HAWK

CHAPTER NINE: WORM (5/5)

Once the Calista was airborne, Kas pulled the ship around and aimed it at the cruiser.

'Ready, Hik?' she asked.

The X1 was standing just behind her. 'I am ready, Ms Balera.'

'Then she's all yours.'

Kas only had to watch as the cruiser suddenly lifted out of the water and rose up level with the Calista, bringing them nose-to-nose. Kas could see Ryers sitting in the cockpit, trying desperately to take back control of her ship but having no luck. She became aware of the Calista right in front of her and locked eyes with Kas. If looks could kill, the Calista would have exploded.

Kas's hand hovered over the comms-relay. She felt sorry for Ryers and would've apologised if she thought the cap would have accepted it. But Kas knew there was nothing she could say that would make Ryers feel any better. She'd been locked away in the middle of the sea with nothing but her own anger and embarrassment for company. Anything Kas said now would only make things worse, so instead, she curled her fingers around the control column and turned the Calista away from the cruiser.

'Do it, Hik.'

'Deploying now,' he replied. The Calista jerked suddenly as if receiving a soft jab, and the cruiser sailed past the viewport, the familiar long and slender harpoon cable once again linking them together. Ryers cruiser lifted its nose towards the heavens and the harpoon cable pulled taut, though thanks to the elasticated suspension, the Calista was spared any sudden yanking and was instead drawn gently towards the sky.

Without the assistance of gravity, it took considerably longer for the two ships to make it back to orbit than it had when they had landed. In fact, as the minutes passed slowly, Kas grew more and more paranoid in her belief that something would go wrong. The journey only lasted twelve minutes, but it felt closer to twelve hours.

She needn't have worried, however. Hik piloted the cruiser effortlessly, easing both ships through the atmosphere unchallenged and unobserved. He'd somehow found a small gap in the network of waiting ships, and unless one of them had been watching the atmosphere with high-range goggles, nobody would have even seen them. And if they had, they would have simply seen a cap ship escorting a vessel out of the atmosphere - nothing too peculiar. Still, Kas was only too relieved when the Calista's gravity-compensator finally reached one-hundred percent and confirmed their arrival in space.

Home sweet home...

Kas heard a metallic slink and knew the cruiser's harpoon was withdrawing, and that the Calista was finally free. She didn't need to turn around to know Ryers was watching her from her disabled cruiser.

'What's the maximum time you can give us, Hik?'

'The longest I can safely disable her ship for is two days,' he replied. 'Any more than that, and it would risk possible equipment failure.'

'Two days is fine.'

'I also cannot guarantee she won't find a way to summon help.'

'Yeah, I know. We'll just have to make sure we're far away by the time she does.'

Kas pressed forwards on the throttle, and the Calista's engine purred a pure, sweet growl.

Soon, the planet Lysan was nothing but a fast shrinking dot in the ship's radar, and Kas's mind was fixed on the distant coarse territory that was the asteroid belt.