The Dead Fleet (Juggernaut #3)

Sixty One

Ellie steadied her wobbling Valkyrie and swooped underneath another shattered hull. Craters dotted the skin of the dead ship where limpet mines had attached and then detonated. The chaotic battlespace of explosions, collisions and weapons blasts was destroying any semblance of coherence the fleet had left. Large parts of the fleet were now in motion, slowly freewheeling in a hundred random directions.

Her sensor sphere flashed warnings in all directions as any functioning ship not broadcasting a known IFF was automatically tagged as a threat.

Like Malachi's her sphere had zoomed in to provide a greater level of detail for the immediate threats, and there were many.

Three Cabal ships had followed her into the fleet, and were holding tight to her course. When opportunity presented itself they fired, but Ellie was determined to deny them more than necessary. She twisted, spun, banked, rolled and roared from obstacle to obstacle, delivering a masterclass in precision flying.

Cabal ships took advantage of their numbers to corral her where they possibly could. One was always on her tail, following her line more closely than any race opponent had ever done. The other two acted as outriders, moving wide around obstacles to limit her options, or firing into empty space to shut down avenues of escape.

Ellie saw a path open on her right and turned toward it. Blaster fire from an outrider tore into the space, forcing her away to find another exit. Her tail joined in, just missing Ellie's ship as she turned back. The missed shots ripped through the corroded armour of an old frigate, imparting the scuttled ship with enough energy to add a slow spin to its roll upward.

Ellie flexed aching fingers and was glad of the gloves which absorbed the sweat from her palms. She could feel another drop trickling down the back of her neck. She was glad of the tightness of the suit as she took faster, harder turns than she had ever done before, and she was glad the Valkyrie was fast.

She was glad of all these things. She needed them. This was starting to get dangerous.

Ellie glanced at the scanner. She was still not quite able to work it out. She had always flown by eye, not by instrument, and she had never needed a sensor suite to know who the other racers were. The cluster of dots and lines spinning around her in the opposite direction to her turns meant very little. She knew Malachi was excited about them, but the scanner didn't look like advanced equipment to her. She saw three dots converge on the central mark, their vertical lines shrinking quickly.

She slammed the stick hard to the left as a burst of laser fire tore past her. She pushed down, shortening the ninety-degree dive as much as she could. Her stomach leapt and she felt deep down in her belly the familiar weird sensation of gravity shifting in unnatural ways. The flight suit absorbed the effect of the G-forces but it could only do so much. More than this and she would be in danger of blacking out, she realised.

Behind her the cabal ships also dived down, following her deeper into the fleet.

Ellie dodged around a twisted metal skeleton of something she didn't recognise and saw the space ahead of her was suddenly clear. Like the Solar Forge, a huge wrecked battleship floated alone in a large void in the fleet. The nearest thing she had to open space.

Without hesitation Ellie turned toward the battleship and accelerated hard.

It was the sensible thing to do, surely? She had a fast ship, why not make use of it's speed over a straight line. Then she could use that distance to think about what to do next.

The Cabal ships entered the void and opened fire. Three controlled bursts of laser fire tore through the sky around her. There was no cover to hide behind. She was out in the open with nowhere to hide.