It's said that hindsight is twenty-twenty, that to retroactively look back on your problems with new information causes the solution to become obvious. Of course, such narrow thinking often ignores that one has that new little tidbit of information but it always seems so obvious. How could I have been so blind, one often thinks upon introspection. Such was Jack's musings as he worked in tandem with his ratty crew mate to remove the second laser from its housing. Though Mo'Ona worked faster, his paws trembled with adrenaline and fear. Elation and dread pulled at him in a tug-of-war that had the Hux teetering on the edge of fleeing. This was, however, exactly what he wanted; that soup of terror and excitement that made life worth living.

  "Fifty kilometers and closing fast, hurry up what you're doing or bail!" Lix found she had to bite her tongue to keep from cursing, her fangs piercing the soft flesh and filling her mouth with blood. If those drones had neutron beams they'd cook her like a pot roast inside the cockpit. Jack and Skrunkles would return to deep fried lizard, crunchy and sizzling, instead of an ace pilot. Lashing her tail within its seat hole, the 'Roid Racer willed her Human to work faster. For his part, Jack was busy not only removing bolts and panels and wires but also deliberately and successfully beating himself up internally. Of course the council wouldn't sit on its laurels. No, they'd continue to steal Sevar tech for themselves and twist it to their own needs, like they did everything else. If those drones were even a fraction like the suicide swarms his people had used back in the day, they'd pummel the Gerthtrude with laser fire on approach before latching to her cockpit and explode, killing the pilot and rendering the vessel useless. Unless… they'd switched out the laser for those damned neutron beams. The council hated waste, after all, and the Gerthtrude was a fine vessel.

  "Move those claws Skrunks, we need to be gone yesterday!" Jack pulled free the final bolt on his side, stuffing the high-quality fasteners into his suit, before going to work on the underlying panels protecting the battery housing. Skrunkles was even further along, finishing out his last few connecting cables before shuffling over to help Jack finish. With the rat-lizard's dexterous paws and frighteningly effective custom tools, they had the laser free and floating in no time. "Hop on 'lil guy." Jack pat the laser with his free hand, grinning inside his helmet like a gremlin.

  "What's? W-Whys?" Still… He obeyed despite his fears. Jack's plans, while often insane, were just fun and in the end, isn't that why he was here? There were safer bets to make, easier circles to wriggle his way into, but none made his heart pump like this crew. As long as he didn't die it would be okay, at least, that's what he told himself as he straddled the laser like a mount. Mo'Ona didn't even have time to shout as Jack planted his mag-boots and heaved, the now disconnected laser soaring towards the Gerthtrude as speed only mechanically assisted cybernetics could muster, the fighter drifting in the opposite direction from the force. Jack grinned as the weapon, and its passenger, sailed away, bending his knees to follow suit. This would be much faster than flying back under canister thrust and every second counted.

  Yet as his arm came down, so too did his grin.

  One moment the space next to the Sevar fighter was empty, the next… as if emerging from the aether… floated a single silent drone. It took several blinks to reassure Jack that he wasn't seeing things- that his implants weren't glitching.

  But no… the familiar fuselage and angled hull of the drone, no longer than a personal cab, hung there like a bird that had just found vulnerable prey. Beneath it bristled the tell-tale barrel of a neutron cannon in place of the normal Sevar laser suite, its broad flat barrel vibrating. As much as his pride had wanted to say it was the superior skills and high-tech edge of his people's elite pilots… of people like him… it was, in reality, these drones that had let them wither under council siege for so long. These were the reapers of the Sevarians, now stolen and repurposed to serve their conquerors.

  Jack had only enough time to launch himself haphazardly towards the drifting laser as Lix and Mo'Ona's terrified shouts filled his comms. With a barely perceptible vibration, the area behind him was blasted with angry neutrons, his ocular implants highlighting the deadly accurate beam. The only reason Jack wasn't on a slow path to death from cooked internal organs was the fact that the beam hit his alloy cybernetic arm instead of his still flesh and blood body.

