The Kamikaze gently drifted toward its docking berth on the orbital above Nexus. Its transponder obviously didn’t claim it was the Kamikaze, but that’s what was displayed on our screens. The ship itself was little more than a hollow shell, missing several components needed for full performance. The entire vessel was powered by two small power cores that, on their own, wouldn’t be capable of running a fully equipped ship The Kamikaze was essentially an empty shell made to look like a small freighter. Hell, most of its gravity emitters were nothing more than steel plates welded together to look correct.

  As the Trojan horse of a ship approached the station, it sent out an automated, pre-programmed message to the station controllers stating that it was having trouble with its propulsion equipment and was canceling its docking procedure for safety reasons until the issue was fixed. The station acknowledged this and thanked the empty ship for its caution. The Kamikaze then angled its trajectory, maintaining a slow, steady acceleration profile that, if continued, would have placed it on an almost perfect collision course with a corvette called the Hammer. Initially, nothing appeared out of the ordinary; if at any point the Kamikaze were to adjust its planned trajectory, it would miss the Hammer completely. However, when it became clear to the crew of the Corvette that a collision was imminent, a message was sent to the ghost ship to alter its course. The ship responded with another pre-programmed message explaining that it was suffering serious equipment issues and had lost control over its acceleration profile. The ghost ship then politely suggested that the Corvette itself change course.

  There was a tense delay as nothing happened, but as the Kamikaze drew nearer to the Hammer, the Corvette activated its gravity drive and pulled itself off the collision course.

  It wasn’t the most ideal situation. In a perfect world, the crew of the Hammer would not have been watching, and the Kamikaze could have simply flown into the ship at a leisurely pace. Instead, our tactic only succeeded in giving the crew of the Hammer a false sense of security. The Corvette only activated its gravity based propulsion enough to avoid collision—not enough to put it at a safe distance.

  X-Tallia, Sam, and I were on board our vessel watching the scene unfold from a distance. Zoia was somewhere on the orbital prepared to input commands to the Kamikaze if anything fell outside one of X-Tallia’s decision trees.

  “I can’t believe this is working,” Sam said as she leaned further into the screen, waiting for the moment when the Kamikaze would hit its point of closest approach.

  I had to agree with her. We hadn’t deviated very far from X-Tallia’s decision trees. The enemy corvette was exactly where we wanted it, and they were even allowing the Kamikaze to get far too close. What we were seeing was probably twenty minutes old. That ment whatever was going to happen had already happened.

  “Here we go,” X-Tallia said, gesturing to one of the screens that displayed the point of closest approach. The Kamikaze reached that point, and the fake freight hauler transformed into something entirely different. All power was thrown into its gravity emitters as the ship angled on a collision course with the Corvette. If it collided, it wouldn’t be moving fast enough to cause serious damage—at least not with the Corvette’s shields active, but that wasn’t the only trick. Several exterior panels of the Kamikaze fell away, releasing four missiles that immediately activated and hurtled toward the enemy vessel. None of that proved truly useful; there was still too much time for it to react, and the dedicated warship had ample firepower to counter our ordnance. The four explosives—and the large, slow-moving projectile that was the Kamikaze itself—were, however, loaded with something extra.

  I could only imagine what the crew of the corvette was thinking as their sensors were temporarily blinded by a burst of various types of radiation—gamma rays, X-rays, the biggest EMP we could cobble together (which admittedly wasn’t much), and a host of other emissions flooding the Hammer’s sensors with data and overloading its processing.

  A warship like that likely had enough tech on board to cut through the shit, but it would take time for the human crew to realize what was happening and the Kamikaze was already very close.

  A screen showing the view from the orbital displayed the Kamikaze approaching, missiles launching, and a stream of kinetic and laser-based point-defense cannons coming online to counter the missiles. Three of those missiles practically disintegrated before reaching the ship; the fourth hit its target—one of the bulbous, fin-like projections that carried the Hell Lance and railgun. While it delivered a direct hit, it did little more than wash over the energy fields, causing them to flicker but not fail completely. Then the cannons shifted focus to the larger object—the one that human crews tended not to worry about as much, since the crew on board the incoming vessel wouldn’t want to die. The Kamikaze had no crew on board; it collided with the Hammer in a spectacular display of large metal objects striking one another at relatively slow speeds. The collision obliterated the bulbous winglet and sent the corvette spinning, which took several minutes to correct as the overloading of the Kamikaze’s two minor power cores produced a burst of energy that damaged a large section of the port-side midships.

