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15

By the time he sat down in his command couch his ships were already engaged in battle. He looked up at the tactical view on the main plasma display to weigh the situation. The flotilla of Solar League destroyers were swarming his Five Suns light cruisers and destroyers, battering them with DEW weapons fire and short-range, low-yield missiles. These weapons weren’t really designed to take out an enemy vessel in one volley, but rather continuously weaken their defenses. This indicated a strategy of trying to knock his ships out of the battle by attrition, and that indicated that Elara DeVore wanted to board his ships and capture his crews.

Six Solar League heavy cruisers were coming in behind the destroyer line and pounding the Agamemnon with higher yield conventional missiles and DEW fire. Agamemnon was for the most part fending off the enemy using her gravimetric shielding to push the missiles off course and dissipate the Directed Energy Weapons fire. But it wasn’t a perfect defense. At the range they were engaging, mere kilometers or even at times hundreds of meters apart, not all the incoming fire could be deflected away from his flagship’s hull. She was taking strafing hits from the energy weapons, and the missiles were exploding in close enough proximity to cause hull damage and exposing sections of the ship to space. Undoubtedly, there were bodies and material being lost into space that couldn’t be seen on the tactical screen.

Meanwhile the enemy destroyers were continuing to pound at his light cruisers and destroyers. One of his destroyers was overwhelmed by three attacking enemies and began spewing out escape pods before exploding. Captains Son and Samkange were doing their best with their remaining cruiser group to fend off the incoming destroyers, but the problem was that in that defensive mode they could not assist Agamemnon.

Clement switched his focus. Yan was doing her best to fend off the Solar League ships, but the fact was that the enemy cruisers had gotten too close to his battlecruiser, and her offensive missile systems simply weren’t much help. They were designed to be used at a greater distance than Agamemnon was currently fighting at. If she fired her high-yield missiles here, she could damage herself more than the enemy. The coil cannon were her most effective weapons at this range, but the fact was that she was fighting the battle from a diminishing position, one that she would eventually lose.

As the second group of enemy heavy cruisers broke ranks and made for Agamemnon, Clement felt a large rock forming in the pit of his stomach. Yan responded with missile fire, but at the distance the cruisers were at they would have ample time to raise their defenses or fire torpedoes to take out the incoming conventional missiles, and the two battle groups were too close to each other to use nukes.

Clement stood up from his command couch. “Lieutenant Adebayor, raise Captain Yan on the Agamemnon.” The lieutenant acknowledged receipt of his order and then pointed at him when the com line was open.

“I don’t know how much time I’ll have to chat, Admiral. I hope this isn’t a pep talk,” she said through a cracking and popping com line.

“Nothing of the kind, Yan, all tactics. You’ve got to get those cruisers and destroyers off of your hull or they’re going to peel you like an onion.”

“Tell me something I don’t know!” she snapped at him. “They are too close to us now for conventional missiles, let alone a nuke, and coil cannon just aren’t powerful enough. The heavy cruisers have a primitive form of gravimetric shielding. It’s pushing everything I fire at them away from the ship’s hulls, minimizing our effectiveness.”

“That’s what I’ve observed. I wish our remaining cruisers and destroyers could help you, but they’re fighting for their own lives right now.”

“Orders, Admiral?”

“None, except don’t lose my flagship. At this point, Captain, my only recommendation is that you think outside the box, otherwise this battle will come to an end sooner than we think.”

“Outside the box”—the line crackled and broke up—“. . . us luck, Admiral . . .” At that the com went down and Clement looked to Adebayor, who shook her head no. The signal had been lost, likely for the duration of the battle. Clement sat back down.

He switched focus onto his gunships, which were conducting search and rescue operations. The enemy was at least courteous enough to allow them to conduct that action as long as they weren’t firing any missiles, which would likely have minimal effect on the outcome of the battle. The gunships were picking up as many escape pods as they could. Clement noted the numbers weren’t enough; they had already lost too many sailors.

He looked at the overall board. Five of his eight destroyers were either gone or hopelessly crippled and spewing escape pods. His six light cruisers were now down to an operational three, but thankfully both Corvallis and Yangtze were still in the battle. He ordered them to break off with the enemy destroyers and move into close support of the Agamemnon.

The Solar League fleet were losing far fewer ships. He’d given them a bloody nose with his first maneuvers, but now they were holding his fleet down on the ground and pounding their faces. The tactical board was as grim as he’d ever seen it, including in the Rim rebellion. He decided to give his fleet five more minutes before he would call in his surrender to Admiral Elara DeVore.

