Madias was about to reply but then took the advice.
A harsh beep sounded. Erryn took evasive action, narrowly
avoiding the missile that ended up pounding into a derelict, sending
it pummelling into an asteroid.
Turbulence. Erryn could handle it. This was her domain. She just
hoped the less experienced crewmembers had strapped themselves
in. Small kinetics hit the vessel. The deflectors protected the hull but
the force shook them. Erryn spotted an opening. More beeps. Too
many indicators. Too many missiles. The opening was a small gap
in the side of a corvette derelict. No room to evade. Erryn gritted
her teeth and then locked in the sub-light boosters. They shot
forward, with Erryn rolling at the last moment through the hole.
The beeping stopped. Erryn imagined booms as the missiles hit the
derelict, but knew there was no sound in space.
Madias stood as they stabilised and then vomited all over the
floor. Erryn tossed her a cloth, which she had just used to clean the
gravy off the windscreen. Madias wiped her mouth.
‘What in the void was that, Pilot?’
‘Reason I didn’t need the Armada Academy, cap’n.’
‘I could have died.’
‘We all could’ve. We didn’t. You can thank me later.’
‘Thank you? When Titan gets this ship, I’m going to be filing for
your dismissal.’
‘I am the Kolheim.’
‘You’re a flunky frigate pilot.’
‘This ain’t a sore spot, Gabby. I quit the academy. I didn’t need
them. They’re a bunch of dirt-birthers thinkin’ they own the sky. I
was born in space. I know this vessel and this void better than you
ever will. Titan can’t fire me and keep Kolheim. I am Kolheim.’
‘Ladies…’
Both heads swivelled to Barry, whose dark face seemed as pale
as a sheet. He pointed at the windscreen.
Pegg ships, looking like hungry lizards, were blinking in, forming
a grid around the outskirts of the gravity well. Flashes and
silhouettes hardened, revealing more and more ships.
Silence. Time froze.
Then they fired.
Erryn smacked the steering stick as hard as she could. The
torpedo hit the Kolheim’s wing but not the cockpit. She looped, the
jolt sending both Madias and Barry flying.
‘Get us out of here!’ Madias screamed.
Erryn grunted.
More torpedoes flew, forming a bouquet of flaming steel
speeding through the black. Erryn was unable to enjoy the spectacle.
She jinked a hard right but then took a nosedive. She couldn’t risk
exposing their broadside. In front of them was black. Only the specs
of foreign galaxies ahead. No haven that way. The Pegg knew this.
Only one way to go. Time to swim downstream.
A Pegg skiff came upon her broadside. She could practically
smell them. She remembered their smells, vividly. Burnt pork. A
hint of iron. They didn’t smell of ship grease. They weren’t like her.
They shared space, but it belonged to only one of them. She was
going to be sure it was her. She twisted the control sticks sharply to
the side, catching the skiff by surprise and crushing it into a derelict.
Fire was left in the Kolheim’s wake as it strafed across the rim of
the broken Armada cluster. Torpedoes pummelled their shadow.
Pegg were not the best at bombardment, but that wasn’t the reason
for their misses. Erryn was the Kolheim. No pilot could compare to
her. They were merely flying their ships. She was living it. The
fuselage was her arteries, the fuel, her blood. This ship was her
everything. Every twitch of her wrist, every breath, every spasm, was
translated seamlessly into being one with this vessel.
With inhuman precision, she turned the colossal ship through
the crack in a derelict. Twin skiffs followed in her wake. She
boosted, releasing flames that scorched the front skiff and collapsed
the hole in the derelict into floating shrapnel. A corvette from above
let out a wail. There was no sound in space, but Pegg loved hacking
into the intercoms of ships. This wail was followed by fire.
Countless missiles rained down, illuminating the shadowed
labyrinth.
Erryn’s hands cramped from the movements, but she could take
it. With a free hand, she tightened her hand wraps. Then with her
right, she clutched the throttle and boosted. Missiles followed,
eliminated them with ease. Explosions of varying colours dotted
either flank. The Kolheim shook. Erryn guessed this is what frontier
earthquakes must feel like.
‘Engine output failing! Team to engine Alpha,’ Barry announced,
taking his role of co-pilot.
Somewhere in the vessel, the technicians would be wearing grav
boots for added artificial gravity, and would be speeding as fast as
they could with their weighty boots to the engine rooms.
‘Aren’t there weapons on this junker?’ Madias asked, voice like
nails on a chalkboard.
‘No ammo.’
‘Incompetents! I’m going to die with incompetents!’
Erryn banked hard across the stone wall of a large asteroid,
sending Madias across the room.
‘Tie your seatbelt, Gabby.’
Another explosion rocked the Kolheim. Erryn halted.
‘What are you doing?!’ Madias screamed.
The corvette over shot her. She engaged thrusters and directed
all power to the front deflector. The corvette didn’t stand a chance.
Pierced by the mightier freighter, the Pegg ship burst like a pecker
egg. The Pegg yolk spilled out, their big-heads popping.
