Pieces of Dark

I. Edge of the Sky

They were stuck.

Not entirely, but the crawl that they had been reduced to was not so much better than not moving at all, given the vast distances of nothing that separated stations and planets and anything remotely resembling habitation. They coasted, drifting with no propulsion, and with lights set low both to conserve what energy they could, and to avoid attracting unwanted attention while the Ratatosk was a sitting duck.

It wasn’t a new thing that the swarm was after them. The Ratatosk was hardly an unknown entity, and Sellis was--in a way--sort of proud of her infamy. He refrained from saying so, the third time Lilaey came up from the gut of the ship with a mouthful of opinion on how things should have been done and reports of how she felt about having to take things apart then put them back together, in time they simply didn’t have.

“It takes what it takes,” Sellis said, because there was really no choice other than to do as fast and as solid a patch job as possible with the materials and time that they had. That or sit and wait.

Lilaey went to the pilot’s station to punch computer keys, then stood and frowned at the screen for long moments. “I hate to tell you this, but there’s no repair I can do that’s going to make this tub move much faster than it is now.”

“Don’t talk that way about my baby,” Sellis said, and patted the smooth paneling beside him for emphasis, “We close to anything?”

“Nothing. Nothing friendly, anyway,” she said, and Sellis had already known that. Very little of the Reaches was particularly friendly, even to ships and crews with honest reputations. Out in the middle of nowhere, with supplies, replacements, and contact with civilization coming only occasionally and often irregularly, people were cautious. Cut what risk factors they could do away with, and minimized what they couldn’t. A ship known to be rogue was hardly going to be welcomed. A crew known to be rogue and wanted was almost certainly going to meet a grisly end before being put on ice to await whoever could verify identities and pay bounties.

It would probably take them weeks to get even so far as a refueling station, hostile or not. If they could get that far. If there was any bubble of humanity within the range of their crippled engines.

“I’m not ready to send an SOS.” Sellis said, and Lilaey blinked and made a face like she was surprised he’d been considering it, or surprised he would make a joke of it, knowing that whoever showed up to an SOS would likely be unpleasant. Her brow furrowed in irritation.

“I’m not done with the engines yet,” she said, as if affronted. “I’ll get us somewhere.”

It was the ‘somewhere’ that was a problem, Sellis thought, the absolute lack of available somewheres. He said, “Then what are you still doing up here?”

She tapped the computer keys, “Checking sensors. At least now we’ll be able to tell if someone’s coming. Guess you could just look out the windows, but--“

“Alright, alright. Carry on.”

Lilaey grinned, but didn’t look away from the screen, busy tapping keys and considering readouts.

Sellis gave her a minute, before walking over to watch numbers and tables fly up the screen, “Up and running?”

“Looks to be. The only thing that is.” She tapped more buttons and the screen went dark then lit up with new columns of number and letters that started to scroll by too fast for Sellis to make sense of.

“How’s our jump?”

“Shaky. If it were anything but jump, I’d say let’s give it a shot, but if it gives out between--well, God only knows.”

Sellis thought about the wrenching wrongness of being in jump, of the distorted time and the disconcerting, sickening feeling of being stretched and squashed all at the same time, of being everywhere and nowhere and of the utter nothing of it. That utter nothing that wasn’t even darkness. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and said, “Shit.”

“On the other hand, the damage was done before we jumped here.”

“And look how well that worked out.”

“Beats the alternatives. Marsh might be able to jump us a little way.” She said it evenly, conversationally. As if that ‘might’ weren’t a horrible, lurking thing.

“Shit.” Sellis said, and flopped into the pilot’s chair.

Lilaey hit another button, and screens that had been dark came to life, clouded with static, then cleared again, displaying the exterior of the ship, distant stars and lots and lots of nothing. Sellis wasn’t sure if that was a relief or not.

“Preferable to the damn swarm, I guess,” he said finally, nodding at the main display.

“Don’t jinx us now,” Lilaey said, bringing up more displays, showing empty, dark space all around, “those bastards know we’re hit. They’re not going to clear off that easy.”

“You call that easy?” Sellis jerked a thumb at a screen displaying the damage report, “I call that skin of our teeth.”

