Plasma bolts were joined by projectiles as they drew nearer to the city, and Donovan diverted to find cover behind a blown out building. Colonel Knight joined him there, while Ehri, Bastion, and Knowles found cover further south.

  “This is Bertha One Two. Bravo Bravo is charged and ready. Fire in the hole.”

  A second massive plasma bolt streaked between the mech unit, blasting forward and striking its target. Donovan rose from cover behind it, just in time to see the remains of two mechs topple to the ground with a soft thud. He opened fire into the space around the blast, pouring projectiles and plasma into a third mech that had been forced into the open. It rocked from the attack, falling back as Colonel Knight added her firepower to his. It fell over a moment later and didn’t move again.

  “Mech One, this is Able Three One. We’ve got movement from the south. A whole lot of movement.”

  The commander of Third Platoon sounded frightened. Donovan turned south, his view blocked by a building. He sidestepped around it, searching for line of sight, nearly caught off-guard by an enemy mech that popped out from a nearby alley. A line of projectiles tore into his left arm, leaving a large, open wound before he could back away from it, getting himself under cover.

  “I’ve got him, Mech One,” Colonel Knight said, crossing his path and moving in on the mech. She was joined there by Bastion, catching the mech in the crossfire and mowing it down.

  “Bertha One Two,” Donovan said. “Get Bravo Bravo turned to the south and find a target. Fire when ready.”

  “Roger, Mech One.”

  “Mech One, this is Bravo Five One,” Kroeger said, sounding angry. “We have incoming from the west. Transports, Colonel, just about ready to drop an entire army on our asses.”

  Donovan spun his mech to the west, looking back past their positions. He saw the transports dotting the sky behind them, two dozen at least. Damn.

  “Nobody said this was going to be easy,” he replied. “Actual, we have incoming from the south and rear.”

  “Roger, Delta,” Parker replied, sounding a little overwhelmed. “Keep pushing forward, clear a lane. We’ll handle the rear as best we can.”

  “Roger.”

  Donovan got his mech moving again, running parallel to the city in an effort to get a visual on the forces moving up from the south. He nearly shouted as a powerful plasma beam struck the building a few meters in front of him, sending chunks of slagged concrete rattling against his mech.

  He rounded the debris and froze, making eye contact with two columns of Dread tanks, approaching almost leisurely from the south, a dozen mechs and a few hundred clones soldiers in support.

  He bit down on his lip, preventing himself from saying out loud what he was thinking at that moment.

  They were all going to die.

  50

  Rorn’el watched the battle unfold from the discomfort of his throne, a projection of the battlefield being delivered to him from a gi’shah monitoring the fight from far above it. As he had suspected, the ground forces the humans had sent against him were far too little and far too weak to be of much concern, even with the large number of bek’hai assets they had taken. While the plasma cannon that had given his units so much trouble on the streets of Austin continued to inflict heavy damage, it wasn’t as easy to move its position out here, and it would only be a matter of time before his forces got close enough to destroy it.

  “Domo’dahm, shall we order the gi’shah to join the attack?” Orish’ek asked, observing the battle from his usual position. He spoke softly, as if he were already bored with the humans’ efforts.

  “No. We will follow the plan and keep the gi’shah in reserve for the Ishur.”

  “Domo’dahm, with all honor, we have an opportunity to make a quick end of the ground forces before they can reach the cover of the city. Should we not seize on it?”

  Rorn’el considered it for a moment. He had expected the battle against the rebels to go smoothly, as long as they launched their attack before the Ishur arrived. His pur’dahm were not disappointing him, their forces circling the enemy and slowly boxing them in. In time, there would be nowhere for the humans to go. They would be surrounded on all sides, defeated whether they knew it then or not. How could the humans have believed they could possibly win this fight? Were they so desperate they had abandoned all reason? It certainly seemed so.

  “Am I not the Domo’dahm?” Rorn’el hissed.

