Laser Beams Deflected Off of Nothing but Air for First Time Ever in Breakthrough Patent Pending Process - The Debrief::An international team of scientists report that they have successfully used acoustics to deflect laser beams in an engineering first.
Space battles would be so much cooler if every now and then the phaser gets split around the ship instead of hitting the shields.
Would also work even when shields are down.
But that needs air. There’s no air in space.