Refuge in the Stars

by Tim Marquitz

  She glanced back to the view screen as the two pirate ships closed on their prey. Any further hesitation would see the occupants of the freighter die a miserable death.

  “You’re gonna have to deal with your reservations later, Lina,” Taj pressed the engineer. “Take them out!”

  The leech ship shot forward at Cabe’s behest, the nose veering toward the engines of the rearmost pirate craft. Lina was only an instant behind him, to Taj’s relief.

  The engineer triggered the guns and sent searing bursts of energy toward the enemy craft. Taj held her breath as the blasts tore through the weaker shields near the rear of the craft—their focus on the ship in front of them—and scorched great black holes in the armored hull.

  One of the pirate ship’s engines sparked and flared out, and the ship began to list to starboard, its pilot clearly unprepared to counter the sudden loss of one of the ship’s engines due to a sneak attack. Debris billowed out behind the ship as it drifted off course.

  Another alarm rang across the bridge, but Taj ignored it, knowing it likely meant they were being targeted by the wounded pirate craft as it struggled to respond in kind. Beaux’s voice echoed in her head, and she remembered one of the many lessons he’d given in an attempt to prepare her for exactly these circumstances.

  “Hit them again!” she shouted, agreeing with Beaux’s memory that overwhelming offense was always the best defense. “Hit them hard and don’t give them a chance to fire back!”

  Lina did exactly that, her confidence visibly growing as the moments passed.

  More cannon fire rained down upon the wounded pirate ship, peppering the hull and tearing through its defenses as it struggled to shift its shields into the best position to repel damage.

  Lina didn’t give them the chance.

  Behind the barrage of strafing energy blasts, she launched a plasma torpedo, S’thlor talking her through the process, his voice smooth and even.

  Taj watched as the coffin-shaped missile hurtled through the intervening space. It struck the pirate ship dead center and exploded, ripping through the armored hull. A flash of light momentarily blinded her before the view screen adjusted to its brightness. When she could see again, a massive, smoking crater now resided where the bulk of the ragtag pirate ship used to be.

  Its other engine flared and burned out as the ship vented its atmosphere and cracked in half, the image ominously strange in the silence of space. The backside of the two pieces crumpled in upon itself, and the craft began to tumble, spewing oxygen acting as a makeshift engine they couldn’t control.

  The ship spun, end over broken end, its previous momentum usurped by the explosion and Lina’s continued cannon fire.

  The second pirate ship, obviously seeing its compatriot falling lifeless alongside its port side, broke off its attack on the science craft and came about, streaking toward the Discordant, ready to engage the more dangerous foe.

  “Well, we have their attention now,” Cabe muttered. “That’s what you wanted, right?”

  “Gacking right,” Taj called out, resisting the urge to whoop. “Let’s send them to join their friends.”

  The second pirate ship streaked toward them, its guns unloading first. The Discordant’s shields flared at the impacts, Lina having reinforced them on the port side. Despite that, the bridge trembled, and Taj saw red warning lights flickering on her console.

  “I’m really starting to hate the color red,” she complained. “How are the shields holding up?”

  “She can take it,” S’thlor announced. “For a time, at least.”

  “Optimism at its finest,” Taj grunted as the pirate ship closed. “Can you turn us so we’re facing them, Cabe?”

  “We’re too close to the wreck for my liking to do that. This guy’s pushing us like a bully, keeping us broadside,” Cabe answered. “We need some distance between us so he doesn’t punch our shields. I’m initiating evasive maneuvers.”

  “About gacking time,” Lina told him. “I was beginning to think you were trying to win the most damaged ship competition.”

  He snarled at her and started to respond, but Taj cut him off with a savage hiss.

  “Wait!” she ordered. “Hold your course a moment longer.”

  She stared at the view screen, contemplating the intercept vector the pirate ship had plotted as an idea came to her.

  “Seriously?” Cabe and Lina asked at the same time.

  “I never thought I’d say this,” S’thlor said, sinking lower in his chair, “but I’m glad I can’t see what’s going on right now.”

