Frankly, Aiden wasn't sure which shocked him more: Lana taking out a Deek combat android by herself, or the fact that the gunner had admitted to feeling anything. Especially fear.
He jumped slightly when soft arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind, Ali resting her head against his. “Are you all right, my love?” she asked worriedly, with just a hint of reproof. “You shouldn't have rushed into an open corridor with androids like that . . . it only would've taken a split second for them to kill you.”
In the gunner's arms Lana began gasping again, obviously panicking anew at the companion's words. Aiden felt a surge of irritation, shrugging Ali away as he straightened.
Seemed like he wasn't needed here. “I'm fine. Looks like we all are.” He turned towards the door, motioning for his companion to follow. “Let's go see how the rest of the ship came out of this battle.”
Chapter Nineteen
Alive
Space was vast, and a navigator's rift calculations were so situational and unique to their own style that another ship had an infinitesimally small chance of calculating the same jump. Especially when the navigator was specifically calculating one with the intent of not being followed.
It would've taken dozens of ships deploying scouting drones across an incomprehensible area to even try to pursue an escaping ship through a single jump, after which pursuit would've become effectively impossible when the ship made its next jump. At least until scientists found a way of following ships through rifts, which didn't seem likely; they'd been trying for tens of thousands of years now.
Failing that, unless someone blanketed the entire universe with sensor arrays sharing data through permanent rifts, safety was always just a rift jump away.
Realistically, the threat to the Last Stand had ended the moment they got out of the Brastos 4 system. Same as it had in all their previous narrow escapes over the years. Even so, Aiden still ordered Barix to calculate as many jumps as he could in quick succession, as much for the psychological effect of putting the danger far behind them as because they now needed to find somewhere else to go.
That was the big problem. Catching someone traveling across the vastness of space might have been next to impossible while they were in transit, but there were only so many habitable planets and spaceports out there, and the Last Stand's supply of food and fuel wasn't infinite. More than that, they could only travel so quickly even with rift jumps, and the moment they stopped at a system they might be identified, giving their pursuers their most recent location and allowing them to stay on the trail.
To make matters even worse, the Deeks controlled the rift hubs, meaning they could travel much farther and faster than the Last Stand could ever hope to. If their pursuit's intel was good and they were determined, which they certainly seemed to be, they could always be one step ahead, beating Aiden to every system and making it impossible for him to resupply.
In other words, the enemy could turn them into corpses drifting lifelessly through space, perfectly safe from pursuit but having starved to death in the interim, just by keeping up this manhunt at this level for long enough.
It was no wonder the bridge was filled with long faces when Aiden gathered them for a conference an hour or so after the attack.
Ali started off by giving a damage report: in spite of the heavy fire they'd taken, their shields had only been breached once. Successive shots had chewed up one wing and punched holes in a few of the noncritical rooms, including Barix's cabin (which of course the slight man had been complaining nonstop about), but the damage was minimal and Fix was already well on its way to repairing it.
The boarding party had done far more damage on its rampage towards the engine room, trashing door controls, wiring, pipes, and minor electronics in the rooms they passed through. They'd also breached the hull in a few places. And, of course, they'd punched their way through a dozen or so blast doors that were now twisted wrecks that presented safety hazards.
In spite of all that, the Last Stand had gotten off lucky. Unfortunately, there was worse news about their situation moving forward.
“It appears as if this attack was no accident, more than simply the Deconstructionist Movement Fleet recognizing us and giving chase,” Ali finished grimly. “We obviously couldn't afford to linger while being attacked by a frigate and three light cruisers, but while we were in the system I picked up as much chatter as I could, including from the ships attacking us, and have parsed it for information.”
“How could us getting ambushed in another quadrant of the galaxy, after we've been off the grid since Ollan's Hub, be “no accident?” Barix demanded.
The companion hesitated. “I don't know,” she admitted. “But I do know the Movement's assembled a task force to hunt the Last Stand down. At least a dozen cruisers, ranging from light to heavy, and several frigates. As well as an unknown number of skiffs employed for scouting and remote observation, and likely a large number of unmanned scouting drones and AI sentries. They're also conscripting ships and hiring mercenaries in local systems to work with, significantly increasing the force they can bring to bear at a location at any one time.
“And it goes without saying that they're keeping an eagle eye on all spaceports and worlds, even havens for criminals. Or perhaps especially those. It also appears that the bounty on our heads has once again doubled, and a new, and worryingly accurate, description of the Last Stand is being passed around. We can change our profile again, but human eyes looking at sensor data of our ship will pick us out unless
