Rosaleigh, Smith, and Liberty’s voices chattered in my helmet as communication was streamed around the ship. I took a step in the suit and felt sluggish, but knew that when we got hit, and it would happen, I’d rather not try and breathe vacuum.
The bridge: “They’re powering up.”
“Griffin, power core.” I waved a hand at her, the first two fingers extended.
“On my way.”
“Incoming fire from the Razor.”
Liberty: “Rotate the ship, keep us facing towards them, like we’re backing off. Face on, they’ll have less surface area to hit.”
Rosaleigh: “Already adjusting our pitch, ma’am.”
The Razor fired but I could see nothing, hear nothing but my own heavy breaths inside the helmet. The suit smelled of chlorine just like the air scrubbers, almost too clean for comfort.
There was no big buildup, no watching a red dot as it zipped across a view screen. There was nothing at all. The room flashed red, and the sound of our alarms faded into the background, muffled by the tempered glass of my helmet.
“The Razor’s shot missed.”
“Excellent. Goddard?”
“Loading projectile. Rails powering up. Griffin?”
“All set, sir. Ready for power reset. Captain?”
“Ready to fire. Taking aim.”
The ship hissed and fizzled. For a moment I thought I felt my fingers tingle as the massive EMF washed over us. Griffin gagged over the com channel. Five seconds passed.
“Direct hit on the Razor. Took a chunk right out of their propulsion section.”
Liberty: “Get ready to fire again.”
I made the necessary actions. Batteries checked. Loaded into place. Wait. Fire. Repeat.
“We missed by five degrees, they pushed her out of the way. Incoming.”
The shot whizzed past our ship without making contact. Another lucky moment.
“Goddard? Ready?”
“Ready, Captain.”
“Firing.”
The Vindicator groaned and went black. A reset. It was up to Griffin to restore power. I impatiently waited on her, counting off the agonizing seconds.
One. Darkness. My father was in prison. He had to be freed when we got back.
Two. Deep breaths. Liberty wanted to change the world. She was the one for the job.
Three. Panic rising in my chest. Ignore it. We had to commit treason in order to do what was right. To hold our government hostage for a better future.
Four. Rapid heartbeat. Shaking right hand. I just want to see the system at peace, happiness. I want to see the dreams of our red world return to us, to grow, to terraform.
Five. A sense of being trapped. Force it away. All I wanted was to be with her, alive, watching the sun set.
Six. The lights came back on. The helmet’s com channel came back up.
“Incoming!” Rosaleigh shouted into my ear.
Liberty: “Evasive maneuvers. Flash navigational burn, positive y, any value!”
There was no time for me to contemplate what a projectile traveling 220,000 km/s could do when hitting us broadside. I felt the pressure in the cabin shift, turned to see the hatches in weapons control slam shut. I checked a status display and saw that the shot had taken us right through the Power Core.
“Griffin, report,” I growled. No response. I overrode the hatch controls and worked my way through the cargo bay. The ship had readjusted pressure, removed and stored all air it could save. I was now in vacuum, our ship blown off course the result of rapid decompression.
I sucked in a breath and prayed.
Half of the power core’s wall was missing, nothing but twisted bars and bits of poly alloy collected around a gaping maw. I approached the opening, seeing the river of a red world rushing beneath us. Griffin was out there, falling slowly towards the planet below. She was shaking, hands scrabbling at her cracked helmet. I reached out for her but she was too far away, traveling several meters per second opposite the ship. It was the most helpless I’d ever felt. All I could do was watch her die, watch her suffocate in the void, another death to weigh down the scales. I searched for anything that could help. It would take too long to get an EVA rig out to her, and Liberty needed me here.
“Griffin,” I hissed into the com channel.
“David,” she whispered, a frantic twist to her voice. “I gotta get out of this. I don’t wanna go this way. I don’t wanna die like César.”
“I don’t want you to either.”
Suddenly, I was flung away from the opening, a solid object crashing into my shoulder. I tried to recover but flew into a breaker box, its edge catching me in the ribs. I glared back at the opening and saw someone with broad shoulders leaping from the ship into open space. Steadily, the newcomer’s suit floated towards Griffin, arms out wide. As soon as they’d closed the distance, they clamped down, embracing Griffin in a crushing bear hug.
“Pull us in, hot shot,” Brix said over the com channel. “She won’t last long. Her suit’s leaking like hell.”
“Brix! Hot damn!”
I looked down and saw a tether clipped to the floor. I drew them back in. Despite being in microgravity, the rotation of the ship made their bodies’ mass feel greater than normal. I strained as I might drawing a stone from a lake. Momentum soon took hold and the task became easier.
“Thanks,” Brix said as he set foot back inside the ship. “I’ll take her to Med 1.”
“Griffin? You alright?” I asked, putting a palm against her cracked, fishbowl helmet.
She raised her right hand and held up a weak thumb. Not today. Hot damn, not today.
“Captain,” I said, taking a visual inspection of the power core. “It’s just me now. Griffin got spaced, but Brix brought her back in. She’s not in good shape.”
“Shit,” Liberty spat. “Get back into—”
Rosaleigh: “Another shot, incoming.”
The shot took us across the top of the ship in relation to Mars, ripping off a rail gun and sending its wreckage spinning into one of the PV arrays. My watch’s alarms screamed like mad, informing me that critical systems were either damaged or offline. We had main power, but that wouldn’t last.
As soon as I was back at the controls I switched to our secondary railgun. Our only weapon. I loaded another battery, checked the rest of them and gave the okay. Just before I said, ready, music began to bleed in over the com channel. “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the Scorpions. I gave a grim smile.
“Here I am, you sons of bitches,” Liberty growled.
I watched the display, our ship flashing with focused energy as the projectile was hurled from our railgun. A moment later, a flash of white gas, and a glittering line of metallic dust shot out the ass end of the Razor’s image. The projectile had gone through the front and out the back. We’d pierced their can right through the pull tab.