Fenli was knocked back by a swinging pincer. He fell limp across the gap before the sliding door. Miko grimaced. Without Fenli’s support, his chances at survival were nil. He pulled the unconscious man back as he repelled the last of the pincers but a locust half-way through the sliding doors was caught sideways. The sliding glass cut the creature in two leaving its twitching carcass draining noxious fluids.
Miko crouched and caught his breath. He breathed deeply of the rich cabin air. He listened to the thunk of locusts slamming against the impenetrable glass, their lungs slowly burning in the gathering vacuum. Their chitters of fury echoed tinnily through the glass.
He took up the pipe and advanced toward the cockpit where several paces away, the outcast wrestled with the pilot. The rebel locust broke free from the pilot’s grip and let pincers tap over the command keys and pads.
The ship’s engines flared to life and a dull roar shook the hull. The angry pilot surged forward, pincers snapping, tearing at the outcast. It ripped the outcast off the stool and caught the rebel’s tapping pincer.
The outcast gave a wild, painful shriek. The ship careened wildly down the middle of the depot, smashing into cargo containers, crates and tanks, mowing down locusts left and right. Fleeing Jakru, not quick enough to get out of the way, found themselves crushed under the ponderous bulk of the hull. The momentum kept the ship careening headlong in the wrong direction. Straight for the far wall. Miko strove desperately to break the aggressive pilot’s grip on the outcast who was their only chance at getting out of here.
“Let him fly the thing, you wretched fiend!” growled Miko, swinging his pipe hard as he pulled his ally away from the control panel.
The outcast’s left pincer hung limp, clipped in the fight. In a fit of rage, Miko struck the pilot on the skull. He was reluctant to kill it, for it could be their only means of navigating this craft.
The outcast tottered back to the console to use its one good pincer to tap in the correct sequences. The ship swerved, its tail grazing the wall.
Sensors lit up on the consoles and a klaxon began to whine. Miko looked back to the glass zero-g barrier. Smoke oozed from the join in the glass panes, a material made of special tempered glass. But the gap was not properly sealed. The scent of burnt flesh hung heavily in the air, also the reek of plastics and strange metals. It would be amazing if this crippled vessel could fly...
He clambered over the bodies littering the barrier knowing he must clean the seam where the two doors met. If they made it out to space and there was even the tiniest fracture, they would freeze and suffocate in a vacuum.
He clicked the hexagon-shaped button. The doors slid back a crack. He ducked as claws slashed at him, smacked the button to stop the door. Smoke poured in, lumo blasts arched, rainbowing wildly about as raging chitters and subhuman grunts filled the bay. Frantically, Miko began wiping the glass edges of blood and guts with a piece off his tattered uniform wrapped around the end of his scalpel, loath to get more locust blood on his skin. As the locusts surged toward him, Miko smote with his pipe and fired rays into the tangle of claws. Carapaces and beetly eyes smoked. He smashed the button again. The doors sealed shut.
The ship lurched sideways, knocking Miko off balance. Fenli’s limp body slid past him. Miko yelled back at the controls, “Careful, already! This rustbucket is already at its limits. You’ll get us all killed.”
A chitter of excitement rang from the outcast at the console.
Lasers ripped about outside the ship. Cannons mounted near the depot’s cargo port normally trained out to space, but now their bores swivelled to fire on the rogue ship.
Lights flashed on the ship’s console as smoke billowed from the cockpit. Miko was sure they were done for. Yet somehow, the outcast manoeuvred the ship through the violent chaos, evading the worst fire. He steered it straight for the open cargo port.
The rear lumo-photon boosters flared red and the alien craft swept out into space, barely missing oncoming ships and wreckage spinning out of control.
The planet-like locust ark sprawled below, an octopus of rectangular pods. Miko realized that the bay from which they had flown was only one from the main pod, and he shuddered to think of the immensity of the space station—far larger than anything he had ever imagined.
A sudden hiss of vapours—then a bright flash past the glass zero-g barrier. He watched in sick fascination as the unfortunate locust faces and limbs bulged in the vacuum along with several Jakru. Two, armed with explosive waistpacks, abruptly detonated and their guts and brains sprayed every which way, coating the glass with slime. Miko turned his head. Others more fortunate were sucked out into space, ripped past the mangled outer hatch.
A flash appeared on a viewscreen, causing the outcast to chitter. On the viewport, Miko looked
