships blinked out of existence. But in just a few seconds, she would get to open fire. Then, it would be a truly two-sided battle.

  She felt odd, strange. For once, her ship was back from the fight, her ship, and three others, out of range. It bit at her, cut her to the quick to watch her people fighting the battle without her…but she had survived this long, and she was going to lead the strike on the planet. She had to find some Masters, preferably a number of them, but at least one…and despite the fact that the enemy lacked any defensive mechanisms to counter her fleet, besides of course their own force of ships, they very likely had some infantry on the ground. Getting in, grabbing a few Masters, and pulling out…it had seemed like the quickest and easiest part of her plan…until now.

  But she was determined to do it, however much it cost her, however much difficulty it entailed. It was even enough to justify her staying out of the fight in space.

  She watched as her fleet opened fire, almost all her ships at the exact same time. The enemy fleet took a number of hits…but no ships were destroyed. That wasn’t unexpected, especially since her force was targeting all the vessels, and not just a few at a time. But it dug at her nevertheless, and especially more when yet another of her ships exploded.

  She kept looking, and even as the battle began to turn, and as the enemy began losing ships, she found her thoughts focused on the mission ahead. Part of her considered her entire fleet expendable, save for the few ships needed to grab a couple of the Highborn…and another section of her felt every hit, every ship destroyed. But she stayed where she was, not moving at all. Nothing was more important to her than the destruction of the enemy…but it was the destruction of them all she really sought.

  The battle began to go her way, as she had expected from the start. Half the enemy ships were gone, and the other half were badly damaged. Her fleet continued to close, and they continued to fire. Then, the last four ships attempted to escape. But she was ready for that.

  Her ships had been warned, and they pursued immediately. They caught three of the four ships, and blasted them to bits…but the last one escaped.

  Andi knew that had been a possibility, and she shifted in her position, a soft curse escaping from her lips. She knew that ship had a long road back to get help, and that she would be gone by the time it returned with any help. But it still pissed her off to watch it go.

  Still, she had another job to do, and that’s where most of her focus went. “All ships, except the four…do damage checks, and make some honest calculations. Anything that can get to 80% engine power or higher in an hour is a go. Everything else, set to self-destruct and get aboard the other ships.” She figured half her surviving vessels would make the rating…and half would be destroyed. That meant a lot of spacers loading onto her surviving ships…but that wasn’t her problem, not just then.

  Her problem was getting down, finding one or more Masters, and capturing them. She had known about this part of the operation for a long while. She had known it would be difficult, but now it seemed almost impossible.

  It’s not vital, she told herself. If the enemy is infected, they are, regardless of whether we know it or not. But she realized she had to know, that the only way she was going to leave the system was with one or more Masters.

  “The four ships…let’s move forward. It’s time to grab some Masters…and get the hell out of here.”

  * * *

  Andi walked slowly, looking all around. She’d almost landed in the jungle just outside the city, but at the last minute, she’d changed her course and come down close to the center of the capital.

  It was the best place to find enemy specimens, she knew, and she didn’t have a lot of time. She didn’t know for certain how many soldiers the enemy had on the planet, but she was sure it was enough to take out her entire force many times over. She had to strike quickly, as quickly as possible, and she figured the center of the capital was the best place.

  “Andi…we’ve got one hundred twelve men and women ready. That leaves forty-six on the ship.” Tarren spoke softly. “That’s the minimum to fly it out of here.”

  “That’s good…let’s set out.”

  Andi knew that her ship was landable—obviously—but also that it had been in space since its construction, and that her landing effort was its first one. She hadn’t figured out the minimal crew to conduct a liftoff, and though she was willing to wager that it could be done with fewer than 46, and far fewer perhaps, she was willing to accept those amounts. That gave her seventy percent of the crew for her expedition, and if that wasn’t enough, well, there were three other ships. As a minimum, they only needed one of the enemy, though she would prefer four or five if they were available. Any more than that would just be extras. She suspected others in the high command anticipated interrogations and other efforts with captives, but she only wanted one thing. She wanted to see them start to show symptoms…and then she wanted to watch them die. She realized the possibility of getting useful information from some of them…she just didn’t care.

  She stood for about two minutes, allowing her aide to form up the group, and then she set out. The ship had come down in an unimproved area, just outside the main city’s core, and she headed directly toward the center.

  She knew many of the residents would be equipped with the spinal mounts, and be slaves to the enemy, but she suspected that millions of them would be held only by pressure, by whatever measures the enemy had taken to control them. She didn’t look past that, however, and after much consideration, she’d decided to try an avoid as much contact as possible, to get in and out quickly…and not rely on any of the people present.

  She just needed a few of the aliens. She knew the Highborn weren’t technically aliens, but she’d come to think of them that way. She was trying her best to eliminate them all, and considering them aliens was useful.

