"Not without the armory." Teeth clenched, Torin shouldered her way into the crowd around the board and pulled up the long-range scanners. "The Heart's grapples have pulled the armory to the cargo doors." She slid her thumb across the board, shifting programs between the dedicated stations. "I've slaved the scanners to the cutter. Mashona, can you hit it?" Mashona had been the best sniper Sh'quo Company had ever seen.
"Hit the armory with a cutter this size? Gunny, it'll…"
"I know." Torin met Mashona's eyes. "Can you hit it?"
"Yes, Gunny."
"Do it!" She snapped the order out with all the force of Gunnery Sergeant Kerr behind it. Her responsibility.
Lower lip caught between her teeth, Mashona bent over the controls. Training had her draw in a deep breath and hold it, settling into a moment of perfect stillness before she fired. "Cargo doors are closing, Cap!"
"Ha!" Cho entered the Susumi equation and sat back. "We…" The front port polarized as the Heart of Stone exploded, but it wasn't quite fast enough to keep the sudden blast of light, white in the center and blue around the edges, from burning into Torin's retinas. Hand gripping the back of Craig's chair, she blinked away afterimages and tried to keep from feeling triumphant.
Because the feeling had very little to do with keeping the armory out of the hands of pirates and a great deal to do with the knowledge that Mackenzie Cho had just been reduced to his component parts.
"I'm not reading debris!"
"There is no debris!"
"What the fuk was in that thing?"
Mackenzie Cho had just been reduced to his component parts on a subatomic level.
Torin felt Craig's hand cover hers and squeeze. He thought he understood. Maybe he did. One more thing on the list of things they should probably talk about.
He snatched his hand away as the view suddenly went completely opaque. Before he could get his hand back on the board, the radiation wave hit.
And the board died.
"On the bright side," he muttered, hooking his thumbnails under the inert edging and popping it off. "There's no debris. Torin, my…"
"Tools." She nodded her thanks to Werst and passed them forward.
"What are the odds the blast took out the ships behind us?" Werst growled.
The Star bucked forward.
"Fuk!" Craig spat the word out. "Feels like we just lost one of the lateral port thrusters!"
"You can tell that from the feel?" Mashona had her hands in place to turn the cutter and fire the moment the board came back.
Craig twisted far enough to grin up at Torin. "Not the first port thruster I've lost in a firefight."
"At least Werst and I are inside this time."
"View was better outside," Werst muttered.
"And you're insane. Move," Ressk added to Mashona. He shoved her out of her seat and slapped his slate down on the board.
"We can't fly with a slate!" Mashona protested, reaching over the chair to keep her hands by the cutter's dead controls.
"But when Ryder has the power back up, I can reroute past damaged parts of the board with it!" Ressk told her.
The Star shuddered. Inertial dampers went off.
"Helm's back. Ressk get the rest. I need eyes aft!" Craig dropped the ship straight down. "I can't avoid what I can't see."
Werst ducked under Torin's arm to hold Ressk in place as he worked his slate with his hands and the board with his feet.
Pieces of metal rang against the upper hull.
This time when Craig twisted to look up, Torin reached out and twisted him back toward the board. "What the hell…?"
"Missile debris," she told him.
"Detonated early," Werst added. "Someone's mounted an XR779 externally."
"Sounded more like a 778," Torin said thoughtfully.
"Yeah, well, either way, Navy needs to keep better track of its toys."
"Not arguing."
"You two are fukking nuts," Craig muttered.
"Comm's back!" Ressk yelled, all four extremities still working.
"Screens or weapons, Ressk." Mashona bumped him with her shoulder. "Why the hell were you working on communications?"
"I wasn't. Came back on its own."
"Nav would be useful." Craig swept two fingers across the screen, fast to the right. "Hang on…"
Torin nearly landed in his lap as the Star swung hard to starboard and up on a forty-five-degree angle. The front port was still too dark for stars, but she thought she could see the streaks from an energy weapon move diagonally past. Past was good.
Wait…
"If nav isn't up, and you can't see forward, how are you steering this thing?"
Craig shrugged. "Space is big."
"Yeah, and remarkably full of shit. Ressk!"
"Working on it, Gunny! Nav is… shit!" He slammed his fist down on the board. "Life support is out!"
"What?"
"It's okay! It's back." The first two toes of his right foot tapped out a syncopated rhythm, and a screen popped up. "There's the aft view."
"Screen's got to be burnt!" Mashona protested as everyone stared at the clusters of lights. "Because if those are all ships…"
Torin snorted. "Big Bill offered a station discount to whoever takes us out."
"Fifteen percent off," Craig added, throwing an arm around her hips and pulling her against his side.
Mashona frowned at the scrolling data. "At least the station seems to have stopped shooting."
"Yeah, well, I imagine it's bad for business to blow up too many of your customers."
Nose ridges flared, Werst had a hand cupped around the back of Ressk's head, thumb scraping small circles through the bristles. "We are so screwed."
"This is the Confederation battleship Berganitan. Stand down!"
"Or not." Ressk scrambled for the volume.
Mashona expanded the aft screen. "They're scattering."
"But they are not going to be going far, so I are suggesting you are getting yourselves the hell out of here!"
"Presit!" Torin touched the camera still attached to her tunic with the heel of her injured hand.
Craig felt his brows rise pretty much free of any conscious involvement in the motion. "Presit?"
"You are thinking Torin are able to save you alone? Well, you are being wrong.
"Wait. You and Presit?"
Torin's smile looked almost fond. "Turns out we had something in common."
He was fond of the little furball himself, but Presit didn't… Right arm still holding Torin close, he reached across his body and wrapped his left hand around Torin's wrist, pulling her hand away from one of the fasteners on her tunic. "That's a camera? That's an illegal camera."
"So not the time to worry about that," Mashona murmured.
Craig ignored her. "You were filming for Presit? On the station?"
"Although I are not getting visuals when she are wearing the suit," Presit answered before Torin could.
Torin sighed, and Craig suddenly realized just how much of her weight she was resting against him. Her eyes, or at least the one eye not swelling shut, looked as tired as he'd ever seen them. "It's a long story."
"And there are being no time to tell it now. Merik are sending equations to station where Wardens are waiting!"
"Oh, I just bet they're still waiting," Torin growled. "God forbid they should actually do something."
"I are still recording."
"I are not giving a crap."
Smiling, although damned if he knew why because they were deep in crap whether Torin cared or not, Craig let his left hand fall back to the board. "Ressk…?"
"Diagnostics are back. I've adjusted the parameter equations for damage taken."
Hoping Merik was Presit's pilot and not her PR flunky, Craig added the equation for the destination to Ressk's adjusted equation for the Second Star and brought the Susumi engines on-line.
"Merik are saying it are being a good idea to get your thumb out. Although everyone who are watching my vids are knowing that where Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr are being, the Berganitan are being, too, we are not exactly looking like a battle cruiser if they are running long-range scans"
Resisting the urge to cross his fingers, Craig punched it.
"Five-day fold," Ressk announced.