Stockton looked overwhelmed. Whatever he’d expected, it clearly wasn’t for the fleet to be setting out at once.

  “I know, Jake, it’s short notice. I’d have let you know in the initial comm, but I hadn’t completely decided then, and even if I had, I want top security on this. The enemy held Megara for a year, and they’re human just like us. I have to believe they’ve got some kind of assets planted down there, and with the Marines still finishing up the reconquest, we haven’t even begun to root out elements like that. There’s no room for carelessness, not now.”

  “It’s just…I’ve got my squadrons all over the place. I was going to reorganize the wings, and…”

  “You can do it while we’re in transit, Jake. It’s not ideal, but I’ve seen you do tougher things.” Barron sat quietly for a moment, waiting as his comrade tried to absorb the new developments. “Clint’s going to send your staff members back from Craydon by high-speed transport. They’ll meet up with us at Vintares or Jamison. Meanwhile, I’ve handpicked a few of the strike force officers who were posted here to serve as temporary staff support. They should hold you for a while. I’ll send down orders for them to meet you in the flight control conference room at…oh, let’s say ten hundred hours tomorrow. I seem to have forgotten to tell Stara you were coming…” Barron hadn’t forgotten anything, but he’d wanted to speak with his strike force commander first, and without interruption. “Maybe you could go down to flight control now, and let her know your back.”

  Stockton smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

  Barron nodded, but the smile slipped off his face as thoughts of Andi flooded back into his mind. “If I had to wager, I’d bet we’re probably heading right into some kind of fiery hell, Jake, so if you can get a few pleasant hours first, don’t waste them. You never know when the last one comes.”

  Barron stood up, and he forced half of the smile back onto his face, though there was only darkness behind it.

  “That’s an order.”

  * * *

  “You look fantastic.” Jake Stockton stood in the open door of the hospital room, a smile on his face that belied the stress he felt inside, the feeling of gloom about just what his people would be facing next. But even in the darkness, with the shadow of death and ruin all around, there were sparks of light. He’d seen Stara, and he’d get to spend at least a couple days on Dauntless with her before he had to leave. That was one ray of pure illumination. Another was seeing an old friend, one he’d thought he had lost.

  “Yeah, just fantastic.” Olya Federov’s tone was sarcastic, though not in a nasty way. Stockton didn’t take it that way, either. He knew just how he’d behave in her shoes, and all he could say about that was, the doctors and medical technicians were damned lucky to have her on their hands, rather than him.

  “You do, Olya…really. My God, I thought we were going to lose you…for a long time.” The first month after Federov had been rescued from her battered ship had been dicey. She’d died and been revived twice, and it hadn’t been until the thirty-second day in the hospital when her doctors had pronounced that she would indeed survive, though they’d been far from answering the next most important question, at least to an ace Lightning jock.

  Would she fly again?

  That mystery was still somewhat undecided, though Stockton wasn’t about to bet against her.

  Federov hobbled across the room toward Stockton. She was using a cane, one she leaned on heavily, and though she held back the groans he was sure were trying to escape, the grimace on her face announced that each step was a painful exercise. “If I look so good, sign me out of here. And, order the flight deck to give me access to a Lightning. I’ve been stuck here for ten months, and God knows how rusty I am.”

  “Olya…be patient. You’ll get there.” Stockton had no reason to be sure about that, but somehow, he was. Just as he would have been about himself. Olya Federov had been through the fire, many times. This wasn’t going to be the end of her career. It couldn’t be.

  “I’ll get there quicker if I can get out of here and get some hours in the cockpit.”

  “You can barely walk right now, Olya. Give it time.”

  “Time? You think we have a lot of time? I’m in the infirmary, not out to pasture somewhere. I know something’s going on. The lull is over, and we all know the stakes when the fighting starts up again. I need to be ready.” She paused, looking down at her cane, and at her legs, both of them wobbling despite a considerable effort to hold them steady. “Who gives a shit about how I’m walking? You of all people should be aware that the Lightning is flown from the seated position.” She was still weak, he could hear that in the hollowness of her tone. But there was strength there, too, and stubbornness, almost to rival his own. That was the Olya Federov he knew so well.

  And he did need her. She was one of his Horsemen, the four pilots who shouldered the immense burdens of the war with him. They were five veterans, crack pilots all, and they’d shared the task of leading thousands of pilots, vast numbers of them rookies, into one desperate fight after another. His compassion, his kindness, everything in him that made him human, cried out inside to deny Federov’s request, to tell her to rest, to complete her recovery, before she even thought of flying again.

  But the cold steel within him shone hard and bright, and like the clang of sword on sword, it demanded hard action. He needed Olya Federov, and, friend or not, he had to get her back in command of her wings as quickly as possible. He felt a wave of guilt as he made a decision, as he overrode every decent impulse within him and said, “Okay, Olya. I’ll issue orders for you to get two flight hours a day…if and only if you can get the chief surgeon to sign off on it. And you stay here when you’re not there, and do everything else the doctors tell you to do.” He paused and locked his eyes on hers. “Deal?”

