“How about it, Sergeant? Think you can handle this little mission or what?”

The voice that came in through the ship’s speakers could only be the nasally whine of her new commanding officer back at the base.

Chelle sighed. “Do a flyby attack on a cargo ship? Yeah. That’s sort of what I do, Commander Sarin.”

“This is one of K.N.N.’s newest ships. It’s as fast as it is big. Won’t be easy to outmaneuver.”

“With all due respect, sir, I could fly this fucking rig right up your ass at half light speed if I had a mind to.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’d like it, old man,” she murmured.

“Is that how you talk to your commanding—”

Chelle switched off the communications, and the cockpit was silent once again.

“Asshole.”

She adjusted the controls and felt the ship speed up around her. The Firebird was now hurtling through space at a hundred thousand miles per hour, a silver streak against the stormy surface of Jupiter beside it. Chelle knew this corner of the solar system better than anyone. She had flown fifty missions between the gas giant’s moons. War in zero g’s with the stars twinkling around her? That was what made Chelle feel alive.

It was nothing like in the old movies where space fighters zoomed through a swarm of enemy ships, colliding asteroids, and a half dozen nearby planets. Chelle had seen a few of those movies, and could not help but laugh as the stars whistled by and the rainbow of lasers danced across the screen. Those dogfights always ended the same, with the enemy ship bursting like fireworks with a thunderous boom and the music swelling. Combat in space had turned out to be quite, quite different in reality.

The only lasers ships had these days were for zapping micrometeoroids from their paths. Besides that, everything happened in total silence, and usually played out in no more than a few seconds. It was nothing like the drawn out, heart-pumping cinematic chase scenes. True, rail guns had been used for a while, and even a small projectile, when traveling at two-thirds light speed, released enough energy when it hit its target to make quite a show. But by the time Chelle joined the fleet in 2310, such weapons were out of style. Her weapon of choice was mathematics.

So, as she stabled the Firebird in its new trajectory, the display all around filled, not with color video of the nearby planet, but technical readouts of numeric equations. Dozens of variables sprawled across the screens: velocities, orbits, angles, the gravitational pulls of Jupiter, its moons, and the sun. Also displayed was her fleet’s best guess as to the enemy’s projected path and speed. She watched as the numbers blinked and changed, and the new equations played themselves out in her head.

Chelle switched back on the comm. “You all got a visual on the target yet?”

“Just coming in, Sarge.”

Commander Sarin had not answered this time. That was a relief; maybe Chelle had damaged his pride enough that he would stay away for the rest of the mission.

“What you got for me, Dan?”

“Just a good old cruiser making its way home. Should be a piece of cake for a lovely pilot like yourself, m’lady.”

She liked the young controller. Dan’s boyish charm was palpable, even if it was just projected through a crackly speaker from countless miles away. If he could learn to bring it down a notch, she might even give him a chance with her.

“As long as you’re trying to charm your way into my heart, Dan, maybe you could do me a favor and tell that prick commander of ours to finally adjust the seatbelts in these things. Damn strap is going to bruise my boobs.”

“Breasts like yours deserve better.”

“I agree.”

A new set of numbers streamed into both the computers back at base and on Chelle’s screen.

“Well crap,” Dan said with a sigh. “Looks like they’re coming out faster than we thought. Still want to go for it, Chelle? It’ll be a tight squeeze.”

“With you to help me, Dan, should be no trouble. You’re always telling me how you’re an expert at tight squeezes.”

“I’ll give you a demonstration later.”

Chelle laughed, though the data coming in was starting to worry her.

Flyby attacks were often a bitch to pull off, though the concept was simple enough. It all had to do with the energy tail. The tritium fusion rockets that propelled the ships produced a lot of excess energy, which flowed around the hull like a skin and left a huge ribbon of energized particles in its wake. If the attacking ship flew into the enemy’s path before they had time to react, the enemy ship would collide with the tail. The results were catastrophic. The energy surged across the target. Hulls broke in two under the strain, spilling out a cloud of bodies and red-hot steel with a whoosh of oxygen.

Of course the enemy knew all this and were constantly altering their bearings, changing speed, and adjusting course to confuse any would-be attackers. They did not even trust computers to make the decisions. The human brain was still the best random number generator out there, and so it was human pilots that played out the cosmic game of cat and mouse.

“It’s a big son of a bitch, Chelle. Watch yourself.”

She adjusted the Firebird’s path by a few degrees. “Probably carrying a hundred billion dollars’ worth of ore. I don’t think our employers would be happy with me backing out now.”

“That’s certainly true,” said Dan. “Don’t you wish it was like it was in our grandparents’ days, when nations could afford to fight in space instead of just corporations?”

Chelle shrugged, though Dan would not be able to see the gesture. “History proved long ago that the one thing that motivates more than patriotism—is money.”

Dan could not argue with that.

“Just be careful, Sarge. I’d hate to use my best lines on a girl who dies in a fiery crash the same day.”

“Those were your best lines? ‘Tight squeeze’ and ‘breasts like yours’? You need some new material, Dan.”

Chelle tilted the controls in her hands, and the ship lurched, blasting forward and to one side. The force slammed her against her seat.

“Whoa! Wish I could find a man to slam me like that,” she mumbled.

“Uh. I’m right here,” said Dan. “And I can see what you’re planning, Chelle. Their ship is too big and moving too fast to get in that close. It’s suicide to approach like this.”

Chelle ignored him, maneuvering her fighter until the display showed her practically side by side with the cargo ship that dwarfed the Firebird.

“All he has to do is adjust to port and the energy from his hull will turn you into plasma goo! Pull out. Pull out now!”

“Bet you’re the one used to hearing that one, eh, Dan?”

“Seriously, Chelle!”

Dan was right. It was only a few seconds before the enemy lurched toward her. She reacted in sync, swerving down and flying beneath the huge ship. It came at her again, dipping downward. She flew to starboard, then pulled up to fly above it.

“This isn’t a game!” Dan screeched through the speaker.

“You mean if I die I won’t hear that deep, sexy groan say ‘Game Over’ and get to restart the level?”

“Abandon the mission, Sergeant! Return to base.”

“Sure, right after this….”

Chelle slammed down at the controls, and her fighter shot forward. The pressure held her tight against the seat, screamed in her ears, and forced her eyes shut. She did not even need to see the displays to know her timing, and half a second later, she twisted hard on the controls. The little fighter corkscrewed down, soaring right in front of the mammoth ship, and shot out into the stars below. The enemy steered hard to port, but never had a chance. The Firebird had passed too close, and the energized tail was directly ahead of their path. The ship slammed into the white-hot ribbon, and a torrent of energy burst across the hull. The vessel lurched forward, shattering in huge pieces that drifted silently into orbit, silhouetted against the colorful backdrop of Jupiter.

Chelle saw all this through the numbers flashing across her screen. After a moment, she let out a long sigh and slowed her ship to a normal cruising speed.

“You see. Nothing to it.”

Dan took longer to catch his breath. When his voice did come through the speaker, it was shaky and full of awe. “That was a hell of a move.”

Chelle grinned. “That was nothing. You should see me fuck.”