“Now, Mr. Daniels,” he ordered. “Initiate our attack run.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Daniels ordered, snapping the Odyssey out of the evasive roll and steadying her into a headlong rush at their enemy.

“Paint that ship, Mr. Waters,” Weston said.

Waters didn’t respond right away, his shoulders already bent to the task as his fingers sent out a dozen low-powered targeting lasers, all seeking the enemy ship as they closed in on it at a madman’s pace.

Twenty seconds out, eighteen back, and the tactical officer’s face flushed with pleasure. “I’ve got him, Captain.”

“Hold him,” Weston ordered. “HVM banks, prepare to fire.”

“HVMs are ready.”

“Flush the banks. Pattern Trafalgar Twelve!”

“Aye, Captain. Trafalgar Twelve away!”

The Odyssey shuddered as the forward HVM banks were flushed, the CM-powered death dealers leaping from the ship and into space, accelerating to their maximum speed of 0.789c in the nearly thirty seconds it took them to cross the gap between the Odyssey and her foe.

The spread pattern, Trafalgar Twelve, was a statistically based pattern designed to engage opponents at extreme range and had never been used in combat before. The think tank that had come up with it was mostly just shooting blind as they tried to figure out how to engage threats against the Jovian research platform, or more likely, Earth-based satellites and the Demos repair station that overlooked the site of the Martian Colony Project.

They certainly hadn’t envisioned it being used against an alien attacker in a different star system over a hundred light-years from Earth.

So when the impact plumes went up across the enemy ship on their screens, almost seventeen seconds after the impact had occurred, the bridge crew of the NACS Odyssey was elated.

“Got him!” someone shouted.

“Status, Mr. Waters,” Weston said over the general buzz of relief.

Waters, too, was quiet, watching the numbers carefully. Each of the HVM strikes would have carried the equivalent kinetic energy of a nuke strike when their full mass returned after the destruction of the CM generator on impact. In theory, the solid-core missiles could deliver considerably more energy than any nuke ever devised.

In reality, Waters was no longer certain of that.

“Enemy vessel stabilizing, Captain. She’s still coming,” he reported a moment later.

A dark silence fell over the bridge, but Weston stayed calm. “Prepare a firing solution for the main laser array.”

“Aye, aye,” Waters responded.

Weston watched the numbers as they fell. Thirteen seconds was now all that lay between them and the ship ahead. Behind, the chasers had managed to gain another fifteen light-seconds on the Odyssey, and it was clear that it had lost its brief acceleration advantage. It would shortly be facing those two behind, assuming it survived the deadly duel it was already engaged in.

“Laser strike!” Waters snapped. “Solid hit on the forward armor!”

“Status?”

“Holding, Captain.”

“Hold course.”

“Captain?” Daniels blurted in shock, half turning.

“If they’re firing at us, Mr. Daniels, they aren’t trying to dodge. Mr. Waters, open fire with the main laser array.”