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13

Two hours later and Clement was boarding his personal command, the Beauregard. Captain Yan had been left in charge of the fleet, with orders to retreat to the L2 Lagrange point if they detected any form of deceleration coming from the enemy attack fleet.

Clement led all five of his gunships out of the belly of Agamemnon, there to get to the task of deploying the scatter mines in what he hoped would be an effective pattern. The scatter mines were programmed to accelerate toward and explode near any vessel in their range, which was about ten kilometers. They had very little time, and had to make their best guess as to where the decelerating attack fleet would impact the battlefield. It was imperative that they got to the enemy fleet while they were still moving and vulnerable to the pre-stationed mines.

After an hour of planning and laying mines, he ordered the other gunships to return to Agamemnon. He was willing to sacrifice his own ship, but not any of the rest of his fleet. He gave his final orders to Yan and the other commanders to make for the L2 point on his command. There was nothing more to do now than to watch the incoming attack fleet as they approached Bellus at frightening speed.

Clement looked around his bridge. He had an experienced crew, the best in the business as far as he was concerned. Mika Ori was at the helm, her husband, Ivan Massif at Navigation, Kayla Adebayor was his communications and longscope officer, and Nobli and his assistant, Tech Reck, were down in Engineering. He told himself he didn’t need anyone else for this mission and that’s the way he wanted it. There was no point in putting inexperienced technicians in charge of stations and systems that they wouldn’t understand anyway. He had the staff that he wanted, and the ship had been updated and automated enough that he really had all the crew he needed. He glanced at the empty executive officer’s station, where Yan had been on the previous Trinity mission. There was a hole there, no doubt, and he would miss both her tactical and practical advice, but he was determined it wouldn’t stop them from completing their mission.

He turned back to his console and brought up the tactical breakdown of the battlefield. The large group of enemy ships were still coming at his tiny fleet at breakneck speed. He surmised their inertial dampening systems must be highly advanced, with some sort of gravity wave distortion field that could minimize the effects of a sudden stop. It wasn’t hard to figure out that his Five Suns fleet, a flotilla really, had little to no chance against an enemy this advanced and in such numbers. He stared at the field again, looking for some sort of advantage, any advantage, or even some idea he simply hadn’t thought of yet.

“Eleven minutes until their fleet arrives here, Admiral. That is, if they don’t start decelerating,” reported Massif from the navigation station.

“I don’t expect them to do that, Commander. They must have some sort of advanced inertial dampening tech that allows them to stop on a dime right in front of us, otherwise they’d be mashed potatoes on their inner hull.” At that point he stood, looking at the Beauregard’s main visual display. “There’s no more time to waste. Raise Captain Yan aboard the Agamemnon,” he said to Adebayor. She did as instructed, and a second later Clement was on the com with his fleet captain. “This is Clement,” he started. “I’m ordering you to make for the L2 Lagrange point without delay, Captain.”

“Orders received and acknowledged sir,” replied Yan, “but, I must protest your current course of action. Staying behind the rest of the fleet with a single ship will not have any material impact on the outcome of this battle. As your second-in-command, I insist that you return the Beauregard to the Agamemnon’s landing deck.”

“Your recommendation is noted, Captain, but we will maintain our tactical status. Get my fleet to that Lagrange point. I will carry out whatever rearguard action I can, and then I will join you there. I have no intention of sacrificing my ship or my crew,” he said. There was a long silence on the com line.

“A rearguard action with one gunship against an entire fleet? That sounds like suicide, Admiral.”

“You can note that in your log as well if you wish, Captain, but my orders stand. Now get your asses away from this planet. Acknowledge receipt of order,” Clement responded.

“Orders received, Admiral. Good luck to you.”

“And to you, Captain.” With that she cut the com line from her end, seemingly angered by his actions, which she no doubt regarded as reckless. He watched as his flotilla began to accelerate away from Bellus and the incoming enemy fleet. In many ways the conversation they had just showed how far the two of them had drifted apart since the first Trinity mission. He didn’t have her as his advisor on board Beauregard anymore, and he was more than able to make the important decisions on his own, but, deep down, he admitted to himself that she was an asset to him, one that he wouldn’t have in this particular battle.

“Enemy fleet is not reacting to the Agamemnon flotilla’s acceleration burn,” reported Massif again from Navigation.

“They probably can’t react at the speed they’re making,” said Clement. “Their stopping point is likely predetermined by their navigation AI program. Their big advantage is that they can approach the battlefield at virtually any speed, but it’s very difficult to correct your course if you have sudden movement on the battlefield in front of you. They will have to come to a complete stop and recalibrate their position relative to our ships. That’s the moment, probably the only moment, where we’ll have a possible advantage.”

