Jyra wasn’t sure how long she sat at her console, locked in a silent struggle. The fogginess of grief summoned memories of the attack on the Hospital complex. She heard the roar of gunfire and cries of pain as if her wounded comrades were on the bridge, begging for help. Jyra felt her chin resting on her hands and sensed a tingling sensation spreading through them.
She leaned back and examined her fingers and wrists, certain they were shaking, but they remained steady. She caught a glimpse of herself in one of her dark console screens. Locks of dark hair hung around her puffy eyes and her lips curled in a defeated frown.
I may still be here, she thought, revisiting the familiar phrase stuck in her mind, but what’s going to be left of me? What am I becoming?
Jyra forced herself back to the memories, reflecting on the strike against the Intelligence Complex and the return to the ruins that led to Tony’s death. Her eyes burned again, though this time it was because she stared unblinking at her reflection. Jyra couldn’t recall ever being paralyzed by her thoughts before.
She heard Berk’s seat creak as he leaned forward.
“You all right?” he asked. His voice banished the snare of the past.
“Getting there,” she said. She pulled her hair back and re-tied her ponytail.
“We’re turning toward Silanpre,” Berk said. “I haven’t straightened us out yet.”
Jyra heard the unasked question. Berk was looking for orders and Jyra realized neither he nor Leonick knew the full extent of their mission. Jyra took a final moment to recover herself as Berk glanced at one of his monitors.
“Something wrong?” Jyra asked.
“Looks like a routine gravity drive report,” Berk said. Jyra nodded and took a deep breath.
“I should probably tell you why we’re out here,” she said. Both Berk and Leonick swiveled their seats to face her; their earnest expressions made it seem like they were about to take notes.
“We’re looking for a TF freighter similar to Valiant Conductor II,” she continued. “The stabilizer that landed outside the bunker came from a ship like it.”
“So the vessel is likely damaged,” Berk said.
“But there is no way to tell where it might be,” Leonick said.
“I know,” Jyra said. “I hope that if we conduct a large sweep around Silanpre at this distance we might locate such a ship. If it’s damaged, maybe we’ll find debris that leads us to it.”
Berk leaned back and glanced at Leonick.
“I know this won’t be easy,” Jyra said. “It’s all up to chance.”
“Let me check the radar log,” Leonick said. “Our approach to Silanpre is recent enough that the log will still have the preserved readings. We would have picked up an object of that size even if it was far away.”
“If it’s intact,” Berk said.
During a brief silence, Leonick began typing on his keyboard again. He repeated a series of keystrokes and sighed.
“Problem?” Berk said.
“I cannot access the log while radar is running,” he said. “We are far enough from trouble, right?”
“Not if you have to ask,” Berk said.
“Nothing there now, though?” Leonick said.
“Scope is clear,” Jyra said as she disconnected radar surveillance. “Work fast.”
The radar screen on her console went dark. All Jyra heard was Leonick’s rapid typing as he dug into the radar log history. Jyra glanced at Berk absorbed in an extended swallow from his bottle. She raised her eyebrows and, as if on cue, he dropped the depleted vessel into the nearby receptacle.
“Can other ships tell our radar is offline?” Jyra asked, aware of the anxiety in her voice. The moment she cut the radar scope, she felt blind, vulnerable. Outside the glass covering of the bridge, she saw nothing but a plethora of stars.
“Depends on their tech,” Berk said. The bottle had been out of his hands for twenty seconds and Jyra noticed him fidgeting. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “He won’t be long.”
The words faded into the tense silence. Jyra and Berk listened as Leonick tapped away on his keyboard. He struck a key twice and sat back.
“Radar is yours again,” he called.
“Anything come up?” Jyra asked.
“I have to review the data,” Leonick said.
As the radar screen flickered back to life, a cascade of crimson warning lights lit up Jyra’s console.
“What’s on your scope?” Berk hollered, hastily averting his gaze as he added: “captain?”
“Prep the launchers,” Jyra ordered. “A ship just came through the ring, likely an Allied Hospital aggressor. Leonick, do we have any weapons besides missiles?”
Berk and Leonick exchanged a glance.
