Into the Void

Chapter 12

Six standard gravities worth of pressure plastered the dropship's crew into their seats. The cockpit was filled with an uneasy silence, no one had spoken a word for hours. Nate struggled to reach up and wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead, groaning loudly as the servo in his prosthetic suddenly went slack, leaving the heavy arm to slap him across the face. He sat there, miserable, arm pasted to his face by the thrust gravity until an alarm chirped and the ship fired its forward thrusters, gradually slowing from a 6G burn to a more bearable 2G's.

The ship screamed a crackling wail as a laser carved into its barriers. Nate kicked the thrusters, slowing the ship and pitching the crew forward against their restraints. A volley of rockets slewed through the space ahead of the ship.

"Damn it," shouted Nate. "Where is that coming from?!"

"Sensors up," said Izzy. "Doing a full scan now."

"Weapons hot," shouted Rowan. "You find 'em I'll blast 'em"

Nate jerked the controls wildly sending the ship rolling through an erratic corkscrew pattern.

"Radar contact," said Izzy. "It's a small ship bigger than us smaller than a normal frigate, twelve-thousand kilometers off our left side."

"Can we get ahold of the Dauntless?" asked Nate, wincing as another laser blast carved a slice out of their barrier fields.

"No," said Izzy. "All I'm getting from them is a looping message saying their comm receiver is damaged. We're on our own."

"Great," said Nate. They were outgunned, without backup, had no stealth systems, and had a huge crate stuck to the underside of the hull. "We need to ditch the supplies."

"The crate has a nav beacon. Activating it remotely." said Izzy.

Rowan marked the crate with a yellow square on the main display. "Tracking the beacon," he said. "And disengaging the clamps." The crate tumbled away from the ship, drifting lazily through space.

"Give me all the thrust you can get, Iz." said Nate. He angled straight towards the enemy ship, shoved the throttle forward, and jerked the stick back and forth, slewing wildly through space in a 6G zig zag pattern. Laser fire split the void on either side of the ship, missing the hull by barely a meter.

"Rowan, hold fire until we're close, like really close. We'll need to give this thing hell to bring it down and I don't want to miss."

He rolled the gunship around a swarm of rockets, watching the distance to the ship tick down on the main display. Weaving between laser blasts, he stopped accelerating and re-engaged the reverse thrusters gradually slowing down. The enemy ship vomited another cloud of rockets. Heart racing Nate, wrenched the stick back, angling up and over the cloud. A laser lashed out. He rammed the stick forward, diving below it and rolled hard to the left, dancing away from a second beam, then kicked the ship sideways, narrowly avoiding a third.

"Izzy," he said. "Can the ship computer give me the time between rocket volleys?"

He fired the keel and starboard thrusters, moving the ship up diagonally, and pulling it into a barrel roll, dodging another stream of rockets. Clenching the controls in a white knuckled death grip, he waited for the next round of lasers. Nothing happened for a long tense moment. The dropship hurtled towards the frigate unchallenged. He smiled and let out a sharp bark of rueful laughter. "They've overheated," he said gleefully, lining up the dropship's weapons, and slowing for the perfect shot. "Laser only Rowan, give 'em hell."

The laser fired three bursts or six beam pulses, filling the cockpit with a low muted hum as it bit into the enemy's hull. Nate watched the ship on the thermal display, its hull glowing with the heat from the laser strikes. He was surprised to see the lasers hit the hull instead of a barrier field, the enemy ship was unshielded.