Vladimir was leaning against, drawing a Russian curse as he leaned forward abruptly to avoid serious burns to his back. Luckily, the cold of space quickly cooled the exterior, and within seconds the bulkhead was only warm to the touch.
“Bozhe Moi,” he exclaimed. “The hull must not be very thick.” His eyes were wide with the realization of how little material was between them and the weapons that were being repeatedly fired at them.
“There she is!” Loki announced, pointing to the right.
“She’s taking fire!” Josh added.
Despite the shaking and the sparks showering down from an overhead circuit panel, Nathan somehow managed to get to his knees and crawl forward enough to peer out the forward windshield of the harvester. A few hundred kilometers in front of them was the Aurora-his ship-and it was taking fire as it waited for them to reach the relative safety of her hangar bay. It was nothing more than a speck. If it hadn’t been for the explosions of energy weapons against her hull, he might not have been able to pick it out against the stars.
“Two minutes!” Mendez called over the noise of battle. He watched his tactical display as the harvester darted about, jerking to and fro as he tried to shake the fighters on his tail. “He can’t evade them forever! Nobody’s that lucky!”
Explosions otherwise silent in the dead of space, reverberated through the ship. Alarms warning of stressed systems played from nearly every console on the bridge. The constant din of the bridge staff as they communicated with the rest of the crew throughout the ship during battle was almost overwhelming.
“How’s it look, Abby?” Cameron asked from the helm.
“I think it’ll work,”
“You think?”
“It will work,” she insisted. “How far do you want to jump?”
“How long does it take to calculate a normal jump, say something at least a few light years?”
“Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes?”
“How long will it take you to calculate a jump thirty light minutes away from here?”
“A few minutes at the most,” Abby said.
“So quick?”
“The shorter the jump, the easier it is to calculate.”
“Do it,” Cameron ordered.
The ship rocked as another missile got through their weakened point-defense field.
“Damn it! I wish I could take evasive maneuvers!” But she knew she had to hold a steady course until the harvester made it safely to their flight deck.
“We just lost another turret!” Mendez reported. “We’re down to eight!”
Cameron knew that there was no way they could maintain an effective point defense field with only eight functioning rail gun turrets.
“Shit! There’s a third one!” Loki announced. “Four o’clock, farther back!”
“Son-of-bitch!” Josh declared. “Who are you people?” Josh shouted over his shoulder. He was beginning to wonder who it was he and Loki had gotten mixed up with, and why the Ta’Akar wanted them so badly.
It was the first time since they had been rescued that Nathan heard any desperation in the crazy pilot’s voice. Nathan looked at Vladimir, whose own expression was as serious as he had ever seen.
“Na…an…you…py?” The voice over his comm-set was broken and barely understandable. But it was familiar. He instinctively cupped his hands over his ears, trying to isolate the voice from all the noise in the bouncing ship.
“…than, this is…ssica! D…copy?”
“Oh my God!” Nathan mumbled. “Jess! Is that you?” he called back over the comm-set. “Where are you?”
“In…ighter…hind you!”
“It’s Jessica!” Nathan hollered.
“What?” Vladimir couldn’t believe it.
“Chan…ourse! Hard… ight!”
“What? You’re breaking up? Can you repeat?”
“Change…rse! Co…ard…right! Do…t…now!”
Nathan suddenly realized what was happening. “Change course! Come hard to starboard now!”
“What?” Josh asked, wondering if Nathan had lost his mind.
“DO IT!”
Josh got the message, and immediately put the little ship into a tight right turn. “How long do you want me to hold this turn?”
“The third fighter is firing on the first one!” Mendez reported, a bit confused by what he was witnessing.
“What?” Cameron was also shocked.
“Holy shit! He’s gone! The first fighter is gone! The second one is breaking off their pursuit! He’s trying to evade the third one!”
“What the hell?” Cameron mumbled.
“Oh yeah!” Jessica cheered from the back seat of the old fighter.
Tug yanked the stick back to the left and added power to his engines. “The other one’s breaking off. I’m going after him.”
“What the hell for?” Jessica argued. “Let’s just get the hell outta here, shall we?”
“He’s faking retreat,” Tug insisted. “He’ll try to come around and get behind us.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s what I would do,” Tug answered calmly.
“Okay.”
“Jess! Where did you come from?” Nathan asked over the comm-set “Is Tug with you?”
“Who do you think is flying this thing?” she laughed.
“Commander! The third fighter is a friendly!” the communications officer reported.
“How do you know?” Cameron challenged.
“I’m picking up traffic between it and the harvester,” he told her as he transferred the signal to the loudspeakers.
“Long story, skipper,” Jessica’s voice said over the comms. “I’ll fill you in later. Now head for the ship while we take out the other punk. And tell Cam not to leave without us!”
“What the hell happened down there?” Cameron wondered aloud.
“They’re flying into the warship’s firing solution,” Mendez warned. “They won’t survive a hit from their big guns.”
“Then let’s give them some cover,” Cameron said, as she cut the main engines and pulled back on the controls.
The Aurora’s nose pitched up, stopping at a ninety-degree angle to her flight path. Unable to maintain a firing solution for a point-defense field, the rail guns automatically stopped firing. The enemy warship, however, did not, and continued its relentless barrage.
“What the hell is she doing?” Loki asked as they watched the Aurora pitch up.
“That lady’s as crazy as I am,” Josh laughed.
Nathan also laughed. “She’s showing them her belly,” he explained. “It’s the toughest part of the ship.”
With no point-defense field to at least partially protect them, the Aurora was taking every shot at full force into her undersides, but it had been designed to be used for emergency aero-braking and atmospheric entry in the event of a crash landing. With three times as many layers as the rest of the ship, and much heavier structural support, Cameron hoped that the Aurora’s bottom side would protect them all long enough to recover the two smaller ships and jump away. It wasn’t exactly a textbook maneuver, but it was working.
The second fighter was now only fifty meters in front of them, as they chased him through a tight turn to port. The enemy pilot kept varying his turn rate in a desperate effort to trick Tug into losing his target lock. However, it was to no avail, as this wasn’t Tug’s first dog-fight.
A small puff of maneuvering thrust squirted out of the nose of the second fighter, just as it had numerous times over the last few seconds during the turn. This time… it was a bit more thrust than usual.
