Chapter 11
Jalina
The raider's first shot hit our shields before I'd even finished checking Maya's vitals.
"Shields at ninety-two percent," Vaxon announced from tactical, his voice carrying that particular calm that security personnel cultivated for moments when everything was going catastrophically wrong. "Second hostile vessel powering weapons. Make that three vessels. Four."
I gripped the edge of the medical bay's fold-down cot where Maya lay, barely conscious, her breathing shallow.
Blood from the gash on her temple had dried in rust-colored tracks down her face.
Beside her, the two other Liberty survivors, Jacob and Tess, lay strapped to emergency gurneys, their vital signs weak but stable.
We'd found them. After six months of wondering, of hoping, of feeling guilty every time I let myself be happy on Mothership, we'd actually found Liberty survivors.
And now raiders were trying to kill all of us.
"Jalina." Zor'go's voice came through my comm, steady despite the ship shuddering from another impact. "I need you on the bridge."
"The survivors—"
"Medical team can stabilize them. You're more useful helping us not die."
He had a point.
I sealed the medical bay door and sprinted down the corridor, using the handrails to pull myself forward as our shuttle, designated Rescue Seven but known to everyone as Lucky Strike because it had survived seventeen impossible missions, banked hard to avoid incoming fire.
The walls were standard Mothership gray, punctuated by emergency lighting that bathed everything in amber.
I'd never noticed how narrow these corridors were until I was running through them while being shot at.
The bridge was chaotic when I arrived. Vaxon at tactical, his three security officers manning defensive systems. Pilot Officer Kret'nor, one of Zor'go's Operations team, at the helm, her purple fingers dancing across controls with the precision of someone who'd flown through worse than this. Probably.
And Zor'go, standing at the central console, surrounded by holographic displays showing our position relative to the raiders and the asteroid field that had become our battlefield.
His ice-blue eyes found me immediately. "We have a problem."
"I'm aware. The multiple ships trying to kill us gave it away."
"The problem," he continued without acknowledging my sarcasm, "is that our original exit vector is blocked. Raiders are using a pincer formation to drive us deeper into the asteroid field."
I moved to the console, studying the tactical display. Four raider vessels, smaller than us but faster, more maneuverable, were systematically cutting off our escape routes. Behind us, the asteroid field grew denser, the rocks larger and more chaotic in their rotation patterns.
They were herding us toward a kill zone.
"Why not fight through?" I asked. "We have weapons."
"We have defensive weapons," Vaxon corrected. "This shuttle wasn't equipped for prolonged combat. Against one raider, maybe. Against four, with three critically injured survivors aboard?" He shook his head. "We'd lose."
Another impact. The shields flickered on the displays. Eighty-seven percent.
"So we run," I said. "Into the asteroid field."
"That would be suicide," Kret'nor called from the pilot's seat. "The density increases exponentially at this depth. Navigation would be impossible."
I pulled up my datapad, calling up the asteroid field scan we'd taken when we first arrived.
The three-dimensional model rotated slowly, each asteroid's trajectory calculated and displayed.
At first glance, it looked like chaos with hundreds of massive rocks tumbling through space with no pattern or predictability.
But I'd spent three months working with Zor'go on spatial design. Three months learning to see patterns in apparent chaos, to find order in complexity.
"Not impossible," I murmured, my mind already working through the problem. "Difficult. Really, really difficult. But not impossible."
Zor'go moved closer, studying my datapad. Close enough that I could smell the faint metallic scent that all Zandovians carried, like copper and ozone. "Explain."
I highlighted a section of the asteroid field, my fingers sketching paths between tumbling rocks. "Here. These seven asteroids are moving in a semi-synchronized pattern. Like gears in a machine, almost. Their rotation creates temporary gaps with windows where a ship could slip through."
"Temporary meaning?"
"Seconds. Maybe ten seconds per window. But if we time it right, we could use them like stepping stones. One gap to the next, moving deeper into the field where the raiders won't follow."
"Why won't they follow?" Vaxon asked.
"Because they're raiders, not suicidal maniacs.
Their ships are faster than ours, but they're also lighter.
Less shielding. One wrong move in that density and they're debris.
" I zoomed in on my proposed route, the path winding between asteroids in a pattern that looked more like artistic inspiration than actual navigation.
