The first Nausicaan shots had rippled through the warp field of the Fluyt-class freighter AB1726, tripping safeties and causing the craft to decelerate automatically. The second series of shots had been in panic as side panels on the freighter blew outwards on explosive bolts and small rockets, giving way to the eruption of six Valkyrie-class starfighters.

A carefully choreographed operation, likely done a few times in the last few months, if not weeks, had suddenly developed into a confusing melee for the Nausicaans. Confident they were hunting an automated freighter, the Nausicaans hadn’t even raised shields, which they would soon regret. Before the mistake could be rectified micro-torpedoes had whisked forward from a number of the fighters, slamming into the hull of each ship.

A precision attack, enacted with practice, speed and lax attitudes on behalf of the Nausicaans resulted in a quick disabling of each raider’s shields.

The fight was far from over, but was certainly a lot more level now. The raiders were bigger, could take punishment, and hit harder, but they were a lot slower and might as well be bumbling around compared to the swift movements of the starfighters. But they lacked the overall coverage of firepower that a much larger ship would have to ward off such swarming attacks.

These were raiders, not pickets or capital ships. They were meant for raiding freighters, not fighters, and it showed as the Night Witches dove on their targets like angry hornets, stinging with phasers, the odd torpedo, then whipping away as quick as they could, using the other raiders for cover from the target as it tried to swot at them.

The plan they’d worked out wasn’t that complex. Three raiders, six fighters, two each. Cat and Crash, Knives and Flop, Blunt and Red. Shields, engines, weapons.

“Raider 1’s weapons are out.”

“Raider 2 is venting drive plasma.”

“I’m hit! I’m hit!” came the cry over the comms and Cat’s attention went from her own run to who had spoken. The other pilots had become like extensions of herself she was vaguely aware of, processing their reports, giving her own. Now, though, one of those extremities had informed her of pain, stabbing through her trance-like state.

“How bad is it, Flop?” she asked, a quick glance at a display showing the status of her fellows helping her identify who had cried out.

“Shields out. Think the mains regulator has taken a hit. Port phaser is listed as gone, but it still fires.”

“Flop, pull back,” came an intruding voice. It was still Commander Sadovu’s mission, but the fighters were Cat’s to command. But she was right, Flop needed to pull back.

“You heard the XO.” Cat’s response was immediate. She kept the desire to chastise Sidda to herself for now. Discipline was more important right now than a pissing contest over where the lines of authority sat.

“I can still fly her,” Flop protested.

“You’ve got a plasma leak, starboard engine.” It was Knives’ turn to speak. “Raider 3 is bugging out.” The flash of light as one of the raiders managed to accelerate away at warp speeds served to drive home Knives’ next statement. “I’ll cover Flop back to the barn.”

“Witches, focus on Raider 2,” Sidda ordered over the channel as Knives and Flop turned away. “Raider 1 is mine.”

“Ours?” Cat asked, confused. She spun her head to look in the direction of the Fluyt-class freighter, which was still just hanging in space. Its shields flared from time to time as stray shots went out, intersecting coincidentally with it. AB1726 had been forgotten by the Nausicaans as they struggled to deal with the nimble fighters. “Commander Sadovu, what’s going on?”

There was no response.

“Witches, focus on Raider 2. Warp engines first.”

A series of affirmations followed as Cat rolled her fighter into another attack run, using the A/R variant’s superior sensors to find something, anything, important to the warp engines along the ship’s outer hull. The limited computer board highlighted a couple of targets and she trained her phasers on them, small bursts of light lancing out, gouging into the hull as she sped past, plumes of sparks erupting in front of and around her.

Two more runs followed, which with all the Witches picking on a single ship felt like bullying. Plasma vented from ruptured warp coils; atmosphere escaped from multiple hull breaches that didn’t have orange force fields flaring around. Electrical arcs occasionally danced across the hull as systems shorted, finding ground elsewhere on the ship and lighting the hull up on fractal patterns as it did so.

And then the universal sign of surrender went out as the Nausicaan impulse engines ceased, the ship’s transponder flashing to indicate their surrender. They might be pirates, but they obviously wanted to live as much as the next person. And Starfleet took prisoners, unlike others, which meant they had that option to them.

“Cat to Sadovu, what’s going on with Raider 1?”

Raider 1, which she didn’t know how they had been designated and didn’t need to know really, had stopped any form of evasive action. It was simply flying away from them in a straight line, trailing plasma in its wave from fires on the hull where the shield generators had been and where one of the Witches had torn open the small ship’s starboard warp nacelle.

“Commander Sadovu, come in-”

“She’s busy right now.” Cat didn’t need to recognise the voice to recognise the tone. Evan Malcolm was displeased with something Sidda Sadovu, no doubt relying on her infinite luck, had launched herself into, leaving him behind to nurse the freighter. “She boarded the lead Nausicaan ship.”

“She what?” Cat asked, staring at Raider 1, still pulling away. “Flop, Knives, watch Raider 2. Everyone else, pursue Raider 1.”

Acceleration pinned her to her seat as she spun her fighter on its axis and went to full power, the inertial compensator struggling with such aggressive actions. Raider 1 wasn’t quite at full impulse power but it had a lead the Starfleet fighters. Her people were now running their engines at full, trying to catch the wayward ship.

“I’ve got a lock on their impulse engines,” Red announced. Cat could just see the Andorian pilot, a mere twenty metres from her, concentrating on his displays. “I can slow them down.”

“Yaaaarrrrrr!” The shout over their comms was unmissable. The voice was hard to make out from a combination of bad communications equipment on one end and an affectation being put on. “I’d appreciate it kindly if you didn’t put holes in my new ship,” Sidda said, this time clear and concise.

And then Raider 1’s engines came to a halt, the lights fading and the ship slowing down, eventually coming to a halt.

“Did the Commander seriously board a Nausicaan pirate ship?” Crash asked.

“It would appear so,” Blunt replied. “And succeeded.”

“So it would seem,” Cat said. “Right Witches, let’s escort them back to the freighter. I’ll fire up the comms and call Republic.”