They had heard the Hev long before they’d seen them. They were not being stealthy, and the vibrations of their work could be felt for hundreds of meters.

They had approached as silently as possible, no thrusters, bare contact with walls. Despite that, the Craton’s drones would have sensed them long before they got this close.

But the Hev’s, it seemed, were not that good. They hadn’t even noticed as he’d poked a knife around the corner with a mirror on it at floor level. It saw little, but it was enough.

The Hev team were setting up some kind of breaching weapon outside the doors to Reactor Two.

Iago had never seen the type before, it was made in a very bland style that did not match the other Hev equipment.

Something from their friends, he figured.

“That’s clever,” Kessissiin muttered over the comm, gesturing to his knife and mirror.

“Old pre-tech trick,” Iago told him. “We go on three.”

They hooked themselves to the walls with quick-release cables. Placing their feet on the surface, they could use it as a counter-point to pivot. At least for the few seconds before the Hev drones rushed and shot them.

He counted. And on three, they both leaned around the corner, firing.

They both caught the same Hev, their shots not being caught by any guardian systems, and ripping him nearly in half. His scream was impossible to hear in the vacuous tunnel, but the action was not missed.

The Hev drones whirled, and he knew they were done for, even as he tried to bring his weapon, still firing, to bear on whatever their breaching weapon was.

Kessissiin was trying to aim for their weapon, too, he realized, and the competence of the Dessei made him proud.

Then an arc grenade went off among the Hev drones. Leaping between them, their ammunition exploded, destroying yet others.

Had Kessissiin thrown that . . . ?

But no, he realized. The Hev were now being pincered by an attack from their other side.

Their leader was clearly trying to give orders, but a mag rifle shot ripped through his head, and the rout of the Hev began. Their soldiers, pumped with drugs, modified to be willing to fight and die, could still panic.

They scrambled away in disorderly fear. Coming towards him and Kessissiin.

They were all cut down in seconds.

“Hold!” he called out over the comm. Kessissiin lowered his aim, and Iago peered through the smoke and debris.

“Who is there?” he called on a general frequency. “Identify yourselves.”

A figure appeared. It was Pirra.

“Iago?” she called over the comm, eyes scanning for him.

For a moment he felt dumbfounded to see her. It shouldn’t have been a shock, but it was.

He found himself unable to talk as he looked at her – her insignia of rank proudly displayed, and he suddenly found himself rushing her, throwing his arms around her.

“Iago!” she repeated, shocked.

“Pirra,” he began, letting go of her awkwardly. “I . . . Sorry I just . . .”

“Commander!” Kessissiin said.

Iago looked back and saw the Dessei at attention, holding his rifle ceremonially.

Pirra seemed . . . odd, as she looked between them. “I’m glad you’re both all right. But neither of you are supposed to be here. Or on combat duty.”

“Conditions forced our hand,” Iago told her. “But I think we’re all that’s left of our unit.”

“I see,” Pirra said. To him, she sounded . . . cold.

“Hunting Leader, I am ready to follow you to death,” Kessissiin proclaimed. He went from a standard salute to one that Iago recognized as an archaic Dessei one. It matched his words, he realized.

Pirra seemed even colder now, and watching her, Iago realized just how much she had changed in such a short time.

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“That will not be necessary,” she told him. She turned to the rest of her team, who were watching them oddly.

All of them, Iago thought. His team, but they looked like strangers to him now.

“Secure the area and the Hev equipment – and get these two into a bunker.”

Her words were met with silence; but he could see Kiseleva’s lips moving through her visor. She’d switched to a private channel to reply.

Normally a visor was kept darkened in combat, but now that it had ended, it had gone clear. And he could read her lips.

“Not into Reactor Two?” he read her asking.

He couldn’t see Pirra’s face – and one couldn’t lip-read a being who had no lips – but he knew her answer was in the negative.

And he knew then that Pirra did not trust him.

“Come along, sir,” Kessissiin said. He realized that one of the Response officers was leading them away. “We are ordered to shelter.”

Even Kessissiin sounded bitter.

Iago couldn’t say anything. He knew that he could not have contained his emotions even if he had tried.

----------------------------------------

“Another missile wave hitting outer defense zones!” Urle shouted.

“Seven PDCs out of commission, two more out of ammunition! And all but one laser are down,” Jaya called. The sirens and noise and smoke made shouting necessary, and Brooks could scarcely see even his command officers through it. His HUD was fighting to view anything.

“Roll the ship,” he ordered. “Bring our best defenses to bear on the heaviest concentrations of missiles. And get the ventilators back online, I want this smoke gone!”

