“We have suffered a hit to the left bow-side propulsor.” Said a blue amorphous mass. It sat in its chair, its form somewhat humanoid.

“Get the shield on, she knows we are here. Active q-comms on now, no point keeping silent.” Said a green amorphous mass sitting in the rear of the cabin.

“They have antimatter shielding, switching over to the plasma batteries.” Stated the blue mass.

“Good, burn it out. Keep aim on their drive chambers, we want it disabled, not destroyed.”

A flash of purple superheated plasma fleshed outside the window, followed by a second flash, thick bolts of superheated plastic streaked through the vacuum towards the colossal ship, the white paint doing nothing to hide its presence in the great nothingness.

“Move in, get in those blindspots.” Said the green one.

“Yes.” Relied the blue mass.

The small, obsidian ship lurched forwards, rapidly picking up speed in the vacuum. The green mass watched out the observation window near the back of the ship, barely peeking up from the top of the stealthed destroyer. The green mass looked down as several lights blinked on, indicating q-comms were alight.

The ship is formidable, but our destroyers are state of the art. They stand no chance.

After several minutes, the largest ship they had ever seen came into view. Its cargo bays were likely large enough to fit their own ship twice over, if the bay doors were anything to go by. Its snowy paint shone in the red light of the red dwarf, cosmologically close to the planet they hovered near, with a purple glow running horizontal around the ship.

The green mass looked down at their console, using a digit to bring up a detailed scan of the ship. Indented in the rear middle of the ship was what was likely the retracted bridge, and it was lined above and below with a mixture of rail and plasma batteries. Far less than it expected, but it was no longer a warship. It did, however, maintain the expected automated point defence lasers and flak batteries of its class. Missiles and fighters would be a mistake in this situation with a force this small. Interesting prey indeed.

The destroyer shudders for a moment, turning to the right before the lateral thrusters towards the rear of the ship corrected the course. The green one wasn’t even sure how they knew they were there, but it was told that their target would be smart, cunning and better equipped, as unlikely as it seemed.

“Raise the antimatter shielding. If those plasma batteries start firing, dodge. The destroyer can take a few hits from that.” The blue mass ordered.

“Understood.”

Just as a thin purple sheen coated the ship, spreading out from each emitter until a cohesive barrier was formed, the shield indicator lit up. A slug dissolved, causing a part of the barrier to diffuse, but the shield held true and filled the gap once again. 

The bulky ship was very visible now through the hidden cabin despite only being a little over fifty kilometres away, fleshes from protected batteries as superheated plasma streaked out in each direction with impressive accuracy. There was no indication that the other destroyers had taken on significant damage. This was a great beast lumbering through the cold void, but perhaps not the most well defended one.

“They are attempting to charge up their fold drive for subsystem travel. The estimated time is twenty one minutes.” The blue mass reported without looking up from its console.

“I don’t think we can stop that ourselves. I’ll call in Op One.” The green mass replied. They pressed down on one of the many buttons on their arm rest.

“Op One, this is Op five. We are within fifty kilometres of the target. They are charging up their fold drive.” 

“Yes, we report the same. I have called in Op eight for the interdictor. Continue the disable directive.”  Replied the voice from the other side.

The blue mass didn’t like having to use tools if possible, preferring to keep every card hidden unless truly needed. Perhaps they didn’t need the interdictor either, the wormhole generator at the edge of the system had a pair of cruisers, larger and even more advanced than the ship they commanded.

Several more rail slugs dissolved as they made contact with their shielding. The accuracy was startling. The report said there was virtually no crew aboard, most of the systems being cared for by an AVI, though with how well placed each shot was, it was beginning to think that the intel was wrong. It had to be at least a Reactive Machine, anything more advanced would be a waste of effort on its prey account.

Suddenly, a barrage of plasma bolts streaked through the vacuum. The destroyer rapidly lurched downwards and to the right to avoid their path. This didn’t matter. A first hit landed on the shield, increasing the power drain for a moment. The second shot hit the place they were in just seconds before. Then a third shot hit the same place as the first, then a forth, then a fifth.

The emitter shut down as it over-heated, expected on their part, but what wasn’t expected was several slugs of copper pierced through the precise location of that emitter, causing strain on the rest of the system as it tried to make up for that gap in the field.

Another barrage of plasma soon followed, they attempted to dodge, but just like that first barrage, only two shots went wide, the rest hitting the location of the emitters where their drive shafts were. Several more slugs followed, destroying the emitter. The destroyer went dark, before the secondary power source flickered to life, bringing light back into the cabin.

“Three of our drive shafts have gone offline. Any more and we will be easy prey for the slaughter.” The blue mass said without a hint of panic in its voice.

The blue mass thought to itself, panic, fear, anxiety. These were not concepts its species were capable of. They were, however, familiar with frustration. They had underestimated this prey gravely, and the intel was critically inept. They pressed down on their comm button again.

“Op One, this isn’t a Reactive Machine. It’s a—”

There was no time to finish that sentence. They were within thirty kilometres of the lumbering giant when a deep violet beam tore through their shield, cutting its way straight through their ‘advanced warmachine’  as if it were wet toilet paper.

“One of the vessels is down, miss.”

“Did you have to use that? How much fuel have we got left after that?” Aurelia sighed, her brow creased deeply.

“Had they got within one of my blind spots, I would not have been able to fend it off from destroying our primary thrusters.” Addison replied curtly. 

“Fine. How much longer until the fold drive is active?” The redhead relented. She glanced over at the young woman sitting on one of the chairs on the far end of the bridge. This was not what she wanted, far from it. She was greatly wanted in the galaxy, not for her crimes, but for her capabilities. She expected trouble, just not this soon into leaving her planet.

Addison interrupted her anxieties. “There are several more ships than we first found, one of which is a size class larger than the rest. Their framework is almost entirely closed circuit, but I am detecting a high-intensity radiation source on my sensors.”

Aurelia chewed on her lower lip, a bad habit she picked up more than a few decades ago. They could likely annihilate two or three more ships with the amount of fuel they had left, but then they would largely be sitting ducks for anything else that reared its ugly head. She almost regretted getting rid of most of the shipboard armaments, but that wasn’t her life any more. 

She hoped