I sat alone in C&C suffering through constant two G acceleration as an irritating trickle of sweat ran down the small of my back. I checked my pressure suit helmet strapped to the side of acceleration couch, ensuring it was properly secured against rapid manuvering and resisted the urge to seal the crash pod. In the event of depressurization it would automatically do that, but as I sat nervously waiting for first contact, there wasn't much for me to do. All the planning had been accomplished beforehand.

"How's it going over there?" Cathrine asked on a private channel.

I tried to sound nonchalant. "Just waiting."

"I know. It's driving me crazy."

I chuckled, testing the com links to my wing for at least the dozenth time.

"Why aren't they going trans-luminal?" Cathrine asked. "The Cacks prefer hit and run tactics."

"I heard a rumor that they've hired a Solarian strategist. It looks like he's enforcing unit discipline. Since the H-drive would normally sever the EPR transceiver links, their use of grav-drive means they plan to use organized fleet-wide tactics."

"This could be a little tough."

I punched up the gravimetric sensors. There was no way our lens formation, as thin as it was, could hold back a properly trained Cack fleet. We would be forced into a conical formation as we plunged into the enemy's formation and, unless we quickly took out Righteous Ruler's flagship at its center, we would ultimately be forced into a defensive sphere as our smaller fleet was surrounded and overwhelmed.

In addition to their numbers, the Cack's grav-drives gave them another advantage. It allowed them to attack at the speed of light without severing their EPR connections. However it made them show

up on the gravimetric sensors like a tight swarm of fast-moving planets. Though the matter-antimatter engines of our own fleet plunged us forward under multiple gravities, we seemed to crawl in comparison.

"I heard Sherman and Shines Like the Sun argued over the fleet formation when they saw Righteous Ruler's fleet," Cathrine said.

"Oh?"

"Yes. Shines Like the Sun wanted to use a conical formation and drive straight for the center of the enemy formation. As he put it, we only have to defeat his brother, not the entire fleet."

"Good point. I take it Sherman was not convinced."

"No, he was afraid the more aggressive formation would be too easily bogged down and overwhelmed."

As we watched the enemy's slow advance, our conversation faded out. Though they approached across the system at light speed, watching them on the gravitic sensors was like watching a time-lapse simulation of two galaxies colliding over the course of billions of years. A message flashed on my monitor and, to my surprise, it was a personal message request from Shines Like the Sun himself. I accepted. "Yes, sir. How may I help you?"

Sunshine listened to the translation click and chitter, then replied. "Contacting Commanders of the winged fleet, I seeking status of readiness."

"All wings report they are ready for combat. Do you have any further instructions for them?"

"Reporting, please, to the crews the oracle saying the futures of our success predominates."

"Yes, sir." The Cacks had three oracles on staff and didn't make a move without consulting at least one of them. They had even asked for my kairogram earlier saying they could combine all such kairograms into a composite represented the fleet. I only hoped it would actually help us.

I relayed Sunshine's report about the oracle's observations and then continued to wait and watch as the two fleets slowly drew to within attack range.

Alerts flashed on my display. The ships at the leading edge began firing their missiles. As the two fleets neared, the ring of ships firing missiles grew wider. The first flare of exploding anti-missile missiles flashed and somewhere in there the remotely piloted fighters were flying toward each other.

I felt the blood pounding in my veins and forced my breathing to slow. I thought about the hundreds of troopers waiting in their cramped breaching pods, just waiting for the enemy to come within range for the troopers to make their attack. I knew the waiting would be worse for them, yet I couldn't see Kouvaras or any of his men showing any nervousness.

"What's happening?" Chris Knight asked on the fleet command channel.

I double checked the gravimetric scanners. "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

"They're starting to flee," Brian Harlow said.

