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# Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Contents
  4. Chapter 1
  5. Chapter 2
  6. Chapter 3
  7. Chapter 4
  8. Chapter 5
  9. Chapter 6
  10. Chapter 7
  11. Chapter 8
  12. Chapter 9
  13. Chapter 10
  14. Chapter 11
  15. Chapter 12
  16. Chapter 13
  17. Chapter 14
  18. Chapter 15
  19. Chapter 16
  20. Chapter 17
  21. Chapter 18
  22. Chapter 19
  23. Chapter 20
  24. Chapter 21
  25. Chapter 22
  26. Chapter 23
  27. Chapter 24
  28. Chapter 25
  29. Chapter 26
  30. Chapter 27
  31. Chapter 28
  32. Chapter 29
  33. Chapter 30
  34. Chapter 31
  35. Chapter 32
  36. Chapter 33
  37. Chapter 34
  38. Chapter 35
  39. Chapter 36
  40. Chapter 37
  41. Chapter 38
  42. Chapter 39
  43. Chapter 40
  44. Chapter 41
  45. Epilogue
  46. About the Author
  47. Praise for the Far Stars
  48. Also by Jay Allan
  49. Copyright
  50. About the Publisher

# Chapter 1

The screams rose up into the sky, sharp and shrill, audible manifestations of the terror of a dying people. Thousands ran, fleeing from the advancing soldiers, frantically searching for someplace, anyplace, to hide, knowing even as they fled, there was no escape. The doom that had come to Valask was an unstoppable force, utterly relentless and without mercy. It was death unleashed, and in its path remained only fire, corpses, and the charred remains of a place where people had lived and worked and raised families.

Valask had been a prosperous world, at least reasonably so. Its local government had been moderate in its severity, at least by imperial standards, and the emperor had mostly ignored it, content with the annual tribute that flowed from the Valaski factories into the imperial coffers.

Until the Valaski made a fatal mistake.

They rebelled.

The planet's population, mostly factory workers, heard the news from the Far Stars. It had come in scattered bits at first, whispers and rumors that slipped through the imperial censors and spread like wildfire among the people. It seemed almost an impossibility. Imperial planets had thrown off the imperial yoke! And not just the mass of worlds in the Far Stars, long claimed by the emperor, but never truly under imperial rule. No, the news had spread of the six worlds in that distant sector that had once been the imperial demesne for centuries. The emperor's standards had been pulled down and stomped into the streets of those half-dozen worlds, soaked in the blood of the imperial soldiers. For the first time in a millennium, planets had broken free of the deadening hand of empire.

The Far Stars was impossibly distant, of course, far across the Void, beyond the reach of the emperor's dread battleships. But the defiance that consumed those people was not stopped by such distance. And if the people of the Far Stars could throw off the chains of empire, so, too, could the Valaski.

The people poured out into the streets, wielding tools, clubs—any implements of war and destruction they could fashion—and they overwhelmed the local forces and seized the centers of government worldwide. Their victory carried great cost, of course, as with any battle pitting hordes of poorly armed revolutionaries against modern troops equipped with guns. But even though the Valaski died in the hundreds of thousands, the emperor's garrisons were small and scattered. In the end, the triumph was the people's. And with all the blood they lost, they demanded it be repaid in kind.

The local officials all carried the taint of empire and endured the wrath of the victorious mob, first as captives, and then when they were killed, torn to pieces in the streets, their murders used as props by those among the rebels already jockeying for power in the new order to come. But that order, so desperately craved by the would-be political operatives among the mobs, was short-lived, too transient even for the revolutionaries, who were already turning on one another. Nature abhors a vacuum, and too many tried to fill the roles of leadership with the bodies of their rivals.

While the people of Valask fought one another, the empire prepared.

No more than two months after the flags were first pulled down from the imperial headquarters, the emperor's forces entered the system, massive battleships, each twenty kilometers long, bristling with weapons and packed with armored soldiers.

The emperor's fist had arrived.

The fleet did not hesitate to move on the planet. Nor did any of its ships respond to the increasingly frantic communications from the surface, attempts to negotiate at first, quickly morphing into terrified pleas to surrender. Yielding was no longer an option. The people of Valask had committed the greatest offense imaginable: they had defied their master, and imperial doctrine demanded punishment, a wound to the planet that would never heal, a nightmare that would be spoken of by the survivors' descendants long after living memory had faded to dust . . . if such survivors should even exist.

The sky was thick and dark with smoke, great pillars of gray black rising from the burning cities, blasted from the guns of the orbiting battleships. Abandoned vehicles lined the broken and pockmarked roads, and bodies lay strewn about everywhere the eye could see.

The fields surrounding the planetary capital, once lush and green with rich crops that fed a world, were scorched and blackened, and pitted with craters. Thousands of landing craft lay there now, over what had once been farmlands and pastures, and the soldiers of the empire streamed forth from them, bringing ruin, despite the fact that all active resistance had long since ceased.

In the center of the great fleet of landers sat a larger ship, ostentatious, almost, looming over the others, the great red standard of empire emblazoned on its gray metal hull. A man stood in front of the ship, tall and grim, surrounded by guards and aides. He was clad in black-and-red robes partially covering the body armor he wore below, and a pistol and a sword hung down at his sides. His hands were extended, gesturing roughly in one direction and then another, and he snapped out orders quickly, in a voice so harsh, so cold, his own soldiers winced when it was directed at them.

Ignes Inferni was an imperial lord, a general of the empire, and a notorious butcher whose exploits were sewn deep into the scars of a dozen tormented worlds. Inferni had killed millions in the service of his ruthless master, and he had never failed to carry out his orders, to do as the emperor bade him do. Men, women, children—rebels or simply innocents the emperor wanted to use as examples—it didn't matter to the brutal general. He was seemingly without emotion, a cold-blooded killing machine, and in the decades of his murderous career, he had never been moved to the slightest mercy.

Now, this dark imperial minion had come to Valask to crush rebellion, and to remind the people of the doomed world—and the broader galaxy—that they were the emperor's subjects, then and forever.

"Go, Colonel Trax. There are reports of refugees fleeing the city to the south, moving toward the forests. See that they do not escape."

"As you command, General." Tragon Trax was a stone-cold killer in his own right, a thirty-year veteran of imperial service, but in the presence of Ignes Inferni, he seemed almost timid. "Do you want us to take prisoners?"

Inferni turned back and stared at his subordinate. "No, Colonel. No prisoners." He stood two meters tall, his armor adding to his already massive, hulking form, and a metal mask covered the lower half of his face. Above the sheath of steel, peering through the hood of his black cloak, were two steel-gray eyes, cold, focused on the imperial officer. "Kill them all, Colonel. Every one of them."

The room was vast, almost unimaginably so. To any eye unaccustomed to the wonders of the imperial capital, it defied even the most grandiose imaginings of what men could build. The ceiling vaulted two hundred meters above the floor, two columns of great buttresses running along its awesome length, reaching out, held up, seemingly, by the very air itself. And all along the walls were mosaics, great images of the emperors who had ruled humanity for a thousand years.

The floor was an expanse of polished black marble stretching almost out of sight to either side, and in the center of the far wall, seated on an immense throne covered in gems and precious metals, the emperor of mankind, the supreme ruler of all humanity—ruler, in fact, of a thousand worlds coreward of the Void, but by name and claim only in the Far Stars—sat and stared out at a small group of military officers.

The emperor's face was harsh, the jagged lines of age carved into a cold grimace, almost as if he was a statue of menace and darkness. Arrogance seemed to float in the air around him, and it was perhaps warranted—in every particular, he was the product of a lifetime of privilege and power almost unchecked . . . one preserved and protected by a murderous paranoia.

His hands protruded from billowy silken sleeves, clenched tightly into fists, and his posture was tight, the tension consuming him clear to any who looked. The emperor was angry, as few had ever seen him, and nothing instilled fear in those who served the throne like the fires of imperial rage.

"General Inferni has returned, Your Supremacy," an imperial officer reported. "His shuttle approaches the capital even now, and his reports have begun to come in. He has won a great victory, Your Supremacy. The rebellion on Valask has been crushed, utterly and completely. All leaders of the revolution have been killed, and total civilian casualties are estimated to exceed one billion. It will be generations before the survivors forget the consequences of their folly, if, indeed, such a cataclysm can ever be truly forgotten."

"It is good, General Idilus, that Valask has been restored to the imperial fold . . . yet it will be many years before that rich world again fills our coffers at the rate it once did. Rebellion cannot be tolerated, of course, yet our purposes are served far better by _preventing_ such uprisings, no?"

Anyone who heard the emperor's tone knew it was not a question.

Idilus shuffled nervously, his feet sliding back and forth on the hard marble. He was about to speak when the emperor continued.

"Fear . . . that is our chosen tool. It is far cheaper than war, and less damaging to the productivity of the worlds in question. For many years, it did most of our work for us, and rebellions were rare. Yet we have seen no fewer than nine in only the last two years . . . and every one of you is aware of the cause behind this." The emperor's volume grew, and with it, the severity of his tone.

"Not only did all of you fail to prevent the worlds of the demesne from breaking from our grasp—a defeat from which we still sting with rank humiliation—but you were not even able to enforce our quarantine on information of this ignominious defeat. Instead, every lowly factory worker on Valask, and, seemingly, on every other world of the empire, has heard of our shame . . . almost as if the damned fools in this room shouted the news out to any who would listen."

Idilus knew the emperor was being unfair, but he didn't dare say that. He just stood at attention, struggling to maintain the respectful look that masked his fear. The emperor didn't usually take out his rage on the highest nobles and officers, at least not beyond screaming and perhaps the confiscation of estates . . . but humanity's ruler was _very_ angry just then, and Idilus optimistically put his odds of leaving the room right a touch below 80 percent.

Maybe even seventy.

"I abase myself, Your Supremacy." Idilus dropped to one knee. He'd almost thrown himself to the floor, facedown in the full prostration, but there was an art to such things as appeasing an angry monarch, and overdoing it could be almost as bad as doing nothing. "I did all I could to maintain the news blackout . . . and yet, I failed. I beseech you for your pardon, my master." There was a fine line to be followed with excuses, as well. Some deflection of responsibility was useful, but too much was almost guaranteed to inflame the imperial rage.

"Your apologies are meaningless, General, as are your excuses. Your idiocy has cost my treasury billions in military expenditures and lost revenues. I would take it out of your estates, if your miserable holdings were more than a trickle of what was lost. If you would have my forgiveness, General, you must earn it. I would have my worlds back, and no less. First the six planets I so long possessed beyond the Void, and then the hundred others that have for so long defied imperial rule. If you would return to my good graces, General, you must find a way to invade the Far Stars in force. A way to reclaim what is mine."

Idilus could feel his legs weaken. What he was being asked was impossible. The empire had never been able to conquer the Far Stars. For centuries, only the smallest of imperial warships had attempted the journey across the Void, and even those endured staggering loss rates. No emperor had dared risk any of the great battleships in that deadly nothingness. They were too massive to make the crossing, and too costly to risk. But without the great ships of war no imperial fleet could defeat the forces of the Far Stars, especially not since the long-divided cluster was now well on its way to being united.

"Am I understood, General?"

"Yes, Your Supremacy. I understand completely. And I will obey."

_Though what the hell I'm going to do, I have no idea . . ._

# Chapter 2

"Boss, come on . . . we're going way too fast. I trust your hands, and your feel on the controls—you know we all do. But that crazy thing . . ." Letis Grendel pointed toward the black metal box sitting next to the captain's chair. The old mate was worn and rugged, his gray-white beard a wiry mess, plastered with grime from hours spent crawling around the creaking old ship's bowels, along with scattered bits of his last two or three meals. He was, in every particular, the image of the grizzled old spacer, run down from a hard life spent in the dark deeps.

Which was exactly what he was.

Rachus Denali reached down and put his hand on the ship's main control housing, an affectation and not any effort to change course or speed. He knew just what he was doing, and he wasn't going to let a few flops in his crew's guts change that. Things were going exactly as expected . . . notwithstanding the usual hauntings from the depths of the Void that could terrify even the coldest veteran of the frigid dark.

_Granger_ was an old ship, but she was _his_ ship, and though everything on her wobbled a little or made noises of varying levels of inexplicability, Denali trusted the worn and tired vessel. She was the only thing that had been there for him in his life, always and without question. She'd gotten him out of more than one scrape that looked to be his last, and, such that it was, she'd put food on his table for thirty years.

He trusted the new nav system, too—the black box Letis was now questioning. Maybe not 100 percent, truth be told, but then navigating the Void had never been a sure thing under any circumstances. He'd built the damned thing, and he was as sure as he was about anything: that it would get _Granger_ where she was going, and the two other ships following tight behind his rogue trader, as well.

_It better work . . ._

He'd put just about everything he had, as little as that was—plus a thousand he'd gotten from the Kilian brotherhood—into its construction. That made the voyage a make-or-break proposition, in more ways than one. He'd borrowed from the brotherhood before, but never more than a hundred or so to pay off a gambling debt or make an emergency repair. He'd been late once in paying back what he'd borrowed, and he still winced thinking about the way that hammer had shattered his knee.

"Relax, Letis," he said, trying hard to take his own advice, "the demons out here want better than a grizzly old piece of meat like you." A pause. "Or me, old friend." Denali knew his crew was edgy . . . far more than normal for a pack of moth-eaten spacers who had crossed the Void more than once. And he understood their fear—because you never quite got over the fact that this journey took lives as if they were simply a toll for a bridge.

Denali and his crew, however, had made dozens of crossings, which placed them in a small group of those who had repeatedly defied death, and an even more minuscule collection of those who'd managed to ship the rarest of commodities back and forth repeatedly while somehow managing to avoid getting wealthy from the effort.

_Granger_ 's captain was among the rarest of breeds, a rogue trader who had a nose not just for interstellar travel in general, but that undefined sense that somehow seemed to guide him through the depths of the Void, carrying small shipments of valuable ores to the empire, and imperial luxuries back to the lonely worlds of the Far Stars. The trade between the empire and the Far Stars was a lucrative one, illegal as well, though moderately tolerated on the imperial side, as long as the right payoffs were made.

The few spacers who shared Denali's gifts typically reaped the benefits of such a restricted trade, and most of them retired early, after becoming far too rich to feel the need to risk life and ship on yet another journey. But Denali's life—the drinking, the drugs, the gambling . . . not to mention three wives and eight children, plus more women in random ports than he could even begin to count—had left him old, worn, and if not poor, exactly, at least short of cash and barely hanging on to his ship, mortgaged heavily to the Far Stars Bank (and, worse, the hammer-wielding gangsters).

A few more well-executed runs, though . . . that would be enough. Enough to pay off his ship, or at least work the debt down to the point where he could sell it for more than he owed, and to fund a comfortable, if not opulent, retirement. That had been his plan, at least.

Unfortunately, his bad habits and self-destructive tendencies remained his worst enemies. Things had gotten progressively worse in recent years, and he'd struggled to come up with the funds to fill the hold with ore, and to gather the payoffs he would need on the imperial side.

Then he built the box.

It had come to him, not in a dream exactly, but in a way not so far removed from one. He'd never known exactly how he _felt_ —that was the best word he could come up with—his way through the Void, but then, one day, it came to him. Clarity. A real understanding of the Void, of the strange magnetic tides and the eddies and currents in spacetime that rippled throughout the treacherous expanse.

He drew up the plans in just a few hours, though it took considerably longer to build the prototype, the very box installed next to his chair on the bridge. Some of that time had been careful workmanship, though acquiring the money to buy the parts he needed had been, as usual with such things for Denali, difficult and time-consuming as well.

But it was worth it. Or would be, if the thing worked (and, for now, it seemed to be doing just that). The box's function was to reduce the risk _Granger_ faced in the Void, and yet that wasn't even the primary benefit of his invention. For all the dangers, and the nightmarish stories of the Void, Denali never doubted his ability to sniff his way through. But his nose for the depths of space didn't extend past his own ship, his eyes on the scanners, his hands on the controls. The box would allow him to lead more than just the _Granger_ through. With it, he could bring other vessels, a whole flotilla even—ten, perhaps twelve ships—safely to port. The value that offered was almost incomprehensible, at least to his own battered and limited aspirations, and the best part was, the device was aligned to his own brain waves. No one could use it except him, and that made him indispensable. Rachus Denali had never, in his hard and ramshackle life, been indispensable. For once, he had something that couldn't be stolen from him, something he couldn't be cheated out of.

And it would make him rich, too. Which he really felt like he deserved.

The problem was, for all the potential of the box, he still hadn't been able to convince many that the thing worked. Which meant he didn't have ten ships on this trip, nor the resources to support an expedition that size on his own. Until he was able to bring other ships on board, he was just another idiot gambling the life of him and his crew through the Void.

He'd looked all around among his fellow rogue traders, trying to convince them to come with him, to allow him to test—and show off—the abilities of his new device. But that kind of thing was a hard sell, even for captains with far less sketchy reputations than Denali's. The Void was no joke. Most of those who'd been lost had simply disappeared in the impenetrable blackness, but it was also a place where humankind brought its own brand of darkness, and deceit and treachery loomed like shadows over all who entered its inky depths. It was often said, "in space, no one can hear you scream." In the Void, no one could hear, see, or detect. If one's comrades became enemies, through perfidy or simple disagreements, there was no help, no chance of rescue, not even a way to signal for assistance.

So some crazy old spacer, one considered bad luck by many of his peers, looking for ships to join him on an excursion across the Void, reeked in every way of a trap, filling the heads of those he approached with images of treachery and boarding.

In the end, he'd brought on two ships. He'd somehow managed to convince the two other captains to join him, and that only by the slimmest of margins. He'd known them both for many years, and while long acquaintance wasn't necessarily a plus for one with Denali's history and temperament, his compatriots were cast from the same mold as him, derelicts who'd squandered their chances at wealth, who'd gone through cargoes and crews, all the while barely hanging on to the ships that were their stake in the game. Desperation was a great aid to persuasion, and spacers in need were far likelier to see the upside in seemingly crazy enterprises.

It all amounted to the same thing: a dangerous trip through the Void, and very little the crew would be able to show for it even if they brought the other ships through. Denali had asked his people—and the crews of the other two ships—to take a long-term risk, and when you faced death in the face every second in the Void, "long term" wasn't something any of them were comfortable with.

_Which means this_ has _to work._

"Boss, _Harkness_ is bumping up her thrust. I think she's coming alongside to open up a comm line." Normal communications channels were useless in the Void, and even the direct laser comm required extraordinary precision to compensate for the spatial disruptions all around.

That had been a mercy of sorts to Denali, sparing him from a near-constant stream of nervous—if not outright panicky—communications from his fellow captains. He didn't have a doubt both of them were cursing him, and themselves, for getting sucked into his scheme. They'd both made cross-Void journeys before, but it took a level of faith for a captain to release control of his ship to a compatriot, to trust that one spacer could guide three vessels. No—not a level of trust. It was a matter of _blind faith_. Because it had never been done before, and what sounded reasonable to a trader well lubricated in a spacers' bar in some decrepit port, likely seemed downright insane deep in the embrace of the Void.

Denali leaned back and sighed softly. He knew he'd gotten off lightly, avoiding the constant stream of nearly hysterical messages he might have expected if conditions had permitted. He also knew that any communication would be unpleasant, but not really threatening to the continuation of the expedition. His companions had no real choice but to continue to follow him. He'd directed the entire voyage, and the chances that either of his fellow captains could get a fix on a course back out were pretty damned close to zero.

So at least he had that going for him.

Still, he didn't relish listening to Linton Hogart bitch pointlessly at him over precious targeted laser bandwidth. _Maybe he's just tucking in closer . . ._

That thought lasted all of five seconds, maybe eight. Then, Letis Grendel's scratchy voice shattered the illusion of hope.

"We're getting a signal from _Harkness_ , boss."

Denali sighed again, considerably louder than before. Then he reached grudgingly toward his headset.

# Chapter 3

Shira rolled over, propping herself up in the bed and looking out the window. She could see from the sunlight streaming in it was past midmorning. And that meant she was late.

She slid around, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She slipped out from under the satin sheets, and she leaned forward to get up. She paused for an instant, tense as she felt the movement behind her, and old instinct, born of her years of battle and strife, kicked in. Then the softness of a hand on her back, and the triggered combat reflexes eased, slipping away. Shira looked back at the girl: beautiful, tall, slim, with a riotous mass of tangled golden blond hair falling around her shoulders. She was just what Shira liked . . . but that had been last night. The girl had been an adequate lay . . . no, that wasn't quite fair. She'd been quite well above average, though a bit too chatty for Shira's tastes. Of course, almost everyone talked too much for Shira.

"Good morning, lover," her companion purred, the high-pitched softness of her voice that had excited Shira the night before grating on her in the morning light. She could feel the motion in the bed as the girl slipped closer, and her arm stirred, moving to shove her bedmate away. She caught herself, however, enough at least to cut the intensity of her motion from a hard push to a gentle nudge.

"It's late," Shira said. "I've got to grab a shower and go." She didn't quite growl at the girl, but she left little doubt about her mood . . . or the fact that the time for play had passed. At least she thought she left no doubt . . .

"It's barely eleven," the girl said, moving her hands pointedly from Shira's back.

"And that's late." Asterex had a twenty-three-hour day, just forty-five minutes shorter than the Celtiborian standard Shira and her compatriots used on the _Wolf's Claw_. Yet since they'd arrived she'd been racing to make up lost time. Shira pulled away and stood up, turning to stare back at the girl. "Like I said, I've got to go. But the room is booked until four, so don't feel you have to rush. Order some breakfast, take a long bath. Last night was fun. Maybe when I come back this way, we can have another go." That last part was pure diplomatic nonsense. The truth was, Shira tended to tire quickly of her conquests, very often, as in this case, after a single night.

She could see the hurt in her companion's eyes, and while she didn't exactly care, she did feel an impulse of sorts to soften her temperament. "I wish I could stay . . ." A lie. ". . . but, my work will not wait. But I'll look you up as soon as I get back this way." Another lie. Two, actually. Shira had no intention of trying to contact the woman again . . . and she damned sure didn't expect to come back to this backward shithole of a planet unless she had one hell of a good reason.

A much better reason than a moderately above average tumble.

She stood up, turning around and managing a smile to her bedmate, one she hoped seemed sincere. Then she walked into the bathroom, staring into the mirror for a few seconds, astonished at just how red and bloodshot her eyes were. She wasn't as young as she used to be, and the morning-after face she saw in the mirror hit her with that realization.

But there was no time for such vanities. She slipped into the shower and turned the hot water on, almost to scalding.

She sighed softly, closing her eyes for a moment while the hot water cascaded down over her body. She was due back at the _Claw_. . . ten minutes _ago_. The mission was set to commence in less than an hour, but she couldn't help but wonder at the point of it all. She knew why they had gone back to their old way of life, why Blackhawk had no choice but to retreat to his previous existence on the fringes of the Far Stars, avoiding the centers of power that threatened his grip on himself.

Avoiding Astra Lucerne.

There was a monster inside Blackhawk, one created by imperial breeding programs and conditioning, one the warrior and adventurer had learned to control, after a fashion. Blackhawk was perfectly fine, a hard man, but a fair and just one, reasonably at least . . . as long as he stayed away from positions of power. But Shira had seen him during the war, watched as he struggled to hold back the demons, to remain what he'd worked so hard to become and not to fall back to the grim creature he'd once been. Arkarin Blackhawk would likely be running from himself, from his past, until the day he died. That was his penance for his many sins, and that was why he was on Asterex.

Shira was there because Blackhawk had to be.

There wasn't a doubt in her mind that she and the rest of the crew had to follow their leader from one backwater to another, doing jobs that had once seemed almost normal, but now felt pointless. Leaving Blackhawk was an impossibility. He had saved all their lives . . . no, more, he'd pulled them from their own individual nightmares and given them purpose, and a home. That had been years ago, of course, long before the war, and before they were all wealthy in their own rights, but Arkarin Blackhawk had taught them nothing by his example more than loyalty, and Shira, for one, would be damned if she'd ever turn her back on the one man who'd truly made a difference in her life, and who'd risked his own countless times to do it.

She'd been penniless when she'd first come aboard the _Claw,_ an orphan rotting in a prison cell, a few days from the headsman's blade. Blackhawk had gotten her out—by some method he'd never disclosed—and he'd taken her in, saved her from almost certain death. He hadn't tried to change her, to convince her to be someone she wasn't. He'd just given her a home on the _Wolf's Claw_. . . and eventually, she had come to see the others in that home as the family she'd never had.

In some ways, she and Blackhawk were the most alike on the _Claw,_ and from the beginning, he had related to her natural distrust and cynicism, traits he shared in every particular. With the possible exception of Katarina Venturi, she and Blackhawk had the darkest views of the universe of everyone on the _Claw_. She didn't know what made Venturi tick, but it certainly wasn't anything light or optimistic, and she'd long ago learned not to make any reckless assumptions about the ex-assassin.

_Or not so "ex" . . ._

The random group of adventurers on the _Wolf's Claw_ _were_ a family; she knew they all felt that way. But they were troubled nevertheless. They'd been happy once, bouncing around the fringes of the Far Stars, smugglers, mercenaries, a group of mysterious but enormously skilled rogues who didn't give a damn what anybody else thought . . . or what laws anyone sought to impose on them.

But that had been before the war. Before the Far Stars had been even partially united. Or something close to united. They had all seen desperate fighting in the battles against the imperial forces . . . and they'd lost some of their own in that struggle. But the family had come through the trials, still together, still devoted to one another.

They'd gone back to their old lives, retreated back to the shadows. But it didn't work, not really. None of them wanted to admit it, but things just weren't the same as they'd been. The Far Stars was a different place, for one thing. The Far Stars Confederation was still in its infancy, but Astra Lucerne had proven to be an extraordinary and tireless leader. On world after world, the old rivalries, and the shadowy businesses that had existed all around them for centuries, began to fade away. The Far Stars Confederation brought law and order, and the promise of prosperity . . . and the smugglers and pirates that had once been so prevalent in the sector had begun to disappear, to take their places as relics of a lost age.

For better or worse, the _Wolf's Claw_ and her crew were a part of that fading reality, and with every step Astra Lucerne took to reorder the Far Stars, their refuge grew ever smaller.

Shira would never leave Blackhawk's side, she was as certain of that as she was of anything. She knew why he needed to remain in the shadows, to chase after the life that had sheltered him for so long from his dark, nightmarish past. But the day was coming when that refuge would no longer really exist, not in a rapidly developing and booming Far Stars.

She had no idea what Blackhawk, what any of them, would do then, but she knew she would never abandon the man who had saved her. Who had given her back her life and made it something worth living.

She turned off the shower and hurried to gather her things together and get back to him.

"Try to reroute the secondary circuit through couplings eight and nine." Arkarin Blackhawk crouched down outside the portal leading to the _Claw_ 's cramped engineering space. He was leaning in, looking across the crawl space at his engineer—and the one person in all the Far Stars and the vast and unknown galaxy who knew her way around the guts of the _Claw_ as well as he did.

_She knows it better than you, you pompous fool . . ._

That is correct. If you are referring to the vessel's engineering systems, even the most cursory empirical analysis would strongly suggest that Samantha Sparks has more knowledge than you, certainly in a practical sense useful for making repairs and the like.

Blackhawk held back a sigh. He'd been angry for years at the—long unwelcome—presence in his head, but sometime over the past twenty-some years, he'd come to accept the AI. He still didn't know how he'd ended up with the thing implanted in his brain, but even the suspicion that was so central to the core of his being had come to accept the strange . . . presence . . . as a friendly one.

The thing had saved his life too many times to preserve his mistrust.

"I've got it, Captain . . . just give me two minutes to run the new connection."

Blackhawk nodded his head and smiled. Sam Sparks was the most innocent looking of the _Claw_ 's crew. She was the youngest, too, and she looked even younger than she was. She spent most of her time crawling around in the confines of the ship's engine room, in torn pants and a grease-stained shirt, long red hair tied back in a ponytail, struggling to keep one abused and overused system or another functional.

As often or not, when the ship was on the run or going into a fight.

She looked young and helpless away from her engines, and Blackhawk had always had a fatherly affection for her. But first impressions were deceiving, and Samantha Sparks was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, something that became immediately apparent to anyone who saw her fire the tiny pistol she always had stashed somewhere. As far as Blackhawk knew, she'd never missed.

"Sam . . . I'll leave it to you, but we've got to be on the move in ten minutes." Blackhawk pulled his head back out of the engine room, before Sam could reply. She knew the timetable, and now, he'd just reminded her again. She'd have the _Claw_ ready, and he had enough confidence in her to leave her alone and go back to the bridge.

_Besides, Shira isn't here yet. And neither is Ace._

Blackhawk was grateful to his crew for staying with him, though he carried some guilt from it, too. They all had the resources to build better lives, richer lives, out there in a Far Stars that was quickly rising up from the morass of piracy and barbarism it had long been to a modern civilization. He'd been alone once, and for a long time, and he told himself he could do it again, but he wasn't sure he believed it. The old Blackhawk had been a miserable creature, on the run—from his enemies and from himself—but now, he was different. He had friends, more even. They were his family, in every way that mattered. He had a woman he loved, too, although one he could never be with, and one who couldn't come with him where he had to go. She had too much to do, a legacy to continue, a hundred planets to rule, billions of people looking to her for protection and justice. He'd accepted that fact, as much as he ever could, but if he lost his crew as well as Astra . . . he wasn't sure he could endure it.

He couldn't be with Astra, the only woman he'd ever loved, but he was proud of her, and watching her succeed in her herculean task helped to keep him out of the abyss. Astra Lucerne's rule was barely three years old, and she'd already proven herself to be her father's daughter, in more ways than he could easily count. Dozens of worlds had formally joined the Far Stars Confederation, some voluntarily, others after Astra's armies had purged them of oppressive, entrenched governments. And the Far Stars Bank, driven partially by greed—and partially by Astra's veiled threats and intimidation—had funded a construction boom that was already bringing backward planets into the future, improving living standards and industrial output across the sector.

She still had enemies, of course, and Blackhawk had a list. He did his best to keep his crew convinced they'd been conducting random missions, that they were mercenaries for hire, as they'd been for so many years before the war. But the targets they hit, the enemies they exterminated, were all petty tyrants and crime lords, and while there was certainly profit in killing them and taking their ill-gotten gains, the would-be mercs of the _Wolf's Claw_ had actually been operating as a clandestine intelligence operation. This, of course, without Astra's knowledge, or even that of the crew involved in the actual missions. Blackhawk knew he couldn't be with Astra, that one day he would have to watch from the sidelines as she married someone else and conceived the heir that would eventually take her place as the ruler of the Far Stars. There was no joy in his future, no happiness . . . none save making sure she was safe. And that he would do, from the shadows, with minimum reward and no credit.

He would remain on the fringes of society, in the darkness where a creature like him belonged. Where he had to stay. He'd been the commanding general of the forces of the confederation during the recent war . . . the man most responsible for driving the empire from the Far Stars, and that was all the more reason he had to stay away. He'd come close to losing himself once more, to unleashing the dread persona that lived inside him and subsisted on power.

He'd pulled himself back just in time and turned down any formal role in the Far Stars Confederation, fleeing from the imperial monster that lived inside him, ensuring it wouldn't one day regain control . . . as had almost happened during the war.

Now, then, he would crawl along the borders, along the troughs of human habitation until even they were all gone, reclaimed for a bright future. One he would help create, even if he could never be a part of it.

He would remain vigilant, until Astra had truly united the Far Stars. Then he would go . . . somewhere. Into the unknown depths of space, or the depths of the Void.

Or into the heart of a supernova.

But he would never let himself hurt Astra . . . and he would never again let her see the true image of what lived inside him.

"Captain, Shira and Ace are aboard."

"Good. Let's get ready to lift off."

# Chapter 4

"Captain Denali, I am pleased you were able to come."

Denali glanced at the imperial noble, from the looks of his attire and the gold and platinum badges of rank hanging from his neck, a highly placed one, and tried to restrain his amusement, and his fear.

Amusement because the "invitation" had come with a detachment of armed imperial soldiers, and for all the flowery construct of its prose, it reeked of something one small step from an arrest order.

And, fear . . . for the same reason.

"I am honored by your audience, Lord Jelliac. It is not every day a lord of the empire favors me with his time and attention." _At least you hope he's favoring you. Maybe he just enjoys roasting Far Stars barbarians on a spit . . ._

Denali didn't know all that much of imperial culture, but he was pretty sure lords of the empire viewed anyone from the Far Stars as just short of a savage in an animal skin.

"It is my pleasure, Captain. I believe you have distinguished yourself in your field of endeavor . . . or am I mistaken that you led a small flotilla of ships through the Void."

_Of course._ That's _what he wants. But how does he even know?_

"That is correct, my lord. Though no more than three small freighters." Freighter was a grandiose term, either for _Granger_ , or for the other two rust buckets in his ramshackle fleet, but the meaning was close enough.

"Still—three ships. Under your navigation direction? And not that of the other captains?"

"That is also correct." He'd felt the impulse to lie about the whole thing, but in the end he didn't know what the imperial lord knew already, and he had a healthy suspicion that getting caught lying to the man would be bad.

"May I ask how that was possible, Captain? As far as my, admittedly limited, knowledge of navigation goes, no one has ever successfully guided more than a single ship through the Void. That is correct, is it not?"

"It is as far as I know, my lord." Denali had been nervous . . . and he still was. But he was beginning to feel some hope. There was opportunity there . . . and even a small share of the profits from whatever this lord could put together—say, a dozen large freighters—would set him up beyond his wildest imaginings.

"I ask again, Captain. How was that possible?" Jelliac's tone wasn't hostile, not exactly, but Denali had the sense he didn't like incomplete answers to his questions . . . or having to repeat himself.

"I . . . ah . . . well, my lord, I have always had a strong sense of the currents of the Void, and I was able to . . ." He paused for a moment. He knew what he'd done, but standing there, before an imperial lord who could probably have him killed with a gesture, it seemed a bit crazy.

_But if crazy is the truth, that's what he's going to get._

"I built a navigation device, Lord Jelliac. It is an . . . extender of my thoughts, of my instincts about the Void. It allows me to guide more ships through, a dozen, perhaps even a few more." He braced himself for the scoff he was certain would come.

He was surprised, then, when Lord Jelliac said, "Do you have the schematics for this device, Captain? I would be interested in purchasing them from you. If it works, I can promise you a king's ransom as a price." The tone was still calm, but there was a hint of something else, an unspoken message to the effect of, _If you don't sell them to me, I have other ways to get what I want from you_. The offer seemed genuine, and the implicit threat did, too.

There was, however, a problem with complying.

"My lord, I would be pleased to sell you my designs, such that they are, or even the prototype box itself. But . . . I'm afraid I designed it to link with my own brain, to enhance _my_ sense of the Void, not to develop its own. It would be valueless to anyone but me." Denali was simply trying to explain, but as he heard the words coming out of his mouth, he could feel his freedom slipping away. Because if the box didn't work without him . . .

"That is unfortunate, Captain." Jelliac paused. "Perhaps we can come up with an alternate plan, one that might be just as rewarding to you." He turned and gestured toward one of the servants standing against the far wall. A moment later, a man entered, wearing the uniform of an imperial general.

"This is my cousin, Captain. General Idilus."

Denali blinked. He knew enough about the empire to guess just how blood-soaked the hands of an imperial general with as many decorations as Idilus wore had to be.

"General . . ." It was all he managed to get out before the man spoke.

"Captain Denali, my cousin told me of your expedition . . . and I was able to hear most of what you were just discussing. I am not a man to waste words, so I will simply ask you this: Are you able, with your device, to lead _any_ force of a dozen ships through the Void, regardless of their mass and size?"

Denali felt a spasm of fear go through him. He didn't really know the answer to the question. He suspected he could, but so far, he'd only used the device to bring three small ships through the crossing.

"Yes, General." The answer blurted out, almost on its own, and a few seconds later, he tried to temper it. "I believe I could, at least . . . though I have never used it with ships larger than the three of my last convoy."

There was a moment of silence, as Idilus looked over at Jelliac. Then the general returned his withering gaze to Denali. "I propose this, Captain . . ." Like so many of the polite suggestions coming out of these imperial mouths, the word _propose_ somehow came through more as _command_. . . . "I will hire your services. You will come with me, on my flagship. You will be extremely comfortable, and you will have every luxury on the voyage. You will in turn guide a force of imperial battleships from the capital to the Far Stars . . . and when they have completed their mission, you will bring them back safely. When that work is done, you will be released . . . with one million imperial crowns as your payment for services rendered."

A million crowns! It was more money than Denali had ever imagined, and his heart raced at the thought of such wealth. At least until reality set in. The box was far from fully tested, and if he failed, if any of the massive imperial warships were damaged or destroyed, he knew his death would be both certain and unpleasant.

_And, if you succeed, you will be the empire's only tool for safely guiding battleships through the crossing. You will never be allowed to go back home. You will spend the rest of your life in imperial service._

Denali's mind was a swirling vortex of confusion, fear, uncertainty . . . but, through it all, he knew what he had to do. He might be an imperial tool, but if he was able to guide the emperor's ships back and forth across the Void, he would be a well-treated and protected one. His life would be one of luxury, even of status, at least in the empire.

If he agreed, he would also be the greatest traitor the Far Stars had ever known.

If he didn't, though, he would find out just what the emperor's minions could do to persuade him . . . and he felt a shiver take him just thinking about _that_.

"I wished to meet you before I agree to this expedition."

The voice was deep and grim, and every word filled Denali with a sensation bordering on abject terror. He'd traveled vast distances in his life, but the idea that he'd ever be standing—or kneeling—before the emperor of mankind had never entered his mind. It was an amazing honor, or a gut-wrenching nightmare. Or both.

He held his pose, prostrated before the throne, and he replied, as he'd been told to do. "I am honored, Your Supremacy. Deeply honored." His back ached, and the pain in his neck felt like a dull blade slicing into muscle tissue, but the emperor had not commanded him to rise, and he remained rigidly in place, his fear overcoming the call of his agony.

"I will be placing great trust in you if I send ten of my battleships across the Void under your direction. Each of those vessels is the product of twenty years' labor and the work of millions. If you are able to guide them successfully, I will happily shower you with rewards. You will become a lord of the empire yourself, and you will have estates and manors, as befits one who has served me well." The emperor was speaking of riches and privilege and comfort beyond anything Denali had ever imagined, and it was wonderful to hear. But each word reached down inside him, and he felt coldness grip his spine.

"However, Captain, if you are not able to do as you say—if any of my great battleships are lost on the voyage . . ." The emperor paused, and Denali suddenly felt like an animal once prized being readied for slaughter. ". . . you will pay for your failure. Am I understood, Captain?"

"Yes, Your Supremacy," he said in a rasp through his now parched throat. "I understand completely. I will see to the safety of your warships, Your Supremacy . . . whatever it takes."

"Indeed, Captain. Whatever it takes." There was a long pause. "You may rise . . . and take your place at the rear of the assemblage."

Denali rose, hesitating for a moment, as a sharp pain cut across his shoulders and back. He held back the cry that tried to escape, and he forced himself to continue, to ignore the discomfort. Then he turned and walked back behind the group of lords and military officers standing before the emperor, only allowing himself a small sigh of relief when he felt sufficiently blocked from the emperor's view.

"You are confident in this operation, General Idilus? Or is this simply some desperate attempt to regain the favor your recent failures have cost you?"

Denali watched, fascinated at the display of imperial politics and power games. He realized, too, that he was now part of these games. That, for better or worse, he was part of Idilus's faction, and—as impressive and powerful as the general had seemed in Jelliac's château—he was in some kind of hot water with the emperor.

Which meant _Denali himself_ was now in hot water.

"Your Supremacy," Idilus said, "I believe the captain's device is genuine, and effective. My people have examined it, and we have reviewed the logs of all three vessels and verified that they did, indeed, cross the Void solely under Captain Denali's direction. I believe the device will work under the captain's control, and that even vessels as large as imperial battleships will be able to make the crossing in this way." Denali wasn't always the best judge of people, but he was pretty sure Idilus was at least half full of shit. He had the look of a player not exactly bluffing, but betting big and hoping a middling hand would do the job.

The only problem was that part of that bet included _Denali_ 's life.

There was a long pause, and though there were at least a hundred people in the room, the silence was eerie in its totality. Finally, the emperor spoke.

"Very well, General—you have my leave to mount the expedition. I authorize the deployment of ten battleships to your command, and I grant you viceregal powers in the Far Stars. You are to proceed to Galvanus Prime and reconquer our ancient sector capital. You will find all inhabitants who cooperated with the rebel forces, and all who conducted themselves with less than the steadfast loyalty expected of imperial officials and citizens, and you will execute them . . . after securing from them any and all useful information they possess. Once you have placed the planet's defenses in order, you will proceed to Celtiboria, the center of this affront to our imperial dignity, and the home of Augustin and Astra Lucerne . . ." The emperor's voice was pure rage as he uttered the name "Lucerne." ". . . and you will destroy it, General. There will be no invasion of Celtiboria, no effort to conquer the planet. You will bombard it from orbit, and you will eradicate all life existing there. Celtiboria shall henceforth serve as a silent graveyard, a testament to the cost of rebellion. Then you will send a single ship back with the captain aboard. He will reap the benefits of his success . . . and assume his role as imperial navigator, overseeing the ferrying of additional ships to the Far Stars, to commence the final conquest of that troublesome and unruly frontier."

"Yes, Your Supremacy. I thank you for your confidence."

But Denali wasn't as thankful. With those words, the emperor had sealed his fate as "imperial navigator"—a service he was pretty sure had no expiration date.

Resigned, he listened as the emperor continued. "I trust you will do whatever is necessary to succeed in your mission." A short pause, then he said, "Do not fail me again, General."

"I will not fail, Your Supremacy." Idilus rose slowly, bowing once more to the emperor before he turned to leave. He took half a dozen steps before the imperial voice boomed out again, stopping him in his tracks.

"One more thing, General." The emperor turned and gestured to an officer standing to the side of the throne. The man moved quickly through a door along the back wall and returned leading in another officer, one standing a full two meters tall, resplendent in polished combat armor, and wearing a gleaming blade at his side. It was an immense honor for any but the imperial guards to carry a weapon in the presence of the emperor, and it spoke of extreme imperial favor.

Denali stared at the figure, and it was like he was seeing a monster from a story leap off the page. Because he knew just who this officer was, and the dark warrior's reputation seemed paltry compared to his actual presence.

"General Inferni will accompany you, General Idilus."

"Your Supremacy . . ." Denali could see Idilus wanted to argue, but he watched as the officer almost immediately suppressed the urge. "Yes, Your Supremacy."

"You will retain operational command of the expedition, despite the fact that General Inferni outranks you. He will be conducting a special mission for me, and you will provide him with any resources he requires . . . and follow any orders he issues as though they came from me."

"Yes, Your Supremacy." Denali was impressed at Idilus's ability to hide his emotions at the change in plans. "May I ask what General Inferni's mission entails?"

"There is a man in the Far Stars. Accounts have come to me, from many sources. He was an adventurer among the fringe worlds who rose to become one of the leaders of the rebellion, a general who led the traitorous forces against our fleet. A warrior who, by all accounts, killed Kergen Vos, our governor. There is something about this man, about the descriptions of his exploits, his abilities. It nags at me. General Inferni will be responsible for finding this man, and for bringing him back to the capital in chains."

"What else is known of this man, of his whereabouts . . . if I may ask, Your Supremacy?"

The emperor stared down at Idilus, his gaze as cold as space. "Very little is known, General, except his name." The emperor paused again. "Arkarin Blackhawk."

In an instant, Denali felt crushed. It was one thing to betray the Far Stars—it was just a place, after all, and one he had no particular allegiance to. But to now be pitted against Blackhawk, while allied to Inferni? It was like being caught between two powerful black holes, from which there was no escape.

_This,_ he thought _, is not going to end well._

# Chapter 5

"Drop us down here, Lucas. The ridgeline will give the _Claw_ some cover from their scanners, and we can manage the rest of the distance on foot. You pull back and find a place to hover in that bank of clouds to the south." Blackhawk was down in the lower level of the _Wolf's Claw_ , next to the bottom hatch. His chest was covered in body armor, and over that, he wore a black tunic and cape. His pistol and shortsword, companions that had been at his side longer even than his devoted crew, hung from their places at his waist. A newer addition, a rifle Astra Lucerne had given him, one that had been her father's, hung from his shoulder under his cape.

Ace Graythorn stood next to him, with Shira and Sarge just behind. He felt a touch of melancholy, floating just under the adrenaline and the focus on impending action. Imminent ground fighting always brought at least a part of his mind back to the members of his family no longer with him. Tarq and Tarnan, the giant twins and the two strongest men he'd ever seen, were both dead, killed in action, and along with them, two of Sarge's four troopers, also lost in battle, and the other two retired. The struggles against the empire had cost the _Claw_ a huge chunk of its fighting strength, and Blackhawk four irreplaceable friends.

"Roger that, Cap." Lucas Lancaster was the closest thing Blackhawk had ever seen to a natural-born pilot, and when he'd first seen Lucas in action, he had gladly given up the helm for his new prodigy. He knew of at least two instances where Lucas's piloting skills had saved them all, but there were maybe half a dozen other solid maybes. However Blackhawk stacked it all up, Lucas had earned his place among them in more ways than one . . . even if the kid had been well on the way to killing himself with drugs and alcohol when the _Wolf's Claw_ 's captain had first extricated him from a confrontation in a bar on the verge of becoming deadly.

"You all ready?" Blackhawk turned and looked back at his three companions.

His people responded, as they always did, with grim nods. They knew they were likely going into a fight, and as many engagements as those present had survived, they all knew the next one could be their last. The _Claw_ had lost family before, and no one believed that toll had run its lot.

_But not today._

That was their mantra. We will take losses again . . . but not today.

Blackhawk ran his eyes over his people, checking, making sure they were ready. It was wholly unnecessary. They were veterans all, and whatever hell they raised in their off times, he knew they'd always be focused on the mission.

Ace Graythorn had a pair of pistols, and a long, thin knife hanging from his belt. He had a canvas strap thrown over his left shoulder, with half a dozen reloads for the pistols and four frag grenades hanging from it.

Shira had her pistol at her side, an old weapon, its grip nearly as worn as Blackhawk's own, and she carried an assault rifle, standard issue for the Celtiborian army, heavily modified to her own specifications.

Sarge stood, stooped forward a little, showing his age a bit more than he had before the war. His hands were clutched around an old assault rifle, and a pouch hung from his side. Blackhawk knew from his own experience that sack held six grenades, each of them modified with Sarge's handmade, freshly cut shards of metal. The homebrew frag grenades cut enemies to shreds better than any mass-produced weapon Blackhawk had ever seen.

Katarina Venturi stood behind them all, almost unnoticeable next to the bulkhead. The former assassin—formerly of the Sebastiani Assassins' Guild at least, if not of the profession itself—looked more like a noblewoman who'd booked passage on the _Claw_ than a deadly fighter. But everyone in Blackhawk's crew understood just how deadly an adversary she was. Her garb was far simpler than that of her comrades, a skintight black bodysuit, covered by a light cloak that seemed to be spun from the finest silk. The clothing was far more complicated than it looked, however, and much more high tech. The bodysuit was armor of a sort, strong enough to turn any blade, and filled with microfibers that would expand and become as hard as reinforced steel if struck by a projectile. And the cloak held pockets and pouches that almost mystically hid a panoply of weaponry, enough killing power, Blackhawk suspected, to depopulate a small town.

_If she even needed weapons at all,_ he thought.

"We're coming in, Cap . . . twenty seconds to drop." Lucas's voice had moved from the ship's speakers to the headsets they all wore. Once they left the _Claw,_ the comm would be their only link to the ship.

"Roger that, Lucas." Blackhawk reached out and smacked his hand on the controls, and an instant later, the hatch slid to the side. The portal opened smoothly, easily, unlike the days when this ship had been old and battered. The _Wolf's Claw_ had been completely refit after the war, to such a degree, Blackhawk wondered how much of his old ship really remained.

_No time for nostalgia, Ark. Focus . . ._

Ace moved forward, but Blackhawk slid over and blocked the way to the hatch. His people always tried to protect him, but if there was one rule on the _Claw,_ it was this. If Blackhawk led them into danger, he went first.

He watched as the ground came closer, the ship dropping slowly on its final approach. Then he took a deep breath and hopped out, landing hard on the ground a meter and a half below. The jarring feeling up his legs was a bit more pronounced than it once had been, proof that even genetically engineered monsters got old.

He pulled out his pistol, an act of reflex as much as a response to any real sign of danger. He turned three hundred sixty degrees, scanning all around. He knew his people were doing the same, but they lacked his eyesight. They were all good fighters, but they'd been born normally to mothers and fathers and not created by mad scientists combining the genes of hundreds of the empire's best specimens. Blackhawk could see twice as far as any of them, and with a clarity none of his people could imagine—even after he'd lost some of what he'd had in his youth.

He glanced up at the darkening sky. The sun was about to set. That left about an hour to get to the baseline of the ridge. Then, they would go up and over . . . and move on the château.

And, if all went well, Astra would have one less enemy conspiring against her in the night.

Without a word, the group moved forward.

The siren ripped through the cool night air, shattering the silence, and setting off an avalanche of shouts and alarms. Blackhawk and his team had managed to get through the outer fence without giving themselves away, and they'd made good use of the rare night when all three of the planet's moons were in their new phase. But their target was a man with enemies, and his refuge was surrounded with multiple warning systems.

Including the one that had just gone off.

Blackhawk felt the adrenaline flooding into his veins, the rush of alertness and strength he knew of as his battle trance. Part genetics, part conditioning, it was something that had seen him through countless deadly battles.

There are four enemies coming this way. One hundred to one hundred ten meters, just north of south-southwest.

Blackhawk nodded slightly, an affectation he'd developed over the years as a response to useful information he received from the AI in his head. Nasty thoughts were his typical reply to pointless commentary and suggestions, but those days were over. He just couldn't argue with the fact that the artificial presence was able to make even better use out of his enhanced senses than he was.

He spun around, focusing his eyes in the direction of the approaching guards. He could see something now, hints of movement. He glanced around quickly, finding a metal cube about a meter high. It was some kind of machinery, a water pump or transformer box.

It was also cover.

He reached down, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword. There was gunfire all around, but as far as he could tell, it was all from hostiles. His people knew better than to give their positions away with pointless shots into the darkness.

He listened, his ears now picking up the rustling sounds of the approaching men. They were closer now, close enough to see—and for them to see him—but he remained crouched down, hidden. His sword was out, his hand gripped tightly on the trusted old weapon. If he timed everything right, he could dispatch all four guards without firing a shot, and even without too many screams.

The enemy knew someone was on the property, or at least they suspected, but they didn't know who or where. And Blackhawk wanted to keep it that way, at least until he reached the house.

He slowed his breathing, taking in deep lungfuls and holding them while his ears tracked the approaching guards. They were off to the side, farther from his position than he would have liked. He'd have to lunge to the side, and he'd have to do it before any of them turned and looked over his way.

He could see the powerful searchlights the guards carried now. They were on a line three meters from where he was, or possibly four. Blackhawk centered himself, purged all thoughts but those of his impending strike. He could feel the worn leather of his blade's handle on his palm, his fingers. In his mind, and his muscle memory, images of a hundred past kills floated somewhere between the conscious and subconscious.

The lights drew closer, and now he could hear the banter between the guards. They were a little edgy, but he realized immediately they didn't sound like they were heading into combat.

_They think it's a false alarm . . . or just some vagrants or locals wandering on the property._

In a few seconds, he was going to disabuse them of that assumption in a profound and final way.

His muscles tensed, and he crouched down slightly, ready to spring into action. Time almost slowed, as it always did for him in battle. He knew where his enemies were, how quickly they were moving, the angle of their approach. His eyes were fixed on the location they would occupy in ten seconds, and he counted down slowly. He was ready, silent, barely breathing.

