Spaced Out

What Percentage Of A Plan Do You Have?

Up.

The thought-sent command smushed Lily into the navigator's seat. Pressure crushed her as Me rocketed them up and up and out of the scrapers' blast range. Piloting via the neural link wouldn't be an option much longer. The intensity of the bond drained her. Me's pain drained her. She couldn't think as fast, couldn't guide them as fast. Sooner or later they'd take another hit and that would be the end.

Lily encouraged Me into continuous roller coaster maneuvers. Sudden drops, loops, and straight aways. Haphazard evasives kept the scrapers at bay. She panted. They banked in the parentship's direction and the pair of Utori vessels came into view. The time limit Relmin set had to be close to expired. If the manta punched into zospace maybe Me could jump in with it.

That was the plan. A few more evasives to lose the scrapers and they'd let the manta take over. They wove—

Blam!

Something rammed the edge of their sprint end. The collision catapulted them off-vector. Me flip-flopped and spun away from the manta. Lily clung to the navigator's seat and heaved, but held back the puke.

Exporate! She thought-sent.

Abrupt bursts of MSac fluid from their nose and sprint end stabilized them. Continuous jets from both ends held them in place. Three Utori ships surrounded them. The third, the one that rammed them, was the first ship they'd charged. Scorch marks marred its nose and the curves of its wings. Fade cannons primed. Two other scrapers followed suit. There was no evasive move that brought them out of all the ships' blast ranges. Hands slapped over Lily's face shield. This might be the end but she didn't have to watch.

Shafts of light leaked through Lily's interlaced fingers. She dropped her hands. A phozone burst blasted the third scraper away from them. She glanced up through Me's extended senses. Two fledglings had dropped out of zospace. They careened towards the cluster of ships, firing as they went. Sparkling trails of particulate chaos traced their initial path then dissipated.

Scrapers surrounding Lily and Me scattered into evasive and offensive action. A path to the manta cleared. They coasted for it. Flagettes lashed through space and lassoed them, reeling them into m-layer where they were maneuvered to the docking claustra's central port fissure then spat into the claustra itself.

Me fully exporated the navigation cabin. Lily comforted the ship as best she could, promising Reesa would treat its injuries soon. Flagettes retracted from Lily's barriersuit. Lurching from the navigator's seat, she caught herself on the control dash when her legs gave out.

While she righted and wandered to the rear of the cabin, the entry hatch above pried open. She shielded her eyes from the intense light pouring into the shadowed cabin. A silhouetted form loomed over the breached hatch. A hand shot down and grabbed Lily by the back of her barriersuit and pulled her from the ship's bowels. The suit's collar bit into her neck. She coughed out choking noises as the captain spun her around and dropped her onto a solid swatch of the fledgling's crown. Kicking the hatch closed, he bent over and barked in her face.