  The Human tumbled through open space, Mo'Ona's eyes snapping open wide in fear just before impact- just before Jack bodily slammed into his small frame, knocking him flailing and screaming into the void.

  "Skrunks!"

  "Jack, watch your ass!" Lix's voice pulled the man's eyes from the tumbling form of the Hux on a long path towards deep space, his head ducking as a line of fury and fire burst from the Gerthtrude's forward PDC battery, cutting off the encroaching drone and forcing it towards a new target. "I need to maneuver! Launching tows!" Another burst of fire warded off a quick response from the deadly drone as it tried to bring to bear its neutron cannon towards the fat freighters bridge. A twin launch of thick cables zipped from the aft cargo bay to slam into the twin lasers with magnetic disks, sending both spinning in place. Jack bit his tongue as the world spun, only the surety of mechanical steel keeping his fingers locked to the laser's battery array instead of getting flung into the void. "You two hang on, I'll reel you in!"

  "Skrunks fell off!"

  "What?" Her voice was quiet, unbelieving, and it was only then that Jack remembered… Lix hadn't lost anyone since she'd taken on this new crew. He remembered that feeling, of watching other squads lose pilots and boarders and never really took into account that it could happen to him. An untethered event was a deadly one; if Mo'Ona couldn't right himself and use his canister, he was as good as dead.

  "Skrunks fell off…"

  "W-Well… well go get him!" Were he a less focused man, he'd have laughed. Laughed as the Gerthtrude banked and twisted, Lix desperately trying to bring more cannons into line. Metal debris and plastic trash bounced off her hull, gouging deep lines in her paint and showering the cold empty space with sparks.

  It was a dizzying kaleidoscope of color and terror, Jack's home planet, the Gerthtrude, the distant antimatter fuel refinery and oscillating sun behind it… He couldn't even see where the little Hux was, lost in the inky black and thick debris fields.

  Jack couldn't see Mo'Ona…

  He couldn't see…

  ***

  Mo'Ona was a Hux of no family, assets, or home. By the stars, he could count his friends on one paw- two claws even. Said claws scrambled at his suit, searching for the gas canister he knew wasn't there. It had been lost the moment Jack had slammed into him, the force breaking the old and jury-rigged clasp made from scrap metal. Only his seals and helmet had solid material, the rest going into smelters for that extra Roark or two. Roarks that would now be the death of him… Instead, Mo'Ona closed his eyes and accepted the fact that he had two options left; a slow end as his oxygen ran out, or a fast and painful one via breaching his helmet.

  It hadn't been supposed to end this way… or… no, it had. He always knew it would. Mo'Ona had lived fast and loose, burning bridges and building new, albeit weaker, connections in their place. Not a one had lasted longer than a cycle, nor had he planned them to. Not like this new attempt. Jack and Lix seemed like a good place to try and stick it out for the long run. Now, that long run had turned to him tumbling through open space and debris out into the Star Sea. There was no sign of the Gerthtrude or Jack or… or anything. Even if they wanted to find him the interference from the field would kill his pleas for help.

  Not to mention… that drone…

  No, his newest and final friends were busy fighting for their lives. Skrunkles would be yet another casualty of the Last Stop Staryard. It made sense, to cut their losses while a swarm of death came their way. It's what he would personally do, after all, one has to think of survival at the end of the day. That is… if Jack survived too, it would be poetic to die here amongst the corpses of his people. Either way, Mo'Ona accepted that his story ended here, in the cold and the empty and the dark. 'Twas bound to happen, this inevitable end at the jaws of his own thrill seeking. Deep down, he always knew he'd die alone and scared… it was simply the lot of a Hux.

  "Pi-… mms you fu-…"

  Mo'Ona flinched, the sudden voice of Jack, angry and loud and filled with static, had him ducking his head in instinctual fear.

  "What… Jack?"