All that nothing all around, and they weren’t likely in the clear. The swarm--what passed for the law out here on the edges of everything--were small; fast, maneuverable, and with impressive firepower for their size, but they had a limited range, and no jump capacity to speak of. They would have to regroup at a carrier, but even that delay wouldn’t slow them much now they had the Ratatosk’s scent.

“How much speed did you say can you get us?” he asked, watching the screens.

“You’re lucky we’re moving,” Lilaey said, “And I can’t get much more than we have. Too much damage, and no parts to replace what's scraped.”

“Drag Marsh up from the engines, would you? I don’t see why I have my mechanic up here, and my pilot down in machines.” He checked the coordinates on the pilot’s screen and brought up a map, “If we’re going to be dragging ourselves across the universe we may as well drag with a destination in mind.”

Lilaey sighed, said, “We’re too far from any--“ then stopped, made an annoyed sound, and said, “Fine. I’ll get him. But don’t think we’re going anywhere.”

“Right. I know,” Sellis said, and when she’d gone checked the readouts himself to see if they could go anywhere.

Marsh came and leaned up against the bulkhead while he was scrolling across the map for the third time, and waited with what would have been patience in anyone else. In Marsh it was an edgy kind of stillness. Nothing of patience in it at all. “Yes?” he said, when Sellis looked up from the computers, in a tone that implied he’d been interrupted in the middle of important business.

“I’m sorry, were you a mechanic now? Is my entire crew down in machines, playing flunky to Lilaey?”

“She needed help,” Marsh said. He was holding a wrench, of all things, and for a second Sellis considered asking him just what the hell it was they were doing to his ship, then decided he didn’t want to know.

“I guess that’s a ‘yes’,” Sellis said, and Marsh shrugged a shoulder. “Right. Not your problem. Got it,” Sellis said, vacating the seat and gesturing for Marsh to sit.

“There was a lot of damage,” Marsh said apologetically, as if he was justifying being down in the ship’s belly repairing engines, or maybe justifying everyone else being down there instead of at their stations.

“Lilaey already gave me the report. Check if we have power for jump. Check if we can jump.”

“Lilaey said--“

“I don’t care.”

“It would be suicide.”

Sellis thought again of the twisting horridness of jump, shook it off, and said, “So’s sitting here. I didn’t say do it, I said check if we can.”

“You’re the boss.” Marsh sounded doubtful. Like he maybe thought Lilaey was the actual boss, or at least that she should be. Or maybe just that Sellis shouldn’t be.

“Just do it,” Sellis said, and after pausing like he was weighing the merits of the idea for himself, Marsh slid into the pilot’s seat, deposited the wrench next to a display and considered the readouts on the screen. He punched a few buttons and displays Lilaey had left off came to life and the pilot’s station lit up, numbers and indicators brightening into a steady glow.

Marsh grabbed his headset off the top of a computer and pulled it on one-handed, the other flying across keys. “Coordinates?” he asked, not looking up, not even looking at the displays and monitors, but beyond them in that disconcerting distracted manner jump pilots could have.

“I need to know what our range is. Make a guess.”

Marsh twitched, “A guess,” he echoed, and it wasn’t a question. He sounded exasperated.

Desperate situations, Sellis thought, not liking the idea himself. The idea of being stuck between made his hair stand on end, made a dull chill of fear coil in his gut. They could have been stuck between already, if Marsh hadn’t made this jump. If the damage they’d taken had blown the drive before he’d pulled them out of that other side of the world, and back into living, moving reality.

“If we have to risk it, I’d rather not be jumping blind again. Maybe we can end up near something. Something inhabited.”

Marsh tapped keys, either ignoring him or deep into the system. The screen flickered, and a starmap came up on the main display. A second and diagrams overlaid it. “Jump range,” Marsh reported, as labels appeared, naming stations and planets.

“We’re out in the mining section. There's not even a city out here. God’s sake, Marsh, how the hell did you--“

“Jump drive was damaged,” Marsh said, swiveling his chair and pulling the headset off. He scrubbed at his eyes, then looked up to consider the map as if he hadn’t seen it before. As if he hadn’t dragged it up and pieced it together himself. “I was a bit lost,” he admitted, glancing at Sellis, then getting up to pace towards the back of the bridge, where he stopped, paused, and came back.

