The Rusely was climbing as fast as it could, which was quite fast by any rational measure, but not quite fast enough. You might think that getting off of Hive Prime, with its relatively low mass, would be easy, but it is a tiny world, less than half the size of Earth; escape velocity there was but 85 percent of Terra’s, and significantly higher than Archavia’s. Now, a ship with even partial power, making a slow, gentle climb, can still handle Hive Prime with no problem. But the Rusely didn’t have time for a slow and gentle climb. And while the Acolytes were game, they were defending one soft target that was moving fast – but not quite fast enough.

“26, turn zero-zero-two-mark-zero-nine-zero and fire at will!” Ahek Uɉa shouted, guiding the Nine around the intense fire from the Twelve. “The Rusely doesn’t have shielding, you have to suppress ground fire for at least three more minutes.”

“Chen-chang, I know!” I Young-ja muttered.

“You’re on vox, Ms. I,” Ahek said, dryly.

“I know that too, ma’am! Saga, keep firing!”

The 26 loosed another barrage. “We’re going to overload the injectors,” Sapienti said. “We’re right on the red line. Fredo, can you help?”

“I’m trying to reroute coolant,” Lt. Sapienti said.

“Do what you have to….”

I Young-ja trailed off as she saw the first blip on her scope. She brought up a heads-up display, and turned to look.

“Ah, Shi-bal….” She swallowed hard, and opened a general channel. “All Acolytes, we have massive incoming. Two-seven-four-mark-one-seven-zero. It’s hundreds…no…thousands….”

It was still an understatement. It had breached the horizon, a massive clot of Insectoid fighters, flying in sync as only insectoids can manage. It looked less like a group of fighters and more like a vine growing from the ground, probing toward the Rusely and the four Acolytes.

That was bad enough, until she heard Jerome Nallapati say, “And another, zero-zero-eight-mark-zero-one-zero.”

* * *

Hercule careered from side to side as he tried to navigate the ventilation shaft. It wasn’t easy; the narrow corridor wasn’t meant to serve as a walkway, and Nasti Jokhanan was not holding the Rusely steady.

He finally made it to the egress, only to have to force himself that one extra leap. He could be forgiven; it takes a while for even the bravest human to jump into the hand of a Titan without hesitation.

“Do we have anything that I could use to push it?” he said, as he steadied himself in Glyta’s palm.

“Even if you did, you’d end up burned,” Vif said. “If the central manifold is in place, the safeties are disengaged. They didn’t…I mean….”

“They weren’t counting on human mechanics, oui, I know. I can survive being burned.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Vif said. “That’s a seventy-million-vathmos plasma. Yeah, once you engage the chip, the mags should engage, and it will create a vacuum as the plasma propagates, but….”

“But it would still have a brief moment where it could flash-heat the air,” Glyta said.

“Right,” Vif said. “Usually, if you’ve disabled safeties and are messing around with it – not saying I’ve done it, but yeah, I’ve done it – well, it’s a level-three burn and you’ve got that hand in a lattice-gel glove as quick as you can, and it’s fine in a couple days. But I’ve got a lot more meat to cook.”

“So you do,” Hercule said. “Can we disassemble this without shutting the system down? Try to engage it…well….”

“Maybe Sibel can lend me her hand,” Vif said. “All right, let me grab a spanner.”

* * *

Ahek shook her head. “There’s a third one. Splitting the difference. ETA?”

“Not sure why they aren’t already on top of us,” Jerome said.

“They’re ballistic!” Lauren Wilson called. “These are air defense fighters.”

“Air defense?” Ahek said. “You mean, like…jets?”

“Scramjets, based on their speed,” Wilson said. “It makes sense, this is their homeworld. They’re defensive weapons. They’re moving slow, around Mach 10, but they’ve got overwhelming numbers.”

“Are they drones?” I Young-ja asked. “We could maybe mess with them if they are.”

“No way to know,” Wilson said. “Not from this range. ETA eight minutes.”

Ahek sighed. “Almost a fair fight,” she chuckled, in spite of herself. “Rusely, this is CAAG. We have a massive number of inbound ballistic fighters. ETA eight minutes. Can you get out of the atmosphere by then?”

“I’m not optimistic,” Vidol said, as the ship shuddered. “Grav assist is shaky, and our plasma thrusters are partially offline. We can’t fix without shutting them down, which isn’t much of an option. Nasti, ETA to orbit on current vector?”

