The Victory came out of warp above the Pala Ridge farming colony and the stars steadied. The planet swung into view, a muted, green-brown disc wrapped in ragged cloud. The farming belts were visible as darker smears across the continents. Above them, the orbit was cluttered: freighters, small attack craft, and a ragged ring of improvised platforms glinting faintly.

Hardy’s hand tightened very slightly on the arm of his chair. “Report,” he said.

At tactical, Kincaid squinted at his board. “Well now, captain,” he said, easy and unhurried, “we have three well-armed ships in high orbit, looks like converted bulk freighters. The hulls are a right mess but the weapons are not for show. Six, no, make that eight smaller attack craft running loose patrols. And a whole halo of junk that used to be navigation or weather satellites and some are now registered weapons systems.”

Jevlak flicked a control and the main display overlaid space with the cluttered chaos of the Pilgrims.

“The junk has been repurposed with more than weapons, captain,” she said. “Those platforms are acting as a distributed array. They are transmitting a coherent subspace wave down into the colony and out into surrounding space.”

“How far does their so-called sermon carry?” he asked.

“Comfortably to the next two systems along this lane,” Jevlak said. “Further, if the network is already primed. If we do nothing, every node will know we have tried something here. They will also have ample opportunity to notify other Pilgrim assets.”

Hardy breathed out through his nose.

“All right,” he said. “Helm, bring us closer to the planet, polar orbit, give me the planet on our left for cover. Tactical, I want a lattice of quantum torpedoes with proximity fuses so that we can cut off this orchestra from their conductor.”

“Aye, captain,” Kincaid said. “We can do that.”

He bent to his board, the slow, careful movements belying the speed with which firing patterns bloomed in front of him.

Hardy turned his head slightly. “Lieutenant Elkader.”

Elkader sat at the auxiliary flight station, restless energy barely contained by the chair. She had never quite managed to decide whether she belonged on a bridge or in a cockpit, and it showed in the way she watched attentively, slightly on edge.

“Yes, captain,” she said.

“Scramble the Immortals,” Hardy said. “I want a screen between those attack craft and the Victory, and I want anything with a Pilgrim transponder kept well away from line-of-sight to the colony. Captain Ayres is in charge of the squadron. You are his deputy. I believe you’ve already had one punch-up so I don’t expect another”

Her mouth twitched.

“I will behave,” she said. “Mostly.”

Hardy’s gaze slid to Ayres, who had been standing at the back of the bridge, deliberately unobtrusive. There was something contained in his posture, the awkwardness of a man used to being in the role now taken by another.

“You will, I trust,” Hardy said, “remember that you’re no longer flying solo. You have an entire squadron and my ship prepared to be terribly brave on your behalf.”

Ayres’s reply was dry. “I’m not sure my ego will survive the adjustment, captain,” he said. “But I’ll do my best.”

Hardy’s eyes glinted and he smiled. “Good man. Go and be useful.”

The fighter bay under red alert was a different sort of organised noise to the bridge: louder, closer to the bone. Deck crews ran checks along rows of Valkyries, their hands moving with practised economy and the air tasted of warmed metal and the faint, sharp scent of coolant and other chemicals.

Ayres dropped into the cockpit of a new fighter and felt, in spite of himself, a certain loosening in his chest. Flying the Valkyrie demanded his full attention and that, at the moment, was a mercy.

“Immortals, this is Sundance,” he said, as the canopy came down and the suit systems synced with the fighter’s life-support. “Check in by number.”

Voices rolled in over the squadron channel.

“Immortal two, green.”

“Immortal three, ready.”

“Immortal four, weapons loaded.”

Kasrin’s tone was all rough amusement as she slid into place. “Immortal five, locked, loaded and trying not to enjoy this too much,” she said. “Good to have you back, sir.”

He allowed himself the ghost of a smile. “Likewise, lieutenant, likewise,” he said. “Six through sixteen?”

The remaining pilots checked in, a mix of voices: some young, some older, one with the flat, measured tone of someone for whom this was all very familiar and not nearly alarming enough to mention.

Deck control cut in. “Immortal squadron, you are cleared for launch. Departure vector three-one-seven mark eight. The Victory is repositioning to give you a clean run at the inner ring.”

Ayres settled his hands on the controls. “All right, Immortals,” he said. “We’re not here to be reckless. Our job is simple. The captain is going to cut their satellites out from under them. We’re going to keep any Pilgrims away from this ship and away from that planet. If it looks as if it’s trying to transmit something, you kill it. If it looks as if it might get between us and cutting those transmissions, you get between it and that idea. Understood?”

