“Raze, all Secondaries and Tertiaries on auto targeting. I want a full identification before they fire. The main guns are your, fire at will. Alcea, regulate the shields and give it as much power as it needs, I don’t care where you take it from. Vivvian, full evasive maneuvers, go wherever you need to. Deed, I need you to plug yourself into the identification system. Make sure you’re only shooting at enemies and identify any allies we can support. Joan, I want full spectrum coms, see if you can find who’s in charge and on our side. We need to link up as soon as possible. Inanna, what the Space Hell is happening?”

  Everyone does what they’re told without question or argument. Going straight into their battle minds to try and keep us alive a few seconds longer. Inanna opens her personal tablet and starts swiping through the identified ship images.

  “That’s a Yavinna cruiser, and that’s a Spindax assault frigate, and a Vorcome heavy carrier! This is impossible! There’s twenty different wild race starships working together! This has never happened before!”

  "What? What has never happened before? What’s going on?"

  “The Phibians were once part of an old empire, one of three that forced all their neighbors to fight each other for power. When the Union arrived in this sector, they defeated the three Empires, and the Phibians joined with them. We were the only ones because all the other races couldn’t let go of their old rivalries, and have been warring with each other for centuries. Getting even two of them to agree with anything would be a monumental task, let alone all of them!”

  “Worry about that later, any tactics?”

  “Not for something like this! The Phibians are very good at fighting all of these races, but only one at a time. You can’t pull off a cut throat maneuver when the Cartins are there with their mag launchers but that’s the best way to overcome a Vorcomes photonic wave generators. This is completely unprecedented.”

  “So we gotta wing it, as usual.”

  “Hears distresses. Trade ship need helps.”

  “Confirmation: Vessel identified as merchant transport. Unarmed and lightly shielded. Prediction: Chances of survival in current condition: 7%”

  The wormhole relay shut down right after we exited. If it was a surprise for us I’m sure it was a surprise for them.

  “Vivvian, try and move us closer, we have to soak some hits for them.”

  Vivvian charges forward at a snail's pace. Every other second, a ship flies past our brow, or a hail of fire nearly strikes us. Vivvian's doing her best to keep us out of the worst of it. Still, the sheer amount of flak being fired in every direction means we’re taking hits constantly.

  “Inanna, is there anything that you can tell us about these guys, anything that will help at all?”

  “Let’s see, let’s see...” Inanna paces back and forth frantically. “None of them are above a tier four in technology. Individually, they struggle to have more than a hundred or so warships. With all of them together like this, there should be no more than 3,000 vessels.”

  “Deed, wanna fact check that?”

  “Statement: Based on all current available information a conservative estimate of the enemy fleet would be ten thousand.”

  “Te-ten thousand!”

  All the blood drains from Inanna's face. It looks like she’s fighting the urge to vomit all over the floor. I knew we were in trouble before, now we are elbow deep in the shit.

  “Trade ships speaks. Legs no work, needs drag to safe."

  Translation: The Merchant ship’s engines are broken and they need a tow.

  "This day just gets better and better. Does anyone know how many crew a ship like that has?"

  Fairy furiously swipes through our files.

  “Approximate crew should be twenty. It’s heavily automated to cut down on cost.”

  “Raze, could we get a shuttle there through all this flak?”

  “Bold strategy, warm blood. If we coordinate all of our weapons in the hangar bay we should be able to get a shuttle and some escorting fighters out there. It’s getting them back on the ship that’s the hard part.”

  “One catastrophe at a time, get it done.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “On it. You know, those merchants won’t be too thrilled to give up their ship.”

  “Tell the shuttle crew to get them out of there at gun point if they have to. They can bill it to the Union.”

  Raze gives a wicked grin and starts the orders.

  “Vivvian, get us as close to the vessel as you can.”

  … Vivvian hasn’t said anything. We have to get moving soon.

  “Vivvian, I said move closer. Now.”

  “A river always flows through the path of least resistance.”

  “Everywhere is resistance right now. Just pick a direction and move!”

  “A good craftsman measures twice because a broken clock is always right twice a day and the seashells…”

  I always had trouble understanding her metaphors. But, even I could tell that was complete nonsense.

  “Vivvian, if you are having a stroke or something I’d like to know now.”

  “How can a lion hunt if they do not trust the sharpness of their own claws?”

