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  Then the error tones stopped, and Rob moved down to the second tier.

  “When I’m done, I’ll find you and shoot you,” Rob yelled.

  Jack stood on his good leg and peered through a slit in the floor. The battlescape was just in his view. Icons flashed everywhere. He knew exactly what had happened. Rob had engaged the program.

  The orbitals opened fire on both fleets.

  ####

  “Almost there,” Claire said. She jogged right next to the wall with her pistol held in front of her at ready.

  Gavin struggled to keep up. His lungs burned with every breath. Every so often, he’d cough up a ball of bloody phlegm. “Plan?”

  “Flank him. The room is the central command and control. There’s three tiers, each higher than the next. He’ll likely be at the top. That one covers the orbitals.” Claire stopped and looked around a corner.

  Three gunshots echoed down the hall. Someone started yelling, but they couldn’t make it out.

  Gavin went to move down the hall. Claire grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. “He’s faster than you. Stronger than you. He will shoot better. His draw is quicker. Do you hear me?”

  Gavin glared at her. “I hear you.”

  “Once we’re in, go into cover. I go left, you go right, and we flank him.” Claire locked her eyes with Gavin. “Just shoot him, and once you shoot him, keep shooting. Don’t stop until you’ve put a round into his skull.”

  “What did you do to him to make him like that?” Gavin said angrily.

  “Made him into a monster. Now let’s go.”

  They each moved down one side of the hall with their pistols held before them. The closer they got, the slower they moved.

  Gavin’s heart beat faster. The adrenaline seeped in, and his senses tightened. He adjusted his grip on the pistol and felt a familiar rhythm. Step. Aim. Step. Sweep. Wherever his eyes went, the pistol followed.

  Finally, they reached the doorway. Claire exhaled and closed her eyes for a split second. When she opened them, she nodded at Gavin.

  The pair ducked and rushed into the room.

  Gavin swept the pistol up and broke to the right. Above him, a massive planetary hologram shifted and changed. Beneath it, a conical pyramid of three tiers rose up. He didn’t see Rob.

  Two shots rang out. Claire yelled in pain.

  Gavin rushed three steps ahead and saw Rob for just a second. He almost squeezed off a round but held his aim. It didn’t look like Rob saw him. He stepped onto the first tier and walked slowly ahead, with his pistol at ready.

  Rob came into view. He stood over Claire, his pistol pointed right at her.

  Gavin drew a bead with his pistol and squeezed the trigger. A single round barked out and glanced off Rob’s shoulder.

  The gunshot roared through the room.

  Gavin fired off another round, but this one went wide. Rob dove to the side and braced himself against a console. A round smacked off the wall right behind Gavin.

  “Gavin!” Jack yelled from somewhere inside the tiers of consoles.

  “Stay down!” Gavin shouted back. He crawled to one side and poked the pistol out.

  Rob suddenly sprinted past his view. Gavin fired a round that hit right where Rob had been. God, he is fast!

  “You’re too late!” Rob shouted. “Both of your fleets are going to be destroyed.”

  “Gavin, shoot him!” Claire yelled.

  “Shh, little sister, you’ll bleed out soon enough!” Rob taunted.

  At that, Gavin stood, swung his pistol, and aimed at the second tier. He could hear Rob typing and giving orders to someone. Then it went silent.

  “Look out!” Jack yelled.

  Gavin caught movement out of the corner of his eye and dropped down as quick as he could. A trio of rounds impacted right behind him.

  “I need to get to that console!” Jack yelled.

  “Shit!” Gavin didn’t know where the hell Rob was. Worse of all, he just wasn’t quick enough to hit Rob. He needed a diversion. He had to stop Rob, and Jack just might be the diversion he needed.

  Just then, a shadow loomed behind him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Jakob weaved his Fury right behind Blue Six’s Vulture. Explosions and burning ships tumbled all around them. He dove the nose just as a Qin frigate plowed past, struggling to get into high orbit.

  “Carrier Excelsior is down,” Blue Six called. “Get to the Midway!”

  Jakob snapped his eyes to his tactical display and picked out a route to the carrier. The display was so clogged that he could barely pick a way through.

