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Chapters (44)
  1. The Crimson Worlds Series
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  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-One
  44. Epilogue

Barron almost shouted out with joy. “Fritzie, you are a wonder!” But his excitement was somewhat contained. He’d heard that tone before. There was a giant ‘but’ there.

“Captain, they’re hanging by a thread. And I can’t promise you more than one shot. With the shape the things are in and the power levels that go though there…”

“One shot is a lot better than none, Fritzie. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, sir. Which means you’ve got a choice. Take a shot—possibly the only one—at long range, before their lasers can fire on us…or hold for a crippling blow at close range, and risk taking damage and maybe losing the guns again before you shoot.”

Barron sighed softly. He knew his engineer was right. He had a choice to make, and no more than a few minutes to make it. A close range hit from the accelerators could be decisive. It could—probably would—be the battle. A longer ranged shot would be helpful, but far less decisive. But if he held fire and the guns were damaged again…

“All right, Fritzie…you and your people did your jobs. Now it’s time for me to do mine.”

He cut the com line. He had no idea what he was going to do.

*   *   *

“Primary batteries, open fire.” Kat’s voice was stone cold. She was nervous, worried about her opponent, about what he might do. But she was the matriarch of the Regulli, and she knew what she had to do.

“Primary batteries, open fire.”

Wentus repeated her command, relaying it to the gunnery teams.

Kat thought of her gun crews, located throughout the ship. Alliance designs tended to place gunners in or near their turrets. It reduced the possibility that damaged circuits or communications lines would silence otherwise functional batteries. It also ramped up casualties among gunnery crew, who were located right at the surface of the ship instead of in some well-protected control center. But losses weren’t an issue, at least not those suffered in victory. Palatians who died in the cause of a battle won were revered, their families honored and cared for. And the Alliance had seen little else but victory in it sixty years of conquest.