Despite their best efforts, the energy maelstrom still connected the Odyssey with the Drasin mother ship.

The silence on the tac-net was broken a moment later.

“Cover me, boss man. I have an idea.”

Stephanos snapped his head around in time to see Flare’s fighter peel off from the rest, plunging back through the enemy fighters and toward the Drasin vessel.

“Flare! What are you doing?” Not receiving a reply, Stephanos cursed and reluctantly backed the brash woman’s play. “All right, everyone, cover her!”

The remaining Archangels fell into a loose formation and plowed after the errant flyer, letting loose with their few remaining missiles to clear the small fighters from her path. The lone fighter was well ahead of them by the time Stephanos realized her intentions, and if it had been anyone else, he would have ordered him or her back again. He knew that any such order would go unheeded by the hotheaded young woman.

So, gritting his teeth at the sudden feeling of impotence, he watched his fellow Angel accelerate into the jaws of the lion and wished her luck as he followed his own instructions and started haloing enemy fighters and opening up with everything his fighter had.

The rogue fighter broke through the enemy’s defenses, its cam-plates shimmering with iridescent ripples as the onboard computer tried valiantly to reflect the incoming fire. Stephanos didn’t know what was keeping the armor active. He’d have expected it to be long overwhelmed by this point, but Flare seemed to have a higher power flying on her wing. Fighting the damaged thrusters on her plane, Flare kept the reeling aircraft on a direct course for the alien weapon emitter that was holding the Odyssey in its clutching grasp.

Samantha Marie Clarke, call sign “Flare,” second-generation Archangel and general pain in her superior’s posterior, overrode the safety systems and threw full power to the CM field, even as she slammed her throttle full up.

The fighter accelerated from just under 0.1c, relative velocity, to almost 0.85c in about a second and a half.

Flare died before the first quarter-second passed, even the CM field unable to keep her from being crushed by the sudden acceleration, but her fighter continued on, slamming into the enemy’s capital vessel at relativistic speed.

The explosion that followed tore through the enemy ship, ripping its weapons mount from the hull in a single instant and terminating the attack on the Odyssey.

CHAPTER 13

GROANS ECHOED ACROSS the bridge of the Odyssey and across the entire ship as the crew began to struggle up from their fallen positions and retook their stations.

“Put the alien vessel on screen.” Weston was having trouble swallowing. His mouth felt like it had been packed with cotton.

“Aye, sir.”

Weston heard the dry rasp from Lieutenant Daniels and assumed that his symptoms were far from unique. The screen flickered and showed the alien ship, a tall plume of flame marking a gaping wound in the ship’s hull.