“They’re too spread out,” Urle called. “We’re going to have gaps in our defenses-“

“Do we have any defensive drones left?” he called.

“Only a few-“

“Get them to the weakened sectors!” Brooks snapped. “Are we in coilgun range yet?”

“Hit chance is still extremely low at this range,” Cenz said, his voice still screening his own mood; which Brooks could not imagine was very positive at the moment.

“Fire anyway, see if we can take some missiles with it, and threaten one of their missile carriers, we might be able to slow down their rate of fire!”

“Reactor Seven shutting down,” Cutter said, his voice the only naturally calm one; Beetle-Slugs were nearly unflappable even in the face of death. “Hits have caused fluctuations in-“

“It’s enough to know it’s down,” Brooks said. “How does this affect our charging for a jump?”

“Significantly,” Cutter replied in a clipped tone. “Running calculations.”

The situation was dire, and though the Craton was not going to be destroyed by even a few waves of missiles, they were quickly being rendered helpless.

“Tell me the drives are still working,” he said.

“Aye, sir. Front nose cone is holding so far, but she’s got some big craters in her,” Urle said.

That was a small miracle.

But as some of the smoke cleared, and he saw the number of missiles incoming in this next wave – now only two minutes out – he realized that it was not nearly enough.

They would run out of ammunition, their defenses would get knocked out, and they’d be helpless. The Hev would board them with hundreds of thousands of troops – millions, if they had to. And they could shoot until they ran out of ammo, until their printers were eating the walls to make bullets, and still they’d lose.

All he could do was save what lives he could.

“Prepare to eject habitat section bunkers. See if we can give them a bump away from us as fast as we can.”

Urle nodded. “Aye sir.”

Doing that essentially meant blowing off sections of the hull and letting the safety bunkers be launched out with bursting charges. They had only limited air and supplies and no engines.

And that assumed the Hev wouldn’t hunt them all down.

But it was the only thing he could do to potentially spare them bloody deaths.

He lowered his voice. “Make sure Ambassador Kell, Decinus, Logus, and Apollonia are in one of the bunkers,” he said.

Urle hesitated. “Sir, about that . . .”

“I know what the orders are,” Brooks said bluntly. “But I believe it will be better if Kell escapes to live another day.”

“. . . Yes, sir,” Urle said.

Part of Brooks wanted to order Urle into a bunker as well. The man was his closest friend, and his children had no one else.

The words hovered in his mouth, and he was about to speak, when Cenz’s voice cut through the other noise.

“Captain, we are detecting something rising from zerospace dead astern!”

His chest clenched. Now the Hev were outflanking them as well? It was flogging a dead horse at this point, but it would put the civilians in a worse position . . .

“On-screen,” he said. “Perhaps we can discourage the Hev from-“

His words cut off as the ship appeared in a flash – it emerged so close that the Bower Radiation didn’t have time to decay.

It was not a Hev ship. It was a Dessei Ring Ship.

Over four kilometers in diameter, it was a portable gateway to zerospace, an entry and exit point from that alternate dimension. Enormous, nearly defenseless.

He felt his jaw drop as he realized what that meant.

It would not have come here alone.

“Captain, we are detecting dozens of other objects emerging!”

Other ships began to appear; cruisers, destroyers, droneships, even battleships and artillery ships.

It was not all Dessei; emerging among them, in their own formation, he saw Commodore Siilon in her flagship – Dusk Falls.

He’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

“We’re receiving a message,” Eboh called.

The voice that came through was Siilon, along with an image of her on her bridge.

“Craton, I recommend you begin withdrawing to the safety of the fleet. We will cover you.”

“Do it,” Brooks ordered. “And Commodore, if I may say – I’m glad to see you.”

Siilon flashed him one of her jagged smiles, then the transmission ended.

“Artillery ships are charging their coilguns,” Cenz said. “They are firing – oh my.”

The shots from the ships spread like shotgun blasts towards the Craton, though he felt not even a moment of alarm. Every shot was wide, aimed for the missiles that were weaving through the gaps in the Craton’s defenses. Bracketing them perfectly.

Dozens of threats disappeared off the board, and already he saw other shots coming.

He felt the clutching pains in his chest relax, and felt suddenly weary to the bone. Moving back to his seat, he dropped into it.

“Focus everything into defense, do whatever we can. Get all Response teams to vital areas, and work to get Reactor Seven restored.”

Cheers went up among the crew, and he shared in their elation.

But he could not let his guard down just yet.

Though they had reinforcements, the P’G’Maig numbers were still stacked against them.