There is a reason small ships dogfight in the vacuum of space. Primarily, it boils down to setup time. It took six days to set up our encounter, and at the time we started accelerating, there was no way to know if any target would be available by the time we were falling past Nexus's primary orbital station. There were a few other things that made combat difficult. Primarily, the ability to hide in the vastness of a system.

On the one hand, it was almost impossible to hide. The electromagnetic fields generated by even a microwave-sized, unshielded drone could be seen clear across the system. The idea of EM shielding had never occurred to me when I was piloting the Flying Brick. Its Electromagnetic Field Drive, used for the detailed work around stations, would have stuck out like a sore thumb. A brilliant, blinding light in an otherwise empty void on unshielded ships. The EMF protects against radiation and small objects. Its ability to slowly move a vessel was a side benefit.

Then there was hiding heat. Another challenge that requires specialized equipment like heat sinks and skills like knowing when and where to dump those heat sinks. There was radar and lidar, the latter of which needed to be more directed in order to get an appropriate picture. All in all, hiding in the vacuum of space was actually more difficult than one might expect. The only saving grace was that space was very, very big.

If one could hide their presence, like that of the bounty hunter's ship that chased us across the previous sector with its unidirectional stealth capability, you could still be seen via regular optical wavelengths. However, such telescopes were at a considerable disadvantage compared to all other spectrums. If there wasn’t enough light from the system's primary star at your angle, it was often easier to detect a vessel based on which stars it blocked.

There were other ways of hiding, though. Yes, every one of those ships transiting between the planet and Azore's mineral-rich rings could be seen from half a system away, but only as incomprehensible blobs of electromagnetic radiation and heat. There was no identifying mark beyond their transponders. One could easily hide in a crowd of entities so far away from each other that they couldn’t be seen with the human eye.

And so, our ship fell toward the system primary at a whopping 0.1 C. We were aimed to pass roughly 300 kilometers away from the Nexus orbital. Four other unshielded drones, spurting out enough radiation to look like full-on ships, were clustered with us. Clustered being a relative term.

Everything would see us coming. Everything would plot our course and see we were going to be quite far away from the orbital. Everything would look at us and wonder what the hell was flying past Nexus and off toward the system primary. Theoretically, everything would be staring at us; and not at the collection of unidirectional stealth drones, and free-falling missiles.

This was something more akin to an actual naval engagement. Imagine two fleets of large ships coming in from opposite ends of a star system. They can see each other from opposite ends, so long as the sun or some other planet isn’t in the way. One side makes its move and changes its formation. The light is seen days later by the other. They, in turn, make their own adjustments, which will take days to be seen by the opposing force. On and on it goes as they draw closer.

Eventually, combat is met at speeds in excess of 0.2 C. The interaction between the two fleets lasts microseconds. Automated systems fire energy weapons and activate missiles, which had been delivered far before the two fleets engaged each other. The utter devastation destroys massive warships in less than the blink of an eye. It’s too costly, and out in these far-flung sectors, this kind of thing just doesn’t happen..

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7 seconds. One… A unidirectional stealth drone fell past the path of the planet's orbital. The station's sensors likely only picked it up once its angle of approach was past the drone's deflectors, and the rest of the body could be seen in gravitational, infrared, radar, and electromagnetic spectrums. By that time, the drone was already gone. It marked targets and sent the information to the incoming missiles, which corrected their orientation and burned hard to impact their intended targets.

Two… Three… A second unidirectional stealth drone fell past, double-checking the targets and sending updated information to the missiles.

Four… The first volley of missiles fell through. One of the gunboats managed to catch the incoming device before it hit, its point-defense cannons disabling the explosive warhead before impact. However, at 0.1 C, the now-inert body of the missile slammed into the ship's shields, causing them to waver and nearly fail. Two other ships were missed entirely. A fourth ship was hit dead on, taking out its shields and causing damage to its hull.

Five… The second wave of missiles rammed through the space near the station. The ships who were missed previously were missed again. Their positions just far enough for the missiles to fail to correct their trajectories in time. The first ship, which had initially avoided devastation by the first missile, was torn in half by the second. The fourth ship, which had lost its shields, was obliterated entirely.

Six… Seven… The third and final unidirectional stealth drone fell past, taking note of the successful and unsuccessful kills and squirting out tight-beam, slightly encrypted messages to each of the ships. Each one getting a specialized "thank you for the info" note. In theory, this would sow dissent in our enemy's fleet.

That was it. The entire engagement was over in seven seconds.

We spent the next day or so collecting our drones and leftover missiles. Then, we gravity-slung past the system's primary and back toward Azore.

Four ships were more than we could have asked for. Two kills out of those four had me ecstatic. Sam didn’t quite understand why we seemed to think the mission had been successful. We often killed more ships in the closer and far slower battles. At the speeds we were going, the issue was always going to be catching the targets.

Those four ships had to be separated from the hundreds, if not thousands, of other similar ships that we did not want to hit. Furthermore, our ship didn’t have any energy weapons like actual navy ships would be using. Yes, the blow we dealt was physical in the destruction of two ships. Moreover, we were playing a psychological game. We were upping the stakes, letting the Sentinel Mercenary Group know that we wouldn’t be following the usual rules. This wasn’t a bout between small players. This was war.

While Sam hadn’t been completely satisfied with our mere two kills, X-Talia and I were planning a longer-term game. A game that had me grinning when X-Talia informed me that several Sentinel Mercenary Group vessels were heading out from Nexus to police the Azure Rings.

If, instead of braking, we sped up slightly and were willing to give a couple of extra days for slowdown and return, we could take out a few more vessels. Even better, since we didn’t have to worry about hitting planets, stations, or a number of other ships in the considerably more wide-open area between the two planets, we could also use our ballistic weapons.

I grinned. X-Talia grinned. The blue tips of X-Talia’s hair now had red tips, and it wasn’t just a flash, it seemed more permanent. Her eyes no longer had a blue glow but now sported red. I had to wonder if the change was simply mimicking Sam’s visual appearance. From a red-skinned succubus to the darker-skinned drow she was currently going for, or if X-Talia was changing her appearance to reflect our new and enhanced hostile intentions. I’d have to talk to her about it eventually.