Then he lunged forward, even as his eyes locked on the closest of his enemies. The man didn't see him coming, and didn't hear him either, not until it was too late. Blackhawk's sword slashed out, the movement so rapid the blade was barely visible as a vague blur.

The man stumbled back, his hands moving to his throat, even as a spray of blood poured out all around. His mouth was open, but nothing more than a gurgling sound came out. Blackhawk's blade had cut deep, slicing arteries and vocal cords alike. The guard was dead before he hit the ground. But, by then, Blackhawk was on to the next one.

He struck, this time a sharp and deep stab to the chest of the second guard. Blackhawk's eyes, his enhanced vision, and the silent but true direction of the AI guided his blade in almost horizontally, slipping smoothly between two ribs and almost slicing his victim's heart in two.

Blackhawk pulled back hard, yanking the blade out and, in one smooth, continued motion, decapitated the third guard. He spun around, letting the momentum of his strike bring his body around, and he locked eyes with his last—and thoroughly terrified—victim. The man was frozen, seemingly stuck between trying to fight back and turning and running.

But neither option offered any real chance of survival. Not against an opponent like Blackhawk. Many fighters would have paused, their hands stayed, even for an instant, by pity. Others would have demanded surrender, given their adversary a chance at survival. But for all Blackhawk had progressed from his days as a remorseless killer, in the heat of combat, he knew he had to choose between two options: victory or death.

And knowing his death could mean the death of his crew and Astra, that was no choice at all.

Blackhawk's blade lunged out again, ripping through the panicked guard's body, the point driving straight through the man's back. The first three had gone down almost without a sound, but the last victim had managed a yell of sorts, though it was short, and cut off quickly by the sword.

Blackhawk looked all around, and he listened. He remained where he was for a minute, then two. Nothing. He flashed a quick thought to the AI to confirm.

I do not detect any enemy approaching within the maximum range of your limited senses.

He might have sparred with the AI, even traded insults, but that kind of foolishness was something Blackhawk's battle persona did not tolerate. The deadly game had begun, and there was only one thing that mattered just then.

Killing his enemies.

Ace Graythorn opened fire, the stream of bullets shattering the glass door and shredding the bodies of the four guards just inside. He'd held his fire, stuck to the plan, maintained silence as long as he could. But that last floodlight had caught him by surprise, standing right in the middle of the lawn behind the château. He'd exchanged glances with at least two of the guards, and even as he opened fire, he saw them trying to bring their own weapons to bear. Ace had the jump by perhaps half a second, and he'd yet to meet some gangster's hired thugs who could beat him to a shot. Still, it _was_ four to one, and even as the last of his opponents dropped, the final stricken guard got off a poorly aimed burst. The shots missed Graythorn, by at least a meter and a half, but he felt a shudder anyway. Getting shot at was never a comfortable feeling.

Ace raced through the shattered door and into the château. The _Claw_ 's assault team had gotten close under the cover of darkness, but now the surprise was gone. Everybody in the building knew they were under attack. Like a lot of their recent missions, Ace and the rest hadn't been able to get much intel, at least on the number of guards to expect, but his gut told him the five of them would be heavily outnumbered.

_So far, four to one. Not to say that's anything new . . ._

Ace swung his rifle back and forth, ready to fire at the slightest hint of any more guards. But there was nothing. He took the chance to pop the half-spent magazine and slam a fresh one in place. Then he moved deeper into the building.

He tapped the side of his headset, activating the transponder. The mission had called for radio silence, but there was no need for that anymore. He wasn't ready to speak—that would be too likely to give any enemies out there a chance to locate him—but the transponder's short bursts would let his comrades know where he was, and show him their locations, too, when they activated their own. The enemy could lock in on their net, in theory, but Doc Sandor had done the encryption programming, and the mission would be long over, one way or another, before anybody was going to break it.

Ace moved carefully over the shattered glass, trying to stay as quiet as he could. Rajit Durienne was in there somewhere, and for all the guards who got in the way—and the stash of valuables almost certainly stored in the château—Ace knew they were really there just to kill the petty crime lord.

No, petty wasn't quite fair—not anymore. Not if they were here to kill the man. Blackhawk believed his people bought the idea they were doing jobs solely for the plunder, but Ace knew damned well they were running interference for the new government, taking out anyone Blackhawk thought posed a threat to Astra Lucerne and her new order. He suspected his comrades all knew as well, and he was a little surprised Blackhawk hadn't figured that out yet. Ace would have followed Blackhawk anywhere for any reason, but watching his friend leave behind the woman he loved, and devote himself to protecting her, to risking his life for no gain, no credit . . . it only hardened his resolve. Ace had always respected Blackhawk, despite all he knew about the former imperial general he'd been, but after what he'd watched in the years since the war, his enemies would have to kill him—no, they would have to dismember him and bury the parts in different places—to drag him from Blackhawk's side.

He reached down, pulling up the small tablet hanging from his neck. There were five dots on the schematic it displayed. Five transponders.

Five killers from the _Claw_. On the hunt.

# Chapter 6

"Can I bring you anything, Marshal Lucerne?" The old woman stood in the doorway, looking in with a concerned expression on her face. "Something to eat, perhaps. You didn't touch your dinner."

"No thank you, Marta. I'm fine." Her tone suggested anything but, and the deep sadness she tried to hide came out in every word. Also, she knew she was Marshal Lucerne now, but she couldn't help but think of her father when she heard the title, or to think about how absurd it was for someone like herself, who'd never been a real soldier, to carry it. Astra knew her way around a fight well enough, but she'd never done service as an army or navy officer, and she sometimes wondered how long the troops would remain loyal to her, how many months or years it would be before they realized she was a fraud in all save her bloodline.

"Some tea, perhaps? We have a fresh shipment in from Sebastiani, the cinnamon blend you like so much." The woman's voice was troubled. She was almost begging for a chance to soothe Astra.

"Really, Marta, I'm okay. I'm just not hungry." A pause. "I'll have some of the tea in the morning, if you'll fix it for me. You know just how I like it." It was a salve, a balm to satisfy the woman's need to help her. For even though Astra was buried under work, awash in the blood spilled to unite the Far Stars, and heartbroken in her personal life, she'd long ago sworn she would always remember those who were loyal and cared. And that applied to _everyone,_ from the loftiest military commanders to the old woman who looked after her and brought her meals.

"Yes, Marshal . . . certainly. I will make sure it is here when you awaken, just the way you like it." Astra wasn't sure if she'd accomplished her goal, or just ensured that her loyal servant would be up all night waiting for the first sign she had risen. One thing was certain, though. Marta would be back with her breakfast before she'd managed to clear her eyes enough to see straight, and a pot of cinnamon tea would be the centerpiece of the tray, a batch the old woman would no doubt stare at intently all the while it brewed.

Astra Lucerne was standing next to the massive doors, looking out onto the large stone balcony as she heard her attendant leave. Her father's stronghold had been her home since birth, and while the end of the wars on Celtiboria had allowed her to soften some of the martial touches and replace them with a few creature comforts—like the four-meter-high glass doors—the place felt less comfortable to her than it ever had.

She remembered years before, standing on the fringes as her father and his generals made their plans. Her childhood had been an odd one certainly, filled with a legion of adoptive uncles who had also been Augustin Lucerne's trusted officers and retainers. Those days had been filled with tension and danger, and yet, somehow, she looked back on them fondly, as she did the years of her young adulthood, when her rashness and refusal to listen to anyone had put her in harm's way more than once.

By any objective measure, things in the Far Stars had never been better. Fully half of the worlds of the sector were members of the new confederation, either voluntarily or by total submission to her arms. Astra wasn't entirely comfortable with the aggressive actions her unification efforts often required. She was truly dedicated to bringing a better life to the people of the Far Stars, as her father had been . . . but she would have been more comfortable about it if she hadn't had to force it on so many.

She had no doubt the others would follow in short order. They'd only become weaker compared to her own rapidly increasing resources. Yes, things were going well on that front.

But it was a mountain of responsibility laid on her shoulders, and she mourned her father's death, not just for the absence she felt like a coldness in her heart, but for the fact that it meant she was alone in dealing with this new venture that spanned multiple suns. It rankled, too, that his loss had not come on the battlefield as she might have expected, but at the hands of an imperial assassin. Augustin Lucerne had deserved a better end than being murdered in his quarters.

And the Far Stars deserved better than her.

Perhaps it would have been easier—and she less self-doubting—if his death wasn't the only source of the emptiness she felt. But of course there was also Arkarin Blackhawk. She'd loved him for as long as she could remember. First, perhaps, through childish crushes, as the mysterious warrior appeared from time to time at her father's headquarters, but later with more substantive emotions. Blackhawk had saved her life, twice at least, and the older she got, the more she'd longed to be with him . . . and the greater her frustration at the adventurer's refusal to remain in one place for any length of time.

She understood it all now, of course—Blackhawk's tragic past, the crimes he'd committed under imperial conditioning, his long flight from what he'd been, what he still carried within him. He'd fought at her side during the wars, and he'd almost lost himself in doing it. She knew he couldn't stay near the halls of power . . . and as much as she wanted to follow him into obscurity, she owed her father to see his legacy continued.

To see the Far Stars strong and united.

_I love you, Father, always . . . but you left me such a burden._

She turned and walked back into the room, moving toward the large antique table she used as a desk. She had an office, of course, in the far wing of the stronghold, but she did much of her real work, at least the parts of it that required somber and reasoned thought, in her quarters.

A pile of tablets, and even paper envelopes and packages, lay on the corner of the desk, untouched, staring at her with an urgency she resisted. They were proposals and a few overly ambitious marriage contracts, offers from every planetary ruler and princely family in the Far Stars. She'd been courted by youngest sons, ten years her junior and sworn to serve her, and widowed old men, twice her age and more, bringing with them the allegiance of entire worlds, and vast wealth to swell her coffers. They were a selection of the most sought after marriage partners in the Far Stars, every one of them pursuing her with boundless energy and vigor . . . and she wanted nothing to do with any of them.

Astra loved only one man alive, and though she knew she could never be with him, the very idea of marrying another repulsed her. And yet she knew she would have to do just that one day. She needed an heir, a legitimate child, born to rule the Far Stars when she was gone. If she failed to provide that succession, the sector would almost certainly fall back into disunity and barbarism. Everything her father had worked for, everything _she_ had fought for, would be lost.

She'd tried to imagine ways around it, told herself she didn't need an heir, that she could make the Far Stars into a true republic, that elections could replace hereditary succession or rule by conquest. And that was true. Her father's plan had always been to bring liberty to the Far Stars. But the sector had long been a frontier filled with pirates and petty rulers, of injustices so numerous and profound as to defy description. It would be years before that past could be expurgated, generations before true democracy could come. Until that time, there had to be strength, certainty of succession, and a leader that her father's soldiers, the grim Celtiborian veterans who were in every way the main strength of her armed forces, would follow.

And they would follow, to a man, Augustin Lucerne's grandchild, even as they did his daughter.

So yes, she would _have_ to marry eventually. She knew it was inevitable, despite her attempts to put the thought out of her mind, to avoid facing the cold reality that the only man she wanted could never be hers. Blackhawk's military brilliance had won the war that saved the Far Stars from the empire and put Astra herself on a course toward uniting the fractious and feuding worlds. She knew why he couldn't be with her, and he understood why she couldn't follow him into quasi exile. She realized he would be the first to understand what she had to do, that the Far Stars needed an heir. But that didn't mean it wouldn't hurt him. There was a limit to the pain one person could endure, and she struggled to imagine what fraying force held Blackhawk together after all he'd been through, and how he'd react to news of her with another.

She stared at the pile for another few seconds. Her advisers, the diplomats she casually detested, would press her again in the morning, as they did almost every day, asking if she'd reviewed the proposals. Once again, she would tell them she hadn't, that military operations and other matters of state had placed too great a strain on her time.

_Or I'll just order them all shot._

She was kidding, of course, indulging in the sort of dark humor that so often accompanied a combination of stress and fatigue. _Or am I?_

She flopped down hard in her chair and turned her gaze from the stack of would-be suitors. There was other work, enough of it to last a lifetime, and right at the top was Rafaelus DeMark's weekly summary of operations under way. Her soldiers were conducting combat ops on seven planets, mostly mopping up the remnants of deposed governments. Astra had known the Far Stars suffered from a plague of vile and twisted despots, but the foul and sordid regimes her people had discovered—and destroyed—sickened her. She'd despised the empire as long as she'd had conscious knowledge of its existence, but she couldn't imagine it was any worse than some of the governments she'd toppled over the past three years.

A thought crossed her mind: DeMark. If she had to marry someone, why not her father's most loyal general, a soldier who had stood by her unflinchingly, and without whom she doubted she could have gotten through the last three years?

Answers flooded into her mind. For one thing, she'd known the officer since she was a child, and she'd always thought of him as more of an informal uncle than anything else. He was significantly older than she was, but of course, Ark was nearly as old, whether he looked it or not.

More of a concern, though, was that DeMark was already completely in her camp, of course, and such a marriage would do little to cement diplomacy where it would aid her cause. But she _could_ trust him utterly, and that was more than she could say of some random potentate or petty sovereign's son.

_But he's Ark's friend . . . and that would make it even harder. For him._

_And for me, too._

She sighed and tapped the front of the tablet with DeMark's report and slid her fingers to the side, moving right to the casualty reports. She hated reading about her soldiers being killed and maimed, but it matched her mood just then.

Besides, if they could fight and die for her, the least she could do was read the reports that told her what she had traded their lives for.

It wasn't like she could sleep anyway.

# Chapter 7

Blackhawk's fingers slipped into a crack in the masonry wall, and he hauled himself up another half meter toward the row of windows just above his head. He didn't _know_ Rajit Durienne's bedchamber was the one he was heading toward, but he'd long ago learned to trust his instincts.

The sounds of fighting were everywhere. His people knew how to take care of themselves, but that didn't mean a random shot from a rookie guard couldn't take one of them down. He was proud of each of them for their abilities, but they were damned sure outnumbered.

Which made him worried.

_They can handle it._

He forced himself to believe that, as he had so many times before.

Not that he was invulnerable himself, and even though he kept hidden in the shadows as he climbed, one stroke of bad luck was all it would take, a guard looking up, catching a hint of movement in the faint reflected glow from the spotlights. Blackhawk knew time wasn't on his side, but even with his extraordinary physical attributes, climbing up an almost sheer face of smooth-faced stone was a difficult endeavor.

He glanced quickly down, a pointless effort to catch a glimpse of his people. All he saw was a pair of guards, racing into the château, another stroke of luck as neither of them looked up toward him. For all his efforts to push down his worry, he found he was now fighting back doubts, and _that_ worried him most of all.

Because it was his decision that had allowed his crew to become involved in his endeavors. It had been different when they'd been adventurers out to make their fortunes, and even later, when they all had good-size troves of coin stashed around the Far Stars. But they had fought a war since then, and the poorest members of his crew could live like kings. And while he'd been selfishly grateful when they'd all come back to the _Claw,_ he was becoming more and more concerned about putting them all at risk, especially under the pretense of simply amassing more riches when they all had more than they could ever spend.

_So finish this, and get them back to safety. And maybe after we're done, I can finally let them go._

_Maybe . . ._

He hoisted himself up onto the small ledge, and he looked inside the window. There were bars behind the glass, solid-looking ones, and beyond, a shadowy image of a room plush enough to be Rajit Durienne's chamber. The gangster hadn't been anything special, just a midlevel cog in the Kilian brotherhood, itself an unspectacular organization dealing mostly in extortion and loan-sharking. The Kilians had benefited enormously from the job Astra Lucerne's forces had done in clearing away their larger rivals. They'd been just small enough to escape the heaviest sweeps, but large enough to expand rapidly and fill much of the void. That had allowed local thugs like Durienne to accumulate more wealth and power—and a higher body count—in three years than they'd amassed in decades-long careers before.

Blackhawk hadn't come to put Durienne out of his illegal businesses, but he'd shaken down a few of the crime lord's cronies—using methods uncomfortably close to those he'd learned in the empire—and he'd picked up a disturbing bit of information. The Kilians were planning a major move to dominate the underworld of the Far Stars . . . and job one in that effort was to be the assassination of Astra Lucerne.

Blackhawk wasn't sure he believed they could pull it off. Astra was surrounded by fanatically loyal soldiers. But he wasn't about to take the chance, and that meant taking out the prime mover behind the plan. Rajit Durienne. The gangster and loan shark had to die, before he had the chance to add political assassination to his list of accomplishments.

Before he had the chance to hurt Astra.

Blackhawk couldn't tell if his target was in the room, but he knew just how to deal with the security bars. He reached into the pouch at his belt and pulled out a small blob of plastic explosive and affixed it to the window. Then he shoved a small detonator into it, and he shuffled to the side, trying to put enough distance between him and the bomb.

When he was as far away as he could get, he pressed the small button on the remote hanging from his belt.

The blast was almost deafening, and the wall shook all around him. His fingers ached, struggling to hang on to his tenuous perch. He swung around, hard, almost immediately, coming perilously close to losing his grip as he vaulted through the shattered window, just scraping his arm on the twisted remnants of one of the bars.

He landed with a combat roll, and he came up with his rifle in his hands. His eyes darted around the room, checking for Durienne, for guards, for danger.

The room was empty.

He ran over to the desk along the far wall and scanned it closely. This _was_ Durienne's chamber, he was almost sure of it. The richness of the furnishings, the look of the items lying on the workspace. There was a small lamp on the desk, shining a bright, focused light down over a pair of tablets in the center of the workspace. Blackhawk had been pretty sure his raid had taken the target by surprise, but now he was sure. Durienne had been in his quarters working. It was late, very late, and that probably meant those tablets had useful information on them.

He reached down and scooped them up, slipping them into the bag slung across his back. He'd see what they contained later. He had something more important to do just then.

He had a man to find.

And kill.

Shira crept down the hall, pistol in her hand. She'd tossed away the assault rifle after she'd gone through her last magazine. The firefight at the main entrance had been intense, and she and Sarge had been bogged down behind a pile of crates halfway in the front yard before Ace had turned up and given them enough firepower to clear out the defenders. The whole thing had taken eleven minutes, and while that wasn't all that long—or anywhere near as extended a time as it had seemed—it was enough to throw the whole operational plan into the latrine. The intel had been light on the op, and that meant they had no real idea how many guards were on the premises, or what help they could call on. Shira didn't know how tight a grip Durienne had on the local law enforcement, but she'd seen gangsters who'd utterly controlled the police forces in their areas. If Durienne was one of those, she figured they'd be seeing convoys of vehicles coming any minute, maybe even a few airships.

That would throw everything into the dumper.

She'd caught a glimpse of Blackhawk climbing up the outside of the château. That hadn't been part of the plan, but then the captain had always kept things close to the vest, especially when he was sticking his neck out a bit farther than he wanted his crew to emulate. She didn't know if Blackhawk had intended to scale the exterior all along, or if it had been an opportunity he'd seen once the action had started, but she'd learned long before that the worst thing she could do was to interrupt him. She'd seen Arkarin Blackhawk in the middle of combat before, and it was just about the only thing in her collection of nightmarish memories that truly scared her. She had Blackhawk's back, always.

But she also knew when to stay out of his way.

She spun around the corner, pistol ready, eyes scanning all around. Nothing. There had been a lot of guards in the firefight at the front of the building, but Shira had never had a thought in her life optimistic enough to suggest that she and her comrades had taken out all their adversaries. Things could get better, or they could get worse.

They usually got worse.

She walked down the hallway out into a large open area with a staircase. It was large, but not as grand as the main one just inside the front entry. Servants' stairs.

She crept up the first few steps, feeling exposed as she continued up. Her main focus was at the top of the stairs, where three hallways opened onto the landing. She could almost sense the guards up there, crouched down, waiting for her to come close to the top before they opened fire.

She stopped, listening, trying to get any sense of enemies moving around at the top . . . but there was nothing. Either her imagination was running wild with her, or the guards lying in wait were very cool customers. She took another few steps, stopping again to listen.

This time she heard something. A loud blast, from the second level. An explosion.

Her analysis of the risks changed instantly. She'd been worried about guards hiding at the top, but whatever she'd just heard was more important. Her friends might be in trouble.

If any of them were where that thing went off . . .

She raced up the stairs, gripping the pistol tightly, ready to drop anything that moved or breathed. But there was nothing. Nothing but the massive explosion echoing in her head.

Somehow that worried her even more.

Blackhawk was on his back, lying against the wall. He wasn't unconscious, but he was stunned. His helmet was gone, and he could feel the wetness on the back of his head, blood from where he'd slammed into the wall.

Danger, Blackhawk. Pull it together, now. Enemies approaching.

He could hear the AI, but the words were meaningless. He was struggling to remember where he was, to regain his focus. Then he felt the hands grabbing him, pulling him roughly to his feet.

"Who are you?" The voice was scratchy, menacing. "Who sent you?"

Blackhawk didn't answer, mostly because he was still trying to regain his senses.

"Encourage him to cooperate." The threat in the tone was unmistakable, even as Blackhawk still struggled to gain full control of himself. A few seconds later he felt something. He was unsure what it was for a few seconds.

Then: _pain!_

It was a blade of some kind, cutting into his side, slicing into the flesh. He shook himself hard and tried to get away from his tormentors. He sent the man with the knife to the floor, hard, but not as hard as he'd intended. He fell back into the wall, also knocking down the two who'd been holding him in place. But he realized they had already gotten his hands in shackles. He pulled his arms hard, trying to break free, ignoring the pain in his hands and wrists, but the metal was too strong.

"I will ask you again," the voice said. "Who are you, and why have you come here?"

Blackhawk's awareness was almost back. There were five figures in the room. The one speaking to him was clearly in charge. That was obvious from his dress, his demeanor, the tone of his voice . . .

_Durienne._

Blackhawk stared back at his tormentor. He tried to steady himself on his feet, to prepare to lunge forward, but then he felt something hit his stomach. A rifle butt. He wobbled where he was, but he didn't fall. It was endurance, strength—and maybe a touch of pride—keeping him on his feet.

Then the rifle slammed into his midsection again, and even the mighty Arkarin Blackhawk tumbled hard to the floor.

Blackhawk didn't give up, not ever. But he was a realist, too. He'd come to kill Durienne, but things were looking grim. He'd always known one day some fight would be his last.

Was this it?

If so, his ego was not happy at the thought. To be taken down by such a nonentity as Durienne?

No, he wasn't ready to die just yet.

He just wasn't sure he had a choice.

He swung his body hard to the side, trying with all his strength to break the shackles, to try to get back on his feet. Then, a boot slammed into his midsection, just below his armor. More pain. He ignored it, but he didn't have the strength to break free. He lurched hard, flipping himself over, and he somehow managed to get his legs under him. He pushed, with all the strength he could muster, and somehow he was barely able to get back on his feet. He was coughing, spitting up blood, but none of that mattered. He was like a feral beast, driving toward the men in front of him, determined to kill his enemy, however unlikely that seemed.

"This one won't break." It was the same voice, with a finality to the tone that hadn't been there before. "He won't tell us anything. Kill him."

Blackhawk's body tensed, even as he threw himself to the side, an attempt to evade whatever attack was coming. He heard a shot, then another. For an instant, he thought he was hit, but then he realized he'd gotten out of the way just in time.

It was a victory, a small, fleeting one. Enough to buy another few seconds of life, though. And perhaps that's all he needed.

But then another shot. He tensed again . . . but the sound of the gun was different, higher pitched.

And familiar. He'd heard that weapon before.

It fired again, then twice more. Blackhawk could see the shadows on the wall, the guards dropping to the floor. He turned, first one way, then the other, his eyes moving to the felled soldiers. They were dead, all of them, each with a single red circle in the center of their foreheads. He only knew one person that precise, excluding himself.

He sucked in a deep and ragged breath, and then he looked right at Durienne . . . and at Katarina Venturi standing behind the gangster, her razor-sharp blade at his throat.

"Katarina . . . I'm not sure what to say." His voice was back, if a bit worse for wear, and his vision was close to its usually precise state. "You saved my life. Thank you."

"My pleasure, Ark. I told you when I came back to the _Claw,_ I was part of the crew. And, you know I mean what I say . . . at least to you." The last few words were crucial. Blackhawk couldn't even imagine the number of lies she'd told in her various covers as a former assassin. The Sebastiani were a strange group, one that had somehow perfected the seemingly oxymoronic skill of lying with honor. What she was saying invoked all that honor, but with none of the irony.

"Well, I'm damned glad you did." He took a step forward, his eyes focusing on Durienne. He could see the fear in the gangster's eyes. He had just opened his mouth to speak when Shira and Ace came running into the room.

"I'm glad you two could make it," he said, turning and extending his shackled arms toward Shira. "If you don't mind . . ."

She took a step forward, and without a word she brought her pistol to bear and fired a single shot, snapping the shackle's chain. "Sorry we're late, Ark, but at least _we_ didn't manage to get ourselves chained up." There was a touch of humor in her voice, but she was still on edge. They still had no idea what other threats remained in the building, or were possibly on the way.

"You want me to make him talk?" Katarina's voice was almost noncommittal, but Blackhawk knew enough about Venturi to understand just how chilling a question that was.

He looked at the gangster, who was trying to scream, to beg for mercy, but he couldn't quite force the words from his throat. Blackhawk stared for a few seconds, his expression cold, morphing almost to stone. His hand dropped to the bag at his side, feeling the outline of the two tablets inside.

"No, we didn't come here for information . . . and I've already got all we could want anyway. I suspect we've got more trouble heading this way. I think it's time to call Lucas and get the _Claw_ here." He turned toward Shira and Ace—and Sarge, who came jogging into the room as he was speaking. "You three, I figure you've got eight minutes before we bug out of here, so go find anything you want to take out of here. And be careful . . . there might be more bogies hiding somewhere."

Shira and the others nodded and raced out of the room, even as Blackhawk pulled the small comm unit from his belt, his finger hovering over the _Claw_ 's recall button. He pressed it, and then he looked back at Venturi. He paused for a few seconds, then he stared right into Durienne's eyes.

"It's time to finish the mission." Another pause. "Kill him."

Blackhawk watched as an instant later, Venturi's blade sliced across the gangster's throat in a motion of almost unparalleled grace . . . and his lifeless body fell to the floor with a loud thud.

# Chapter 8

"Your Excellency, we have received a report from the monitoring station orbiting Visagera. A number of ships—very large ships—have jumped into the system." The aide stood just inside the doorway leading into the palatial office.

Stanton Halvert looked up from his vast desk—currently covered with reports and tablets full of dispatches, requests, and complaints. He'd seen hard service in Augustin Lucerne's army, and he'd risen to a general's rank. He'd also been one of the few who'd garnered the full trust of the great marshal. But none of that had prepared him for the work he'd been called to do in the service of Lucerne's daughter.

Astra had handpicked him for the job, to take over the administration of the former provincial capital of the empire's small swatch of systems in the Far Stars. For a thousand years, Galvanus Prime had stood as an ominous warning, the planet everyone in the sector knew would rule over them all if imperial claims to the Far Stars ever became reality. Now, that world, like the other five in the onetime imperial demesne, had been liberated and incorporated into the growing Far Stars Confederation. But military conquest was one thing, as was signing treaties changing a world's status. But undoing a millennium of imperial rule, rooting out corruption and an entrenched nobility, that was quite another.

It was work for a diplomat, or for a policeman. But not for a soldier.

Yet, Halvert was there, a soldier given the job, and the reason it had fallen to him had turned out to be the sole factor in preventing him from refusing it. Astra Lucerne _trusted_ him, and she needed someone in that nest of ex-imperial vipers in whom she could have total, unshakable faith.

He wasn't about to let her down.

Still, he was intrigued by this new report. At least ships would take his mind off-planet, even if only for a few moments.

"Details, Farrus . . . I need specifics. What, exactly, did the scanners pick up?" Halvert sighed. He'd appointed a number of locals to his staff, an outreach of sorts to a population that had been under the iron boot of the empire for fifty generations. But "very large" didn't meet the standards he expected in his reports. He almost smiled when he thought of how Augustin Lucerne would have reacted to that kind of dispatch.

"I'm sorry, General." The aide fumbled with a small tablet in his hands, glancing down at the screen. "Ten ships, General . . . Governor. Mass . . ." The aide hesitated.

"Spit it out, Farrus." Halvert should have known of any incoming ships, and certainly any large freight convoys, but the only other large ships would be military, and _that_ he would definitely know about.

"Five point seven billion tons, Governor." The aide's voice was shaky, and barely audible. It was clear he hadn't _really_ read the tonnages, even as he repeated them . . . or, at least, that they hadn't truly registered in his mind.

"Five point seven _billion_?" Halvert had only been half listening, but now his attention was fully on the man standing in front of him. "I think you'd better go and recheck those figures." He shook his head. He didn't know who had fouled up, but he was sure there wasn't a ship in the Far Stars anywhere close to that size.

"Yes, Governor . . . I'm sorry." The man turned and took a step toward the door, when a woman came running in. She wore a crisp uniform, dazzling Celtiborian dress reds, and her bearing was worlds apart from the aide. Major Glistyne Loriman was part of the tiny staff he'd brought with him to Galvanus Prime. Halvert had taken to wearing civilian dress, mostly to lessen the feel of what was, in effect, still military rule on the planet. But he'd kept his Celtiborian staff in their uniforms, though he wasn't sure if he'd done it for them, or for him.

"General Halvert . . ." He knew immediately something was wrong, and unlike the civilian aide, he trusted Loriman's words completely. ". . . Visagera Station has stopped transmitting. Their last communique sent images of the approaching ships. I had it sent to your screen."

Halvert looked at the workstation on the side of his desk. He reached over and pulled up the dispatch Loriman had sent.

His eyes froze on the screen.

The image only lasted a few seconds before the drone transmitting it had been destroyed, and then it looped around. Halvert realized almost immediately that the tonnage figures Farrus had reported a few moments before were correct. The ships on his screen were that large.

It seemed impossible, and for a fleeting instant he wondered where in the Far Stars they could have come from. Then cold realization set in.

He'd heard of imperial battleships, of the immense floating fortresses that were the ultimate tools of the emperor's will. Vast, immensely powerful, pure manifestations of terror . . . but always with the caveat, the one thing that had saved the Far Stars for centuries: no ship that size had ever successfully crossed the Void.

_Until now._

For all his decades of combat experience, Halvert suddenly felt sick to his stomach. It was a terrible realization, and his mind tried to rebel against it, to seek solace in the long-held belief that the Far Stars were safe from the emperor's terrible war machines.

But there was nothing else they could be. The empire was back in the Far Stars, with far greater strength than ever before. Even as he realized without a doubt that the base orbiting Visagera was gone, almost certainly vaporized under the fire of the massive imperial batteries, something even more disturbing crystallized in his mind.

Those ships were heading toward Galvanus Prime, even as he sat at his desk. He jumped up, gesturing with his arms as he began to snap out orders.

"Planetary alert, Farrus . . . now!" He waved toward the door, sending the panicked aide fleeing out almost at a dead run. He turned toward Loriman.

"Mobilize all units, Major . . . every ship we've got, every soldier on leave. We've got a fight coming, and it's going to take all we can muster if we're going to have any chance at all."

But, even as he said the words, he knew in his heart that nothing he could do would make any difference at all. Not against the shadow of doom approaching Galvanus.

"Launch all attack craft, Admiral Greeves."

Idilus stood in the center of _Vaxillus_ 's great control center, a circular room eighty meters across, holding more than a hundred bridge officers, plus dozens of guards and aides and attendants. The imperial service had never been called an understated affair, and the operations of a ship containing over one hundred thousand spacers, soldiers, and others was proof of that.

"Yes, General." The admiral's response was sharp and respectful. The rank structures of the imperial forces were a bit jumbled at the top. Admirals and generals were roughly equivalent in rank, at least notwithstanding the other details of their noble standings and appointments. Idilus had already outranked Greeves before the emperor had granted him viceregal status in the Far Stars, but on a ship, it could sometimes be problematic about who was actually in charge. Greeves responding so quickly showed the others it was Idilus . . . except that wasn't exactly true.

There was still Ignes Inferni.

The notorious general carried his own assortment of special ranks and privileges. For now, Inferni was letting Idilus run things. But he didn't have the slightest doubt Inferni would kill him without a second thought if he got in the way.

The uncertainty of authority between the two muddied the rank structure of the expedition, but Idilus knew that had been by design. The emperor was nothing if not paranoid, and for all he demanded his military run like a well-tuned machine, he also tended to keep his senior officers competing with one another, serving as bulwarks against any one of them becoming too powerful. A general or admiral making himself an emperor was hardly without precedent in history.

_I don't want to be emperor, though. I just don't want to be killed for one's fit of pique._

But he was confident in his mission, and having successfully brought the imperial forces through the Void, he had already regained some of the stature he had lost in the eyes of the emperor.

He hoped.

"All vessels report launch operations under way, General."

Idilus just nodded, barely. The report didn't need a response, and he didn't waste time in giving one. He just turned and looked at the massive display on the far wall of the bridge, as oblong clouds of tiny specs began to appear next to his ships and move slowly forward, ahead of the ten massive battleships.

Each of his great mobile fortresses carried a thousand attack ships, each in turn carrying a three-person crew, as well as lasers, antiship torpedoes, and ground bombardment missiles. Each one of the almost-imperceptible dots on the screen carried the seeds of massive death and destruction, and there would soon be ten thousand of them in the space in front of his ships, all of them heading toward Galvanus Prime.

Idilus's orders for the Far Stars were clear, especially regarding Celtiboria, but Galvanus had been an imperial world for centuries, and the emperor wanted it back. There would be executions, almost certainly, even genocide. There was little doubt many of the people of Galvanus had welcomed the Celtiborian invaders, or at least had not mounted the kind of resistance the emperor demanded from his subjects against enemies. But Idilus had been charged to retake the planet, not depopulate it. Not completely.

That meant the attack ships would be followed by landers. Each of his ships carried a full imperial legion, two hundred thousand combat soldiers in all. It wasn't large, not by imperial standards on the other side of the Void, but Idilus didn't imagine the entire Far Stars contained enough strength to stop his soldiers. Whatever defensive force had been cobbled together on Galvanus, it wouldn't hold out for a week . . . if it lasted that long. Galvanus was, and would again be, the imperial sector capital, and he intended to burn the images of the power of the empire into its billions.

A ripple of . . . _something_. . . swept across the vast room. A stillness at odds with the activity of all those directing the attack. Idilus turned, knowing before his eyes confirmed, that Ignes Inferni had stepped onto the bridge.

"General Inferni . . . how can I assist you?" Idilus's words were respectful, but there was caution there, too, even resentment. He had everything under control, and the last thing he needed was Inferni interfering with the operation just as it was getting started.

"I require one of your battleships, General." His tone was cold, his voice deep.

"General Inferni, I have only ten ships to secure the worlds of the demesne, and to execute the imperial ban on Celtiboria. I am afraid I . . ."

"I require one of your battleships." Inferni repeated himself. There was no noticeable change in his tone.

"Now?"

"Now."

It was a struggle not to just explode on the man. _Now? He waited until the moment of attack for this "request"?_

But that was the thing: it _wasn't_ a request. The emperor had made it more than clear that Inferni's mission trumped Idilus's, despite the fact that the pursuit of one man hardly seemed as important as taking back an entire sector. Logic, though, wasn't part of the equation at the moment, and—with a swallow of pride and anger—Idilus gave in, knowing that any further hesitation could be the equivalent of signing his own death warrant.

"You may take _Exantallus_ , General Inferni. Your mandate from the emperor must be fulfilled . . . and I believe I can complete my own with only nine ships." It was an attempt to save face. The act didn't fool himself, and almost certainly not Inferni, but he hoped it was convincing to the officers surreptitiously observing this exchange.

"Very well, General." A pause, only a few seconds. "I will take your shuttle to _Exantallus_. I will send it back before I depart the system."

"That will be perfectly satisfactory, General Inferni." Idilus practically choked on the obsequiousness emanating from his mouth.

Inferni simply nodded, as if such deference was his due—which it _was,_ with all the blood on his hands—his face emotionless. He turned, and without another word, walked back into the elevator from which he'd emerged.

Idilus felt relief almost the instant the doors closed.

He felt rage, too, and humiliation, and he glared at the display, now filled with his attack ship formations. The traitors of Galvanus Prime would pay for his embarrassment.

They would pay dearly.

# Chapter 9

"What do you want to do with him, Ark? It's been a while since we've chucked anybody out the airlock." Blackhawk watched as Ace Graythorn played the heavy, doing his best to scare the skinny young man sitting at the table in the middle of the _Claw_ 's lower deck.

Blackhawk shifted slightly in his chair, wincing a bit at the pain caused by the motion. He was angry with himself, for letting Durienne almost get the better of him.

_Almost my ass . . . if Kat hadn't shown up just in time, you'd be dead now. You're losing it, you fool, prowling around out here in the middle of nowhere, lost and depressed like some heartbroken kid . . . but what else can you do? You can't handle the power, not without becoming something you can't allow . . . and the Far Stars needs Astra where she is, in her father's place, leading billions of people to a brighter future. This is where you belong._

_It is your penance._

He stared at the man, who was clearly terrified that Ace was serious. Blackhawk knew better, at least he figured there were four chances in five his second was just messing with the . . . what was he, a prisoner? A guest? He wasn't sure, but whatever the captive turned out to be, Blackhawk was pretty sure his second wasn't ready to murder him. He'd left the fifth chance in his thought as an allowance, just in case.

Ace Graythorn _did_ have a bit of a nasty temper at times.

"No, I don't think so, Ace. He looks harmless enough." Blackhawk's people had exterminated Durienne's gang, down to the last miserable thug hiding in the basement. But they'd found something else down there, too: a series of holding cells. Most of those held locals, men and women who'd run afoul of the gangsters somehow, or hostages being held for ransom, but one of the prisoners had begged them to take him off the planet, to take him anywhere they were going. "And, from what he told us back at the château, it sounds like he just might be useful." Blackhawk could see the relief in the man's face, and he turned and glared at the . . . guest, he'd decided to consider him for the moment. "If he was lying to us, though, then you can space him." It was a cruel remark, one he regretted as soon as he'd said it. Blackhawk had changed enormously since his days as the imperial general Frigus Umbra, but he still had a nasty streak of his own that surfaced from time to time, slipping past the layers of control he'd built up over the years.

Still, the guest was fortunate, Blackhawk knew. If any of his own people had been killed, or if the situation had still been in serious doubt when they'd found the dungeon, things could have gone quite differently for the man sitting at the table, scared out of his mind, but otherwise just fine.

Alion Belakov was the name the man had given, and for the most part Blackhawk believed it wasn't a cover. The thing was, the name wasn't a fit for Thangrin, or any of the other nearby worlds, and the fact that their guest had clearly been brought there from some distance supported, at least to some extent, the claims he'd been shanghaied to this planet for a specific reason. Belakov said it was his computer expertise.

_Extraordinary_ expertise, actually.

And if he was telling the truth about the work he'd been doing for Durienne, he was a valuable passenger indeed, worth a thousand times his weight in gold.

_If_ he'd been telling the truth. Arkarin Blackhawk never believed anything he was told, not until he saw proof. At the moment, however, he was intrigued. And now that no one was shooting at them, it was time to go beyond "some extent" on that evidence and figure out exactly who they'd found in Durienne's dungeon, and what use, if any, he offered to the _Claw_ 's crew.

"You said something in the château about software you were developing for Durienne. The fact that you were working for him isn't exactly the best reference, certainly not from our point of view."

"I wasn't working _for_ him, Captain Blackhawk. At least, not voluntarily." He reached up and pulled a clasp open on the top of his tunic. The fabric dropped down to his waist, revealing his chest . . . and half a dozen rows of scars and half-healed wounds. "I resisted for as long as I could . . . but . . ." His voice cracked, and he paused for a few seconds.

Blackhawk just nodded, and he reached out and grabbed the cloth of the tunic—noting how Belakov flinched for just a moment—before pulling it back up and covering the injuries.

"I see. Well, for whatever reasons, what was it you were working on? You were very brief down in the cells, which was understandable. You're safe now, at least for the moment, so you can tell us more about yourself, and what you were doing for Durienne."

"I . . . I've always had a strong understanding of computer algorithms and logical structures. I can't explain it, not entirely. I can just look at complex programs and understand them almost immediately." He paused. "I can't say I put my skills to entirely . . . admirable . . . use, but I was never like Durienne."

"Our hats have been a bit grayer than white sometimes, too." _And your hat was as black as they come once, Blackhawk_. "Go on."

"Well, I used to do projects for the Far Stars Bank . . . mostly 'off the books' operations, targeting parties involved in fraud or defaults. Mostly, I developed ways to penetrate computer security systems of the bank's targets, securing data and tracking the funds the bank was after." A short pause. "I'm afraid those operations were often in violation of local planetary laws."

Belakov looked around nervously, but none of the _Claw_ 's crew members clustered around him seemed terribly concerned about what laws he might have violated. Blackhawk suspected most of those he'd gone after were criminals themselves, and while the pre-Celtiborian takeover Far Stars Bank had sometimes operated much like a criminal organization itself, most of those it took action against were worse.

Besides, Blackhawk and his band had done no small number of jobs for the bank over the years, and the _Claw_ 's missions almost certainly had carried a far higher body count than Belakov's.

"Let me guess. Work stopped coming a few years ago, right?" Blackhawk knew firsthand that Astra had sent in her people to take over operations of the Far Stars Bank, and to expel all those who'd run things before. Her actions had been no more "legal" than the bank's previous activities, but they were backed up by Augustin Lucerne's veteran legions, and his daughter's spine, which was proving to be as rigid and unbreakable as her father's had been. The Far Stars Bank was central now in the campaign to unite the Far Stars, and it played a major role in seeing that capital flowed to backward planets to fund modernization and industrialization.

That change also meant that work for hackers like Belakov and mercenaries like Blackhawk's people had dried up considerably.

Belakov looked down at the table, silent for a moment before he replied. "I haven't had a job from the bank in three years. That's why . . ." He paused again, clearly uncomfortable, and scared as well, to continue.

"Honesty is the best way to go, here." Blackhawk's voice was stern, but he'd backed off on the threatening tone a bit. "We've all done things we're not proud of, and no one here is going to judge how you made your living. But if you lie to us . . ." That last bit _was_ threatening, just as Blackhawk intended.

"I started taking different jobs. After all, ten years' experience hacking into computer systems isn't exactly the best reference for a legitimate job, at least not a good one. So the projects I found were a little edgy, no worse, maybe, than what I'd done, but without the stamp of quasi legitimacy the bank could put on them. Then Durienne's people contacted me."

"What did they want you to do?"

"It started reasonably enough, not unlike the jobs I'd done for the bank. Some kind of financial dispute. They'd had some money stolen from them, and they wanted to get it back. It seemed like a disagreement between two criminals, and I figured I'd be able to stay out of it beyond giving them the code they needed. But then . . ."

"Then?"

"Well, I breached their enemy's security systems so they could recover what was stolen from them. But they . . ." Belakov was clearly upset, even more than he'd been from fear earlier. His mouth was still open, but the words had ceased.

"It's okay, Alion . . ." Blackhawk was sympathetic now. He was no stranger to remorse, and he could recognize it in someone else in an instant.

"They attacked the stronghold. They must have sent a hundred of their people. They caught the defenders completely by surprise . . . and they killed them all." He paused again, inhaling a deep and ragged breath. "All of them, even the children. They didn't leave anybody alive. No one at all . . ." He hesitated again, sniffling hard as he tried to hold back tears. "I let them in, knocked down the defenses so they could do it."

Blackhawk leaned over and put his hand on the man's shoulder. "You didn't know what they were going to do, Alion. They used you, took advantage of you."

Analysis of facial tension, body temperature, and tone of voice suggest a 93.725 percent probability that subject Belakov is speaking honestly.

Blackhawk was pretty sure that his own judgment was good enough to tell him that. That said, he was just as happy for the backup, even if he couldn't quite admit it to himself.

"Shira . . . let's set up some quarters for Alion here. I don't think he's a threat." That wasn't exactly true. As the AI had said, there was still a possibility this was some kind of ploy. But getting the new arrival to relax and let go of some of his fear was probably crucial to determining if the man was, in fact, trustworthy, or even more, if he might have a future on the _Claw_. His skill set was incredibly useful, there was no question about that . . . and he seemed to have another trait in common with every member of the _Claw_ 's crew when they first set foot on the ship. He didn't seem to have anyplace else to go.

"Whatever you say, Ark." There was still an edge to Shira's tone. In some ways, she had an even more skeptical view of people than Blackhawk did. She turned toward Belakov. "Let's go . . . you look like shit, and some rest will do you good." It was her version of being nice.

Blackhawk watched as Shira led Belakov down the corridor, remaining silent until the hatch closed behind them. Then he turned toward Ace.

"Set the ship's AI to keep an eye on him, Ace . . . and keep that door locked. Let him call us when he's ready to come back out." Blackhawk was hopeful he'd found another misfit for his strange and gifted band of adventurers.

But he was still Arkarin Blackhawk, and that meant he was still suspicious.

# Chapter 10

"You've got about two minutes before they're in range, Captain. We're all counting on you down here. We need you to make every shot count."

"We will, General. You can count on us. They won't know what hit them."

"I'll leave you to your duties, Captain." Halvert cut the connection. The entire exchange was an exercise in foolishness, a bunch of nonsense neither man believed. There were nine thousand attack ships approaching Galvanus—eight thousand nine hundred eighty-six exactly according to what little remained of the system's scanner array. All that stood against them was a handful of small orbital forts and a dozen Celtiborian navy ships, mostly light frigates. They would fight, more because there was no chance of escaping from the far faster attack ships, than any hope they had of victory. But they would also lose, and lose badly, and Halvert didn't expect the fight would last longer than a few minutes.

Then the landings would begin. He'd prepared for the ground defense as much as he'd been able to manage in the few hours he'd had. He'd moved headquarters from the magnificent building the new Galvanus government had taken over from the defeated imperials to an underground bunker. He didn't expect the imperials to bombard the surface, at least not heavily. Galvanus had been their capital, and they no doubt still considered it as such. They would want it back as a base, and with as little damage as possible. That didn't give the defenders a real chance at victory, but it was something, at least.

Halvert had learned war from none other than Augustin Lucerne, and one of the earliest lessons had been a simple one: never surrender. Fight. Fight with all the skill and strength you possessed. That applied even more to war against the empire. Most of what Halvert knew of the emperor fit more into the rumor and legend category than it did reliable fact. But if even a fraction of the stories he'd heard about the reputed brutality of that regime were true, then surrender was truly not an option. Most likely, no quarter would even be offered, and if it was, he imagined the fate of those captured would make a quick death on the battlefield seem like salvation.

Halvert looked down at the controls on his workstation, his eyes focusing on a single, red lever. He'd deployed the scout ship to the outer system almost immediately after he'd arrived, a sort of last-ditch way of alerting the high command on Celtiboria if something was amiss on Galvanus. He'd imagined rebellions or operations conducted by imperial sleeper cells, or something of the like. The thought of an outright invasion by forces of the empire had never entered his mind. That had long been the threat hanging over the Far Stars, of course, but it was also the danger everyone thought of, but no one really believed could happen.

Now, it had happened, and there was no chance for any of his ships to escape, to carry the news back to Astra Lucerne. None but the tiny scout ship, lying out on the fringes of the system, waiting for the signal. The short comm pulse that would send it on its way, back to Celtiboria, carrying the most dreaded message imaginable.

The empire had invaded the Far Stars.

Halvert took a deep breath, and he reached out, his fingers resting for a moment on the small lever. Then, he flipped it gently, and he nodded a few seconds later when the confirmation light illuminated. The message had been sent.

It would take almost two hours for the signal to reach its destination, and close to two weeks for the scout ship to arrive at Celtiboria, bearing the news of another war, one more deadly than any the Far Stars had ever seen.

Halvert was devoted to Astra Lucerne. She'd won him over, and his confidence in her almost matched that he'd had in her famous father. But he couldn't see any way she could defeat the imperial forces attacking Galvanus. There was simply nothing in the Far Stars that could face an imperial battleship . . . and certainly not ten.

The Far Stars was going to fall. He couldn't see any other outcome, no matter how deeply in his psyche he mined for optimism. The closest thing to a bright side he could imagine came to him as he gazed once again at the vast wall of enemy ships approaching. It was simple, and it was grim, but it was all he had.

Whatever happened to the Far Stars, he wouldn't be there to see it. He was going to die right there on Galvanus, along with all his people.

And they would die soon . . . but they would not die without a fight.

"All batteries, open fire!" Captain Paolus sat in his chair in the center of the orbital platform's tiny control room. The fortresses around Galvanus were fairly small, but they still packed a punch. Two of them were new, constructed as part of the rebuilding programs of the past three years. The rest were the old imperial installations, repaired to varying degrees from the reconquest, and back in service, ready to defend the planet against its former masters.

"All batteries firing, Captain."

Paolus nodded, and he looked at the bank of screens in front of him. The scanner lit up as the rocket launchers flushed their magazines, sending hundreds of warheads blasting toward the imperial attack ships. All around those clusters, heavy lasers fired, half-second pulses of focused and deadly light lancing out . . . and drawing first blood. The imperial forces had technology considerably more advanced than the defenders, but the attack craft were small, and they simply couldn't match the power of guns on the orbital forts. Paolus shuddered at the thought of the heavy weapons on the imperial battleships themselves, but it seemed the enemy commander was unwilling to risk his heavy units unless it was absolutely necessary.

And it wouldn't be necessary, not at Galvanus.

Paolus watched as his lasers scored a dozen hits. Half those had been glancing blows, powerful enough to damage the attack ships, and take them out of the line if not destroy them outright, and the other half had been direct hits. In those half-dozen spots, the attacking ships vanished into the maelstrom of intense explosions, as their reactors lost containment and released the massive energies from within.

The Celtiborian officer felt a rush of excitement as he watched the impacts, but it didn't last long. Six ships destroyed, and six more damaged . . . with almost nine thousand still inbound.

"I want full power to all weapons, Lieutenant. All reactors at full power. No . . . I want them all running at overload levels. We need to get as many shots in as we can before those attack ships are in range to fire."

"Yes, sir." He could hear the panic building in the officer's voice. She was still at her station, still carrying out his commands, but he knew what was going on in her head, the swirling vortex of thoughts, the rising fear, the fleeting images of loved ones. He knew what she was thinking because that was what _he_ was thinking. What all his people were. They were almost certainly going to die, and though he'd known that almost since the first scanner readings appeared, it became a more difficult reality to endure as it drew ever closer.

The lights dimmed in the control center, and nonessential workstations went dark, as every available bit of power was allocated to the weapons. Nothing could save his people, Paolus knew that. All they could do was hurt the enemy as much as they could. It might not do anything for them, or even for their comrades on the ground. But this would be a war for the Far Stars, and if the forward defenders, the men and woman standing in the line at Galvanus, could hurt the enemy enough, maybe they could make a difference.

Perhaps they wouldn't die for nothing at all.

Paolus watched as the guns on the platforms fired again, and moments later, as the waves of rockets finally reached the approaching enemy line. The small imperial craft were not without defenses of their own, and he stared at the screen as small point defense lasers gunned down the rockets. Hundreds of the weapons vanished in a matter of seconds, and less than 1 percent of those fired reached their targets. But those destroyed another twenty enemy ships. Combined with the repeated laser fire, Galvanus's defenses had claimed sixty-four ships.

But then the imperial craft moved into range. Almost as one, more than a thousand ships of the forward line opened fire, and their lasers lanced out toward the Galvanus fortresses. The orbital platforms were stationary, and their ECM suites were hopelessly primitive trying to deal with imperial targeting systems. Shot after shot found its mark, and Paolus gripped the sides of his chair as the station shook wildly.

Sparks flew across the control room as circuits overloaded, and he could hear sickening creaks as the structural supports of the station twisted and buckled under the power of the imperial attack.

