Page 5 of Defiant

“Yes, I have my data ready now,” Ironsides said. The older woman turned, tucking her short silver hair behind her ear, andpointed at the wall as the screen changed. I leaned forward, hoping for some interesting shot of a battle—but it was just a slide with a bunch of numbers and statistics.

Great.

Why hadn’t anyonetoldme how many meetings galactic war would involve? Maybe I would have surrendered. Torture couldn’t possibly be worse than this. We spent longer sitting and talking than we did actually fighting anyone. Maybe I could throw something at Jorgen and get him to glare at me?

“The Superiority,” Ironsides said, “was shockingly easy for Winzik to conquer. Unlike a traditional government, it doesn’t rule by force but through control of travel and resources. There are thousands of planets in the Superiority, but almostnoneof them have active defense forces.”

“That’s because,” said one of the UrDail, a male named Rinakin, “they make people abandon their ‘warlike ways’ to join.”

“Is it so bad,” Cuna replied to him, “that we strive for peace and comfort instead of anger and strife?”

“Well, it left you exposed,” Rinakin said, pointing at the statistics. “No one could resist Winzik. He conquered the entire Superiority with barely a military.”

Yeah, I liked this guy. He made good points.

“I assume that is why you think we’re lucky, Admiral?” Jorgen cut in firmly. “Our enemy controls a great deal ofspacebut not a lot ofships.”

“Exactly,” Ironsides said. “Our victories at ReDawn and Evershore prove that we can stand against Winzik. A lot of his military is needed to patrol, police, and maintain the territory he’s taken. The offensive force left to him isn’tthatmuch bigger than our own. Maybe two or three times our numbers, which is remarkable, all things considered.”

“He thought it would be easy,” I said. “He assumed nobody would fight back. And if they did, he thought he’d have the delvers as the perfect threat to keep everyone under control. Hard toresist a tyrant when he’s the only thing standing between you and a group of interdimensional horrors.”

“Nightshade has the right of it,” Ironsides said. She met my eyes. We had a history, the two of us, but she’d been a worthy foe. Right up until she’d almost gotten everyone blown up, of course.

“So, what does this tell us?” Jorgen said. “How do we proceed?”

“Though we’ve been lucky so far, sir,” Ironsides said, “the admirals and I are worried.” She flipped to a slide that showed what seemed to be production capacity. “Winzik doesn’t have a large military yet—but he has access to anenormousinfrastructure. Here we see a list of manufactories capable of spitting out spaceworthy fighters. These numbers here indicate possible production speeds, without accounting for any hidden military fabrication plants.”

We took that all in. And it was daunting. Once Winzik brought all of his resources to bear, he’d be able to create wholefleetsfaster than we could build a singleship.Yes, he’d have to staff them with raw recruits, but what did that matter when you could flood a battlefield with fighters?

I saw Ironsides’s point immediately. Though we’d been lucky so far, we absolutely couldnotwin an extended war against the Superiority. Once Winzik ramped up production, we were done for.

I glanced around the table to see what the others were thinking.The other junior admirals were nodding. Arturo—current head of Skyward Flight, here representing all the pilots—took it in with a frown. FM—now Jorgen’s right-hand woman and our head diplomat—had put her hand to her lips as she read the numbers, her eyes wide. She looked across the table, meeting my gaze.

I spared a thought for the fact that three members of my flight—all still relatively young—were in high leadership positions in the government. Unfortunately, our planet’s history was such that there justweren’ta lot of older officers. Our desperate fight for survival over the decades had turned that much more deadly near the end; even the junioradmiralswere all in their twenties. The sad reality of the DDF’s struggle was that by the time we’d “won” andpushed the enemy back, almost everyone with any real battle experience had been killed.

Jorgen was, I thought curiously, the same age as Alexander the Great had been when he’d begun his conquest.

I continued scanning the room, and found it was harder to read the aliens than my friends. Rinakin looked pained, but with their violet skin and impressive bone ridges across the cheeks, his race always appeared intimidating. Made me wish my skeleton stuck out in a few places for a similar effect.

I had more experience reading the kitsen, though I didn’t personally know Itchika, the female kitsen to my right, hovering above the tabletop on her platform. Her fur was greying and her clothing extremely formal, robes in an ancient style.

She was joined by a small group of other kitsen: some of their elected senators, a few newly rescued cytonics, and their head generals. Those used little chairs on the tabletop, as if at a parade. At Itchika’s side stood a nervous younger kitsen. Kauri, one of their ship captains—and a friend of mine.

“So,” Itchika said, gesturing to the numbers on the screen, “our time is limited. Yes, I see.” Like the other aliens, she spoke in her own language, which was translated to English by her translation pin.

Ironsides looked at us, grim. “Based on our intel, he already has all of these plants fabricating for him. In weeks they’ll be able to field thousands of new drone fighters.”

“Drones,” I said. “That’s annoying. You mean I won’t get to feast on the blood of my enemies?” I paused. “I wonder what motor oil tastes like.”

Everyone in the room gaped at me. Except Jorgen, who laughed.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” I snapped at the others. “You invited me. This is what you get. Ironsides, what about capital ships?”

“Those will take longer to produce,” she replied. “But theywillcome. Thousands of battleships—and hundreds of carriers—by the end of the standard year.”

Scud. I’d checked what we had, adding in the kitsen and UrDail fleets. We had starfighters, yes. As many as five hundred if we needed them. But barely any capital ships.

“Spin can handle starfighters,” FM said. “Now that we have her back, we shouldn’t need to worry about drones. The remote ones fall easily to cytonics, and the autonomous ones are no match for a living pilot—at least not with the limited AI that the Superiority dares to use.”

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