“Sorry,” Gabriel said. “Major, we had a pilot crash land after our first meeting. Captain Soon Kim. I don’t suppose you know what happened to him?”

  Gabriel turned his head, his heart sinking when he saw Donovan’s expression.

  “I’m sorry, Captain. We rescued him after the crash, and he was with us for a while. He was killed in action back in Texas.”

  Daphne was going to be heartbroken. He felt his own sense of loss at the news. There would be time for mourning later. “I understand. Thank you, Major.”

  “He was a good man. A hell of a mech pilot, too.”

  “He was.” Gabriel paused, pushing those emotions aside. “Major, there’s a standard radio over there. You should be able to tune into your people’s frequency through it.”

  Donovan dropped into a small seat beside a series of analog switches. “Please, call me Donovan. How do I use it?”

  “Donovan, the dial tunes the frequency. Press down on the button to speak. It’s old tech, but it works. By the way, my name is Gabriel.”

  “I know,” Donovan replied. “You St. Martins have quite a reputation.”

  Gabriel felt the ground shake as the Magellan fired her bottom thrusters, beginning to process to regain altitude. It would have put an impossible strain on her original power supply to stay inside gravity for any length of time. With the Dread reactor, she could remain almost indefinitely.

  “We can’t see if anything is attacking us in here,” Ehri said, finally making her way to the front.

  Gabriel scanned the world outside through a narrow window. He could see the Magellan’s troops ahead of him, working their way toward the city. “The armor is meant to withstand mountains falling on top of it. We can take a pretty solid beating.”

  “I think I’ve got it,” Donovan said from the co-pilot seat. “Actual, this is Delta, do you read me? Over. Actual, this is Delta. Over.”

  “Colonel, is that you?” Kroeger said after Donovan repeated himself a few times.

  “Kroeger,” Donovan replied. “What’s your sitrep?”

  “I’ve got three guys from my unit with me, holed up in a building near the front lines. We’ve been sniping any of the clone bastards that show their faces and trying to help the rest of the units through to the fortress, but they’ve got a serious barricade in the way. Mechs and tanks, and they ain’t moving.”

  Gabriel looked back at Donovan. “Colonel Choi will spot the defenses and start hitting them. We need to be ready to move in.”

  “Roger that,” Donovan said. “Kroeger, did you see the starship that landed behind you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “She’s one of ours, and she’s ticked off. See if you can organize a team to make a break for the fortress when she starts clearing the field. We’ll be right behind you in a big ugly thing with a pointed front.”

  “Hell yes, sir,” Kroeger replied. “Sir, it looks like she’s got a lot of mosquitos biting at her neck.”

  Gabriel didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Oh, there goes one,” Kroeger said a moment later. “Ouch. That had to hurt. Who’s shooting on that thing?”

  Gabriel smiled, keeping the excavator on track.

  “The tide is turning, Donovan,” he said. “I can feel it.”

  “You and me both, Gabriel. You and me both.”

  54

  Theodore kept his eyes glued to the Magellan from the time it backed out of the Ishur’s hangar until it vanished around the dark side of the moon. He felt a heavy mixture of fear and pride at the sight of it, knowing it was his boy out there instead of him, running the gauntlet on a mission that was as impossible as anything they had ever tried.

  A mission as impossible as getting a starship away from Earth during an alien invasion.

  Once the Magellan had vanished from sight, he settled back into the Dread command chair, shifting a few times to get comfortable. Alan was sitting at the station directly in front of him, and he glanced back knowingly. The two men had their past differences, but the shared goal had brought back the friendship they had once shared. Grudges were pointless, especially when lives were at stake.

  “Alan, how long do we have?” he asked.

  “About twelve minutes,” General Cave replied.

  Theodore shifted in his seat again. He picked up the tablet that was spliced into the terminal in front of him and checked the threat display for himself. Seven ships. Seven! He smiled. The Domo’dahm wasn’t taking any chances with them.

  “The question now is, how do we stay alive long enough for Gabriel to do what he needs to do?”

  He said it out loud, posing it to his bridge crew. He was down some of his most trusted people after they volunteered to go with Gabriel. James, Vivian, Miranda, Guy and Sarah Larone. Had he made a mistake letting Spaceman Locke go with Gabriel? Would she have accepted his decision if he had said no? He doubted it.

  “We can slip away and come back,” Reza said, offering up a suggestion.

  “And leave our people behind? No. Never again.”

  “Then what if we reverse course? Back away? We can gain about six minutes.”

  “And be that much further away from Earth,” Theodore replied. “Let’s split the difference. Colonel Ames, reverse at half.”

  “Yes, sir,” Colonel Ames replied.

  “Any other ideas?”

  There was silence on the bridge.

  “Mr. Mokri, can you give me an estimate of how long we’ll last against seven Dread fortresses based on our shield accuracy from that tangle with the last two coullions?”

  “Yes, sir. One minute.”

  Reza began working on his tablet while the precious seconds ticked away. Theodore didn’t waste them, considering their other options.

  “What if we charge one of the flanks?” General Cave asked. “Get in close. It will make it harder for them to all target us at once.”