“We can release some of our chaos mines,” Leonick said.
Jyra ignored her surprise that they had chaos mines aboard and focused on attacking the pursuing enemy.
“We can’t just drop mines,” she said. “They’ll follow our current course. We need them to go the opposite direction.”
“We can aim them with the incendiary mount,” Berk said.
“We might even be able to launch them,” Leonick said. “Not as fast as a missile, but we could distribute them to form a barricade and direct them counter to our course.”
“Won’t the enemy just shoot the mines the moment they detect them?” Jyra asked.
“Possibly,” Leonick said with a shrug. “If we launch two in succession and keep the second at a safe following distance, it will not be destroyed when they shoot down the leader. By the time they see the second following, it might be too late.”
“Do it,” Jyra commanded.
“Right away,” Leonick said, as he hunched over his console.
“How many mines did you get?” Jyra asked Berk.
“Not sure,” he said.
“Do you recognize the enemy vessel?” Jyra asked.
Berk checked his screen. The radar revealed a narrow ship with two pairs of missile launchers (themselves longer than Mastranada) located at the bow. Extra plating on the hull indicated a vessel built for war. Four large engines pushed the ship toward full pursuit speed as it broke from the pull of Silanpre.
“The Hospitals seem to have upgraded their defenses,” Berk said. “They’re closing fast. I thought we were further away. The tugs must have tipped them off.” Jyra heard his tone more than his words.
“Hold up, Leonick,” she said. “None of those mines will do any good.”
“That ship will see anything we throw at it,” Berk said. “We need to move fast. Leonick, do you have the coordinates yet?”
“Going back to that review,” Leonick said.
“Can we at least head in the general direction?” Jyra said.
“Yeah, but it will bring us toward the warship,” Berk said.
“Swing wide. We’re further from Silanpre so it won’t add too much time,” Jyra said.
“They can still cut us off.”
“Once we get the coordinates, we’ll have them and we can return later,” Jyra pointed out.
“I have a general location,” Leonick announced. “Other side of the planet, but there is no guarantee the ship is at the coordinates now or will be if we seek it later.”
“Your call, captain,” Berk said. “I’ve got us moving with Silanpre’s orbit.”
A proximity alarm blared. Leonick switched it off.
“They have already moved to intercept our course,” he said.
“I’ll set a new one to get us out of missile range,” Berk said.
Jyra listened as he typed and stared at her radar screen. The warship began to deviate from its course. Berk gave a final tap and sat back in his chair.
“All set,” he said. “We’ll take a longer route and hopefully they’ll lose interest in us once we pass beyond Silanpre’s celestial boundary.”
“Still on to intercept,” Leonick said.
“What do you mean?” Berk said. “I just changed course.”
“They knew our radar was offline,” Jyra said, tearing her eyes from the screen. “Shut down everything except engines and vital systems. Fly manual.”
“What?” Berk said.
“That’s an order. That ship must have the tech you mentioned,” Jyra said. “They could tell when our radar was down. They maintained intercept course with us before you even logged the new trajectory. They are monitoring our computers in real time so shut them off. They’re anticipating our navigation; no one does that unless they’re trying to capture prey.”
“I’ve got the coordinates,” Leonick said. “Not where I expected to find them, but they are identified.”
“Don’t enter them into the navigation system,” Jyra said. “Let’s keep the information confined to our ship. Are we ready?”
“Our network is offline,” Berk said. “Unless they’ve got something beyond fancy, they can’t access our computers anymore.”
“We need to map those coordinates and find the best route to them,” Jyra said. “While we do that, maintain present course.”
As Leonick sought the best path, Jyra returned to her seat and glanced at Berk.
“Based on the last radar read, how long until they can target us?” she asked.
Berk stared at his screen, checking the data.
“Maybe twenty minutes,” he said. “Assuming they didn’t speed up when we went dark.”
Jyra couldn’t help thinking of Orastenand Kip’s brother. Now she faced a similar confrontation, except this time she was one of the victims. The warship might not ever bother with capture and blow Mastranada into metallic dust. Her eyes darted to her left hand resting on a lever and she was certain she caught her fingers shaking.
