The drives of the Odysseus flared, surging the vessel beyond flank speed for a moment, actually causing the space warp to reach out and interfere with the passing starship. Eric looked around, alarmed as the power on his secure command deck flickered and dimmed.

“What the hell—?”

An explosion tore through the enemy ship, and her acceleration suddenly died.

“We blew her drive emitters, Cap,” Steph said. “Chief, we good?”

“Just don’t ask me to do that again,” the chief’s voice came back, “but yeah, we’re good.”

“Stephan!” Milla called out. “Watch for the parasites! There are too many!”

Steph redirected his focus beyond his target, and his eyes widened as he realized just how many of the parasite ships had been launched by the enemy task group. “Oh, crap!”

Dozens of them were swarming on course to intercept the Odysseus, and still more were heading for the Boudicca and the Bell, lasers glaring hotly from each and every frigate.

A web of laser trace beams tightened around the Odysseus, forcing Steph to wrench the big ship in ways he was sure no one had planned for during the design phase. Even so, there was no way he could avoid them all, and alarms began to sound as patches of armor were vaporized where the beams came into contact.

“Hold on,” Steph mumbled, more for his benefit than anyone else’s.

He put the Odysseus into a flat spin, using the gravity wells generated by the ship’s drives to deflect and attenuate some of the beams as he searched for a way out.

Eric linked into the command channel behind Steph and accessed the squadron battle network. “Rogues . . . engage parasites at will.”

►►►

AEV Song-Jiang

► “Target the parasites and go to autofire on t-cannons,” Captain Su Lynn Jing ordered from her position as she quickly confirmed the targeting solutions before her ship broke from the dark.

The Song-Jiang’s cannons pivoted to targets, and the silent puffs of subatomic particles erupted from the waveguides, sending their packages onward.

Su Lynn caught sight of the Aladdin and the Kid as the other two ships entered the fray, their own cannons tearing into the parasites with ease. The transition cannons might not have been as effective as desired against the larger vessels with their singularity cores, but the parasites had no such power source.

Without gravity cores to twist and disrupt the transition, the atomic warheads reintegrated perfectly and blew instants later, turning one parasite ship after another into expanding debris and plasma.

“Fire the magazines dry,” she said. “If there’s anything left when we finish the parasites, retarget to the cruisers. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”