"Keep trying to move," he ordered. Silsi obeyed, but the ship stayed still.
Suddenly there was a shudder from somewhere, not the ship moving. A light indicated the external door had opened. Kirrik managed to close it again. Then it was opened, and this time it would not shut. Instead he closed every other door in the ship.
Another shudder from the ship, and the image on the viewscreen moved. "We're off!" announced Silsi, although the charge meter was still only indicating eighty percent. "Controls are sluggish, though."
"Never mind that, just get us out of here."
The ship turned slightly. The secondary gunner took out more of the blockage, gradually carving his way across it as the turning presented undamaged metal to the laser. When she was satisfied the gap was large enough Silsi spun the craft around and nudged the engines.
It lumbered forward. Under the partially charged engines controlling its movement was difficult, and it caught the edge of door with a hard jolt. Warning lights flashed up around the bridge, but none of them announced more than superficial damage. The ship was free in space.
Aeyris took opportunity of the respite to call for his medic over the intercom. Someone replied "We can't get to you, there's a depressurised area between us."
"The external door's stuck open. Is there a spacesuit there?"
"We haven't found one. What's sticking the door?"
"Unknown."
"You're isolated until we can close it."
"I'll survive here for the time being."
Further discussion was curtailed by a jolt and someone announcing "Incoming fire!"
"Where from?" Kirrik demanded.
"Nothing of note on the scanner," Silsi announced. "Could be base guns." Another jolt, and the shield indicator on the main display dropped a little. Silsi threw the ship around. "It's livened up at least," she commented.
"Marchero, set hyperspace target."
"Where?"
"Anywhere not here!"
"Targeted on Esdi, hyperdrive engines will be up to power in five minutes."
The ship flew on on a seemingly random course, but they were gradually moving further away from the base. A few more shots from it hit the Constrictor, taking the rear shield down to fifty percent and marking the front.
As one threat receded another appeared, half a dozen marks on the scanner, leaving the asteroid. The secondary gunner, who had been monitoring them identified the approaching ships as Sidewinders, small, fast and deadly. They quickly intercepted the erratically flying Constrictor.
"Still two and a half minutes to hyperspace," Marchero told them as the Sidewinders neared.
The attackers struck simultaneously. The shields screeched in protest, but held against the fire. Two of the Sidewinders skimmed past, dropping their missiles at close range. Silsi had managed to slew the ship round, and they struck the less damaged forward screen, causing it to shake violently and briefly spin out of control. The front shields collapsed.
A brief "Aargh!" from Aeyris, then a surprised comment, "We're still here? Seems like you were right about this ship, Kirrik."
Kirrik grinned at him, then frowned as six more ships appeared at the edge of the scanner. Silsi had managed to point the Constrictor at one of the first wave of attackers, and pressed the laser control. The Sidewinder disappeared into a dust cloud. The rear gunner lashed out at another ship. This one spun to avoid the attack, but took a glancing blow to the wing. Still flying but damaged it turned and fled the scene.
Another two of the base's ships attempted the same missile attack as previously, but this time released too far from the target. The Constrictor's ECM system removed the threat, and its laser fired again as one of the Sidewinders shot past the bow. It was hit squarely but continued on as its shields took the hit.
More incoming fire hit the front of the ship, six lances from the second group of Sidewinders. The energy reserves started to drop as emergency power was taken from them to supplement the depleted shield capacitors. The hull wailed in protest as it was scored under the incomplete protection now given to it.
Kirrik's eye was caught by a light flickering on his chair's control panel. "The door's shut!" he told Aeyris.
"Great, we'll work that out later. If we get out of here."
Another strike from somewhere hit the rear shield. "Five seconds," Marchero told them.
Yet another missile launch, striking the poorly-protected front. An alarm sounded around the bridge, "Energy Low" flashed on the main screen.
"Jumping!"
The view distorted in impossible ways. Time flickered - one moment people were moving with impossible speed, the next as if they were in deep water. The main screen illuminated with the Witchspace tunnel.
Then it vanished, almost as soon as it had appeared. Once again the ship was floating in normal space.
"Quick," the secondary gunner remarked laconically.
Marchero was searching her console in confusion. "We're not at Esdi."
"At least we're still alive," said Silsi. "Jumping without proper control like that, we're lucky to be." Still in one piece didn't answer two important questions - where were they, and when. The jump was short, so the risk of time and space displacement (away from the intended target) should not have been too great. Probably.
Marchero turned her chair to say, "We've only jumped about five hundred AUs. Not in any significant direction, as far as I can tell. Where do you plan on going next? There's a really nice bit of empty space I know near here. Maybe even medieval deep space, if we've moved too far in time. Well, Sir Knight, when are we?"
It was a few minutes before Aeyris, exploring the comms equipment, found a timing beacon. "I'm sorry to disappoint Milady, we're only out by forty-three minutes." He gave Marchero a sarcastic smile.
"Right, re-program the hyperdrive. We'll have the leisure to do it properly this time."
The co-ordinates for Esdi were re-entered. Then they sat back whilst the computer tried to calculate the ideal jump parameters, to a far greater tolerance than before.
While they were waiting the bridge door opened. The pirates' medic came in, carrying a few bits of a very basic first aid kit. With him came another pirate, holding a twisted metal rod. Part of it looked like it had been melted at some point. "Someone had wedged the door with this," he said. "We've been in a fight, have we? Looks like it took a direct hit."
The medic quickly cleaned and protected Aeryis's wound. "How's Tikapora?" Aeyris asked him.
"Fine apart from being one arm down, as far as I can see." The medic shrugged. "Doesn't seem to have caused him any distress at all."
"That's good." He gingerly touched the bandaged leg, then leant on it. "Seems like it'll hold for a while. How's everyone else?"
"A few bruises from being tumbled around," he was told. "No-one is seriously injured. I'm more concerned about longer-term issues. Garath found primary life support monitor, and he says that quite a bit of the reserve oxygen has been used up in having to re-pressurise twice. And there are more of us in here than it's designed to cope with."
"How long will it last?"
"No idea. There's been no noticeable change in CO2 levels yet. Everything else checks out fine, for the moment."
Aeyris walked over to the unoccupied engineering station, limping slightly, and sat down. "What's the inventory report?"
The man holding the metal bar stepped forward. "There's very little on board. Only enough food for three days, and water for a week. The water recycler's damaged. We're looking at it right now." Aeyris dismissed the two; they left the bridge to return to searching the ship.
It was not long before they were due to hyperspace when Silsi found something. "There's a weak signal on the edge of the scanner," she informed, a note of surprise in her voice.