“I planned a route,” Leonick announced. “I have got my computer locked now. We should activate the radar to check the progress of the warship.”
“Nice work,” Jyra said, trying to muster enthusiasm, but the prospect of imminent annihilation turned her voice into a raspy croak. “Turn it on,” she whispered to Berk.
“Four minutes until we’re in their missile range,” he said. “The ship is moving much faster.”
“We can run,” Leonick said. “That ship will have to refuel sometime. Ours does not.”
“Can we outrun it?” Jyra asked.
“Hard to say,” Berk said. “They’re really moving right now.”
Jyra stepped beyond her console, right up to where the glass over the bridge curved down toward the nose of the ship. She looked into the distance and saw Silanpre, about the size of her pinky nail, a blue world sinking forever into an inky void. Though she couldn’t see it yet, the warship was moving between her and the planet. From her perspective, the shortest path to the far side of Silanpre would be to fly directly at it and cut as close as they could around the left edge. Our course suggests as much, Jyra thought. What if we head for the right side?
She walked back to Berk’s console and stared at the radar.
“Do we have time to cut back this way?” Jyra asked, tracing with her finger. “We can at least turn faster than them.”
Berk sat back and rubbed a hand across both his beard and wry smile.
“We could try,” he said. “At this point they’ll probably get a couple missiles launched at us anyway.”
“If it doesn’t work, we can always pull away and run,” Jyra said.
“Unless we get hit by a missile,” Berk said, switching off the radar. “Take a seat.”
He pushed a pair of levers forward and Jyra felt Mastranada rotating around her.
“We won’t see missiles coming without radar,” Jyra said.
“I’ll get it back on once I finish the turn,” Berk said. “No need to spoil the surprise any sooner. I hope your cores hold together,” he added over his shoulder.
“They will,” Leonick said. Jyra heard the engines roar as Mastranada launched back the way it had come.
“Radar coming back,” Berk announced. The warning beacons lit up with the screen.
“Inbound missiles!” Jyra said.
“Moving fast,” Berk added. Jyra heard his suppressed tone and felt her arms slump upon her console; the incendiaries were obviously approaching faster than anticipated.
“Mines,” Berk said. Jyra couldn’t tell if it was a question or a reminder.
“Bringing the mount controls online,” Leonick said. “Standby.”
“Can’t standby for long”
“Fire the third engine,” Jyra said. “That buys something, right?”
“Let’s see,” Berk said. His hands danced across his console. Jyra thought he couldn’t find the engine controls.
“There we go,” he said, seizing a pair of levers to his far left. “Hang on.”
Jyra glared at Berk, aware that he had in fact been wasting time searching for controls that shouldn’t require any time to activate. She could always identify her altered father, usually after he had three or four shots of whiskey. It always amazed her the amount Berk drank, though he hadn’t kept the reason from her for long. As Mastranada lurched forward with boosted speed, it reminded Jyra they were fleeing the very corporation that had experimented on Berk and his family. As far as Berk knew, he was the only survivor from such experiments. He claimed drinking kept his erratic behavior in check. It struck Jyra that she hadn’t yet explained much of anything that happened to her on Silanpre, not even that the Hospitals had subjected her to a treatment or two.
“The incendiary mount is ready,” Leonick said. “I have the missiles locked. Still two pairs coming at us.”
“The warship is still trying to redirect for pursuit,” Jyra said, checking her radar screen.
“Any guess how likely the mines are to make contact?” Berk said.
“No idea,” Leonick replied. “The missiles might be advanced enough to see the threat and navigate around it.”
“Good confidence,” Berk said.
“You asked,” Leonick replied. “I could try launching two mines in quick succession to set one behind the other. The first might miss, but maybe the missile will correct right into the second one if it goes undetected.”
“How long until the first pair reach us?” Jyra asked, cutting across the bickering.
“We’re still speeding up,” Berk said. “The missiles are still projected to overtake us. Maybe five minutes.”
“We should hit the missiles when they are still a minute away at minimum,” Leonick advised.
“Try one mine right now,” Jyra suggested, feeling her flesh prickle. “Test missile evasion.”
“Targeting,” Leonick said. Both Jyra and Berk reflexively turned to watch Leonick as he aimed and launched a chaos mine.
