She angled the throttle, engaging her fighter’s thrust, and adjusting her vector directly toward the approaching enemy ships. There had been twenty-two of them left when she’d climbed into her fighter. There were twenty now. The birds chasing the strike force had drawn blood, and each enemy bird they knocked out was one less to fire on Dauntless.

It’s time for Red squadron to join the party…

She twisted around in her seat, trying to work out the kinks, the stiffness. Her people had been back from the mission to Santis no more than fifteen minutes before her bird had been cleared to relaunch. She hadn’t even thought that kind of turnaround was possible, but the bay was swarming with ship’s crew, including a dozen engineers sent down to help with fighter refit. And at the center of it all was Anya Fritz, Dauntless’s chief engineer, a taskmaster as unrelenting as Chief Evans, with a lieutenant commander’s clusters to back it up.

The bay had seethed with tension. The normal staff were resentful of a bunch of engineer interlopers poking their noses where they didn’t belong…and the engineers, considering themselves the masters, here to rescue the flight techs and get the job done. But the tension had created a weird sort of energy, a drive to get the job done, one that had pushed them all to do just that little bit extra.

She’d been so uncomfortable, she was grateful to be back out in space, but the strange partnership was working, she couldn’t deny that. The fact that her fighter had launched so quickly was the only proof required.

“Red leader, this is Red Eleven…I’ve launched, and I’m following your vector.”

“Acknowledged, Red Eleven. Let’s go give these bastards a welcome they won’t soon forget.”

And now Red squadron had two fighters. Two ships to stand in the way of twenty.

She stared straight ahead, wishing she had missiles. The bay crews had refueled her ship and recharged her laser batteries. But there simply hadn’t been time to reload the heavier ordnance.

She was moving directly toward the incoming enemy ships. No fancy flying. No finesse. There wasn’t time.

She picked out the closest of the enemy craft, tapping her throttle, aligning her vector toward the target. She adjusted the guns slightly, a bit of intuition added to the AI’s precise calculations. Then she fired. Her lasers blasted out, half a dozen shots in as many seconds. And then she watched her screen as the enemy ship winked out of existence.

She felt a wave of excitement, satisfaction…but it only lasted a second. She was staring at her screen when she saw it, all along the enemy frontage. Nineteen surviving craft, and coming from them, smaller dots.

Plasma torpedoes…