Maris
The hangar doors weren’t even fully open when I punched the throttle. The Ghost screamed out of the cavern, scraping her belly on the closing rock plates. Behind us, Vashil’s voice crackled over the comm channels, ordering every ship in the sector to pursue.
“All units, target is fleeing in a modified Kestrel-class. Fifty thousand credits to whoever brings her down.”
Fifty thousand. I’d been worth more yesterday. Amazing how fast empires crumbled.
Three ships peeled off from The Quarry’s main docking ring immediately. Two more launched from the security platforms. My brain ran the numbers: five pursuers minimum, more coming. The Ghost was fast, but she wasn’t armored for this kind of fight.
I glanced at the co-pilot’s seat. He’d strapped himself in before passing out, which was the only reason he hadn’t slumped forward into the console.
Blood seeped through the new bio-sealer on his side, the vibro-blade wound tearing itself open again with every jolt.
His scales had gone that awful dull color that meant his body was shutting down.
The data chips were secure in the Ghost’s shielded locker, but Thoryn was dying in the seat next to me.
Bio-monitor readout: heart rate dropping, blood pressure critical, infection markers spiking.
The proximity alert screamed. I yanked the stick hard left, rolling the ship as plasma fire streaked past the viewport. The G-forces pressed me into the seat, but Thoryn’s head just lolled against the headrest.
“Stay with me, you idiot,” I muttered, checking the rear sensors. Four ships now, closing fast. “You don’t get to die in my ship. The cleaning fee alone would kill me.”
More plasma fire. I dove toward the asteroid field that surrounded The Quarry, the only advantage I had. The Ghost was built for running blockades through debris fields. Those security boats were built for station patrol.
The first asteroid loomed ahead, a mountain of black rock spinning lazily in the void. I skimmed so close I could see individual crater marks, then rolled hard to starboard as another chunk of ice the size of a building drifted past. The proximity alerts became one continuous wail.
Behind me, one pursuer tried to follow my line through the rocks. Tried. The explosion lit up my rear sensors for two seconds before the debris cloud swallowed the light.
Four down to three.
Blood hit the console. Not mine. Thoryn’s side wound had torn wider, the movement of the ship pulling against whatever internal damage the vibro-blade had done. The bio-monitor’s alarm joined the symphony of other warnings.
“Thoryn.” Nothing. His breathing had gone shallow, rattling.
I couldn’t reach the medkit without taking both hands off the controls. Couldn’t apply another bio-sealer without stopping evasive maneuvers. The next asteroid cluster was coming up fast, a maze of tumbling rocks and ice that would require every bit of my concentration to navigate.
Blood pressure dropping. Estimated time to cardiac arrest: twelve minutes.
I made the calculation. Cold. Practical. The same kind I’d been making for years.
Save the ship and let him die, or save him and probably get us both killed.
Three pursuers still on my tail. The asteroid cluster ahead was a chaotic field of tumbling stone and ice. The bio-monitor estimated eight minutes now.
“Damn it.”
I locked the stick between my knees, trying to hold a survivable path, and grabbed the emergency medkit from under my seat. My hands found the bio-sealer by touch. The ship bucked as I missed a micro-adjustment, scraping against a chunk of ice. Warning lights flashed across the board.
“I swear, Thoryn, if you die while I’m trying to save you, I’ll kill you myself.”
The bio-sealer was slippery with my blood now too. My knuckles had split open from gripping the stick too hard. I tore Thoryn’s shirt wider, seeing the wound properly for the first time since we’d launched. Deep. Jagged. Probably caught something important.
Another proximity warning. I dropped the bio-sealer, grabbed the stick, and pulled us into a spiral between two massive rocks. One pursuer tried to follow, clipped the second rock, and spun off into the void trailing atmosphere.
Two left.
Six minutes on the bio-monitor.
I went back to the wound. The bio-sealer hissed as I pressed it against the torn flesh, foam expanding to fill the cavity. Thoryn made a sound, low and pained, but didn’t wake up.
