She saw the emotionless expressions on her helpers, and she wondered if the Marines simply hadn’t thought things through, or if they were that stone cold about facing their own deaths. Danger was one thing…certain death was another, and Fritz found it hard to concentrate as she stared into that abyss.

  “We’ve got six charges with us, Captain. Do we cluster them all on one unit, or do we spread our bets?”

  Fritz didn’t have an answer for that question, not until she looked all around. The other tanks seemed identical to the one next to her. It felt like the better option to pick out two or three and spread out the charges, but her mathematical mind extinguished that thought right away. If they were all the same, there was no reasonable expectation of finding a weaker one, one that might be more easily compromised. Besides, she had no idea how many of the units actually held antimatter. She’d found one, and she didn’t have time to look for others.

  “No, we concentrate everything here. If this one goes, if we can breach it enough to release the antimatter inside, it will cripple or destroy Colossus.” Actually, even the slightest compromise would almost certainly destroy the great ship. Even if only a small amount of antimatter escaped, it would create a kind of chain reaction, with the annihilation of a small amount increasing the intensity of the explosive force, and expanding the breach, releasing yet more antimatter.

  That would all happen very quickly, she knew, faster than anyone watching could perceive. Anyone left on Colossus would die instantly, in a cataclysmic explosion so violent as to rival, for a short time, the death of a star.

  It’s a grandiose exit, if you have to go…

  Her own gallows humor was lost, even on her, and she spared the Marines from hearing it.

  “Okay, Lieutenant. Let’s get all the charges here. We’ve got to rig them for simultaneous detonation, and I want to calculate the best locations, the spots likeliest to crack.”

  It was time. Time to destroy the greatest manmade wonder she’d ever seen…and herself and the Marines along with it.

  Her head snapped around as the sounds of fighting moved closer. She had no idea what was happening out there, how many Marines were fighting how many Kriegeri, but she was pretty sure of one thing.

  Time wasn’t her ally.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Colossus

  Lyra System

  Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

  “I want all reserves down here now. All Kriegeri, even the reds. I don’t care if you pull a programmer from his workstation and hand him a rifle. We need more force here…immediately.” Ilius’s voice was betraying the tension that was driving him. He didn’t know if it was luck favoring the enemy, or some kind of successful analysis, but the boarding Rim troopers had landed reasonably close to an antimatter storage area. They’d had to come deeper into the ship to reach it, about three kilometers from where their assault craft had docked, but they’d made it. There was a firefight going on, even as he stood there, listening to the sounds of battle just down the corridor.

  “Yes, Megaron. All personnel in the designated sector and all adjacent ones have been ordered to report to your location. Weapons and ammunition are also en route.”

  Ilius nodded and snapped out a quick reply. “As quickly as possible, Kiloron. As quickly as possible.” He almost asked for more detailed status reports on exact locations of relief forces on the way. But he didn’t have time. Every second he let go by could be the one when the Rim forces lost all hope of escape, when they detonated whatever explosives they had and released kilograms of antimatter from containment. The greatest old tech find in Hegemony history, twenty years of massive restoration efforts, and the most powerful weapon in the Hegemony and on the Rim would be lost in a nanosecond…along with him and every officer and spacer onboard.

  He’d have been worried enough if his Kriegeri were fighting to keep the enemy away from the storage facility, struggling to maintain a perimeter around the vulnerable point. But that wasn’t the case. Things were far worse than that. The sheer surprise of the enemy’s attack…and their uncanny targeting of just where to board, had yielded dividends. Colossus’s soldiers, the understrength Kriegeri in charge of internal security, had been caught flatfooted. There were enough of them to defeat the enemy boarding parties, Ilius was sure of that, at least if they could be massed and concentrated. But they were scattered all over the vast ship, some of them thirty or more kilometers away, with much of that area still inaccessible via the intraship transit system. It might take hours for them to reach the combat area, and by then, whatever happened, it would be over. The Kriegeri who’d been close enough at the onset would have defeated the invaders.

  Or Colossus would be gone, blasted, for all its staggering immensity, to atoms.

  His people were counterattacking, struggling to drive the enemy out. To retake the storage facility and the magnetic bottles that held the precious—and deadly—antimatter. The section the boarders had seized was mostly unused, but not entirely so. There was antimatter there, he’d confirmed that. Five bottles of it, and for all the scope of Colossus, the kilometers of dense imperial alloy that comprised its billions of tons, it would be almost as nothing against the gigatons of force released by the annihilation of even a hundred kilograms of antimatter. There was no defense against such an explosion, no way to survive it…the only choice was to prevent it. And that meant taking out the boarders, whatever it took.

  Ilius was typically calm, supremely confident in his knowledge and abilities, but that discipline was failing him. He was trying to discern if the sounds of battle were advancing toward the storage facility, or if they were static. He was trying to decide what to do—what he could do—even as he railed against himself for once again underestimating the Rimdwellers. The sheer audacity of the plan shook him to his core, and he wondered how to beat such a resourceful, inveterate enemy.

