The Brykar Catalan class ship designated as Command One, has two primary propulsion system, and as such has two primary engines as well. The pulse-Ion Engine and the transwarp void engine.

According to Command one's database, a certain Maximillian Savatini discovered the existence of a transdimension overlapping our own space and reality. It is universally known as the void. Despite being discovered 2 million years ago, many creatures in the galaxy only have a disappointingly small amount of knowledge about it. The Brykar Unity is actually one of a very few races who is close to understanding it because of the unbelievable amount of invested credit poured into it several hundred years ago, but even so their knowledge is still rather limited. Despite this, every known spacefaring civilization in the universe is using the same propulsion unit derived from this discovery.

The transwarp void engine create this massive energy field that enveloped a ship and basically forced it into the blackness of the void. This is called the void shield. Once there, the Pulse-ion engine can move exponentially faster than in our reality. The speed created however is constant. The standard speed is 1 Zigat, which is the equivalent of just over twice the speed of light. 2 zigats is about 4 lightspeed, 3 zigats is about 16 lightspeed, 4 zigats is 256 lightspeed and so on. Right now, the fastest speed by modern Pulse-Ion drive is about 2.8 Zigats, but that is only made by specialize ships built to test new engine design. In reality, the standard speed used by ships is about 1 zigats, and 1.5 Zigats in an emergency or battle situation. There were rumours though that the elders are able to make their ships move as fast as 12 zigats.

"I would advise that once we dropped out of the void, we stop for a while and wait for our engine to regenerate enough power to reactivate the transwarp void engine."

"How long will it take to punch a hole in the void once more?"

"Approximately 22 minutes and 41 seconds."

Anji shook her head. "I can't wait that long. If we have a semblance of any chance to save anyone in that freighter, then we have to move now."

"...Understood. dropping out of the void in 12 seconds." Was that a resigned tone I can hear from the ship, Anji thought idly, as she listened to the countdown.

"4...3...2...1... Transwarp void engine deactivated."

The ship entered normal space and immediately scanned the area. The inertia from the void made it so that the ship is still moving in sublight when it exited the void. "Return to normal space successful. Distance to target approximately 112 million kilometers, north by northwest of our current location. We will be within the derelict ships position in another 6.4 minutes."

There were several beeps in Anji's own monitor and she studied her screen, and frowned. The instrument in the ship is now more accurate and powerful after they exited the void, and it is giving them new info. The Scanner is now reporting that the anomaly is in fact a wreckage of an old Dayajin destroyer. A Susanoo Class Destroyer. According to the database, the last commissioned destroyer of its class was destroyed 80 years ago during the expansion war. The scanner base the info from known designed features of the class, but at the same time, the transponder inside the wreckage is still broadcasting registry from a K28 Empire as a freighter cargo ship.

That is impossible, there is no way a transponder can make a stupid mistake. There was only one explanation, and Anji closed her eyes in acceptance.

They blundered into a trap.

The damn ship AI was right all along.

"Command One, I order you to turn around and-"

"Multiple contacts just dropped out of the void," Command One said in an agonizingly calm voice. "I count 6 fighter class, 6 corvette class, 3 frigates and a Destroyer."

"I guess you are right and I owe you an apology," Anji begun.

"Your apology is irrelevant! Please use all your energy and brain computational power in finding ways to get out of the trap. Use this unit if you need to, Survival of Command Alpha remains a priority."

Anji exhaled. The AI is right, and it even manage to restore her moral. "By god you're right," Anji said, smiling despite the situation. "So what do we do? Any recommendations?"

"Direct confrontation against such a force is not advice. They outweigh us in total tonnage by at least 12 to 1, and outgun us by at least 16 to 1."

"Then we escape," Anji said.

"Not possible at this time. Due to a previous command from Command Alpha, the transdimensional void engine is not ready for another jump for at least 17 minutes and 18 seconds." Despite the perfect monotone, Anji can still hear the accusation in the AI's words, and so she blushed.

Anji used the powerful scanner to scan the entire solar system. It was a dead area as far as Anji is concerned. The system only have a single planet, a Gas giant, plus its red star and a sizable group of roaming asteroids to one side. Without really thinking about it, She ordered the ship to turn towards the gas giant and used its bulk to shield herself from the incoming pirates.

"Designate the group of ships coming toward us as Sierra 1. They already change vector in response to our own. At current speed we will reached the other side of the planet in 6 minutes and two seconds. Unfortunately, we will be inside their missile coverage by 4 minutes and 17 seconds."

