Chapter 69

Khan and seven other Bobs launch a coordinated attack on Medeiros at 82 Eridani, deploying plasma spike weapons and busters. Medeiros deploys cloaked nuclear weapons and dozens of fighter units, resulting in a devastating battle where six of the eight attacking Bobs are destroyed or killed, leaving only Khan surviving.

Khan leads a strategic reconnaissance approach to 82 Eridani with eight version-3 Bobs, including Hannibal, Tom, Barney, Fred, Kyle, Ned, and Elmer. They deploy heavily shielded scout probes to gather intelligence on Medeiros's position without alerting him. During a strategy session, Hannibal is suddenly killed by a cloaked nuclear weapon, and subsequent SUDDAR scans reveal three more incoming cloaked bombs accelerating toward the Bob fleet. The Bobs deploy their new plasma spike weapon—a million-degree ionized plasma projectile—destroying all three bombs before they can detonate. The team realizes Medeiros possesses advanced cloaking technology, likely supplied by the Brazilian Empire. They update their backups and dive into the system at 10g acceleration. As they advance, over one hundred fusion signatures light up, though many are decoys. The Bobs employ plasma spikes effectively until Medeiros adapts his tactics, scattering his units and ordering them to advance with evasive maneuvers. The battle becomes chaotic; Fred and Jackson are killed in an early nuclear detonation. Khan calculates Medeiros's position from the signal propagation delay and launches all remaining busters while activating SUDDAR jamming to blind the enemy. Hector and Tom are destroyed by nuclear weapons. Barney is killed next, leaving only Khan and Elmer. With his SURGE drive failing, Elmer sacrifices himself by maintaining SUDDAR jamming as a decoy while Khan escapes. After two weeks of repairs, Khan rendezvoused with Bill to discover that three of the fallen Bobs' backups failed to transmit completely, but Elmer's backup was successful. Khan decides to return to 82 Eridani in thirteen years to finish Medeiros and learn the source of his cloaking technology.