“It’s theUnhil.” Gerbardi shook his head. “I’ve been on that ship, at the UC headquarters comms convention.”
“Who captains it?” Hal asked, but before Gerbardi could answer, theUnhilshot at them.
“Up,” Hal shouted, and Chel lifted them straight up as the sirens warning of a laser strike began to wail.
“Damage?” Hal kept his voice cool, keeping all signs of his fury buried.
“Some shielding damage, nothing structural.” Chel’s voice was quiet with shock.
“And we’ve got three more battleships coming up behind us,” Voa called out. “Coming in a V formation.”
“The fuckers.” Gerbardi got to his feet. “In our own air space.”
“It’s probably two runners using magnifying arrays, plus theCiollo,” Hal said. “But we have to check because we can’t have them at our backs.”
“This is why they were playing those games with us. Testing this out.” Voa sounded disgusted.
“I’m guessing theCiollois in the middle, the decoys on either side,” Hal said. “Go right first, Chel.”
They shot through space, looping around to the right, and when Voa’s scanners were shrieking that they were about to collide with nothing, he gave a nod.
“Destroy the runner.” They couldn’t even see it, but it needed to be wiped out.
Hanli, his weapons officer, who usually sat quietly with nothing much to do, leaned forward and opened up the small phase lasers. There were a few small explosions as they hit the arrays, and then a slightly larger one when they hit the runner.
“One battleship gone.” Voa sounded sarcastic.
“Now?” Chel asked.
“We take out the one on the far left, and leave theCiollountil last.” Hal wanted to know what he was really dealing with. “Go low.”
Chel nodded, dropped them down and put them at full speed, then spun them into a full 180 degree turn when they reached the next battleship. Which didn’t exist.
“Hanli, I hope your hands aren’t going to get too tired,” Hal said.
Hanli chuckled. “Maybe they will.” He proceeded to destroy the invisible runner.
Everyone else on the bridge took a moment to catch the joke, and then began to laugh.
They needed it after the shock of theUnhil’slaser strike.
They had almost gone to war with Tecra a few months ago, and there had been some space battles, but they’d gone in expecting it. Getting hit by a supposed ally within your own space boundary was a slap in the face.
“Captain.” Voa rose to her feet, then turned to him. “The final battleship has disappeared.”
“Light jumped away?” Gerbardi guessed.
“Or used that same tech to make itself invisible,” Hal said.
He had to tamp down on his anger a little harder.
“Hunner saw we were clearing the decoys, and he knew we’d be coming straight for him,” Chel said.
“Yes.” If his backup had been here, they could have each taken a ship, but he’d had to go it alone, and there was nothing he could have done differently.
“So what now?” Gerbardi asked.
“Head toward to theUnhil, but hang back. And bring Yiko up from Engineering. We need to find a way to make the invisible visible again.”
