The poor officer at tactical had nothing to say. He knew that as well as the captain did, but they both also knew that reality trumped all else.

“Begin evasive maneuvers,” Aymes ordered, knowing that he was more than a little late. “Secure those decks, and get repair squadrons on location immediately.”

“They’re already on their way, Captain,” his altern said. “Orders dispatched.”

Aymes nodded tersely, glad of that. Initiative was generally frowned upon in Imperial service but was considered a required asset for command. Assuming they survived this encounter, of course. With the sheer extent of how badly they’d underestimated the unknown target, that was no longer a certainty.

“Are we still firing?” he demanded.

“Yes Captain.”

“Good. Continue!” he yelled. “Link with maneuvering so you can keep ahead of our evasions.”

“As you say, Captain.”

Aymes took a breath, then leaned over his communications officer’s shoulder. “Give me a patch to parasite One.”

“As you say, Captain. Patch open.”

“One, this is the captain.”

“One here, Captain.”

“We’re going to need cover,” Aymes said firmly.

“As you say, Captain. We live to serve.”

“We all do. In the empress’ name.”

The altern in command of parasite One immediately replied in same. “In the empress’ name, Captain.”

Aymes straightened up, patting the comm officer on the shoulder. “Secure comms.”

►►►

AEV Odysseus

► “Enemy formation is shifting, Captain.”

Eric wasn’t surprised. They’d just raked the flanks of the bandit vessel with fully adapted lasers, and it was clear that they’d struck home. The analysis department was going to have a field day with the hyperspectral readings of the bandit ship’s vaporized components.

“Continue firing,” he said. “We’re going to be out of range quickly. I’d like to end this now if we can.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

The Odysseus rotated, keeping her primary lasers on target as the ship continued to warp space past the bandit.

“Watch it! That pocket destroyer—”

Eric flinched as the screen briefly overloaded, the small ship diving into their beam and vanishing in a brilliant explosion. While the primaries were resetting, the display swapped over to computer-generated imagery showing a plot of the vessels as they moved against the deep black of space.

Where the pocket destroyer had been a moment earlier was nothing but a cloud of static on the generated imagery. Eric grimaced. He recognized that the static was in fact debris, dust, and expanding molecules that used to be the small ship. He wasn’t overly worried about having blown apart the craft, but that static was a near-perfect laser block.

The newly formed cloud of chaff reflected and absorbed most of the energy from the Odysseus’ lasers. If his ship hadn’t been on such a fast pass, Eric could have maneuvered around to get a clear shot, but the Odysseus was already starting to pull away from the bandit vessel. He didn’t think he was going to get that chance.