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Thom had one of those panic moments. You probably know the kind. The kind where the world, your whole universe is muted out, the decisions you made up to the point are blurred and you're desperately cursing every deity under the sun for not installing an undo button in the universe.

The variables simplified and Thom was presented with, as far as he could tell, with a type-one-type-two error problem.

His ship had been invaded by pirates trying to make off with his FTL drive. And that would not normally annoy Thom to this extent, for only the lapin engineer was such a tard that the aliens would surely blow themselves up in the end trying to retro-fit the thing, making all of Thom's suffering for naught.

On the other side of it, the Caushae authorities – or what he assumed were authorities – had just shot at him and there were large swirling balls of lethal energy careening through space at his face.

Optimally, Thom's objective was to minimise both errors by taking the middle route, whatever the hell that was.

The Lycan, who had snuck onto the deck was barking cryptic orders at him from one side, while Al's insistence they held civilian RF tags and requests for the offenders to disengage droned across deaf hailing channels on the other side.

And finally, cutting through the swathe of noise, catching Thom's attention was an ironically soft voice.

“Help…"

Thom blinked away the blur and turned his head, the griffin focusing in his vision. The first thing he noted were her pretty eyes, large and awash with genuine desperation. She'd practically abandoned her pistol, letting it hang loosely from one hand as she gingerly stepped forward.

“Please," she struggled out, stumbling over the Sol Common words. “Help us."

Thom blinked again. A correct path presented itself – in theory. And even if it turned out to be the incorrect path, Thom was of strong enough character to accept and suffer the consequences of his error.

He made a split-second decision worthy of recording on his CV – 'practiced ability to perform calculated snap-decisions in high stress situations.'

“Al, fire countermeasures!" Thom ordered, swiping his hand across the main command console.

All around them the engineering module came to life with an energetic hum. And at the same time a streak of black and gold shot across the external view, crossing the path of the incoming energy beams.

Under Al's command, the Ronin-A sliced through space, a dazzling array of countermeasures spawned from her flanks. Dubbed 'angel-wings' for both their saving grace and aesthetic, they were treated to the sight of hundreds of orbs of energy blanketing space in the path of the enemy beams. The projectiles collided as the Ronin-A ducked back out of view and three of the four flaring beams dimmed, bleaching out of existence in practically the blink of an eye.

The fourth destabilised however, fizzing violently as the countermeasures were attracted to it like iron filings to a magnet. The orbs clung all across the energy torpedo before brightening and blossoming into a second sun. The explosion washed out the external camera and the holo-board displaying the view blinked out and the hull of the Ronin-B rattled uncomfortably.

As the craft rocked, Thom finished powering up the last of the systems. “Al, I want you to rendezvous and soft dock."

“Folding into hypespace requires hard dock."

“We're not folding with a faulty FTL drive."

“What other option do we have?" Al cogitated for a moment, then hummed. “You intend to fight. Of course you do."

Thom glanced up at the relieved expression crossing the griffin's cute features. It was an odd contrast to the Lycan's fierce, but confused expression as she seemed to look to her colleague for updates. They had a short exchange in their common tongue, and Thom caught the glimpse of a smile on the girl's beak. It seemed genuine.

Stepping forward, the girl pressed a hand to her chest, just above the soft valley between her bosoms revealed where her fitted jumpsuit was zipped down.

“Vaelia," she said shortly, patting her chest. Thom would have to be an idiot not to recognise the introduction. That being said, he was a little busy, too busy for his eyes to even linger on her cleavage for longer than a second. As Thom took in the introduction, Vaelia pointed to the Lycan and added, “Gemini."

Thom didn't afford her the two seconds it would take to say 'Captain Thom Crichton' and grabbed the young woman by the arm.

“Crash course time, featherbrain," he said rather coarsely, pushing her in front of the console and pointing out the Ronin-B flight controls.

The layout was quite simple and it didn't take long for Thom to explain with his hands guiding hers over the console to explain the pitch, yaw, roll and throttle commands before indicating the gravity tether controls.

Still, the same way Thom only half took in her clumsy introduction, Vaelia was a little distracted as the human tried to instruct her to tow the yacht from the pulsar using the Ronin-B's gravity grapplers. And the main reason for that was the way his body pressed up against her back.