But there were more.
Corvettes, skiffs, harriers, a destroyer surrounded the facility.
They formed a dome, disruptors all about. A holo-screen appeared
between four of the corvettes. A human skull with crossed bones.
Pegg had a sense of humour.
Erryn descended, the Kolheim moving fluidly when it should
have otherwise lurched. She sunk into the labyrinth, and let shadows
consume them.
Silence. Darkness. Barry turned off the lights. Only undetectable
light-sources like flashlights remained.
‘Shadow protocol,’ he whispered over the intercom.
‘Shadow what?’ Madias interjected, loudly.
‘Sssshhh. Didn’t you read the manual? Silence. We’re hiding.’
‘Hiding?! We can’t stay here forever.’
‘Neither can they. We have more food. They’ll have to give up,
and will, eventually. We can wait them out, but be quiet.’
They waited. No one moved. With the light of her wrist-
computer, Erryn could see that Barry’s wizened face was calm, but
she knew better. His hands would be sweaty. Madias was tapping
her foot. There were sweat stains on her dress shirt. Her eyes were
darting. To the windscreen, to her hands, to the console, to her
wrist-tab computer. The latter was a device common among core-
worlders, a computer grafted into the skin. Erryn didn’t like the
intrusiveness.
‘Don’t do it,’ Barry whispered.
‘Armada can get us o
ut of here,’ Madias responded in a hushed
shout.
‘Armada ain’t any countable parsecs away. That signal will get us
killed.’
Madias glared – and then turned on her wrist-tab.
She fell with an oomph as Erryn tackled her to the ground,
holding her hands down.
‘Get the tab away from her, Barry!’
‘Got a knife?’ Barry smirked, but then composed himself and
cleared his throat. ‘Can’t do that. We’ll have to restrain her.’
‘You’ll never get a Titan contract again!’
‘Better that than dead, cap’n,’ Erryn spat.
‘You’re going to get me killed. We have to call Armada.’
‘You’re going to get us killed…Barry, get a sock to gag her. Every
skiting Pegg listening post this side of the Terrace probably heard
us.’
Madias was struggling. Erryn heard her rip the edge of her
tailored suit. Erryn wasn’t worried about her tank-top ripping, if
Madias could even get a grip.
Barry took off his shoe and withdrew his sock.
‘Last chance, cap’n.’
With a look of resignation, Madias sighed. ‘I’ll behave.’
Barry indicated for Erryn to desist. She did so. Then Madias
pressed the distress beacon on her tab. Erryn knocked her out with
one punch.
‘Skiting void, Barry!’
‘Don’t shout.’
‘Too vokken late. This sow just killed us all.’
‘Not yet, we’ve still got the best damn freight pilot this side of
Great Terra.’
‘I’m a pilot, not a goddamn goddess! We’re doomed.’
‘Since when you so fatalistic?’
‘Since Pegg killed my entire family before my eyes, Barry. You
know that. This ain’t Black Fleet, this ain’t some puny human pirate
rabble. These are Pegg. They killed my family.’
Barry placed his hand on Erryn’s shoulder. He didn’t say a word.
She stared him in the eyes. Her glare was angry. His was sad. He
won.
‘Fine, skites are only Pegg, right? Not like they made this cluster
to begin with. Not Xank. Just Pegg. Big-headed skiting midgets with
swords and stolen weapons.’
Barry nodded. ‘Get us out of here, pilot. Show me why we don’t
need Armada.’
Erryn strapped herself. Then her noodles started to rise. The
remaining gravy drifted, forming blobs in front of her face. The
noodles floated merrily along the dashboard, staining one of the
displays.
With shock in his voice seldom heard, Barry shouted over the
intercom. ‘Masks on, now!’
It was too late. The intercom had been cut.
Erryn put on her oxygen mask, linking up to a personnel tank on
her side. Barry did the same and spared some effort to give one to
the comatose Madias.
Then they waited.
No sounds, at first. Then a clank. A bang. The zip and hiss of an
energy cutter. Some shouts. A gunshot. No more gunshots.
Barry was loading his shotgun – an old Zerian model. Erryn had
her railgun revolver at the ready. She hadn’t fired the sleek firearm
for months. She hoped she wasn’t rusty.
Barry paused his reloading as a scream echoed across the ship.
He resumed. Erryn checked her chamber, the battery pack, and then
her ammo pouch.
Board fighting wasn’t something Erryn enjoyed. A good dogfight
was nice in theory, even though Erryn didn’t desire those types of
scraps either, but she couldn’t even fantasise about fighting onboard
the Kolheim. Things were too sensitive in space. There was too
much equipment. Easily breakable equipment. The internal hull was
strong, but some bullets were stronger. If one was to come to blows
in the halls of these vessels, they could not shoot wildly. Every pull
of the trigger had to be carefully calculated. Every shot had to hit an
assailant. No suppressive fire. No wild firing around corners. No
missing. In the academy, they said this was the reason Trooper
infantry weren’t allowed to guard Armada ships. They shot too
liberally. They damaged the ship. The Kolheim crew knew how to
fight onboard their home, but that didn’t soften their nerves. Rather,
it made their predicament even more stressful.
