^{Copyright © 1994–2005 by Scott G. Gier}

^{Cover Illustration by Jeremy Ellis}

 ^{All rights reserved.}

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^{Any similarity of the characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.}

We're dead, Buccari admitted. A bead of sweat broke loose from the saturated rim of the copilot's skull cap and floated into her field of vision. She moved to keep the mercurial droplet from colliding with her lashless eyes. Humidity controls in her battle suit activated, and she swallowed to adjust for the pressure change.

"Reloading forward kinetics," she reported, breaking the oppressive silence. She glanced up. The command pilot of Harrier One stared dumbly at the holographic tactical display.

"Skipper, you copy?" Buccari demanded, switching to flight deck intercom and cutting out the rest of the crew.

The pilot's head slowly lifted, his gold visor catching and scattering the brilliant rays of Rex-Kaliph, the system star. "Yeah, Lieutenant, I copy," he mumbled.

Buccari's anxiety clicked up another notch. She pivoted in her acceleration tethers to look at Hudson hunkering at his station. "Nash, status on the fleet?" she demanded.

"Nothing new, Sharl," the second officer replied nervously. "But main engine power's fading, and engineering doesn't answer."

Buccari's scan jerked to her own power screen, confirming the bad news. "Crap!" she uttered, frantically trying to override.

"'Already tried emergency override," gulped Hudson.

"Commander, main engines are shutting down," she shouted. "Computer's rejecting command overrides. We got nothing but thrusters."

Buccari pushed back from the instruments. Her scan moved to the tactical display—the blip representing the remaining alien interceptor moved outbound, a belligerent icon deliberately maneuvering for its next attack. She exhaled and looked up to see the corvette pilot still frozen in position.

"Commander Quinn!" she shouted. The pilot, reluctantly alert, turned in her direction. She saw her own helmeted image reflecting into diminutive infinity in his visor.

"Mister Hudson," Quinn said. "We've got ten minutes before that bug's in firing range. Lay back to engineering and find out what's happening." Hudson acknowledged, released his quick-disconnects, and pushed across the flight deck into the bore of the amidships passageway. The pressure iris sucked shut behind him.

Buccari looked out into space, at star-shot blackness. There had been visual contact—brilliant, lancing streaks of argent. Aliens! They had found aliens. Had they ever! They had jumped into a frigging bug nest! A whole goddamn star system filled with aliens. Kicking Legion butt.

Harrier One had destroyed two of the alien ships; she had even seen one explode through the digital optics of the corvette's laser cannon shortly before their powerful directed energy weapon had been disabled by a hammering near miss. A flashing radiation warning light on the overhead environmental console captured her attention.

"Radiation damage, Sharl?" Quinn asked.

"Background radiation," Buccari said. "Not weapons detonation—too constant. Probably solar flares from Rex-Kaliph. Sun spots. She's a hot one." Starshine poured through the view screens casting deep shadows and illuminating the crew-worn flight deck in stark shades of gray.

"Looks bad for Greenland," Quinn moaned. "She got hit bad."

"I'd be worrying about this ship, Commander," Buccari snapped.

"Yeah," Quinn grunted. "You're right. We're out of options…"

Buccari closed her eyes as the pilot flipped on the command circuit.

"Attention, all hands," Quinn announced. "This is the end of the line. Abandon ship. I repeat: abandon ship. EPL and lifeboats. Two minute muster."

Buccari gasped as if punched in the stomach. It made no sense; the EPL and lifeboats were defenseless—helpless.

"Kinetics show full reload," Buccari persisted. "Arming complete."

"Move, Lieutenant. You're EPL pilot," Quinn ordered. "I'll finish."

Buccari disconnected her tethers, but her efforts to leave were stymied by the considerable mass of the chief engineer emerging from the access hatch. Warrant Officer Rhodes pushed across the congested deck and strapped into the second officer's station. Hudson reappeared, helmet and wide shoulders wedged in the hatchway.

"Got the laser cannon hooked up to main power!" Rhodes shouted.

Quinn jerked in his station. "What the…the cannon? But main power is gone! What've you guys been doing? Why isn't anyone on line?" Rhodes held up his hands; the pilot's transmission overrode all communications. Rhodes could not respond until Quinn's questions ceased.

"Goldberg cleared and spooled the fusion ionizers-" Rhodes began.

"But the reactor temps!" Buccari interrupted on suit radio.

"Mains are hot," Rhodes said. "I re-routed power across the aux bus. That killed our comm circuits and kicked over the power manager. Primary bus is friggin' creamed, but we got a shot at syncing in five minutes. Auto-controls are disabled. Fire control will have to be manual."

Quinn spun back to his command console and flipped the weapons switch on the intercom. "Gunner, you on line?"

The response from weapons control, two decks below, was immediate: "Affirmative, Skipper," responded the gravelly voice of Chief Wilson. "I sent Schmidt and Tookmanian to the lifeboats. What's go—"

"Stay put, Gunner. We got another card to play. You'll be getting a green light on the cannon panel. Update your solution on the bogey and get ready to toast his butt. You copy?"

"Huh…roger that, sir," Wilson growled. "No kidding? Bogey's squealing garbage all over the place, but I'm still tracking him solid. Down-Doppler. Estimate no more than seven or eight minutes before we reengage. I don't know what Virgil's telling you, Skipper, but my panel says we're two weeks away from a hot cannon."