The ships weren’t what he’d call stealthy, unfortunately. Unlike the Odyssey, the Heroics just couldn’t go silent. They had a distinct gravity field and a power output that was high enough to be detected in the local space-time, which was a problem.

The Odyssey, and the Enterprise, were a lot like old-school diesel submarines. They weren’t as powerful as nuclear boats, but they had a few advantages. For one, you could turn off the Odyssey’s reactors, run on electrics and bare minimal thrust. You couldn’t do that with a Heroic, the same way as you couldn’t turn off a nuclear submarine’s reactor.

That meant that the enemy would be able to track the heroics almost anywhere they went, and that was a problem. Every problem, however, had a solution.

“Susan, transmit orders to the Heroics,” he said. “Here’s what I need them to do.”

“Aye sir. I have your file. Sending.”

“Good. Steph, are we ready?” Eric asked, taking a seat as he forced a cocky smile on his face.

It was anything but the time to be cocky, but what he was about to do was risky enough. He didn’t need everyone all tied up in knots over it because the captain didn’t look like he knew what he was doing.

Fake it until you make it. That’s been my motto ever since I saw these things for the first time. Why change now?

“Yes sir, we are ready.”

“Susan, transmit to all ships,” he said. “This is Captain Weston . . . initiate shell game.”

The ship minds advanced, closing the links of their net as they approached the targeted world and ships. The approach of the new class of ships, yet another type that defied all explanation and analysis, confirmed what the swarm had hypothesized. There was another spacefaring example of the red band in this part of the galaxy, and it was far more virulent and deadly than any other in recent memory.

It must be destroyed.

The swarm were shocked by a momentary flash of FTL particles that erupted from the region of the third world, effectively blinding them. Their light-speed senses remained intact, of course, so the swarm wasn’t overly concerned until all but one of the enemy ships vanished from their tracking plots as the FTL spectrum cleared once more.

That was impossible.

One could not simply hide power plants as large as those ships contained. There was no way, and yet all of them save one were now gone. The swarm intensely watched the light-speed track as it slowly caught up to the disruption, only to practically reel in shock when the ships all vanished from that as well!