“How long until impact?” Jyra asked.
“Running a calculation on that now,” Leonick said. “It should be accurate to within a few seconds either way.”
Jyra wanted to watch the mine’s performance, but everything was still too far away for even the exterior cameras to witness. Only the incoming strike appeared on the radar screens.
“How’s our course?” Jyra asked. She saw Silanpre growing larger; its light began blocking distant stars.
“Looking good so far,” Berk said. “It’d be better if we didn’t have death following us.”
“Death is always following us,” Leonick said, his eyes remaining on his work. Jyra and Berk exchanged grim smiles as they registered the bleak truth.
“If all missiles are still present after thirty seconds, it means our mine missed,” Leonick said, rubbing his temples.
As the missiles closed in, Jyra fought the urge to blink. One of the missiles in the leading pair suddenly veered off course and then corrected. Jyra felt a rush of helplessness, similar to when she woke up bound in a bed inside one of the Allied Hospitals. The feeling added to her confusion as Berk and Leonick cheered. She looked back at the radar screen and drew a steadying breath. The abnormal movement of the missile indicated it had dodged the mine. Jyra now saw only three missiles on the screen. The explosion of the mine and one leading missile knocked its fellow off course, but only for a moment.
“Well done!” Jyra exclaimed.
“Working on the rest,” Leonick said, returning to his seat, his eyes round and cheeks flushed.
“The warship is coming after us,” Berk said. “I’m sure that’s what our sonar is detecting. It will be on radar soon.”
“It can’t catch us, though,” Jyra said.
“I’m not sure what that ship’s capable of,” Berk said. “But any enemy vessel could summon reinforcements from the planet. We’re flying right past it.”
“Got a read on the leader,” Leonick said.
“Take the shot,” Jyra commanded.
Once again, tension surged on the bridge and everyone fell silent. Leonick didn’t mention a calculated collision time. Jyra assumed by the time he finished, they would already know. She realized how much closer the last three missiles were gaining on them as she watched the screen.
The lead missile wavered momentarily and the trailing pair remained on course. Leonick’s sigh was all Jyra needed to hear in the silence. Berk stroked his beard and swiveled in his chair.
“Try the other mount,” he said. “The chaos shrapnel mine.”
“It needs to hit something to detonate,” Leonick said.
“It will,” Berk said. “We’ll shoot it with one of our missiles.”
He saw Jyra glaring and realized he’d cut his captain out of the conversation again.
“We only have a couple,” he said. “It’s a chaos mine filled with metal debris. The missiles are getting close enough now that just their exploding nearby could harm us. We need to launch the mine and a missile to set it off in the middle of the enemy missiles.”
“Do it,” Jyra said. “If we survive, I want a full list of the armaments aboard as soon as we have time to compile it.”
“Calculating now,” Leonick said. He was bent over his keyboard, unable to type at his previous speed, as he guarded against any mistake. They had no time left for error.
Jyra returned to the front of the bridge to get a better view of Silanpre. White clouds spun over an ocean that curled out of sight around the curvature of the planet. Jyra suspected the capsule that brought her to Silanpre lay somewhere beneath the rolling waves below. No evidence existed of the trash ring; similar to her arrival, Jyra again witnessed the planet without the presence of the landfill that orbited Silanpre in a nearly unbroken circle.
Berk inhaled sharply and Jyra broke her gaze from the planet.
“What now?” she asked.
“I wish being right meant we got a free pass out of this,” Berk said. “Another ship is about to enter space on an intercept course.”
“So we run,” Jyra said.
“We don’t have the same head start on missiles from the emerging ship,” Berk said. “I know we haven’t done a complete inventory of our weapons supply, but I can tell you we don’t have the means to destroy all the incendiaries they’ll throw at us.”
“Leonick,” Jyra said, feeling as though she had swallowed a mouthful of sand, “status?”
“Got it plotted,” he said, the tapping of the keyboard terminated as he spoke.
“Fire,” Jyra said.
“There is a—,” Leonick began, but Jyra cut him off.
“Fire now!” she ordered.