  “Take us right toward the wreckage of the first ship,” Taj commanded a split-second later. “Straight at it. Don’t deviate.”

  “You do realize that running headlong into another spaceship, no matter how broken it might be, has only one result, right? Us being splattered across its hull.”

  “That’s what I’m picturing,” she replied. “Sort of.”

  S’thlor grunted. “And here I thought she was on your side.”

  “Keep the shields at full all around, Lina, and be ready at my command.”

  “I’m not liking this,” Cabe mumbled.

  “You don’t have to like it,” Taj told him, “just be ready to do what I tell you, no hesitation.”

  He snarled as more cannon fire rattled the Discordant, hammering its shields as he followed Taj’s order. The junked pirate ship loomed large in the view screen every passing second. They were so close that Taj could almost read the hull markings that had been scoured of color to mask its identity.

  “Hold course!” she called out. “Hold it!”

  “The only thing I want to hold right now is my ass,” Cabe replied, his eyes narrowing as the wreckage drew even closer. Yet, despite his complaints, he stayed on course.

  The second pirate ship wasn’t much farther away than the first, and Taj felt each and every blast it fired as the Discordant’s shields began to buckle under the assault as it closed on them. The hull trembled, a low vibration traveling through the hull.

  “Shields are flickering,” Lina called out.

  “Sometime soon would be wonderful,” Cabe muttered. “We’re getting awful close to that junker, Taj. I mean, splat close.”

  Taj held her tongue, watching the ruined ship draw ever nearer. It wasn’t until it was a gray blur stretched across the view screen, its shape unidentifiable, that she felt ready to reveal her true plan behind the strange maneuver.

  “Now!” Taj shouted. “Dive and take us under the wreck.”

  Cabe didn’t waste any time following her orders. The Discordant dipped and barely avoided colliding with the ruin of the pirate ship, pieces of the wreck thundering against the shields and kicking off sparks that died as soon as they burst alive.

  The pirate ship’s scarred and scorched hull blocked the whole of the view screen as they darted underneath, the ruin testing the limits of the shields right above their heads.

  Taj let out the breath she’d been holding. She’d been counting on the leech craft to be maneuverable enough to pull off what she’d planned, but the reality of the move drove her stomach into her throat.

  The second pirate ship, too far above the Discordant to mimic its maneuver safely, shot upward to avoid the wreck of its companion. The two clashed silently, the pursuing pirate ship barely managing to redirect so that the impact did little harm save hammer its shields into near oblivion and send a ripple of warped metal down the length of the ship’s lower hull.

  Though Taj had hoped the two would crash into each other dead on, that being what she envisioned, she was still happy to see the pilot had been forced to pull back hard on the throttle and kill all the enemy ship’s forward momentum.

  “Now climb,” she shouted as they cleared the wreck, barely able to get the words out. “Straight up! Bring us around over top of the wreck.”

  The ship responded perfectly to Cabe’s touch, with none of the Thorn’s hesitance, and the Discordant changed direction and circled the far
edge of the burnt-out pirate ship. The other ship, having only just avoided being a bug on the view screen of its dead companion, did the best it could to regain thrust and turn to meet the Furlorians.

  Taj saw the enemy ship’s shields flicker, moving to deflect the angle it was most likely the Discordant would hit them from.

  That played directly into Taj’s plan.

  Before they had cleared the husk of the first pirate ship, its broken frame still between them and the other pirate, Taj shouted, “Blast the wreck full-on in its side, Lina!”

  And while Taj could tell Lina hadn’t realized what Taj was going for, she did as she was told. The Discordant’s cannons opened up, slamming into the unshielded lump of the ruined pirate ship to brutal effect.

  “I have no idea what you’re trying to—” Lina started, then her eyes popped wide as realization clearly hit home. “Oh!”

  “Oh indeed,” Taj answered, grinning.

  “Whoa!” Cabe muttered, eyes wide.