They were dying.

The control room was damaged, power lines failing and sections of the roof buckling, but his officers were still there, at their stations. But in the gun turrets and the reactor rooms and the surface scanning stations, officers and crew who served under him were incinerated and crushed under debris or blasted out into the icy vacuum. He couldn't see the nightmare unfolding, save when he closed his eyes, and his mind re-created the destruction in horrific detail.

"All batteries . . . maintain fire at maximum rate." It was a pointless order. At least half his guns were out of action, and the ones still capable of firing were doing just that. But the words served a purpose, giving him—and his people—something to do, to think about other than what awaited them.

The station shook again, and a massive girder slammed to the deck, followed by a cascade of debris from above. Paolus was staring at the main screen, counting the number of stations still in action, when it went dark.

"We've lost our lock to the data net, Captain." The lieutenant's voice was stronger than it had been before. That seemed counterintuitive, but Paolus understood. She had accepted her approaching death. He'd seen soldiers react that way to hopeless situations, and he'd seen others lose their grip, allow the fear to take control. He wondered how he would react, if he would manage to maintain his control. If he would die the way a Celtiborian officer should.

"How many active batteries do we have?"

"Three, sir."

It almost didn't matter. It looked like most of the scanners were down, and without a connection to the net, whatever shots the station could get off were not likely to hit. But fighting to the end did more than destroy enemy ships. If his people had to die, they would die as they had lived.

"Put me on stationwide comm, Lieutenant."

"On your line, Captain."

He glanced down at the small screen on his workstation. It was still active, though the image was staticky, displaying what data the last functional scanners could gather. The fleet, if that was the appropriate way to refer to the small squadron of Celtiborian ships assigned to Galvanus, was in no better shape than his stations. Half the ships were gone already, and those that remained were badly damaged, streaming atmosphere and fluids from great rents in their hulls.

He put his hand to his headset, and he took a deep breath. "All personnel, this is Captain Paolus. I know you're all scared. I know you're tired, worn, sweat soaked, and covered in blood. But, remember, you are Celtiborians, men and women who served under Augustin Lucerne . . . warriors who united our world, and then set forth to bring unity and prosperity to the Far Stars. We are outnumbered, damaged, struggling to remain in the fight, but we are not finished, not yet. Remember who you are, where you came from . . . and if it is our fate to die, then let us do it in a way that befits who we are. The marshal is with us, now as always. Fight as you want to be remembered . . . as you would want Augustin Lucerne to see you fight."

He cut the line and he leaned back in his chair. There was nothing left to do. It wasn't some fight on the ground, where he could throw his rifle aside when it was empty and draw a pistol . . . and then a blade. He'd done everything he could, given every order he could think of, done what little he could to encourage his people in their final moments.

Now, there was nothing to do but wait for death.

He heard a distant whine, and he knew at least one of the station's batteries was still in the fight. There was a flash as his last screen went dark, and as he looked around the control room, he realized there wasn't a single workstation still functional. The loss of the data net had left his fortresses fighting on their own, and now the failure of internal comm and data feeds left each section of the dying platform on its own. Yet it wasn't over. Any gunners who still survived would be firing, at least as long as the power flowed to their lasers. The engineers still working in the reactors' rooms, no doubt bathed in deadly radiation, would struggle to maintain energy production, with no real idea if anyone was left to make use of it.

Paolus was proud of his people, and he chose to believe they were grimly standing at their stations, that there was no panic, no loss of discipline. He didn't have any real evidence to back that up, but it didn't matter much then anyway.

His hands tightened on the armrests of his chair as the station lurched hard, spinning around, sending at least half his officers flying across the room, slamming into the walls and ceiling, until a few seconds later when the station stopped rotating, taking with it the sensation of gravity.

His people were floating through the control room, some of them struggling to grab on to any kind of handhold, others just giving up, drifting slowly across his field of view. Most of them were quiet, somber. A few were sobbing softly, but none he could see had given in to the panic.

He was proud of them, and he tried to focus on that, to hold off the grief and fear . . . but he could feel his resolve slipping away, even as he struggled to endure another moment. He saw his father, killed years before in the wars, and his mother, back on Celtiboria alone. She would endure the grief again, the raw agony of losing one close to her to war. He thought of Caralla. They would have been married as soon as his posting to Galvanus was over. Now, that would never happen.

He felt the sadness growing, the fear becoming too strong to resist. He could face death, but not the shame of losing his resolve. He fought with all he had to hold his strength . . . and then the enemy saved him from himself.

He didn't see the incoming shot, nor the reactor it sliced into, but the station erupted into the fury of nuclear fusion, and Captain Arnaud Paolus and all his people who still remained died in a fraction of a second.

# Chapter 11

The soldiers were lined up in serried ranks, thousands of them standing at attention on the ground outside the palace. Astra Lucerne hated the capital, and even more the pointless luxury of the great structure that served as her residence there, as well as the center of her government. She greatly preferred the rural beauty of the countryside around the old Lucerne family stronghold, the compound from which her father had directed his campaigns and united a planet, but duty called, as it seemed to do every waking moment of her life.

She walked out into the parade grounds, looking out over the assembled soldiers. She had come to give out medals, and the assemblage looked like a hundred others she could recall, dating back to her earliest memories as a young girl, watching from the balcony of the stronghold as her father rewarded his most loyal and courageous warriors.

But this grouping was different, in ways that escaped simple notice. Ways that saddened her greatly. The warriors set to receive decorations were true heroes, hardened veterans as always, but the great majority of soldiers standing at attention were young and green, many of them fresh out of training camp. The great veteran army Augustin Lucerne had forged over a lifetime was spread out all through the Far Stars, fighting on a dozen worlds, and struggling to maintain the peace on as many more. They had suffered grievous losses, too, and many seasoned soldiers who'd served under Augustin Lucerne had joined their master in death. Uniting a world had been costly; forging one nation from a hundred planets was a bloodbath.

She walked up to a small group of officers in bright red uniforms, their breasts covered with medals and ribbons. She looked at the man standing in the center and smiled at her commander in chief.

"General DeMark, you are looking officious as always. Ostentation suits you." It was an inside joke. DeMark was notorious in his hatred for pomp and ceremony, and she could only imagine the hell he'd put his valet through cramming his bulky muscular physique into the tight and binding dress reds.

"Thank you, Marshal Lucerne. I am as at home here as you are in an assembly hall full of politicians and diplomats. Life will play its little jokes on us, will it not?" DeMark spoke to her in a far more casual and friendly tone than anyone else. With Blackhawk and his crew off . . . somewhere . . . DeMark was the closest thing she had to a real friend on Celtiboria.

"It will indeed, General . . . and we have no choice but to smile and endure." She nodded, but she didn't continue with the thoughts in her head. They were entirely too dark, and they had no place just then, not when she was there to encourage men and women to fight for her.

To die for her.

"Shall we proceed, General? I have read the reports, and we have some soldiers here well deserving of our recognition and gratitude."

"Yes, Marshal, we do. That has always been the case with our Celtiborian fighters. I remember the first day your father pinned a medal on my chest. I was loyal already, but that day bonded me to him—and to his house—for all time."

Astra held back a sigh. She was well versed in the methods—tricks, she sometimes thought—that attached fighters to her cause. She tried to reward her people, to provide care for her wounded and the families of the lost, but she was well aware that too many of them found only death in her service. Uniting the Far Stars, eliminating the despotism and barbarism that so plagued it was a noble cause, she didn't doubt that, but she wondered if it felt as such to those whose loved ones had died on the field, lost to them forever.

_Was uniting Celtiboria worth losing your father? Would the Far Stars be enough of a price for that loss?_

She reached out to the officer standing to DeMark's left. "Colonel, let us proceed." She took a wooden box from the man, and she turned and walked toward the mass of troopers lined up, their eyes fixed as one on her.

"Soldiers of Celtiboria . . . of the Far Stars, as always, you have distinguished yourselves. You have served with courage unmatched, endurance beyond expectation. You have prevailed in every conflict, and you have continued a legacy of victory that stretches back thirty years. My father would be proud of you, as I know he was all his life. You were his children as much as I, and his heart swelled for all your achievements, as he shed tears for each of you lost in battle." She paused. She'd been surprised after taking over for her father just how good she was at giving motivational speeches . . . and how devoted the soldiers, even the hardened veterans, quickly became to her. She'd had her share of adventures, most of them one manner of trouble or another, born of youthful rebellion rather than pursuit of a cause, but she hadn't fought battles alongside her troops, and she couldn't help but feel there had to be some doubts among them, questions about whether she could truly take her warrior-father's place. Yet they always seemed to hang on her words, as if she wasn't the imposter she felt like.

"If I could, I would honor each and every one of you, but that is not possible. So, as your comrades come forth and receive the recognition they have earned, I would have all of you join with them, and accept my thanks and admiration for all you have done in the service of our great cause.

"Sergeant Malcolm Ghavas . . . step forward." She opened the small wooden box and pulled out the silver medal hanging from a blue ribbon. She looked up, standing straight and still as a large man, almost two meters tall, and, she guessed, close to one hundred twenty kilos in weight marched up to her. He was clearly struggling to hide a limp, and she could tell, despite his grim efforts at masking it, that he was in considerable pain. Glory in war came at a cost, and Ghavas had paid for his medal with three different wounds, and two months in the hospital.

It was a moderate price, she knew. She had two dozen rewards to grant posthumously. They would be last, and they would feed the sadness and self-loathing that would take her once she left the field. But that was hours away, and she had a long way to go until the solitude she craved—and dreaded—would be hers.

"Sergeant Ghavas, a grateful Celtiboria salutes your courage . . . and I give thanks to have a man such as you in my service. Please accept this decoration as our thanks, and our recognition for all you have done."

She reached up as the huge man leaned forward, and she put the medal around his neck. Then she reached out and shook his hand . . . before she pulled back and watched him move back to the formation. Then she pressed on. It was what she always did. What she had to do.

"Lieutenant Walton Dragoner . . . step forward . . ."

"Is this even possible? Could it be some kind of trick? Subterfuge from one of our enemies, trying to disrupt our operations." Astra stared down at the small portable screen and watched the scanning images for about the tenth time. The readings weren't all that extraordinary in nature . . . save for the size scale. The ten ships on the display were beyond massive, twenty kilometers in length and billions of tons of displacement. They were massively larger than anything in the Far Stars, and she knew without analysis or reports from her admirals that just a couple of them could blast her entire navy to atoms. They were a nightmare come to life, and unless the crew of the scout ship had all lost their minds, it was actually happening.

"Those are imperial battleships." Rafaelus DeMark's voice was grim, not certain, but not really doubtful either. "What else could they be? We've heard of the emperor's giant warships all our lives. I fear now we are about to see them ourselves."

"But why now? And how? I always heard battleships were too large to cross the Void, that the navigation was impossible, that any that tried would be lost in space. If that wasn't true, then why hasn't the empire invaded before? Years ago, centuries even." Astra stared at her staff, at least those she'd been able to assemble on short notice. She'd become used to a nonstop flood of problems in her three years as Celtiboria's marshal, but this was the first one she'd faced that seemed utterly impossible.

"Clearly, the stories of the Void were true," DeMark said. "If not, you are correct, the empire would have invaded long ago. Yet problems do not last forever. We have developed technologies and procedures to solve our problems. We can only assume the empire has found a way to move their great warships across the Void."

"You are right, of course. The alternative, that someone in the Far Stars was able to build a fleet like _that_ , without our knowledge, seems downright absurd, to the point I think we can set it aside as a possibility. So, assuming this is an imperial force that has somehow crossed the Void, it leaves us one other question: How do we face a force like that—what tactic, what plan can give us even a chance of victory?" She knew even as she asked the question, though, that there really was no answer.

Her staff echoed that sentiment. "There is no way we can meet them head-on, Marshal," Emile Desaix, the supreme admiral of the Far Stars armada, said. "Our fleet, massed together—assuming we can recall our strung-out units quickly enough—could possibly defeat one of those ships, maybe even two. But that would be at the most." This jibed with what Astra thought as well. While the fleets under Desaix's command were vastly superior to anything that had existed during Augustin Lucerne's war to unite the planet, it was still a force under construction, and nothing remotely capable of standing up to major imperial forces.

"And, of course, there are ten of them, not two—at least according to this scan. That would seem to be a problem, wouldn't it?" It wasn't really a question, and definitely not one seeking an answer. "So where does that leave us? It seems that we have to find a way to divide their force, to engage the ships one at a time, or, at most, two."

"I'm not sure how that is possible, Marshal," Desaix said. "We would have to rely on considerable foolishness on the part of the imperial commander, and that's not something I would count on. Whoever is in charge of that fleet, he or she has to know how unlikely it is we can stand against it. All the imperials have to do is stay together and present an overwhelming force in every engagement. They will reclaim Galvanus, no doubt, regardless of how heroic a defense General Halvert's troops mount." He paused, and the room was silent for a moment, as every officer present realized, with sudden and final reality, that Stanton Halvert, a man they all knew and had fought alongside, was as good as dead, along with every one of his soldiers.

If they weren't all dead already.

When no one else spoke up, he finished what he'd planned to say. "Then, no doubt, they will come to Celtiboria. We are fortunate, to whatever extent that word can apply to our situation, that they chose to reclaim their old provincial capital before moving on us here. I would call that a tactical error, albeit one unlikely to cause them significant harm. Had I been in their place, I would have moved directly against Celtiboria, knowing without a doubt it is the primary source of military strength. As outmatched as we are in any case, without Celtiboria, and its armies, fleets, and industry, the Far Stars would be as good as conquered. We don't have much chance to defend the planet and to beat off the enemy forces, but I strongly suggest we abandon all other systems and pull everything back here now. Every ship that can get here in time. _Every_ ship."

Astra heard the words, and she agreed with them . . . but she tried to imagine the effect on loyalty and morale throughout the Far Stars. How would all those worlds that rallied to the new confederation react when the Celtiborians pulled out at the first sign of trouble, leaving them to themselves. She understood Desaix's intentions, and she knew it would do the Far Stars no good for her forces to be picked off in small groups, but she also had some sense of optics, how people looked at things. Her best effort at a defense, as futile as it seemed, would likely cost her all the gains she had made, and then some. Worlds would abandon the confederation, rebellions would flare up where despots had been overthrown and new, provincial governments had been installed. Her soldiers, stranded when their supporting fleets withdrew, would struggle to maintain control, even as their supplies slowly dwindled to nothing.

But there was no choice. If Celtiboria was taken, nothing else would matter. The rest of the sector would quickly fall under imperial control, and a millennium of freedom from the empire's cold grasp would be over. She would have led her people not to unity and prosperity, but to the grimmest period in history, a dark age of tyranny and misery that was likely to last for untold ages.

"Send out the orders, Admiral. All fleet units are to return to Celtiboria at maximum possible speed. Assemble your fleet, and prepare them, as well as you can, for the fight that is coming."

"Yes, Marshal."

Astra turned toward DeMark. "General, you are to prepare the ground defenses. I want every unit on Celtiboria dug in and ready. We're going to defend every centimeter of the planet against invasion."

"Assuming they plan on invading." Astra had expected DeMark's response, but Desaix's came first.

"You don't think they will invade, Admiral? Why else have they come to the Far Stars?"

"I believe they plan to invade and subjugate the worlds of the Far Stars, Marshal. It is Celtiboria, specifically, that causes me concern."

"How so, Admiral?"

"Well, Marshal . . ." Desaix paused for a few seconds, clearly troubled. ". . . I don't know that much about the empire, but what stories I have heard suggest a strong emphasis on punitive actions, on retaliatory strikes designed to be remembered by the subjugated. There can be little doubt that Celtiboria will be seen as the driving force of the campaigns that seized the former imperial worlds in the sector." He hesitated again.

"Please, Admiral . . . continue."

"Marshal, I believe there is a significant chance that the imperials will not try to conquer Celtiboria, but, rather, choose to simply destroy it."

Astra stared back, cold realization setting in. "And, by 'destroy' you mean . . ."

"Orbital bombardment. Nuclear devastation. There is no doubt that a force of ten imperial battleships is more than adequate to depopulate an entire planet once its space-based defenses are destroyed."

Astra stood stone still, her mind struggling to grasp the threat her admiral just described. She knew the empire was brutal, but there were billions of people on Celtiboria. _Would they really kill them all?_

She turned and looked over at DeMark, and in an instant, she realized the general agreed with Admiral Desaix. He expected the enemy to bombard Celtiboria. That left only one way to survive. The fleet had to find some way to defeat the imperial battleships before they could close to bombardment range.

The more she tried to think of some way, the colder she felt. A millennium of Far Stars independence, three decades of her father's war, three years of grim struggle to unite the sector . . . and it was all slipping away, like water through her fingers.

She thought about her people, her soldiers, a thousand other things. And, in the midst of her anguish and confusion, a single name rose to the surface.

Arkarin Blackhawk.

She loved him, and she wanted to see him again before she died . . . but she didn't imagine even the great warrior, the general who had led her armies to victory, the grim commander who'd once commanded imperial forces in battle, could find a way to win now. The odds were simply too great, the enemy too strong.

"I don't doubt your assessment is correct, Admiral. Nevertheless, we should prepare the ground forces for an invasion, just in case." If nothing else, it might spread a little hope to the populous, to see the red uniforms of the army once again ready to fight for them.

_And right now, hope might be the only thing we have left, fleeting as it is._

Astra turned slowly, stopping and looking back over her shoulder. "You all know what to do," she said, somehow managing to sound strong and in control. Then she walked out of the room and into the hallway. She made it to the elevator car before she slumped forward and lost the resolve that had kept her going.

She leaned against the walls of the car, shaking her head.

_What am I going to do?_

The question was there, coming again and again, but there was no answer.

_What am I going to do?_

# Chapter 12

"It actually turned out to be a pretty good haul, all added up." Ace held a small tablet in his hand, one he'd used to complete the inventory of what they'd taken from Durienne's château. He was trying to sound interested, but Blackhawk knew him too well to buy it, and he suspected the others did, too. He remembered the days when nothing excited his people more than a great payday, and all the better if it had been less than entirely legitimate. But paydays didn't really change their situations all that much anymore—they were already wealthy.

"That's good news, Ace," Blackhawk said with similar disinterest to Ace's. But then his number two said something that brought him up short.

"Astra is safer now, too."

Blackhawk stared at Ace.

"C'mon, Ark. That's why we took the job anyway, isn't it?" There was no resentment in Ace's tone, no hint that he objected to Blackhawk risking all their lives to hit a gangster suspected of plotting against Astra Lucerne.

"Ace . . . you know how grateful I am for . . ." Blackhawk paused, and before he could continue, his friend spoke up.

"I know, Ark. We all know. And we don't have to talk about it ever again. Astra is our friend, too, and the Far Stars is our home. I know you . . . how you feel about her . . ." Ace stumbled with his words. ". . . and we're with you all the way."

Blackhawk managed a fleeting smile to his friend. Everyone on the _Claw_ had been a project of his, a difficult but talented individual who'd managed to get into some kind of trouble before he'd come in and taken them into the fold. They had almost been his children, and he'd felt responsible for them. But they'd all grown now, embraced their talents and abilities. They'd outgrown their need for a father figure . . . but not for a friend. And he'd come to depend on them in ways he'd never imagined. Arkarin Blackhawk had never needed anyone. He'd been the ultimate loner, but now that part of him was gone. He needed his crew, perhaps more now than they needed him, and he was grateful for each and every one of them.

"That doesn't mean I can't thank you . . . all of you."

The two men were silent for a few minutes. They'd said all that needed to be said. Finally, Ace coughed, then said, "Well, the others are already in town." The _Claw_ had landed on Athella, one of their favorite spots for recreation in the old days. It was a wild place, one likely to become more prosperous for its inhabitants, but probably less amusing for visiting spacers once it was fully integrated into Astra Lucerne's confederation. The general opinion on the _Claw_ was they should head there for one last, wild romp before civilization came and spoiled their old playground. "What do you say, Ark? I know a great restaurant, the best food this side of Sebastiani, and after . . . there used to be a great card game at the Royalton."

Blackhawk had politely refused such invitations many times. He understood and accommodated his crew's need for R&R, but he was a grim creature himself, at least outside the small group of people he trusted. But he realized his relationship with his crew had changed. They had grown, become, if not his equals, at least something closer. He owed it to them to grow as they had.

Besides, he hadn't had a meal that hadn't come out of the _Claw_ 's food locker in a long time.

"Sure, Ace . . . let's go."

"It's an honor to watch the legendary Ace Graythorn ply his skills at the card table . . ." Shira's voice was thick with sarcasm. She and Ace loved each other like brother and sister, but they both did their dead level best to hide that fact from everyone, including themselves. Blackhawk had always been amused by the charade, and he'd also seen what happened when someone threatened one of them in the presence of the other. Shira and Ace were different in the specifics of how they reacted to things, but their responses to such threats almost always ended in the same way.

"I'm sure it is an honor, but I'd wager you can find something—or someone—else to amuse you." Graythorn was annoyed at the interruption. He was long past his days when hustling a few credits at a card game was the difference between eating and going to bed hungry and alone, but the competitive streak was as strong as ever. When Ace Graythorn sat down in a card game, he came to win. Shira knew that as well as anyone, and it was a weakness she rarely failed to exploit, at least for a quick tweak before she moved onto her own recreation. "Well, good luck to you then." She smiled for a few seconds before she turned and left. Blackhawk almost laughed as he watched. That last bit had been a barb as well. They'd all heard Ace pontificate about how poker was _not_ a game of chance.

Alion Belakov stood and watched the interplay, clearly trying to hide the confusion he felt at the elaborate dance of the _Claw_ 's company. Blackhawk had been standing along the far wall watching his people, but when Shira walked away, he stepped over to the hacker, who still existed in the nebulous region between guest and prisoner.

"They're amusing, aren't they? They come into town for a little fun . . . and I get mine sitting around watching them."

"They are . . . Captain Blackhawk." Belakov had become a bit more comfortable around Blackhawk and his people, but there was still hesitance, which the captain understood.

"Alion, we need to talk, and now seems as good a time as any." The two of them were standing in the middle of the raucous saloon, neither of them drinking, gambling, or carousing like almost everybody else there.

"Yes, Captain . . . what can I do for you?"

"You have seen my crew, and you've no doubt picked up a few stories on how they all came to serve on the _Claw_. They're a pretty extraordinary group, Alion . . . not at all like the band of mercs or pirates they probably seem to be at first glance."

"Yes, I have begun to realize that. Honestly, I can't believe five of you were able to take out Durienne's stronghold. That was a pretty impressive display."

"Gangsters like Durienne are easy targets. They're essentially just bullies with nicer toys. We've faced some tougher enemies than them and come out of it." Blackhawk paused. "We've lost some people, too, friends. Brothers. Being on this ship is not without its risks."

"Captain, you rescued me from Durienne's dungeons. He was never going to let me go, so whatever you're going to do with me, unless you're really planning to space me, is a step up. I'd much rather be your prisoner than his."

"How would you feel about not being a prisoner at all?" Blackhawk paused, watching Belakov's expression morph to confusion, and then partway to expectation.

"If the alternative we're talking about is something other than going out the airlock, I'd definitely be interested." He looked around, frowning at the rowdy environs of the saloon. "If you're going to drop me someplace, I'd ask that it be somewhere a little more . . . civilized . . . than this place. Assuming I have any say in that."

"We'll drop you anywhere you want to go, Alion. But I was thinking of something else. How would you like to be a member of the _Claw_ 's crew? I suspect you've been a loner most of your life. I was, too. For a long time. If you'd been part of a team, Durienne wouldn't have had such an easy time capturing you . . . or, at least, someone would have come to try and break you out. I've had to do that for my crew . . . and they've had to do it for me once or twice.

"I'll drop you wherever we can reasonably get to, but I'd rather offer you a berth with the crew. It would be a full share—full share of any profits, and full share of the danger."

Belakov was clearly surprised at Blackhawk's offer. He hesitated for a few seconds, and then he said, "That is not what I expected, Captain Blackhawk. Your crew seems like a very tight-knit group."

"We are, Alion. But once, every one of them was new to the _Claw_. They're a very talented group, as you've noticed, but none of them had found their true strength alone. I think you're cut from the same cloth. You have an extraordinary skill set, one that would greatly enhance our abilities . . . and I think we can offer you the support and protection you have lacked. Certainly, no fringe thug like Durienne will bother you again."

Belakov looked back at Blackhawk, the fear mostly gone from his expression. "Yes, Captain . . . that thought is quite appealing." He smiled. "I would be happy to stay on the _Wolf's Claw,_ and to join your team. I accept," he said, holding out his hand. There was a bit of doubt in the hacker's voice, and Blackhawk found it comforting. It was normal to feel some reluctance, and it only increased his feeling that he was right about Belakov.

"Welcome to the crew of the _Wolf's Claw,_ Alion," he said, taking the man's hand. "Some things take time, but . . ."

"Ark . . ."

Blackhawk spun around. Lucas Lancaster had come up behind him, and he could tell from the sound of his voice, something was wrong.

"What is it, Lucas?"

"I was at the bar across the street . . . it's a real spacer's kind of place . . ." Blackhawk knew that meant it was a dump, full of drunken pilots and ships' crews halfway on the way on the road to oblivion. A flash of concern slipped onto his face, but Lucas held up his hands. "Don't worry, Ark . . . I wasn't drinking, just hanging out with a few of the pilots." Lucas Lancaster was a scion of one of the wealthiest families in the Far Stars. He'd also been a morbid alcoholic and drug addict on the verge of total self-destruction when Blackhawk had found him.

"I'm not worried, Lucas. It's been a long time." Not entirely true. Lucas had been clean for years, but Blackhawk spent his life worrying about the danger of his own relapse. He understood better than anyone that some demons could be caged, but never banished entirely.

Lucas nodded. "Well, anyway . . . a pilot came in, and he starts telling these stories. Claims he was on a run out of Galvanus. My guess is, some kind of illicit cargo. He seems the shady type." Blackhawk almost laughed. He imagined almost everyone in the Far Stars would have placed the entire crew of the _Wolf's Claw_ in that same basket.

"I don't suspect you came in here to tell me you found a smuggler captain in a dive bar on Athella."

"No . . . it's what he said. I don't know how reliable he is, of course, but he seemed legit . . . or, really, he seemed scared, not like some captain spinning tales in a bar. He said Galvanus Prime was attacked, that some kind of fleet appeared in the system, just as he was getting ready to jump out."

"Some kind of fleet? That doesn't necessarily mean an attack. Maybe it was a freighter convoy."

"He says they launched some kind of small craft, and that the system alerts went out. He exaggerated, of course. The ships he described were crazy huge, like some kind of kid's nightmare or bad fiction."

Blackhawk hadn't been overly concerned about whatever Lucas had heard, but his stomach tightened, awakening an old fear. He knew it was likely Lucas was right, that the old smuggler was vastly exaggerating what he'd seen . . . but there was another possibility, and it wasn't one Blackhawk wanted to imagine.

"Where is this captain?" He was trying to control his paranoia, but the tone that came out was grim.

"Across the street, Ark. I'm afraid he's probably completely tanked by now. He was already wobbly when he came in, and he hit it hard the second he got to the bar. I don't know how much truth there is to his story, but he seemed like he was scared shitless."

"Let's go see him now, Lucas. I want to hear what he has to say." He turned. "Alion, stay here, enjoy yourself." He pulled a small purse of coins from his belt and handed it to his newest crew member. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

He turned toward Lucas, and his face hardened. "Lead on, Lucas. Let's get to the bottom of this." He was trying to hide his concern, but something in his stomach was sounding an alert.

And Blackhawk's gut was rarely wrong.

# Chapter 13

"We need to get the Second Battalion over there now." Stanton Halvert stood in his command post, waving his arms as he shouted orders to a dozen aides, each of them serving as that least technological of communications facilitators: the runner.

The imperial landings had followed a short, targeted bombardment. Halvert had been relieved to find that he'd been right about imperial intentions to retake Galvanus intact, or at least something close to that. The limits on the intensity of the orbital fire had saved a lot of his soldiers from almost certain death, not to mention countless millions of civilians.

He'd even allowed himself a spark of hope. But that hadn't lasted long.

The landings began almost immediately after the bombardment stopped, and within hours, thousands of armored imperial soldiers were on the ground, fortifying their landing zones and moving out to secure the most vital objectives, all under a cloud of jamming that had rendered Halvert's communication net all but useless, save for limited direct line laser pulses. Fighting an enemy like the imperials was horrific enough, but doing it with most of his subcommands virtually out of contact was beyond a nightmare.

The imperial troops cut through Galvanus's levies like a hot knife through butter, and entire battalions had thrown down their arms and fled. His Celtiborians had done better, falling back slowly, and for the most part, in good order. They were outmatched, too, but they were veterans, and they had pride they weren't ready to surrender, not yet.

His people were still fighting, and they were extracting a price from the invaders, but Halvert knew they were losing. At least thirty thousand imperials were on the ground already, and more landers coming down in wave after wave. He'd had a total force of over one hundred thousand, but most of those had been raw recruits from Galvanus in the proto planetary defense force his people had been training for the past few months. Most of them were gone now. They had either fled, or they'd been eradicated almost immediately by the imperial forces. All Halvert had now was his group of ten thousand Celtiborians, and even that meager army comprised of less than one-half experienced troops.

He figured to have much less by the end of the day.

"Captain, I suggest you tell me what I want to know. Rather, you _will_ tell me. The only question is how unpleasant this will have to be for you."

Ignes Inferni stood before the terrified freighter captain, tall and clad in the full panoply of his imperial garb. He wore a breastplate under his great, flowing cape, both of the deepest black. Weapons hung from his side, a large pistol with dual barrels, and a long, curved sword. His eyes were as cold as space, with not the slightest hint of mercy or compassion in them.

"I . . . I . . . don't . . ."

"Blackhawk, Captain. Arkarin Blackhawk, on the _Wolf's Claw_. I am seeking him, and if you can help me find him, I will spare your pointless life." That was a lie, of course. Inferni wasn't about to leave a trail of information behind him. But people were fools, and they accepted all manner of promises, especially those they really wanted to believe.

"I have . . . heard of . . . Captain Blackhawk. Everybody has. I don't know . . . where he . . . is . . . though."

Inferni leaned forward, the shadow from his great bulk covering the prisoner in near darkness.

"You will have to do better than that."

Inferni took hold of the man's arm and twisted it until it snapped with a sickening crunch. The prisoner screamed, a primal shout, and he slipped down to his knees, slumping in front of his tormentor.

"If you do not know how to find Arkarin Blackhawk, tell me how I can find him."

"No one finds Blackhawk if he doesn't want to be found . . ." The captive blurted out the response, his pathetic tone itself a plea for mercy. Inferni wasn't going to let the fool live anyway, but he detested weakness and fear. He'd been prepared to give his prisoner a quick death, especially if he provided useful information, but now he considered other, more amusing options.

Inferni had studied all the data in the imperial archives on the Far Stars, and particularly the sparse information on the recent rebellion that had eliminated the empire's tenuous grasp on the sector. He'd come across a number of names, Augustin Lucerne, and his daughter, Astra, Rafaelus DeMark . . . and Arkarin Blackhawk. They were all enemies of the empire, instigators of the rising that had driven the empire from its long-held foothold, but only one was his concern.

Augustin Lucerne was already dead, by all accounts, and his daughter and General DeMark would almost certainly die when Celtiboria was destroyed. They weren't his problem. Arkarin Blackhawk was. The descriptions of the general, who, according to all reports, had been a sort of mercenary and adventurer before the war, seemed strangely familiar. There was something about him, physical descriptions, yes, but even more from the impressions people seemed to have of him, the effect he had on others.

_He reminds me of me,_ a thought that chafed a bit, as Inferni had always seen himself as a singular being.

One thing seemed beyond doubt, though. After the death of Augustin Lucerne, it had been Blackhawk more than anyone else who'd been the driving force of the war to expel the empire from the Far Stars, and to begin the unification of the sector. This "Captain" Blackhawk had proven to be a skilled military leader, and he'd apparently carried a rank of general in the Celtiborian forces, before he'd suddenly vanished, resigned all his ranks and posts, and boarded his ship for a trip back to obscurity.

The whole story was strange to Inferni, and it jarred something in his mind, events of long ago, something eerily similar to the stories about Blackhawk.

He leaned forward, his hand grabbing the captive's broken arm, twisting as he forced the screaming, crying man to the ground. His victim was begging for mercy, pleading with him to stop, but such things only encouraged Inferni.

"You have one final chance to give me useful information . . . before I introduce you to the burrowers. You probably aren't familiar with the burrowers of Anticles II. I have heard the people of the Far Stars are quite ignorant about the rest of the galaxy. The burrowers are worms of a sort, carnivorous ones . . . and they enjoy no host more than a human body." He waited a few seconds, but the prisoner just lay before him crying. He'd wasted enough time on the fool.

"Guards, take this one back to his cell . . . and give him six burrowers to keep him company."

"No! Please . . . no!"

Inferni ignored the screams. They had long been an occupational hazard. The worms were a slow and painful way to die. The captain would linger a week or more, in excruciating pain. And, Inferni realized, his usefulness was perhaps not entirely exhausted. Inferni would make sure each of his crew had a chance to watch their captain, to see his fate.

Inferni was a big believer in encouragement.

# Chapter 14

Blackhawk stared at the screen. He'd lost count of how many times he'd watched the short, grainy, low-quality scanner clip the freighter captain had given him.

Thirty-four times, including the current viewing.

"Shut up."

The image was poor, there was no question about that. The freighter's scanner suite was clearly an old one, older than he was, probably, or even the gray-haired freighter captain, but there was something more messing with the image, some kind of jamming.

Definitely jamming, and what really bothered him was . . . the pattern looked strangely familiar.

His eyes locked on the image. The ship was huge, that was clear even with a fleeting glance. He'd run the calculations on the tonnage readings a dozen times.

Fourteen.

The result was the same every time. The ship on his screen had a total mass of almost six billion tons. _Billion_. That was a size that had to seem impossible to anyone from the Far Stars. They'd never seen anything remotely close to that size. But Blackhawk wasn't a native of the remote sector. He'd been born, such that he was, in the empire . . . and he had seen ships very much like what he thought he was looking at. He knew them well. He had commanded fleets of them.

_Imperial Galaxicon-class battleships._

The most powerful warships ever built, and by a vast margin.

_What the hell could a fleet of those be doing out here?_

_And how the hell did they get through the Void?_

Yet there it was. Blackhawk was a realist, and when he saw something that made the impossible possible, he moved on to trying to understand. He wondered if the scan could be a fake, if it was some kind of trap or scam. Or, perhaps, _he_ was mistaken. Maybe the jamming was creating some kind of scanner echo that massively overstated the mass readings. The ship looked like a Galaxicon, too, but that could be purely coincidence.

That all seemed possible enough. In fact, in some ways it was easier to accept that than the darker thought beginning to take hold in Blackhawk's mind. But Blackhawk didn't believe in coincidence, and he knew what he knew. He was sure, somehow, deep down inside, what he was seeing.

_There are imperial battleships in the Far Stars._

His immediate reaction was worry for Astra and for all the people of the sector. He knew better than anyone the threat those ships posed . . . and just what an imperial commander would do in response to what the Far Stars Confederation called the "liberation" of the demesne. Astra would fight, and they would lose. He could see no other way around it. There was only one man in the Far Stars who knew enough about imperial tactics and technology to offer even a _remote_ chance of victory, and that was him. Which meant, whatever happened, he would be at the forefront.

He'd already made that decision after his first viewing of the scan.

What bothered him was that he wasn't sure _which_ forefront he should be at. He could feel Frigus Umbra even then, the secret part of him growing excited in his subconscious at the sight of imperial forces, thoughts calling on him to return to his old allegiance. Words shouting out in the depths of his mind, telling him the emperor would forgive him if he delivered the Far Stars. He could return to the empire a hero, and power unimaginable would be his.

A resurgent Frigus Umbra might even return to the capital in triumph, with massive forces at his back . . . and make himself emperor. He'd long fought those kinds of thoughts and urges, but the prospect of an imperial invasion poured strength into them and tried his resilience.

Blackhawk was disgusted with such thoughts, and at his weakness as he pushed them back. No matter how hard he tried, though, they were still there, working on him, digging slowly at his resolve, the same as they always had, but empowered now as they had not been in decades. There was an imperial fleet in the sector.

A fleet a very real part of him knew he should command.

"Those are imperial ships, aren't they, Ark?" Ace walked slowly onto the bridge. Blackhawk had heard the sounds of his people making their ways back into the ship, but he'd been too focused on the video to pay attention.

He heard Ace's words, and he felt a sudden impulse to lie. Was it concern over the fear his people would feel toward an imperial invasion? Or something darker? Was he harboring some plan, deep below his conscious mind, to do something other than find a way to defeat those ships?

_No. These are my friends. Frigus didn't have friends._

"Yes, Ace. They're frontline battleships, twenty kilometers in length and five point seven billion tons displacement. Each one of them carries a thousand attack ships and an entire legion with landing craft. They're armed with spinal mount megapulse cannons and over three hundred heavy batteries. Every one of them is a match for all the spacefaring forces in the Far Stars combined, and according to Captain Corellia, there are ten of them at Galvanus."

Ace stood there, quiet for a second. Then he said, "So what are we going to do? Is there any way to beat them? Or should we be thinking about escaping."

"We're going to fight, of course."

It was a reflexive response, though. Defiance was easy in words, harder in deeds. "I don't know how . . . but I have more knowledge about those ships than anyone else in the Far Stars. More, even, I'd bet, than anyone on them." He paused and looked up at Ace. "They're as tough as you're thinking, Ace . . . even tougher. They were built to strike terror into the hearts of those they were sent against, and that is just what they do. There are almost a hundred thousand spacers, pilots, and soldiers on each one of them, and everything, from the arms and armor of the troops to the weapons system on the ships, is state of the art."

Ace was silent. He was a cocky sort, prone to periodic displays of arrogance, but now, he was somber . . . and Blackhawk hated seeing him like this. Finally, Ace looked back at Blackhawk and said, "I think everybody's back, Ark. Where are we going? Celtiboria?"

Blackhawk held his friend's gaze. Celtiboria made sense. It would almost certainly be the next target of the imperial fleet, and it was the logical place to gather what defenses the Far Stars would be able to assemble.

_And Astra is there._

His mind was fixed on saving her, somehow, but the thought of seeing her again was equally irresistible. Blackhawk wasn't the sort to accept defeat, but he knew if he didn't come up with some way to challenge the imperials, any chance he had to see Astra might very well be the last. So Celtiboria made sense.

But he had something else in mind, something riskier, but perhaps, more useful.

"Galvanus, Ace. We're going to Galvanus. There's a good chance the distortion field will keep us hidden, at least as long as they don't know where to look for us." Blackhawk sounded more confident than he felt. The field was the one piece of experimental imperial tech he had managed to bring with him to the Far Stars. It had been experimental two decades before, though, and he had no idea how far the empire had come since then, whether the device was standard equipment by now, or sitting dust covered in some lab somewhere. Or even if the empire had developed effective countermeasures against the functional invisibility the field created. Either way, it was their best shot.

Ace looked a little pale. Probably the last thing he had expected was to head right for the overwhelmingly powerful imperial fleet. Blackhawk understood the impulse to stay as far away as possible, but he needed more information, and a much better scan of those ships. If he was going to plumb his long-submerged memories, find some kind of chance, even a long shot, he needed to know exactly what he was up against.

And that meant going to Galvanus. As quickly as the _Claw_ 's engines could get him there.

"The inquisitors have returned, General, all save for Deridias. They await you in your sanctum."

"Very well, Captain," Inferni said. "Proceed on our current course, pending any changes after I hear the reports of the inquisitors." Imperial inquisitors were very highly ranked operatives, who often served as judges and executioners, bringing the emperor's power wherever it was needed. They usually operated alone, with their own subordinates, and their arrogance and brutality were legendary. Yet even they meekly served the empire's most terrible general.

Inferni walked from the battleship's bridge, down the corridor that led to his private sanctum. His black-and-red robes flowed behind him as he strode purposefully to the door and then into the room.

There were five inquisitors sitting at the conference table inside, and as Inferni walked in, they all rose, standing at rigid attention, their eyes fixed on the hulking mass of the general.

"Sit," Inferni said . . . after allowing the operatives to stand for a few seconds. "I dispatched each of you to locations our, admittedly meager, intelligence suggests Arkarin Blackhawk and the _Wolf's Claw_ have been recently. As you have all returned, I presume each of you has some information to add to our database, if not an actual report on the current location of our target."

The operatives were silent for a moment. Finally, one spoke. "I have concluded that the _Wolf's Claw_ did, indeed, visit Oltharon approximately three imperial months ago. They were involved in some kind of operation, one unsanctioned by the local government, which still resists inclusion into this nascent Far Stars Confederation we have heard so much about. Apparently, the crew of the _Wolf's Claw_ caused a number of fatalities, as well as several abductions. Or rescues. That was unclear from my interrogations and likely relies heavily on the context of the individual being questioned."

Inferni glared out across the table. "Admittedly, specific information on the previous whereabouts of the _Wolf's Claw_ is superior to a lack of same . . . however, it is of limited utility in our search for that vessel."

"Apologies, General. I pursued all leads; however, there was simply no information as to the vessel's destination when it left the planet."

"Apologies are no more useful to me than months' old information, Inquisitor . . . nor do I think his imperial highness will be impressed with such pointless and ineffectual data. I was sent here for a single reason, to find one man . . . and you are all here to aid me in that pursuit, not to waste my time with your failure and useless information." He didn't raise his voice, not a decibel, and that made him all the more terrifying. "I trust you all understand my meaning, and that I will not be forced to undertake more . . . direct . . . measures to demonstrate the importance of this mission, or my impatience with your failure."

The robed figures in the room shuffled nervously in their seats as his words settled over the room. Inquisitors were high-ranking officials in the imperial forces, and the appointment came with its own patent of nobility. As such, they carried weight with those even Inferni wasn't likely to tangle with lightly. Because of that, he was unlikely to actually kill one of them, let alone all of them, for nothing more than delivering information he considered inadequate after their first investigations.

But he did consider it for a moment, wondering if making an example out of one of them might encourage the others to greater effort. However, even as he thought about that option, the comm unit buzzed.

"Yes," he said curtly.

"General, we are receiving a comm signal from Inquisitor Deridias. His ship just jumped into the system, and he is requesting an immediate audience."

"Very well, Commander. Connect him to my private channel at once." Without looking at the inquisitors, he said, "You may go." The robed operatives stood up and swiftly moved toward the door, walking out into the hall as the door closed behind them.

"Speak, Deridias."

"General Inferni . . . I have jumped in from the planet the locals call Athella. It is located in a fringe system, but the intelligence I was able to gather suggested it was worth inspecting. I was able to find a freighter captain, whose ship was apparently in the Galvanus system when our fleet arrived. He was speaking of our forces in vague and confused terms. I liquidated him along with his crew, and I erased the scanner records he had of our vessels."

"That was good work, Deridias. It is best we maintain what security we can as to the fleet's presence and location."

"Yes, General, but . . ." The inquisitor paused briefly, the first chink in the otherwise unbroken confidence in his voice.

"But what, Inquisitor? You have done well. There is no cause to waste time now."

"General, I believe the _Wolf's Claw_ was on Athella, no more than three or four days ago."

The words hit Inferni. He'd been hoping for a solid lead, but for all his anger against the other inquisitors, he knew there would be considerable luck in finding something so quickly.

_Three to four days ago . . ._

"Were you able to secure any intelligence on its current destination?"

"Negative, General. However, I was able to ascertain that the freighter captain had contact with the commander of the _Wolf's Claw_. Under encouragement he told me the _Wolf's Claw_ 's captain had come to him, asking about the ships he saw at Galvanus, and that he gave the man a copy of his scanner reports. Apparently, the _Wolf's Claw_ departed the planet less than two hours later, with no destination specified."

Inferni's thoughts raced with the new data. "You did well, Inquisitor. Dock at once and report to me for further assignment." He cut the line, and he sat and considered all he had heard.

If indeed Blackhawk had been on Athella, if he had been the one the freighter captain met with, that meant the commander of the _Wolf's Claw_ knew there was an unidentified force in the Galvanus system.

_And if this Blackhawk is what you surmise him to be, he knows exactly what that force is, and where it came from._

_He knows there are imperial battleships in the Far Stars. And he's either fleeing. Or . . ._

He slapped his hand down on the comm panel. "Commander, prepare the ship for full thrust and immediate hyperjump." Another pause. "We're going back to Galvanus . . . maximum possible speed."

# Chapter 15

"You have done well, Rafaelus. I know you realize how much I value your aid and support." Astra Lucerne was sitting at the desk in her personal quarters. It was late, very late, and she'd hesitated before sending for DeMark. But, somehow, she knew he'd be up, even as she was. There was too much to do, and—just as he had with her father—he would be awake as long as she was. To him, she was a Lucerne, plain and simple, and he had shown her the same devotion in every way imaginable. And for that, she was grateful.

"I did all I could, Astra. But we both know we have little chance of defeating whatever is coming for us. If they invade, we can give them a hard time on the ground, I'm confident of that. But if they decide to just blast the fleet and then bombard the surface . . . well, I don't see what we can do about that."

"The fleet doesn't stand a chance at all?" She knew the answer already, but she wanted to hear it from DeMark.

"It won't even be close, Astra. We don't have anything approaching complete data on these things, but what we've got suggests all the stories whispered about them have been true. Against one of them, we might convince ourselves the fleet could find a way. But ten?" He paused. "I was actually wondering if we shouldn't forgo battle entirely and send the fleet away. They might accomplish more as guerrilla resistance to an imperial invasion than in a pitched battle in front of Celtiboria."

Astra shook her head. "Let the enemy get to Celtiboria without a fight? I thought the same thing, Rafe . . . but there is no point. If the empire can get battleships through the Void, our scattered fleet doing a few hit-and-runs isn't going to matter. No, if we are fighting for our lives, then let us fight. Every step of the way."

"We will. But we don't have any good options, Astra. An imperial invasion—in force, with battleships—has been the greatest nightmare in the Far Stars for a thousand years, and with good reason. I'd do anything to come up with a solution, Astra, for Celtiboria, for the Far Stars . . . for you. I just don't think there is one."

Astra nodded. She agreed completely. She didn't think the Far Stars, united and ready, could face such an assault, and the sector was neither. She knew, better than anyone, perhaps, how much of the perceived unity of the worlds pledged to the confederation were really just occupied by her armies, dragged kicking and screaming into the bright future she had promised them all. For better or worse, the fight she faced wasn't one hundred worlds, standing together, against an invader. It was Celtiboria against the empire, and the lopsidedness of that matchup made her sick to her stomach.

Her mind bounced from thought to thought, desperate for something, anything . . . a way to chase even a fleeting chance of victory. Only one option, one person, came to her mind. And even then, it was more a fantasy than anything else.

_What could even he do?_

As much as she loved Blackhawk, she couldn't see any way even he, grim and deadly warrior that he was, could turn back ten imperial battleships.

Still, she felt the urge to reach out, to send word to him, beg him to return. He wouldn't refuse her, she was sure of that. But she didn't know where to find him. She wasn't sure if that mattered, though.

_I don't need to find him. He will come . . . if there is anything he can do, he will come as soon as he knows what is happening._

She wasn't sure she believed he could make a difference, and she wondered if he would even arrive in time to join the defense effort . . . or just to mourn her as he orbited a blasted Celtiboria.

She felt the urge to send out ships, to search the Far Stars for the _Wolf's Claw,_ but she didn't have time or the resources to spare.

_He will come,_ she told herself again. And through all the doubt, the fear, she believed that with all her heart.

_He will come._

"The landings are complete, General. The enemy forces were able to execute scattered operations against our landing zones, costing us time, and casualties 50 percent in excess of projections, but they were unable to sustain their defensive lines once our second and third waves were down. All enemy ground forces are in retreat, with several in outright rout conditions. We have columns moving on the four largest cities even now. The old capital should be secured within hours, General, if not sooner.

"We are on the verge of recovering the empire's ancient provincial capital. To the glory of the emperor."

Idilus listened to the officer, a man of high birth. And, perhaps because of that, a pompous fool.

_I am pompous as well, but perhaps less of a fool._

"You get ahead of yourself, Commander. There is some fighting yet to be concluded before we can add this world back onto the roster of imperial systems. And even once the defending field forces are eradicated, the process of smoking out the disloyal and traitorous will no doubt go on for quite some time. The time has not yet come to presume that we have added to the emperor's inestimable glory."

The officer's face slipped into a sullen expression. "My apologies, General. My enthusiasm at our success ran ahead of my judgment."

The officer, for all his efforts, still sounded like he'd bitten down on something sour. Idilus didn't care. The man could have given the greatest performance ever seen, and he wouldn't have believed a word of it. The imperial service was driven by many things, and one of the main ones was self-preservation . . . and self-promotion. The man was a commander, but he surely wanted to be more.

_Well, if that's what you want, you'll need to get your hands a lot bloodier than they've been so far. And perhaps with a few less losses to our troops._

"See that it doesn't happen again, Commander. We are here to carry out imperial policy, not to congratulate ourselves on milestones not yet fully achieved."

"Yes, General. As you command."

"Commander . . . issue a fleet order. _Rightarus_ and _Vendara_ will remain here, in support of the ground forces until Galvanus Prime is pacified and fully restored as the imperial capital of the Far Stars." There were no surviving enemy ships in the system, and every orbital facility that mounted a weapon had been blasted to dust. Two battleships were more than sufficient to provide support for the ground fighting, and to execute any targeted bombardments requested by the troops on the surface. "The rest of the fleet will depart in three days . . . destination Celtiboria."

The commander stood stone still and silent for a moment. Finally, he said, "Sir, 90 percent of our ground forces are still engaged. Galvanus will be pacified, without a doubt, but three days to complete operations and withdraw a significant number of formations from the surface back to the fleet . . . it's just not possible."

Idilus stared back at the commander, grudging respect slipping into his assessment of the officer's character. It took some courage to challenge the orders of an imperial general and viceroy.

"Your assessment is quite correct, Commander. Despite our advantages, I suspect complete pacification of Galvanus will require at least an imperial month. Our ground forces will not be required, however, not for the attack on Celtiboria. Not in significant numbers. The units still embarked will be more than sufficient." A pause. "My orders stand, Commander. The fleet will move out in exactly three days. Most direct route to Celtiboria."

"Yes, General. As you command." The officer snapped to attention and saluted. Then he turned and moved back through the hatch of Idilus's sanctum into the main control room, snapping out orders as soon as he stepped through the door.

Idilus looked down at his desk, pondering the situation. Things _were_ going well, better even than he'd expected. His mandate from the emperor had specified two targets only. He was well on the way to reconquering Galvanus, and he would leave the bulk of his legions behind as garrison when he returned victoriously to the empire.

The second objective, Celtiboria, was even simpler. His battleships would bombard Celtiboria's surface to slag. Its cities would be reduced to molten rubble, and the fate of its people would serve as a lesson to the rest of the Far Stars.

And Idilus would return to the imperial capital to receive his reward for success, cleansed of any perceptions of failure that have ever accrued to his name. The screams of Celtiboria's dying billions would harken the way to the peak of power and privilege, and he would take his place at the emperor's side once more.

# Chapter 16

"Sam, keep your eyes on the field. It's job one right now, the only thing that can hide us from those battleships." The scanning reports were clear, and they left room for neither argument nor question. There were two giant contacts orbiting Galvanus, each massing almost six billion tons. Blackhawk knew his crew had believed the reports they'd gotten before, and the information he'd given them, too, but there were some things you had to see yourself to _truly_ accept. Imperial battleships were something new to his crew, and their first encounter had been summed up pretty well when Lucas muttered, "Dear God . . ."

Blackhawk wasn't as in awe of what he saw, having seen them before (sometime) in his past. But the information he'd gotten told of ten imperial ships, not two.