  “Not a bad thought, but close range makes the DSS less effective. We need to find the right balance.”

  “Do we have time to slip past them, and get them all gathered on one side? That will lower our profile and make it easier to cover the area with the shields.”

  “Except it won’t. The modulation only covers a small area at any given time. Multiple angles of attack give us four points to try to defend ourselves with instead of one. Again, it’s a balance.”

  Another minute of silence followed.

  “I have the calculation, sir,” Reza said. “At optimal DSS positioning, we can gain another eight minutes.”

  “Giving Gabriel about twenty,” Theodore said. “That’s not enough time.”

  Two more minutes of silence had passed when the edge of the first fortress appeared around the corner of the moon, dark and imposing.

  “They’re launching fighters, sir,” General Cave said a moment later.

  Small ships would be hard-pressed to take down the Ishur alone, but they could get in close and weaken it.

  “ETA?”

  “Four minutes, seven seconds.”

  “Scramble the defenses,” Theodore said. “Get our units out there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  General Cave reached out to Lieutenant Bale, who got the squadron launched. Sixteen fighters, a mix of human and Dread configurations, along with the two ek’shah, moved out ahead of the backing up fortress, shooting ahead toward the oncoming swarm of enemy ships. If they were lucky, the Dread either hadn’t figured out how to shrink the modulation to cover their fighters or didn’t care enough about them to bother. It had taken some time for the assemblers to make the phase paint, but it was the one advantage they held.

  “Ishur Actual, this is Red One,” Lieutenant Bale said, her channel patched into the bridge. “We are in position.”

  “Roger, Red One,” Theodore said. “Don’t dilly-dally on my account. You see a snake; you choke it.”

  “Roger,” she replied. “You heard the General. Let’s give them hell.”

  The smaller ships burst forward on flares of thrusters, splitting apart as they approached the oncoming enemy mass. Plasma bolts began littering the space between them seconds later as the battle was truly joined.

  Theodore watched from the bridge, his eyes darting across the swarm of ships as they circled and danced around one another. He saw an enemy fighter get the drop on one of their fighters, firing plasma into its rear. He smiled when a flare of darkspace appeared, swallowing the bolt.

  “Thank God for that,” he said, as the same enemy starfighter was hit by one of Lieutenant Bale’s bolts and stopped maneuvering, drifting away from the battle.

  He was quickly snapped out of his reverie when a flare of light near the moon caught his attention. The first Dread fortress had completed its circuit and taken a long-range pot shot at them.

  “We’re under fire,” General Cave said. “Sergeant Abdullah, that one’s yours.”

  “Yes, sir. I have it, sir,” Abdullah replied, manipulating the DSS. The bolt flared as it hit the darkspace shield and then vanished.

  “What are those couillons thinking?” Theodore said. “They should know they can’t slip one by from that range.”

  “There’s no harm in trying,” General Cave replied.

  “No, I suppose not.”

  Theodore checked on the fighter groups. They were holding their own, making quick work of the Dread forces with the help of their superior shields. The ships were small enough that the modulation offered full coverage from enemy attacks.

  “Another shot incoming from the port side,” General Cave said, monitoring the domo’shah.

  A second fortress had cleared the moon and fired. Three more were almost clear enough to join the attack.

  “Here it comes,” Theodore said.

  Except there was no plan that gave them more than twenty minutes. Not without a miracle.

  He closed his eyes, his thoughts drifting to Juliet.

  “I know you’re out there,” he said softly. “Somewhere better than this. Somewhere peaceful and free. I know you’ve done your best to get us this far, and I know it isn’t fair to ask, but I don’t suppose you have one more blessing to pass on? It isn’t for me. It’s for the people on board. The civilians. The ones who trust in me to keep them safe. They’re counting on me. They believe in me like I believe in you.”

  “Three more bolts incoming,” General Cave said. “More fighters are heading this way.”

  Theodore kept his eyes closed in silent prayer, hoping that something would come to him. Some way of keeping them alive. The seconds passed. The Ishur shuddered as the first of the Dread bolts slipped past their defenses.

  “Damn,” Sergeant Abdullah said. “They’re spacing out their shots, but firing at the same time. I can’t cover them all.”

  The Ishur shuddered again.

  “Theodore, we need to do something,” General Cave said. “We’re out of time.” He turned back toward Theodore. “Teddy? Don’t quit on us now. We need you.”

  Theodore opened his eyes. Juliet hadn’t answered him, and that was okay. He knew what it meant.

  “Quit? Oh no, I’m not about to quit. Just thinking is all. Hoping for a miracle, too. If God isn’t going to give us one, we’ll have to make it for ourselves. Colonel Ames, reverse course, full ahead.”

  “Yes, sir,” Colonel Ames replied.

  “What are you thinking?” General Cave asked.

  “Stay alive, as long as we can, any way we can. Estimates are just estimates. It’s our will to fight, our will to live that’s going to decide our fate. Tell Red One we’re on the move, and to either pack it in and hitch a ride or keep fighting. It’s her call.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Theodore surveyed the field ahead as General Cave made the call. He never expected the fighters to disengage and come home, and he wasn’t surprised when they didn’t.

