The whole fleet leaped forward. Within seconds the Cacks had second thoughts and began to turn around. Our heavy battle cruisers nearly caught up with them and our FACs actually passed them up and lay down a stream of anti-matter in their path. It is an amazing thing to see a ship, traveling—relatively—faster than the speed of light, leaving a trail of fire as the front end of their ship sparks and burns away. A number of their ships were heavily damaged as they fled back towards their last transit station. Of course their ships bottle-necked there, allowing us to board and seize many of them.

Our crews rejoiced to have finally gotten revenge on the twice-turned traitors. I must emphasize at this point, however, that I had no knowledge or part in the war crimes that followed. As we secured those ships trapped on our side of the transit station, the crews spaced every last Cack on-board. The crawdads, they allowed to live, though I'm not sure if they had figured out how to force such large creatures out of the airlocks.

I am told, particularly by those Cack apologists with a political axe to grind in the court of public opinion, that a Cack without a pressure suit can live in vacuum considerably longer than a Solarian, though it is certainly no more pleasant.

"We need to find out who was responsible and hold them accountable," I demanded in the after-action conference between the FCs.

"I don't think that's even possible." Smith shook his head. "Do you have any idea how many are involved? From what I hear it was pretty much a unanimous decision. Are you going to gut the crews from your ships?"

"There must have been leaders."

"Maybe. Maybe not. These things are frequently spontaneous," Abrams said. "They've had to swallow a lot of injustice from the Cacks and they still haven't forgotten what happened to the survivors at Many Ports Three. Holding court-martials and punishing their leaders will only turn your crews against you."

"But failure to do so can lead to the total loss of discipline. We don't want to become some sort of space faring mob, or worse, pirates."

Smith thought about this a moment, then nodded. "Agreed. Some sort of action will have to be taken, but it will have to be collective action. We can't turn the more unruly elements into martyrs, even in the metaphorical sense."

In the end, they all got a stern talking to and extra duties. There wasn't much else we could do and the additional duties were necessary anyway. The extra sense of guilt however motivated them to speed the needed ship repairs and even get the particle emission weapon conversions done in half the anticipated time. The engineers assured me that there was still a lot of work required to make them safe, but he said there was a good chance they'd destroy the enemy before they destroyed themselves, or us.

* * *

For three days, we traveled through Cack systems scattering locals before us. One system we passed through was defended like a fortress so that we couldn't approach their home world. All the transit stations along the way had massive defensive weapons systems which probably could have destroyed every one of our ships as we transited. Yet, strangely, all the battle stations had been hurriedly emptied and abandoned.

We traveled with only a vague idea of where we were going. We had captured several traders along the way and assembled a somewhat complete map of the major systems between us and Solarian space, but the web of connected systems around us remained a mystery.

On the fourth day after our encounter with God's Gift, Bright Fortune himself appeared with a large force. We were halfway through a particular system with a number of transit stations. The H-drives had already exceeded their normal allowed run-time and needed to be taken off-line for servicing. A merchant trader helping us, told us the next system out had only two gates, which would make it more easily defended, so we had planned on pushing on.

"Great Maker!" Maxwell shouted on the command channel. "Look at those ships!"

Swarms of ships poured in from all the surrounding gates.

"That's not just God's Gift's ships," I said. "I'm seeing a lot of Most Noble's transponder codes among them."

"Those rotten traitors," Abrams muttered.

"I'm also seeing the Ruler's brother-in-law, Overbearing's ships mixed in there with Bright Fortune's," I added. "They're really holding nothing back."

"Let's form up," Smith said. "Lens formation. I'll take the center. Abrams, Phon, Maxwell, Dexter, you'll take the zero, ninty, one-eighty and two-seventy degree positions respectively."

The Cacks had apparently learned something for their exposure to us Solarians because they didn't attack in a disorganized wave but formed up instead, blocking our exit. Even after they got into formation, they advanced to a point just outside missile range and stopped. We waited and stared at the massive force before us. I half-hoped they would negotiate.

They launched their FACs and we responded in kind. Their FACs, having gotten the worst of the last exchange, fired their missiles and turned and ran as our fast attack craft came in range. Our FACs gave chase. "OK, Chris. Turn around now," I said to myself as I watched his wing on the gravimetric monitor with growing tension. The wing had followed the Cack ships back towards their main fleet and was now well inside their missile range. Several times I started to reach for the communications icon to flash messaged Chris, stopping only after remembering we had no EPR connection. Our ships should be firing their missiles and turning around, I thought. Instead they continued on a suicidal plunge into the overwhelming enemy force.

I held my breath and watched Chris' wing move through the enemy formation. I called up the optical sensors and zoomed in, knowing the light from the attack would take a couple of minutes to reach us before I could actually see what was happening. On the gravimetrics, Chris's wing passed through the enemy formation which scattered behind him like leaves in his draft. Only then did his wing turn around. I anxiously counted his ships to see if he was bringing them all back.

The Cacks withdrew a ways, but did not leave the system. Chris drew up to our fleet and his ships pulled into their slots as if they had merely gone out on a short errand.

"What was that?" I demanded once I could raise him on the com laser.

"Just making a statement," Chris laughed. "Has the light made it back yet?"

I looked at a composite image of the Cack fleet. Light flashed as streams of anti-matter raked across their ships. They staggered around like drunken sailors trying to bring their weapons to bear on Chris' wing, but he had already raced through, leaving a trail of destruction behind. My monitor gave his average calculated speed as he maneuvered through the Cack fleet at close to ten times the speed of light. They must have only switched off the H-drive only a couple of seconds at a time to fire their weapons before zipping off to the next target.

