Steph risked a glance for himself, noting the sweeps of laser light refracting in the smoke. “Yeah, you noticed that too?”

She shouldered her battle rifle and swept the field with its optics. “They’re firing blind for now, but this smoke won’t last forever. Skipper has their air cover standing down, from the looks of it. Now we just need to figure out if we have to kill these fools.”

“If they don’t stop using multimegawatt lasers like flashlights,” Steph grumbled, “I know what direction I’m leaning toward.”

►►►

IBC Piar Cohn

► “What in the abyss was that? Show me again!” Aymes leaned over the controls, glowering at the displays as the two parasite frigates opened fire on the ship called Odysseus, only to explode in seconds. “Where is the laser trace? Missile telemetry?”

“There is none, Captain.” His tactical officer shook. “We must be too far out.”

“Too far,” Aymes hissed, knowing that wasn’t true.

There should have been some trace. Not even lasers were as efficient as this. There was no sign of beam reflection against the parasite’s armor, and there should have been, even if only for a fraction of an instant.

“Dump all data from the scanners to the long-term storage,” he ordered. “We’ll analyze it later.”

The situation was rapidly becoming too anomalous for his pay grade, to say the least.

“Navigation, give me a least-time course out of this system, with a nine-point evasion route to return to Imperial territory,” he said.

“As you say, Captain . . .”

“Captain . . .”

Aymes turned to his altern commander, whose hesitant tone felt profoundly irritating in that moment. “What is it, Altern?”

“What of the remaining parasite?”

Aymes sighed, considering the question.

It would hardly do to leave Imperial technology and people in the hands of unknown foes, even if said foes appeared to have access to at least part of the Oather database. Aymes returned to his station and took a seat before entering his personal access codes.

“For the Empire, we all sacrifice,” he said firmly.

►►►

AEV Odysseus

► “No response from the enemy ship at this time, Captain,” Miram said, her voice holding a nervous edge as she observed the situation below them. “Perhaps we should signal again?”

Eric’s jaw clenched as he considered the tableau arranged along the moon’s surface. For the moment the ground situation was stable, but that would last only until the smoke began to thin. At that point, the Marines would have no choice but to take off the kid gloves. So far, no one appeared to have died on the ground, which meant that both sides were holding back.

He just didn’t know why the aliens were holding back.