Filareta was only a distraction, as far as she was concerned. The entire Solarian League was only a distraction, when it came down to it, and one she wanted disposed of as promptly as possible. Molly DeLaney might not like Manticorans, and she might have a few qualms about finding herself allied to them, but those were secondary considerations whenever she remembered the nightmare slaughter of the Battle of Manticore. She didn’t really blame the Manties for the carnage. She might not like them, but she did respect them, and they’d only been doing exactly what she would have done if someone had attacked her home star system. Besides, she knew now that the Star Empire had been manipulated just as skillfully as the Republic by someone who intended to see both of them destroyed. And because she knew that, she wanted the people who’d sabotaged the Torch summit talks and sent Second Fleet into that holocaust. She wanted them with a pure and blazing passion, and she was willing to fight beside anyone who might help her get to them.

“On the clock, Frazier,” Tourville said, looking away from DeLaney. “On the clock.”

* * *

Eleventh Fleet crossed the hyper limit, charging towards Sphinx with a closing velocity of just over five thousand kilometers per second. There was no actual physical sensation involved, yet in the instant the flagship’s icon crossed the perimeter of the amber sphere indicating Manticore-A’s hyper limit, something like a deep, silent sigh went through SLNS Philip Oppenheimer’s flag bridge.

Fleet Admiral Filareta stood silently, expression controlled but with grim eyes locked to the plot. Tango Two was still just sitting there, not even trying to evade him, and anticipation pulsed somewhere deep inside him, hot and eager. He felt the same emotion coming back at him from the staff assembled about him, yet he felt something else, as well. A sense that there was no turning back. Win or lose, they were committed, and despite all of their simulations with the new missiles, despite their huge margin of superiority over Tango Two, the reports of what had happened to Sandra Crandall echoed and reechoed in the depths of their minds.

Hell, they’d be more than human if they weren’t worried! he thought coldly. But whatever happens to us, Tango Two is screwed. There’s no way in this universe that forty superdreadnoughts can match the defensive firepower of four hundred and thirty of them!

A minute passed. Two minutes. Three.