But Deralius (or, more specifically, those loyal to him) were also interested in Moff Levi. They knew that their troubles with Governor Ribaldequin wouldn't end with Ribaldequin, for even if the Governor was done away with, Levi would send someone else―possibly someone worse―to replace him. It had been suggested to Thesh that the Deralians might be a useful friend to him and his pirates, if they continued to plague the sector in a manner that could embarrass Levi. Thesh, thus, had a choice to make. It was Levi or the Deralians, and each option had sacrifices to make with it; if he sided with Levi, Thesh would need to operate less conspicuously on Chuzalla and throughout the sector, and if he befriended the Deralians, he would need to stop running guns to the militant minority on Deralia's moon that was opposed to the King's rule.

It was precisely one of these lucrative gun running trips that had brought him to Deralia today, along with his ship, the Bloodlust (a VCX-700 heavy courier, modified to include a dorsal ion cannon, a magnetic grappler, and various countermeasures), and the Chuzalla (a Wayfarer-class transport with a Cloakshape fighter it used as a scout on missions like these, and which now sped around the periphery of the formation). The duo of ships had been in a high orbit over Deralia, having just departed its moon and rounded the planet on their way to Chuzalla when the proximity sensor beeped in the cockpit of the Bloodlust. "Well, what have we here?" Thesh mused as he brought up the identification of Shiva's ship, "What are you doing way out here, all by your lonesome?" The Weequay liked being out on the prowl again; deciding whether or not to loot a lone freighter was a much easier decision than the ones he'd been faced with lately.

"Are you talking to me, Thesh?" said the massive Herglic awkwardly seated next to him.

"Fire up the magnetic grappler," Thesh said to him, ignoring his question, "Be ready to reel this one in."

The Herglic nodded and went about the controls, while Thesh switched on his headset and told the gunners on both ships to stand by―particularly the Bloodlust's ion cannon. "Are you talking to me?" the Herglic asked again.

"No. Now shut up, Lawrence, I'm opening a channel here." Thesh hailed Shiva's freighter from a distance, although the formation fast approached it with the Cloakshape fighter assuming a long, oblique course that would eventually bring it around the rear of the ship. "Unidentified ship," Thesh said, "Are you in need of assistance?"

Before Timmons had quite finished speaking, the Bloodlust opened fire on the Lola with its laser cannons in order to soften up its shields, then, a moment later, opened up with its ion cannons, too. Expecting the ship to gun its engines and run, Thesh instructed his gunners to fire at the Lola's current position and also a few meters in front of the ship's bow. This all but guaranteed that some of the fire would connect with its target, even if it tried to make a sharp turn up, down, or to either side. Indeed, only flying backward would allow the Lola to escape the barrage unscathed, and Thesh knew that was beyond the ability of a YZ-775.

"It's all you, Blood 1," Thesh said over his comm to the Cloakshape fighter, which would now be acquiring a concussion missile targeting solution on the Lola's bank of three big engines. "Mind those turrets," he cautioned, as he pulled back on the Bloodlust's yoke and sent it into a steep climb―Thesh knew the Lola had armed its proton torpedoes, and he wanted to make sure that, if fired at him, the torpedoes would be to the rear of the Bloodlust, whereupon he could use the ship's chaff if need be. At the same time, he didn't want to be too far away from the Lola, and he made sure not to put in too much distance. The Chuzalla, meanwhile, remained at a greater distance, ready to cut off the Lola if it tried to run the way they'd come. It was the smartest move for the Wayfarer-class transport, since it sported fewer weapons than the Bloodlust and wasn't as fast as the Lola.

Well, not as fast as the Lola with all of her engines intact. We'll just have to see to that, Thesh thought.

In a decade of relative peace, it was usually people like Thesh and his pirates who had an uncommon abundance of combat experience. Thesh, in particular, was renowned as a good pilot as well a pirate. Even his foes conceded "that ugly, shriveled, brown bastard knows how to fly." He eased the Bloodlust's acceleration and came about, coming as close to a Herbst maneuver as one could manage in little to no gravity--most of the Lola's fire would miss broadly ahead of the Bloodlust as it dipped down into a new angle of attack that would pursue the Lola from above and behind. As he readied his ion cannons for a strafing run on the Lola, Thesh continued to be concerned about its proton torpedoes; still, he'd seen a lot of modified YZ-775's, some of them that fired torpedoes forward, some of them to port and starboard, but he'd never seen one that could fire its missiles backwards.

The laser cannons were another matter, of course, especially now that Blood 1 had broken off its pursuit and set a course to cover the Chuzalla, but Thesh knew his ship well and knew that its shield could withstand more punishment from those lasers than the Lola could stand from his ion cannons. Once Thesh made up the distance between them and the two ships were within range of each other (assuming that the Lola held its current course—and it was running, so why wouldn't it?), and if it did indeed come to a shooting match, the Bloodlust would prevail.

"Bogey's coming right at us, boss," the captain of the Chuzalla said calmly to Thesh over his comm, "I'm getting out of the way, if you've got this."

"I do," Thesh said, "but hang in there for a moment. I need him to hold this course, and if he wants a game of chicken with you then that's fine for me. Just be sure you're out of the way before he takes some paint off your hull."

The Chuzalla signaled in the affirmative, and made a point of firing glancing blows from its laser cannon and quad laser cannon at the approaching Lola, not to do any real damage, but rather to put some more strain on its shields. Moreover, Blood 1's concussion missiles should have been nearing their mark at about this moment.

The tractor beam wasn't designed as a weapon, however—that's what the magnetic grappler on the Bloodlust was for. Nor could the Chuzalla, which was comparable in size to the Lola, have any hope of moving the other ship about with its tractor beam. But it was enough to slow it down dramatically, but, as it happened, only for a moment; comparably-sized or not, the Lola's tremendous speed (that is, its kinetic energy) relative to the more-or-less stationary Chuzalla was far more than the Chuzalla's puny tractor beam could handle. It wasn't sheered off, as one might imagine, but rather fried in a shower of sparks as it simply became overloaded. By then, however, both the Chuzalla and the Lola would have shuddered violently and, more importantly, the Lola's speed would have been significantly diminished.

The Chuzalla limped away as Thesh's barrage from the Bloodlust would be about to connect with the Lola. The ship was about to be out of commission, or it was about to escape; either way, this skirmish was about to end, but Blood 1 was playing catch-up to the Lola and the Bloodlust nonetheless, just in case it would be needed.