“She doesn’t ask for much, does she?”
Gabe grunted. Derek’s voice showed a little fatigue, but it was obvious he was trying to keep his tone light. He knew that the other rig pilots had to be feeling close to exhaustion. The CTRs had just barely finished chasing off the last of the Directorate rigs. Despite his own tiredness, he cleared his throat. “The Lord will provide a way, Paladin-One-Five. Form up with the AWORs and wait.”
Acknowledgements rolled back from the rest of the CTR pilots, and Gabe took up his own position to wait. He’d launched just moments before, and he braked to a halt ahead of the Concord to watch the rearming operation.
The Concord was a fire drill of commotion. CTRs were landing, being moved to the rig bays, and launching; somewhere during the process, the mechanics were finding the time to reload their ordnance and replace their fuel cells. When he looked to where the AWORs were waiting, Gabe could see how vulnerable the heavy-attack rigs were. Susan’s tricks and his own tactics had kept the CTRs from suffering terrible losses, but if the enemy came again now while half of them were refueling, there wouldn’t be anything Gabe and his pilots could do to stop them.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to worry about that possibility. From what Susan had told him, the remaining WGCs and SSS rigs were still performing their own frantic reloading operations—and they only had one real carrier left to accomplish that task. He could imagine that a similar swarm of WGCs was now flooding around the Directorate flagship, flooding around their carrier like a nest’s worth of angry hornets. Even the SSS rigs, with their independent carrier, would need to replace their shattered weapons. It might just delay them long enough to carry off the attack.
Gabe measured the distance between the Concord and that forward cruiser group, working the math out in his mind. He knew about how long it would take the CTRs to rearm, and how quickly they could all move toward the Directorate ships. Just as the last of the CTRs went into the recovery bays, he reached a conclusion and signaled Derek. “Angel-One to Paladin-One-Five. I show us reaching the target just after the WGCs reach us. The SSS squadron should be there a few minutes after that. Do you show the same?”
The other pilot was silent for a moment, and then signaled back. “Looks about right, Angel-One. We’re going to have a fight on our hands.”
“Then let’s hope the Lord is watching out for us today.” Gabe turned and stared at where the distant ships waited. There had to be a way to manage it. Even with the casualties the enemy had taken, they still outnumbered the Wayfarer rigs. On top of that, he doubted the triple S rigs would fall for the same trick of having their weapons shot out of their hands. If only he had more rigs …
Then an idea occurred to him, and Gabe smiled. He cleared his throat. “This is Angel-Lead to all CTRs. When we close with the enemy, I want you to transmit the following signal on all bands. Cuidse du Atanaas. Repeat, cuidse du Atanaas. Transmit once and then get to fighting positions.”
The rest of the rig pilots responded, but Gabe only listened to their half-confused acknowledgements with part his attention. It might not work. He might just be hoping for nothing. Yet if there was one thing he knew, it was that the Lord always provided a way.
Susan watched the rigs leave on their next assault and wondered if Gabriel would survive the coming clash. The CTRs and AWORs had left quickly enough to cross most of the distance without encountering enemy rigs, but the WGCs were already waiting to meet them in a defensive screen, with the SSS squadrons not far behind. If the AWORs were going to have a clean shot at the northernmost Directorate cruisers—which would prevent them from linking up with their fellows in the east and driving off Ndigwe’s forces—she had to hope that Gabriel and his pilots could open a path. Otherwise, she might have to move to a new strategy—one that she had hoped not to use.
Her fallback plan required a third AWOR strike, this time against the Directorate flagship itself. It was a plan Susan had so far tried to avoid, and for more reasons than simple mercy. Thus far, she had not ordered attacks against the Imperious because she was hoping to force Nevlin to run, and she wanted to leave them the chance to cascade out of the system. If that ship died, they would be trapped, and even a coward like Nevlin would choose to fight to the bitter end rather than fall into her hands. Yet if she had to choose between a drawn-out punching match and a strike to disable the last major carrier the Directorate had, Susan knew which option she would have to take.
Lights flared on the western side of the battle, and she turned to see Colonel Mccalister’s force under heavy fire. The Directorate cruisers had closed to plasma gun range, their crews obviously looking for vengeance. Susan gestured to open a channel to the Pennance. “Colonel Mccalister. Now is the time for Contingency Beta.”
