As the Aelonian ships fell all around them, as the rest of the Concord fleet languished in the wormhole, the Corvettes of Earth stormed forth.
They were nine corvettes. Then eight. Then only seven. Their fallen lit space and crashed down like comets.
The survivors charged onward. To death and glory. To victory and fire. For Earth. For Earth!
Leona zipped from side to side, dodging plasma bolts. The other corvettes flew around her, cannons blasting, engines roaring. They stormed under a listing Aelonian warship, shielded from the plasma barrage, then soared to the vanguard. Their shells flew. Another corvette shattered, and the six survivors flew onward. Their afterburners roared. Their missiles lit space with streaks of fire.
In this great Concord fleet, this armada of ten thousand ships, the corvettes took the charge.
If we survive, Leona thought, may history remember the corvettes of Earth. May history remember this as our finest hour.
She kept flying. Small strikers, no larger than her ship, flew toward her. The corvettes scattered, flanked the enemy, and fired their guns, tearing the strikers down. Scorpion dreadnoughts flew ahead, great machines of war, each the size of a town.
"Fly behind them!" Leona said. "First platoon, go under them. Second platoon, I'll lead you above them. We got to hit their exhaust pipes!"
"We're right with you, commodore!" said the captain of the Cagayan de Oro.
"Let's show those bastards human pride," said the captain of the Bridgetown.
"For Earth," said Ramses, commanding the Rosetta.
The corvettes stormed forward, dodging assaults from every direction. Behind the corvettes, the larger Concord warships were giving them some cover. But most of the fleet remained trapped in the Wormhole.
We have to take down those dreadnoughts, Leona thought. We have to make room, or our friends are stuck in the hole.
Her father's voice emerged from her comm. "Leona, what are you doing? You're flying too deep! I can't follow you."
"You will soon," Leona said, storming forth. "I'm carving us a path."
She shoved her thruster lever, the G-force shoved her against her seat, and she stormed over the enemy dreadnoughts.
Plasma bolts flew her way. One hit her stern, and she screamed. Her hull was breached. Alarms blared. She pulled down her helmet's visor and flew onward. Another blast grazed her side, but she kept charging. The remaining corvettes flew with her. They skimmed over the roof of a warship the size of a small world. More fire blasted their way, and one corvette shattered. Its pilot screamed, and then the vessel fell, hit the enemy warship, and exploded. Fire raged and shrapnel pattered Leona's hull.
More plasma rose everywhere, a citadel of light.
She flew onward.
Remember us, Earth. Remember us.
She rose higher, barrel-rolled through blasts of plasma, and shot over the prow of the enemy dreadnought.
Below her, she saw them. The dreadnought's exhaust pipes.
She stormed forth, yanked the yoke with all her might, and flew a tight U-turn.
She charged toward the dreadnought's stern.
She took a deep breath and released her last two missiles.
The missiles flew and entered the enemy's exhaust pipes.
Four more corvettes made it around the dreadnought, two from below, two from above. They turned and fired their missiles too, sliding them into the exhausts.
The great metal cylinders began to crack.
"Back, back!" Leona cried. "Pull ba—"
Fire roared across space.
A supernova explosion filled her vision with searing white light.
Shrapnel flew everywhere, pounding her ship, pounding hundreds of ships all around.
Her crew screamed.
Leona flew through the inferno, soaring, spinning, trying to flee the roaring devastation beneath her.
The massive scorpion dreadnought, a warship the size of Central Park, burst into millions of pieces that burned and rained across the battle.
The last corvettes hovered, and for a moment, Leona could only sit and breathe. The battle lulled. The thousands of starships, it seemed, paused to behold the terrible aftermath, the gaping hole in the battle where the mighty dreadnought had been.
The path from the wormhole was clear.
And then, with roaring engines and blasting fire, the rest of the Concord fleet spilled forth.
The last few Inheritor starships. Thousands of Aelonian ships. Ships of many other species. They all emerged. They all fired upon the scorpions.
The Concord rises, Leona thought. And I'm alive. Humanity is alive!
"Dad, I'm flying back to join you," she said. The Jerusalem was charging, taking heavy fire now. "I'll give you cover. I—"
Ten strikers emerged from warped space right before her, rippling spacetime, and their plasma slammed into the Nantucket.
The control panel shattered.
Leona screamed.
The yoke rattled in her hand. Smoke blasted out from her engines. Somebody was shouting through her comm, but the voice drowned under static.
She tried to rise higher, to fly toward her father, and—
Another blast hit her, slamming into her hull.
Leona spun.
Blackness spread across her.
She lost consciousness.
She woke up, spinning madly. The battle whirled around her, and she was falling fast. Plasma bolts and shells flew all around her, and smoke filled the cabin. A green planet rolled ahead, spinning around her.
Akraba, she thought. I'm falling toward Akraba.
She tried to touch the controls, then pulled her hand back in pain. Electricity sparked across the cabin. She rose from her seat and kicked at her yoke, desperate to stop spinning, but one engine was out. The Nantucket kept plunging toward the planet. The view spun. The planet was above her, then beneath her, rolling around the viewport. Its gravity had caught her.
Starships were roaring up around her. Dark, craggy crabships, extending their claws. The ships of the marshcrabs. They were rising fight, to help their scorpion masters. They paid her no heed. To them, she was just wreckage.
"Commander, what's going on?" Coral burst into her cockpit, panting. Several warriors stood behind her.
"We're going down!" Leona shouted. "Strap in!"
"Damn!" Coral cried, and her tattoos began to glow. She raced back into the hold and strapped into her seat.
Leona knew it was too late to avoid the planet. Instead, she kicked the helm with both feet, and the rudder adjusted, moving the Nantucket to face the planet head on.
The cracked starship plunged headfirst into the atmosphere.
Fire raged around the corvette. A cracked shield tore off. An engine broke free and spun madly, spurting flame. The blaze engulfed them, and they were falling, spinning, shrieking, roaring down through the sky. In the hold, Leona's soldiers were screaming. Another shield tore off and soared, caught in the wind.
The Nantucket plunged like a comet, leaving a trail of hellfire.
A carpet of clouds spread below them, and they dived through, emerging into Akraba's damp gray sky. Birds fled. The marshlands spread below, a desolation of mud, grassy tussocks, and trees with tall roots.
Leona tried to straighten the ship, tried to fly, but the yoke rattled madly, ripping free from her hands. Birds splattered against them. Their shields were gone. The windshield shattered, and shards and feathers spread across the cockpit. The Nantucket kept screaming down, spinning, leaving a corkscrew of fire through the sky. The G-forces pounded Leona's skull and twisted her belly like a wet cloth.