In desperation, he called down to Nobli in the reactor room. “Any chance of using the MAD weapon?” He had to wait a few seconds for his engineer to reply.

“Tech Reck says no, Admiral. The goo she put in the cracks hasn’t solidified yet, so unless you’re planning on blowing up this entire star system . . .”

“Will she hold together for one more short LEAP jump?” He heard arguing and yelling in the background before Nobli came back on the line.

“Tech Reck says no, but that won’t stop you from trying, will it?”

“It won’t,” admitted Clement. “Tell Tech Reck thank you for her efforts.”

Again there was off-line conversation, more subdued this time. “She says to wait as long as you can before you try the jump. Every second the nano-goo has to form up is a second it might take to make her patch work.”

“Good enough, Nobli. Transfer control to my console.” Clement shut down the com line and then looked at the tactical display again. Captain Samkange and the Corvallis were in trouble, while Captain Son had managed to maneuver the Yangtze and the remaining destroyers into a position to at least support Agamemnon. The situation was grim, and his only chance was another Hail Mary that might just result in the destruction of all life in the Trinity system. He made his decision.

“Lieutenant Adebayor, raise the enemy battlecruiser.”

“Aye, sir,” said Adebayor, then she turned to her com board to send out a ship-to-ship com.

At that moment things changed.

The Agamemnon was spewing out dozens of defensive torpedoes, aiming for the heavy cruisers and destroyers which were swarming all over her like circling wasps. She carried almost five hundred of the torpedoes, and it looked like she was firing them from every missile launcher, of which she had forty. The torpedoes’ main function was intercepting incoming missiles, but Yan was using them as close-range attacking weapons to surprising effect. The Solar League destroyers had no kind of gravimetric shielding and were being pounded by them. It may not have been enough to destroy the enemy ships but it was certainly enough to damage them and even take some of them out of the battle for repairs.

“Hold that call, Lieutenant!” said Clement, just as the com line cracked open. Adebayor shut it down instantly. Clement returned his attention to the tactical screen. The enemy destroyers were retreating, trying to gain distance between themselves and Agamemnon. That was sound strategy, but perhaps not the wisest of moves under the current conditions. The heavy cruisers had ceased their pounding of the flagship, and were now busy fighting off the swarm of incoming torpedoes. In both cases Agamemnon was gaining something she had precious little of in this battle—space; breathing room between herself and her attacking enemies. That distance was quickly becoming enough that she could fire her heavy missiles without risking damage to her own hull. It was a brilliant strategy, a long shot for sure, but he reminded himself to decorate Yan for her ingenuity, for thinking “outside the box.”

Once Agamemnon had the distance she required, Yan let loose with a volley of twenty conventional missiles from one of her port missile launchers. She had pushed the enemy back with her torpedo swarms until she could get a safe range to fire her missiles. The missiles hunted down the enemy ships, still scrambling from the torpedo fire, and locked onto them with deadly precision. Missiles impacted many of the enemy ships, and at least six enemy destroyers exploded. Clement was able to identify two cruisers that were obliterated and three more that took serious damage. There was material blowback, metal shrapnel, from the explosions onto the Agamemnon, but thankfully her gravimetric shielding minimized the damage. Yan then repeated the missile launch from her starboard launchers. The result was effective, but not quite as much so as the launch from the port side, which had caught the enemy completely by surprise. The enemy attackers quickly began a disorderly retreat. Clement ordered his support ships not to pursue the enemy and regroup around the limping Agamemnon.

The incoming reserve heavy cruiser fleet fired a volley of missiles at Agamemnon, but though they were in range, their position was not optimal. Agamemnon was able to fire off another volley of torpedoes from her forward missile bays, and this had the effect of taking out most of the incoming conventional warheads. The ones that did get through were picked off by her forward DEW cannons, or deflected away by her gravimetric shielding. A minute later, as the enemy retreated and regrouped, things changed again.

The Solar League battlecruiser began moving on an intercept course for the Agamemnon. For Elara DeVore to commit her capital ship to the battle was an indication that she was not happy with the proceedings and was prepared to take things into her own hands.

Now, Clement thought, it’s time to take the battle to you.


As the battlefield descended into chaos, Clement saw his chance, and it was Yan who had given him the opportunity.

“Pilot, lock down the ship. Navigator, plot us a course that will put us right under the belly of the enemy flagship.” Both Ori and Massif turned and looked at him like he was crazy.

