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  The overlord turned back to his crew. “Looks like we’re out of time. Anyone with even partial experience in bridge control systems, follow me. Nova pilots, head to the hangar aboard the Defiant and get ready to launch. Sentinels, you can either come with us or stay back to slow them down, but I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to come back for you. Engineers to the flight deck with the pilots. Ruh-kah!” Death and glory.

  And with that, the overlord turned to the starboard hangar door controls and passed his wrist over the scanner. The first set of doors opened, followed promptly by the second, and then the entire group rushed into the hangar and on for the waiting cruiser.

  Chapter 17

  Ethan Ortane hurriedly peeled out of his hazmat suit, leaving the constituent pieces on the hangar deck aboard the Defiant, and then he rushed into the cockpit of the nearest nova. It was a Mark II, an interceptor, but Ethan didn’t have time to switch to one of the more familiar Mark I’s. At least the speed of the interceptor would come in handy keeping him alive. As the canopy closed, Ethan punched the ignition and the fighter’s reactors spun to life with a soft whirring that quickly rose in volume and pitch. Ethan hadn’t had time to find a flight suit; he just hoped nothing happened to compromise the integrity of his cockpit.

  Display screens flickered to life inside the cockpit, followed by the glowing green of the heads-up display. System reports bubbled up from his displays, and Ethan quickly skipped through them all in order to complete an abbreviated preflight check. His fighter was facing out the hangar bay of the cruiser, and he watched as the half a dozen sentinels in the carrier’s concourse began suiting up in their zephyr light assault mechs. One of them had even managed to find a giant, 150-ton Colossus to pilot. Those six sentinels had chosen to stay behind and guard the Valiant. But they didn’t stand a chance. The most they could hope for would be to buy time for the Defiant. Ethan took some comfort in knowing that at least the mechs’ armored exoskeletons would protect the sentinels for a time against Brondi’s thousands of troops.

  Suddenly, the Defiant’s static shields snapped to life, turning Ethan’s view a fuzzy blue. Then came the not-so-distant roar of the Defiant’s thrusters firing, and they were sliding out of the carrier’s massive hangar bay and falling freely toward the ice world of Firea, far below the carrier.

  In the next instant Ethan’s comm system flared to life. It was Lieutenant Commander Vance Rangel. “All right, pilots. I’m sending you your squadron designations now. Most of us are strangers here, so don’t complain about your squad and wing assignments. Guardian Squadron will fly out first, followed by Avenger Squadron. Guardians, you’re flying in the Mark II’s. The Avengers are flying in the Mark I’s. Our primary objective is the troop transport. The Avengers will take it out with their torpedoes while the Guardians keep the enemy fighters off their backs. Any questions?”

  Ethan watched as his own wing assignment came in, and he saw that he was designated Guardian Five, and flying beside him would be Marksman Gina Giord, Guardian Six. Great, he thought, casting a quick glance out the side of his cockpit to see Gina already scowling at him from the interceptor adjacent to his.

  Ethan gave her a mock salute and then keyed his comm to ask the squadron leader, “What’s the Defiant going to be targeting with her beam cannons?”

  “Same as the Avengers, if she can,” Vance replied. “We have a shortage of officers with gunnery training aboard, but hopefully the crews’ll pick it up fast enough.”

  “Roger that.” Ethan watched with a frown as a junk fighter roared past the open hangar of the Defiant, spitting golden ripper fire through the static shields and rattling a few novas in their docking clamps before they even had a chance to take off. Fortunately the novas had their shields engaged.

  In the next instant, Ethan heard Vance yelling over the comm. “Defiant, get those hangar bay shields up before they pick us off the deck!”

  Another voice came on a moment later, “Sorry about that.” It was the supreme overlord. “Shields are up now. The launch tubes are energized. You can take off whenever you’re ready.”

  “Roger that, Command. Send the launch codes. We’re ready.”

  Ethan’s fighter beeped at him and the nav began flashing with a message saying, autopilot engaged, which was repeated by a female computer voice that sounded just beside his ears.

