“No antimatter, Admiral,” datavised Second Lieutenant Clark Lowie, the Arikara ’s weapons officer. “Fusion drives only.”

That’s something, Meredith thought. “What’s their storage capacity?”

“Best estimate would be forty combat wasps maximum, Admiral.”

“So they haven’t left any for their own defence?”

“Looks that way, sir.”

Haria and Gakkai launched a counter salvo; eighty combat wasps leaping ahead to intercept the incoming hostiles at twenty-seven gees. Purple, red, and green vector lines sprang up in Meredith’s mind, as if someone was performing laser acupuncture right across his skull. The combat wasps started to squirt megawatt electronic warfare pulses at each other. Active and kinetic submunitions began to scatter. Two disc-shaped swarms formed, five hundred kilometres across, alive with deceitful impulses and infrared signatures. Electron beams flashed out, perfectly straight lightning bolts glaring against the starfield. The first explosions flared. Kiloton nuclear devices were detonated on each side. Smaller explosions followed as combat wasps blew apart under the prodigious energy impact.

A second, smaller, salvo was launched by the frigates, compensating for the loss.

“Admiral, the Myoho reports the blackhawk it’s chasing is about to swallow outsystem,” Lieutenant Rhoecus called. “Request permission to follow.”

“Granted. Follow and interdict; it is not to come into contact with inhabited Confederation territory.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

A vast circle of space burst into pyrotechnic oblivion as the two antagonistic combat wasp swarms collided, as though a giant wormhole had been torn open into the heart of a nearby star. The annular plasma storm eddied violently, radiating down through the visible spectrum in seconds until only nebulous violet mists were left.

Arikara ’s sensor clusters struggled to burn through the conflagration and present an accurate representation of events through the tactical situation display. Some submunitions from both sides had survived. Now they were accelerating towards their intended targets. All four combatant ships began high-gee evasive manoeuvres.

Myoho and its blackhawk disappeared from the display. Granth and Ilex both fired a volley of combat wasps at their respective prey.

Haria ’s masers began to fire as the remaining submunitions closed on it. Small vivid explosions peppered nearby space. Rail guns thumped out a stream of steel spheres which formed a last-ditch kinetic umbrella. Eight surviving submunitions drones detected it, three of them were gamma-pulse lasers. A second before they struck the umbrella they fired.

Large oval sections of the frigate’s hull turned cherry red under the radiation assault. Molecular-binding generators maxed out as they fought to keep the monobonded silicon’s structure intact. The energy-dispersal web below the silicon struggled to absorb and redistribute the intense influx. All the sensor clusters either melted or had their electronics burnt out by the gamma-ray deluge. Replacement clusters rose immediately; but the starship was blind for a period of three seconds.

In that time the remaining five submunitions hit the kinetic umbrella. They disintegrated instantly, but hypervelocity fragments kept coming. With the sensors unable to see them and direct the frigate’s close-range weapons they struck the hull and vaporized. The binding generators, already heavily stressed, couldn’t handle the additional loading. There were half a dozen localized punctures. Fists of plasma punched inwards. Internal systems melted and fused as they were exposed. Fuel tanks ripped open sending hundred-metre fountains of vaporizing deuterium shooting out.

“Bellah , assist, please,” Commander Kroeber ordered. “Rescue and recovery.” The stricken frigate’s emergency beacon was howling across the distress bands. The life-support capsules should have easily withstood the strike. Even as he requested more information from the computer the sensor image showed him ion thrusters firing to slow the frigate’s wayward tumble.

With all of their combat-wasp stocks exhausted in the first salvo, Datura and Cereus were left with only short-range masers to defend themselves against the assault from the frigates’ drones. The electronic warfare barrage was unrelenting as the drones closed at twenty gees, defeating the starships’ sensors. The two mercenary starships exploded within seconds of each other.

A cheer went round the Arikara ’s bridge. Meredith felt like joining in.

“Admiral, another blackhawk is leaving orbit,” Lieutenant Rhoecus said.

Meredith cursed, he really couldn’t spare another voidhawk. A quick check on the tactical display revealed little information, the blackhawk was on the other side of Lalonde from the squadron. “Which is the nearest voidhawk?”

“The Acacia , Admiral.”

“Can they hit it with combat wasps?”

“They have a launch window, but estimate only a thirty per cent chance of success.”

“Tell them to launch, but remain in orbit.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Bellah reports survivors from the Haria have been detected, Admiral,” Commander Kroeber said. “They’re matching velocities.”

“Good. Hinnels, has there been any reaction from the Juliffe cloud bands?”

“Nothing specific, sir. But they’ve been growing wider at a constant rate, the area they’re covering has increased by one and a half per cent since we arrived. It adds up to a respectable volume.”

Another combat-wasp battle raged high above Lalonde’s terminator as the drones from the Granth encountered defences fired by their prey. Then the blackhawk vanished down a wormhole interstice. Three seconds later Granth followed.

“Damn,” Meredith muttered.

But the Ilex was having better luck. Its combat-wasp salvo had forced the blackhawk it was chasing to flee back down towards the planet.

The Admiral requested a channel to the Gemal . “We shall be boarding you first, Smith. Any resistance and the marines will shoot to kill, understood?”

“Yes, Admiral,” Terrance Smith replied.

“Have you received any updates from the teams you landed?”

“Not yet. I expect most of them were sequestrated,” he added gloomily.

“Tough. I want you to broadcast a message that their mission is over. We will pick up any survivors if at all possible. But none of them is to attempt to penetrate under the cloud, no hunting of enemy bases. This is now a Confederation Navy problem. I don’t want the invaders antagonized unduly.” Not while my squadron is so close to that bloody cloud, he finished silently. It was the sheer quantity of power involved again. Frightening. And the berserk way the hijacked ships were behaving didn’t help.

“I’m not sure I can guarantee that, Admiral,” Smith said.

“Why not?”

“I issued the team leaders with kiloton nukes. It would give them a fall-back in case the starships were unable to provide strike power. I was worried the captains might balk at bombarding a planetary surface.”

If it hadn’t been for the fierce gee force Meredith would have put his head in his hands. “Smith, if you get out of this with your life, it won’t be on my account.”

“Well, fuck you!” Terrance Smith yelled. “You Saldana bastard, why do you think I had to hire these people in the first place? It’s because Lalonde is too poor to rate decent navy protection. Where were you when the invaders landed? You would never have come to help us put down that first insurrection, because it didn’t affect your precious financial interests. Money, that’s what you shits respect. What the hell would you know about ordinary people suffering? You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth that’s so big it’s sticking out through your arse. The only reason you’re here now is because you’re frightened the invasion might spread to worlds you own, that it might hit your credit balance. I’m doing what I can for my people.”