“Captain, they’ve jumped.” The sensor watch-stander reported.

“Then chase after them!” Captain Cosco ordered, slamming his fist against the synth-leather armrest.

First the damned traitors had managed to escape the asteroid belts. Now, they’d managed to go into hyperspace seconds before his missiles had reached them. Missiles that he would’ve launched minutes ago…had restocking not been nearly impossible.

With the heavyweights exchanging hundreds of long-range missiles each day, reloads had become a rare resource provided only to those that proved their worth. And a random flotilla maintaining order in the penal colonies was damn near the very bottom of the list.

But not for long.

“All ship hyperdrives synched. Your orders, sir?” The navigation watch-stander asked.

“Engage hyperdrives, guns at the ready.” Cosco ordered settling into his seat with a huff.

Their frigates, powerful as they were for their class, had limited superluminal mobility. They only had enough antimatter fuel to go to Praxis and return…which meant this was his last chance to catch the fleeing saboteurs.

“Engaging.”

For a fleeting moment, his molars tasted like the spring air of his hometown on Solomon…and then he returned to the present. The experience was wonderful -he’d heard of super-rich idiots jumping back and forth to experience it all the time- but he had a job to do.

“Sensors, where are the traitors?” He asked.

“Gravidar’s cycling…found them.” The young lieutenant said from his console station. “They are heading deeper into the system…wait. Status change, we’ve got unknown bogeys. Warships, sir!”

Cosco’s eyes widened. “Warships, you say?! Elaborate.”

“My sensors are seeing three unknown ships approximately three light seconds away and burning towards us. Lidar puts two bogeys at approximately four hundred meters long and the third at nearly a kilometer, but the gravidar’s going haywire. Densities are too high to be civilian, but I can’t tell anything else.”

The young officer’s words were worrying. If these were militarized freighters piloted by pirates, then he needn’t worry. But if these were proper warships…well, where the hell did they come from?

“Reboot main sensors and switch to auxiliaries.” Cosco ordered, training overriding his panic. “Communications, send a message to those unknown warships.”

Clearing his throat, he spoke. “Unknown vessels, this is Captain Matteo Cosco of the Leonian Royal Guard. We are pursuing a group of traitors, terrorists and saboteurs for crimes against king and kingdom. Do not interfere.”

“Message sent, captain.” The communications watch-stander confirmed.

“Good. Send a message to the other frigates. All ships are to continue pursuing the mining barges but remain alert in case the unknown warships attempt to attack us.”

On their current course and heading, his task force would catch up to the barges with plenty of time to destroy them with railgun fire. Cosco thanked his lucky stars they wouldn’t have to waste any more missiles; his ships’ magazines were looking dangerously empty.

Just as he was about to relax in his chair, the lieutenant manning the communications console spoke.

“Sir, I’ve got a response from the, uh, the warships. The header says it’s from the ‘Akritan Navy’.”

“Bah, probably a bunch of pirates trying to look prim and proper.” Cosco chuckled. “Forward the message to my console, I’ll take a look.”

“Right away, sir.”

Cosco opened the video file, seeing an unknown coat of arms. Three heads similar to those of a wolf -a well-known animal of ancient Terran descent- hovering above a planet. There was some kind of writing around the design, similar to Domain Standard yet…different.

Then the coat of arms vanished, and in its place appeared a well-kempt man in a foreign uniform. His expression was stone cold.

“This is Commodore Gaines of the Akritan Navy. Unknown warships, you are intruding on dynasty space and are suspected of war crimes. Surrender immediately or you will be destroyed. This is your first and final warning.”

The message closed on its own, leaving Cosco speechless.

“…war crimes?” He mumbled, frowning. “So the rats spoke to them. Gunnery officer, light those warships up with our fire control radars. Let them run like the fringe pests they are.”

“Aye, sir!” The lieutenant commander responded enthusiastically.

Ten seconds later, the akritan ships responded to Cosco’s warning.

The simple response made the captain’s hairs stand up. Yet he didn’t have time to wonder why.

“Ancestors!” The sensors officer shouted. “Battleship! That thing’s a fucking battleship!”

Cosco’s eyes bolted to his sensor screen, only to make that same realization. It appeared that the unknown warships had been jamming their gravidar arrays…until now.

“I’ve got one bandit at one-six-zero kilotons, two bandits at four-five kilotons, Captain! They’ve changed their course, burning hard towards us!”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

A battleship -if barely- and two very heavy destroyers. If those readings were true, they were fucked. They would have to retreat…but where? If they came back now, with their magazines low, fuel expended and low on supplies the admiralty would send them on some ‘redemption mission’ in close-quarters battle.

“Impossible.” He responded, trying to sound confident. “These rats are spoofing our gravidar returns. Comms, tell the task force to switch targets to these new foes and prepare for-”

“Status change, missile launch!” Sensors reported. “I’m seeing twelve…thirty…fifty…one-fifty, I repeat, I’m seeing one-five-zero missile launches from enemy warships! Accelerating at four-five-zero gravities, impact in five minutes!”

“Brightest stars…” Somebody murmured the Henshii prayer, and yet Cosco was far too shocked to punish the man.

“Launch counter-missiles!” He ordered. “All ships are to launch counter-missiles. Our point-defense net will take out the stragglers. Come on, people, look. They’ve probably launched their entire magazines, and I bet those missiles are dumber than a rebel pipe-rocket.”

“Gunnery officer, hold our own missiles for close-range fire. Their own birds won’t have time to get us.”

He put his everything into making that sound confident enough. A little bit to boost the crew’s morale, and a little bit to raise his own. They barely had a one-twenty counter-missiles between the four frigates, and they were last-generation birds built during the Freedom War. The truth was, their on-board guidance systems were absolutely terrible at acquiring and holding a target farther away than a single light-second.

