Chapter 147

  Augustus’s spellbook materialized in front of him, floating at chest height. The leather-bound tome snapped open. Pages flipped rapidly, a blur of parchment and arcane script, before coming to a stop.

  Blue light emerged above the book. It coalesced slowly, forming into a miniature version of the Sleipnir. The detail was extraordinary. Alexander could make out hull plating, the curve of the bridge viewports, weapon mounts, and missile tubes. The tiny vessel rotated in place, turning slowly like a planet on its axis.

  Augustus studied it for several seconds. Then he reached out and swiped at the image with one finger.

  The miniature ship spun. Fast at first, a blur of light, then gradually slowing until it returned to its steady rotation.

  Augustus glanced at the tactical display, then back to his miniature. He touched it again, this time guiding it deliberately. The ship turned until he was looking at the right side. Starboard. He brought his finger and thumb tips together, then spread them apart.

  The image scaled larger. Individual ablative plates became visible, each one rendered in perfect detail. Every seam, every mounting point, every section of protective armor.

  Augustus held out his right hand. His wand appeared, materializing in his grip. He examined the scaled-up starboard side thoughtfully, then tapped the wand’s tip against one section of the miniature ship.

  The section turned green.

  Augustus nodded to himself. Then he swept the wand from left to right across the entire starboard side. Each armor section lit up green one by one as the wand passed, like lights being switched on in sequence.

  He reached out with his left hand. The book floated up and settled above his palm. The miniature ship moved with it, maintaining its position above the tome.

  Augustus glanced at Alexander. “This will work. I can’t shield the entire ship, but I can place individual shields where it matters.”

  Annie interrupted from her position near Felix. “But why only on one side?”

  Talia answered without looking away from where she stood near Yuki. “Because our current vector has them intercepting us at an oblique angle. Their weapons fire will target our starboard side.”

  Annie frowned. “Why don’t we just fly away from them then?”

  Carmen’s voice carried the patience of someone explaining basic tactics. “The more we angle away from them, the longer it takes to reach the jump limit. That gives them more time to close the distance. And the more we risk exposing our main engines to direct fire.”

  Understanding dawned on Annie’s face. “Oh.”

  Petra called out with urgency. “They’re redlining. Weapons range in ten seconds.”

  “Sixty-two seconds to jump limit,” Vikram added.

  Alexander looked around the bridge. Everyone else had secured themselves. Carmen and the rest of the crew were strapped into their harnesses. Augustus conjured ethereal hands, holding himself in place, while Talia sat in the second pilot’s chair and strapped in.

  Meanwhile, Annie and Felix gripped the support railing along the far end of the bridge. Both had taken extra precaution, attaching themselves via retractable straps built into the bulkhead.

  Alexander pulled himself to his feet and did the same. Then he reached out with Metallokinesis, seizing his boots and cybernetic arm. It would take something catastrophic to move him.

  Petra’s countdown continued. “Five seconds.”

  Talia reached over and placed her hand on Yuki’s shoulder. She spoke a single word, barely audible.

  “Manifestation.”

  “Weapons range,” Petra announced.

  The first graser strike hit the starboard side before the words were out of her mouth.

  The ship shuddered. Not violently, but enough to feel the impact transfer through the hull. On the tactical display, the Integrity’s weapons envelope had finally intersected with their position.

  Augustus didn’t flinch. His attention remained fixed on the miniature ship floating above his spellbook. One section of the starboard armor flickered red on the image. Augustus’s wand moved, tapping that spot. Green replaced it.

  Another strike. Then another. The impacts came in rapid succession now. Graser fire from a military destroyer, each beam carrying enough energy to punch through standard hull plating.

  The miniature ship showed each hit. Sections flashed orange as they absorbed damage. Augustus’s wand danced across the image, reinforcing failing shields, rotating protection to distribute the stress.

  Similar information was displayed on Petra’s screens.

  Ryan leaned closer to her station. “Can you estimate impact energy per strike versus expected output from destroyer-class grasers?”