Anji brushed a loose strand of hair covering her beautiful face. "Anyway to increase our speed?"

"We are already reaching our maximum," The AI answered immediately. "This parameter is already included in my calculation."

"Alright, give me a list of all your available weapon system."

The AI almost sighed. "I have 16 Mark 2 'Shieldwall' Multiple-barrel railgun Autocannons, Six units of 4-barrel launchers for the PD(point defence) APQ-8 'Bluefire' missiles and the multipurpose jackal2 Ion cannon."

Anji checked the weapon list herself. "That's it?!" She said, incredulous. "That is your total firepower?"

"I also have 2 Mark-9 probes in my hangar and the latest electronic warfare software available in the known universe."

"Great."

"The Catalan class is not designed as a ship of the line, whose primary directive is to trade blows with another ship. That kind of ship class barely needed an AI to run it since it barely needed the computational power to do such minuscule process. The Catalan needed much more refined and delicate processes in order to become good at its job and as such needed such extraordinary amount of processing speed and energy to run our quantum CPU processor. Our job is to clear the path of the fleet of known explosive materials that might harm the vulnerable heavy but far more armoured ships."

Anji eyes bulged. "Wait a minute... are you telling me that you are a minesweeper?!"

"Affirmative."

Anji threw her hands up in defeat. "Of course you are! Why should I possibly think of you as at least a cruiser, I mean you are only twice as big as a freaking aircraft carrier!"

"I am?" The AI was genuinely surprised.

"Yes you are, and in fact I-"

"Multiple missile launch! Initial count approximately 224 missiles. Size of the missile and initial speed of the missile's ion engine indicates that all missiles are ship killers. Designate initial group of attacking missiles as vampire 1"

"Take us to the other side of that planet, you stupid bucket! Move!"

"Command One is already moving at top speed, screaming at me will not help our cause. I also- Multiple missile launched! This one has an initial count of 241 missile, same type as the first. Command one is designating this new group of missile as vampire 2."

Anji watched on her screen as the small red dots moved ever so closer to the center dot on the screen. "Damn, you have a fat ass!" Anji complained. "Initiate your electronic warfare software program 012. Jam those fuckers!"

"The size of my thrusters are perfectly proportional to the rest of my hull. Your observation is incorrect," said the AI indignantly. "Initiating jamming sequence 012 now!"

Outside the vacuum of space, the ship killer missiles of the pirates came racing in. They knew that the target ship is trying its best to use the protection of the gas giant and as one, they pushed themselves even faster, eager to be the first one to take a chunk away from the targeted ship. A third salvo of 233 missiles fired from the pirates missile tubes, hurried away and eager to join the party.

The silence of space didn't give justice to the furious electronic duel that is happening in a different positronic bandwidth. Both sides electronic packages were deployed and begun hacking each others security program. Within milliseconds of contact, Brykar electronic program knew that it is dealing with an inferior software program and brutally smashed through its antivirus defense. The pirate central computer also understood this and begun a preprogrammed series of rebooting itself every 2 seconds. Basically it threw away its chances to reach and penetrate the Brykar unit's own defensive program, but made sure that penetrating its own core is next to impossible as well for the other side. Brykar electronic virus noted the new defence and activated its secondary program. It may not be able to shutdown the pirates network computer completely, but it can still make it a bad day for it by changing the targeting system. Everytime the system rebooted though, the computer virus was also terminated but Brykar software accepted this and recreate the virus again and again, and sometimes it was able to successfully change target sequence before being stop by the reboot.

Sixteen missiles from vampire one change target lock and pursued phantom targets. Then the missile reach a certain range in space and the computer inside kick in, noted this and then reboot its own targeting system. the computer change target and either reacquire command one or simply drifted away in the vast space since no more target comes out.

"Launching Bluefire missiles! Defensive pattern Omega Charlie 002," Announced Command one. The six launchers connected to Command One's hull began firing bluefire missile one after the other with an impressive speed of 6 missile every 1.4 seconds. About 64 missiles, the size and look of an actual medieval lance, race out into the dark skies to meet the pirate's missile. The ship killers fired by the pirates, who are about 4 times bigger than the missile attacking them, went straight for command One, and this made the Bluefire perfect for their role. The Bluefire missile were also more fragile than the ship killer but it was expected because they are actually point defence missile and designed to destroy incoming missile just like this. The high maneuverability and the power of the Ion engine attached to it made sure that it can do Gs that are unheard of during the 22nd century.

