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  He felt excitement—and despair, too. Part of him, an emotional, undisciplined part, had been hoping Dauntless would miss its target, that somehow she would survive the battle in the Bottleneck. But Dauntless could only live at the cost of the enemy saving the pulsar…and that was just too great a price to pay.

  Barron watched, silently, as his ship moved forward, steadily, relentlessly, unstoppably. He imagined the terror of the pulsar’s crew, of the panic on the tugs and support ships, watching as utter destruction approached their superweapon. The pulsar was the Union’s chance to win the war, and now Barron watched his victory unfold, a triumph that would help end the war, despite the cost that ripped at his guts.

  His eyes were still fixed, his head unmoving, his mouth closed, utterly silent, as the two symbols came together…and both disappeared, replaced by energy readouts that went off the scale. Barron watched, staring at the scanning data as it poured in, reading the numbers and analyzing them, even though he already knew what they meant. The pulsar had been completely destroyed.

  And Dauntless, too. His ship was gone, nothing left of her but pure energy…and a spirit he knew would never die.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  CFS Vanguard

  Formara System

  “The Bottleneck”

  313 AC

  “It’s hard to be sure, sir. So much energy has been released, it’s interfering with our scans. But nothing material could have survived there.”

  Van Striker listened to his officer’s words, even as he stared at the display himself. It was true. Against all odds, Barron had succeeded in his mission. Dauntless had rammed the pulsar, and even without a direct confirmation, Striker knew the enemy artifact was gone.

  He felt a flood of emotions. Relief, of course, and excitement over how the pulsar’s loss changed the military situation. His fleet would need to refit before it could advance beyond the Bottleneck, but given six months and a large convoy of supplies, he would be ready to move forward. After three bloody, mostly inconclusive wars, he could finally cripple the Union, even destroy it. It would cost, of course, but a true victory would relieve future generations of the blood tax that had haunted their parents and grandparents.

  Then, the worry set in…worry for Tyler Barron and his people. He’d had enough reports to be sure many had evacuated, but they were still floating around in vulnerable escape craft in the middle of a war zone. And he had no way of knowing if everyone had gotten off Dauntless. Tyler Barron had saved the Confederation fleet, he’d accomplished an almost impossible mission…and the thought of him dying aboard his ship was too much to bear.

  Striker stared straight ahead for another moment. But then, his resolve took charge. He was worried about Barron and his people, scared about what he might find when his ships got deeper into the system. But there was no time for that now. He knew what he had to do, and he was determined to see it done. Barron’s people—alive or dead—had given the fleet this opportunity.

  And Van Striker wasn’t about to see it squandered.

  “All ships,” he said, his voice cold, hard. “Advance at full acceleration. It’s time to finish this.”

  * * *

  Barron stood in the corridor, letting his grip on the netting relax as Pegasus’s thrust cut out. The free trader was perhaps ten thousand kilometers from where it had been, and it was moving farther every second. It wasn’t a great distance in terms of space travel, but it had been enough to clear the ship from the cataclysm of Dauntless ramming the pulsar.

  Barron was devastated about his ship, and the idea that Dauntless no longer existed, that she wasn’t somewhere, waiting for him to return, cut at him deeply. But there was more…there was pride, too. His battleship had not died in vain. She had won her final victory, and she had covered her memory, her history, in more glory than any ship in the fleet’s history.

  The reality of the war was slow to set in as well. The loss of the pulsar almost certainly doomed the Union to defeat. The wars that had recurred so many times…perhaps they were finally over. The combined Confederation-Alliance fleet could advance all the way to Montmirail. They could impose a new government, one less malignant than the one that had ruled the Union for two centuries. Barron had no children, but he dared to hope that if he did one day, they could grow up as the first generation in nearly a hundred years not to face war.

  All these thoughts swirled around in his head, but they were secondary for the moment, in the background. Right now, he looked at Andi, standing next to him, returning his gaze silently, and she was all he could think about. He had no idea how she’d managed to follow him, to be right in the thick of things at the vital moment. He’d always respected her abilities, but now he was dumbstruck. He owed her his life, he knew that much. He thought about ways to thank her, to tell her how extraordinary she was…or to scold her for taking such a chance when he’d tried so hard to keep her safe. He thought of a million things to say, the words whipping in and out of his thoughts at a dizzying pace. But in the end, he didn’t say anything. Not a word.

  He just turned and looked at her for a few seconds…then he reached out and pulled her toward him and kissed her.

  * * *

  It was too much.

  Villieneuve stared at the small screen in the shuttle’s main cabin. He’d watched in stunned horror as a Confederation battleship moved steadily toward the disabled pulsar. The weapon had been moments from being connected to the series of tugs that would have removed it from the system, withdrawn it to a place of relative safety. Now, it was gone, obliterated so completely, there weren’t even pieces of it left to research or try to repair.

  The implications were hitting him like a rapid series of hammer blows. The Battle of the Bottleneck was as good as over, and all along the line his ships were breaking and running for it, fleeing from the approaching Confed and Alliance vessels. All that remained of the fight was to see what of his forces would escape and how many more ships he would lose.