  Petra’s fingers moved across her console, pulling up the data. “Reading approximately sixty percent energy reduction on shielded sections before impact with armor.”

  Ryan glanced at Augustus, then Carmen. “The shields are absorbing more than half the incoming fire. Ablative plating is handling what gets through for now.”

  Carmen nodded once, understanding immediately. She turned to Augustus. “That’s impressive work.”

  “They’re mundane weapons. I was expecting more.” Augustus frowned. “Guess we’re not quite there yet.”

  Carmen chuckled. “You superhumans sure are greedy.”

  Alexander knew what she meant, even beyond just his own ambitions and Augustus’s pursuit of arcane secrets.

  Gamma-ray lasers were no joke. While both lasers and grasers functioned on the same principle, there was a world of difference between the two in terms of potential energy transference. Damage done. And both the power and technology required.

  That was why only military ships were both large enough and advanced enough to wield them.

  Yuki’s hands moved across the controls. The ship rolled starboard, then pitched up slightly. A graser beam streaked past where they’d been a fraction of a second earlier.

  Alexander watched the tactical display, tracking the incoming fire against their position. The grasers traveled at light speed. So did the information traveling back to the Integrity’s sensors. The delay was minuscule, barely measurable, but it existed. Light took time to cross distance, even if that time was measured in fractions of a second.

  At this range, the total lag between firing and impact was less than a quarter of a second.

  But it was enough.

  Yuki was exploiting every microsecond of it. Each maneuver timed to shift their position just as the enemy’s targeting solution locked. She rolled the ship to port, then immediately reversed to starboard. Pitched down, then up. The pattern looked erratic, but Alexander could see the method behind it.

  She wasn’t just trying to dodge. She was anticipating evasive failure, and controlling where the hits landed.

  A graser struck the upper starboard quarter. Another hit lower, near the engine housing. A third impacted midship. The damage was being spread across the entire starboard side instead of concentrating on any single section. Distributing the stress across multiple armor plates, preventing any one location from becoming a critical failure point. Allowing Augustus time to restore shielding.

  The Integrity’s gunners were good. Military-trained, combat-experienced. Their firing solutions tightened, forcing her to work harder for each successful evasion.

  But Yuki was better.

  Alexander’s Hyperawareness picked up on the oddity before his thoughts did. The micro-adjustments she made to the control inputs. The precise timing of each roll and pitch. The way she anticipated follow-up shots before the enemy even completed it.

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  It was beyond normal human reaction speed. Not by much, but enough to matter. Her fingers moved with absolute certainty, no hesitation, no second-guessing. Every motion flowed into the next in a way that only an expert of their craft could pull off.

  Talia’s enchantment. It had to be. Whatever she’d done with that single technique, it had sharpened Yuki’s reflexes and processing speed just enough to make the impossible possible.

  Petra’s voice interrupted his analysis. “Deploying sensor ghosts.”

  Small drones launched from specialized tubes.

  False returns bloomed across the tactical display. Phantom ships that matched the Sleipnir’s profile, the drones spreading out in multiple directions. To the Integrity’s sensors, they would read as valid targets.

  The incoming fire pattern shifted immediately. Some beams tracked toward the ghosts instead of the real ship. The targeting solution scattered as the destroyer’s computers tried to determine which return was genuine.

  Yuki took advantage of the confusion. She rolled the ship in a gentle barrel roll maneuver, matching the performance of the sensor ghosts, but changing their vector while the enemy sorted through the false data.

  More graser fire lanced through space. Most of it struck empty void. A few beams found their target, hammering against Augustus’s shields with sharp cracks of released energy.

  But the hit rate had dropped significantly.

  Alexander realized what he was watching. Skilled piloting and effective countermeasures alone didn’t explain it. Their coordination was near perfect. Yuki’s evasive pattern and Petra’s ECM deployment were synchronized, each action supporting the other.

  They’d done this before. Probably hundreds or thousands of times in both simulations and actual combat.

  Mostly simulations, though, if he had to guess. Not that it showed.

  “Missile launch,” Petra announced. She paused for a few seconds. “Pattern… Alpha-3.”