  "I ne-… a com-…"

  Frantically, the still tumbling rat lizard hybrid twisted and gazed at the thick debris field around him before his back slammed into a slab of steel, throwing him off into a completely new direction. Hope and anger inflamed in his heart; hope at rescue, and anger at the false chance Jack was providing. There was simply no way he'd find him, in fact, it was a miracle that his transmission had made it this far. That small ember of hope quickly died out, melancholy seeping into his bones as he curled into a ball… and said his goodbyes.

  Perhaps in another life, he and Jack could be real friends…

  ***

  Jack had been given impossible orders before, even told his superiors to piss off once or twice. This one, however, took the cake. Retrieve a tiny Hux, already visually lost, while spinning wildly through space, all while your only way home was stuck in the middle of dog fight with a deadly drone.

  Oh, and another flight of drones were incoming.

  "Fuck's sake… okay okay okay, what to do…" Had Jack been a flesh and blood man, fully organic, Mo'Ona would already have been lost to the great Star Sea, as it was, the cybernetic mechanic had options. Choking down bile, Jack rewound the last few minutes of visual input his left eye had captured, all the way to the moment of impact that had sent the little rodent salvager off course. "Alright, now then…" Taking into account the position of the Gerthtrude in the background, and tracing that to the derelict fighter behind him, allowed a rudimentary angle the rat would have been flung into. Now all he had to do was… was get over there somehow. Above his head, the Gerthtrude twisted and banked to avoid a direct hit to her bridge, an invisible neutron beam slicing harmlessly into the lower cargo hold well away from Lix's position. The force upon the tow cable, and therefore, the laser, was enough to snap Jack's head back. Deep breaths were the only reason he avoided painting the inside of his helmet as the stars continued to dance in his eyes.

  Round and round and round the laser spun, his target vanishing and reappearing with every desperate blink of his eyes. Slowly, Jack gathered his boots beneath him, swallowing the lump in his throat as he deactivated his mag-boots. Only his death grip upon the laser's frame held him fast, only his grip connecting him to the Gerthtrude…

  "Gotta go at an angle… remember the conservation of mass in zero gravity…" Twice, thrice, and a fourth time the little plip on his helmet swung by, the distance between him and Mo'Ona's survival rapidly diminishing with each moment he hesitated. There was no calculating this jump… no math that would ease his nerves… "Jump early… watch your angle… jump early…" Shaking, the mechanic reached for his belt to grasp at his gas canister…

  And leapt.

  His angle had been slightly off, nothing a burst from his canister couldn't correct. A coil of cable flagged uselessly behind him, trailing like a steel snake as he adjusted his course towards Mo'Ona's last known trajectory. Against his better judgment, against his instincts screaming at him to return to the Gerthtrude, Jack angled his traversal canister behind him and accelerated. A mad dash towards certain death.

  "Mo'Ona, I need a comms ping!" Nothing… nothing but the omnipotent scratch of white noise. "Ping your comms you fuckin' rat!"

  Once again… silence. Debris whizzed by as Jack poured on the speed, his mechanical eyes zipping irrespective of each other as he searched the gloom.

  "… at… ack…"

  "Mo'Ona, I need a comms ping! Give me something to track!"

  That little bit had been enough, however. Enough for Jack to get a rudimentary idea of where the little Hux had been flung. Desperately, and more than a little aware of the dwindling amount of hydrogen swirling in his canister, Jack adjusted course and prayed to whatever God would listen that he had enough air in the little tank. Mo'Ona had somehow changed direction harshly, but not so much Jack couldn't curve his trajectory in pursuit.

  The liberal use of gas had proven worth it, Mo'Ona's brightly colored EVA suit flitting in and out of view between slumps of debris and broken ships. In a fit of despair, the Hux had curled himself into a ball, wrapping his covered whipcord tail about his trembling body. Jack didn't even grace him with a warning, bodily slamming into the little 'Roid Racer with arms outstretched. Within his helmet, Mo'Ona screamed in terror before clinging to Jack's chest so tightly his claws bent within their gloves. Immediately, Jack nearly emptied his canister in the opposite direction, their tumbling path slowing down.

  "J-Jack?"

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  "Need to get back to the Gerthtrude, ain't no fuckin' tellin' what the fuck's going on."

