Zakota ran velocity equations through his head as he flew the shuttle toward the weapons platform. The giant cube, its hull bristling with rockets pointed at Dethocoles, loomed much larger ahead of them now, but it would still take them five minutes to reach it. And it would only take the warship behind them three minutes to catch up. In less than one minute, it would be within firing range.

The shuttle’s sturdy hull might have been enough against the Heloran inquisitors, but he had no delusions that it could withstand even one blow from a Zi’i warship.

“You doing all right, Katie?” Zakota asked, realizing the odds were against both of them making it. But maybe one of them could.

He thought of Arkyn's sacrifice and grimaced. He didn’t want his life to end the same way, and he was frustrated that his colleague had chosen to buy the combat teams time with his life, but it was their duty to ensure the mission was carried out. Would he have made a different choice?

A part of him loathed Sagitta for giving them this mission, but he couldn’t shirk from it. He’d taken the Star Guardian oath, and he would fight to defend humanity every bit as hard as space fleet officers would.

“Fine so far,” she said, her voice remarkably calm. She had to see that warship bearing down on them too.

“Guess we’re getting that race we talked about.”

“This isn’t exactly how I imagined it.”

“Me neither.” He checked the sensors—less than thirty seconds until the warship came into firing range. No time for banter. “I’m going to fly back and try to make a nuisance of myself. I want you to keep going. Have you located the shaft opening?”

“What do you mean a nuisance?” Katie demanded, speaking at the same time as Orion.

He said, “I’ve located the shaft on the sensors. A forcefield is still covering it.”

“You’ll have to chat with your brother about that,” Zakota said. “He hasn’t sent the code yet.”

“He probably wants to dramatically deliver it in the nick of time,” Orion grumbled.

“Zakota,” Katie said, irritation seeping into her voice. She was clearly not a woman who liked being ignored. “Don’t fly back and do anything stupid.”

“I was envisioning it as heroic.” Zakota reversed thrusters to take his shuttle back toward the warship. He zigzagged its path and flew downward, hoping to make their enemy shift course in order to aim more effectively at him.

“It’s stupid. Get your dumb ass back here.”

“I love you too,” he said dryly.

“Damn it.”

“Yes, that’s a pretty typical response to me sharing my affections with women.”

One of the men on his combat team snorted. Hammer, probably. Zakota was too busy piloting to look back and check.

A shadow fell over the shuttle, another ship blotting out the sun from above, and an alarm flashed on the sensor panel. Shit, he hadn’t been paying attention to the other vessels battling out here. He’d been too focused on the warship.

The warship that was now firing at him.

He spun the shuttle, jerking and jumping in the sky like wind chimes in a hurricane. The first round of fire streaked past, missing them by inches. The second ship—

He checked the sensors as it flew over them. It could have fired almost point blank and obliterated them.

But it had a winged shape. A Star Guardian ship.

As it skimmed past, he read the name on the hull. The Falcon 8.

He laughed as it fired at the warship, and then clenched his fist. It wasn’t simply en-bolts. One of Hierax’s modified torpedoes launched from its tubes.

The Zi’i had to be wary of those torpedoes by now. Indeed, the ship switched direction so quickly, it jerked noticeably, and one of its thrusters extinguished.

It wouldn’t have mattered. As close as the Falcon 8 was, the warship did not have time to escape. The torpedo forced its shield down, lodged in its hull, and destroyed the ship with some power only Hierax knew and understood. And maybe even he didn’t know it fully.

The comm flashed on.

“You’re going in the wrong direction, Zakota,” Sagitta said.

“Shit, sir. I knew I got turned around somewhere.”

Zakota amended the situation, changing direction and speeding off after Katie’s shuttle. They were two minutes from the cube, even less for her.

The fire falcon came around to follow him, flying protectively behind the shuttle. The winged ship’s shields were up—his sensors told him that much—but char marks painted the side where the Falcon had clearly been hit. Shards of the hull had been melted away, and a portion of it lay open, exposed to space. The shields must have been down at one point. Hierax and his assistants had to be working triple-time over there.

“That was our last special torpedo,” Sagitta said quietly. “Get in and out as quickly as you can.”

“Yes, sir. Do you have—”

“Transmitting it now. To both of you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Zakota accelerated as much as he could in the shuttle, wanting to catch up to Katie’s craft. But she had the lead in this race. He was tempted to tell her to back off, to let him by so he could go in first, but they might need that extra thirty seconds. The battle still raged around the cube, Zi’i warships trading fire with Confederation space fleet vessels.

“Less than a minute,” he announced.

Men shuffled behind him, checking their weapons for the fifth time. They were more than ready to open the hatch and storm into the cube to disable it.

Zakota glanced back and spotted Renshu with the case that held Hierax’s warhead. Zakota and Katie had the last two of those weapons. If they didn’t succeed, he didn’t see how the weapons platform could be disabled.

As he closed on the cube, a fleet warship streaked in and strafed it with fire. Absolutely nothing happened to the sturdy metal hull.

But something happened elsewhere on the giant cube. One of the rocket-like devices that had stuck out earlier, presumably arming itself, launched.

Zakota jumped, startled by the abruptness, the lack of warning. Though he wasn’t sure why. Why would the Zi’i warn them of an attack?

The rocket sped toward Dethocoles, toward one of the major cities. The capital?

Several warships fired at the rocket as it flew past them. But it was shielded, as if it were a ship itself.

One of the fleet ships closer to the planet altered its path and dove into the path of the rocket. The vessel must have had shields, but it didn’t matter. The rocket slammed into the ship and exploded with enough power to level half a planet. Brilliant white filled the black sky, dwarfing the brightness of the distant sun. When the light faded, the ship was gone.

“Fuck,” Zakota whispered, knowing the crew hadn’t had time to get to escape pods.

“We’ve reached the shaft,” Katie said. “Forcefield is up. We’re trying the transmission.”

Zakota tore his gaze from the remains of the fleet ship, an entire ship that had sacrificed itself for the lives of those on the planet. The damn weapons platform had a dozen other rockets sticking out, ready to deploy. What if it fired them all at once?

He had to get his team in and destroy it first.