Hayes' voice boomed on the intercom, superceding sectarian commanders. "All vessels prepare to attack. Chutes one through twelve lower and discharge. Enemy at five o'clock, bearing 3 - 4 Mark. Outward batteries key on planetary forces. Give 'em hell boys; this one's for real!" Within minutes over two hundred fighters, cruisers and destroyers had emerged from the death-womb of the Carrier, formed into squadrons and flotillas, turned to face the enemy and begun to move forward. That number again, including the four titanic battleships, were held in reserve. The straggle of fighters and destroyers from the planet's last line of defense the launched ships ignored altogether, these being handled easily by the multitude of blazing turrets aboard the Dreadnought. One or two handfuls managed to elude fire long enough to harry the rear of the advancing ranks; but these were little more than beetles biting at the legs of wolves. A single heavy cruiser would turn its guns in their direction, and end forever the one-sided argument. The ships that advanced to meet them were more formidable. Suspecting a move of this kind (but needing to suspect a dozen other possibilities as well), the Coalition had detached eighty vessels, nearly a quarter of its strength, to patrol the area, and defend Friedrich Schiller, the beloved and irreplaceable East German home planet. And when the time came, though sleep had been scarce and tension high, they were ready to fight. Consisting mainly of German forces, they needed no high-sounding words to give blood in defense of their homeland. In open Space battles of this kind, where there was no constricting lattice of energy fields to hinder movement (as at the Battle of Athena), the aggressor held the decided advantage. For here there was no barricades or tactically advantageous points, only a three dimensional sea of emptiness in all directions, here and there pricked by planet islands, themselves destructible and a hindrance to mobility. For this reason both sides had attempted to charge, and the resulting collision of forces at once split the conflagration into a dissipated struggle without borders, boundaries or points of reference. And for the Coalition pilots and vessel commanders, this proved to be fatal. Outnumbered nearly three to one by more modern, swifter craft, needing to be watchful of every quarter at once, aware that soon the Dreadnought would add its considerable firepower to the fray, and thus needing an early knockout. . .it was impossible. They fought with courage and intensity, but so did the Americans. And though they knew it was no game (some of the Americans did also), and though they fought for home and family, this could not make them react quicker or shoot straighter than their more youthful counterparts, whose duel ambition---to stay alive and cover themselves with glory---combined with simply better equipment to give them the clear and early upper hand.