She slammed her fist against the fighter’s console, swearing under her breath as she did. Nineteen was better than twenty-four, but it was still too many.

At least they had to fire at long range…

She sat for a few seconds, frozen, a passing moment of indecision. She felt helpless watching the torpedoes move toward Dauntless, but she realized there was nothing she could do. Then she heard a small ding, her scanners reporting another enemy ship destroyed. It was Dauntless this time, her anti-fighter turrets opening up, scoring a hit. Then another enemy ship disappeared…the work of the pursuing fighters this time.

She let out a hard sigh. There was nothing she could do about the barrage headed toward Dauntless. All she could do was make sure the enemy paid the price, that none of those ships escaped to rearm and return.

She glanced at the screen. She had four birds now. They were strung out, disordered. There was no chance to form up in any meaningful way. There was only one thing to do.

“Red squadron, attack at will. All ships…attack at will.”

*   *   *

“All sections, brace for impact.”

Barron reached down and grabbed the straps of his harness, pulling them across his chest and snapping the latches into place. Regs said all crew were to be strapped in during any red alert, but Dauntless’s captain hated the damned bulky things, and they had hung down from the bottom of the chair, unused. Until now.

“All stations report ready, sir.” Atara Travis was also strapped in, as was every other officer on the bridge.

Barron knew what had happening in the gunnery control sections. The anti-fighter turrets were targeting the incoming plasma torpedoes, firing as quickly as they could recharge. But the weapons were hard to intercept. They began their run as physical projectiles, but on the way to the target they triggered an internal reaction, converting the normal matter of the torpedo into a high energy plasma. It was a chess game between the gunners on the target ship and the AIs controlling the torpedoes. The warheads had small positioning engines, and they could adjust their vectors and correct targeting until they converted. After that, they were nothing but superheated plasma, traveling on a fixed vector and velocity, the AIs that controlled them vaporized by the conversion.

“Engine room, forward one-quarter thrust.” Barron barked out the command, his eyes fixed on the display. Most of the torpedoes had already converted. That made his laser turrets obsolete, but it gave him a chance to evade, to move his hulking ship out of the path of the deadly weapons that could no longer adjust their own vectors.

“Forward one quarter.” Travis echoed his command, and an instant later Dauntless lurched ahead, her engines blasting at one-fourth of capacity.