  In the following 30 minutes or so, we saw what was left of the corvette. Though heavily damaged on one side, it was still in the fight—but there was no fight left. The Kamikaze had done its job. It had wounded the corvette in a surprise attack that meant one of two things: either the Hammer would have to go in for repairs, or it would continue flying with nearly half its firepower cut off. Either way worked for us just fine.

  ***

  Point-defense cannons opened up on our missiles as they flew in from all directions. In this case, we weren’t trying to destroy the ship outright so much as wear down its shields and overload its point-defense cannons. It was working. The PDCs were so focused on the incoming missiles that they missed the unidirectional stealth drones. Once those were close enough, they released their micro missiles—waves of tiny warheads that penetrated each of the PDCs, disabling them and chewing through the hull. A couple of well-placed micro missiles into the launcher tubes for the target ship’s own missiles allowed us to disable an enemy vessel rather effectively. As technically complicated as the mission had been, that was the easy part.

  X-Tallia then saddled our ship next to our target’s vessel, maneuvering with the gravity emitters. The enemy vessel, now completely disabled, drifted with a lazy spin that we had to match by altering our gravity emitters. Once we were close enough, gravity was switched on to 2g toward the starboard side, and the two vessels were effectively mated together—pressed against each other, steel grinding against steel as any shift occurred.

  It was never an intentional design feature to have the open rear-end structure of our ship so incomplete that we could literally jump across from the deck to the enemy vessel. A happy coincidence, I suppose. Though with the two ships pressed against each other as they were, I was a little concerned about the structure. I checked that the strap hooking my rifle to my suit was in place before looking over at Zoia, who was fully suited from head to toe in her black and purple hard suit. I couldn’t see her face behind the visor, but she looked considerably more badass than I did. Not really a surprise. She was the bounty hunter and I was the glorified freight hauler.

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  With her rifle slung over her shoulder and a tool kit in hand, she pressed herself against one of the supports and appeared to be judging which handhold she wanted to take when we reached the other ship.

  I did much the same, choosing my footholds carefully and then leaping when I was ready. It was a whole five meters, and I realized my mistake the moment my body left the internal gravity field of the ship and entered the zero-g of open space—or at least it should have been zero-g if we weren’t gluing the two ships together via the gravity emitter. My stomach lurched as I instantly fell to my left.

  I yelled louder than necessary. “X-Tallia!” I called out as I hit the gravity emitter hard. As soon as I could think clearly, I listened carefully for the telltale sound of air escaping my suit.

  In a moment, I went from being a 500-pound idiot to a roughly 220-pound moron. As X-Tallia reduced the gravity, she said, “You can stand up now, provided you didn’t break anything.”

  “Thank you, X-Tallia,” I replied, sounding just as childish as I felt. I scooted my way back onto the ship’s onboard gravity, stood up, and walked back to my original starting position.

  Zoia, for her part, hadn’t even bothered looking at my little misadventure. Being the professional that she was, she was tethered to the enemy ship, slowly cutting an entryway into the hall.

  Then the next problem arose: I realized the cut area wasn’t cooling fast enough for us to pass through without possible damage to our suits. Space was damn cold, but things had to radiate their heat—and that took more time than conduction or convection. This too was quickly solved by Zoia. She very quickly and efficiently welded a cold piece of metal to the lower step.

  With a quick swing, Zoia was in the ship. I realigned myself and once again launched through the void, this time remembering to account for the fact that gravity was that way. My foot hit Zoia’s step. I saw her hit the ground, tumble, and then rise back to a standing position sideways relative to my current position. Once again, I fell onto the floor. Gravity got really fucking weird when you had multiple angles to work with.

  Zoia moved forward, gun at the ready, looking every bit like a trained military professional. I tore my eyes away from her and tried to find an open computer. The two of us searching the ship and trying to take out each individual occupant was unlikely to be terribly successful. However, getting X-Tallia into the ship’s systems would be a massive force multiplier.

  The initial corridor we entered was empty. Beyond was one of the hauler’s cargo areas and the crates of supplies, there was a whole lot of nothing—no terminals for me to plug X-Tallia into, and no pirates or mercenaries trying to shoot at us. A half-dozen paces forward, and Zoia had her gun pointed down a passage that dead-ended at a sealed door.

  “You take engineering in the aft; I’ll cover you until you get to the bulkhead,” Zoia said over the comms.

