"Did you hear about Innman and Arden?" the short Hispanic junior officer said as she heated her meal in the Torchbearer's dining area.

"They sold the stock in their companies and left on a jump ship," the tall bald senior NCO standing in line behind her said.

An older mustached technician leaned around the bald man to join in the conversation. "I heard Sunny was sending a jump ship out after them to arrest them."

"Why would he need to do that?" a junior spacer asked as he cleaned a nearby table. "Their families are staying at one of his corporate resorts. One word from him and they're all under arrest or even killed."

The other diners set their meals down. "Really?"

I leaned back in my chair and asked Chris, "What do you think?"

He sipped his coffee and shrugged. "I have no idea. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if he took offense at them running out on him. But then, who knows if he even considers them important enough to worry about."

I smiled. "So you're saying it depends which is greater, his arrogance or his pettiness."

"I did hear why they left."

"Oh? Why?"

"They were upset that Sunshine allowed Sherman to keep the ships that joined his Consolidated Colonial Space Force. And that's not all." Chris leaned closer and lowered his voice. "They're talking about reorganizing the fleets. Moony and Sherman are both maneuvering to be supreme commander. I think Innman, in particular, thought he should have the position because of his prior history with Sunshine."

"What of Arden?" I asked.

"He's a patriot. He still wants to go back to the Patriotic Free Government of the Thousand and reclaim his homeworld, but now that Bright Fortune has fled back to the Cack homeworld, Sunshine has no interest in it." Chris drained his cup. "Anyway, expect some big high-level meetings soon. There's definitely going to be some changes."

* * *

I left the dining room and returned to my quarters where I worked through my inbox. I noticed a formal complaint from the flight deck master of the Blaylock in regards to Cruze's abrupt departure and filed it in the category of things to be dealt with when Hell froze over.

I had worked through the first half of the items when a fleet-wide announcement flashed Sunshine's royal ideogram on my display. I had left my door open and could hear the alerting tone echo throughout the ship. An announcer spoke in the whistling clicking speech of the Those Who Dwell Within followed by a human interpreter who was obviously paraphrasing a machine translator. "Please stand by for an announcement from his radiance, Shines Like the Sun."

Sunshine appeared on the display in all his tropical glory and began to speak. "You have, no doubt heard that Innman and Arden have both chosen to leave us. Since there may be some confusion due to the abruptness of their departure I wish to clarify the reason.

"I did not ask them to leave and would have preferred them to stay. Though they may flatter themselves by thinking they have snuck off, I assure you they cannot outrun my jump ships and there is nowhere in human space or Indweller space in which they can hide. However, because of their former service, I allowed them to run off.

"I would not have it said that I use anyone while they have something to offer and abuse them the moment they do not wish to help me. God knows I have treated them better than they have treated me."

He paused a moment in thought before continuing. "At this moment, we are nearing our final goal. Soon a great challenge and greater rewards will stand before us all. Summon up the courage you showed in stopping the first Indweller acquisition. If you find it lacking, you may leave knowing I will not blame you or seek revenge. But if you trust me, I will see to it that you are well compensated so that any past inconvenience or hardship you suffered will seem a small thing indeed.

* * *

Sunshine's speech was well received and the crews were eager to follow him into the Middle Sphere. We passed rapidly through star systems which seemed eerily abandoned. Most space assets were either grounded or sent out-of-system. A few were even destroyed so we that we couldn't scavenge parts and supplies. Without the Cack fleet to defend them, most planets would send up any supplies we asked for when our fleet showed up in orbit. Only one planet, loyal to Fading Glory, was foolish enough to try and resist us. Sunshine had us practice planetary bombardment on them. Only the Cack warships participated, destroying their military, governmental and industrial centers as an exercise. They stopped short of complete sterilization after most of their ships had a chance to get in their shots and then only because their commanders wanted to preserve most of their armaments for the conflict to come.

We continued pursuing Faded Glory. Sunshine believed Faded Glory had realized he couldn't defend the entire Middle Sphere against us and that he would try to hold the gate to the Inner Sphere. Phil was convinced the Moiarchy itself was our real target. He even said the planetary bombardment was practice in case Righteous Ruler should take refuge on the Cack homeworld, thinking its sacred position would ward off our attack. He wouldn't explain why, but he wasn't alone in his thinking and he had been in frequent conference with Sherman who seemed to enjoy Sunshine's confidence.

We had paused at a world three-quarters of the way to the inner gate to take on supplies for the final push when Phil gave me a strange look during one of our routine update meetings. We were in his quarters, each with a datapad in our laps, going down the latest list of administrivia brought up by our SCs when he asked, "Which ship would you prefer to run the C&C from, the Torchbearer or the Athena?"

"What? Are you thinking of moving the C&C?"

"Yes."

I shrugged. "The Athena is a slightly newer ship. I hear the accommodations are a little better, but honestly, the inside of one crashpod is pretty much like another. I'd just as soon leave the C&C here."

Phil nodded and made a note on his datapad. "I'll transfer over to the Athena, then."

"Transfer? But why?"

Phil leaned back in his seat and set down the datapad. "The fleet commanders have been reviewing the command and control structure, looking for ways to improve inter-fleet coordination. One of the things we've been looking at is wing-level tactics. Sunshine wants us to plan for fighting forces much larger than our own."

"Fading Glory cannot have that many ships," I objected. "Otherwise he would have held us at the first gate to the middle sphere." An idea suddenly hit me. "That's why he withdrew to the inner gate, isn't it? He's not just trying to consolidate his defenses, he's waiting for reinforcements from the Inner Sphere."

