Chapter 1

Luminata System, the Colandran Empire

Adana Korina compared the system on her scan and with the reports on her console. This system was supposed to be a hub of Imperial commerce. She started counting gravitational drive sources in the inner system, and stopped at 35, most civilian. She nodded. That would be enough to begin.

She had declined to make her flag on a carrier. “I came up in cruisers,” she informed her Captains. “I will command from a cruiser.” Her look at the light carrier Captain who had objected ended any further discussion on that point. Now Adana Korina eased her still complaining body into the chair at the flag command station on the cruiser Weizman.

Her physical injuries were healed, or so the doctors told her. Her lean body would recover most of its former strength and flexibility if she performed her exercises and maintained good dietary discipline. She did not ask if anyone could treat the wound in her heart, that gaping hole in her life, or in Della’s life, where Vikki no longer was.

Volyn Carter understood. Volyn gave Adana time to be with Della. Those were dark and terrible hours. Adana could only sit, watch, and hope. Occasionally she would read. When she did, it was something Volyn had given her, the history of war in the last two centuries pre-Space on Old Terra. Somewhere in all that myriad of strategy and tactics, she hoped to find some hint of an answer to the question echoing in her mind. How could the Navy of the United Families most efficiently defeat the kin-killers? She couldn’t imagine doing anything else with the rest of her life. Somehow, this stupid waste of a war had to end. She had to prevent any more Vikkis.

Adana finally found what she wanted in the writings about a commander named Sherman. He understood the nature of her war even across fifteen centuries. His ideas gave her much to consider as she sat in the darkened room holding her sib’s hand, seeking the comfort of that other pulse, however weak, that was still a part of her life.

It had been too many days before Della was finally conscious again, resting healthy but never again whole, recovering in her rooms at the family residence. Only then could Adana begin to act upon the plans she had crafted in her hours of loneliness. She called her friend and Flag Captain, Renae Abakumova. They had walked up and down the white sandy beaches at Adana’s family home, talking through her ideas. The sun, the surf, and the exercise helped her give concrete form to what she had conceived.

Volyn Carter had said nothing when the gaunt woman arrived in her office long before the doctors wanted. She had listened carefully to the anguished sib and even more carefully to the cool, precise strategist. She had suggested a few small modifications to the plan and then given Adana all she could, one squadron of cruisers and two light carriers straight out of refit: Eckern and Mohacs. All of their escorts and the other support vessels Admiral Korina had requested were there, too. More ships would join her; two more cruiser squadrons and a squadron of escorts were on their way. They would rendezvous after the first attack. The rest had to go to Setosha.

There were times when the Eldest of the Navy, and the Commander of the Navy, did not agree on decisions. Admiral Carter believed in Adana Korina, but more importantly than that, she believed in Adana’s plan. Timing was everything, and the Imperial Navy had never been stretched as thin as it was now. Eldest Carter worried that her friend would kill herself attempting to end the abomination that had destroyed Vikki. There was no way to reconcile these. Volyn must decide, and live with the consequences.

It took several meetings to organize the rendezvous schedule Adana wanted for supply, repairs, and rearmament. Another month was consumed with dozens of jumps through the emptiness, avoiding all intervening systems. Now she waited just outside her first target. It was time Adana Korina would begin to make the Empire pay for what they had done to Vikki.

This is not about vengeance, she told herself. This is about creating the prerequisites for peace. When Adana Korina and her ships finished this mission, there would be no more Empire. There would be only pieces, separated by great, empty swathes of space filled with dead ships, shattered depots, and wrecked stations. When she finished, the Empire would never again be able to muster the force to do to others what it had done to Adana, to Della, and, most important of all, to Vikki. All of the Vikkis would be safe.

“Attention all ships…” she said on the command circuit. Her eyes drifted down to a holopic of the three of them. It had been taken a year ago on Landing Day. They were all laughing in their silly little hats. Vikki had a noisemaker in her hand and was wearing that coral pendant Della had found on Blue Water Station. Vikki had been wearing that same pendant the day she had been killed by assassins sent by the Empire.

“All ships--” Admiral Korina repeated in a firmer voice. “You know your targets. I see no reason to change the plan. I want a clean sweep in this system.”

She held in her thoughts that instant when Vikki lay dying in her arms, stunned amazement and life itself fading from her eyes, and blood, impossible volumes of red blood pouring out of her and spreading all over the walkway. Eldest Korina measured that instant and the countless others that had been suffered by the Families. She understood the consequences of her next order. People and ships would die on both sides of this battle. When she had won, the Families would be one step closer to ending this war. That was not revenge whispering in her ear. It was not wishful thinking, it was certainty. After today, nothing would ever be the same.

Admiral Korina looked up at Captain Abakumova and drew a deep breath. “Execute, Captain.”

“Aye, Ma’am,” Renae said immediately. “All ships--Execute Plan Red.”

The Families’ ships crossed that system’s hyperjump limit, decelerating at a steady 200 Gs from their approach velocity. A scout, one of three hanging powered down and stealthy for days outside this system, quickly fell in behind. The scout would record much of what was about to happen.

Eckern and Mohacs initially held their fighters on the rail. There was no need to launch them yet. There was still plenty of time before contact would be possible. Pilots would be finishing their meals while the techs completed their final safety and readiness checks. In 90 minutes, the pilots would enter their fighters. In 120 minutes, they would be cycling out onto the rails of their carriers. Before they launched, Admiral Korina wanted to see what reception awaited her squadrons in this Imperial system.

A watchship challenged them as it tried to flee, broadcasting a warning to other Imperial ships deeper in the system. Kazakov blotted it from the sky with a pair of missiles. After 35 minutes, drive emissions spiked on Adana’s scan as four cruiser-sized vessels broke orbit from the innermost gas giant and accelerated to intercept her ships. Two other possible cruiser squadrons of four ships each joined the first one shortly after they crossed the orbit of the next gas giant, and then one more squadron came from the last gas giant. Eight ships broke orbit from the inhabited planet deep in the inner system and shaped a course that would intersect with the other 16 shortly after those ships intercepted the Families’ ships.

“Not bad,” Admiral Korina said quietly. She lounged idly in her Command Chair, legs crossed, watching the Imperial commander develop his attack. “They won’t catch us before we launch the fighters, but they don’t know that. I imagine the light carriers look just like bigger cruisers. Even if they know what we have, I see no carriers or fighters in their formations. Our fighters will have no distractions during this first encounter.”

“Aye, Ma’am,” Captain Abakumova said. She wasn’t fooled by the Admiral’s relaxed posture. Before this mission, Admiral Carter had visited her privately. In the Families Navy, the Flag Captain was, in many ways, the guardian angel and alter ego of the Squadron Commander. Admiral Carter had wanted Captain Abakumova to understand the pain Admiral Korina suffered.

Captain Abakumova had promised Admiral Carter to support and guard Adana Korina through her struggle. More than a decade of battles had already demanded so much of the Admiral. Adana Korina would not be alone when need was no longer enough to keep her going, and exhaustion finally laid claim to her. Until that moment, Captain Abakumova would do her utmost to help Adana Korina tear a parsecs-wide path of destruction all the way across the Empire.

The enemy cruisers, accelerating at their presumed maximum, began to draw within engagement range. Admiral Korina held her formation close together, carriers, cruisers, and escorts, in one tight wedge. As the Imperial ships drew within their longest missile range, she slipped on her shunt collar. The first Imperial missiles flashed towards her, and she continued to watch the scan without sinking into the shunt. As she had expected, the combination of cats, tight formation, and carefully interlocked point defense arrays defeated all of the missiles in this initial salvo.