Kwaide (The Ammonite Galaxy Series, Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter 26

DIVA AND GRACE held their pods steady in low orbit around Kwaide. The projectiles would be coming in at any moment. They had seen that only five of the ships were on course for Kwaide itself. That meant one ship per pod. Each of them would be trying to explode two missiles before they could fall on New Kwaide.

Diva passed on instructions to the other pilots of the little flotilla. Each needed to know which ship they were to shadow. Grace gave a little wave to Diva as she broke formation, peeling off to situate her shuttle pod as close as possible to her target ship. 

There was only a short wait until the console told her that the missiles had been launched from the Sellite ship above her. She threw her fingers into a dance on the console, trying to lock on to one of the very fast moving targets. It was almost impossible. Grace tried to move her pod closer, and cursed to herself at the slow progress. It was like asking a sound wave to catch up with a light beam. 

Grace bit her lip. If she had been nearer she could have tried to put the pod between the ship and its target, but at the moment she was too far off course to do that. And as she was piloting something with the speed of manoeuvrability of a rexelene platform, it didn’t look as though she was going to make it. 

Suddenly a buzzer sounded. She was close to a lock on! Her fingers raced to confirm the lock before the target was lost again. There! She fired one of her two meager projectiles, and began to reprogram the on-board computer to find the other incoming missile. There was no time to see how well she had done – there was another of the things to be found. She would put herself between it and the target if necessary.

But it was no good. That few seconds’ difference had allowed the second missile to get away. It was already almost upon its target, and there was no time to put her ship in its path. There was nothing she could do to save the people below her on the planet. Her heart sank. Refugees were going to die. She closed her eyes. 

She couldn’t hear the sound of impact, but she did see the cloud of debris billowing up from the crater. It was certainly very near the base camp, if not full on it, but she was too high up to distinguish exactly where it had fallen. 

She dragged her attention back to the console, to see the result of her projectile, and punched the air as an explosion about two hundred metres above the ground showed clearly on the console. Yes! She hoped that the two hundred metres of air would protect those on the ground from at least that explosion.

Everything was too confused now on the console for her to be able to judge what had happened to the others, so she faced her pod upwards, towards the space station. If there was anybody left up there they would need a pod to evacuate.

DIVA WAS IN exactly the right position when her target spaceship released its missiles. She saw from the console that they were arrowing in on her position and a glittering smile lit up her eyes. This then, was what it had all been leading to. This was to be the end of her existence, the moment when her life would finish. She felt adrenaline pump through her veins and lifted her head, almost eager to face the challenge.

She made her fingers work quickly on the console. She had to blow one of the things up first, and then the other could be left to destroy itself on the pod. Come on, Diva! You have to get rid of one of these things first!

It was a nightmare to get a lock on the target. It seemed to her that so many seconds passed that she would have been evaporated long before the projectile could be launched. She felt light-headed, free. A picture of Six passed through her mind, and she laughed with exhilaration. Beat this one, Kwaidian! 

The buzzer was screaming out that she could lock on. She was delighted to see that her brain was still working, because of their own accord her fingers instantly locked on to the target, and fired.