New Elysium: Breakout

Captain*

"It's been seven more years that have passed since we've been gone, new frontier with no fear, we remember who we are. And we eye new skies with distant suns, wait for New Elysium" "Breakout" - Celldweller

"What have we got?" Red shouted into the console in front of him. He was unnerved by the sudden appearance of orbiting spacecraft. Surely not for the 5 of them? 

No, just one of them, he remembered. Just her...

Ember's voice poured out from the wall next to him. "Oh, there are a hundred or so..." Her voice drifted off.

"Shit." Red's fingers ran over the console in front of him trying to get a sense of their route being blocked. "This doesn't make sense," he hesitated, they had come so far and he wasn't ready to cut short his trip yet. 

Ember suddenly banked right, the ship following her movements. "Easy!" Red yelled as he swung to the side.

"They're not exactly going to go easy on us," She retorted.

Red understood what she was doing partly because he felt that way himself. There was no going back for any of them and they would die first. 

"Ok, um, we have shields?" Red felt himself blurt out. He shook his head. He was so rustyAny vessel should have had them, even a commercial one, but at some point he felt the insanity of what they were doing. No weapons and just a handful of people against a small fleet. 

"Yes." Her voice was strained, tight and he couldn't blame her. 

Red nodded, forgetting for a moment that he'd been a brilliant tactician once. Seven years later, it was slowly coming back. He stared helplessly at the barricade in front of them. There had to be a way through. 

The ship banked and rolled and he realized she was heading right towards the largest vessel. A dreadnaught class Leviathan. His eyes narrowed as he realized it was the sister ship to the one he used to Captain. "That is the Perihelion," he whispered out loud as he took in the length, and while facing it from the front he couldn't see the long tentacle-like protrusions that he knew stuck out from the back. It probably held at least 500 crewmembers plus others. It was meant to be a city in space capable of surviving on its own. Also capable of raining hell down on any world that dared disobey the status quo. 

Nostalgia tugged at him as he observed the larger ship from his viewport. He knew all the stats on it. His had been called the Aphelion, and they were never in port together, always apart, in a moving circle. One came in for a refresh, the other left on a mission. A lump rose in his throat and he felt anger rise up behind it.

"Ember head straight for the nose of the Leviathan."

"What? Why?" She shifted right and the ship rolled with.

"Just do it!" He felt the shift as she followed his direction.

Red switched between looking out the window and console in front of him. Ember's vitals showed up on the right. The ship's information showed up on the left.

"Go under the belly at the last second." He instructed. "No gats there." Gats, the small guns mounted to the exterior of leviathan class ships were conspicuously absent from the underside. It was a weakness he would have fixed on his own if he hadn't been... decommissioned. 

It would buy them precious seconds. 

The ship jolted suddenly. They'd taken a hit to the back...

"Dammit!" Ember swore.

"Damage?" Red hated being a spectator, but this was her moment, not his. Before he would have stood on the deck of the Aphelion with every vessel spread out in front of him like a 3D virtual chess calling the shots, moving the ships where he wanted them to go. But now he had to rely on Ember to simply follow his instructions, something he wasn't sure she would even do.