She was partially bent over the console in a semi-awkward position to boot, but Vaelia couldn't help shudder with excitement despite the imminent danger. A xeno-biological interest took her fancy for a brief moment and she wondered – almost hoped – human biology was at least compatible enough for a position like this to make any kind of erotic sense.

Her eyes fluttering she looked over her shoulder at Thom, a hot breath huffing from her beak as she resisted the urge to press her wide hips back and grind the curves of her rear against his crotch a little more obviously.

“I asked if you got it," Thom said suddenly, pulling the griffin from her trance, and gave herself a subtle shake. “Use the gravity tethers to pull your ship out of the pulsar. We'll need parts from your FTL drive to jury rig mine so we can get the heck out of here!"

Thom wondered how much of that was comprehensible to her. But Vaelia nodded. Slowly of course, but there was a vague spark of understanding in her eyes.

Satisfied she knew what to do, Thom loped past the hesitating Lycan and across the engineering compartment. The lapin was still down there, lost somewhere between the mess explosive decompression had caused earlier. Many of Thom's tools and spare parts lay scattered across the deck, turning the relatively tidy workspace into a closer resemblance to his private quarters.

“And you, ya' floppy-eared freak!" He pointed at the alien engineer, then indicated the mess. “Clean up this crap or I'mma turn you into a rug!"

He didn't seem to understand, idling in the chaos as Thom ran past and started unlocking the seal to the cargo spine. At the same time there was the familiar reverb of the Ronin-A clanging into the foremost sections of the cargo spine. There was no clunk of the hard clamps locking in place, but there was a faint hissing of pressure equalising.

“Soft dock complete. Imperfect contact detected. Whatever you're thinking of doing, Thom, do it quickly."

With Al giving him the green light, Thom threw open the airlock and flung himself down the cargo spine and out the other end into the Ronin-A.

Hitting the deck running on the far side, Thom scrambled to right himself and flew onto the bridge. He passed the captain chair, making it spin a few revolutions before leaping over the backrest of the helm and landing heavily in the familiar cushions behind the pilot controls. Al could certainly handle piloting the Starcast Ronin with ease, but right now Thom needed his artificial buddy to focus his processing power on combat operations. No doubt the Caushae warbird would attempt to hack the Ronin's system as well as bombard them with energy weapons, so Thom needed peak efficiency on every front of countermeasures, physical and digital.

To be fully prepared though, they had to go to full combat readiness.

“Give me everything, Al," Thom ordered as he started spooling up the immediate systems he needed. Combat manoeuvring thrusters came to life as the e-warfare suite booted up at the same time. Firewalls went into 'dogfight' mode, isolating key systems. Even the med-bay lighting took on a shade of amber, indicating to staff that should have been present that triage-mode was enabled.

“Everything?" Al asked for confirmation.

“Damn straight. We're gonna show these a-holes this ronin's still got her sword."

Al did as told, gladly even, Thom noted. Weapons came online. There was a 'thunk' that reverberated through the hull as reactive armour slid into place and autoloaders shoved torpedoes into firing tubes. Power flowed into dusty, forgotten systems and the whole prowler responded with a predatory growl she hadn't unleashed in a very long time. As if to punctuate the point a conduit board – one Al immediately reported he was bypassing – blew out and started sparking furiously.

“It's alright, that was just the torpedo guidance system. We can work without it."

“Of course. We can surely win a heavyweight space battle without high-speed primary weapon targeting data. Why would I ever be concerned?" Al was certainly getting the hang of sarcasm. “Stealth buffers are engaged and I'm scrambling their laser targeting system. We are however framed in the pulsar, so they can still visually lock on to us."

“Not for long. Secure for away."

Another 'thunk' in the hull as airlocks sealed. “Done."

Thom swiped the throttle-stripe to full and the Starcast Ronin-A separated from the rest of the ship instantly. The thrusters glowed ferociously, throwing the prowler into space with enough velocity that even the inertial dampers struggled to keep up. Almost immediately Thom heard a clatter somewhere behind him and glanced over his shoulder to look.

