“We can eliminate maybe another two hundred of the drone ships, a little more if we get lucky, a little less if we don’t,” Gracen said. “That’s not enough to save Earth. It’s just barely enough to cut ourselves an escape route in their net, which is the only reason we’re still here picking up refugees from Earth.”

“There must be a way,” Eric objected. “What about the drives, Captain Sun . . .”

“The enemy learned from past mistakes,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re spread far enough out that you’d not get more than a few dozen, maybe a couple hundred at best that way, and you’d blow your ship’s drives to do it. Not an option.”

Eric slumped as much as his armor would allow, shaking his head. “There’s got to be a way to do this.”

“If you can think of it, you’re welcome to make a suggestion,” Gracen said, standing up, “Now, if you’re no longer looking to enact an offense that could be court martialed, you should get changed and cleaned up.”

“Pardon?” Eric looked puzzled.

“Captain, we’re about to need every experienced hand we’ve got. Have someone assign you quarters, get cleaned up and changed, and report for duty,” she ordered. “You’ve fifteen minutes.”

“Admiral, with all due respect, I have a mission and it’s down, well, on Earth,” he told her, gritting his teeth.

“I’ll have those orders changed. I can do that. I’m an admiral,” she told him. “Now get out of my office and do as I told you.”

Eric glared, just bordering on insubordination, but finally just nodded.

“Aye aye, ma’am.” He ground out, pivoting on his heel, then marched through the door.

Shuttles were moving back and forth from Earth to the Heroics as quickly as they could, which, considering they were Priminae shuttles, was pretty damned quick. Men, women, children, and some supplies were being ferried up under intense secrecy, most of the passengers themselves not even knowing what was going on, while those in the know tried to work out just how many people they could get away with transferring before the squadron had to run.

“We have an untested waveguide array in New Mexico,” President Conner offered up. “It was built to take out the original fleet, but we should be able to put a hole in this one.”

“I’m not sure I’d recommend that.” Gracen shook her head. “I’m familiar with the technology, and firing from a gravity well is tricky enough. But also from an atmosphere?”

“Our people think they can work out the variables,” he said. “You can have some of the people I sent you run the numbers. We can’t fire as far as you might manage, but then, this close to the Earth and the Moon, neither can you.”

She nodded, noting that was the truth.