"Sir, the squads are deploying their spiders," said tactical officer Gray.

Admiral Laughlin nodded.

He stood over the central display table in the Manakin bridge. Around him, staff were at stations, even though the battle was thousands of miles away. Beside the admiral, Sakhr watched with hands clasped before his chin. Behind him was Sibyl, head down. On the display, there were six green dots moving toward a red dot. Clusters of tiny dots emitted from the six, and were moving away from the red.

"What are those?" Sakhr asked.

"Spider drones, Your Majesty" Laughlin answered. "Unmanned vessels equipped with repulse shears. They will be our primary weapon in this fight. All they have to do is get within range of the target for a few seconds, and they'll tear it apart."

"But why are they falling behind?"

"They're not falling behind, ma'am. They're actually getting into better position. Our ships and the target are moving at extreme velocities relative to each other. All our ships are currently accelerating away from the target in order to better synchronize with them. Think of it like bandits who ride away from the train as it approaches so they can more easily hop aboard once it's next to them."

"I see."

"The spider drones are able to accelerate a little faster at this altitude. They'll stay much closer to the target than our orbiters before their relative trajectories carry them away."

"They can't match speeds?"

"Not at this altitude, ma'am. Both the orbiters and the spider drones are using wide repulse fields to surf the atmosphere, but it's so thin up there that only so much acceleration is possible, and at the speeds we're talking about, only brief windows can happen."

"That was our entire reason for flying this high," Stephano said. "As long as we saw ships coming, we could change our trajectory to avoid them, or accelerate towards them and make the intercept window so small they couldn't meaningfully attack. It was because we came down to pick up your friends that they're catching up to us. Even then, those planes must have already been in the air."

"They were after Josephine," Victoria said. "They knew she would break into one of their bases."

"Well, they've changed trajectories and they're on us. We've already changed course to an optimal counter trajectory, but their spider drones will still be within our range for twelve seconds."

"How bad is that?"

"It's eleven seconds longer than they need to cut this ship to ribbons."

"Is there no way to escape?"

"Any change in trajectory we make now, they'll adjust to, and it will only widen their window."

"What can we do?"

"We'll have to knock out as many spider drones as we can before they come into range. We have our own fleet of spiders, which we'll launch in about forty seconds. Unfortunately, their fleet vastly outnumbers ours. I don't expect our drones to destroy more than a handful of theirs before being obliterated. We also have an onboard repulse shear with a range six times greater than the spiders. That will knock out a few before they come into range, and we have a cache of missiles, but again, not nearly enough to destroy them all. The chances of us eliminating all enemy drones before they get into range is slim."

"Why not fire the missiles at the orbiters? Destroy those and the spider drones have no controllers."

Stephano shook his head. "No. That won't work for the same reason they're not firing their missiles at us."

"Orbiters are equipped with reflex fields," Admiral Laughlin said. "Any missiles that come near will get knocked out of the way."

"So this is what we're reduced to?" Sakhr asked, "sending hundreds of spider drones to crawl toward them while hoping we don't lose too many along the way? None of our ships have jets for faster maneuvering?"

"Orbiters were designed for artillery and rapid deployment. Aerial combat was an afterthought. Actually, this will be the first time in military history orbiters will engage each other. Don't worry, Your Majesty, we'll win. The strike window is too large and we have more than enough drones to get through."

"Which is why we need to discuss evacuation, Your Majesty. If we change our course slightly, we can situation ourselves over the TransAtlantic chute. It will pick up any deployment pods we launch and carry them to safety."

"A course change will widen the engagement window, won't it?" Victoria asked.

"To twenty-six seconds, yes."

"Then no."

"Ma'am..."

"No. You said a twelve second window was bad enough. A twenty-six second window will be certain death, would it not?"

"Your safety is more important than this ship, Your Majesty. If you launch from a pod, the spiders can't catch up. The grid will catch you."

"Are there enough pods for the crew."

"We're still short since our loss during the Capital Bombing, but if we double up, there would be enough for you and your people and a few others. Flight crew will remain to man battle stations."

"Flight crew meaning you and everyone else in this room."

"Ma'am, please do this." He looked intently at her. Eye contact was met, and Victoria saw what he wasn't saying.

Twelve seconds or twenty-six, it wouldn't make a difference. No matter what they did, Stephano and his crew were going to die.

She nodded to him. Stephano turned the flight officer and directed him to make the change.

"Ah!" Laughlin said. "Course change. We expected this."

"Why? What's happening?"

"The target has just changed course to put themselves over the TransAtlantic. They're planning to evacuate."

"Can they?"

"They can get deployment pods into the grid, yes, but we can redirect any intercepted pods to a secure location. We'll send people to pick them—"

"No."

"Ma'am?"

"Don't send people. Send missiles."

"Kill the evacuees?"

"They're flairs, General. They're too dangerous. They were able to walk into the Capital Tower without arousing any suspicion. My mother has spent years trying unsuccessfully to kill the people aboard that ship. We cannot risk anyone getting near them. Destroy those pods before they're ever opened."