The deceleration thrust him forward as the Diligent dropped from several thousand times the speed of light to near zero on a dime, riding the limits of what the Alita spaceframe could handle, what its inertial dampeners could belay, and what the human body could sustain.

Rather than fight the intense g-forces, Lieutenant Dalton McCormick, sitting in the cockpit of his Valkyrie on the forward launch deck of the Diligent, let the momentum carry him forward as he slammed the throttle down. It was game time.

“Engage!” he declared over the comms to his squadron. Not that anyone could have missed the weight of the deceleration, the signal they were now well and truly about to be in the thick of it.

The starfighter leapt forth, and with it, the two dozen alongside it, tearing out of the forward launch bay with such force that now its own inertial dampeners couldn’t keep up. The lieutenant and his systems and weapons specialist, Petty Officer Crissy Callegari, were thrown against their seats as their starfighter raced forth. 

Ahead, they knew, lay a battle with an adversary they’d never before faced, one that, as far as either of them knew, shouldn’t even still exist. But those unknowns did nothing to limit their confidence. They were some of the best in the business, they knew, and it was time to get to work.

As the fighter cleared the shuttle bay, they got their first glimpse of the enemy, a side profile of the massive Astika class heavy battlecruiser directly afore the Diligent. Suddenly, their confidence softened a bit. The ship was massive, over one and a half times the length of their Alita class heavy cruiser, and thicker too, brimming with polaron banks and torpedo tubes. Still, they had no doubt the Diligent would prevail. Captain Vox and the others, they knew what they were doing. The Diligent would carve up that beast, and its sistership too, just like it had always done no matter the foe. With that thought, they put it out of mind. They had a job to do.

Lieutenant McCormick yanked the joystick hard to starboard. As his starfighter dove with the input, he caught in his periphery a bright series of flashes off their port side. Those would be the Diligent’s big guns, he knew, but he didn’t so much as steal a glance to see what effect the Type-XIV pulse phaser cannons had produced. Instead, his focus was entirely on the five Vaadwaur heavy escorts frontrunning the capital ships, now dead ahead, still on their original vectors towards the Vor’cha and two B’rels that stood as the lone defenders of K’t’inga III.

They needed to make their move before those escorts could react. Those escorts, based on their scans, were frontloaded, and right now, they had them from the rear.

“Alpha, break to port, target Echo One, then push mid,” came the calm callout from Commander Jordyn Kerrigan from up in the Combat Information Center. “Bravo, go Echo Five, furthest starboard, meet Alpha mid. Charlie, Delta, down mid to prevent a reversal.”

In his head, Lieutenant McCormick could visualize the call. Alpha, a flight of six starfighters with him and Petty Officer Callegari in the lead, would target the leftmost escort, while Bravo, another flight of six led by his deputy, would hit the rightmost. Both would then push towards the centerline, while the remaining twelve starfighters, identified as Charlie and Delta, would pressure from the rear, setting up threats on three sides and preventing the escorts from doubling back to defend the colleagues that had just been blitzed by the Diligent.

“Fast and light,” Commander Kerrigan reminded them. “Engines only and move on.”

It was a good reminder. This wasn’t about fully destroying the enemy. To do that would take extra time, and here, all they needed to do was disable them sufficiently that they couldn’t come around and pressure the Diligent while she was tied up with the Vaadwaur battlecruisers.

“Alpha flight, on my wing,” Lieutenant McCormick ordered as he pushed his starfighter towards the Mansa class escort furthest to port, adrenaline surging through his veins. This was what he lived for, the thrill of the chase.

At full burn, they closed the distance in mere seconds.

“Just a little more…” Petty Officer Callegari muttered as she worked to acquire a lock, a bit more tense than her partner. They still had a bit too much distance separating them, and she knew that soon, the commanders of those heavily armed escorts would realize what was happening.

Ahead, that’s exactly what happened, their target finally beginning to turn. But it was too late.

“I have a lock,” Petty Officer Callegari reported.

“Weapons free,” Lieutenant McCormick confirmed.

She squeezed the trigger.