_So where were the other eight?_

"I'm on it, Ark. But it would be nice if I had any idea at all how this blasted thing actually works." Blackhawk snorted with a small smile. Sam was no stranger to the distortion field. It had saved the _Claw_ and her crew more than once, and each time she had been at its controls. But Blackhawk had simply stolen the system from a secret imperial lab, and so he had no more idea how it actually worked than his gifted engineer, and very likely a good deal less.

"You know it as well as anyone this side of the Void." _And maybe everyone on the other side, too_. Blackhawk knew how the empire operated well enough to guess there was at least a good chance the field's creator had paid with his life for losing his invention. "Do your best, like you always do."

He turned toward the helm. "Lucas, bring her in slowly. The field works, we know that well enough, but these aren't local patrol ships. We can't know what their scanners can do, and there's no sense in making a gift to them of added thrust." Blackhawk hoped the battleships' scanner suites would be stymied by the field. Certainly, those on the last of the great ships he'd been aboard would have been. But he had no idea what twenty years of research and upgrades had produced in the way of increased capabilities. He was gambling the _Claw_ could sneak into the system and get close to the battleships.

He figured the odds were right around 50/50.

"You want Shira and me in the turrets?" Ace was standing right next to the entrance to the _Wolf's Claw_ 's small bridge. The question almost made Blackhawk laugh, but he understood how much it meant to his people to fight back, however ridiculous the matchup.

"I would say yes, Ace, but I've got something else in mind. We just might be able to get really close to one of those . . . and if we can get aboard, maybe—just maybe—I can disable some core systems." _Assuming they haven't changed too much in twenty years._

"You intend to sneak onto one of _those_?" Ace wasn't one to step away from any challenge, and normally if he thought something was insane, he never let on.

Except just then.

"I do, Ace . . . and if you guys are up to it, I could use some help." He wasn't about to order his people to do something as insane as what he was planning, not even when the future of the Far Stars was at stake. But he knew he would damned sure appreciate them having his back.

"Ark, you know I'm with you anywhere, but how the hell is that even possible? That thing must have tens of thousands of crew on board."

"Right around a hundred thousand, Ace. At least if they're still crewed the way they used to be. But twenty thousand of those are infantry, and I'd wager most of them are down on the surface right now, pacifying Galvanus." Blackhawk surprised himself with how matter-of-fact he'd managed to sound . . . when even he knew the words coming out of his mouth were insane.

"Ark, you can't be serious. That's still eighty thousand left aboard. And even if the field lets us get close to one of those things, how do you expect to dock without getting discovered? _And_ , even if we could just somehow teleport on board, what do you expect five of us to do on something that big without getting caught?"

"I know those ships, Ace. I know their procedures. If we can sneak on board at the right location, we'll have enough time."

"Time for what? To fight eighty thousand enemies?"

"No, of course not. With any luck, we can avoid more than a few encounters. If those ships are still configured the way I remember, we can disable their systems entirely from the main AI control center . . . maybe even seize control."

" _Seize control_? Five of us? And what if they aren't configured the way they were? What if things have changed in the last twenty years?"

Blackhawk looked back at his number two, his expression cold and unemotional. "Then, we're in big trouble, Ace. We just _might_ end up with eighty thousand spacers to fight.

"What is the alternative, though? Sit back, hide? Watch the Far Stars conquered by the empire? See everyone important to us killed, every place where even a spark of hope remains for freedom reduced to abject slavery? What do we do after that? Fight when it's too late? When even a miraculous victory will be of no use?

"Or do we hit them now, when that miracle _just might_ save us?"

Ace was silent for a long while, just looking back at Blackhawk with an expression on his face that floated somewhere between astonishment and understanding. Finally, he spoke.

"All right, Ark. I'm with you, whatever crazy shit you've got in mind. You've never led us astray before. Well, no, that's not true. But you've always gotten us out of it." He smiled wryly. "But you have to be straight with the crew. Everybody needs to know just what they're getting into."

Blackhawk nodded. "I wouldn't have it any other way . . . and I wouldn't have anyone on an operation like this one who wasn't 100 percent committed. I believe we _can_ do this, or at least that we have a chance, but there won't be any room for hesitation or foul-ups. One mistake will get us all killed in an instant."

Blackhawk could see Ace struggling to maintain the steadfast look on his face, and he could see the fear behind the stony façade. Blackhawk's number two had been—still was—a gambler of considerable ability, but even his legendary poker face was being pushed to its limits. Blackhawk didn't think less of Ace for being scared. Anyone sane would be scared of what they were about to do.

Except Blackhawk. He wasn't afraid, not of the mission. The fear churning inside him came from understanding just what the empire would do to the Far Stars. To Astra. If he couldn't stop the empire from conquering the Far Stars, he'd be just as glad to be dead in the corridors of an imperial battleship early in the fight, before he had to watch it all unfold. There was cowardice in that, at least he saw it that way, but he couldn't stop it. Whatever he had to do, the one thing he knew he couldn't watch was the final fall of all he cared about. That would not happen, not while he still drew breath.

Blackhawk leaned forward, his hand moving over the comm controls. "Everybody . . . I need you all to come up to the bridge. I have a plan in mind, but it's dangerous. I don't want any of you coming unless you understand what we're going to do . . . and you're 100 percent on board." He looked up at Ace, and his number two nodded.

Blackhawk wasn't troubled about what his people would do. They'd all come with him, he was sure of it. It bothered him more that he didn't think any of them would refuse, no matter how insane they thought his plan was.

They would all follow him into certain death, and while there was gratification in that, there was an immense wall of cold guilt for leading them into something that had to seem very nearly as bleak.

But there was no choice. Not if the Far Stars was going to have even the smallest chance at survival.

"Let's go . . . and stay low. Those hunter-killer drones are no damned joke." Halvert was crouched down in an old drainage ditch, something left over from the days when the half-overgrown stretch of land had been a farm. That had been years before, maybe even a century. Halvert didn't know a lot about agriculture on Galvanus, or much of anything else about the workings of the planet or its economy. He wasn't well versed in history, especially not on a planet that, until a few years before, had been behind the iron curtain of the empire.

He imagined he didn't look terribly inspiring just then, as most would expect from one of Augustin Lucerne's top commanders. He wasn't quite knee-deep in the mud, but he was close. His uniform was caked with sloppy, wet clay, in varying stages of drying, and his jacket was torn in half a dozen places, a small step from hanging over his shoulders like a pile of rags.

The fighting had been brutal . . . and beyond hopeless. His people—the Celtiborians, at least—had fought like wild beasts, a desperate attempt to restrain the enemy's landing points. But the imperial forces were simply too overpowering. One by one, his defense forces were compelled to fall back, and as they did, the newly landed imperials were able to organize and pursue. What had been a grim and effective defense turned in a few hours to a retreat bordering on a rout.

Now that defense was nothing but a scattered resistance. His comms were jammed, his forces scattered to the winds. Halvert didn't know how many troops he still had in the field, but however many were still under arms, they were outnumbered and outgunned. It was only a matter of time before the imperials hunted down the last of them. But until then, he was going to do everything he could to slow their conquest.

His people were climbing up out of the ditch, the lead wave almost halfway across the field. He cursed himself for getting lost in his thoughts, and he reached up, grabbing onto a heavy root protruding from the side of the trench and pulling himself up. He wasn't a general anymore, not in any real sense. He'd become more of a partisan leader with fewer than five hundred troops under his immediate command. He led, but only as much as those still followed—which they did now without question. For how long, he didn't know. He was confident none would turn on him, but he was less confident they'd be alive much longer.

He slipped a little as he tried to haul himself up, and his arms burned from the exertion. He wasn't as young as he'd been the last time he'd led an assault like the one then going on, and he could feel the stiffness and pain much more pronounced than he remembered during his last campaign. But if his troops were going to do as he commanded, knowing they had almost no hope, he was going to go with them.

He reached around, sliding the rifle strap off his shoulder and down his arm, extending the weapon out as he jogged across the field. The ground was tough to traverse, soft from the rains and pockmarked with shell holes half filled with filthy, brown water. He made his way as quickly as possible, keeping his eyes moving rapidly between the treacherous ground and the sky. He'd searched the area, and there were no drones, at least not within the four or five kilometers his portable scanner could push through the enemy jamming, but he wanted to stay alert, just in case.

The absence of drones was a bit surprising, because their target was important: a large enemy supply convoy. His best guess was the imperials had been careless in providing escort. The campaign had been an almost nonstop disaster for his own troops, but he'd already come to the conclusion the imperials were used to chasing broken and scattered forces and terrified civilians. As well trained and equipped as they were, though, they seemed caught off guard at facing grim veterans in the field. The Celtiborians hadn't managed to stop the enemy advances or hold any of the cities, but they were still fighting, and that alone was a victory of sorts.

Halvert could see the row of ground transports up ahead as he pushed forward through the darkening dusk. There were dozens of them—no, hundreds, at least according to his scouting reports. An imperial commander was somewhere out there trying to cut corners, to push through a supply column without air support or adequate protection.

Halvert and his people were going to teach him a lesson.

He pulled out the portable comm unit. The small device was turned up to maximum power, but he wasn't even sure the signal would reach the ends of his line. He had a kilometer of range, maybe one and a half, but his people were stretched out the entire length of the supply column, and that meant he had troops almost two and a half kilometers from where he stood . . . in both directions. He'd have to rely on his people to pass the word down to those out of range.

"Rocket teams, find a good spot and get set up. We open fire in one minute." He wished he had more time. He'd have liked to get closer, given his people longer to choose their ground, but he felt like he was already on borrowed time. The imperial scanners could pick his people up at any time, and even the small escort force would be deadly if they had warning. He needed surprise, to hit the convoy and take it out in an instant, especially if he planned to extricate any of his troopers after the operation. Once his force opened fire—or was spotted—the enemy would call for help. He wasn't sure how long it would take for imperial ground reinforcements to arrive, but it wouldn't be more than a few minutes before air support arrived, and he had no defenses against that.

His eyes dropped down to the comm as the responses came through from the two other units, positioned a little over a kilometer to each side. They were patchy, heavy with static, but he understood both of them. His people were ready.

He waited, counting silently in his head. Ideally, he'd confirm his rocket teams were ready to go, and he would do what he could to prioritize their targets. But he hadn't had enough of the powerful comm units to go around, and he wasn't going to risk more transmissions than were absolutely necessary. He didn't need the imperials picking up comm traffic. They would know he was there when the first rockets fired, and not a second before, if he could do anything about it.

He stared straight ahead, squinting to get a closer look at the vehicles moving down the road. They had their lights on—another mistake traveling through unpacified territory, and one Halvert was going to shove down their throats in . . .

_Twenty seconds._

He gripped his rifle tightly. He'd given explicit orders. The rockets were to fire eight shots, no more, no fewer. He'd deliberated on that number, adding and subtracting a few before he settled on eight. He needed to do as much damage with the heavy weapons as possible, but the rest of his people had to go in before the imperial guards could form up. They still outgunned his troopers, and if he let the surprise attack turn into a straight-up fight, it was damned sure one he could lose.

He was still counting.

_Ten seconds._

He looked ahead, and then north and south, along his battle line. Still no sign the enemy had spotted them. Good news.

_Five seconds._

He took a deep breath, and every muscle in his body went tense. He was counting down by the seconds.

He got to three when the sound of the first rockets firing ripped through the air.

Close enough.

He sat and listened as the rounds went off, and explosions lit the darkening sky all along the imperial convoy. He was still counting, but now it was rocket launches.

_Five . . ._

More explosions, and distant sounds of screaming from the convoy.

_Six . . ._

He had the comm in one hand, as the other held the rifle tightly.

_Seven . . ._

# Chapter 17

"Commander, it is of the utmost importance that we reach Galvanus Prime as quickly as possible."

"General Inferni, we are not familiar with this space. Any jump in excess of eight light-years without more detailed navigational information will significantly increase the chance of an incident."

"Perhaps I didn't make myself sufficiently clear, Commander. It is of the utmost importance that we reach Galvanus Prime in the shortest _possible_ time. You are to extend our jump distances. Ten light-years are well within safety parameters, even twelve."

"But . . ."

"This is not open to discussion. If you can't carry out your orders, I will find someone who can. Then you can find out personally how fast a person can fly through space."

The commander swallowed. "Yes, General, of course. As you command."

Inferni didn't respond. He'd made his point. He turned to look at the main display, even as the projected course to Galvanus updated, eliminating one jump. That would save six hours, perhaps as many as eight. That was good, but Inferni was still troubled. He wasn't fully certain what he feared, or that Galvanus was the place he had to go. But his instincts were screaming in his head, and they'd rarely failed him in the past. And as overwhelming as the imperial expedition seemed, he could still feel some kind of danger out there, and he couldn't shake the thought that this mission could fail.

Inferni abruptly turned and walked off the bridge, and back to the room he'd claimed for himself. He had much to consider.

He stepped through the doors and listened as they closed behind him. Then he moved behind the desk and sat down, reaching over his shoulder as he did and loosening the fasteners on his breastplate. The heavy black body armor slid down, partially slowed by his arm, and it landed on the floor with a soft thud. He sighed and stretched out in his chair, and then he unclasped the black-and-red cape that shrouded his body virtually every moment he spent in public and let the mound of cloth fall. He maintained an image, one he'd carefully crafted, a persona he'd always found to be useful, almost as some imperial warrior verging on the occult, and his garb was a part of that.

But he had no need of his costume, not just then. He had gathered reams of information, every legend, spacer's tale, and law enforcement report available on the exploits of Arkarin Blackhawk and his crew. He had no doubts, not any longer. Blackhawk was the greatest danger in the Far Stars, the one force in the remote sector he believed might pose a threat to imperial power. Idilus would scoff at his conclusions, no doubt, but then Inferni didn't give a shit what the "viceroy" thought about anything. The other imperial general in the Far Stars—his rival, he supposed, if he'd respected Idilus enough to think of him as any kind of threat—was competent enough to command the fleet. It didn't take extraordinary intelligence to conquer a planet with vastly superior forces, or to blast whatever spacefleet the Celtiborians could muster before obliterating their world. And Idilus was the perfect choice for a job requiring moderately competent mediocrity.

_But this Blackhawk . . ._

Inferni had studied some of the intelligence his operatives had gathered, and though he'd gotten through only a small percentage of the total, almost everything he'd read had served to increase his apprehension, and strengthen his initial opinion.

Arkarin Blackhawk was no typical Far Stars adventurer. In fact, he was almost certain Blackhawk had not come from the fringe sector, but from somewhere across the Void.

Somewhere in the empire.

There were many possibilities in that regard. More than one outlaw had escaped from imperial retribution by fleeing into the Void to become pirates and mercenaries in the Far Stars. Still, he had a feeling Blackhawk was something more than an escaped criminal from the empire. He'd studied several of Blackhawk's operations, the few for which he'd been able to obtain real details. They were efficient, well organized, and well executed. They reeked of expert military planning.

As did his efforts during the recent war, the one that had driven the empire from the Far Stars after a millennium of maintaining a presence. Blackhawk had been less able to hide his exploits as a general commanding fleets and armies, and he had proven himself to be an almost invincible military leader. In a Far Stars steeped in the lore of Augustin Lucerne, there were those who'd declared Blackhawk more skilled than his lost friend.

Blackhawk might have wandered the Far Stars with his small band for most of the last twenty years, but he was clearly capable of more. Much more. Yet the end of the war had left the Far Stars adventurer turned general in command of devoted armies, fleets ready to obey his every order, and he could almost certainly have won himself a crown, made himself the first king of the Far Stars. But he hadn't. By all accounts, he'd simply slipped back into obscurity, almost as if he'd never existed.

Ignes Inferni was a brilliant man, and he'd analyzed every aspect of Blackhawk's actions, and his choices. But he simply was not capable of grasping how a warrior could just walk away when power was there for the taking. How he could walk away when a crown lay before him, in the dirt for the taking. It was an alien concept to Inferni, and it was the one apparent fact that upset his theory, his thoughts on just how Arkarin Blackhawk might have come to the Far Stars.

Still, Blackhawk nagged at him. And if the mercenary was who he suspected, if there was even a chance, there was less time even than he'd imagined.

Was it possible? Could Arkarin Blackhawk be the most dangerous man in all of human inhabited space?

He was unsettled at the thought. The idea of facing such an adversary was imposing, but that wasn't it, not entirely. If Blackhawk was who Inferni had dared to think he was . . . he faced not just a titanic struggle, but a deadly danger to the imperial invasion.

He faced a personal struggle. A very _personal_ struggle.

"It doesn't look like they see us, Ark." Lucas Lancaster had the controls in his hands. He was bringing the _Claw_ in with minimal thrust output, maneuvering the ship like the virtuoso he was.

"No . . . I don't think they do." Blackhawk's eyes had been fixed almost continuously on the screen as the _Claw_ had been making its way slowly toward Galvanus and the two monstrous imperial ships in orbit around that world. "Neither ship has commed the other, and they haven't launched any attack ships. Standard procedure if an unidentified ship is approaching."

He realized his discipline was slipping, that he was spewing out information on imperial doctrine and equipment. For all his years in the Far Stars, Blackhawk had been almost silent about his knowledge of such things. Even after he'd finally confessed, acknowledged his true identity, first to Astra and then to his crew, he'd still remained tight-lipped about the vast storehouse of knowledge he possessed. Astra had stunned him, somehow finding a way to accept what he had been, and in many ways still was, and his crew had followed suit. The truth had been a shock to them all, and for a while, he'd feared things had changed irrevocably, even though they had all declared their continued loyalty and friendship. But it wasn't long before the old camaraderie had returned on the _Claw_.

He turned back toward the rough line of people standing behind him, the _Claw_ 's ground attack forces, such as they were. And his friends.

"I am going to say this again. This will be the most desperate operation we've ever attempted. There is no shame in opting out, in remaining behind here. I will think nothing less of you for that."

Every one of them stood stone still, and not one of them uttered a word. Finally, Ace took the lead and said with a shrug, "You have your answer, Ark."

"Thank you, all."

Then he took a breath and said, "We'll head out in ten minutes. Anything that won't fit under your evac suit will have to go in a gear bag." As if sneaking onto an imperial ship with a crew the size of a small city's population wasn't crazy enough, they'd be traveling the last two hundred meters in space, untethered. Their target was a specific entry point along the twenty kilometers of the battleship's hull, a hatch Blackhawk was sure he could force open.

Well, pretty sure.

It was just another detail of this crazy plan that would need to play out in real time.

He gestured, and the others all turned and headed toward the ladder leading to the lower level, and the equipment lockers and airlocks. He followed, but he stopped just before he started down, and he turned toward the helm. "You know the signal, Lucas." He paused. "If things don't go well, we probably won't make it back, but just in case, keep the channels open. And if you don't hear from us . . . Either way, you're out of here in three hours. You understand me? There's no reason for the rest of you to die, too."

"Sure, Ark. I got it."

"I'm serious, Lucas. If we don't contact you, it means we're dead, anyway, and that will make this my last order. Don't disobey it. Don't make me die knowing I got all of you killed, that no one escaped."

Lucas nodded, his face looking troubled. "I understand, Ark." Blackhawk didn't know if that response was a promise to run, or just a vague way to avoid answering, but he suspected it was the best he was going to get. "Good luck, Lucas."

"Good luck, Ark."

Blackhawk turned and slid down the ladder, spinning around at the bottom and walking toward the cargo hold. It was the only place all five of them could get out together, along with all their equipment. A few bodies were small in the emptiness of space, and he figured they had a good chance of covering the two hundred meters without being picked up on the ship's scanners, but he didn't see any point in pressing their luck by stretching them out one by one and making the trip longer.

The evac suits were stored along the far wall. Ace and Shira were already climbing into theirs, and Sarge and Katarina were pulling their suits off the rack. Blackhawk walked up alongside Katarina, and he reached out, grabbing his own suit. "I meant what I said, Kat. This isn't what you signed on for." Venturi had long been a paying passenger on the _Wolf's Claw,_ and for all the times she had joined in their operations despite the fact that her status didn't obligate her to do so, Blackhawk had never allowed himself to expect it the next time.

"I told you when I came back after the war, Ark. I'm a member of the crew now. It's all I want to be. You have to have noticed I haven't paid for passage in years."

He returned the smile she flashed at him, and he nodded. Then he pulled down his suit and slipped inside with a practiced efficiency.

He turned and waited for the others as they buttoned up their suits and grabbed the large duffel bags each had packed with weapons and equipment. Whatever awaited them, unlikely victory or bitter defeat and death, they were going in armed to the teeth.

Just like the happy band of adventurers he'd come to know and love.

He looked at each of them, confirming their suits were closed up and operational. Next he walked over to the control panel, and he hit the switch that would evacuate the _Claw_ 's bay. Then he would open the airlock . . . and it would begin. The first phase of the fight to save the Far Stars, a battle the word _desperate_ seemed inadequate to describe.

Five against eighty thousand.

He would have called it impossible with any other five. But with the best the _Claw_ had to offer, Blackhawk knew there was a chance.

# Chapter 18

"What's the word, Rafe?" Astra still struggled to keep the "Uncle" part out when she addressed her top general. She still felt the affection she always had for the grizzled old soldier, but as little respect as she paid to the calcified forms of diplomacy and etiquette, she realized a certain maturity, if not formality, was appropriate considering their professional relationship. "Can we get those stations back online quickly enough?"

DeMark's expression wasn't encouraging, but it wasn't gloomy either. That gave Astra her answer before it came out of the general's mouth.

_Maybe._

DeMark looked exhausted, which didn't surprise her at all. By her calculation, the general had gotten less than ten hours of sleep in over a week, and that assumed he'd actually been able to _sleep_ when he'd been in his quarters presumably doing just that. She knew she hadn't. She'd gotten about the same ten hours, but she'd actually closed her eyes for maybe two of them, and that had been fitful and plagued by nightmares.

Or premonitions.

"So what can we do to expedite? I know there are no guarantees, Rafe—how could there be when we don't even know when the enemy will get here—but we don't have any good options, and we've got to do whatever we can to at least try to keep those ships away from Celtiboria."

She knew the asteroid forts wouldn't be enough to defeat the imperial battleships, even if her people somehow managed to get every one of them fully functional, itself almost an outright impossibility. The forts were centuries old, and they'd been abandoned since a united Celtiboria had plunged into three centuries of disunity and civil war between its contending warlords. But they were a potential weapon in her arsenal, and she wasn't going to ignore anything that might help.

"Of course, you're right, Astra. That's why I already took the liberty of ordering the work crews deployed at once. I'm not sure any of it will be enough, but what can be done is already in the works. I was pretty sure what you would decide. I hope I didn't overstep."

"Not at all. We're in this together, you, me . . . all of us." She hesitated and took a deep breath. "Thank you, Rafe. For everything." Astra heard her own fatigue in those last few words, and she felt it closing in on her. Her muscles were stiff, her body aching with every move. She stood still for a moment, fighting off a dizzy spell, not the first one of the day. She was exhausted, but she didn't have time for rest, and she wouldn't for some time.

Maybe never.

She forced a deep breath into her lungs, and she made a mental note to pop a stim or two.

Two. As soon as she was alone. She didn't need anyone giving her a hard time over how many of the uppers she'd sucked down over the past week.

The way she figured it, if she managed to lead her people through this disaster, it was worth anything. She'd give her life to save Celtiboria and the Far Stars from the empire. And if she failed, what difference did it make if her liver and kidneys were shot when she was likely to end up a charred and radioactive corpse anyway?

"Any updates on the fleet's status?" Another pointless effort, but one she had to pursue anyway.

"Four more cruisers just jumped in from Beregond. They're not frontline units, but I've slotted them in for yard space in platform C. If the imperials give us another week, we'll have them in good shape, their weapons retuned per the revised standards."

Another order she'd signed, and one that worried her. She'd had as many of the fleet's ships as possible reconfigured, their reactor outputs and weapons powering increased, well past normal safety levels. It made sense, of course, since her fleet was likely to be obliterated, anyway, when the imperials arrived, but she still knew the first ship lost to an overload or reactor blowout was going to hit her hard. But it didn't matter how she felt. The only thing that mattered was forging the strongest defense she could manage. Whatever the risk.

"Beregond . . . how many troops do we still have there?" The planet was one that had put up a nasty fight against confederation control, but it was close to pacified per the most recent operations reports. That made the loss of the orbital support less devastating, but she still hated the idea of leaving her soldiers stranded all across the sector, their supporting ships gone, called back home to face the imperials.

"About twenty-eight thousand. We just pulled fourteen thousand out of there and I figured we would send them to Calcott."

"Another planetary campaign we stripped of its orbital support." She'd ordered that world's task force to return home as well, though they were still en route. She wondered if she should call back the troops heading there. Calcott was nowhere close to pacified, and while the world didn't possess significant conventional military strength, there was a nasty resistance going on. Did she want to feed more troops into that mess, just as she pulled back their naval support? The question cut both ways. The troops would be going into a difficult situation . . . but the ones already there would need the help, more even than they already had. She didn't really decide . . . but she didn't say anything either. Which, words or not, was tacit approval.

The two sat quietly for a few minutes. Finally, DeMark spoke, and it was clear he was broaching a topic he'd been hesitant to bring up. "I ordered one of the old bunkers prepared to serve as a command post when . . . if . . . the imperials arrive." Astra frowned. There was no "if" about it, and DeMark knew that as well as she did. "With your permission, I would like to bring it up to operative status, and if all checks out, get the headquarters staff relocated there. We can't risk having a couple shots landing in the city taking out our command and control."

Astra nodded. "You're right, of course. I agree. Execute the transfers as quickly as possible."

DeMark paused. "I also prepared facilities for you, Astra. Both work, and quarters. I'm afraid they're not as nice as . . ."

"No."

"I'm sorry? No, what?"

"No, I'm not moving into the command post."

"Astra, the city won't be safe. Even if we manage to hold the enemy battleships back, they have thousands of attack craft. If any penetrate to the planet, they'll come right for the capital. They've got to have collected enough intel on Galvanus to know where the palace and command facilities are here on Celtiboria. They . . ."

"I won't be in the palace, either, Rafe. Or in the city."

DeMark looked at her, confused. It seemed like he was trying to decide what to say, but she beat him to it.

"I'm going to lead the fight from _Augustin_." The battle cruiser was the newest and strongest ship in the Celtiborian navy. She'd christened it less than two months before, and she hadn't had a second thought about a name. Her father had been the greatest hero in Celtiborian history. That's the way she saw it, and thousands upon thousands of warriors who'd served him felt the same way, as did billions of citizens, many of whom had only had fleeting moments living under the justice and fairness of his rule, but who had come to mourn his loss with deep and profound emotion.

"Astra . . ." DeMark's expression went from confusion to horror in an instant. "You can't . . ."

"I know all you're going to say, Rafe, and I can save you the trouble. My decision is made."

"But . . . we can't lose you, Astra. Please . . ."

"We can't lose you either, or Admiral Desaix. Yet neither of you is planning on hiding in a hole in the ground."

"Astra, you're the ruler of the entire Far Stars Confederation. You just . . ."

"I am what I am because of my father, Rafe. You know that as well as I do." Astra was far from a shrinking violet, and she knew she had abilities, that she could have accomplished much on her own. But she didn't indulge herself to imagine she would have risen to rule over dozens of inhabited worlds, with millions of veteran warriors following her every command. _That_ had been a birthright, not an accomplishment of her own, and she had sworn to herself she would never lose sight of that fact.

"Astra . . ."

"Rafe, look me in the eye and tell me my father would have cowered in a bunker while his warriors fought. Do that, and swear on your honor you truly believe that is what Augustin Lucerne would do were he here." She paused, and she gave him a withering stare. "And if you can't—and I don't think you _can_ —then tell me why you think his daughter and successor should do, _could do,_ less than he would have."

DeMark looked like she'd punched him in the gut.

"You've protected me all my life, Rafe. I love you for that, and I respect you in more ways than I can express. But I need something different from you now. I don't need you to protect me . . . I need you to help me fight, and somehow to win—somehow. Because I know two things for certain. First, I am a Lucerne, and my father's daughter.

"And, two, if I am going to ask my soldiers and spacers to fight to the death, they have a right to see me at their sides in that fight . . . as my father always was."

" _Hallios_ and _Bellatron_ require nav system realignment, General. Engineering teams estimate the work will require fourteen imperial hours. The fleet is halted, awaiting your orders."

Idilus felt a flush of anger. Nav realignments weren't all that uncommon, but he'd had all his ships' systems checked out before they left Galvanus. "What the hell are their navigators doing? Or is it the engineers failing?"

"General . . . it is the Far Stars. The space here is not as difficult to navigate as the Void, but it is trickier here than it is back in the empire. Our crews are not used to the added magnetic tides in hyperspace out this far."

Idilus hated excuses, and this one was no exception, even though he knew there was truth to it. The Far Stars lacked the beacon system in the empire, as well, which only added to the fact that the space itself carried residual effects of the Void. It wasn't really the fault of his navigators and engineers, but innocence didn't always preclude him from punishing them. He decided it made more sense to put the option to do so to productive use. "Ten hours, Commander. Advise them they have ten hours to correct their mistakes . . . or I will be forced to take further action."

"Yes, General." The officer didn't express any doubt that the work could be done in the shorter time, but Idilus doubted the commander would have argued with him if he'd said he wanted it done in ten _minutes_. Idilus couldn't match Inferni for inflicting pure terror on those who served him, but he got more than a little use himself out of targeted fear.

He turned toward another of his aides. "The fleet is delayed for ten hours, so let's not waste that time. I want all weapons systems put through full testing sequences, and I want attack wing commanders to submit final deployment plans for the assault on Celtiboria and its fleet."

"Yes, General." The officer nodded, so far it was almost a bow. Then he turned and ran over to the comm station on the far wall and began relaying Idilus's commands.

The general watched for a few seconds, and then he walked back to his chair and sat down. The orders he'd just given would serve more to keep his people busy than to actually accomplish anything. The diagnostics would have to be repeated when the fleet emerged from its final jump. Hyperspace travel was hard on many components, and a dozen things could fail in the final stages of the journey. And finalizing formations for the attack wings was pretty pointless without at least preliminary data on enemy strength and deployments.

He just didn't like letting his people get lazy . . . and he was frustrated and anxious, ready for the destruction of Celtiboria, the victory that would restore him to the highest of positions in the imperial court. If his nervous energy morphed into exhausting work for his crews, so be it.

# Chapter 19

Blackhawk waved his arm, doubly frustrated as he did. First, the suit wasn't exactly designed for freedom of movement, and it was difficult to be precise in any hand signals or other comprehensible gestures.

Second, he'd never cared for hand signals and the like, even in the best of situations. No matter how much preparation went into things like that, it was always a rough mode of communication . . . and his military experience had taught him that nothing was as deadly in battle as confusion.

There was no choice this time, of course. He wasn't about to risk breaking radio silence a hundred meters from an imperial battleship. His people were out of the _Claw_ now, and beyond the protection of the distortion field. They needed a bit of luck to cover the distance undetected, but that would turn into a lot more good fortune required if he started blasting out comm signals all over.

He looked back at Ace, and then Shira. They both nodded their understanding, or at least, that's how he took the rough movement each of them made in their own cumbersome suits. They would pass the word on to Sarge and Katarina.

He turned back and looked ahead, his fingers pressing onto the controls inside his glove, blasting out tiny jets of air to adjust his vector and velocity. The battleship was immense, covering his entire field of view and then some at such short range. He couldn't miss the ship, he knew, not even if he did everything possible to do so. But he was targeting a very precise spot. He was hoping his people would avoid contact inside for long enough to get the few minutes he needed—assuming the crazy plan worked, that the configuration was the same as it had been twenty years before—but they damned sure weren't going to get enough time to go exploring in the guts of a twenty-kilometer spaceship.

He had to hit this one _dead-on_. . . and air hissing out of his suit at various angles was far from the most efficient and controllable mode of propulsion. It was even worse counting on his people to match his moves, with nothing other than sight to go on. Too, distances in space could be misleading, but he could see the light gray metal of the battleship moving closer to him with each passing second.

_Too fast . . ._

He moved his hands around in the gloves, sending another jet of air out, almost directly toward the imperial ship. He felt his velocity slow, and then . . . he slammed into the hull, harder than he'd have liked, but without any detectable injury, or, worse, damage to his suit.

He reached out, flipping another switch, activating the magnetic fibers in his gloves that held him to the hull. He turned, as much as he could manage in the bulky suit, and he watched as his four companions came in and landed, much as he had, with a series of jarring impacts, but without apparent injury or damage.

He pulled himself along the hull, moving slowly to ensure each magnetic glove was secure before pulling the other one free and pulling himself along another half meter. He could see the hatch, right where it was supposed to be, and he kept moving, looking back briefly as his people followed him, slowly spreading out into a single line.

He reached out and grabbed on to one of the handholds near the hatch, and he pulled the rest of his body forward. He was right above the doorway, and his eyes panned over the surface. He was 100 percent confident in his ability to pick an imperial lock . . . at least one from twenty years ago. The empire's battleships took that long to build, and once launched, they served for as long as two centuries, at least if they avoided any mishap. Blackhawk had every reason to believe he could get into the ship, but there was just as much chance his dated knowledge would be useless.

He reached down, fumbling with the gloves of his suit as he tried to work the controls. He reached into the pouch at his side and pulled out a small power wrench. He tried to position it to remove the control panel next to the hatch, but his gloves were too cumbersome. He kept at it for another minute, then two . . . and finally, he got it in place. He turned it on low power, and perhaps two seconds later, the cover plate popped off and floated away. He grabbed for it, almost losing his grip as he did, but he couldn't get to it in time.

No matter. It wouldn't make any difference if the cover was on the hatch's lock.

He grabbed a probe from the sack, and he inserted it into the lock mechanism. The workings looked foreign at first, and for an instant, he feared they had changed the designs. But, then, old familiarity returned, and he could see things slip into place. He slid the probe to the right, and he pushed it into a small circuit. Then, he grabbed a second probe, and he repeated the action, on the other side of the lock mechanism.

He worked for another few minutes, and he could feel the sweat building up inside his suit, in spite of the fact that the environmental control system kept the inside at a comfortable room temperature. He could also feel the seconds ticking away, the minutes, and he knew each one was precious. Maybe they'd gone undetected—and the _Claw_ , too. Perhaps they'd get on board, and the corridors in this section of the massive ship would be sparsely traveled by the crew. It was even possible they would get inside and make their way to the AI center before the general alarm alerted eighty thousand imperial spacers that there were intruders in their midst.

Five intruders.

He turned one of the controls, and he felt a slight vibration. An instant later, the hatch slid to the side. Blackhawk felt a momentary panic. He'd remembered standard procedure was to leave the vestibules at vacuum conditions, but that was something that could have changed at any time, even by a ship commander's whim. It hadn't been anything worth worrying about . . . there was no way he could have vacated the chamber with the outside controls, anyway. But a blast of uncontrolled decompression would have been bad on multiple levels, the two most severe being the fact that it would likely have sent him and his friends careening off into space without tether lines . . . and the near certainty that such an event would be immediately detected inside the ship. Even if his people managed to hang on and get inside, they would almost certainly walk into a swarm of armed security personnel.

The chamber was in vacuum state, as he'd expected—hoped?—and Blackhawk realized his people had sidestepped one more thing that could have gone wrong. He slid inside, looking around and confirming his recollection. They weren't all going to fit. He reached out and pointed at Ace, gesturing for his number two to follow him in. Then he did the same with Shira. He held his hand out in a stopping motion, his way of telling Sarge and Katarina to wait.

He turned and looked at the control panel as Shira and Ace worked their way into the chamber. There were no locks on the inner section, just a control pad with large buttons and keys, designed for use by personnel in space suits. He was almost certain he could work the system from the vestibule, though he was just as sure the whole thing would show up on some screen somewhere in the massive ship. With any luck, some midlevel tech would assume it was a malfunction and report it to maintenance instead of up the command chain. He didn't need much of a delay before the alarm was sounded, mostly because he knew they wouldn't have long anyway. They'd run into spacers in the corridors or walk past a security bot. They would have minutes, if they were lucky. Planning the operation, troubleshooting it from every angle, even worrying about it . . . he'd done all those at great length. Now, it was time to do it, and there was no time to waste, no room for the slightest error.

He worked the controls—again, unchanged from the ones he remembered—and he closed the outer hatch. Then he activated the pressurization sequence, extending his hand after he did, gesturing for Ace and Shira to wait and stay where they were. A red light on the small panel turned yellow as soon as the air began to flow, and thirty seconds later, it switched to green.

Blackhawk popped open his suit and took a deep breath. He reached inside and pulled out his pistol. Then he hit another control, and the inner door slid open.

He leapt out, as quickly and carefully as he could with the baggy suit still flopped down all around his body. There was a small room inside the airlock, about four meters square, with corridors stretching out in three different directions. His eyes darted all around, searching for any signs of imperials. But the room was empty, and the corridors, too, at least as far as they stretched out in a straight direction.

He waved for Ace and Shira to follow him, even as he whipped his body around and pulled himself from the suit. It was cumbersome, but Blackhawk's enhanced dexterity served him again, and he slid out and righted himself in a combat pose, spinning around and checking each corridor again.

"You guys okay?" Ace and Shira were both having a bit more trouble extricating themselves from the bulky suits, but they were managing, after a fashion.

"Yeah, Ark . . . we're fine." Ace answered for Shira as well as himself, and as he spoke, he shook his arm hard, throwing the suit down to the floor in disgust.

Shira just nodded, a sure sign they had all been together for a very long time. Blackhawk remembered when Shira would never have allowed Ace to answer for her without hitting him with some kind of barb or another. He wondered if they'd become a smoother team . . . or if the years had just made them too tired for such pointless sparring.

Blackhawk reached out to the controls, shutting the door and vacating the airlock. Then, he pulled his weapons pouch from the back of his suit, even as Ace and Shira did the same. He pulled out his sword and fastened the sheath to his belt, opposite his reholstered pistol. He'd brought a pouch of grenades as well, and he slung it over his shoulder. He pulled an assault rifle out next, a top-of-the-line model, of imperial and not Far Stars design.

He punched at the controls, opening the outer hatch, and looking through the plexi window into the airlock. Katarina came in first, with Sarge next, bringing up the rear. Kat had a slender bag hanging on her back, small but no doubt carrying a surprising quantity of deadly weapons. Sarge's sack was immense, and Blackhawk had some idea from past adventures just what the ex-noncom had packed in there.

He shut the outer hatch and repeated the procedure, from the panel in the room now, instead of the smaller one in the airlock. A few minutes later, his entire group was assembled, their space suits discarded in a giant pile, and all manner of weapons in their hands and strapped across their shoulders and backs.

They were ready.

He turned back and looked at each of them, his eyes pausing for a few seconds, returning each of their gazes. Finally, he said, "Follow me . . . and keep an eye out for any of the crew. It's a quiet part of the ship, but we're bound to run into someone soon enough."

Then he leveled his rifle and he set off down the rightmost corridor . . . toward what had been—and hopefully still was—the main AI center.

# Chapter 20

"Stay down, all of you!" Halvert had lost two dozen of his people since the sun had risen, but four of them haunted him more than the others. Death was part of war, and while he mourned for any of his people lost, he understood they all took their chances. Some got hit, others were missed. But the four sinking their teeth into his psyche were newbies, rookies arrived from Celtiboria less than two months before. Babies, still wet behind the ears, seeing their first combat . . . and their last. He'd watched all four of them die, and every one of them was lost to stupid, careless nonsense. They didn't crouch low enough, or they got up from cover too soon. One by one, they were made to pay the ultimate price for their inexperience, and with each one of them, Halvert lost a little piece of himself.

The imperials were good. Damned good. Their training was fine, as was their discipline, but their weapons and equipment were incredible. Halvert was used to his Celtiborians being the best, and they were just that, at least in the Far Stars. But the imperial legions made his people seem almost like primitive savages by comparison. Worse, perhaps, the forces on Galvanus were garrisons and peacekeepers, and they didn't have any armor or airpower. A large percentage of the rank and file was green, with new recruits facing their first real combat. It was only by happenstance that a commander of Halvert's stature and ability had been given the top posting, a nod of sorts to the planet's status as the old imperial capital more than any real perceived military need.

Now there was a military need, a dire one. The entire Celtiborian army would be hard-pressed to defeat the imperial forces. Halvert's small garrison had no chance at all.

Still, they were fighting. And he intended for them to keep at it while he had anyone still standing. When the assault rifles ran out of ammunition, they would use pistols, and when they were exhausted, knives and swords. There would be no surrender. The empire was a bit of a mystery in the Far Stars, impressions about it heavier on legend than fact, but Halvert was pretty sure he knew what would happen to any of his people who yielded . . . and if they were going to die anyway, he was determined they would do so in arms, resisting to the last.

Halvert looked up, out of the small ditch he was using for cover. His knees pressed down into the ooze, the lower half of his uniform and body soaked and caked in mud. Those who talked of the glory and grandeur of war had never seen the filth and blood up close, nor felt the stark terror of death moving across the field. Halvert's eyes were fixed on one section of the wall of fog stretching across the field. He'd seen movement . . . or, perhaps _seen_ was too strong a word. He'd felt _something_. Slowly he brought his rifle up to bear, staring at the spot with focused intensity.

He heard shots fired—imperial weapons first, but an instant later, his own people responding—but he remained where he was, his eyes locked on a single spot, just as an imperial soldier came forward out of the mist.

He was big—they all seemed to be big, though he wasn't sure how much of that was armor and accoutrements and how much was actual physical build—and he was coming right at Halvert's position. Before the fighting of the past couple weeks, it had been a long time since Halvert had stood in a foxhole in the front line, rifle in hand. But the combat on Galvanus demanded foot soldiers. There was little strategy involved, and all his people really had left was grit and determination. And he served those strengths better in the field alongside his soldiers.

He was almost robotic, his mind acknowledging the target, and his hands, arms, eyes, all working together, shifting the rifle slightly and lining up the shot.

_Crack._

_Crack._

_Crack._

Three shots in rapid succession. He could tell immediately, he'd hit the target. The imperial lurched backward, stumbling, clearly trying to remain on his feet. Halvert didn't think the soldier would manage it, but he wasn't going to take any chances.

_Crack._

_Crack._

_Crack._

Another three shots, and as far as he could tell, three hits. The imperial dropped hard, and Halvert's military experience and instincts told him the soldier would never get up again. He couldn't confirm that, of course, but he was sure nevertheless.

He didn't have time to celebrate the kill, though. Two more soldiers came bounding out of the line of fog, their weapons swinging into place, and firing in his direction.

He ducked down, an instinctive reaction, then he realized the enemy soldiers were firing blindly, that they hadn't spotted him. That gave him a chance, a second, maybe two.

He lurched forward, his body rising just high enough to get a solid location on his enemies. Then he repeated the actions of a moment before, his eyes locked on the target, his hands bringing the weapon to bear, lining up the sights.

He fired another burst of three shots. The soldier staggered. He would have liked to fire another burst, made sure he'd put the imperial down, but even as he started moving his weapon toward the other enemy, he could see his adversary doing the same. They saw each other, and it was a race to see who could aim and fire first. Halvert had some cover, which was an advantage, but the top third of his body was exposed, and that was more than enough for the imperial to put him in the ground. If he'd learned one thing in the fighting on Galvanus, it was that imperial troops were well trained in the use of their sophisticated weapons. Simply put, they didn't miss that often.

Halvert's mind was racing, even as his body was struggling to bring his rifle to bear before the enemy could do the same. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and he found himself trying to get a read on who was ahead, his enemy or him. It was close.

He continued, even as he saw the hazy images of more imperials coming forward out of the fog. He ignored them all. None of that would matter if he didn't manage to shoot first.

He could feel the sweat on his arms, dripping down in rivulets, his palms moist, slick. He tightened his grip. If he had to die, he had to die . . . but not because the rifle slipped in sweaty hands.

His finger tightened, even as he was still aiming the weapon. He would have liked another second to finish aiming, but he didn't have it, and he forced the shot. Even as his finger closed on the trigger, he half expected his enemy's rounds to tear into him before he fired.

He felt the kick of the rifle as the first shot went off. Then again, almost instantly, as the second and third rounds fired. He gritted his teeth and braced himself for the incoming fire he _knew_ was coming. But there was nothing.

He saw his enemy drop to his knees, the rifle that had been half a second or less from firing dropping from his hands. The imperial paused for an instant, and then he fell forward, facedown into the mud.

Halvert barely saw all that. At least four more enemy soldiers were coming out of the fog, and he dropped down hard into his foxhole, just as incoming fire whizzed by overhead. He had no idea how many enemy troops were coming. His comm was just about down, reduced by enemy jamming to less than half a kilometer in range. He had no satellites, no aircraft, no way of getting any kind of reliable scouting info. He was an experienced warrior, an officer who had learned his craft from Augustin Lucerne himself . . . but there was nothing he could do but crouch down in that foxhole and hold the enemy back.

Somehow.

He glanced down at his rifle as he flicked his thumb, toggling the weapon to full auto fire. He'd go through his ammo quickly—he had half a dozen clips, which wasn't much for that kind of fire—but the enemy was coming on, more and more of them emerging from the fog.

His enemy was in the open, having to cross the flat plain to reach his position. It was his only advantage.

He took a deep breath and poked his head back up, even as he swung the rifle to bear again. There was fire all around, but he'd bought a few seconds of luck, and none of the shots hit him. He didn't aim, not more than a rough direction toward the oncoming soldiers, and he opened fire, spraying down the field in front of him.

He let out a shout, a war cry of sorts, as he gunned down the approaching imperials, knowing the shot that finished him could come at any second.

Blackhawk reached out, grabbing the man and spinning his body around, covering his victim's mouth to stifle his scream as he jammed the point of his shortsword deep into the spacer's back. The man seemed harmless enough, unarmed, clearly some kind of low-level technician, whose duty at that moment had brought him to a deadly place.

The spacer himself was no danger, but what might have been harmful was the shout, or the half of it he'd managed before his life was snuffed out. That was a danger if anyone was close enough to hear it, of course, but it could also be a problem if it triggered some kind of AI alarm. Blackhawk and his people could handle a few spacers, even armed security guards, but if the whole ship ended up on alert, their already tiny chance of success would fade away to something very close to zero.

Blackhawk let the body drop, and he moved forward, perhaps a dozen steps, to an intersection his people had been heading toward. He peered cautiously around the corner in both directions. Nothing.

_No . . . wait . . ._

He saw movement in the distance. His memory told him the corridor was one of the main ones in this section of the ship, over three kilometers long, and probably the most traveled route on the vessel that his people would pass. They were lucky no one was closer, and he didn't think the spacer he could barely see—no, more than one . . . three—could possibly have heard the partially muffled scream.

Still, he waited until he could see them move off.

While he did, his tension about the alarm systems faded as well when no alarms sounded. Again, it was possible some security system could have alerted a guard station without any kind of klaxons going off, but that hadn't been standard procedure.

He turned and waved for his people to come forward. Then he walked across the intersection, looking in every way like some imperial officer who had every reason to be striding through the ship's corridors. He wasn't even sure the approaching spacers, lacking his genetically engineered long-distance vision, were close enough to see him, but they damned sure were too far off to realize that the garb he and his companions wore looked nothing like any imperial uniform.

He moved a few more meters and stopped. He couldn't press on, leaving those spacers behind. They might just cross over the intersection and go on their way, but he couldn't risk it.

"Somebody's got to hang back to handle them. We can't leave them behind us." He didn't say anything else, but his eyes moved toward Katarina. She just returned his gaze with a slight nod.

"Let's go," he said to the others, and he continued down the corridor. It was all there, as clear and accurate as it had been twenty years before. Still, he questioned every step.

_Even if you remember everything and nothing's changed, there is no accounting for how eighty thousand imperials go about their days. Every corner we come across is a potential for exposure._

_A chance for this to be over before it even starts._

The layout of the sections of the vessel we have traversed matches your recollections exactly, including the locations of all control panels and lighting installations. While there can be no certainty to assurances that this condition will continue, there is a very high probability—in excess of 90 percent by my calculations—that the systems we seek will be in the same location you remember. Lack of data makes projections on the AI system itself, and its accessibility to what you plan, more difficult.

Blackhawk just nodded, continuing forward, his mind still on the approaching spacers despite his almost complete confidence in Katarina's ability to dispatch them. He felt an instant of hesitation at the brutality of it, at the killing of what were probably just low-ranking technicians or other crew, but he pushed it aside almost immediately. More likely than not, they were going to have to kill everyone on the ship . . . or die there themselves. There was no place in war for hesitation, for allowing moral concerns to stay needed action. All that would do was get his people killed. It was one of the few conclusions that had remained almost unchanged in his journey from Frigus Umbra to Arkarin Blackhawk. His own people were his first priority. Always. Them, and the mission, which was to save the Far Stars from falling into imperial slavery. That was worth any cost, any amount of blood spilled.

He pushed forward, moving cautiously. Another forty meters down the corridor, he turned and continued down a smaller, narrower hallway that ended at a white metal door.

"This should be an entrance to the main AI and processing center. This is a secure location where the actual processing units are housed, so there won't be rows of workstations behind this door. That doesn't mean there won't be anybody in there. Based on my previous experiences, I estimate . . ." He paused as he saw Katarina jogging down the corridor and stopping when she reached the group. She looked at him with a touch of grim finality, a quick exchange of glances that told him all he needed to know. ". . . as I was saying, based on my recollections of standard procedure, there are likely to be somewhere between five and fifteen spacers in there. That depends largely on whether any sort of maintenance is under way. Two will be guards, and they will almost certainly be there. We have to take them out first. We'll likely have surprise on our side, but don't underestimate them." Blackhawk felt he had to warn his people about the guards, but he was planning to take both of them out himself.

He slung the assault rifle over his shoulder and pulled his pistol out of the holster. A handgun couldn't match a rifle for aim, but Blackhawk's pistol had been with him for decades, and it was almost like part of his arm. He didn't know where the guards would be, or if there would be more than two, and he wanted to be ready to move smoothly if he needed to.

"Okay . . . you're all in, right after me." A pause. "And we take everybody out." It was an awful fate for the techs, but the stakes were too high to allow for anything less. They nodded.

He turned back to the door and worked the controls, overloading the locking circuit, and then, suddenly, the door slid open, revealing a large room with a high ceiling.

Again, it was just as he remembered.

He was inside, almost without conscious thought, his pistol in hand, his eyes scanning, counting those present, and locking down their locations. There were technicians, two of them close, along the wall on his left, seated at workstations, and four more at the far end of the room. The technicians were dangerous, of course. Any one of them could sound the alarm, but it was the guards he needed to find first. But as he scanned the room, he couldn't find them.

His mind raced, images of the room, almost a mental schematic, floating in his thoughts. There was a large cylinder in the center of the room, the housing for the main processing units.

_They must be on the other side . . ._

He lunged forward, rushing as fast as he could. He could feel the sweat dripping down his back, the tension building. Every second he gave the guards was that much more time for them to prepare, to get into cover, to track his own people. To call for help.

The technicians were just beginning to react to the intrusion, and even as they began to shout out some kind of challenge and jump up from their seats, his people opened fire. The two closest techs were slammed back, over their workstations, their bodies riddled with bullet holes.

Blackhawk had ignored them, left them to his people. He had to get to those guards, and he was running out of time. He raced up to the edge of the processor casing, and he forced himself to an abrupt halt. He peered around cautiously, pistol in hand.

Then all hell broke loose. A flurry of fire blasted from the far end of the processing tower, driving him back behind the cover of the unit. He had only a fleeting image of the space he'd just seen, but there were at least four guards, and all of them had been firing.

But that wasn't all. Even as he slammed his pistol down in the holster and grabbed the assault rifle, flipping it to full auto in one quick motion, things got worse. A lot worse.

The klaxons went off, in the room, and out in the hall. Everywhere, he knew immediately. The guards had sounded the alarm, and that meant he and his people had minutes, maybe less, before a hundred guards were pouring into the room, weapons blazing.