  She looked up, seeming for a moment like she might argue or debate, make some effort to negotiate further. But finally, she just nodded and uttered a single word.

  “Deal.”

  Chapter Nine

  Hegemony’s Glory

  Orbiting Dannith

  Ventica III

  Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

  “All systems report go, Commander. All fleet units signal readiness to depart.”

  Chronos nodded. He’d been on the receiving end of a blizzard of similar reports for the past hour, and they’d started to all sound the same. There was one in particular he’d been waiting for, but until that arrived, he was content to allow his staff to handle the rest of the fleet’s prep. One thing was certain enough. If there were any problems, someone would let him know.

  The fleet was vast, reinforced with every unit Akella had been able to spare to send to the Rim. It was the largest force the Hegemony had thrown against the Rimdwellers yet, the greatest single fleet it had fielded in its entire history. Chronos couldn’t begin to imagine how sparse Akella had left the forces on the core frontier to augment his strength, and he’d actively tried not to think about it at all. He’d told himself her actions had nothing to do with any feelings she had for him, but the thought kept nagging at him, nevertheless. He’d long tried to hold back the affection he felt for her, inappropriate emotions for a Master, and certainly one of his rank. Still, it tugged at him to think he might have influenced her judgment, that she might have made decisions based on more than cold, strategic consideration.

  “Commander…”

  The instant he heard the tone, Chronos knew the transmission he’d been waiting for had come.

  “…Commander Ilius for you.”

  “On my line,” he snapped, as he pulled his headset on. “Ilius?”

  “Yes, Commander. I am in place, and all stations are manned and ready. Colossus is green.”

  “Very well, old friend. Now, it is time…time to end this long and destructive conflict.” Chronos hoped the enemy would yield when they saw what they were up against, at least before he was forced to unleash the true power he now commanded. He was determined to end the war, to bring the Rim into the Hegemony, but he had no desire to kill millions.

  Or billions.

  But he knew he would do what he had to do. The war could not continue endlessly, pulling Hegemony forces from places they were needed.

  “Commander…” Illius’s voice again, a bit of edginess working its way in.

  “Yes…speak freely.”

  “I have all stations active and ready, sir, but…well, this thing is big, and its systems are complex. We’re undercrewed, Commander, badly. And, that doesn’t even address how many more soldiers we should have on here.”

  Chronos was silent for a moment before responding. He’d known the crew assignments were light when he’d made them. He’d sent the numbers he had for a simple reason. They were all he had.

  “We do what we can, Commander Ilius, and you know as well as I that the losses in this war have vastly exceeded even the direst estimates at the onset of hostilities. Our reserves of trained manpower are stretched to the limit, a situation exacerbated by limited transport capacity. As far as the number of soldiers assigned to Colossus, the situation with the Gray Kriegeri is even worse than with the Red. Three million soldiers left behind on Megara, another million and a half in garrison on Ulion. Two million more on the other worlds we occupy, including five hundred thousand on Dannith.” He paused. “We have what we have, my friend. I know you’re short of reserves, but it is unlikely you will suffer significant casualties. The enemy may try to hit you, but if he does so, he will only be playing into our hands. The chance of Colossus suffering significant damages seems quite small…especially with the surprises we have in store for the Rimdwellers. The likelihood of your needing combat troops for any purposes besides basic security details is even more unlikely.”

  “I know you’re right, Commander. It’s just that we’ve underestimated them before, and there’s no question they’ve repeatedly exceeded our estimates of their capabilities.”

  “That is true, of course, but I see no reasonable chance that they can match the technology we are putting forth. You command the iron fist, my old friend. Stay focused, use the power you command, and together, we will finally bring the Rim to heel.”

  “Yes, Commander.” There was still caution in Ilius’s tone, that was obvious, but Chronos felt he’d made some progress rallying his friend. He couldn’t fault Ilius for retaining some doubts. After all, Chronos had plenty of his own.

  “Commander Chronos, we’ve picked up…something…on the deep system scanning array. At least there was something there.”

  “Prepare your people, Ilius. The fleet departs in two hours.” Chronos cut the line and turned back toward the officer who’d just spoken. “We picked up what? ‘Something’ is not an acceptable description, Kiloron.”

  “Yes, Commander…but it was just a flash, an intermittent contact. I would have disregarded it, but it was close to transit point three.”

  Chronos felt something. Curiosity, concern? He wasn’t sure. The contact was in exactly the spot some kind of ship sent by the Confeds would be, but the deep system scanners had picked up hundreds of contacts in the ten months since the fleet had retreated back to Dannith. Six of them had proven to be cloaked Confederation scoutships. The others had been comets and meteors and various other detritus coming through the point…or they remained unexplained, manifestations of a hundred possible phenomenon.

  Or Confed ships that eluded our further efforts at tracking them.

  “Dispatch a system patrol squadron to search the area.” It wasn’t something he was going to ignore…but he wasn’t about to delay the fleet’s departure over some scanner ghost. If it was a Confed scout, and they managed to get a decent scan of Colossus, no harm done. Let them tell their comrades.

  The terror will simply begin that much sooner.

