On the Roster - Chapter 10

The missile was gaining on them and the flyers were not far behind. What the Voidstalker gained in maneuverability it lost in top speed. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to outrun the missile, and Throne only knew she likely wouldn’t escape the flyers either.

She’d need to get more out of the vehicle to do that. She patted the dash and murmered a brief prayer to the machine spirit, her bike had always like that. Maybe the Voidstalker was the same.

Thus far she’d used the engine mostly as forward and rear blocks. But Skyridges were known for giving the pilot more control than any other make on the market. She was an air wizard - if only she could figure out her tool.

“The missile is gaining,” Tallow yelled. “Impact in 10 seconds.”

There! Kiri saw the decoupling switch to allow her to control the left and right motors separately.

“Is everyone secure back there?” Kiri hollered. “Things are about to get wild.”

“4 seconds!” Tallow was gripping the edge of his seat with white knuckles. “2!”

Kiri fired the right engines down and, with a bit more juice, the left engines up. The Voidstalker corkscrewed hard and veered off to the side. The missile shot past them. She could almost feel the burn flare of the missile’s jets sear her hair, which of course was impossible because of the near impervious viewing shield in front of them.

The missile started to turn in a wide arc.

They were fast and guided, but not as nimble. As long as she didn’t lose track of it, it wasn’t much of a threat. But the other vehicles….

“What a beast,” she said, giving the dashboard a loving pat.

Kiri banked into a wide turn. If she wasn’t going to be able to outrun them, she’d have to take the fight to them on her own terms.

“Why are we turning?” Fetherwel said. “Just outrun them.”

“I can’t sir. The Voidstalker is built for maneuverability. She doesn’t have the top-speed. They’ve been gaining on us.”

“Kiri,” Dravik said, “Can you spare some juice for the guns?”

“Spare some juice? What are you talking about?” she asked. “And what guns are we running?” She knew she should have known, but she’d been so into the engines that she hadn’t paid any attention to the armament.

“You don’t know?” Tallow asked, his eyebrows high on his face.

“No. Otherwise, I wouldn’t ask.”

“But I thought you’d trained extensively in a ship like this.” Tallow said.

Dravik saved her the annoyance of answering. “We’ve got the pintlemounted stormbolter covering the ramp. And then a hullmounted multilaser. To save weight and space, it shares a power source with the engines. So to power it takes juice from the engines.”

Kiri chewed her lip. “Hull mounted? How’s the firing arc?”

“Tight. 45 degrees or so,” Dravik said. Kiri nodded. Maybe she could work with that. “Total. Not in each direction.” He added.

She grunted. That was tight. The seat vibrated as the Voidstalker hurtled through the sky.

A building exploded off the port side. “Looks like they’re drawing a mark on us!” Tallow yelled.

“That’s an autocannon’s gunfire,” Dravik said. “Marrick, the other?” Marrick was peering out the starboard viewing port.

“Throne.” She whistled. An autocannon could sink this craft with a single hit.

“Hard to get a visual,” Marrick said. “But I think they’ve got a hull-mounted lascannon.”

“Throne.” She gritted her teeth. A lascannon would sink this craft with a single hit.

She glanced at her instruments. The two enemy birds had changed their course to cut her off a bit further into her wide arc. It was time.

“Dravik, you ready?”

“I was born ready.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

“Tallow?”

“Yes?”

“You ready?”

“For what?”

“To give Dravik’s gun the juice.”

“Sure thing,” Tallow said. “Reaching across his console.”

“Not yet!” Kiri screeched. Tallow’s hand halted in mid-air.

“Why not?” Tallow actually had the gall to sound agrieved.

“Because I need juice…,” she said, gritting her teeth. “For this.”

She cut forward drive to the starboard thrusters before firing them up facing rear. They pivoted almost instantaneously, and now instead of following a wide arc with the enemy on their broadside, they were barreling down on the enemy flyers.

“Now Tallow! Dravik, make ‘em count! They’re going to break fast!”

Dravik had started firing before she’d finished speaking.