"Katana here, Admiral. We lost our forward com antenna array and have some minor damage to our hangar bay doors."

"Cutlass has no damage, no injuries, sir."

"Okay kill the beacons and let 'em run," Jackson said. "We still need to get the hell out of here without running into Kohl's picket line or that new fleet that showed up."

The maneuver had been a simple one, but it played to their strengths and Kohl's weaknesses. Namely, the stealth capability of the Super Valkyries combined with Kohl's temper and ego made it possible to get the drop on him. The three black ships had moved within close range over the span of nine hours, and then, as the Nemesis blinded them, hit her with a close-range kinetic strike from the mag-cannons.

He lucked out, and his remaining ships suffered very minor damage and no loss of life, but it could have easily gone the other way. By the end of the frenzy the Implacable's gun crews had been getting their bearing, and the powerful lasers at that range would have made a direct hit devastating.

On the main display, the image of the battlecruiser breaking apart and still burning did little to warm his heart or dull the pain he felt from the losses he'd taken on this mission. It certainly didn't help him forget that four planets had just been depopulated by these ruthless, psychotic, power-hungry individuals who were willing to slaughter billions to gain control over the rest. For some reason, their actions enraged him more than did the Phage, an alien that had wanted to exterminate them simply for the sin of existing at all.

Still so much work to do, and now, they had so few tools left to do it with. The loss of New Sierra was a crippling blow. He just hoped Accari had managed to get the Mickeys stashed someplace safe.

38

"The incompetent buffoon has lost yet another brand new, irreplaceable mainline warship," Makov said, sipping his drink as he watched the sensor feed of four Federation destroyers ripping the Implacable to ribbons.

"So it would seem, sir," Ella Ersk said, watching the battlecruiser burn as secondary explosions bulged her hull out in places.

"At least he had the decency to be aboard this one when Wolfe destroyed it," Makov said. "We'll absorb the remainder of his force into ours, and then handle Xinjia. The carrier is moving down towards the planet?"

"As we speak," Ersk confirmed. "Escorted by ten cruisers to deal with the scraps of the Homeguard fleet."

"Wolfe," Makov chuckled. "Wasted so much to accomplish so little. Kohl was always inconsequential, a distraction the Federation latched onto and chased like a dog on a scent. Now, we'll move in, take the planet, anyway, and he'll have accomplished nothing but losing two of their super ships defending a planet full of people that want to kill him."

"This is all in fitting with his nature," Ersk said. "The analysts say he's a wild card, but I've found him to be imminently predictable."