  She walked for about half an hour, coming into the center of town. The whole city seemed abandoned, though she knew that was just because of her incursion. The people were probably just inside the buildings, and she realized at any point, fighters could open up. She hoped the enemy didn’t know why she was there…but she was sure they knew, at least, that she was there.

  And they pulled everyone in…

  She looked at the buildings all around her, wondering if there were Arbeiter and Kriegeri inside, or even Masters. She could imagine that the highest rated individuals had been killed, but also that they had been absorbed…or enslaved by the implants. She realized that although she had accepted the Hegemony forces as allies, and that she considered some of their senior officers truly reliable, she still held most of them in some kind of middle ground. She wouldn’t say she viewed them as she had seven years before, when they were the enemy…but she hadn’t come completely around either, and she doubted she ever would. For most of them at least.

  She looked all around as she walked forward, checking everything. It was spookily quiet, which she took as both good and bad. It suggested that the enemy didn’t have large forces present, but it also implied that there weren’t many Masters there either. She realized that despite the effort behind the current push, and its massive reliance on the presence of Masters, it was uncertain how many of the alien overlords were actually present. She had done some calculations herself, come up with estimates that some hundreds were on Beta Telara III…but she didn’t know, not for sure. Certainly, from the little she’d seen of the alien Collars, regular humans so equipped were nearly as reliable to the enemy as Highborn. Perhaps there were fewer of the aliens than she had expected. She even considered the possibility that there were none at all on the planet. That didn’t seem likely, but it wasn’t impossible. How would she proceed if she couldn’t find a few enemies to bring back?

  Well, you’ll probably be dead if you can’t find any Masters…

  She didn’t really consider the possibility that there were none at all on the planet, but a world was huge, with plenty of places to hide. It was definitely possible that she wouldn’t find any…and she realized that while she could sacrifice herself, perhaps, and even all the people with her, she couldn’t guarantee success. She would search, like crazy. She was almost certain none of her ships would leave without any enemy, but that was far from a guarantee of success.

  None of her thoughts would change the outcome, of course, not really. But she had to know, and she had to know soon…whatever it took.

  If there was any chance…any chance at all…

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  CWS Dauntless

  Vela Tracasys System

  Year 329 AC (After the Cataclysm)

  Tyler sat and watched the activity on Dauntless’s bridge for a while. The fleet had fallen back, three systems now, seeking to avoid any enemy vessels. The Highborn had pushed forward slightly, but they hadn’t really attacked. He’d been worried they would, at least for a while, though he realized they were doing exactly what he would be doing in their shoes. An extra six months would get him some ships from home, of course, but not that many, and his own repair jobs would be grossly inferior to the ones the enemy could probably get done, at least unless he sent his damaged ships all the way back to the Core and the Iron Belt…and that trip alone might take two months of more…each way.

  He looked across the bridge at Atara. The ship was her command vessel, and it had been for years now. He knew he’d overstepped his positions at times when he’d been present before, but now he tried to remain silent, to allow Atara to command her forces. He couldn’t tell for sure that she’d noticed, but he decided she had.

  He stood up, seeming sudden in his motions. He had decided what his plans were, at least for the short term. He would maintain his position, try to face the enemy close to their position, at least while they were more or less dormant. But when they moved, in force, which he knew was coming, he had decided to withdraw to the Confederation. It was a long way back, but it was really the only choice. The Hegemony didn’t offer any other choke points, places where a multiple systems’ jump gates converged. With the loss of Striker, he’d also sacrificed the rest of the Hegemony. He knew that, and he guessed that Chronos did as well. Whether that meant he would follow Barron, abandon the rest of his homeland, was still unresolved. Barron had spoken with Tulus, as well as the other Confederation senior officers, right before several of them left for the desperate effort that represented the only true hope for the Confederation and its allies. They had all agreed. It was okay to remain in Highborn space for a while…but the instant the enemy advanced, he had to withdraw…even if he left the viral teams, and Chronos, behind.

  He suspected Chronos knew that, too. In fact, he was sure he did. But he didn’t know if his former enemy, and now his true friend, would be strong enough to rise up, to lead his forces away, even if his government ordered differently. He’d come to view Chronos as an independent of sorts, but he wasn’t sure he could ignore the orders if they came from his own masters, either.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have any leaders at the moment, at least none willing to try and order him around. Gary Holsten seemed to have managed to attain something of a parity of power with the newly elected Senate, with each of them controlling roughly half of the business. And neither had tried to interfere in military decisions. He knew that was permanent as far as Holsten was concerned, but probably only temporary as far as the Senate went. Sooner or later, they would try to interfere, in some way.