“Are you sure, sir?” Ori asked.

“There’s no way we can get through their entire fleet, even at maximum burn. They’ll pick us off long before we can reach the battlecruiser,” stated Massif.

Clement hesitated only a second. “My orders stand,” he said. They both acknowledged as the bridge crew all strapped in to their acceleration couches and Ori broadcast a general order for the rest of the small crew to do the same. Clement switched to his personal com line and spoke quietly over the hum of the bridge. “Nobli, are we any closer to having an operational LEAP reactor?” Again he heard arguing and shouting in the background.

Finally Nobli got on the line. “Tech Reck thinks you’re insane, but she says we might just hold together.”

“I’ll take that answer,” said Clement, “and tell the tech if this works I owe her one.”

“She says she knows that, sir.”

“Activate the LEAP application, on my console only, Engineer.”

There was a longer pause, only seconds, before Nobli responded. “May the gods of space shine on you one more time, Admiral.”

Clement allowed himself a small smile before shifting the line to the weapons bay.

“Mr. Telco, I need you to take out the missiles and load as many torpedoes into the racks as you can. I’m going to need you and Mr. Tsu to load those torpedoes quickly, even if that means disregarding safety protocols. We’re only likely going to get one chance at this.”

“Sir,” replied Telco, concern in his voice, “don’t you mean load missiles, not torpedoes?”

“Negative, mister. I mean torpedoes. Fill the racks before we make our move and keep them coming. And I want you to load a nuclear warhead into one of the torpedoes, but you have to hold that back until I tell you to put it in the launcher. Are we clear?”

“We are, sir. I’ll get Mr. Tsu to load the nuke while I rack the launch tubes. You’ll have every torpedo we have at your disposal whenever you need it, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Um, how many torpedoes is that, by the way?”

“You have thirty-two torpedoes. Good luck, sir.”

“Good luck to us all, Mr. Telco.” He gave them two minutes to complete racking the torpedoes before he got a green light from Telco. At that moment he sank into his couch and called to his pilot.

“Prepare for LEAP jump, Pilot,” he said. “Match course and speed with the enemy flagship. When we come out of the jump, I’m going to need you to react quickly to the situation.”

“To keep us from ramming the battlecruiser, sir?” she asked.

“Exactly,” he said, his hand hovering over the LEAP app. Clement sank into his safety couch, feeling like someone had just put a fully loaded lead safe on his chest. He reached out a finger toward the activation icon . . .


By the time the jump ended, which was microseconds, Clement felt like he couldn’t breathe. He took in a deep, gasping breath, then looked up at his tactical screen.

The enemy battlecruiser was looming over the tiny Beauregard, and they were accelerating toward it at a frightening speed. But they were still in existence. “Mika . . .” he croaked out, but she was already acting.

The ship lurched as it decelerated, pulling all the air out of his lungs again. Slowly the deceleration burn abated, and everyone on the bridge started to breathe, fitfully, again. By the end of the burn, they had matched course and speed with the battlecruiser. Clement looked up at his tactical board, and brought it front and center of the main bridge display.

The Beauregard had indeed taken advantage of the confusion on the battlefield as both the Solar League fleet and his own scrambled to take up new positions. The enemy was getting out of the way, making a hole for their main flagship. Elara DeVore’s battlecruiser was coming through at high speed, and there was no question what her target was: Agamemnon. She was now prepared to slug it out with Yan and her ship, using the big guns. He estimated they had five minutes until the ships were in mutual firing range. But Agamemnon had already taken a pounding. DeVore would undoubtedly have the advantage in any one-on-one matchup, and her support ships were far bigger and stronger than what Yan had left.

Clement admitted to himself that his plan had little chance of success, but in his mind there was no other choice.

He called down to Nobli. “Did she hold together?”

“Well,” said Nobli, “we’re still here, aren’t we?”

“I guess we are, but it’s not as simple as that. What’s the status of the reactor?”

“Kim’s scanning the casing for micro-fissures now, but it looks like against all odds the damn thing held together.”

“Does that mean I can use it again?”

“Well, there’s no way I trust this thing if you’re thinking of using the MAD weapon. But you might get away with one more short-range jump.”

“That’s what I needed to know, Engineer. Clement out.”

“Wait a minute, Jared. There’s something else you need to know. If you’re gonna make another short-range jump it’s quite possible that when the reactor cracks at least some of the energy generated by the LEAP drive system will escape into space.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning don’t expect to use this thing again in a dangerous way without suffering casualties. And I don’t expect those casualties to be limited to our local area.”