  "J… J-Jack…"

  And yet, Mo'Ona wasn't listening. His mind was a muddled fuzz of confusion, his eyes bulging with disbelief. This wasn't how Hux were treated… this wasn't how he was treated… No, he was used to being kicked, smacked, shoved away… No one had given him a second glance when his usefulness ran out or, more likely, his greed got the better of him. This was new and unexpected… and it made his throat burn. His little rat brain had shut down, the only thing consciously keeping him going was to hang on for dear life to the only friend that had ever stuck his neck out for him.

  The only friend that came back.

  ***

  Metal groaned as Lix twisted the Gerthtrude's control sphere like it had stolen her purse, turning the freighter on its axis while spinning her about with the port quarter thrusters. PDC's desperately attempted to track the strangely flickering drone, its sensor signal slipping through her radar suites like oil in a gear. The snarled curses in her home language went unanswered as the damned drone pulled evasive maneuvers she'd need implants to replicate, her eyes bugging at the nonsensical path it was carving through the debris. Worry, if not outright terror, pulled at her thundering heart as she once again was forced to twist the Gerthtrude around odd angles to protect the cockpit.

  Where was Jack? Had he gotten Mo'Ona? Were there other drones out there she couldn't see? Where had this one even come from? Was she about to sling her new lasers into her crew? Had it been a mistake to send Jack after Mo'Ona? Jack…

  What would Jack do?

  "Trust your crew… trust your crew…" Lix forced her breathing under control, reverse thrusting through a tiny gap in the debris as the wound spools reeled their haul ever closer. Once secured to the hull, the tow cable bays would open and their new weapons would be stored safely inside. It wasn't the proper way to use the devices, but it was more than effective enough given the situation. "Jack? Mo'Ona? I need a sitrep!" Static, and the distant sound of a voice too vague to understand, crackled across the comms. Another slicing barrage of neutrons screamed by her viewport like an angry flashlight beam, the cockpit overlaying a visible spectrum to assist the almost panicking pilot. Tow cables grew taught as the Gerthtrude spun on screaming thrusters, a rattling volley of PDC fire encouraged the council drone to belay its next run. Every moment counted for her crew, every precious second another chance at survival. One of the lasers whizzed past her vision, the Gerthtrude trailing the weapon around her fuselage in a spiraling dance.

  Lix was no fool. Guilt ate at her gut like a ravenous parasite.

  She had ordered Jack retrieve Mo'Ona out of reflex without weighing the options or the hazards. She had started dancing the Gerthtrude around like a runaway top without taking into account where her crew was. Had she been the reason Mo'Ona lost grip on the laser? Was it her fault both he and Jack were now somewhere in the debris field with no tether and only the slightest hope of somehow clawing their way back?

  All distractions…

  What was done was done. Lix could almost hear Jack growling at her to focus, to trust her crew and ensure there was a place to even float back to… In the end, all she could do was dig deeper.

  "Double down… Either my Human comes back or I die out here… simple…"

  ***

  "Where's your gas canister, rat?" Jack demanded as they began to slowly drift back the way he had come, the can in his metal hand sputtering like a dying engine. There just wasn't enough left to get back, not at a reasonable speed.

  "S-Skrunkles losts it. The claps on my suits brokes!" Still trembling, be it from the adrenaline of being rescued or disbelief at being… well… rescued, Mo'Ona reached for where the canister once sat upon his belt. The Gods hadn't seen fit to magically return the can now on path towards the galactic ecliptic. At this rate, the return trip would take the clinging duo upwards of ten minutes to arrive back at the Gerthtrude and that was assuming she stayed in one spot. With a deadly drone nipping at her heels, not to mention the multiple wings of reinforcements, Jack decided he didn't have ten minutes. Conviction hardened his hammering heart as he activated the environmental seals on his helmet normally reserved for a suit breach, the neck locking in place while he reached behind himself to run his hand along his neck. It took some fumbling, but he found the nearly flush tube that supplied his oxygen.

