Scanned by Highroller. Proofed by morrigan the nameless1. FOR THE FANS… "I GOT YOUR WING." ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to my editors John Douglas and Caitlin Blasdell for thinking of me, and to my wife and daughter for smiles that eased the stress. Robert Drake, my long-time friend and agent, did the usual, the unusual, and, as always, a professional job. The folks at Digital Anvil were extraordinarily generous with their time and help. Chris Roberts, Maddie Fox, Ashley Galaway, and Katie Marye all answered my questions and sent material that helped to better this manuscript. Chris McCubbin and David Ladyman at Incan Monkey God Studios gave their much-needed advice and criticism. Chris read the manuscript the same day I e-mailed it to him. He is a fine writer and a dedicated professional. Mr. Ben Lesnick, Wing Commander fan par excellence, served as my research assistant and sent pages and pages of material, including an exhaustive list of the names of every capital ship in the Wing Commander universe. I thought relying on a fan for help would be a good idea. I had no idea Ben would be so friendly and determined. I met him through Mr. Dan Finkelstein, who runs a wonderful Wing Commander: The Movie website. Be sure to visit it at http://users.nac.net/splat/wc/. My next-door neighbors Glen and Diane Martin provided me with information on the early Wing Commander games and were kind enough to give me the WCIII strategy guide. Yes, it's still possible to have great neighbors. Finally, I need to thank all of the writers who have worked in the Wing Commander universe. Their contributions to this book and to the universe itself have made Wing Commander one hell of an exciting milieu in which to write. PROLOGUE VEGA SECTOR FLEET HEADQUARTERS TERRAN CONFEDERATION ASTEROID WORD PEGASUS MARCH 15, 2654 0900 HOURS ZULU TIME ULYSSES CORRIDOR 700 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH <h6 Seated at his console in Pegasus Station's NAV-COM control room, nineteen-year-old Radar Officer Thomas Sherryl stared through a wide viewport at the swirling blues and reds of the Charybdis Quasar. He looked past the whirlpool of gases, past the black hole lying at the quasar's core like an interminably deep maw, until his inner gaze rested on a gentle blue orb bathed in a soft glow. Earth. Homeworld. So near. So far. Thomas Sherryl dreamed of things green. Of the smell and taste of real air. Of foamy ocean waters rushing up and across his chest. Of beach barbecues. Of bikinis. He no longer sat in his chair, surrounded by billions of tons of durasteel and ice-slick rock; he no longer felt the rumble of the naval base's enormous ion engines propelling the converted asteroid deeper into the corridor; he no longer had to pull the graveyard shift and oversee instruments that did a fine job of sweeping the sector without human scrutiny. Thomas Sherryl had found his freedom. Goodbye towers, gun emplacements, and antennae. Good-bye Confederation capital ships sitting in your spacedocks. I'm no longer stuck on this rock. I got a ticket out. And it's a ticket no one can take away. "Hey, Tom? Can you cover for me? I gotta take a leak." Robbed of his bliss, Thomas Sherryl scowled at fellow Radar Officer Rick Adunda as the other man set down his half-full coffee mug and left before Thomas replied. With a loud sigh that drew stares from the other personnel on duty, Thomas switched seats to Rick's console and resignedly studied the long-range sensor report: a blank screen. He eyed his own short-range display and found the same. "I love my job," he moaned. And, as though on cue, a mass of red blips suddenly rippled across the screen. Thomas's gaze shot up. Had someone hacked into the system to play a joke? He studied the other officers. No smiles. No laughter. He felt a tremor rise from his feet and rattle into his spine. He looked to Rick's coffee mug as it began to vibrate. A shadow wiped over the viewport, followed by a second, then a third. Muffled explosions resounded from outside the control room. Jakoby, the stocky security officer on duty, rushed to the viewport. "Kilrathi fighters," he said stiffly. Klaxons blared. Overhead lighting switched to the dim crimson of battle. Behind Thomas a panel of life-support monitors sizzled and shorted out, heaving a pungent scent that wafted through the control room. He glanced to a bank of screens that showed images from the station's external cameras: Twelve comm dishes on the base's northwest side blew apart in succession under the unrelenting Particle cannon and Meson fire. Dozens of Dralthi medium fighters swooped down and caught the great Confederation cruisers and destroyers still sitting helplessly in their berths. The