Page 41 of Desperate Measures

His orders were barely out of his mouth when his crew obeyed them. Even so, the spyship shuddered and alarms went off.

“Status of target.”

“Enemy ship showing power surges after our attack. They sustained hits from their fellow GC vessels, which attempted to fire on us and missed. They’re going critical. Explosion in three seconds. We are beyond range of the blast.”

“Excellent. Damage report, all departments.”

“Phase is holding. No power loss.”

“Weapons remain online.”

“Structural integrity loss at the stern, twenty percent.”

That was significant.

Lokmi’s voice came over the com. “We got a bit singed, Captain. The aft blast doors came down, shutting two of us in the engine room. May I suggest we avoid further damage?”

If the engines went critical and there was time for the systems to respond, they’d be jettisoned from the ship to save the crew. If Kila’s Imdiko was trapped in there and the worst happened, he’d be jettisoned too.

Chapter Twelve

Kila’s veins turned to ice at the thought of Lokmi being shot into space.

“They got in a lucky blast, Chief,” he lied. He vowed to his clanmate and himself, “It won’t happen again.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Captain. Relay any further engineering orders unrelated to the engine room to the assistant chief engineer. Lokmi out.”

Kila took a breath, settling himself and focusing on the job he had to do. “Slight change of plans, crew. Hit the next wave of fighters, same protocol. Then tear apart the warship sending the third batch.”

“Helm and I can randomize the firing pattern, Captain,” Jado said as they began their attack run.

“Agreed,” the helmsman confirmed.

“Do it.” A less systematic approach would prolong the fight. But if the Darks could anticipate when and where the spyship planned to fire, it could finish not only Lokmi, but the whole crew and its vessel.

The spontaneous ruse proved effective. The spyship, invisible on the enemy’s sensors and intermittent to view, darted here and there among the firing warships. Kila redirected his weapons commander and helm twice when he saw an opportunity to wreak havoc they’d missed. Otherwise, the pair did a fine job, for which he had every intention of having Piras issue a commendation for. They made the GC squadron think they were homing in on a target only to show up and blast to pieces another.

In the end, after half the force had been disabled or destroyed, the three remaining warships broke off and fled. They left behind several single-man fighters. Kila ordered his own small complement of fighters deployed to help the spyship mop them up.

“Stand down attack stations,” he said.

“Stations standing down. Blast doors in Engineering are retracting.”

“Chief, did you enjoy your break?”

“What break? I’ve been busy ordering the drones readied to go outside and fix the damage to the hull, setting up containment buffers around the engines, and keeping an eye on main engineering from a vid monitor.” Lokmi sounded anything but amused, but his voice was a gift nonetheless.

“Of course you did. Just because you could run your department from bed, don’t think I’ll allow it.”

Lokmi chuckled. “Yes, Captain.”

Nobek Veko at the com station, his face hidden by the long mop of hair he rarely shook back, spoke. “Captain, I have a com reading from the retreating ships. Return relays coming from another position.”

Kila’s brow wrinkled. Were the various Darks too far apart or too few to perform their telepathy adequately? Or were perhaps some of the GC’s key fleet personnel unridden and dependent on ship-to-ship communications?

“Get a lock on where the responses are coming from. Helm, deploy drones to scan the area as soon as he reports.”

“Yes, Captain.”

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