Susan blinked as data flooded in from OMNI. The flicker of red light abruptly resolved into something far more detailed, revealing a cluster of ships as accurately as if she had sent an RSR patrol to scan them.
Her opposition wasn’t as overwhelming as she had been expecting. There was a single battlecruiser, slightly smaller than the Imperious had been. It hovered like a bladed teardrop in the middle of the enemy formation, with layers of missile tubes covering its hull. Two cruisers flanked it, each of a different class. One of them was a rig carrier, its boxy shape covered in opening for rig launch bays. The other appeared to be a cascade tender of some kind; at least, it had the bulge of a resonance cascade module in its bow, and what looked like a tetherdrive engine meant to grapple ships that would have otherwise been stranded in real space.
Around those three ships were an array of twelve light cruisers, of the same make and design as had been destroyed trying to capture the Compass. Axhead-shaped escort craft made up another subformation, with at least twenty-four of them in a wave just ahead of the rest of their fleet.
They were accelerating hard, all of them. As she studied the images, she imagined they were likely straining the limits of the tetherdrives on the cruisers and battlecruiser just to keep up the pace. At that kind of acceleration, they weren’t likely to have more than one pass. It wasn’t likely to be a very effective one, either; unless they took the Wayfarers completely by surprise, they wouldn’t have enough time to get through the defensive screens for most of the ships.
Then OMNI plotted a projected course, and she felt a chill run through her. They weren’t aiming for a mere firing pass. Half the light cruisers were aiming for a direct intercept with each of her cruisers, and the remaining six of them were pointed directly at the Concord. Most of the escort craft appeared to be accelerating toward her frigates as well, two ships for each Wayfarer support ship. If the Wild Colony vessels held those courses, the heaviest ships in her fleet were going to be hit by suicide attacks and knocked out of action before they could do much of anything.
Susan felt her face harden in anger. She could not imagine what kind of monster had to be in command aboard the battlecruiser, but it was clear they did not care at all about the lives under their control. It wasn’t going to be enough to avoid them now. Something inside her demanded that they be utterly destroyed instead.
“Command to fleet, launch all rigs. Form up as instructed.” Then she smiled. “All cruisers, missile launch on my mark.”
Gabe watched as the alarms continued to ring aboard the ship he rode. He stepped back into the shadows, anticipating some kind of security response. If they had detected his interference, they were sure to send someone to check the situation out, and a part of him was driven by an outraged kind of curiosity. He had yet to see the face of whatever they were fighting here, and he wanted to confront it now before the end.
As the alarms continued to ring, he saw a door slid open along one of the walls. It didn’t seem large enough to allow a human to pass through, and sure enough, a quadrupedal robot crouched through instead. It was followed by at least three more, all of which began loping across the rig bay towards him.
He had enough time to register the plasma weapon mounted on their backs before the first one sprayed him with energy fire. The light and heat passed right through him, splashing against a nearby stack of replacement tetherdrives. They crumbled under the onslaught, and Gabe grinned. “Not quite, buddy. Maybe next time.”
The robotic sentries paused, and to Gabe’s disappointment, they did not fire again. Instead, they drew back, circling him like a pack of wolves. He watched them warily, wondering what new trick the enemy would come up with now that it was obvious how he had gotten to their ship.
His answer came a few moments later, as a second door slid open. This one was far larger, and only a single shape came lurching through it. Gabe watched as a shambling, rolling mound of machinery heaved itself into view. It took an effort of will to stay put as it approached; it was one thing to know that you couldn’t be harmed, and another to feel the same way when a monster came close to you.
Gabe waited as it approached, sensing Susan’s commands through the network they now shared. It was a dim picture of what was going on, but he knew the longer he could occupy the enemy’s attention, the better things would go. He forced himself to smile. “Are you the one in charge here, then?”
I AM FAR MORE THAN THAT INTRUDER.
The voice was painful, but still understandable. A part of him was surprised by the fact, though he didn’t know why. Another part of him recognized he hadn’t heard the voice through the normal sound waves most people used. Whatever the thing was, it was speaking through subspace. Not a great sign. “So, you are ready to surrender now?”
I AM READY TO KILL YOU. YOUR TIME IS AT AN END.
Gabe smiled again. There was nothing friendly in the expression. “I beg to differ. You can’t hide from us anymore.”