Mika Ori swiveled in her couch toward him. “What’s your idea, sir? I mean, we all assume you have some brilliant but dangerous idea,” she said without a trace of humor or sarcasm.

He tapped his lips pensively with his forefinger, then pointed it at the tactical display. “The scatter mines will pick up anything inside of ten kilometers, correct?”

“Correct, sir. Any ship with engines displaying a heat signature will be a target for the scatter mines.”

“But if I was their commander, I would let our mines bounce off their forward destroyers and heavy cruisers. If they have the inertial dampening tech they appear to have, then it’s likely they can generate gravimetric shielding that would probably result in minimal damage to those size of ships.”

“Aye, sir, that would be the likely strategy.”

“And I need to take out their fifteen hunter-killers, but they’re protected by the other ships in the fleet so that they can use them to take out our destroyers and light cruisers.” He thought again for a second, then: “How fast can a scatter mine go in pursuit of a target, Mika?”

“Just under ten thousand kilometers per hour, sir.”

“And an HuK?”

“Approximately fifteen thousand kilometers per hour. If the scatter mines aren’t close enough to pick up the HuK engine signatures before they get warm, they could never catch them.”

“From a standing position, correct, Commander?”

“Well, yes, sir, if neither group were in motion. What other situation would we be engaged in?”

All three of the bridge crew turned to look at Clement now, sensing something was about to happen that might affect their futures, and their lives. “If the scatter mines were already in motion, at full thrust, ten thousand kph, how long would it take for the enemy HuKs to fire their engines and begin to retreat?”

“Well, we can only guess, but based on our standard of technology, I would say at least three minutes to reach a full burn and begin to pull away. Remember, the scatter mines only have a small range of effectiveness.”

“I remember that Mika.”

She frowned at him, looking very serious. “What do you have in mind?”

He waved her off, then turned to her husband. “Ivan, can you estimate where that fleet will come to a stop?”

“Already calculated, sir. I figured you would ask. Approximately twenty-eight hundred kilometers out from our current position, sir.”

“Time?” Clement asked again.

Massif looked to his console. “Eight minutes, seven seconds,” he replied.

Clement looked down and made notes again on his tactical board.

Then he stood up. “Range to our scatter mines?”

“Just outside of fifty kilometers from us, sir.”

Clement turned to Ori again. “Mika, take us back to the scatter mines. When we hit ten kilometers’ distance, arm and activate them.”

“But, sir, they’ll pick up our engine heat signature. Then we’ll become their target.”

Clement nodded. “We will, Pilot. That’s why I expect you to be able to keep us ahead of them, all the way.”

“All the way to where?”

“All the way to those HuKs, Commander,” he said, then sat back down in his chair.


After the startled looks had gone off of Ori’s and Massif’s faces (Adebayor was too disciplined to let out an expression of shock at her commander’s orders), Clement sat back down in his acceleration couch as Ori fired up the ion plasma thrusters and began moving the Beauregard toward the scatter mines. He clicked on the com link and brought Nobli in on his private line.

“And what miracle would you be wanting today, Admiral?” said Nobli, expecting the worst.

“I know you won’t like this,” Clement started.

“You’re going to try and break my ship again, aren’t you, Clement?” cut in Nobli.

“Um, well, yes, I guess . . .”

“Just get to the bad part.”

“I’m going to need one of your in-system LEAP drive jumps,” said Clement, cutting to the chase.

“That almost broke the LEAP reactor last time we tried it,” snapped Nobli.

“I know, but—”

“But it’s our only hope. I get it. Just tell me when you need it.”

“Ivan will give you the jump coordinates. The when will need to be available on my console, at my command.”

“As an app, I expect? You’re a hard man, Admiral. You enjoy breaking things too much,” Nobli said.

“An app on my console would be preferred, yes,” said Clement, ignoring the last comment.

“How long do I have?”

Clement looked up at the main tactical display. “Seven minutes,” he said.

“Good thing I had it ready,” replied Nobli, then cut the line. About ten seconds later a square white icon appeared on Clement’s console, with the blue letters LJ on it, which Clement assumed meant “LEAP Jump,” or something similar. It would do.

“Time to the scatter mines, Pilot?” he asked of Ori.

“One minute, thirty seconds,” she replied. He keyed in a parabolic course and sent it to her.

“Use this flight pattern, please,” he said.

“Aye, sir.”