“Mine away,” Leonick said, his tone unchanged. Silence fell on the bridge until Leonick added: “missile launched.”
Jyra felt the sweat on her forehead as she made her way to her console.
“I advise everyone strap in fast,” Leonick said. “Detonation in fifteen seconds.”
“How far behind us?” Berk demanded, fumbling with his harness.
“Closer than I would like,” Leonick said. “Hang on.”
Jyra didn’t have time to lean forward to check the radar screen after she clipped her fasteners. She grasped the console with both hands and bowed her head, expecting to hear some noise from the explosion.
Such a sound never arrived. Instead, Jyra felt a deep, thrumming pulse in her gut. She swore she heard the glass panels over the bridge rattle against their seals.
“Lean back!” Berk yelled. Jyra obeyed, pushing herself into her backrest. It felt as though a massive hammer swung into the rear of Mastranada. Jyra never experienced anything like it; she didn’t understand how her seat could remain attached to the floor. She felt her flesh press into every available crease in the worn cushions. Her eyes sank into her head and her vision grew cloudy. She could not yell or even draw breath; her chest could not push against the crushing force as Mastranada surfed the punishing shockwave from the explosion.
Jyra saw only a blur of color in front of her as warning lights flared again. Her heard pounded and she vaguely understood that she might lose consciousness, but something stirred in her stalled blood flow. She raised a finger, then two, from her armrest. Jyra felt her forehead contorting from the effort, but sweat couldn’t emerge from her skin. She forced one hand to the console and seized the edge of it. Slowly, she pulled herself toward the engine controls.
Jyra managed to bring her right arm over the console while holding position with her left. She initiated the reversing sequence and throttled the engines to a minimum, aware even that could overload them. A deep groan reverberated through the ship as Jyra fell back into her seat. She thought she heard the whine of the engines. Within a few moments, Jyra took a short, painful gasp of air. Silanpre remained portside of the ship. Mastranada resumed a steady course, skirting the planet.
Jyra took another breath and turned in her seat to check on her shipmates. Both of them stirred and moaned. Berk coughed a fine spray of blood over his console. Before the explosion, Leonick had rotated his entire seat in order to face forward, which saved his life. He dragged his arm under his nose, wiping away the gathering blood. Jyra tasted iron in the back of her throat.
“That’s why I didn’t want the missiles to get too close,” Berk said thickly, slumping over the controls. “Are we slowing down?”
“I reversed the engines,” Jyra said. “Are you two okay?”
“What do you mean you reversed the engines?” Berk said, his hands clumsily reaching for his restraints.
Jyra pointed at her controls and Berk took several heavy steps to stare at them.
“Restore forward thrust,” he said and belatedly added: “captain. We probably still have at least one missile after us.”
Jyra hastily adjusted the engine controls. Leonick coughed behind her and managed to gasp: “radar is down.”
“Anything else damaged?” Jyra said.
“Everything will be if we don’t get our eyes back,” Berk said. He made to return to his seat, but paused. He brushed a loose lock of hair out of his face and fell to one knee, almost landing in Jyra’s lap.
“Are you all right?” Jyra asked, throwing one arm around Berk’s massive shoulder and placing her other hand against his chest to keep him upright. He stared toward the controls then raised his right hand, took Jyra’s off his shoulder, and placed it against the steel trim of her console. She felt her fingers fall into the notches they had made earlier when she seized the front of the console in a crushing grip.
“Seems there’s a story there,” Berk said. “Hope we live through this to hear it.”
“Are you all right?” she repeated.
“Dizzy, but fine,” he said retreating to his console. “I’ll be better once we can see what’s out there.”
“Almost got it,” Leonick reported. “Just finishing the bypass sequence.”
“I assume we lost rear radar calibration,” Jyra said, swiveling in her seat to face Leonick, who nodded. The explosion didn’t destroy their radar but it reduced its accuracy. Jyra wondered what else suffered damage.
“Radar is back,” Leonick said.
The screens on the pilot consoles lit up again. Jyra ignored the warning lights and waited to see if the missiles were still after them. Their wake appeared empty. The pursuing warship was nowhere to be seen on the monitor, nor the intercepting ship about to break into space from Silanpre.