  One thing he knew…there was no place for arrogance. He’d always believed that, and yet he realized he’d allowed hubris to affect his own decisions. He should have been ready for the enemy attack, should have seen it coming. But he’d let Colossus’s seemingly overwhelming might warp his judgment, blind him to dangers.

  Now, there was only one way to avert disaster, one way to redeem himself…and possibly to save the great ship he commanded.

  He turned toward the officers surrounding him, both kilorons, and as he pulled his rifle off his back, he said, “Alright, both of you. With me now. We need every gun we’ve got up there.”

  The officers looked like they were going to argue, most likely that he should remain behind, but he silenced them with a gaze so withering, it might have bored through the steel of the hull if he’d held it a few seconds longer. Then he gripped his rifle tightly.

  He looked over again at the two officers, and he said, “Let’s go.” Then he raced forward and around the corner.

  Into battle.

  * * *

  “No, not like that…we need it up here, where the conduit is narrowest. We’re going to have one chance with this, and we’ve got to make it count.” If we’re going to kill ourselves, let’s at least do it for victory and not some foulup because we weren’t careful enough.

  The Marines reached up, moving two of the charges, placing them exactly where Fritz was pointing. She watched them, hoping like hell she was right, that she’d chosen the correct spot, the most vulnerable. She’d have preferred to have some intensive metallurgy done on the strange imperial alloy, but without the specifics she would have liked, she’d fallen back on simple physics. She was pretty sure they’d chosen the best spot.

  What she didn’t know was, would the small satchel charges the Marines had be enough to penetrate a structure that had been designed and built to contain the most dangerous substance in the universe? That remained to be seen, but from the sounds of the fighting—not only getting closer, but also blocking every escape route her people had, it didn’t seem like any of them would be there to see it. If the explosives worked, it would take some time for the antimatter to leak out, to annihilate with the surrounding matter. But that period would be measured in nanoseconds, and none of those present, not her, nor the Marines, nor the Hegemony crew of Colossus, would recognize that almost theoretical period from the instant the explosives breached containment until the destructive fury of matter-antimatter annihilation obliterated them all.

  It’s your duty. You’ll never get out of here anyway, and if you don’t do it, the Rim is doomed. Fritz had seen heroism up close before, watched as warriors had sacrificed themselves, to win battles, to save their comrades. It all seemed quite poetic, small scraps of pure heroism from the bravest of the brave.

  It felt very different to be staring at her own death, to facing the prospect of issuing the orders—or flipping the switch herself. She understood all the rationale, the reasons she had to do it, even the pointlessness of not doing it, the near impossibility of escape. But that didn’t make it any easier, and it became ever more difficult as the fateful moment approached.

  She scanned the charges as the Marines finished securing them in place, checked and rechecked the connections, the wires, the positioning. It was a relief in its own way, to have something to do, and for a few seconds, she felt almost as if she was checking some system on Dauntless, rewiring a damaged relay. It was an instant of normalcy, fake or not, and on some level, she was grateful for it.

  But reality reasserted itself quickly. She could hear the sounds of battle, and any doubt she’d harbored that they were getting closer vanished. The fight was almost there. They were out of time. She looked at her Marines helpers, sharing an extended glance with each, a series of quick nods, thank yous for their assistance, their courage.

  And goodbyes.

  She plugged the wire into the small detonator she’d rigged up, and she checked the status light.

  A single small light showed the device’s status.

  Ready.

  * * *

  Bryan Rogan crouched down on one knee, leaning just around the corner, his rifle extended in front of him, firing as Kriegeri raced down the corridor. He knew he was horrifying his officers being so far forward, but he didn’t have much choice. His Marines were scattered all over the place, and with the Kriegeri pushing toward the antimatter storage area, they’d cut the force there off from the rest of the boarders. Rogan had no idea how many of his people were still in the fight. He was pretty sure half, at least, were dead or seriously wounded, but that was nothing more than a guess. What he knew was, thirty-one of his Marines were still in the fight in front of the storage facility, and half of them were trying desperately to save ammunition, holding their fire until they had clean shots. That had saved bullets, but it had also allowed the enemy to push forward. The Kriegeri were moving in from three directions, and they were no more than thirty meters from the antimatter storage.

  His people could hold for maybe ten minutes, less if more Kriegeri arrived. And, any chance of escape was completely gone. He’d clung to the hope that a few of the assault ships had survived the enemy bombardment, but that didn’t matter anymore. Not for the Marines with him, standing firm and trying to hold the tide back while Anya Fritz rigged the storage tanks to blow. There was no way out, not anymore. His people could never fight their way back to their ships, even if any were still there.

  Even if they could, leaving the explosives on timer and pulling out was unthinkable. The Kriegeri would be in the storage area long before his people could make it back to the docking zones. They couldn’t risk the chance that the enemy would find and disarm the charges.

  Hell, they don’t even have to disarm them. All they have to do is move them off of the tank. They’re too weak to do any damage to something so well protected…unless they’re positioned correctly.