There was a long pause. Susan could hear the roar of plasma cannon impacts in the background of the channel. She knew they had no choice; the mercenary ships were unarmed, and the Redemption was nothing more than a crippled wreck. If Decoy Group was to survive, there was only one option, however unfortunate it was. When Mccalister answered, his voice showed he had come to a similar grim conclusion. “Confirmed, ma’am.”
The Redemption suddenly boosted out ahead of the other vessels, her still-intact tetherdrive mustering more acceleration than any of the other ships in Decoy Group. As the Directorate cruisers continued their headlong charge, the few remaining crew aboard the Redemption swung her to a new heading, bringing the ship over and around so her bow faced the enemy. Then they poured every last bit of energy their crippled ship had into acceleration, straining the already damaged structure.
At first, the Directorate ships did not seem to notice. Their attention was almost totally focused on the mercenary ships. The Penance’s screens were nearly failing, and both the Junkyard and the Scrap were taking damage. Yet as the Redemption began to close the distance, the Directorate crews seemed to recognize their danger and switched targets, shifting the bulk of their fire toward the incoming craft.
They might have driven the Redemption off if the escort craft in Mccalister’s formation had not interfered. The smaller craft had been hiding in the shadows of their larger comrades; now they came onto an even sharper intercept course than the Redemption’s. Their smaller frames allowed them to accelerate more quickly, and in moments they were making firing passes on the Directorate cruisers. The small number of Directorate escort craft in the formation began to duel with their opposite numbers, swirling and striking like birds fighting over a nest.
The charge was a distraction the enemy came to regret. The Redemption continued her last doomed journey, her crew sending her on a direct course for one of the Phalanx-class ships. By the time the cruisers shifted their fire to her again, it was too late. Her crew bailed out of the ship, setting themselves adrift on a small set of shuttles and escape pods that had been prepared ahead of time.
Guided by the automatic maneuvering systems, the Redemption’s tetherdrive flared in one final burst of acceleration. Her defensive screens abruptly dropped and the Directorate ships slackened their fire, as if confused, or perhaps believing that the ship had been fatally wounded at last.
The Redemption detonated, unleashing the full power of her annihilation reactor combined with every form of explosive and fuel that the Wayfarers had been able to cram aboard. Her initial target was caught by the blast, battered by the tornado of energy and debris. The Directorate vessel’s screens failed, and impacts ripped gaping wounds in its armored hull. It fell out of formation, its tetherdrive faltering.
Yet that ship was not the only casualty. A piece of the Redemption pinwheeled out of the explosion toward one of the other Directorate ships. Before the enemy craft could evade, the fragment chopped down like an executioner’s ax, biting into the cruiser’s rear quarter. Screens failed, and armor buckled. A gigantic, gaping scar opened in the cruiser’s hull, and a second Directorate ship fell back.
As the enemy scattered in the face of that blow, Susan gestured sharply. “Colonel Mccalister, you are to accelerate and avoid combat. The escort craft are to break off their strikes and join you.”
Mccalister’s voice came back rough with emotion. “As ordered, Admiral.” The remaining ships of Decoy Group suddenly poured on speed in a bid to escape to safety. They were no longer hobbled by the need to keep pace with the crippled cruisers they had accompanied. All three ships were now pulling sharply away from the enemy, while escort craft trailed after them like a pack of small dogs.
Yet the cruisers that had once been so keen on destroying them were not pursuing; they were in a confused tangle, with two of their number brutally wounded, and Susan would not have blamed them for withdrawing instead. All across the battle area was a similar situation; the enemy ships were starting to look uncertain in the face of their heavy casualties. They were close to routing, to finally running for home.
Then a change swept through them. The western formation snapped into disciplined maneuvers, with the undamaged ships shielding their crippled fellows. To the east, the ships engaged with the cruisers and frigates of Strike Group shifted, allowing their escorts to countercharge her ships and give the cruisers a chance to fall back. Far to the south, escorts began to abandon their position around the Imperious and moved to reinforce the rigs shielding their vulnerable northern formation.
Susan frowned, taking in the enemy’s newfound discipline. Nevlin couldn’t have restored order so quickly; he wasn’t capable enough to do so. Her frown deepened as she realized the source of the change. Obviously, the coward was no longer the one in charge.
Captain Wong watched the task force move according to his orders, and felt a sense of vicious satisfaction as his ships tried to recover what they could from the disaster.