“Two missiles missing from radar,” Berk muttered. Jyra confirmed his observation.
“One missile remaining,” she warned.
“Where?” Berk said.
Jyra glanced back at her screen and saw no enemy ships or shots in sight, not even the missile she just witnessed. She opened her mouth to speak, just as the missile far off to the port side flickered back into view.
“There!” she cried. “Portside!”
She saw Berk register the signature before it fell off radar again. He sat back.
“Missiles don’t drift in and out of radar, right?” he called back toward Leonick.
“Not by damage on our end,” Leonick said. “But planet atmospheres have a way of fooling radar.”
“If it’s messing with our tracking, it could be doing the same to the incoming ship,” Jyra said.
She turned to gaze beyond the bridge and saw a pinprick of white light shining against the luminescent curve of Silanpre.
“You mean that ship?” Berk said.
“Precisely,” Jyra said. “Redirect course to fly across its nose.”
“Captain?” Berk said and Jyra heard the same doubt in his voice that came from her own lips.
“You heard me,” she said. “Make for that emerging ship, before their radar calibrates to space.”
“But the missile,” Leonick said.
“It was blown off course,” Jyra said. “It will come toward us, but we can offer it a better target.”
Berk and Leonick exchanged a glance.
“If we aren’t here to die, what are we here for?” Berk said, opening another beer.
“We’re here to live,” Jyra answered. “I hope for that at least.” She leaned over, grabbed the bottle before she lost her nerve, and took a long gulp. If they couldn’t outrun the intercepting ship, they were already in jeopardy.
“Can we go any faster?” Jyra asked.
“We could blow up another mine behind us,” Berk suggested.
“Had enough of that already,” Jyra said. “What about the booster engine?”
She glanced at Leonick and immediately saw his defeated posture; shoulders slumped and head bowed.
“What’s the matter?” Jyra asked.
“The booster engine is not responding,” Leonick said. “I suspect the explosion disabled it.”
Jyra checked the missile’s progress. It was flying nearly parallel with Mastranada and drifting closer. Jyra hoped the explosion damaged some of the weapon’s guiding systems.
“If we get much closer to the planet, the gravity will slow us down,” Berk said.
“Maybe that’s what’s holding the missile back. Maintain present distance then,” Jyra said. “But we need to be ready to fall on the second ship the moment we see it.
“Getting a possible reading now,” Leonick said.
“I saw it first on the long-range read,” Berk said. “Not possible now with damaged radar, but—”he checked his screen again and gave a firm nod —“I’m sure that’s it.”
“How long?” Jyra asked.
“I can override the regulators on the cores,” Leonick said.
“Do it,” Jyra said. “We have to get to them before they see us.”
“I recommend harnessing up,” Leonick said.
Berk steered Mastranada toward Silanpre and Jyra felt the ship shudder as it accelerated, diving straight at the planet’s surface, hundreds of miles below. She placed a hand around her mother’s locket.
“Keep an eye on that missile!” Berk said, hastily guzzling his beer as the vibrations grew stronger.
“It will be right on us once we cross its path,” Jyra said.
“As long as we can cross it,” Berk said.
The missile still held its course, resembling a stray from the trash ring, except it was moving in the wrong direction.
“Two minutes,” Berk said. “Maybe. Approximation is all we have now.”
“The missile is turning toward us,” Jyra said. “And we’re between it and Silanpre now. And it noticed.”
The missile’s target falling through its sights renewed the weapon’s tracking. It accelerated after Mastranada. Jyra glanced out of her starboard porthole and, in the distance, saw the glow of the intercepting ship pushing toward Silanpre’s thermosphere.
“We need to fly parallel to the ground!” Jyra yelled. The vibrations worsened as Silanpre made every effort to pull Mastranada down into the ocean. “Bring the missile right across the enemy ship. I can see it.”
“We’ll be initiating reentry,” Berk said. Jyra shared his hesitation. After sustaining obvious damage, it would be best to at least inspect their ship before subjecting it to such severe conditions.
“We don’t have a choice,” Jyra said. “We’ve got a missile behind and an enemy target ahead. If we don’t destroy that ship, it will launch a volley of missiles that we can’t outrun or neutralize.”