Sure enough, the ships along the edge of the sphere, part of the enemy formation which had not even made contact with our fleet yet, were breaking off and flying away. Our plan called on the entire fleet to reduce thrust as the center made contact so we could maintain formation, but our ships along the edge of the lens continued accelerating, eager to attack the Cacks as their formation began to break apart.

"This isn't right," I said. "They're up to something." My crash chamber lurched forward as the Torchbearer cut its engines throwing us into temporary weightlessness. My tac display lit up with scores of missiles being magnetically launched each second, their internal clocks counting down the milliseconds to the moment when a couple of hundred A/M engines would fire, sending a wave of destruction raining down on the nearest Cack ship. While most of the missiles would be destroyed by the Cacks' energy weapons, not many would need to make it through their point defenses. The ASM 629 "doorknockers" would collapse their remaining fuel/payload in an antimatter explosion as soon as they were within blast range. The ASM 830 "ice picks" would fire their forward anti-matter engine moments before impact, burrowing deep into the enemy ship before exploding.

Usually, by the time a Cack warship had dealt with the first attack wave, the suddenly very close Solarian ship had already launched the second wave of missiles which would hide the fighter craft. These would buzz around inside the firing arcs of the Cack ship's weapons and take the ship apart. If the Cack ship was still putting up a fight when the Solarian ship came into close range, the breaching pods would generally finish them off.

I flash messaged the captains along the outer edge of our wing. "Maintain formation!" The Cacks were still retreating along the edge of their formation, leaving the hardened core around the ruler's flagship. Our own ships were beginning to break formation in pursuit, but we didn't have the depth of numbers they had, leaving Shines Like the Sun and his core of Cack ships increasingly vulnerable. Even as I watched, Righeous Ruler and his elite guard of warships were swinging around Moony's side of our formation.

"Arg!" I slammed a fist against the side of the crash chamber then called out on the command channel, "It's a feint! It's a trap! We have to rally the ships—"

A giant hammer fell on us and the Torchbearer lurched sideways. The power went out leaving me in thundering darkness. I counted three and a half seconds, three and a half slices of eternity before the emergency lights struggled on. My displays flickered through their connection routines, but my thermometer icons indicated I had lost nearly all my ship-to-ship bandwidth.

I began closing down displays to conserve bandwidth and tried to open a single channel to Phil. After too many seconds, a stuttering pixilated video feed appeared on my screen.

"Ken, what's wrong?"

"I think we've been hit. I've lost most of my ship-to-ship. Can you get Fleet Officer Anderson?"

Phil paused. "Yes."

"Tell her she's in charge of the wing until I can get my coms back up. I'll re-establish contact as soon as I can"

"Acknowledged. Good luck."

I called up the video feed from the bridge. It would be suicidally stupid to interfere with Commander Brennan's running of the ship, but I had to see what was going on. I risked my bandwidth and called up some internal ship data-feeds to try and determine the extent of the damage.

"Target their forward weapons array," Brennon ordered.

"I can't, sir," his tactical officer replied. "All targeting systems are out."

"Switch to manual."

"Yes, sir. Switching to manual targeting."

"Fire as soon as you've acquired the target."

A Cack warship waited motionless before us. It didn't take long.

"Target acquired. Firing...no response from main guns."

"All forward missile batteries fire."

"I'm getting a red light," Mia, his tac officer said. "I've got damaged launchers on left and right sides."

Brennon slammed his fist on the side of his crash pod, then stabbed the engineering icon with his thumb. The moment Chief Droemer's image appeared on the screen—before he could acknowledge his commander's call—Brennon barked out. "Damage report: all stations."

"Heavy damage in fore and aft hulls. Main guns out, targeting out, navigation out, life support out, I've got functional missile launchers on third and fourth batteries, but the bay doors are jammed."

"Direct repair crews there first," Brennon ordered. "Tell them to cut the hull off if they have to!"

The engineer punched in instructions off-screen.

"Continue," Brennon said.