  Mo'Ona nearly screamed as Jack tore the tube free, oxygen screeching out into the void as nothing more than freezing vapor. Quickly, the Human angled the end of the tube away, grinning as they began to pick up speed. Less than he hoped… but speed nonetheless. The effects of losing fresh oxygen were immediately apparent. It wasn't like holding his breath in atmosphere, oh no, the burn in his lungs started only moments after he had removed the fresh supply of life-giving air. Water pooled at the bottom of his eyes as pressure built in his sinuses, the grasping fingers of a headache curling around the back of his skull. Debris and dead ships zoomed past his view at ever increasing speed, his helmet indicating the optimal angle of thrust for him maintain. The only adjustments he allowed were from his passenger, Mo'Ona's little rat claw raising or lowering the still discharging hose to avoid slamming into a slab of metal or through tangles of cables.

  "Gettin' hot in here." Jack mumbled through swampy, humid air. He could feel the temperature rising within his helmet, an alarm icon blaring in the corner of his vision. An oxygen meter, he recognized, one that was falling with alarming speed.

  "No talks! Stays awake! Lix, we's coming!" Skrunkles slapped the side of the Human's helmet with a tiny paw, gently jarring the man alert. Slow, shallow breaths raised and lowered his chest, the Hux clutching to him chittering in fear his eyelids began to droop once more. "Lix! Please… reads…" Another slap to Jack's helmet left his paw tingling in pain, even through the thick gloves of his EVA suit.

  "Comi… nd unreadab… peat you…"

  "Lix! Jack's beings stupids!" Silence answered his cry but the sound of his captain's voice had filled Mo'Ona with a spine tingling shot of joy. They had a chance, however small, to survive this haul gone wrong. It wasn't something that had truly hit him, even when Jack had wrapped his arms around his curled body. No one survived losing tether on a spacewalk, no one… and yet… this insane crew was trying to do just that.

  "My captains… s-shits… Mo'Ona fucked up nows…"

  ***

  Breath came to Lixistruzsias in rapid little gasps, her legs tense against the yaw rudders as her maw trembled the words to her favorite ditty. Jack's hoodie, now more like a second skin, had been wrapped around her nose. Every inhale filled her nostril's with the Human's scent, the fabric heavy with it even after all this time.

  "Coming in broken and unreadable, repeat your last? Just keep heading the way you are!" Claws clacked on metal as Lix spun the Gerthtrude, tilting her down as the drone tried to fly beneath the vessel's nose and towards her vulnerable underbelly. Nothing would stop its neutron beam from killing her from behind… Already her Human's poor ship had been pierced with the angry beam, internal heat warnings from the environmental sensors informing her the galley and guest room were just a tad bit hotter than the rest of the ship, an anomaly the automated systems couldn't understand. "Suuuuper wheat… and vat grown meeeat- come on you blasted thing, gimme a good angle."

  "Lix! Skrunks can sees ship! Drone passing forwards port nose! Angles ten degrees downs." Lix slammed the control sphere forward, angling the vessel towards the wily drone as her feet worked to activate the rear lateral thrusters. A flash of gunmetal grey whizzed by the view port, a beam of neutrons lancing by the port side fuselage only feet from where the cockpit had once lain. With a reptilian roar only a predator could produce, Lix spat hellfire from both forward facing PDC's, the skull rattling rounds tearing through the drone's thin outer plating like wet paper in a shredder. Sparks and metal showered the space behind the now tumbling ship as lights within died, the 'Roid Racer's roar escalating into a victory cry.

  "Then some heat, you fucker! Gnaaaaah! It's Meeeeelk!" Another volley of rage filled fire split the drone in half, Lix continuing her twirling spin until the aft cargo bay line up with the location of Mo'Ona's last desperate message. "Opening cargo bay door now, talk to me little guy."

