The Great Galactic Score!

39

39

She felt grateful that Zapasnoy's air conditioning worked as she ran on to the somewhat smaller, more technological bridge. All the wires and circuit boards had become returned to their proper places within the consoles, the ship performing repairs from the last time Friss had ripped everything out. Again. Demi paused as a small repair drone wheeled out before her, squeaked and trundled away.

"Zapasnoy. Status of ship's systems." Demi watched as Briyun skipped to the side to avoid the repair drone. On the way, she had managed to, at least, wear her beach shorts.

"All systems operating within nominal parameters." The faintly sexy, for some reason breathy, female voice came from the ship's hidden speakers. "Except the medical bay. Examination bed one is still somewhat flat."

"It was like that when I found it?" Briyun dropped into the captain's chair and spun it around and around. "I swear?"

Demi didn't bother answering, or accusing, Briyun. She knew Bognrd's sheer size had buckled that examination bed. What she needed now was the ship's navigation systems to work. A quick download from Gal-Net, working perfectly now, and she soon had a good idea how to work the ship. Technically. She knew where all the buttons and switches and dials were, and what they were for, but that was no replacement for experience.

Her hands moved as though someone else controlled them, following the instruction video she had found on some obscure Gal-Net location, and she prepared for departure from Lodka. She felt a twinge of remorse that she was leaving Friss, Lap and Bognrd to the ravages of the combined fleets surrounding Lodka, but she pushed that aside. They had made their decisions and Demi still felt she had a lot to live for. Well, perhaps not a lot, but some. A few things to live for. Staying alive, for one.

"Zapasnoy. Clear all moorings. Prepare for departure." Demi considered using her implant to run the systems, but, sometimes, the hands moved faster and more intuitively. A mind tended to wander in tense situations. "All engines to maximum. Set course for ..."

She paused. She had literally no idea where she could run to. Her eyes fell upon the safe deposit box that she had placed on top of the console. Perhaps, one day, after she had cleared her name, she could return home. To her brother and sister, if not as a sibling they would remember, then perhaps as a friend. A friend who cared deeply for them. She shook her head. That was why she didn't use her implant. Too many distractions.

Zapasnoy shuddered as the docking clamps retracted and Lodka's manipulator arms attached, carrying the smaller corvette to the hangar bay doors. The shuddering wasn't only due to that, though. With a flick of her implant, she connected to Lodka's external cameras and saw a blazing battle occurring outside. Every ship appeared to be firing at every other ship. If nothing else, the white hot projectiles, plasma cannon fire and missiles certainly looked pretty. Pity about the inevitable loss of life.

"You know, I've led an exciting life? Hunting rodents? Going places? Sewers?" Briyun still spun the captain's chair around and around. She looked a little dizzy, but at least she had added the beach shirt to the clothing she now wore. "But I've never been shot at after stealing something from a bank in a black hole? You guys? You make this fun?"

There was no possible answer to that. Demi couldn't possibly call any of it 'fun'. Well, not all of it. Some things, she supposed, could be classed as 'fun'. If she squinted and tilted her head to look at it all from an odd angle. It certainly hadn't been boring. Again, her mind had wandered and she brought herself back to the situation at hand. Escaping the brutal battle.

She switched on Zapasnoy's view screen, watching as Lodka extended her manipulator arms outside of her hull, and then Zapasnoy became released. Lodka wasn't looking very well at all. The skin of the organic ship looked flushed and sickly, parts of her hull had fresh pockmarks from the strikes of missiles and projectiles. She listed to the side, as though the pair of legs and perfectly shaped derriere were reclining on a sofa. Meanwhile, the battle around her continued.