  The wreck shifted under the force of the Discordant’s weapons, spinning about. Its fellow pirate ship, focused on redirecting its course and readying for the Discordant to appear above it, found itself directly in the path of the wreckage.

  No chance to veer off or redirect its shields, already committed, the remaining pirate ship could do nothing but hold its position. The ships crashed into one other. Their hulls crumpled with the impact, metal shredding as the broken husk folded its companion nearly in half in a fatal hug.

  The Discordant shot up and over the destruction as the two craft, now forever entangled as a wad of twisted steel, spewed and spun away into the distance, trailing debris.

  A muffled distress call echoed through the comms, panic in the voice, but Taj only grinned in response.

  The beings on those two craft had gotten nothing less than they deserved. She had no pity for them.

  “Are we still alive?” S’thlor asked.

  “I’ll let you know once my heart stops trying to strangle me,” Lina told him, and she slumped into her chair, exhaling hard, her head lolling back against the headrest.

  “Bring us around and scan the freighter,” Taj ordered, not wasting a moment in celebration or reflection. “The pirate ships should be far enough away now to get a better reading, right?”

  “I think so,” Lina replied as Cabe changed course and angled the Discordant toward the listing science ship. “Scanning now.”

  Taj sank into her seat as the rest of the crew focused on the task at hand. She let the adrenaline run riot through her veins, closing her eyes and reveling in the feel. It was intoxicating.

  Scared as she had been when they’d first engaged, it didn’t take long for the thrill of combat to win over and wash away lingering misgivings. While she still held some residual doubt in training, her lack of experience a concern, she couldn’t help but feel she was born for this.

  “I’m picking up a lifeform,” Lina announced.

  Taj straightened and opened her eyes. “That’s great. How many?”

  “Uh, a lifeform.”

  “Wait! Only one?” Taj asked, leaning forward in her seat, glaring at the engineer. “Are you serious?”

  “That’s what the scanners are reading.” Lina nodded. “It’s kind of weak, too. The being might be too far gone to save by now.”

  “Can you confirm, S’thlor?” Taj asked the captive alien.

  “So it would appear,” he replied, “if Lina is describing the readout correctly. A single signal is being returned.”

  “We did all that for one person?” Cabe shook his head and groaned.

  “One’s better than none.” Lina let out a quiet sigh. “Right?”

  “Bloody Rowl, it is.” Taj glared at the view screen. The science craft drew closer and closer as they examined it. “Bring us around so we can board. We need to find that survivor before he or she is no longer a survivor.”

  “We’re doing this?” Cabe spun in his seat to face her.

  “Seems wrong to go through all that and leave someone stranded on a dead ship, prolonging their agony, doesn’t it?”

  Cabe grunted. “I’m thinking we’re wasting our time, seeing how Lina says the signal is weak, but if that’s what you want to do…”

  “It is,” Taj told him, leaving no room for argument. “And we didn’t waste anything. There are two less predators out here attacking people. That counts for something no matter what happens now.”

  She leaned back in her seat and thought of Gran Beaux and Mama Merr. She was sure they’d want her to make the attempt, no matter how it worked out. And even if she weren’t able to rescue anyone, the more rational side of Taj reminded her that her people needed food, fuel, and supplies. If nothing else was accomplished by boarding the craft, there had to be something they could scavenge from the ruined hulk of a freighter.

  She’d made the right choice and her conscience was clear.

  Now, she only had to prove that to the rest of the crew.

  Chapter Eight

  The boarding umbilical floated across empty space until it clanged against the science ship’s hull. The tube sealed its connection and pressurized, then a red warning light flashed.

  “Cutting through the hull now,” Lina called out as she manipulated the tube controls. S’thlor stood beside her, walking her through the process. “Breaching now.”

  Taj stood in front of the small porthole in the door that led to the boarding tube, watching as the device flared and worked its way through the armored plating of the listing freighter. She was surprised by how fast the cutter—she saw it as being a kind of laser-scythe—sliced through the metal. After a few moments, a great slab of hull collapsed inward, crashing silently into a corridor inside the science freighter.