"Most likely," Phil agreed. "We've been told to expect stiff resistance. We're going to have to be nimble and quick. If necessary, we'll break up the fleet into semi-autonomous wings—that's why we want a strat-o assigned to each wing. Each wing will function as a single unit. If they have to go trans-luminal, the wing will contract to com-laser range and move in a series of coordinated maneuvers."

"They won't be able to support other wings. Defense will suffer."

"If they're moving trans-luminal, defense won't be an issue."

"Until they pause to attack," I added. "This is a very aggressive plan. If you're dealing with superior numbers, it's only really useful to isolate and attack a limited number of high-value targets."

"Or one." Phil gave me a significant look.

I had no doubt about what he was implying. I let the comment go unanswered.

Phil picked up his datapad and started tapping icons. "We have some simulations to run. It'll just be fleet officers. We'll begin once everyone gets transferred to their new stations."

We continued working down the list of items, but I was distracted as I realized this meant Cathrine would be leaving for another ship.

* * *

I sat alone in the C&C feeling awkward and a little useless as the room's sole occupant. I had turned on the holo-table display and kept glancing from it to my pod displays. Shine Like the Sun's combined Solarian and Cack fleet displayed as a series of numbered blue dots and was rapidly approaching a mass of red triangles that had us outnumbered five to one.

"Solomon and Moony, you will lead the attack," Sherman said. "You will head straight for their formation at 4C until you are 10 A.U. from their position, at which point you will veer 300 degrees and try to draw away as many of their ships as you can."

"What happens when they don't fall for our little ruse," Moony complained.

"You have to give them time to respond. If they prove too clever to fall for our feint, then head straight for the primary target and try not to engage the ships on the front line."

No one actually expected the Cack fleet to come at us in a line—it would probably be a sphere or spheroid wedge—but everyone was so tense that no one, not even Moony, corrected his terminology.

"Porter and Orden will wait until the enemy adjusts to the first attack before engaging those ships that attempt to move up and fill the gaps left behind. Smith and I will lead the Cacks and try to force our way into the gap blasting our way to the primary target.

"You strat-o's are going to have to be quick on the target selections—especially Porter's and Orden's. The objective is to keep as many ships as tied up as possible—just hit and move on, hit and move on, no FACs, static missile exchanges and certainly no boarding parties. Is everyone clear? Then start queuing your commands."

I began grouping my ship icons and assigning com triggers as I watched the enemy triangles near. The usual Cack approach was to send in wave after wave of ships at superluminal speed, dropping missiles and autonomous attack drones in a hit and run fashion to overwhelm their enemies. More often than not—especially when they enjoyed a numerical advantage—they would stop and fight, attempting to claim their enemy's ship as a prize. This tactic would bog us down and prevent us from reaching our "primary target." So to prevent that, we had to approach aggressively and try to seize the initiative, forcing the Cacks to fall back into a defensive position. And if they fell into confusion instead, so much the better.

I watched Moony and Solomon's fleet approach the enemy formation then suddenly veer off. The ruse worked somewhat. A number of ships moved to block the anticipated attack, then at a certain point, moved back into position while other ships took up the chase. This caused a ripple across the surface of the sphere.

"I think that's as good as we're going to get," Phil said. He sent a screen cap of his targeting screen with eight circles dividing up the areas around the opening. He had assigned one to each wing, writing our flight letters in a hasty scrawl. "Follow me," he said. Then his ship went super luminal severing the EPR connections.

I transmitted the first selected target and sent the order to use the H-drive at maximum speed. By the time we reached the target, cut the drive and launched our missiles, I had already cued up the next half-dozen targets in a corkscrew path through the enemy formation. As I waited for the orders to propagate by com laser to the other ships in my wing and for the confirmation to return, the enemy's answering missiles began to close in on us. We got the confirmation and took off for the next target even as the missiles came within seconds of hitting us. Once we went FTL, however, the missiles couldn't hit us, or even track us. Even so, coordinating by com laser during these brief stops was like trying to dodge thrown rocks while moving in slow motion.

As we progressed, the enemy grew better at anticipating our movements. The ships moved to block us and their missiles grew closer with each new encounter. We started to have to call on our point defenses to destroy the incoming missiles while we waited for the confirmation that our next set of orders had been received by all ships. Our progress slowed to a crawl.

Solomon and Moony's feint got surprisingly close to reaching our primary target before getting bogged down in the formation's internal defenses. Sherman and Smith's fleets pushed past us dragging the Cack host behind them. I had our wing parallel them to try to run interference. Phil's other wings, seeing our example, followed in suit. As we neared the primary target, we began to lose ships. One by one their dots were eliminated.

Warning signs flashed on my displays as the Torchbearer started taking damage and the communication bandwidth dropped. I had just enough time to transfer control to one of my senior tac-officers when the Torchbearer took a crippling hit. I was forced to watch passively while the rest of the fleet dove into the heart of the enemy formation, shedding ships like sparks from a burning spear. Sherman and Smith's fleets took near one hundred percent casualties but Shines Like the Sun's fleet was able to take out the target.

I sat back in the crashpod, sighed, and unzipping the top of my flight suit. I air was heavy with the smell of sweat and fear. I fumbled for my netpiece to adjust the C&C's environmental controls. We're going to have to try something else, I thought as the simulation's statistics began to scroll across my displays. Sure we achieved our objective, but the cost was too great. Of course five-to-one odds were ridiculous, but even so, it was a pyrrhic victory at best.

As I tapped into the senior command discussions, I learned Shines Like the Sun felt differently. He had seen it as a glorious victory. Overcome by emotion he made a confession he had been holding back.

"Our vanguard machine eyes have seen Faded Glory's absence from the inner gate. It is being of no consequence. The approaching goal having neared, the time of revelation is come. My intention is in assuming the rule of the Moiarchy from my father's son. Please be educating your warriors to motivate their assistance."