“Do you have coordinates for the L2 Lagrange point, Navigator?”

“I do, sir,” replied Massif.

“Please bring the LEAP reactor to hot, Commander Massif. I will have jump control at my console.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is that flight plan set, Pilot?”

“It is, sir. We’re going to drag the scatter mines with us, aren’t we, sir?” said Ori.

Clement stood once more. “We are, Pilot. It’s our only hope of a ‘Hail Mary’ in my opinion. Like it or not, it’s our best chance.”

“Better than the MAD weapon?”

“Better? No. But not as destructive, and possibly achieving the same goals with less loss of life.”

“A surgical strike rather than indiscriminate firing?”

“Affirmative,” Clement replied. He didn’t feel like he had to explain his feelings on killing other human beings with a terrible weapon of destruction. Then his eyes went to the ship’s clock. Two minutes, thirty seconds until the enemy fleet arrived. He hit the main ship com.

“All hands, stand ready,” he said, then shut down the line.

The clock continued counting down.


The Beauregard was already in motion, dragging the mass of scatter mines in her wake when the enemy fleet came to a full stop over Bellus, bursting on to the scene like a hundred tiny suns being birthed at the same moment. Clement wasn’t sure how the gravity-wave dampening tech worked, but it was certainly impressive in practice. In an instant, almost as if they had appeared from nowhere, the entire enemy fleet was suddenly looming over both the Beauregard and the planet Bellus. It was a frightening sight in both its scope and scale.

The Beauregard was making three-quarter thrust on her engines, enough to keep the scatter mines on her tail but not so fast that they would pull out ahead of their preprogrammed attack range. Massif’s estimations had proven to be accurate as the current group of scatter mines trailing the tiny gunship had nearly cleared the enemy fleet’s formations of destroyers and cruisers. Clement was making an end run “under” the main formation, speeding rapidly toward the enemy HuKs. Those unmanned ships were likely programmed to attack any enemy within their range of defense, which for a typical design was likely a thousand kilometers. With luck, the HuKs might actually help them achieve their goal by seeing the scatter mines as an approaching enemy. Their AI would automatically default to self-preservation, and with luck, both groups of pilotless vessels would attack each other, with no human casualties.

Ori had gotten the Beauregard close enough to the positions of the scatter mines to attract almost all of them, which numbered close to two hundred. He had left about forty of them behind, and those forty were now going active and making for the enemy formation’s frontline destroyers. The crew of the Beauregard watched nervously as the scatter mines went into action, charging down and then exploding near the destroyers. To Clement’s surprise, the destroyers were taking heavier damage than he expected, with orange-yellow fireballs bouncing off the hulls of several enemy ships.

“Mika, what are we seeing here?” he asked.

“I’m not sure, sir, but it looks like the destroyers weren’t able to get their defensive fields up fast enough. The scatter mines are exploding directly against their hulls, sir.”

“That’s a surprise! It could be that their gravity-dampening technology takes too much power away from their generators, so they can’t activate their defensive fields until the generators get fully rebooted.”

“That would be one explanation, sir. Either way our little group of leftover mines is doing more damage than we hoped.”

They watched together as the scatter mines did their work, blowing holes in the side of the enemy destroyer’s hulls. There were only six ships affected by the attack, just a third of their total number of destroyers, but enough to do more than just skin their knees. One of the destroyers lost its directional capability and it started listing heavily to starboard and toward a second destroyer that was already burning profusely. They watched as the listing destroyer, which had already fired up its engines to pivot toward the Five Suns fleet, accelerated quickly into its sister ship, causing a large and dramatic explosion.

“Well, that’s two more of those than I expected to take out with this attack,” said Clement, nodding his acknowledgement, then turning to Ivan Massif. “Position of the main fleet, Navigator?”

“Pivoting now, sir. But it looks from here as if they are trying to regroup and send their ships after our flotilla, toward the L2 Lagrange point. They don’t seem to have any interest in us.”

“That’s because they didn’t expect us to be here, Mr. Massif. And my bet is that none of their current maneuvering is taking us into account. Are there any ships in position to take us out?”

“Not currently, Admiral. The only ship that might have a shot at us at this range would be their battlecruiser, but she would have to do some quick thinking and adjusting to catch us now.”

“Time to targets, Pilot?”

“We’ll be in range of those HuKs in nineteen seconds,” reported Ori.

Clement watched as the enemy HuKs began to react to their automated programming and turn into self-preservation mode. The HuKs accelerated, firing their engines to engage the approaching gunship and its trailing mass of scatter mines.

