“Sir, the Fulanya-Guang reports total loss of main power.”

“Well fire it!”

“Sir, how many—?”

“Everything! All the missiles!”

“Six missiles firing,” the combat officer said. “Four sec – one missile gone – two destruct – three, four gone, five … five gone … Shit!”

“We … we hit it.”

“Last one got it. Holy fuck.”

“We got it, sir.”

“The fucker’s dust.”

“We got it! We fucking got it!”

“Order on the bridge,” Tyun said.

“Sir.”

“Engine telemetry re-established,” the damage control officer reported.

The main screen went into start-up mode, checking itself out with quick darting blocks of colour and sudden scrolls of text and logos, gone too quickly to read.

“Sir, all other ships reporting all controls and telemetry returning to normalcy.”

The main screen came alive. It showed a view on medium magnification, looking twenty degrees astern at one edge, of a small cloud of expanding, radiative debris. Dotted alongside, leading away into the darkness, were five even smaller clouds.

“Ronte fleet ahead, sir. Within range. They’re targeting aggressively.”

Tyun tore his gaze away from the puff of slowly cooling debris falling further away into the night behind them. He switched his attention to the Ronte fleet as the screen view swung back round. The Ronte ships were close now; they had started moving around in one of their odd, forever-changing patterns, as though unsure what formation to fly in. Not that that would make any difference to the targeting AIs. It was even quite pretty, in a pathetic sort of way. Tyun collected himself. “Send the hail.”

“Sent, sir.”

“All systems aboard at prime, sir. Minimal radiation damage to rear sensors.”

“All ships at prime, sir.”

“Confirm that, sir. Back to full battle-ready state, zero damage, all ships.”

“Positive locks on all twelve Ronte ships, sir.”

“Ronte reply in, sir.”

“And?”

“Obscene, sir. Absolute non-compliance.”

Tyun looked at the message on his now properly functioning in-helmet display. It was indeed obscene; almost inventively so. The Ronte must have been doing their homework on Liseiden physiology.

Salvage and Reprocessing Team Principal Ny-Xandabo Tyun floated back a little in his command bubble. He checked the distance and the time to Vatrelles system, or to any other known ships. Nothing around for light days. They had hours to play with.

“Officers, we are going to fire to disable, targeting their engines.”

“Historically, they don’t disable too well, sir,” the combat officer said.

“Yes. They tend to explode. I know,” Tyun said. “Let their high command regard what’s going to follow as an incentive to improve their engine design. All combat officers?”

“Sir?” was said in chorus.

“Concentrate all fire, full squadron, flagship combat officer coordinating,” he commanded. “Pick them off, one at a time, nearest at all times unless they turn and attack. They probably will. Then each ship to deal with the most immediate threat to it. The flagship will re-send the hail to stop and submit to inspection to all remaining Ronte vessels after each successful engagement. Begin.”