The Lycan, her neuro-stunner holstered, clambered forward through the gees on all fours and dragged herself into the ops seat beside the helm. The grav-harness sucked her into the cushions before she spooled up the holo-board and started cycling through bridge controls.

In immediate response the board turned crimson and Al locked her out, drawing a growl from the woman.

“The hell do you think you're doing, fur-bag?" Thom snarled back.

The Lycan glared, something violent flashing in her azure eyes. She clearly recognised the slur humans used for Lycans during the First Contact War, though didn't say anything more than: “Gemini."

Reaffirming what Vaelia had had called her, Thom assumed 'Gemini' was her name and shrugged.

“Okay then, Gemini." Pulling up a second holo-board, Thom selected a series of controls, unlocked them and spun them across to Gemini's terminal. “Make yourself useful."

Spread across Gemini's console were a series of lists, names in Sol Common scripts and titles the Lycan clearly wasn't familiar with. But the large triangular symbol on the central button, flanked by the universally recognised arrows for 'forward' and 'back' were easily enough identifiable on the music controls.

“Play the good stuff," Thom ordered, and glaring at him with more exasperation than vehemence, Gemini tapped a random song in the list and hit 'play.'

Immediately the opening rapid-fire plucking of electric guitars filled the bridge. It was joined by others, then by vocal chants and finally a bass heavy drum-beat – a few solid strikes at each interval. Thom's smile grew, realising what Gemini had chosen entirely at random. An oldie but a goodie, as the pre-exodus Australian rockers started yelling “Thunder!" to the beat of drums, the human couldn't help tap his foot while rolling the Starcast Ronin-A into action.

The kilometres between the Ronin-A and the Caushae warbird dwindled rapidly as the space between them resembled a kaleidoscope. Thom was pushing the prowler through its paces, darting from side to side, jinking in and out of rolls to avoid incoming energy blasts, while at the same time Al was retaliating with a plethora of point defences. Enemy projectiles exploded silently in the vacuum of space, punctuated by the drumbeat filling the Ronin's bridge.

One of the blasts rattled the hull, shaking both Thom and Gemini in their seats, but neither looked away from the forward viewport, the Caushae vessel locked in their sights. Gemini stared with intense hatred, making Thom wonder what the story might be.

One thing at a time, he thought to himself, tightening his grip on the yolk before diving in closer to the enemy ship.

With the stealth systems obfuscating their position in space, giving sensors false targeting data, Thom was able to manoeuvre the Starcast Ronin between the flack-like laserlines being shot out into space in confusing criss-cross patterns. Thom had always hated combat manoeuvres like these in free space. Give him asteroid belts or high orbit debris fields any day of the week. Back in his days in the Signal Corps he would have turned battles like these on the enemy in seconds, even with just a little bit of cover. But loping about in open space, especially fighting bigger fish like the Caushae warbird sucked.

For the same reasons he refrained from keying his torpedo controls. They were his only true offensive weapons, guidance system or no, but would do nothing against advanced alien shielding. Glancing up, Thom noted how his own ship's point defences slammed into the shimmering barrier laid over the Caushae hull mere metres away.

“Our torpedoes 'll just bounce off that shield," Al noted out loud. “We need a hole to penetrate."

“Phrasing!" Thom rolled the Ronin and they slid along the sleek rear section stabilisers that widened out the ass-end of the Caushae ship. “Do they have to drop shields to fire weapons?"

“Negative. Their energy weapons are keyed to the shield frequency."

“Our point defences are energy based. What about keying into their frequency?"

“I've attempted to hack their computers to discern the exact frequency. Their firewalls will take several hours to crack."

“Guess the frequency."

“Margin for error is zero-point-zero-six-percent. It would take weeks to test them all."

The amount of pessimism on the Ronin-A's bridge was brutal. At least it was until Gemini cried out. Thom had just performed a thigh U-turn to avoid a point defence cluster attempting to blind-target them. It had gotten closer than the rest, sending a flickering beam of energy across the nose close enough to leave some light scarring on the paint-job. The moment he turned about face, Gemini pointed Thom to a yawning chamber about the enemy vessel's mid-section.

