I sighed with relief as I was thrown from my chair. It meant the dampening field held. Otherwise I’d have been dead, instead of on the floor with blood dripping from a wound on my forehead. A large pair of strong hands pulled me to my feet.

“Thanks, Doctor.” I waved him off and resumed my seat as he tried to bandage the cut. “It’ll keep me awake.”

The main monitor showed what I already knew. We had stumbled into a trap, and were being herded into the upper atmosphere of the twelfth planet. Gas density was already too high for a jump. Our fighters were tied up drawing fire from the nuke frigates, but that wasn’t going to last long.

And when it’s over, they’ll have their conversion bombs saved up for…

“Arm a missile for surface-burst, load our biggest conversion warhead and set the yield to maximum!”

“Ma’am?”

“Do it!” I tried to suppress a waver in my voice. This was a crazy idea. “Fire at the planet, and get ready to ride the shockwave!”

Destroying a planet to escape? Good thing it wasn’t inhabited.