“Gutsy bastard,” Eric said, mentally tipping his cap to whoever commanded the destroyer.

He supposed that the ship was possibly a drone, but he doubted it. There was no hint in Priminae records of drones being used, and the similarity of the tech between these forces and the Priminae couldn’t be ignored.

Besides, they’d dispatched three of the destroyers after Steph and Milla, then headed several light-minutes away. Without FTL relays, that was a long delay with which to try to coordinate any sort of combat maneuvering.

No, some gutsy bastard had just taken one for his team.

“Good man,” he said, unable to keep himself from having some admiration for his opponents despite the situation. “Helm . . . put us back head-on to the planet, all flank.”

“Aye Captain. All flank.”

Eric turned and walked toward the damage-control station, wondering just how badly his own ship had been ravaged.

►►►

IBC Piar Cohn

► “Enemy ship has ceased fire. They are accelerating away.”

Aymes considered what had just transpired as he tried to figure out what to do next.

“Analyze the data,” he said. “I want to know how such an attack just happened.”

“As you say, Captain.” His altern nodded, already issuing orders to that effect.

Everyone looked shaken, but Aymes was pleased to see that no one seemed unable to do his or her job. The Empire usually did not receive such surprises, but it did happen. He and his crew would adapt, and, in the end, they would overcome.

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 12

Shuttle Eagle One

► Eagle One twisted in space as Steph set the shuttle on an evasive path, warning alarms blaring at every station as gigawatt lasers cooked random matter around them. People thought that space was empty, but it wasn’t. Space was filled with dust, debris, gasses—all things that caught and absorbed light, superheated under the glare of laser beams, and then fluoresced in all directions to warn the scanners on the Eagle of the passage of the beam.

“They’re rather determined, aren’t they?” Steph asked mildly as he set the shuttle into a tight spiral, trying to stay ahead of whatever predictive systems the other side had.

Trying to avoid a laser wasn’t like dodging a bullet. Technically, you could evade a bullet from a mere few thousand meters or so. Within two hundred thousand klicks, if a laser was aimed at you, you were hit, not because you couldn’t possibly escape before the shot hit you, but because by the time you knew you were in the crosshairs, you’d already been lit up.

So the art of dodging a laser, in space at least, was in the anticipation.

You had to figure out what the enemy was thinking, or what their computer was programmed to do, and get there first.

Or, rather, not get there.