  “Impressive,” Torbon said, nodding in appreciation. “I wonder if we can use that thing as a weapon somehow.”

  Taj thought about the possibilities for a moment before dismissing them. There wasn’t time for flights of fancy. They had a person, possibly dying, trapped in the scuttled freighter. That was their priority. They needed to get them out first, then they’d worry about everything else.

  “Everyone armed?” she asked, and the crew nodded, Cabe and Torbon holding up their bolt pistols.

  S’thlor shrugged, empty-handed, and Lina patted him on the back. “Don’t worry, big guy, I don’t have a gun either. We aren’t going with them.”

  “Can’t say I’m disappointed,” he admitted. “Besides, you don’t want a blind soldier bringing up the rear. Could get kind of messy in a firefight.”

  “Yeah, I’d prefer not to get shot in the back,” Cabe said.

  “Then stay behind Torbon,” Lina joked, choking back a barking laugh.

  “Hey!” Torbon huffed and shook his head. “I’m not that bad of a shot!”

  “Your service records say otherwise,” Lina replied.

  “That’s not true.” Torbon snarled at her. “My record for stationary targets is exemplary.”

  “Knock it off. We don’t have time,” Taj told them.

  Torbon grumbled but didn’t argue.

  “We need you two on the Discordant,” Taj explained to Lina and S’thlor. “In case there are any surprises and we need to get out of here quickly.”

  “We’ve got you covered,” Lina assured her. She turned back to the console beside the umbilical doorway and nodded her approval at what she saw. “Atmosphere is breathable inside the freighter. Systems are failing ship-wide, but the backups register as online and sufficiently powered for now. Won’t be much more than emergency lighting in there, but life support and gravitational systems will hold out long enough for you to find our wayward survivor and raid the stores and get both back onto the Discordant.”

  “Can’t ask for more than that,” Taj said.

  “Well, we can, but it’s not like Rowl’ll grace us with any luck,” Torbon muttered. He cast a sheepish grin skyward, looking as if he regretted saying anything.

  “Maybe not, but you k
eep tugging her tail, and she’s gonna turn her eyes your way, Torbon,” Cabe told him. “I don’t want to be anywhere near you when she does.”

  “Me either,” Taj agreed, “so let’s get this over with.” She drew in a deep breath and met Lina’s eyes. “Keep an eye out for more pirates while we’re gone, okay? Can’t have them sneaking up on us.”

  “You sure you don’t want more backup?” Lina asked in reply.

  “No.” Taj shook her head. “If something happens, I want to be sure you and the others are safe and can get away, have a chance at a new life, and not be stuck on that wreck like us.” Taj cast a glance down the corridor, where a small cluster of their people gathered, keeping their distance as requested. “This goes south in any way, you run, you hear me? No questions, no hesitation. You run.”

  Lina paused a moment, saying nothing before she finally offered up a moist-eyed nod. “Be careful and get back here quickly.”

  “We will,” Taj said with a soft smile for the engineer before turning to face Cabe. “Let’s go.”

  Cabe nodded and opened the umbilical door, stepping inside with his weapon’s business end facing into the science freighter. Torbon and Taj followed without a word, stomping down the tunnel until they reached the far end. Cabe peered through the opening to the freighter and waved them through a moment later, seeing that it was clear.

  Even before they entered the ship, Taj could feel the difference in temperature between the Discordant and the science craft, its atmosphere leaking into the tube, a light coating of frost forming in the air.

  While the backup systems aboard the freighter were still running, pumping breathable air into the ship and keeping them firmly attached to the floor once they’d entered, the ship’s climate control was clearly malfunctioning. Wisps of fog spilled from her mouth as she exhaled. She hunched in on herself a bit to ward off the unexpected cold. The sparse, dimly lit hallway did nothing to ease the chill, an ominous quiet taking over. Even their footsteps seemed muffled aboard the damaged freighter.

  “Someone forgot to turn the heat up this morning,” Torbon mumbled, huffing out quick, sharp breaths so he could watch the steam billow.