"Hostiles recalibrating," Iris reported. "They're tightening flight vector spacing. Attempting to reestablish formation lock."
"Not on my watch," Ethan muttered.
His fingers darted across the controls.
"Deploy stealth burst. Minimal duration."
"Cloaking burst active," Iris confirmed.
A ripple passed over the Wraith's hull like dark water, its surface distorting into a haze. The Corsair sensors would now read phantom echoes for fifteen seconds, a sliver of an opening, but all he needed.
Ethan dropped throttle, cut vertical thrust, then pushed the Wraith into a low arc around the far side of the asteroid belt. Gravity wells pulled lightly at his vector as he adjusted the yaw with fine-tuned pulses. His body pressed gently into the seat as he curved the Wraith into the blind zone behind the lead Corsair.
"Visual lock acquired," Iris noted.
The Corsair with the damaged wing ahead was unaware, its weapons still focused in the direction of the asteroid Ethan had been hiding behind.
"Plasma cannons, mid-focus," Ethan ordered. "Fire on my mark."
A few more meters.
Closer.
"Now."
The Wraith decloaked with a hiss of distortion and opened fire. Twin plasma bursts struck the Corsair's aft section in rapid succession. The first melted through its shield. The second detonated inside the main engine core.
The Corsair exploded in a blossom of white-orange fire. Debris scattered in a spiral, drifting backward as the ruined ship's wreckage spun, shedding slag and vented coolant like a dismembered limb.
"One down," Ethan muttered, already pivoting the Wraith into a wide corkscrew away from the blast radius.
The second Corsair, the one he'd wounded earlier, veered left, trying to flank around another debris cluster.
Ethan grinned.
He let the Wraith drift, just enough to make it look like a momentum stall before triggering a flare burst and cutting external lights.
The enemy took the bait.
"Target is committing to pursuit vector," Iris said calmly.
"Let him come."
Ethan waited. The Wraith's drive signature was nearly gone, and in the cold backdrop of space, even sensors would struggle to spot her.
As the Corsair closed in, Ethan swung the ship around with a hard manual spin, a tight 180-degree turn using lateral thrusters, and re-engaged full systems in a blink.
"EMP dart, followed by high-yield barrage. Go."
The dart streaked out and hit the Corsair's hull mid-flight, discharging a blue pulse of static that cracked over its surface like lightning. Lights flickered. Stabilizers failed.
Then came the barrage.
Four plasma rounds. Two ripped through the left wing. One cored the cockpit like a drill. The last burst ignited the fuel cell.
The Corsair erupted into a spiraling mess of torn metal and flame, breaking into clean halves before one side slammed into a nearby asteroid and burst apart like glass under pressure.
"Two down," Ethan breathed, voice low and satisfied.
The third Corsair had seen enough.
It fired two last desperate energy lances, neither anywhere near Ethan's current position, and banked hard toward the edge of the sector vector boundary, its engines flaring red as it dove toward the black.
"Remaining hostile is fleeing," Iris said. "Pursuit recommended?"
Ethan was already turning the ship.
"We can't leave loose ends," he said flatly. "Better clean them all up. Less trouble later."
"Acknowledged."
He didn't rush. The fleeing Corsair was too panicked to check its rear. Within seconds, the Wraith was on its tail.
"Rear shields low," Iris noted.
Ethan didn't wait for a lock.
He fired two concentrated plasma shots directly into the retreating ship's core drive.
The first cracked the armor. The second ignited the fusion cell.
The Corsair vanished in a sharp, silent bloom of light.
Silence returned, not the hollow, waiting stillness that hangs before battle, but something heavier, more final. This was a silence earned. Not the absence of sound, but the presence of aftermath. Of scattered wreckage and fading heat signatures.
A silence that said: it's over.
Ethan exhaled, deep and slow, rolling his shoulders as he leaned back in the pilot's seat. The leather creaked faintly beneath him. His pulse was still elevated, but not out of fear. Not anymore.
This wasn't panic. This was clarity. The raw thrum of adrenaline transitioning into a steady buzz of awareness. Of control.
His hands were still curled on the flight sticks, but they'd relaxed. Only slightly, the knuckles no longer white with tension. A first taste of space combat, and more importantly, a clean one.
"Iris," he said, eyes still scanning the external cams. "Damage report?"
Her voice responded without pause, calm as ever. "No damage sustained. Energy shielding remained within operational thresholds. No structural compromise. Weapons array is stable, thermal levels within safe parameters. Core power at ninety-five percent."
Ethan blinked. "No hits at all?"
"Negative. All hostile fire was absorbed or deflected. Your evasive maneuvers proved efficient."
He gave a soft, surprised scoff. "Perfect run," he murmured, letting the words settle on his tongue. It sounded strange. Too good. But it was real.
His gaze drifted to the tactical holo hovering above the central console. It was now quiet, no red dots, no blinking alarms. Just a scattered cloud of neutralized signals and drifting debris: slagged hull fragments, blackened solar panels, scorched plating twirling weightlessly into the dark.
The wreckage shimmered softly under the belt's ambient starlight, caught in the gravitational shimmer of the larger asteroids.
The Wraith had danced between them like a shadow with teeth, fast and fluid, never pinned down, never cornered.
He exhaled again, slower this time, and ran a gloved hand back through his hair. His suit's collar brushed lightly against his jaw, grounding him in the moment. The cockpit's dim light reflected off the glassy HUD displays, casting faint blue-green tints across his face.
And still, in the middle of all this… a twinge of disappointment.
His eyes flicked toward the sealed command input marked RAILGUN SYSTEM – LOCKED STANDBY. The Wraith's most powerful weapon, still untouched. Still sleeping.
He'd been waiting for an opportunity to fire it since the day Raevis and her team installed the damn thing. A kinetic lance capable of punching through armor like wet cloth, forged from advanced schematics and upgraded by Iris' integration suite. It was a thing of beauty. Of terror.
And it hadn't even had the chance to warm up.
He clicked his tongue. "Didn't even need the railgun," he muttered.
"A mark of efficient combat," Iris offered.
"Or a shameful waste of dramatic flair."
"Would you prefer I downgrade shield efficacy so you can showcase your dramatic flair next time?"
He laughed quietly under his breath. "Not necessary."
Still, a part of him filed the moment away. Soon, he thought. Next time, I want to see what that beast can really do.
With the last glimmering shards of enemy wreckage fading into sensor haze, Ethan turned the Wraith slowly, its thrusters giving a low hum as the ship banked gently. Ahead, once again, was the derelict courier vessel.
It still floated in silence, untouched and alone, like a secret the universe had nearly buried.
No more incoming pings. No more drive signatures. The pirates were gone, erased from the ledger.
Just the courier ship. And the cryo-pod within.
Ethan narrowed his eyes slightly, studying the speck against the black. In the afterglow of the fight, it felt almost serene. Like the eye of a storm that hadn't known it was in one.
"Iris, re-align us. Bring us back to docking position," he said, voice steady now.
"Confirmed. Setting return course to courier vessel. Docking tunnel will reengage on your command."
He nodded once, then leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, letting the moment breathe.
The Wraith had held up better than he imagined. No, he corrected himself, she excelled. She was faster, smarter, more dangerous than he'd realized. And now that he'd tasted her bite… he wanted more.
He let the silence stretch, the stars wheeling gently outside the viewport. One hand still hovered over the railgun controls, just for a second longer than necessary.
Then he smiled to himself, wry and quiet.
"One hell of a shakedown run."
And with that, he turned the Wraith back toward the courier ship, toward whatever waited inside that frozen pod… and toward the next piece of the mystery that had started with a single, looping distress signal in the dark.