From Ashes and Dust (Book One)

Chapter 2.2

The thudding of Spyro's magnetic boots followed Vatra all the way to the cockpit. She slid into her seat and spun out of the way just as he sat down next to her.

"Any song you want to listen to first?" Spyro questioned. He had a gloved finger hovering above an array of buttons on the far right of the control board.

Staring out at the black vastness of space in front of her, Vatra gave a casual shrug of her shoulders. "Shuffle it." She took a pause to tie her thick, brunette tresses up into a bun before gripping tightly onto the controls. Her gloved hands felt at home.

The music started off quickly, blasting music from an oldies mix Vatra had put together.

""No Sleep Till Brooklyn"? I do love those Beastie Boys." Vatra grinned and pushed a small button on top of the controls.

The Agkistrodon sputtered for a moment, like catching on a rubber band wrapping around its nose, before being shot off into a gambol.

The space around them, littered with stars and planets, stretched and creased into a smudge of colors. They surged forward at a speed that made Vatra's stomach flip over itself. Much like when she dropped the vessel over the wave on Doatis. Only a thousand times worse. It was a feeling she'd never been able to shake.

Vatra smiled as she guided the Agkistrodon easily through the gambol stream. The form of travel allowed galaxies to be crossed much faster, similar to a roadtrip across countries on Earth. Except the views weren't as pretty.

The trip to Pocarro was especially short from the starting point Spyro had gambolled them to. Within a few songs of her playlist, Vatra hit the point that made the gambol to Pocarro so deadly. She and Spyro had prepared themselves by securing themselves into their seats well before they'd reached the spot.

Restraints tightened across Vatra's chest and shoulders as the Agkistrodon dropped out of the gambol stream suddenly. It was like something had grabbed the ship and brought it to a near complete halt.

"Ah, shit, I don't remember the Dead Zone being so harsh," Vatra grumbled as she flipped off the gamboller and returned to the normal burn of the ship. Slowly, they moved before reaching a decent speed.

Spyro had his eyes focused completely on a screen flickering over the glass in front of him. "The pull did feel stronger this time," he agreed. "I do not see anyone around us."

"That's how they like it," Vatra said. "Stealthy bastards."

The Agkistrodon hummed through the Dead Zone. Vatra steered a direct path to the end of the zone, which scrambled everything but manual burners. A dying world sat between them and the way out. Pieces of the planet rotated slowly around its gravitational pull, barely held together by whatever core it was made of. A pale moon sat far off to the right, like a mournful reminder of what mighty world might have existed.

Vatra watched the debris carefully, knowing all too well what kind of vessels were hiding.

"I wonder if that is what our Earth looks like now," Spyro said, momentarily shifting his eyes from the screen. "I believe I heard an asteroid hit Earth recently."

A scoff rumbled out of Vatra's chest. "First the nuclear fallout, then an asteroid? Whatever higher power exists out here really must have thought Earth deserved it."

"What higher power do you think that is?" Spyro flickered his gaze from the screen to Vatra's face.

"I don't know, but I hope we never have a run in with them. If it really was anything but dumb luck. The higher powers on Earth certainly never had the strength to do something so..."

"Cataclysmic?" he offered.

"Yeah," Vatra said with a sigh. "And they couldn't stop it, either. Remember, we were the smart ones to run while we could. The gods of Earth perished with their followers."

Vatra leaned forward against the restraints when the flash of metal caught her vision. "And look at all this fun we get to have." A grin beamed on her face as she turned a hard left and pushed the controls forward.

"I often wonder if it was really smart of us to leave those that followed us," Spyro said. He looked thoughtfully out of the window, drawing Vatra's own attention to a yellow beam of light that bounced off the already low shields.

"I forgot we were so low on shields." Vatra mentally kicked herself and aimed for the debris field. "Also, no one followed us. We didn't leave anyone behind."

"Did we not?"

"I don't know why we're having this conversation," Vatra growled. She tapped her hand to the controls in front of Spyro. "Listen to some sweet Ram Jam and fire on those ships. We can come back to this... whatever it is later."

A pair of raiders dropped out from their hiding spots. They were Dead Zone vultures that preyed off those unfortunate enough to use the shortcut as a last resort.

Or, those who wished to take a gamble. Vatra chuckled to herself as she kept the joke within her own mind. The irony of it would go over Spyro's head, anyway.

The Agkistrodon turned from a fleeing vessel to an offensive opponent. Spyro initiated the railguns on either side of the ship to lock-on to their attackers. The high-powered weapons hummed to life, vibrating the metal beneath their very feet before firing off two, powerful blasts that would scare off most anyone.

One of the incoming ships, a small, triangle shaped vessel that darted between the pieces of decaying planet more like a racing vehicle, took the first blast straight on. It barely even made an attempt to dodge the attack. The pilot was probably too focused on the Agkistrodon itself, and not what was speeding at them in a streak of white light.

The second ship, more bulky and built like a transport vehicle, turned and glanced off the other blast.

"I think they got the message," Vatra said. She watched as the vessel burned and spun around a piece of the asteroid-like debris expanding across the space in front of them.

"I agree." Spyro nodded. "The railgun tends to do that to people, I have noticed," he added.

Vatra chuckled and guided the Agkistrodon along a similar path the fleeing vessel had taken. Pieces of the planet bounced off the ship with faint taps over the exterior. They passed through the wreckage of the destroyed vessel with little care to avoid it, and Vatra couldn't deny she purposefully aimed at the remnants if only to get a closer look.

"Hmm, it doesn't look like that ship was big enough to carry anything. He must have been the Chaser," Vatra observed.

"Chaser?" Spyro inquired.

Momentarily taking her hands from the controls, Vatra held her thumbs and forefingers together in the shape of a triangle. "The vessel was maneuvering through the debris easily, quickly. It was fast, even with manual burn speed. Think of back on Earth. Their ship was a Lamborghini and we were a... Ford Pinto. They were going to catch up to us, disarm our vessel, and the second one was built to haul whatever supplies we had."

"They were a cargo van," Spyro said with a firm nod of his head.

"Exactly." Vatra pulled the Agkistrodon along closer to the end of the Dead Zone. "They're getting smarter about their methods of attack. That's new."

Spyro watched through the window thoughtfully for a moment before turning to Vatra. "How do you know this? We have not encountered these bandits before, so I do not know how you are aware of their tactics."

She shrugged her shoulders. "It's what I would do."

He forgets sometimes what lifetimes I have lived, and what armies I have led. It's no different out here than it was hundreds of years ago.

"Here we go, the end of the Dead Zone. Not too many bandits wanted to play this time around, huh?" Vatra toyed.

She prepared the Agkistrodon for its final gambol to Pocarro. Part of her hoped the pirates had made it. Things might actually get interesting again.