WE DO NOT INTEND TO.
The pile of machinery shifted, hunching over so that it loomed over him. He could sense a terrible hostility coming from it, as if it was only restraining itself from trying to smash him because it knew it would be useless.
DIE.
Susan watched as the missiles crossed the void.
This time, it was her ships that had the necessary targeting information to launch from long range. Every single enemy warship was located with excruciating precision; if she had the necessary cannon, she might have been able to land actual plasma fire on them.
Such weaponry did not exist among the Wayfarers. Instead, she relied on the same kind of weapons the enemy had. Unlike them, however, she was not targeting civilians, and she had no need to distract the enemy from an ambush of some kind. She needed only to kill, and so she did.
The first warning the enemy had was a return on their forward sensors. She saw them begin to react, the escort craft burning their way further forward in an attempt to catch the missiles early. It was a perfectly reasonable response, one that would have given them a much better chance to intercept projectiles coming in at the larger ships behind them.
Unfortunately, it was exactly the wrong move this time. She had ignored the cruisers entirely, and that extra burst of speed denied them the chance to adapt to the difference between their expectations and reality. All twelve of the first wave of missiles smashed into an enemy escort craft. The resulting explosions shredded the fragile ships. Seven of them exploded outright, becoming nothing more than expanding clouds of shrapnel and fire; three others were sent tumbling, ablaze and crippled, through the void. The last two ships took just enough of a hit that their defensive screens went down completely; they trailed debris and shattered armor as they went into a wild evasive pattern.
As the surviving escort craft began their frantic attempts to evade, the next wave of missiles shot past them. There were twelve of them as well, but this time they were hunting a far different target. All of them swept in at the rig carrier, which had just begun to scramble the rigs inside it. They were assaulted by electronic warfare of all kinds as they swept in, and were they guided by any normal systems, they would have wandered helplessly off course.
Homing in on the signal that Gabriel had provided through OMNI, however, they struck home in a single, massive blow. One moment, the cruiser was sweeping through space on a determined course, the indistinct shapes of its rig squadrons beginning to gather around it like a cloud of gnats. The next, a massive wave of fire bloomed from its bow, smashing the forward section to ruin before it swept out and aft. The rigs close enough to the ship were shredded in the wave of destruction. Their corpses tumbled alongside the remnants of the carrier until a pair of massive secondary explosions flared in the wreckage.
Susan watched the devastation and smiled. It was a good start.
Gabe had just a heartbeat of warning before the missiles hit. He tried to give no sign, but the thing in front of him reared back and roared just before the impacts rocked the ship. In the next instant, he was back on the Concord, standing beside Susan as she gave her next orders. She caught sight of him and grinned. “Back so soon?”
“Overstayed my welcome, I think.” He glanced at the window that OMNI opened to the side. He didn’t think anyone else could see it, not even Susan. Perhaps that was a safeguard meant to keep her from being distracted. “Looks like that cruiser wasn’t the flagship, though. We have more transmissions coming from their fleet.”
“They can talk all they want. We have them now.” When he looked at Susan, he saw her watching the Wayfarer fleet form up. All three Deliverance-class ships had taken positions forward and to the starboard of the Concord, while the formation of Directorate ships had lined up forward and to port. The frigates were further back, forming something of a rearguard.
Then his eyes caught sight of a cloud of rigs and escort craft spreading out towards the enemy fleet. He located Derek’s rig easily enough, leading the Paladins into battle. “Good luck, my friend.”
“Angel-Lead, is that you?”
Gabe blinked and realized that OMNI had to have opened the channel without him asking for it. “Yeah. Sorry I can’t be there this time.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Derek’s voice was casual, but Gabe could hear the iron beneath it. “We’ll finish this off, and maybe then you can owe us one.”
Gabe grimaced and shook his head. “That’s the last thing I need is more debts. Just take them down and get home.”
“As ordered, Angel-Lead. Paladin-Lead out.”
Even as the connection broke, Gabe saw a third wave of missiles spread out from the cruisers, aimed straight at the enemy battlecruiser. Susan was clearly aiming for the head of the snake, which he might have expected given her earlier strategies. He saw the battlecruiser respond, firing off a wave of long-range missiles, twenty in total, all targeting the Concord. As if their intent wasn’t clear enough, the battlecruiser’s course shifted, putting it on a ramming intercept as well.
