In less than five minutes, after a brief meeting with commander Brennon and Chief Droemer, I was back in the Argippos while a tech floated with his head in my control panel installing the remote control interface. It would take him longer to install it than it would actually be used, but it was integral to our plans.

"All done, sir." The technician crawled out from the console and touched a spot on the control pad to activate the new display. "You can control the ship's helm, such as it is, from here."

"Very good," I said. "Are the EPR transceivers installed?"

He gave me a worried glance as I sat motionless in the pilot's chair, then he tapped his netpiece. "We've removed three transceivers from the ship. One has been installed in a life pod and one in the auxiliary command boarding pod, but we're having difficulties rerouting communication functions in the command craft."

"Tell them I don't care if they can watch ISN. Tell them we're going to boost in a couple of minutes, so get the transceiver in now.

"Yes, sir."

"And call up my tac display before you go strap in."

"Yes, sir." The tech gave me another worried look as he punched up my tac display, then left for his life pod.

I sat still, not wishing to impair the efficiency of the nano-bots crawling over my body like a wave of oil. The nano-bots issued from a sphere the size and weight of a lead bowling ball which rested under my left hand. The first wave had covered my body and left behind a polymer skin which covered everything but my face. The second wave was leaving behind a network of sensors, actuators and heat/moisture exchangers."

"You're taking a risk," Kouvaras said from the breaching pod in which he would command our troopers. "Without sufficient cover, the Cacks will be able to pick us all off at their leisure."

"I think I can keep them occupied if Brennon's techs did their job. Can your men do their part? Without you, we really are dead."

"If you can get us there alive, we'll do our part, never fear."

"Good, have your men stand by. We'll boost as soon as I get the word that everything is ready. Phon out."

I sat in the silences of the Argippos trying to slow my heart and breathing. Outside, a titanic struggle was being fought in the silent void of space. Inside, I tried to forget that the Argippos was the fastest ship ever built and that if I were to run, no one could hope to catch me before I got back to Solarian space.

The third wave of nano-bots were disassembling the sphere under my hand and begun weaving an iridium-carbon mesh for my armor's outer shell. Underneath it all, my uniform had been disassembled, molecule by molecule, and was migrating to the small of my back where it was being reassembled, cleaned and pressed in a pod forming there. Mentally, I blessed my father for hiring such obsessively skilled programmers. Already my powered armor, unlike the general issue, fit better than any uniform I'd ever worn.

On the tac screen, the front line of the battle had swept over us, leaving us behind. All our calls for help had met with replies to the effect of "We'll be back," as each ship left, intent on claiming a prize. We could have easily ended up drifting out here a week—assuming we could get life support working again.

I watched our Cack opponent maneuver around a fresh kill. It had survived the conflict largely by staying close and playing dead. One Solarian warship had moved in to claim it and been promptly destroyed. As the zone of conflict left us, the Cack warship began to move off—most likely to claim more prizes. We were about to lose our chance.

"Evacuation complete, all personnel are accounted for and waiting in the life pods," Brennon said from the command craft.

"All hands brace for acceleration," I said, "in five seconds, four, three, two one...." Our ship lumbered forward on its single reaction drive, chasing the receding Cack warship. "Launching missiles now." With the targeting computer out, I had to paint the enemy ship manually with the laser range finder. Any chance of our attack being effective was slim. But then our attack didn't have to be effective, just creditable.

The missiles must have triggered the Cack's warning systems for the Cack warship turned and decelerated. And in those precious seconds, we reduced the gap between us to a manageable distance. If they had gone FTL or performed any fancy maneuvers, we would have only succeeded in destroying our ship. But, being confident of their superior firepower, they stood their ground—so to speak—and prepared to destroy us.

Alarms buzzed as they targeted us.

"All craft prepare to launch on my command." I waited until the Cacks started firing their particle weapons, slicing through our forward weapons and sensor arrays. "Launch!" I stabbed the release button sending the Argippos hurtling out into the void.

The Cack warship pounded away at the Torchbearer with particle weapons and missiles. It blasted off great chunks, yet the hulk stubbornly refused to break up. The twelve boarding craft, three surviving fighters and numerous life pods drifted among the debris on near intersect courses with the Cack ship whose weapons continued to focus on the Torchbearer. I watched with growing worry. What if the Cack's weapons were not powerful enough? If the Cack ship was destroyed, we would all be doomed again.

The front end of the Torchbearer began to boil away under the Cack's energy beams as if it were a falling meteor entering the atmosphere of a planet. Already it was frighteningly close to the Cack ship and accelerating. I had always thought of these ships as fragile, but in truth they were hard to destroy. They almost never blew up like in the vids. Well targeted energy weapons while capable of destroying important systems, could punch holes in a ship all day before one could say that it was totally destroyed.

