On the Roster - Chapter 11

The thwap of the multilaser rang out.

She saw one bolt just narrowly miss the first enemy bird as it dived. Good move, she thought. The second one got clipped in the rudder. It still sped forward, but it was struggling

“Easy prey.”

The Voidstalker tilted and started chasing the wounded ship. They had a few seconds before the first ship could turn again. The ship felt sluggish though. This laser was definitely taking its toll on the engines.

“Dravik?” she said.

A few more shots rang out. They were just wide.

“Dravik! Should someone else get on there?”

Marrick grumbled. She stole a look back. Marrick’s knuckles were white where he gripped Tallow’s chair. Dravik was just behind him at the gunner’s turret. She could just make out his tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration.

The first bird had turned. She was coming in. She could hear autocannon fire.

“Void this,” she said. She reached over and slammed the control to toggle the multilaser. Immediately she felt pep in the Voidstalker’s engines.

And she shot the ship straight up. Marrick grunted from the instant G-force.

And there was an explosion below them, as the building beside them took a shot that went right through the space they would have been.

“I had him!” Dravik yelled.

“Not quickly enough,” Marrick said. She was glad he was watching. Saved her having to respond. She turned straight towards the unharmed bird. Did a barrel roll as it shot at her, and then ducked underneath it.

She immediately slammed the engines, willing the Voidstalker to turn in place.

And it did. The hull creaked, but nothing broke.

“Thank you girl,” she said.

“Who said the Voidstalker was a girl?” Tallow asked.

“Shut it Tallow,” Marrick said.

Beep beep beep.

“Missile lock,” Tallow said. “20 seconds.”

She’d turned faster than the enemy. 20 seconds was a lifetime out here. The motors roared as the Voidstalker shot at top speed towards the enemy craft. The enemy craft was faster than her, but she didn’t need to be faster, she just needed to be smarter.

“I’ve got it in my sights,” Dravik yelled.

“Hold on,” she said.

“Let me shoot!”

“Voidman,” Ensign Fetherwel ordered, “power up the gun!”

Kiri ignored him. “Everyone hold tight!” She yelled.

Tallow’s knuckles were white as he gripped the console in front of him. “10 seconds!”

“Kiri! Now!” Dravik was pounding the cabin wall. If she’d been able to spare him any thought, she would’ve wondered how he could’ve been aiming and banging on the wall at the same time. But she couldn’t, and didn’t. Instead, her entire focus was on the craft in front of her.

“4 seconds!”

Time was moving slower than she thought. She leaned the Voidstalker slightly to port, further into the enemy craft’s line of motion.

“It’s going to fire!” Marrick yelled.

She willed every last ounce of power into the engine.

A slight jink to starboard dodged the autocannon, but not the missile behind them.

“We’re going to die,” Tallow yelled, his voice cracked into a half-laugh, half-scream.

They were going to crash into the enemy ship. It started to pull up.

Now!, she thought.

She fired the rear engines up, the front port engine up, and the starboard engine out away from them. The Voidstalker creaked as she spun in an erratic corkscrew. Kiri could almost feel the shockwave from the missile as it nearly kissed the Voidstalker’s undercarriage.

But it didn’t, instead shooting straight past.

Right into the enemy ship. Tallow cheered. Marrick was gone from her peripheral vision. Must have been thrown across the cabin. The explosion blossomed and the shockwave buffeted the Voidstalker, sending it further into it’s wild trajectory.

The Voidstalker was spinning around multiple axes, careening wildly out of control.

Klaxons were blaring.

If Kiri couldn’t stabilize the Voidstalker, they were going to end their voyage prematurely. And terminally.

Her view through the viewport was pandemonium, as no image stayed straight for long. She tried the engines again to lift the craft up. But their momentum was such that within moments they were upside down and the engines were pushing them towards the ground. She cut them.

“Kiri! Get us out of this dive!” Fetherwell yelled.

Throne’s titties, are you blind sir?, she thought, but all that came out was “Sir!”

Her hands on the controls, she let precious seconds pass as she tried to time her blast just right. But no opportunity came.

“Kiri…” Tallow started.

The viewport became a blur of sky and ruin. If she misjudged this, they wouldn’t even know which piece of wreckage was theirs.

She tuned them out and closed her eyes. Felt the motion of the craft. She whispered a half-remembered catechism, urging the machine-spirit to heed her hands.

Put a little juice into the portside engines. Not enough to stop any spins, but enough to slow it down. Let a little predictability enter the flight path. She introduced a little juice into the starboard engines now too. A slight angle change on the front to slow that rotation. A little adjustment for the rear port to slow a different one.

“Kiri, we’re going to crash!”

“Brace for impact!”

There! She slammed the engines on — full power. And the Voidstalker slowed and stopped. The hull shuddered with the sudden deceleration.

She opened her eyes. Her viewport was filled edge to edge with rockcrete. They’d stopped mere metres away from crashing.

Dravik wooped. Tallow clapped her on the shoulder. Corwin muttered a prayer to the emperor from across the cabin. She heard Marrick groan in the distance, picking himself off the floor.

“Emperor’s teeth Voidsman.” Fetherwel said, sighing. He leaned back and rested his head on the headrest before lifting it, a smile on his face. “Bring us back to the Diamond. I think we still might make mess shift.”

As she steered them up into orbit, she heard him mutter under his breath. “If my stomach’s settled by then.”