Susan cleared her voice. “Captain Wong, your WGCs are to intercept the incoming missile salvo. Prophet Squadron will provide advance sensors. Escort craft, engage the enemy escorts and push them away from the rest of the engagement. Paladins, Wrath Squadrons, deny the enemy rig coverage while the AWORs perform their strikes. Eyes Squadron will provide advance sweeps.”
Gabriel frowned. He looked over at her, about to ask her why she was sending the RSRs out on a mission like that one. With the position of the enemy already revealed, there was no need to send out scouts.
Then the situation changed, and he learned why she had stayed silent.
AGENT GREY, REPORT!
The transmission through subspace was particularly disruptive. Mr. Grey was already gasping for air, frantic to escape the trap he found himself in. The combat Resources were all dead now; even as he tried to respond, the last normally modified Resource vanished as a section of the corridor opened beneath its feet. It registered as non-operational a heartbeat later.
all resources expended mission failure unable to proceed without supp—
CEASE TRANSMISSION. ASSET POSITIONS COMPROMISED.
There was a pause, a terrible moment of understanding. Mr. Grey’s eyes widened as he realized there had to be only one way the Device could have found the Contact’s position, and only one reason the Archive had allowed him to live this long. A part of him wanted to beg for his life, but the rest of him was tired, numb, and frozen in despair.
When the signal reached him, it was almost a kindness.
Susan grimaced as the lights indicating the enemy infiltrators abruptly vanished. When the signal came from the Compass a moment later, she already knew what it would say. “Admiral, the enemy agent has been killed. It had some manner of self-destruct mechanism.”
“Thank you, Keeper.” She turned back to the distant images of the enemy fleet. It had suddenly become indistinct and uncertain. They were still barely within range of the furthest sensors; the missiles that had been tracking the OMNI system’s signals began to wander, seeking targets they could no longer see. Susan fought to keep her face smooth and turned to Gabriel.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Arrange for the missiles to follow a straight line course between the Concord and the battlecruiser’s last known position. If they are coming directly for us, we might as well use that to our advantage.”
“Yes, Admiral.” Gabriel vanished, disappearing into the system for a moment while he handled the instructions for the missile salvo. She saw it waver and then steady out onto new vectors, but she put that concern out of her mind.
The engagement would not be like the others she had faced so far. She wasn’t fighting mercenaries who could be beaten into submission, or Directorate crews that would surrender with honor once the battle was done. If victory happened, it wouldn’t be due to a series of repeated, successful strikes. Within the next few minutes, her fleet would either survive a brutal, close-in brawl, or the suicidal Wild Colony ships would leave the Wayfarer defense forces in ruins.
Those facts removed some of her options, but they also removed some of her restraints. There would be no reinforcements for either side, and if the enemy would not hold back, then neither would she.
“All cruisers, begin open salvos of missiles as quickly as possible. The instant you see an enemy ship in range, begin full scale bombardment. Do not wait for optimal firing solutions.”
She refocused on the rigs and escorts, still sweeping out ahead. “Samar-class craft and AWORs, after your initial strikes, hit the enemy cruisers. Pike-class craft, engage the remaining enemy escorts. CTRs clear out the enemy rig forces for the AWORs.” Susan took a deep breath. “I want every hit you can give me against their tetherdrives. Do not break off for resupply or repair. Fight until you have nothing left to fire.”
Then she turned back to the frigates, who were hanging back with the former prison ships. “All frigates, advance to Delta-One and prepare to counter missile fire targeting the flagship. Penance, Junk, Scrapyard, Achilles, Phorcys, intercept any missiles that are off course. Keep them away from the civilians. Hope Squadron, be prepared for rescue operations.”
Proximity alarms suddenly rang, and the enemy’s missile salvo streamed in out of the dark. It was no longer as terrifyingly accurate as it had been before; all of Mr. Grey’s spies had died the same time he had. Nearly twelve of the twenty weren’t even on a course that would allow them to impact on the Concord’s defensive screens. The eight that were on target appeared almost uncertain as they slid into intercepts.
The WGCs were on them a moment later. Pre-warned by the RSRs of Prophet Squadron, the Directorate rigs blasted away at the incoming missiles with their plasma rifles. Four of the missiles took solid hits and detonated; another two were hit by last-ditch interceptors fired from the WGCs themselves. One more was caught by the Concord’s own guns, tumbling away before exploding.