Suddenly, a secondary explosion ripped through the hull as one of the mostly-empty anti-matter fuel cells ruptured. I quickly estimated the distance between the ships, praying I hadn't delayed too long. "Attack!"

The breaching pods darted through the debris and latched onto the ship like angry barnacles. I followed one of the boarding craft as it raced toward the main hanger bay. The three fighters kept the gunners busy as we slipped in, then peeled away to lend support to the other boarding craft burrowing through the Cack's armor.

By the time I docked the Argippos and got out, the troopers had taken up defensive fire positions and secured the outer hanger. A Cack silhouette moved across my suit's heads-up display. I spun and took him out with the suit's built-in particle emission gun. I felt foolish when I realized it was just a Cack technician.

Kouvaras' face was stony. "Sir, this way."

I leaped towards him and switched to the command channel.

"Sir, we don't use the PEGs inside the ship. Too dangerous."

I nodded, feeling even more foolish. "Right."

We caught up with the rest of the squad outside the door to the hanger control deck. The troopers all had their Magnetically Accelerated Flechette Launchers at the ready, though Breiner was aiming something that looked like a portable rocket launcher at the door. Kouvaras made a hand gesture and I held my breath as Breiner pulled the trigger. To my surprise, a paste squirted out and plastered itself across the door. Cassidy shone a low energy laser on the paste to "feed" the nano-bots which began eating through the metal. Before the hole was wide enough to crawl through, the troopers began firing their MAFLs. Thousands of tiny metal shards shredded the Cacks inside as if they had been caught in an explosion.

Kouvaras held up his hand and the firing stopped. Another gesture and Redburn slowly tossed a small sphere through the hole in the door. It drifted into the room scanning it for threats while the team watched on their built-in helmet monitors.

Though the nano-bots were programmed to go inert after consuming a specific amount of material, another gesture from Kouvaras brought Fuche up who sprayed the door with a chemical command telling the nano-bots to disassemble themselves. Cassidy and Marcello leaped through the door and secured the room, then opened it for the others.

Kouvaras drifted over to the room's com panels and pointed at a data port. "Put the AI in here."

Redburn unstrapped something from his back and plugged it in.

"You two," Kouvaras pointed at Redburn and Cruze, stay here and hold the hanger. Signal the life boats that it is OK to begin docking."

"Isn't it a little premature?" I asked. "I mean this is a huge ship, we hardly have control yet."

Kouvaras looked at me quizzically through the un-polorized armored face plate. "But, sir, this is a Cack ship. We're inside now." He looked at me for a moment as if he had just explained everything, then shrugged. Tapping a com panel on his forearm he said, "All units, report."

"Unit 1 here, forward guns secured."

"Unit 2, left side secured."

"Unit 3, right side secured."

"Unit 4 here, we've got their troopers cornered in some sort of rec room. They're too afraid to poke their heads out 'cause we keep blowin' 'em off."

"Unit 5 here, topside secured."

"Unit 6 here, no one in the lower decks but us bilge-rats."

"Unit 7 here. We're at the bridge now. They've buttoned up just like you said. How's the AI coming?"

Kouvaras looked at Redburn kneeling before the gray box.

"About five minutes, I guess," Redburn said.

"Give us five minutes to get to you," Kouvaras said into the com. "The AI should be through by then."

"Acknowledged."

Kouvaras looked at me as if to say "are you satisfied now?" I nodded. Kouvaras lead the way out the door. "The rest of you follow me."

The wide ship's corridors surprised me, though I quickly saw the reason for both the corridors' width and for the ease with which the ship had been captured. For unlike their flag ship, though commanded by Cacks, this ship was mostly operated by crawdads. Being largely pacifistic by nature, the crawdads would merely attempt to scurry out of the way whenever a group of troopers came thundering down the hall—if a two-legged crustacean weighing a quarter of a ton could perform any action that could be described as scurrying.

Soon Kouvaras, his troopers and I joined the unit before the closed blast doors sealing off the ship's bridge.

"Any attempt to communicate?" Kouvaras asked.

"Not a peep," Marcello said.

"Redburn, how's the AI coming?"

"We've just seized control of ships functions. You should be able to talk to the AI directly through the command channel."

With gestures, Kouvaras indicated to his men that they should split up on either side of the door. "OK, remember these are the Cack nobles in there," he said while crouched on the opposite side of the door from me. "They'll make valuable hostages and bring rich ransoms so try not to kill any of them." Switching to the command channel, Kouvaras said, "AI, open the bridge blast doors."

