by Darcy Town
Rake turned back to the controls. “About that.” He grabbed hold of a joystick. The ship blasted into the air and hovered over the airfield. He lost his smile as the screens came on to show him the outside of the ship. Rake tilted the joystick side to side, gaining a handle on its sensitivity. He cocked them towards the sky. He pulled and the engines engaged, blasting them towards the clouds. “Seatbelts!”
The Rexos flew back. Kennedy caught him. Marx lifted Tasanee and placed her on his lap, buckling them both in together. Ravil strapped Rake in while he played with the controls. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Thanks.”
Ravil blushed. “You’re welcome.”
Sammy beeped. “Rake, we have incoming. Looks like intercept course.”
“Do we have guns?”
The Rexos looked up. “No. Medical ships do not have outer weapons.”
Rake smiled nervously. “Yeah, once again one of those obvious things I should know, right?”
Ravil focused. “Stop whining.”
Rake rolled the ship as small Ampyr fighter jets dove at them. The enemy ships darted and maneuvered as fast as their Ampyr pilots could react. Rake scowled. “Fucking wasps!” He could move fast, but not that fast. “Sammy, anyway of making us faster?”
“Yes, but not without rerouting power and eating up fuel cells like crazy.”
“Fuck! Fuck off!” He screamed at the buzzing ships. “What are they even trying to do? They’re not firing at us.”
Ravil looked at him nervously. “Attach to the hull, cut through, and take us by force.”
Rake set his jaw. “Okay Sammy, redirect power.”
“Right-o, favorite brother.” The ship rumbled as systems rerouted.
“Only brother!” Rake shouted at her. Wasps filled the air and dive-bombed them. He swerved and rolled the ship.
“We have hull contact,” Sammy’s voice sounded alarmed. “Now two, three.”
Rake pushed on the joystick, sending them into a dive. “Get off!”
Ravil swallowed. “They can’t hear you, Rake. Maybe if you—”
“Don’t be a backseat driver, Ravil! You’re not even old enough for a driver’s license!”
Ravil dug her fingers into the clear panels in front of her. “I really don’t appreciate your tone. I’m your Navigator!”
“Then jump us!”
The Rexos raised his voice from behind them, “Not advisable, she is not well yet.”
Rake didn’t spare him a glance. “Then make her well! That’s your job.”
The Rexos looked queasy as the ship barrel-rolled. Lincoln unbuckled the boy and threw him at Ravil. The Rexos squeaked and grabbed her chair. Ravil pulled him into it. “Hi, I’m Ravil.”
“I’m Darq.” He put his hand on hers and closed his eyes, becoming oblivious to everything around him.
“More incoming.” Sammy rattled off. “Lots more.”
“What?” Rake glared at the screen. “They already have like fifty-billion out there!”
“More like forty, Rake.”
“Shut up, Sammy!”
Sammy laughed. “Make me. Oh, you can’t because I’m a motherfucking ship yo! Hey look, more cameras!” The image on their monitors shifted to show a different view. A black spear point tore through wasps, releasing bomblets that burst in every direction.
Rake gaped. “Who is that?”
Sammy locked in on their signal. “Call sign Luke, oh and Wedge.”
“Mica.” Rake set his jaw. “No way.”
The US Defender shot off the wasps that clung to the hull of the medical ship. Sammy opened up communications. “Baby fuckwad!”
Mica’s voice came back, “Sammy?” Danny’s voice was indistinct in the background.
Sammy whooped. “Mica, have your balls dropped yet?”
Mica did not have time to act surprised at hearing the voice of someone he thought dead for a decade. He turned back to the Ampyr ships and fired in bursts. Wasps tried to hold onto the hull of his ship, but there was nothing to hold onto. He spun it, flipping them off and into each other.
Rake seethed. “That’s my goddamn ship! Mine!”
Ravil eyed him. “Your ship was scrapped.”
“I’m the US Defender pilot, me! Now he’s going to upstage—”
“Grow up.”
“Grow up? I have to pilot the blue whale of ships, the RV of the sky, the bus of the air.” Rake hauled on the controls and sent them straight into the sky. “What does he think he’s doing anyways? Going to space with us? Fat chance of that if I have any say in the matter.”