A ragged chorus of affirmatives came back. Elkader’s voice rode over them. “You heard the man,” she said. “We break their religious toys, then we go home.”

One by one the fighters lifted up and shot out of the hanger bay. Ayres’s Valkyrie rolled, stabilised, and the vast, ugly beauty of the battlespace opened in front of him. The Victory loomed behind, sleek and long, torpedo launchers already bright on his sensors. Ahead, the Pilgrim ring marked on his display.

“Immortals, form on me,” he said. “Wedge formation, five high, five low. Elkader, take even numbers and keep the high side clean. I will sweep low and close. We don’t let anything cross this line.” He painted a virtual plane across the tactical display: an invisible wall between the Pilgrim attack craft and the Victory’s chosen firing lane.

“Aye, Sundance,” Elkader said.

On the Victory’s bridge, the picture shifted as the fighters fanned out.

“Valkyries clear,” Kincaid said. “Immortals are taking up a rather pretty formation, if I may say so.”

“You may,” Hardy said. “Let’s hope it’s as effective as it is aesthetically pleasing. Weapons?”

“Quantum spread ready,” Kincaid replied. “We can lace that ring of junk with effective coverage. Some of it will burn away and the rest will be drifting scrap. I’m locking them all to the Pilgrim platforms’ signatures. With any luck we’ll not so much as singe a legitimate buoy.”

“Excellent,” Hardy said. “On my mark. Let us be brisk.”

He watched the attack craft circling. They were not entirely without discipline. Two peeled off to test the fighters, their unfamiliar, angled hulls flexing under hard burns. The converted freighters held back for the moment, attempting to present a broadside.

“Immortals,” Hardy said, tapping the comm. “Your first dance partners are inbound.”

Ayres’s reply came back clipped and calm. “We see them,” he said. “Immortals, break by pairs on my mark. Three and four, take the lead element. Five and six, roll outside and watch their flank. Keep them away from the array.”

In his cockpit, the first Pilgrim fighter grew rapidly on Ayres’s nose. It was a brutal little wedge of a thing, all engines and weapons, reliquary plates marring what might once have been a pirate design.

He nudged the Valkyrie a fraction to port, waited, and then snapped his craft up and over as the enemy spat an ugly burst of green-white fire past where his canopy had been.

“Immortal three, you have him,” he said.

“Aye, Sundance,” came the reply. A streak of phaser fire traced across the Pilgrim’s forward quarter. Shields flared in jagged patches. The enemy rolled, recovering, and came back on a slightly sloppier vector.

Elkader’s laughter cut in, bright and feral. “They’ve stolen ships and painted them funny colours,” she said. “They’re not ready for this. Immortal five, on me. Let’s show them what a proper turn looks like.”

She rolled her Valkyrie round the second attacker’s flank, engines flaring, cutting across its projected path and forcing it to bleed speed. Immortal five dropped in behind, twin beams stitching into the enemy’s tail. The Pilgrim fighter snapped into a spin and broke up, fragments of hot metal scattering.

“Scratch one zealot,” Elkader reported. “Try again.”

Ayres did not indulge in the satisfaction. There were more of them, and the larger shapes were moving.

On the bridge, Kincaid’s voice came level. “Pilgrim freighters are charging weapons,” he said. “They’re trying to bring the colony between us and them. Using our own restraint as a shield.”

Hardy’s tone turned very flat. “I’m disinclined to reward cowardice,” he said. “Helm, roll us ten degrees starboard, keep our profile to the planet. Kincaid, on my mark, fire spread one. Aim to cut the platforms free from their orbits. We’d not wish to drop them on the farmers’ heads.”

“Aye, captain,” Kincaid said.

Hardy watched the geometry tick towards his chosen alignment. “Mark.”

The Victory lit up as torpedoes leapt from her launchers, flaring into existence as streaks of light against the velvet dark. On the tactical hologram, the torpedoes fanned, each one curving onto a separate thread of the satellite ring.

“Detonation in three,” Kincaid said mildly. “Two. One.”

The ring lit. From the fighters’ perspective, it was a sudden corona: points of hard light flaring round the planet, each blossom carefully positioned. Platforms vaporised. Others were punched from their orbits, spinning away on eccentric paths. The coherent net they had formed shattered.

Jevlak checked her readings, eyes narrowing. “The carrier is collapsing,” she said. “I am seeing a lot of incoherent noise but nothing that will carry as a meaningful signal beyond local space.”