Nevlin had plunged them into a nightmare. Over half their cruisers were now damaged to some extent, and some of them, such as the Diomedes, would likely have to be abandoned. Their escorts had suffered heavy casualties. Formation Papa was still in severe danger of being caught and overwhelmed by the enemy cruisers. Formation Oscar was only shielded from crippling rig strikes by the few remaining WGCs and SSSs. The Admiral had panicked when the Wayfarers had caught him yet again with that suicidal strike against Formation Sierra on the left flank, and he’d finally turned command over to someone who could do better.
And that someone was Captain Wong.
“All units in Formation Papa, continue to fall back along the recommended route. Fisher King, Achilles, Ajax, prepare to launch torpedoes in the support of Formation Papa.” He checked his main plot again, judging the closure times of the enemy rigs. “SSS squadron, you are free to engage the enemy as soon as you are able. Target enemy heavy units. We want them destroyed before they can reach our cruisers. The WGC units will buy you time.”
Acknowledgements echoed back to him, but Wong set his gaze on the left flank. Nevlin had been almost rabid about the need to destroy those Wayfarer ships—especially the supposed mercenary craft—but none of them had fired a weapon. In fact, they were only falling back from the task force at a pace that might defy the cruisers’ ability to chase them. A lure, but not a real target. “Formation Sierra, fire another brace of missiles at your targets, then disengage and fall back to the center. Move in support of Formation Oscar at best possible speed.”
Then he speared the distant signal of the Concord, faint enough to defy missile launch but still shining like a deceptive beacon, drawing his ships into the catastrophic situation which now ensnared them. He could sense Delacourt there, guiding this ruinous engagement from afar, but they were not yet beaten. Wong smiled, his expression hard as stone. “Formation Oscar and Formation Sierra, when you have linked up, move to engage the Concord. Destroy or disable that ship at all costs.”
As those ships were set in motion, Wong brought his gaze back to where Formation Papa was fighting for its life, still outnumbered and outflanked. The Phorcys’s screens failed even as he watched, and the Patroclus suffered a severe hit that disabled two of its plasma cannon. He exchanged a quick nod with Commander Hummel, whose eyes were shining with admiration. Then he readied himself to give the order. “Formation India, all units, prepare for missile barrage. Fire in four, three, two, one …”
Missiles launched from the ships around the Imperious. They were targeting the enemy cruisers around Formation Papa, using the targeting data supplied by the embattled cruisers themselves. Wong smiled. The Directorate was still going to win this day.
Then he saw Hummel stiffen, and he turned to see what had happened. He saw Admiral Nevlin, pale and sweating, standing on the command deck. A thread of fear ran through him; had the Admiral decided to retain command after all? Regardless, Wong straightened to attention, his eyes forward and fists clenched at his sides. “Admiral.”
“Captain.” Nevlin looked at the main plot and then jerked his eyes away. “I am leaving you in command of the Imperious and the rest of the task force. I will be … supervising … from the deck of the Fisher King. I will transfer my flag there immediately, though you will retain oversight of the task force here.”
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Wong blinked. The man was close to babbling, but the intent of this move was clear. Unlike the rest of the task force, the Fisher King had been outfitted to serve as a scout craft if the need would arise … which meant that the Special Operations cruiser had its own cascade drive. It couldn’t carry any other ships with it, nor would it be able to use the drive as frequently as the Imperious, but it would be able to escape the battle if things went badly.
Admiral Nevlin, Hero of Riaskat and officer in command of task force Ninety-Seven, was arranging things so he could run. He was very nearly abandoning his post.
Wong restrained his initial response, and paused to try to wipe any trace of scorn or contempt from his voice. “I … understand, sir.” He bowed very, very shallowly. “Do you have any other orders, sir?”
Nevlin shook his head. “No, Captain. Just do your best.” Then he turned and motioned to a man Wong had not noticed before. He was a middle-aged gentleman, with the blank uniform and unadorned rank badge of someone who served with Special Operations. “Mr. Grey will stay aboard as an observer. He will be in my cabin, where he can relay any further instructions that I might have for you.”
His eyes narrowed, Wong studied the newcomer. Despite the SpecOps uniform, he strongly suspected the man Nevlin was leaving behind belonged to the Political Office, not the Directorate at all. What was some spy of the Council doing with Nevlin, and why would the Admiral choose to leave him here? “Yes, sir. I wish you a safe trip, sir.”
Some of his true feelings must have leaked through because Nevlin’s face darkened slightly with shame and rage. Then Nevlin glanced at Mr. Grey and paused. He shook his head and left, not bothering to say farewell to the men and women he was leaving behind to fight—and die.
