Far Horizon (Juggernaut #4)

Forty Three

Ellie was barely on Aurora's position when she rushed past her at full burn. Ellie wheeled around in pursuit. Ahead she saw two glints of light separate. The scanner told her the same story. Aiden and Brin were splitting up and preparing to come at Aurora from both sides.

Ellie had no warm feelings left for either of the Tam sisters, but neither did she want to lose a competition. Aurora's indifference to her made planning an attack or a defence impossible, and with their battlefield terrain nothing but open space in all directions, there wasn't much to work with.

"Aurora, listen to me. We need a plan."

"Stay out of my way, Eleanor. If you need something to do give them another ship to worry about."

"I'm not your decoy."

"You're not my wing mate."

"Ugh, stop being so difficult!"

"Me?!"

Any further words were cut off. Aiden had Aurora in his sights and was closing in. She twisted and pulled hard, shaking him clear, and preventing a clear targeting tone from sounding.

Brin curved around Archers's stationary ship and went for Aurora too. She lined up a shot, then her own alarms sounded. She was being targeted.

"Surprise!" said Ellie, as she popped up behind him. Brin cut right to escape the lock. Ellie turned to follow but found herself face to face with Aurora. Ellie rolled left to avoid her team mate. Aurora rolled right, which, because their positions were reversed, meant they were still heading for a collision.

"What are you doing!" Aurora shrieked over the comms. "Get out of my way."

"I didn't know it was you. You're not telling me anything. We need to work together."

"Check your scanner, that's everything you need to know."

Aurora rolled back to her left and flashed past Ellie's ship in a blur. Ellie righted herself and scanned the stars for targets. She saw nothing so dropped her eyes to the scanner. It was an old style, two-dimensional scanner with numbers and marks to indicate range and vector. She had become so used to the Valkyries spherical scanner she was still struggling to adjust to this. It seemed so primitive in comparison.

But there were two marks coming in behind her, both tagged as enemies. Aurora was somewhere high above, doing her own thing.

A rapid steady beeping sounded in Ellie's cabin. The sound of a ship locking on. She killed forward thrust and turned hard, slowing hard. The beeping stopped. Aiden's ship flew right by her. Ellie pulled out of the turn and opened the throttle and spiralled in behind him, still keeping one eye on the scanner. Her weapon tone sounded regular beeps, she was acquiring a lock. A progress bar moved across her HUD. Aiden tried to evade but Ellie held on, keeping his ship in the centre of her targeting reticule.

Another tone sounded, now Brin had a lock on Ellie. This, she was expecting. Ellie ignored Aiden, letting him escape and held her position, slowing enough that Brin would probably not notice in the excitement of imminent victory. At two and a half seconds, Ellie slowed hard and pulled up sharply. Once she was clear of Brin's line of fire she flipped into a loop, turned her ship around, pointing it down so the nose, and weapons, of her Starling now tracked ahead of Brin's vector. Brin, still searching the night sky Ellie, didn't notice that he had moved into her line of fire.

In Ellie's cockpit the tone sounded. She knew that Brin would be hearing a tone as well.

At one second, Brin, as Ellie hoped, didn't pull left or right. Instead he dived, naturally moving in the opposite direction to Ellie, and giving Ellie more time and space to keep her lock.