  “Yes, Domo’dahm,” Orish’ek replied, lowering his head.

  “We do not need the gi’shah to win this battle.” He pointed to the projection. “Look at how they are moving. Already, their formations are breaking down as they seek shelter from our soldiers. These are not warriors, Orish’ek. Their courage lasts only as long as they are away from our plasma.”

  “What about the mechanized armors?” Orish’ek asked, pointing to them on the display. “They are inflicting heavy damage on our units. We have lost ten mechs to their one already. That is more than we have ever lost in a single day since we arrived here.”

  “We won’t need the mechs anymore, once this battle is over. What does it matter if we lose ten, or twenty, or even fifty? When we have defeated the Ishur, the humans will be broken. We can continue the extermination without distraction.”

  “The Ishur has yet to arrive.”

  “All the more reason to remain patient. Believe me, Orish’ek. The humans will either crumble when they see their last hope destroyed, or we will have crushed them long before that. Look. Look.”

  He pointed to where the humans had placed their plasma cannon. A single gur’shah was defending it, and while the pilot was fairly skilled they were about to be overcome. Three gur’shah were closing in on the position, along with an entire cycle of gel’shah and a hundred soldiers. The humans were putting up a solid fight, but they simply didn’t have the numbers.

  One of the gur’shah vanished as the plasma cannon fired for the last time, catching it head on and reducing it to slag. A few of the clones died with the hit, caught in the radius of the blast. Immediately after, five human soldiers lifted the cannon to their shoulders, attempting to change locations with it. He had seen them move it back a few times already while it recharged, but now there were more enemies at their back, closing in, sweeping through the rebels.

  The gel’shah fired on the position, the entire cycle at once sending a mass of plasma into the area. The lone rebel gi’shah managed to avoid the bolts, but the cannon was not so fortunate. It exploded at the impact, sending shrapnel out and into the humans around it and killing dozens of them.

  “That will be a strong hit on their will to fight,” Rorn’el said. “I do not expect this battle to continue. The Ishur will come, but they will be fighting alone.”

  “Only if that one goes down,” Orish’ek said, bringing Rorn’el’s attention to another part of the battle. One of the rebel mechs was moving through the city, trailing a sizeable force behind it as they tried to destroy it. It moved unlike the others, with a smoothness and grace that was beyond human.

  “Ehri dur Tuhrik,” Rorn’el said. “There is none other that it could be. Their cannon is destroyed. Redeploy the gel’shah toward her location. I want her destroyed.”

  “Yes, Domo’dahm,” Orish’ek said, shifting to his terminal. He spoke into it, and a moment later the gel’shah began moving back south in pursuit of the un’hai.

  Rorn’el leaned back on his throne, his eyes drifting to the different parts of the projection, watching the humans scatter and break beneath the onslaught of his military. They had learned of the loss of their cannon, and even from above the effect on them was obvious. Whatever morale they had possessed when the fight began, it was quickly evaporating.

  And where was the Ishur? His domo’shah were in position, ready to blow it to dust the moment it appeared from slipspace should General St. Martin be foolish enough to drop too close to the planet. He was even prepared for it to come out of slipspace below their defensive web again, with over one hundred gi’shah and ek’shah ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.

  The General was a fool to challenge him. Any who might think to oppose him were fools for the idea. At the same time, in a way he was thankful for all that had happened since Ehri dur Tuhrik had allowed the humans to escape with their technology. After all, the human rebellion had continued for fifty cycles, and now they would be able to put an end to it, to all of it, within a single rotation.

  He had sworn that he would see the humans extinct before his retirement, and he was glad it was a promise he would be able to keep.

  He reached into his gori’shah robes, taking out the splintered crucifix from Juliet’s rosary. He had always admired her desire for peace, her desire for understanding between the bek’hai and the humans, and her efforts to introduce them to her all-powerful God. But there was a great divide between admiration and agreement. Like the legri’shah, the humans were tools to be used. So it was for the strongest of the bek’hai, and so it would always be.