Wong watched him leave the bridge, Mr. Grey close behind him, and then turned back to the main plot. He had a battle to win; Admiral Nevlin could wait until later.
Gabe dodged to the side as a WGC made a run at him. Its plasma rifle flashed, sending a wave of bursts toward him, but Gabe’s new wingman targeted the Directorate rig with her missiles. Both projectiles hit, and the WGC vanished in a tremendous explosion. He keyed his transmitter. “Good shot, Angel-Two.”
“Angel-One, this is Eyes-Two. We have SSS contacts moving in on your position from nine-nine-four. Repeat, triple S contacts closing on your position.”
Gabe felt his mouth go dry, and he looked back in the direction the RSR had indicated. He found them easily—their jet-black armor blocked out the stars as they came forward, rushing with tremendous speed into the fight. They had rearmed, he was certain, and this time they would be prepared for the tricks he’d used. All the same, the AWORs had to get through before the enemy escorts reached them. Otherwise, the cruisers would be finished.
He readied his plasma rifle and raced toward the edge of the battle. His squadron, those who were still alive, gathered around him, blasting the few remaining WGCs that tried to interfere. Gabe set his sights on the first target, watching it jerk and twist as it closed with him. His heart beat faster as it brought its own rifle up to bear on him, and he prayed that the Lord was truly with them.
Then a sudden broadcast filled the communications net. Static shrouded the words, but the deep, reverberating voice was unmistakable. It posed no questions, showed no hesitation. The only thing Gabe could associate it with was a war cry, one transmitted from a flickering contact on the very edge of his sensors.
“Laes Zerecedo!”
Before Gabe could react, the slender rigs were there. They flashed in at the SSS squadrons, moving at a speed Gabe could hardly believe. He jerked, his crosshairs losing their target, and immediately triggered a transmission to the rest of the squadron. “Angel-One to CTRs, hold your fire! Repeat, don’t fire on the newcomers!”
His orders caught them just in time, stopping the pilots as they trained their weapons on the new, unexpected arrivals. The SSS squadron had no such hesitation. Their plasma rifles moved upward and started to pour sharp blasts of light at the strangers. Gabe saw one or two of the shots make contact, and the slender rigs died in brief bursts of light.
Then it was the strangers’ turn, and as they slashed in at the SSS squadron, their weapons came around with a vicious sort of grace. They fired in brief, slicing motions, bringing streams of particles sweeping across the paths of the heavier triple S’s. The Directorate pilots had no time to respond. Despite their impressive agility, they plowed into the blasts. Armor glowed and fragmented, and their weapons shattered. The slender rigs kept their particle guns trained on the SSS, and one after another, the elite rigs died. Explosions speckled the space ahead of Gabriel as he watched the threat to his pilots vanish.
The sight broke the will of the remaining WGCs; they turned and fled, scattering away from the strange rigs that had butchered their reinforcements. The slender rigs did not seem to care. They’d made one terrible strike, and now they were already vanishing into the void. All except for one.
One rig had paused, using its tetherdrive to swing up into a loop. Gabe stared at it as it raised its weapon in the strange, flourishing salute. He aped the motion, sending a transmission along with it. “Thank you, stranger.”
“Naes bemos, Waeferer. Cuidse du Atanaas.”
With that, the rig vanished, and Gabe turned back to the rest of the Wayfarer rigs. “Angel-One to CTRs and AWORs. We have our opening. Get to attack positions!”
As the rigs flooded forward, no longer opposed by enemy units, Gabriel took a moment to stare in the direction where the strangers had vanished. Where had they come from? How long had they been watching? Would they choose to help or hurt the Wayfarers if they ever met again?
Then he shoved such reflections aside and charged. The Directorate counter-fire was waiting.
Susan had been watching the missiles soaring through space toward the Wayfarer cruisers of Strike Group. She dreaded the power of that salvo, knowing that at least one of her ships would not survive it whole, but she could not order them to fall back or focus on intercepting the missiles unless she allowed the Directorate craft on that flank to escape. Gabe’s CTRs were engaged, the RSRs lacked the electronic warfare power to compensate for the missile’s guidance systems, and no other units were in range. She had no choice but to watch the attack hit home and hope for the best.
Then a new series of contacts caught her gaze. Susan’s jaw dropped as specks of light streaked in at the SSS squadron, and the way the Directorate units vanished told her a story of speed and lethality that stunned her.