As they reach a designated point in space, both group of missiles took note of the other group and they both adjusted vectors to compensate. Then 46 of the pirate's Shipkiller and 4 of the bluefire missiles Activated their payload. Every onboard computer in every missile in that area received this chaotic blinding white noise and all of them immediately activated their preprogram security software.

No matter how powerful the electronic jammer blasted into your opponent, the law of physics always favor the defense in this kind of situation. The jammers are eventually penetrated by the equally powerful onboard scanners, but two or threee seconds of temporary blindness are sometimes enough for the virus software that are introduces into the missiles are able to do their job. 12 shipkiller missiles rebooted their scanners and in that two seconds, the virus within its system is able to create phantom target in its scope, and they were successfully veered of the Brykar ship. The virus in 2 more missiles are able to bull through the antivirus system of the missile and edited its self-destruction program and harmlessly exploded behind.

Then after reaching the combined speed of 350 million KM per hour, the two set of missiles meet and the bluefire executed the preprogram detonation, and in a symphony of coordinated explosion that took out a total 148 pirate missiles. When the explosion died down, only 62 shipkiller missile were left from the original first salvo.

"Deploying Autocannon, now." Said the AI. "Spread pattern sigma-victor-06 prepared as backup"

Sixteen autocannon emergence from its protective cove within the Brykar's hull and begun to fire. Anji will find out later that each bullet fired by the autocannon is the size of a 2-litter plastic coke bottle and they fired almost 12,000 of them per minute. At first, the barrage was rather conservative, but highly accurate. The scanners will detect and analyze the flight path of each incoming missile then calculate the best intercept location relative to the movement of the ship itself. Then it was just a matter of sending enough bullets on the path to destroy the ship killers. A ten second burst followed by a 3 second cool down as the scanner look for another target, then another ten second burst.

Ship killer missile drop like flies, but to Anji's eyes, they were not dropping fast enough. From 62, it became 53, then 44...31... 25... 17

The last two trailing shipkillers activated their payload and simply disintegrated into several hundred mechanical parts. These parts who are the size of a small cabinet activated phantom targets for the cannons. Command recognize the tactic and quickly killed the auto targeting system in the cannons since the fifteen remaining targets became several hundreds and is impossible to tell apart with the active scanners. The preprogrammed spread pattern was activated instead and the autocannon begun to fire in a pre-arranged dance around the ship that theoretically will destroy any incoming missiles at the expected angle. The ship killer, knowing that they are in the last phase of the ship's defence begun to activate their own spread pattern while firmly connected to the target with a laser guidance system.

The autocannon spouted thousands of round into the evading missiles path and the occasional direct hit blossomed the dark space. Anji gritted her teeth as the Brykar ship executed its own evasive maneuvers and then activated its final defence. unfortunately, since priority is given to its escape, the ship's maneuverability is compromised

The thrum of the Ion engine grew obviously louder as a blue energy shield surrounded the ship. The autocannon killed another 8 more shipkillers as the rest dived in for the final kill.

Two of the missiles raced to the side of the ship and without warning, exploded its thermonuclear payload. The Brykar ship was momentarily engulfed in the bright light and radiation of the explosion but then it emerge out of the blast relatively intact, its shield flickering and bent but intact. Before the AI could even do a virtual sigh of relief, another missile raised in front of it and exploded.

Anji staggered to one side as the entire ship rocked from the latest explosion. The mechanical cable arm attached to the magnetic belt worn by Anji whined in protest as it struggled to keep its human occupant stable. "Status!" Anji barked.

"Shield at 83%, minimal damage to hull, but 2 autocannon have been disabled plus another 2 are damage. Launching second salvo of Bluefire missle...now!"

After two more minutes, Command One launched a third salvo of Blue fire missile. The second and third salvo consist of 64 missiles each. But it was just a precaution calculated by the AI since at that point, the ship curved around the gas giant and just to be sure, went closer as far as its calculation dared, towards the gas giant's orbit. The ship killer missiles, while already busy trying to survive the counter missiles, lost sight of its target as Command One entered the shadow of the gas planet.

The Oyati captain in the destroyer Shiskk-Atans smashed his heavy fist in the metal arms of the captain's chair, He underestimated not only the defensive capability of the Brykar ship but also the speed it could generate. His snake-like head exposed his row of razor sharp teeth even as sweat poured from the rough skin of his ancestors. His tongue keep nervously slipping in and out of his mouth as he tried to check the temperature inside the room and his crew. If his crew is generating too much heat then it is a good indication that they are angry or at least annoyed, and that is not good for his own health.

