“Bandit Three is holding back,” Steph commented as he punched in a series of numbers, one eye on the scopes while the other checked his entries. “We’re going to have to run a blockade once we’re past the first two.”

Milla couldn’t help but smile, just a little, as she took in the quiet confidence in his voice. There was no hint of worry that the two closing frigates would pose a serious problem, despite the fact that the shuttle was hardly one of his Archangels and they were unarmed. She found herself in an unusual position for one of her people, as she was almost enjoying the anticipation of the violence that was about to happen.

Oh, they wouldn’t be shooting or trying to kill anyone—lacking weapons tended to make that sort of thing difficult—but Milla had no doubt that what was to come would be violent all the same, constituting a clash of wills between the parasite frigates and Stephen Michaels.

She knew very little, if anything, about who was piloting the frigates—but regardless, Milla would place her faith in the pilot at her side.

“Punch it!” Steph ordered, causing Milla to push more power to the CM systems just as he hit the throttle and pulled hard on the stick.

Eagle One stood on its tail in the thick roiling atmosphere of the gas giant, nose pointing right at the closest frigate, and her reactors screamed in response to their commands. For a brief moment they hovered. Then the acceleration slammed Milla and Steph back into their bolstered seats with the force of a dozen Earths, and they were moving.

Like a bullet from a gun, Eagle One thrust vertically straight and true at the closest parasite frigate, proximity alarms screaming as the shuttle’s systems warned against the impending collision.

►►►

PC Parasite Five

► “Hard evasion!” screamed Penae, eyes bugging wide as every alarm in his ship seemed to come alive at once. “Get them locked! Now!”

“They’re changing velocity too quickly, Subaltern!” his tactical officer called. “I am attempting to override automatic systems. I will try to catch them manually!”

Penae didn’t respond. He was involuntarily gripping the edge of his seat as parasite Five pulled aside in an attempt to evade the oncoming craft.

Are they suicidal? he wondered. The Oathers were anything but suicidal, he knew, but this craft didn’t fit any Oather configuration. The Empire had, on occasion, encountered other civilizations that he knew of. Mostly they were easily absorbed, but occasionally a culture with some severe social malady managed to survive the tumultuous transition from irrelevant life-form to spacefaring culture.

Those cultures generally had to be exterminated.

Penae wondered if he was looking at just such a species. But if that were the case, why did the larger contact fit traditional Imperial and Oather designs?

“I think I have them, Subaltern. Engaging lock!”

►►►

Shuttle Eagle One