Yet even as Gabriel called his charge and the AWORs swept into their attack runs, another swarm of lights appeared. This time, they dove in on the Imperious herself, and they were not going to be content with a simple hit-and-run. The specks were not nearly as fast, and as she brought up the images captured by the Imperious’ own sensors, she gasped. Some of them were the slender rigs from Gabriel’s encounters, but they accompanied a second kind of rig, one built thicker and rounder, with a large launcher of some kind along its back and a massive weapon in its arms. A heavy-attack rig, she thought numbly even as they began to fire.
At first, the projectiles those rigs launched seemed far too slow to be a credible threat. Susan wondered for an instant if the unknowns lacked the technology for accurate railgun weaponry. Then the missiles struck home, unleashing some kind of gravitic distortion along with a wash of electromagnetic pulses that raged along the length of the Imperious’ defense screens. The carrier’s defenses faltered, her sensors failed, and for a moment the mighty warship was vulnerable.
In that moment, the attackers sprayed particle lances into her armor, raking her with fire that melted holes straight through the layered alloy. Missiles, this time with more energetic payloads, detonated with terrible precision in spots where the lances had penetrated, and secondary explosions began to wrack the ship. The damage was not enough to cripple the gigantic warship, but it would still leave a collection of memorable wounds.
Then Susan gaped as another new contact appeared, this time a bright, shining beacon that dwarfed the smaller specks that had preceded it. It looked all too much like the jagged claw of some leviathan, ready to rend and tear. With a kind of grace that she would have expected from a luxury craft or a precision flyer, the unknown craft glided to close range and unleashed a brutal, sudden spike of energy. It punched through the unshielded Imperious and out the opposite side. Atmosphere vented, flaming and brilliant against the void.
Without hesitation, the terrible intruder turned at an impossibly sharp angle. Plasma cannon fire from the Imperious’ escorts vanished against its shields without effect, and the entire armada of strange craft vanished into the depths of space without further exchange of word or weapon.
Susan looked back to the Imperious, crippled in the wake of the assault. Her eyes darted to the missile barrage and saw that it had lost cohesion; apparently the shock of the attack had disrupted the guidance systems. Gabe’s rigs were starting their runs on the northern enemy formation, and the others to the east and west were all now in full, panicked retreat.
Meanwhile, almost unnoticed amidst the chaos of war, the Special Operations cruiser vanished into cascade, escaping the disaster.
Susan’s eyes narrowed. It did not take a genius to know where Admiral Nevlin had been when the cruiser left, which meant that his flag captain would likely take the blame for the defeat—if the man survived. It was an increasingly unlikely prospect, despite the casualties that he would cause her. His competence was too obvious for her to ignore that fact.
Then another possibility occurred to her, and Susan reached out mentally for OMNI. There was more than one way to end a battle.
Wong pulled himself upright, dazed by the pain in his side. The impacts had thrown him into his command console, and he could feel a broken rib or two stabbing pain into his torso. All around him, the rest of the bridge officers tried to rise.
He staggered toward the main plot, still stunned by the abrupt reversal of fortune. The blazing speed of the attack, and the ferocity of the assault, had come without warning. There had been only one transmission, delivered in that haunting, alien voice, and then destruction had rained down on him and his ship. A ship, Wong knew, which could no longer fight, let alone lead.
The Fisher King was gone. Wong shook his head in disgust and turned his attention to the rest of the battle. All across the area, his forces were being driven and scattered. There were no more cohesive rig units left, and his forward units had been battered harshly. Without support, Formation Papa was beginning to lose the discipline he had instilled, and Formation Sierra was following suit. They had all seen the Admiral run, and the damage the Imperious had suffered. Attempting to rally them now would be next to impossible.
Then she was there, striding across the wreckage of his bridge, untouched by the devastation around her. Her face showed only a trace of compassion for the staggering crew, and her eyes were cold and dark when she met his gaze. Wong shivered, though he did not know if it was from fear or hatred. She knew, as well as he did, that the task force was finished. Had she come to taunt him before the end?
“Captain Wong.” Delacourt did not explain how she had gained access to his name, but Wong did not care to ask. He simply straightened to face her, knowing his sidearm was useless.
“Admiral Delacourt.”
She inclined her head, as if acknowledging the fact that he’d used her title, and then looked around her. When she looked back to him, her tone was no less formal, no less distant. “I assume that you are now the man in charge of this task force, Captain Wong.”
