“All scanners on full, sir. The enemy vessel’s vector is directly toward us. No thrust detected.”

Barron nodded. His opponent was acting just as he would have done. Just as he was doing. The two battleships were crawling toward each other, their velocities low, their thrust zero. There was no elegance here, no fancy maneuvering. Both ships were too battered for that. This would be an exchange of gunnery, pure and simple. A pounding match until one combatant gave out.

Barron had sat on Dauntless’s almost silent bridge, watching along with his officers as their enemy approached the spread of fusion mines they had left behind. The mines had outdated stealth systems, but with no hard data on Alliance scanning capabilities, neither Barron nor any of his crew had known what to expect. Would they detect the mines in time?

The bridge had erupted into cheers when the first of mines had gotten close enough to detonate. Over the next few minutes, Barron’s people had watched as six sprint missiles closed to detonation range. None actually struck the enemy ship—a direct hit was an extremely rare event that might have vaporized even a massive battleship. But several had gotten close enough to do serious damage.

Enough, hopefully, to put us on equal playing fields…

Barron wasn’t sure, but his gut told him the fight had become a match of equals.

He flipped his com unit to the shipwide channel. “This is the captain. We are about to enter combat range. I won’t sugarcoat this. We’re in a fight for our lives, a battle to the death. We must stop this enemy. Defeat is not an option. I’ve already told you how proud I am to lead a group of men and women like you, and there are no spacers anywhere I would rather have at my side during this fiery trial. Let us face battle again, my friends, and together and united, we will prevail.”

He leaned back, looking around the bridge. Dauntless had a better chance than before, thanks to the minefield…but the cold reality was still there. His fate—the fates of all his people, and perhaps the Confederation as well—rested on the tenacity and skills of his chief engineer and her band of gifted technicians.

“Fritzie,” he said, after tapping the com unit. “What’s the status down there?”

“We got two more secondaries functional, sir. Don’t ask me how. Try to use the port broadside. You’ve got fifty percent more firepower there.”

Barron felt a rush of surprise. He’d thought most of the damaged secondaries were melted rubble, unrepairable this side of a major base. He wasn’t sure what kind of wizardry his engineer had managed, but he was grateful for it. And two guns on the same side, no less.

But that wasn’t what he most wanted to know.

“Nice work, Fritzie, but what about…”

“The primaries are online too.”