  He caught something down the corridor. A Kriegeri, peering around the corner. An officer…

  The Kriegeri had made two all-out attacks already, and the last one had been repelled by the slimmest of margins. He was far from sure his people could bat back another.”

  He turned, calling out to the Marines around him, warning them. Then he heard something from down the corridor, in the direction of the storage facility. It was one of the Marines who’d been working with Anya Fritz. The voice was hoarse and difficult to hear so far down the hall. But Rogan’s mind pieced the words together, and an instant later, the meaning was clear.

  The bomb was ready.

  Rogan felt strange. It was almost like relief, at least that the mission was less likely to end in failure. But his satisfaction was offset by the realization that he and his Marines—and Anya Fritz—were almost certainly about to die.

  How much of a fight is it worth to buy a few more minutes? Did it even matter? It was going to end the same way no matter what his people did, how desperately they fought. He was a Marine to the core, and he’d been a warrior his entire adult life. He despised nothing more than surrender. But in that moment, he wondered if his people should just stand where they were, if they wouldn’t all spare themselves more pain and fear if Anya Fritz just detonated the charges immediately, instead of waiting until the enemy broke through. What were a few more moments of life worth, especially ones filled with pain and fear and bitter struggle?

  He came close to giving in, but then something inside him came alive, some spirit deep within him, demanding he fight…insisting that he battle the enemy to the very end.

  He was going to die, he knew that…but he would never surrender.

  He heard sounds, boots slamming on the metal decking…Kriegeri approaching. The enemy was attacking. He snapped back an order, sent a messenger to tell Fritz what was happening. It was almost time. Almost time to detonate the charges.

  But first, he had some Kriegeri to gun down. It was pointless. The soldiers he would kill were all going to die anyway when the antimatter blew. But that realization didn’t stop him. He swung his rifle around and opened fire on full auto.

  Damn the ammunition…better to die with an empty gun than unspent rounds…

  Chapter Forty

  Hegemony’s Glory

  Lyra System

  Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

  “What the hell is going on over there?” Chronos’s voice was hard with rage and frustration. The report from Colossus, news that the great ship had been boarded by Confederation Marines, had stunned him. He almost hadn’t believed it at first, but then the confirmations came in. There were Confederation Marines on the great superbattleship, and after a moment of confusion and analysis, it became sickeningly clear to him. The enemy had gotten a strike team aboard…no doubt hoping to find a weakness inside of a vessel that had none from without.

  His stomach tightened as he realized they just might manage it. It seemed absurd at first glance, an almost impossibly-desperate effort. But the attackers had advantages. Colossus had a fraction of the security forces it should have possessed, and its interior shuttle system was half-finished at best. The ship was immensely protected from outside, its armor of imperial alloy highly resistant to attack. But inside, it was highly vulnerable, as any ship was, and especially one dependent on antimatter for its power generation.

  Chronos had considered any possible vulnerabilities before he’d deployed Colossus, but he’d never even imagined the enemy would send soldiers to board, especially after the disastrous failure of their attempt to attack with cloaked bomb ships.

  They stripped out everything that might show up on a scanner penetrating their cloak. That means no nukes, probably not even any heavy weaponry at all.

  But they don’t need heavy weapons, not to blow up antimatter storage…

  He turned toward his aide’s station, about to order a direct line to Colossus. But the kiloron beat him to it. “Commander, we have a vessel emerging into the system. We’re receiving a communication. It’s a Level One Priority addressed to you, sir.”

  Chronos grabbed his headset and put it on. He’d thought his stomach had been tense before, but if he knew anything for certain in that moment, it was that the newly emerged ship had not brought good news. “Put it through, Kiloron.”

  The instant he heard the voice, he knew he was right.

  “Commander Chronos, this is Hallis, Number Nine of the Hegemony. Akella sent me to deliver you an urgent message. You are to order Colossus to withdraw at once, and return to Hegemony core space at maximum possible speed.”

  “That is not possible, Hallis.”

  “It is a level one command from Number One, Commander.”

  Chronos felt as though he was trapped in a confined space, as though everything was closing in on him. Akella didn’t give pointless orders, and normally, he wouldn’t hesitate to obey. But Colossus was in trouble, and his mind was fixed on that. He’d been about to order Kriegeri transferred from the nearest ships to reinforce the great vessel’s meager internal defense force. But now he didn’t know what to do. For all his intellect and sharpness of mind, he was frozen, unsure how to proceed.

  “Why did Akella send these orders?” He snapped out the question, though he suspected the twisted knot in his gut already knew the answer.

  “I am authorized to brief you fully as soon as I am aboard, but not over open comm lines.”

  “Tell me now, dammit!” He regretted the harshness of his response almost immediately. Hallis was a friend, and the member of the Council he was closest to after Akella. But the stress was eating away at him, gnawing at his self-control, his discipline. The idea of losing Colossus was almost unthinkable. And yet he feared that was exactly what was happening. The last report from the great ship’s control center had only inflamed his concerns. If Ilius left the bridge…things are in very bad shape.