Angelic Weapon Seraphim

Chapter 11 - Out Of The Frying Pan

Isn't this what I wanted? Eve wondered.

Chloe was dead and Eve hadn't been put in the position of being the one to have to kill her. If someone had asked her a day cycle ago to make a list of the 5 things she would most want to happen this outcome would have been high on it. She didn't expect to be happy but maybe at least relieved?

Instead she felt a sickening dread in the pit of her stomache.

The red light began the blink again. She absent-mindedly flipped the channel on.

There was something indistinct ringing in Eve's ears. She couldn't quite place it. It seemed so insignificant beside the weight she was feeling.

The ringing became clearer, it was a voice. Someone was screaming. She caught a mention of what she thought was her name. Someone was yelling at her?

"EVE? WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE! GET BACK TO THE SHIP! CAN YOU HEAR ME? EVE?"

Eve snapped back to reality.

"I'm on my way," she said, and pressed hard on her controls.

Her Seraphim blasted off towards the ship.

* * *

The second she had docked Eve virtually leapt from the cockpit of her Seraphim and ran towards the bridge. The technicians glared at her as she passed. The halls on the way were unsettlingly empty.

The bridge was never exactly roomy to begin with, and now it was standing-room-only as it seemed like half the crew was trying to cram in all at once. Eve immediately detected tension as the first few crew members noticed her arrival.

Did they blame her for Chloe's death? She had made no secret of her enmity for the woman. The feeling in the pit of her stomach returned.

"-and without Chloe we're sitting ducks for the Empire," said a man Eve didn't recognize.

"We would run out of fuel before that happened," said someone she did know: Ophir the helmswoman "Realistically where ever we jump to it needs to be somewhere we can refuel."

"Which means it needs to be friendly," pointed out Ben "That narrows our options considerably."

The Mayor-Captain noticed Eve's arrival, and nodded to her.

"There's Eve," he said "That was our last excuse not to jump immediately. We don't have time to debate this anymore. That Imperial Carrier will never follow us without its Seraphim but we can't predict when another Imperial ship could arrive. We're jumping to Alibi Station. They'll sell us fuel, and now that we have a starmap to the New Earth we might even be able to recruit a Seraphim pilot."

"Well I think you could definitely use another," said Eve "But you've got at least one. I've decided to join you."

Eve didn't get the immediate positive reaction she had expected. The others were very quiet.

"See? The plan's working already," said the Mayor-Captain "Set a course for the Angloumis system."

"Wait," said Ophir "The Imperial Carrier is still out there. Nobody would be able to retrace our jump path once we leave thanks to Calanor's tore up EMS but that Imperial ship probably has probes everywhere and it's going to have the opportunity to scan us as we jump. That might just be enough data to figure out our destination."

"Ophir, not now," said the Mayor-Captain.

"No, I think now is a perfectly appropriate time," said Ophir "Eve, you said you want to join us? Then you should prove your loyalty and destroy that Carrier."