“On current vector we can’t hit escape velocity, ma’am,” Johkanan said. “We may need to put down.”

“Not an option,” Ahek said. “You put down you will not lift again. We can buy you some time, but this is too many for us to knock out, it’s like trying to shoot down a tsunami.”

“That word didn’t translate, but it doesn’t have to,” Vidol replied. “Break off, Acolytes, you’ve done the best you can.”

“Haven’t even started, ma’am,” Uɉa said. “We’ll try to hold them off for as long as we can, you try to figure out some way to climb high enough to jump to warp.”

“Gorram it!” Johkanan said. “Vif, what’s going on down there?”

“I’m kinda busy!” Stauseo barked. “We need to get this access cover off, then we’ll need you to power down for a bit….”

“We can’t power down,” Vidol said.

“Well, we’ll have to do something! Relay’s damaged, it’s gonna take 45 minutes to fix doing things really stupid and dangerous-like.”

“We don’t have 45 minutes gorram it!” Nasti Johkanan barked. “We need to be clear in five, tops.”

“There’s no way to do it,” Vif said.

“But monsieur…of course there is,” Hercule replied.

* * *

“All right, hold for my signal,” Ahek called to the Acolytes.

“Ma’am, are you sure….”

“Ms. I, we need someone with the Rusely to the very end,” Ahek said. “2-26, stay on its three. Twelve, 2-24, stand by to break on my mark…mark!”

Three of the four Acolytes abruptly broke from the wings of the Rusely, each attacking one of the three clots of aircraft that were closing on their position.

“Sachi, give me everything we’ve got,” Uɉa shouted. “Aram, weapons hold until we’re within ten clicks.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the two said. Aram swallowed hard, as he looked straight down the barrel of thousands of Insectoid fighters, and….”

“Inbound missiles, ma’am,” Aram said. “Count…approximately six hundred.”

“Nuclear?”

“Negative, looks conventional.”

“They’re a distraction,” Sachi said. “They’ll keep us from focusing on the ships. “They force us to destroy the missiles, it keeps us from attacking the fighters.”

“Smart buggers,” Ahek said, willing the nine into a dive. “Are the missiles tracking?”

“Negative…they remain inbound on the Rusely. They are closing…ETA to intercept is four minutes.”

“Twelve, 2-24, you seeing missiles?”

“Yes ma’am,” Jerome Nallapati called. “Appear locked on the Rusely.”

“Can confirm,” Lauren Wilson added.

“All right, I guess they’ve distracted us. Light up the missiles in the lead.”

Aram had no problem locating, tracking, and destroying about two dozen missiles. A few dozen more exploded as they intercepted the wall of flame.

* * *

Hercule stared back down the ventilation duct. “I will let you know when I am making my attempt,” he said, not looking back. “If it does not succeed….”

“Then we’ll follow you soon enough,” Stauseo said. “But you’ll do it.”

“When you get back to Titan,” Hercule said, “tell…tell my family that….”

He trailed off. He didn’t know what his last words to his family should be. They should be important and wise and just a touch poignant…and yet he just wanted to say that he hoped his mother and father would know they loved him, that he hoped his younger brother would finally settle down with Noëlle – she was a good girl, a smart girl, as good as any man could want, and Hubert could look all his life and not do better. Settle down and have a family, and have a long and happy life.

“We will tell them that you were a hero,” Glyta said.

Hercule nodded. “It is enough,” he said. He sighed. He was not ready, but he had waited long enough.

“Wait,” Glyta said.

He finally looked over his shoulder. Glyta grasped her hair, and from the back, pulled one strand loose. She handed one end to Hercule, who grasped it with obvious confusion.

“Tie it around your waist. When you…when you make your attempt…I can’t promise, but….”

For a moment, Hercule considered asking what sense this could possibly make. The odds were good the hair would go up in flame along with the rest of him, and even if it somehow did not, the odds were high that she would pull back nothing but his corpse. It was foolish and pointless, and yet….

…she could do nothing more. But she wanted to do what she could. Even if it was pointless, even if it was foolish…she wanted him to know, as he died, that she was at his side, ready to work with him, to help him, and possibly to die with him…like she would any Titan soldier.

He looped it through his armor, and tied it tight. “Qui vivra verra, mademoiselle,” Hercule said. “And if I do not live, well…then I shall see you in whatever world we awake in.”