  “Domo’dahm,” Orish’ek said excitedly. “We have a report from the Ishkrem. A domo’shah has just appeared on our sensors. It is undoubtedly the Ishur, Domo’dahm.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Rorn’el replied, his lips parting, his tongue flicking out between sharp teeth. “What is their position?”

  “They are positioned behind the moon, Domo’shah, using it as a shield against a potential attack.”

  “General St. Martin was wise to be cautious, but it will not save him. Order the domo’shah to intercept the Ishur. Do not give it an avenue to escape.”

  “Yes, Domo’dahm.”

  Rorn’el turned his attention back to the earthbound battle. The General had arrived too late to prevent their defeat. Much too late. The truth of it gave him pause.

  Why was the General so cautious, after all of his past maneuvers had been so bold?

  There was something about it that he didn’t trust, but he couldn’t quite grasp what it was. Not that it mattered. The battle was already over, the war already won.

  The humans just didn’t know it yet.

  51

  Gabriel breathed slowly, forcing himself to remain calm as the domo’shah’s phase generators powered down, dropping the Ishur from slipspace back into reality. He felt a sudden wave of nausea at the change, his body affected by the number of times they had slipped in the last two weeks, and he swallowed and tried to focus beyond it.

  “Status,” he said, looking down at the skeleton crew helping him run the Magellan.

  “The Ishur is out of slipspace,” Miranda said, looking back at him. “Comm systems are online.”

  ““Weapons systems are online,” Colonel Choi said, staring at her tablet.

  “Power levels are at one hundred percent,” Sarah Larone said. Phase modulators are stable.”

  “The Dread zero-point reactor is purring like a kitten,” Guy Larone said.

  Gabriel nodded, his hand running across the controls of the starship from the command station. Everything was running the way it was supposed to, which meant it was all up to him now.

  “Attention all hands, attention all hands,” he said, opening a ship wide channel. “Prepare for ingress. I repeat, prepare for ingress. This is not a drill.”

  He couldn’t see it, but he could picture the thousands of soldiers filling the belly of the repaired starship doing their best to buckle themselves in, preparing for the drop.

  Gabriel had expected that Theodore would be the one making this run, piloting the ship with the same deft hand that had gotten it away from the Dread twice in the past. When his father had approached him during the all-hands and asked him to take the controls, he was both surprised and honored. The argument for the position was manifold. One, his father was a valuable symbol of the war, a figurehead that the rest of the forces both above and below the thermosphere could rally around. Second, he needed to stay around to help guide the Ishur during what promised to be a grueling fight against a superior defensive force. Third, while he had been successful navigating the Magellan inside of the planetary defenses, it was Gabriel who had the most experience dealing with approaching Earth from beyond them. He was the more seasoned pilot and as such more fitting for the job.

  Finally, he had a secondary mission he was tasked to accomplish, one that required reaching Earth’s surface. One that might mean the difference between victory and defeat.

  “Magellan, this is Ishur Actual,” Theodore said, his voice mixing with a small amount of static from their makeshift integrated systems. “We’re nearly in position.”

  “Roger, Ishur Actual,” Gabriel replied. “We’re ready and waiting. Guy, can you do anything with that static?”

  The Guy Larone who had once been a whiney, privileged ass had vanished right after the Magellan had landed on the Ishur. Since then, the scientist had been one of the most valuable cogs in their machine, helping to put Maggie back into fighting shape in record time. That he had volunteered for this mission was a testament to his change of heart.

  “I’ll see what I can do, sir,” he said.

  “Excellent. Spaceman Locke, is the DSS ready?”

  “Yes, sir,” Miranda replied.

  While the DSS on the Ishur used a holographic projection to handle manipulation of the darkspace shields, the Magellan’s system was more primitive, offering only a three-dimensional schematic of the ship on a table touchscreen, which could be manipulated and tapped to direct the phase modulation along the ship. More importantly, they had only one control unit to cover the ship, versus four on the Ishur. At least Maggie was a much smaller animal.