“Do we slow our approach, sir?” asked Ori.

“Negative, Pilot. Maintain speed.” On the tactical board hanging above them the group of HuKs was now fully engaged, diving planetward in their attempt to destroy both the Beauregard and the group of mines trailing in its wake. Clement’s hand hovered over the LEAP jump control icon, watching as his single ship streaked toward the swirling group of hunter-killers. Their formation had become fluid, constantly changing as its tactical AIs adjusted their course and intent according to their preprogrammed mission. They were literally acting on instinct now, as if instinct could be programmed into a machine. That was certainly the designer’s original intent, although it appeared to be working against their basic design principles right at this particular moment.

“Slow to two-thirds speed,” said Clement. Ori turned to him in surprise.

“Are you serious? That would put the scatter mines within ten seconds of hitting us at their top speed.”

“I’m aware of the situation, Pilot. Please follow my orders.” Ori did, but not without serious reservations.

“Two-thirds speed, sir.”

“Ivan, do we have a clear path to the L2 Lagrange point?”

“Course is open and available, sir.”

“Pilot, give me a countdown to when we’re vulnerable to the firing range of the HuKs.”

“Twenty seconds, sir. Fifteen . . . ten . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”

Clement hit the LEAP jump icon, and the Beauregard shifted in both time and space.

A kaleidoscope of colors filled his senses for the briefest fractions of a second, then in the same instant returned to normal. He quickly shifted the tactical display to show the battlefield over Bellus that they had just left behind. It showed more than a dozen of the hunter-killers burning from multiple impacts from the web of scatter mines the Beauregard had thrown at them. Three of the HuKs had been nimble enough, and their AIs smart enough, to escape the battlefield, although at least one of the three had taken a hit from a scatter mine. The rest were now burning streaks of light heading for the upper atmosphere of the planet, where they would undoubtedly be extinguished. It made for a brilliant fireworks display.

Mika Ori retched at her station, but managed to keep from vomiting on the bridge.

Short-range jumps through quantum-fluid space could have that effect. Clement himself fought off the urge as well. After some deep breathing by the bridge crew, they all regained their composure. Clement pulled up the Five Suns fleet position from the long-range tactical display.

“The fleet is seventy-three minutes from the L2 Lagrange point, sir,” reported Massif.

“Our position?”

“Nearly spot on, sir. We’re within thirty-three hundred kilometers of dead center on the L2 point, sir. Not bad for jumping through an alternate space-time dimension.”

“Not bad at all, Ivan.”

“Should we move to the exact position, sir?” asked Ori.

“No, Commander. Station-keeping, please. Let our fleet come to us. How long until the enemy fleet regroups and adjusts for our location?”

Ori responded first. “I’d guess at least two hours until they would be able to engage us, sir.”

“I concur, Admiral. We’ve dealt them a tactical blow,” agreed Massif.

“Yes, but not a decisive one. We’ve bought more time, that’s all,” replied Clement.

“But that’s better than nothing.”


Thirty seconds later, Nobli gave his admiral the bad news.

“You’ve broken the reactor with your little antics, Admiral.”

“How bad?” asked Clement.

“What do you mean how bad? It’s broken, Admiral. There’s a crack thirty nanometers wide in her casing. I don’t have the material to fix it. If we try to use this reactor again, we’ll blow a hole in space-time several hundred AUs wide.”

“Several thousand!” yelled Tech Reck in the background of the com. Either way, it was bad news.

“What are my options?” demanded Clement.

“You don’t have any, Jared. Barring a full replacement of the reactor at the Kemmerine Shipyards, the Beauregard is done. The MAD weapon is done. I’m sorry, Admiral, but the only way this ship is going home again is in the belly of the Agamemnon.”

Clement absorbed that for a moment, then cut off the com line to his engineer. “Maintain status,” he said to the bridge crew. “Give me updates on the arrival of our flotilla and the location of the enemy fleet. Let me know when either one of them changes their status. I will be in my cabin,” he said, then quickly jumped up from his console and made for the place he had spent more time in than any other on board the ship.

He had a bottle of Argyle scotch out on the table two minutes later, and poured himself a sizeable shot into a glass. He stared at the glass of whiskey, a reminder of so many times in the past when he had sought solace inside a bottle, and how long it had been since he had needed to go there. He contemplated the whiskey as he thought over his predicament.