“Excellent,” Hardy said. “Now that we’ve isolated the colony, let’s address the flies circling.”

He shifted in his chair, eyes back on the freighters. “Kincaid,” he said. “Let’s show those freighters some fire and dury. Target their weapons and their engines. I’d quite like those hulls floating in space and intact for examination and repatriation, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Aye, captain,” Kincaid replied, enjoying the satisfaction of the Victory’s armaments.

In the scramble of the dogfights, Ayres kept half an eye on the bigger shapes. “Immortals, status,” he said, as another Pilgrim craft overshot, slammed into phaser fire from Immortal Eight, and came apart.

“Three is good,” came the answer. “Shields at eighty-eight.”

“Five and six still pretty,” Elkader said. “No hits.”

“Seven has a scorch on the port wing,” another pilot added.

Ayres nodded, unseen. “Good,” he said. “We hold this line. Don’t chase them into the planet’s shadow. If they want to run, let them run. Our job is to keep them off the Victory and away from a straight shot at the colony.”

One of the Pilgrim attack craft tried to take him at his word, breaking off and diving on a vector that would bring it low over the atmosphere. Ayres watched its projected path. It would not fire on the surface directly, the Pilgrims needed the infrastructure. But a low pass might give it a chance to drop a reliquary, to seed another node.

“Immortal nine, cut him off,” he said. “Push him high. Ten, be ready to take the shot when he panics.”

The two fighters moved with the precise co-ordination that had once won them drinks and grudging respect on the Farragut’s previous deployments. Nine dropped below the Pilgrim, then flared, forcing it up and out. Ten slid neatly into the space he left, fired a tight pulse that ripped the enemy’s port engine off its mounts. The fighter tumbled, lost power, and drifted, turning slowly.

“Enemy craft is dead in the water,” Ten said. “Do we finish?”

Ayres hesitated for half a heartbeat. “Leave it,” he said. “Mark it. We’re not executioners.”

Elkader’s tone was approving. “That’s very restrained of you, Sundance,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

“I’m in our new captain’s good books for at least another hour,” he replied. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

On the Victory, the first salvo against the freighters hit with surgical efficiency.

Phaser beams slashed out, raking across weapons systems and engine housings. Shields flared and collapsed. The converted freighters attempted to return fire, but their shots went wide, hurried and misaligned. One tried to slide behind the planet and the Victory’s helm pre-empted the move, altering the ship’s orbit fractionally so that the freighter’s projected course would keep their firing arc free.

“They are trying to use the colony as a shield,” Jevlak muttered. “Idiots.”

“Desperate idiots,” Hardy said. “Whatever is behind the Pilgrims seems to be very fond of expendable assets. Kincaid, do make sure you give them no reason to believe the planet will save them.”

“That’s the plan, captain,” Kincaid replied.

Another phaser volley. One freighter’s engines went dark. It began to drop, its orbit decaying into something that would, given time, become a problem.

“Tractor,” Hardy said, almost lazily. “Catch that one. Then park it somewhere safe and quiet and we’ll have a closer look later.”

“Aye,” helm said and the tractor beam blossomed, a steady, pale column that caught the wounded freighter and held it, easing it back into a stable trajectory.

The other two freighters, seeing that the alternative to surrender was being carefully de-fanged rather than blown into gas, appeared to wobble in their resolve. One powered down weapons and the other hesitated, then followed suit.

“Pilgrim freighters are going cold,” Kincaid reported. “Weapons offline, engines to standby. They are still listening, mind you.”

“As are we all,” Hardy said. “Keep them in the arc of our weapons. If they so much as twitch in the direction of the surface without our permission, you may express my displeasure in whatever form you deem appropriate.”

He turned back to Jevlak. “Status of transmissions?” he asked.

“Local chatter only,” she said. “Short-range co-ordination pings between the remaining attack craft and the satellites that are left. Nothing has gone out beyond the system. The node is effectively isolated.”

“In that case,” Hardy said, sitting back, “we have done the first half of our work. They can’t call for help and they can’t run. Next, we’ll see to the people on the ground.”

He tapped the console on his chair. “Hardy to the hazard and away teams,” he said. “You’re clear to plan your descent and liberation.”

A gravelly voice came back, full of professional satisfaction. “Understood, captain,” the officer said.

Hardy allowed himself, for the first time since they had dropped out of warp, the smallest exhalation of relief. “Mister Kincaid, I suggest you take your place with the ground teams. Let’s free some farmers from the yoke of disorganised religion. Good hunting.”