Clement said nothing to that for a few seconds before responding. “I will keep all of that in mind, Engineer. Thank you, and good luck.”

“And to you, Admiral.”

He couldn’t escape the warning from his engineer; the next time they used the Beauregard’s LEAP reactor would be the last, and it would cost lives, likely all of the crew and possibly more.

Clement turned this attention back to something he could control and called down to the missile room again. “Lieutenant Telco, please tell me you have my short-range torpedoes loaded.”

“I do, sir, and I’ve put one of the nuke warheads on a missile, but I’m holding that one back, as you ordered, sir.”

“Good work, Lieutenant.” Clement closed the line again and turned to his pilot. “Where are we, Mika?”

“About three hundred meters beneath the enemy flagship, sir. We’re too close for them to use missiles or even torpedoes against us because of the high yield all their ordnance carries. But our torpedoes are designed to be used at these short ranges, sir. They have smaller yields, so we shouldn’t have to worry about blowback from our own weaponry.”

“What about their DEW weapons?”

“Their Directed Energy Weapons are not designed to be used at this distance either, sir, and there’s one other factor in our favor.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t think they know we’re here.”

He smiled just slightly at that.

Clement looked down to his command console and fed in a course to his helm officer. “I want you to follow this course, Mika. Repeat it as many times as necessary, and until you hear orders from me to do otherwise.”

She looked at the course he fed her curiously, then said, “Understood, sir.”

Clement turned to the Beauregard’s navigator. “I need one more local LEAP jump calculation from you, Ivan.”

“Sir.”

“Plot us a path back toward Bellus, and get us as close to Admiral DeVore’s task force hovering over the planet as you can.”

“Aye, sir,” said Massif, then turned back to his board to make the calculations.

“Kayla, your task will be to monitor enemy communications during this entire maneuver. I want to know when and if they start sending in smaller ships to do the cleanup work on us. They never planned on being vulnerable to a ship this small, but they’re about to find out just how much power we can throw at them. When they do discover us I expect they’re going to be pissed off. And one more thing, I want you to monitor for any special locator beacons coming from any ejected escape pods.”

“Sir?”

“Let’s just say that I’m expecting a high-value person to attempt escape if my plan works as well as I think it can.” With that they all had their orders, and it was time to act.

Clement looked down at this console one more time and then addressed his bridge crew while tapping in Nobli and Telco. “All weapons control and the use of the LEAP drive will be at my command and mine only.” There were nods from his three crew on the bridge and beeps of acknowledgement from the engine and missile rooms.

“One minute from battlefield range, sir,” said Mika.

“Begin your preselected course, Pilot,” he ordered. She did as instructed as the Beauregard began a slow orbiting pattern underneath the enemy battlecruiser. The pattern was similar in shape to a paper clip or an elongated oval. With luck, the battlecruiser-scanning officers would think the Beauregard was a large piece of another vessel, stuck in the different wells and waves of her gravity shielding.

As Clement watched, the two capital ships locked horns, like enormous metal rams, smashing each other’s skulls. Lances of orange DEW weaponry fired out from both ships. At the distance they were currently at the weapons could only weaken energetic shielding, but eventually as one or both of them wore down in power, those lances would begin to take their toll.

Agamemnon fired, using a barrage of conventional missiles directly at the Solar League flagship’s bow. The bow, plus her midships, would likely be the most heavily defended areas of the ship, and that was the least likely to be heavily damaged in an initial attack. What was surprising, though, was Captain Yan’s use of the Rods of God immediately after her missile barrage. Even the slightest of weakening in the flagship’s bow defenses could allow a large number of the rods to get through her shielding. The first volley of about twenty missiles exploded against her energetic shielding or were pushed away by the gravity-wave deflector. The missiles carried on their deflected courses, and one struck an enemy destroyer head-on. Only seconds later the kinetic metal rods smashed into the flagship’s bow. The resulting sparks of energy made for a pretty display, but they were not to any great effect; their kinetic energy dispersed as they were pushed away from the main hull of the Solar League flagship.

For her part Elara DeVore responded with a barrage of about thirty conventional missiles. None of them bore the signature tag of an atomic warhead, which would be suicide at the distance the two behemoths were apart. Swiftly, two groups of three enemy heavy cruisers swept past Agamemnon on either side, strafing her broadsides with conventional missiles and DEW energy. The remaining defending Five Suns cruisers and destroyers were too slow to provide cover. Yan responded with energy weapons fire, but the cruisers were too fast and took minimal damage.

