The Trafalgar came out of hyperspace in high orbit above Mellotte II to find a disaster area. From his seat on the bridge, Chase could see that there were multiple hostile ships around the planet and very few Cluster ships to defend it. Without missing a beat, Harding got to her feet.

“Red alert!” she ordered, the tactical hologram buzzing to life in front of her.

Chase moved over to look at it.

“SIT Rep?” he called at the weapons station.

Winter was furiously analysing the sensor readout.

“We have three large hostile vessels similar to the one we encountered at Hemara,” she said.

“Chase, your fighter certified, right?” Harding asked him. “Yes, ma’am,” he confirmed. He’d done tactical flight in basic training and was six months away from his two-yearly refresher.

“Take a wing out and do what you can,” the captain said, before turning to the weapons station. “You as well, Winter.”

Chase turned and walked to the express elevator at the rear of the bridge, pausing a moment to let Winter catch up with him. The hangar bay was a rush of activity, with pilots running to their fighters. The new attack wing had been one of the last to be added at the shipyards. They had two squadrons of Rapio fighters.

Having changed into his flight gear, Chase now found himself strapped in the cockpit as the fighter was moved into the launch bay. Along either side of the grand old ship were half a dozen launch bays that fighters could launch from. The light up ahead activated green with an alert, and Chase hit the thrusters. Seconds later, he cleared the bay and was in open space above his homeworld.

The hostiles were raining down weapons fire across the eastern continent. This must be a rush attack; they hadn’t analysed the most strategic target. If they had gone for the commerce district in the southern hemisphere, they would take out one of the most densely populated areas and cripple the Cluster financially.

“Okay, let’s form up,” Chase said to his squadron. The other six signalled off and closed in to a diamond formation. He headed towards the hostile ship closest to the planet, the ship’s onboard computer already putting together a targeting pattern to take out the ship’s guns.

The fighter was equipped with a basic energy shield, but not one that could withstand much of a beating from those weapons. For an endless moment, Chase held on to the flight stick, doing his best to dodge the weapons fire. They came in close to the enemy’s hull and did some damage. They were close enough that the shield itself was vulnerable.

Chase headed straight towards the hostiles formation, it probably wasn’t the smartest move but they were already outnumbered. Pushing his stick to port, he sent his fighter into a spin. The lead hostile fell out of his targeting sights immediately, but Chase knew he would be just as difficult to hit. He angled his shields as he broke through the enemy’s formation. Immediately he came out of his corkscrew and brought the craft around, lining the lead hostile on his targeting system. Chase pushed both of his thumbs down on his control sticks firing buttons and unleashed a wave of compressed energy at it. Taking the enemy fighter out.

“Second hostile is moving towards the eastern hemisphere,” came Harding’s voice. “It’s fast. Could be an attack run.”

Chase analysed its approach vector. They were looking to ram it.

“All fighters,” he said, “we can’t let them get through.” He transmitted the coordinates to intercept.

Chase pulled his controls back, climbing to keep with his target and firing. His shots missed. He rolled the ship to starboard to keep with it and activated the fighter’s tactical computer, this time retargeting the hostile’s engines. He came in fast and pulled up, flying over the enemy’s primary hull before throwing the ship into a spin to avoid its turrets. On his wing, he saw his wingman go up in flames. He hadn’t even had time for a last transmission.

Banking hard to come about, the fighter spun him around so he could launch weapons against the engines. The four other remaining fighters in his squadron did likewise. The great engines stopped putting out energy, the blue light that covered them went dark, and the ship kept moving forward from the momentum.

“All craft, pull back,” Chase signalled, as the large hostile continued its descent, this time skipping off the atmosphere, its shield failing and its hull compromised.

“I’m hit!” Winter’s voice came over the channel.

“Can you make it back to Trafalgar?” Chase asked.

“Negative, I’m ejecting,” she replied.

Ejecting in combat was far from ideal. Chase would have liked the luxury of worrying about his friend, but he had a job to do.