Susan barely acknowledged the blast of the last missile; it strained at the carrier’s defensive screens, but the Concord had already survived far worse. Her eyes were fixed on the distant shape of the incoming vessels, where the Wild Colony ships were now coming back into view.
She barely paid attention to the skirmish between the escort craft, where her ships pounced on the scattered formation of enemy units. Supported by the heavy plasma cannon of the AWORs as they passed, the Samar-class escorts knocked out another five of the remaining fourteen enemy escorts, leaving just nine to hobble past them. The remaining five Pike-class escorts veered off to chase those survivors down, their plasma guns flashing in the dark as the escort craft dueled. Susan’s attentions were captured by what she could see of the oncoming cruisers, however.
It quickly became obvious where the last Wayfarer missile salvo had spent its fury. The burning hulks of two light cruisers in the battlecruiser’s wake showed what had to have happened. She could almost picture it perfectly, the way those two ships had been ordered to move out and in front to take the barrage meant for their superiors. The remaining ten light cruisers were still on intercepts for her own ships, while the cascade tender had slid back and tucked itself in behind the battlecruiser as they charged in.
The rigs went in next, their small weapons seeming so pitifully small against the oncoming warship. Her AWORs released their ordnance, sending a series of explosions washing over the enemy’s defensive screens. Once again, a wall of railgun projectiles slammed into enemy cruisers, smashing holes in defensive screens and punching through armor. This time, the Samar-class escorts swept in immediately afterward, their plasma guns and particle cannon widening the breaches and ripping the enemy to shreds. Six of the light cruisers were blasted to pieces, one after another, their wreckage joining the shards already tumbling in their comrades’ wake.
Then the Wild Colony formation had passed her own, with the escort craft and AWORs fighting to turn and come back around at the remaining ships. Enemy rigs tried to intercept them, but the CTRs under Derek’s command cut them off and overwhelmed them. A roiling dogfight filled the void with bursts of plasma and missile fire in the battlecruiser’s wake. Slightly ahead and off to the side, the Pike-class craft had finished off three of the remaining enemy escorts, leaving their battered hulls drifting through space.
Yet for all that effort, it seemed as if there would be no chance for a second strike at the enemy ships as they continued to accelerate. Her forces would catch them eventually, but not in time. All six remaining enemy escorts were now on intercepts with her cruisers; those collisions would cripple her craft, even if the escorts were reduced to wreckage first. The remaining four light cruisers were coming in just after them, aiming to either hit the Concord, or one of the cruisers, if they managed to survive—and behind all of them was the terrible bulk of the battlecruiser, ready to smash her flagship to scrap.
Her cruisers were firing, but the remaining escorts were too nimble. All they had to do was keep moving enough to throw off the cruisers’ fire, and keep their power to their tetherdrives and defensive screens. Even if they failed, the cruisers behind them would seal the doom of the fleet. In mere moments, it was going to be over.
Susan saw the enemy’s still stable defensive screens, and knew that if they held, there would be no way to keep those ships from ramming. She watched them come and bowed her head. There was nothing she could do now to stop it.
Gabe watched the enemy push through the fire and saw what was going to happen.
The OMNI system presented it as a certainty. The handful of remaining escorts would screen the ships behind them, taking hits for the larger ships or even striking the cruisers themselves as a devastating first strike. Then the remaining light cruisers were going to hit, crippling either cruisers or the Concord itself. Just after that, the battlecruiser would ram the Concord. Between the acceleration of the enemy craft and its sheer mass, both ships would die. Susan would die. His father would die. Stranded and alone, his people would die.
He floated for an instant. The universe seemed to slow around him. Was this the fate that the Lord had brought his people out to meet? A final end in the void, unknown and unmourned?
Gabe shook his head in denial. There had to be something. Some way.
Then his gaze fell on the SARs, circling the fleet. Nakani’s mercenaries, with their overpowered tetherdrives. Maybe he should have asked for them to be armed, anyway.
As he watched them, he had a sudden flash of memory. He saw Nakani latching onto the enemy rig and ripping it to pieces with those tetherdrives. Then he grinned.