  "Five degrees starboard… neeeeh… Jack hangs in there…"

  "What's wrong, what's the matter with Jack?" Fear and bile rose in the Kux'lar's throat as she flipped through her PDC cameras until the distressingly small plip that was her crew came into view. Jack was listlessly flying as Mo'Ona held a hose attached to the back of the man's armor. The scene of her nightmares faded as they floated all too slowly into the cargo bay, her claws shutting the thick doors the moment they were safely aboard. "H-Hang on in there, we're getting the fuck outta here!"

  A task easier said than done, as the drone's reinforcements made themselves known. An extra wing had crawled its way onto sensor range, bringing the total number bogies inbound to a terrifying sixteen. The numbers just weren't there; it was flee… or die.

  ***

  "Jacks! Jacks! Breathes!" Mo'Ona fell boneless to the floor as the cargo bay doors sealed, atmosphere venting back into the hab as pressure returned. Desperate, he hooked his little claws and tried to drag the Human and his heavy armor deeper into the safety of the bay, his little booted paws scrabbling on the metal in futility. "Please, justs once let Hux's be strongs!" No God or star or entity drifting in the black answered his prayer. Squeaking in frustration, Skrunkles instead focused on the powerful clasps holding the man's helmet secure, his vision blurring as unspoken burned his throat and mist clouded his eyes. A claw broke as he heaved and squeezed and jerked, blood running from the now throbbing finger. One clasp finally came free, followed much more slowly by a second and third. Finally, the heavy metal helmet came free, revealing Jack's sweat slicked face to the cool air of his ship's air recyclers. "Breathes!" Rearing back, he slammed home his still gloved fist onto Jack's unmoving chest, a spike of pain lancing up his and dragging a whimper from his maw. "Please! Jacks gotta breathes!"

  Only the Human's slightly waving fingers, asking for space, told Mo'Ona he was still alive. Chittering in glee, he gently raised the man's head in hope it would ease the strain on his air way, his forehead pressed to Jack's cheek. Tiny coughs gradually turned into deep, gasping inhales.

  "L-Lix… scaly lady…" Wheezing, the man sat up assisted by the little rat-lizard hybrid who had slipped behind him to push with all his might. "We're in… bet ya…" He grinned, slapping his hands down behind him before he could fall back onto the rat pretending he could hold him up. "Bet ya can't get back to the flinger in ten minutes…"

  ***

  Lix allowed herself a moment, just a moment, to rest her head on the Gerthtrude's control panel before sitting upright. No, she wasn't wiping tears from her eyes or willing away her shaking breath. She was a professional, one who prided herself on staying cool and collected in the pilot's seat. Jack's voice, and yes even Mo'Ona's terrified chitters, felt like a cool balm upon a vicious burn. Her crew was back, they had the parts and the weapons… they'd done it. Now to just get away with their haul.

  And of course, a challenge was exactly what she expected from her Human. It was her just deserts after sending him on a suicide mission… One he'd succeeded at, of course. It was time to show that she could keep up.

  "Ten minutes, eh? Bring it on."

  Roars screamed from the Gerthtrude's primary thrusters, her drive bells burning red with passion and heat that beat in time with Lixistruzsias's fluttering heart. Like a shot from a gun, the fat cargo freighter slammed forward, dipping beneath a clump of debris. The trail of clear space left in her slow crawl was exactly as wide and tall as the vessel itself, nonetheless, Lix aimed directly for the winding tube as if it were a highway to the Heavens. Shards of metal scraped and plinked off her hull as she worked the control sphere like a baker kneading dough, the thruster indicating crawling into the yellow… then, where it belonged; in the red.

  The encroaching drones adjusted course, uncaring of the damage they received at the hands of the Last Stop Staryard's debris field, closing with concerning speed. In the distance, the massive carrier standing vigil over the antimatter refueling station began to show signs of life, its nose beginning to laboriously turn in their direction.

  Heated huffs left Lix's maw as her blood began to boil; pumping through her veins like fuel through an engine. It had been far, far too long since she'd pushed a ship to its limits, not since the preliminary race in fact, and her racer's heart demanded she slam home the thruster bar and leave it there. Debris fields twisted and wobbled into looming asteroids in her mind's eye, her lips stretching back into a reaper's grin full of fangs and need and lust.

