told Hayes flatly that there would be no
engagement without his recordable promise---both visual and vocal---of
the free evacuation of the planet, regardless of the outcome of the
battle. This helpless waiting, for a reply so paramount, and yet so
utterly beyond his control, was an agony of the human spirit.

The request was perfectly reasonable, and Hayes had every intention of
granting it. He merely wanted the extra time to study his opponent's
weaponry and deployment. There was something to be learned even from
the loser of a given confrontation, and Itjes had the reputation of
being a tough and resourceful foe. So he watched, and made mental
notes: two-hundred and sixty lesser craft against his three-hundred
deployed, and the superior guns of the Dreadnought. This should teach
his boys to fight.

The Commonwealth forces began to move forward. Hayes appeared on the
screen, flanked by Admiral Frank. "You have your promise, General.
Win or lose, utterly, and the population goes free."

Utterly.

Itjes bit his lip till it bled, ordered his forces to attack.

*

The main battle went much the same as the skirmish which had preceded
it. The Coalition's flyers were, on the whole more experienced, more
disciplined, in some ways better trained; and for a time they did
fairly well. They kept their forces together, found cracks in the
fences of their enemies, and were able to weed out and destroy the
greener of the American combatants.

But soon the blows were raining hard and heavy upon them, and coming
from every direction at once. Squadrons and formations were broken up,
strategies broken down. And after a time, good and lesser soldiers
alike, veterans and younger men, husbands, heroes and cowards, were
killed by shots that did not discriminate. No magical God-force
protected the just and perseverant; no hand of Providence reached down.
Men and women died, adding their silent numbers to the ancient mass of
corpses piled in an endless grave in the name of War, because men had
not yet learned that name was foul.

The Coalition forces kept fighting for five hours, fighting and dying,
waiting for an order to retreat that never came, fighting and dying and
waiting for an order to retreat that never came, then a surrender that
never came, fighting and dying and waiting for an order to retreat and
then a surrender, and an end to the carnage that never came, fighting
and dying and waiting for an order to