An instant later, he was floating in space beside Nakani’s rig, a disconcerting feeling when he didn’t have a machine of his own. “Hope-Three, I want your rigs to link up and capture the incoming escort craft. Knock them off course with tetherdrive connections, or latch on and slow them down.”
Nakani’s rig twitched. “Angel Boy? What the hell are you—You want us to grab them?”
“Just like catching a bug, you said. Just one that’s a big bigger this time.” Gabe grinned. “Keep them off course for the cruisers, unless you like the idea of walking home.”
“We can’t just—”
Before she got the protest out, Gabe blinked, and he was in a different place. It was the bridge of the Penance, once a warship belonging to Bennet Securities. He recognized the officer in the command chair, though. “Colonel McCallister.”
The Wayfarer officer’s eyes widened slightly. “Captain… Miller?”
Gabe nodded, his need too urgent to wait for explanations. “I want all the ships in your formation to link up now. All the mercenary ships and the broken Directorate ones. Form a network of tetherdrive connections, and then wait for my mark.”
McCallister studied Gabe steadily. “What are you up to, Captain?”
“I’m saving the flagship.” Gabe met his stare with a level look. “Do it, or watch the Concord burn.”
There was another heartbeat, and then McCalluster nodded. Gabe flashed to another bridge, knowing he didn’t have much time.
Susan watched the Wild Colony vessels descend on her fleet and braced herself for the impacts. It was a useless gesture; odds are she would be obliterated along with the rest of the vessel. Even more than that, there was nothing her actual body would be able to brace against inside the OMNI chamber.
Still, it seemed to make sense for her to clutch the arms of her command chair as the enemy came into range. Her cruisers would take the first hits. Once they were gone, it would be her turn…
Then her thoughts broke off abruptly. What were those rigs doing?
The SARs of Hope Squadron streamed forward, rushing ahead of the Wayfarer cruisers. Their blocky shapes twisted and jerked, dodging the salvos of plasma fire headed their way. A handful of them shot past each of the incoming escort craft, at a close enough range that the enemy turrets abruptly had a hard time tracking the SARs.
She heard a wild shout over the communications net, led by Hope-Three. “Yeeeeehaaaw!”
Suddenly, the enemy escort craft shuddered and slowed; behind them, the SARs jerked to a near stop, some of them even reversing course. Susan came up out of her chair in surprise, her eyes locked on the escort craft as they tried to claw their way forward. Even with their slower speed, they would still deliver devastating blows if they made contact.
They weren’t given the chance. All five frigates in the Wayfarer fleet focused their fire on the escort craft, their shots so expertly aimed that they seemed to have known the escorts would be slowed. Plasma cannon smashed the defensive screens aside, the blasts burning their way into the escort craft. In mere moments, all six were pummeled into wreckage that was already being dragged away by the SARs.
In their wake came the light cruisers, still completely focused on the Wayfarers in front of them. Yet as she watched, the Wayfarer cruisers began their own final maneuvers. Deliverance, Liberation, and Emancipation all unleashed one final missile salvo at point blank range. Two of the light cruisers were struck by six missiles each, with barely enough time for the warheads to arm. The impacts smashed the enemy craft aside, turning both of them into tumbling wreckage.
Captain Wong’s response was different, though no less effective. All three Directorate ships abruptly swerved to present their broadsides, with their cannon locking on to the remaining two light cruisers. Ajax and Odysseus both unleashed a hail of plasma fire that battered down the enemy vessels’ defensive screens and scorched the armor beneath. In the moments that those ships were vulnerable, Antiphus opened fire with beam after beam of concentrated particle cannon fire, slicing through armor as if it were mere paper. For an instant, it seemed as if the attacks had done nothing. Then, for half a heartbeat, Susan thought she could see particle cannon beams pierce through the dying Wild Colony vessels, slashing out of their aft sections just before both ships evaporated in colossal explosions.
The maneuvers had been close, enough so that her own ships still had not survived intact. She saw fragments of Wild Colony ships smashing against her ships’ defensive screens; damage reports streamed in as the cruisers shook under the assault. One chunk even tumbled wide enough to strike one of the frigates, downing its defensive screens.
Yet the ships survived. They had remained intact.
It had to have been Gabriel. He had found a way to save them. She smiled.
Then her eyes went to the battlecruiser. It was still coming, its terrible outline blocking out the stars. No SAR could possibly pull that hulk to a stop; even if it was reduced to wreckage, she doubted the Concord would survive the collision.
