The huge Asuran Battleship followed the small ships into hyperspace with the grace of a fighter. Pazu called over his shoulder,"We're in trouble." The Melcosi fighter spun and pirouetted in the lead of the two small ships. It's speed let it easily stay ahead of the large and dangerous drive field of the battleship. The Suruin Scout-ship was slower and clumsier than the Melcosi star-fighter. F'loona flew it as best as she could, but the Asuran ship was keeping up and slowly closing on it. Pazu, the Melcosi pilot, communicated,"Batguy to Blue-girl! Cut starboard and roll out to your two o'clock. Drop your carrot when I signal and bug-out ASAP!" F'loona responded,"Blue-Girl to Bat-Guy: Confirmed! Good luck. Rabbit two over and out." She sounded tense, but professional. Pazu set his ACV to fire the instant that his RIF drive field impinged on the pursuing Asuran Battleship's RIF field. He slowed down marginally as the vessel closed. The ship bored down on them as Snowflake asked,"Will we be blasted to bits when they shoot at us when the fields coalesce?" "Bigger your ship--bigger your RIF field--slower you go. Period. They are running their field in hull-hugging mode, where as mine is about one klick in diameter, right now. They don't know if I'll expand it, or when. Hang onto your robot ass, Snowflake! It's time to hammer these suckers", Pazu said excitedly. Snowflake interfaced with the controls and prepped the rear-facing ACV. Pazu sent the signal to F'loona and expanded his Relative-Inertial-Frame field to maximum. They practically fell backward onto the battleship, as F'loona applied the instructions by enlarging her field and firing her ACV, as well. The Battleship opened fire as F'loona's field collapsed to hull-hugging mode. Only a few shots hit it. The shields absorbed the few hits. Only one hit partially on the narrow neck connecting the life-module to the star-drive. Rabbit Two turned starboard tightly and punched through hyperspace to a lower level and exited from sight in the usual red tunnel effect. Pazu kept his fighter on target for slightly longer than F'loona's scout-ship. Snowflake fired 'her' Autonomous Combat Vehicle into the port-side TSMD Mauler. As the huge ship was hit, it slewed to the starboard side in a flat spin, as Awina's ACV from her Scout-ship, struck the battleship's armor-plates to no real noticeable effect. Pazu checked his aft sensors and said to Snowflake,"Tell your 'other sisters', in you own little communication web, the ship is wounded, but can still kill a planet. ETA to Adamesh, about twenty minutes. We might have to turn back and goad them, that might add another minute to the ETA." After a moment she responded,"Neblae said that they'd be ready. The mine-field is set up and we will be safe to transit because of our size. We need to take out that other TSMD weapon, according to the Hiver Emissary." Pazu shrugged. "I was planning to. I have some gravitic shear mines. Should be challenging. All I have to do is fly backward into weapons bigger than my ship. Should be easy for me." "Really?" Snowflake was surprised at his assertion of machine-life precision. "Nah. I was being sarcastic." His awking was a clue he was joking about that when he flashed his RIF to over maximum, dropping them squarely into the Mauler that was left. Snowflake hung on and dropped the mines into the Mauler weapon. Pazu cut the RIF to hull-hugging mode and slipped out of the way as the Mauler was damaged by the mine attack. It still shook them hard for a second. Pazu said,"That's all mines depleted. May take them fifteen to twenty minutes to repair. NOT good." "Sending to my sisters. We'll have to handle it in normal space,"Snowflake said. "If we can." --TO BE CONTINUED!--