“Emperor be with you,” Glyta said. She paused, and leaned in, and gave Hercule just one kiss, for luck.

He was staggered by it, momentarily; not from the concussion, which was significant, but from the sheer overpowering sensation of it, the soft lips of a pretty girl against his whole self…he could not have imagined.

He grinned, in spite of everything. “If that is my last kiss…it is one to leave on,” he said. “Bonne chance.”

“And good luck to you,” Glyta said.

* * *

“That’s the last of ’em,” Nallapati called. “But they’ve eaten up a lot of time.”

“Take a high angle,” Ahek called. “We need to knock out the lead fighters, keep them from getting into plasma canon range.”

“On it, Nine,” Lauren Wilson barked. “H.P., fire at will. Feminha, keep us right at the red line.”

“There are too fucking many,” Jerome Nallapati said. “Odsa, don’t even bother with targeting. You shoot, you’ll hit things.”

“That’s the problem,” Odtsetseg said. And she wasn’t wrong. In just one pass she’d knocked out about ten Insectoid fighters, and their debris had knocked out a dozen more. But there were still hundreds of fighters getting through. The Insectoids didn’t care if they lost almost all these fighters – not if one managed to get through. And one would get through.

“It’s a god damn swarm,” Lauren Wilson said.

“They aren’t even deviating from their course,” Nallapati added. “They’re just pushing on toward firing range. Not even sending a fighter to go after us.”

Ahek could do the math. When they’d been overwhelmed on Tau Ceti, they’d had no choice but to fight – two million people were relying on them to give every drop of blood.

There were not two million people relying on them now. They could keep shooting, but they could not keep the Insectoids from firing on the Rusely. All they could do is annoy them a bit.

“Break off attack,” Ahek said. “Rusely, this is Nine, we’re coming back to your side. There’s no way we can stop them from getting a shot, there are just to gorram many for four Acolytes to take out. Maybe we can create a gravitic wave if they loose plasma.”

Mpola could do the math quite as well as Ahek. “You’ve done all you can, Acolytes. Jump away and get to safety.”

“We’re not leaving you,” Ahek said. “Not unless we have no choice. Are you going to be able to get out of the gravity well?”

“Mr. Desrochers is working on it,” Vidol said. “But it…he…the fix is going to be very dangerous.”

Uɉa didn’t want to lose anyone else under her command. But it was just numbers now – simple arithmetic. One is less than eight.

“Tell Mr. Desrochers…tell him good luck,” Ahek said. “And let us not waste this.”

As for Mr. Desrochers, he was forcing himself to keep moving toward his death. Step by step, meter by meter, he continued toward his goal, trying not to focus on the fact that these would be his last steps.

He wondered, would he be remembered? Probably. If they made it safely back to the Empire, almost certainly – they’d praise his heroics. He might be enshrined in the Palais de la Légion d’honneur, might even be inducted into the European Circle of Honour.

Or maybe he would just get a posthumous valor award and his name would fade quickly from the world. He was surprised to realize that he didn’t much care either way.

What would matter was that the people on the Rusely would be alive, and they would carry on the rest of their lives because of him. They were still strangers, even Glyta, whose hair still wound around his waist. But that was no matter. They were his comrades, and he theirs. And his comrades needed the chance to make it home. He could give it to him.

He reached the magnetic guides, and the unseated chip. It just needed to be slid into place. He walked up to it, closed his eyes, and pushed.

It didn’t move.

He opened his eyes again. It was still slightly cockeyed. He looked carefully, and could see the problem – it needed to be pushed up while he pushed it in.

Easy enough to do if you were a Titan, but he struggled to get enough force on the chip to move it into place. It was awkward, and almost impossible to get enough torque on the chip to get it to snap in.

They didn’t have time for him to go back out and ask for help. He had to sort it out.

He looked around, and spied a loose bolt. He braced it between the ground and the chip, pushing it slightly higher. He put his shoulder into the chip, but it still resisted his attempts to push it forward.

Distantly, he heard the crackling over his gool, of them saying the bugs were a minute out.

He backed up to the wall, building up as much space as he could. He set himself, and ran toward the chip, and leaped for it, with all his might.

He felt a click, and ricocheted backward, tumbling as he heard the whine of the relays coming back online.

And then there was fire, a heat like none he’d ever known, and then there was darkness.

And the Rusely‘s engines came fully to life.