He can still remember the last captain of this same ship just 11 velashan orbit ago, when he, the great shiskk-sal-maa, led the mutiny when he accuse the old captain of incompetence and he and 5 others devoured him right in this command room. His huge head turned to his navigator, a brilliant and yet very ambitious young Oyati, who is becoming very vocal in disagreeing with him. And now the bastard rattler, who have not yet even shed his tenth scale, seems to be correct again.

Once the ambush was sprang, He expected the Brykar ship to turn and fight. The starship's main weapon is the Ion Cannon that is set up in front of the ship. It is a very powerful weapon, and when it hit, there is a very little chance of survival, even his beautiful destroyer will die if it fought that thing one on one. Luckily, the ion cannon is very short range, with an effective reach of 600 thousand kilometers only.

His grandfather had developed the technique to fight Brykar ships. Isolate them from ones and twos then pummel them with long range weapons until their defences are overwhelmed. That is why their ships are customized to hold a sizable amount of long range shipkillers. But this ship is acting strangely, the moment they arrived in space, the ship turned and ran away. As if the machine wanted to preserve itself at all cost.

That was the reason he fired two more salvos of missiles which is now useless trash since they lost their target on the other side of the planet. A very expensive trash. "Would it be better to just meet the Brykar ship on other side of the planet?" He asked.

The Navigator Shissk-sull-balan, turned to his captain, and spent a few seconds composing his face or his hate for the idiot might show (He wasn't ready yet to confront the old snake) before speaking to him. "No, my Captain, it is not advisable to go the other way since the combat time will only be in the seconds before the Brykar ship pass any blockade we made. Then we will have to spend a considerable amount of time, at least 20 minutes to turn around and pursue it once more. It is best if we just follow the starship right now. He will looped the planet once then ran as fast as possible away from the star. Even if they are faster than we expected, we still have at least a solid 9 minutes wherein the Brykar ship will be in our missile envelope. No matter how good their missile defence are, we will surely overwhelm them in 3-5 minutes time."

"What if they escaped by then?"

"Impossible," The navigator said bluntly. "According to our calculation, it doesn't matter how brand-new their ion engine is, which I highly doubt, they still need at least 10-14 minutes before they can charge their Ion engine, and escape by the void. They are trapped captain, do not worry, we just need to be patient about it like real hunters."

Unlike someone like you, oh great captain, the navigator thought contemptuously.

His eyes went back to his console and he waited patiently. "Come out and show yourself, Brykar, You will be my greatest trophy yet!" he said silently, eyes watery black and filled with nothing.

Anji disentangled herself from the lifeless metallic arm that is supposed to protect her. She winced when another console to her far left exploded in a spectacular sparks and died as well.

Dying from a freaking starship in outer space... Didn't expect that to happen, didn't you Anji old girl?

"Command One! Talk to me!" Shouted Anji to the room, surprisingly, Anji wasn't scared of death, she is merely annoyed that she feels so helpless in a fight that she barely understand. "give me something, damn you!"

"I am... sorry," The voice said suddenly in a low voice, despite the computer-generated sound, Anji can feel... sadness?

"What are you talking about, you stupid ship? Give me info I can use!"

"I have run several thousand scenarios and none of them ends with your survival. I have failed to protect you."

Anji stared at the room.

"I have failed my unity by being trap-"

"Shut up," Anji said rudely.

The ship stopped talking immediately. Anji wasn't sure if an AI can be shocked but she sure have the AI's attention now. "You want to know something about humanity? Your so called gods? Well, here's some food for your thought: Human's are cowards. As long as there is humanity, people wanted to know what is in the other side. I mean death. We created whole religion about it, theorize about, made a whole system of philosophy around it. But we never really know anything. Not where it matters anyway. So when we are confronted with it, when it is in our faces, especially when we are not ready and have something to live for, We fight tooth and nail to survive! to escape it! Even if there is no escape..." Anji shook her head when she realized she is actually contemplating it. "Do you hear me? Does that compute in your metallic brain? Because we will fight and we will survive!"

"... I understand," said the AI, somehow a bit calmer that it was just a few seconds ago.

Good, Because I don't.

"Good, then I need your complete trust if we are going to get out of this alive."

"Then you will have it, Command Alpha."

Oh boy.