A small beep signalled the inflow of oxygen from her backup
mask. It had detected that the main life support of the vessel had
been shut off. Classic Pegg tactic.
‘We hold the cockpit, Erryn.’
‘What about the crew?’
‘They know what they have to do. Pegg are ambushers. They
want us to move.’
‘We don’t have enough vokken oxygen to wait them out forever.
They can keep restocking on whatever foul gas they need.’
‘I know. Vushla! I know. But what else we meant to do?’
‘Back to back. Watch all angles as we make our way to the crew
quarters or the engine room.’
‘No, we can’t afford to lose the cockpit. They’ll hijack us and fly
us into their entrapment yard.’
‘Skite! I hate this waiting.’
‘I know, Erryn. I know.’
But they waited. Mostly, there was silence. Sometimes, the sound
of a weapon would ring out. A bang. Sometimes, the zip of an
energy blaster. Shouts could be heard, incomprehensible.
Both Barry and Erryn were sitting, guns levelled at the single
door to the cockpit.
Clank, clank, clank.
Footfalls upon the metal, outside the cockpit door.
‘Let me in! For Terra-sake, let me in.’
Barry darted to the door and opened. A bloodied young man
smiled with relief, and then fell face first, a blade in the back. Barry
fired, from fright more than instinct. The pellets disappeared into
the inky shadows.
‘Back away, Barry,’ Erryn warned, standing with her revolver
levelled at the doorway, holding the railing on her chair to stop
herself from floating away.
Barry didn’t move.
‘You ain’t going like my parents, Barry.’
No reply.
‘For vok-sake, Barry, get back!’
He was pulled into the black.
Erryn almost pulled the trigger, but reason stopped her. But she
did pursue, into that inky black. Blacker than black.
Clank, clank, clank – her metal-clad boots went upon the hard-
metal floor. She clung onto the railings, using all her upper body
strength to keep herself steady. She should have done more anti-
gravity training.
A motion. Too fast for a human. Erryn fired. Too late.
‘Vushla!’
Silence. She came to a crossroads in the ship hallway. In the black
void, her home was foreign to her. The minor illumination from her
wrist-computer was too little.
Tap-tap. She turned and fired. Nothing.
She backed up against a wall, her breathing barely under control.
Still silence. Right, empty. Left, empty. Front, empty…
Her cheek was wet. With her free hand, she wiped it. Sticky,
gooey and moist. She felt bile rising as she turned to her blind spot.
Razor white teeth. A tongue the size of her hand. Lemon yellow
eyes. A very human, yet inhum
an like smile. She screamed and fired.
The Pegg guffawed and danced out of the way. It pirouetted as she
fired again. It did a somersault and landed in front of her. It flicked
its knife across her thigh. A shallow wound. She winced and tried to
club it. Only a slight dodge this time. It pulled at her and threw her
across the hall. She was too shocked to control her flight across the
gravity-less hallway.
She had only swum briefly in her life. She had not enjoyed it.
This was like swimming. She floated, helplessly, down the hall. The
monster tailed her, grimacing with sinister joy.
Then she reclaimed her wits. She grabbed a railing and pulled
herself into a side hallway. Then she kicked off the wall into a side
room. She was stopped by a squish. A dead crewmate. She was glad
she couldn’t tell which through its mask. In its hand was a flashlight.
She grabbed it but didn’t turn it on. She pulled herself to the corner.
As the brief period dragged on within her head, she began to lose it
again. Memories, tastes, smells, from another time came back. Burnt
pork. Burnt flesh. One was actually burnt. A repair blowtorch was
transformed into a weapon. After that, cutting, blood, smirks. Erryn
hated Pegg. This hatred defogged her clouded mind. Her breathing
calmed. Her tense muscles relaxed. She held her weapon and
flashlight aloft.
A squelch. With a burst, Erryn turned on the flashlight. The Pegg
recoiled, his eyes not adjusted to the light. She fired.
Ever shot a pumpkin? A watermelon? Put a .45 calibre into a
watermelon. You’ll know exactly what it’s like to shoot a Pegg then.
A supersonic bang. No flash – railguns didn’t use explosions – just
a sound of the projectile breaking the sound barrier. Then a burst.
The oversized cranium burst like fruit, splattering the room. A bit
of brain hit Erryn in the face. She held down her bile.
Threat averted, she carefully reloaded her revolver. She only
opened her ammo pouch slightly, lest the bullets fly away. But then
the Kolheim lurched. The worst thing happened and the bullets
exited their pouch.
‘Vushla!’ she swore, quietly, trying to grab as many bullets as she
could. Too many were out of reach.
Three shots. She’d have to make them count.
She drifted out of the room, not even attempting to walk now.
She dragged herself along the railing, pistol with flashlight clipped
on shining ahead. Pegg had night-sight, so Erryn didn’t bother