To the unaided human eye, the lasers crossing the intervening space between the fighting ships were invisible until they struck. But to those in the ships, the computer-aided augmentation of their instruments clearly showed the beams as they sliced space into cross sections. Explosions tore through the Achilles, gas venting from several points on her kilometer-and-a-half frame, but the big ship was firing back just as furiously at the four Drasin that had jumped her. One blast of the Achilles’ beams meant one less enemy ship.

They learned after their second lost vessel, however, that staying in the Achilles’ primary firing arc was a bad place to be. The remaining Drasin hugged in as close as they could to her stern and mid-fuselage as their lasers tore into the cruiser’s armor.

“Cardsharp, split low right. We’re going to scrape her hull clear of those pests,” Steph said, his voice as cold and calm as if he were ordering a burger.

“Roger, Stephanos. Call the play.”

Steph smiled slowly. “Pincer in three. Achilles, Odysseus . . . hold real still.”

Admiral Gracen’s eyes widened and, for a brief moment, she considered demanding that he explain that comment, but as fast they were moving toward the Achilles and the enemy ships, she was honestly afraid that distracting her pilot might be disastrous.

Fighter pilots. What idiot idea possessed me to put fighter pilots at the controls of starships?

“Stand by to go dead stick,” Steph said. “Achilles, do you copy?”

“Roger, Stephanos. Dead stick in five,” Burner’s voice sounded a half second later, just a touch of nerves in his voice. “Do I want to know?”

“If you have to ask, Ray,” Steph cracked without pausing in his work.

“Right. Dead stick in three.”

Steph didn’t reply as he finished tapping in a few commands to his console and put his hands back on the stick controls. “Cardsharp.”

“I’m ready, Steph. Call the play.”

“Clean sweep in two.”

“Roger that. Clean sweep.”

“Milla, lock targets. Watch for the Achilles,” Steph said. “The Odysseus is going dead stick on my mark . . . Mark.”

“Targets locked,” Milla called. “I have them. Firing.”

All ships involved in the battle were moving at relativistic speeds, hurtling into the system and ultimately toward Sol at unreal velocities. Relative to one another, however, the speeds were measured in mere hundreds of kilometers per second.

The Odysseus and the Heracles went dead stick within one thousand kilometers of the Achilles, lasers firing furiously as they closed the range on a purely ballistic trajectory. The Achilles also killed its space warp as they closed, Drasin vessels vaporizing under the close fire of the closing ships.

The three passed well within a hundred meters of one another, moving over five hundred kilometers per second relative to each other. It was a range that would have caused their drives to interact dangerously had any of them been actively warping space-time.