Clouds of smoke and chaff obscured most of the UMC ships (in visible light, at least; they showed up fine in infrared). Sparks flashed within the clouds as the UMC’s point-defense lasers took out incoming missiles. Unlike their spaceships, the Jellies’ missiles weren’t substantially faster or more agile than the UMC’s, which meant the Seventh was able to destroy or disable most of them.

Most, but not all, and as the lasers overheated, more and more missiles slipped past.

The shooting hadn’t been going on for long, but three of the UMC cruisers were already out of commission: one destroyed, two incapacitated and drifting helplessly. A cluster of Jellies were attempting to board the pair, but Admiral Klein’s forces were working to keep the aliens tied up, away from the crippled vessels.

As for the Jellies, hard numbers were difficult to find, but it looked to Kira as if the UMC had destroyed at least four of them and damaged quite a few more. Not enough to put a serious dent in the Jelly fleet, but enough to slow the first wave.

Even as Kira watched, projectiles slammed into two of the UMC ships, both in the engine area. Their rockets sputtered and died, and the cruisers tumbled away, powerless.

Near the leading edge of the Seventh Fleet, a Jelly jinked at speeds and angles that would have flattened any human. A half dozen of the Seventh’s capital ships fired their main lasers at the vessel, impaling it with crimson threads. The lights on the Jelly ship went out, and it tumbled end over end, spraying boiling water in an ever-expanding spiral.

“Oh yeah,” Kira murmured.

She dug her nails into her palms as a pair of Jellies darted toward a hulking battleship that had somehow ended up alone by the moon r2. Lasers flickered between the battleship and the Jellies, and both sides fired several missiles.

Without warning, a white-hot spike shot out from one of the battleship’s missiles, snapping across almost nine thousand klicks in the course of a second. The spike obliterated the incoming missiles and vaporized half of the nearest alien ship, like a blowtorch blasting through styrofoam.

The damaged Jelly ship spun like a top as it vented atmosphere, and then it vanished in an explosion of its own, the annihilating antimatter creating an artificial sun that quickly dissipated.

The remaining Jelly corkscrewed away from the battleship. A second spike erupted from one of the two remaining UMC missiles—a white-hot lance of superheated plasma. It missed, but the third spike from the last missile didn’t.

A nuclear fireball replaced the alien ship in the holo-display.

“You see that?” Kira said.

Hwa-jung grunted. “Casaba-Howitzers.”

“Anything from Gregorovich?” Kira asked, looking over at Vishal and Hwa-jung.

They both shook their heads, and the doctor said, “No change, I am afraid. His vitals are the same as yesterday.”

Kira wasn’t surprised—if Gregorovich had recovered, he would have been making constant comments—but she was disappointed. Again, she hoped she hadn’t made things worse by using the Soft Blade … using the Seed to touch his mind.