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“Another missile wave hitting outer defense zones!” Urle shouted.

“Seven PDCs out of commission, two more out of ammunition!  And all but one laser are down,” Jaya called.  The sirens and noise and smoke made shouting necessary, and Brooks could scarcely see even his command officers through it.  His HUD was fighting to view anything.

“Roll the ship,” he ordered.  “Bring our best defenses to bear on the heaviest concentrations of missiles.  And get the ventilators back online, I want this smoke gone!”

“They’re too spread out,” Urle called.  “We’re going to have gaps in our defenses-“

“Do we have any defensive drones left?” he called.

“Only a few-“

“Get them to the weakened sectors!” Brooks snapped.  “Are we in coilgun range yet?”

“Hit chance is still extremely low at this range,” Cenz said, his voice still screening his own mood; which Brooks could not imagine was very positive at the moment.

“Fire anyway, see if we can take some missiles with it, and threaten one of their missile carriers, we might be able to slow down their rate of fire!”

“Reactor Seven shutting down,” Cutter said, his voice the only naturally calm one; Beetle-Slugs were nearly unflappable even in the face of death.  “Hits have caused fluctuations in-“

“It’s enough to know it’s down,” Brooks said.  “How does this affect our charging for a jump?”

“Significantly,” Cutter replied in a clipped tone.  “Running calculations.”

The situation was dire, and though the Craton was not going to be destroyed by even a few waves of missiles, they were quickly being rendered helpless.

“Tell me the drives are still working,” he said.

“Aye, sir.  Front nose cone is holding so far, but she’s got some big craters in her,” Urle said.

That was a small miracle.

But as some of the smoke cleared, and he saw the number of missiles incoming in this next wave – now only two minutes out – he realized that it was not nearly enough.

They would run out of ammunition, their defenses would get knocked out, and they’d be helpless.  The Hev would board them with hundreds of thousands of troops – millions, if they had to.  And they could shoot until they ran out of ammo, until their printers were eating the walls to make bullets, and still they’d lose.

All he could do was save what lives he could.

“Prepare to eject habitat section bunkers.  See if we can give them a bump away from us as fast as we can.”

Urle nodded.  “Aye sir.”

Doing that essentially meant blowing off sections of the hull and letting the safety bunkers be launched out with bursting charges.  They had only limited air and supplies and no engines.

And that assumed the Hev wouldn’t hunt them all down.

But it was the only thing he could do to potentially spare them bloody deaths.

He lowered his voice.  “Make sure Ambassador Kell, Decinus, Logus, and Apollonia are in one of the bunkers,” he said.

Urle hesitated.  “Sir, about that . . .”

“I know what the orders are,” Brooks said bluntly.  “But I believe it will be better if Kell escapes to live another day.”

“. . . Yes, sir,” Urle said.

Part of Brooks wanted to order Urle into a bunker as well.  The man was his closest friend, and his children had no one else.

The words hovered in his mouth, and he was about to speak, when Cenz’s voice cut through the other noise.

“Captain, we are detecting something rising from zerospace dead astern!”

His chest clenched.  Now the Hev were outflanking them as well?  It was flogging a dead horse at this point, but it would put the civilians in a worse position . . .

“On-screen,” he said.  “Perhaps we can discourage the Hev from-“

His words cut off as the ship appeared in a flash – it emerged so close that the Bower Radiation didn’t have time to decay.

It was not a Hev ship.  It was a Dessei Ring Ship.

Over four kilometers in diameter, it was a portable gateway to zerospace, an entry and exit point from that alternate dimension.  Enormous, nearly defenseless.

He felt his jaw drop as he realized what that meant.

It would not have come here alone.

“Captain, we are detecting dozens of other objects emerging!”

Other ships began to appear; cruisers, destroyers, droneships, even battleships and artillery ships.

It was not all Dessei; emerging among them, in their own formation, he saw Commodore Siilon in her flagship – Dusk Falls.

He’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

“We’re receiving a message,” Eboh called.

The voice that came through was Siilon, along with an image of her on her bridge.

“Craton, I recommend you begin withdrawing to the safety of the fleet.  We will cover you.”

“Do it,” Brooks ordered.  “And Commodore, if I may say – I’m glad to see you.”

Siilon flashed him one of her jagged smiles, then the transmission ended.

“Artillery ships are charging their coilguns,” Cenz said.  “They are firing – oh my.”

The shots from the ships spread like shotgun blasts towards the Craton, though he felt not even a moment of alarm.  Every shot was wide, aimed for the missiles that were weaving through the gaps in the Craton’s defenses.  Bracketing them perfectly.

Dozens of threats disappeared off the board, and already he saw other shots coming.

He felt the clutching pains in his chest relax, and felt suddenly weary to the bone.  Moving back to his seat, he dropped into it.

“Focus everything into defense, do whatever we can.  Get all Response teams to vital areas, and work to get Reactor Seven restored.”

Cheers went up among the crew, and he shared in their elation.

But he could not let his guard down just yet.

Though they had reinforcements, the P’G’Maig numbers were still stacked against them.

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