  “You heard the overlord!” squadron leader Vance Rangel said. “Get ready! Guardians will be the first ones out the launch tubes. Remember to keep those enemy fighters busy!”

  Ethan watched as the foremost pair of nova interceptors in his squadron began rising on their grav lifts. They ignited their ternary thrusters in a starburst flare of blue ion emissions, sending them jetting toward the glowing red launch tubes in the side wall of the hangar. Ethan watched out the side of his canopy as they disappeared into those launch tubes with a brilliant flash, and then the pair of fighters directly ahead of him began rising on their grav lifts. He and Gina were up next. Ethan’s comm flashed with an incoming message from his wingmate, and her voice filled his cockpit. “Don’t frek this up, Adan. I’m counting on you.”

  “Likewise,” he commed back.

  And then they were both automatically rising on their grav lifts and jetting toward the glowing red launch tubes. Ethan saw the opening of his launch tube rushing toward him, looking impossibly tiny for his interceptor, and he had a sudden, visceral vision of his nova missing by a narrow margin and exploding on the rim.

  But the autopilot didn’t miss, and he glided straight in. A second later the glowing red tube flashed brightly with a release of energy, and he was pinned against his flight chair as his nova rocketed out the back of the Defiant and into space. A quick glance at his HUD showed he’d already reached his interceptor’s top acceleration of 185 KAPS. Ethan’s targeting computer flagged half a dozen red bracket pairs for him straight away—six junk fighters flying toward him in a staggered line formation.

  “Incoming enemy fighters!” Gina screamed.

  They watched as the first two Guardians cruised through the enemy fighter formation, roaring at them with a stream of red dymium pulse lasers. Guardian Two attracted too much attention to herself and the enemy fighters zeroed in on her with their ripper cannons. Streams of golden projectiles converged on her.

  “Get clear Two!” her wingmate, Vance Rangel, yelled over the comm. A second later, Ethan watched her fighter explode in a brilliant orange fireball, and he heard her dying scream echo through his cockpit.

  Seeing that outcome, Three and Four quickly peeled off from their head-to-head with the enemy formation, leaving Guardian One alone behind enemy lines.

  “Form up, Six,” Ethan said to Gina. “We’re going to rescue Lead. Switch to hailfires. These junkers have strong hulls, but they’re not fast enough or maneuverable enough to evade tracking weapons.”

  “Switching now. . . .”

  Ethan followed his own advice and began acquiring a missile lock on the nearest junk fighter. It was flying toward him at a pitiful 68 KAPS, and at 3.5 kilometers away, it was just out of laser and ripper range. Abruptly Ethan’s targeting computer gave the solid tone of a missile lock, and his targeting reticle turned red. Ethan pulled the trigger and let fly two hailfires. He watched them jet out on cold blue contrails, and then in his periphery he saw another two launched by Gina. The missiles quickly dwindled into darkness as their primary thrusters burned out, but just moments later, he saw bright sparks flying as those four missiles burst into a dozen smaller warheads and their thrusters engaged, each of them locking on to and tracking a separate enemy target. Almost immediately following that came three explosions as two of the enemy fighters flew apart, and their shrapnel caught a third, sending it careening off toward the planet below.

  “Ruh-kah, kakard!” Ethan whooped.

  “Nice work, Guardians,” Vance replied. “Two and Three, you’re with me now, form up.” Ethan watched on his scopes as the two fighters which had peeled off earlier arced back into t
he fray just above his and Gina’s position. The three remaining enemy fighters turned and ran, and a moment later they began firing a steady stream of ripper fire at Guardian One.

  Vance came back on the comm, sounding tense. “A little help here?”

  “On our way,” Ethan commed back. “Fire your afterburners, Six.”