“As long as we don’t self-destruct either,” Berk said. “Ready to terminate the dive?”
“Slowly,” Jyra said. “Maintain as much momentum as possible to help cool the ship.”
“As it’s trying to light itself on fire,” Berk muttered.
Berk threw the levers and Jyra felt her body slam against her harness as Mastranada’s nose turned toward the planet’s Northern pole.
“Starboard now!” Berk bellowed, as the throbbing vibrations created a howling roar inside the ship.
Jyra reached for the controls and sent Mastranada into a gentle curve, while Berk continued easing the ship out of the dive. Leonick did his best to manually regulate the energy cores, but this was hardly the environment for such tedious work. Damage from the explosion had weakened parts of Mastranada’s skeleton and stresses from both speed and quick maneuvering were overtaxing the ship.
Jyra gritted her teeth and struggled to maintain consciousness. She felt the sweat that materialized on her skin and the orange glow encroaching on the glass around her. The consequences of reentry crashed upon the ship. Jyra struggled to pull out of the curve. When she managed it, she stared through the air rippling with heat, gazing beyond the bridge and she saw the enemy ship.
Jyra sat up straighter in her seat, unaware of when she had started slouching in it. One hand still clutched her mother’s locket. Certainly she hadn’t been holding it this whole time? She cast a wary eye toward Berk. He hung forward against his harness, but seemed to be prodding the controls.
“What are you doing?” Jyra muttered. She felt like she had drank a full flask of Kip’s whiskey.
“Need to evade,” Berk said. He sounded even more exhausted, but he gestured ahead of them.
Jyra looked again and realized the intercepting ship was rotating, its bow turning toward her. The sight provoked some urgency but Jyra only managed to lean forward like Berk. She checked the radar screen and saw the missile still traveling in their wake.
“I can give us one more push,” Leonick said. “It will be brief. Couple seconds. Cores will burnout completely.”
“We need to get closer,” Jyra said.
“What’s the plan?” Berk said.
“Fly right at them then hop the ship,” Jyra said. “Hope the missile doesn’t make the jump.”
Mastranada wobbled and Jyra wiped her brow. She couldn’t tell if it was getting hotter. Far sooner than she expected, they were upon the enemy. Berk and Jyra both sat ready, but still exhausted.
This new threat was certainly smaller than the warship and built more for speed. Sweeping, angular stabilizers merged seamlessly with the sleek, jet-black hull. The nose finished in a point so fine, it seemed touching it might draw blood. Jyra noticed the pivoted guns on either side of the cockpit. As if sensing her gaze, each gun suddenly fired, spraying bullets toward the incoming target.
“Leonick now!” Berk said. “Need the push!”
Mastranada leapt toward the incoming fire. Jyra glanced at the radar and saw the missile falling behind. The bullets flew beneath them, but with the greater gap, it seemed likely the missile would navigate around the enemy. Mastranada began to rise, about to soar over the other vessel, but Jyra changed her mind.
“Dive!” she ordered. Berk didn’t say a word as they turned Mastranada toward Silanpre as the guns fired fresh rounds. Jyra heard the bullets tear through the hull amidships as they fell beneath the enemy vessel.
“Get back on the ship’s lateral plane!” Jyra said.
“Understood,” Berk muttered. He sounded calm, his delivery unusually soft and breathless.
As they pulled up, fighting against Silanpre’s relentless drag, a bright flash that had nothing to do with reentry flared above the bridge. Jyra barely had time to witness it. A second missile explosion pounded Mastranada. Though not as strong as the first, Jyra watched Silanpre flicker in and out of sight as the world grew smaller with each glimpse. Her vision blurred. She felt blood throbbing beneath her skin. The force of the explosion blew Mastranada away from the planet, spinning like a top as it went.
Jyra fumbled for the controls, hoping to reverse the engines again or somehow counter the erratic trajectory. Such hope disappeared with the ship’s power, cloaking the bridge in darkness. Jyra felt her heavy eyelids and the sensation of spinning, both in her body and head. She slumped against her harness, lapsing into unconscious, her mind as empty as the surrounding void.