As the Liberator emerged alongside the rest of the fleet, I tried to push away the thoughts of the Cormorant. Getting distracted now would be fatal, but trying to control my anger was harder in those seconds than it had ever had before. Seeing the rest of the ships already turned around and ready, I knew we would have to turn quickly, since the Zerg would be right on our tail. It was just as well the Liberator could handle it. Taking the controls from Nova, I spun the Liberator end for end, balancing the drives so we wouldn't flip out of control. Half skidding through space, the Liberator came around just as the Zerg emerged. My eyes narrowed. I knew that an angry person couldn't think clearly and an angry commander would get their people killed, but right now fury was burning through my veins. If the Zerg wanted a fight, they were about to have one to remember.

"All ships, close engagement. Selendis, come in on our flank."

Suiting words to action, I threw full power to the drives, giving Nova control of the main battery. The flying that was going to be needed here was going to be tricky and I wasn't trusting my ship to anyone else for this. One thing was very obvious in the next instant. The Zerg did not expect us to be charging them. They actually flinched back as they realised we weren't waiting for them to come to us. Could they tell just how furious we were or had no one ever charged at them before? I wasn't sure and didn't care. There and then, revenge was all I was interested in. Some part of me recognised exactly how dumb an idea this was but I was having a lot of difficulty controlling my anger. Then over the comm, I heard a roar of anger as Matt realised exactly what had happened to his ship.

"Jason?" Nova said quietly.

There was a concern there that I had never heard before, in all the years we'd known each other. Between the two, the haze of red that had been shrouding my vision and mind cleared. The anger still burned but I could push it back under control, use it to help rather than hinder. Glancing at the displays, I keyed the comm. "Matt, take the Wraiths and go up the middle. Sarah, you and I hit the left flank. Selendis, take the right."

As the last of my anger drained back into where I held it, I began to focus back on the Zerg as an tangible enemy rather than a target. Matt would calm down eventually, just as I had, but right now his grief and anger was far too raw for him to be able to focus. Keeping the Wraiths around him would give him the best chance of inflicting the damage that he needed, and I needed him, to do. Selendis had enough fire-power to keep the Zerg wary, and from what I had seen of her, she would give as good or better than she got. As for Kerrigan, Jim and I, we would at least be able to give the Zerg a hell of a headache. I expected the Zerg to mainly concentrate on Selendis, given how much hatred existed between the two races. So it was something of a surprise to see what happened next.

"Sarah, take a look at that formation and tell me if I'm seeing things."

"You mean most of the Zerg turning to take the pair of us on?"

"Yeah. That."

"Looks real enough to me." Jim replied.

"Agreed." Sarah added.

So, a pair of Stingrays against a Zerg invasion force. This should be interesting.

"Split and come back?" Nova asked.

"Works for me. Sarah?" I asked.

"Got it."

Sarah and Jim raced away to port, while we banked to starboard. The Zerg split to chase us, as expected. But most chased after Sarah, which was not as I had thought or expected. Something in the back of my mind was trying to get my attention, by I couldn't spare the time then. Nova's hands were flying over the controls as she unleashed hell with the main cannon. Looking at the displays told me that the rest of the crew was doing an excellent job of clearing out the Zerg. Despite having most of the Zerg force on their tail, Sarah and Jim were doing an incredible job of inflicting damage while avoiding taking damage themselves. Selendis was successfully stabbing into the Zerg lines, while not exposing herself to more fire than necessary, and the Terran ships alongside her were doing a good job of hemming in the Zerg to prevent them from using their agility to escape her trap. My biggest concern was Matt and his force of Wraiths. So far they had not taken significant damage, but that was only because of the fact that the Zerg was not attacking them in force. Matt was still letting his anger dictate how he fought, and soon it was going to start costing a lot of lives. I opened a private channel to Matt's earpiece.

"Matt, I know you're pissed at the moment, but you need to dial it back a bit. Keep going the way you are and a lot more people are going to die. Then the Cormorant will have died for nothing."

"How dare you-"

"How dare I? You're going to end up killing us, Matt! This is going to be dangerous enough as it is. If you keep letting your anger tell you what to do, then we are all dead. Save your anger Matt. We need it, but we need you in control more."

There was a pause over the channel, enough for me to concentrate on flying more. It was just as well that I knew the Liberator so well, because I was having to take her close to her theoretical limits.

When Matt spoke again, he was noticeably calmer and more like I was used to. "Alright sir, but we are going to talk about this after we're done here."