Losing the LEAP drive, and more importantly, the MAD weapon, his one true advantage, left him at a loss as to what their next move could be. He pulled up the tactical screen on his tabletop plasma display and watched as the enemy fleet regrouped, trying to compensate for their newfound lack of hunter-killers. They still had twenty undamaged heavy cruisers and sixteen functional destroyers in addition to a full-sized battlecruiser. If their commander was smart, and Clement believed he or she was, they would restack their formation, putting the remaining hunter-killers out in front of the destroyers to exact maximum damage from their next attack. The logical thing would be to mix in a handful of cruisers with their destroyers and hold back the rest for an all-out assault on the Agamemnon. He watched as the enemy fleet organized itself in just that way. That was all he needed to know about who the commander of this fleet was. She was organizing her forces just as a Five Suns–trained fleet commander would; just as Elara DeVore would. Clement poured himself another drink, then screwed the cap back on the bottle. He knew his limits, but if there was anyone who could have driven him to drink in a crisis, it was her.

He had hoped to avoid ever seeing her again, let alone facing her again in battle. But she had always been a chameleon, changing her stripes as the situation flowed, always planning for the worst contingencies, always staying a step ahead. She was a long-term thinker, and Clement, well, he had to face the fact that he was at his best when he was on the battlefield. He was a situational thinker, a seat-of-the-pants battle commander, not a long-term planner or a scheming politician. His forte was his thinking in a crisis. Perhaps that’s why peace had eluded him so much in this life. He took the scotch in his glass down in one shot, then put the bottle back in its cabinet, from where he hoped he would never have to take it again. He straightened himself up in his cabin mirror, tugging gently at his duty uniform, preparing to make his return to the bridge, where his friends and crew would be expecting him to come up with yet another miracle. Only this time, he wasn’t sure he had one.

* * *

Forty minutes later and his flotilla had reassembled at the L2 Lagrange point. Despite Captain Yan’s insistence, he refused to take the Beauregard back to the landing deck of the Agamemnon. In fact, he ordered the other four Five Suns Navy gunships back out into space. He coached their captains that their new assignment will be to take out the remaining hunter-killers in the forward formation of the enemy fleet. It wasn’t an easy job, but the four gunships had at least a fifty-fifty chance to eliminate the remaining suicide weapons in the enemy fleet.

As for his flotilla’s formation, it was going to have to be much different than what their enemy showed. That fleet had left three destroyers and two cruisers behind at Bellus, undoubtedly to begin landing operations and to establish a beachhead on the planet itself. There had been no reaction of any kind from the planetary defense system, so Clement had to assume that either Mary had been wrong about the Makers’ abilities, or that they simply didn’t care enough about what was going on above their world to bother to react to it. He wished he could get in contact with Colonel Lubrov and her Marines on the surface, but that was impossible, both because of the distance involved and because of radio interference by the enemy fleet. There was nothing Clement could do about that situation except hope that his people were well-trained enough and dug in well enough to survive the coming onslaught.

The primary enemy fleet was now well underway toward the Lagrange point, and his flotilla. They had the luxury of eighteen undamaged heavy cruisers that could no doubt dispatch his eight destroyers and six light cruisers with ease. His only real chance was to put Agamemnon at the front of his formation in order to protect his lighter armored ships. Agamemnon was so much bigger than even the heavy cruisers that the enemy had that taking her on full force would be a tough ask for the enemy. Clement could chip away at the destroyers and cruisers in the enemy fleet with his forces, but not in any decisive way. He could prolong the battle, but without the Beauregard and its MAD weapon he had no knockout punch. Eventually, the enemy commander would bring in their battlecruiser, which, combined with their superiority in heavy cruisers and shear number of destroyers, would bring the battle to an end. Agamemnon, perhaps, could fight off the enemy cruisers for a while, but she would take a beating in doing so, and eventually lose the battle to the enemy’s flagship. Clement felt he had to at least consider surrender for the sake of his crew and his fleet, and the many lives they represented. But the first blow had already been struck, and he doubted that they would back off now.

No, his crew were trained, and trained well, to fight when the situation called for it, and protecting the thirty thousand migrants on the ground, not to mention the natives, was a cause worth fighting for. They would have to fight, even if the odds were long, and pray for help from, if not the outright intervention of, the gods. In this case, those gods were called the Makers, and Clement wondered what he would have to do to raise them from their slumber. In the end he put the Agamemnon out front, at the point of the spear. It was the only option he really had. He inverted the protective halo around her, however, placing his heavier armed cruisers on her wide flanks and the lighter armed destroyers in close support above and below her. The gunships would stay in the shadow of Agamemnon, and act only if the enemy hunter-killers were brought into battle.