“Lost? You were lost and you jumped us all this way? Blind?” Sellis asked, trying to focus on that and not the idea of being lost in jump.

“Ratatosk jumped us,” Marsh said, seriously. Sounding like some dramatic, romanticizing kid, but meaning it.

“Right,” Sellis said.

“Maybe the damage caused--.” He didn’t finish the sentence, left it hanging as he stepped towards the main display, considering it with a frown. “I don’t know, Sellis.”

‘I don’t know’ wasn’t something Sellis wanted to hear from the person who was supposed to be guiding them back and forth between that shifting nothingness and what Sellis considered reality. ‘I don’t know’ was a dangerous thing for a man playing with something as uncertain and as incomprehensible as that netherworld between. Sellis said, “Alright, you don’t know,” and was surprised that he sounded as calm as he did, as calm-ing. Marsh gave him an odd look.

“It was alright,” he said, as if seeing straight through Sellis’s composed demeanor, “We were never stranded. Never going to be.”

“Sure. Just lost.” Sellis didn’t bother asking what Marsh thought he could have done if they had been stranded. Had never really bothered asking what jump was like to someone who could keep his head through it, who didn’t lose all awareness in a swirl of nothing so complete that his mind compensated by imagining color and light and patterns and noise where there was absolutely none.

“A bit lost,” Marsh corrected, and grinned, looking fierce with the tag mark dark on his face, the long, thin triangle of it staining his cheek like the track of an inky tear.

Not quite like other tags Sellis had known, and it was odd at times to remember what he was. To compare him to the cheap labor of the Reaches, or the sleek servants that served Old Space nobility, or even the diverse hordes that teemed throughout the stations and satellites of Midstate--psyched to hell and back and many of them probably not even proper tags at all but poor fools who’d run into some horrible bad luck, or fallen on the wrong side of the law.

Sellis weighed that; the prospects of capture and tagging and psychs against the endless shifting nothing they’d risk with jump. Neither possibility was particularly appealing, or even more appealing than the other. On the other hand, he doubted their possible fates was a thing that required much guessing. The crew of a rogue ship was more likely than not to be put to death on the spot, whether or not they were technically outside anyone’s jurisdiction, way out here on the edges of populated space.

“Rock and a hard place,” Marsh observed, considering the starmap, then after some moments, “Maybe they won’t come after us.”

“It was one damn long jump,” Sellis said, without conviction.

Marsh nodded. He didn’t look happy at being reminded of it.

“At least it bought us some time,” he gestured at the map, “What's our range?”

Marsh’s unhappy look shifted into a doubtful one, then into calm consideration, then back into unhappiness, “I’m not sure. Considering the damage, maybe the edge of the Reaches. Just inside the border. But jump was strange. We might get kicked further, maybe much closer.”

“You might get lost, you mean.”

Marsh scowled. “Might,” he said, and before Sellis could reply, the intercom beeped.

“You’re using power,” Lilaey’s voice sounded accusatory.

“I’m hatching an escape plan. Fix my damn jump drive.”

--o--

Cahill appeared not too long later, probably sent by Lilaey to lecture him on the state of the jump drive and the use of power they might need later. There was grease on his jacket and between that and the wrench Marsh had left by the pilot’s station, Sellis reconsidered whether or not it would have been wiser to demand to know what the hell it was that Lilaey was up to, down in machines and with half his crew still with her. He glared at Cahill.

“Fixing the damn jump drive,” he said.

“Right,” Sellis said, and continued to stare suspiciously at the grease stain, wondering what piece of equipment they were dismantling, and sure he didn’t want to know, “Just tell me we’re not disabled. Tell me she’s left us something to move with. That it’s not all in pieces across the floor.”

“It’s not,” Cahill said, and went to stand behind the pilot’s station, where Marsh was again plugged into the system, fingers hovering over the computer keys, but not moving. Cahill looked over his shoulder at the screens, then up at the starmap on the main display and said, “We’re going to jump?”

