Before we were in their range, Varn sent a volley of fire, using his new pulse blasters. He missed the target from this distance, but it caused the enemy to slow their arrival.
“Should we scare them off?” Luther asked.
This wasn’t a time for people to have skirmishes within our own solar system. We needed to remind anyone else considering a terrorist attack that we wouldn’t stand for it. Resolve filled me. I’d fended off pirates once before, and it had gotten me fired from Sage. But this was about saving lives, even if it cost the lives of these enemies. “Shoot to kill.” I said this over the communicator, and Varn echoed my command to Aster.
And it began.
The twelve haulers spread apart, knowing we couldn’t stop them all from reaching the Belt Station. It quickly became clear that their goal was to destroy the integral post. It was the lifeline between Earth and the distant mines past the belt. Someone wanted it gone.
And I remembered the Defenders at the docking station. “Wait.” I tapped the comm, sending a message to Barnes. “Major. It’s not the Belt Station they’re after. They’re here for the Defenders’ manufacturing plant.”
“Roger that. I’m sending my people to protect our equipment. Carry on,” he ordered.
“You heard the man. This mission just became more critical.” This had to be the work of a Corporation, or a greedy underground businessman. More of them had sprouted over the decades, stealing from the Corps and building an unseen empire. I could only imagine how valuable one of our new Defenders would be to someone in those positions.
I peered at the radar, spotting six of the pirates flying around us. That left Varn and me against six. They wouldn’t know about our upgrades, and likely suspected we were nothing more than Racers in over their heads.
I sped straight at the first target while Varn stayed parallel with Pilgrim, firing at will.
“Captain.” Luther’s voice was steady, his training taking over. He only called me that if he was in the zone.
“Take them down,” I told him, and a flurry of blasts erupted from below our wings as the pirate shot back. Pilgrim trembled as their pulse struck our shield, but it held. The enemy wasn’t as lucky. We clipped the right side, and it exploded. The ship’s engines cut off, and it floated there lifelessly. I adjusted my trajectory, moving for the next pirate.
Two of them snuck up behind me while Varn was off chasing someone.
They missed as many as they hit, but the shields did their jobs. “Twenty percent,” Jade said.
“Down twenty, or down to twenty?” I asked for clarification.
“At eighty,” she confirmed.
These mods were exactly what we needed. Fueled by adrenaline, I urged the Racer faster, while Luther eliminated our second adversary. I checked the screen, and we’d purged three of six.
Varn caught his opponent, and that dropped to two. I heard his cheer on the speakers, and we each went after the last pair. They were trying to escape, speeding for the Defenders, where the rest of their fleet was.
The pirates were facing off against the Protectors, and it was more of an even fight. If the Defenders were fully operational and manned, this would have been over in a flash, but they were only being stowed here without crews. These pirates must have known that, which meant there was a rat on the Belt Station. I couldn’t worry myself with those details now. Barnes could handle it after we were gone.
I watched as a Protector transport was hit, and it detonated the Core, exploding into five sizeable chunks. I said a silent prayer to the universe as I sped through the remains, blasting the pirate responsible. I must have looked like a bat out of hell, piercing the fiery destruction of the transport. It was the last thing they saw.
Varn nailed another two targets before being pummeled by one of the rivals. His shields were taking a beating, and I spied a second ship aiming straight for him.
“Varn! Get out of there. It’s coming straight—”
The ship detonated as it rammed into Killer. For a moment, I thought Varn and his crew were done for, but he raced from the debris, cursing like a sailor.
“Let’s finish this!” I shouted, angry now.
The pirates didn’t get within a hundred kilometers of the Defenders. We tracked them, with the help of the Protectors, and stopped every single one of their dozen vessels.
“Captain, nice work. Total time, thirty-two minutes, eleven seconds,” R11 spouted.
“R11, this wasn’t a training mission. This was real life,” I told him.
“I know, sir, but I thought you’d want to know—”
“Not now.” I turned my attention to the dash. “Varn, how’s the ship?”
“She’s at five percent shield, and one of my blasters has been knocked loose. We’ll also need to clean up Jinx’s vomit, but otherwise, we’re okay.” His voice wavered.
“Meet us at the Station. We have work to do.” I directed Pilgrim to the docks and tried not to think of how many lives were lost in this senseless assault.
SIX
“Robots?” Jade ran her fingers through her hair. “You have to be kidding me.”
Barnes had two other Protectors in the room with us, and I peered around the open space. Pieces of one of the pirate ships had been recovered, and a cloth sheet was draped over something.
Barnes tugged off the covering. The robot was nearly intact, with its head set upright beside it. “We found no evidence of humans on any of the ships. Each had a single robot piloting.”
R11 stepped closer. “Why would they do that?” he asked.
“They were programmed to attack. We do believe they came for the Defenders. Whether it was to destroy them or retrieve them is unclear. My people are working on salvaging information stored within their hard drives,” the major said.
R11 set a hand on his chest.
“We can’t let this delay our mission.” I observed Varn, who was walking around the room, touching