He sat at his bridge station, surveying the incoming enemy fleet and his own tactical formation. There were no miracles on this board, no Hail Marys. He had what he had, and that was it.

“I have Captain Yan of the Agamemnon on the com, sir,” said Adebayor from her station.

“In my ear,” replied Clement, referring to his personal com implant. A second later and she came on the line.

“Got your next miracle planned out?” came Yan’s voice, part with sympathy, part mocking in tone.

“No,” he replied, then he stepped out of his command couch and headed down the steps to the rear of the cabin sub-deck, and Beauregard’s small galley. He sat down, his display pad in front of him. “I was hoping you had something for me.”

“Other than being the battering ram of this formation?” replied Yan. “I’m fresh out of ideas, Admiral. I suppose the MAD weapon is now off the table?”

“It would take days to replace, even at Kemmerine Shipyards; Nobli says he can’t repair it.”

“I guess we’re screwed then.”

Clement sighed. “I guess we are. Aren’t you supposed to give me alternatives as my

second-in-command?”

“I wasn’t sure that was still part of my job, since you seem to ignore my every recommendation.”

“It is still part of your job. Have you heard anything from the surface?” Clement said, changing the subject.

“Colonel Lubrov’s last report was six hours ago. They are dug in and as ready as they can be, but I think they’re going to be severely outgunned. Just like us.”

“Any word from your friend Mary?” he asked, probing.

“Nothing, and no response to my direct calls, either. I don’t think she likes me anymore.”

“She liked you well enough on the first trip,” said Clement, then instantly regretted it. He rubbed at his eyes. Stress, fatigue, and stupidity had made him say it. There was silence on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry, Yan. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Apology accepted, Admiral. Now, on to the situation at hand. Any tactical orders you’d like to pass along?”

“Yes. Tell Samkange and Son I expect them to protect your flanks at all costs, and those destroyer captains have to protect the cruisers. The gunships know their orders: take out the remaining hunter-killers. As for you . . .” He trailed off.

“As for me?”

“Unleash holy hell on them, Yan. Take out their heavy cruisers. Hold off that battlecruiser as long as possible. Other than that, pray for a miracle.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral. Agamemnon will not let you down.”

“I expect not, Captain. Good luck.”

“Sir.” Then Yan cut the line from her end.

Clement sighed.


With forty-five minutes until contact with the enemy fleet, Clement headed down to his engine room to see his friend, Hassan Nobli. To his surprise, both Nobli and Tech Kim Reck were crawling all over the bright yellow LEAP reactor casing.

He cleared his throat. “Well, what do have we here? I thought I broke your reactor,” he said.

Nobli, standing on top of a ladder, whipped his head around. “You damn well did, Admiral, but that doesn’t mean we give up on her.” Clement watched as Tech Reck poured a liquid gray goo onto the surface of the round LEAP reactor casing.

“What’s that stuff?” he said.

Reck snapped off a reply. “A combination of carbon nanotubes and liquid helium-3 from the ion thrusters. It’s just a hunch, but it could provide enough of a seal to let you use the reactor once more, if you’re so inclined.”

“You’re using helium-3 fuel on the reactor casing?” said Clement, incredulous.

Reck looked up at her commanding officer. “You got a better idea?”

Clement had nothing to say to that, so he motioned Nobli into the engineer’s office. “We need to send her to finishing school,” he said once the door was closed. Nobli shrugged, then leaned back on his desk.

“She’ll never be a prim and proper officer, but I still believe she can fix almost anything.”

“Can she fix my reactor?”

Your reactor? Like I said, Admiral, it’s unfixable. But her chemistry is solid and this could provide you with an option.”

“The MAD weapon?”

Nobli nodded. “Maybe one more shot, Jared, or maybe we blow up a large portion of this solar system. Either way, it would stop the invasion.”

“That it would, and end all of our lives.”

“I don’t see that we have much choice.”

Clement shook his head. “I don’t either, Hassan. But destroying almost every living being in this system isn’t an option, either. We have three options that I can see: Fight, and lose. Fight, and win through some miracle I haven’t thought of yet. Or surrender.”

“Surrender? To Elara DeVore? She’ll skin you alive and hang you upside down if she gets her hands on you.”

“Will she? I wonder.” Clement paced the small office. “In any case, if I can negotiate for your lives, I will. She’ll need a good engineer, especially the one who built the MAD weapon. Mika and Ivan and Kayla would be valuable as well.”

“You’re forgetting about Yan. If DeVore gets ahold of her she’ll be killed too, almost immediately. I know you don’t want that on your conscience.”