Mica could hear him. “Damn right I am going to space, so is Danny. You are not fucking leaving me behind this time! Not on a mission!”
“This isn’t a mission, you retarded little shit!” Rake snarled. “I am joining a space war with my Navigator. You have no reason to be coming along! You’re only going to get in the way like you always did!”
Danny’s voice slurred from pain medication, “Rake, you are going to listen to me because I’m the boss-mander…commander…and we are going together. Got it? An order that I gave.”
“Yes, sir.” Rake shut his mouth.
Ravil glared at the USD on their screen. “I doubt them going along is a good idea.”
“Ditto.” Rake spotted larger, heavier ships drawing closer. “What the hell? What are those?”
“Tankers.” Sammy recognized them from the Codex. “Heavy artillery, enough to rape us out of the sky and plow our asses into the earth without breaking a sweat. They’re going to gangbang us, Rake. Tear us a new one. I don’t want my new body to be fucked by alien guns, really not chill with that, definitely not righteous. Like huge holes, Rake. Burning, gaping—”
“Okay, I got it, Sammy!”
Mica turned his attention to the tankers and changed weapons. He deployed heavy rounds, white trailers followed their progress. They hit the tankers and detonated. The ships plowed on with nothing but a burnt looking dent where they were hit. Mica’s disappointment was apparent in his tone, “Yeah, I can’t do anything against that.” He turned back to the wasps and blew those of the sky. “I’m just going to do this, have fun with those things.”
Rake snarled. “We don’t have any weapons!” He looked to Ravil. “Do you see what I mean? He’s goddamn useless!”
Sammy scanned the skies. “We have more incoming.”
“More?” Rake looked into the deep blue sky; they still had a ways before getting into space. “Seriously? How many times over do they want to kill us?”
The tankers fired. Ravil stared at the missiles on her screen. “Take evasive, they are heat-seeking.”
Rake rolled the ship and dove. The missiles hit wasps and the explosions flooded the sky in light. The shockwave knocked the US Defender and medical ship off course. They tumbled horizontally for half a mile before Rake regained control. “I want whatever they’re firing!”
From her spot at the computer, Tasanee’s head rolled onto Marx’s shoulder. She’d fully integrated Sammy’s personality and information into the ship. She unplugged the necklace and threw it at Ravil. “Catch.”
“Thanks.” Ravil grabbed it and put it around her neck.
Tasanee let fatigue draw her into a droop-eyed state. Marx purred beneath her, making her entire body vibrate. She managed a smile. “You’re like one of those massage chairs.” As she spoke, her lip cracked open, bleeding. “Ow.”
“Shh.” Marx licked her face, his tongue slid across the semi-healed burn marks, numbing and soothing. His tongue swept along her lips.
Tasanee gaped. “How long is your tongue?”
Marx kept still and licked to her ear.
Tasanee laughed. “Impressive.”
Marx shredded her burnt clothing and shifted in their seat so that he could see to her other wounds. Tasanee watched him work. “You know that shit is going to scar.”
Marx shook his head. “The Rexos will get to you, and even if you do, scars are marks of honor. They are also
highly erotic.”
Kennedy nodded from his spot at the wall. “This is true. Mark of a warrior, a sign you deal death and can take pain.”
Tasanee closed her eyes. “What, am I being Hunter-adopted?”
Lincoln looked thoughtful. “Hunters do that from time to time.”
“I wasn’t serious.” Tasanee touched Marx’s forehead as he licked her ribcage and worked lower. “Stop it. I don’t trust you around my other parts.”
Marx grinned. “But you’re wounded.” He grabbed her hand and moved it to the side. He licked, slipping his pheromone agent in along with the one that numbed her skin. “Caring for you is what I want to do.”
Warmth and happiness spread through her body. She kneed Marx in the head. “I said stop. I’m not bleeding to death.” Marx pulled his head back and uncurled, sitting up straight. Tasanee smiled slightly and held his hand. “Thank you.”
Wasps latched onto their hull, spawning another round of alarm bells. Rake rolled the joystick as fast as he could, making everyone nauseous. He managed to knock the wasps off. “Ha! Take that!”
The tankers caught up with them and took aim with reloaded artillery, clearly intending on firing straight into the middle of the attack, not caring if they hit wasps as well. Rake made a face. “I thought they wanted you alive, Ravil!”