The Cacks would not be affected by a normal flash bang, so as the doors were opening, Marcello tossed in a shrieker—a grenade like device that emitted an overwhelming sonic blast pitched for Cack ears, stunning everyone on the bridge. The troopers poured in like angry wasps and stopped the Cacks with the universal gesture of a gun barrel under the nose, or in the Cack's case, under the mandibles.

"Fleet Sub-Commander Phon, you have command of the ship." Kouvaris smirked.

I smiled, knowing the Cacks probably wouldn't understand the gesture. "Thank you trooper." I walked over to the Cack sitting frozen in the crash pod where the ship's commander would normally sit. In fact all the Cacks stood silently with their arms splayed out, frozen. I could only guess this was some sort of Cack gesture of surrender. "Why don't you secure the prisoners somewhere and make sure they are under visual guard at all times."

"Marcello," Kouvaras barked. "You heard the commander. Get these bugs out of here."

The Cacks had been so still that I half feared that the shrieker had done some real neurological damage, but a gesture from Marcello and the other's weapons was sufficient to get the Cacks to leave the bridge. They left quietly, without any attempts to resist or communicate. I wondered what they had expected. No doubt they had heard horrible things about the primitive and violent race of Solarians. They had probably expected to be murdered on the spot.

I looked about the bridge. At the center of the room, a holographic display showed my new ship surrounded by an expanding debris field. No functioning ships of either side seemed to be close by.

"AI?" I began. "Can you access the holographic projector in this room?"

"Affirmative."

"Expand the display area by 500 percent."

The ship shrank to a dot. A swirl of ships curled away on the right.

"AI, color the ships under Righteous Ruler's command red and color the remaining ships blue."

The colors changed and it seemed that most of the Cack ships were in retreat, being pursued by the Solarian ships. The initial formations were completely lost. Another group of Cacks, however, seemed to have broken through and were attacking the Solarian supply ships. As I watched, a group of Solarian ships whose ID codes indicated they belonged to Sherman were headed towards them. The Cack ships that had broken through were meeting up with a second group that appeared to have outflanked Moony on our left. That looks like trouble, I thought. Then I saw a ship heading straight for us. It was Phil's flagship, no doubt answering our distress signal. Unfortunately, he didn't know that the Cack ship that had destroyed us was now our ship.

"I'm amazed, Commander Phon," Brennon said as he entered the bridge. "I truly am. Considering the position we were in, I never would have thought to try and capture the Cack ship. I don't know how you did it."

"Before we swap battle stories, commander, we need to get this ship in fighting readiness."

"Yes, of course."

"Right now Phil's fleet is heading this way and they are probably thinking we are the enemy. We need to get the ship's ID codes changed or we'll be fighting our own ships soon. Get Torres up here working on that. You'll also need to explain to the crawdads what's going on here and establish new crew assignments. The crawdads can probably take care of the ship repairs for now. Finally, we need to sweep the area for survivors and try and re-establish contact with the fleet.

I left Brennon and Torres to get things organized and found a room I could use as my new C&C. I watched Phil's progress on the monitors as I quizzed the AI about the sensing equipment available. Finally I received a coded laser transmission from Phil. The picture was very low rez and pixilated.

"Torchbearer? Is that you? Please respond."

It took me a minute to get the ship's computer to figure out the proper controls. "This is the new Torchbearer, Phon here."

"Ken is that you? I'm seeing a Cack warship here."

"Yeah, well, we ran into some trouble and had to hitch a ride. How goes the fighting?"

"We have them on the run, but Bright Fortune broke through our formation and is devastating our support and supply ships.

"We need to regroup. I should be able to collect my fleet, but I need some new EPR modules. We lost ours with the ship."

"We'll send some new ones over on a shuttle. I'm afraid many of my ships are too far out of range to get here in time to help us, but I may be able to collect some of Ormond's ships."

"Do you know where Shines Like the Sun is?"

"No, we've lost connection with his ship. He may have been forced to go FTL. The last we saw, he was executing a fleet maneuver to outflank Righteous Ruler."

I wasn't too worried about Shines Like the Sun. For the most part, the Cacks seemed to be giving up with little fighting. Phil's shuttle arrived quickly and I began signaling all the ships within strike range of Bright Fortune's ships trying to put a task force together. However Bright Fortune must have noticed the Solarian ships regrouping, for his ships left off their attack and returned to the rest of their fleet joining the Cack ships on our left flank. They formed up in a defensive sphere formation. We held off our attack to gather more ships and reformed our lens formation. Before long, every ship that could maneuver and fight had joined us and we found ourselves in the same positions we were in before, but only reversed. We accelerated towards the Cacks, preparing to attack again. They waited until we were nearly in attack range and broke up, turned on their H-drives and fled at faster than light speeds.