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pilot. “Take us right through that debris.” He got the gunnery on the com. “Drop some ordnance right next to those reactors. Make them light up.”
    They came through again, and this time the gunnery let loose with a barrage of torpedoes and missiles, aimed not at the leviathan, but at the planetoid. Light flashed on the dusty, frozen surface, and giant columns of debris exploded, drifting up and up before slowly raining down under the world’s weak gravity. The leviathan was now so close that it was probing with its tentacles, trying to snag Vigilant, and spewing spore globules from its mouth, but now it hesitated. It swung one arm and looped it around the nose section of a drifting bit of Hroom wreckage, which it pulled toward a suddenly gaping maw. After munching the wreckage, it seemed to spot the undamaged nuclear reactors and dropped toward the surface.
    This was Vigilant ’s chance, and she tore off into space, accelerating again. Even as they fled, Rutherford kept a wary eye on the leviathan. It landed on the planetoid. Miles-long tentacles tore at the surface, throwing up boulders the size of small hills as the beast stuffed the reactors, the mining buildings, and any other ores, fuel, fissile material, or equipment it could find into its mouth. With both the debris of the Hroom fleet and the remnants of the salvage operation to feed on, Rutherford supposed it would be sated and shortly venture off into the void, never to be seen again by any living being.
    #
    With the time lost evading the leviathan and collecting enough fuel to limp through the jump point, Vigilant would be three days longer in leaving Hades Gulch than planned. Rutherford sent subspace messages to the Admiralty and to Captain Harbrake to explain. The Admiralty wouldn’t be happy to hear about the destroyed New Dutch operation; to keep the peace, Albion would no doubt feel compelled to offer compensation to the affected salvagers. The fleet counted on New Dutch and Ladino colonies and mining operations for refueling and emergency repair and couldn’t afford to aggravate them while trying to fight the Hroom Empire.
    Rutherford was still ten hours from the final jump out of this cursed system when they spotted a Hroom fleet on the opposite side. Norris, duly chastened because of his failure to spot the leviathan, had been anxious to properly execute his duties, or it might have passed unnoticed altogether. The fleet comprised six sloops of war, entering through a jump point that led from the Fantalus system. The Hroom vessels quickly cloaked themselves and vanished from long-range scans, but not before Lieutenant Swasey—Rutherford’s pilot—was able to chart their course.
    The Hroom were apparently crossing the system on their way to a jump point that would take them into the deep void, a region of space not on any of Rutherford’s charts. The jump points in that section of the deep void were constantly shifting and had not previously led anywhere useful. Presumably, the Hroom had a destination in mind, but without better data, Rutherford could only speculate.
    The enemy was headed away from the empire worlds, that was one safe guess. Based on the general flow of jump points in these parts, the most likely course was toward one of Albion’s home worlds: Mercia, Saxony, or Albion herself.
    But why? And with only six sloops? That was a strong force, but hardly overwhelming. Even if Albion were unprotected by the fleet, six ships wouldn’t be sufficient to fight the planet’s orbital fortresses long enough to bombard the surface. And away from the planets, HMS Dreadnought alone could fight six sloops to a standstill. Give the admiral’s battleship a few destroyers and corvettes, and it would be a slaughter.
    Still, it was strange to see the empire on the offensive this far from their home worlds. Strange, and unsettling. Rutherford thought briefly about sending a subspace to Gryphon Shoals and ordering Harbrake to come through. Vigilant