She brought up the telemetry of falling rocks. Not huge time left now, because the captain sure was a talker. The one impacting the tower would be with them in minutes, and while it seemed a long way away, it wasn’t. Meteor strike would deliver a significant level of energy to the planet’s crust. That energy could turn into a huge fireball of fury and death, sweeping them aside like dust into a pan. Best not to be around when it hit. She plotted the rest of the asteroids, the ones she could see, and saw the likely impact points. Nothing as complicated as before when fragments of rock had come down like angry hail; this would be easy.
A cakewalk. Hell, even the captain could fly them out of this.
• • •
Hard thrust, a wall at El’s back. The shake and tremble of the Tyche, like an anxious puppy. The rattle of something behind El, a bolt not tight all the way.
The holo turned, filled with telemetry, the Tyche’s eyes seeing things faster and farther than El could hope to. The Tyche was saying look, these rocks are bad, but those can be ignored. El agreed. Best to go away from the bad rocks.
The ship roared over the forest floor, her underside close to the deck. El didn’t know whether the Ezeroc used RADAR or LIDAR or unicorns for sensors, but old habits died hard. On the deck was invisible. On the deck was hard, but hard flying was fun flying. Hard flying was what it was all about. And Nate was right. El could make the Tyche fly like she was a fighter, born on the wing.
Or course, all that extra power in the main reactor helped. Made the Tyche less sluggish down here where antigrav was important.
“El,” said Nate. “Don’t play with your food.”
She gave a tight grin. “Aye, Cap. Just looking for a nice safe hole in the sky.”
“That one,” said Nate, pointing at the holo. “Looks clear.”
“I reckon so,” she said. She fed the Tyche new flight data, pointed the ship at the space in the sky between large falling rocks. The ship rumbled back, growled as the fusion drives built up the thrust to escape gravity. “Escape burn in 3, 2, 1, mark. Mark.”
A kick, the acceleration couch slamming against her as she pushed the throttle forward. An easy 3 Gs this time, nothing worth getting a stroke over. It’s not like they had an entire sky full of fire this time.
“Oh, hey,” said Nate. “That’s unusual.”
“What kind of unusual,” said El, then stopped. Because the Tyche was telling her that the Ezeroc ship had jumped. It had busted a move through the sky, gobbled up the klicks in an instant, and was now a lot, lot closer. It would be waiting for them in the sky when they left atmosphere.
“That kind,” said Nate.
She figured he was thinking what she was: Endless Drives couldn’t jump like that close to a gravity well. Which made what the Ezeroc had just done … impossible. “Do I abort?” said El.
“Nah,” said Nate.
“No? Are you crazy?”
“A little,” said Nate. “But this is what they want, El. They want us in space.”
“You know this,” said El, “because you’ve melded minds with the alien menace that will be the doom of our species?”
“I know this,” said Nate, “because it makes sense.”
“Oh God,” said El, “we’re all going to die.”
“Yes,” said Nate, “but not today. Keep burning.”
It wasn’t really up for discussion; El was just working her mouth to let off steam. Climbing for the stars wasn’t a thing you wanted to break off half way. Sure, you could do it, but you’d just need to do it again some other place. And the Ezeroc ship seemed to ignore all kinds of unfortunate laws of physics. The Tyche could drink a little of the same liquor too, but pulling open a negative space field this close to a planet wasn’t a thing that would end well for them. Get some more sky behind them, then punch for the black.
The holo lit red. COLLISION WARNING COLLISION WARNING.
“Oh, hey,” said Nate. “That’s not cool. Try and avoid that.” He was pointing at a new rock falling from the Ezeroc ship.
“You think?” said El. “Why are they firing at us if they want us to make space?”
“Oh, they’re not firing at us,” said Nate. “They’re firing next to us. A warning shot. Easy dodge.”
El worked the sticks, altering they’re trajectory. Nate was right, the rock was an easy dodge. Too big, too slow to pose a threat. “So … why?” she said.
“If I was a horrible alien on this ship, I’d say something like ’Gnar, let’s all go to space!’ and we’d go to space. A sensible human pilot would run the fuck away,” he said. After a second, he said, “I think.”
“You think?”
“Yeah,” said Nate. His face split with a manic grin. “Ain’t this cool?”
“Could they also,” said El, “be wanting to distract us?”
“Distract us?” said Nate. “From what?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Reaching orbit didn’t take long. A quick burn, hard thrust at their backs, and you’ve got yourself orbital velocity. Grace could feel the changes as the Tyche went from straight the fuck up and through a flatter trajectory. Bumps and shudders and shifts in the ship told a story of a not-smooth launch as the Ezeroc hunted them through the sky. Grace wasn’t worried about that; she’d seen El’s work firsthand. Their Helm was second to none in Grace’s experience. The only thing holding El back from a career of greatness was El herself.
That’s probably a problem that will solve itself.
A greater problem for Grace right now was Kohl. That asshole was not in his acceleration couch. That asshole wasn’t anywhere Grace could see him, and that worried her. It worried her right to the bottoms of her feet, because despite Nate’s hey we’re all on the same cheerleading squad talk, Kohl wasn’t interested in cheerleading. The man wasn’t interested in much else other than punching things.
Punching things had its place, but not in your home.
Grace.
Her head whipped around, casting about the ready room. She was the only one here. Nate and El were in the flight deck. Hope was in Engineering. Kohl was the one unaccounted for. Kohl was the one free roaming the ship. Kohl, who had it in for Grace. Kohl, who had it in for Hope — God only knew why. Maybe it was just that Hope was just too young, too damn easy to play to be living this kind of life. But the last time Hope had been doing her job, cribbing it back in Engineering, an alien insect inhabiting the body of a spy had grabbed her up.
Those fuckers had grabbed her friend, and—
Grace, don’t get involved. Don’t.
She wrestled with that voice for longer than she wanted to admit. Grace wasn’t proud of it, and wouldn’t have told anyone about the struggle. About how she measured the angles, thought about the win in it for her.
What I want is for you to decide.
“Oh, fuck’s sake,” she said, then keyed her comm. “Hope?”
“You’ve got Hope,” said the Engineer.
Grace would have sagged in relief if the pressure of acceleration hadn’t held her in her couch. El had turned the throttle down, the ship now pushing along at a lot less thrust. Still turning in space, Nate giving a whoop here and there. At least someone’s having fun. “Hope? Is your door locked?”