The Star Pirate's Folly

Chapter 40: Star-Crossed

Truly's quintet of Hornet attack ships worked in tandem against dozens of pirate fighter craft, drawing them away from Deep Fog and the hidden gate. The agile Hornets dodged beyond the reach of the pirate fighters, using their close-range lasers to slice apart droves of smart missiles.

"Got most of them tied up, Myra," Truly said, curt and strained. "There's your window, make it count."

Bee asked Myra, "Is this going to hurt?"

"Depends on whether or not everything goes as planned," Myra said. "But the numbers say it shouldn't."

The shuttle stuck close to its twin Hornet escorts as they covered the distance between the retreating Wanderlust and Deep Fog in pursuit. Crouching against the wall and locked in place by the nullsuit's gravity nodes, Bee resigned herself to the AI's calculated optimism. If this was her one shot she'd make the best of it. She had a steel-hearted brute of a solider beside her and a hyper aware artificial intelligence guiding her every movement. Considering her only previous plan had been a lone, undoubtedly suicidal attack, this situation seemed ideal. Better than she ever had reason to hope for.

The minimap on Bee's HUD swarmed with action. Wanderlust continued its retreat, providing supportive fire against the fighters, but the shuttle shot off toward Deep Fog along with the two Hornets. Four fighters remained guarding Starhawk's warship and the shuttle's sudden advance stirred them to action. The fighters streaked off to meet the Hornet escorts.

Still crouched in the back of the shuttle next to Spud, Bee swallowed her fear and reminded herself what was at stake. She'd suffered more than a decade at Starhawk's hands. Her mother died filthy and foul, a rasping vitriolic shell of a person-nothing like the woman from Bee's cherished early memories. Starhawk did that. Starhawk took her mother's life. The old resolve came roaring back.

No more searching. No more uncertainty. Just one final task.

"Ready to pull the plug on their weapons systems. Think I'll get started on that gate now," Myra mused. "I can see a few chinks in the armor already. Might be able to stop them sending more ships."

"Just get me on board."

Deep Fog's four remaining fighters launched a barrage of missiles toward the Hornets and they pulled back, again using their laser beams to split the missiles into harmless scrap or detonate them before they got close enough for real damage. The fighters split into two groups of two, advancing in a pincer attack, and before Bee could blink the Hornets darted together at one of the pairs.

The flurry of visual data on the HUD was impossible to follow, but after the lightning fast encounter the Hornets emerged unscathed. One damaged fighter limped back to Deep Fog, its partner carved to pieces in the attack, as the shuttle pressed on straight toward Deep Fog.

Swift in the void, the Hornets moved to intercept the final two fighters immediately. The shuttle banked toward the protection of the Hornets just as the fighters fired another volley of missiles-this time followed by a scatter-shot cone of projectiles. Myra jerked the shuttle out of harm's way and the blast of destruction passed harmlessly by. The Hornets swooped in to slice apart the incoming volley of self-guided missiles while launching their own back at the pirate fighters.

Deep Fog loomed closer with each moment.

"We in range of their weapons?" Bee asked with a nervous tremor.

Myra sounded distracted. "Not quite. Few more seconds. Gotta cut this close or you won't have time to board. Almost there. Hijacking weapons and power systems-clock's started. They know I'm in. Less than thirty seconds in the clear."

On Bee's HUD Deep Fog unleashed a barrage of missiles at the shuttle. The two escort Hornets spun around and headed right for the incoming attack, the pirate fighters giving chase.