“I think we need to drop stealth before we enter a stellar system,” Xuilan abruptly announced, catching the others off guard.

“Mind explaining that?” Remi inquired.

“Look, we know the stealth system degrades sensors,” she explained. “If we’d shut it down before entering UDF 2457, we could have spotted that Tu’udh’hizh’ak destroyer first and avoided it.”

“Wouldn’t have made a difference,” Slavko disagreed. “If we’d shut down the system early, it would have still spotted our waste heat signature against the cosmic background. We would have stuck out like a store thumb.”

“You don’t know that,” the pilot countered. “They wouldn’t have seen anything if they were on the opposite side of the star.”

“That’s a pretty big ‘if’,” Remi pointed out. “For that to work, we’d need to know the enemy ship’s location before we shut down stealth. It’s a ‘Chicken-and-egg’ argument, and while you raise a good point about the sensors, under our current circumstances, not being seen trumps everything else.” He gave her a shrug. “You can make a case either way, but I’d rather err on the side of caution.”

“Maybe Mairead can boost the sensors like her and Maggie did on Gyrfalcon,” Slavko suggested, allowing her to save face.

“It’s worth a shot,” Remi agreed. “Give her a yell and see what she says.”

Xuilan flashed them both a smile. “I will,” she promised.

“In the meantime, how long until our next scheduled layover?” the captain asked her.

She glanced at her console. “About five hours, plus or minus,” she reported.

“This trip is taking a lot longer than I’d expected,” Slavko complained. “Would it really be that big a risk if we made a hard burn straight for Terra Nova?”

“You remember the condition Samara was in when we found her?” Remi reminded him. “And this is a woman who was an assassin for Wetworks, can regenerate any physical injury, can shapeshift into any form she wants, and… let’s not forget… has an entire army of Precursors living inside her head, giving her pretty much every skill imaginable. And the Troika still swatted her down like a fucking bug.” He gave the gunner a moment to let that sink in. “So yes, I think it is that big a risk.”

Slavko held up his hands. “Okay, fair point,” he conceded.

“We’re all eager to find New Terra,” the captain continued, “but to pull this off, we have to get there in one piece. This route might take a little longer, but it’s definitely safer.”

“Slow and steady. Got it,” he agreed, turning back to his console, only to freeze as an angry red light suddenly demanded his attention. “Oh, fucking hell…” he swore.

“What is it?” Remi demanded.

“Sensors are lighting off like a supernova,” Slavko snarled. “Hegemony cruiser just popped up on screen, bearing 217 by Mark 035, range… eight hundred thousand kilometers.”

“... Confirmed,” Xuilan chimed in a moment later. “Looks like it’ll pass us starboard side forward.”

“All stop,” the captain ordered. “Make us a hole in space.” Mashing the intercom button, he radioed engineering. “Mairead, we’ve got company again. Get the simulacrum up and running ASAP.”

“Aye, Cap’n, I’m on it,” she answered, as he turned his attention back to the bridge crew.

“Any sign they’ve spotted us?” he asked them.

“Not yet,” the pilot responded, her eyes now glued to the monitor.

“All right then,” Remi nodded, considering his options. “We’ll hold our position here until that cruiser is out of sensor range. Are the stealth systems still online?”

“So far,” Slavko reported, “but we don’t know how effective they are against Troika ships. They might be able to detect them.”

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take,” he decided. “We’ll wait him out, and only fire up the simulacrum if…”

“... Status change!” Xuilan shouted, interrupting him. “New course heading is 225 by Mark 027, range now seven hundred fifty thousand kilometers, and closing.” She shot a look over her shoulder. “They’ve spotted us, Cap’n. They’re making right for us.”

Remi hit the intercom switch. “Plan A just went to shit,” he informed the Tinker, “so it’s all on you. Bring the simulacrum online.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n,” she confirmed, “program coming online now.”

The crew watched and waited. “Anything?” he asked.

“No change,” Slavko reported.

“... Shit! Shit!” Mairead howled over the radio. “The program fucking crashed!” she howled. “It’ll take me an hour to reprogram the subroutines!”

An icy calm washed over him as their options dwindled to a binary set. “Can we outrun them?” he asked.

“Not for long,” Xuilan informed him.

He hit the switch once more. “All hands… Battle stations. Get into your suits. This is likely to get terminal in a big goddamn hurry.”

There was a flurry of activity as the crew rushed to comply. In less than a minute, their helmets were sealed. “Range,” he queried.

“Six hundred thousand kilometers, and closing,” Xuilan replied.

“Are they charging weapons?” he asked.

“Still no sign,” Slavko answered.