  Barron was fairly sure there wouldn’t be that much time, however. After the enemy advanced on the Confederation, in force, all of them, and not just the looming threat of the forces that had taken Grimaldi, things would start to happen quickly. There would be a battle, likely, but it would be quicker, and sharper, than the ones that had already occurred. Barron didn’t kid himself, didn’t try and argue that he had a chance. He would fight, because there was no other option, and he would retreat again, before his entire force was destroyed. Then, he would fight again, falling back, to the Iron Belt, and then to the Core. He fancied the final battle would take place around Megara, but he didn’t know if he’d live that long.

  Unless the virus actually works…

  He knew there was a possibility, a chance that it would work, perhaps even that it would be enough to defeat the enemy, at least in a way. But he couldn’t get over the doubt, the realization that any number of things could interfere with the success of the plan.

  But it’s still the only thing we’ve got that has a real chance of success…

  He told himself that, he even believed it…but he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the far-fetched plan actually working.

  He’d been mostly silent on the bridge, leaving the command duties to Atara Travis. But he suddenly realized that he had bolted to his feet and then remained where he was. Dauntless’s crew was among the best, but he could feel the eyes of a number of those trying not to scan his actions. He felt suddenly exposed, and he rushed off, back toward the office where he could be alone for a while.

  He realized, as he approached the room, that Atara had not taken it, that two years of him in the fortress, and her commanding from Dauntless, hadn’t moved her to change from the second-largest room to the first, despite the fact that she had been promoted several times in the interim.

  And it didn’t surprise him at all. Travis had known he would return to Dauntless, he was sure of that, and she hadn’t moved a thing. She hadn’t taken his chair out on the bridge either. It was typical for her…and so atypical for most officers, and it enhanced his feelings for her, even more than before.

  He slipped through the door, and he let it close behind him. He stood for a moment, and then he turned and walked around the desk, sitting and staring straight ahead…and wondering if he would ever see Andi again.

  * * *

  “I am thrilled to be talking to you again, Jake…” Barron had come at once when he’d gotten word. Jake Stockton was awake, and more so, reasonably alert. It was starting to look like the surgery had actually been a success.

  “It is…good to be…talking to you…sir…” Stockton was awake and alert, but he was still weak. “I woke up…three or four times…before, I think, but…this is the…first time I…was really alert…”

  Barron didn’t know if he would go with “really alert” part himself, but he understood what Stockton meant. And the preliminary data the doctor had given him was good, too. Stockton could still die, he supposed, but he realized he didn’t believe that anymore, not at all. He wasn’t quite all the way to buying that Stockton had returned, that he was on his way back to one hundred percent, but it was definitely good.

  “That is wonderful, Jake. You were famous already…and now you’re the first one survive having an implant removed.” Barron realized he might be the only one, too, for a long time. The doctors had made amazing progress on the operation, no doubt…but Stockton’s situation was different from everyone else’s too. Even if things continued to go well, and he survived, the next subject of the surgery could still easily die. He or she would likely be unwilling, and completely under the control of the enemy, of the Collar…unlike Stockton. But Barron didn’t think about that, not much at least. He had about fifty other things occupying his worries more than expanding the surgical roster for transforming people back.

  Or more like five hundred other things.

  “I…want to…fly again…sir…”

  The words surprised Barron…for about three seconds. Then he remembered who he was talking to. “Jake, I know why you had the surgery done, and I won’t stand in your way when the time comes…but you’ve got a lot of recovery to do before you’re ready to fly.” He paused a moment, and then he added, “A lot.”

  Stockton seemed like he was ready to leap up and climb behind a fighter’s controls immediately…but he also looked ridiculous. He could hardly move, and he was already getting tired. Finally, he said, “I…know I’m not…ready yet…but soon…” He looked up at Barron, and the vulnerability in him was clear. He had been the best pilot, probably in known human history, but he had given himself to it entirely to achieve that. Barron had known that all along, but only then, he really got it. He knew why Stockton had been willing to have the operation, why he hadn’t been prepared to wait.

  “Jake, I’ll make a deal with you. You get into shape, and I mean really into shape, and I’ll hold open the door of your fighter for you. Just don’t push it, don’t try to get in before you’re ready. Because that I won’t allow.” He knew as he uttered the words that Stockton would take them as a partial victory. But he was serious…he wasn’t going to allow the pilot near a fighter, not until his doctors gave the go ahead.

  But he thought to himself, even as he stood there, that he might not have the chance to wait long enough. Stockton wasn’t in any kind of shape to fly yet…but Barron wondered if he would have the time to fully recover. He hadn’t envisioned any scenario where he surrendered to the enemy, but he realized, Stockton had even more reason to avoid capture. If it came down to the final fight, could he really force Stockton to wait, to die as a traitor to the enemy?