  Gina clicked her comm to acknowledge, and then Ethan fired his afterburners to catch up to the enemy fighters. He heard his thrusters roar suddenly louder, and he felt his nova begin to shudder and shake. The acceleration pinned him against his seat, since the inertial management system was set to 90%. The exhilaration of it was a palpable force rising up in Ethan’s chest. He’d been born for this. He felt at once powerful, free, and incredibly vulnerable—surrounded by deep space, not even clothed in the protective layers of a flight suit, all that separated him from the abyss was a thin bubble of transpiranium and his skill in the cockpit. One sustained burst of ripper fire to his canopy and his fighter would crack open, spilling him into space. In minutes his blood would boil and his body would freeze as stiff as a duranium sheet.

  Ethan gave an involuntary shiver and grinned. What a thrill—

  The comm crackled. “I can’t . . . keep this . . . up . . .” Vance said.

  That brought Ethan back to the moment. He found Guardian One on his scopes. Vance was juking and jinking desperately in order to evade the converging torrents of ripper fire from three enemy fighters at once.

  Ethan’s range to the nearest of the three ticked down to five kilometers. “Hold on, Lead. We’re almost there,” Ethan commed back.

  A few seconds later, the range dropped from five klicks to four, and Ethan began hearing a missile lock tone beep-beep-beeping from his targeting computer. He released the afterburner switch in order to steady his aim, and as soon as the computer gave him solid tone, Ethan let fly two more hailfires. He watched as their blue thruster trails dwindled into the distance, holding his breath and chewing his lip as he saw Guardian One taking fire. They’ll make it, Ethan thought as the hailfires reached 500 meters to target. They have to make it.

  And then Guardian One exploded in an angry red fireball.

  Chapter 18

  “I’m trying to call for reinforcements, sir, but the comm relays are down.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes , sir.”

  Supreme Overlord Dominic glared out the Defiant’s forward viewports at the roiling fireballs of fighters which were exploding all around them—both enemy junkers and imperial novas. He paced up to the captain’s table and studied the holographic displays there. He saw a 3D projection of the Defiant in the center, with clouds of angry red junkers swarming around her while a small compliment of green novas flitted through those, spitting red pulse lasers and streaking hailfire missiles. Even as the overlord watched, one of those green novas exploded as three enemy fighters converged on it from behind. That was Guardian One. Dominic grimaced and shook his head. Here he could see the battle from a bird’s eye view, and already, at just five minutes in, it wasn’t looking good. There were six junkers to every nova, and half of the novas had instructions to ignore enemy fighters and line up for torpedo runs on the enemy troop transports, which meant the 12 interceptors of Guardian Squadron were facing down 12 whole squadrons of junkers all by themselves. Twelve to one. No nova pilot was good enough to survive those odds for long.

  The overlord saw the enemy troop ships—a corvette and an old army gallant-class hovering in the near-distance off the Defiant’s bow. They were perfectly within beam range, but the gunners were still below decks getting their training from the solitary officer who actually had any, and it would be a few more minutes before they could open fire.

  Dominic watched a whole squadron of junkers lining up on the Defiant and he had a bad feeling crawl into the pit of his stomach. “Comms, get the Guardians on missile defense, now! We have an enemy squadron, bearing 9-7-11 coming about on a torpedo run.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The overlord watched for a few tense minutes as the enemy fighters grew closer and closer to their port side. The Guardians came about and closed to within missile range of the enemy fighters, but before they could do anything, the enemy squadron dropped a volley of twelve torpedoes on the Defiant’s tail. The Guardians were too far away to shoot those warheads down.

  “Deploy EM flares!” Dominic yelled. A sparkling cloud of flares shot out behind the ship, but it only caught five of the twelve torpedoes. The other seven were still racing toward the Defiant’s thruster banks. “Brace for impact!”

  Suddenly the Defiant rocked with an explosion and Dominic saw the aft shields turn red. A damage report came up, warning that the port thruster was damaged and now operating at 56% efficiency. The enemy squadron roared out over the bridge, causing everyone on deck to reflexively duck. “Engineering, equalize those shields before they line up for another pass!” Dominic said as he watched the bright orange wave of the enemy fighters’ thruster trails diminishing into the distance.