“Hatching an escape plan,” Marsh said, barely moving, but somehow exuding busy-ness. A couple of the screens flickered as they scrolled, and if Sellis hadn’t been used to the interface, he would it have found it disturbing.

“Really? How’s that going?”

Marsh shrugged, tapped a key, and the starmap twisted, and then resolved itself. Nothing had changed. “Damn,” Marsh said, “its not calculating jump.” There was an edge to his voice, and Sellis knew he wasn’t eager to try his luck--all their luck--with a faulty drive that had catapulted them at least twice as far as it should have. As any logic said it could have.

“You jumped us here,” Cahill said, gently, in that reassuring talk-to-tags voice that the Old Space populace tended to use.

Marsh made an “Mm,” noise that wasn’t quite agreement, and as always Cahill either failed to notice or choose to ignore the irritation in it. Which was almost understandable when Marsh had his eyes and half his face hidden behind the visor of the pilot’s headpiece, and when any terseness could be attributed to the current situation or his being engrossed in the computers and jump system.

It was less understandable elsewhere and else when, because at times Marsh’s bristling at the patronizing tone was terribly obvious. It surprised Sellis that Cahill missed it so consistently. He thought it more likely that Cahill noticed and didn’t care, the same way he must realize Marsh was the better pilot, the more sure handed jumper, but didn’t let it deter him from treating him as he would any hack-job Midstate tag.

It annoyed Sellis. Old Space annoyed Sellis. And at the moment, with Old Space law on their tails when they were far outside anything that could be fairly called the swarm’s jurisdiction, Cahill’s Old Space habits grated more than usual.

“Why’d Lilaey send you up here, Cahill?”

“She and Avan are working on the jump drive. Nothing more I could do.”

“Good. Keep an eye on the scans, then.”

Cahill left off watching the screens over Marsh’s shoulder and walked over to the navigation station, where the scanners’ feed was displayed on a series of several small screens. “You think the swarm’s catching up to us yet?”

“It’ll take them a couple of jumps,” Marsh said, and the main display twisted and resolved again. “If they’ve got our coordinates. They might not.”

“We have to assume they do,” Sellis said, as the starmap slid sideways off the screen and dissolved into static. “Can I ask what the hell it is you’re doing?”

“You said calculate jump,” Marsh said.

“I said ‘guess’. Just find a logical target and leave the calculation alone until we have more power. If you tax those computers Lilaey will be back up here for your head." Sellis paused, and watched the map twist again, and dissolve. "The calculating doesn’t look its going so smooth.”

Marsh made the annoyed “Mm” sound again, then said, “The last jump may have confused the computer. The distance was--it didn’t make sense. It’s hard to track what the possible distance is, even if we knew what the drive’s condition is.”

“Improving by the minute, I hope,” Sellis said, and hit the intercom to ask, “The escape plan needs to know what the drive looks like, Lilaey.”

“Stop using power,” Lilaey snapped.

“Not good then?”

“It’s a risk. I can’t fix it so it won’t be, but it’s getting so we have some chance.”

“It’s improving by the minute,” Sellis said to Marsh, who snorted and brought the starmap back on-screen. It flickered for a moment, then steadied. Calculations began to run up the side of the display.

“Good job.” Sellis said, in the same moment that Cahill said, “We may have company.”

“Shit,” Marsh said, and didn’t move, kept the calculations running.

“Keep the computers on jump,” Sellis snapped, then, “Lilaey, how are the engines?”

“Shot. What's going on?”

“Don’t do anything that’s going to put them off line. We have company. And send Avan up. We might need her to shoot things.” He turned from the computer, “Cahill?”

“It was a jump-in. Looks like a carrier.”

It was the swarm then, catching up faster than he’d thought. “Get us moving, Marsh.”

There was a second of hesitation, and Sellis knew Marsh was thinking about jump. Then the Ratatosk shuddered, hummed, and started a slow acceleration. The starmap went dark, and the main display lit up instead with a view through the outside scanners. Far in the distance, Sellis could see the silver shape of the carrier. It was growing larger much too fast for comfort.