Thom arched his eyebrows, recognising the chasm immediately. “The fighter bay is opening up."

“We will be hard pressed to dodge the ship's main weapon as well as a fleet of interceptors. We should retreat."

“No, this is good!" Thom argued and he peeled off, making a wide turn though space, eyes tracking the open hangar. “They have to drop a portion of their shield to let the fighters out."

Straightening out the Ronin, he aimed the nose directly at the hangar. It stretched right through the Caushae ship, opening out into space on both flanks essentially forming a tunnel directly through the hull of the vessel. Still, interceptors were far smaller than prowlers like the Starcast Ronin, and fighter hangers like those were purposely built to be tight to prevent large transports performing boarding action from getting in.

Al already discerned as much as he used a variety of sensors, arguably more accurate than Thom's blind judgement, to compare the opening's dimensions to the Starcast Ronin's bulk.

“Thom, we will not fit."

Thom ducked and weaved through a few laserlights streaking across their path. The hard banking made the ship tremble and Gemini gripped the music terminal for some sense of stability.

“Your negativity is bumming me out, Al!" Thom cried as he lined up the nose again.

“Don't do it." Despite warning the human off, Al threw up a HUD crosshairs in a bid to better guide Thom in.

“I'm doin' it!" He gunned the throttle, grip on the controls tightening.

“No…"

“Yes!" Thom pulled up torpedo controls, primed one of the weapons ad spun drop-control to Gemini.

A blast hit the right flank of the Ronin-A, causing the ship to shudder. Gemini was crying out through gritted teeth as she braced herself for impact while the Caushae ship raced closer.

“No, no, no no…"

“Yesyesyesyesyes!"

In a moment of vertigo that sat in the pit of their stomachs, for a second Thom through Al was right. That was until the yolk was yanked out of his hand and Al rolled the Ronin a dozen degrees left, twisting the ship so it lined up with the yawning bay doors. They slipped in immediately after.

Sparks filled the viewport as they scraped the pain on all sides. Several thunderous explosions punctuated some of the light interceptors attempting take off flattening against the Ronin's armour, and several more were gutted by the point defence turrets indiscriminately raking the inside of the hangar in passing –

Gemini slammed her hand down on the missile controls and a torpedo left the tube, slamming into the hangar deck somewhere behind them.

– The Ronin-A came screaming out the other side, nacelles skimming the edges of the hole where the shields attempted to close in around them. Debris, fire and sparks followed them ou the other side as they went spinning into space, the payload Gemini had left in their wake exploding.

The opening blast wasn't so devastating. It was like a firecracker on a metal plate. Anywhere else the explosion would have left naught but a dent and a burn.

But since it blew inside the enemy ship…

There was a relatively small fireball within the wake of the destruction Thom wrought inside the hangar. That was quickly followed by a chain reaction of blasts as several fuel lines and ammo dumps went up in flames. From there a chain reaction of destruction rippled across the sleek Caushae vessel, consuming everything up to the nose and the tail, where the engines popped. The midsection tore right through, splitting the ship in two and finally, as the icing on the cake, the FTL drive overloaded.

Another sun lit up in the system, brilliant white and near blinding as it consumed what was left of the offending ship.

“YES!" Thom threw up both fists as the flickering explosion faded and the Caushae cruiser was reduced to dust. “I told you that would work!"

“I have involuntarily performed a random access memory data dump."

“You 'n me both, buddy." Thom chuckled as he directed the ship back into the direction of the pulsar. “What's Vaelia's status?"

As the bright blue sun and the Ronin-B came into sight again, Thom noted through Al's report that the sleek yacht was holding on the brim of the space anomaly. The gravity tether nodes glowed bright enough for Tom to note them, keeping the alien yacht linked to the comparatively smaller craft that towed it to safety.

“It seems Vaelia has managed to tow the yacht out of the pulsar and is…" He stopped rather suddenly as if the speaker transmitting his report conked out.

“Al?"

“Stand by. Fold event detected."

As he said it, Al pulled up a rear-view camera showing the debris littered space behind them. Space lit up as a new sun of pure white light magically appeared for a brief second. The veil of reality tore and spilling out of the orb of light came a ship, blinking into existence so quickly it took a second for Thom's brain to play catch up.