fighters resembled glistening gray discs cut through their centers by sleek, single-pilot cockpits. Long, narrow laser cannons extended from the pits and blazed unceasingly. Though only twenty-eight meters long, the fighters' formidable, talon-like appearance made them seem much larger. And they packed more than just laser cannons. Heat-seeking missiles streaked away from the starfighters, locking onto the Confed ships' now-warming engines. The cruisers and destroyers retaliated with streams of tachyon fire, but scores of missiles navigated through the glistening gauntlet to impact on and weaken the Confed ships' shields. Another wave of those missiles would tear into hull armor, flesh, and bone. A resonant drumming seized the NAVCOM control room as asteroid-based gun batteries finally came on line, belching out thick bolts of anti-aircraft fire as they swiveled to track targets. Thomas kept a white-knuckled grip on his chair as he continued to watch with a horrid and inevitable fascination. Like an angry horde of plastisteel insects, the fighters dove at the station, dropped their poisonous barbs, and pulled up, leaving trails of floating debris in their wakes. For every Dralthi destroyed, another soared through the rubble of its predecessor. One of the heavy cruisers, the Iowa, launched a half-dozen F44-A Rapier medium attack fighters. The Rapiers' silver, battle-scored fuselages and barrel-shaped rotating laser cannons that formed their brassy noses gave them a fearsome if not sleek appearance. Short, slightly upturned wings and huge twin thruster cones stated most clearly that the Rapier had been built for speed. And it usually did an excellent job of catapulting a single pilot across the laser-lit cosmos. But as the starfighters cleared the flight deck, Kilrathi fighters methodically picked them off with salvos of Meson and missile fire that fully obscured each ship before blasting it to gleaming fragments. "We're gonna lose," an astounded navigator said behind Thomas. Rick Adunda pounded over, his young face creased in terror. "Get out of my chair." With a shudder, Thomas returned to his own station as Rick dialed up a commlink so they could listen to the skipchatter from outside. "Goddammit! Cut our moorings! Get us out of here!" a capital ship commander cried, her voice already hoarse. "Mooring release systems, uh, damaged," came a nervous ensign's reply. "Unable to… to initiate." A fighter pilot cut into the channel. "Christ almighty! They're everywhere! Bug out, people. Bug out. Regroup at the southern pole. Go now!" "Belay that order," shouted the capital ship commander. "We need air support, Lieutenant—not your announcement of retreat." "Forget it, Commander. We… are… outgunned," the pilot said, spacing his words for effect. "There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity." "See you at your court-martial." "If we live that long." "Mayday! Mayday! This is Senior Spacehand Eric Popkin in Watchtower Three. We can't hold 'em back anymore. Batteries are wasted. They're coming over the fence. Wait. What's that? Ohmygod. OHMYGOD! AHHHHHH!" "Popkin? Report! Popkin, do you copy?" "And it is you, Dear Lord, who will deliver us from this evil because we ask it in your name, and—" "You wanna piece of me? I don't think so. Open wide…" Something struck heavily on Thomas's shoulder. He turned to find Rick staring wide-eyed at him. "What are you doing?" "I, uh, I don't know. I guess, well—" "Make your report!" 'Thomas swallowed and regarded his scope. "I count one-nine-zero bogies inbound. Vector three-seven-four, attack formation." "Shields are not responding," Security Officer Jakoby announced. The viewport filled with a harsh white light that peeled off the blackness of space. A tremendous thunderclap shook through the entire station as though a fusion bomb had detonated at its core. "What the f—" Rick began, then shielded his face as his console sparked and smoked. "I don't believe it," Ordnance Officer Scott Osborne said, squinting at the viewport as the glare subsided. "That was the Iowa." He turned toward Thomas, his face paling. "Confirmed," Comm Officer Rene Gemma said. "The Iowa is gone. And the Kobi." Loud footfalls caught Thomas's attention. He cocked his head toward the lift doors as Admiral Bill Wilson double-timed into the control room with an armored Confederation Marine in tow. Twin rows of large buttons on Wilson's dark uniform flashed as they caught the overhead lights. He wiped the sweat from his balding pate, and his face seemed to grow more gaunt as he took in the scene with weary eyes. Rick, who had moved to the console on Thomas's left, tipped his head in Wilson's direction and muttered, "It's about freakin' time." Wilson turned toward them.