“I am.” Wong dared her to make some comment, to mock the cowardice of the man who had led them here and left them to die, but she did not. Another trace of compassion touched her gaze, banished quickly beneath her professional expression, and then she spoke again.
“Your ships are wounded, Captain. The members of your task force have suffered heavy casualties, and your flagship is crippled. The Imperious will not be able to generate a resonance cascade, and even if you somehow rally your ships, you will be stranded here.” Delacourt paused, as if inviting disagreement, but Wong remained silent. She continued.
“It will not even be necessary for us to conduct a direct engagement to destroy you. Without substantial reinforcements, especially in terms of rigs, we would be able to target you from long range and wear down your defenses with successive strikes. Even if the remainder of your command manages to disengage from the combat in which they are trapped, you will not have enough to stop us.”
Wong felt his expression harden. “The Fisher King may bring reinforcements for us. They have already entered cascade.”
“And they will not come back.” Delacourt’s tone was iron hard and her voice left no doubt of that fact—even if Wong hadn’t already known it himself. She kept his gaze until Wong dropped his own. “Regardless, they would not return quickly enough. All they would find would be the wreckage and the corpses.”
He smiled, a bitter baring of the teeth that hid none of his defiance. “And so you finally win, traitor. You have beaten your former comrades and proven yourself. Well done.”
Delacourt’s expression sharpened. “Do not assume so much, Captain. It was you who came to kill me.” The reminder made Wong blink, and she did not give him the chance to respond. “You came hunting me, and the millions of civilians I chose to protect. Do not be bitter now that your hero led you astray and tossed you aside. Do not complain to me when you came to murder innocents and did not enjoy the experience.”
Wong growled low under his breath. “I followed orders, Delacourt. Now what do you want? Or is it a simple debate you wish before you kill me?”
“No, Captain.” She shook her head, and her eyes never left his face. “I want your surrender. Stop fighting, and you and your men will be spared.”
“Surrender?” Wong laughed, unbelieving. “You think a Directorate task force will surrender to a bunch of treacherous Wayfarers?”
“I think a force at my mercy will do what I wish, Captain Wong.” Delacourt’s smile held no humor. “And I do not wish you to die. Yet.”
Wong stared at her. The very idea was absurd. To surrender was the shameful nightmare of any commanding officer in the Directorate, and yet …
He turned to look at the main plot. The Mentes was crippled now, and both the Antiphus and the Sarpedon were dying hulks. The Antenor was about to join them in death, and the Leonteus was nearly gone as well. The escorts were dead or scattered, the rigs were nearly entirely gone. The Imperious had no chance to escape at all … and if she died, she doomed every last ship and crew in the task force. Delacourt was not lying; they were at her mercy.
It was not a question of victory, or even one of duty and honor. The Directorate—and Admiral Nevlin—had cast them aside. They were alone here, and the only honor he had left was in the eyes of his crew. The only responsibility he could fulfill was to them.
Without turning to face Delacourt, Wong spoke. “Signal to all ships. Cease fire and conduct no aggressive moves. All cruisers, rig units, and escorts will power down their tetherdrives until directed to do otherwise.” A gasp rose from one of the watchstanders, but they were quickly silenced by another officer. Wong did not look at them—he kept his face turned to the battle. “Instruct all crews to focus on medical, recovery, and repair operations. Task Force Ninety-Seven will surrender.”
Utter silence greeted the words. Wong listened to that silence, watching the plasma fire stutter to a halt. A few of his ships started to jerk around on evasive courses, as if to run in defiance of his orders, but discipline and the hopelessness of that possibility stopped them. The Wayfarers stopped firing as well, and all too quickly, the battle was over. The Directorate had lost.
Wong forced himself to speak. “You have your victory, Admiral Delacourt. We surrender. It is over.”
Delacourt did not answer, and when he looked, she was not there. Wong stared at the spot where she had been, and then looked to where Commander Hummel sat. She looked stunned, as if shell-shocked by the defeat, and Wong had to repeat her name for her to look up. He waited until she had straightened to attention and gave his next order calmly. “Commander, I need the crew to give me an evaluation of the damage. We need to know if the Imperious is salvageable.” He rested a hand on his command console, longing and loss howling through him. “And if not, we need to get as many people off her as we can. Will you do that, Commander?”
“Yes, sir.” Hummel turned and began to give orders. She marshaled the crew to action, and soon the bridge was busy with the sounds of emergency reports and urgent calls. Wong stood at the center of it all, his head bowed and his hand resting on the console. It was over—and yet the true shame of it had only begun.