  The pulsar was gone, the great weapon that had been the lynchpin of his plans for victory lost and irreplaceable.

  The war was lost, too. That, he knew with unquestioned certainty. He’d already sent a directive to his agents on Megara to alter the plan before the Senate. He’d been planning for a favorable negotiated peace, one that would cripple the Confederation’s economy and provide an influx of currency to restore the Union’s, but that was no longer possible. All he could hope for was an outright ceasefire, though even that seemed unlikely.

  He wondered if it even mattered. The Union was on the verge of total collapse, its starving and persecuted people finally pushed too far. But Villieneuve wondered if he’d even survive long enough to try to deal with those problems. When his colleagues in the Presidium discovered all he’d done, the secrets he’d kept from them, the economic ruin that was coming to pass…he had no doubt they would turn on him. For all he knew, they had already condemned him. He might get back to Montmirail to find a detachment of Foudre Rouge there to arrest him, or more likely, kill him on sight.

  Villieneuve shook his head. He’d actually been one of those urging caution about launching a new war against the Confederation, but he’d been overruled and, when war became inevitable, he had committed to seeing it won, whatever that took. His efforts had been plagued by bad luck, but nothing had led to his defeat more than Tyler Barron and his cursed battleship. Barron had destroyed the great supply base that had supported the initial Union invasion, and he’d prevented Villieneuve’s people from capturing the ancient planetkiller. He’d led forces to the Alliance, not only wrecking Ricard Lille’s plan to bring the Alliance into the war against the Confederation, but turning that power into a Confed ally to fight the Union.

  Villieneuve wasn’t an emotional man. He tried to focus on his goals, to do what had to be done without allowing feelings to interfere. But he hated Tyler Barron with a raging passion. He truly didn’t know if he could survive the challenges he faced now, but if he did, and if he c
ame out of it with his power intact, he promised himself one thing.

  He would see Tyler Barron suffer, whatever it took.

  But first, he had to figure out how to navigate the storm unfolding all around him, and, truth be told, he had no idea how he was going to do that.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  CFS Vanguard

  Formara System

  “The Bottleneck”

  313 AC

  Jake Stockton looked out over the large open space of Vanguard’s launch bay. The great ship’s fighters had been stowed in the hangers below the flight deck, as had Stockton’s own bird, and those of Dauntless’s other surviving pilots. His worst fears, that all his ditched pilots would die, had proven to be overly pessimistic. The abrupt rout and panicked retreat of the Union forces had allowed the main fleet to advance quickly enough to mount rescue operations, coming to the aid of many of his pilots, and to the rest of Dauntless’s crew.

  They hadn’t been in time to save everyone, however.

  He stared at the rows of metal rectangles, eight of them. The coffins of the pilots who had been too far to reach in time, who had died of cold and suffocation, trapped in their depleted fighters.

  Jovi Grachus and seven of the warriors she had led against the enemy battleship.

  Stockton stepped down the bank of stairs, his feet clanging on the metal of the flight deck as he walked toward the eight metal canisters, laid out in two rows of four. Fighter crews didn’t often see their bodies brought back from battle, but these ships had finally been recovered and taken to Vanguard, along with their fallen pilots.

  Stockton had been among those rescued alive. He’d burned the last of his fuel chasing after Grachus and her people, maintaining contact with them, assuring them they would be rescued. His words had been positive thoughts at first, and blatant lies later, and he suspected Grachus, at least, had known the truth from the beginning.

  He walked across the deck, uncomfortable in his seldom-worn dress uniform. He was astonished at the twists life tended to take, and the last thing he’d ever expected was to step up in front of Dauntless’s surviving pilots and give a heartfelt eulogy for a woman he’d wanted dead until just days before.

  Jovi Grachus had been his enemy for most of the time he’d known of her existence, first overtly so, as the commander of the Red Alliance’s fighter corps, and later as the pilot who’d killed his best friend. But now, he found that he truly mourned her loss.

  He hadn’t forgiven her for killing Kyle Jamison, not exactly…but she’d also saved Dauntless from the Union battleship that had been closing on it, and in the end, she’d given her life, and those of her compatriots to see it done. Without Grachus, and her sacrifice, Commodore Barron would be dead, and Commander Travis, Dirk Timmons…and Stara.

  And the Union would have withdrawn the pulsar, allowing the war to drag on endlessly, killing untold thousands more.

  Grachus had been his nemesis, but now he mourned her as a friend…worse, he regretted the fact that they’d never had the chance to be friends, or even real comrades. Circumstance—and Union deceit—had caused her to be his enemy at first, but it had been his own rage and stubbornness that had protracted the animosity. Now, he would never have the chance to speak with her as an ally. As a friend.

  He stepped up to the makeshift platform. The ceremony had been hastily-assembled, and Vanguard, like most of the fleet, was still nursing considerable battle damage. He paused for a moment, looking out at the assemblage. Every pilot still alive from Dauntless’s contingent was there, as was Commodore Barron and many of Dauntless’s other officers. And, to Stockton’s surprise, Admiral Striker sat silently in the front row.

