And if the companion did spot the backdoor, with any luck she'd assume it was an external hacking attempt from one of the ships attacking them; a remote upload from a tablet would be hard to distinguish from that.
The tablet beeped, confirming it had been completely scoured of all data. Lana's finger's flew across her cabin's terminal, checking if the backdoor had worked. It seemed to have, since she found no traces of it on the computer or any sign of a transmission sent. Either that or Ali had caught it almost immediately, and was even now rushing through the corridors to subdue her.
If so, it was a problem she'd have to deal with when it presented itself. Having done all she could, she rushed out of her cabin and to the facilities; she really did need to relieve herself, and it would be a good place to revert control back to-
Lana blinked and rubbed at her forehead as the toilet finished cleaning and drying her, then stood and rearranged her uniform. She vaguely remembered telling Belix she was coming here, and then doing so. The panic of the impending battle had probably made it all seem hazy.
In any case, she quickly dismissed her confusion and rushed out of the facilities, for once ignoring the warning to wash her hands.
She wasn't sure how much use she'd be in this battle, but she was determined to be ready to help her friends if she was needed.
* * * * *
“How are they on us like this?” Aiden muttered, staring at the three ships converging on them with grim intensity. “We're in an entirely different sector, and we've been avoiding stations and relays like the plague on the way here. They shouldn't have had a single sighting of us since Ollan's Hub, if they even recognized us there.”
He'd adjusted their course to the only possible one, angling to cut between the frigate and one of the light cruisers. The maneuver slowed the Last Stand down enough for the nearer cruiser to close the gap slightly, not that it mattered; in a busy system like this, the Deeks could probably enlist a few more ships to join the chase by flashing around that massive reward. Avoiding them was just buying time until he could think of something.
As if to remind him of that, the frigate opened fire with laser bursts, a dozen glittering lights streaming towards them that might've been pretty under other circumstances.
At this extreme range Aiden just smiled in contempt, not even bothering to dodge. At his station Barix snorted derisively. Not only would hitting anything from so far away be difficult, but by the time the lasers reached the Last Stand their focused energy would've diffused to the point that instead of punching through the ship's reinforced hull it would simply score it, or possibly even not do much more than heat the plating.
Admittedly, a couple shots did connect, and their diffused beams still technically had the same total energy, allowing them to overload the Last Stand's first layer of shields. But the crew of the frigate just demonstrated their inexperience by depleting the charge in their laser batteries' capacitors while their target was still out of range like that.
For one thing, it meant that if the Last Stand abruptly decided to change directions to head straight for them, those capacitors would still be charging when his ship came in range with their own weapons. That was always a welcome opportunity in a fight.
Of course, the enemy ship's captain probably realized he could afford to be wasteful, considering a light frigate packed roughly four times the weaponry of a normal light cruiser, and maybe three times the Last Stand's loadout. Not to mention a frigate's shields were durable enough that the gunner would have to hit them with everything the Last Stand had for a sustained period of time to punch through, before they could even begin attempting to take out systems through the frigate's heavily reinforced hull.
So Aiden supposed that, pointless as it was to shoot at them at extreme range, it wasn't exactly doing any harm, either. In spite of that, possibly as a purely human reflexive response to the psychological effect of being threatened by even those pointless laser bursts, Aiden still found himself veering away from the frigate and towards the closer light cruiser.
It was an easier target, anyway, if it came to a head to head fight. Not that they'd have time for that with two other ships hurrying to catch up.
“We're being hailed by the nearer light cruiser,” Ali said. “They identify as the DMS Vindicator.”
Of course they did. Pretentious waste nozzles. “I don't suppose they're calling to surrender, are they?” Aiden asked tersely.
“Quite the contrary, my love.”
Well, he couldn't see any useful purpose in talking to a Deconstructionist, and not even if it was whoever would be in charge of this strike force on that frigate. Then again, he did enjoy pissing Deeks off, so he toggled his mic to respond.
“This is the trading vessel Heartbeam,” he said in the most pleasant tone he could muster. “Please be advised, pirates, that we have nothing on board worth the risk of attacking us so close to a busy station.”
“Did you not just hear us identify ourselves as a Deconstructionist Movement ship?” a man with the most punchable voice he'd ever heard snapped. “Power down your systems and prepare to be boarded.”
Aiden sucked in an apologetic breath. “Ooh. See, that's the sort of ruse pirates would use to take a vessel, and we haven't authenticated your IFF transponder yet. Also, you're continuing to pursue us in attack patterns. You can see how I'd be a bit paranoid about complying.”
“Don't play the idiot, Captain Thorne of the Last Stand,” the man shot back. “You're outnumbered and outgunned, and it's only a matter of time until you're taken. Make it easier on yourself and surrender now, and we'll be more lenient.”
He snorted derisively.