“Counter-missiles launching.” His gunnery office reported. “Impact in two minutes, twelve seconds. Laser point-defenses are opening fire.”

He grinned. ‘Maybe we will actually see this through.’

“Uh…sir?” The damned sensor watch-stander spoke. “The missiles are…multiplying.”

“…what?” A gobsmacked Cosco asked. “Say that again, lieutenant.”

“The missiles are multiplying.” The lieutenant said, his face devoid of color. “I’m reading nine hundred enemy birds.”

The bridge fell silent at his words, and for good reason.

‘What the fuck kind of electronic warfare platform do they have that can quintuple their birds?!’ Cosco thought, straining not to shout in confusion. “Boost sensor power, we can still-”

“We’re on maximum power settings, sir. The radar’s overheating; it’s going to shut down in a few hours.”

“Just fucking do something, lieutenant!”

+++

“How are our birds doing, lieutenant commander?” Commodore Lukas Gaines asked his gunnery officer.

“Attrition so far is at three percent, sir. I’ve never seen something like this in my entire life.” The veteran reported with a look of pure amazement. “It’s like they are running their ECCM shop out of a toaster.”

“I think that’s a very close approximation, Captain.” His electronic-warfare officer cut in from her console. “I’ve seen better responses from pirates, back when we sent raiding parties into the Fringe to give ‘em a wedgie. They are probably seeing enough missiles on their screens to break up a star fort.”

Lukas didn’t need the man to tell him so; he’d been sitting in the lieutenant’s chair for more than a decade before the admiralty decided he was of more use sitting in the fancy chair. And as captain of this ship, it was his job to know exactly how powerful her systems were. Which was very, compared to the akritan standard. Compared to these poor fucks who probably still encrypted their communications in-

‘Wait. No…They can’t be that stupid…right?’ He thought, feeling the outline of an idea form in his head.

“Comms, electronic warfare.” He called out the two lieutenants, who turned to face him expectantly. “I don’t suppose these backwards morons have comms codes we can actually crack, right?”

The officers’ eyes widened at his suggestion, wolfish grins forming on their lips.

+++

“Captain, I’m receiving a message from the…the akritan warships.” The comms officer reported.

“Well? Have they asked for mercy yet?” Cosco asked, focused on his displays.

‘One minute until missile intercept.’

His task force’s laser defenses were firing with abandon, but it was an exercise in futility. Four out of every five missiles they hit was ‘invincible’, sensor ghosts generated by the enemy that leonian radar systems found impossible to parse through. Their gravidar was spitting out nonsense half the time, and the other half the sheer volume of jamming caused the operating system to enter a reboot cycle until somebody manually cycled the system.

They’d only managed to take out eight or ten missiles, and the lasers’ power banks were straining against the load. They could store immense amounts of power, but the rate at which they filled and emptied was putting a strain on them. Even their fusion reactors were showing signs of strain.

“Sir…the message is written in our encryption.”

'...what?'

“It appears they have broken our radio encryption, sir.” The lieutenant explained, his voice rendered calm not by training but by the sheer impossibility of their situation.

“How…how the fuck did they do that?” Cosco spat out.

Sure, he had no illusions about the kingdom’s cryptography shops. They weren’t the best in the sector. Information was the trade of the Concordiat. But nobody he knew of had the ability to crack naval comms encryption in minutes. At least, not without pre-collapse technology…

“Send me the message. Gunnery officer, alert me at thirty seconds to intercept.”

“Aye sir.” The lieutenant commander responded distractedly, focused on guiding his subordinates as they optimized the anti-missiles flight profile.

As Cosco opened the message, the ship’s lights flickered. The contents were just two sentences long.

“What in the hells is that supposed to-”

A shrill tone sounded from the ship’s announcement system.

The bright white lights shifted into crimson red emergency mode.

“Active sensors are down!” The sensors watch-stander shouted in panic.

“Sir!” The gunnery officer’s voice boomed. “Our fire control radars are all shutting down. Our missiles have gone to self-guidance mode.”

Despite the panic on the bridge, Cosco remained outwardly calm as he looked at the text message on his screen.

‘Of all the ways to go…a fucking trojan?’

+++

“It worked?!” Captain Lukas exclaimed, looking at his sensors screen.

The trojan attack had worked. All four frigates’ propulsion systems had gone dark, as had their active and fire control sensors. This was the kind of exercise ensigns got laughed at for losing, and the enemy had ate it up hook, line and sinker.

“Sensors, am I looking at this right? All of them?!”

“Yes sir, we…wait one. Splash…splash two bandits.” The sensors officer reported, his previously excited town subdued.

Lukas looked at his screen again, finding the lieutenant’s observation to have been correct. Two of the disabled frigates had detonated, leaving behind an expanding ball of gas and micrometer-sized debris.

“I suspect their computers got hit so hard by our trojan they just…crashed.” The electronic warfare officer commented. “It’s theoretically impossible with the tech employed by imperial warships and even Fringe pirates…”

“But this is not the Fringe, nor are we fighting the Vogdi.” Lukas said. "Guns, divert our missiles; no use killing disarmed men.'

This was one of the worst slaughters he’d seen in years, and he’d been on the winning side. Not a single casualty, save for a hundred mid-range anti-ship missiles and a few tons of reaction mass spent. Considering the potential losses, even against such a weak enemy force, this was phenomenally good.

Yet in the face of so much death with a few megabytes of code, the smile that had been forming on his lips had vanished. In its place stood the cold logic and keen thinking of an officer raised by the Domus Pupili.

“Comms, tell the refugees we’ve neutralized their pursuers but that we still request they go to Domusec orbit for care and repairs. And get me the major; we’ve got two tin cans full of intelligence and I need his marines to open them up.”