Jason Hunter rarely allowed himself to grieve. Despite the ever-present possibility he would not survive his next mission, he always managed to approach combat with more than a little swagger. Many of his comrades believed it was one of the reasons he was such a dangerous opponent.

But now, cradling the almost lifeless body of one of the bridge crew, he was confronted with grief he could not avoid. She was so young. Even though half her face was covered in streaming blood, Jason could still imagine her smile and how pretty it would be if she were anywhere else but here.

A rage caught fire inside him and rapidly grew out of control. The heat that rushed to his face instantly overwhelmed the eye-watering smoke and out-of-control fires around him. The undefeated spirit of battleship camaraderie took over. After gently handing the wounded tactical specialist over to a medic, Fleet Captain Jason Hunter regained his feet. He ignored the pain from his broken wrist and took his place in the bridge command chair.

“Helm, hard over. Give me a zero zero bearing on the largest enemy target.”

“Aye, sir, helm answering maneuvering thrusters to starboard bearing relative one six zero true”

The enormous flagship pivoted in space, bringing her heaviest weapons to bear on what by now was an oncoming wave of enemy spacecraft.

“CIC, report!”

“We have identified sixteen ships, sir. The battle group is anchored by the Fast Carrier Agamemnon. She has a double wing of Yellowjackets ready to launch. Sixty in all, sir. Other vessels in the formation are screening and escort ships. The heaviest is the light cruiser Pollux!”

“Tactical, give me sequence arming on all capital weapons forward. Set warheads to proximity trigger, maximum yields. Signal ready in thirty seconds. Mark!”

“Affirmative, Captain. Weapons will be armed at the mark. Standing by!”

“Engineering! Yili?!”

“Standing by, sir!”

“Set reactors four and five to maximum throughput. You are authorized to disengage safety systems and stand by to jettison the assemblies. Divert all power to main batteries. Signal indicator delta. Acknowledge!”

“Affirmative, sir. Reactors four and five at one hundred seven percent and climbing. Main power to weapons!”

A terrifying impact shook the bridge. The lights flickered and the navicomp assembly crashed to the deck like an avalanche of steel and composite. Another fire burst from behind the library computer and was instantly attacked by the suppression system.

Jason Hunter had just a twinge before he ordered his vessel to fire her most devastating weapons at friendly ships, but then he reminded himself they threw the first punch. He remembered his father’s words, a Irishman sure enough liable to either be starting drunken fistfights or writing poems about them. “Start whatever you like, lad. Just don’t be too surprised if I aim to finish it.”

“Lock all targeting on the Agamemnon! SRS active! All scanners forward for waveform override!”

From an electromagnetic standpoint, the relatively small carrier’s automatic countermeasures suddenly panicked as they detected the heavy vessel’s targeting systems lighting up their ship like a bank of spotlights from an approaching aircraft. The vessel began to veer off, but there was nowhere to run. It was space combat equivalent of suddenly recognizing a tiger’s eyes in a copse of nearby leaves.

Hunter’s eyes locked on his enemy. “All batteries, commence fire. Fire at will!”

Argent opened up on the attacking task force with a vengeance. Rail casters one and three slammed energy bolts the size of four-story buildings into the Agamemnon’s forward battle screens like shrieking freight trains fired out of mountain sized cannons. The secondary explosions flattened the carrier’s shields like a plywood shack caught by a category five hurricane blast. Caster two impaled her central flight deck and ruptured her drive field. The resulting two-million-degree hypernova blasted the remains of the vessel and all sixty of her fighters in all directions. The fiery shockwave and radiation burst took the fast frigate Palermo with it and threw the Herald into an out-of-control spin like a small child’s toy.

Beam weapons from the late Agamemnon’s escort formation returned fire. While their weapons were effective and relatively powerful for their ship classes, they were scarcely a match for a strike battleship’s shields. Their only advantage was their numbers. They pounded and slashed at the larger ship like young wolves hounding an elk. Their weapons caused bursts of orange-white explosive energy to erupt from Argent’s hull at each impact point, but left only superficial damage. The heavy ship’s magnetically charged and powered armor was two feet thick at the belt and bracers.

Despite the constant pounding, Argent continued to fire back, staggering each of the smaller ships with twenty-megaton blasts from her mighty main batteries. There was no finesse here. This was not a battle of shrewd tacticians. This was a bar fight that had spilled out into an alley and had moved rapidly from fists to broken bottles. Although Argent’s own escorts were in relative disarray, their flagship packed more than enough muscle to make things dangerous for a time.

