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The Lombardi craft exploded, shards spinning into oblivion.

Another zipped in from above, but Dia was already there, jamming their targeting with a cascade of synthetic noise.

‘They’re losing lock on us,’ she said.

‘Good,’ Savvine snapped. ‘Take their eyes out before we take their throat.’

But the assailants didn’t get the memo.

It swooped in from their flank, not gunning, launching.

Savvine caught sight of a cylindrical projectile, long and spined, with red hazard glyphs glowing along its shell, spinning toward them.

Dia’s voice broke. ‘That’s not standard ordinance.’

Savvine’s stomach dropped.

‘That’s aHades-class banshee. That’s -.’

Her utterance fell off, shock rendering her speechless.

‘Illegal as hell,’ Yani grumbled. ‘Where’d they even get that?!’

‘Forget where! Take it down!’ Savvine growled.

Calyx dove. Savvine hauled hard starboard and kicked the ventral rail guns into overdrive. TheTalonshuddered as the cannons locked onto the banshee warhead.

‘On my mark,’ she breathed. ‘Three.’

The projectile drew closer. Too proximate.

‘Two.’

She felt the heat rising in her palms. This was it, no second chances.

‘One. Fire.’

Yani’s rail guns roared. Calyx’s point defense artillery bellowed.

The projectile cracked apart mid-space and detonated.

A sphere of searing white light expanded like a nova, and Savvine jerked on the throttle hard to race them away from the blast surge.

‘The shockwave’s too immense,’ she whispered as the triad of Lombardi ships got caught in it.

The banshee didn’t care about allegiance.

Its detonation vaporized them with savage, blinding finality.

TheAsh Talonrocked with violence, hull plating groaning as the dissipating remnants of the shockwave slammed over them.

The HUD screamed red. Internal lights flickered.

A pressure leak burst below deck.

Silence fell.

No one stirred until Yani let out a series of expletives.