  All about them, both fleets were being destroyed. Just when the TU had the upper edge and trapped the Qin fleet, the orbitals opened fire on them. The Qin fleet rallied and blitzed right into the Terran fleet.

  But only minutes after, the orbitals opened up on both fleets.

  A line of TU cruisers continued to fire their railguns right into the fleeing Qin fleet. At the same moment, Qin frigates plunged into their midst. Arc cannons flared and burned into the hulls.

  Jakob watched it all, almost a helpless bystander. He had enough shells left for a three-second burst and barely enough fuel to get him back to the Midway.

  Midway? More like too far away.

  Three Qin fighters drove between him and Blue Six. Jakob fired off all the rounds he had left. One spun and collided with a steel-bright strut. The other two dove away, not eager for a fight.

  “Bingo shells.”

  “Bingo, bingo. We gotta roll, old man,” Blue Six called. “Right, follow this!”

  Jakob followed her plot and felt his stomach squeeze. It burned right along the narrow battle line, darting in and out of wreckage. It would take every bit of piloting skill and then some.

  “You do that, old man?”

  “Bet you a wicked drunk I can.”

  “Right. Three, two, one, go!”

  Jakob hammered the throttle.

  All around them, the two fleets fled the terrible barrage rising up from the planet. Just as one fleet seemed to gain altitude, the other would drive in and lock them in place.

  ####

  Kane watched the battle unfold with his hands clasped behind his back. He trusted in Hiro, trusted him like no other man, but he knew the battle was lost.

  Not only lost, but what he saw meant his son was dead. Both of them. Somewhere on the planet below, they’d failed, and for some inexplicable reason the planetary defenses were firing on both fleets.

  The very last briefing he had with the Terran Union council broke things down simply. If the planet was lost, he must extract the fleet. They could recruit more soldiers, train them quick enough, outfit them even faster. But starships took years to manufacture, even on a war footing. If he lost this fleet, they could very well lose the war.

  Admiral Moss called out losses as they came in. “Texas, Chile, Monaco, Leyte Gulf, and, oh God, the Excelsior. Pulse cannon pierced her heart. She’s at zero acceleration!”

  “What?” Kane snapped. Excelsior was the largest carrier they had. “Get me Admiral Hayabusa!”

  Hiro’s face came on the small comms screen. Behind him, a console was burning, smoke pouring out from the screen. Damage control teams rushed past. “Kane.”

  “Hiro, we need to extract the fleet.” The words pained him as he spoke.

  Hiro straightened up. “Total extraction?”

  “Correct.”

  Kane looked down at Hiro and listened as the losses continued to rise. A battle cruiser had lost propulsion. A wing of cruisers were boring into the bottom of the Qin formations, soon to be lost. Not only was the battle lost, but he’d just cut Hiro’s room to maneuver.

  “We can’t hold while the orbitals are engaging.”

  “They’re on us both,” Hiro pleaded. “We can continue the engagement as we rise. In an hour, the bulk of the fleet will be out of pulse cannon range.”

  “Break with the Qin, Hiro. We need to salvage this fleet.”

&nb
sp; “Sir!” Admiral Moss called out. “New contacts!”

  “I see them!” Hiro called out. “They’re rising from the planet.”

  Kane pushed his way through the crowd till he was at the tactical display. Thirty new contacts rose up from around the planet. The computer system couldn’t identify any of them; they were all bracketed in yellow.

  “Get me a visual! Fly by, now!” Admiral Moss yelled.

  “Moss,” Kane said. “Are the pulse cannons firing on them?”

  Admiral Moss looked away for a second and then back to Kane. “No…”

  “Admiral Moss,” Kane said. His eyes went up to the tactical display. “Inform Admiral Hayabusa to prepare to engage and”—he stopped and took a breath—“attempt to raise the Qin fleet.”

  The room almost went silent. Admiral Moss gave a small nod and leaned down to the comm console. “Get me the Qin frequencies.”

  ####

  “Break!” Blue Six called.

