ermonuclear warheads, clad with strontium,
detonating high  up in the atmosphere,  destroying  yet  another world.  The
image winked off, replaced by his uncle.
     "This is Tolwyn. Good luck to all of you and good hunting."
     The image winked off and Kevin smile. Typical Brit understatement.
     The  forward  edge of ъapiers,  ъaptors,  Ferrets  and Hornets, running
ahead  of the  attack  wave, slammed into the  opposing wall  of  opposition
defending the Kilrathi heavy carriers
     From out of  the  red wall  dozens  of  blinking orange dots  appeared,
aiming straight in at the attack force.
     "All right,  Blue team,  we've got incoming antimatter area strike, the
strike leader announced. "Let's bring'em up."
     The strike force diverted from its straight in approach, turning  up at
a  ninety degree angle relative to the orbital  plane of the  Sirius system.
The  area bombardment missiles started to turn to follow, the range closing.
The first one winked into a white hot ball, dozens more detonating, catching
half a dozen fighters at the back of the strike.
     The squadrons nosed back over, following the  strike commander, slicing
in through  the explosions, and  as  they  came  out the opposite side,  the
Kilrathi fighters were upon them.
     Kevin  fought down  a moment of panic.  The  largest action he had ever
been in  was  at Munro,  a cakewalk attack on one carrier. Even  the Academy
holo simulators had never  been  programmed to  handle  the number  of enemy
fighters now coming in on him.
     It was impossible to sort out which target to lock on. Hundreds of IFFs
streaked across space and within seconds dozens of ships on  both sides were
exploding. The Broadsword and Sabre gunners sent out sprays of shot in every
direction as wing group size attack waves by  the Kilrathi came in. The four
light  corvettes escorting the attack dropped  out sprays of chaff, jammers,
and flares.  The  first wave passed and Kevin, ashamed, realized  he had not
fired even a shot.
     He looked up at the Broadswords he was escorting. One was gone, another
turning  out  of  formation,  spinning,  its  port  engine blown  apart, its
starboard engine apparently jammed  at full  throttle. Its  crew ejected and
the ship spun away, exploding seconds later.
     From out of the confusion a wave of Dralthi, Krants, and Gratha, flying
nearly wing tip to wing tip, came sweeping in, forward cannons firing.
     "Blue three, there's our Cats. Let's break Сem up."
     He edged his throttle forward, leaping ahead of the Broadswords, lining
up on  the  lead Dralthi  and putting a dumb  fire  bolt  straight  into the
furballs'  canopy, blowing the  top of the enemy fighter  apart.  The  enemy
attack broke apart,  three Dralthi dead, and Kevin came  around, seeing that
his number three man was gone. There wasn't even time to ask.
     "Keep  moving  in,  close in maneuvering scoops," the  strike commander
called. "We want the carriers!"
     Kevin  swallowed hard, passing  the order on  to  his squadron,  and he
closed scoops in.
     It was no longer possible to  pull the tight-in maneuvers. It was going
to be a straight in high speed run.
     Blasts snapped  around him, missiles  detonating, his number five pilot
ejecting from her fighter as it crumpled up in a ball of flame.
     He  pulled  in close  under  the  bellies  of  the  Broadswords  he was
escorting.
     The  outer  row of  enemy  picket  ships was  straight ahead and  their
barrage  opened up,  two of the escorting corvettes taking multiple hits and
disappearing.  As  they  shot  through  the line  of Kilrathi  frigates  and
destroyers,  more than  a  hundred missiles  were dropped  by  the furballs,
slashing into the  squadrons, the two  remaining corvettes blowing  out more
sprays of chaff, jammers, and  flares. The  curtain of distractors  diverted
most of the  missiles, but  enough found their  mark and more than two dozen
Confederation fighters and bombers were gone.
     Kevin pulled open his visor and wiped the stinging sweat from his eyes.
His back was soaked with sweat,  the suit coolant unable to evaporate it off
fast enough. His mouth felt dry, as if he had swallowed a ball of cotton and
he  suddenly understood why Ian had developed the revolting habit of chewing
on an old cigar while in a tight spot.
     Straight ahead on his tactical  were five  large clusters of red. He no
longer needed  to  use the screen. Even from extreme range he could  already
pick out a thin sliver of reflected light.
     "Bombardment groups  one  and two, take  center  carrier,"  the  strike
commander  announced,  and Kevin  could  see  on  the  comm  screen that the
leader's ship had been hit,  smoke in the cockpit making him barely visible,
"three  and four  carrier  to port,  five and six  to starboard. ъange  nine
hundred   clicks,   open   maneuvering  scoops,   full  reverse  thrust  for
deceleration in ten seconds."