Remi leaned forward against his harness. “How close would you have to be to take out their guns?”

He chewed on that for a moment. “Less than two hundred thousand, minimum. One hundred would be even better.”

“Can’t promise you that, but we’ll try,” Remi said grimly. He drummed his fingers on the armrest as he considered possible strategies, immediately rejecting most out of hand before finally hailing his engineer. “Mairead? I need a ‘Broken-Wing’,” he ordered. “Can you do it?”

There was a brief pause. “I think so, Cap’n,” she answered, the tension obvious in her voice. “It’ll be tricky, but yeah… I can do it.”

“Then do it,” he snapped, turning his attention back to the gunner. “When she does that, I want you to futz around with the stealth system. Make it look like we’ve suffered a major engineering casualty.” He locked eyes with the gunner. “Sucker them in, get them close… and then fire every fucking thing you’ve got.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n,” he swallowed.

“Take out their weapons first,” he continued, “then target their engines. I do not want them escaping.” He turned his attention to the pilot. “The instant he fires, get this ship moving. Your very best evasive maneuvers, Xuilan,” Remi impressed upon her, “because our lives damn well depend on it.”

“Yes, sir,” she nodded, bracing herself for what was coming.

An ominous tremor began vibrating the deck and bulkheads, as warning lights appeared on their consoles. Remi reached for the intercom switch, but Mairead beat him to it. “I’ve kicked off Broken Wing,” she told him. “We’re throwing out random spikes of radiation and leaving a trail of plasma in our wake a blind man could follow. Hopefully, that should sell it.”

“Keep ramping it up,” he ordered, “we need to sucker them in close. Be ready to dump the subterfuge when we trigger the ambush.”

“Just give me the word, Cap’n,” she informed him.

“Count on it,” he growled, his attention now focused on the Aggaaddub ship.

“Five hundred thousand kilometers, and closing,” Xuilan recited.

“Start jinking us around,” Remi told her. “They have to see our plasma trail by now, and they know we’re watching them. Nothing too obvious, just enough to spoil their aim if they opened fire.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” she acknowledged, entering thruster commands at random to avoid falling into predictable patterns.

“I have a tentative lock on their weapons,” Slavko announced. “Firming it up now.”

Remi nodded, internalizing the update without responding. Choosing the moment was always the hardest part of battle... well, that wasn’t true... actually pulling it off was the hardest part. The difference was there was no time to worry or second guess yourself when you opened fire, or worse, when they did. During combat, you were far too busy trying to stay alive to let little things like fear and uncertainty get in the way. No, those were reserved for when you had nothing but time on your hands, where you could devote your full attention to the gut-churning sensation extreme anxiety induced.

“Four hundred thousand,” the pilot counted off.

Slavko flinched. “Cap’n, they’re charging weapons.”

His mind raced furiously. Four hundred thousand was still too far out. They had to draw them in.

“Mairead, I need something dramatic,” he barked. “Make them think we’re dead in space.”

“... Shit,” the Tinker swore, glancing around the compartment frantically before her eyes lit on a console. Remi saw the mental debate raging as she weighed her options before grabbing a tool from her kit. “I suggest everyone hold on to something,” she growled, advancing on the hunk of machinery. “This is gonna get… interesting.”

Something about that last word turned his bowels to water. “I fucking knew Maggie was a bad influence!” the captain swore, before shouting into the intercom, “All hands! Brace! Brace! Brace!”

They had maybe a second’s worth of warning before all hell broke loose.

The bridge crew was thrown against their harnesses, their heads snapping forward as the ship bucked hard. In the distance, Remi heard a muffled rumble, like a summer storm on a terrestrial world. Dirtside, the worst that could happen was a heavy rain, maybe some lightning. Here, shipside?

The consequences were likely to be much, much worse.

“We’re losing stealth!” Slavko shouted. “The entire system is crashing!”

“Leave it!” the captain snarled. “Stand by weapons!” He spared a glance at the intercom, sighing in relief when he spotted Mairead tearing apart the engine room. At least she was still alive.

“Three… three hundred thousand!” Xuilan gasped. “Captain, I’m losing thrusters! She’s tumbling!”

“Mairead!” he shouted. “We’ve lost thrusters!”

“No fucking shit!” she screamed back at him. “You wanted dramatic!”

He wanted to rip her head off, but in her defense, he hadn’t been specific about how. Technical details he gladly left in her capable hands, so if this was her best-case scenario, a more detailed explanation would have to wait. Telling her to fix the problem would just piss her off even further, so instead, he turned his attention back to the enemy vessel. There was no way they’d missed whatever she’d done to cripple their ship, and with Heuristic Fealty now tumbling out of control, the question they faced was brutally simple.