  Jakob spun his ship about the center axis and dropped the boosters. His fuel was winking almost to zero. The Midway was rising, but they were closer than ever. Sweat ran down his face. He’d made it through almost the entire gauntlet.

  “New orders,” Blue Six called. “We’ve got someone new to the party. Stay on my ass, we’re headed down to check them out.”

  “Roger,” Jakob called. He laid out the route package that came from Blue Six. “I’m bingo fuel on the return trip.”

  “Orders are to ditch. Burn in three seconds, prep recon package. Affirm?”

  Jakob exhaled and swallowed hard. His cockpit was wrecked. He didn’t know if the eject would function. There was no way he could ditch and know he’d survive. “Affirm. I’m on your ass.”

  “Let’s go, you pervy old man.”

  Jakob pointed his nose straight at the planet below. He gave one glance at his fuel gauge and then at the manual eject. There was a distinct kink to the handle. “Right, on your mark.”

  “Set and go!” Blue Six called.

  The Fury followed right after the slender Vulture. The two fighters dodged through the debris field that had been the main battlescape just an hour before. Pulse cannons still blasted past them, ghostly blurs of intense energy.

  Jakob didn’t even worry about those. It’d be over before he knew what hit him.

  Below him, it was halfway through the night, with a deep cloud cover. His onboard radar struggled to resolve through the clouds. It was picking up…something. And it was rising fast. Then another resolved, and another.

  “Contacts, thirty strong,” Blue Six radioed to fleet command. “Prepping for recon sweep.”

  Jakob broke free of the debris field. His hands flicked a dozen different switches and tapped on three sets of icons. Now, instead of controlling his cannon, he’d steer a camera with one hand and deploy recording drones with the other.

  “Hit it, old man!”

  Jakob flicked the key, and a dozen basketball-sized drones blasted away from his fighter. They spun out and disappeared into the darkness around him.

  The nose of his Fury started to glow. He was in a steep dive, right at the boundary that the fighter could take. The shapes resolved. Drone footage flickered in. He steered his camera and tried to get a view, but they were still in the high clouds.

  A line of arc cannon fire rippled out from the clouds. A few moments later, a barrage of missiles and torpedoes broke free like a thousand burning arrows.

  “Evasive!” Blue Six called.

  Jakob slammed the fighter from side to side. A pack of missiles sizzled past without even detonating. He snapped his head to check his tail and saw they were still rising up. “Woah!”

  A torpedo lumbered past, almost comically slow compared to the missiles.

  “There they are! Go, go, go!”

  “Fleet, recon is going live.”

  Jakob checked his velocity. Satisfied that he was slow enough, he tipped the nose right into the atmosphere and felt the air grab on. The body of the Fury shook and wobbled, and he burned the last of his fuel to get as close as he could to the rising starships. Then he clicked on the transmit button.

  The starships emerged from the clouds like longships from the mist. The prows were sharp, like chisels, and bristling with arc cannons. Railgun turrets speckled the hulls. Launcher doors slid back and revealed batteries halfway through loading. The ships were as large as TU battleships but armed like defensive stations.

  “Flak!” Blue Six called.

  Jakob dove right toward the nearest starship. The hull flew past in a blur. Flak exploded a few hundred meters away. He felt the shock waves and gritted his teeth.

  Behind them, the rising wave of missiles obliterated the nearest line of TU—and Qin—ships. A wing of cruisers crumbled as they were locked with a pack of Qin raiders. Then, moments later, another barrage of arc cannons wiped those out too.

  “I’m clear! See ya on the ground, old man!” Blue Six called. Her Vulture disappeared into the cloud cover and was gone.

  Jakob passed the starship, and then it was silent. His engines died, and only the growing sound of the wind kept him company. He tested the flaps and adjusted his course. Then he rolled his ship and looked straight above him.

  “Oh God.”

  The new wave of starships was obliterating both of the fleets. Both the TU and Qin were surging away while firing at the same time. To add insult to injury, another barrage of pulse cannon rounds tore into the fleeing ships.

  Jakob knew he was watching a massacre unlike any before. The worst part—he didn’t even know who the hell was doing the shooting.

