Instincts

The majority of ship-to-ship combat occurs before vessels even establish visual contact with the enemy. Unless two ships know that they are going to engage each other ahead of time, there will always be a hunter and a prey. The best ship pilots know this, and use it to their advantage. And Cyte was definitely one of the best. He had made his fortune slugging out ships for pay, amassing enough money as a ship gunner for a convoy escort company until he could afford his own ship. Some people asked why he chose to modify a cutter-tug, designed primarily for dragging heavy and unwieldy freighters around shipyards, instead of purpose-built void-fighters. Was he crazy, or just stupid. What they didn't know was, Cyte had a plan. And it all relied on instinct.
The average ship parked in space gives off a signature as it utilizes its reactor to maintain position. This means that the most effective way to remain stealthy is to power down and run dark, but this poses some challenges. In order to get back online, a complex boot-up sequence must be initiated, and the flare from the reactor start will ping easily on sensors. Then the ship must come up to speed, possibly losing the target in the process. Pilots that are expecting threats will anticipate reactor start, and will begin evasive manouvers as soon as a startup flare is detected. For military ships, this is no issue. They can keep fighter reactors running inside carriers and conceal their signals with the larger ship bulk. Cyte, however, had a different idea. 
Baruda Shipbuilding developed the Clydesdale ship tug in 2855, and it met mild success over a period of about 10 years. Constructed for use in orbital shipyards, the Clydesdale tug was built with a suite of tools that made it well-suited for shipyard and dock work. Grapple launchers, bumper scaffold, and an enhanced strength RCS thruster network allowed the ship to drag vessels many times its size around bays and move large amounts of construction materials without any difficulties. Uncommonly, the ship also had a multiple drive cone array, which could be moved around the ship to allow the main drive to provide thrust in any direction without manovering the ship. This combination of tools allowed Cyte to catch his prey unaware, along with a single medium-caliber rail cannon, and two small-caliber shotgun PDCs that he had modified onto the craft. It was also devoid of pressurization, instead the life support for the ship was connected via umbilical to the operator. This allowed the reactor to be much smaller, and the power be directed more towards thrust generation. This was the key to Cyte's tactics. 
Cyte had a general strategy that had worked for him so far. The target ship would jump into the system, generally alongside the main star. This was due to ease of navigation, the ship computer could home the Fold Drive on the center of mass of the system much easier than just trying to drop in. He would have his reactor at the lowest possible power without shutting down, just bordering on the edge of what the control system would allow. Using RCS to maintain his orbit against the massive heat of the star, his ships heat signature would be masked by the cosmic emissions of his backdrop. When the ship sensors, running in passive scan, detected the shift from a fold drive, he would spring into action. First he would sneak, the Fold Drive drops the target into the system at a relatively low velocity, so he had time to use the RCS thrusters to creep up on the ship. Then, he would be running on instinct. The ship could detect him approach and bolt, so he would have to power up and knock out its drive. Or it could remain unaware, giving him time to clamp a grapple on a part of the ship not easily visible. This would give him time to disable their drive less violently. 
If he had to shoot it out, his small craft was much more manouverable than basically any other target, being designed to nip around inside shipyards. This made it possible to dodge incoming fire from a distance, as his collision avoidance computer would detect incoming fire and alert him. Missiles were a bit harder, they could keep up, so he had to use PDCs to keep them off him. Sometimes he had to let them cut and run, but ships his size could get away relatively easily, and could keep firing the whole way, by spinning the main thrusters to allow full-speed reverse propulsion. This gave him the option for a clean break. All of these things make for a good fighting vessel, but relied on him not getting hit. Being unpressurized would allow him to avoid getting vented much easier, but would not save him if his reactor got toasted. A number of times he had to limp his ship back to a system's repair station on RCS power, which took days of travel, and stretched the limits of what could be constituted as surviveable. He could sneak in relatively easily, a ship his mass could slip in undetected to a lot of larger yards, and always paid in full, leaving a number of fake names. 
If you know who to get ahold of, Cyte and his trusty Clydesdale could give you a hand, but he's not going to do it for free.