"Red Leader, take the first wave head-on. White Section, get that bitch before she respots her cradles! Blue Section, cover the strike."

Acknowledgments flowed over her, and her unfocused eyes were dreamy as her brain digested direct sensory input with long-trained efficiency. She absorbed and registered everything as the first wave of ripple-launched homing missiles went out from Red Section and White Section snarled up and around, going in over the Troll fighters under Blue Section's protective fire. Enemy interceptors tore apart or exploded, but there were so many of them! Even more than predicted! They must have fitted extra cradles and stuffed that Harpy to the deckheads, she thought, but if they had, something else had to have come out, and it might just be-

White Section's heavy ship-killers speared out, and the battle screen which interdicted them was far weaker than it ought to have been. The protective force field wavered as the first warhead detonated, and Leonovna felt a stab of elation. Turabian's impeccable attack had been sequenced to take out full-strength battle screens; the understrength defenses he actually faced were hopelessly outclassed. Fireballs polarized visual pickups and clawed her electronic senses with thunderbolts of static, and a glaring patch of localized failure crawled along the Harpy's screens just as the second wave of ship-killers arrived. The heavy missiles plunged through the opened chink, and two million tons of carrier buckled, broke, and vaporized as megaton-range warheads savaged unshielded plating.

She took her second wave with her, but her first outnumbered One-Thirteen's fighters by more than two to one, and human fighters began to die.

"Blue Section, take them from behind. White Section, form on me. And maintain separation, damn it!"

Acknowledgments came through the blur of battle chatter, mingled with shouts of triumph and the sudden, mid-word interruption of thermonuclear death. Even with her computer sensors, she had trouble sorting out details, but the pattern was clear. Her crews had struck first and hard with their longer-ranged missiles, but the number of first-wave Troll fighters was far higher than expected, and their massed missile fire had saturated the defenses of more than one of her interceptors. Red Section had lost three already, and Blue was down two. White Section had lost none on the run against the Harpy, but Lieutenant Kittihawk paid for their success. Elated by the destruction of their target, she allowed her attention to waver, and a Troll rolled in behind her before she could evade.

The Troll fighters lacked humanity's advanced tracking systems, "smart" missiles, and sophisticated ECM, and their less efficient drives were slower to accelerate. But the cyborgs had a reaction speed few humans could match, even with their neural links, and their fighters were marginally faster and far, far more maneuverable than any human-crewed interceptor ever designed. At knife range, nothing in the galaxy was as deadly as a Troll interceptor, and snarling power guns ripped Kittihawk's fighter apart.

The victorious Troll tried to swing onto her wingman, but Casper Turabian was there, raging back and around in a vicious climbing attack that took it from below like a shark.

Twenty percent of Leonovna's fighters were gone, but the Troll losses were even higher, and her order to open the range took effect quickly. The humans used their higher power curves ruthlessly, accelerating clear to use their missiles like snipers before the Trolls could close again. Gold Section joined them, streaking in behind the turning Trolls, and an almost orgasmic thrill ran through the colonel as her first missile dropped free and guided. She picked another victim, lips wrinkled back in a hunting tiger's snarl as she tracked her second target and-

"Defender to Strike Leader!"

She broke instantly, turning away from the snarling ball of fighters to refocus her attention, and her wingman came with her, guarding her back. The capital ships had drawn well away from the fighters, and she blanched as the fury of their engagement registered.

Both ships were haloed in escaping atmosphere and water vapor, trailed by drifting wakes of molten debris, and she winced as fireballs savaged Defender's battle screens, frantic to claw a hole for follow-up fire. The Ogre was in trouble, too, and the big ship staggered as one of Defender's heavy missiles exploded just short of her heavily armored hull, but her sheer size was gradually overpowering the smaller human-crewed ship.

"Defender, this is Strike Leader," she snapped. "Go ahead."

"Colonel, this is the Captain." The blurred voice could have been anyone as radiation threshed the com channels with static. "The Commodore's had it. We've got heavy damage, but this bastard isn't getting away." More explosions flared, and the vicious thrust and parry of energy weapons was like ozone on her skin through her sensors.

"They're launching tenders with escort, Strike Leader. Go get 'em."

"Understood, Defender. I'm sending White Section to your assistance. Red and Blue will-"

"Don't bother, Strike Leader," Onslow said distantly through the crashing static. "Just kill those fucking tenders. See you in Hell, Col-"

The channel went dead as TNS Defender rammed her massive enemy and their outraged drive fields exploded like a nova.

courage n. 1. The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or 2. vicissitudes with self-possession and resolution; valor; bravery. [From Middle English corage, heart, as representing the seat of feeling.]

-Webster-Wangchi Unabridged Dictionary of Standard English

Tomas y Hijos, Publishers

2465, Terran Standard Reckoning

"What the hell?!"

Master Sergeant Andrew Slocum chopped himself off and felt his face tighten. Colonel Archer had the duty for the US Space Defense Operations Center, and he disapproved of profanity and unprofessional conduct generally. But he was sipping coffee at the far end of the subterranean room-fortunately-and Slocum cleared his throat and raised his voice.

"Colonel? Could you take a look at this, Sir?"

"Hm?" Colonel Archer moved towards Slocum with a raised eyebrow. One thing about the colonel, Slocum thought; he was a pain about some things, but he respected his people's judgment enough not to waste time with dumbass questions. He bent over the sergeant's shoulder to peer at the scope.

He didn't react at all for an instant, then he stiffened in shock.

"What the h-" He cut himself off, and Slocum felt an insane urge to giggle as the colonel leaned even closer. "Why didn't you report this sooner, Sergeant?" Archer demanded.

"Because they just popped onto the scope, Sir. Right about there." Slocum tapped the screen with a fingertip, and Archer frowned. A bright red line indicated the unknowns' track as they stabbed down into his area of responsibility, and he didn't like what he saw.

"Why didn't SPASUR alert us sooner?" he demanded irately. SDOC's primary mission was the management of the G-PALS system which defended the United States against limited missile strikes. The latest carve up of responsibilities had given it control of virtually all of the US military's ground-watch and near-space surveillance systems, plus general management of the information stream, but the actual monitoring of space beyond three hundred miles' altitude remained the responsibility of other commands, like the Navy-run Space Surveillance System Command. Archer had always had his doubts about the Squids' suitability to run what obviously should have been an Air Force command properly, but he'd never seriously expected them to drop the ball this badly.

"SPASUR, did report them, Sir," Slocum told him. "They only picked them up-" he glanced at a digital time display "-two-seven-five seconds ago. It's on the tape, Sir," he added respectfully.