The Dead Fleet (Juggernaut #3)

Fifty

Ellie and Malachi swept through the fleet. The laser blasts from the pirates had stuttered and died. They were still behind them somewhere but even the Valkyrie's advanced scanners couldn't pick up their ships among all this wreckage.

'I thought you knew the way out,' Ellie said accusingly.

'I did! Once they started shooting the junk it moved and I lost it. The Valkyrie doesn't know where we are now.'

'What if we find something familiar?'

'Maybe. You see anything?'

Ellie looked around. What was familiar about this? Every shattered warship, every twisted battered frame looked the same as the next. Between the bigger capital ships floated the ruins of smaller warcraft, and between them were pieces of ruins she couldn't even recognise. Obstacles moved past them in parallax in every direction.

'Not really. Do you?'

'Those pirates on our left look familiar.'

Ellie looked down. Red blips popped up on the display which automatically zoomed out to accommodate the new threat. Blue wireframes of the fleet drifted around her scanner as the ship continued to map and log everything around them.

'Then let's go right!'

She smoothly moved the flight stick to the right and pressed one of the pedals. The ship responded instantly, directing thrust, turning the nose and leaping forward. Malachi followed in her wake, thirty five meters below her.

The pirates swarmed forward. Four ships opened fire. Stray shots hit random debris, vaporising some, shattering others. Laser blasts zipped through the space between and around the Valkyries as they threaded their way through the graveyard.

'Yes!' exclaimed Malachi suddenly.

'Why are you happy?' shouted Ellie as she evaded more incoming fire.

'My nav just found the way out. It must have recognised something.'

'So let's go!'

The pirates had the advantage of weapons and numbers, but their Valkyries had the advantage of speed, and Ellie and Malachi pulled away and headed deeper into the fleet.