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"Commander, you're ordered to return to the station until further notice. Failure to comply may result in disciplinary action."
"When you put it that way," J'avet said. He turned off the comms. "You might as well change those coordinates now. They're going to come after us no matter what we do."
Brinley nodded, keyed in the change and pushed the pod to move faster.
"Commander, we've detected an unauthorised course change." The station couldn't hear us, but we could hear them well enough.
J'avet sighed and turned the comms back on. "Yes, we seem to be experiencing some trouble with navigation. We—"
I stepped forward and held my fingers in front of his face, slightly apart.
J'avet frowned, then nodded. "Undapan Station, I think we have nanobots on board. They're… taking over the pod. We have no control over…" He turned off the comms again and sat back.
"There. That should keep them off our backs for a moment," he said.
"Unless they decide to blow us up." E'rel looked unimpressed.
"Blowing us up won't kill the bots," Brinley said.
"Chimera is the only ship currently on the station which is equipped with a laser," J'avet said. "And she's out of commission for a while." He looked smug.
I regarded him for a moment. "J'avet. Did you sabotage the Chimera?"
He smirked. "Just enough to give us time to get away."
"You really are a rebel," I said, impressed.
"I also commandeered some devices Slek made that could help us."
I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. "I'll go and keep an eye on the station. They might send someone after us anyway."
J'avet nodded. He looked weary. That wasn't surprising. He'd been beaten up, injured and left more or less for dead, with no food or water. If it was me, I would want to rest for a year.
I ran a hand over my hair and wondered if I should insist we turn back. If J'avet died because he was away from a doctor's care for too long… I sucked in a breath and reminded myself that, barring further injury, there wasn't anything a doctor could do that I couldn't do as well.
I plopped into a seat and watched the station out the window. For a while, I actually thought they'd let us go.
Naive, right? I know. This mission was important. If we succeeded, the whole IF would thank us. After they tossed us in the brig for a few years and threw us out of our jobs.
When they figured out what we'd done, they'd appreciate us, right?
A speck of black appeared in the side of the station. At first I thought I was seeing things. I blinked a few times and focused my eyes. Nope, it was definitely there and getting bigger by the moment.
"The docking bay doors are opening!" I called out. "There's a ship coming through."
E'rel brought up the rear camera and put the vision on a screen at the back of the pod.
"You couldn't do that before?" I muttered. It would have saved my eyes.
He said nothing.
"It's the Gamma," Brinley said. "They aren't messing around."
"That sounds bad," I said.
"She's a small vessel, but fast," Brinley said. "Equipped with sonic canons and—" She listed a bunch of features which meant nothing to me, but sounded like a galaxy of pain.
"We can't outrun her," J'avet said.
"Especially if she's come to blow the shit out of us," I said.
"Especially then," he agreed. He rubbed his hand over his forehead.
He looked so defeated, all I could do was watch the screen.
I guess this was the time to kiss my ass goodbye.
Shit. I really had not planned to die today.
I pressed my lips together and watched the Gamma draw closer.
