I set the com system to alert me when Chief Droemer called me back. It woke me twelve hours later just before the start of the first shift. Droemer appeared on the monitor looking as if he hadn't slept since the day before, but he wore a look of tired satisfaction on his face. "I take it you've made the necessary adjustments?"

"Yes. We were able to install the gravimetric sensors by ripping out some interior bulkheads to open the cabin space to the limited hull storage. Environmental is hopelessly compromised; it won't support a pilot or crew..."

I rubbed my face trying to wake up,sickened at the thought of how they had mutilated my ship. "Please spare me the gruesome details. Just tell me the Argippus will be able to catch the Cack ship."

"It will."

"Good. Then talk to Mia and make sure it can be launched from the bridge."

"Yes, sir."

He signed off and I checked our location on the navigation charts. In the last twelve hours we had crossed ten systems and were getting very near the Sol System. If we were going to stop them, we'd have to do it soon. Not wishing to interrupt Droemer's work with our tactical officer, I took a shower, dressed, fixed a tea and grabbed something to eat. I sent Mia a request to talk as soon as she had finished with Droemer and waited impatiently watching the AUs go by. Minutes later, she sent me are quest and I connected. "I assume Chief Droemer has told you the plan?"

"Yes, sir. It sounds like I'm going to fire a ship at another ship."

"Pretty much. Once we 'fire' the ship as you put it, it's going to have to intercept the Cack ship before they can transit through the next gate. Our...weapon...won't drop out of FTL until its reactors overload and it won't survive a trip through a gate on H-drive."

"Ah, I see."

"That means we need to 'fire' it the moment we transit through a gate ourselves to give it maximum flight time to intercept."

"I understand. Is there anything else I need to prepare for?"

"Have a complement of troopers standing by. If this is successful, the Cacks won't be able to power their engines, but they may well have enough antimatter reserve to maneuver and power their weapon. We can't relax until that ship is either destroyed or in our hands."

"Why don't we just destroy it then?"

"We will if we have to, but we are facing a war and we need a look at the technology they'll be sending against us.

* * *

Chief Droemer ran continuous tests on the Argippus' gravimetric sensors and its navigation system, finding small faults that required delays to fix. As the number of systems between the Cacks and Earth dwindled from a dozen to three, I sent him an urgent message. "Mike! You promised me you'd have the Argippus ready before we reached Earth."

I heard the clatter of tools and the chatter of techs in the background as he switched on his mic. "She just passed the last check. I'm giving Mia the green light now."

I killed the link and switched over to the bridge's data feed and messaged Mia at the same time.

"Yes, sir?"

"Mike says the weapon is ready. How are things on your end?"

"Force Leader Joyner has had to make a last minute crew replacement, but she say's they'll be ready."

"Very good." I closed the link but continued to monitor the bridge's data feed. We were minutes away from the gate. I kept glancing between the chronometer and the navigation plot as the distance to the gate closed. Finally the H-drive switched off and we transited. I held my breath counting the seconds, waiting for the recoil from the mass launchers firing my ship at the enemy. After nearly a minute, I let it out and messaged the tac officer just as the H-drives kicked in. This was definitely not the plan.

"Yes, sir?"

"What's going on, Mia. Why didn't we launch my ship?"

"I still haven't got the green light from Joyner, and Commander Brennon didn't want to let them get too far ahead.

This wouldn't have happened under Kouvaras, I thought, but resisted saying aloud. "Let me know the second you get the go ahead from Joyner. Don't fire the ship without my OK. We only get one shot at this and I don't want to waste it."

"Very good, sir."

I ran simulations as I waited. Assuming the Cacks maintained their current acceleration, projecting the maximum acceleration for the Argippus, I calculated the minimum distance to intercept and watched it disappear on the plot as we delayed. Twenty minutes after we had transited, Mia signaled that the troopers were ready. "Don't fire it now." I double checked the navigation plot. "We're too close to the next station. We have to fire as soon as we transit. If we delay even one more system,we'll be racing them to the Sol gate and I just don't want them to get that close."

I fell back to waiting, tapping one of the buttons on my com panel over and over because I liked to hear the snick of the window opening and closing. It took us nearly an hour to reach the next gate. By the time we got there, I was leaning forward in my pod, inches from the display, whispering in Mia's ear over the com system. "You're sure everything is green?"

"Yes, sir."

"You've checked the mag-launchers?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now I want you to fire it the second we clear the grav-distortion zone. Don't wait for the transit control to release us."

"Yes, sir."

"You sure you've got a gravimetric fix on the Cack ship and the Argippus has acknowledged the target selection."

"Yes."

I leaned back in my crash pod as the Phoenix transited through the gate and listened to Mia narrate what was happening on the bridge. "Opening mass driver bay doors, now. All lights continue to show green. We will be clearing the gravity distortion field in ten seconds."

A silent clock ticked off the seconds in my head. I braced myself for the launch of my ship, a ship I might not ever see again.

"Firing mass driver...now."

I waited.

"I've got a red light on the board. I'm reading a weapon's malfunction."

"What?"

"Looks like a software error. Fire control doesn't recognize the mass load. The ship's configuration is throwing it off."

I groaned. We had discussed just shoving the ship out the flight deck and remotely triggering the engines. Droemer assured me that launching it this way would not only be faster, but that we could continue to update the navigation systems up to the moment of launch with current information in case the Cacks tried anything. I punched the button for Droemer. "Mike! You promised me!"

Mike, sweating profusely, glanced rapidly back and forth at multiple screens while he typed away like mad. "I know, sir. It was a stupid mistake. We forgot to reset the firing program's payload parameters."