  I get what this is about. The encounter with the Bathos must have had more of an effect on Vivvian then I thought. We haven’t had a moment to sit down and talk about this. In fact, I think I’ve been neglecting Vivvian quite a lot lately. I think I take it for granted she’s a person and not a magic 8 ball. Time for a ten second cowboy speech. Oh wait, ship just got rocked from an enemy broadside. Better make it five seconds.

  “Vivvian, I’ve been where you are every second of my life. I’m there with you right now at this very moment. And every time I need to second guess myself I realize I don’t have time to do that and put action before thought. Trust your instincts as much as I trust you to fly this ship to safety. And if we survive, we can have the tough conversation then.”

  Her purple head nods weakly. She takes a deep breath and then gets to action. We reach within a couple of kilometers within the merchant ship before we even realize. I stopped counting time based on seconds and more on how many ships we’ve blown up. We’re at twelve.

  “Raze, you ready?”

  “Have been. Launching squadron.”

  Hundreds of missiles and energy blasts shoot out from the left side, with a shuttle and a couple of fighters smack dab in the middle. It only takes them a few seconds to reach the merchant ship.

  “Alright, stage one of the plan complete. Does anyone know what stage two is?”

  “Statement: Docking procedures necessitate that shields be lowered to allow vessels to enter and that speeds be reduced to ten kilometers per hour.”

  “We don’t have time for that. Inanna, any official Union protocols?”

  “We could try the drive-by maneuver."

  “Abridged version, make it snappy.”

  “Both the Moby and the shuttles fly in the same direction at the same speed. The Moby shuts its shields down for a second, the shuttle jumps in, the shields go back on, and we never lose our momentum.”

  “Does that mean the shuttles will enter the hangar side ways?”

  “Yes. It’s extremely risky, but I don’t see any other way.”

  “Shuttles returning. That’s gonna have to do.”

  The Moby starts moving forward; tertiaries clearing a path for the shuttles and fighters to approach. They become parallel with the primary hanger bay at the starboard side. All three of them have to get as close as possible. We only got one chance.

  “Deed, we need this all to happen as quickly as possible. You’re in charge of the coordination. Do you see the opening?”

  “Calculating: Best possible chance in 23.5 seconds. 70% success rate. Predict heavy fire making contact with the Moby. 0.8 seconds after shields are back on line. Prepare to brace for impact."

  Cutting it real close. I grip my chair tightly and plant my feet firmly on the ground. There’s only two times when a shield is visible. The first is being struck by a heavy blow. The other is when it goes up or it goes down. I can see the shield shut down from a blue tint briefly over taking all the blue screens. Mere moments later the blue tint rises back up. I push against my chair for what’s coming next.

  “Warning: Brace.”

  The entire ship rocks as the portside lights up with blue. Those bastards really tried to hit us with our pants down. Raze wastes no time retaliating. I think we are at 16 ships down now.

  “Hears from friend ship. Place to go heres.”

  Finally, some direction. The Phibian home fleet has formed a screen defending their planet. With three hundred of the most powerful ships on this half of the Union, nothing has been able to break through. But they also have been completely pinned in place, unable to be aggressive. Scans have indicated hundreds of other Phibian ships from other fleets, trapped in a disorganized brawl across the rest of the battle. Phibian vessels are some of the toughest in all the galaxy. Some of them have managed to form pockets of resistance in the onslaught. Most, however, are surrounded, suffering a slow death of a thousand cuts.

  “Inanna, I thought the Phibians have more ships than this! Don’t you guys have ten fleets?"

  “Yes, but we loan fleets out much like the Racktor. I’m guessing we had four fleets, plus one or two training fleets.”

  “Well, why is the fortress station not firing its big guns? It should have enough firepower to wipe out half this fleet in a matter of minutes.”

  “We are among the fleet that it would attempt to eliminate, as are countless Phibian vessels.”

  “Right, right… Forgot where we were for a second. We need to do something to turn the tide and we need it now. Deed, status report?”

  “Analyzing: Munitions at 60%, Shield strength: 80%, At current rate of enemy casualties, I predict battle would continue for 3 more Union hours. Union casualties expected at 90% or greater.”

  “I can’t accept those odds. We need to make a big play. What’s the biggest and most powerful enemy vessel we can destroy?”

  “Calculating: Enemy flagship found.”

  Deed projects a holographic image of the enemy flagship. It’s a lot bigger than I was expecting. At least a Mark 8 in size. I thought Inanna said they didn’t have anything above a tier four in technology. This seems far too large and far too advanced for these glorified barbarians to put together on their own.

  “Yeah, I think that’ll do it.”