“Leaving us enough time to get some intel from Gabela.” He felt a similar disappointment as Celene refastened her uniform, as well. “Maybe he—”

The alarm blared.

They bolted from the systems room and stared out a porthole. Three fighter ships sped toward their position.

She cursed. “PRAXIS.”

Celene ran down the passageway toward the ship’s cockpit, with Nils right behind her. She grabbed Gabela by his collar and hauled him up from his seat. The smuggler’s eyes were wide as she gave him a hard shake.

“Did you know they were coming?” she snarled.

“No! They…they must have caught my distress call.”

She still didn’t release him.

Nils stepped forward and pried her fingers from Gabela’s collar. “He’s blameless.”

The smuggler dropped back into his seat with a gasp.

Nils gazed at the ship’s control panel. The alarm continued to blare, and on the viewscreen, the PRAXIS ships drew closer. “Even if this ship wasn’t operating at lower efficiency, it has rudimentary shields and weapons.”

“Get to the Phantom.” She turned and sped from the cockpit.

Nils followed as she ran down to the loading dock where their ship was docked. Relief poured through her to be back inside an 8^th Wing ship, knowing that all their vessels were kept in top condition. If she had to, she’d have found a way to fight using the smuggler’s rickety, damaged ship, but she’d much rather have the superior firepower of a Phantom. She took her seat at the controls and Nils sat beside her, his hands already flying over the weapons systems panel.

“PRAXIS will be within engagement distance in one solar minute,” he said, his voice clipped. “It’s a cutter and two fighters.”

The smuggler’s ship was dead weight that would only slow them down. Celene uncoupled the Phantom and punched the throttle.

“Don’t leave me,” Gabela’s voice pled over the com.

“We’ll draw them away from you.” She entered a combat sequence into the control panel. There would be no possibility of escape, only a fight. The enemy drew closer.

“Thirty seconds to engagement,” said Nils.

“Ever been in actual combat?”

“This is my first.”

At least he sounded calm. Tense, but composed. She had to trust his skill and training.

“Twenty seconds,” he said.

The twin sensations of excitement and utter serenity filled her, the same feelings she always had in the moments before combat. She needed to welcome the fight, to be ready for it, and she needed complete calm. Usually when she went up against the enemy, she had her fellow Black Wraith squad members as backup, and the sleek, deadly machine of a Black Wraith ship—not an untested NerdWorks engineer in a Phantom. Some pilots might worry about liabilities, but she’d earned the name Stainless Jur for a reason.

Where other pilots saw problems, she saw possibilities. A greater challenge that she had to meet.

The other option was death.

“Ten seconds,” Nils said.

Celene pushed the Phantom away from the smuggler’s ship, heading toward the freedom of deeper space. She gave Nils a tight smile as he continued his countdown. “Strap yourself down and let ’em come.”

All three PRAXIS ships opened fire.

She immediately took the Phantom into evasive maneuvers, canting the ship back and forth and side to side in order to dodge the blasts. The Phantom shuddered from the concussion, but took no hits. She banked hard and returned fire, clipping the wing of the cutter. It shook but held tight in its pursuit.

“If this was my Wraith,” she said, “that lunc would be molecules.” But she didn’t believe in excuses, only trying harder, so she brought her ship around again for another strafing run.

She hit the fighters and saw the satisfying blue glow that indicated their shields were weakening.

Suddenly the Phantom unleashed an additional round of plasma fire on the PRAXIS ships. She frowned down at the controls. She hadn’t taken those shots. But how…?

She glanced over at Nils. He looked a little smug as his hands hovered over the control panel.

“Before we left base, I made a few additional modifications. Including a secondary weapons system.”

She shook her head, smiling. “Always thinking ahead, NerdWorks.”

“There’s virtue in being prepared,” he answered, but he didn’t return the smile. Instead, his gaze remained tight on the viewscreen, tracking the movements of the PRAXIS ships.

It was easy to forget that he wasn’t a combat veteran. Whenever Celene and her squad members were in a fight, they often cracked jokes in the heat of battle as a way to deal with the tension. None of them ever forgot the stakes, but flying countless engagements with the enemy tended to take the cutting edge off of fear. It was either that, or crack up from the stress. Which had happened to more than a few combat pilots.

She couldn’t think about her fallen or washed-out comrades. There were three blood-hungry PRAXIS ships to deal with.

“I’m going to take us past them again,” she said. “Concentrate your fire on the panels just behind the fighters’ weapons.”

“Take out the power.”

“Exactly.” She swung the Phantom around and headed straight toward the oncoming ships. Evading their shots, she flew in the narrow space between the fighters. As she did, Nils unleashed a barrage from the secondary guns.

He let out a shout when he hit one of the enemy’s weapons power source.

“Better than Nifalian chess,” she said, enjoying his exuberance.

He did smile then, a rakish grin that did interesting things to her heart rate and body temperature. “Can see why you Black Wraith hotshots like this. It’s stimulating as hells.”

Yet both he and Celene lost their smiles when the two other PRAXIS ships fired back. She pushed the throttle hard, but not quite fast enough to avoid taking a hit to the Phantom’s tertiary thruster. Shudders racked the small ship.

Nils muttered a curse, and she realized that the experience of being on a ship taking fire was new to him. But aside from his brief foray into foul language, he kept a level head, firing back steadily.

She kept the Phantom in constant motion, darting and weaving around the PRAXIS ships.

“Feels strange to pilot something other than my Wraith in combat.” It didn’t have the streamlined elegance she loved so much, the smooth integration of pilot and ship that made flying as seamless as thought. She threaded between the two enemy ships as they tried to flank her.

“You’re handling the transition well,” he answered.

“I’ve earned every one of my commendations. I can fly damn near everything.”

“Including a modified Phantom. With NerdWorks manning the guns.”

She grinned, then swore when the larger PRAXIS ship unleashed a torrent of plasma fire and she took quick, evasive maneuvers to avoid the hits. The dirtroach clung to her tail in pursuit.

“Screw this game of plasma tag. We’ve got traitors to find.” She banked the Phantom, and guided it toward the smaller PRAXIS fighter. She pushed closer and closer, heading toward it dead on.

“Maybe not be the wisest strategy,” Nils murmured.

“Trust me.”

He didn’t really have a choice, since she was the one with her hands on the controls, but he nodded, his shoulders losing some of their tension. She appreciated his confidence. Her squad mates understood they could rely on her, just as she had faith in them, but aside from her reputation in the 8^th Wing, Nils really didn’t know her—not in a combat situation, where the stakes couldn’t be higher. His trust in her gave her an added shot of adrenaline.

“Give me a countdown. Time until impact with the fighter.”

“Ten thousand meters,” he answered. “Nine thousand.”

The cutter in pursuit continued to shoot. Between that and the plasma barrage from the fighter ahead of them, Celene kept the Phantom continually shifting to avoid being hit. It was a tight, tough course, dodging fire from the aft and stern, minutely adjusting her ship, all the while maintaining a path that couldn’t allow for the smallest miscalculation.