She followed his gaze and spotted what he was talking about instantly. The contact she’d been following had split up. There were now at least eight or nine different spots, spreading out but moving along a similar course.

“Parasites.” She whispered the word, in Priminae.

“What was that?” Steph asked, confused. “I didn’t catch that.”

“It is . . . an old system—parasite ships attached to a larger vessel,” she answered. “We ceased using that design.”

“Why?” Steph asked, trying to judge the size of the parasite craft.

They were bigger than Double A fighters, as there was no way an Archangel would be visible at this range.

“No need for them,” Milla answered. “A single vessel has more than sufficient power. Parasites add very little.”

“They add mobility,” Steph corrected. “Options. Options are good if you’re fighting a war.”

Milla was about to respond, but before she could say anything, something on her screens caught her eye. She scowled for a brief moment before suddenly blurting out something that sounded incredibly vile to Steph, despite him not understanding a word of it.

“What? What is it?” he demanded, knowing profanity when he heard it.

“One of the parasites has altered course,” Milla answered. “It is coming for us.”

►►►

AEV Odysseus

► The tachyon pulse set everything on its ear.

“Isolate and locate the source of that!” Miram ordered, surging to her feet.

Eric remained silent. He already knew the source. There really was only one possible place the pulse could have come from.

“Belay that,” he said finally, standing up and stepping around his console. “Even armor, warp space on my command.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Lieutenant Kinder confirmed. “Course?”

“Intercept, Bogey One.”

“Intercept, aye.”

Eric glanced over to Commander Heath. “Take us from general quarters to battle stations, Commander.”

“Aye aye, sir.” She stepped forward. “Battle stations! All decks report in. Secure all stations for combat operations!”

Eric watched silently as his ship rigged for war, knowing that out across the black, his counterpart was doing precisely the same thing.

►►►

IBC Piar Cohn

► “Parasites launching, Captain.”

“Bring light to the darkness, Chief,” Aymes ordered from his station.

“Yes Captain.”

The ship’s FTL scanners lit off, pulsing a wide swath of the system with tachyon particles. The response hits started pouring back instantly, and the computers processed the information.

“Initial signal matches Oather designs,” the chief said. “Very similar to Imperial cruiser specifications, Captain.”

“Understood. Give me the overlay with our previous scans,” Aymes said, looking at the screens.

“Yes sir.”

The image of the unknown ship was indeed very similar to Imperial designs. Almost identical, in fact, to the Piar Cohn itself. There were some oddities he couldn’t identify, and that bothered Aymes. Whatever was tacked on to the ship’s superstructure was an unknown element.