"Agreed." I signed off, listening to him beginning to direct the Wraiths more efficiently. Another glance told me it was time to sort things out for Sarah and Jim.

"OK Sarah. Smugglers reverse on my mark, followed by head to head."

"Ready when you are."

Taking one last look, I saw the Stingray Sarah and Jim had about 4 clicks nearly dead astern of us and leading the Zerg away from us. It was now or never.

"Mark." Snapping the Liberator around again but this time leaving the engines in reverse for a little, we suddenly presented the Zerg with our main batteries and the best part of our fire-power. Their formation broke apart, but not quite fast enough to save all of them. Through the resulting gap, I gunned the Liberator, heading straight for Sarah, who had just performed the same stunt. Both formations of Zerg swung in behind us. Finally, something was going as planned. Within seconds, the Zerg on Sarah's tail were within our range.

"Hit it." I ordered. Nova grinned, and opened up with the main battery. Hitting the Zerg all around the Stingray without damaging the Stingray itself required both pilots and gunners to be very skilled and daring. Fortunately, that was one thing we had in abundance. The Zerg obviously didn't expect us to pull such a crazy stunt, although given how many we had pulled in this battle, it was something that they really should of got used to by now. As the two Stingrays whipped past each other with metres to spare, the Zerg had obviously been hit hard. A low whistle came through our minds.

"That was something special. Knocking out 20% of a Zerg assault fleet in a single manoeuvre, I've never seen anything like it before." Selendis said, disbelief evident in her voice.

"What can I say, we're professionals." I chuckled.

Nova interrupted. "Jason, I'm reading a large warp signal coming in."

"Great, what else can they be throwing at us now?" Jim complained.

"You're really going to complain about us saving your ass?" A new voice came over the comm. "And they made you a Marshal? They must have dropped their standards."

Butler. I had rarely been happier to see him, even if I didn't particularly like that he was putting a lot of lives and the single biggest advantage we had at risk to help us. Before I could key my own mike, Nova cut in.

"Are you guys finished mucking around? Think you jokers could hit something?"

Grinning, I joined in. "You heard the lady, shoot something. Matt, Sarah, Selendis, form up on us. Let's bottle them up. Wraiths, form up with the station. Let's finish this."

Caught between the hammer of the Stingrays and Selendis's fleet, and the anvil of Terra Firma and the wraiths, it didn't take long to finish the Zerg completely. The price had been high, however. In addition to the Cormorant, we had lost two full squadrons worth of Wraiths from our own forces. Butler had lost a similar number of fighters, while the planetary defenders had lost a battlecruiser as well as a dozen fighters. Even Selendis had not emerged unharmed, with a pair of carriers very badly damaged and all of her other capital ships sporting various degrees of damage. Her fighters had fared better than our own but they had still lost half a dozen before the Zerg were destroyed. Understandably, it was a rather sombre group that assembled on Shiloh an hour after the battle ended. Everyone was feeling the weight of what had just happened and the grief of those we had lost. Matt was among the worst affected and he was shooting glares at me from time to time. Another problem to deal with, but it would have to wait. Right now, the leaders of Shiloh were walking up to meet us, and I recognised one right away. A quick glance at Jim told me he did too.

"Mike Hammond. I wondered if you were to be found here." he said.

Hammond grinned and shook Jim's hand, then mine. "Soon as I heard that the Zerg were attacking and something looking suspiciously like the Liberator was in the area, I figured it had to be you two. We was in the process of scrambling our forces when we got Selendis's message, mentioning that you were preparing to fight them. Didn't need to hear any more than that, though I'm surprised to see you teaming up with them." He quickly looked at Selendis, "No offence, Master Selendis."

"None taken. I can well understand why you might be reluctant to believe that we would join forces. I'm just glad that you came to our aid so quickly."

"A bit of self interest there, I'm afraid. Once the Zerg finished with you, they would turn to us and we wouldn't stand a chance. It made sense, although mentioning these boys helped." Hammond replied, pointing towards Jim and I.

I explained to those not familiar with our history. "Jim and Mike are old friends, and Mike ran Mar Sara before I got the job. We got to know each other quite well." I turned back to Hammond. "My condolences on those you lost, Mike. They were damn good people."

Mike turned away to watch the rest of his forces land. "Same to you, Jason. You guys are the only reason a lot more lives weren't lost, and it's not like you came away without a scratch."

I grimaced, the image of the Cormorant's destruction filling my mind once more. "Yeah. We all lost a lot of good people. Now we have to make it so that they didn't die without reason."