"We are almost out of time."

"You can have my resignation in five minutes, but I'll have this fixed before then."

"If that thing makes it to Earth, we'll all be fired. And by all, I mean the human race."

Chief Droemer paused long enough to look up at me with a bleak expression. "Understood, sir."

Realizing anything else I said would only impair his ability to deal with the situation, I logged off and slammed the com panel with my fist. Stupid and redundantly tough, the panel flickered and came back on. I blanked it and threw myself back in my seat. I could hear my heart pounding and the blood rushing through the arteries in my head. I forced myself to take a deep breath and concentrated on my breathing.

Even when hurried, your mind is not hurried. The mind is not dragged by the body, the body is not dragged by the mind. Pay attention to the mind, not the body.

The words leaped up in my memory unbidden. My father had made me study Musashi and Sun Tzu endlessly as a teen, declaring them the key to success in war, business or any endeavor worth pursuing. Not seeing how they could get me a girlfriend, I didn't see their use. Even now, I wasn't entirely sure what that half-remember passage meant except that it wouldn't do meany good to panic. "I guess it's not over until it's over,"I told myself.

Chief Droemer signaled me, text only, that the mass driver was ready to fire.

I checked the navigation and confirmed we were now too close to try again in this system. I made myself casually signal our tactical officer. "Mia, this is our last chance."

"Yes, sir."

"Once we transit, I want you to launch the Argippus as soon as you can, regardless of how far into the system we are."

"Yes, sir."

"Also, please ask Commander Brennon to launch his fastest attack craft as soon as he can after we transit. Instruct the pilot, that if our plan doesn't work, he is try to destroy the gate while the Cacks are transiting. We can't let that weapon get to Earth under any circumstances."

* * *

I blanked the com panel and forced myself to relax as I waited for this final confrontation. I focused on the white noise of the air handlers and tried to suppress that animal part inside of me that wanted to leap out of my skin, toot hand claw bared. Somehow, impossibly, I managed to drift off to sleep and was awakened by a tone from our tactical officer.

"Sir, we're approaching the transit station. Any last instructions?"

I smiled at her need for my confirmation and wondered if my silence had bothered her. "No. Just follow the plan. I have every confidence that the third time will be the charm."

"Very well, sir." She didn't sound so confident logging off.

I slid back in my seat and watched the station approach. I wondered if species, like individual life forms, had a natural lifespan. This event could be the beginning of the end for us Solarians or, if we survived, the beginning of something greater. I thought of Dr. Swiftly showing me my kairograph back at Lagrange Point 5 and explaining how it tied into the futures of both the human race and the Indwellers. I remembered how the Solarian future split, one half exploding in possibilities, the other half curling up on itself and wondered which path we were on. Even if we were on the right path now, each branched into hundreds of tiny abortive futures where something went horribly wrong.

The Phoenix dropped out of H-drive and began its transition from one solar system to another. Though I was waiting for it, I was still surprised by the ship's sudden lurch a sit fired the mass driver. The Argippus flew away, too fast for any stray photon to bounce off it and make it visible.

The Phoenix lurched again as Mia fired the attack ship, tasked with taking out the Solarian gate. This is where the future is decided, I thought as the Phoenix switched its H-drive back on.

That Cack ship was nearly a quarter of the way through the system when the Argippus began crawling after it.The Argippus was just a tiny dot on the gravimetric sensors, not much bigger than a large missile and I worried about the type of counter-measures the Cacks might pull once they noticed it following them. It was equipped with only rudimentary protection and evasion routines.

The enemy ship, however, seemed to rely only on its speed as it made no special maneuvers, only raced straight for the gate. Our own ship followed behind as best we could but I was forced to watch helplessly as all the dots on the monitor converged at the transit station.

The resolution on the sensors was not great enough to tell us if the Argippus was successful or not. It couldn't even tell us if the attack ship had destroyed the gate. We wouldn't know our fate until we arrived.

We waited another ten minutes before we caught up to them and dropped out of H-drive. I frantically dialed in on the optical scanners and was relieved to find two ships, unable to sustain their H-drives without the TCR generators, racing for the gate on reaction drives. The Cack ship had not given up trying to get to Sol and the Argippus faithfully followed along behind as it had been programmed to do. I realized then that, without me there to authorize it, the Argippus would ignore the Transit Authority's attempts at traffic control. It would try to transit at the same time as the Cack ship and likely destroy both them and the station.

Our Fast Attack Craft had overflown the Cacks when they dropped out of H-drive, stopping near the gate, missiles ready to destroy it if we should fail.

Commander Brennon gave the order to move in on the Cack ship. I reached for the com panel to warn him about their main gun, but realized he didn't need my nagging. He kept the Phoenix out of their line of fire and launched breaching pods. I waited, listening to the command traffic as the troopers quickly and efficiently seized the enemy ship. Moments later, the commander announced over the ship's sound system that we had control of their ship and I heard cheering break out in the corridors. On the monitors, the Cack ship swung around and began burning off its momentum, the Argippus following behind.

Well at least I get to keep my ship, I thought. Then Commander Brennon messaged me.

"Commander Phon, I've got a communication from someone who wishes to surrender to you."

"I would have thought the Force Leader Joyner would have taken care of that."

"It's not the Cacks."

"Oh? Who is it?"

"It's the transit station director."

I looked up at the monitor and laughed. "I guess you should tell your attack ship to stand down."

"I did, but he..er...it still wants to talk to you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you personally. They're not surrendering to the fleet; they're surrendering to you only."