  Lust for the track, lust for the speed, lust for victory.

  Lix dropped the cockpit's protective shielding before descending down into the debris field itself, dodging an errant beam of neutrons from the first wave of drones that danced about her like angry bees, the newly arrived wing filling the very passage she was trying to use to escape. A raucous scream of metal on metal filled the raptor's ears as broken ships and drifting trash were slammed aside by the Gerthtrude's thick armor, her PDCs answering the drones in kind. Most dodged, one directly into the trash field to bloom into a quickly dying plume of fire and oil.

  "Gnaaaahahahahaha!"

  Glee filled her heart as she pulled the nose high, breaching back into the tight corridor with another volley from her bristling cannons, another drone falling prey as its algorithms couldn't decide between the incoming fire or braving the debris.

  Lix hadn't even heard Jack and Mo'Ona join her from the lift, but she did feel her Human's hand come home upon her shoulder. In that moment, there was nothing… nothing she couldn't fly through.

  "Five kilometers out, ya got this."

  "Fuckin' right I got this. Sit down, your mate is stacking drones."

  Just as Lix was moving in for another run, the belly of the Gerthtrude scraping a new line of clear space in the tunnel of debris, the space ahead of them split as if God had poked a finger through the blanketing slabs of broken metal.

  "Railgun from the carrier, keep going! It can't get a good lock!" Jack stumbled his way towards the navigation panel, no longer content to be a bystander. "See if you can get the drones behind us." Mo'Ona scrambled up Jack's back to perch like a bird, his claw pointing out bits on the panel Lix had no time to care about. PDC control was wrenched away from her, Jack blasting period lines of Hellfire to ward off the more active drones. All she had to do now was fly, and fly she would.

  Another biblical lance from the carrier zipped through the Last Stop Staryard like an enraged beast, debris and salvage alike vanishing into dust not four hundred feet from the vulnerable Gerthtrude.

  "Diverting power from auxiliaries, gonna give the shield more juice but it's about to get cold in here."

  "We can handle it, I'm two hundred kilometers out!" Lix snarled, juking the Gerthtrude into the side wall of the corridor as a sickly green beam of neutrons lit her heads-up display like a comet's tail. Proximity and damage warnings blared across the bridge, Jack silencing them with a flick of his metal fingers and mentally cringing at yet another system he'd have to repair. It would all be worth it, he reminded himself. "One fifty and closing!"

  Temperature readings in the engine bay rose as Lix redlined the drive, dipping and rising to try and shake the drone's targeting processes. Were she going any slower, the second wing of drones would overtake her and pummel them with enough beams that no amount of fancy flying would save them from.

  One drone, riskier than the others, clipped the Gerthtrude's port side, spinning into a spectacular cone of debris as the harder armor gave no quarter. Its nose sheered into metal shavings as it was pushed bodily out of the corridor, several drones dipping back to avoid meeting the same fate.

  "Got your ass!" Jack whooped as he released a glitter canister from their aft launcher, the very same he'd utilized on Ters so long ago. Unlike that dogfight so long ago, however, Jack hadn't primed the canister. Instead, it slammed into the lead drone with enough force to crumple its plating and remove it from the chase. Better to leave an obstacle then to cast obscuring glitter over a neutron beam's nose. Jack simply didn't know enough about the tech to determine if that would drop its efficiency.

  "One hundred kilometers!" Lix hollered, her voice tinged with worry as the debris field thinned. Thinned… and revealed the carrier much closer than previously thought. It was like staring down the gaping gullet of a leviathan, the massive barrel of its rail cannon aimed right at them.

  "Givin' ya everything but life support! Burn the drive bells out!"

  Seventy…

  "Jack! The flinge-"

  "Just fly!"

  Forty…

  "Carrier gonna fires!"

  "I fuckin' know, quit yellin' in my ear!"

  Twenty…

  "Ambition culled, the stars dimmed, ice crusted home again!"

  Then…

  Black…

  As the carrier's railgun zipped directly through the middle of the circular flinger.