“He’s warning the bug fleet!” cried Cloye. “Control the thing. Fucking cricket!”
Yul smashed the insect on the side of the head. It chittered and tore its way out of its straps which it must have been working loose while they dozed.
The creature bore Yul backwards, ramming him hard into a nearby tank. The locust’s strength was not insignificant and Yul felt sharp pincers pricking at his suit. He grasped both clacking claws before they could rip the material and wrenched them completely off. Then he whipped the thing off him and stomped a boot on its throat, breaking the wind pipe. The thing jerked spasmodically before it gave a final twitch and lay still; a viscid green fluid dripped from its cracked skull and mangled throat, spreading over its hard carapace.
“That was a stupid thing to do,” groaned Hresh. “Now it can’t fly us out of this mess.”
“There’s no flying out of here,” grated Yul. “There’s a thousand enemy ships around us. Don’t you see? Quick, into the escape pod. We’ll have to brave the planet below.”
Hresh stared in fascination upon the locusts’ ring-torus-shaped vessels.
The hailing frequencies were open and alien chatter sputtered across the air waves, filling the cabin, with clicks like the frenzied buzz of insects from a faraway rain forest.
Yul blocked it all out. He had to think. Damn! He thunked a fist on the control board, silencing the chatter momentarily.
“Hresh, get over here. Turn your attention away from the shipfest. I want you to fly this thing right into the centre of that destroyer.” He stabbed a finger at the insect-shaped L-16 on the viewport.
“Are you crazy?”
“Do it! We’re dead meat anyway. Our only hope is to escape in the pod. Cloye, do you think you can work it?”
“I have a basic training in evac. It’s part of my assassin’s training.”
“Good! To the pod then.”
“We’re sitting ducks,” murmured Hresh, still shaking his head.
“No kidding, anything else you’d like to add?” Yul glared at him.
Yul kicked the locust corpse aside and cast a fierce glance from the controls to the oncoming mass of ships.
“Hresh, do you hear me? Move your ass. Help me figure out these guidance systems!”
Hresh gazed at the controls with owl-like eyes, making some tentative moves, passing fingers over the maze of toggles, switches, and lights. “That looks like impulse thrust, and stabilizers here, I think.”
“Faster! Shit, man, are you a paraplegic? We’ve no time!” He cursed Hresh who started pressing buttons at random, pulling sticks and knobs.
The ship gunned itself erratically forward, in a direction 30 degrees closer to the destroyer. The crew was thrown back with the sudden acceleration. Hresh, twisting sideways, smashed his faceplate against a nearby console. The ship lurched like a lab specimen under electric shock therapy. The locust corpse slid across the cabin, slamming hard against the four tanks.
Cloye yelled from her station down the hall. “I’ve almost got this working, you clods. Careful. I don’t want to fuck up this launch sequence.”
Yul leaned in toward the controls, squinting through the viewport at the dim planet looming below. His lip curled in a vindictive grimace. “Aim closer to that destroyer.”
“They’ll nuke us as soon as we near it!” Hresh objected.
“That’s the point. Do it.” Yul saw the ship launch photon torpedoes at them.
Hresh flipped the alien controls. The ship wobbled on a jerky approach toward the aggressive L-16. The radio chatter grew in intensity. Yul scowled, pulling Hresh away from the controls, shuttling him toward the pod. Cloye yelled at them to hurry. Yul slammed shut the hatch.
He and Hresh plunked themselves into the bucket seats and pulled the straps over their shoulders. They locked themselves in tight.
Cloye engaged the launch lock. The pod, a bullet-shaped four-seater with two port windows and rear double thrusters, burst from the launch bay.
Just in time.
The enemy torpedo struck and a raging fireball exploded behind them. Their aphid lightfighter, now blown to dust, rocked the escape pod with a jarring force. Cloye was wrenched forward, straining against her straps. Hresh howled in pure fright. Through the viewport Yul caught a gory glimpse of red hot shrapnel swirling in oblivion. The scorched metal fragments flew through the emptiness and splattered against the destroyer’s grey flanks. Random fires burst out on its spiked hull, hitting some sensitive areas, glass, metal fans, conning towers, penetrating the shields. Another concussive explosion rocked the pod. Yul’s look of dismay changed to triumph as his lips curled in a sneer.
The escape pod plummeted toward the murky grey planet below. Rolling and bucking like a horse, it corkscrewed through the black ether. Yul glimpsed another bright flare to the port bow. The pod rocked side to side, a deafening roar filling his ears as it entered the stratosphere.
Cloye wrestled with the controls, guiding the alien craft down as best she could. Enemy fire swept after it, slick trails sliding by the port windows like sheet lightning. A blast grazed the pod, sending it into a crazy tailspin. “Hold on!” she cried, jerking hard on an anti-roll stick, or what looked like one.
Hresh’s eyes tilted upward. The man looked ready to vomit into his helmet.
Lights flashed on Cloye’s console. The ship was tumbling wide on a crash course for the planet. The enemy ships—four aphid aggressors—whipped up and over the yawing pod, turning back to the Mentera station, a bright patch many miles in the distance. Their job was over. The pod and its occupants were doomed.
Cloye’s teeth clenched in a show of white. Her tight-knuckled grip never left the controls. Hresh, white as a ghost, gripped his arm restraints with one hand, two of his fingers trembling on the straps across his chest. Yul braced himself for impact. His mechanical fingers twitched