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“We’ve got fighters launching,” Harding’s voice said over the cockpit’s comm.

“Chase, bank hard to starboard.”

He saw the inbound fighters, the same type they had encountered previously at Hemera. This time, he was the one facing them. The targeting computer tagged them on the friend-or-foe indicator, and he closed in on the nearest, opening fire instantly, blowing it to hell. He pushed back any sense of celebration, knowing there were far more of them than there were from the Trafalgar. He came around with a move to target the next one when a target lock flashed on his board. That wasn’t good.

“Lead, you’ve got one on your tail,” came the call from his wingman Clarke.

“Noted,” he replied.

The fighter rocked as he unsuccessfully avoided the enemy’s fire. He pulled back hard, looping over and could take it on at point-blank range. The enemy pulled away, and he tried his best to stick with it. They were being toyed with. Whilst his squad tried to keep the enemy at bay. They were focusing on Trafalgar. They kept coming;

“Trafalgar, this is Chase,” he said into the comm. “I’m pretty sure they have you marked from the previous encounter.”

“Agreed,” Harding replied. “They’re targeting the engine.”

The grand old dame was already firing manoeuvring thrusters, bringing her around, but the fighters were swift. Chase signalled for Clarke to close in, and they took another of the fighters out, locking onto its own engine. The enemy fighter was replaced with a large ball of yellow-red flame that Chase pushed his throttle to accelerate through as the debris bounced off his shields.

Coming out the other side, he found himself surrounded. Shooting his manoeuvring thrusters to spin about and put some distance between him and the others worked nicely. He looked at the sensor readout. The other large craft was holding position.

“Trafalgar, we should concentrate all fire on this vessel.” He pinged his readout over to them.

“You’re taking an enormous risk, you’re—”

“Risk is our business,” he replied firmly.

“Try it,” Harding agreed.

Chase came about and headed over to the second of the hostile ships.

“Concentrate fire on this spot,” he ordered his wing. Focussing on a midpoint in their shield systems. He let loose the compressed energy weapons, and Clarke did likewise. More fire rained down from the other fighters. They swerved, flying like acrobats, avoiding the enemy fighters. Suddenly, his headset was filled with a bloodcurdling scream that was immediately cut off as one of their fighters was taken out.

“Dammit,” he cursed.

The sensor readout indicated that the hostile vessel was losing shield integrity. Several of the fighters’ weapons’ discharges were making it through and scorching the hull, the dark blue metallic finish being scoured with black scorch marks.

“They are powering up engines,” said Clarke.

Chase saw his readout confirm this. He closed in on them and concentrated his fire across the ship’s primary drive, careful not to get too close to the plume. A fighter like his could easily be taken out if he got too close. The ship that had ricocheted off the atmosphere and the third craft were also making a hasty retreat.

“What do you think? They’re pulling out?” asked Clarke.

“I don’t think they’ve done much reconnaissance. They assumed they could make a quick assault, do some damage without taking any. They didn’t expect to find us,” said Chase.

He waited in position. Several fighters were swarming about him, and his fighter was taking damage. Clarke kept them at bay. The shooting stopped.

“Looks like they’re being recalled and docking,” his wingman told him.

The next thing Chase knew, the hostile ship was gone, and a bright flash where the hyperdrive engine had fired flickered in his vision. Pulling up the navigational computer, he used its last known coordinates and calculated the five most likely vectors it could have travelled.

A series of charts flashed up on the display screen. The navigational computer could not detect any inhabited systems along any route. Chase had the computer analyse all data and make its best calculation to duplicate the route. The fighters had short-range drives; you couldn’t spend more than a few hours comfortably in one, but they were capable of short jumps.

“Chase, your hyperdrive is powering up. Where are you going?” came the signal from Trafalgar that was instantly cut off as he accelerated out of range. Sensors were working overtime. It had been an ambitious thing to try and pull off; he hadn’t really expected it to work. There were no habitable systems for several days’ travel in this direction.

An alert sounded. Looking down at his board, the sensors had detected the ship and its operating base.