  * * *

  “What the holy hell is that?” Andi Lafarge sat on Pegasus’s bridge, staring at the display. The ship was on minimal power, doing everything possible to stay hidden. That meant passive scans only, and as far into the outer system as they were, information was limited to the basics, rough size and mass estimates.

  But what she was seeing had to be some kind of malfunction.

  “AI gives a range of one point three to one point nine trillion tons.” Vig’s tone left little doubt that Pegasus’s number two was as shocked—and as skeptical—as her commander.

  “That’s impossible. Do a system diagnostic, the best you can without increasing power flows. We’re going to stay right here on zero thrust until I’m sure we weren’t spotted coming through.”

  “Yes, Andi. Initiating systems check now.”

  Andi drew a deep breath and shook her head. She’d come to Dannith to find out what the Hegemony was up to. She’d hadn’t expected to discover anything useful until she got down to the surface, but now she wondered if she should turn back immediately, and report that—thing—her scanners were telling her was out there.

  Is that some kind of asteroid or large meteor? They’d have had to tow it there…and I can’t imagine the power that would have taken. And why? Are they building some kind of giant fortress to defend Dannith? No, that’s not positioned well for defensive purposes…

  “Passive scanners confirmed fully functional, Andi. I’ve checked and rechecked. Unless we’re getting hit with some kind of deliberate ECM pulse we haven’t detected yet, that thing is there, and it’s that big.”

  Andi looked at the screen, her eyes wide. She tried to tell herself it had to be some kind of asteroid. Pegasus was way too far out to give any energy output readings, at least on passive scans, and it was a rational assumption that nothing manmade could be that size.

  But Andi knew that wasn’t true, and memories flooded back, cold and ominous. She thought back to the fateful mission, when she’d first met Tyler. The planetkiller had been the biggest construct she’d ever seen—or had seen since. It had been massive, larger even than the current contact, and terrifying. She didn’t know if what she was seeing was something else like that or not, but if the Hegemony had something remotely comparable to the planetkiller, the Rim was in worse trouble even than she’d thought.

  She watched, staring, as if her squinting eyes would somehow divine some hidden information, provide her with at least a scrap of clarity. Then, her heart almost stopped.

  She didn’t have any energy readings, or anything more detailed on her scanners, but there was one thing she could tell immediately.

  The thing was moving.

  She watched as the contact pushed away from Dannith, and all around, she could see the units of the Hegemony fleet moving with it. She felt her insides clench, and a wave of nausea almost took her. She still didn’t know what the massive contact was, but she was terrified the suspicions growing in her would prove to be true.

  She was looking at a ship, undoubtedly an imperial artifact of some kind.

  “Andi, we’ve got contacts moving this way. Eight ships, all escort-sized. They’re coming in on a course almost directly toward us.” After a few seconds of silence, Vig continued, “Their line intersects ours approximately eight thousand kilometers behind our current position.”

  They picked us up on their scanners…

  Andi gripped the armrests of her chair as the nervous energy bubbling up from inside her became too hard to contain. If the enemy had detected Pegasus, they were all as good as dead.

  She almost snapped out a command, ordered Vig to engage the engines for a full thrust dash back through the point. She didn’t like the odds making a run for it offered, but it was better than nothing.

  But she stayed silent. Why are they coming in behind us if they can scan us?

  Maybe they just got a blip when we transited in. If they can’t pick us up now, and we maintain silent running…

  “All power systems down…” Then, a second later. “Except passive scanners…switch them to battery power.”

  “Andi, that will cut battery levels available for life support in half. We’ll have four hours, five at most.”

  “I understand. Just do it.” They had to stay as quiet as possible, and hope like hell those oncoming ships didn’t find them. If the enemy discovered their position, running out of air and heat would only be two problems of many, and not the most immediately deadly.

  But they still needed to get as much data as they could on that behemoth, whatever the hell it was.

  She could hear the sound of the air pumps go silent, and come back a few seconds later, clearly running at reduced power levels. It only took a few seconds for the air to become staler, less fresh.

  “Life support on minimal levels, Andi. It might get a little cold in here after a while.”

  “We’ve got coats and blankets…and we’ll be a damned sight better off shivering a little than we’ll be if those ships find us.” Even as she spoke, her eyes were fixed on the display, watching the Hegemony fleet, and whatever monstrosity was with it, continuing to accelerate toward the outer system.

  “Escort ships still on a course to move behind us, Andi. They have to be looking for us, but it doesn’t look like they’ve got a hard fix.” Vig was speaking softly, an instinctive reaction to their need to hide, but also one with no basis in reality. Sound didn’t travel across the vacuum of space, and Andi knew they could bang on drums and shout at the top of their lungs, and it wouldn’t matter at all…and Vig knew it, too. But not all responses to stress and fear were rational ones.

  But what did they pick up, a full read or just some kind of scanner flash? If the enemy was sure there was a ship lurking in the outer system, they’d send whatever resources they needed to root out her people. If they weren’t sure what they’d read, if they were just making a pass to check, Pegasus just might be able to lay low until it was over.