“Hob is Hob. None of him is inferior or superior. Hob is greatness and equality. Unless you have understood that, you haven’t understood Hob.”

- Index of intelligent species.

***Deep Space***

***Antioch***

“I don’t understand why we can’t stop and pick you up afterwards!” Silith complains while following me down the corridor. “If you are successful, we just have to turn around and-”

“We have no clue how close the other ships are.” I sigh and enter the small hangar with the fighter, then I step aside for my drones who are carrying three containers with antimatter. There isn’t enough time to construct a launching mechanism, so I give orders to three of the drones to attach themselves to the ship’s hull while holding onto the containers. The solution isn’t the best, but it will do. “If you turn around to pick me up, the next group of pursuers could come within sensor range. If that happens, I will have taken the risk for nothing.”

The others file into the small hangar and watch the diamond-shaped ship and my drones. The small robots have no problem with attaching themselves to the fighter’s landing gear, a set of steel skids. From there, they crawl up to the hull, carrying their deadly freight with them.

Antimatter containers are complicated technology. They have to hold the antimatter stable within a complete vacuum, manipulating it with magnetic fields. Should they ever lose the power to contain the antimatter, they would blow up in an instant. The eerily blue glow of the cylindrical devices makes me nervous. Handling antimatter like this is highly risky. A single mistake could spell the end. The antimatter reactor which is deep in the bowels of the ship is also dangerous, but it has several layers of fail-safe functions. The rigged up containers which I intend to use as impromptu mines have none of that.

When I am sure that the drones are handling the containers correctly, I return my attention to Silith and the others. “You have to prepare the ship for several emergency activations of the warp-drive. It will damage the emitters, but they are over-engineered. I am sure that they can handle the stress.

“When you leave the sensor range of the pursuing ships, you have to make several course corrections. Fly a few light-years, drop back to normal space and return to warp on another vector. The point is to shake off any pursuit.” I stop and gather my thoughts. “The reason why you can’t turn around isn’t just because of possible reinforcements, it’s also because I think that it’s unlikely that the mines will destroy the pursuing ships. They are too small for that.”

“Then why are you doing it in the first place?” Lisandra asks, annoyance in her tone. It’s clear that she has no clue about warp technology.

“While they are inside their warp-bubble, they are essentially inside a different universe. That makes them untouchable for any conventional weapons. But that’s not entirely true. The warp-field has to be projected by the emitters. Each time the warp-bubble encounters matter, may it be dust or micro-asteroids, the field requires energy to shove the matter out of the way, to bend the real universe around the warp bubble.

“When they collide with the mines, the container will fail and create an explosion with the contained antimatter. It will require a high amount of energy to shove the accelerated atoms from the explosion out of the way. Hopefully, that energy will transmit directly to their emitters and burn them out. At the very least, they should lose their ability to fly at warp speeds until they repair the damage. Right now, they are at the limit of our sensor range, which is still a few hours away.

“Should you decide to turn around and pick me up, you will have to fly all the way back, as my ship will be out of juice. Then you have to fly out of their sensor range, which will take a few additional hours.” I shrug. “I have no idea about the reinforcements, but depending on the damage to their emitters, it will be highly likely that you will negate my efforts by picking me up. It will give them hours to repair their emitters.”

Silith glares at the ceiling, as if something above us was responsible for the situation. Finally, she looks at me and falls into my arms, hugging me tightly. “I will watch your bucket!”

“Whaaaa…?” Jenny furrows her forehead, her eyebrows rising comically. “Why would you watch a bucket?”

“Ahem.” Lisandra covers her mouth with one hand and leans over, whispering, “The bucket on the shelf in the mess hall. It’s his Hardware Backup.”

That causes a great deal of unintelligible whispering among the others, so I kiss Silith goodbye and extract myself from her clingy arms. Saying a final goodbye, I head over to the fighter and climb up the ladder which allows access to the cockpit. It’s a single room in the insides of the ship, hardly enough space for an acceleration couch and some controls.

It takes some time to check all of the ship’s functions, but finally, I am ready to go. The others leave the hangar and I send my greetings over the network, which is answered by Silith. She advises me a final time not to go through any doors while I am dead.

The launch of the little ship works without any problem, and I smoothly float past the opening blast doors and out into the dark void of the Haven’s warp-bubble. After a final look at my ship, I engage my own warp-drive and cut through the warp-field of the much larger ship.

Had I left in a conventional manner, my little ship would be torn apart without me even realizing what happened.

But as I am now generating my own warp-field, that doesn’t happen. As I lie on the acceleration couch, on a collision course with the first ship, I dive deeper into the fighter’s control network, trying to go through a few last optimizations. It will take hours to reach the first of our pursuers.

The little ship’s energy reserves dwindle rapidly, but I have no intention of going back. This flight is a one-way ticket, no matter the outcome.

The thought makes me uncomfortably aware of the fact that I went into this without a second thought. I try to analyse the reasons and realize that it’s not only the fact that I have a Hardware Backup. I want to protect Silith and the kids. Damn those little buggers, I forgot to tell them goodbye. Though, they may not see it as a big deal to die and resurrect. The only ones who were overly emotional about it were Silith, Lisandra and I.

In an attempt to increase my accuracy, I establish a link with the Haven and instruct the larger ship to send me regular updates from its sensors. After a while, I run out of reasonable things to do. Without any other options, I decide to sleep, promising myself that next time I’ll definitely build a remote control for the fighter before I build the rest of the ship!

It feels like I closed my eyes just for a few minutes when the proximity alert wakes me up.

By placing my hands on the two pedestals next to the acceleration couch, I link with the fighter’s controls. Except for the tactical display, the confined cockpit is dark and empty. In theory, the navigation computer should be able to do everything on its own, but I might have to make some last-second adjustments.

My little fighter falls out of warp, drops its cargo, and returns to warp without a hitch. Eyeing the tactical display in front of me, I warily observe the three G.S. ships. They aren’t showing any signs of having detected me. Just as I suggested, the Haven is stressing its own warp-field, generating a ton of interferences which a perfect to hide the signature of my little ship.

I am about to drop the second payload, when the first G.S. ship disappears from my sensors. Without checking the location personally, there is no way to know if the other ship was utterly destroyed, or if my prediction held true.

The automated drop of the second container also works without interruptions, and I can see my drone drifting away, hugging the dangerous device. Then the warp-drive re-engages, causing some alarms to go off.

I quickly check for the reason, realizing that the fighter’s emitters are in the process of melting. They weren’t designed to be overcharged like this. Normally, it would be necessary to recalibrate them after each jump, which I didn’t do. Now, all the little mistakes are adding up, causing the some of energy which runs through the emitters to be discharged as waste-heat.

After a moment’s thought, I order my drones to crack some of the cooling pipes which carry liquid nitrogen to the anti-matter reactor. They can use it to cool the emitters which run along the entire ship. This just exchanges one heat-problem with another, but if this works out, the antimatter reactor doesn’t have to run for much longer.

As my drones work feverishly to cool the emitters, the second ship vanishes from the tactical display.

Just when I believe to have one problem under temporary control, the third G.S. ship disappears from my sensors. I curse, not knowing what’s going on. I haven’t even reached the drop-off point. Why did they deactivate their warp-drive?

They must’ve realized that something is wrong.

Then they reappear on my sensors, just on a slightly different vector. It’s just a small course change, but enough to throw all my calculations out of the window. There is no time to drop the third container into their new path. Making a quick decision, I drop out of warp and reactivate the drive, this time on a direct collision course with the third ship.

I always wondered what would happen if two badly adjusted warp-fields interject.