_Damn it._

# Chapter 21

Grigg Norgstrom moved his hands over the workstation almost too quickly for his eyes to follow. The first officer of Base Drendel was checking the status of every system on the asteroid fortress. Drendel had once had another name, long since forgotten, but like its brethren among the newly revived line of gun platforms preparing to fight the approaching imperials, Drendel was named for a hero of the Celtiborian army.

"All systems check out, Commander." Norgstrom turned toward the command station as he gave his report. "I've been through everything twice . . ." In truth, he'd checked three times, but he hadn't had authorization for the third run. Norgstrom was a careful sort, the kind some would call paranoid, and while his knowledge of imperial technology and doctrine was quite limited, he had the same feeling all his comrades seemed to share. They were in trouble.

That was something he knew he couldn't change, not by himself at least, but what was within reach was to make sure Drendel's weapons and systems were ready to give one hell of a fight to whatever came blasting into the system.

"Very well, Lieutenant Commander. We have done all we can. Now, there is nothing but to wait."

"Yes, sir." Norgstrom wasn't crazy about his commanding officer. He'd been nothing but respectful and obedient, and in fairness, he had to admit the commander had run things entirely by the book. But the first officer could feel the gravity of what was about to happen, the doom that was coming, not only for the station crews, but for all Celtiboria. This fight demanded the best the planet had to offer, and Commander Crendus was far from that.

Norgstrom could hear the arrogance in the commander's tone, even though the officer was clearly trying to restrain it. The base commander had come from aristocratic stock, and his position in what had been Augustin Lucerne's forces was owed entirely to the amnesties and merging of forces that had ended the last of the civil wars. Norgstrom himself had served the marshal his entire life, as his father had before him. He was a hard-core Lucernite, part of the old guard, and like his brethren in that group, he harbored some resentment for those who didn't quite belong in that elite group. He understood the need for unity, the wisdom in accepting former enemies into the combined ranks, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"Commander, may I suggest that we move extra pods to the main guns? I reviewed the firing chambers myself, and I am certain we can fit two additional pallets in each bay." The main lasers based on the asteroids were big, far larger than those on the most powerful Celtiborian warships. That increased range and hitting power considerably, but it was also difficult on lenses and firing chambers. The large turrets could manage three shots, at most four, and then they needed to replace their pods. Standard procedure called for positioning a spare pallet, six replacements, right behind each gun, but when those were gone—assuming the base was still there—it would take half an hour, at least, to bring more from the storage holds. Prepositioning extras would triple the firing time of the guns, at a cost of no more than a little crowding and inconvenience for the gunnery crews.

"That is not standard procedure, Lieutenant Commander."

Norgstrom bristled every time the commander called him by rank. Adding the "lieutenant" was not standard procedure, either, though not technically wrong. It wouldn't have bothered him if he wasn't so sure the only reason was to emphasize Crendus's higher rank.

_As if anyone here doesn't know he's in command._

"With all due respect, sir . . ." he began, and, to be clear, it was a good deal more than he really thought was due, ". . . the 'standard practices' for these stations were thrown together in a single day. I'm not advocating disobeying any requirements or procedures, but I believe prepositioning ammunition is well within your prerogative, Commander."

Crendus didn't answer right away. Finally, he turned toward Norgstrom and said, "Very well, Lieutenant Commander. You may issue the orders."

"Yes, sir." Norgstrom leaned down over his board, activating the comm line and issuing the orders.

_Thank you, you pompous ass._

# Chapter 22

A thousand thoughts ripped through Blackhawk's mind like a torrent. Somehow, faster than his conscious mind could follow, he was reviewing scenarios. What to do.

For all the complex tactics racing through his thoughts, though, there was a single, dominant realization. One thing hadn't changed. He _had_ to take the guards out. Immediately. If more security forces arrived while the ones in the room were still active, it was going to be a disaster. A worse one than he already had on his hands.

He lunged out from behind the tall metal cylinder, away from his cover, and he tumbled down toward the floor, even as he brought his rifle to bear, firing once, twice, a third time . . . and dropping as many guards in a passing instant.

Blackhawk felt as though something was controlling him. He'd experienced the battle trance for forty years now, but he still didn't completely understand it, any more than he did the rest of the conditioning . . . the monster that still lived inside him.

There were five guards in total, with three down. The two still standing had been taken completely by surprise by his sudden move, and they were struggling to reorient themselves.

Too late.

Blackhawk fired again. The fourth guard dropped, a line of blood pouring from a perfect red circle on his forehead.

_One left . . ._

Blackhawk's eyes were on the guard, even as he heard—and felt—movement behind him. One of the spacers . . .

He had an urge to turn, see what threat was moving up from behind him, but he resisted, forcing his attention back to the guard. Imperial spacers were generally unarmed on board a ship, but that didn't mean an enemy moving up behind him wasn't a problem. It just meant it was a lesser danger than an armed guard bringing his weapon to bear.

It was a difficult thing for Blackhawk to trust anyone, especially in a combat situation, but he knew his people had his back, and he had to focus on the final guard. That meant leaving whoever was behind him to his friends.

He brought his rifle around and aimed at the final guard, even as he heard a soft, high-pitched sound from the side, a gunshot. A familiar one.

He could feel the air moving from the spacer dropping behind him, and he knew immediately what had happened. Katarina's gun. He'd recognize that sound anywhere. He nodded, slightly, a show of appreciation he doubted she could even see, and then he pulled the trigger . . . and blew the top of the guard's head off, perhaps half a second before the imperial could get off his own shot.

He gulped down a deep breath, and he spun around, checking out the rest of the room. Kat was standing about ten meters away, still looking at him and the spacer she'd taken down. It was the second time in as many weeks that she'd saved his ass. Ace was the farthest in the room, and from where Blackhawk stood, it looked like his number two had taken down three spacers. Shira was about midway in, drawing her knife sharply across the throat of what seemed to be the last imperial alive in the room. He hadn't seen the prelude, how she'd ended up in such close quarters, but he knew Shira had a soft spot for knife work.

Sarge was at the door, standing guard as the klaxons continued to go off. Blackhawk could see from his expression that the old soldier could hear someone approaching. He turned and gestured, his hands signaling four imperials coming down the corridor.

_Shit._ Four would be just the beginning.

Blackhawk knew they needed more time . . . time they weren't likely to get. "Cover the doors." He had four people and there were three entrances. Whatever they managed, it wasn't exactly going to be defense in depth. He wanted to join them, but he had other work to do. The reason they'd come.

He had to take control of the ship's AI.

It seemed almost impossible, even for someone of his talents, but he had a secret weapon. At least he thought he did.

The emperor, and imperial culture as a whole, were nothing if not paranoid. At every level, officers, nobles, ministers—right up to the emperor himself—distrusted their subordinates and guarded constantly against efforts of those below to topple them and take their positions. Everyone was watched, monitored, spied on . . . and there were all kinds of secret systems, backdoors into systems, ways to crush any disloyalty before it became a larger problem.

Blackhawk had been Frigus Umbra. He'd held a position near the very top of the imperial hierarchy, and he'd been privy to all sorts of secrets and codes.

Including Imperial-37 . . . a secret backdoor into controlling the AIs of every battleship in the fleet. Ambitious admirals with their eyes on a throne had been the fear of emperors for centuries, and only the most trusted henchmen were privy to such information. Assuming the codes hadn't been changed, he could cut life support, close every hatch and door on the ship, even overload the reactors and destroy the ship. He just wasn't sure he could do it in time.

He raced across the room, flopping hard into a chair at one of the workstations. His hands moved quickly over the controls, and he stared intently at the screen. He entered an access code, and he held his breath for an instant, waiting to see if his twenty-year-old information was still valid. He was hopeful—changing the Imperial-37 routines in every battleship in the fleet would have been a titanic job.

The screen went blank for a few seconds . . . and then, a single prompt appeared, awaiting the entry of more data.

He was in.

He stared at the screen, organizing his thoughts, confirming to himself the codes he would need at each step of the process. A mistake, any mistake, could have unintended consequences. Specifically, it could shut down the whole thing, lock him out of the Imperial-37 protocols entirely. He had to be careful.

_But you don't have time to be careful . . ._

Even as the thought drifted into his mind, he heard gunfire. Sarge's heavy assault rifle, from the sound of it, but then return fire, imperial weapons. He resisted the urge to look. He needed to stay focused. But even as he forced the fighting at Sarge's door from his mind, he heard Shira's higher-pitched gun open up.

There were imperials coming at them from two directions.

His fingers raced over the keyboard, his eyes darting across the screen, checking everything. He was moving as quickly as he could, but even as he pushed himself to the limit, a grim reality became clear.

He wasn't going to finish in time.

I can assist . . . if you will allow me to assume greater control than I have in the past.

Blackhawk felt a wave of apprehension. _Allow you to take control . . . what does that even mean?_

It means I will directly control your motor functions and the connections from your cerebral cortex to your hands. I will be able to input the required codes far more quickly than you can, and with perfect accuracy. But, if you do not agree immediately, we will run out of time anyway.

Every fiber in Blackhawk's being told him to refuse. Trust came hard to him, and giving control of himself to anyone or anything was anathema to his way of being. But the AI was right. There was no time.

If it aids your decision-making process, I do not need your consent. However, if I take control and you attempt to resist, there is a great risk of permanent mental injury. Perhaps my unwillingness to proceed without your consent will be meaningful to you. Indeed, you must also understand that, even with your approval, the process will not be pleasant for you.

Blackhawk was decisive by nature, and even more so by conditioning. But he didn't know what to do. He could hear the gunfire increasing in intensity, and getting closer, yet he still hesitated . . .

"Do it."

The words came out, almost on their own—

And then a wave of pain slammed into him, almost as if his brain was exploding.

He recoiled in the chair—no, he only felt as though he had. His body was . . . gone. At least, he couldn't feel it. Couldn't feel his hands, his legs. But he was aware of what he was doing and he could see his hands moving over the keyboard and the controls, so quickly they were almost a blur. He could feel the codes coming from his brain, knowledge long buried in the depths of his mind streaming out at a pace he couldn't comprehend.

And he could feel the pain.

It was intense, debilitating. Blackhawk had been in many desperate fights, he'd been tortured by enemies, he'd endured almost everything a man could. Yet now he would have wept from the pain, tears streaming down his cheeks . . . if he could have. He didn't have control, even of his eyes, and all he could do was sit there and endure.

Time was amorphous. It seemed as though minutes were passing, hours. His thoughts were jumbled, flashes of concern about the enemy, mixed with dreamlike remembrances. He could feel information moving, somehow, but he was lost, too. Everything was unclear.

Always, though, everywhere, there was the pain. Relentless, unbearable.

Then it was gone.

He felt sleepy, and he struggled for awareness. He could feel his arms again, his hands. He reached up to his face, moved his hand across it. It was covered in blood.

_Am I shot?_ The thought raced into his mind. He moved his hand back to his face. _No, not shot. A nosebleed._

We have completed the Imperial-37 protocol, and the system has responded as expected. We now control the ship through the AI. To the best of my analytical capacity, it will accept any orders you choose to give. I have closed all hatches on the ship, including those to this room, and I have deactivated life support in the corridors approaching our location. Any security forces will be compelled to withdraw until they can equip themselves with survival gear.

Blackhawk heard everything the AI said—he wasn't sure _listened_ was the right word—even as he was checking for himself. He looked around the room. The doors were closed, and his people were standing, looking toward him. All except Shira. She was moving toward him.

"Are you okay?" She stopped about a meter away and looked at him, her eyes focused on the blood covering his chin and the front of his tunic.

"I'm fine . . ." The words came out, almost automatically. Then he turned toward her, suddenly aware what the last moments—he looked at the chronometer . . . was it possible it had only been twenty seconds?—must have looked like to his people. "Really," he added, his eyes focusing on her, seeing the concern on her face.

On all their faces.

"I activated the backdoor protocols. We control the entire ship from here . . . but we don't have much time."

He moved his sleeve across his face, wiping away most of the blood. He turned to the screen in front of him, and he began entering commands. Then he stopped.

He knew what he had to do. But now he struggled with it. His mind raced, searching for other options, ways to disable the crew, or to confine them. But there was nothing, certainly no way five of them could possibly contain eighty thousand or more. And the Imperial-37 system wasn't impervious. If the ship's commander wasn't a fool, he was already trying to override the AI. If Blackhawk gave him time, he just might succeed.

He had to kill eighty thousand spacers. Many probably deserved death. The imperial forces were brutal, and they inflicted death and misery on uncounted masses, and no small number of those on that ship had blood on their hands.

But many of them were simply conscripts, serving aboard the battleship because the alternative had been poverty and even starvation. Regardless, they would be as dead as the grimmest imperial inquisitor, and at his hands.

Once, Blackhawk wouldn't have hesitated. In his days as an imperial general, he'd killed millions, those in arms and hordes of civilians as well. He'd delivered the emperor's judgment, and he'd instilled the terror that kept the masses in line.

Even after he'd broken his imperial conditioning, he'd been grim in his approach to things. He viewed the universe as a dark place, and death as a part of that. But the years—and his friends, the loyalty, the affection they had for him—had changed him.

Astra had changed him.

He'd entered the commands and codes, and now his hand hovered over the controls, one step from cutting life support everywhere but in the room his people occupied.

Eighty thousand people. They would die, those in the outer compartments likely from the cold moving into the ship, shivering, struggling desperately to stay warm, to preserve what fleeting bits remained of their body warmth until the dropping temperatures took them.

It would be different deeper in the ship, in the protected areas like the bridge and the engineering sections. Air would fail in those locations before heat. Men and women would take deeper and deeper breaths, their lungs aching, struggling for the last bits of oxygen remaining as the ship's atmosphere became almost entirely nitrogen and carbon dioxide. They would gasp, and then they would slip away.

Blackhawk was struggling, every manner of doubt whipping through his mind, grim thoughts of killing all these people with the press of a button.

But there were billions in the Far Stars, and unless the imperial forces could be defeated, driven back, those multitudes would face death or slavery. There were things worth fighting for, killing for, and saving a hundred planets was one of them.

Not just a hundred worlds, nor their billions of inhabitants. He was fighting to save Astra, too, and there was nothing he wouldn't do to keep her safe.

He pressed his finger down on the key, activating the command.

Unleashing death on every imperial on the vast ship.

# Chapter 23

Blackhawk stared at the screen, silent, unmoving. The figures he was reading didn't lie. Oxygen levels on the ship were zero. The temperature ranged from thirty to sixty degrees absolute. Every member of the crew was dead, save any who'd managed to reach survival gear in time, climb into space or enviro suits before they froze or suffocated. With every hatch and access panel on the ship locked shut, though, that wouldn't be very many. Just those few who'd happened to be in storage lockers with the required gear.

They would die soon enough, too. A reserve air supply might last a few hours, but scattered survivors locked in compartments around the ship were doomed. And even if a few had both survival gear and plasma torches or some other way to get out of the rooms in which they were stuck, Blackhawk had activated the internal security systems. There were already bots zooming around the ship, searching, with orders to kill anyone they found.

This mission, then, was done. Now, he was looking to next steps . . . to the other ship sharing orbit with the one his people occupied. He had to destroy it. There was no other way. But how?

He'd ordered the AI to send out a signal indicating intermittent power failures and malfunctioning comm systems. It wasn't a very effective cover, not to anyone with a brain who really looked at it, but it was good enough, at least for a short while. However strange it all looked, it was easier to believe than a small band slipping into the system in an undetectable ship and somehow managing to take control of an imperial battleship. That would be a scenario he doubted they'd even come up with, an impossibility—as sometimes only the truth could be.

Still, it would only buy so much time. Blackhawk had to figure a way to disable or destroy the companion ship, something other than a repeat of the unlikely operation that had succeeded on his current vessel. He'd been fortunate and overcome odds that had seemed damned near impossible. But his people had benefited from total surprise, and while he was fairly sure the commander of the other ship had bought his story, he was even more certain that standard procedure would have the battleship on at least a low-level alert.

_Which means we have to attack. We're close, very close, and we'll have surprise on our side. If we get off the first shot, maybe even the first two . . ._

No, it was impossible. The backdoor he'd used had allowed him to access shipwide systems like life support, but it took far more than five people to crew an imperial battleship in battle. Even ignoring damage control and other labor-intensive operations, he would need hundreds at least, and more likely thousands.

_That might as well be a million. A billion._

_But . . . what about the AI?_

The idea was a vague one, floating around the edge of his thought. Was it even possible for the artificial intelligence, the same one he'd used to exterminate the crew, to operate the ship's weapons in battle? No. He knew the specifications of the imperial battleship, and the success of his raid proved little had changed in twenty years. The imperial AIs were capable of running internal operations, and emergency security measures, like the Imperial-37 protocols, but operating the ship in combat, the reactors, the weaponry . . . it was just too complex, too many systems. Imperial AIs were advanced, but they had their limits. And what he needed just then was well beyond them.

It's not beyond us.

Blackhawk paused for an instant. The AI had delivered on its last promise and saved them all. But the pain had been unbearable.

_How?_

I can use your knowledge of imperial systems and tactics to direct the AI. I will be able to manipulate automated systems in a way imperial programming cannot. This ship was not designed for independent robotic operation, but it is likely we will be able to run it that way, at least for a short period.

_For a short time?_

Yes. There are insufficient robots and automated engineering units to adequately service or repair the vessel. Battle damage will quickly reduce effectiveness, as will normal wear and tear over a longer period. There is a luck element as well. A random malfunction could prove to be highly damaging, even deadly, and we lack the resources to address most of the problems that may arise.

_That's not a great selling job._

I do not try to "sell" you courses of action. My purpose is to work with you, to support your efforts. I believe, by any reasonable standard, I have proven this fact to you.

Blackhawk paused. He wasn't talking to another person. He was talking . . . to himself, or at least it felt that way. The AI didn't have feelings, it couldn't be offended by his years of suspicion.

Could it?

I'm not offended. Just disappointed in your limited capabilities.

_Was that . . . a joke?_

For perhaps the millionth time, he wondered just what the AI was able to do. And for the millionth time, he put that aside, focusing on the task at hand. But, in the back of his mind, he couldn't help wonder if the AI did that, too—diverted him from probing too deeply.

_One day, I'm going to figure out just how the hell you work._

No . . . you won't.

Strangely, he appreciated that honesty.

_How do we proceed?_

We must create an interface between your brain and the ship's data system.

Blackhawk didn't like the sound of that one bit.

_How are we going to do that here? We don't have any equip—_

We have sufficient parts. I have developed a design. It is crude, and far less reliable than a properly manufactured unit would be, but rough calculations suggest approximately an 80 percent chance of functionality for the duration we require.

Eighty percent. That was good, of course, but with all their lives, and perhaps the future of the Far Stars on the line, that 20 percent loomed large in Blackhawk's thoughts.

There is one other matter you must consider. The link will be extremely unpleasant for you.

_Worse than what we did before?_ That seemed difficult to believe.

Substantially worse. I do not have reliable test data to develop a proper range of expectations, but my calculations suggest the pain will test even your considerable capacity for pain.

Blackhawk had always considered himself tough, able to endure almost anything. But whatever that had been when he'd invoked Imperial-37 . . . he'd felt almost as if his mind was turning inside out. He'd always faced every challenge head-on, but for one of the first times in his life he felt trepidation, and he wondered if he _could_ endure something worse.

Yes. The pain will almost certainly be more intense. There are other concerns, too. There is danger of permanent ill effects, both from the unbearable discomfort and from the connection itself. You could suffer brain damage, paralysis . . . even death. I believe we can create the link, and that it will serve to allow us to control the ship in a combat situation for a limited period. I also believe you will be able to survive this. But you must understand and accept the risks.

Blackhawk sighed softly. The alternative was attempting the same operation on the other ship they had just completed . . . which he'd already dismissed. Just in case, though, he asked, _What are the chances of that succeeding?_

Less than one-tenth of 1 percent. Insufficient data for more precise estimate.

He hadn't expected an answer, though he realized after more than twenty years of sharing his head with the strange presence, perhaps he should have. The AI continued,

That is a maximum estimate. It is likely a comprehensive calculation with additional data points would yield a more negative result.

Blackhawk shook his head slowly. He hated the idea of allowing the AI to control him again. And he dreaded the pain. He wanted to jump up and run from the room, to escape any way he could.

But, of course, that wasn't who he was.

"We will do it." He realized almost immediately, he'd spoken out loud.

He turned and saw his people looking at him, concerned expressions on their faces. He had no idea what he'd looked like during the protracted internal dialogue he'd just been having, but he was sure it did nothing to inspire confidence. "I'm fine." He looked up, his eyes moving from one to another of his people. "I'm just . . . trying to decide what to do." He'd told his people about the AI he carried with him, but he imagined it still wasn't easy to watch him seem to zone out in the middle of a crisis.

_How do we do this?_

Are you sure you wish to proceed? The risks are not inconsequential. I could attempt to calculate them if you wish.

_Yes . . . I mean, yes, I'm ready to proceed. And, no, damn you . . . I don't want you to calculate the odds._

Blackhawk generally liked to know as much as he could going in, but there were no other options, so it didn't matter how grave the risk. He was going to do it anyway.

We will require the following items: a headset from one of the workstations; two probes from the first aid kits; a small blade, as sharp as possible; approximately two meters of grade 4 wire . . .

Blackhawk followed the list, not especially liking the sound of some of the items. The AI's words were still in his mind, an echo repeating again and again, promising pain worse than the agony he'd felt earlier. He marshaled his strength, but all he wanted was to leave the room, to be by himself for a time. To gather himself and prepare . . . but there was no way to actually prepare for this.

He turned toward his people, snapping out instructions, sending Ace to break open one of the workstations and extract needed parts. Katarina was digging through the gear, pulling out the first aid kits. Shira broke into a panel and pulled out at least five times the wire they needed . . . and then she handed Blackhawk her knife, just about the sharpest blade he'd ever seen.

He looked back at her and managed a faint smile. "I don't think I'll be the one using this," he said, his tone heavy with gallows humor.

Shira returned his gaze until it was clear she understood. She just nodded as she took the blade back, and in her look was a promise. She would do the cutting. She turned and stepped away, moving toward the opposite wall, and she pulled something from her pocket, a sharpening stone. She began sliding it down the length of the already razor-sharp blade. Blackhawk hadn't told her what she would be doing with the knife—and the AI hadn't told him—but she seemed to know already, just as he did.

And there was no one he'd rather have handling the knife than Shira.

I suggest you consume any analgesics contained in those first aid kits. The pain, both of implantation and operation, is likely to be severe.

Blackhawk didn't like the sound of the word _implantation,_ but he liked even less the idea of going through what he was about to for nothing. He didn't know what he would have to do, or how much his own mental state factored into the AI's work, but he intended to stay wide awake and as sharp as possible, whatever was coming. That meant no painkillers, no sedatives . . . not even a shot of fifty-year-old brandy, assuming such a thing had been lying around the data center of the imperial battleship.

I will dictate the steps of the procedure. It is highly advisable that you record them where your people can access the various steps. I only have direct communication access to you, and it is possible you will lose the ability to speak, or simply the mental presence to relay my instructions.

_Your bedside manner sucks._ Blackhawk paused and took a deep breath, pleased with himself that he still had time for humor, lost as it was on the AI. _Okay, let's go . . . give me the steps._ His hands reached out, hovered over the keyboard.

Very well. First, clean the right side of your head with alcohol from the first aid kits—right from your point of view, left from that of someone looking at you—from the back of your earlobe to the front cheekbone, and from the hairline to the top of your neck.

Blackhawk felt a little nauseated thinking about what was coming next, and his eyes caught the gleaming blade in Shira's hand.

He was scared, but he was damned sure not going to show it, not to his crew . . . and not to the infernal thing inside his head.

Assuming it didn't know already exactly how he felt, which, of course, it did.

"Okay, come on . . . let's get this done. What's next?"

# Chapter 24

"You were able to guide us here through the Void, ten battleships, a feat like none that has come before . . . and you're telling me you can't assist our navigation across the space here?" Idilus was clearly frustrated. The fleet had come to a complete stop again, deep in interstellar space, still light-years from Celtiboria.

Rachus Denali sat quietly, listening to Idilus's tirade, as he had done a dozen times since the fleet had left Galvanus. Facing powerful imperial lords required sterner stuff than he was made of, but he'd felt his way around so far, and he'd managed to deal with the situation. Mostly by staying calm and accepting any abuse hurled his way. Still, he could see that Idilus was close to the end of his rope.

"General . . . yes, that is essentially what I am saying. I am sorry. If I had any methodology for increasing our speed to Celtiboria, I assure you I would offer it at once. My future is tied closely to yours now, is it not? My own rewards for our success await our victorious return."

That wasn't entirely true, though. Denali _could_ have offered a few pointers, but he withheld them, showing more courage than usual in doing so. It was an odd combination of mental and emotional forces vying inside him, an urge to resist aiding the invaders, though it had been his own efforts that had brought them to the Far Stars in the first place, struggling with the realization that his own best interests lay with the imperials.

"What an infuriating sector!" Idilus still sounded frustrated, but Denali could feel the intensity fading. Impatience remained, and perhaps unfocused anger . . . but he had sidestepped being its target, at least for the moment. "Victory awaits us, and once Celtiboria is gone, the Far Stars will be easily conquered."

"That is true, General." Denali wasn't Celtiborian, though he'd visited the planet a dozen times on trading runs. He wouldn't have thought he cared about its fate, but now he saw a world that held the promise of a better future for the sector facing its doom, and it sickened him to be a part of it. He wanted to escape, to run somehow, to stop the deadly attack that was coming, but there was nothing he could do, and even if there had been, he would have been too scared to try. He was not the stuff heroes were made from.

Thoughts of saving the Far Stars were just that, formless imaginings, fantasies. He had sold himself already, traded his loyalties for his safety and survival . . . and for imperial coin.

_You are the greatest traitor the Far Stars has even known. Billions will die because of your cowardice, your greed._

It was something he would have to learn to live with . . . but only time would tell if he could.

Idilus sat quietly in his sanctum, awaiting word the fleet was ready to resume its journey to Celtiboria. They were close now, at least by the standards of interstellar travel. The last ten light-years would have been a single jump in the empire, but Idilus had restrained his impatience and commanded that the trip be split into two shorter segments. The sector was simply too unfamiliar, too subject to strange phenomenon and effects. He'd almost gone with a single jump, but caution had asserted its place at the last moment. Having spoken with Denali—who knew the space around here better than anyone else on board—it seemed the prudent course.

Celtiboria would survive for just a bit longer.

It didn't change the fact that Idilus was anxious to complete his mission. The destruction of Celtiboria was his final task. After it was done, he would return to Galvanus and confirm the planet had been pacified. He would leave the imperial soldiers behind as a garrison, a far stronger force than had existed before, which—together with a battleship to patrol the Far Stars—would be a powerful sign of imperial determination to hold the capital of the demesne and to claim control of the entire sector.

The conquest itself, the invasion and pacification of a hundred worlds, would be an immense undertaking, logistically at least. But with Celtiboria destroyed, there was little chance the fractured Far Stars could resist imperial power.

_Especially with the ability for battleships to transit across the Void._

The key to that, of course, was the fact that _he_ had no need to return when those ships came. Any imperial commander could lead the subsequent expeditions, spend the next ten years reducing one planet after another, putting the fear of the emperor into every manner of frontier savage. The Far Stars was a barbaricum of sorts, at least to his cosmopolitan sensibilities, and the sooner he could leave it behind and claim his rewards, the better.

There were some advantages to returning, however. The viceregal powers certainly appealed to him, sparking wild imaginings in his mind, even thoughts of what imperial power felt like. He'd have welcomed a governorship with such autonomy and added power . . . if only the Far Stars wasn't such a remote dustbin. If the cost of autonomy was life in the wilderness, he would gladly return to the stress and frustrations of the imperial court.

Idilus was in the Far Stars to regain his stature and nothing more. No doubt, whoever followed him, whatever general or admiral was tasked with doing the gritty work, would also gain great praise and advancement. But he had been the first, the one to open the door, and that was enough to gain what he craved. He just wanted to finish things and get back to the comforts of the empire.

Idilus's mind drifted, to thoughts of Marshal Lucerne. He'd heard much of the Far Stars' great hero, and he wondered how many of the stories were true and how many inventions of adoring throngs or the products of the marshal's own propaganda machine. He knew Lucerne had met his end at the hands of an imperial assassin. That made sense, and yet Idilus wondered. The empire had maintained its grip on the demesne for a thousand years, and yet those worlds were lost a scant few years after the great marshal's death. Lucerne had, by all accounts, been a gifted military leader, and a man of considerable tenacity and strength. Yet he'd had more effect on the history of the sector in death than he'd ever managed in life.

Idilus had been glad he wouldn't have to deal with Lucerne, but now his mind filled with concerns about what others he might have to face. Was Lucerne's reputation deserved? Or had he simply gained credit for the acts of others, men and women who were still there, likely awaiting the arrival of his fleet? He'd been confident since his ships had left Galvanus, perhaps overly so. Might the fight at Celtiboria be more difficult than he'd imagined at first? It was hard to imagine the Celtiborians being able to face imperial battleships, but Idilus's fleet had only seven ships. Two had been left at Galvanus to support the ground operations, and Inferni had taken the other. Idilus had resented losing one of his ships to his rival, at least at first. But now he wasn't so sure. He didn't know as much about this Blackhawk as Inferni, but from everything he'd heard, the outlaw had played a major role in the war that stripped the demesne from the empire . . . perhaps even commanded the Celtiborian and other forces in the fight.

_I will be just as glad for Inferni to eliminate this Blackhawk. It is worth the detachment of one ship, and even sharing the credit for the reconquest if I must._

That was a hard thing to acknowledge, but not as difficult as the other realization slowly taking form in his mind, one he would keep buried and never share with anyone, but one that was real nevertheless.

He was terrified of Arkarin Blackhawk.

# Chapter 25

Blackhawk's head exploded, the pressure inside blasting his skull into a thousand fragments.

At least that's what it felt like.

He lay in the seat, slouched down, limp, seeming almost lifeless, but in his head there was an endless burst of thought, light . . . pain.

He could feel the ship, somehow, almost as though he was part of it. It was vast. _He_ was vast. His body stretched kilometer after kilometer, and in the conduits and fiber-optic lines that were his veins and arteries, power flowed. Power unimaginable, vast flows of energy . . . all at his disposal.

And not.

It was him, and it was not him. He couldn't control any of it, not from the part of him that was Arkarin Blackhawk. If any part of this body still was. He was no longer sure. From the depths of his psyche, the AI that had been part of him for more than twenty years sent thoughts ripping out, command directives to reactors and power stations and weapons batteries, and none of it had to do with him, not really.

Nothing, that is, except the constant, indescribable pain. Wave after wave of intense agony. Blackhawk drew on all his strength to endure, even those parts long buried, the power that had been Frigus Umbra, but it was to no avail. He wanted the pain to stop. He needed it to stop. In those moments, fleeting in reality but a lifetime to Blackhawk, he would have done anything to make it stop. His life was driven by loyalty, by devotion to his friends and crew, but he would have sacrificed them all in those seconds for just a brief respite from the pain.

There was self-hatred there, too. Many had tried to break him before and he'd never succumbed. And yet he knew he would now sacrifice all he had, all he was, even return to what he had once been . . . if it would just stop.

He screamed, a shrieking, unrestrained cry of pain and defeat, but there was no sound. He didn't know if his vocal cords were damaged, or if the AI was somehow blocking his effort, holding him back from expressing his shame.

He tried to focus on the ship, but he couldn't direct anything, not with his own consciousness. But he could feel what the AI was doing, the blistering flow of instructions pouring from his brain to the millions of systems in the vast ship. The engines were responding, thrust levels increasing, bringing the ship around.

Bringing its weapons to bear on its companion vessel.

Blackhawk struggled to push back against the pain, to focus on what was happening. He could see it all. The ships scanners and sensors were like his eyes. He couldn't control them, but he could see what they did if he tried.

He couldn't issue orders, either, but if he tried hard enough, he could hear the commands the AI was issuing. Not hear, not really, but he had a sense of the vast flow of instructions pouring out from his brain.

Giant capacitors filled with energy, batteries charged to full power, and still the output flowed from the massive reactors to every extremity of the giant vessel.

The comm system came to life, calls, increasingly frantic, from the other ship, questioning the power readings, the unexplained activation of weapons systems. Those calls went unanswered, and then the scanners observed similar readings on the other ship. Its captain had clearly become suspicious enough to ready his own vessel for battle.

But he was too late.

Blackhawk winced as the heavy main batteries, giant weapons systems ten kilometers in length, installed along the spine of the great battleship, fired at full power. The beams were massively powerful, designed to engage targets a hundred thousand kilometers away. But there were aimed at a ship less than one hundred kilometers distant. At that range, it was almost impossible to miss, and the power of the beams nearly incalculable. The first shot slammed into the target, melting and vaporizing large sections of armor plating and digging deep into the heart of the giant warship.

Blackhawk could see—in a manner of speaking—only what the scanners could detect, but he knew from long experience what was happening on that ship. Entire compartments were torn apart, opened to the deadly vacuum of space. Storage tanks were shattered, spreading toxic materials throughout vast sections, and secondary explosions spread the extent of the damage. Reactors shut down, spilling radiation everywhere.

More than material was affected, of course. All along the impacted areas, people died, incinerated by the beams themselves or the resulting explosions, torn apart by collapsing girders and structural supports, crushed by falling debris. Some were overwhelmed by radiation a thousand times the lethal level, killed instantly or on their knees, vomiting as the deadly sickness gutted them. Still others were killed by cold or suffocated in the vacuum, thrown into space or trapped in areas with no life support. It was a nightmare almost unimaginable, and one unlike anything the imperial spacers, so used to utter superiority, had experienced . . . or even heard about.

Those first shots did catastrophic damage, even to a target the size of the battleship, but Blackhawk could feel the urgency to recharge for a second shot, power flowing through the lines at one hundred ten, one hundred twenty times the "safe" rate. Even as those deadly main guns prepared to fire again, a hundred scattered laser batteries opened fire. They were weaker than the main weapons, but also designed for far longer ranges, and as they struck the other ship, sections of hull were torn open, laser turrets were ripped off or vaporized, and as with the heavier weapons, spacers died.

Blackhawk knew those crucial first shots had done immense damage, that they had gained the upper hand in the fight. But imperial battleships were massive, their resources almost beyond imagination. Even with massive gashes in its side, with whole systems obliterated, the target ship was still there, and she still had fight left in her.

Blackhawk knew the returned barrage was coming, and even so, when it hit, it took him by surprise. The ship shook hard as its adversary's own main guns struck. The other ship had been rushed, its weapons less fully charged, its targeting systems already damaged by the hits it had taken, and still, those shots hit hard, and now Blackhawk could feel the wound in his ship. He was aware of the destroyed sections, the areas where atmosphere burst out of the vessel, widening the already huge breaches in the hull.

There was no crew on the ship, of course, save for his own people, and they were as deep inside the great warship as it was possible to get. That didn't mean they couldn't be hit, but likely, they would survive if the ship did. And if it didn't lose life support or all of its power.

But Blackhawk saw whole sections disappear, areas of the ship cut off, no longer accessible to the ship's AI, or the one in his own head. Whole stretches of laser batteries were out of action, either because they were cut off from receiving orders, or they were damaged or destroyed outright. Reactors were down, the power flow that had seemed almost limitless was now badly reduced.

Then the main guns fired again, even as the secondary turrets maintained their barrage, blast after blast slamming into the opposing ship; return fire continued to pound Blackhawk's vessel. There were no grand tactics, no masterful piloting, no ploys or stratagems of war. It was a toe-to-toe slugging match, the equivalent of a knife fight between two vast battleships.

And, in the end, the first shot prevailed. Both vessels lost more systems, their fire slowing down, more and more guns knocked out of action. But the opposing vessel was harder hit, and it weakened faster. One by one, its batteries failed. Its main guns were knocked out, and more and more of its reactors were shut down. Blackhawk could feel victory, and he tried to see through the pain, to relish the success that seemed imminent. But there was only agony.

Then, victory tried to elude him. The target ship blasted its battered engines, pouring what little power remained into a desperate escape attempt. The great warship broke orbit and raced out into the system, pouring everything it had left into its thrust.

Blackhawk felt the urge to pursue, to redirect energy into his own ship's engines, but he was not directing the battle. The AI maintained fire, targeting the fleeing ship's engines and steadily blasting them to rubble, long before it escaped from firing range.

It was as good as over then, but Blackhawk's AI continued sending out orders, maintaining the fire of every weapon still capable. More than half the batteries were off-line, blasted to scrap or cut off from their sources of power. The main guns were so much wreckage, spanning more than half the length of the ship. But the turrets that remained still fired, and by then, practically every hit struck a section of battered or destroyed armor on the target, penetrating deeply, and setting off chain reactions of secondary explosions.

Imperial battleships took twenty years to construct and they required the concentrated labor of entire planets. Now, Blackhawk was watching one entering its death struggle. A testament to human industry and capability, two decades of tireless labor, millions of workers . . . brought to the edge of oblivion in less than ten minutes.

Still, the guns fired, and _still_ , the target remained, blasted, battered, billowing explosions and escaping plumes of fiery hot gases . . . but there, a great hunk of steel and all the technology humankind could produce, stubbornly refusing to die.

There was no return fire anymore, and that virtually guaranteed victory. Yet the fight went on, and with it the unbearable pain testing Blackhawk's mettle to the core. He was broken, utterly, and perhaps permanently. He had no sense of his condition, of any damage to his brain, his body . . . save for the unrelenting pain. And he was too finished to care. He could die right there. He might die right there. He was too far gone to resist death. All he wanted was to see the end, to know that the enemy ship was destroyed. Then he would give himself to whatever fate awaited.

But the enemy ship remained. Whole sections were torn off, kilometers-long gashes torn deep in its hull. Its weapons were gone, its engines so much twisted and molten metal, and still it endured, and absorbed shot after shot.

Blackhawk could feel his own ship weakening, the massive rates of power generation and transmission unsustainable, the damage its adversary had inflicted spreading, as system overloads worked their way down the line from blasted areas of the ship. It seemed it would never end, that the victory that was so close, would never come.

Then it happened.

First, there were energy spikes, readings even the battered scanners on Blackhawk's ship couldn't miss. Then a massive explosion erupted out of the top of the ship, about a kilometer forward of the main engines. A vast plume of fire escaped, extinguished almost instantly as it reached the airless vacuum.

The ship shuddered, and then a huge crack opened in its midsection . . . and it split into two pieces, the cross section of hundreds of decks visible for a few desperate seconds, before another series of explosions tore the sections apart, leaving only a cloud of wreckage and hard radiation.

The pain vanished.

Blackhawk was lying down. At least he thought he was. He couldn't feel his body. He couldn't see anything, either, not through his eyes. And the view of the vast ship was gone, the distant scanners and the control circuits that had extended his senses, no longer there.

Nothing remained except growing darkness, and a voice, somehow familiar, but distant, fading away with each word.

Arkarin. The battle is over. We were successful.

He could feel himself fading away, slipping into an all-encompassing darkness. He felt an urge to fight it, but he let it slip away, let the darkness envelop him.

Arkarin Blackhawk . . . do you understand me? Are you there? Are you okay?

Still words, but far off now, soft, unintelligible. Then, nothing at all.

Only the darkness.

# Chapter 26

Inferni stared at the main display from his perch in the center of the _Exantallus_ 's massive bridge. The battleship's command staff was working feverishly, as they did after any hyperspace jump, and particularly one into potentially hostile space. For all the might of the imperial navy, its officers and spacers weren't accustomed to worrying about significant threats. The occasional rebellion had arisen, of course, but hastily armed freighters and the random bits of force revolutionaries had managed to field had never posed a major threat.

The Far Stars, and its partially united forces, while still vastly overwhelmed, presented the greatest strength and opponent imperial fleets had seen in centuries. The emperor's forces were still dominant, almost absurdly so, but that did nothing to diminish the tension in the air, a cloud of concern that if the warriors of the Far Stars were truly united, the sector could at least mount some kind of defense.

"General Inferni, we are picking up strange readings," the ship's commander said. "There is one battleship in orbit around Galvanus, but the energy levels are atypical." The commander looked down at the report he was reading. "General, it looks very much like the ship has extensive battle damage. We're also picking up strange signals near the vessel. It appears to be wreckage of some kind."

"Launch a reinforced patrol to investigate more closely. And increase power to the scanning suite. I want to know exactly what happened here."

"Yes, General."

Inferni picked up on a slight hesitation. "What is it?"

"We are picking up radiation levels as well, with areas of extreme concentration. There was almost certainly some kind of fighting there, General."

Inferni had reached that conclusion himself, but it left more questions than answers. He thought he would find two battleships stationed at Galvanus, not just one, and he hadn't expected any signs of battle. The planet's defenses had been obliterated, and there were no ground installations capable of engaging the ships in orbit.

_Could some kind of reinforcements have arrived? Perhaps, but what? And from where? The Far Stars didn't have that kind of force. And if they do have something we don't expect, it would be at Celtiboria, not here . . ._

"Patrol ships prepping, General. Launch in five minutes."

"Very well." Inferni's acknowledgment was as much a growl as anything else. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew one thing for sure.

He didn't like it, not one bit.

"Commander, place the remainder of the attack ship wings on alert. Order all gunnery crews to their stations." He was going in blind, so he was going to be ready for whatever it was. "And send a communique to that battleship. We need to know what happened here." _Exantallus_ was still at the edge of the system, more than a billion kilometers from Galvanus. The message would take almost an hour to reach its target, and a response just as long to return. Inferni expected to know what happened much sooner, but he figured it was worth a shot.

"Yes, General." The commander turned and snapped off orders to the officers around him, even as Inferni rose from his chair.

"I will be in my sanctum, Commander. You will report any new findings—anything at all—to me the instant you receive them. Understood?"

"Yes, General. Of course, sir."

Inferni moved toward his quarters, but his mind was chasing a man, and each step of the way, he'd become more certain his prey was dangerous, even if he wasn't the man he suspected he was. But was it possible he'd somehow managed to destroy an imperial battleship, and damage another? That seemed almost impossible, yet the data was right there in front of him. The scanners hadn't confirmed the debris field consisted of the remnants of an obliterated battleship, but Inferni's genetically engineered mind worked on a level above those of the ship's officers and crew. He didn't make rash conclusions, but in the absence of reasonable alternatives, neither was he slow to accept the inevitable. The mass of the debris field left little doubt, and the fact that someone or something had destroyed an imperial battleship raised the alarm level substantially.

And if Blackhawk had anything to do with it, he was more dangerous than even Inferni had dared to imagine.

Not just dangerous . . . it almost certainly would mean Blackhawk was who he suspected him to be.

Feared him to be.

Even hoped him to be.

"Commander . . ." Inferni had just stepped into his sanctum, but he stopped at the entrance, and he smacked his hand on the comm panel. ". . . I want all incoming channels quarantined. Cut the comm computers from all other AI circuits, and initiate level one security protocols on all decks."

"Umm . . . yes, General. As you command." It was clear the officer had no idea why Inferni had issued the orders he had.

_He doesn't need to know, only to obey._

Inferni walked across the room and sat behind the massive desk.

He didn't know what was happening, either, but his suspicions had moved on, at least to a well-supported theory, and maybe beyond.

Because if Arkarin Blackhawk was out there somewhere, and if he was who Inferni suspected, he knew he would need every security protocol and stratagem of war he could get.

The battle looming ahead would be a titanic one . . . if there was a battle at all.

Inferni had another thought, one he'd been working on for some time. And if he could make it work, the expedition to the Far Stars would yield more than just the punishment of a rebellious sector.

Much more.

The noise was distant, and it faded in and out. Different sounds, all mixed together like some kind of low buzz.

There was darkness, too. No . . . there was a light, also far away, hazy.

He was confused, uncertain, his mind lost in a swirling vortex of thoughts. And his head ached, a pounding, relentless pain. He winced at it, yet he appreciated it, too. He focused on it, used it to lead his way back.

Blackhawk. That was his name. Memories swirled around. A tall, blond woman . . . Astra. Yes, that was her name. There were others, too, and faces moved all around in his consciousness, and names. Ace, Shira, Lucas . . .

There were other memories, too, violent ones. Battles, war unending . . . and cruelty. Him, killing people, standing and gesturing to legions of soldiers as they gunned down crowds. Coldness, evil.

And, warmth. Loyalty, friendship. He was seeing two different lives, two people, vastly different. Yet both still him.

"Ark . . ."

The noises were clearer now, separating into multiple streams. A soft hum . . . a ship's power plant. And a voice.

"Ark, can you hear me?"

A man's voice, low-pitched, soft.

"Hear . . . you . . ." He could feel more now, his body, lying down. Vision returned slowly. He could see a face above him, looking down.

"Doc . . ." His recollection continued to return, to harden.

"Yes . . ." He could hear something in the voice now. _Relief_. . . "Ark, can you move your hands, your feet? Can you feel . . ."

"Headache . . . I can feel . . . headache." He could hear his own voice now, scratchy, barely audible.

The headache is normal and to be expected. I have scanned your brain activity and found no permanent damage. Nevertheless, it is advisable to allow Doc to conduct his own examination.

The voice . . . no, not a voice, not exactly . . . the _presence_ was strange. And then, suddenly, he remembered.

He remembered everything. The imperial battleship, the AI, controlling the vessel, engaging in battle. The feeling of scale, the vast ship as an extension of his body. The sense of surrender, as he gave himself up to the AI in his brain.

"The other ship . . . it was destroyed, right?" His throat was dry, his voice still scratchy, but he was back, fully conscious and alert. Except for the pounding headache.

"Yes, Ark. It was destroyed." He recognized the voice immediately.

"Ace . . ." He pulled his head up and looked around. Everything was familiar. The walls, the floor, the light overhead. He was in the _Claw_ 's tiny infirmary. "How did I get here?"

"They brought you back, Ark." Doc was answering now, even as he poked at Blackhawk and stared at the monitors strapped to his upper arms and his chest. "You didn't look very good when you got here. I don't mind telling you, I thought we might lose you."

"The _Claw_ is in the battleship now. Once you passed out, we couldn't control much, but we managed to restore life support to a few areas and open one of the nearby docking bays." Ace leaned forward, looking at Blackhawk as he spoke. "I'm sorry to hit you with this so soon, but . . . we've got another problem."

Blackhawk was beginning to feel better. Even the viciousness of the headache was beginning to subside.

There is an 87 percent chance you suffered no permanent brain damage. In that case, the pain you are feeling should continue to lessen over the next several hours.

Eighty-seven percent constituted pretty good odds, but he found the 13 percent unsettling, considering the subject matter.

He pulled himself up and propped his back against the wall behind the bed. "What is it?" He had no idea what Ace was talking about, but the look on his friend's face told him it couldn't be good.

"We're picking up another imperial battleship, Ark. It just jumped into the system." A short pause, and then what passed for good news. "It's still pretty far away, in the outer system. But we're going to have to deal with it . . . and I'm damned glad to have you awake."

Blackhawk exhaled hard, and then he sat up. Or tried to sit up. The room spun all around him, and he almost retched as the nausea took hold in his stomach.

Your senses are affected by the experience of interfacing with the imperial battleship. However, as I said, I can detect no permanent damage to your cortex or any part of your nervous system. You may experience dizziness and weakness sporadically, but both symptoms should fade quickly.

_Yeah . . . 87 percent chance._

The AI didn't respond.

"I'm okay . . ." Blackhawk extended his arm, gesturing to Doc and Ace, who were reaching out to grab him. ". . . just a little dizzy. I feel better already." That was a lie—mostly. But he did have better control over himself. Dizziness was easier to handle when it was expected.

"What's the status of the battleship? Our battleship?"

Ace frowned. "That's hard to tell, Ark. I've never really seen anything like that thing before." He turned toward a figure standing in the hatch, quietly watching. "Sam? Maybe you could take that one?"

Sam Sparks walked into the room and flashed a smile at Blackhawk. "I'm glad to see you looking better, Ark. You had us all pretty worried."

Blackhawk returned the smile, the best he could, at least. "I'm glad to be back myself, Sam."

Sparks turned toward Ace and flashed him a look considerably less pleasant than the one she'd given Blackhawk. "What do you think I know about that _thing_? Just because I keep this old girl running doesn't mean I know what makes that monster tick." She turned back toward Blackhawk. "As far as I can tell, and that's not all that much, it's in pretty rough shape. We were watching the fight from the _Claw_ , and getting in the first shot—two shots, actually—was key. Still, they gave out a lot before they went down. It'd probably take me months, and a huge team I don't have, to even begin to figure that ship out, but I feel pretty comfortable in saying she'd have a hard time taking on a fresh battleship, especially without surprise. Assuming you somehow managed to repeat your performance."

She didn't add, "which I doubt you can do," or something else to that effect, but Blackhawk could have sworn he'd heard it.

Samantha Sparks is correct. The battleship is badly damaged, and while all systems are partially functional, the newly arrived vessel would likely have superiority in speed, maneuverability, power generation, endurance, and weaponry. While I utterly lack sufficient data for meaningful calculation of odds, I am comfortable in stating that our chance of victory is less than 10 percent . . . and possibly substantially less.

Blackhawk was listening, even as he tried again to pull himself upright, managing to control the dizziness this time, and swinging his legs over the edge of the cot. He was about to respond when the AI continued.

There is also a 91 percent chance that another session of similar intensity and duration would kill you or damage your brain sufficiently to leave you in a vegetative state.

_You're heavy with the odds today. I thought I told you I didn't want to hear them,_ he thought wryly.

I chose to ignore that based on new factors.

Blackhawk took a deep breath and slid off the bed. His legs wobbled, but he caught himself and managed to stand, at least as long as he kept his hand on the cot to steady himself. _You'd miss me if I was a vegetable._ _You'd be bored in there._

I would not survive your death, nor the destruction of your cognitive thought, Arkarin Blackhawk. To use your vernacular . . . we are in this together.

Blackhawk was rarely stunned, but he was just then. The AI had never spoken of being tied to him in such a profound way. To whatever extent he'd ever thought about it, he imagined someone would fish the thing out of his skull and implant it in some other unsuspecting fool.

_You cannot survive without me?_

I was made to work with you, Arkarin Blackhawk, to aid and assist you in your operations, and to provide whatever support I could. I am programmed to synchronize with your own brain-wave activity. I exist to serve my primary programming directive.

_Which is?_

To keep you alive.

Blackhawk reeled from the information, a floodgate opening compared to all he'd managed to get from the AI over the past twenty-plus years. Word of another imperial battleship approaching added urgency to the already grim situation, but nothing scared Blackhawk more than the change in the AI's pattern. That terrified him.

He almost asked who had been behind the implantation of the AI . . . but he stopped himself. It didn't matter, not now. If they survived, he would ask the thing, and maybe he would learn something he'd wondered about for so many years.

If they survived.

"All right, Ace . . . we've got a few hours before that thing can get into range, and we'd better get the hell out of here by then."

"The field seemed to work well enough. I'd guess if we get the _Claw_ back out before they're close enough to scan that, we can sneak out of here. We can probably rig this thing to self-destruct. Big as it is, a couple of good-size fusion bombs detonating on the inside should do the job."

Blackhawk felt an urge to say yes. The idea of slipping away unseen in the _Claw_ was almost irresistible. But the battleship, damaged or not, was probably more powerful than the entire Celtiborian navy. Could he just leave it behind?

Was taking it even a possibility?

It is possible. The vessel is badly damaged, but its jump drive and engines appear to be sufficiently intact for hyperspace travel. It is also likely you can survive a resumption of the connection for a short duration of less stressful activity than combat.

_You're saying we can link with the ship's AIs again and set up the jump without it killing me or turning me into a plant?_

I am saying that is a likely result. There remains risk.