  “Yes, sir,” Dominic’s chief engineer, a Petty Officer named Delayn replied. Without the cruiser’s pulse lasers firing to shoot down enemy missiles, the Defiant was practically a sitting duck. Shields were meant to be a last line of defense, to catch enemy lasers and rippers and the few strays missiles that got through, not whole volleys at a time.

  “Deck Officer Gorvan,” Dominic began, speaking to his gunnery chief. “Tell our gunners that if they don’t start firing now, we’re not going to survive this.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll try to hurry them, sir.”

  Dominic looked up from the captain’s table to see his XO staring grimly back at him from the other side. She was Deck Commander Loba Caldin, a complete stranger, young, but still the most experienced officer left among the survivors. She was one step down from a captain in bridge crew rankings, which meant she was probably the only one on bridge with any command experience—including himself. As Dominic looked around the bridge, he couldn’t say that he recognized more than one man of his crew—maybe Petty Officer Ashril Grames at the comms, and only just barely at that. He thought that maybe they’d had a drink together once in the Star Dome, an officer’s lounge near the bridge. On a ship like the Valiant, with more than 50,000 crew, mostly automated systems, and vast amounts of space, one could never hope to get to know more than a few hundred officers personally.

  Suddenly, the XO spoke up, “What about the comm relays on the Dark Space gate? We could summon reinforcements from the other side.”

  Dominic shook his head. “We can’t risk attracting unwanted attention to ourselves. The vessels operating in Sythian space are all deep under cover. Comming them openly would be a death sentence for us all.”

  The XO nodded solemnly. “What are our options, then?”

  Dominic pursed his lips, thinking.

  “We’re grossly outmatched, sir,” she said, as if he needed to be reminded. “We could retreat and come back later with reinforcements from the other systems.”

  “By then they’ll have control of the Valiant. It would take dozens of venture-class cruisers to bring her down. Even if we succeeded, we’d just have a gutted derelict.”

  “Incoming!” gravidar called out.

  Dominic’s gaze dropped to the captain’s table just in time to see four fighters drop out of a dogfight with the Guardians and drop a volley of torpedoes on the Defiant at point-blank range. The ship rocked with another explosion, and the port shields turned yellow. Dominic watched as one of the enemy fighters disintegrated as it was caught in the explosion from its own torpedo.

  Amateurs, he thought. We’re being torn apart by amateurs! Dominic whirled around to face the comm officer. “Tell the Guardians they’re going to have to do better than that!”

  Petty Officer Ashril Grames looked up helplessly from his comm control station. “They’re down five pilots already, sir, and we’re being swarmed by dozens of enemy junkers. If we keep this up, there won’t be any of them left.”
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  “What about the Avengers? Haven’t they completed their run yet?”

  “They took heavy fire from enemy fighter screens and pulse lasers and lost four pilots before even firing their torpedoes. More than half of that volley was shot down by junkers and AMS—only two got through. We inflicted minor damage to the troop transport’s port side, but the sections sealed off almost immediately, and I’m not sure they took many casualties.”

  “Well get the Avengers to make another pass!”

  “They’re coming under heavy fire, sir, I’m not sure they’ll survive to make another pass.”

  Dominic grimaced. He didn’t have the command experience for this, even though everyone on deck likely took it for granted that he did. Dominic briefly considered yielding the floor to Deck Commander Caldin, but he decided against it, since that would doubtless compromise his authority in the future.

  “It’s too late, sir!” another officer chimed in from the other side of the bridge, and Dominic turned to see Corpsman Goldrim, the gravidar operator, shaking his head. “Look.” The corpsman pointed out the forward viewports as both the gallant-class transport and Brondi’s corvette began sliding into the Valiant’s port ventral hangar, eliciting a violent wave of blue from the hangar’s shields. The beam and pulse shields on the hangar were obviously now weak enough that they couldn’t stop the enemy ships from muscling in. Making matters worse, the hangar shields would quickly strengthen once the enemy was inside, effectively preventing Imperial forces from flying in after them or making attack runs on them from the outside. They were about to be locked out of their own ship while enemy troops overran her.