"Did you navigate entirely on gravimetrics?" I asked.

"You know what they say. If you can see the target, you're going too slow."

"You are insane! How did you not lose any of your ships?"

"You have to admit it was effective, though."

"I think Smith will have an aneurism when he sees this. Promise me you'll never do this again."

Chris' expression turned abruptly serious. "Promise me it won't be necessary again."

* * *

We kept Chris' wing close at hand as we transited, but it proved unnecessary. I'm certain the Cacks were surprised by the strength and aggression of Chris' retaliation. Whatever the reason, Bright Fortune followed us at a distance for the rest of the day, watching but not attacking us as we traveled to the next gate and transited.

The Cacks must have thought that they were going to hold us in the last system, for the system we stopped in had not been gutted. Here we found a treasure trove of supplies so we spent the entire day raiding ships, space stations and orbital fabrication plants. Fully stocked and repaired as we were likely to get, we traveled unmolested for four days.

"Finally, a bit of luck," Abrams said during our daily commander's conference in v-space. He, Solomon, Dexter and Maxwell looked haggard. Smith looked even worse. I had begun to worry about him and his tired glazed expression didn't reassure me. We were discussing the intelligence gathered from the local traders about the systems we were traveling through. "The rest of the systems from here to Solarian space are filled with nebulae. The extra mass should slow everyone down and largely negate the Cack advantage with their fast attack craft. Without their speed, our heavier battle cruisers will have a definite advantage."

I looked at the maps we'd been able to piece together. "Except that the nebulae will also restrict our movement. Many of these systems have narrow winding channels of free space through which we'll have to funnel the fleet. The Cacks know these areas better than we do. They used their transit system to outflank us thinking they could catch us in the last system. There may be similar areas where they can trap us."

Smith, who had sat through most of the meeting with a distracted look, slowly frowned at me. "So what are you proposing?"

"I wish I had an easy answer. We will have to remain on the alert and flexible. Until now our formations have been designed to defend against large coordinated attacks. Now we will probably face smaller attacks which may come from multiple directions. At the very least we need to prepare to divide the fleet into smaller tactical units capable of independent action."

"But we can't let the fleet be broken up," Abrams insisted. "Any ships caught on their own will be destroyed."

"Agreed," I said. "We will need to develop combat doctrines allowing these tactical units to support each other even without the EPR transceivers. The key, I believe, is to use these tactical units to reconfigure the fleet to adapt to the surrounding circumstances."

In the end, the other fleet commanders agreed to split up their command and control centers as Phil had. The wing commanders, who always felt as if they were stuck with the responsibility of managing the bureaucratic issues of the wing with little input into strategic issues, were tasked with working with the fleet strategic officers on anticipating potential threats and coming up with responses. A bunch of war game simulations were planned, but I feared we would have little time to run them.

We reached the first nebula by the end of the day when we transited to the outer edge of the next system. The nebula's edge had all but engulfed the star system, leaving a narrow cleft of clear space as our only approach. As we flew towards it, the walls of the cleft seemed to close in around us. Nearing the narrowest portion of the gap, about a hundred fast attack ships came out of the nebula and blocked the way ahead.

The alarms jerked me awake in the crash pod where I had taken to sleeping of late. The only time I saw the inside of my own quarters was to go to the restroom or take a shower. Considering how the inside of my pressure suit smelled, there wasn't much point in bathing regularly.

I looked up at my monitors just in time to see another four hundred ships racing towards us from out of the nebula. I slammed us to FAS-Gamma giving the fleet a whole three second warning before the energy beams hit.

The point defenses responded, launching missiles and particle emission weapons of our own but the attackers wheeled away out of range before we could get a piece of them. I considered launching fighter drones, but then suggested to the other FCs that we press on under reaction drives. They agreed and soon the acceleration alarms added their chorus to the alert chimes and the anti-matter engines which throbbed with the effort of shoving our mass forward. Starting from a resting state, even three G acceleration seems painfully slow to build up speed. As we came within range of the FACs blocking our passage, they turned and disappeared into the nebula. We continued forward, having only now built up a significant velocity. As we passed into the narrows, a hundred heavy battle cruisers moved to bar the way while hundreds more FACs leaped at us from the sides. They raced across the narrow gap between us and the nebula in seconds, fired their missiles and turned back before we could return fire. Then I understood the nature of the trap. The FACs had been the bait. The heavy cruisers were to block us in while the FACs finished us off. Perceiving the gauntlet we were about to run, I gave the order for all fleets to veer to the left, into the nebula.

The nebula looked like fog, but at our velocity it was like flying into a sand storm. The ship vibrated even more than they had with the engines and a new sound, almost like a shriek, came from the hull all around us.

An urgent ping came from the Chief Master Engineer Droemer. I answered.

"What are you trying to do? Destroy the fleet before the Cacks get the chance?"

"Would you rather that mass we are plowing through be anti- matter missiles?"

"A few more minutes at this speed and it won't make much difference!"

Fortunately, having not used the H-drive, we still had EPR connections with the fleet. I messaged the other FCs and suggested we begin deceleration. The enemy not currently being visible, they agreed.

"We came within a hair's breadth of falling into that trap," I said in conference afterward.

"We're not out of it yet," Smith growled.