Folding into realspace like a mantis looming over potential prey was a Caushae warship that dwarfed the previous aggressor in every proportion. It had the same markings as the previous warbird, black and red banners with Sovereignty military markings neither Thom or Al were familiar with. The thing was immense enough that it didn't even fit in the viewport, and most notable about the ship was the immense main battle cannon that hung under the elegantly pointed prow, a blade that Thom thought had probably cleft many rival ships in two.

“Oh, geeze…" Thom groaned, wondering if he was going to have to fight that.

The answer came in the form of a ping.

“Thom, they are not charging weapons," Al reported as if reading his mind. “We are being hailed on diplomatic frequencies."

“Main screen, please."

A holo-board burst into existence across the main forward viewport. Resolving on the screen was the statuesque bust of an alien woman, framed like a remote interviewee in a newscast. She was Caushae, an anthropomorphic feline with pale grey fur and dark red eyes. They were large attractive eyes, quite like Vaelia's, but these held something cold and murderous in them. Thom suddenly felt like he was a midnight-snack being eyed up by an apex predator.

She was quite well presented, her athletic frame clad in a well fitted black and red military uniform and shiny rank tabs on her shoulders. She wore the same emblem Thom didn't recognise that was plastered across her ship on her left breast and her short metallic purple coloured hair was pulled back into a taught, strict looking ponytail.

Behind her some of the ship's command centre was populated by other Caushae men and women in similar black and red uniforms. They paid the two-way conversation between ships no mind and kept their attention focused on their respective stations.

Gemini reacted immediately to the sight of the Caushae woman onscreen, snarling angrily. Not an unusual reaction considering Lycans and Caushae had unfriendly history. Protracted war between your species tended to breed a little racism.

Thom held out a hand to wave her down, then sat up a little straighter.

“This is General Sorcha Krux aboard the Royal Dominion Killmonger," the woman introduced with terse formality. Her expression barely changed as she regarded Thom like a picnicker might consider an ant crawling across her sandwich. “With whom am I speaking?"

“Captain Thom Crichton aboard the SSG Starcast Ronin." He offered one of his winning smiles, but the general seemed unmoved. “What brings a starsector like you to a girl like this, general?"

“Mister Crichton-…"

“Captain," Thom insisted.

She continued speaking as if he hadn't interrupted. “My fleet is hunting a traitorous war-criminal last seen in this system."

“Ah! Would that be a certain dip-stick opening fire on ships with civilian RF tags like mine? If so, I blew his ass up already." Thom gave an offhand shrug. “Sorry… not sorry."

Krux didn't seem amused in the slightest though, and narrowed her eyes at him. “Not quite. This criminal made off with a royal yacht, the very one your ship is currently towing out of the pulsar. Are you aware you are currently assisting a fugitive of Royal Dominion law?"

Quite an accusation! Or at least, it would be if Thom knew what the hell the 'Royal Dominion' was. Since the Sovereignty, the ruling body of the Caushae had shattered after the death of their emperor hundreds of these little factions were cropping up all over Caushae space. There were too many to name aside from the typical 'Reformist' and 'Separatist' categories.

If Thom had to guess, Krux was leading the charge of a separatist group. Caushae weren't typically a warmongering race, but there were always exceptions. 'Assholes' so to speak.

“And are you aware, general," Thom argued without missing a beat, “that your people are unlawfully targeting civilian ships? Maybe I'll have a word or two with the Sol Accord council in Geneva when I rotate back to Earth. I'm sure they'll be excited to hear of rogue Sovereignty factions testing the peace treaty." He smirked with too much confidence for the man floating on the wrong side of a ship bristling with very many, rather large space-guns.

General Krux pulled the faintest of pouts, indicating to Thom he'd struck a nerve. She looked off-screen and made note of something an adjutant said too quietly for the microphone to pick up, then nodded curtly.

Regarding him, she said simply, “Goodbye, Mister Crichton."

“It's 'Captain' Crich-…!"

