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had time to modify the jump drives back then.
    Time to warn her people.
    “All ships, stand ready. I estimate that the target vessel will jump in close, in forty seconds. Mark.”
    Captain Max Li i’s holo cut in from the command deck of The Blue Tiger . A medium-sized, canny fighter champion from the Lii-Kim clans. Very smart. Handsome. Long black hair, the dark, slanted intelligent blue-gray eyes from his people. He became instrumental in helping her hold their complex trade fleet together.
    Even she began to look to him as her second.
    And on top of that, the guy was literally a throckstar among the Clans. A celebrity who carried his own custom-made kitar that just happened to double as a squad-level sonic blaster, if Max ever needed it in a fight.
    He made stunning, heart-pulsing music wherever he went. His entire life a vibrant, grand celebration.
    Max ’s band mates were also part of his crew and entourage, and at several ports of call he gave throck concerts to sold out crowds in zero-g arenas, complete with gigantic screens and holo shows on a floating tekno stage.
    Then Max privately made an open offer for Naero and him to become full partners–in every interesting way.
    And not just trade deals.
    Haisha. A very glacier offer from a very frost and accomplished hunk. She was keenly flattered.
    If Naero hadn ’t been so troubled and terrified about hurting someone else, and so busy, she might have taken him up on all of his alluring offers.
    A very tough call.
    Naero frowned.
    But in the end, h er normal pattern of finding creative new ways to avoid personal intimacy asserted itself and still held true.
    Max called out to her over the holo-link, strumming absently on his kitar in his captain’s chair.
    Everything about him supercharged , luxurious, and intense. Even his deep baritone voice made him effortlessly sexy. The lucky gal who end up with Max was in for a fantastic ride.
    But it wasn ’t going to be her.
    “N aero-honey, how are you reading all this, darlin’? We’ve got nacha on our long range sensors.”
    “N ever mind, Max. Just stay ready.”
    “A ffirmative, baby.”
    Then The Dark Star changed course.
    Amazingly, r ight at the tail end of its jump.
    S he cloaked in some unique way and then vanished, even off of Naero’s advanced scans.
    Something she had only seen Baeven ’s unique ship do.
    C alls erupted from Ingersol’s fleet, despite the fact that strict com silence was supposed to be observed by them.
    Then th ey cut off as well.
    D istress calls from the Intel Fleet.
    The Dark Star charged in among them without warning.
    At least something invisible and virtually undetectable did.
    Something armed with rapid-fire ion cannons.
    How then could Naero sense the phantom ship ’s presence in general, even when her own advanced sensor arrays could not?
    Way too weird.
    “A ll ships, come about and advance in formation on my mark. Standard impulse. Launch a level nine screen of sensor probes and drones. Activate NetStar.”
    Thei r two dozen ships closed in carefully, launching a web of devices that scattered before them.
    They watched as something swept forward, already engaging the Intel Fleet point-blank.
    Some of the Intel ships panicked and fired wildly in several directions, almost hitting their own vessels.
    Before they too got shut down.
    One by one, sixty advanced Spacer warships lost power and listed adrift in space.
    Even the dozen cloaked Intel warships.
    All helpless now.
    It took Naero and her forces less than three minutes to arrive on scene.
    By then it was already over. And even Naero couldn’t sense the phantom any longer.
    “A nything on NetStar?” Naero called out.
    Captain Lucia Ruiz reported from their deep range sensor control ship, the Clan Aztec vessel, The Obsidian .
    “N aero, we have multiple echoes rippling across NetStar. But they’re nothing substantial. Just phantom blips that come and go. Not even a ship signature or a cloaker wave.”
    Intense warnings