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Figuring out our plan, Decker took action. He swung his cruisers about to point every
weapon in our direction. He could no longer outrun us, and we were rapidly coming
into range.

“At least they aren’t killing Jasmine’s ships anymore,” Sandra said.

I nodded. I eyed the green counter and did the math. The Worms had lost twenty-three
ships to help us, about half their number. I owed them.

“Miklos, apply full braking power. Slow us down. Have the gunships come up at flank
speed. We want to land on them with both feet.”

Decker figured out what was happening soon thereafter. He could shoot at the unarmed
transports, but that was pointless, as they weren’t doing him any harm. He could fire
at the Worms, who had dodged up and down and off to every side, escaping him. It was
clear that my fleet was now on the attack, and we were almost in range. More importantly,
we were pulling together into a single fist, not hitting him in pieces. Anyone could
count ships, and right now it was fifty-one to five against the Imperial forces.

“He’s calling us again,” Sandra said.

“I know, I can see the contact request on the boards. Leave it closed for now.”

We came within range a minute or two later. I wanted to see if he was going to fire
on my cruiser. If he was having second thoughts about this entire battle, he might
wait. That would buy me more time for the fleets to come together.

As it turned out, I’d made a tactical error. I think maybe it was the psychology of
the moment. When I didn’t answer, Decker took that to mean
screw you
and figured we weren’t going to make any bargains. He opened fire on
Nostradamus
, which was now within range.

There was a strange sound of groaning metal from the ship, and the bridge filled with
wispy trails of vapor.

“We’ve taken a glancing hit, sir,” Miklos said. “The beam was unfocussed, fortunately.
Hull temperature is up by about twelve hundred degrees.”

The metal squealed and crackled as my nanites attempted to repair the burnt spot.
I knew the sounds were from the variance of temperature. We’d been burned, but it
wasn’t that bad. A direct hit would have vaporized a section of the hull and blown
it wide open.

“Full gear everyone, we could lose pressure at any moment!” I shouted over the general
com channel. The order was quickly relayed to the entire fleet.

“Should we attempt evasive action, sir?” asked the helmsman.

“No,” I said. “Pump out the new smart-chaff. We’ll stay right behind it until they
burn through. That should give us some time.”

Miklos manipulated the controls. I caught my bridge staff exchanging glances. The
nanite-chaff was a new, experimental defensive system. Essentially, we’d taught constructive
nanites to group up into disks on their own in a vacuum. Forming chains with their
bodies, they created reflective surfaces that got in the way of incoming energy beams
and deflected most of the killing power. Theoretically, this approach should provide
much better cover than dodging around or using the traditional bits of foil to diffuse
the incoming beams. But it was pretty much untested. I could tell that my crew wasn’t
thrilled about placing their lives on the line by betting on experimental tech.

What I didn’t tell them was it was our only hope, in my opinion. The situation was
mathematical. The enemy had damaged engines, but they outgunned my cruiser five to
one. They’d already proven they were reasonably accurate, even against dodging targets.
Unless the new chaff worked extremely well, we only had minutes left to live.

The next nineteen minutes were some of the longest of my life. Only the initial nanite
injections, which had left me raging in mindless agony, were possibly worse. The really
difficult part was based on a critical limitation of my chaff-based approach. They
couldn’t burn through to me, but I couldn’t fire at them, either. It was as if we
were charging at them from behind an upraised shield. If I fired, I would only damage
my own shield, so our guns remained silent as we plunged closer. That was the agonizing
part. We took glancing hits, and watched numbers flash and burn as their beams dug
into my chaff shield. Millions of nanites were transformed into bursts of energy and
puffs of vapor. All along, I could not even order my own guns to return fire.

After those long minutes were over, my gunships caught up with us. I ordered them
to fire the moment they came abreast of us.

“But sir,” Miklos said. “They aren’t going to be accurate at this range.”

“I know that. Fire!”

Miklos was a good officer, even if he asked too many questions. The single big cannon
on all fifty gunships opened up, disgorging huge bolts toward the distant Imperial
ships. These weapons were essentially identical to the belly turret on every Macro
cruiser. It had been far easier to order the Macro factories to produce weapons they
knew how to manufacture than to design something new, so I’d stuck with the tried-and-true.

A few minutes later, Decker tried to communicate with me again.

“Put him through,” I said.

“You really are a mad-dog, just like everyone says, aren’t you?” Decker asked me.
His voice was somewhat fuzzy, no doubt affected by the mountain of smart-metal chaff
that constantly reformed itself into tiny mirrors in front of my ship.

“Not only do you consort with vile biotics like the Worms, but now you seem to have
small Macro allies in those ships with you. Crow was an idiot. He should have killed
you years ago.”

“Decker,” I said. “Your situation is hopeless. You can’t outrun us. You can’t outgun
us. You can’t even do much damage. Ceasefire and surrender your ships.”

“The sheer, unadulterated arrogance!” he raged. “It really must be seen to be comprehended.
You not only want to win this battle on the cheap, but you also dare to fantasize
I’ll hand over my command as well so you might turn these fine ships against Earth.”

“It’s better than dying, Decker.”

“I disagree. And let me tell you, Emperor Crow is well-prepared, should I fail here
today. You’ve taught him how to overcome your natural guile and deceit.”

“How’s that?”

“By overkill.”

I frowned at the holotank as the channel went dead. I glanced over at Miklos, who
made a pinched face and shrugged.

I couldn’t be so nonchalant. What did that rat-bastard Decker have in mind? What did
he mean that Crow was waiting for me out there, planning in terms of
overkill
?

-18-

Decker’s next move pissed me off. Instead of breaking off, surrendering, or coming
at me blazing with every gun he had—he turned on the civilian ships again.

