This time they had focused their assault on one side of the Rock, easily perforating the defensive forces there. And they had used their starbreakers to burrow straight through the asteroid and out the other side, thus destroying the Rock itself and hurling themselves without warning on the remaining defenders.

“It’s going to take some counterthinking,” Pirius said. “We’ll need scouts further out, perhaps.”

“Yeah,” Dans said. “And flexible formations to swarm wherever the first assault goes in.”

“It won’t be us doing it,” said Cohl grimly.

“You aren’t dead yet, kid,” Dans called. She was twenty, a year older than Pirius, and a veteran of no less than six missions before today.

Cohl said, “Look at that crowd behind us.” The flies were still closing. “We can’t outrun them,” the navigator said. “In fact we shouldn’t be trying; we have orders to stand and fight. We are already dead. It’s our duty to be dead. A brief life burns brightly.”

It was the most ancient slogan of the Expansion, said to have been coined by Hama Druz himself thousands of years before, standing in the rubble of an occupied Earth. In a regime of endless war it was prideful to die young and in battle, a crime to grow old unnecessarily.

Under such a regime the highest form of humanity was the child soldier.

But Dans said rudely, “I knew you were going to say that.”

Pirius heard Cohl gasp.

Dans said, “So report me. Look, navigator, a brief life is one thing, but neither Hama Druz nor any of his legions of apologists down the ages told us to throw away our lives. If we took on that crowd of flies, they wouldn’t even notice us. Now what use is that?”

“Pilot—”

“She’s right, Cohl,” Pirius said.