Clement nodded, grim-faced. “I don’t. So . . . we’ll fight, for as long as we can and as hard as we can, and maybe hope for a stalemate, or a noble surrender.”

“In either case, Jared, you can’t let this ship fall into her hands. Not with the MAD technology. She could destroy the Five Suns with it.”

Clement straightened. “The Beauregard will not fall into enemy hands. Not now, not ever. You have my word on that.”

Nobli looked up at his old friend over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “I know I do. Good luck, Admiral.”

And with that, Clement was gone, back to his bridge.


The enemy fleet was just ten minutes away from the L2 Lagrange point, and they had arranged themselves in the formation Clement had predicted with only a few exceptions, small differences in his eyes. Clement had his flotilla lined up exactly as he wanted it, with Agamemnon on the point, his six light cruisers in close tactical support to his battlecruiser, and his eight destroyers protecting the light cruisers. The cruisers would carry a fair punch, and they likely could handle any of the enemy’s destroyers. They were overmatched, though, against the enemy heavy cruisers, so those would have to be taken out by his battlecruiser. Undoubtedly the enemy fleet commander would unleash his (or her) heavy cruisers on Agamemnon first, trying to take her out of the battle. But that wouldn’t be easy. She was built as good as Five Suns Navy technology could make her, Clement had seen to that.

From their position on the battlefield, Clement decided that he needed to move his forces, if only to create some variability to the enemy’s apparent plan of attack. Doing so wouldn’t necessarily give his flotilla a tactical advantage, but it would buy them a bit more time. He ordered the flotilla to advance 0.06 degrees “south” to the plane of the ecliptic of the Trinity system, at one-quarter thruster power. This would require the approaching fleet, which was coming in much slower than their previous advance from the outer gas planet, to modify their course with a tactical burn. Clement’s calculations were that it would give the flotilla approximately ten extra minutes before having to engage the enemy. Though the L2 Lagrange point was gravitationally unstable, there was little use Clement could think of to gain an advantage from that condition. This was going to be fought purely on battle tactics, and the enemy was in a far superior position.

“Lieutenant Adebayor, has the enemy responded to our movement yet?” Clement asked after three minutes of thruster burn.

“Negative, sir. Longscope scans indicate the enemy fleet is maintaining the same approach vector,” the young African officer reported.

“Which means either they haven’t seen our movement yet, or they believe they have such a tactical advantage over us that they don’t care what we do.”

“Either way, sir, I for one am getting tired of just sitting around and waiting,” piped in Mika Ori.

“I agree with you, XO, but I’m not sure I can spend many of our resources just to give them trouble. We’ll need everything we have for the battle.”

Just then Adebayor reported that the enemy fleet was now moving toward their new position.

“Less than a hundred thousand kilometers now, sir,” she reported. Clement looked up at his tactical screen and saw that the enemy had moved their three remaining hunter-killers to the forefront of their formation.

“Time to the battlefield, Pilot?”

Ori responded. “I make it eight minutes and eleven seconds, Admiral.”

“How far away are those hunter-killers from the main formation?”

Ivan Massif responded. “About ten thousand kilometers out front of them, sir. Just outside of their destroyer’s energy weapons range, but just inside their accurate missile range, or should I say our best guess at their missile range.”

“So . . . they’re trying get those hunter-killers in position to hit Agamemnon early in the battle. If I’m right, I’m guessing those HuKs will start accelerating any second now. Miss Adebayor, what do your longscope scans show?”

“No additional acceleration at this time, Admiral.” Clement contemplated that. Despite their superior numbers, the enemy fleet commander appeared reticent to lose any more of her resources. They were playing things very conservatively. But then again, they had the luxury of numbers.

“Kayla, raise the gunship Antietam, please.”

Adebayor swept her hands over her console for a few seconds, then said, “Captain Kagereki on the line, sir.”

Clement activated his com. “Jim, I’m going to need you to do something dangerous.”

“Yes, sir, I understand, Admiral. What do you need from us?”

“I need you and the other gunship captains to accelerate toward the enemy HuKs. I need you to get close enough to engage their automated AI defense systems. If we can’t get them to move further away from the rest of the fleet you could come under fire from the enemy destroyers. We need you to get those hunter-killers out into open space where we can pick them off. The Antietam and the rest of the gunships will have to be the bait. Do you understand what I’m asking you, Jim?”

“I do, sir. We stand ready and able to carry out your orders.”

“Stand by, Captain. My longscope officer will send you a ping when I need you to go. Good luck, Captain.”