  Davis cursed.

  Augustus exhaled sharply.

  “What? Is that bad?” Annie asked.

  “It means they’ve dumped a quarter of their missile armament,” Augustus said. “They’re not messing around.”

  Davis called out from weapons. “Deploying countermeasures.”

  Chaff burst from the Sleipnir’s hull. Clouds of reflective particles spread through space around them, designed to scatter targeting beams and confuse sensor locks.

  “Beginning defensive fire,” Davis added.

  Alexander glanced at the tactical display. Less than thirty seconds to the jump point. The missiles would arrive with time to spare.

  His attention turned to where Davis sat surrounded by three holographic displays, each one showing different aspects of the engagement. His hands moved between them with incredible speed.

  The center display tracked the view of every turret on the ship. Multiple point-defense systems, each represented by a small icon showing its current arc of fire status. Each weapon fired automatically until Davis’s fingers danced across it, manually taking control of one turret, then another, cycling through them as targets presented themselves.

  The leftmost display was pure tactical data. Incoming missiles appeared as red markers, twenty in total spread across multiple waves. Chaff clouds bloomed in green. Accuracy percentages flickered beside each active weapon. Small flags appeared next to missiles that had taken hits but remained functional, highlighting them as priority targets.

  The right display showed targeting overrides. Davis could flag specific threats there, directing the ship’s automated systems to focus fire without having to manually aim each weapon himself. His hands moved to it now, tagging three missiles in the lead wave.

  The ship rolled beneath them. Yuki’s evasive maneuver shifted the Sleipnir’s orientation, throwing off firing solutions. Davis didn’t even slow down. He switched control to different turrets, ones that now had clean lines of fire, abandoning the weapons the maneuver had moved out of position.

  Energy pulses streaked out, tracking toward the first wave of missiles. One missile exploded. Then another. The third juked, evading the incoming fire with its own maneuvering thrusters.

  Davis flagged it again on the override display. Two turrets shifted focus, both firing in sequence. The missile took a hit and tumbled off course.

  Six missiles in the first wave. Three destroyed, two damaged and off-target, one still coming.

  The ship pitched down. Davis’s hands moved again, selecting new turrets, maintaining fire even as the battlefield shifted around them. He was juggling multiple weapon systems across a constantly changing combat space, tracking threats that moved in three dimensions while his own platform maneuvered violently.

  He made it look effortless.

  But the missiles were still cutting-edge weapons systems. And the Integrity had fired enough to take out a ship twice their size.

  Carmen’s voice cut through the tension. “Yuki, roll port. Full rotation.”

  She turned to Augustus. “Mr. Greaves, shields to port side please.”

  The ship began to roll. Stars wheeled across the viewscreen as Yuki executed the maneuver, rotating the Sleipnir entirely onto its port side.

  Alexander understood immediately. Some missiles were going to get through. Carmen was accepting that reality and adapting. The starboard armor was already damaged, shields strained from sustained graser fire. Better to take the remaining hits on the undamaged port side, spreading the punishment across fresh plating.

  Augustus spun the miniature ship floating above his spellbook. The starboard sections, still lit green with active shields, rotated out of view. The port side came around, blank and unprotected.

  His wand swept across it. Green sections lit up one by one as shields snapped into place.

  The pages of his spellbook flipped. They moved backward, toward the beginning of the tome, before stopping suddenly on an earlier page.

  Augustus flicked his wand upward. A rune lifted off the parchment, glowing blue as it rose into the air. It disappeared into the miniature ship display.

  Each green section brightened. The same rune appeared overlaid on every shield marker, pulsing with additional power.

  Then one of the green spots turned orange.

  It shifted to red an instant later.

  The ship shuddered.

  Augustus muttered under his breath. “Only one full shot even with amplify.”

  Alexander noticed sweat glistening in Augustus’s hair. It stuck to the back of his neck, dark with moisture. The strain was showing. His energy visibly draining.

  Vikram’s voice rang out. “Fifteen seconds to jump limit.”

  Carmen’s voice remained steady. “Hold it together. We’re almost there.”