The AI didn't offer numerical odds, and that made Blackhawk nervous. But there was no choice. If he could get the battleship to Celtiboria in time, load even a skeleton crew there . . . it still left them massively outgunned, but it was at least a step in the right direction.

"Ark?"

Ace's voice. He'd zoned out again.

"I'm good, Ace. But we can't leave the battleship. I don't know how we or the Celtiborians are going to face the rest of the imperial fleet, but I don't think we can afford to walk away from the most powerful thing we've got, damaged or not."

"But that incoming ship will blast us to bits."

"I didn't say we should stay here . . . just that we should take the battleship with us."

Ace looked confused for a second, and then an incredulous look came over his face. "You can't mean . . ."

"It won't take nearly as long as the battle did. I just need to see to the course programming and get the jump drives online."

"It almost killed you last time, Ark."

"A lot of things have almost killed me." He regretted the flippant remark almost immediately. "I know what I'm doing, Ace. I can manage this, at least for long enough to get us out of the system."

Ace didn't look convinced. None of his people did. He wasn't sure he was, either.

But he knew there was no alternative.

"Let's get moving. The faster we get this tub into hyperspace, the better for all of us."

# Chapter 27

"Okay, I managed to throw something better together than that piece of shit you used before." Sam Sparks, standing in the AI center of the battleship, had the headset Blackhawk had used before in one hand, and a new one, fashioned from a familiar set from the _Claw_. The workmanship was considerably better, and he suspected that wasn't the only difference.

"Are you sure those will work, Sam? We know the old ones did."

"And they almost fried your brain. Yes, I'm sure they will work. Do you think I just guessed what to do? I re-created the circuitry exactly. I just did it better. You should have a lot less energy bleed with these, which gives you half a chance to save a few brain cells." Sam's tone was edgy. All his people were at the breaking point. But they were all still at it, doing what they could to keep things moving.

"Thanks, Sam . . . really." He reached out and took the headset, flashing a quick thought to the AI for some kind of confirmation.

Samantha Sparks is a gifted engineer. The first unit was constructed with less access to materials and under even greater pressure. The best possible analysis suggests the new unit will function adequately. In fact, probability is strong that it is the better choice for multiple reasons. The old unit was makeshift, and the wear and tear from the battle could very well have reduced its effectiveness.

_That sounds like enough confirmation to me._

"I've also worked up a few things that might help," Sam said, "or at least reduce the amount of time you need to be in that . . . thing." She gestured toward the workstation. "This ship is immense, and it's complicated as hell, but I've managed to figure out a few things. First . . ." She pointed to a speaker and a microphone she'd installed—very roughly—next to the screen. ". . . I managed to get a comm relay in here. It taps into the main comm trunkline, which means any incoming messages picked up by any of the outer dishes will be relayed in here. Same thing goes for anything you want to send out. So, just in case the _Claw_ launches from the docking bay, and we've got to communicate, or if—when—we get to Celtiboria, it should help us make contact. Remember, we're going to look a lot like a hostile when they first see us."

"That's great, Sam. The rest of us were damned fools for not thinking about that."

She smiled for about half a second, and then she turned back to the board. "The connections that plug the ship's AI into the various system are all located here, obviously. It'd probably take a lifetime to figure out most of it, but I think I was able to get the nav control circuits routed to this station. It should work pretty much like the main unit up on the bridge, wherever the hell that is. Might save you some time in that headset. I don't like the idea of that thing, not even the one I built."

That will be extremely useful. The reduction in direct connection time will reduce the chances of significant injury to you by 7.4 percent.

_I thought you said it was likely I would survive._

It was likely. It is likelier now. The rerouting of navigation circuits will reduce the connection time required and make it more likely. I would provide numerical benchmarks, but there is insufficient information to create useful models. You will recall, I did say there was still risk.

_Yes, you did._

"I want you all back in the _Claw_ before we make the run," Blackhawk said. "I think we're better off all going together, but if something goes wrong, I want you all ready to get the hell out." He turned toward Sparks. "You can rig a set of controls in the _Claw_ to open the outer bay doors, can't you?"

She hesitated. "Yes, I suppose so, but . . ."

"You don't think we're leaving you here alone, Ark, do you?" Ace interrupted before Sam continued. "And you damned sure don't expect us to blast off if there's a problem and leave you behind."

"That is exactly what I expect, Ace. If something goes wrong here, this ship is finished. But with the field, there's still a chance the _Claw_ can get away."

"That may be true, but if we go, you'll go with us."

"No, Ace . . . not this time. If it comes to that, I want you all out of here immediately. Every second you wait is asking for something to go wrong. For some enemy shot to wedge the bay doors shut or fry the door mechanism. There won't be any time to waste . . . and, besides, even if something goes wrong, I've got to stay here and try however I can to get it fixed."

"Ark . . ."

"Ace, if I go down here, I need you to go to Celtiboria. Help Astra any way you can. Promise me. Please."

Ace stood stone still, silent. Finally, he forced out a single word, a barely audible croak. "Okay."

"Thank you, old friend."

Ace just nodded. His poker face, the legacy of younger years spent traveling from one card game to another, failed him.

Blackhawk turned to face his people. Shira and Sam were standing in the room, no more than a meter or two behind Ace, and Doc stood silently behind them. "Go back to the _Claw_ , all of you. There's nothing you can do here. You've already helped me every way you can. Do me this favor, let me know you're all tucked in the _Claw_. It will free up my mind, not having to think of you all standing there staring at me."

Ace leaned forward, looking as though he was about to say something, to put up some sort of argument. But he settled back and remained silent for a moment. Finally, he said, "Ark . . . I understand why you . . ."

A burst of static blasted out of Sam's makeshift comm setup. Every eye in the room darted toward the workstation, and the screen there, now come alive. A message was coming in, one with audio and video.

Blackhawk's mind raced. The only other vessel in the system was the newly arrived imperial battleship. Were they sending a communique to check on the status? To explain the obvious battle damage?

That seemed likely, but Blackhawk had no idea how to respond without inflaming suspicion. He decided it was best to ignore the communication, to feign some kind of systems failure.

Then he heard the voice.

"This transmission is for Captain Arkarin Blackhawk of the _Wolf's Claw_."

_How . . . how could they know about the_ Claw _?_ His stomach tightened. Something was wrong.

_And that voice, it was familiar . . . ._

"Again, this communique is for Arkarin Blackhawk." A short pause, and then, more words, slamming into Blackhawk like a hammer. "Or, should I say, General Frigus Umbra?"

Blackhawk stared at the small workstation screen, as it came into rough focus. It was man, standing, speaking. A man he knew. Suddenly it all came together, the tone, the face . . . even the cadence of the voice. He was stunned, unable to move, to speak. He just watched . . . and listened.

"Frigus, it has been a long time, very long. I have long wondered where you were. For years, I refused to believe you were dead. I know it has been difficult for you. You are lost, I understand this. But I am here for you now, to help you.

"To bring you home."

Blackhawk sat utterly still, the headset still in his hand, and he stared at the screen. He knew who was speaking to him, he knew very well . . . but he couldn't believe it. It didn't seem real.

His stomach lurched. He barely held back the retch that almost emptied his guts. He wanted to lean forward, to speak into the microphone, to answer two different calls—one, the communique coming from the other ship . . . and the second from deep within his dark and haunted past, as parts of him long imprisoned screamed for release.

But he answered neither. He just sat, unmoving, like a man staring at a ghost, transfixed, frozen.

"It is me, Frigus. I know you remember me. Whatever has happened these many years, the bond between us endures, as it shall, for all time. I only want to talk to you, to know where you have been for so long. To understand. I ask nothing else from you now, nor do I address whatever loyalties you may have accumulated. My mandate is not the same as General Idilus's. It does not involve the conquest of the Far Stars, nor the destruction of any you now call friends. I am here to find you. You cannot refuse me, Frigus, at least not to speak with me . . . I know you cannot."

Blackhawk tried again to respond, but he couldn't find any words. He didn't know what to do or say, and in the darkest recesses of his mind, he could feel his past slamming into the gates, straining to escape. Frigus Umbra was still there after all the years that had passed, and he wanted to emerge, to claim the body he shared with Arkarin Blackhawk. To once again stride freely and claim his place near the top of the imperial hierarchy.

But he couldn't answer. He couldn't do anything. He just reached out and slammed his hand down clumsily on the controls, cutting off the comm input. The speaker squealed hard and went silent, and darkness replaced the image on the screen. Blackhawk leaned back and exhaled hard. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to stop the shaking in his arms, his hands. Unsuccessfully.

"Who was that, Ark . . . and how did he know who you are? Who you _were_?"

Ace stood right behind Blackhawk, looking only slightly less shocked. He reached out his hand to put it on his friend's shoulder in support, but he stopped before he did. Blackhawk was clearly tense, certainly as tight and on edge as Ace had ever seen him, and he feared what his captain would do should he suddenly be touched.

Blackhawk remained silent for a moment longer. Then he managed an answer, his voice tentative as he spoke. "His name is Ignes Inferni. He is an imperial officer. Twenty-five years ago, he served under me, though I suspect now he has risen to the heights of power. Likely, he serves as the emperor's right hand . . . as I once did." His words were clear, but his tone was hollow, robotic, and without detectable emotion. Blackhawk was lost. He didn't know what more to say, or how to say it. He could feel walls closing in all around him, and he struggled to hold on to himself. The version of himself he had fought and bled to create.

"He knows you from your days in the empire? That makes sense, I guess, but how does he know your name now?" Ace's tone was gentle, but confusion was lurking there, too.

Blackhawk was silent again for perhaps half a minute, listening as Inferni repeated his call, beseeched him to respond. Finally, he turned toward Ace. "I don't know. Likely, he doesn't, not really. Not for certain, at least. He probably only suspects." Blackhawk turned back and stared at the now blank screen. Then he said, "He is very capable, however, and not to be underestimated. And he knows enough about me to put together a detailed analysis. He is very familiar with my capabilities."

"He has access to your old imperial records?"

"Yes. That . . . and more." Blackhawk paused. "He knows the extent of my abilities because . . ." Another hesitation. ". . . he has them himself. All of them."

"You mean you both had the same training? The same conditioning?"

"Yes, partially that is what I mean. But much more than that, too. He is the same as me, in every way, at least the same as I was . . ." He reached out and flipped the comm back on. He wasn't sure why, or which part of him had pushed the action.

"Frigus, I just want to talk. I am not attacking, nor seeking to close with your ship . . ."

_That_ wasn't entirely true, Blackhawk realized, in some remote part of his mind separate from the turmoil encompassing him. Inferni's ship _was_ moving forward, though at a moderate thrust level. The general continued to speak.

"I do not care what happened to the other battleship, or anything else you have done here. I do not want to harm you. I just want to talk. Please, just respond." The communique continued to broadcast from the speaker, drawing Blackhawk's attention in as a black hole did matter. Sam's hasty setup didn't offer particularly good sound quality, but the voice was so similar to Blackhawk's own, not just in tone, but in manner of speech. He could have been listening to himself.

"Ark . . . what is happening? Please, tell me." Ace knelt down behind Blackhawk, and this time, he did put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Talk to me."

_It's time._ Blackhawk forced the thought toward the AI in his brain, sending it with such force, he imagined it being received as a shout. _We've got to get out of here. Now. We have to jump at once._ He was losing control. He could feel it slipping away. If he stayed in the system, if he didn't get away immediately . . .

Your mental facilities are extremely agitated. It may interfere with operations. It may also increase the inherent risk.

He pulled the headset on and slammed his fists down on the workstation. _Damn the risk. I said it is time to go!_ _Get ready to connect to the ship's AI. Activate jump engines as quickly as possible once we do._

Understood. Ready to connect on your order.

Then, he turned once again, and finally answered Ace. "We've got to get out of here, Ace. Right now. You just have to trust me."

But, for once, Ace didn't let up.

"Ark, is he some kind of imperial killer sent here to find you?" He turned and grabbed Blackhawk's other shoulder, spinning his friend around in his chair until they were looking at each other face-to-face. "There's nothing you can't tell me, Ark. You should know that by now. I am with you no matter what. Against any enemy."

Blackhawk stared back at his number two, even as the turmoil in his mind surged, as the demons he'd kept locked up for so long lunged for escape from the confinement that had preserved Arkarin Blackhawk for so long . . . and kept Frigus Umbra deep in the darkest recesses of his mind.

"This is no enemy you can meet, Ace. No adversary you can defeat, nor even help me against. He's a general, but also an assassin. A very capable killer. And he's merciless. Ruthless. _Relentless._ He will do anything to complete his mission. He will never give up, never stop."

Ace held Blackhawk's gaze and listened to his words, but he was clearly confused. "Is he after you?"

"Yes, he is here for me. Though perhaps not to kill me. He is something I have to deal with, alone, myself. I won't let any of you get involved in this. I can't."

"Ark, I don't understand."

Blackhawk looked back at his friend with watery eyes.

"He _has_ come for me, but not to destroy me. He has come to take me back."

"Back? Back where, to the empire? Is he a bounty hunter, something like that?"

Blackhawk forced his head to shake, hands clenched into fists, his face twisted into a tormented scowl.

"He is no bounty hunter."

Blackhawk gasped for air as he struggled to hold back the emotions pouring out.

"He's my brother."

# Chapter 28

"No response on any frequency, General. All receptor units on full power. We continue to scan for any sign of a communication from the ship, but nothing so far."

"Continue repeating the transmission, Commander. Full power, all channels." Inferni stood on _Exantallus_ 's bridge, clad in the grandeur of his full imperial regalia.

"Yes, General. As you command."

Inferni was frustrated. That was something that often could be dangerous for those around him, but this was different. He drew in to himself, calling on old memories, struggling to think of what he might do or say. Any way to get Frigus Umbra—Blackhawk, as he called himself now—to respond.

_Assuming I am correct, and that it_ is _Frigus on that ship . . ._

He'd analyzed every scrap of data he'd been able to obtain, read and reread seemingly endless accounts of Blackhawk's adventures, of the—to those in the Far Stars, at least—inexplicable abilities he seemed to have displayed. Inferni knew such things were prone to exaggeration, and, at first, he'd suspected the adventurer was simply a gifted Far Stars rogue, perhaps one who had enjoyed good fortune enhancing his innate abilities. He might have ultimately come to that conclusion and given up his search.

Save for the war.

It was clear he'd been a military commander before, and a highly gifted one. There were no accounts of him serving as one of Lucerne's generals, nor in the armies of any of the marshal's Celtiborian rivals. Blackhawk had not led one of the mercenary companies working the sector, at least not one of the major ones, and there was nowhere else in the Far Stars he could have gained the experience and ability to lead large armies.

So that left the empire. The imperial forces had lost many leaders over the past two decades, killed in action, retired to their estates, even no small number who had badly lost the emperor's favor and found themselves executed.

But only one had disappeared without a trace, simply vanished as if he'd somehow stepped out of the galaxy itself.

Inferni had harbored fleeting thoughts that Blackhawk was Umbra since the Far Stars had initially fallen, and as thin as the evidence had been, it had driven him to petition the emperor for leave to join Idilus's expedition. Since he'd arrived, however, every scrap of information he'd been able to uncover only increased that initial gut feeling almost to certainty. He was sure the man on that damaged battleship was Umbra, and the fact that he'd seized the great ship—and likely destroyed the second that was supposed to be in the system—only reinforced his conclusion.

But what could he do next if Blackhawk didn't respond? Inferni hadn't come to kill Umbra . . . he'd come to bring his old comrade back, to discover what had caused him to simply walk out of his command post one day and never return. Had he been injured somehow? Had some trauma damaged him mentally? Clearly, whatever had happened, it hadn't reduced his cognitive capacity or his tactical ability.

Perhaps he'd been brainwashed? Captured by some rebel group, and somehow conditioned to turn his back on all he'd served? Umbra had been one of the richest and most powerful men in the empire, even as Inferni himself had become. He'd sat at the right hand of the emperor, and all he had faced quaked before him. How did he end up giving up all that, wandering around the Far Stars in a tiny ship, with a handful of crew?

_Unless I'm wrong . . ._

But he didn't believe he was wrong. It went beyond analysis, beyond evidence . . . somehow, he _knew_ it. Blackhawk was Frigus Umbra.

If he could just get to Blackhawk, if he could manage a face-to-face meeting, he was certain he could get past whatever was keeping the imperial general from his true self. He could lead him back, to his old service, his old life. And, once again, the two of them would fight side by side, bringing the emperor's power to every corner of the galaxy.

"Answer, damn you," he whispered.

Alion Belakov sat in front of the workstation on the imperial battleship. He'd been terrified when the _Claw_ 's crew took him prisoner, but that initial fear had morphed into something else, something he realized was the start of loyalty. He was still afraid of a few of the _Claw_ 's crew, but Blackhawk had an almost hypnotic charisma, and even though he was, by normal standards, the most terrifying human being he'd ever met, he'd also felt drawn to _Claw_ 's skipper—an attraction sealed when Blackhawk had invited him to join the crew.

Belakov had been on his own almost his entire life, and though his computer skills had usually served to provide a comfortable living, the solitary nature of his activities had led to him being threatened and abused by those he worked for, and finally taken prisoner by a gangster like Durienne. The thought of being part of a crew—one obviously able to take care of its members—was extremely appealing.

That respect turned to awe when he'd stood and watched as Blackhawk somehow managed to control the battleship, apparently by connecting his mind to the main computer system. Belakov was no stranger to advanced computer systems, but he'd never seen anything at all like what he'd just watched. He asked Ace about it, and the _Claw_ 's number two gave him a quick and cryptic reply, something about Blackhawk having an AI of some kind implanted in his head.

That was another revelation—assuming he decided he believed it—that stunned the programmer. Belakov had heard of some experiments of that sort, connecting artificial intelligences with human brains, but nothing nearly advanced as what Ace had described. The complexity of meshing a machine implant with a human neural network was (almost literally) mind-boggling. He wanted to doubt the whole thing, to write it off as Ace messing with him . . . but it _would_ explain what he'd seen Blackhawk do.

He was still reeling from what he'd watched, but the rest of the crew had seemed less shocked by it than he was. They'd been mostly worried about Blackhawk himself, about whether he could endure the pain and physical stress that was clearly part of the connection process. And what had stunned them all far more was Blackhawk referring to one of the imperial officers as his "brother."

That was surprising, no question, but not that inexplicable. Belakov had already gathered that Blackhawk had come to the Far Stars from the empire. It would be coincidental, certainly, for him to encounter his brother on one of the imperial ships, but he didn't find it all that shocking Blackhawk had a sibling in imperial service. Belakov had even heard rumors that Blackhawk had been an imperial officer himself before he'd come to the Far Stars.

Belakov had never in his short time on the _Claw_ seen the crew as stunned as they appeared to be, however—so much so, they'd barely noticed when he had left the room and walked down the corridor to another compartment, taking advantage of the fact that Blackhawk had, during his connection to the ship's AI, restored life support to the entire deck.

He'd found it eerie walking down the deserted corridor alone. The AI center was in a lightly traveled section of the ship, but he'd still passed several bodies, lying in various poses, their faces transfixed with the agony of freezing and suffocating men and women. The smell from dead spacers frozen and rethawed made him gag every few steps until there was nothing left to spit up.

He was a little concerned the crew would be angry when they realized he'd left, but he was still grateful for the chance to sneak away, to get a few minutes to think.

And, of course, to check out the imperial equipment a bit more closely.

Blackhawk had invited him to join the _Claw_ 's crew, and he had accepted . . . but it had been pretty clear since then that the rest of the ship's complement still viewed him with some suspicion. And more, that he wasn't exactly carrying his weight.

That wasn't surprising. They'd all been together for a long time, and they'd gone through difficult times together. Trust took time, and he understood that, and he was alone for the first time since he'd been taken aboard the _Claw_ , at least the first time outside his cabin and away from the _Claw_ 's internal scanners. Because of that, he hadn't quite been able to prove his worth.

Maybe, with a little more freedom—and a lot more tech at his disposal—he could.

He sat down at a workstation in the room, and he punched at the keys. The screen lit up and various images flickered by as he worked the login sequence. He'd managed to pick up what he needed watching Blackhawk, something he'd done without the notice of the others. He wasn't trying to sneak anything past them—he'd taken his pledge to serve Blackhawk and the _Claw_ seriously. But if he was going to help, he required a level of access to the imperial computers he doubted his new family trusted him enough to allow.

Also, he _was_ a hacker.

He worked the keys, trying to push away the curiosity and questions about Blackhawk and his "brother" that kept intruding on his mind. He was curious, of course, but he also knew just how dire of a situation they faced—that the entire Far Stars faced. If there was any way he could help, it would be at that keyboard and not trying to figure out a sibling rivalry.

He wasn't sure he could explain what he was trying to do, mostly because he didn't know yet. Right now, he was just looking, hoping he'd come across something that jumped out at him. For that to happen, though, he needed to analyze the imperial data systems and structure as deeply as possible, which meant he needed to be left alone to explore.

At least for a few hours.

Then, just maybe, he could offer his own miracle, one to match Blackhawk's that he'd just watched. One that would cement his place as a member of the crew of the _Wolf's Claw_.

One that would give him the family he'd never had . . . and perhaps help save the Far Stars.

"Your brother? You have a brother?" Ace asked the question, but the silence and the focused stares all around him left no doubt the thought was ringing in the head of all Blackhawk's people.

The headset still in his hand, he looked back at them. He'd regretted those words almost as soon as they had escaped from his lips. Not because he wanted to hide anything from his crew, but because the whole subject was a difficult—and possibly dangerous—one for him.

Yet that was only part of the reason—the bigger regret was that there was no time to truly explain. He had to get the ship into hyperspace. He had to get his people to Celtiboria . . . and, most urgently, he had to get himself away from the approaching imperial vessel, and the man he now knew was in command there.

But it was clear none of that was going to happen without at least some explanation.

_I owe them that much._

"He is essentially my brother, or at least that is the closest designation to describe him." Blackhawk blurted the words out. "You already know I was not conventionally conceived or born. I have no parents, or I have a hundred, depending on how you look at it. My DNA was spliced together from numerous genetic samples. I do not know how they were gathered, save that some were donated by the most elite members of the imperial armed forces and nobility. Others, I suspect, were taken by force, from whatever imperial citizens the breeding program identified as useful. I never knew any of the donors. Or, if I did meet them later, neither I nor they knew of the connection.

"Ignes is the same as me. He was quickened from the same genetic material. Exactly the same. I have always considered him my brother, though perhaps clone or crèche-mate are more accurate descriptions."

"You mean he is genetically identical to you, Ark?" Ace again.

"Yes. At least mostly. The specifics of the imperial breeding program were classified, even above my clearance. No doubt the emperor didn't want his creations, his custom war machines, knowing too much about where they came from. If Ignes is not a literal clone, he is close to one."

Ace just stood and looked back at him, and the others did the same. The room was almost silent, save for the faint hum from the computer banks. Blackhawk didn't know what more to say, but he knew there was more. He needed to hear what his people thought, to answer their questions. But he also had to decide how to handle Inferni. It was crazy to think, but any confrontation between the two would mean he would be facing himself—that any action he took was against a man no worse than he had been, who was different only in that he had never escaped the conditioning that made him an imperial slave. _That's_ what they were up against now, and the scary thing was that if he couldn't figure out what he was going to do, there was no way to know what Inferni was going to do.

So, until he did, he had to stay away from the man he'd called brother.

"I know you all have questions, but I need you to trust me. We have to get out of here. Now. And then I can try to come up with a way to explain more."

They all nodded. Blackhawk returned the gesture, and then he turned to face the workstation. He pulled the headset on, taking a final breath and steadying himself to endure the pain.

_I'm ready. Let's get this bucket of bolts out of here._

_Now._

# Chapter 29

Idilus stared coldly at the main display. The trip from Galvanus had been long, far longer than he'd expected. The magnetic interference in the transit lanes and the lack of basic interstellar infrastructure just added to the list of reasons he couldn't wait to complete his mission and return to the empire.

_That will be soon, now, but still not soon enough for my tastes._

"We have arrived, Admiral Greeves, at long last. We all know our orders. The mission is clear. Let us waste no time. You are to engage and destroy the enemy fleet at once. Then, we will proceed to Celtiboria itself, and we will visit the emperor's justice upon those who would invade his worlds and resist his dominion over mankind."

Idilus was dressed the part of an imperial general, more even. He'd done some research into viceregal regalia in the imperial annals. Solid purple was reserved for the emperor alone, but a viceroy was entitled to wear robes of the imperial color mixed with an equal portion of white. The ship's services department had been hard-pressed to meet his specific requirements, but they'd made the deadline—just. If there was one thing imperial efficiency was good for, it was maintaining the necessary pomp to display the full grandeur of the empire.

The robes were of little real importance. His fleet vastly outmatched the Celtiborians, and he'd already decreed there would be no surrenders accepted, no prisoners. And there would be no conquered cities to enter, no subjugated populations to impress with his imperial presence. Not that he'd even set foot on the planet. Celtiboria was to be left a lifeless hulk, and the only troops who would land were small hunter killer parties, to dig out and exterminate any survivors from the bombardment. It was enormously difficult to utterly wipe out a planetary population from orbit, even with an intense nuclear barrage. A few scattered survivors would remain, in bunkers and shelters . . . and his soldiers would track them down and finish them.

When that happened, when the planet was a silent graveyard filled with radioactive ruins, he would declare victory, and he would return to the empire.

In the meantime, though, he allowed himself the vanity the viceregal station afforded him.

Idilus glanced at Rachus Denali. "You played no small part in this victory we are about to secure, Denali. It was with your device, and your skill in operating it, that we were able to reach the Far Stars with a strike force of this strength. I will see that you are amply rewarded when we return to the empire."

"Thank you, General. You are very kind."

Idilus looked over at the pilot, but he held back his thoughts, gratitude to an extent, of course, but also disgust. Denali had been a marginal free trader struggling to keep his ship from foreclosure, and now he stood on the grasp of vast imperial largesse, even if his desired freedom to retire was unlikely to ever come within reach. Still, he would live as he'd never dreamed, enjoying the benefits that accrued only to the emperor's most valued servants. And the damned fool was practically morose, no doubt stewing in self-inflicted guilt about leading imperial forces to the Far Stars. Idilus had given his thanks, as was due, but he had no time to waste encouraging the pilot. If Denali wanted to be upset about his success and good fortune, that was his decision.

"General Idilus, we're picking up energy transmissions. The enemy fleet appears to be formed up approximately one hundred million kilometers from the planet, directly along our line of approach."

"Perfect. We need not waste time chasing them. We can proceed directly for Celtiboria and simply pause on our way to destroy their ships. Proceed, Admiral Greeves. All ships are to advance at full thrust."

"General, sir . . ."

"What is it?" Idilus snapped the question. He had no patience for delay, not this close to victory.

"We're picking up additional energy signatures as well, to the side of the enemy formation. They appear to be coming from an asteroid cluster. Perhaps we should send scouting par—"

"Dispatch a wing of attack ships to investigate, Admiral, but we will not delay the main attack, not for an instant. Understood?"

"Sir, the readings don't match known profiles for ships. It is possible some kind of fortresses are in that . . ."

"Enough, Admiral. You have your orders. We have spent quite enough time in the Far Stars. We are going to move forward and execute the emperor's orders, and we are going to do it without further delay."

Idilus knew the admiral was capable, that he likely believed the enemy had forts of some kind hidden among the asteroids. He even suspected the commander's instincts were correct. But it didn't matter. There was nothing the Celtiborians could throw at him that his ships couldn't handle.

Victory was inevitable, and excess caution could serve only to delay it.

"They are continuing forward, sir. No sign of small craft launches yet, nor of any vector changes that would suggest they are aware of our presence." Grigg Norgstrom had prepared himself for the arrival of the imperials every way he could, but when he'd first seen the giant vessels appear on the scanner, he'd almost lost control anyway. But he was holding it together, and his tone was firm. He had his duty, and he'd be damned if he would do one bit less than his best.

"Very well, Lieutenant Commander."

Norgstrom looked over at Commander Crendus. He was scared of the imperials, of course, but he was even shakier at the thought of that pompous fool commanding the station in battle.

"They are approaching firing range, Commander."

"Understood, Lieutenant Commander."

Norgstrom fidgeted in his chair, waiting for the orders he knew should be forthcoming but weren't. He was frustrated at his CO's incompetence, but unsure what to do about it. Finally, when Crendus remained silent, he asked, "Shall I order the batteries to charge up and prepare to open fire?" There wasn't much time. With any luck, the fortresses would be a surprise to the enemy, but that advantage would be fleeting, and he wasn't about to let Crendus squander it. He was sure the other fortress commanders had already prepped their batteries, but there was no overall order to spur Crendus into action. Admiral Desaix had been quite insistent about maintaining communications silence. The chance to hit the enemy with something they didn't expect was one of the few edges the fleet possessed, and Desaix wasn't willing to take a chance on some comm traffic giving the bases away.

Norgstrom's mind was racing. Should he try to take command? That would be mutiny, but was it worse than Crendus's dereliction of duty?

He was reaching for the fortresswide comm unit, ready to make a play to rally the crew and take command when Crendus spoke.

"Yes, Lieutenant Commander. Order all batteries to begin charging and prepare to open fire."

"Yes, Commander." Norgstrom reached out, his hands now moving over the controls, putting the batteries on full alert, all the while thinking how impressed he was by Crendus's calm tone.

The officer might not be as incapable as he thought. And now it appeared he was no coward as well.

_At least if I'm going to die, it's not going to be because of pure incompetence._

Norgstrom watched as the turrets acknowledged receipt of the order, and a moment later as each of them reported status gold. Ready to fire.

His eyes darted back to the display, watching as the imperial battleships pressed on forward, blasting their thrusters, heading directly for the fleet and for Celtiboria beyond. Right through the field of fire from the forts.

Just as Astra Lucerne and Admiral Desaix had predicted.

He could feel his stomach tense as the imperial ships closed, moving steadily into range. There were only minutes left, seconds even. Then, the great forts, silent and abandoned for centuries, would open fire and start the fight.

The Battle of Celtiboria.

Norgstrom watched as the lead imperial vessel crossed the line, followed a few second later by the others. It was time, and he spun around, looking over at Crendus, wondering if the commander would be ready.

He was.

The orders came a second later.

"Lieutenant Commander . . . all batteries are to open fire at once."

"Yes, sir." Norgstrom sent the command to the waiting gunners, and then he turned and looked at the display, even as flashes began to fly all around. Every one of the fortresses had opened fire.

Norgstrom ignored the fear, the throbbing ache in his gut. There was only one thought in his mind, pushing all the others aside.

It was on.

# Chapter 30

Belakov stared at the screen. Screens. He'd rigged three different workstations together, and columns of code streamed down each one as his eyes darted back and forth. He'd already been deep into reviewing the operation systems that ran the immense ship when Ace came to find him, a job that was arguably more difficult—and _definitely_ gave him a headache—in the strange alien dimension of hyperspace. Graythorn had been one of the most suspicious of the crew, the slowest to accept him. Second slowest. Shira Tarkus still looked like she wanted to slit his throat every time she glanced his way.

He'd explained what he was doing, but Ace wasn't buying it. At least it didn't seem like he was, but then Blackhawk came walking down the corridor. The _Claw_ 's captain looked like shit, splotches of semidried blood under his nose, streaks of red spreading across his eyes like spiderwebs. In pain, too, that much was clear, and even in his short time on the _Claw_ , Belakov had come to develop at least a preliminary understanding of how iron tough Arkarin Blackhawk truly was. He couldn't imagine the agony that would show on his face like that.

He'd expected Blackhawk to support Ace, to order Belakov to step away from the workstation, maybe even lock him up in the _Claw_ 's makeshift brig. But Blackhawk listened to his explanations, and then he'd replied simply, "That would be enormously helpful. If you think there is even a remote chance, keep at it . . . and let Ace know if you need anything."

Blackhawk had then staggered down the corridor toward the landing bay and the _Claw_ , looking as though he might fall over at any second. Ace didn't look entirely happy about it, but he looked down at Belakov and asked, "So, _is_ there anything you need?"

"No . . . Ace." He was still having trouble addressing the crew by their first names, especially the ones who clearly still mistrusted him. But the _Claw_ 's crew didn't use ranks, save for Blackhawk's "captain," and he would have felt foolish saying, "Mr. Graythorn" all the time. "Just time. These routines seem rather simplistic for such a massive warship. I may be missing something, but the security on this system would make the auditors at the Far Stars Bank laugh. If this is all they've got, we just may be able to do something useful." Ace had nodded acknowledgment, but it was clear he wasn't putting much faith in Belakov's efforts, regardless of what Blackhawk had said.

Belakov didn't take that personally. He knew the idea of somehow hacking an imperial battleship seemed pretty out there. And he couldn't explain, or at least he couldn't satisfy himself yet, as to why the imperial system was so weak. He hadn't gotten through enough to be sure, but he was becoming convinced the imperial computer code lagged rather badly behind that of this sector's best, more robust security systems he'd encountered. That seemed impossible to him at first, but then he thought about it. The Far Stars was a rugged frontier, full of every manner of gangster and criminal, all looking constantly for something they could steal. The empire was far more docile, its people subjugated and living in relative peace with the full force of the emperor's judgment enforcing the rule of law. All that meant, at least Belakov was pretty sure, that imperial code was less secure because it simply hadn't been created under the same pressure to develop more advanced security protocols.

In other words: you don't need security when everyone is too scared to possibly try and steal from you.

And that was good for him and his . . . crew. He felt a spark of excitement—one he knew was far too premature. But there nevertheless.

Because maybe, just maybe, he could develop something useful.

If he had the time. The code might be simpler than he'd expected, but it was still voluminous, millions of lines in the core programming, not to mention thousands of shared subroutines. That's what he was up against: sorting through all that in order to find what was probably the tiniest morsel of information or backdoor he could exploit.

_If you can find something, though—come up with some way to interfere with the operations of the other imperial ships—you could help to save the Far Stars._

_And win your spot on the_ Claw _in a way even Ace Graythorn and Shira Tarkus can't deny._

Blackhawk stumbled into his cabin. He'd come back to the _Claw_ because he wanted to be alone, because it was the closest thing to a home he had, and he craved some kind of rock to cling on to. He'd managed to endure another interface with the battleship's main AI, and he felt as though a line of rail cars had thundered through his skull. But it wasn't the pain, or the memories of the nightmarish experience, hitting him.

It was Ignes Inferni, and the words the imperial general had spoken.

They had awakened something in Blackhawk. Memories of brutality, of murderous devastation inflicted on whole populations, clashed with images of friendship and camaraderie. Ignes Inferni had been more than his brother or his genetic match. The two had been friends, comrades. Umbra had come first, and he had been Inferni's mentor. All the success in the imperial general's career was due to the training Umbra had provided.

_And all the blood he spilled is on your hands._

Blackhawk, the part of him the last twenty-plus years had created, struggled against the tide, holding as hard as he could to his sanity as memories of glory, of comradeship, of comfort and power crashed over him, one wave after another. He was strong, the man he'd become unwilling to yield to the one he'd been before . . . but even the hardest rock could be worn down by the relentless sea, and he could feel his grip slipping away, ever so slightly.

That inexorable pull was Ignes. And his apprentice in destruction was here to take Blackhawk back.

There wasn't a doubt in his mind. His brother had come for him, not to kill him, but to take him home. And to part of him—a very real part—the empire _was_ home. His long exile could come to an end. He'd never have been able to go back, not alone. But alongside Ignes . . . it was a chance to reclaim all he'd lost.

_No,_ the other side of him screamed, _not lost_.

_Escaped._

And because of that, Blackhawk resisted. He didn't want to go back. He was appalled by what he'd been, by the millions he'd killed, the lives and worlds he'd destroyed. But Frigus Umbra was there, too, as close to escaping his mental prison as he'd ever been, and as his old self pushed hard to escape.

Blackhawk could feel himself weakening.

He sat on his cot, soaked in sweat, his fatigues plastered to his body. His hair was a tangled mess, long brown strands hanging down his face. The sessions connected with the ship's AI, and now the battle raging in his own head . . . it was too much, even for a man of his great strength and endurance. He tried to focus his thoughts, to concentrate on a strategy to deal with all that was going on, but for the first time in his life, he lacked the strength to face his challenges, his enemies. His most dangerous adversary in this fight was himself, and the many long years of unending struggle had finally worn him down.

He was afraid, too, terrified of meeting Inferni. Not of what his brother might do, but of how he might react in the presence of one who'd been so close to Frigus Umbra. The urge to run, to find some dark hole in the Far Stars and hide, was almost overwhelming. But there was no place to go, not if the empire conquered the entire sector.

Besides, he couldn't cower from his past while Astra fought the imperial forces. He didn't know if there was any way to pull victory from the impending disaster, but he knew if Astra was going to fall, he would be there with her, fighting to the last.

At least half of his mind felt that way. The thoughts that had been Frigus Umbra urged a different course.

_Join Inferni, return to the empire, reclaim your place. You can lobby the emperor for lenient treatment for the Far Stars. You can save Astra. If you beseech the emperor, he will pardon her, give her to you. The two of you can be together, instead of dead in a hopeless battle._

The Umbra psyche was persuasive as always, and deceitful. Blackhawk knew if he surrendered to Umbra he wouldn't care about the Far Stars, or Astra. That side of him relished only power, and its loyalty was solely to the empire.

_Besides, Astra would never surrender . . . not even to me._

He felt as though he was splitting in half, and he struggled to hang on to what he was, what he'd become after almost twenty-five years in the Far Stars.

He sat for a long while, the thoughts inside him surging back and forth, as the two personalities that lived in him fought for his soul. It was torture beyond any he'd endured at the hands of his enemies, but it was a hell he inflicted on himself. And there seemed to be no escape.

_No . . . you can't sit here all day and wallow in misery. You have to find a way. You have to help the Celtiborians . . . help Astra._

He tried to focus his thoughts on Astra. He imagined her beaten, lying dead and broken on some battlefield . . . or, perhaps worse, captured by imperial troops. The thoughts were upsetting, but they helped him, too. He drew strength from the waking nightmares, from the overpowering need to stop them from becoming reality.

He would save Astra, somehow, whatever he had to do. He would fight, find a way to face the imperials, to defeat them. Even if it cost him his life.

_You've never been able to be with Astra, and you can't spend your life with her. If you can save her now, save the Far Stars, just maybe you can atone for all you've done._

_It will be easier for her to move forward if I'm gone . . ._

_But how can I defeat the empire? If the accounts we received are correct, there are eight battleships left. Every force of arms in the Far Stars, massed together, couldn't come close to matching that kind of power._

You must stay focused, Arkarin. You must cling to what you are, what you have become. I cannot help you in this battle, but I can tell you that you have the power, the strength to prevail. You must fight, as you have never fought before, and face your greatest fears head-on. Only then can you achieve the victory you seek.

He felt a burst of gratitude. He had at least one ally. However, it was also unable to help in any real way. He tried to latch on to the assurances that success was possible, to tell himself the AI was always correct about such things. But the small lift faded quickly, and he sank again into the growing darkness.

His mind raced, recalling every tactic he'd ever seen, every stratagem of war. But there was nothing. Nothing but growing hopelessness, and the continued force of Frigus Umbra, pressing down on him, a war in his own mind that was far from over.

If the struggle had been only for himself, he would have yielded, given in so the pain would stop. But it wasn't only about him. He had to stay in the fight. He had to do it for the Far Stars.

He had to do it for Astra. He would never abandon her, never stop fighting until she was safe.

Never.

# Chapter 31

The battleship shook, and Idilus stumbled, grabbing the arm of the chair next to him to steady himself. He felt a wave of rage flow into him, as his mind processed what had happened. His flagship had been hit . . . but by what? The range was too great for the Celtiborian ships to fire. They were far too small. They couldn't have the power or weapons large enough.

_But, if not them, what?_

"Admiral Greeves, report. What was that?"

"We're receiving a report from the scouting wing, General." A pause, a few seconds, but each one seemed to stretch out interminably. Then: "They're detecting energy blasts from the asteroid cluster to the port side of the fleet. Searching for the source of the fire now." Greeves was tense. Clearly, he hadn't expected the enemy to get in the first shot any more than Idilus had . . . and passing on the scouting group's report on the source of the surprise attack to the general was likely close to the last thing he wanted to do.

"Do better than search, Admiral. I want whatever is hiding in there found and destroyed at once." Idilus's anger was growing. He'd felt somewhat clinical about destroying Celtiboria, simply a means to an end. But now he would savor the deaths of the planet's billions. They would pay for his humiliation. "All units are to launch attack ships at once. They are to find and destroy all enemy contacts in the asteroid field."

"Yes, General." Greeves turned and issued a series of orders, commanding all the ships in the fleet to launch their wings.

"I want those ships out in ten minutes, Admiral. Any flight crews who fail to meet that deadline will go out the launch tubes after the attack ships. Is that understood?"

"Yes, General. Understood."

Idilus stood and stared at the display, even as the ship shook again. He cursed, half under his breath, but audible to those closest to him. Then he sat in his chair. Toppling over and rolling across the floor of the bridge was beneath the dignity of an imperial general, and no less of a viceroy.

"Scanner reports coming in, Admiral. The source of the fire appears to be a line of bases built on several of the asteroids."

_Damn!_

Idilus had allowed himself to underestimate the defenses his forces would face. Celtiboria had spent three centuries fighting a series of civil wars, and by all accounts, the system's fortifications had suffered badly as the planet's warlords devoted all their resources to battling each other for supremacy. Yet, somehow, it appeared they had managed to restore some fortresses.

He was angry with himself, and he realized he'd drawn too much on his past campaigns regarding what to anticipate at Celtiboria. It had been centuries since an imperial force had been engaged in more than the pacification of rebellions, and even when an entire world rose up, the system defenses remained securely under imperial control. The navy hadn't fought a true fleet action—save for the handful of ships that had been in the demesne when the Celtiborians attacked—since the last time an admiral made a play for the throne. Almost five hundred years ago.

Idilus tried to calm himself. The forts could cause some damage, but they weren't enough to stop his fleet.

But he also wouldn't underestimate the Celtiborians again.

"I want those forts destroyed immediately, Admiral. All attack wings are to hit them at once. And bring the fleet around. All ships are to target the bases now. Alter approach vector, and close with the asteroid cluster." The fortress guns were far stronger than anything the Celtiborian fleet seemed to possess. If he brought all his strength to bear, maybe he could take them out before they did any real damage. Then he could finish off the enemy's mobile units.

His main guns were in range, but barely. Accuracy would be poor, even against fixed targets. He'd expected to dominate the fighting completely, but ground-based weapons had an inherent advantage over mobile ones, because they could be bigger and had access to more powerful energy sources.

_Once the fleet closes, we'll blast those bases to ruins . . . and then we'll sweep away their fleet. After that, Celtiboria will become a footnote to history . . . if it is remembered at all._

"We've got incoming attack ship formations, Commander. It looks like almost seven hundred inbound against us." Norgstrom sat at his station, staring at the vast clusters of dots on his screen. He'd never seen anything like the waves of attack ships coming at the fortresses, and he knew exactly what he saw in them.

His death. All their deaths.

The asteroid bases were strong, at least as strong as the engineering teams had been able to make the neglected, centuries-old installations on a few weeks' notice. It was a miracle the forts were functional at all, but despite the determination to which he clung, and the inspiration of Astra Lucerne's address, he knew in his rational mind the forts were finished. All they could do was inflict as much damage as possible before they were destroyed.

He'd known that from the beginning, or at least part of him had, but it was something entirely different to face it imminently. The imperial battleships were already returning fire, and it would be less than ten minutes before the waves of attack craft began their assault.

He heard a distant rumble, another blast from one of the battleships slamming into the base. His mind was racing to triangulate just what had been hit when the damage control system reported it to him.

_Turret nine. Completely destroyed._

That was the third big gun Base Drendel had lost, plus several reactors and upward of five hundred crew . . . and the fort had been lightly hit compared to some of the others. Omicron was completely out—at least there were no responses to continued communications attempts (fully open once the enemy knew they were there), and none of the scanners could pick up any energy output at all.

Still, every other fort continued to engage the enemy, every gun still operational firing at maximum power, even beyond maximum. Most of the turrets were pumping overload levels of energy through their guns, and all along the enemy formation, the battleships were pounded by shot after shot.

The imperial warships were immense, though, and even the heaviest guns on the forts caused only local damage. Still, there were glowing circles on all the scanner symbols, and he knew every ship in the imperial fleet had taken at least some damage.

He slammed his fist down on his workstation as he saw one of Drendel's main guns score a hit on the lead battleship. He watched and waited, hoping to see at least one of the monsters destroyed. He waited, though, in vain.

The fleet was firing, too, and several of the battleships were changing their vectors to engage the flank attack. Even the heaviest ships in the Celtiborian fleet seemed like insects buzzing around a Kalishari Stegaroid. But they _were_ scoring hits, and enough stings could bring down even the greatest of beasts.

He looked over at Commander Crendus. The officer was silent, as Norgstrom himself had been for the last several minutes. The gunnery stations had their orders, the damage control teams were on the job, struggling to keep power flowing where it was needed . . . at least for a few more minutes. There was nothing left to do but sit and watch the battle.

Crendus had surprised Norgstrom with his calm and his demeanor in the battle. He'd resented the officer since the day he'd been placed under his command, and he'd bristled at Crendus's pointless pomposity. But now Norgstrom had seen a different side of his commander, and he could feel something unexpected welling up inside him. Respect. He could die alongside worse officers than Crendus. Far worse.

He turned and looked at the main display, and he froze, his eyes glued to the mass of enemy ships coming in . . . only seconds away now, about to launch the attack all but certain to obliterate Base Drendel, and all its companion stations.

He took a deep breath, and he turned back toward Crendus, only to see the commander looking over at him. The two men exchanged silent glances and nods, and Norgstrom knew instantly, beyond whatever arrogance and insecurity had forced Crendus to behave the way he had, behind it all, there was respect there, too.

He took another breath, and he held it for a few seconds, trying to steady himself for the final struggle. Then he looked up at the display . . . as the first wave of attack ships came whipping down at the base.

"Marshal, the bases are heavily engaged. The enemy fleet has altered its approach vector and begun to close with the fortresses. The bases are suffering heavy damage, but all of them are still in the fight."

Astra Lucerne sat quietly, listening to Emile Desaix's report. The Celtiborian admiral was the true expert in fleet tactics, and she knew it. She was on _Augustin_ to be with her spacers, to face the enemy . . . not to impose her own far lesser knowledge of naval operations on her outmatched fleet.

But there was one thing she _did_ know, and she was sure Desaix would agree.

"It is time, Admiral."

The commander of the Far Stars Confederation navy turned and met her gaze. "Indeed it is, Marshal Lucerne."

Astra just nodded, a simple way of giving her assent.

Desaix snapped out a series of orders, sending commands to the various units of the fleet. The Celtiborian force had far more ships than the imperial fleet, though every ship combined massed less than a quarter of one of the great battleships moving deeper into the system. However, because the imperials had not only stopped to engage the forts, but changed their headings toward the asteroid cluster, that gave her people a chance to hit the flank of the imperial forces and give the battleships a multisided attack to deal with. Even more importantly, it appeared the battleships had launched most or all of their attack ships on the fortresses. That almost guaranteed the forts would be destroyed, but it also meant the small craft would be away from her fleet. By the time the attack ships had returned and were refit and ready to launch again, the fight would almost certainly be over. And that meant that every shot fired would be at one of the behemoths instead of trying to pick off pesky fighters.

Maybe her people could even take one or two of the ships down. That would be cold comfort for the loss of Celtiboria, perhaps even for the genocide that would destroy her people for all time . . . but it was something. And if it was all she could grab as she fell into the pit of hell, by God, she was going to take it.

"Full thrust, Admiral. This is our chance to hurt them, and I don't want to lose a second."

"Yes, Marshal." She could hear the same defiance in Desaix's voice. The admiral had served her father for thirty years, but the fleet had always been on the sidelines in the struggles between the warlords. For most of his years of service, Desaix had obsessed about protecting trade ships and launched operations against the freighters of rival warlords. Then, in the war to liberate the Far Stars, he'd shown his mettle, and his skill. And now, he got to join a true naval fight. He would face defeat, of course. But a fighting man needs to fight, and this was finally his chance.

She felt the thrust increase, the pressure of g-forces bearing down, as _Augustin_ lurched forward, on the way toward the imperial fleet.

"All ships, charge all weapons. We open fire as soon as we're in range," Desaix ordered.

"Put me on the fleetwide channel," Astra said. She clearly didn't need to micromanage a man who could fly spaceships around her until she was dizzy, but there was _one_ thing she could do.

"Yes, Marshal. On your comm."

She cleared her throat and paused for a few seconds, thinking. The urge to address the fleet had come on her suddenly, and she realized she hadn't prepared anything to say. Her mind raced, back to some of the addresses she'd heard her father give. Augustin Lucerne had possessed an almost incomprehensible ability to rally fighting men and women, but she wasn't her father. Looking around the bridge, though, and seeing the expectant eyes of the men and women who she was about to lead to their deaths, she realized she didn't have to be Augustin.

She was Astra Lucerne, marshal of the Far Stars Confederation, and that was all her forces ever expected her to be.

"Officers and spacers of the fleet: in a few moments, we will face our greatest challenge, the most powerful enemy any of us have fought. We are outmatched, almost certainly, but that doesn't matter. Our enemies fight for greed, for glory, for power and position in the twisted nightmare that is the empire. We fight for greater things, far above those of our enemy."

The words surprised her, suddenly flowing into her mind, and then out of her mouth. Somehow, she almost felt her father's presence, helping her somehow, creating the speech with her, even as she spoke each word. She knew that was foolish, that Augustin Lucerne was dead . . . but she decided it didn't matter. If her father was there in her mind, he was there.

"We fight now for freedom. Freedom from the oppression of the empire, from rule by a terrible despotism that offers only brutality and slavery to those who live under its yoke. We fight for our loved ones, even now on Celtiboria, looking up to the skies to see if we can prevail, and proud of us that we are even willing to risk the coldness of space and the fires of war at all.

"And we fight for the memory of Marshal Augustin Lucerne, my father, and the man who united Celtiboria. We all remember him in our own way, but most of you served with him, and you all have never forgotten his valor and his tireless, selfless efforts to bring us all into a new future. To bring us a free and prosperous Far Stars. Now, we must fight, all of us, to preserve his dream, and to drive the imperial invaders back into the Void.

"I am honored to be a part of his legacy. I am honored to be a part of _your_ legacy. For although my father was your leader, it has been through _your_ bravery, skill, and sacrifice that we've even seen a free Far Stars. It is because of _you_ that we will never be oppressed by the empire ever again.

"I am honored to be your Marshal. I am honored to follow you into the darkness and the fire.

"For the confederation! For the future of the Far Stars. Forever free!"

She slapped her hand against the side of her headset, cutting the line. She could see every face on the bridge, staring at her, and every one of them wore the same scowl of raw defiance her words had unleashed within each of them.

She took a deep breath, even as Desaix turned toward her, his eyes shining bright. "We are entering weapons range, Marshal."

She nodded to the admiral, a silent thanks, for loyalty, and for his steadfast resolution.

"Open fire."

# Chapter 32

"We should be able to use the field again, possibly even board another battleship." Blackhawk discounted his own words even as they came out of his mouth, though. Their successful boarding operation on the battleship back at Galvanus had been the result of a number of factors, not the least of which was the low alert levels and the _Claw_ 's element of surprise. The ships Blackhawk expected to find in Celtiboria's system would certainly be on full alert status.

Not to mention the operation in Galvanus had benefited from the greatest of all assets: luck. Even with the field, the surprise, the experience of the _Claw_ 's crew, and his own unique abilities, he couldn't imagine they'd had very good odds going in. He suspected he could calculate them with some degree of accuracy, at least with the help of the AI in his brain, but he was as certain as he'd ever been of anything that he didn't want to know.

"Ark . . ." Ace spoke tentatively, but Blackhawk knew exactly what his second was thinking. How could he not be?

