“No, of course not,” Roscu said, her tone more subdued. “My apologies, Captain.”

“Captain?” the operations officer called from his station. “I’m getting activity on the ranging lasers.”

“It’s all right,” Ziara said. “I’m having the calibration checked.”

“Understood,” the officer said, sounding puzzled. “Did you also order the frequencies to be modulated?”

“Modulated how?” Roscu asked, frowning.

“Just modulated,” the other said. “No particular pattern I can see.”

“He’s probably running them through their full range,” Ziara said, focusing on the battle. The Garwian patrol ships were moving off their stand-and-fight positions, shifting to a sort of corkscrewing over–under flanking move against the three pirates. The pirates turned in response, pitching up and down to bring their weapons to bear.

Only they turned too far, overcompensating and exposing their ventral sides to the Garwians. The defenders opened fire, quick precise bursts of spectrum laser blasts at the attackers’ exposed bellies—

“Multiple hits!” Senior Commander Ocpior snapped from the sensor station. “Pirates’ ventral weapons launchers breached. Venting to space—”

And abruptly both of the targeted pirate ships erupted in fiery blasts as their missile banks exploded.

The third attacker, which had been beginning its own turn, jerked violently as it tried to get clear of the high-speed debris. It had managed to avoid the worst of it when one of the Garwian ships swooped inside its defenses and delivered a devastating salvo. The Garwian barely made it clear before its target suffered its own crippling blast.

Roscu muttered something under her breath. “I’ll be cursed,” she said. “That was…how in hell’s name did they pull that off?”

“Pirates disengaging,” Ocpior reported. “Spinning up their hyperdrives.”

“Acknowledged,” Ziara said. The three crippled ships were angling toward deep space, trying to get away before the Garwians pressed their attack. The fourth pirate had taken the hint, releasing the freighter it had been looting and similarly running for its life.

That fourth ship made it to the safety of hyperspace. None of its companions did.

Ziara took a deep breath. “And now, I believe, we can leave. Helm, set course back to our patrol circuit.”

She turned to Roscu. “I trust you’re relieved, Mid Captain Roscu?” she added.

Roscu was still staring out at the remnants of the battle, a disbelieving expression on her face. “Relieved, Captain?” she asked mechanically.

“Those cafés you mentioned,” Ziara said. “Looks like they’re still in business.”

Chapter Eleven

Thalias had never been on an alien ship before. No real surprise there—most of the travel she’d done outside the Ascendancy had been while she was a sky-walker, and the Syndicure wasn’t about to let such a valuable resource stray outside of Chiss control.