“Very well, Fritzie. Barron out.” He shook his head, cursing himself for wasting time, for doing the exact thing he so disliked. Then he turned toward his first officer’s station.

“Commander, we may have to fight this battle with secondaries. I want them all firing at one hundred ten percent.”

Travis paused for an instant. Then she replied, “Yes, sir.”

Barron knew overloading the guns was a risk, and if he started losing secondary batteries along with the primaries…

Still, he didn’t know what else he could do. He had to hit the enemy as hard as he could. He didn’t like to gamble, he was a rational man by nature. But his analysis told him a stark truth. He wasn’t going to win this fight, not without taking some risks. Some big risks.

“Captain, Lieutenant Federov reports the enemy ship has a single squadron deployed defensively. She requests permission to engage.”

Barron paused, thinking. The fighters of Federov’s Red squadron were the only ones he had left that were armed and functionally operational. Commander Jamison and the handful of pilots who had followed him against the enemy bombers had landed…but with the damage to the bays there was no timetable on getting them refit and launched again, especially with so many resources committed to getting the primaries back online. And the rest of Dauntless’s squadrons were still on their way back from the dogfight. They wouldn’t arrive before the battleships exchanged fire, and Barron was far from sure they’d have any place to land by the time they returned. But either way, they had neither the fuel nor the ordnance to engage the enemy before they were refit.

“Very well, Commander. Red squadron is authorized to engage the enemy fighters.” He questioned the order as soon as it had come out of his mouth. Federov’s ships weren’t equipped to attack the enemy battleship, and the Alliance birds were in a similar situation. All that would result from allowing Federov to attack was more casualties, on both sides. Still, he stayed silent, allowed the order to stand. This was a fight to the finish, he knew that. And he might as well make peace with that now.

Barron closed his eyes, breathing deeply. It was his own habit, his way of calming himself, centering himself. He’d seen action, fought in some minor engagements…but he’d never experienced anything like he was about to. This was war, up close, deadly. The kind of wars his grandfather had fought.

What would you do? Would you have avoided the errors I blundered into?