Read Into the Darkness: Crimson Worlds Refugees I for Free Online

About half the enemy vessels were gone, reduced to clouds of superhot plasma. The other half were dead hulks, floating silently in space. Not a single one was still functional.
    “Yes!” he said softly to himself. Then he turned to the com officer. “Signal all vessels…abandon ship.”
     
    *  *  *
     
    “Son of a bitch,” Hurley said, the words slipping through her lips before she could stop them. She’d been staring at the scope, watching the ships of the fleet whipping around the star, coming out of the corona on perfect vectors toward the warp gate. She’d known what Compton had intended, and she’d even believed in it on some level, that place in her mind where she viewed the great admiral as infallible. But sitting and watching it unfold just as he’d planned was still astonishing. She knew those ships were threading a needle, racing through a cool spot in the corona. There were sections to either side of that lane where temperatures reached into the millions of degrees, and the slightest navigational error could vaporize a ship or send it careening into the sun.
    Compton’s plan had been brilliant, wildly original…and if it worked, just maybe he would have saved his fleet from certain doom. And it looked like it was working. Still, Hurley had to get her squadrons to the designated place on time—and they had to be at the exact velocity and vector to land on the fleeing platforms. There was no room for error on her part either, and she knew the big capital ships couldn’t decelerate for her if her people weren’t in position. Compton had to save the big warships, first and foremost. A few cruisers would bring up the rear, decelerating enough to link up with the shuttles carrying Kato’s survivors, but Hurley’s fighters had to land on the battleships. And that meant they had to be exactly in position.
    “Let’s check and recheck this, John. Anybody who’s not spot on is dead. It’s that simple.”
    Wilder nodded. “I’ve reviewed the calculations three times, Admiral. They’re dead on.”
    Hurley sighed. “It’s not you I’m worried about. But every pilot out there who is not up to this is another fighter and five crew lost.” And not lost in battle doing their duty, but abandoned, left behind to be hunted down and killed by the enemy .
    “There is nothing you can do about that, Admiral.” There was an odd tone to Wilder’s voice, as if he was only just letting himself realize they had a chance to get out of the system. “You’ve honed this strike force into a razor. This is going to be a tough landing, but they’re up to it. You‘ll see.”
    She nodded and gave him a weak smile when he looked back toward her, but she didn’t say anything. Part of her was gratified to have a chance at escape, something she would have thought impossible just a few hours before. But she was still wrestling with the fact that most of her people were dead already killed in the last three days of sustained combat. They’d run sortie after sortie, returning to their launch platforms only long enough to refuel and rearm—and maybe wolf down a quick meal. They’d gone three days without sleep, and every one of them was running on stims. But still they’d gone back, without question, without complaint. And every time they did, they paid a price. Fewer than one in three were still alive, and the thought of losing more people, not in a fight now, but in botched or aborted landings, cut at her deeply.
    “We’re coming up on Midway now, Admiral. They’ve cleared us to land.”
    She flipped on her com unit. “ Midway squadrons, commence final approach and landing.” All through the strike force, she knew her wing commanders were doing the same, directing their squadrons to their own base ships. But it rested with the individual pilots to manage the landings. Hurley was confident about her own ship—she had John Wilder, and she was willing to wager he was the best pilot in the fleet. But the rest of her