She slapped a map overlay on the images and ran through it until the plane slid over the target zone. She didn’t see anything at first, but a moment later she had to look closer. Zooming in she spotted something that threw up all kinds of red flags.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” she whispered, flicking through the overlays until she got the thermal.

Lyssa’s eyes widened and she let out a curse that caused the entire place to fall silent.

In an instant she was back on the communication channel. “Shiva One Two, retask. Retask. Retask. I say again, retask, retask, retask.”

“Roger, Control. Standing by for retasking coordinates,” the pilot came back. “Will need authorization for retask.”

“Coordinates sent. Stand by for authorization,” she snapped, pulling off her headset as she screamed, “General!”

Gaia turned her focus away, smugly satisfied with the results.

Now, if her captain could just pull off the impossible one last time, they might just have a fighting chance.

She didn’t really expect it. The end seemed to be upon her, but one thing that Gaia had picked up from her people was a certain tenacity. Death may win, but it would not take her easily, nor would it take her cleanly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“IS EVERYTHING READY?” Eric asked, striding onto the bridge.

He’d spent most of the last few hours making sure that these new ships would be able to pull off what he had planned. They were well equipped, certainly, and the most lethal ships in the universe . . . or he dearly hoped so at least, because if there was something else out there that could kill a ship at fourteen light-minutes faster than light itself, he didn’t want to know about it.

All that, however, didn’t mean that the Odysseus had the capability to do what he needed. It was close, in some ways. Her cam-plate modifications were second gen at best, maybe a touch more efficient in some ways due to Priminae tech, but he didn’t think they’d have a patch on the Odyssey’s later-gen design.

Her lasers should be good enough. While they were lower generation they were also massively more powerful. Power counted for something, after all, counted for a lot of things, really. He had confidence in the weapons, but what he needed was real stealth, and he wasn’t sure that the monster he was on could handle it.

If it came to fighting before it was his choice, they’d already have lost.

“Show me the stealth specs again, please,” he asked, nodding to Winger, who was in charge of the ship’s active stealth systems.

“Aye sir. On your console.”

“Thanks.”