  Gabriel checked the Magellan’s sensors. He could see the domo’shah on the longer range array. Seven of them, already moving in their direction.

  Time to thread the needle.

  “On your mark, General,” Gabriel said.

  “Prepare for launch in five. Four. Three. Two. One. Go.”

  Gabriel tapped the control pad, quickly increasing the Magellan’s forward vectoring thrusters, pushing the ship backward through the open hangar bay where they had landed. It took a good thirty seconds to get the ship clear of the Ishur, leaving them floating face-forward, drifting upward to the Dread fortress’ bridge, giving him one last glimpse of the crew there as he manipulated the other thrusters, pushing the Magellan out and away.

  “Magellan is away,” Gabriel said. “I’ll see you when it’s over, Dad.”

  “Roger. Godspeed, and good hunting,” Theodore replied, his voice slightly choked. “Give them hell.”

  “You, too.”

  Gabriel got Maggie facing toward the moon, and then hit the main thrusters, almost feeling the acceleration as the Dread reactor provided more than enough power to the ion generators. The ship burst forward, and he adjusted course as they neared the moon, using its gravity to slingshot them toward Earth.

  They cleared the dark side within minutes, finding themselves nearly face-to-face with one of the incoming Dread domo’shah.

  “Maggie, how long until the Dread starships reach the Ishur?” Gabriel asked at the same time he vectored to get around the fortress.

  “At current velocity, twelve minutes and seventeen seconds,” the computer replied.

  “How long until we reach Earth’s surface?”

  “Eight minutes and four seconds.”

  Gabriel tensed for a moment. He had been hoping they could keep the Ishur back and away from the line of fire long enough for him to finish his secondary mission. It was an incredible long shot to begin with, but now he knew it would be impossible.

  “We’ve got incoming fire,” Miranda said, as the domo’shah ahead of them began firing its secondary batteries.

  Her hand moved across the tablet, guiding the DSS to the impact points, blocking as many of the bolts as she could. The thick armor handled the rest, taking the hit from the smaller plasma cannons without serious damage.

  “Taking evasive maneuvers,” Gabriel said, firing top thrusters to drop the Magellan from its current plane. He reversed course as the bolts began sweeping down, crossing over them and rising above while the gunners on the Dread ship tried to adjust.

  “Enemy starfighters incoming,” Miranda said, helping him keep track of the threat display, impressing him with her ability to multitask with the DSS.

  “There’s nothing we can do about them,” he replied. “Their weapons won’t do much against us.”

  Blue flashes passed all around them as they neared the domo’shah, and a second started releasing volleys in their direction. The Dread starfighters maneuvered around the two fortress’ attacks, mixing in and making strafing runs across the Magellan’s bow. The power flickered on the bridge, the terminals blanking out for a second before returning.

  “We may have lost a conduit,” Guy said. “Good thing we added backups. Rerouting.”

  Gabriel shook his head. He had to do more. He adjusted the vectoring thrusters, throwing the Magellan into a wild rotation. Plasma bolts streamed past them, only a few passing the combination of his maneuvers and the DSS.

  “Are the enemy ships following?” he asked as they slipped past the fortresses.

  “The starships are maintaining course for the Ishur,” Miranda replied. “The fighters have split up, though. We’ve got a tail.”

  Gabriel could see the smaller ships on the Magellan’s display. They were trying to gain velocity to keep up with the larger ship, but it was unclear if they would succeed. It didn’t matter. A new threat had appeared ahead of them in the form of the smaller Dread starships. They were on an intercept course, on their way to take them out.

  “Targets incoming,” Miranda said, too late.

  Gabriel adjusted the vectoring thrusters again, leveling the ship and turning it to run perpendicular to the Earth. The Dread ships began firing their plasma weapons, creating another barrage of fire for him to avoid.