“Marsh--“

“There's no power,” Marsh snapped, and the Ratatosk shuddered again, from nose to tail as he tried to wring more speed out of her.

“Don’t blow us up, Marsh,” Avan yelled, pelting down the short hall and onto the bridge. She came to a stop beside Sellis, and stood panting, taking stock of the situation unfolding on the display. “A whole carrier. How thoughtful.”

“Price of fame,” Cahill said. He’d put on a headpiece very much like the one Marsh wore--the main display was on his feed now, and not displaying Marsh’s navigational calculations, save the narrow column running up the side of it.

“And you think we’re going to fight that?” Avan asked, as a cloud of silvery fish-like ships separated from the bulk of the carrier.

“If it comes to it,” Sellis said, knowing it would be a matter of taking as many of the swarm down with them. Knowing that if it came to firepower and who had the bigger guns the swarm had the upper hand by a long shot.

“They’re closing,” Cahill reported, even though they could all see it. Even though the numbers flashing on the bottom of the screen made it quite clear just how fast the swarm’s approach was.

Sellis stood and watched it, the sound of computer keys loud in his ears, Marsh and Avan’s back-and-forth chatter just a background hub-bub. Outside, against the dark of space, the fish-ships flashed and shimmered, but didn’t fill the screen. Nowhere near. Not enough to be rightfully called a swarm. Nothing like a swarm, really, save by the derision of those who lived on the edges of civilized space.

“Incoming message,” Cahill said, and looked at Sellis through the dark tint of the headset’s visor, expression obscured by the bright lines shifting and flickering on the in-built display, “Shovaol.”

“Shovaol? It would have to be,” Sellis said, and, “Put the bastard on the screen.” Marsh’s calculations disappeared to make way for it, a small box opening to overlay the view of the silver ships flickering closer and closer.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Sellis demanded when the image had steadied.

“Sellis Varaday?”

Sellis managed not to twitch. Managed not to let his irritation show. “You know it’s me,” he said, very, very calmly.

“You’re wanted for piracy, for the theft of the ship now called Ratatosk, for illegal possession of Old Space property, for illegal possession of tag number LC--“

“You’re out of your jurisdiction,” Sellis said, “And I have papers.”

“Is that so?” The captain of the Shovaol raised an eyebrow in a smug, gloating manner that Sellis thought was probably bordering on unprofessional.

“As a matter of fact, it is. I can send them to you.”

The offer went ignored. “You are hereby ordered to surrender unconditionally and return to their legal owners the property--“

“Ordered?”

“If you abide by these terms, then perhaps the law may see fit to be somewhat more merciful.”

“You’d think he’d manage to fit in another ‘maybe’,” Sellis said, turning from the screen and gesturing at Cahill to cut the connection.

“Varaday, this is your last warn--.” The box disappeared in a brief hiss of static.

“Get ready, everyone.” Sellis hit communications again, “Do or die time, Lilaey. What’ve we got?”

“I’m turning off everything we don’t need. Light are going down. Some scanners.” A second of nothing, and then the lights--already running low--dimmed even more. The hall leading from the bridge went completely dark, leading back into the unlit inner rooms of the Ratatosk. The bridge lights stayed on, but low, fainter even than the cool blues and occasional reds of displays and control panels.

Ratatosk trembled and whined, dangerously loud, and for a moment it seemed she would come apart with the strain of damaged engines forced into hard labor. Then the shaking subsided into a steady if too-loud hum, and she moved, picking up speed fast.

It wasn’t going to be enough. Sellis felt it the moment she hit top speed, and knew from past encounters that the swarm had more. That there was nothing Lilaey could do to fix the machines now and nothing more Marsh could wring from them.

“Avan. Hope you’re ready to shoot some of them down?”

“My pleasure, Captain,” Avan had taken her station, up at the front of the bridge beside Marsh. She flipped safeties off and punched in firing codes. To her left, Marsh did the same for the secondary weapons, and Cahill, up by navigations, brought up targeting screens and all-around views.

Sellis hit the intercom one last time, “Coming to the bridge, Lilaey?”

“Why Captain, I wouldn’t miss this dance.”

