“Yes, sir. We’ve got multiple power interruptions, Captain, and with the reduced output from the reactors, we’ve got…” She turned back to her workstation, staring down at her screen. “…four turrets still firing.”

“Very well, Commander.” He struggled to hold back a frown. Down to four turrets…

The ship shook again, and Barron could hear the sounds as Dauntless’s hull twisted and groaned under the incessant fire. Then he heard the secondaries firing. He’d turned his ship to protect the damaged starboard side, but now the port was in worse shape.

“Bring us back around, Commander. I want the starboard batteries brought to bear.”

“Yes, sir.”

Barron stared at the display. The enemy had been decelerating before Dauntless’s primaries fired, but now there was no thrust at all. Did he dare to hope that Travis’s shot had disabled the vessel’s engines entirely? Any delay in the enemy slowing down would shorten the exchange now in progress, and it would give Fritz and her people more time to complete repairs.

Or it will give you time to withdraw…

Barron didn’t like the idea of retreating, but he couldn’t escape his own tactical analysis. His people had performed well, but they were still at a disadvantage. Assuming the enemy could repair their engines—and he had little doubt they could—there would be another fight here. As much as he wanted to believe Dauntless would win that battle, he knew he was still at a disadvantage. Perhaps it made sense to make a dash to the transwarp link, to get back to Archellia and rally the base’s meager defenses. Santis was tactically important, but Dauntless was the only real force on the entire frontier. If he fought again and lost, there would be nothing between here and a dozen heavily-populated worlds.

The ship shuddered again, but the impacts were not as hard. The enemy was moving out of range. Dauntless had made it through the first exchange, though he wouldn’t know the true extent of the damage until Fritz gave him an update.

I don’t need Fritzie to tell me it’s bad.

Damned bad…

The enemy would be working feverishly to get their engines back online. He wanted to stay, to finish what had begun here. But there was more at stake than his own wants. Hundreds of crew members, millions of citizens on Archellia…hundreds of millions on some of the worlds beyond.

“Sir, the enemy has moved out of range of our secondaries. They appear to have ceased fire.”

Out of range. The first struggle is over, and we’re both still here. But if we stay, if we fight again…

“Captain, Lieutenant Krill is on the com. He requests permission to begin landing operations.”

Barron felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He’d been so focused on the battle, he wasn’t even sure Dauntless had an operable landing bay.