Over the EDF comm channel, Stromo spluttered orders and finally tried to regain control of the situation. In a moment, though, he realized the futility and changed his mind. “All ships, all commanders. Fire at will! Let’s get these bastards.”

The huge Goliath descended into the midst of the firestorm, readying the fleet’s heaviest weapons. The Juggernaut, with ten times the weaponry and armor of any Manta or Thunderhead, quickly demonstrated its enhanced abilities.

The crews of the other three Hansa cloud-harvesters launched their evacuation pods without instructions from the Admiral. Tasia didn’t blame them one bit, but in the free-for-all of weapons fire that crisscrossed Jupiter’s cloud decks, she saw the peril to the fleeing workers. She opened her channel. “Lieutenant Brindle, tell your Remoras to haul ass toward the harvesters. Rescue as many lifepods as possible. Round ’em all up.”

Brindle hesitated just a moment. “My whole squadron? Shouldn’t we save a few Remoras to—”

“Lieutenant, if we don’t rescue those cloud miners, then we can’t claim much of a victory, can we?”

“No, Platcom.”

Trying to ease his frustration, she added, “As soon as you round up the evacuation pods, I’ll let you get back and cause as much damage as you want—if the battle lasts that long.”

“Acknowledged.”

The first warglobe she’d targeted had suffered visible damage. All of the jazer strikes and kinetic-projectile impacts seemed to have slowed it down. But the other ten hydrogue battleships approached without hesitation and opened fire on the Terran escort fleet. One of the Mantas fell almost immediately, without scoring a single hit.

Enemy lightning swept across two Thunderheads, ripping through armored hulls, spilling hundreds of crew members to their deaths. Other strikes vaporized entire flights of Remoras like seeds in a blast furnace. The small EDF attack ships had insufficient shielding or maneuverability to avoid the hydrogue weapon. Tasia prayed that Brindle’s squadrons had not been among the first victims.

When Admiral Stromo brought the Goliath into the fray, shooting jazers and kinetic projectiles, launching all of his Remoras, the Juggernaut resembled a terrible hurricane. But the diamond-hulled warglobes concentrated their attack on the largest Terran battleship.

Brindle’s first Remoras began limping back to the Thunderhead, using tractor beams to drag lifepods salvaged from the ekti harvesters. “Open our ship bays,” Tasia commanded. “Get all those refugees in before it’s too late.”

The Admiral shouted empty threats and warnings at the hydrogues over his broadband frequency, but Tasia could already see how much damage the Eddie ships were suffering. Within seconds, the hydrogues obliterated another weapons platform, and all the Remoras retrieving lifepods suddenly had to find another sanctuary.