     "Got that, Lone Wolf?"
     "Straight in we  go,  ъound Top.  Make  it  a good  one,  buddy," Kevin
replied.
     "Nothing less will do."
     "Three, two, one, decelerate!"
     Kevin pulled  his maneuvering  scoops wide open and slammed in  reverse
thrust, instantly slowing his fighter, which shuddered to a near stand still
less than fifty clicks out from their target.
     A swarm of Kilrathi fighters closed in on them.
     There was  a flash  of light forward  off  the carrier's bow  and Kevin
realized that  someone, driven by rage, had  simply tried to  ram  the enemy
ship. Such a maneuver at full closing speed was  nearly impossible to do and
the fighter had deflected off the side of the carrier's heavy shields.
     "I've  got initial torpedo lock," ъound Top announced, "and counting at
thirty, twenty nine . . ." The other strike craft that  Kevin was protecting
joined in with their own announcements of initial lock.
     They  slowly drifted  in towards their target and Kevin felt as  if his
heart were wrapped in ice. The ship was massive, more than twice the size of
any  carrier  he had  ever seen before.  He could barely  spare it a glance,
however, as hundreds of enemy fighters swarmed in upon them.
     Within seconds he had lost the rest of his squadron in the mad melee as
he twisted and turned his  fighter, struggling to stay alive  while  at  the
same time desperately attempting to cover the Broadswords  as they hung near
motionless, waiting for their torpedoes to gain full lock.
     Broadsword after Broadsword disappeared in white-hot  explosions. Three
Krants lined  in on  ъound Top,  his  countdown  still  echoing  in  Kevin's
headphones as he weaved into them, crippling one with a dumb-fired flechette
spray, and destroying a second  with a  stream of neutron bolts cutting into
the fighter's engine mounts.
     The third stitched a flurry of rounds across the portside gun turret of
ъound Top's ship,  and Kevin caught a glimpse of the gunner's body shredding
to pieces, his canopy bursting into shards from the strike.
     "Keep Сem off me," ъound Top shouted. "Ten seconds and counting."
     The strike squadron had drifted to within eight  clicks of  the carrier
and what appeared to  be a  solid wall of mass driver rounds snaked out from
the  ship's bow, blowing three more Broadswords  apart. Kevin struggled with
his  stick  as a  shudder  ran  through  his  fighter,  starboard  shielding
overloading and a laser hit sheered of the last meter of his wingtip.
     He turned inside the  laser  beam,  blowing  out reflective chaff which
temporarily  blinded  the laser's target lock, the  beam skewing  across his
bow, cutting a gouge into the forward durasteel armor.
     "Three, two, one, it's away!"
     The fifteen surviving Broadswords out of the thirty in the strike group
launched  their torpedo loads.  ъound Top,  along  with  half the  remaining
ships,  were armed  with the laser lock  guidance  and they  turned  upwards
making sure that the laser emitters were pointed at the torpedoes.
     The space between  the attacking fighters and the  carriers turned into
an insane  explosion of anti-torpedo missiles, dogfighting  ships, and point
defense blasts from the Kilrathi carrier.
     "We've got lock, we've got holding lock," ъound Top shouted.
     Kevin turned his fighter to circle around ъound Top and saw yet another
swarm  of Kilrathi fighters  cutting in, dropping a wall  of missiles on the
surviving Broadswords.
     "ъound Top, evasive, evasive!"
     "Can't! We still have lock, three seconds, two, one . . ."
     Kevin screamed with  rage as five  missiles detonated across the top of
his friend's Broadsword. The ship simply disappeared.
     From  off his portside wing he  saw  four  torpedoes  impacting on  the
carrier's bow. In the silence of space it seemed some  how  surreal, as if a
holo movie was being played out. For a brief instant the carrier disappeared
behind the  exploding  curtain  of  antimatter warheads. He waited  for  the
secondary explosions to begin.
     "Scratch one flattop," someone screamed on the commlink. "We've got the
bastard!"
     And as he waited, the carrier emerged from out of the fire. Its forward
bow,  and for nearly a hundred meters back, was  a twisted wreckage, but the
ship continued to purposefully move forward.
     Making sure his gun cameras were still on,  Kevin turned in towards the
carrier.
     Wreckage was trailing off  from the bow  of the ship as he raced in and
he could  see fires flaring inside the ruins  of the forward portside launch
bay.  He crossed up and  over the top of the carrier and  then  suddenly the
anti-aircraft defenses of the carrier kicked back on.
