We withdrew to a large artificial habitat and space port near the gate through which we had come. Bright Fortune's force remained behind at the inner habitable world, no doubt puzzled by our actions. Most Noble, blocked our only other exit with a large reserve force at the other gate. When the fleet commanders met for their strategy meeting, the mood was somewhat despondent.

An astrogator had approached Dexter claiming he had detected a nearby star linked to the network of the outer worlds. Dexter brought him to the meeting, but on further questioning, we learned that the star was at least twelve light-years away. This would require two years of non-stop flight for even our fastest cruisers. That is assuming they could make the journey. In reality, it would take much longer.

"Any other ideas?" Smith asked.

No one had anything to say.

The next day, more information had come in from questioning the traders trapped on the space port. While our crews roamed about the port looking for anything useful, the commanders puzzled over updated maps with the new data.

"Between us and the Cacks, System A is pretty well trashed," I began. "System B, however, has been largely untouched and contains a third gate. We know the gate behind us leads to the Cack home world, and we've learned the gate Most Noble is guarding leads to the administrative and economic center of the Moiarchy. The third gate, however, is a smaller gate and leads to Overbearing's district by way of an area called The Swords. Overbearing's district is located among the outer worlds, from which we can get to pretty much any point in Solarian space we wish."

This brought some pleased murmurings from the other commanders. I gestured to Brian Harlow's avatar. "My XO has been questioning the local traders about the area called The Swords and I've asked him to brief us.

Brian rose. "Commanders, after questioning every ship's commander and crewman I could find who has had any dealings with The Swords I learned only a few things about them. Their name, which translates as The Swords refers both to the people as well as their region of space. It is comprised of, possibly, twenty or thirty worlds in a loose coalition of sometimes warring planets. Technologically speaking they seem to be a little behind Solarian development but they have, if anything, a greater reputation for violence and warlike behavior. They are not considered a part of the Cack Moiarchy and I was told that when a Cack ruler once sent in twelve thousand ships to subdue them none ever came back. Despite all this, they will occasionally make a truce with the local district manager and allow trade between some of their worlds and the local Cack worlds.

"I'm afraid I wasn't able to learn any more about them. They seem to be a very individualist, secretive and even xenophobic race. Any questions...that I can answer?"

The commanders sat frowning silently, digesting Brian's report. Finally, Smith spoke up. "Thank you for that report. I don't suppose they currently have a truce with the local district manager."

"No, sir. At least they haven't been spotted in Cack space for a while."

"Very good. That will be all." Brian logged out and I turned to the others. "I'm not sure what options that leaves us. The Swords sound, if anything, more hostile than the Cacks."

"We don't know that," Abrams said. "They are hostile to the Cacks, but they may not be to us. You know the old saying about the enemy of my enemy..."

I wanted to ask him if he knew what the word "xenophobic" meant, but I held my tongue. We were all more than a little irritable from sleep deprivation and stress.

"Going deeper back into Cack space isn't really an option either," Smith said. "There may be other routes back to the outer worlds, but we have no idea where they are or how far we'd have to go."

"I don't suppose we can try and win The Swords over," Maxwell suggested.

"We can certainly try," I said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

"I'm afraid we may have to gamble on our technological advantage and our military doctrines," Abrams said. "Hopefully, their coalition of worlds won't be able to unite enough forces to present a serious threat."

Like the twelve thousand Cack ships, I thought, but said nothing. I was going to have to get some sleep before I snapped.

In the end we voted to cross into Overbearing's district by way of The Swords. The vote was unanimous.

* * *

We turned our ships toward the second transit station, the one guarded by Most Noble's fleet and accelerated under reaction drives. Being gravitationally balanced by System A, the two gates were only one hundred twenty degrees apart. Even with a gravity boost from the system's primary, at one G acceleration, it would take us days to get there.

"I don't like this," Brian complained. "It's completely reckless. Objects moving that quickly will distort the gravitational fields of the transit stations. Have you even talked to a transit engineer about this?"

"We've talked to someone with some knowledge about this," I said. "Look, our little feint should get us to the gate ahead of the Cacks, but the only way to transit the fleet before they can catch us is to pick up the pace a bit."