  Another barrage struck. Three beams in rapid sequence, all targeting the same section of armor. Augustus’s shields held through the first, then broke with the second, ablative armor burning away. The third punched through the weakened section.

  The impact sent a shockwave through the ship. The deck shuddered beneath their feet, metal groaning under the stress. An alarm blared, then cut off as Ryan overrode it.

  “Hull breach, Section Seven,” Ryan reported. “Bulkheads sealing. No decompression. No life signs in the affected area.”

  Alexander’s attention shifted to the tactical display. The remaining missiles closed the distance, red markers converging on their position. Even as he watched, another blinked out. Davis was still firing, still fighting.

  To his credit, he’d eliminated thirteen of them.

  But seven were still coming.

  Carmen activated the ship-wide comms. “All hands, brace for impact.”

  Alexander could hear the stress in her voice. See the way her fingers gripped the armrest of the captain’s chair, knuckles white against the dark material.

  He reached inside. Feeling for his powers. Testing to see if Felix’s healing and his own natural recovery had been enough.

  Compared to his other powers, Technopathy was already at maximum efficiency. Each use required barely a whisper from deep within his soul. The right tool for the job instead of a sledgehammer.

  His senses cast out wide. He felt the entirety of the ship around him. The hull, the systems, the crew. Then his awareness pushed beyond. Reaching. Stretching further into the void.

  The strain hit immediately. Sharp. Like pulling a muscle that hadn’t fully healed.

  He gritted his teeth. Pushed harder. Just a little further. A bit more.

  Then he felt them. The missiles. Seven points of intent racing toward their target. Electronic systems alive with purpose. Guidance computers receiving constant feedback from the Integrity to aid their evasive maneuvers.

  He could sense their programming. The lead missiles carried instructions to detonate early, proximity fuses set to trigger meters from the hull. Strip away shields. Burn through ablative plating. Clear the path.

  The trailing missiles would drive into the weakened ship and detonate after impact. Penetrating deep before releasing their payloads.

  The tactic reminded him of his own. Of tungsten spikes and lightning strikes.

  Alexander exhaled slowly.

  And shut them down.

  “Captain!” Petra shouted. “The missiles… they just lost targeting and propulsion.”

  Carmen’s gaze snapped to Alexander’s, meeting his eyes. He nodded a confirmation.

  “Jump limit reached,” Vikram said.

  She turned back. “Execute.”

  “Jumping.”

  The viewscreen went white. Reality twisted. Alexander’s stomach lurched as the ship slipped out of normal space and into whatever existed between the void.

  When the viewscreen cleared, they were somewhere else. The stars different. The tactical display showed empty space around them. No Integrity. No other ships.

  Silence filled the bridge for several heartbeats.

  Then Carmen spoke. “Status report.”

  “Hull breach in Section Seven, sealed,” Ryan said. “Minor damage to outer armor plating in multiple locations. No critical systems compromised. No casualties reported.”

  “Jump drive nominal,” Yuki reported. “Ready for secondary jumps on your command.”

  Petra checked her sensors. “No contacts. We’re clear.”

  Carmen nodded. “Execute an obfuscation jump pattern. Three more, random vectors, then return to the original heading and reactivate the transponder.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Yuki said.

  Augustus lowered his hands. The miniature ship above his spellbook faded, dissolving back into blue light that disappeared. The tome closed itself and vanished. He swayed slightly, catching himself on the bulkhead.

  “That,” he said quietly, “was more difficult than I expected.”

  Annie grinned at him. “But it worked.”

  Augustus managed a tired smile. “Yes, it did. Even better than I thought it would.”

  “Excellent work, everybody. Barring any more terrible luck, that was a clean escape.” Carmen said, then activated the ship-wide comms once more. “Stand down from general alert. Report any injuries or damages immediately.”

  Alexander stretched, watching the activity across the bridge. The crew relaxed, unbuckling harnesses and bantering with each other. The relief was palpable.

  “Wait!” Annie hissed loudly, drawing everyone’s attention. “Does this mean we’re not pirates because we got away free and clear?”

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