“No, sir,” said the subcommander. Tasia ran to the comm station herself, opening up a direct ship-to-ship channel. “Brindle, where the hell are you?”

“Coming!” His voice sounded cheerful but with a ragged edge. “I had some business to take care of first.”

Below them in the clouds, two hydrogue warglobes broke away to continue their systematic attack on the remaining cloud-harvesters, destroying even the debris.

“All right, dammit. You’ve made your point,” Tasia growled at the aliens.

The Goliath pulled farther away, and the surviving Thunderheads and Mantas clustered around the damaged Juggernaut, collectively retreating from Jupiter. As they fled toward the orbits of the innermost moons, she saw Robb Brindle and his last four Remoras struggling upward from the fringe of atmosphere, heading toward them. With a combined tractor beam, the small ships hauled a large spherical tank, dragging it up and away from the hydrogue cordon.

“What the hell are you doing, Brindle?” she transmitted.

“We salvaged the ekti storage tank from one of the cloud-harvesters!” he said. “Couldn’t just let it go to waste.”

She dispatched other Remoras to assist him, ushering Brindle and his ships into the Thunderhead landing bay. Later, in private, she would upbraid him for his foolishness. A full skymine cargo tank contained only enough stardrive fuel to service the EDF for a week. Not worth risking anyone’s life for.

Disastrously beaten, the Earth Defense Forces fell back from Jupiter. As they pulled out to the orbit of the innermost moons, still accelerating toward open space, the damaged ships maintained watch on the huge planet. The rusty clouds now looked bloodstained.

The numerous warglobes hovered among the sky wreckage, still threatening. Stromo ordered all possible speed, and Tasia stared at the alien warships, still visible in the Thunder-head’s long-range scans. The aliens waited, watched, but did not pursue them into interplanetary space.

When they limped back to Earth, Admiral Stromo and the survivors of his escort fleet would have no joyous homecoming. The hydrogues had proved far more devastating than even the most drastic predictions.

The Jupiter debacle had crushed all hope for a swift and gratifying resolution to this war.

112: KING PETER

112KING PETER

On the day of his coronation, Raymond found all the colors too bright, the sounds too sharp. Yet his feelings—from elation to rebelliousness—were dulled and distant.

He realized that Basil Wenceslas must have drugged him.

The puppet Prince felt oddly cooperative as teams of experts dressed him, wrapped his shoulders in flowing velvet robes, draped medallions on heavy chains around his neck. Every garment was trimmed with golden lace, studded with luminous flatgems. His blond hair was carefully styled, his skin made up to cover the slightest blemish or freckle. From the outset of his reign, King Peter must appear perfect.