"The gate could collapse!"

"As long as we don't try and push too many ships through too quickly, we should be OK. Our engineer gave us some guidelines."

"Should? In the end, this is all just guesswork!"

I took a deep breath. "Welcome to theoretical engineering."

Brian had every right to worry. As far as I know, this had never been done before. Massive objects passing through a transit station could distort the gravitational fields of the artificial wormhole and, as Einstein told us, high velocities increase mass. Add to this the strange tidal forces that tended to occur at the boundaries of the wormhole and one wrong move could easily end in one's ship being ripped apart. The normal speed for traffic through a transit station was measured in meters per second. We would be approaching at a thousand times that speed.

After three or four minutes of acceleration, the anti-matter drives switched off and the H-drives switched on. It would still have taken us between two and three hours to reach Most Noble's fleet waiting for us at the transit station, but once we appeared committed to the course, Bright Fortune moved in to intercept us. We continued with our feint for another hour, watching the distance between us and Bright Fortune narrow. When the time came, we veered back in towards the system's primary almost reversing back on the path Bright Fortune had taken.

Bright Fortune, in turn, moved behind us to block the transit station from us in case we were somehow attempting to get around him. Once in position, he switched off the H-drive and watched us for nearly half an hour. There weren't any assets of significance in that quarter of the system, which must have puzzled him. Then he must have finally remembered System B for he took his fleet FTL and continued in pursuit.

The flight to the third transit station in System B took nearly ten hours. By this time we were pushing our drives to their limits and the maintenance engineers were getting twitchy. As we neared the station, the Cacks sent a squad of FACs against us. With their slightly faster speed, they would have been able to catch us at the gate if we had slowed down for the transit. No doubt their intentions were to disrupt the transition to give the rest of their fleet time to catch up.

As we neared the gate, we began lining the fleet up in single file in preparation for passing through. I'm sure the flight controllers for the transit station were in full panic by now. A line of large freighters, preparing to transit, crawled along in front of us. The master pilot officer of Smith's flagship kept flagging them on the navigation panel as if we couldn't see that we were about to collide. Mentally, I began counting down a rough estimate of how long we had. As that count dropped from minutes to seconds, some unheard command from the gate flight control caused the freighters to scatter like a bale of panicked turtles.

We dropped out of FTL right on top of the gate, but the momentum from our earlier burn still carried us through, one at a time, at close to two kilometers per second like a string of hypersonic bullets. Behind us the lead FACs dropped out of FTL and fired missiles at our trailing ships. I pulled up the optical displays of the ships behind me as I transited. My wing, following at the rear of the fleet, began firing counter missiles and blowing chaff as we approached the gate.

The rearmost ship was forced to fire their reaction engines to dodge a pair of persistent missiles. The pilot tried valiantly to bring his ship back inline as his transited, and it looked for a moment as if he had succeeded, but as he passed through the station, the gravitation jerked his ship around sideways. Then it just came apart as if it had been shoved through an invisible sieve. I watched in horror as a hail of debris sprayed out behind us.

Then, suddenly, the transit station was gone.

One moment it was receding behind us, a giant ring shaped space station with the mass of a planet then, in microseconds, it had shattered and collapsed in on itself. I am told the Cacks create their gates by creating and shooting microscopic black holes through spinning rings of degenerate matter. As the remains of the station collapsed in on itself, crushed by the massive gravities it could no longer control, I saw a flash of light and detected a burst of gamma rays signaling the birth of another microscopic black hole.

Smith's ships in the lead had already turned around and begun slowing. I ordered the same and urged the ship's commander to push it to three gravities so we could go back and search for survivors all the quicker. In the end, sifting through the debris, we found four intact crash pods. Their occupants were unconscious and bleeding from their ears, eyes, mouths and noses. We tried to revive them, but they were already dead. Their autopsies showed that the fluctuating gravity had spiked at thousands of Gs, shredding their internal organs.

We held a service for the dead, cremating the bodies of the recovered in the fires of our anti-matter engines, turning their remains not into ashes, but into pure light. With heavy hearts we proceeded through the first system of The Swords, tense from the threat of the unknown. Whatever lay ahead, it was our only path now. There was no way to turn back.