“Thank you, sir.”

With that Clement cut the line and turned to Adebayor. “Current position of the hunter-killers, Kayla?”

“They are now about eleven thousand kilometers in front of the main enemy battle group, sir. It looks like they’ve begun accelerating in preparation for an attack.”

“As I hoped they would. Lieutenant, send the Antietam our ping.”

“Sir,” she said. They all watched on the tactical display as the four Five Suns gunships began accelerating toward the hunter-killer formation. There were three of the suicide devices left, and he hoped his four remaining gunships could handle them, but it was by no means certain. The Beauregard remained behind, still undergoing repairs to her LEAP reactor, and now at the location of the tactical center of the fleet. Clement fought an urge to join the battle. He did have conventional weapons after all, missiles and torpedoes, even some nukes, but no coil cannons. Those ports had been taken over for use by the currently off-line MAD weapon.

“We should be out there,” said Ori.

“We have to command the battle from somewhere, XO.”

“Understood, sir. They are making a very conservative approach, though. Do you think they fear that we still have the MAD weapon to use on them?”

“I think that’s exactly what they fear. They don’t know that it’s knocked out, and, they’re probably hoping that I don’t have the guts to use it again.” Clement went silent then and watched the four gunships quickly bearing down on the hunter-killer formation. From their current angle and approach speed, the gunships could strafe the hunter-killers and escape fire from the rest of the enemy fleet before turning back on the HuKs once again.

“Time . . .”

“Ten seconds,” said Ori.

The gunship formation, led by captain Kagereki and the Antietam in a standard attacking diamond, swept across the paths of the three hunter-killers. They blasted the enemy vessels with their forward coil cannons, and then swung out into open space, there to quickly decelerate and turn back on their opponents. The energy weapons fire ricocheted off of the hulls of all three hunter-killers, but the initial attacks weren’t decisive. The HuKs responded according to their programming and began pursuit of the gunships. They were all now watching the opening skirmish in what would eventually become a much larger battle.

The enemy HuKs quickly pulled away from the rest of their fleet, which was beginning to decelerate toward the main battlefield. The enemy made no move to protect their HuKs with any additional firepower. The HuKs were now too far distant from the main fleet to be supported by destroyer fire or missiles. The hunter-killers were obviously expendable to the enemy commander, but leaving them untended would pose a higher risk to Clement’s flotilla. He had to take them out, but she didn’t have to defend them.

She, he thought to himself. It was a big assumption, but probably an accurate one.

The gunships completed their turn and closed again on the HuKs, decelerating to enable their full range of weaponry. When they got within firing range, Antietam, the lead ship in the diamond, let go a volley of six missiles, all conventional, two aimed at each of the three hunter-killers. At the sight of the missiles, two of the hunter-killers broke from their formation, heading directly for the outer gunship in the diamond formation, the Danville. The third HuK accelerated toward the Antietam and its incoming volley of missiles. It began firing energy from its central coil cannon, trying to take out the missiles. It got two, but three of them hit their target, destroying the HuK, while the last missile missed badly and flew off into empty space.

The Danville meanwhile had begun evasive maneuvers, spilling out chaff and defensive flack in an attempt to distract the two hunter-killers on an intercept course. Because of the formation the other two gunships were not in a position to help the Danville. It would be a do-or-die situation for her. The Danville turned and twisted, trying to escape from the two suicide machines closing in on her. She fired defensive torpedoes, a few of which hit the incoming HuKs, but they had little effect against the heavily armored weapons. Clement watched, helpless, as the two hunter-killers pounded the Danville’s hull with their energy weapons. Suddenly, the Danville erupted with orange-yellow explosions as her inner hall was breached and life-supporting oxygen escaped into space from the wounds in her side. The HuKs kept coming, even as the three remaining gunships tried to turn and help defend their wounded friend.

But it was too late.

Both hunter-killers impacted against the Danville in a tremendous explosion of ice crystals and fire from burning oxygen. There were secondary explosions as her cache of weapons were detonated by the impacts. What remained of the ship were only bits and pieces of broken metal and burned hull.

Clement spoke low and slowly. “Lieutenant Adebayor, recall the gunships. Tell them they have five minutes to look for survivors of the Danville, then they are ordered to return to the main fleet. I want them in the back, away from the battle. They will conduct search and rescue operations only for the duration of this engagement.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Adebayor in a subdued voice, then carried out the recall.

Clement sat back in his couch. One gunship and twenty crew possibly lost. Three HuKs taken out. It was not a good trade.

Not at all.


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