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There was a second reason why it was the most dangerous part of the mission. While launching the missiles, the fighters had to fly in as nearly a straight line as possible, long enough for any point defence computer to lock onto them and burn them out of space. Stalker held himself in a straight line as long as he dared — about three seconds — and as soon as the missiles were away, yanked the fighter into a tight turn, barely avoiding a flash of green light that would have killed his craft if it had been a few meters closer. Nine of the starfighters survived the experience; two of the remaining twelve were swatted by point defence systems just after they launched their missiles. The final craft, it seemed, had crashed into the shields, although no one knew for sure. There was no way to know until the battle was analysed later, if there was a later.

“Back to Point One, guys,” he carolled, as the missiles flashed towards their targets. The superdreadnaught, suddenly aware of the danger, had devoted everything it had to vaporising the missiles, but it was too late to make any real difference. The shield-busters reached the shields, passed through the shields, and impacted against the hull. He saw, through the sensors, a tearing series of explosions that crippled the superdreadnaught, knocking it out of the line of battle and causing its drive field to collapse. Stranded, whoever won the battle would salvage it, if it could be repaired. “Status report; all ships, check in.”

He listened, quickly, to the updates. A third of the starfighter force had been lost, but they’d killed or crippled nearly half the enemy force. Under more normal circumstances, it was a very favourable rate of exchange, but with the Shadow Fleet still badly crippled, the issue was still far from decided.

“Ships with missiles, reform on Singh,” Stalker ordered tightly. “Everyone else, return to the barn.”

The starfighters fell away from the superdreadnaughts, racing back towards the carrier. There was no longer any point in trying to hide; they had to reload and get back out before the Empress located the carrier and attempted to kill it. The carrier was almost defenceless… and if it were killed, the starfighters would be worse than useless.

* * *

“Interesting,” Joshua said, as the tiny impossible craft vanished back into the darkness of space. “We saw something like that at Second Harmony, but they had to use gunboats and they got picked off with ease once we were alert to the threat. They seem to have learned to combine the different systems into a whole new fighting machine.”

Penny stared at him. “Admiral, those craft have wrecked about half the fleet,” she said, knowing that Joshua would listen to her. Admiral Percival would have quite happily ridden the plan down in flames, although hadn’t actually commanded in battle until the very end of First Harmony. It hadn’t been his life at stake. “What happens if they come back?”

“They wouldn’t have broken off unless they ran out of missiles,” Joshua said, logically. “The best place for them would have been to remain amidst our ships, where we had to be careful what kind of weapons we deployed to shoot them out of space, but they broke off to rearm.”

“Most of them,” Penny said. The remaining fighters were swooping down on another hapless superdreadnaught. Now fully alert to the threat, the point defence networks were pouring a staggering amount of fire towards the starfighters, but the tiny craft always seemed to be able to dodge, whatever firepower was deployed. Hitting even one of them probably counted as a major victory, if it had been an intentional hit. It was rather more likely that one craft would swerve into the path of one bolt while avoiding a second. “Admiral, can we still win this battle?”

“Perhaps,” Joshua said. He looked down at the display, showing the orbiting point defences. “Tactical, lock onto the fortresses… and open fire.”

The superdreadnaught shuddered as it launched a spread of missiles from its internal tubes, joined by the remainder of the superdreadnaughts a moment later. It was a weaker attack than it should have been, Penny realised; two of the superdreadnaughts might not have been crippled by the fighters, but they had lost some of their internal tubes. It had been sheer luck and excessive over-design that had prevented some of the loaded missiles from detonating within the superdreadnaught and starting a chain reaction that would have destroyed the ship.

“Missiles away,” the tactical officer reported. There was a long pause. “Incoming fire from the fortresses, targeted mainly on the superdreadnaughts, but enough targeted on the escorts to destroy them.”

“Understood,” Joshua said. He scowled. “Pull the escorts back towards the superdreadnaughts. Rotate starships through the formation so that fresh units are facing the attack.”

“Admiral, we have located the base ship,” the sensor officer injected. A new starship, barely more than a bulk freighter, blinked up on the display. It had originally been classed as an arsenal ship, but tactical had downgraded the threat because it hadn’t moved up into firing position. “One of the drones caught a shot of the fighters returning to the ship.”

Joshua smiled coldly. “Order a battlecruiser squadron to attend to that ship,” he ordered, flatly. “Take it out before the fighters can rearm and return to the attack.”

A new alarm blared. “Incoming ships,” the tactical officer said. Joshua whirled to face the main display as new red icons flickered into existence. Their commander hadn’t run the insane risk of flickering in so close to the gravity shadow, but they were still close enough to block his fleet from retreat. “Source… sir, they’re the first-rank ships!”

* * *

Jason Cordova hadn’t told Colin what he had in mind. It would only have upset him.

He’d taken command of the Random Numbers again, after the massacre and his own official clearing of all charges relating to the attempted murder of Colin, but he knew better than Colin that there would be no peace. If — when, as Tiberius would have told Daria the truth — the truth about the Dathi came out, he would still be the most hated man in the entire Empire. Colin might believe that he could ensure that there would be no official punishment for Cordova, but Cordova knew that that wasn’t the issue at hand. The court of public opinion, the same court that had opposed any relaxation on the rules surrounding aliens, would condemn him and anyone associated with him. He couldn’t — he wouldn’t — allow that to happen to Kathy. She deserved much better than him.

“That’s the main body of the Empress’s fleet,” his tactical officer said. Cordova had stripped the Random Numbers of anything other than a skeleton and volunteer crew, not least because he didn’t expect to be coming back and he’d dragged his crew into enough tight spots. Colin and the others desperately preparing for the attack hadn’t noticed. They hadn’t had enough experienced personnel to question while some personnel were available, even if they had had time to wonder. “I still cannot identify which ship is hers.”

Cordova smiled. The Empress — he refused to think of her as Daria any longer — might have been smart enough to assemble an entire secret fleet, but she had a weakness. Like him, she had been brought up as an Imperial Navy officer. Like him, she had a soft spot for any ship she had personally commanded… and the General Cromwell, a superdreadnaught holding position towards the rear of the Empress’s formation, had once been under her commander. He’d known the moment he’d studied a list of the four superdreadnaught squadrons that had vanished during the Battle of Earth. Her ship, her crew… maybe even a commanding officer who’d served on the ship during her era. It wasn’t impossible for an officer, with the right connections, to serve on the same ship for his or her entire career… and Daria had had links right into the heart of the Thousand Families. It would have passed unnoticed in the Imperial Navy. Everyone did it.