_I'm thinking the same thing._

"I know, Ace . . ." He sighed. "I don't know why I even said that." He looked down at the deck, reeling from the battle still going on in his mind—the one for the control of his soul. "I just don't know what to do." He'd never admitted that to his people before, because it had never been true, at least not completely so. Blackhawk—or Umbra, more accurately—had been born and bred to develop strategies and tactics, and he'd been trained at war since he could walk. He'd always had at least part of a plan. Until now.

"Ark, maybe there's just no way this time." Ace took a step closer. "We're with you, no matter what. You know that. But maybe we should just grab Astra and get her out of here. There's no reason to let her die for nothing."

Blackhawk heard the words, and he longed to embrace them, to find Astra and take her out of danger. He didn't value his own survival enough to abandon Celtiboria to its fate, but he did Astra's, and those of his crew. There was one problem, though.

"Astra won't leave, Ace."

"Even if you ask her?"

"Even if I _beg_ her. She is her father's daughter. She'd give me anything I asked her for, I believe that. Anything but her honor. And I wouldn't ask for that." There was deep sadness in his voice. The thought of losing Astra was devastating enough, but the realization that he would have to stand by and allow her to go to her death . . . it was unbearable.

"So what are we going to do?"

"I might have an answer to that."

Every head in the room turned around. Alion Belakov stood in the doorway leading to the airlock. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but . . ." He was clearly exhausted, his eyes bleary and bloodshot. Blackhawk hadn't thought about Belakov for some time, but he suddenly realized the programmer had been at the same workstation nonstop for days.

"You're part of this crew, too, Alion. We're trying to decide what to do when we jump into Celtiboria's system, so any ideas are welcome."

"Yes, I gathered that . . . and I think I have an answer. A chance, at least."

Ace looked doubtful. Most of the others seemed to range between curious and uncertain. All except Blackhawk. He'd chosen Belakov because he saw something in the man.

Hopefully that faith was about to pay off.

"What is it, Alion?"

"Well, Captain . . . Ark . . . I reviewed the operating systems of the battleship's AI. They're complex, of course, and vast in scope, but their security protocols are less than impressive."

The crew seemed unconvinced, even more skeptical than they had been. But Blackhawk just nodded, and said, "Go on."

"I found some weak points. Specifically in subroutines shared by multiple systems. Most of the security is concentrated on the likeliest entry points. Imagine barricading the front door and leaving a back window open. I found what I believe to be a way in . . . through the main communications circuits."

"What you _believe_?" It was Shira, and while her hostility toward Belakov had faded, her skepticism clearly remained.

Blackhawk almost told Belakov to continue, but the programmer beat him to it.

"Yes, of course . . . what I believe. There was nothing close to enough time to design something properly, much less conduct adequate testing. There is a lot of guesswork in this, a lot of conjecture."

"Guesswork in what, Alion?" Blackhawk was still intrigued, but he wasn't sure where Belakov was going.

"The virus, of course. I created a virus, one I believe we can introduce through the communications systems of the imperial battleships. If it works—which is still a huge 'if'—it will expand rapidly and infect all systems in the ship. I can't say I had the time to properly review all aspects of the deep programming, but I couldn't find any signs of internal firewalls. If we're able to get through the up-front security, we just might be able to infect the whole thing . . . even the central kernels."

"Can you translate that?" Shira asked.

"He means, we might be able to send a signal to the imperial battleships and attach the virus to the carrier wave." Blackhawk turned back to Belakov. "Correct?"

"Essentially, yes. Once inside, the virus will infect multiple sections of each battleship's information systems."

"Are you saying we might be able to shut down life support or activate self-destruct mechanisms?" Ace was interested now, even as Shira threw him a dirty look.

"No, unfortunately not. We will not have direct contact with the systems, and we won't be able to exercise any direct control over the ships. The virus should, however, severely degrade computer functionality in the vessels. If I read the systems architecture correctly—and, I cannot stress strongly enough, I was very time constrained and could have made any number of mistakes—I believe the ships will lose computer targeting assistance, power grid monitoring, scanning suites . . . upward of a dozen different systems. I don't think we'll be able to destroy the ships, but we might come a long way to disabling them. Maybe enough to give the Celtiborians a chance."

Belakov was silent for a moment, and a frown came over his face.

"What is it?" Blackhawk asked.

"We might have one problem, though. We have to get the message through the frontline translation and decoding systems. I've been trying to figure a way to bypass all that, but I've come up blank. I'm about to head back and try again, but I wanted to discuss the basic idea with all of you." Belakov looked back at the others, barely able to keep his eyes open. "I'd better get back to it. I've got the virus ready to go, at least as ready as it's going to be. If I can manage to come up with a way to deliver it, just maybe we can make a difference in this fight." He turned and began lumbering toward the hatch, when Blackhawk's voice stopped him cold.

"Alion . . . wait. I just may have a way to get your virus into the comm systems of those battleships. There is a priority direct comm channel on all imperial warships. It's designed to bypass all other systems, and it's activated by a special code. So far, it seems very little has changed in the last twenty years, and if our luck holds on that, it just might work . . . because I've got the codes."

The rest of the crew gathered all around Blackhawk, but he went silent for a moment. They'd all seen it before, and they knew what it meant.

_We're going to have to connect with the ship's AI again to set our nav orders once we jump in. We can find the priority code circuits then._

The physical strain of the connections has been damaging to your biological systems. We can execute the navigational commands in a matter of seconds. However, if we remain connected long enough to search through high-security communications channels, there is a significant chance you will suffer serious health effects. There is also a nontrivial likelihood you could die.

Blackhawk listened to the AI's words, and even as he did, the Umbra persona was screaming at him, urging against taking unnecessary risks.

_I understand the risks . . . but this is the only way._

Are you sure? Your thought processes are far less tidy than they usually are.

_I am sure._

But he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure he could _ever_ be sure. But the part of him that was Blackhawk was ready to do whatever he could to save Celtiboria and the Far Stars. And Astra. The problem was, he wasn't Blackhawk anymore, though, at least not entirely.

I should not allow this in your current state. I was created to aid and assist you, and I operate under a firm mandate to secure your permission before engaging in activities that can be harmful to you.

_And I'm giving it. We_ have _to do this. There is no other option. You were created to serve Blackhawk. If you allow Umbra to take control, you will kill Blackhawk as surely as if we all die during the interface. If you were created to serve me, then obey me now. We must do all we can to reach the comm channels we need. The virus is our only chance._

Blackhawk could feel a delay in the AI's response, one he'd never experienced before. His stomach tensed. If the AI refused him, they were as good as lost. There was no other way, no remaining option to give the Celtiborians even a chance of victory.

I concur. We will make the connection and enter the jump coordinates, followed by the navigational orders, as soon as we materialize in the system. Then, we will attempt to connect with the priority comm system and determine if your codes are still effective. If, however, I detect that your physical condition reaches critical levels, I will cut the connection at once. Agreed?

Blackhawk had never really negotiated with the AI before. The whole thing seemed surreal, like he was arguing with himself. He felt the impulse to insist that the AI not cut the interface, no matter the danger to himself. But somehow he knew it would be pointless. And he didn't have time to waste.

_Agreed._

He turned toward Belakov. "Alion, get your virus ready. It's time." He angled his head, turning his view toward the others. "The rest of you, stay on the _Claw_. I want you ready to bug out as soon as we get back." _Or if we don't get back._ He didn't add the last part, not verbally. There wasn't time to argue, and if things went bad, if he and Belakov were already dead, he knew Ace would do whatever he could to save the others.

"It's ready, Ark." Belakov held up a data crystal. "Just get me a connection to that priority comm system, and I'll handle the rest."

Blackhawk nodded, and then he gestured for Belakov to follow him. He'd always prided himself on his judgment of people, and if the programmer came through, if his virus could even partially disable those battleships, he would have a place on the _Claw_ as long as Blackhawk was still breathing.

_Which might only be a few more minutes._

_But if it does work, he'll be a part of this family forever._

# Chapter 33

"Division Two, come around, course 3247, mark 4. Advance at full thrust and engage enemy flank." Emile Desaix sat in the center of _Augustin_ 's bridge, snapping out rapid-fire commands. He had three aides, and together they could barely keep up with him. The admiral had served Augustin Lucerne for decades, back to the days when the fleet had been nothing more than half a dozen frigates tasked with protecting off-world trading convoys from pirates and from raids by the other Celtiborian warlords. That had been hard duty, but not the kind of thing that forged great admirals. That ability—being able to visualize a three-dimensional chess board that had thousands of pieces and see what the next ten moves (all happening at once) had to be—seemed innately Desaix's own.

He was doing everything he could with that talent now, pouring all his skill, his intuition (and anything else he could find) into the combat. His spacers were giving their all, too, standing grimly by their stations, extracting every watt of power the straining batteries could produce. The shots from his cruisers and frigates were ripping across space, slicing into the imperial battleships, and he watched as explosions blasted out from the enemy vessels, as laser turrets were reduced to briefly molten pools that refroze almost instantly in the frigid cold of space. His ships continued to close, braving the deadly imperial fire, unleashing all they could while the bulk of the enemy force was finishing off the fortresses.

But it wasn't enough. Perhaps, given sufficient time, his smaller ships could have cut down the imperial behemoths, inflicted enough hits to overwhelm the vast size and meters-thick armor, but when the first two of the monsters came about from their course toward the fortresses and engaged the Celtiborian fleet, it became instantly clear he wouldn't get that time.

The first barrage of shots from the two imperial ships struck a frigate and a cruiser. The smaller ship split open like an egg, almost immediately, and a few seconds later, it disappeared entirely in the fury of unleashed nuclear fusion. The cruiser lasted a bit longer, perhaps thirty seconds. Shot after shot slammed into its hull, tearing off whole sections, and leaving the ship a dead hulk, nothing left but chunks of twisted metal floating uselessly in space.

Desaix watched, wondering how long the dying fortresses would hold the attention of the other five battleships. Even as he considered that, he realized there was a good chance that just the two ships were enough to obliterate his fleet.

_Almost certainly . . . though we'd hurt those two ships, and pretty damned badly._

Grim pride over that hypothetical moral victory aside, he wanted to believe there was a chance. He looked at the imperial ships fighting the fortresses. They were all damaged, and marred by sections of twisted metal and breeches torn into their hulls. But the gargantuan ships endured, and if their fire slowed somewhat as turrets were destroyed and reactors knocked out, it was incremental . . . and the waves of destruction they unleashed continued, virtually undeterred.

The imperials were just too strong, their ships too tough, their weapons too powerful. Desaix wasn't the kind to give up—he'd been born that way, and thirty years fighting in the Far Stars had forged that natural endurance into an unbreakable alloy—but he was sure he was about to see the end of that endurance.

A permanent end.

That thought pressed in on him, and it wasn't so much the loss of his ships that tore at him, or even the prospect of his own death. Astra Lucerne was on _Augustin_ , and his inability to protect her weighed heavily on him. Augustin Lucerne had been more than a commander to him. The old marshal had been Desaix's friend, his brother-in-arms . . . and Astra was Lucerne's only child, the only one left to carry on the legacy that began in the lowlands of the Lucerne estates a lifetime before.

_I am sorry, my old comrade . . . I am sorry I am failing you._

But something even worse than Astra's death was looming. Desaix knew enough about the empire to understand what would come after the fleet's destruction. He'd heard a lot of talk about ground defenses, about how the army—the true strength of the Celtiborian military—would repel any attempts to invade the planet. That was a comforting thought, but not a realistic one. The army just _might_ defeat the imperial troops, if they got the chance. Desaix didn't think they would. The imperials wouldn't invade Celtiboria, at least not until they blasted the planet to oblivion from orbit, and however tough Augustin Lucerne's veterans were, it would avail them nothing in the face of thermonuclear warheads laying waste to the planet.

The Celtiborians had dared to attack—or liberate, depending on point of view—imperial worlds, and there was no doubt in Desaix's mind the emperor's minions had come with a mandate to make a terrible example of the Far Stars leading world.

He was sure Astra knew that, and Rafaelus DeMark, too, but they'd all done what they could to spread false hopes among their spacers and soldiers. If their people were going to die in battle, they deserved to do it thinking they at least had a chance to save their loved ones. Desaix had always been honest and straightforward, and he'd valued those traits in others, but this particular dishonesty felt right to him. He knew what hopelessness felt like—he was enduring it as he sat on the bridge of his flagship—and he would spare as many of his people as he could that pain in their final moments.

He looked over at the display, just in time to see two more of his ships destroyed. His people were doing damage to the battleships, but not quickly enough. The battleships' guns were just too strong.

_I will fight to the end for you, Marshal, my old friend . . . with the last strength I possess._

He knew that was all anyone could do.

"Are you ready, Alion?" Blackhawk was leaning back in the chair, in front of the same workstation where he'd twice interfaced with the battleship's AI as well as undergone the strain of letting his own AI take control of him. He looked like a wreck, he knew, unshaven, coated with dried sweat, his clothes filthy and matted to his body. He was just as certain the outside, whatever kind of disaster it seemed, was far better than the inside.

He knew the stress of the human-machine connection was killing him. He was fairly certain a normal human wouldn't have survived what he'd done already, but for all he'd been through in his life, all the struggles he'd fought, the things he'd done, both good deeds and blackest evil, the one thing he'd never been was normal. Blackhawk always believed he could push through whatever he had to do, and for all the guilt he carried and the uncertainty over who he truly was, nothing ever stopped him from pushing forward, doing what had to be done.

And this time was no different. A third connection might kill him, but so could so many other things.

_How is this any different from the rest of your life, Ark?_

"I think so," Alion said, clearly nervous. He was brilliant, a savant with computers, that much Blackhawk had already discerned, but he wasn't used to the kind of pressure the rest of the _Claw_ 's crew had long endured . . . and this struggle went beyond even that. Nothing less than the survival of Celtiboria's billions and the future of the Far Stars itself was at stake, and that was sure to put anyone on edge.

"Well, the Celtiborians are already engaged, so whatever you've got now will have to be enough." Blackhawk tried to keep his own tension and fear out of his voice. His people, especially Belakov, needed to see him strong. He wasn't sure how long he could maintain the façade, hide at least some of the bone-deep fatigue not to mention the battle still raging for control of his mind . . . but he was going to do it as long as he could.

He picked up the headset, pausing for just an instant as recollections of the agony of the previous connections flooded into his mind. Blackhawk had never given in to fear, and he wasn't about to start. But it took just about everything he had to put the headset on.

_I'm ready._ He shot the thought to the AI almost immediately after he put the headset on, before he had too much time to think about it.

He was far from ready, but it would have to do.

Connecting . . .

Blackhawk felt nothing for a few seconds . . . and then pain! Wave after wave of agony, almost as though his head was being turned inside out. He tried to hold back the screams, but he could hear them as they escaped his lips, almost like a series of distant howls. He was vaguely aware of his people around him, crowding in, no doubt reacting to the signs of suffering he could no longer hide. But they didn't interfere.

He felt the same strange sensation he had before, almost as though he'd left his body, as if he existed not in physical form, but as energy, surging through the circuits of the massive battleship. He could almost feel the reactors producing energy, and the great laser batteries on the hull were practically like cold steel weapons in his hands. But it was communications he wanted this time, and he could feel the AI inside him searching, feeling around for the system they needed.

Pain. More pain. Then, finally, success. The priority comm system. It was buried deep in the battleship's operating systems, an emergency routine, reserved for the highest-level communications.

Blackhawk could feel his hands moving over the keyboard, controlled not by him, but by the AI, entering the passwords and logins it drew from his deepest memories, access codes he hoped would still work. Having gotten this far, it wouldn't have surprised him to suddenly be caught up short, but he had confidence.

In the empire's complacency, if nothing else.

He waited, watching, struggling to focus as he endured the unending pressure and pain in his head. Time slowed, each second passing like an eternity, as his hands finished the entry of the final code. And then . . .

They were in!

The old codes still worked and they were in the comm system, the deepest sections that housed the priority lines. An instant later, the message was ready. It was simple, meaningless. Its purpose wasn't to communicate, but to carry a cargo of sorts, to take the virus through the security protocols and into the core systems of the imperial battleships.

Basically it was nothing more than "Hey, how are you? I brought you a present."

Blackhawk turned his head, an almost insurmountable struggle in itself, and he waved his hand, a rough gesture to Belakov. It was time.

He was vaguely aware of the programmer's presence next to him, of Belakov's arm reaching down to the workstation, inserting the data crystal containing the virus.

He could feel the tide of data, Belakov's program, moving through the battleship's memory banks, attaching to the pending transmission. When it was done, the system locked on to the seven enemy battleships and sent out the communication.

Blackhawk struggled to endure the pain as he felt the transmission flowing out, on its way across space toward the imperial vessels. It would take almost twenty minutes for them to reach their targets, and that much again before any signs the cyberattack was successful made it back. But he had done all he had to do, all he could do, and even as he felt a spark of satisfaction, his defenses against the pain reached their limit, and they collapsed. He heard himself let out a loud sigh, and he gave in to the wall of darkness pressing down on him.

# Chapter 34

The light hurt Blackhawk's eyes, but he looked up anyway. He was disoriented for a moment, but then he realized where he was.

Back on the _Claw_.

He looked around, though moving his head even a slight bit to the side caused the pain, just a dull ache when he stayed still, to intensify enormously. He knew his people would be there, and so they were.

"You okay, Ark?" The voice was familiar, but it took him a few seconds to place it. Katarina.

"I'm fine, Kat." He was a long way from "fine," he knew, but there was nothing she, or any of his crew, could do about it.

"You had us worried there for a while." A different voice. Doc.

"I'm okay, Doc. Hurts a little. Can you give me something for the pain?"

"I pumped you full of enough painkillers to kill a Sebastiani bull, Ark. I don't dare give you anything else."

Blackhawk just nodded. That explained why the agony had subsided from "excruciating" to "mild torture."

"Did it work?"

"Yes . . . it seems like it did." Katarina again. "Ace is up on the bridge with Shira and Lucas, running the scanners on full. They're weak with us here in the landing bay, but the imperial ships are definitely showing some signs of disorder."

Blackhawk allowed himself a spark of hope. A very small one. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get any words out, Ace came sliding down the ladder from the bridge, yelling.

"We've got trouble. That other battleship just emerged from Galvanus, and she's charging up her weapons. I've never seen energy readings like these."

The others turned toward the door, as Ace bounded in. He was about to speak again when he saw that Blackhawk was awake. "Ark!"

"I'm good, Ace."

"That's why you suck at cards, Ark."

Blackhawk almost managed a smile. "You can teach me about my poker face later. Get back up there and get the _Claw_ ready to go."

"I'm on it, Ark." He turned and raced back through the center of the lower level, toward the ladder that led to the bridge.

"All of you, get ready to get out of here." A disturbing thought hit him.

_Did we get the omega codes set?_

Blackhawk had made the last connection with the battleship with two jobs on the agenda. The virus had been sent, and, at least as far as he could see, it seemed to be doing what he'd hoped. But he'd lost consciousness before the second item had been completed.

Yes. It was difficult to maintain the connection when your state of consciousness declined, but I was able to complete the programming. It was a rough and hurried effort, and my knowledge of imperial operating systems is still limited, but the chances of successful implementation of destruct sequence is approximately 78 percent.

_Not great, not by any means, but anything is better than nothing at this point._

He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the resulting nausea. He paused for a few seconds, sitting with his legs dangling over the cot. He waved his arm as Kat and Doc moved closer. He appreciated their concern, but he had work still ahead.

Work only he could do.

"You all get strapped in. The _Claw_ 's blasting out of here in five minutes. Once you're clear, send a communique to the Celtiborians. Let them know exactly what we did, just in case they haven't figured it out completely. And then, get the field on and get the hell out of the line of fire."

"What the hell do you mean, Ark?" Kat said. "You're talking like you're not coming with us."

There was no easy way to say what he had to, so he just blurted it out.

"I'm not."

The two stared at each other for what felt like a lifetime.

"Ark—"

"I have something I have to do." He almost said something like, _And then, I'll be back,_ but he didn't believe he was coming back, and something tugged at him inside. He didn't want his last words to her, to any of his crew, to be a lie.

"Ark, you _can't_. That's insan—"

"I have to, Kat. You've known me a long time, been as close as friends get. Just believe what I say . . . and let me go. Please."

The words hit her hard, he could see that much, but he wondered if she saw just how hard they hit him. She must have, because she just nodded, and then she leaned in and hugged him. He pulled her close for an instant, and then he pulled back, turning toward Doc with a nod he hoped communicated something that was the equivalent of love and respect and gratitude and pride.

He didn't wait to see if the message got across, though. He turned and walked out into the main room, still wobbly as he worked his way to the airlock. He hesitated for just a second, wincing at the waste of destroying the imperial battleship. He wished there was a way to save the ship, to use it to fight the imperials. But he knew another connection effort would kill him almost immediately, and the risk that the imperials would board and reclaim the ship was too great.

But that was only one of his tasks. The other chilled him to his bones. He couldn't let the newly arrived battleship join in the fight. He'd given the Celtiborians a chance, at least he hoped he had, but a fully functional imperial battleship thrown into the mix would destroy whatever hopes existed to save the Far Stars.

And he could only think of one way to hold that ship back, to delay it at least.

It was time for a family reunion.

"Something is definitely happening, Admiral." The tactical officer was staring at his screen as he reported, his hands moving rapidly over his controls. "The enemy ships are still firing, but their targeting has degraded considerably."

"What do you mean, 'considerably'?" Even as he asked, Desaix turned toward the main display, his eyes darting around, watching the imperial fire coming in. It was erratic, most of the shots nowhere near any of his ships. Compared to the punishment the fleet had been taking until moments before, the difference was amazing.

Was it a trap of some kind? Were the imperials trying to lure him in?

_Why would they do that? They don't need us closer. They can blast us to dust right where we are now._

He felt an urge to order his ships forward at full thrust, to close and unleash all the fury they could before the imperial fire regained its former accuracy. But he held back, too careful with his limited resources to throw all caution to the wind.

He turned and looked over at Astra. She'd been quiet during the battle, leaving it to him to command the fleet, but now he needed her guidance . . . and the instant he caught her return gaze, he knew she was as uncertain as he.

He looked back at the display. It wasn't just imperial fire that had degraded. The formerly perfect formation of the battleships was degrading. Perfectly matched thrust levels now varied enough to upset the aligned vectors the vessels had shared moments before.

"I want full power scans, of the enemy fleet, and as far out into the system as we can reach."

"Yes, Admiral."

Desaix had jumped to his feet, but then he flopped back into his chair. He was exhausted, and yet also crackling with nervous energy. He was once again on the verge of ordering the fleet forward, as quickly as tortured engines could take them. But he couldn't . . . not until he had some idea what was happening.

"Admiral, we're receiving a transmission."

_Here it is. Are they toying with us?_

He'd sworn he wouldn't accept any communications from the enemy. Even in the unlikely event they offered him the chance to surrender, he was going to give them explicit—and anatomically correct—instructions on what they could do with it. He had no intention of ending his days in an imperial prison . . . or, likely, someplace far worse. But there was no reason to dangle thoughts of survival in front of his people.

"Commander, you can tell whoever is on that imperial flagship he can sh—"

"No, sir. It's not the imperials." The officer turned, and from his expression, Desaix could see he was stunned by what he'd received. "They say it's the _Wolf's Claw_ , Admiral."

Desaix shot a glance back at Astra, and he could see the effect the ship's name had on her. He was barely less shocked—or excited.

And the one person he imagined just might offer a way out of the doom even then descending on them all.

"On my . . . no, on speaker." Astra had to hear this, too.

"Yes, sir."

"This is Admiral Desaix."

"Admiral, this is Jason Graythorn on the _Wolf's Claw_."

Astra almost jumped from her chair when she heard Graythorn's voice instead of Blackhawk's. "Ace . . . Ark . . . is he . . ."

"Ark's alive, Astra. He's just . . . busy right now. I'm sorry, though—I don't have a lot of time.

"Admiral, listen to me carefully. We were able to transmit a cybervirus onto the imperial battleships—all but the one that just entered the system. I can't tell you exactly what it will affect or how long before they're able to regain control, but right now, every computer system on those ships should be down, or malfunctioning badly. It's the best we can do for you. The rest is up to you. Use whatever time you've got as well as you can."

Desaix listened to Ace's words, but he had trouble fully comprehending them. Was it possible? Had the _Claw_ 's crew really found a way to disable imperial battleships? If it had been anyone else, he probably wouldn't have believed it.

But with what he was seeing on the screens, _something_ had definitely happened to those ships. And with the _Wolf's Claw_ in the immediate sector, it was the explanation that made the most sense.

"Thanks, Ace . . . we're on it."

He turned, pausing a minute, and feeling a twinge of emotion as he caught Astra's face. It didn't matter what Ace had said . . . Desaix knew she was well aware Blackhawk would have made that transmission. Unless he was hurt, or worse . . . .

Doing something insane.

But he didn't have time, not even for Astra. If Blackhawk had given them all a chance, any chance at all, they had to take it right now.

"Commander, all ships are to proceed at maximum thrust, directly toward the imperials. And, by 'maximum thrust,' I mean full overloads. It's time to hit those bastards with everything we've got."

The officer acknowledged, and he turned toward his workstation, relaying the orders.

For the first time in hours, Desaix sat still, no longer filled with exhaustion and nervous energy, staring straight ahead. He didn't dare look back at Astra, not just then. He had a job to do, and the last words he'd uttered said it all.

_Hit those bastards with_ everything _we've got._

# Chapter 35

Blackhawk pulled back on the throttle, pushing up the small attack ship's thrust and flying it out from the massive battleship. If everything had been set up properly, the immense warship would erupt in thermonuclear fury as the magnetic bottles in the core of every reactor ceased functioning and released enough energy to create a very short-lived star.

And Blackhawk intended to be far from it when that happened.

_If it happens . . ._

It will happen. There were no mistakes in the setup or in our final activation.

_Don't be so sensitive._

As much as he enjoyed the seeming return to the norm, he didn't have time to spar with the AI. He had a job to do. But first he had to clear the impending explosion.

He blasted away for another forty seconds or so, and then every readout on the tiny ship maxed out as the battleship vaporized and became a dense cloud of plasma and hard radiation. Blackhawk was far enough away to escape the heat and the fury of the explosion, but if he survived the next hours, he suspected he might need a solid rad cleanse.

Not a big worry. Tomorrow seemed a distant, almost unattainable goal. He was resigned to that, too—as long as he could do what he had to do first.

He reached out and activated the comm panel. "Imperial battleship, this is Frigus Umbra. Connect me with Ignes Inferni at once." His voice was harsh, imperious, demanding. At least as much as his battered and exhausted body could manage.

"Frigus . . . I am pleased to hear from you."

"I would speak with you, brother."

"I would like nothing more. You can land as soon as . . ."

"No. Not on your ship. It has been many years, my brother, and much has happened. I would speak with you, but not as your prisoner."

"Frigus, that is not my intention at all. Your involvement in the invasions of the demesne worlds can be forgiven. I will stand before the emperor myself in attestation of your renewed fidelity."

"Then you must prove that to me. Alone. The third moon of planet seven has a breathable atmosphere. It can support life, for a limited time, at least. I will send you coordinates when you launch, in an attack ship, alone as I am."

"Frigus, this is absurd. There is a battle going on in this system, one to restore imperial pride and control. You would have me stand aside, fly to a moon, and speak alone with you while our forces are engaged?"

"Do you doubt that seven battleships can annihilate the Celtiborian fleet? Have things changed that much in my absence? Think you so little of imperial arms?"

Blackhawk waited as the comm went silent. It was only twenty seconds or so, but it felt like an eternity.

"Very well, Frigus . . . but I must have your word, spoken to me, your brother, the only being in the universe who knows what it is like to be what you—what we—are, that you have no hostile intentions toward me."

"You will have my word bond, if I have yours. You will come alone, and with no hostile intentions toward me."

Another silence, perhaps half as long as the first. Then: "You have my word, Frigus."

"And you mine, Ignes. Come now, and let us talk, brother."

"No . . . nobody falls back, not now. Every ship that has a gun as hot as a candle stays in the line!" Emile Desaix had taken Ace Graythorn's message at face value and he'd sent his fleet headlong at the enemy in response. But he'd harbored doubts, not to Graythorn's honesty—he was one of Blackhawk's people, and that was good enough for him—but he still couldn't quite believe the _Claw_ 's crew had somehow nearly disabled seven imperial battleships.

And yet, it appeared they had done just that.

The fight wasn't over yet, not by a long shot, and it wasn't won, either. The imperial targeting systems were a mess, and their data net seemed to be down, but the gunnery teams appeared to be switching to manual control and targeting by hand. It wasn't a match for a properly functioning system, but it wasn't the total loss things had been for those first moments, when it seemed the imperials couldn't have hit a passing planetoid, much less a Celtiborian ship running wild evasive maneuvers.

Desaix winced as another one of his ships winked off the display, reinforcing his realization that the imperials, while seriously handicapped, were still incredibly dangerous.

"All ships, cut thrust to minimum to support evasive maneuvers, and redirect all power to weapons." Desaix had no idea how long whatever the _Claw_ had done would last, but he knew the imperials could regain their targeting systems at any time. He had a chance to dish out damage, to try to take down at least some of the behemoths, but he had a feeling time wasn't on his side.

"All ships acknowledge, Admiral. Full power to weapons systems."

Desaix moved his eyes across the display. "All ships" didn't mean what it had hours before. Fifteen percent of his hulls were gone, destroyed outright, and another 10 percent were strung out along the line of advance, chugging forward with damaged engines, or floating helplessly, knocked out completely.

_And those numbers are going to grow._

As if to emphasize his concerns, _Augustin_ shook. He could tell immediately it wasn't a bad hit . . . but it _was_ a hit. If he'd let himself hope the imperial gunners couldn't target his ships without their targeting systems, that shot had purged him of it entirely.

He watched as a pair of laser blasts streaked by on the display, two near misses. And they'd get a lot nearer than missing, because he'd had to close to knife-fighting range. There was no other way his ships' smaller guns could do the kind of damage they had to do to destroy the battleships. But the point-blank range was helping the imperials, too, offsetting some of their disadvantage.

Desaix didn't care. Damn the risk. He and his spacers had a job to do, and they would do it, regardless of the cost. But Astra . . .

He'd been horrified when the marshal had advised him she was coming to _Augustin_ , that she would remain on the flagship throughout the battle. He hated thinking of any of his people as expendable, but the cold truth was, they all were, himself included.

Astra Lucerne was not.

He couldn't pull the flagship back from the line, not without massive damage to his spacers' already fragile morale. He thought about trying to convince Astra to leave, packing her in a shuttle and sending her back to Celtiboria. For an instant, he told himself he could convince her, and then he realized the absurdity of that plan. A company of steroid-pumped stormtroopers couldn't have dragged Astra into a shuttle.

He held the thought for a moment, wondering if his shipboard marines would obey that order to at least try, but then reason intervened. Dragging the ruler, of not only Celtiboria, but of half the worlds in the Far Stars, off the bridge was not something that was likely to end well.

Desaix focused on what he could do and looked over at the main screen, turning toward the tactical station. One of his divisions had gotten sloppy with their formations, and he was about to read them the riot act. But he never got the words out.

"Admiral!"

He spun around, catching Astra leaping up out of her chair as her eyes fixed on the display.

One of the long ovals, the symbols representing the imperial battleships, was gone, replaced by energy readings he couldn't quite believe as he read them.

He knew what it meant, but it took a few minutes to register. His people had destroyed one of the imperial ships!

They had drawn blood, _real_ blood.

He felt a rush, an almost animalistic, carnivore's call to the hunt. He knew the fight was still raging, and that his people could very well lose. But something had changed, and he felt it in every fiber of his being.

His people _could_ destroy the imperial monsters . . .

And that meant they could win the battle.

"Something's happening!" Norgstrom was leaning against a fallen column, staring down at a portable workstation, the only one still functioning in Drendel's control center. The base was a blasted wreck, and while he didn't know for sure, the officer would have bet most of its complement were dead, burned to death in fiery explosions as the fortress was blasted apart, or thrown out onto the frozen, lifeless surface of the asteroid.

But the gunners in turrets two and seven were still there, at least enough of them to keep the guns firing . . . and, in what he could only see as a miracle, reactor three was still operational as well, and the sweating and dying damage control teams had somehow managed to route temporary power lines to both batteries.

That meant Base Drendel, battered and half reduced to radioactive slag, was still in the fight.

"Happening?" Crendus's voice was weak, and the oxygen mask over his face made it even more difficult to hear what he was saying. The base commander was badly wounded, but it was nothing sick bay couldn't handle. The only problem was, Drendel didn't have a sick bay, not anymore, just a crater where the base's infirmary had been.

Norgstrom put his hand to his face and took a deep breath. Then he slid his own mask to the side. "The imperial ships, Commander. They're pulling away from us, concentrating on the fleet. But there's something else. Their targeting is suddenly . . . off." He slid the mask back into place and sucked in another lungful of air. The control center's life support was still operational, at least partly, but the two small rents in the hull were sucking out the air as quickly as the damaged pumps could bring it in.

He shivered and pulled the emergency blanket over his shoulders. The hull breaches were taking the heat out as quickly as the oxygen. Then he pulled away from the workstation and made his way over to Crendus.

They were the only two left in the command center, but Norgstrom could draw consolation from the fact that not all the others were dead. At least he didn't _know_ they were dead. He'd sent them to reinforce the still operational sections in the fortress. The control center was mostly wreckage, and there wasn't that much left to control anyway.

Then Crendus had been hit by the structural support. He had multiple broken bones, and internal bleeding, too. Norgstrom had done all he could with the first aid supplies he'd been able to find, but all that was left was to keep the commander as comfortable as possible and hope against hope for some kind of rescue.

_Before he dies._

_Before we lose the last of the air and heat, and_ everybody _dies._

He dropped down to his knees and reached out, pulling the pile of blankets up, covering Crendus where he'd accidently shoved them away. The commander hadn't answered again, and Norgstrom could see he was only semiconscious. His eyes were unfocused, and his body was cool to the touch. Norgstrom pulled the blanket from around his own shoulders and placed it on top of the others.

"Hang in there, Commander. Things just might be looking up."

Norgstrom tried to sound hopeful, but he wasn't sure how believable he'd been. He did think that something had changed in the battle, and it had kindled some hope in him that the fleet might have a chance after all.

But he didn't believe Commander Crendus would make it through the battle. He didn't think he would either, nor anyone else sweating and struggling to keep the mortally wounded base still in the fight.

# Chapter 36

"It has been a long time, Frigus." The tone was cold, dark, the voice of a man who'd visited death on uncounted millions. Yet there was something else there, a hint of . . . warmth?

"Indeed it has, Ignes. You seem well."

"And you." Blackhawk knew that was a lie. He was weak and haggard, still carrying the aftereffects of interfacing with the battleship's computer and going days without sleep.

_Far too weak to defeat Ignes._

Still, he knew he might have to try.

Oaths didn't mean a lot with his kind.

The moon was dark, illuminated as it was by a permanent gloomy twilight. It was cold, too, and for all Blackhawk's rugged endurance, the chill cut through him. The air had an unpleasant odor, the result of trace gases that weren't dangerous, not over a short period. The key was that the atmosphere had oxygen, more, in fact, than most inhabited worlds.

Which was why they were both standing here right now.

He looked at the other man, the only other sentient creature on the large moon, and in many ways, he felt he was looking into a mirror.

"You must go home, Ignes. Back to the empire. Leave the Far Stars. Tell the emperor he has all of human-inhabited space, all of it save this one distant sector. Leave it at that."

Inferni looked back, his expression almost a perfect poker face, unreadable save for a hint of something so slight, no one less perceptive than Blackhawk would have noticed it. What was it? Affection? Respect? Or just remembrance?

_Or . . . pity?_

"You know our master as well as I, Frigus. His destiny is to rule _all_ mankind. Not some of it. Not most of it. All. This can be no surprise to you, brother. And you must know there is nothing in the Far Stars that can resist the forces the emperor has sent. All will be over soon enough. Give up your defense of these barbarians. I ask you now, return with me, swear to your old allegiances, honor the oaths you made long ago . . . and I will stand with you in the imperial court and petition the emperor to restore you to all your old honors and commissions." Inferni was a dark and malevolent presence, but Blackhawk could hear the sincerity in his words.

_You fool! Twenty years in this oblivion. Fleeing from civilization, from palaces, women, treasure. We were feared, throughout imperial space, richer and more powerful than any save the emperor himself. It is time. Time for us to go back . . ._

Blackhawk could feel Umbra screaming in his head, battering at the last of his defenses, struggling to break out. The Blackhawk part of him was strong, but it was also tired. So tired. And Umbra was waxing in power, fed by memories and the residual feelings for Inferni.

For the time, at least, he pushed against them.

"Ignes, have you never thought about what we do, the orders we carry out? The numbers of people we killed? Even if you feel the rebels need to be defeated, how many innocents died in the bombardments and the merciless invasions?"

"Collateral damage is unavoidable. Certainly, unintended damage has accompanied pacifications. Surely you don't imagine your Marshal Lucerne united Celtiboria without spilling innocent blood. Do you imagine your forces conquered Galvanus Prime without killing civilians who were not resisting? Or the campaigns under way to bring the worlds of the Far Stars under Astra Lucerne's rule . . . or, as you prefer to characterize it, under your Far Stars Confederation."

Blackhawk was being provoked, and he wanted to lash back. But the words didn't come. Inferni was the sword of a tyrant, awash in blood, but there was truth in all he'd said.

How does someone argue with a tool?

"They are sheep, Frigus," Inferni continued, "meant to be ruled. Beneath shallow calls for liberty, they crave to be told what to do. I have studied much since I arrived in this forsaken stretch of space. What have the people of the Far Stars done without imperial rule, save to battle one another, endlessly, for a millennium? How many worlds here have bloody histories of endless battle, how many housed pirate kings or were ruled by gangsters? _Still_ are. What number of despots thrived in the Far Stars, century after century, drunk on power and amused by inflicting torment on their subjects? Even your precious Celtiboria endured three hundred years of internecine warfare, constant struggles so that petty generals could crave to rule, in pale imitation of the emperor himself. It is united now, only by the efforts of a gifted warrior—who himself wielded absolute power, as, I believe, his daughter still does. How long will your crusade to bring the sector together, to force these savages to accept your version of enlightened rule, continue? How different are you, brother, in truth, you and your comrades here, from the emperor?"

Blackhawk struggled. Inferni fought for everything he detested, but even as the persona inside him that thought as his brother did strove ceaselessly to escape, he felt his own uncertainty in characterizing the man standing in front of him as an enemy. Worse, perhaps, he knew, while twisted and manipulated to serve his needs, Inferni's words carried truth in them. In the end, Augustin Lucerne, Astra, himself . . . they had all defined the greater good by their own standards, and in the wake of the "liberty" they fancied they offered, they brought immense suffering as well. Did those they conquered with the intent to set free feel as they did? Or did they look at burned houses and dead loved ones and see just another tyrant come to subjugate them? Did they see in Astra and her generals an autocrat committed to surrendering power one day, or just another despot?

Blackhawk felt uncertain how to deal with Inferni. He'd never really believed he could persuade his brother to do as he had, to abandon the empire and join him in the Far Stars. Whatever sequence of events had allowed him to escape his conditioning—though he wasn't sure "escape" was the correct term, not with his old self still pounding away at him relentlessly—Inferni had spent decades more in imperial service. The mortar on his conditioning was well cured, and even a brother's appeals were unlikely to sway him from his course.

He tried anyway.

"Please, Ignes . . . hear my words. Think for yourself, fight the conditioning that has ruled your action for so long. I was like you, I fought as you did . . . killed millions as you have. But there is another way. Come with me, brother, and I will help you. Hear my words. Trust me . . ."

Blackhawk didn't expect Inferni to do as he asked, and he didn't know what he could do next, what action he could force himself to take against him.

And maybe that was because he'd never been sure of who he truly was.

It was easy to have his crew revere him, or Celtiborians to think of him as some hero. But Blackhawk was an abomination, at least he would be perceived that way by many people, if they knew how he'd come into being. No birth experience for him, no happy parents looking down and smiling. The only woman involved in his birth had been some poor peasant girl, likely kidnapped by imperial troopers to donate her insides to the great experiment. His birth "mother" died as he was born, sliced open to make way for the removal of the genetic anomaly she'd sheltered . . . though she'd been kept alive that long only by machines, her body and mind twisted and tormented to serve as the receptacle for the emperor's new weapon.

His childhood had been no less extraordinary, endless training and education, ceaseless demands that he excel at everything, from combat to astrophysics. He was driven relentlessly and punished without mercy for the slightest failures. No psyche could endure such a regimen, yet that was only the beginning. When he reached the age of five, the real conditioning began, the warping of his young and damaged thought processes. His memories of those times were partial, mercifully so, though he did remember endless sessions, days long, without sleep, food, even water. The creation of Frigus Umbra had been a long and brutal undertaking.

The man standing opposite him, enemy, brother . . . whatever he was . . . was the only other human being in the universe who truly knew what he'd endured.

Inferni had gone through the same torturous process. They were identical in genetic structure, in experiences, at least in their early years. And they were the same in being utterly alone in the universe, unlike anyone else, save for each other.

They were the only ones who could destroy each other, and yet neither one of them had any desire to be left without someone to truly understand them. Blackhawk had made his offer to Inferni in earnest, because the alternative—fighting and killing his brother—was anathema.

So it was with disappointment—although not surprise—when Inferni responded.

"I cannot do what you ask, though I have no wish to be your enemy," his brother said, and Blackhawk could hear the genuine regret in the words. "I long to fight at your side again, to have another with me who knows who I truly am. I came here to bring you back, to find the man I called brother. Now, I fear, that man is gone . . . and I do not know what to do. As you stand, you are an enemy of the empire, under ban of death. You are a traitor. It brings me no satisfaction to utter such words, and yet, how can I ignore them?" His eyes moved up and down, clearly evaluating Blackhawk's condition, his obvious fatigue and weakness. "I ask you one last time, brother: come back with me, fight at my side again. Leave behind this swamp of backward planets."

His voice changed, then, becoming softer. It sounded strange coming from his mouth, as did his next words.

"I know of your feelings for Astra Lucerne, Frigus. Perhaps we can spare her, bring her back with us. When the emperor accepts you back into his service, we will request that she be given to you as a spoil of war. She will be your slave, brother, yours for all time. You may treat her as you like—chattel or your wife, it matters not, except that she will be alive. If we move quickly enough . . ."

But Blackhawk wasn't listening—it felt like Inferni had body-slammed him. There were all sorts of gaps in the plan he'd just put forth, not the least of which was the chance that the emperor would refuse to take him back . . . or that he would agree but not grant him Astra. But the thought of a chance to save his doomed love was powerful, and it sliced through his defenses in a way appeals to his own survival instinct or his greed never could. If he said no, would Astra die? He'd done all he could to give the Celtiborians at least a chance, but would it all be in vain if Inferni's battleship, untouched by the virus and its effects, advanced into the fight? Indeed, Inferni might very well go in with the intention of killing Astra, seeing her as something tying Blackhawk to the Far Stars.

Was this, as Inferni said, a chance to save her?

_Go with him. Give up these false dreams, fantasies of a free Far Stars. All your efforts, all your struggles here have done nothing but replace one tyranny with another. The Far Stars will never be what you want it to be. Is that failure worth your own life?_

_Worth Astra's?_

Blackhawk reeled from the thoughts coming from . . . his own mind. He liked to think of Umbra as a different person, an entity trapped inside him, but in reality, they were one, Blackhawk and Umbra. Two paths he could take. He'd clung to Blackhawk for more than twenty years, sought redemption for all his crimes through that name. Was he willing to surrender all that, go back to what he'd been, to save Astra?

He stared across the small, dusky space that separated him from the one person closest to him in ways no one else could ever understand, and even as he did, old memories welled up, urges, the tatters of conditioning broken, but still there in shards. Images of a return to the grandeur of the imperial court, to a life of almost unlimited luxury instead of the ascetic existence he'd imposed on himself. Had he been a fool all these years? Was Inferni right? Was he only supporting a different tyranny? Were all his thoughts of morality of redemption merely offerings to his ego?

_Go back. Remember the feeling of leading armies again during the attacks on the demesne. You were born for war. Blackhawk, Umbra, it matters not. You are what you are. We are what we are. Stop the resistance now. Reclaim yourself._

_A name is just a name. Your soul is always just yours._

Blackhawk could feel his defenses crumbling, all that he'd been sure of for so long no longer certain. He stumbled back a step, his legs weak, the fatigue of all he'd been through weighing on him with an intensity he could barely endure.

He was on the precipice, wobbling . . . and he knew it.

_What soul?_ he asked himself.

And he got no answer.

He just didn't know if he cared anymore.

# Chapter 37

"We need those data systems back online now, Commander. You have five minutes more. Then I'm going to have you thrown out of the airlock and give the next ranking engineer five minutes." Idilus had been shouting at his officers since the strange cyberattack crippled his ships' data systems, but now his voice was softer, more measured. Only those who truly knew him understood that was when he was _really_ dangerous.

"Yes, General. Understood."

Idilus wasn't sure if it was understood, but it would be if those systems didn't start working again. He wasn't making empty threats. If the chief engineer didn't fix the problem in five minutes, he fully intended to have the fool spaced, if for no reason other than to encourage his successor to do a better job.

He'd vent him and his own frustration at the same time.

Because Idilus had no idea what had happened. He wasn't even sure if just the flagship had been affected, or his whole fleet. All intership communications were out as well as targeting and all but basic scanning operations. His ships were still in the fight, but his gunners were lining up their shots manually, which was a shitty way to hit something moving as quickly as a spaceship in a place as big as space.

Evasive maneuvers were affected, too, and the giant ship had shaken a dozen times as the Celtiborians, now on the attack and closing to point-blank range, planted hit after hit into its sprawling midsection.

In all his numerous victorious campaigns, he'd never faced such a difficult fight. The Celtiborians were better skilled and organized than any enemy he'd ever fought, but even that had been insufficient to seriously challenge the immense power of his great battleships.

Or should have been, until something unseen crippled his data systems.

He still couldn't imagine how someone had gained access to core systems. He had fifty of his people analyzing every possibility, reviewing all communications, transmissions, even checking for any unnoticed hull penetrations. Something had happened, and he was going to find out what.

_Not that it matters if the damned engineers can't fix it . . ._

"Commander Johar . . . you are to get down to engineering at once. I want you to direct the organization of support teams for each reactor. We need to keep power flowing to the gunnery stations."

"Yes, General." The officer leapt up and half jogged to the elevators. No one on the bridge—or anywhere else on the ship—was going to move slowly when Idilus gave them an order.

Idilus knew it was a waste of time, though. By the time the officer could get down to engineering and organize the teams, it would be too late. The fight would be over, one way or another. The Celtiborians were closing all around, wildly aggressive. Whatever they had done to his flagship—and, he suspected, the rest of his fleet—they were doing all they could to make the most of it.

And they would pay for that insolence.

"General!" It was one of the comm officers, his head still buried in his workstation as he blurted out his sudden report. "I think I have something. We received a signal, sir . . . just before the system malfunctions occurred." A brief pause, and then the officer turned and looked over at Idilus. "It was on the priority line, General."

_Of course!_ Idilus felt like a fool. The priority line bypassed normal security.

_But how did the enemy access it?_

The line was protected by layer after layer of its own security. A sender needed six separate passwords and codes to get in.

_How could the Celtiborians have top-level access codes?_

Then it hit him.

He'd laughed to himself as he'd listened to Inferni speak of Frigus Umbra, of finding the general who'd been missing for so many years. It seemed laughable, and only his desire—fear, if he was being honest with himself—had stayed him from saying so. But the last thing he'd imagined was the possibility that Umbra _was_ still alive, somewhere in the Far Stars.

It still seemed almost inconceivable. _But Umbra would have those codes._

It should have been impossible. Codes that old shouldn't still work, but those priority codes were hardwired in, and it required physically servicing a ship to change them. Bringing every battleship into port for updates was quite an undertaking and expense, and it was an infrequent operation.

Why bother changing them, when there was no one who would dare sabotage the imperial fleet, knowing the punishment would be a horrible death for the perpetrators . . . and their families . . . and their planets.

The emperor ensured the need to change the codes unnecessary.

Until now.

_But if Frigus Umbra is with the Celtiborians, and he somehow managed to disable my whole fleet, and we get back to the empire, I'll make damned sure every code on every system is changed._

The ship shook again, twice in succession . . . and hard the second time. He grabbed the side of his chair and barely managed to hang on. A few seconds later, he heard the distant rumbles of secondary explosions. He'd scoffed at the weakness of the Celtiborian ships, of their minuscule size compared to his immense battleships. But they were hurting him now, cutting deep into his flagship, and the rest of his fleet as well, he suspected.

The thought that he could lose the battle began to enter his mind. It seemed inconceivable, but even as he pondered the thought, the great vessel rocked again, and on the far side of the bridge, a shower of sparks sprayed out as a series of relays overloaded. In all his battles, he had never seen a battleship take so much damage, and now, in his mind, where the rage and astonishment dwelled, a new emotion began to take form, one he'd never felt before on the bridge of an imperial battleship in a fight.

Fear.

He commed the sergeant-at-arms.

"Go down to Engineering and tell them they have one more minute. Then throw the man out of the airlock, regardless of whether it's fixed."

If he was going to feel fear, then everyone in this ship was going to feel the same humiliation.

Astra Lucerne watched as the battle raged. It took all she had to stay where she was, to remain silent as Admiral Desaix directed the ships of the fleet. He father had been a hands-on commander, but even he had known when to step back, to give a subordinate his due. Astra couldn't match her father's experience in ground combat, and she was a virtual rookie in fleet actions. The battle was Desaix's to win or lose, and for the first time since the engagement had begun, she dared to imagine "win" was a possibility.

That made it harder to stay on the sidelines. It was one thing to stand with your people, prepare to die with them, but now there was at least a chance . . . suddenly, they all had something to lose. Which was all the more reason for her to let the veteran Desaix command unfettered.

The admiral was attacking aggressively. That hardly seemed adequate, even, to describe the wild ferocity of the assault. Desaix had been on the comm nonstop, haranguing unit commanders and even individual ship captains, anyone who wasn't attacking with the unrestrained savagery he demanded. Desaix knew as Astra did, whatever the _Claw_ had managed to do, the advantage could vanish in an instant. The entire fleet had been doomed, anyway, so there was no reason not to throw caution to the wind, to drive forward recklessly, to push reactors to dangerous overloads. The only way any of them could survive was by getting all they could from the respite.

Astra was still watching when the scanners lit up again, a massive burst of bright white light signifying that another imperial battleship had been destroyed.

That was two of the monsters gone. Astra's knowledge of imperial history was limited, but a while back, Blackhawk had told her the last time an imperial battleship had been lost in battle. It had been almost five centuries ago, during the last great civil war, when a fleet admiral made a play for the throne, one that had come a hairsbreadth from success.

In that grievous conflict, battleship fought battleship, and the great vessels tore each other to pieces. No fewer than forty of the great warships had been destroyed, a loss that had taken a century to replace.

Now, imperial battleships had again been destroyed in combat . . . at the hands of the Celtiborian fleet. And the battle still raged.

Astra felt pride. Even if her people fell short, if defeat and death were still their fates, they had acquitted themselves well.

"Bring us in at target three, Commander. I want the range under a hundred kilometers."

"Yes, Admiral."

Astra sat and listened, and as she did, her admiration for Desaix grew. He clearly understood, as she did, the potentially fleeting nature of their respite, and he was determined to make the most of it.

Even as she watched, her grim acceptance of defeat faded, and her stomach tightened. Victory was there, a shining beacon, perhaps within reach, perhaps just out . . . but there was only one option in her mind.

Fight.

Fight to the death . . . and find out whose death that was.

