“Waters, calculate targeting coordinates for odd-numbered tubes one through eleven.”

“Aye, Captain. Calculating for tubes one through eleven.”

“Lamont.” Weston half turned. “Charge status on tubes two through twelve?”

“Two and four are now charging, Captain. We’ll be ready to fire in five minutes. Six through twelve will take another ten.”

Weston turned back to his displays. Having all the capacitors charged and ready, and not drained by a recent transition, meant that he’d get a second round of shots from all tubes in this battle.

It might be enough.

Probably not, but it might.

On the alien ship, the commander pondered how, once again, the unknown enemy was proving to be an unforeseen obstacle to the plan. The ship was not along the projected path that its weapons had followed, and the fleet had wasted time in the search. The vessel had to be of unprecedented technology in order to deploy as much power as it held and yet register so low on the threat-rating system.

This was disturbing on many levels, of course, but mostly because the weapons and warriors the fleet had deployed were intended for use against the target. This new enemy was not in its database, and there were no appropriate counteractions it could take.

Reluctantly, he ordered the fleet sensors to full spread.

“We’re getting heavy spikes all through the EM range, Captain!”

“Have they spotted us?” Weston asked, intently watching the countdown to firing. It was too soon; they needed another few seconds to fire, then almost a full minute and a half for the shots to land.

“I don’t think so, Captain,” Waters answered first. “I think…It looks like an omnidirectional burst, and we’re far enough out that the pulse density is under our detection threshold.”

“But is it under theirs?” Weston muttered under his breath.

“What was that, sir?”

“Nothing, Lieutenant. Hold our course.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

The tension continued to mount as the timer counted down; then the odd-numbered pulse tubes opened fire.

“Thrusters! Half power, Lieutenant,” Weston ordered. “Take us up above the enemy this time, but maintain our current horizontal heading.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Firing thrusters.”

The Odyssey groaned again, though quieter this time, as she tipped her nose up and began to climb back toward the ecliptic. This time the big ship only fired thrusters that were pointed more or less away from the enemy as she sought once more to evade detection.

In a conventional battlefield, one minute was a lifetime, ninety seconds a lifetime and a half. Hell, in Weston’s fighter, lifetimes were counted in tenths of seconds at times, but in space, such time felt like eternity, especially when waiting on information that had to travel that distance just to get to you before you could make any choices based on it.

The torpedoes were the first legs of that data transfer, though the only message they carried was death. They crossed the expanse, blazing a trail across the black with the impunity that belonged to single-minded things, and came flashing right in on their targets, just as calculated.