  Then he broke through the cloud barrier and was wrapped in gray darkness.

  “All right, better now than never,” Jakob said. He decided to eject up high where the air was thinner. The capsule would, ideally, roll back and gently open up. In the current condition, he didn’t know how it would go.

  He laid a gloved hand onto the manual release and closed his eyes. Then he yanked the handle.

  Nothing.

  Jakob tried once more, then again, and then finally he decided to do it the old-fashioned way. He lay back, raised up a boot, and kicked the ejection handle.

  In a fraction of a second, thirty-six bolts exploded at once and separated the capsule from the body of the Fury. The fighter itself dipped down and rolled to clear itself from the capsule. But instead of a smooth open, the capsule exploded into a thousand little pieces.

  It was about then that the thicker air grabbed onto Jakob and he lost consciousness.

  The last thing he saw was the pulse cannons firing below him.

  Gavin swung his pistol and dropped to the floor. Just as he lined up the sights to fire, he stopped.

  Cross held up a bloody finger. “Shhh. I’ve got no weapon.”

  “Cross!” Gavin whispered. “Take the pistol. We need to find Rob and kill him.”

  Cross took the pistol and pressed himself low to the floor. “Qin cyborgs are inbound.”

  “I need to get to Claire to get her pistol.” Gavin looked up at the starscape above him.

  A new line of contacts was crawling up from the planet and firing on the combined fleets. One by one, both Qin and TU ships were disappearing.

  “Get ready. I’ve got an idea,” Gavin said. He crouched and got ready to run. Then he yelled out, “Your plan is going to fail. It’s totally flawed!”

  “The TU is the only flaw!” Rob called out. “My plan is perfect. Perfect!”

  Gavin sprinted down the line of consoles. A pistol round fired out and smashed into one of the screens. He dropped down and scanned the line for Claire. “Perfect? What the hell do you mean?”

  Rob laughed out loud. “You don’t see it, do you? Both fleets will be wiped out. Then who can protect the Terran Union and the Qin? Who can stop my ships? Your precious navy? Our father? Bullshit to all of them. Bullshit! I’ll have control of the only fleet that can protect the planets. They’ll have to bow to me!”

  Gavin saw C
laire’s foot and crawled down the line, the whole time aware that Rob could fire from behind him. He knew Cross would wait for the perfect shot; as long as Rob didn’t know he was there, they had an advantage.

  She lay on her back with a gunshot wound in her stomach. Dark blood stained her uniform, and her face was pale. Gavin propped up her head and knew he couldn’t do anything with what he had. “Where’s the pistol?”

  Claire pointed a bloody finger and grimaced in pain. Her pistol lay in the middle of the aisle on the second tier.

  “Your nation has earned what they got. They walked into a trap, and then I snapped the jaws shut. A total defeat for both the Qin and the TU. Me, my plan! All of your brilliant officers, and they all failed. None of you deserve to rule,” Rob’s voice called. He was in a different spot now.

  Gavin looked at the pistol and saw he’d have to sprint into the open to get it. Where was Rob? “And you deserve it?”

  “No, I’ve earned it! You have no idea the horrors that await in space. It’s vast, violent, deadly. Mankind isn’t ready. The Terran Union isn’t ready. Me, I’m ready. My officers, they’re ready. We’ll lead them through—“

  “Through what, a dictatorship of failure?” Gavin yelled back. He got ready to sprint.

  “Failure! You consider this failure? It’s brilliant! They had me locked in prison. No one had the balls to kill me. I’ve taken victory from the Qin and turned it on you both. Brilliant is what it is!”

  Gavin sprinted ahead. He pulled on a console and overturned it behind him, and then dove for the pistol. A gunshot rang out, and the console exploded into sparks behind him. He rolled down and heard two more shots. Cross.

  “Clever boy!” Rob called out. “Now, the odds are close to even.”

  Gavin looked down and caught movement. Just as he brought the pistol to aim, he saw Jack crawling up a line of cables. He reached in and helped the locksmith to crawl out. Blood streamed down Jack’s back, and his leg was wet and sticky from more blood. Gone was his nervous tic, replaced by a solemn frown.