Next, DeVore sent in a group of five destroyers, who attempted to repeat the same maneuver, but using lighter weapons. They were not as fast as the cruisers nor as effective. Captains Samkange and Son were able to use their light cruisers and remaining destroyers to counter their attack. Without energetic or gravimetric shielding the destroyers were much more vulnerable. The two cruiser captains picked off one destroyer each with their missiles, and the Yangtze damaged the propulsion engines of a second one. The two captains quickly repositioned themselves on the Agamemnon’s flank, preparing for the next wave of attacks.

Yan’s frontal assault on the Solar League flagship continued for several more minutes, but to little effect. Likewise, DeVore’s flagship wasn’t making much progress in wearing down Agamemnon’s frontal defenses either, but with their superior numbers and firepower the support ships were steadily wearing down Agamemnon’s ability to defend itself from DeVore and her ship.

Captain Son lost a support destroyer in a fireball explosion that left little possibility that any of the crew survived. His second destroyer limped away, being left behind for the other enemy forces to take out.

Samkange fared slightly better. Both his destroyers were still active but based on Clement’s reading of their tactical telemetry, both were at severely depleted capacity. At this point their greatest value to the defense of Agamemnon was simply as targets for enemy weaponry.

The battlefield was now littered with debris from destroyed and damaged ships as well as expended ordnance from both sides. They had reached the point where the fog of war would be thickest.

It was time to act.

Clement looked down to his control console. He brought up the torpedo-firing controls and hit the launch icon. Six of his antimissile torpedoes launched upward from their launch tubes and quickly impacted against the hull of the Solar League flagship. The damage was minimal, similar to poking pencil holes in a large lump of clay, but still they left a mark.

“Reload,” ordered Clement to his missile techs. They did so quickly and Clement launched a second volley. He repeated the pattern three more times while circling underneath the belly of Elara DeVore’s flagship before they reacted. As he sought to repeat the pattern and increase her hull damage, the enemy flagship started pushing out gravity-wave deflectors. The result was that although they were close enough that their torpedoes still hit the ship, they couldn’t repeat the pattern by hitting them in the same spot, and increasing the size of the holes in her armored hull.

“I think they see us, sir,” said Ori.

“Indeed they do, Pilot. Continue to repeat the pattern.” They continued the barrage and the torpedoes continued to do their damage, chipping away at the battlecruiser’s hull but not achieving any decisive edge.

A quick glance at the main battlefield showed the two behemoths passing each other and firing in the broadside, once again not decisively, but Agamemnon was clearly taking more damage than DeVore’s ship.

As both ships maneuvered for a second pass at each other, the former Fleet Admiral of the Five Suns Navy changed her tactics, focusing on the buzzing bee stinging her belly. She began pushing gravity waves directly out from her hull toward the Beauregard.

“Admiral,” warned Ori.

“I see it. Keep us as close to our original flight pattern as possible.”

“That’s not going to be easy against these waves. Their technology seems much more advanced than ours.”

“That may be, Pilot, but I’m counting on you to keep us close to her. She’s trying to push us out away from her ship so she can fire her missiles or her DEW weapons at us. We can’t let her do that. Right now she’s just realized we’re inside her effective weapon’s range, and she hates that.” The Beauregard bucked and rumbled as she was hit by wave after wave of gravity from the giant battlecruiser. DeVore was succeeding in pushing the Beauregard off her chosen course, but she wasn’t successful in getting her out to a range where she could be hit by the enemy’s heavy weapons. Clement continued to fire his torpedoes at as close a range as he could risk.

When they were finally out of torpedoes, Clement had a choice to make.

The two flagships had reengaged and once again Agamemnon was taking the worst of the pounding. Clement briefly considered ordering captain Yan to abandon ship, but he knew she wouldn’t stand for that.

Lieutenant Telco called up from the missile room. “All we have left are the heavy missiles, sir. The torpedoes are all gone, except for the one with the nuclear warhead. Sir.”

Clement didn’t hesitate. “Load that torpedo into the launch tube, Lieutenant,” he ordered. “Then you and Tsu get yourselves to escape pods.”

Clement got a green light on his panel once the nuclear-tipped torpedo was loaded. He called down to Engineering, “I’m about to fire a nuke into DeVore’s flagship. You and Tech Reck have two minutes to get to your escape pods.”