  He located each of the domo’shah. All seven had cleared the moon now, and the change in direction was bringing them in faster and faster. As Abdullah had said, they were synchronizing their attacks, firing all seven heavy plasma cannons at once, clustered but not joined. It was an impossible task for the Sergeant to continue to block them all.

  “Colonel, evasive maneuvers, do your best to keep them guessing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Ishur shook again, another plasma beam striking one of the long slipspace fins. It sparked and vented oxygen as it was torn from the fortress.

  “Too close,” Theodore said.

  “General, shouldn’t we attack them?” Reza asked.

  “What good will that do, Mr. Mokri? We can’t afford to sit still and pour energy into their shields, and we certainly don’t want a wandering wormhole sucking up our planet.”

  Reza’s face paled. “Yes, sir.”

  “Colonel, see if you can get us in close to that one over there. Alan’s idea isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got. We’ll try to bounce around it and hope we can slow their attack. Mr. Mokri, head down to engineering. When things get bad, I intend to spike the shields, and I need you to do your best to keep the modulators from exploding.”

  “Uh. Yes, sir.”

  Reza stood and ran from the room, heading for the inner bowels of the ship.

  “When things get bad?” General Cave said. “I think we’re already there, Teddy.”

  “Heh. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  “You’re putting a lot of faith in your son.”

  “I gotta put it somewhere, Alan. He’ll come through. I know he will.”

  55

  “There she goes,” Gabriel said, pointing through the small viewport of the excavator.

  Donovan could feel the pressure from above, the Magellan’s anti-gravity systems pushing down on the planet and on them. He could hear the harsh hissing of the thrusters, and he opened his mouth to pop his ears one more time.

  He looked forward through the viewport, at the line of enemy targets ahead. They had abandoned the ground forces as the starship had moved in position over them, sending everything they had up into the belly of the ship and causing black splotches to spread across the painted hull, splotches that seemed to be absorbing at least a portion of the damage the Dread were inflicting.

  Their attacks were countered by the plasma cannon mounted to the bottom of the ship. They slammed into the Dread mechs, cutting them down one by one in a fight that seemed less than fair. The Domo’dahm had made a huge mistake by sending all of his fortresses out to attack General St. Martin and leaving the Magellan and the space forces free to seize control of the ground battle.

  They had already driven through the city, where the soldiers in the gray uniforms were making short work of the enemy clones, and even the few pur’dahm he had spotted in their battle armor. The Dread warriors were fast and strong, but the soldiers had them outnumbered, and their aim was steady and true, so much more so than a good portion of the rebels. These were people who had spent their lives preparing for war, not focusing on survival from one day to the next. All they had ever needed was an opportunity and a weapon that could hurt the enemy, and now they had both.

  “Kroeger, we’re almost at your position,” Donovan said. “What have you got for us?”

  “The remnants of a dozen units,” Kroeger replied. “Including part of General Parker’s company. The General’s dead.”

  Donovan winced at the news. No wonder he hadn’t been able to raise him on the comm. “We’re almost at your position. Do we have an opening?”

  “You will in a minute, Major. That ship is cutting through them assholes like they’re made of paper.”

  “Donovan, switch to channel seventy-two,” Gabriel said from the driver’s seat.

  Donovan turned the dial, watching the numbers climb. He stopped at seventy-two.

  “Do you want to broadcast?” he asked.

  Gabriel nodded, and he pressed the transmit button down.

  “Alpha Actual, this is Major St. Martin. Colonel Graham, can you hear me?”

  “Major, this is Alpha Actual. I hear you. Was that you in the excavator?”

  “Yes, sir. Radio the others, switch to channel-” Gabriel paused.

  “Twenty-six,” Donovan said for him.

  “Channel twenty-six. We’re preparing to move on the capital.”

  “Roger. Switching now.”

  Donovan moved the dial back to its original channel.

  “This is Alpha Actual, Colonel James Graham of the Earth Alliance.”

  “We hear you, Colonel,” Donovan said. “What’s your position?”

  “We’re about halfway through the city. It’s getting harder to find targets out here.”

  “Good. How quickly can you reach the western side of the city?”

  “Where the fortress is parked? I can get a battalion there in ten minutes.”

  “Too slow,” Gabriel said. “He’ll have to bring up the rear.”

  “Roger, Colonel. Major St. Martin suggests you bring up the rear. We’re heading for the ship.”

  “What’s the hurry, Gabriel?” Colonel Graham replied.

  “We may be winning down here right now, but once the Ishur is destroyed those ships will be coming back. When they do, you can bet they’ll hit both the Magellan and this city from space. We have to stop the Ishur from being destroyed.”

  “How are we going to do that from down here?”

  “My father had a plan.”

  “He’s playing it close to the chest, then. He didn’t tell me anything about it.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “No, sir.”

  Donovan reached out to steady himself as the excavator rounded a corner, slamming into a pile of rubble and pushing it out of the way. He could see the Dread capital rising up directly ahead of them, a kilometer away and backed by deep craters where the other domo’shah had been resting. The line of mechs and tanks had taken a pounding from the Magellan, and there was a clear opening between them.