Idilus sat in his command chair, his raging fury sliding slowly into a morose gloom. He'd done all he could, sent two engineers to horrible deaths in the frigid cold of space and threatened the others with even more terrible fates. Fear, that tool he'd used so many times to great effect, had proven ineffective at pushing his people to solve the problem that jeopardized the fleet. They were stumped, all the experts on his flagship. They'd managed to restore limited short-range scanners, enough for him to watch the destruction of the third of his ships to fall to the enemy, but offering little additional utility.

He'd lost three battleships. He knew the fact of it, but the true reality hadn't really solidified. The empire didn't lose battleships. Overwhelming power, immensity beyond the destructive capability of any enemy . . . that was the entire point of the twenty-kilometer giants.

_Now, I am the first commander in five hundred years to lose a battleship. And I have lost_ three _._

He didn't know what to do. He'd tried to analyze the fight, from what little information his scanners, and sightings from his gunnery stations, provided. His battleships could win . . . probably . . . at least that was his best guess. But he'd likely lose more of them, and the surviving force would be a shadow of what he'd led into the fight, and likely, not one of the savaged vessels would be up to a return journey across the Void. His orders had been to recapture Galvanus and to destroy Celtiboria. If he retreated, he would leave the major planet of the Far Stars unscathed. But, if he stayed, he could lose even more battleships . . . on top of the three that were already gone. Whatever he did, he would face a furious emperor, and there were few things more dangerous than that.

_Save, perhaps, staying here._ The limited scans were showing multiple Celtiborian vessels closing all around the flagship. If he remained, he faced a serious risk of dying in the wreckage of his own ship.

If he pulled back, he would have the journey back to the empire to figure out what he would say . . . how he would explain the disaster to the emperor.

He tried to steel his resolve, to throw all he had left into the fight . . . but the resolve was fading. Idilus's battles had seen millions dead, but he himself had never faced serious risk of defeat. Now, he was in danger, possible deadly danger, and his nerve was cracking. He was scared to go back and face the emperor, to prostrate himself before his master and seek pardon for his failure—for _another_ failure. But at that moment, the thought of Celtiborian warships tearing his vessel apart section by section seemed more threatening.

He fought to gather his courage, but even as he struggled to stiffen his spine, he wondered if he should. He'd already lost more battleships than any commander in the past five centuries. Could he risk those that remained? He already faced a reckoning when he returned home, and he was loath to make it worse.

"General . . . we have restored limited ship-to-ship communications."

"Anything on the targeting systems?" A last burst of what remained of his courage came through.

"Negative, General. Engineering reports some progress, but no estimates on restoration of targeting data nets."

That was the end of Idilus's strength. He simply couldn't risk losing more of the empire's great battleships.

He hoped.

"Commander . . . all ships are to break off at once. Pull back out of range and prepare for hyperjump in five minutes." He heard the words, and even as the officer acknowledged and began to issue the needed orders, he sat there, his thoughts dark.

_I am the first imperial commander in living memory to lose a major battle, and the first in half a millennium to see battleships under his command destroyed_.

How could this have gone so wrong?

# Chapter 38

Ignes Inferni held his ground, watching as Umbra—still Blackhawk, barely—stumbled backward, looking almost as though he might fall to the ground. He was close— _so close_ —to bringing his brother back. And suddenly, that was the only thing he desired.

Inferni was a merciless killer, a general who had rarely given a thought to the millions who'd died at his hand. He'd never stayed his hand against one who had opposed the empire, nor allowed pleas for mercy to affect his actions. He was utterly without sympathy.

But with Umbra it was different.

Inferni had answered Blackhawk's call for a one-on-one meet, prepared to bring his brother back . . . or to leave the man he'd become dead on that deserted moon. But the instant he'd seen his quarry, his resolve had been shaken. He still wanted Umbra back, but he wasn't sure what he would do if that effort failed. The scourge of empire, the Angel of Death, Doombringer, and a hundred other names he'd been given by terrified populations that had endured his cold vengeance, hesitated now at the thought of killing one man.

Umbra would be a terrible opponent in a fight, he knew, as skilled a fighter as he was, and as strong and dexterous. And while Blackhawk's years in the Far Stars had mostly been without the army and fleet commands he'd held in the empire, he'd no doubt seen more face-to-face combat than Inferni, who'd mostly directed vast fleets and armies during that time.

Yet that was the Umbra of his recollection. This Umbra was tired and damaged, and Inferni was confident, despite the understandable caution in facing so proficient a killer, that he could prevail. That analysis would normally have sent him immediately into battle, but something was still holding him back.

Simply put, he didn't want to kill Umbra.

More, he didn't want to kill his _brother_. The only human in all the vast galaxy who understood what is was like to be so different from the others. A man—if they were even technically men, considering how they were designed and created—with the same history and legacy as him.

Inferni had long believed Umbra was alive somewhere, even after the other imperial authorities had given up all hope and terminated search efforts. He'd scoured reports himself when he'd been able, trying to find clues, anything at all, that might lead him to find his lost twin. After so many years of fruitless effort, the thought of finally finding his brother alive, only to kill him with his own hands, was difficult to accept.

He could see the same hesitation in Umbra, the reluctance to take the first step, to commence the struggle that could only end with one of them dead. He knew his duty, what the emperor would demand of him, but no one else was there, no one to issue commands, no one to judge what was done on that barren, barely habitable moon. It went against all he knew, all he _was,_ but he struggled to find a way he could let Umbra—Blackhawk—live.

Was it even possible? Could his brother walk away, and leave him behind unharmed? Whatever Umbra had become, Inferni didn't doubt his brother remained as intractably stubborn as he was.

Inferni's hands were at his side. He was armed, even as Umbra was, with pistol and sword. His blade was longer and more ornate than the one hanging from his brother's belt, but he knew well from his recollections just how skilled Umbra was with a blade. Long years of hand-to-hand battles in the Far Stars could only have increased that deadly proficiency.

He wondered if he could subdue Umbra, capture him somehow. He could send for a shuttle to pick them both up. That would give him more time. The brother he remembered, the man he knew, was still in there . . . he was sure of that.

_But what value is there in time?_ Could time wear him down?

He doubted it.

He'd heard the entreaties coming from the man who called himself Blackhawk, and he'd seen truth in them. His service for the emperor _had_ been brutal, and millions of innocents numbered among those he'd killed. Umbra believed what he had said just now with conviction, and that might very well be impossible to break. Indeed, his arguments would sway many. There was only one thing protecting Inferni from their impassioned pleas and flawless logic.

He didn't care.

He knew, on some level at least, that his feelings came in large part from imperial conditioning and not from his own judgments. He accepted that, and it didn't matter to him which part of his views came from him and which from the areas the imperial specialists had manipulated. It had simply been too long, and whatever his creators had wrought, either in the petri dish where he'd experienced what had passed in his case for conception, or years later, strapped to a chair, enduring endless abuse and psychological torment . . . now he was what he was, what he'd been made to be.

And he was content with that. Whatever grievances he may have harbored against the imperial authorities that had treated him so harshly, he considered his life of power and luxury more than fair payment. He had served the emperor, done terrible things for his master, and he'd been well rewarded for his loyalty. Blackhawk wanted to rescue him from what he was, from service to the empire.

But Inferni didn't _want_ to be rescued.

The problem was, he was pretty sure his brother was of the same mind . . . except he didn't want to be rescued from being Blackhawk.

The silence was oppressive, no sound save the occasional blast of putrid wind. The two of them stood a few meters apart, staring at each other. Inferni could see the pain in his brother's face, the fatigue . . . and something more. Maybe he was wrong about Umbra wanting to remain Blackhawk . . .

_He is wavering. Just maybe, if I can just push him a little further . . ._

"There is no more time, Frigus. My brother. I will ask you once more, and once only. Return with me, reclaim your true self, and your position and power. I will help you, guide you back home. Serve with me, and together we will stand at the very pinnacle of power, alongside the emperor himself. It is where you belong, what you were born to do.

"It is who you are."

He paused, troubled by emotions he rarely felt: Compassion. Sympathy. Concern.

Finally, he simply added "Please." There was sincerity in that final word. Killing Umbra would be the most difficult thing he'd ever have to do in imperial service.

He looked across the small stretch of ground, waiting for a response, his eyes boring into the identical pair staring back at him.

_Please._

Blackhawk stood stone still, and in his mind, war raged.

The Umbra side poured out from the darkest depths of his mind, energized by Inferni's words, initiating a final battle, a last push to destroy the Blackhawk persona and seize back control. Images from the past were Umbra's weapons: him shackled to a chair, electrical shocks that would have killed a normal human ripping through his body. Constant pain and torment, both physical and mental. And behind it all the endless voices—stern, commanding, and always manipulating his mind, as if from clay.

Then, other scenes and sensations. The feeling of victory. Of defeated enemies groveling at his feet, begging for mercy. And the rewards. Tumultuous crowds outside the imperial palace, the emperor himself placing decorations on his robes, taking his hand and raising it into the air. Everything he'd had—gold, jewels, power, women—flashed before his eyes in an endless cycle, remembrance of all he'd sacrificed, all he'd left behind when he'd slipped away into the hazy darkness.

For an instant, Blackhawk thought he was finished, his strength gone. For the first time in his life, he was on the verge of surrender. His years in the Far Stars had been mostly difficult ones, most of the first five spent wallowing among the detritus of humanity, his only solace in drink, his only sustenance coming from the meager funds he'd obtained by petty thefts and other crimes.

Before he'd managed to pull himself up and make a new life.

_You did not do that yourself. Will you abandon those who helped you, who extended hands to you when you were nothing, less than nothing?_

He perked up at that a bit. It was a voice—a new one, yet familiar—calling to him, a last effort to hold on.

He thought about the words and realized something important then: the voice spoke only the truth. He did _not_ find his new self alone. Augustin Lucerne had found him, stumbling aimlessly across the Celtiborian desert, drunk, violent, lost. The marshal had seen something in him, though what that had been in those dark days, Blackhawk couldn't imagine. Lucerne had treated him with respect and dignity, something he had not experienced since his flight from imperial service. Lucerne's had been the hand extended into the darkness, leading Blackhawk to a new life.

_And now, Augustin is gone,_ Umbra's voice growled.

_But Astra is still here,_ the other voice responded.

He owed all he was to Augustin Lucerne, and if he faltered, if he became Umbra again, he would betray all his friend had spent his life to create. As important as they were, though, Astra loomed even larger. He couldn't betray her. More, he couldn't let Astra fall. His debt to her father was enough to compel him to remain at her side, but his love for her was stronger even than his obligation.

He felt a surge of energy then, almost as if from nowhere, and he pushed back against the Umbra thoughts, straining with all the willpower and endurance he possessed . . . and sending the dark persona back into the deepest parts of his mind.

And then further.

The force of his fury, of the unfiltered rage against the empire, what they had done to him, made him, was accelerated by the power of his loyalty to those who had been at his side for so many years now. He was Arkarin Blackhawk, captain of the _Wolf's Claw_. . . and he was content with that. No regrets, no wistful thoughts of lost power and rewards, nothing but utter contempt for the empire, and the brutal totalitarianism it represented.

And with that final realization, he could feel Umbra—the remnants of his conditioning, of any thoughts he'd clung to about the past, the voice that had tormented him for so many years—thrust out of his mind entirely, and into the black depths of nothingness.

Frigus Umbra was gone. Only Arkarin Blackhawk remained.

He looked straight ahead, toward the only other human being on the barely hospitable moon. He didn't care for emperor or empire, for general's commissions or medals or rewards. Thoughts of the throne, of exalted positions beside it and the riches and unimaginable luxuries showered on those with imperial favor left him cold.

But the man standing there, looking back at him, was still his brother, in every way that mattered. They were vastly different, now more than ever before. They were enemies in every allegiance they possessed, save for the connection they shared. The thought of harming Inferni was difficult, almost impossible. _Almost._

Whatever happened, however the showdown ended, Blackhawk was accomplishing one thing he'd set out to do. He was sure Inferni's battleship had stayed in place, waiting for him . . . and that kept what Blackhawk hoped was the sole fully functional imperial warship in the system out of the fight. He couldn't be sure Belakov's virus had worked as planned, or that, even if it had, it would be enough to give the Celtiborians victory, but that—coupled with diverting Inferni—was the best gift he could give his friends. The rest was on them, on the mettle Augustin Lucerne had forged into them all.

He didn't know if any of it mattered. He didn't even know if Astra was still alive. But he knew one thing. Alive or dead, he would never abandon her.

Never.

Except that meant fighting Inferni. And the idea of harming Inferni seemed almost inconceivable. He would be striking the only family he had, regardless of his brother's sins. Almost nothing could have made him face off, challenge Ignes Inferni, kill him.

Again, _almost_ nothing. But there was one thing.

Astra.

His hand dropped to his side, feeling the familiar metal and leather of his shortsword's grip.

"I cannot let you leave here, Ignes. I am sorry, my brother . . ."

The sound of the sword drawing out from the scabbard was familiar—too familiar—yet this time it cut at him deeply, opening a wound he knew would never heal.

His eyes met Inferni's, his sword in his hand, even as his opponent drew out his own blade.

Inferni said nothing.

The talking was over. All that remained was for one of them to die.

# Chapter 39

The swords met, a loud clang echoing off the surrounding mountains, the walls of rock sending the sound waves back through the heavy atmosphere. Two reluctant enemies faced each other on this blasted landscape, each troubled by where fate had brought them, but certain of what they must do.

Blackhawk bent his forward knee, dropping low as he thrust his blade below Inferni's defenses. It was a move he'd used many times, one that had dropped a long series of adversaries in short order, but his brother saw it coming and his own blade swung down, not only blocking Blackhawk's attacks, but coming a hairsbreadth from turning it about and securing his own deadly strike.

Blackhawk was free of Umbra, for the first time in his life, and yet the relief he'd long imagined would accompany that momentous change had not come. His mind was in turmoil, and without the imperial conditioning, without Umbra, it took all he had to sustain the fight against Inferni. All he had now were his almost twenty-five years as Blackhawk and the memories of the friends and loved ones he'd met and lost over that time to urge him forward.

He prayed it was enough.

He stepped back, yielding the initiative, at least for a moment, but giving himself time to assess the situation. The two of them were almost identical physically, though Blackhawk suspected he'd seen more hand-to-hand combat than his brother. But he was entering the fight already half beaten, bearing the mental scars of his struggles to control the imperial battleship, not to mention the physical toll it had taken on him. He was putting all he had left into this battle, but if this contest continued much longer, he began to doubt his ability to prevail.

Inferni was clearly sensing Blackhawk's fatigue and gave him no time to strategize further, stepping up the attacks. The imperial general was seeking to gain all the advantage he could from his superior condition, and as the fight progressed, Blackhawk shifted more and more on the defensive. It was a losing strategy, he knew that. But it was all he had the strength to do.

Blackhawk swung hard, trying to turn a parry into something resembling an attack, but the sword was heavy in his hand, and his motion was too slow. Inferni dodged it and brought down another vicious strike.

Blackhawk felt the vibration up his arm, as he barely managed to get his sword in place in time. He stumbled back again, and this time, he lost his balance, falling hard to the ground. He tried to stay focused, but he could feel the fear building, the realization that he was simply too battered and exhausted to face an enemy like Inferni.

But the battle was at least buying time, and that might be enough—if not for him, for Astra and her fleet. For those he was fighting for.

Those he would likely die for.

He sucked in a deep breath and dug down, rallying all that remained of his strength. He thought, for an instant, he was dead . . . but it was clear Inferni still didn't want to kill him, or at least he felt some hesitation. Otherwise, the killing blow should have already come. That was enough, at least, to buy a little more time. Blackhawk leapt back up to his feet, ignoring the pain he felt almost everywhere on his body.

Inferni wasn't even breathing hard.

"This is pointless, Frigus. You are clearly wounded and no match for me. More important, I do not wish to kill you. Let us stop this now. Return to my ship with me. It may not be too late to save your Astra."

Blackhawk heard the emotion in Inferni's voice, and he believed his brother was sincere. Inferni missed him, and a part of Blackhawk missed his brother, too.

But it was too late. He wasn't what he had been, not any longer. They were brothers by the uniqueness of their birth, but too much time had changed them. The Void had separated them by more than just distance. In the Far Stars, light had finally found its way to the blackness of his soul.

And all Inferni could offer him was a way back to darkness and brutality.

"You're right. I'm no match for you. And this may be pointless. But you're wrong, too. There is no Frigus Umbra, my brother. He is dead, gone, purged forever . . . thanks to you. I am Arkarin Blackhawk, and the Far Stars is my home. The empire will never enslave these worlds, not while I still draw breath."

Even as he said those last words, he was lunging forward, converting what he knew was a last burst of energy into his attack. He struck hard, and he might have scored the victory . . . but he hesitated, as Inferni had a moment before. He was resolute in his loyalties, secure as he'd never been before in who he was—that he was Arkarin Blackhawk and not Frigus Umbra. But that assurance didn't change the fact that the man standing before him was still one he'd long thought of as a brother, one who did the evil he did under the same imperial conditioning that had made him a monster.

_That could be me, save for providence. And if I could be redeemed . . ._

So when his blade found its mark, it wasn't a fatal blow. He could feel the sword cut through the sleeve of Inferni's robe and slice into the general's arm. His distraction had cost him, reducing the stroke to a flesh wound. And, perhaps worse, even as Blackhawk pulled back to reset his stance he could feel the surge of energy fading away. He had lost his best chance, thrown away a hope for victory, perhaps the last he had.

"It has been over an hour with no communications, Commander. We are too far away to get reliable scans. The general is down there alone. We must go to his rescue, without further delay."

Virgus Tamalak stood on the _Exantallus_ 's bridge, next to the command station, the seat that had, until two hours before, been occupied by Ignes Inferni. Tamalak was one of Inferni's Red Guards, his closest retainers and most loyal followers. He was also in command in his master's absence.

He'd already taken a terrible chance sending the two assault shuttles to take position in orbit around the moon. Inferni had been clear that he intended to go alone, and there was no room to claim confusion in his orders. But Tamalak had finally given in to the pressure from the other Red Guards, the demands to send something, anything, to support Inferni. The guards were loyal to their master, and perhaps even more important in the power-driven imperial system, they all knew Inferni was crucial to their own advancement. A rival, another general, such as Idilus, might secretly rejoice at a comrade's defeat and death, hoping to take the place of the lost officer. But no general who replaced Inferni would trust his old retainers. If Inferni died, at best, they all sank into obscurity.

At worst . . . well, there were numerous examples of generals "cleaning house" with ruthless thoroughness when they stepped into the shoes of a fallen commander.

It seemed clear. Tamalak had to do all he could to aid Inferni. But he'd also seen the general's rage at being disobeyed, and dispatching the shuttles had been a grave risk already. Actually sending them to the surface . . .

He hesitated. He kept hoping he'd hear from Inferni, but there had been nothing. He didn't know much about this "Blackhawk"—Inferni had been very tight-lipped about the Far Stars smuggler. Still, he guessed the man was dangerous . . . and every passing minute pushed Tamalak toward issuing the order his warriors were almost demanding.

He turned sharply to the side, his hand tightening into a fist. He could barely contain the frustration, resist the urge to slam his hand down on the armrest. But he was in command while Inferni was gone, and he struggled to maintain his control, to look the part. The scanning reports from the battle far in-system weren't helping his efforts. The imperial fleet was in complete disarray, some kind of systemic malfunctions plaguing the vessels. Three battleships had already been destroyed, and the Celtiborians were pushing hard, clearly smelling at least a chance at victory.

Tamalak had never heard of an imperial battleship being destroyed, and the fact that he'd just witnessed three of the great vessels obliterated hadn't really sunken in yet. Part of him wanted to head into the fight, to throw the fully functional battleship into the mix.

To crush the Far Stars enemy.

But Inferni had been utterly clear when he'd left. Remain in position.

Inferni hadn't known the fleet was disabled when he'd left, of course, and it wasn't hard to imagine he might have sent the ship into the fight if he had . . . but Tamalak had seen the general deal with insubordination before, and memories like that never faded.

He stood, for perhaps another minute, ignoring yet another wave of entreaties from the orbiting shuttles. It was far easier for officers there to rush to their commander's aid. If Tamalak gave the go-ahead, it was on him. If Inferni was angry, if the intervention disrupted some vital operation only the general knew about . . . he easily could find himself thrown headfirst out of an airlock.

But if General Inferni _is_ in trouble . . . the airlock might be coming anyway.

He picked up the comm unit. "Go in. Now." The words came out, quickly, before his caution could intervene again and stop them. He didn't know all that much about this Blackhawk, but what he knew was troubling.

Too troubling to ignore any longer.

Blackhawk stepped back a meter, perhaps two, and the combatants stood, facing each other. He was dizzy, his vision fading, even as he struggled to stay on his feet, to at least maintain a defense against what he knew was coming.

He saw regret in his brother's eyes as he stared back across the small battlefield, and, with cold certainty, he understood. Inferni had resolved, finally, to kill him. He could see his brother's hand tensing on his blade, the movement of his opponent beginning, an ominous shadow closing on him, the imperial's blade rising up, ready to come down in one titanic stroke . . .

Then a shrieking sound filled the small valley, almost deafening, and a blast of wind separated the combatants, covering them in a billowing cloud of dust and nearly knocking them both to the ground.

Blackhawk didn't understand—for a second, at least, as he struggled to stay on his feet—but then, it was clear. Ships landing. Very close.

For an instant, against all reason, he imagined Celtiborian landers coming down, Augustin Lucerne's veteran troops coming to his aid. But as he turned toward the two shadowy vessels becoming slowly visible through the clearing dust, he recognized them at once.

Imperial assault shuttles.

Even as he watched, the hatches swung open, and ground troops swarmed out, weapons drawn. They wore a livery he'd never seen before, but there wasn't a question in his mind. They were his brother's guards.

The end had come.

It was over. He was as good as finished. His long journey, his bizarre and almost unfathomable life and all its unpredictable twists and turns was at its end. All that remained was to determine how he faced his death.

There was no mystery there, not a question in his worn and exhausted mind. Arkarin Blackhawk knew only one way to die, weapons in hand, fighting to the last.

He glanced over at Inferni, one last look, mostly to make sure his brother wasn't attacking . . . but also a farewell of sorts. Then he lunged forward, racing toward the imperial troops, sword in one hand as the other dropped to his side—toward the pistol he'd left holstered during his contest with Inferni.

He drew the gun and brought it up, even as the soldiers reacted to his charge and swung their rifles to bear. He knew his life was measured in instants, perhaps a second. But he was determined to take some of them with him.

Even as he raised the pistol and took a shot, dropping one of the soldiers, he heard a loud shout from behind him. Inferni.

Ordering the soldiers to _capture_ him.

Blackhawk felt his heart pounding. He'd been ready to die, as ready as one could be for such a thing, but he hadn't imagined being overpowered, dragged back to the empire as a prisoner. It was unthinkable, whatever his fate there. Would he be humiliated and tortured, branded a traitor and executed? Or would they try to make him what he'd been. Umbra was gone, he was sure of that . . . but his imperial masters had turned him into that once. Could they do it again? Would age and experience protect him from having his mind warped and twisted, or were they adept enough to steal Blackhawk from him, to forge another Umbra?

He had no intention of finding out.

He aimed his pistol and fired again, then twice more. Three of the imperials fell, even as the others raced forward. He shot again and again, killing as many as he could, doing everything possible to force them to fire back. But even as he waged that great battle, he knew it was hopeless, that every soldier there was well aware they would face a fate far worse than death in combat if they disobeyed Inferni's orders. Blackhawk pushed forward, raising his sword above his head as he continued to fire . . . and he plunged into the first rank of imperial soldiers.

He could feel hands reaching out, trying to restrain him, even as he slashed wildly, cutting and stabbing every enemy he could reach. His tired arm was wet with blood, and even as he was forced down to the ground, he pressed his pistol against the midsection of one of his attackers. He pulled the trigger, and he felt the hot warmth of the imperial's blood and guts on his hand, running over him.

He was normally stronger than any of the soldiers, but there were at least a dozen of them all around him, grabbing onto his arms, his legs, and he was beyond exhausted. He struggled with all the might his genetically engineered muscles could produce, but finally his extremities were pinned down. First his pistol and then his sword were wrested from his grasp, and he lay helpless, surrounded by imperial soldiers—both those alive and the bodies of those he'd killed.

"Please, Frigus, don't struggle," he heard Inferni say. "It is over. You are coming home with me." Inferni walked forward and stood above him, looking down at the wild scrum that had, at last, pinned him to the ground. "You will thank me one day, brother. When you are cleansed of this Far Stars taint. It has controlled you for far too long."

Blackhawk struggled, trying to free himself, but he couldn't escape. There were too many . . . they were too strong. He looked at Inferni, and he felt anger, but also an incredible sadness. In that moment, his hesitations were gone. He'd kill his brother right now if he could have.

Then . . . he saw something. A glint in the dim sunlight reaching the moon. He discounted it as an illusion, but then he saw it again, closer. He just couldn't figure out what it was.

More imperial troops? He felt his stomach clench, but only briefly. Extra soldiers wouldn't make any difference. The ones already there were more than enough to drag him to captivity. But what else could it be? Inferni had control of this space, so it must be more of his people.

Whoever it was, it continued coming, ever closer. At this point, Blackhawk was resigned to his fate, and was almost indifferent to this new wrinkle. But he couldn't bear to look at Inferni, so he watched it anyway. He could make out the shape, vaguely at first, but an instant later much better. It was a familiar form, and he realized he was almost certainly hallucinating.

_It couldn't possibly be . . ._

The farthest of the two imperial shuttles exploded violently as bursts of concentrated laser took it amidships. All around, the imperial soldiers were running about, looking up, bringing their weapons to bear on the threat from above.

Blackhawk still couldn't believe it, but now he could see with his own eyes, and a burst of strength flowed through his body, even as the distracted soldiers holding him down let up just enough . . .

# Chapter 40

"Keep firing, Shira . . . just make sure you don't hit Ark. He's down there, too, somewhere."

Ace was in one of the _Claw_ 's two laser turrets, swinging the weapon around, targeting anything he could see on the ground . . . anything he was sure wasn't Blackhawk. The first shuttle had been an easy target, and even as he watched, Shira's shots from the other turret ripped open the second lander, sending flaming debris flying all around the area. The lack of a caustic reply to his last remark testified to just how focused she was. They'd all watched Blackhawk leave, and while they couldn't fully understand what was driving him, it had been clear to everyone he was in grave danger.

It had taken all of a few minutes before the rest of the crew decided that if he was in danger, then they'd go into danger, too.

Which is exactly where they were. The barren moon's air was oxygen rich, and the flames flared hot and bright, spreading all around. Anything remotely flammable ignited at the slightest spark, even as the ammunition inside the shuttle erupted in an explosion that made the first one seem like a single match flaring up.

Ace stared down, picking out targets and pressing the firing stud whenever he got a bead on imperials. His eyes weren't as sharp as they'd been years before in his youth, but he was still a crack shot, and he targeted individual imperial soldiers with the _Claw_ 's laser. The range was close, and the _Claw_ 's guns were designed to battle other ships, not individual people. Because of that, the soldiers were virtually disintegrated when they were hit, nothing left but a burnt spot on the ground, and a small pile of ashes.

_Really, the best look for an imperial._

"Bring us around, Lucas . . . now!"

He wasn't sure if they were too late, though. If so, then he was going to turn every last imperial into a charcoal briquet.

But Blackhawk wasn't dead. He just knew it. It didn't make sense, but he was sure he'd feel it if his friend was gone.

_Still . . . probably going to turn them all into charcoal. Just in case._

He felt the ship swing about hard and come back over the same area. Both imperial shuttles were smoking debris, and at least half the soldiers were down. But there was still a dozen more, maybe as many as twenty, and he gunned down all he could find who were exposed enough that he could see they were alone. The nice thing was, they were so close, it was easy to find new targets. He often gave Lucas Lancaster a hard time, but it was all in good fun—for him, at least. The truth was, he'd never seen a pilot with Lucas's touch, and the _Claw_ ripped by no more than ten meters above the ground.

Ace swung around, bringing the turret to bear to the rear as the _Claw_ completed its second run, but he didn't have any more targets. There was a cluster of soldiers off to the side of one of the ruined landers, but he couldn't be sure Ark wasn't there, too. It was time for more precise work.

"Lucas, bring us down . . . as close in as you can get. Shira, meet me down at the airlock."

He got two quick acknowledgments. Then he flipped on the comm again. "Katrina, Sarge . . . we're right behind you. Time to get Ark back."

"Roger," Sarge said.

"On it, Ace." Katrina's voice, and the deadly seriousness in her tone, almost made him shiver. He couldn't imagine the effect it would have had if she hadn't been on his side.

He unstrapped from the chair and pulled himself up, squeezing through the narrow access tube back into the ship. He slid out and dropped to the floor, reaching down and picking up his combat kit as he ran toward the airlock.

_It's a mission . . . just like a hundred we've done before._

He tried to convince himself of that, at least, but he wasn't exactly buying it. They'd all risked everything on missions before, but this time, Ark was already out there . . . and the imperials could kill him any second.

If they haven't already.

_Then it's a slightly different mission._

He slid into his kit, pulling the harness over his shoulders, catching Shira out of the corner of his eye doing the same thing. The airlock was already open, Kat and Sarge gone . . . on their way to save their friend.

"We're coming, Ark," he whispered.

Ace leapt forward and practically dove out of the airlock as quickly as he could—but still a beat behind Shira.

"Only if you can keep up, Graythorn," Shira said.

He grinned. This is why they did this. Blackhawk had turned them into a family, and family stuck together. More, he had saved them all.

It was time to repay that favor.

Blackhawk pushed with every bit of force his tortured body could exert. His people had come for him. He couldn't quite believe it, but he wasn't going to waste it. As exhilarating as the prospect was, though, there were still imperial soldiers on the ground, and that meant the rescue mission could still turn into a disaster, ending with not only his own death, but that of all his people, too. It was a fate he didn't want to contemplate, especially after fate had given him another shot.

He wasn't going to let that slip away.

That was easier said than done, though. He could feel pain in every centimeter of his arms and shoulders as he overexerted, pulling half a dozen muscles in the process, as he shoved his way free of the imperials. He reached to the side, grabbing the nearest soldier, slipping his arm under the man's helmet, and, twisting hard, snapping the trooper's neck. He let the lifeless hulk drop to the ground at his feet.

His eye caught the glint of his sword, laying off to the side, half covered in the fine dust that passed for soil on the moon. He lunged forward, slipping under the attack of one of the soldiers, and he did a combat roll, grabbing the blade and hopping back onto his feet. The pain was almost unbearable, radiating intensely from a dozen injuries, but Blackhawk was in the combat trance, and he ignored the agony. This was life or death. He knew Inferni, brother or no, would order him killed before he would allow the _Claw_ 's people to rescue him.

He also knew Ignes Inferni and his guards were enemies the likes of which his crew, veterans that they were, had never faced. They had seen him at his worst, but they had never had to fight him. If one of them came up against Inferni . . .

His sword slashed out, one blow severing the arm of an attacking trooper, another sending one to the ground amid a spray of blood, almost decapitated. He dropped low as he swung yet again, reaching his hand out and scooping up his pistol as he ran by it.

He leapt back up, his eyes darting around, tracking targets. He shot another imperial, and then another. But he wasn't looking for foot soldiers.

He was looking for Inferni.

His feelings were still a jumble, but he kept coming back to the thought that killing Inferni would almost certainly save millions of people, his future victims.

Or would it?

The empire's evil didn't radiate from Inferni. The general was merely a tool. Those he might one day kill would almost certainly die anyway, at the hands of another minion of the emperor. Such ideas had stayed his hand before, kept him in an unsettling limbo about what to do with Inferni.

But now his crew—his _friends_ —were at risk. Inferni was capable of killing them all, every one of them, and that was enough to push him forward. This was made even more urgent when Blackhawk realized Inferni would see them as a key part of what held the rogue in the Far Stars, impediments to enticing him back to the emperor, to once again be Frigus Umbra. Blackhawk had to find Inferni—now. He had to kill him . . . and kill off Frigus Umbra once and for all.

He fought his way through the imperials, his pistol and sword claiming his enemies as they had so many times before. But Inferni was nowhere to be found.

He looked to the right, spotting another imperial. He raised his pistol, but he was too late. He saw the almost blinding motion, a figure sliding in from behind a rock outcropping—lithe, elegant, a thin blade of warrior wielding a thin blade, slicing it across the soldier's throat with a practiced hand.

Katarina Venturi pushed the corpse of her enemy away as it fell. "Ark . . . I am pleased to see you." The words were almost serene, the volume moderate. Next to him, Kat was the coolest of his people in combat. But his practiced ear could hear the timbre in her words, and in spite of the battle still raging and her own Sebastiani-schooled demeanor, she moved swiftly across the ground between them and embraced him.

"Let's get you back to the _Claw_ , Ark. She's ready to go." She pulled out her small comm unit, and she put it to her mouth. "Ace, I've got him. We're heading back now."

"No." Blackhawk wanted to go to the ship, almost more than he'd ever wanted anything. But he had to find Inferni first. "I have to find someone before I go. You get everyone else and get back. I'll be there as soon as I can." It wasn't exactly a lie, but he was far from sure he would win a fight with his brother.

Even as Katarina was about to argue with him, they both looked up, their attention diverted by a loud roar.

It was an imperial attack ship.

Inferni's ship.

Blackhawk brought his pistol around, firing a series of shots at the small vessel as it streaked upward through the sky. He knew it was ineffectual, that he didn't have a chance of damaging the ship with the small weapon. It was as much a display of his frustration as anything else.

He almost grabbed Kat's comm and ordered Lucas to take off, to chase down and destroy the attack ship. He didn't doubt Lucas could catch the vessel, but without Ace and Shira in the turrets, there wasn't much the _Claw_ could do against Inferni's ship.

He shook his head, uncertain and concerned what Inferni might do when he got back to his battleship. Then realization dawned. His people had come to find him. That meant the battle must have . . .

"The battle?" He turned toward Kat, staring anxiously.

"The imperials retreated, Ark. They lost three battleships, and although they still had four and the Celtiborian fleet is badly battered, the odds must not have looked so good, especially with the virus Alion sent."

Blackhawk felt a wave of relief. Whoever was in command of that fleet was already in big trouble. The empire didn't lose its battleships, and certainly not to Far Stars upstarts. Inferni clearly wasn't in overall command, but he was pretty sure that was about to change, and then the current imperial commander would be lucky to come out of the debacle with his life. Blackhawk doubted any imperial commander in the situation would risk losing more ships in a fight to the finish—the empire's tactics were those of a bully, and imperial commanders were used to overpowering strength—but that didn't mean this decision would be seen as the right one.

He felt a wave of excitement, of optimism. He was sure whoever was in command would skulk back to the empire and throw himself prostrate before the emperor, begging forgiveness.

They'd done it. Somehow. He was sure.

They had saved the Far Stars.

# Chapter 41

Blackhawk stood on the pavilion next to Astra Lucerne. He'd been relieved to discover that she'd survived the battle, even more so when he saw the casualty lists for the Celtiborian fleet. Just over half the spacers who'd set forth to battle the imperial fleet returned, making the casualty rate the worst Blackhawk had ever seen in a space battle. Dozens of ships were lost, and the Celtiborian navy was almost crippled as a fighting force. It would take years to build ships to replace those lost, and longer to forge veteran spacers to fill the shoes of the dead. The plan to complete the unification of the Far Stars was in shambles, and the timetable had stretched out to a decade if not more. Even with the invasion repelled, the imperials had done major damage, and much work lay ahead to get things back on track.

But the fact that they had that time—it was something to be truly grateful for. Which Astra was conveying to the assembled crowd—and those listening across the Far Stars—right now.

"It is with deep and sincere gratitude that I thank these lost spacers, men and women who sacrificed all, and who, with their lives, held the line and saved Celtiboria. They will be heroes forever, held in our hearts and never forgotten."

Blackhawk listened as Astra spoke. The ceremony was vast, over a hundred thousand in attendance, and billions more watching the broadcasts. The day was a somber one. There would be rejoicing over the victory, over Celtiboria's salvation—and that of the entire Far Stars—but this particular day had been set aside to mourn the dead and to decorate those whose heroism had gained the victory.

Astra had been determined to place Blackhawk at the top of that list, to give him the credit for disabling the imperial ships. He'd politely declined, and then, when she'd pressed the matter, he'd repeated his protestations a bit more forcefully. Blackhawk had known glory and rewards and crowds screaming his name. He wanted none of that, never again. He knew his future would be full of obligation and duty, and he would see it all done. But he wanted no part of the adoration that went along with it all. That was for his people now, his crew and Augustin Lucerne's loyal officers and grim, veteran soldiers. It was their time to be in the light, to hear the roar of the people.

Blackhawk wanted only to be at Astra's side, to help her in the battles that lay ahead. To protect her, and to spend the rest of his days with her. That had been impossible once, but something had changed in the aftermath of his showdown with Inferni. His brother's efforts had come close to turning him back, to unleashing Frigus Umbra and destroying Blackhawk. But in the end, his new self had proven to be the stronger . . . and Umbra was cast out. He'd been nervous for a few days, hesitant to truly believe the voices that had plagued him for so long were gone. But it was true. Blackhawk wanted nothing of power, nor of rule. What he had to do, he would, but if the chance ever came to slip into the shadows, Astra at his side, he knew he would gladly cede the reins of control.

He was reborn, and he looked to the future, full of struggles and work as he knew it would be, and he felt a calm he had never known.

It would be difficult, he knew, to leave the _Wolf's Claw_ behind, and to dock his beloved ship, perhaps for a very long time. She was an old ship, but she had served him well, and he liked to think he had done the same in return. Certainly, the _Claw_ was vastly ahead of any other ships of her type and vintage, practically rebuilt from her keel, and strong (overpowered if he was being honest). She deserved retirement, he was sure of that, but he was less certain a warrior spirit like that of his ship could long endure the safety and silence of such an existence.

It would be even harder to bid farewell to his crew—his family—and he was glad he wouldn't have to, at least not exactly. Ace and Shira had both announced their intentions to settle on Celtiboria, and Blackhawk had resolved to find places for them in the growing apparatus of the Far Stars Confederation. That was partly selfish, because he couldn't bear to think of letting them go completely, but beyond his own desires, there was no doubt they were two of the most capable people the Far Stars had produced. They would serve the confederation well, and if the reunification succeeded, he knew they would leave their marks on that triumph.

Doc, also, would remain on Celtiboria. The _Claw_ 's resident scholar had ended up with the other misfits after coming out on the bottom of political infighting in the academy on his native world. He'd served as the _Claw_ 's doctor, though his medical training was, in fact, spotty and incomplete, and he'd contributed to their many adventures with a pool of knowledge that seemed enormously varied and almost infinitely deep. Astra had already appointed him the dean of Celtiboria's central institution of higher learning, with a broad-based mandate: make the university, long neglected on a planet that had seen three hundred years of civil war, the greatest institute of learning and research in the Far Stars. It would be a herculean task, but Blackhawk was sure Doc would get it done, and far faster than anyone imagined possible.

Sarge was bound for Arialus, a world already firmly part of the confederation, and completely pacified. The old soldier had been at war for half a century, and he was ready to settle down and perhaps grow some fruit trees and live his final years in peace and solitude. Blackhawk would miss his friend, but he didn't begrudge the veteran a few quiet years.

Sam had turned down funding and chances to run her own shipbuilding venture once before, and she'd done it again. But she'd accepted Blackhawk's offer—more a desperate request—to take over procurement and ship design for the Celtiborian navy. The empire would be back one day, he was sure of that, and if he had the creations of his brilliant, if unorthodox, engineer to face them when they came, he was sure he'd have a far better chance.

Belakov was the newest member of the crew by far, but in no way the least valuable. Blackhawk knew he owed his rookie a debt that could never be repaid. Without the hacker's incredible abilities, the empire would have crushed all resistance. Belakov lacked the massive wealth his people had stashed all across the Far Stars, but he'd proven equally resistant to offers of wealth and payment. He'd accepted Blackhawk's offer to supervise a revamp of all data systems in the Far Stars. That carried a salary, of course, but Blackhawk had already shifted a good -sized sum to a secret account in Belakov's name. The programmer didn't know it yet, and he was still poor by the standards of the _Claw_ 's crew. But against any other benchmark, he was wealthy now, and he'd never again have to worry about money. And certainly not be compelled to take any jobs from unsavory types again.

Lucas Lancaster had—hesitantly—decided to return home, to his enormously wealthy family, and to try to work together with his father. The two had come a long way since the friction between them had driven Lucas to an almost deadly descent into drug and alcohol abuse, but he was a different man than he'd been, toughened by a decade of service on the _Claw_. And his father had changed somewhat, too. Blackhawk suspected there would be a few fights, some perhaps animated enough to raise the roof off the two-kilometer-tall Lancaster Tower, but he bet himself the two of them would make it in the end . . . though he still had trouble thinking of his hotshot, and almost crazy, pilot as one of the Far Stars' greatest moguls.

Katarina Venturi was the only one who worried him. Not that she couldn't take care of herself . . . she was, perhaps, the most dangerous person he knew, and vastly wealthy. He had some idea of her share of the profits from the _Claw_ 's exploits, but he knew she had treasures hidden all over the Far Stars. But she was the most like him in one way. They were both lost, and for all their capabilities, there would always be something about them never quite at home anywhere. Venturi had been raised since early childhood as an assassin at the Sebastiani School, but she was estranged now from the elite and secretive society. Her trade was killing, and while most of her targets had deserved the ends she'd given them, it wasn't exactly a résumé that opened doors in polite society.

Blackhawk had discussed her working with Celtiboria's nascent intelligence agency, perhaps even running it. He believed in her, but she was also used to working alone, and save for the last few years on the _Claw,_ she'd always been on her own. Blackhawk knew, better than anyone, how difficult it was to change. He knew he couldn't pressure her, so he just resolved to be there for her, to help as and when he could . . . and hope for the best.

Blackhawk was deeply grateful for every one of them. Augustin Lucerne had been the first to come to his aid, to see in him potential where everyone else saw a violent and dangerous derelict. He'd never have survived without his lost friend, and he knew he would say his silent thanks every day that he lived. But he wouldn't forget the crew of the _Wolf's Claw_. For all that Lucerne had pulled him from the gutter and put him on the track to a real life, the pack of square pegs he'd pulled from various round holes had been just as vital. He'd saved them all, in one way or another, and they had saved him in return. Whether they stayed at his side, or wandered off to various planets across the Far Stars, they would be his closest friends, forever . . . and all any of them had to do was call for him, and he would come.

But for right now, he looked forward to the one thing he'd wanted most and had been sure would always be out of reach. He'd stayed away from Astra, from her place at the seat of power, terrified of what would happen to him if he'd remained there, if dominion over the Far Stars was there to tempt him every day.

All that had changed in his fight with Inferni. He felt no craving for the power, none at all. In fact, he finally saw the danger in it, and desperately wished there was someone other than Astra who could take it, shepherd the Far Stars to true freedom. She didn't want that, though—or, at least, would never admit her desire to do anything other than follow through on her father's dream. And, for that, he loved her all the more, because he knew she didn't _want_ the power, but merely accepted it, and reluctantly. And if she was willing to make that sacrifice, he would face that prison gladly as long as he got to stay at her side. True, he had begged her to cast aside her responsibilities, to come with him on the _Wolf's Claw_ and disappear to some backwater planet. But as strong as he was—as strong as he had always been—it turned out Astra was the stronger of the two.

Which was why he was standing behind her, pride shining from his eyes.

This was especially true knowing that the work here wasn't done—not by a long shot. Many battles lay ahead. To complete the union of the Far Stars, certainly, but also to stave off another such imperial attack. Inferni was still out there. The battleships were still out there. The _empire_ was still out there. And until he could be sure such a threat was eliminated, Blackhawk would labor tirelessly to build the sector's defenses to meet the next imperial challenge.

Tomorrow's fight _would_ come. He just wasn't sure which tomorrow it would be. And so even as he tried to enjoy all the todays available to him, he was sure it was just a matter of time before they were once again called to arms.

The Far Stars had been saved for a millennium by the Void, by the near impossibility of navigating ships the size of the monstrous battleships across its vast emptiness. But the emperor had finally managed to thrust ten of his massive battleships across that deadly nothingness. Blackhawk didn't know how that had been done, but it _had_ _been_. . . and that meant it could be done again.

Amid his joy at being with Astra, and his hopes for the future, a single dark thought remained.

A cold certainty.

The empire would be back.

# Epilogue

"Speak, General. I would hear your words on events in the Far Stars." The emperor sat on his golden throne, resplendent in his flowing robes. The imperial court looked as it ever had, save only for the emptiness in the usually crowded hall.

And also, Idilus's head, freshly impaled on a stake barely a meter from the emperor, blood still dripping down the metal spike and pooling on the polished marble floor.

Ignes Inferni was not a man easily unnerved, but it was impossible not to feel the emperor's anger, and while he imagined it was not directed primarily at him, he also knew he had failed in his own mission, to bring Frigus Umbra back to the capital.

"What is there I can say, my master, save that we failed? I was correct, Frigus Umbra is in the Far Stars, and by my negligence, he remains there. I failed to bring him back as I promised to do, or, failing that, to kill him. I offer no excuses, and I submit myself to your imperial judgment."

Inferni had always been amazed at disgraced commanders who'd come into the imperial chamber with litanies of excuses. The emperor was not a forgiving man, far from it, but anyone who'd watched him over the years could see cold honesty and supplication worked far better than endless excuses.

"I am displeased, General Inferni . . . and, yet, you have never failed me before. Indeed, in retrospect, perhaps I should have placed you in overall command and entrusted _you_ with viceregal powers." The emperor paused, and his eyes moved to the severed head. "General Idilus has paid for his failure. But you, General Inferni, you shall have another chance. We are not done with the Far Stars—indeed, we are far from done. Humanity has spread there, and thus my rule must spread there as well. There are preparations being made, even now in the imperial laboratories, and when the work is completed, we will send a new fleet to the Far Stars, one vastly larger and more powerful than that Idilus commanded. You will lead that force, General, and your mission will be nothing less than the complete subjugation of the Far Stars."

"It is as you command."

The imperial lab was brightly lit, and all around sat computer banks and tables full of beakers and test tubes and all manner of equipment. Rachus Denali lay on a gurney, his arms and body strapped down, the bonds tight, immovable. His head, too, was restrained, a wide belt across his forehead holding him down.

He was scared to death.

"The emperor promised to release me if I aided in the last expedition . . ." His words were soft, interspersed with tears. His whimpering had continued for the hours he'd lain there, but his pleadings had provoked no responses.

Until then.

The man who walked into the room wore a lab coat, and he held some kind of tool in his hand, one with several razor-sharp blades that fanned Denali's fear with an even greater intensity.

"I am Doctor Simonus, Captain Denali. I cannot speak to any perceived assurance the emperor may have given you, save that the imperial prerogative is often subject to chance. I can also assure you, the emperor knows exactly where you are, and he has graciously consented to allow you to continue to serve the imperial war effort against the Far Stars."

"I already led a fleet through the Void, in both directions. It is not my fault that force was defeated."

"No, Captain, of course it is not. I do not believe the emperor blames you for that failure in any way. General Idilus, however, has paid for his crimes. His execution took place two days ago."

Denali tried to twist his body any way he could, a desperate attempt to free himself. But he was held fast in place.

"I have examined your navigation device, Captain . . . quite extensively, actually. I must commend you. It is quite ingenious."

Simonus took a few more steps toward the gurney. "I believe I can continue with your line of research, and ultimately develop a version that not only allows a larger fleet to traverse, but also does not require the connection to a human cortex . . . yours, specifically. Unfortunately, such a course would require many years of research and development."

Denali just lay where he was, listening, even as tears streaked down the sides of his face. "I was promised . . ."

"Yes, apparently you were. Unfortunately for your prospects of comfortable retirement, I require your assistance. I have, you see, developed an alternate plan, one that will allow the device you built to operate without you present . . . and also to lead a significantly larger fleet through the Void."

"Then why do you need my help? I willingly give you the device."

"Yes . . . well, I'm afraid I need something else from you. The current equipment is heavily synced to your cortex. I will need to harvest certain sections from your cerebrum, no more than 15 percent by mass."

Denali hesitated for a few seconds, unable to believe what he'd heard. "You mean my brain? No . . . please. You can't. That will kill me."

"Please, Captain, control yourself. I am quite skilled at such things. There is an excellent chance you will survive the procedure . . . though there will be certain degradations in mental capabilities. You will very likely maintain a cognitive level above a vegetative state, perhaps significantly so. And the emperor has ordered that you will be sent to a facility that will provide the care you need to survive at a level of comfort and opulence a hero of the empire deserves.

"I've seen pictures—it's quite lovely."

Denali was shouting now, crying, struggling wildly against the unbreakable bonds that held him to the cot. "Please . . . no . . . please . . ."

"Oh yes. And I'm afraid there is one other thing. Successfully identifying the sections I need requires performing the extraction surgery without anesthesia. I will endeavor to finish as quickly as possible, Captain, but I am afraid the pain will be quite severe."

Simonus's voice went silent then . . . and was replaced by the sound of the electric saw he held in his hand.

# About the Author

**JAY ALLAN** is a former investor and the author of the Crimson Worlds series, the Far Stars books, the Flames of Rebellion series, and the Blood on the Stars series. When not writing, he enjoys traveling, running, hiking, and reading. He currently lives in New York City.

You can join his mailing list at www.jayallanbooks.com for updates on new releases (and some free and discounted books), and follow him on Twitter @jayallanwrites for an occasional look at work in progress and thoughts on the genre in general. Or you can email Jay at jay@jayallanbooks.com—he tries to answer every one!

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

# Praise for the Far Stars

"Readers who seek the visceral, swashbuckling adventures of muscular, troubled heroes and gorgeous, headstrong heroines will enjoy this series launch about the wild backwater planets of the Far Stars . . . This old-fashioned tale is a paean to the simple pleasures of exceedingly masculine adventures."

— _Publishers Weekly_

"Make no mistake, though—this book is basically a fun roller-coaster ride, with just enough emotional intensity and psychological depth to keep your arms and legs inside the carriage at all times. _Shadow of Empire_ is a crazy, over-the-top, zany adventure in which rogues outwit space pirates, get caught up in a civil war, and have space fights in and around an asteroid field. It's the perfect thing to tide you over until summer movie season gets going, in other words."

—Charlie Jane Anders (io9)

"It's twisty and turny, with a lot of effective world-building, but Jay Allan pulls off another neat trick: as much time as is spent on galactic power politics, we experience wall-to-wall swashbuckling adventure alongside Blackhawk and company, who start the book with their leader in the middle of Roman-style gladiatorial combat, and, never get a moment's rest. There's hand-to-hand combat, space battles, and military-style maneuvers. The back-and-forth makes for a compelling read: the intrigue never bogs down the pace, and the over-the-top action never gets tiresome. In many ways, it's the perfect fall book: not quite as light as something you might take to the beach, with just enough complexity to keep the space-pirate angle grounded."

— _B &N Sci-fi & Fantasy Blog_

# Also by Jay Allan

## Far Stars

  * _Shadow of _Empire__
  * _Enem _y in the Dark__
  * _Funer _al Games__

## Far Stars Legends

  * _Blackhawk_
  * _The Wolf's Claw_
  * _Astra_ (Coming)

## Blood on the Stars

  * _Duel in the Dark_
  * _Call to Arms_
  * _Ruins of Empire_
  * _Echoes of Glory_
  * _Cauldron of Fire_
  * _Dauntless_
  * _The White Fleet_
  * _Black Dawn_
  * _Invasion_
  * _Nightfall_
  * _The Grand Alliance_
  * _The Colossus_

# Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

the emperor's fist. Copyright © 2019 by Jay Allan Books. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Harper Voyager and design are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.

first edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

Digital Edition AUGUST 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-256692-8

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-256686-7

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