“Yes, but they want me terminated if I’m going to the Resistance.” She looked over at him, worried. “They’d rather me gone than aiding the other side.”
Rake spoke through the radio, “Mica, don’t suppose you have anything up your sleeve for those guys?”
Mica blasted another set of wasps. “Nope. Besides, I thought you were the amazing pilot that always has a plan. You’re Solo right? You come up with something.”
“I do have a plan, it’s called Mica takes one for the team and slams his ship into them. How does that sound? I’ll drink a beer in your honor.”
“Fuck you, Rake.”
Rake grinned. “You finally admit your secret love for me and just at the time before we’re going to die. How romantic.”
Ravil and Sammy shouted together, “Shut up, Rake!”
The tankers readied their guns. Rake muttered, “No guns on a medical ship, what lame shit is that. My medical ship would have guns.”
The tankers tilted towards the ground. They flipped over and their missiles fired into one another. Rake and Ravil stared as the debris burst in a ring.
Mica pulled out of range of the shockwave. “What the fuck is that move? Confuse us to death?”
Ravil saw a flash of red. “No, look there!” She caught the image on the monitors and zoomed in. “Rat!”
Tasanee smiled and pointed at the red cube. “Hey, it works!”
Evgeniy cranked on his steering column and rammed the third tanker in Tasanee’s home-restored red Russian spacecraft. He cut thrusters and dropped his heavy ship straight onto the Ampyr’s cockpit. He hit his thrusters, cut out in a hop-and-drop maneuver that cracked their hull. The tanker lost power and plummeted. Evgeniy’s ship came out of the encounter unscathed. He flicked on his radio for anyone who was listening. “Rake, am I wrong assuming you are white egg ship that everyone fire on?”
“I think of it as a white vibrator, but whatever, yeah.”
The Russian ship changed course, heading for them. He was slow, but nothing stopped him. He plowed through wasps. He did not do evasive maneuvers, others did them around him. “Can you do this, Rake?”
Rake looked at the computer. “Can we?”
“No!” Sammy’s voice came back sharp, “Do not even think about ramming my hull into things!”
Evgeniy laughed. “Who is in black tiny ship?”
Danny took control of the radio. “Czar, you’re alive! I thought you might have been killed by those fucking Hunters.”
Tasanee grabbed for a microphone. “They saved our asses, Danny! All three of them are onboard and Kennedy saved you, so be nice!”
“Okay, uh, thanks Kennedy.”
Kennedy grinned and kicked his feet. “You are welcome, Danny!”
A second US Defender buzzed Mica, firing as it went by. The pilot used the spear point and sliced through the air.
Danny sighed. “I recognize that style. Is everyone showing up?”
Katarina turned her US Defender around and checked that Oro and his ship still followed on her towline. She flipped on her radio. “What’s the plan? Continue to shoot everything?”
Rake smiled. “Yes.”
Ravil took the microphone. “No! This ship is headed for space to join the Resistance. I suggest you all turn back before you can’t!”
Danny scowled. “We are coming along, kid.”
Ravil growled. “I am not a kid!”
Oro’s mineral trawler caught up and he joined in. “No one is leaving us behind. Not after I flew this piece of shit which is a goddamn death trap by the way thanks, Rat.”
Evgeniy slammed his ship into the wasps that swarmed Oro’s trawler. “Yours is deathtrap?” He swore in Russian as porn magazines fell out of cabinets and slapped him in the face. “Mine is trap.”
In the mineral trawler, Oro glared at his interference-filled monitor. “At least you can see and it would take a fucking nuclear explosion to rip your shit up, mine is rickety.” He lifted his feet as bottles of soda rolled around the ship. “And Rat stored all of her munchies in here!”
Tasanee laughed and cringed. “Go me. Ouch…oh.”
Danny sounded concerned. “Rat, you don’t sound okay.”
“I’m a crispy critter.” Tasanee moved to get comfortable. “I got roasted by a fucking Fix-It during our escape.”
Katarina’s voice cracked, “Is someone taking care of you?”
“Yeah.” Tasanee glanced up at Marx who kept his tongue to himself. “I’ve got someone, Kat.”