“That won’t go down well here,” said Nobli.

“Who’s in charge down there, Nobli? It’s not a request, it’s an order. As soon as we finish this last LEAP jump, I want everyone off the ship. Is that clear?”

“It is, sir,” said Nobli. “Good luck.”

Clement addressed his bridge crew. “That goes for everyone here as well. Once we make the final LEAP, and we’re over Bellus again, I want you all off my bridge. In fact, I want you to do so now.”

“But who will fly the ship?” protested Ori.

“I will, from the command console. Ivan, I assume you have the course back to Bellus already programmed in?”

“I do, sir.”

Clement nodded. “Kayla, hold a spot for me on the last escape pod,” he said. “The rest of you are ordered to vacate your stations immediately and eject your escape pods the moment our LEAP jump is complete.”

“That’s a thirty-meter run from here and down two flights of stairs, sir. You’ll never make it, especially not after the disorientation of a LEAP jump,” said Ori, acting now in her role as his XO.

“That’s my problem, XO, and besides, someone has to be here to launch the nuke.”

“Sir—”

“My orders are final, crew. Get to your escape pods. Now.”

Finally, giving up the argument, Ori stood and secured her station. Her husband did the same, followed by Adebayor.

“Good luck, sir,” said Ori. Clement merely nodded as his three bridge crewmates passed him, quickly heading for the escape pods. He swiveled in his command couch, watching Ori and Massif break to starboard while Adebayor broke for the port-side pod. He hoped he would have time to join her.

He returned his attention one last time to the tactical display. DeVore had sent two destroyers from her fleet attacking the Agamemnon on an intercept vector with the Beauregard. He estimated he had ninety seconds before they could take him out. Rapidly, he scanned through his telemetry screens looking for something that might give him an edge. There was one area of the enemy flagship that was emanating massive amounts of subatomic particles. He wasn’t sure, but his best guess was that this was the area where the flagship’s LEAP reactor might be. He hit the thrusters, pushing the Beauregard to that point. When he had his ship positioned directly under the holes in the hull that his torpedoes had made, he sighted in as carefully as he could from his weapons display. There was one hole in the area that was larger than the others, thus allowing the lone remaining torpedo a greater chance of getting deep inside the enemy ship.

His finger hovered over the firing icon for the briefest of moments, and then he fired the torpedo.

At the same moment he began an escape burn trying to get his ship as far away from the Solar League battlecruiser as he could. The enemy destroyers were bearing down on him now, and the g-forces from his escape burn made him feel sluggish and heavy. He took one last look at the tactical display that showed the enemy flagship engulfed in a nuclear blast, her hull splitting apart as she bled off escape pods and the other ships in the Solar League fleet scrambled to get away from her. The two destroyers sent to take out his ship, however, were still coming.

He looked down at the LEAP control and set it for a fifteen-second delay.

He hit the icon to activate the countdown.

Clement scrambled from his command couch and made it down the four-step metal stairs to the cabin deck with the heavy help of the stair railing. Once on the open metal floor, though, the going was tough. Gravity from the acceleration was holding him back, but he wouldn’t quit.

Down the second flight of four stairs, he turned to port, grabbing the railing and moving as fast as he could to make it to the escape pod. He wasn’t counting and he didn’t know whether he would make it before the LEAP drive kicked in or not. If he did, he had a small chance of survival, if he didn’t, the reactor casing would likely crack for the last time and he would find himself being disintegrated by the expulsion of the LEAP energy plasma.

The door was in sight, if not within reach. Kayla Adebayor was already locked into her side of the pod. His door was still open, but for how many more seconds he couldn’t guess. He simply had to get there.

A moment later and he was inside the pod and slamming the door shut behind him with no time to strap in safely.

The Beauregard made her final LEAP.

In microseconds the ship reappeared in normal space over the planet Bellus. The escape pods were automatically ejected and Clement felt himself pressed facedown against what was supposed to be his safety couch. Again, feeling the pressure of gravity, he tried to turn around and see out of the pod window, but he didn’t have the strength, and he didn’t really need to.

There was an intense flash of light over his shoulder and Kayla let out a gasp that was nearly a scream.

“It’s gone,” she said. “The Beauregard is gone!”

Then Clement stopped struggling, and put his head down on the safety couch. There was nothing more for him to see. His ship was gone, his command over.

Then the escape pod was hit by a severe percussion wave from the Beauregard’s explosion. He closed his eyes, and let the blackness take him.


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