It was already too late. The link was cut and the holo-board vanished, revealing the front viewport and the panoramic view of the Ronin-B and yacht framed in the pulsar's light. A sub-panel still kept the Killmonger framed in view as the mighty ship was awash with energy.

A halo of ionised particles glistened about the main battle cannon hanging under the nose f the sleek craft, closing about the muzzle like a noose before with an unheard boom the whole weapon bucked back into its housing and jettisoning an immense shot of sizzling crimson energy.

The cylinder of light shot directly over the Ronin-A and sped towards the other half of the ship, to Thom's initial horror. His mouth was agape, about to yell for countermeasures, for whatever good those could have done against such an immense missile. But the projectile missed the Ronin-B as well, cutting into the pulsar and the neutrino star before vanishing as if it had never existed.

At the same time the Killmonger made a quart turn, and in a flash of white light spiralling about the immense ship's hull, the warship vanished, folding away into hyperspace and leaving naught but a faint pulse-engine ion trail to remember it by.

Thom was still gaping as he scanned the Ronin's instruments, trying to figure out what had just happened. “What the literal F-word was that?"

“Their main cannon targeted the pulsar directly. I'm reading scattered neutrino excitement. Increase in flare activity. Thom, I calculate the neutrino star will go supernova in two minutes."

Thom blinked wasting about five seconds of that deadline. “That sucks."

It seemed Krux wasn't intent to waste time chasing Thom's stealthy little prowler about space, and instead opted to nuke him out of existence.

Overkill? Yes.

Effective? Nobody could argue that it wasn't.

Swiping the throttle stripe to full blast, they burned back to the Ronin-B and did a nimble flip before Al took the controls and lined them up for a hard dock. The rear end of the Ronin-A collided a little hard with the cargo spine, giving a crunching noise before the docking clamps engaged this time and the airlocks hissed open.

The Starcast Ronin complete once more, Thom set combat systems into standby so they wouldn't be a drain on the power supply and called on the FTL drive. Engines answered briskly with a series of amber and crimson warnings across the diagnostic board. Conditions for a transition into hyperspace were not optimal, but necessary.

“Al, bootstrap the ships together and prep for emergency fold," he ordered, feeding jump co-ordinates into the NAV computer.

The gravity tethers hummed and there was a clang of the Ronin's hull meeting the yachts. Still, Al had his concerns. “I'll require more time to ensure the bootstrap is secure."

“Now is not the time for caution." Al had thrown a countdown to supernova on the heads-up-display, which Thom's eyes kept flitting to as he worked. “We good?" he asked as the timer hit the final six seconds.

“We're good. Punch it."

Punch it he did. Glancing over at Gemini, Thom saw the Lycan was a little behind on current events. But concern crossed her canine features as she watched Thom work as fast as he could against the ticking clock. She definitely knew something was wrong, and Thom wished he could bask in the same ignorant bliss.

Holding up a hand he crossed his middle finger over the index. Recognising the gesture, possibly from previous encounters with humans, Gemini mimicked the gesture and Thom slammed his hand down on the 'GO' button.

The fold was instant. Space tweaked apart at the nose before an orb of light enveloped both ships and they vanished from realspace. Right on their tails however, the neutron star flashed, then expanded into a burning sphere of deadly nuclear fusion capable of swallowing a whole solar system.

Safe in the realm of space just behind the veil of normality, the Starcast Ronin and her shining bootstrapped guest sped through a quantum tunnel suspended between two points in the known universe. It was all very complicated, and Thom only half understood it all even though he spent much of his space-faring career folding in and out of this pocket dimension of Einsteinian stuff.

Safe was a relative term however. Before Thom could breathe easy, he was forced to turn in his seat. It wasn't the sound of Vaelia and the lapin engineer pounding onto the bridge behind him that drew his attention, but the turbulence kicking the whole ship and a subsequent high-pitched noise of tearing steel.

“Did something break?"

Al confirmed in his altogether too-cool attitude. “Cascading failure in FTL drive shielding detected."

“That's bad."

Understatement of the century.

Something exploded. Thom wasn't sure what, but the sound was unmistakeable. And before he could figure out what was happening in the rear compartment of his ship, a white light filled the cockpit…

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