They were closer now than before. They’d broken off and were no longer on a collision
course, but in space when two groups of ships are coming at each other at high speeds,
it isn’t easy to turn away from one another. Just try giving your car’s steering wheel
a hard swerve to one side or the other while speeding on the highway. The car will
tend to keep moving forward with the momentum. When moving at thousands of miles per
minute, the effect is magnified. We could turn our noses and fire our jets, but we
changed course relatively slowly.

I recognized the developing situation in the holotank. While Decker’s fleet and my
fleet were converging, the refugee transports were a green crowd all around us. They
were easy pickings for Decker, who had been ignoring them and firing at my ship. He
hadn’t bothered with them while I was in range. But now that he realized he couldn’t
knock out
Nostradamus
and the rest of my gunships were closing in, he changed his tactics. As I watched,
and the six red contacts representing his cruisers reached out with flickering beams
to scorch more helpless transports.

“Dammit!” I roared slamming an armored fist into the console. The glass cracked, and
the screen rippled in every direction. I ignored it. Even as I pulled my fist loose
from the damaged screen, the thin coating of nanites that serviced the control systems
frantically scrambled to effect repairs.

“The initial barrage from our gunships has reached the enemy line,” Miklos said.

“Any hits?”

“…No—no effective damage detected. We have, however, lost three more transports. Four
more.”

I stood up and marched in a clanking circle around the holotank. A stream of curses
came out my mouth. “This is just sheer spite. He can’t hurt us, so he’s taking out
the helpless ships he can damage.”

“I beg to differ, sir,” Miklos said. “Decker knows we need those ships to reinforce
our position and replace losses in our ranks. He’s delivering a serious strategic
blow, from his point of view.”

“They’re unarmed transports! Full of people promised free passage out of the Solar
System!”

Miklos shrugged. “War is not always clean and fair, Colonel.”

I spent thirty seconds or so thinking hard. I couldn’t come up with an easy way out
the situation. There were some moves I could make—but they were unpleasant ones.

“Weapons officer,” I shouted suddenly, clapping a heavy metal glove on his shoulder.
He was wearing a crewmen’s nanocloth uniform, and cringed in pain. I barely noticed,
as I was too focused on the battle to coddle my crew today.

“Sir!” he responded, gritting his teeth.

“Heat up the lasers. Prepare to fire. How long will you need, Ensign?”

He glanced at his tablet. “Eighteen more seconds, sir.”

I noticed with approval that he was working the controls. Apparently, the eighteen
seconds were already counting down. I liked a man that kept moving even while I crushed
his shoulder in my grip. I released him and he looked relieved, but his eyes never
left his control board.

“Order the smart chaff to dissipate,” I said.

Everyone glanced at me then, except for Miklos. His face was grim, but he worked his
controls, obeying without question.

“But,” Sandra said, “they’ll fry us, Kyle.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But in that case they won’t be firing on the transports anymore,
will they? Ensign, you have seven of your eighteen seconds left. If you take out one
of Decker’s ships, you will be instantly promoted to Lieutenant. Do I make myself
clear?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

I liked the kid. I could tell right away, I’d made his day. He wanted to fight, to
fire the weapons he’d been trained to operate. He hadn’t enjoyed a second of the ordeal
we’d just been through, hiding behind a shield of glittering nanites and hoping they
could stop the powerful energies coming at us from the depths of space. He wanted
to shoot his cannons, and he was finally getting the chance.

I smiled grimly, as did the Ensign. No one else around us looked happy. Miklos looked
resigned and determined, while everyone else appeared to be freaked out.

The smart chaff obeyed our orders to disintegrate the disks they’d formed and they
fell away over the flanks of our cruiser like showers of silvery sand. The moment
they were out of the way, the Ensign fired his weapons, exactly as I’d instructed
him to do.

The move caught Decker by surprise. He’d killed ten of our transports by now, and
he was expecting to be beaten down by my gunships when they got into closer range,
but I think he’d discounted the six heavy lasers on my own flagship.

One final detail made itself evident as all six beams leapt out from my ship to the
enemy vessels: they were all concentrating on a single enemy vessel in the line-up.
It was the one to the far left, the ship that had hung back a fraction during this
entire fight.

“Damage?” I asked.

Several pairs of eyes glowed as they examined scopes and fingers flicked this way
and that, operating the software.

“She’s breaking apart, sir,” the Ensign said. There was pride in his voice.

I clapped him on the back and he coughed.

“Well done!” I roared. “That was Decker’s ship, wasn’t it?”

“Yes sir,” said the Ensign, beaming. “I believe it was.”

I laughed harshly, and grinned with him. Miklos was the only one that didn’t seem
to get the joke.

“You have killed the enemy commander,” he said. “That will not make it easier to arrange
any negotiated end to this conflict.”

“Who said we were negotiating?” I demanded.

“Sir,” Miklos said seriously. “Do not forget that these are biotics we’re killing.
These Earth ships are some of the best armament we have in four systems. Every ship
lost is a tragedy for our side.”

I frowned, and I wanted to call Miklos a wet blanket. But I couldn’t, because he was
right.

I heaved a sigh. “Open a channel to the enemy fleet,” I said. “Ensign, cease fire.
Sandra, oversee the pumping out of fresh chaff.”

“We’re hiding again?” asked the Weapons Officer, unable to hide his disgust.

“Ensign, I like you. What’s your name again?”

“Patterson, sir.”

“Well, you’re Lieutenant Commander Patterson now,” I said.

That made Patterson happy again. He watched my gauntlets, but I didn’t slam one of
them into him or try to shake his hands in congratulations.