--o--

“If I’d known I’d be opening fire on Old Space law--” Cahill said, letting it trail off. Sounding like this was the first time he’d had to fire at the swarm.

“I’ll do the firing, thanks very much,” Avan said, and her voice had that tight amusement that was mostly adrenaline. They were all riding it, that wave of tension and fear that manifested as a coiled excitement.

The bridge was still with waiting, the silence broken only by the occasional remarks tossed back and forth and quiet reports. Lilaey had come to the bridge and stood at diagnostics, glaring at the instrument panels as if she could make the Ratatosk well through sheer will power. They were still running slow, and while their earlier burst of power hadn’t faded, it hadn’t increased either. The swarm was still gaining.

The silver fish-ships were close now, sleek darting bodies clearly visible on the screen.

“They’re arming weapons,” Cahill said, and still the bridge was silent. Ratatosk’s weapons were at the ready, too, Avan’s fingers already touching lightly on the array of triggers and on buttons that would execute launch sequences.

“Communications. Shovaol.”

“For God’s sake.” Sellis snapped, “Put him on.” The square opened again on the main display.

“Power down. Arming weapons against Old Space vessels is a violation of--“

“Turn him off.” Sellis waved and the square blipped out again.

“What? You don’t think he was going to offer parlay?” Lilaey said, and grinned, leaning over the diagnostics station.

Sellis shook his head, “Fine time for you to discover humor.”

“He’d offer parlay, and if we turned up, he’d shoot us,” Avan said darkly, without any humor at all. Her visor flashed, reflecting the console lights as she tilted her head to look back across the bridge, “It’s been fun, Varaday.”

“God, we’re not dead yet,” Sellis snapped.

“Just in case.”

Marsh tapped keys and pushed the visor off his face to consider the main display. A strange habit for a man who was made to interface with ship-board computers, who should be perfectly comfortable with the readouts and information that came through the headset. “I think I should turn us,” he said, after a moment, and glanced at Sellis for confirmation. “They’ll be on our tail,” he added when Sellis didn’t answer right away, “We have more weapons front-mounted.”

“No.”

“We’re not going to able to maneuver once we get into it with the swarm. The engines--“

“No, Marsh.”

Marsh jammed the headset back on, and hit a long series of keys. The Ratatosk shuddered once--hard--and something down in her belly roared as she accelerated. Sellis considered warning him against breaking his ship, but it hardly seemed to matter, considering the circumstances, considering the silver ships speeding towards them and the bulk of the carrier growing larger and larger as it closed.

The thick silence descended again as they waited, the occasional click of computer keys loud in the heavy silence. Up on the main display, the dark of space was filling with the long bodies of the fish ships, and the intimidating bulk of the carrier. Along the side of the screen, where Marsh’s jump calculations had scrolled earlier, Cahill’s computers reported the state of the swarm’s weapons; a long list of varied armaments followed by the warning ‘armed’. Avan’s list came up on the other side, with the same report, her targets picked out on the main screen. A second later, Marsh brought up his targets and the secondary weapons list, and the computer reported armed, armed, armed behind each one.

Diagnostics came up off to the side on a secondary screen, listing Ratatosk’s damage report and weapons status. Sellis only glanced at it, before turning back to the main display. The closest of the fish ships lit up onscreen, outlined with flashing red. The computer beeped warnings.

“I hope they remember,” Avan said, quietly, fiercely, “that it took a whole carrier,” and fired.

--o--

Debris floated around them, bouncing off Ratatosk’s skin with enough force to register on the damage report if not to actually cause further damage.

“Killing Old space pilots,” Cahill said in a mournful voice, as if he had any reputation left to destroy. Avan told him to shut up and kept firing.

Some of their guns were gone, the greater mobility and numbers of the fish-ships making it impossible to keep all of them from flitting though already over-taxed defenses. Marsh’s secondary weapons were making decent work of those that slipped through Avan’s more powerful guns, but at the cost of clever maneuverings.