"We have hull breaches on all decks along the left side. The engine room took severe damage. Main power is out. The CA is functioning on reserve power...." The officer hesitated a moment as he read the next item. "The reactor is out."

"What? Main and reserve?"

"Yes, sir."

"Antimatter reserves?"

"I had to blow most of it out when the magnetic fields collapsed. We've only got what little is left in the fuel system."

Everyone on the bridge froze. The silence of the non-functioning air handlers suddenly pressed in on me. The ship had only the reserve fuel cells for power. It was barely enough to power the critical ship functions and that would only last for a few hours, or even just minutes depending on use. There would be no H-drive, no reaction drive and no way home.

"Does anything work?" Brennon demanded.

"We have one operational reaction engine."

"One reaction engine," Brennon muttered darkly. "I have half a mind to ram them."

Brennon sat on the bridge and stewed.

I checked the gravimetrics and it seemed that the nearest Cack ship, which must have been the one to hit us, was already engaging another passing ship. He probably tagged us as a war prize and was looking to catch other ships. Suddenly a message light flashed on my console. Brennon, unaware I had connected to the bridge was paging me.

"C&C, are you there?"

"Yes, C&C here."

"Are there any ships in this area who can come to our aid?"

I didn't tell him that I was mostly relying on the Torchbearers own sensors since most of my ship-to–ship bandwidth was gone. "All ships in this area are engaging the enemy," I said. I pulled up my tactical display. Our formation had gone from a convex lens to a concave— almost bowl shape with the enemy filling the interior. "The Cack center formations are moving toward us as the enemy's wings are pushed back. If we can last until the rest of our fleet overtakes us, we might be able to dock with one of the support ships." I didn't voice my estimate of the likelihood of that happening.

"What is he doing?" Brennon asked.

It took me a moment to realize he had forgotten me and was staring at his own monitor. I cloned his monitor and copied it to one of my dead ship-to–ship monitors. The Cack warship that had struck us was performing some sort of maneuver that involved drawing very close to us with his gun ports open.

"Energy spike!" the tactical officer said. "They're charging weapons!"

"Rotate the ship!" Brennon ordered. "Don't let him focus those beams on a single point."

"Brace for acceleration," the helmsman called out. He didn't wait the regulation warning period, just slapped the warning siren and began turning the ship. The Torchbearer responded sluggishly. The Cack ship fired, but the blast missed us completely. It maneuvered again and fired, but that attack missed us by an even wider margin.

"They're not trying to hit us," I said.

"But, what are they—?," the tac officer began.

"They're using us as cover." I said. "They may even be using our distress signal to draw more ships in. The rest of our fleet is just now coming into range."

Brennon slammed his fist on the side of his crash pod. "I will not have them using us as bait to attack our own fleet. One reaction engine! What can I do with one reaction drive? Helmsman, do you think you could maneuver us to catch the Cack ship in our exhaust?"

"I doubt it, sir. With only one engine, she'll be slow to respond."

"Without navigation," I warned, "we probably couldn't maneuver close enough without just ramming it. Plus, with their hull armor, we'd have to maintain the same relative position for several minutes against our own thrust and that's before you factor in the effects of their magnetic shielding."

"Thank you, C&C. That will be enough." Brennon fumed silently for several long seconds. "We can't just sit here and wait to be taken as a war prize. I, for one, have no desire to become a slave on the Cack home world."

An idea popped into my head. It was a crazy, and probably stupid, idea but we were all out of good ones and out of time. "There is one alternative," I said, remembering Brennon's threat to ram the Cack ship. "We'll need to re-code the docking procedures to override the collision avoidance routines and change a few other key parameters such as acceleration. And, of course, it would mean abandoning the ship."

Brennon glared at me—actually looking at me in the monitor for the first time. The idea of abandoning his command was an outrageous suggestion. But as he considered the situation he had to come to the same conclusion I did. I saw the first sad hint of despair appear in his eyes. There wasn't much ship left to save anyway.