Negasi felt like a kid on his birthday. The schematics he had blearily studied in the diner that morning hadn’t revealed the full extent of Nova’s modifications. Dorsal and ventral turrets with flechette guns, a pulse cannon, antipersonnel gas canisters for use while grounded, and a few AI-guided missiles just for chuckles.

  This wasn’t a private vessel with an enhanced security system, this was a small warship.

  And Negasi had a feeling he was going to need it.

  He slammed into the ergonomic smart seat as the thrusters roared at full power and they shot for space. Why was Jeridan ignoring a direct command from ground control? Had those rich kids they beat up pulled some strings?

  The Antikythera increased in velocity and altitude, the view from outside his glassteel turret glowing red until it automatically opaqued to protect his eyes. He didn’t have to worry about the turret. That expensive material was stronger than the hull. Nova had a lot of money, or at least she used to. Why did she need to grab a crew in such a hurry?

  “Negasi, prepare weapons systems,” Nova said over the comm link.

  “Why?”

  “Just prepare them.”

  “I’m not shooting the Sagittan cops for you.”

  “Jeridan will take care of the cops.”

  “I will?” his buddy’s voice said, sounding as panicked as he did when Negasi whupped his butt at chessboxing.

  “Evasive maneuvers,” Nova said. “I’m sure you’re used to that, especially with the police. Negasi, keep an eye out for incoming vessels, especially Dragonfly fighters.”

  “Wait. Who the hell is sending Dragonflies after you?” Negasi said, now sounding as panicked as Jeridan.

  “Shut up and get ready,” Nova snapped.

  “I want a raise!” Negasi wailed.

  Ground control cut in on the external comm link. “Antikythera, if you do not turn around immediately, Orbital Patrol will take punitive measures.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Negasi said.

  “Neither do I,” Jeridan agreed.

  “Just do as you’re ordered,” Nova snapped.

  Negasi glared at the comm link. “We have kids on board!”

  “You think I don’t know that? I’m their mother!”

  “Then keep them safe.”

  “I am!”

  Oh, crap. So getting chased by Orbital Patrol and some yahoos in Dragonflies is the safer option?

  I should have asked Becca for a job as a janitor or something.

  The Antikythera shot out of the stratosphere, the outer hull cooling, the heat around the glassteel lowering until it turned transparent again. Negasi felt a brief sensation of weightlessness before the ship’s artificial gravity kicked in and he settled in his seat.

  He punched a private line to the pilot’s helm.

  “Jeridan, what are we going to do?”

  Nova’s voice cut in. “You’re going to do as you’re told. I just hired you and you’re trying to go behind my back?”

  So much for a private communication line.

  “We didn’t sign up for a gunfight with Orbital Patrol and whoever else you’re in trouble with!” Negasi said.

  “And there’s nothing in your contract allowing you to carry whatever contraband you just loaded onto my ship!”

  The woman had a point.

  Negasi checked the short- and long-range scanners, and didn’t like what he saw. Besides a few orbitals, and an incoming freighter that had veered off course to avoid them and whatever trouble they were bringing in their wake, Negasi saw two groups of ships coming in their direction.

  The first was a pair of Orbital Patrol vessels. Fast and maneuverable, there was no way even a souped-up Vega All-Purpose could get away from them. Their armament was good, but not great. They relied on the fact that they had an entire system’s law behind them. With the weapons at his disposal, Negasi could easily beat them, but he didn’t want to kill any Sagittans, and he didn’t want to be tried for their murder.

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  The second group coming at them was a trio of Dragonflies, the best small fighters in known space. Heavily armed, with incredible speed and maneuverability, even one would be a match for the Antikythera.

  And they were facing three of them.

  Negasi tried to look on the bright side. Given their vector, the Dragonflies would intercept them a full minute before the Orbital Patrol would. He would never have to fire on the lawmen or face trial down on the planet, because he would be vaporized well before they made it to the scene.

  Jeridan’s voice came over his comm link. “Negasi, we’re going to need your magic.”

  “We’ll need yours too. Evasive maneuvers.”

  “I’ll pretend they’re tax collectors.”

  “Pretend they’re Dragonflies trying to shoot us out of the sky.”

  “Right.”

  The external comm showed an incoming call. Someone in the cockpit accepted it and the vid link was established.

  Negasi tore his eyes off the radar for a moment to look at the vid screen.

  He thought he was going to see an angry cop telling them they were under arrest. Same crap, different day.

  If only.

  Instead, the vid screen filled with an ugly green insectoid. Two bulbous, multifaceted eyes flanked a narrow face with razor-sharp mandibles. Those mandibles clicked rapidly, and the translator turned that into metallic human speech.

  “Nova Bradford. Surrender immediately and we will spare your children.”

  “More like eat your children!” Negasi said. “Why the hell are Mantids chasing you?”

