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three and four, and the entire oxygen plant crippled. Even the warp point engine was down since the jump; there would be no additional jumps until it could be repaired, but that was academic at this point. With the number two plasma engine dying, they couldn’t reach jump velocity anyway.
    At least we’re alive.  
    The same couldn’t be said for HMS Swift . The smaller ship had fought valiantly at Blackbeard ’s side as the two ships faced a vicious assault by four Apex lances. Captain Tolvern’s heart raced even now, a full day later, as she recalled the battle.
    The two Albion warships had been no easy prey. Retrofitted with Hroom hardware, heavy lasers capable of exploiting a known Apex vulnerability, and using new tactics suggested by the Admiralty, they initially fought the enemy to a standstill.
    The human ships were swifter, and in a straight-out sprint, they’d have quickly outrun the enemy. But Blackbeard and Swift needed a fixed jump point, while the Apex vessels darted in and out, firing lasers that cut through the humans’ tyrillium armor like it was made of particle board. Tolvern swerved, changed directions, anticipated the enemy’s jumps.
    Once, she got lucky. The Apex ships popped out exactly where she’d guessed. Blackbeard rolled to present a broadside, and fired a powerful barrage from the main battery. One of the slender lances took it full and detonated. Another suffered significant damage. If Tolvern had positioned Swift in a more aggressive posture, the corvette could have hammered the other enemy vessels as they fled. They’d have won the engagement.
    Instead, she’d second-guessed herself, had ordered Swift to guard Blackbeard ’s flank. Swift swung around to obey Tolvern’s orders, but this left the corvette exposed, away from Blackbeard ’s protective guns. The remaining lances pounced on the exposed corvette. The other Albion captain was game, fought bravely, and destroyed the wounded lance, but the other two fell upon Swift like wolves tearing at a wounded moose. They ripped her belly, tore at her flanks, savaged her engines.
    Tolvern rushed to rejoin the fight, but didn’t arrive in time. Swift ’s rear shields gave way. An engine detonated. Gas and debris vented into the void as the dying corvette streaked across Tolvern’s viewscreen like a comet plunging toward the sun. Even as she broke apart, Swift kept firing off torpedoes and missiles in a last-ditch attempt to influence the battle. Soon, there was nothing left but wreckage, all hands lost.
    Blackbeard was already wounded, and fled the battlefield. The remaining two lances pursued.
    Sixty hours to the jump point. That’s how long Tolvern had needed stay alive. She’d already sent urgent subspace messages on first contact with the enemy. The reply came shortly after Swift ’s destruction:
    Help is on the way. Run for the jump point. We’ll meet you there with a full task force.  
    A full task force meant at least one more heavy cruiser like Blackbeard , together with a flotilla of frigates and torpedo boats. The force might even be accompanied by a pair of Hroom sloops of war; humans and Hroom had formed a recent alliance against their common enemy.
    Apex had probably intercepted the communications, both Tolvern’s outgoing call for help and the reply from the Admiralty. The aliens were capable of breaking any encryption, could pluck subspace messages from the void like fish drawn through a hole in a frozen lake. Yet the remaining enemy craft pursued at a leisurely pace. They targeted Blackbeard ’s shields with lasers, but didn’t try to puncture the hull.
    Had they been trying to kill her, it would have ended quickly, but they weren’t. They were trying to disable the engines, to take the ship, rather than destroy it. Apex wanted its captives. The aliens fought to prove they were the chief predator of the space lanes, the supreme race of sentient life, and they did so by destroying their enemies, by literally