"Have the new systems been tested?" Thesska demanded.

The cloned technologue bowed. "Yes, Grand Commander. It should function as you asked."

"It better," he said, motioning for the subordinate to leave.

Without raising his head, the technologue scurried off.

Thesska didn't bother to understand the science behind the plating advancement. The only thing he cared about was its tactical use. After reading the battle reports that Sivarra had collected from the humans, Thesska had quickly realized a way to utilize the new null plating in battle. Until that point, the new plating had been used as a way to move heavy loads through the ship without needing to turn off the gravity plating. Now it would be put to a much better use. He would make sure to thank the humans properly for showing him the gravity traps.

The biggest downfall of a jump field was its inability to work too close to a gravity well because the gravity would disrupt the bubble of stationary space around a ship. He planned to counteract that issue, using a method similar to what the humans had used to prevent the clone ships from jumping away.

It required no real understanding of the devices. All he had to do was place them in certain spots around each ship and overcharge them. If they proved effective, perhaps he would inquire as to how they functioned at some point in the future.

"Is the fleet ready?" Thesska roared eagerly, his blood pumping in anticipation.

"Yes, Grand Commander!" came the chorus of replies from every fleet commander and sub-commander. Thesska soaked in the bloodlust, the eagerness of his people. Even he felt it, his cybernetics working overtime to suppress the blinding desire for conflict. He let that feeling wash over him, basking in it for just a moment before giving his proclamation. "Let the hunt commence!"

***

One, Two, and Four were discussing a complex mathematical quandary when they all froze. As one, they turned to face the same direction.

"Subspace disturbances?" Four asked. Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs NoveI~Fire.net

"It's not human. The signatures don't match, and they don't have any ships in that direction," Two added.

One wanted to argue that, but he couldn't. His senses were already seeking out the source of the signals, and he saw them. The Shican were forming up to attack.

"They found us! We must leave, immediately," Two added hastily, his normal stoic demeanor breaking down as he saw the same thing One did.

"We're not ready," One responded evenly. "We need time."

The rest of the Collective quickly entered the room. One was glad they hadn't transferred in. The subspace echoes would have rung all sorts of alerts for the Shican.

"They should be appearing in the system in five," Twelve began counting. "Four… three… two… One… Where are they?"

"Here," Four said, pulling everyone into her personal space and showing the nearest asteroid belt. "They are not attacking the planet. They are attacking Kane's ability to gather material."

The Collective watched as the battle unfolded, if you could even call it a battle. There was only a single armed ship among the miners, and it was not a dedicated warship.

***

Mingyu twisted his neck left and right, trying to work out a kink. He was on the tail end of a twelve-hour shift, and his bed was calling to him. Alex's bots may have made the mining operation smoother and faster, but they also made mining so much duller. He missed the old days when he would jump into a mining rig and jet out to the asteroids himself. Those days were behind him long before he arrived in Unokane, but he still missed them. Before Alex had added his mining bots to the mix, Mingyu's crew used remote mining rigs from the safety of the ship.

Thankfully, the trip was nearly complete. Destiny's hold was running out of room, and the cargo transports that the miners worked to fill had already left to dump off their loads. Two more days, and Destiny would be heading back to offload and take a few days off. His people could use some rest.

Alarms started blaring, and all thoughts of sleep fled Mingyu's mind as he jolted upright and took in the new contacts on the screen. His face turned pale. Red contacts surrounded the area of the asteroid belt they were in.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Mingyu demanded as he took control of the crew's growing panic while targeting alarms blared across the ship's warning system. "Helm?"

"A-Already accelerating, Captain," his pilot replied in a shaky voice.

"Buy us enough time to jump!" Mingyu ordered as he pressed the button to activate the drive. The system flashed an angry red with a message saying they were too close to a gravity well to form a warp bubble.

Mingyu wanted to slam his fist on the console, even though he knew it would tell him that. They mined the inner belt specifically because the gravity of the star prevented ships from jumping that far into the system. If enemies appeared, it gave them plenty of time to accelerate away and reach a safe jump. From there, they could head to the planet or toward the nearest patrol, whichever was faster. None of those was an option because the enemy had the area surrounded.

He didn't know how the Shican had bypassed the physics that prevented a warp bubble from forming this far into a gravity well, but they had.

"Incoming!" the sensor operator screamed, pulling Mingyu's attention from the jump menu.

The Moonlit Destiny shook as railgun rounds struck the hull, denting the upgraded armor that Alex had outfitted the Destiny with when he thought he was going to use it as a diplomatic vessel. Even though that hadn't happened, Alex had not charged him for the upgrade. Mingyu was thankful for that now.

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The armor was not as thick as that of a dedicated warship, and it would only hold up for so long. The weapons Alex had attached so long ago returned fire, but it was like using a flechette rifle against a heavy augment suit. They weren't winning a brawl with a warship, let alone over two dozen Shican ones.

The sensor screen updated, and nearby mining ship icons began to wink out. The Shican had targeted all of the ships. The smaller vessels vanished under the enemy's onslaught in mere moments, their ships never meant to be tested against weapons fire. The larger ones lasted a few more seconds, but soon Destiny would be the last one standing.

Mingyu's mining barge was sturdy, but it was also large and slow, despite the upgraded engines, which were now taking damage as they fled. Already, yellow damage indicators were appearing around the engines. With the area surrounded, the end result was obvious. They would be destroyed or disabled. He couldn't let the enemy board his ship. The Union had shared what the Shican did to ships they boarded, and if they were going to die, he was going to do it on his terms.

