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It had been almost half a Cycle since the Human stealth fleet followed The Hegemony Armada through the Rift, and still there had been no word from Kel, General Halker, Major Saxxon, or anyone else who’d joined in the pursuit.

And with the Rift from the Hegemony Jump-Gate long since evaporated, there was no way to follow, not with any precision at least.

Sure, The Collective could have sent an armada of their own in the same general direction, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t end up way off on the wrong side of the galaxy chasing phoney Gate-Signatures left by The Hegemony to throw any pursuers off their tracks.

Or, worse than hunting those red herrings, that they wouldn’t drop out of Hyperspace to find themselves staring directly down the barrels of fully charged Hegemony Grav Busters.

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The Human stealth fleet hadn’t had to worry about that. They could’ve popped out right in front of a Hegemony cruiser and no one would’ve been any the wiser.

At least that had been the opinion of Kel and General Halker, one that I hoped was right.

At least they had been able to follow the Hegemony Armada directly through the Rift before it had evaporated. Wherever The Hegemony had gone, the stealth fleet would’ve been able to follow exactly.

And while the haste with which the whole pursuit op had been executed, precluded much in the way of strategy formulation or exchange, the look on the Humans’ faces shortly before their departure had told us everything we needed to know about their plans.

Their faces as we’d stood on the bridge of the stealth Cruiser watching the live feeds of the slowly dissipating cloud of rubble and bodies that was once The Benevolent Hands Of Friendship Clasped Firm, diplomatic station once home to almost a million souls—

Their faces as the news came in from their Homesystem and they learned that billions of their fellows had just been turned to ash—

Their faces as they gazed upon their Homeworld reduced to a smoldering ball of slag—

Their faces—their faces told us everything.

Admiral Preyl had even said it just before departing the bridge and heading for the shuttles. “Kill them all” she’d told them.

And I had no doubt in my mind that the Humans were going to do exactly that.

They were going to kill them all.