Tasia turned to Patrick Fitzpatrick, who manned the comm station. “Signal those Remoras. Tell them to bring all the lifepods here, if they can.” Fitzpatrick looked at her, unable to believe what was happening around him. “Do it now, dammit!” He bent over his transmitters, annoyed and abashed.

The warglobes opened fire and struck one set of the Goliath’s stardrive engines, melting the thick hull plating. Aboard the enhanced Juggernaut, Admiral Stromo yelled for damage reports, demanded that all crews shore up life support and recharge the weapons systems.

The hydrogues fired once again, inflicting even more harm to the Goliath. Another Manta suffered severe damage from a blast and could barely crawl out of the war zone.

Tasia realized that the battle had turned into a rout. No amount of Terran defenses could stand against these eleven hydrogue warglobes. Unless the Admiral came to the same conclusion—and soon—the Goliath, Earth’s greatest new battleship, would be destroyed.

Incomprehensible screams of panic filled the comm channels. Tasia contacted her surviving Remoras, recalling all squadrons. “Lieutenant Brindle! Bring whatever survivors you can, but get your butt back here.”

Salvaged lifepods continued to pour into the Thunderhead’s docking bays. If Tasia didn’t get her ship out of there before long, they could all be destroyed in one blast by the hydrogues. Even so, she could not let the Goliath flounder.

She issued a call to the other Thunderheads, hoping that their platcoms would listen to common sense. “All weapons platforms! We need to fall back and defend the Goliath.” She changed to a different channel. “Admiral Stromo, sir, I recommend that you withdraw your battleship while the engines still function. We will cover your retreat.”

Four Thunderheads, still looking puny in relation to the diamond-hulled warglobes, clustered around the wounded Juggernaut. Another Manta disengaged to assist in defending the flagship.

Checking her weapons status, Tasia saw that three-quarters of her kinetic projectiles had already been expended, and her jazer banks were drained to 10 percent of nominal energy reserves. “Keep firing! No sense saving anything for a rainy day.”

The surviving weapons platforms and cruisers bombarded the warglobes as they closed in on the Goliath. Two of them appeared sluggish and damaged, but the other nine remained just as deadly. The warglobes could easily pursue them all the way to Earth, but Tasia hoped the deep-core aliens would break off as soon as the EDF fleet retreated.

Tasia didn’t think Admiral Stromo knew who had contacted him and issued the unauthorized but sensible order to withdraw, but the Juggernaut’s engines fired up, using their remaining propulsion power to withdraw from Jupiter and into space.

“We have rounded up most of the lifepods, Platcom,” said her tactical subcommander, scanning screens to see how many of the Remoras had returned.

“Then prepare to get us out of here,” Tasia said. She turned, her brows furrowed with concern. “Has Lieutenant Brindle reported back in?”