Mingyu composed a quick message and sent it to Alex. He thanked his friend for everything he had done since they arrived, and provided instructions to set up a relief fund for the Petrov Station survivors using whatever money Mingyu had saved up. Then he shut down the comm node to keep Alex from trying to change his mind. There would be no changing what was about to happen, and he didn't need someone trying to convince him otherwise.

Mingyu closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had served in the Coalition military, but hadn't done much during that time. Then he had fled like a coward from Petrov Station and every fight since. He knew it had been the smart thing to do, the only thing he could do, but that didn't make him feel any better about it.

That changed at the end of the Harlow battle, where he joined the other non-military armed vessels to drive off the remaining pirates. That was the turning point where Mingyu realized he might one day be able to make up for abandoning his post and leaving the people of Petrov Station to suffer under the whims of the pirates. Here was another opportunity.

Once he opened his eyes again, resolve filled his voice. "Helm."

"Yes, Captain?" the man asked, his voice quavering.

The enemy had picked an ideal spot to ambush them, and the crew was beginning to realize the same thing Mingyu had. There was no escaping. They could either die with their backs turned or die fighting. Mingyu wouldn't even consider the third option, because he had no intention of letting those alien bastards carve up his people for trophies.

"Turn us toward the nearest Shican ship and push the reactor past its safety margins."

The crew turned toward him in shock, but they saw Mingyu's resolve.

The pilot nodded resolutely. "Yes, Captain."

As the ship began its ponderous turn under the constant barrage of the enemy's destroyers, Mingyu couldn't help but notice the Shican were taunting him by not using their more advanced weapons. The other ships even stopped firing as they lined up toward their target, leaving only the one they were heading toward still shooting. Well, fuck them. He would show the Shican what happened when humans had nothing left to lose. "Full speed ahead!" he roared. In a softer voice, he said. "It's been an honor serving with all of you."

"You as well," came a chorus of replies, most broken by sobs or hitched voices, but none wavered or fled. He couldn't have been prouder of his crew.

As the ships closed, the destroyer seemed to realize its railguns weren't enough, and it started firing its lasers at Destiny's bow. If the ship had been empty, those might have cut straight through to the reactor, but the mined ore soaked up most of the damage, and Destiny kept accelerating toward the enemy vessel.

The destroyer tried to dodge the large mining barge, but Mingyu's pilot kept them on course until the bitter end. The ships impacted each other in a titanic tearing of metal, but Destiny outweighed the Shican vessel by a considerable amount even before the full load of ore. The Shican ship crumpled under the impact, which set off explosions aboard the alien vessel.

The raw ore inside Destiny was ejected out of the collapsing hull, further damaging two more nearby enemy ships, despite their defensive fields. The crew of Destiny died on impact, but the ship wasn't done. With what seemed like a final act of defiance, Destiny's reactor overloaded, turning both ships into incandescent blobs of expanding plasma.

***

"All mining ships in the area have been dealt with, Grand Commander," his subordinate declared. "Sub-commander Heshik fell. He was overcome by bloodlust and demanded single combat against the large vessel that was returning fire against him. He wished to disable the vessel and face the humans aboard in single combat. Commander Veshaan granted his request, but the enemy ship turned, further provoking Heshik. The enemy came at them like an enraged gantor, and Heshik didn't realize that until the ship was bearing down on him. Heshik and his entire crew were lost."

Thesska had fought a gantor in his youth. They were large, surly beasts twice as tall as an average Shican. They charged at even minor provocations and didn't give up until they killed the focus of that ire or died. He still had a scar on his right leg from where it tried to gore him before he put his claw through its brainstem.

"Fool," Thesska spat. "Tell Commander Veshaan that if he cannot keep his people in line, I will hold his entire family line personally accountable."

Thesska didn't care about one sub-commander going feral. He expected it, but that didn't mean he needed to let the issue slide. He had limited ships at the moment; having one fall to a pathetically armed mining vessel was a stain on his honor. He would not stand for any further embarrassment.

Once the hunt was over, Thesska would find that foolish sub-commander's family line and demote them to a lesser caste as retribution. He would love to slaughter them all, purging the empire of their weakness, but they came from a side branch of the ruling line. He wouldn't be able to do that until he was Emperor. By then, it would be too late to met out that sort of justice, because it would make him look petty and weak.

At least the foolish sub-commander had taken the ship with him.

"Are the humans responding yet?" Thesska's plan had worked even better than he had hoped. The null-plating had stabilized the warp bubble, allowing them to jump within a tenth of a light second to their targets, despite the gravitational eddies caused by the asteroid field and the proximity of the system's star.

Improvements could be made, but for an impromptu tactic, it had more than paid off. Now the human's ability to retrieve resources was hampered.

"Their fleet is mobilizing, but the computers estimate it will take another hour before they can gather and come for us. Their patrol ships jumped to the cover of the planet, likely realizing they were next."

Once again, the humans showed they had good instincts. Not enough to win, but good enough to make the hunt memorable. The human patrol had been the next target, but Thesska wasn't worried about not being able to strike at them. Their time would come.

"What about subspace signals?"

"Nothing yet, Grand Commander."

"Tell the sensor operators that they are to alert you the moment they sense anything other than comm traffic. If they lose the trail of our quarry, I'll make what I did to Commander Sivarra look like a lover's embrace. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Grand Commander," the man bowed and returned to the lower part of the bridge.

Thesska almost wished the humans would reach his fleet before the signals were detected. He didn't fear them, but destroying their pathetic fleet might burn off some of the bloodlust that had to be boiling inside his commanders. Destroying the non-combat vessels would have hardly put a dent in that.

He sometimes wondered if he should have taken his technologue up on her offer to install inhibitors in all of his commanders and sub-commanders. They would have become mindless and obedient, but slow of wit and action. He preferred the fire and drive that uninhibited crews had, even if it occasionally came with problems.