     She still had  internal  power Ч  it was  impossible after four torpedo
strikes!
     Jinxing to throw off the gunners, he raced down the length of the ship,
passing one of  the  aft launch  bays. He locked his  camera  into  a  laser
designator and swung the designator in on  the bay. On his small comm screen
he caught a quick  glimpse  inside the ship. Another fighter was coming down
the  launch ramp, afterburners flaming. Internal  lighting  was still on and
launch  crews  were  purposefully  working,   some  of  them  still  picking
themselves up, shaking  off  the after effects  of the torpedo hammer blows.
The image disappeared as he flashed across the stem of the ship.
     He looked up  and saw  that more  than  a  dozen Kilrathi fighters were
streaking in to pick him off and  he  went into a violent spin, cutting down
over the stern of the ship,  his  fighter bucking and shuddering  as he  got
caught in the exhaust plume of the carrier.
     He punched through into the fleet comm channel.
     "White Wolf, this is  Blue One. No  joy, repeat,  no joy, carrier still
running after four torpedo hits. Catch my video transmit."
     He sent the signal through and then looked at his tactical.
     Space  was dotted solid with red, with only an occasional blue dot. The
strike force had shot its bolt and been  destroyed,  and  the Kilrathi Fleet
continued on in.

     Sick at heart,  Admiral Tolwyn  silently watched as  the action reports
came  in.  He coughed  again, wiping  the  tears from  his eyes. The  Combat
Information Center  was still filled with  smoke,  the air filtration  plant
still off line from the torpedo hit to Concordia.
     "Message from Moskva, sir."
     "Put it on man."
     A young woman, blood trickling down  from her forehead, appeared in the
flat wavery image.
     "Where's Ching?"
     "Dead, sir. Last hit took out the bridge."
     He nodded silently. Damn.
     Sir,  we  have to abandon ship,  all engines  are dead. We're moving on
inertia and one bank of maneuvering thrusters only. Secondary generators are
going  off  line,  hull  integrity  lost in sixty-three  percent,  remaining
bulkhead are leaking and will rupture with one more hit."
     "Get your people into the escape boats. I'll have Polowski stand by  to
pick up survivors."
     "I'm sorry, sir."
     "You fought her well, lieutenant, you fought her well."
     He  looked back at the action  reports  that  streamed  in  across  the
monitors.
     Two of the  new  carriers and one  of the old ones  had been hit in his
strike. The old  style carrier was gone, but the two new ones still appeared
to  be relentlessly moving forward. In return, all four of his carriers  had
been hit. Verdun was lost with all hands. and now Moskva was finished  Leyte
Gulf, which had only joined him this morning, had one bay down from a direct
hit.  Of  the more than four hundred and eighty  strike craft and bombers he
had launched three hours  ago,  less than  two hundred and twenty were still
able to fly. Worst of all was the  loss of Broadswords; less than  a quarter
had returned.  Estimates  of Kilrathi fighter  loss stood at just over seven
hundred. He  knew the  figure would be cut once the debriefing  teams had  a
chance to look at all the camera footage. In short, he had lost.
     He looked  at the  status plot boards. Only twenty-nine Broadswords and
twenty modified Sabres were armed and ready for a second strike. Already the
Kilrathi were sending up their next strike wave which was even stronger than
their  first  as  they  shifted  craft  over  from  defensive  to  offensive
operations. He turned back to his  strategic communications officer, who was
burst signal linked back to Earth.
     "Latest reported position of Saratoga?"
     "Still six hours twenty-one minutes short of jump point 3A."
     Geoff looked back at his main nav screen. Jump Point 3A, the connecting
link back from Sirius towards Earth was an hour behind him.
     Saratoga would never come up in time to help repel the next attack, let
alone be able to aid in a second strike.
     "Signal all ships by laser link. We are withdrawing from Sirius."
     His bridge crew looked around at him startled.
     "We'll  be  swarmed under in the second strike. If I  thought we had  a
chance  of hitting  them back  hard enough, I'd do  it. There's  no sense in
dying for no reason."
     "What about Sirius, sir?" a helm ensign asked angrily. "Damn  it,  sir,
that's my home."
     "Son, it's  finished whether we  stay here  and die, or leave.  We need
time to repair damaged planes, get Leyte's port launch bay  back on line and
prepare  a  second  strike.  Saratoga will nearly  double our  heavy  strike
fighter strength if we fall back on her."
     The ensign looked around, realizing he had  spoken way out of turn to a
full admiral. He started to  open his mouth  again and was restrained by his
section lieutenant who took him by the shoulder and turned him away.
     Gilead, the smaller  of the two  worlds,  was  already  flaming  ruins.