No point to call attention to it. The guns were doing a better job keeping shots from their skin than any fancy footwork, considering the state of the ship. Sellis glanced at the damage report, and made note of the areas lit in an urgent, warning red. Calculated in his mind how much more they could take, what sections were crucial to life-supporting systems and how much longer they might last. Calculated how much time they had before he had to no choice but to either call surrender and plead for the lives of his crew, or order the Ratatosk abandoned--a decision which would likely see them captured or killed in any case.

Shovaol streaked by, close enough that she was recognizable by the insignia painted by her cockpit and by long association.

“If nothing else, try for that one,” Sellis said, and Avan waved him a thumbs-up and trailed the fish ship with bursts of fire.

“He’s a fast bastard,” Avan said, and took out a more convenient target while Marsh took over harassing the swarm captain.

“We’re not going down by that asshole. Or by a goddamn fish-ship.”

“Doing our best, Captain.” Ratatosk shuddered then, hard, and they all shot a look at the damage report, at the red areas now blinking frantically and labeled “emergency”. The engines roared loud enough to be deafening in the bridge, then fell to a soft, whining, hum. Marsh pushed his visor up off his eyes.

“Engines are just about gone,”

“Lilaey?”

“He’s right. If we don’t shut them down real soon we’re in danger of blowing them up. I don’t fancy doing the swarm that particular favor.”

“Can you still turn us, Marsh?”

“Yes.” There was a determined note to it that made Sellis think maybe he couldn’t. A stubborn edge that made him think Marsh aimed to pull it off through willpower should the last of the Ratatosk’s power fail.

“Anyone want to try their luck with Old Space justice or a lifeboat is welcome to give it a shot,” Sellis said, and gave the damage report a meaningful glance, “This boat won’t last much longer.”

Lilaey snorted, “Don’t talk that way about my baby,” she said, and Cahill gave a short bark of grim laughter.

“No one? Alright, Marsh. Let’s make it really take a carrier to bring us down. Let’s make it cost them a carrier.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Marsh said, and his hands flew over the computer keys, “Cahill, take second weapons.”

“Got it.”

Ratatosk turned slowly, as if she was a far bigger ship, the remaining engines only just moving her bulk. She’d been such a graceful ship, Sellis thought, watching fish ships burst into shards as Avan and Cahill tried to protect what was left of her. Fast, laden with firepower, and now she moved like an ailing behemoth, rolling languidly into line with the carrier.

“We have better forward power,” Marsh said, and brought it back on. Ratatosk rumbled sickeningly, and lurched forward, no longer moving fluid and smooth.

“It’s been a good ride, folks,” Sellis said, and waved at the main display, “Let’s see the sky without all this crap, shall we?”

Someone said, “Captain.” And one by one all the weapons lists and targeting reports dropped off the main display, leaving just the view of the dark, and the flitting fish ships.

“Aim primary weapons at that son of a bitch, Avan.”

“My pleasure,” She said, and because the reports were no longer on-screen, followed it with, “Targeted.”

“Marsh. Give it all she’s got.”

The engines’ rumble became a roar, and Ratatosk accelerated. Not nearly her top-speed, this unsteady grind. Not nearly the way she deserved to go down, limping and dragging herself across the edge of nowhere.

“At least you’re going down fighting, baby,” Sellis said to her, as the carrier became a massive thing in the display, blocking out more and more of the never ending dark.

Warnings came up on the main display, alerting them to the increasing proximity of the carrier and the likelihood of impact. For a second, everything seemed to go silent, even the roar of straining engines falling away as time slowed, seconds seeming to stretch into long moments as warning lights erupted all around the bridge, alarms shrieking from what seemed a long, long distance.

Sellis waited. Waited until the carrier filled his entire screen, until there were no more of the fish ships, and waited still. Let the carrier’s bulkhead grow larger and larger until he thought he could see the numbering on the dull panels, and then said “Fire.”

There was a deafening crash as the Ratatosk gave a violent shake.

“We’re hit.” Lilaey yelled, and if she elaborated it was lost as the hull of the carrier erupted into shards and fiery balls of burning fuel and gases that flew outwards and towards them. Too close and too damaged to evade, the Ratatosk plowed into it, the main display lighting up in oranges and hot white light.

And then the world twisted and fell sideways and up all at the same time.