“Kat?” Sammy came on. “Katarina? Kitty? Is that you?”
Alarms went off in Katarina’s ship as she let go of her controls. Her heart dropped into her stomach. A surge of adrenaline and hope shot through her body. “Samantha?” Katarina clutched her chest. “Where are you? How…how are you here? I thought you were brain dead!”
Danny jumped in. “Yeah, we all did, Rake.”
Rake looked at his hands. “I, uh—”
“I asked him to keep it a secret,” Sammy cut in. “And it’s a long story for a time that isn’t right now.”
Mica covered Katarina as her ship slowed. “Can someone make a decision as to what we’re doing? Some of us are going to run out of ammunition soon!”
Rake laughed. “Some of us don’t have ammunition!”
Danny sighed. “Rake and Ravil, this is your craziness, do something.”
Rake nodded. “Going up!” He tilted their ship back and rocketed for space. “Follow if you can fuckers!”
Katarina recovered from her shock, threw out her hook, and grabbed onto Oro’s ship as she went past him. She hit her thrusters and blasted after Sammy. Mica hooked onto Evgeniy’s ship and hauled him along. The Ampyr wasps dropped back as they passed out of the atmosphere and into the gravity-free darkness of space.
“Why’d they stop?” Rake looked through the monitors.
Lincoln frowned. “That is strange.”
“Well whatever, they’re gone, we’re safe.” Rake grabbed Ravil’s hand and looked over. “Thank you.”
“For dragging you into a war? You’re welcome I guess.”
Sammy switched the thrusters off and slowed them down. “Opening docking bay.”
Rake frowned. “Why?”
Mica grumbled over the radio, “We are out of power, Rake.”
Tasanee nodded from where she sat. “Bare minimum was all they had.”
Sammy beeped. “Okay boys…small American ships in the docking bay, you big fatty ethnic ones can dock on the sides of me. I have hatches that’ll seal you on real good.”
Oro cleaned off his dashboard and grabbed his mining controls. He extended claws and grabbed onto the hull of
the medical ship, pulling himself in. “I see a door; can I get a seal, Sammy? I want out of this deathtrap now.”
“Sure thing, Vader.” Sammy locked him down and opened a hatch. Oro all but ran through it. He wasn’t used to zero gravity. He lost his footing and slid into a supply room, floating in the air. “Sammy, can you direct me to the cockpit?” Sammy lit up the floor and Oro climbed after the lights.
Evgeniy did the same on the other side of the medical ship. He left his Russian craft and found himself in the mess hall. He strapped himself into the wall and grabbed a floating bottle. “Can I drink this, Sammy-voice?”
“Yeah, Pinko-Commie, chug that shit.”
Katarina and Mica docked their ships inside Sammy’s. They stayed inside the USDs as Sammy closed the outer doors and pressurized the room. She shifted the lights to green, “All clear, come on out.”
Katarina jumped out of the cockpit. “Sammy, where are you?”
“In the ship.” Her voice echoed in the large space.
Katarina spun in a circle. “Yeah I know, where, you bitch?!”
Sammy sounded pained, “Kat, I’m in the ship, in the wiring. I am the ship.”
Katarina’s face fell. “Wh…you’re what?”
Sammy flashed the lights red. “We have more incoming, everyone get strapped in. Danny, Mica, Kat you have straps to your right. Get tied down. Kat, we’ll talk about this later.”
In the cockpit, Rake squinted. “I don’t see anything. Sammy, you’re blind.”
Ravil eyed him. “They’re black, dumbass.”
“Don’t call me a dumbass, I just saved you.”
Ravil pointed, Rake followed her finger.
The sun came into view and light hit the hulls of three of the huge ships Rake had seen earlier. Hundreds of wasps darted between them. Dozens of tankers turned their way and charged weapons.
Rake had to pee. “Oh.”
Ravil took a deep breath. “Everyone secure?”
“Yep,” Sammy responded. “Oro’s in the hall on the wall.” She opened the cockpit door, Oro waved from the hall.
Ravil frowned. “We can’t outrun them.”
Rake looked over at her. “Can you jump us?”
Ravil’s cheeks turned pink. “Rake, I’ve never done a ship! Let alone one with all of these people! I’m not trained. I don’t know if I have the energy or concentration.”