Sirius  Prime,  thirty nine  million clicks  to port, was now  wide open and
already  a section of Kilrathi cruisers  was turning  towards  it. He didn't
even want to think about how many people were down there.
     "Helm, turn us about. Let's get the hell out of here," he snarled.

     "ъecall those cruisers now!"
     Prince Thrakhath turned to gaze coldly at Baron Jukaga.
     "Growing soft, my good Baron?"
     "Your senseless barbarism will  only  arouse  them further. You've made
your point,  now  spare  the second  planet. Show  mercy  and it still might
weaken their will."
     "Terror breeds terror, Baron."
     "Terror  can also breed  fanaticism  and  hatred. Your demonstration at
Warsaw did not intimidate the humans,  instead it caused  them to stop their
internal  bickering  and  unite.  You  know  nothing  of  humans.  Senseless
bombardments of their civilian populations have always tended to unite them.
The deliberate destruction of entire  worlds with radiation  will cause them
to fight us tooth and nail to the death rather than surrender."
     "And that s what you wanted, wasn't it, surrender?"
     The Baron attempted to control his loathing and rage.
     "You are  a barbarian," he snapped. "We could have undermined them, let
their natural weaknesses play into our hands. You have gone on a rampage and
destroyed eleven of their worlds so far, and their fleet is still intact.
     "We just crippled it, or weren't you watching?"
     "They still have fight left in  them. ъemember, Prince  Thrakhath,  the
new  fleet is  to serve two purposes:  one to win  this war,  and second  to
prepare us for the Mantu if they  should ever  return. You  are now gambling
that fleet in your drive for vengeance on the humans."
     "Not vengeance, extinction."
     Sickened, the Baron turned  away. He knew now that the accusations were
right.  Study  one's enemy for too  long and in  the  end you  might come to
admire  them. He did not admire the  humans, the very essence of his  nature
prevented  that,  but  he could acknowledge them as something more than mere
prey to be slaughtered. His plan, if it had been  allowed to  be played out,
might very well have resulted in  a near bloodless victory, a  Confederation
completely  divided,  lulled by peace,  and then psychologically overwhelmed
when the dozen new carriers appeared. It all suddenly became very clear.
     "You allowed that recon ship of the humans to  slip into Hari space and
then allowed it to escape. You wanted the peace ended, didn't you?"
     "In spite of your claims of intellect, Baron, you are often rather slow
at figuring things out."
     "You wanted this war  to end in a  blood  bath.  You were  the one  who
triggered the bomb in the human headquarters.
     Prince Thrakhath smiled.
     "You  were  never  a prisoner of  the humans. I  was. You have not lost
comrades to them, I have. I shall rise to the Imperial Throne, hailed as the
conqueror of the humans and winner of this war, while as for  you . . ." and
he leaned over, touching a button on his console.
     The  doors to his wardroom  were flung  open and  four  Imperial Marine
guards stepped in.
     "Escort   the  Baron   to  his  quarters  and  make  sure  he  is  very
comfortable."
     "Are you arresting me?"
     Prince Thrakhath shook his head.
     "Let us say that there are certain questions to be asked of you  later,
once the battles are completed and I am secure in my victory."
     Baron Jukaga smiled coldly.
     "Don't underestimate Tolwyn and his people. They are not finished yet."
     "They soon will  be, Baron," and  he laughed coldly as  Jukaga was lead
from the room.

     "How are you, Geoff?"
     Geoff  looked up in  surprise  as  "Big" Duke  Grecko  walked into  his
private quarters.
     Geoff started to get up from his cot and Duke motioned for him to relax
while he pulled a chair around and sat down across from Tolwyn.
     "What the hell are you doing out here, Duke?"
     "Can't  keep the  Marines  in port  when  the  action  starts.  I'm not
interfering  out  here,  Geoff, but  I thought I should come out and have  a
look."
     "You got the after action report then?"
     Duke nodded glumly.
     "It was relayed up to my frigate a couple of hours ago."
     "I  screwed  up, Duke. I should have fallen back  from  Sirius and then
held here with Saratoga joined in for the strike."
     СYou couldn't  abandon  Sirius without a fight.  Civilian  morale would
have gone off the deep end."
     "So we lose two carriers and still lose Sirius."
     "At least you bloodied them."
     "One old carrier destroyed, one damaged  and one  of their new carriers
reported heavily damaged, but  no  kills on the new fleet. Which  is what  I
wanted.
     "We're reporting that big carrier as dead for now," Duke said quietly.
     "I never liked doing that."
     "Sometimes we have to, and for all pra