  He hadn’t expected the fleet commander to attend the memorial for a handful of fighter pilots, but then he realized that he’d underestimated Striker. The admiral understood just what these few pilots had contributed, and just how many lives their sacrifices had likely saved.

  He took a breath, still uncertain exactly what he was going to say. It seemed wrong that he should be the one delivering the eulogy, but his closest companions had been united in their agreement that it was right, and that no one could stand in his place. He’d thought about refusing, about trying to get out of it…but then he decided he owed Grachus more than that. There was little enough he could do for her now, save for this.

  “Thank you all for coming here this afternoon. We are joined together to remember a group of comrades, of heroes…”

  * * *

  “What is it? I came as soon as I got your message.” Tyler Barron knew something was terribly wrong the instant he stepped into the room. He’d seen Vian Tulus sitting in a cell, facing execution without the slightest display of emotion, and he’d stood at the Palatian’s side in battle, watching him calmly commanding his forces. But he’d never seen the man as pale as he was now, nor with such a stricken look on his face.

  “It is the Imperator. Tarkus Vennius.” A pause, then: He is dead.”

  The words hit Barron like a sledgehammer. He had fought alongside Vennius, and he’d come to call the Alliance leader his friend. “How?” It was all he could force out.

  “The Krillians took advantage of the fact that the expeditionary force was so far from Alliance space. With the losses in the civil war, the Imperator was hard-pressed to repel their assault.” He turned and looked up at Barron. “He sacrificed himself and his flagship, driving toward Krillus’s vessel. His heroism saved the battle, and the Krillian forces were crushed.”

  Barron didn’t know what to say. He was nearly overcome by mourning for those lost in the battle, but this news shocked him. He wondered what could have made a fringe power like the Krillians take on the feared Alliance…and in his gut he knew the answer. He doubted he would ever be sure, but there wasn’t a question in his mind the Union was behind it. If there was a saving grace for all the loss and the struggle endured in the battle, it was the fact that the fleet would now move forward, it would topple the Union’s oppressive government and end this protracted struggle once and for all. But standing there, his mind full of thoughts of Tarkus Vennius, it was cold comfort.

  “I have to go back to Palatia.” Tulus’s words had an almost numb sound to them. “I will leave the bulk of the fleet, but I must return at once.” He paused, and he stared at Barron with a stunned look on his face. “I received a communique from Commander Globus. Imperator Vennius left a missive urging the high command to appoint me…as his successor.”

  Barron just nodded. “Vennius was a great man…and he made a wise choice. You will be a strong leader to your people, Vian Tulus…and a man I will always be proud to call an ally And a friend.”

  * * *

  “This is not possible!” Van Striker was a man of composure, one who acted coolly, rationally, even in the heat of battle. But he was unhinged now, and he threw the tablet he’d been holding across the room, shattering it against the wall.

  “I understand your anger, Van…and I promise you, I did everything possible to prevent this. But there were too many Senators ready to end the war any way possible. The economy is pushed to the limit, and the government’s debt is at catastrophic levels. In the end, it just wasn’t possible to get them to vote against a ready peace. The treaty forbids war between the two powers. It calls for lasting peace.”

  “And you believe that?” Striker’s tone dripped with caustic bitterness.

  “No, of course not. But I’m telling you, there was no way to get enough Senators to oppose a treaty that meant immediate peace, not when it came at no cost. I understand the concerns in the long term, but the Union’s fleet is broken. They won’t be a threat to us for a long time.”

  “It is words like those that have given us four wars, Gary. You know that as well as I do.”

  “They are in considerable disarray. Many of their systems are in open revolt. They may collapse on their own…and even if they don’t, they face a long road to any kind of recovery.”

  “And people will us
e words like that to justify slashing military budgets, mothballing half the fleet. Your doves in the Senate, having abandoned our chance to conclude this endless conflict decisively, once and for all, will then proceed to weaken us, to set up the next cycle.”

  “That may be, Van, but there is nothing we can do about it. The Confederation is a republic. I have stepped over the line repeatedly, violated more laws than even you know to pull us through this war. But we can’t defy the Senate on this…and there was no way to get them to vote against the treaty, not when eighty percent of Confederation citizens support an immediate end to the war.”

  Striker shook his head slowly. “So, we just let them off? They attack us, kill hundreds of thousands of our people, and we just let it go? Back off and let them rebuild?”

  “We don’t have a choice. Not unless you want to be the admiral who destroyed Confederation democracy. Do you want to lead your forces to Megara, compel the Senate to yield to you under the guns of the fleet?”

  Striker frowned. “No, of course not. But…”

  “There is no but, Van. We don’t have to like it, but we do have to accept it. No doubt, you’re right about budget cuts and force reductions…but you are one of the great heroes of the war. Your voice will carry great power. Make your arguments against weakening the fleet. You may not win every battle in that war, but I’ll wager you can do some good.”

  “That is work for a politician,” Striker said, not even trying to hide the distaste in his voice.

  “It is work for an admiral who wants to see his navy strong enough to deter future wars. An officer who wants to do what he can for his spacers…and for those to come.”

  Striker was silent for a moment. Then he said, “This is a mistake, Gary. One that will cost lives down the road.”