She was still looking upward when she felt the Concord lurch around her. Susan glanced around wildly as the carrier writhed and then jumped to one side, as if an invisible giant had shoved the ship to the side. There were collision alarms screeching, but she knew the battlecruiser hadn’t hit. What had—
Her eyes went to the ships below the Concord, and the web of gravitic tethers that linked them to the flagship. Gabriel again. He’d found a way.
She smiled and looked up as the battlecruiser slashed past, shooting through the space the Concord had once occupied. It passed by so close that the carrier rocked as their defensive screens made contact; the brief collision of opposing forces shorted out the invisible barriers on both sides. The cascade tender followed the battlecruiser, the ship’s movements suddenly uncertain. It seemed, almost, like it had been ready to pounce on something in the wake of the carrier’s destruction, but now it was as shocked as the rest of the ships in the battle.
Susan leaned forward, the paralyzing fatalism falling away. “All cruisers, target that tender! Escorts, rigs, continue targeting the battlecruiser. Finish them off now!”
The ships of the Wayfarer fleet opened fire as one, plasma fire wreathing the cascade tender in explosions. Their defensive screens shuddered and flickered; they failed a heartbeat later, and the blasts chewed through the ship’s armor. It seemed to try to move toward the civilians, where the Compass was located, but then something large exploded on its slender aft second, and the cruiser was sent tumbling away in the wake of the battlecruiser itself.
As for the battlecruiser itself, it had tried to brake its momentum as it shot past the carrier, to no avail. It had started to come about, bringing its nose around to point towards where the civilians were clustered.
Then the crippled cascade tender smashed into it, its own velocity carrying it into its larger companion. The smaller ship hit hard, smashing into the larger ship’s armor. As the impact shoved it aside, it continued to tumble into the void for a few heartbeats more. Then something within it exploded, a newborn sun that melted its way out through the lower hull and left behind a shattered shell.
The blast seemed to stun the crew of the battlecruiser. For a long moment, it continued to drift, still sliding away without completing its turn, even as debris fell away from the new gaping wound in its flank. Susan watched it, her eyes following that awful shape as it remained frozen in apparent shock.
When it finally recovered and began to maneuver again, it was too late. A swarm of escort craft descended on the large craft, plasma cannon firing and particle lances stabbing. AWORs and CTRs streamed after them, their smaller weapons picking off defensive turrets and plasma weaponry. She saw the missile bays open, and she shook her head. “All ships, don’t let them fire!”
The rigs and escort craft obliged her almost immediately. Plasma fire tore down on the opening missile launchers, catching the ordnance still within the battlecruiser. For a moment, it seemed as if the shots had failed to do anything.
Then the battlecruiser’s tetherdrive cut off abruptly, and she’d stared in shock as the ship’s superstructure seemed to ripple somehow, as if some titan was running its hand along the craft’s inner frame. She reacted immediately. “All units, get away from it! Break off now!”
She had one moment to see the rigs and escort craft scattering, and then a wave of devastation burst its way through the armored hull of their adversary. It geysered up through the port missile bays first before tearing up and across the beam of the ship. Hull and armor plating peeled away and tore free, flung by the succession of explosions into the void. Secondary blasts threw out more debris and widened the gaping wound with each wrenching blow.
The battlecruiser’s superstructure appeared to be twisting, shredding like a dying spiderweb as the explosions ripped at it. She wondered at how intact it still was; how it could still be holding together with that kind of damage. As if hearing her thoughts, a blast that could only have been a failing annihilation plant consumed half the rear starboard quarter of the ship, reducing yet more of it to shrapnel and fire. The explosion shoved the remnants of the battlecruiser sharply to the side, and she watched as the ship’s spine seemed to break as the bow portions partially detached from the stern. More explosions went off all along the dying vessel, and she turned away.
“All ships, the enemy flagship is destroyed. Hope Squadron, begin recovery operations as possible.” Triumph welled up in her as she savored the next words. “The enemy had been defeated; they are no longer a threat. Reform around the Concord. Well done. Command out.”
Then her gaze fell on the damaged warships of her fleet, and her sense of triumph faltered. Even if the cruisers had survived, how many had died? Victory had been gained, but at what cost?
As the damage reports came in, she had a sinking feeling that the answer would be more than they could bear.