  The species was famed all across the Orion Arm for their fighting ability and ruthlessness. The less savory personalities on the spaceways often hired them as mercenaries or assassins. They were banned in numerous systems for their bad habit of eating sentient species.

  Negasi readied the flechette guns and pulse cannon. Both were bigger versions of the terrestrial weapons common on many worlds. He had no reservations about shooting those insectoid killing machines out of the sky.

  Assuming he could.

  The flechette guns could fire 720 darts of hardened tungsten a second, chewing up a ship’s armor. A direct hit from a pulse cannon could seize up an uninsulated vessel for several minutes.

  Of course, the Dragonflies had better armor than almost anything in the skies, and they were specially insulated from pulse cannons. He wasn’t sure those would work at all.

  They came at him in a standard triangle formation, spread wide to make it impossible for the area effect of a pulse cannon to disrupt more than one.

  His fingers dancing across the keypad, he set two of the flechette guns on a wide spray pattern and the pulse cannon churning out ball after ball of sparking energy.

  The third flechette gun he operated manually. He aimed down the sights and waited.

  The Dragonflies flitted around as they advanced, anticipating the flechettes and pulses and dodging them with expert skill. It slowed their advance, though, and limited their range of movement.

  That’s what Negasi was banking on.

  Just as they got to medium range, Negasi jabbed a button, and the autofire focused on the Dragonfly to the left. A halo of flechettes surrounded the Dragonfly, and right down the center came the pulses.

  The Dragonfly tried to dodge as much as it could, daring to take a few flechettes into its armor to get away from the disrupting pulses as much as possible.

  It juddered and lost speed as its electronic systems got nearly overwhelmed by several near misses. Any normal ship would have been dead in space, but the Dragonflies had the best armor of anything in space short of a battle cruiser.

  Even so, the Dragonfly lost almost all its maneuverability.

  And that’s when Negasi let him have it with a full burst of his flechette gun.

  Even at the distance of several kilometers, Negasi could see chunks of armor breaking off in the face of his relentless fire. The Mantid pilot made one last desperate attempt to maneuver away, but only got hit by more autofire, the computer sensing the enemy ship’s distress and focusing its shots.

  A final burst from Negasi and there was a brief flare from the ship, then nothing. It kept going at its previous trajectory thanks to the lack of friction in space, but it was as dead as a meteor.

  Now came the Dragonflies’ turn.

  The remaining two Mantid ships sprayed the Antikythera with explosive rounds. Its hull lit up with fist-sized explosions, leaving dents in the armor. The stars spun and bucked as Jeridan took evasive maneuvers.

  No good. The Mantids were crack shots and were still closing in. Negasi picked one of the Dragonflies and tried the same tactic. He put a halo of flechettes around the thing and fired the pulse cannon and the manual flechette gun at the center.

  The Mantid pilot didn’t want to share the fate of its friend, assuming cannibalistic insectoids have friends. It flew right through the circle of flechettes, bits of armor splintering off, and got out of the trap.

  Negasi followed it with the manual flechette gun, firing hundreds of darts in a trail that followed the Dragonfly across space. Several tungsten slivers cut into the armor, but no vital systems got hit and the Dragonfly’s tough exterior remained intact.

  The third Dragonfly shot straight for the Antikythera, letting out a single large pulse from a cannon on its ventral side.

  Jeridan desperately tried to maneuver out of the way, but it was too late. Negasi cringed at the last moment, knowing it would be a direct hit.

  The systems flickered for half a second and then everything went back to normal.

  “Nice insulation you got, Nova,” Negasi said through the comm. “What else does this ship have that you haven’t told us about?”

  “Shut up and shoot!” Nova replied.

  Sounded like a good idea. He zeroed in on the Dragonfly just as it turned away and gave it a long burst into its aft thrusters. The Mantid pilot was a pro and dodged around so much it was nearly impossible to make a hit.

  But Negasi had been making impossible shots his entire career.

  He zigzagged his burst, the barest move of his wrist making a difference of nearly half a kilometer at this range, bathing the Dragonfly’s portion of space in tungsten spikes flying at deadly speed. Several gouged the fighter’s armor, and then one or more made a direct hit on the right rear thruster.

  In most ships, that would have led to a satisfying fireball, satisfying for everyone but the crew, that is. But the Dragonfly had state-of-the-art failsafes that meant what should have been a killing shot only cut off that one thruster.

  Still, it slowed the ship down and seriously hurt its maneuverability. Negasi punched in a new pattern for the autofire, aimed with his manual flechette gun, and got ready to put the cannibalistic insectoids out of the game.

  “Cease fire and surrender immediately!” an unfamiliar voice ordered over the comm system. Negasi looked at the readout and saw it was the external comm.

  This order was followed a moment later by a flurry of explosive slug fire that peppered the Antikythera’s hull.

  The Orbital Patrol had gotten into range.