Did they believe the ruse, or did they smell a trap?

They watched and waited as the Aggaaddub cruiser seemed to pause, eyeing them with suspicion.

“Cap’n, I’ve lost all helm control,” the pilot reported. “We’re dead in the water.”

“Understood,” he answered, still focused on the other ship. “Weapons status,” he inquired.

“Still online,” Slavko reported, “awaiting your command.”

“Stand by,” he cautioned the gunner. The crew held their breath, waiting for the Troika ship to make its move.

Still it hung there, not moving, not firing. Why? What was going on over there? Remi asked himself.

“They don’t know what to make of us,” he realized, unaware he’d spoken out loud.

“What do you mean?” Xuilan asked him.

“They don’t know we’re not an Eleexxi crew,” he explained, as the other ship’s hesitation started to make sense. “If they did, they’d fire on us without a qualm. The Eleexx are the Troika’s best engineers and scientists, and I’m betting their ships have an impressive safety record. A mechanical failure this extreme must be practically unheard of.”

“Then why aren’t they firing?” Slavko demanded. “We’re sitting here like a dead duck, and we know they hate each other. What the hell are they waiting for?”

“Because they’re not sure if it’s a trap,” Remi explained. “Playing wounded? No way would a Troika ship do that. It would never occur to them, and even if it did, they’d never allow themselves to be humiliated that way. They’re cocksure bastards, and they never show weakness.”

“So wouldn’t that mean it can’t be a trap?” the pilot asked him, more confused than ever.

“That’s the rub,” he nodded, warming up to his theory. “I’m sure they’d love to get their hands on this ship and see what secrets it holds, but the predator in them also sees the easy kill of an untrusted ally. They want to take the shot… want it badly, I’ll bet… but the idea of letting a prize like this slip through their fingers sticks in their craw sideways.” Remi leaned back in his chair, a smile tugging at his mouth. “So there they sit, locked in debate.”

“For how long?” Slavko insisted.

“Not much longer, I imagine. Eventually, they have to choose, and the one thing we absolutely cannot do is give them a reason to suspect us. If they close in on us again, then they’ve decided to investigate… and we’ve got them.” The captain grinned at the prospect.

“And if they decide not to investigate?” Xuilan asked nervously.

“Oh… well, in that case, they’ll open fire and blow us out of the sky.” The pair stared at him in shock. “Yeah, it’s a gamble,” he admitted, “so stay sharp. We’ll only get one chance at this, assuming we get any chance at all.”

The pilot and gunner each took a deep breath and sat at the ready, while Remi stared at the screen with hooded eyes, awaiting his counterpart’s decision.

“Status change!” Xuilan howled, “Hegemony vessel has resumed course, closing at one-quarter impulse.” She stared back at her captain in amazement. “How did you know?” she asked him.

Remi smiled… and said nothing. Somehow, he suspected saying “I didn’t” wouldn’t help morale.

“Two hundred thousand!” the pilot sang out, as Slavko tensed.

“Wait for my command,” he cautioned the gunner, “not until I give the word.”

Closer… just a little closer…

The seconds ticked by while the Hegemony cruiser edged nearer, the three of them concentrated on its approach with laser-like intensity. Remi had slaved his board to Xuilan’s, watching as the distance between them melted away.

“One hundred thousand!” Xuilan shrieked, while their captain bellowed “FIRE!” at the same instant.

Pulse cannon batteries belched radioactive death while swarms of gravitic missiles accelerated to light speed, impacting against the cruiser’s hull faster than the human mind could register. Primary and then secondary explosions erupted on the vessel’s nose and hard points, catching the Aggaaddub unprepared. Subconsciously, they must have decided their ship was too badly damaged to be a threat, allowing themselves to relax at the fateful moment.

A fatal mistake on their part.

The enemy ship struggled to respond, sending a ragged volley of projectiles back toward them, but unlike their gunner, Slavko was prepared for return fire. Even as he pounded the helpless cruiser into submission, he loosed a stream of counter-battery fire aimed at the incoming warheads. He didn’t get them all… that was asking too much of any man… but he got most of them. The few that he missed impacted Heuristic Fealty, doing additional damage, but a quick glance at his board quickly proved none of the hits were crippling.

Not that the news would put Mairead in a happier mood.

Slavko continued putting fire on the enemy ship, hammering it into scrap. Weapons and engines were now both out of commission, the larger vessel leaking atmosphere and plasma like a bloodied and beaten brawler. Finally, his chest heaving from adrenaline, the gunner looked up from his board.

“Orders, Cap’n?” he requested.

Remi’s answering smile was practically feral.

“… Finish them.”