“Captain!”

Johanson glanced up, her eyes finding the viewer, losing themselves amid stars and the brilliant blue lances that poured from ships to burn ragged lines across chrome hull. In the space of a breath, Hilleboe was at her side, stare flicking between the strings of data milling isometric through her holographic console, absently searching, glancing. There were no words, just a palpable readiness that tensed through flesh and bone, transcended all other meaning, all other thought and emotion. Johanson swallowed reflexively.

“The signals are separating.” She looked up, caught the steady stare of Hilleboe’s eyes. “It looks like they’re withdrawing.”

“Let me know if anything changes.” The Captain spared Johanson a quick, firm nod, put one hand on her shoulder as he turned back to face Leighton. “Hit them with everything we’ve got. Reroute power from other non-critical systems if you have to. I want them dead in the water before they have a chance to escape or do any more damage.” Leighton nodded back, eyes flicking again to her console as Hilleboe swung his gaze back to Johanson. “How long before we’ll be in range of their ship to ship weapons?”

“A few seconds.” The young, sandy-haired lieutenant shook her head. “The offset between our extreme range and theirs is only a few hundred meters, Captain.”

“What can you buy us with that, Abrams?” Hilleboe’s gaze flicked back, caught the young officer’s eyes.

Abrams blinked. “With a slow, steady reverse burn I think I–”

“They’re firing!” Leighton shouted

“Do it.” Hilleboe said quickly. “Even if it only buys us a few seconds, I’ll take them.”

“Sir.” Came the immediate response, the quick, nervous swallow. “Firing thrusters.”

“What’s the status on our fighters?”

Johanson glanced back, met the Captain’s eyes. “Only four rigs aboard, sir. Other squadrons are breaking off to clear the splash zone for ship to ship weaponry.”

“Order them to move into a holding pattern that puts them behind us and out of all line of fire until things cool down.” Hilleboe glanced at Binford, gave him a level glance. “Those people have been through enough. The last thing they need is to get caught in the crossfire this close to home.”

Binford nodded, traced a line across the comm implant in his cheek, went to work immediately. Hilleboe turned back to Johanson, pulled in a quick breath. “How about Coralate rigs? Any sign yet that they’re putting fighters in the air?”

“No sir.” She shook her head, tapped through a sequence of isometric data in a quick recheck of the telemetry. “If they’re carrying rigs, they aren’t launching them.”

“Just as well.” The Captain shot back absently. “Any idea yet what they were doing to the Hok?”

“None sir.” Johanson shook her head again, glanced back to meet his eyes. “From the data I managed to get, it almost looks as if they were trying to... consume it.” She turned back to the console, shifted data, pulled at relevant strings. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, and there’s nothing in the database about the Coralate doing anything even close to it.” She shrugged, glanced back again. “Your guess is as good as mine, sir.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out once the salvage and recovery operation starts.” He looked up, caught the edge of a wide beam of blue energy as it cleaved over the viewscreen and into unseen hull, tracing a line along the body of the Von and back toward the tail. Swallowing reflexively, he glanced back down at Johanson. “How are we holding up?”

“We’re at eighty-nine percent hull integrity.” She shot back just as quickly. “The Carl Sagan is drawing the majority of their fire.”

“If anyone can take it, Yuuki can.” He glanced back at Leighton. “How are we on weapons?”

“Ship to ship emitters are still at one hundred percent sir.” She grinned back. “It’s all been exterior layer hull damage at this point.”

“Good.” He nodded. “Push the systems as hard as you can. We want to make this as much of a smash and grab as we can, Lieutenant.”

“Roger that, sir!”

“Sir, I’m picking up gravity displacement waves about two point eight kilometers out.” Johanson looked back, caught the Captain’s eyes. “It’s the Feynman and the Ducornet!”

“Just in time.” Hilleboe took a step back, eyes going back to the viewscreen. “Binford– open a channel.”

“Channel open, sir.”

“I was wondering when you two were going to show up.” The edges of a smile played across Hilleboe’s firm lips as he stared into the stars, the lancing beams of blue light that crossed in the heavens, burnt deep trenches across chrome and beige hull alike. “Welcome to the battle, gentlemen.”

“Thank you, Captain Hilleboe.” Came the sharply accented, slithering response– Captain Kongar-ool of the Feynman, third Daedalus class support ship to come into service with the TCGND. Hilleboe smiled reflexively. “I assure you that the pleasure of this rendezvous is entirely our own.”

“It’s always nice to have the numbers on our side.” Hilleboe nodded. “How long until you’re ready to bring the new cannons online?”

“Surely you jest, Captain.” Came Kongar-ool’s serpent-quick response. “Both Captain Labov and I are ready now.” A pause, a gesture from Hilleboe. The viewer responded in turn, darted back to focus on the swirling distortions of reality that wreathed the azure hulls of the Feynman and the Ducornet, the separation of thick layers of armor as massive sections of the two ships peeled away, each ship’s length splitting, rising into a pair of improbable cross section strips, yawning five hundred meter wide emitter ports already glowing with an ominous azure light as they came to bear. The edge of a chuckle from Captain Kongar-ool echoed in the channel, distorted and broken in the hail of static thrown off as the power-up cycles on the massive cannons kicked into gear.

“Merkabah Wave Cannons! FIRE!”