Mike turned back to me. "Agreed. So, not that I'm complaining, but what brought you all the way out here at just the right time?"

I waved towards Butler. "Heard the Colonel here was still out this way, thought I might be able to convince him and his boys to join up."

"Yeah, well the Zerg kind of made up my mind on that count." Butler grumbled.

I could see that Hammond didn't completely buy it, but that he understood we needed to be circumspect about what exactly we were up to. "So what now? I assume you can't stay."

I shook my head. "What parts of the sector aren't on fire yet will be soon. We don't have the forces to stay and defend Shiloh and we need to do a lot more things than we have time or resources for. If it's possible, we may be able to help repel an assault if it becomes necessary but that's as much as I can promise. For what's its worth, I don't think the Zerg will return any time soon. Mengsk will probably be the next to show up here."

"Not that that's much of an improvement."

"No, but he won't be looking to start a fight either. Really, just keep your head down and pay him the lip service you have to, he'll probably leave you alone for the most part. But watch him like a hawk. He took all of us in and we nearly worked it out too late. We'll help where we can, but-"

"Yeah, lying low is the best thing right now. For all of us."

"Wish we had that option. You may want to blame the battle damage you suffered on us when he shows. Gives him more reason to trust you."

Mike stared at me. "I'll take that under advisement."

I nodded, not expecting him to take it that well, but it needed to be said. "Sorry Mike, but we'd better get moving. Too many questions are going to get asked if we stay for much longer."

Mike nodded and held out his hand. "Take care, all of you. See you around."

It didn't take long to get back into space, and not much more to coordinate what forces we had into a jump. The only thing not coming with us was Terra Firma, which was going to find another location to set up shop, although Butler would continue to coordinate with us. I left the relief crew to conduct the jump and head for the rest of the fleet and headed for the tactical room. Nova followed, not saying a word until the door closed behind us.

"What's up, Jason?" she asked quietly.

"You mean aside from all the people we lost today, because I made a rookie mistake?"

"What, you let your anger get the better of you, or you didn't expect the Zerg to turn up?"

I stared at her. I'd forgotten she was this perceptive, although I knew part of it was her psionics. A raised eyebrow told me that she heard that. I chuckled.

"I really need to avoid getting into arguments with psionic women."

Her glare intensified. I sighed.

"You're right, of course. While my anger getting out of control was a problem, it wasn't hard to solve. But I should have planned for the Zerg showing up. I should have left the Cormorant on the station. I-"

Nova silenced me. "You couldn't have left the Cormorant behind, we may well have died without it. They sacrificed themselves so we could get away. If we hadn't, a lot more people could be dead. As for planning for the Zerg showing up, you did. Leaving Selendis behind was our insurance against an attack, from anyone. You couldn't have planned on how to deal with the Zerg any more than you did for anyone else."

"But about all the Cormorant got to do was draw the Zerg away from us and get blown up."

"And if they hadn't, it might have been us and then everything would have been very different. Wouldn't it?"

"Yeah I guess. Still doesn't make me feel any better about it though."

"You made a mistake. Happens to everyone."

I started to pull up the recording of the battle. "Maybe. Doesn't mean I can't learn from it though."

Nova put her hand over mine. "Take some advice for once Jason. Leave it for tonight. You've been running on next to no sleep for way too long. Look at it in the morning. It can wait that long."

I hesitated. I knew that I needed to look at the battle objectively and I needed a clear head to do that. But I wasn't sure I could afford the time to wait for that. Nova noticed and her glare hardened. I sighed, admitting defeat.

"OK, fine. I'll get what sleep I can. Jess, I want this ready to run first thing in the morning."

"As you wish, Commander."

I smiled wearily at Nova, realising just how tired I actually was. "Thanks Nova. You did good today." A damn sight better than good, but I didn't want to boost her ego too much.

"I heard that." Nova grinned, walking out the door. "Night, Jason."

Returning to my quarters, I opened a ship-wide channel. "All hands, you already know this, but you all did a hell of a job today. Nice work everyone. Make sure you take some time to unwind, I think we're all going to need it. Davis out."

Suiting words to action, I collapsed onto the bed and was asleep almost immediately.

(Author's Note)

Don't you love it when plans go out the window? I'm sorry I've taken so long to update this, but been a hectic time. I've already started on the next chapter, and while I might end up doing some rewriting on some of these chapters, I've been wanting to get this out.

Thanks to those reviewing and those following etc., and especially those doing both.

Until next time!