"We're bigger, better shielded. We can take hits they can't."
Zor'go was already running calculations, his fingers moving across his console with that focused intensity I'd come to recognize. Numbers cascaded down his displays, velocity calculations, trajectory predictions, collision probabilities.
"Seventy-three percent chance of collision," he said finally.
"Better than a hundred percent chance of getting blown apart by raiders."
"Shields at seventy-nine percent," Vaxon reported. "They're focusing fire. We need a decision."
Zor'go's markings flickered rapidly across his skin as blue and silver patterns that I'd learned meant he was processing multiple scenarios simultaneously.
We'd argued three days ago. Said terrible things to each other.
He'd called me reckless, accused me of running toward the past instead of embracing the future.
And then he'd volunteered for this mission. Come with me despite the danger, despite our fight, despite everything.
"Zor'go," I said quietly, meeting his eyes. "I need you to trust me. Actually trust me."
Something shifted in his expression. The calculations stopped. His markings steadied.
"Transmit your course to navigation," he said. "Kret'nor, prepare for evasive maneuvers. All hands, secure for extreme velocity changes."
Kret'nor's purple skin paled slightly. "Sir, these corridors are barely wide enough—"
"Which is why Architect Chauncy is going to guide us through them. Step by step." Zor'go turned to me. "You'll need to call out corrections in real-time. My calculations can predict the asteroid positions, but your spatial visualization is faster."
"I can do that."
"Shields at seventy-two percent," Vaxon said.
"Execute," Zor'go ordered.
Lucky Strike dove toward the asteroid field.
The first gap appeared exactly where I'd predicted, a temporary opening between two tumbling rocks the size of small buildings. Kret'nor threaded us through with maybe three meters of clearance on either side. The proximity alarms screamed. I ignored them.
"Next gap, twenty degrees port, fifteen seconds," I called out, my eyes tracking the holographic display while simultaneously sketching the path on my datapad. My hand moved faster than conscious thought, translating three-dimensional space into two-dimensional navigation in real-time.
The raiders followed us into the field. Bold. Stupid.
One of them misjudged the clearance. Its shields caught the edge of a rotating asteroid, and the ricochet sent it spinning into a second rock. The explosion was brief, a flash of white light, then debris.
Three raiders left.
"Gap closing early," Zor'go warned. "Asteroid seventeen's rotation is accelerating."
I saw it, the massive rock was tumbling faster than the scan had predicted, its irregular shape catching solar wind and changing its spin. The window I'd calculated was shrinking.
"Increase speed by twelve percent," I said. "We can still make it."
"That's too fast for the turn radius—"
"Trust me!"
Kret'nor pushed the engines. We shot forward, the asteroid looming larger on the viewscreen. The gap was closing, closing—
We burst through with less than a meter of clearance. The shields sparked where they'd grazed the rock face, but held.
"Shields at sixty-eight percent," Vaxon reported. "Raiders are falling back. Two remaining."
"They're not stupid," I muttered, already plotting our next move. The asteroid field was getting denser. The gaps were smaller, the timing more critical. "But we're committed now."
For the next seven minutes, I called out corrections while Zor'go ran the calculations to confirm my instincts weren't about to kill us all.
It was like our work on the expansion project, but compressed and intensified, that same creative synchronicity we'd developed over weeks of collaboration, now deployed at velocities that made every second critical.
"Port ten degrees. Now. Now!"
"Calculating... confirmed. Execute."
"That cluster ahead, see how the three asteroids are rotating around a common center? We can use their gravitational interaction. Slingshot effect."
"Risky. The centrifugal forces could tear us apart."
"Not if we hit it at exactly the right angle and speed."
"How right?"
"Very right."
Zor'go's markings flickered in what might have been amusement or terror. Possibly both. "Transmit the angle."
We threaded through spaces that shouldn't have been navigable. Slipped between rocks with clearances measured in meters while moving at speeds that made those meters feel like millimeters. The ship groaned and shuddered. Shields dropped to forty percent, then thirty-five.
But we were alive.
And the two remaining raiders had stopped following.
"Clear space ahead," Kret'nor announced, her voice shaking with relief. "We're through the densest sector."