"Boldness is a useful quality in a warrior," Montgomery told him quietly. "Brashness belongs in your quarters with your dress uniform. Our mission objectives were to gather geographic data and to test the assumption that the Zhirrzh can't detect the tachyon wake-trails of incoming starships. We've accomplished both. There's nothing to be gained by adding head-to-head combat to the mission profile."

"Except possibly a reduction of the enemy threat," Germaine countered. "Even without Antelope we've got a fifteen-to-one edge here, plus four wings of Adamant and Copperhead fighters. This is the kind of chance—"

"Second ship incoming, Commodore," Smith interrupted. "Cascadia has it rising from Grid One-sixteen-Charlie."

"Deploy defensive," Montgomery ordered as Germaine pulled up the picture. Coming up from a group of low hills, the newcomer looked to be a bit larger than the first bogie, though given its completely different arrangement of hexagons, it was hard to tell for sure. "Any idea yet where they're coming from?"

"Apparently from right under our noses, sir," Kyun Wu said from the sensor station. "I ran a check—the probe teams had them marked as buildings. Must have one hell of a lift system to be able to bring something that size up and down a gravity well."

Montgomery grimaced to himself. Lasers capable of slicing through Peacekeeper hull metal, virtually indestructible ceramic hulls; a method of instantaneous communication across interstellar distances; and now an unknown but obviously highly efficient ground-to-space lift system. Even without anything else, the level of their technology would have red-flagged these aliens as a potential threat to humanity.

Their use of that technology to invade the Commonwealth had turned that red flag into a red alarm. And had earned the Zhirrzh the name Conquerors.

"Commodore, Antelope has meshed out," Smith reported. "First bogie changing course toward Galileo and Wolverine. Second bogie has engaged Cascadia and Nagoya"