Another ship dropped off the tactical grid, obliterated by a shower of pin-sized antimatter warheads. In the war room of her Scimitar, the Righteous Fury, Captain Annelida Deal uttered a venomous curse. The Outward ships were putting up more of a fight than she had anticipated, determined to protect their forward command post on the planet below. If she could only get past them, locate the bunker where the conference was taking place, and drop a decent-sized warhead of her own, the war might be over. At one stroke, she would have fulfilled her orders, which were to decapitate the enemy’s command structure, leaving its forces in a state of vulnerable disarray.

Intelligence projections had suggested an easy in-and-out operation. The Outward had gone for a minimal fleet presence, hoping not to attract attention. In theory, she should have been able to sweep them aside with ease. But these bastards were putting up more of a fight than anyone—maybe even they themselves—could have guessed, and the Conglomeration forces had already lost a couple of frigates and a light cruiser. A dirty smoke trail showed where the cruiser had fallen through the atmosphere, shedding debris and sparks, until it broke up over the night side of Pelapatarn, scattering wreckage across a wide swathe of ocean.

Alarms rang through the ship. More torpedoes were coming in.

In the war room, Captain Deal clung to the edge of the tactical display table. Around her, the hologram faces of her lieutenants were nervous and grim as they awaited her response.

“We can’t get through,” one of them said, and she saw that he was right. The bulk of the Outward fleet lay between her ships and the planet. Any ordnance fired would be intercepted and destroyed before it hit the atmosphere. All she could hope to do was try to fight her way through the blockade. But that would take time and lives. Her Scimitars were faster and more advanced than the Outward cruisers, but the enemy had their backs to the wall. By the time she got within striking distance of the planet—assuming she ever did—the Outward commanders would have fled their conference. If she wanted to end this war, she had to strike now.

She opened a channel to Fleet Headquarters, and was told a pack of four Carnivores were inbound from Cold Tor. As reinforcements, they wouldn’t be enough to decisively sway the outcome of the battle, but those in command had another use in mind for them.

And they wanted her to give the order.

“Get me the Adalwolf,” she said to her communications officer.

“Yes, sir!”

The main display dimmed, and a hologram of the Adalwolf’s commander appeared. Captain Valeriy Yasha Barcov had a smooth scalp and a thick, bushy beard. He was in his command couch, with a profusion of thin fibre-optic data cables plugged into the sockets at the back of his head.