“Tactical, get me a firing solution on the Pollux!” Hunter shouted. “Stand by capital missiles one through eight! Get me Skywatch on emergency intraship!”

“Affirmative, Captain, switching comm network to channel J-7. Go!”

“Skywatch STC this is the Flag on priority channel. Flight Two and Flight Three, scramble all alert spacecraft. I say again, scramble all alert spacecraft. Engage battle conference and confirm combat readiness to Force Commander on this channel, acknowledge!”

As the responses poured in, Hunter turned to his Signals Officer and was once again struck by the enormity of Zony’s absence. “When Seventh Air-Ground acknowledges after launch, order them to locate and escort the Dunkerque. We can’t afford to lose that ship. After you confirm, locate Commander Doverly and raise the Fury.”

“Sir, the Fury is adrift, bearing one nine mark two zero zero. She is out of position. Sensors indicate almost no energy output!”

“Was she hit? When? The enemy formation just broke range a few seconds ago!”

“Doverly to Bridge.”

“Annora! Find Yili, muster an emergency medical team and a shock platoon and take a Nightwing over to Fury. She’s adrift and has apparently lost power!”

“Acknowledged! Jets request in two minutes!”

The tactical officer’s expression was a mix of frustration and urgency. “We have no detection of weapons fire or impacts, sir. I can’t explain any of this!”

“Signal the task force to form up on us. We’ll coordinate our targets from Skywatch. Tactical, engage battlespace datalink on scrambled frequency and request acknowledgment. Transfer Yellowjacket control to Skywatch and prepare to engage Argent’s targets in squadron order!”

One by one, the other ships in the strike fleet fell into escort perimeter positions around their flagship and engaged their main drives. DSS Argent, two light cruisers and six escorts loomed behind a fast-moving wall of angry little Yellowjacket fighters and three-vessel Tarantula Hawk attack formations as they all bore down on the remaining fourteen ships of the Agamemnon task force.

The first pass was as violent and brutal as two opposing lines of heavy horse clashing at full charge. Ships spun off their axes, missiles detonated, beam weapons tore and slashed, atmosphere and debris trailed.

Torpedos poured from Argent’s fighters one by one as the fleet little craft peeled off from their attack runs. Those ships not staggered by the impacts were pounded and hammered by brawler cannon fire from the gunships. Agamemnon’s escorts launched wave after wave of point defense missiles to try and counter the ferocious furball that they had kicked up. It rapidly became clear the task force was at a considerable disadvantage without its own capital platform or fighters.

“Battlespace datalink established, Captain. The board is green.”

“Signal the fleet to coordinate attack signals and fire at will.” Hunter reclined in his chair, confident the firepower he had just given the order to unleash was likely to clear space of every hostile vessel for a million miles.

“Battlespace synchronized. Zero Juliet Five signals alpha one!”

DSS Jefferson launched first. Hypervelocity shipkillers rotated off her twin launchers on bursts of gravitic energy and ignited plasma.

“Zero Juliet One signals alpha one!”

Spruance opened up with proximity bursts from her main batteries. The forward guns alternated fire, puncturing the oncoming formation with space-shattering fusion-amplified detonations of superheated plasma.

“Zero Juliet Four signals alpha one!”

Revenge joined in, pounding away at the line with row after row of debris scattering explosions.

Then Argent opened up again, firing her main batteries in perfect coordination with the positions of her fighters and gunships. Rail slugs speared enemy engines, caster snapshots sheared vessels into pieces, massive multiple-phase explosions rippled across space, engulfing ship after ship. Eventually the late Agamemnon’s line broke into dodging and rolling evasive maneuvers, explosions pursuing each ship as they peeled away, firing back with ever-weaker barrages of anti ship missiles. Each vessel drew the attention of several fighters and gunships.

The tactical officer grabbed his headphones tighter against his ears. “Threat board signals new contacts! Counting three, four, five heavies. Designate King Two bearing three one five range two million miles and closing! Skywatch STC reports they are approaching our defensive perimeter!”

“Jason, this is Doverly aboard Nightwing One. Request jets.”

“Annora, we’ve got something angry and dangerous stirred up here. Find my sister and get her in this war.”

“Acknowledged, Captain. Nightwing One out.”