  I gave her a thumbs up and descended the ladder into the maze of crates, making a bee-line for the rear bulkhead. Again, this door was sealed, and upon realizing I couldn’t get it open, I produced one of the explosive charges Zoia had given me when we were gearing up. I had done this sort of thing in video games, and I was not pleased to learn that the stuff wasn’t as sticky in real life as it was in fantasy. I shoved the plastic-y, gooey material into the cracks and crevices so that it held firm. I connected the detonator to my heads-up display and inserted its little pins into the gooey explosive substance, and then I got the fuck out of there.

  The door blew open with a flash of light, a rumble in the floor, and debris being flung through the cargo hold from the explosive decompression. Ideally, if anyone had been on the other side of the door, they’d be dead. Realistically, they’d be in a hard suit and know I was coming. I gave Zoia a thumbs up, shouldered my rifle, and proceeded forward. I pulled the trigger on the first soft-suited person I encountered. Only after they hit the floor did I stop to think how cold-hearted my action had been. Yeah, they—whether male or female—had been the enemy, but they were still a person, and just because their group was the enemy didn’t mean that specific human being wasn’t innocent.

  Fortunately for me, the room behind the bulkhead was part of engineering—or at least one of the engineering spaces—housing the gravity drive and its accompanying power source. I wasn’t about to complain about that. After a quick check, I dropped my rifle, pulled out the data tablet, and jammed one of its connectors into the gravity drive’s ports.

  “A gravity drive? Seriously?” X-Tallia said, sounding petulant.

  “It’s the first one I came across with ports I can plug into. Can you get in?”

  “Yeah, give me a moment.”

  There was quite a delay before X-Tallia’s voice returned over the comms. “All right, I’m in. Find me something more expansive, please.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled to myself. As I pulled my tablet out of the gravity drive port and re-pocketed it, I re-shouldered my rifle and passed by the gravity core on my way to the hatch that separated the gravity drive from the next engineering space.

  “Hey, X-Tallia—if you’ve got control, can you disable the gravity in the rear engineering spaces?”

  “Done.”

  I threw the hatch open as I felt weightlessness overtake us—well, mostly. There were still large gravity emitters holding the ships together; the lack of gravity underneath me meant I could feel the pull from the opposite side, as if the floor had decided to be behind me. The pull wasn’t too bad, and although I expected zero g, I was already tightly attached to the hatchway I was prying open. The other guy, however, was not.

  I couldn’t hear the gunfire; I only saw flashes from muzzle bursts, which fortunately weren’t pointed entirely in my direction. A large man in a heavy hard suit reached out desperately to cling to something—the only thing available was me. One hand clamped around the rifle attached to my suit. It held, but in my panic I started kicking him. Not very effective against the hard suit, but it kept him from raising his pistol toward me. For a brief, panic-stricken moment, we both hung there, flailing around in what felt like half a g.

  “Gravity on, then off—fast!” I yelled in a shrill tone.

  We fell to the floor, but I maintained a solid grip on the door, knowing that wouldn’t last long. Unfortunately, the large man kept his hand firmly clamped on my rifle. Then, about a dozen pipes began falling through the open hatchway, pelting my assailant in the face plate. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, one of the pipes came down, skidded against my shoulder, and slammed into the latch, securing the strap of my gun to my suit. The man fell—only about eight meters—bouncing off the gravity drive and slamming hard into the bulkhead. Of course, he had both guns now.

  “Uh, X-Tallia, I want you to bring the gravity back on at my mark. Ready?” I ordered.

  I didn’t give her time to respond; I simply let go of the door and lunged toward my enemy for a brief moment before yelling, “Mark!”

  Gravity shifted again. I felt my back hit the ground as I continued skidding toward the guy in the hard suit. I kicked out with my foot, catching him in the knee. Just as he was getting his footing and reaching for something—grabbing a pipe—I swung it around and clubbed him in the face plate. This action finally made him drop the gun.

  “Grav off!” I yelled, swinging the pipe at him again and grabbing hold of the gravity drive casing.

  He dodged, then fell backwards as gravity shifted, his pistol disappearing through the hatch and bouncing off a crate in the cargo hold. He leaned back to glare up at me through his faceplate. Ugly fucker with a wide face, narrow nose, and asymmetrical sneer. He then looked at the wall currently pretending to be a floor and paused when he saw my rife. Fuck. I threw my pipe. A desperate end over end toss that miraculously hit the gun and caused it to slide through open hatched. Slowly he looked back up at me, still dangling from the gravity drive casing. He reached over his shoulder. Fingers wrapping around the handle of some sort of melee weapon. As he pulled it out of its sheath, I had one thought…

  “Who the fuck carries a Katana on their spacesuit?”