“That’s it. Keep fighting, you stubborn lizard.”
The seal took thirty seconds to set. Thirty seconds of flying straight while two ships gained on us. Plasma bolts started finding their range, one scorching across our starboard shields. Then another. The shield generator whined, already overtaxed.
Seal set. I grabbed the stick properly again and dove into the densest part of the field.
This deep, the asteroids weren’t individual rocks anymore. They’d been grinding against each other for centuries, creating a cloud of debris that ranged from pebbles to boulders. The Ghost’s hull thrummed as smaller pieces struck us. The viewport developed three new cracks.
Behind us, one pursuer pulled back rather than follow. Smart. The other one, though...
The pilot was good. Very good. Stayed right on my tail through moves that should have shaken anyone. Station security didn’t have pilots this good. This was someone Vashil had brought in special.
“Maris Elen.” A new voice over the comm. Male, accented. “Your lieutenant paid me extremely well to bring you in alive. But dead works too. Your choice.”
Bounty hunter. Professional. Expensive.
I checked Thoryn’s bio-monitor. The countdown had paused; the seal was holding. Stable, but just barely. He’d lost too much blood. He needed a proper medical facility, not whatever patch job I could manage while flying through a rock storm.
The bounty hunter’s ship was modified, I realized. Extra armor, upgraded engines, military-grade shields. He could take more punishment than the Ghost. In a straight fight, he’d win.
Good thing I didn’t fight straight.
The densest part of the asteroid cluster was ahead, where three massive rocks had collided recently and created a sphere of debris. It was suicide to fly through. The chunks were too thick, moving too fast, no pattern to track.
I flew straight at it.
“You’re insane!” The bounty hunter’s voice held the first note of uncertainty.
Maybe. But I’d built an empire on taking risks others wouldn’t.
We hit the debris cloud at full thrust. The impacts came so fast they blurred together. Metal screaming. Glass cracking. Every alarm the ship had going off at once. I flew by instinct, by feel, jerking the stick based on shadows and the way the ship shuddered.
A chunk of rock the size of my fist punched through the ancillary shielding and slammed into the bulkhead near Thoryn’s seat. The impact was violent, throwing us against our straps with a sound of tearing metal.
We punched through the other side trailing smoke and sparks. Half my systems were red-lined. The viewport was a spider web of cracks. But we were alive.
The bounty hunter wasn’t. His ship emerged from the cloud in three separate pieces.
One pursuer left. I could see him on the scope, hanging back at the edge of the field. Smart enough not to follow, but he was calling in our trajectory. More ships would be coming. The Consortium had deep pockets.
The Haven was twelve minutes out at maximum burn. I pushed the Ghost as hard as she’d go, her damaged frame groaning with every course correction. Thoryn’s breathing had steadied, but he still hadn’t woken up.
“Almost there,” I told him. Or myself. Hard to tell anymore.
The Haven appeared on the scope, that beautiful clustered mess of abandoned ships and illegal modifications. No law here. No security force. Just credits and anonymity.
The last pursuer peeled off as we approached. The Haven’s defense grid wasn’t much, but it was enough to discourage a single ship from starting trouble.
I brought us in hard and sloppy, the Ghost handled sluggishly, her damaged frame fighting my commands. The docking computer tried to take over, and I slapped it off. I’d park my own damn ship.
We settled into a berth with a grinding crash. I didn’t care. We were down. We were alive.
Except…that last, violent impact had torn the new bio-sealer open. Thoryn was bleeding again, freely. Unconscious, breathing only just.
“Don’t you dare die now,” I said, killing the engines. The sudden silence was deafening. “Not after The Fortress. Not after the fall, or this field. Not after all this.”
His bio-monitor gave a weak, shrill chirp. Heart rate irregular. Blood pressure critical. Time to organ failure: imminent.
I’d gotten us to the Haven. But I didn’t know if I’d gotten us here in time.