Chapter Fourteen
I would have preferred more time to prepare, but the Xeno had five of their ships on the way. My advantage was that I would choose the battleground.
I carried Nyna up to the throne room as fast as I could. We had no time to lose. She gasped at the mess we’d made on the floor as I set her down.
“That’s a lot of gold,” she whispered. “Are those diamonds? Those are diamonds, right?”
“Focus,” I said. “Where’s the hovership Tortengar was going to use to escape? We have to take the battle to them, the citizens aren’t ready for a fight.”
She pointed at the ceiling.
“How do we get in?” I asked.
“Oh, right.” She pulled Spirit-Watcher out of her bag and looked around for a moment before pointing to the throne. “It’s behind that ugly, broken chair. But it looks like we’ll need to fix something. There’s a ladderwell behind it that goes up into the ship.”
I marched to the broken throne as Reaver, Skrew, and Beatrix entered. A second later, I ripped the throne from its mounts and yanked a gaudy tapestry from the wall. There was a heavy-looking metal door with a glowing keypad in its center behind it.
“Oh,” Nyna said, “I can—”
She stopped talking when I punched the door, grabbed a buckled edge, and ripped it out of the way.
“Or, you can just do that,” Nyna added blankly.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The ladderwell was barely wide enough for my shoulders to fit through. It opened straight into the interior of the ship.
The lights were on, but it was silent inside. It was clearly of a later generation than Skrew’s mech. Based on what I could see, I estimated it to be about 30 feet long and equally wide, not accounting for any armament it may have had or the weapon pods. It was big, but not so big it wouldn't fit out of the escape hatch.
“The pilot’s seat should be that way,” Nyna said from beneath me. “Let me squeeze past, and I’ll get her warmed up.”
I pressed my body against the bulkhead to give her as much room as possible. Still, she managed to get stuck going past and had to brush her slender waist against me as she passed. She pretended to stop momentarily to inspect something when her perfect, perky boobs reached my face, stretching her arms up toward the supposed point of interest toward the ceiling, then continued on.
“Eww,” Skrew said from the bottom of the ladderwell. The others laughed.
“Yup,” Nyna said, “found it. This thing’s got six guns. Damn, that’s a lot of firepower. Everyone, pick one and strap yourselves in. Tortengar spared no expense on this thing.”
I found two tiny gun pods behind the pilot’s seat. They were belly-guns, and the job of their gunners was to shoot anything in front of, behind, or underneath the ship. The others squeezed into similar pods on other parts of the ship. A second later, the craft shuddered and began to hum.
“Cool,” Nyna said. “Unlocking the escape hatch. Let’s call it an attack hatch because we aren’t really escaping, am I right? Alright, warming the systems now. Weapons should come online in a—”
The ship shook three times, and the movement was accompanied by the sound of capacitors recharging.
“Oops,” Skrew said. “Found the pew but maybe did shoot the pew. Yup, did shoot the pew.” His voice came from a speaker hidden in the seat I’d strapped myself into.
“I heard that,” Reaver’s voice said. “Keep your booger hook off the bang switch until you see an enemy ship, Skrew. These cannons are powerful, and you’re lucky you didn’t bring the place down on our heads. Can everyone hear me?”
“I can,” I said, and the others affirmed too.
“Neat,” Nyna said excitedly. “This is a badass ship. I think I can fly it too!”
Nobody said anything in response, but I was pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing. You think you can fly it? You’re not sure?
Well, we’d come this far, and we had no other plan.
“Wow,” Nyna continued. “This thing is way overpowered. It’s got two Fex powering it. Should make the guns recharge faster, though, so shoot to your heart’s content—after we’re in the air and see the enemy, Skrew. Let’s do this!”
Her enthusiastic battle cry was accompanied by a violent reverse thrust and a sudden stop.
“Everything’s fine,” she said. “No problem. Up is down, down is up, and so on. That’s all. I’ve got this.”
A moment later, we were rising into the sky.
A small square panel in front of me lit up, and the lights on a flight yoke illuminated. I took hold and managed to almost instantly invert myself. It took a few tries, but I figured out the controls quickly. Based on the grunts and curses from the rest of the gunners, it sounded like we were all new to the control and targeting system.
“Everyone fire three shots where it’s safe,” I ordered. “We need to know if your gun works or not. If not, you can move to a working one.”
The ship shuddered as angry yellow bolts of superheated air destroyed boulders, hillsides, and, in my case, caused a rockslide into an unoccupied valley. I marveled at the power I held at my fingertips. There was no way the Xeno would last long against us. They were in for a surprise.
“Skrew loves pew-pew gun,” the vrak whispered. “Is such power. Very kaboom. Make Xeno plenty dead.”
He giggled, and the sound sent shivers up my spine. I was glad he was on our side.
Nyna cranked up the speed, and soon the landscape beneath us was nothing but a blur.
“The red blips look like they’re about a minute out,” she said. “They’re turning toward us. I’m going to slow down so we can meet—oh shit, get ready, here they are!”
The ship braked abruptly, sending me slamming into the front of my harness, and with that wake-up call, we were in battle. When I’d regained my bearings, I could see them.
