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“Quick thinking on your part,” said Caligher. He shifted in his chair with a pained groan. “Need to get him another way. Hold on.”
“Wait—you’re not seriously—”
Both ships took off in flight, shooting at each other wildly. Lucca hovered in the dark while light rained down in unpredictable paths. The red streak rumbled before the ship-destroyer fired off—but the cannon careened off into the darkness, missing its mark.
The pirate picked Caligher’s wing off with a well-aimed shot.
She watched it fall apart. The pirate was ripping them to shreds with so much ease that there was nothing to salvage. They were losing. She needed to get Caligher out. Now.
Caligher’s ship rotated at an odd angle. “Huh. That… complicates things.”
“Cal, your ship is smoking.”
She wasn’t kidding. It collected through the windows off his right side, rolling from room to room like dark, evil vapor.Spreadingat a concerning rate. Her mind went haywire with what could possibly be putting offsmoke. And if there was fire, or too much heat, what delicate machinery could be at risk.
His engines. His life support.Him.Please, not him.
“Oh—now I can cook the miniature whale I picked up,” he said with inappropriate cheerfulness, given the dire situation.
“Caligher, I’m serious!” she whined.
With a grunt, he fiddled with something and—the back hatch of his ship flew open, sucking the inky smoke out and effectively transforming Wingless into a moving, metallic death zone. It gave her the utter fucking creeps and reminded her too much of the day her crewmates had perished—in space.
She swallowed uncomfortably, feeling her nerves prick into goosebumps. When she wrote home, she would only have this to say:Space is horrible. Don’t come here.
And Caligher was still in the game, antagonizing the pirate to bite off more chunks of his ship. Did he think he was winning? He never fucking stopped.
“Cal, please! This pirate is going tokillus.” Fed up with being ignored, she threw her ship over his and cloaked them. “He istoo strongfor us,” she snarled.
“He’s one pirate.”
“He’s one pirate who’s going to kill you—and maybe me! If your ship blows, we’re done. That’s it—game over—done. I am not equipped to handle him alone.”
His tail thumped with petulance, making her want to strangle his ass, until he fell prey to hoarse coughing.
“Fine,” he coughed. “Fine.”
Lucca studied the pirate’s ship again and felt him still watching her. It was extremely unsettling.
She would have to turn off her computer to escape the pirate. She worked her routine out quickly—counting the numerous ways it could go wrong. She’d never turned the machine off, not even for reboots, and she wasn’t unequivocally certainherlife support would stay online. But she had no other choice.
“Cal. Can you tow my ship?”
She felt her little ship being collected, and for a flicker of a second, both their ships went visible. Lucca ignored the wobbling indicators of the pirate trying to talk to her, adjusting the cloaking and making them disappear.
“I have you, Lucca.”
The sound of her computer shutting down was a thing she felt in her bones. Darkness trickled over her. All she heard was the gentle hum of the coasting engines as Caligher tugged her ship along. The temperature dropped rapidly. The Selkie had never sounded so hair-raisingly vacant.
They snuck away in icy, chilling silence.
* * *
Lucca only powered her computer on when she was dead certain they weren’t being followed. Once all the familiar background noises were restored, she breathed a sigh of relief.
She opened her line to Caligher.
“How’re you holding up over there?” she asked.
