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“You hear that?” She looked at Bubba, who seemed the most alert of the group aside from her.
“Y—” He burped. “Yeah.”
Damn it.
It wasn’t her shift. Technically, it was Pauli’s this late in the day. But Pauli was presently unconscious on the floor, and nobody else looked much better. With only a couple of kerogel doses sloshing around in her stomach, Tez knew this was going to be on her.
“I’ll suit up,” she groaned, pushing herself to her feet.
“Go get that fucker!” Reana’s fist shot up from the corner.
* * *
She was lucky her Raptor was already refueled and ready to go when she got to the docking bay. Tez strapped in and punched an adrenaline shot from her medpack into her thigh. She usually didn’t need it. It was for emergencies only. She knew pilots who ran on the stuff.
Her hands were steady as the engine powered up.
“All clear.” The dockman’s voice came through to the cockpit.
She spotted the Gnat on her radar as soon as she was out of the dock. It was always the same approach with this one: a straight arrow toward her, not even bothering with preemptive evasive maneuvers. Cocky bastard. But once it got in range of laser fire, the games would begin.
It had already gotten closer than she liked. She wasn’t prepared for this. Trust the single time she had some fun and bent the rules to be the one that’d bite her in the ass. But the adrenaline was already bringing her back to peak performance.
“Back so soon? You must’ve missed me real bad.”
She opened comms and made the first move because darn it, this thing was ruining her whole evening. There was no answer, of course, as the mystery ship careened directly for her. She started with a carbon-seeking missile, which missed as usual, then blasted the lasers with extra commitment, arcing around the other ship as she did so.
They were at it like banshees for the better part of twenty minutes. Weaving through each other’s laser trails, ducking and twisting like an archival video of swans doing their weird mating dance.
Tez was sloppy, but held her own. The adrenaline pounding in her ears helped with that, honing her focus on her rival. Why was it back? What were they after? She wanted to ask, but that would be a real violation. A pirate’s motive did not matter, and was always predictable anyway: they wanted free stuff. Scavengers, the lot of them.
She did a double-take when the radar alarm blared with a sudden pop, signifying an object appearing without a detected approach.
Another one? The Gnat was supposed to be the last one left.
And it was coming directly at her. She jerked the yoke, turning to starboard, but it was useless. The lock-on alert whined all around her, signaling an incoming missile.
Tez watched the Gnat right ahead, against a backdrop of the barren lump of Arvex.
Was that it? She’d gotten too comfortable—these intruders had always attacked alone before.
Guess they caught on.
Tez made another futile evasion attempt, but it was no use. Whatever ships these were, they could appear out of nowhere. She closed her eyes.
There it is.
The Raptor shuddered and careened forward. Alarms blaring, Tez remained still, jerked against her harness.
Why wasn’t she exploding yet?
That was what should’ve happened. She should’ve been in pieces by now, limbs flying and ripped or just plain old disintegrated in outer space, giving the Gnat a fine view of atoms and innards. Instead, she was rolling end over end past her arch-nemesis, toward Arvex’s atmosphere.
Everything was in slow motion as she glanced to port mid-roll, watching the debris from the collision. There was a fire in the Gnat’s cannons that was just beginning to cool from searing white-blue to a wavering red. The missile that had been coming straight for her was now smoke and fire billowing in all directions, forever.
There was a flash of blue from the newcomer, but the carcass of her Raptor rolled, forcing Tez’s view to fall to the approaching planet below.
Did her rival just… save her? Why did it shoot down a friendly missile?
