"Alyssa, evasive manoeuvres, we've got to get out of their killing ground!" he said curtly.

“On it John!" the beautiful blonde said in reply, rolling the Invictus and pulled the nose of the ship around to point at the Ice planet.

“Calara, show me the tactical map!" he ordered the Latina.

The tactical map appeared, replacing the system map in the middle of the bridge and icons quickly sprung into place as they were picked up by the sensors. Their dark grey hulled assault cruiser was centred in the map, surrounded by a destroyer, a frigate, four corvettes and the heavy cruiser. It was the pirates from the Chendar system and the hacking Sparks had done on their transponders, allowed the crew to see the full order of battle arrayed against them.

“Those fleeing picket ships must have regrouped with the other pirate ships that jumped out!" Calara said, as she recognised the ship configurations.

The Invictus rocketed past the destroyer, leaving it facing the wrong direction, as Alyssa made a beeline for the belt of razor sharp chunks of ice. The corvettes and the frigate gave chase, firing their Laser cannons at the fleeing ship. The carefully controlled erratic dodging that Alyssa was employing was allowing the slower ships to keep up, but making it extremely hard for them to hit the Invictus with any degree of accuracy. One of the corvettes managed to hit them with a few blasts from its laser cannons but the rest of the pirates’ shots went comfortably wide.

“Shields at 60% John." Sparks called out, the shields regenerating almost as quickly as the pirates could knock them down with their inaccurate shooting.

“Incoming broadside from the Stalingrad!" Calara warned, as the bulky pirate command ship opened up with its starboard batteries.

Alyssa had dipped the Invictus and was yawing to the right to avoid fire from the pursuing corvettes, which meant that the enormous shells from the Heavy cannons sailed wide, eventually detonating harmlessly a few thousand metres away from their hull with colossal explosive force. Unfortunately the beam laser battery fire was much more accurate, with four of the six Lasers scything across the shields over the rear of the dodging assault cruiser. dodging assault cruiser.

“Shields down to 28%!" the redhead cried in alarm.

“Twenty second until we reach the Ice field." Alyssa said distractedly, as she focused nearly all her attention on trying to anticipate where the pirates would aim and making wild evasive manoeuvres to make sure the Invictus wasn't near that spot.

A relentless cascade of Laser cannon fire sailed around the Invictus, as the pirates sprayed shots all over the place, giving up on trying to aim and just hoping a mass of firepower would let them hit by blind luck if not by skill. It worked to a degree, with the Invictus taking a few more hits, although the shields comfortably absorbed and dissipated the energy.

The tactical map zoomed in to show the looming formations of ice hanging motionless and trapped in orbit around the frozen planet. The Invictus dived into the ice belt, leaving a frosty trail behind them as their shields pushed aside the tiny ice crystals that shrouded the whole belt in a white mist.

Alyssa pulled the ship around in a smooth arc and put a colossal hunk of crystallised water between them and the heavy cruiser. Now they were no longer in direct line of sight to the pirates, she was able to put more distance between them and their pursuers, making use of the superior top speed of the Invictus.

“What's the plan John?" she asked him curiously.

“We'll regenerate our shields under cover of the ice field and then hit the pirates if they come in after us." he said decisively.

Alyssa grinned at him and nodded eagerly.

“Fantastic job reacting so fast to that ambush ladies" he said delightedly, never ceasing to be surprised at just how capable his women were.

They beamed up at him happily, loving hearing the pride in his voice.

"Shields at 22%." Sparks said. "That was a close one!" she sighed with relief.

Behind them, the titanic lump of ice shuddered as it was hit by the beam Lasers from the Stalingrad, melting huge gouges out of the sheer ice surface facing the Heavy Cruiser. The stubborn ice block stayed together though, refusing to yield to the energy weapons. That stubbornness was abruptly overwhelmed when the Stalingrad opened up with its eight heavy cannons. The shells punched their way into the icy asteroid and caused great fractured splits, until the shells detonated moments Later and razor sharp ice fragments exploded in all directions, the huge object blasted into smithereens.

Fortunately for the crew of the Invictus, that was but one massive hunk of ice amongst thousands and Alyssa simply followed the Ice belt around the planet, putting more distance and more Ice between them and the marauding pirates. They sailed past huge formations of ice that reflected the bright glare from the sun, spreading multi hued prisms of light in front of them.

“You know this would actually be quite beautiful if we weren't running for our lives" Alyssa said, smiling appreciatively at the natural wonders the galaxy had to share.

The other girls nodded appreciatively and John looked at her fondly.

“Perhaps we'll do some sightseeing sometime," he said.