“We're going to need it. We've been noticed by a couple of those drones, marking targets.” Larry commented as red ovals appeared on the main display in the dimly lit V shaped cockpit. Everyone sat facing the front. The pilot and navigator were at the fore with engineering and tactical to their left and right, communications and operations behind them. There was no Captain's chair, it was a large, heavily armed troop gunship with enough space to serve as a small troop carrier.
Leland March ran into the cockpit. “We have two gunners, but Yates is missing.”
“Yates was supposed to be running tactical! Where is he?” Ashley asked without looking away from the controls.
“He didn't report back, we were waiting for him and a few newbies.”
“Then sit down and run tactical, we have company. Oh, and next time someone's over an hour late, tell the acting Captain so she can contact the local authorities!”
“I've never done tactical on the Reaver!”
Ashley didn't bother replying.
“This is Finn's first time working Engineering and Operations on this ship, you don't see him bitching, do you?” Larry said as quickly as he could. “The river you're following goes down into a canyon in seven point five,” he directed Ashley as she navigated within two hundred meters of the ground. Her attention was fully focused on piloting, there was no room for error at the speed they were travelling. “You're not going to want to go in there, it gets jinky.”
“Describe jinky,” Ashley said as she decelerated below three hundred kilometres per hour and tilted the nose of the ship down to match the decline of the rapids below.
“Narrow, jagged, impossible to fly through at this speed.”
Leland finally sat down at the tactical station and looked at the control panels. The tactical holographic display appeared above them and he rotated the view so he was looking at what was behind the ship. “We have five ships behind us.”
Ashley reduced Cold Reaver's speed to two hundred five kilometres per hour as she followed the river within a few meters. The walls of the canyon rose up on either side of them. “Are they following?”
“Yes, but they'll be above us I think.”
She jerked at the controls and guided the ship around a hairpin of stone valley walls then through a gentler curve that led them under a bridge. “Tell March how to run tactical please, get more info from him,” she said quietly to Larry as she concentrated on piloting.
“Okay, are they above and behind? Right above?” Larry asked Leland hurriedly. He turned his attention back to Ashley so he could continue giving her navigational information, warnings about what obstacles and features she would have to fly through but couldn't see yet. “We have a Forty seven degree left turn six hundred twenty meters ahead. Then we have a twelve degree incline over the next one point four K.”
“Uh, they're above and behind. We don't have a clear shot with any weapons,” Leland replied.
“We will,” Ashley said impatiently. “Tell the gunners to be ready.”
“Four degree decline, narrowing to three hundred meters after this turn, fork coming up in five point six K after that, take the right side.”
Ashley fired the decelerators hard as she took the next turn, slowing down to just under a hundred fifty kilometres per hour, Finn tried to focus the shields to reduce the amount of space they affected around the ship but as the valley narrowed he didn't get the profile small enough and the port side caught a rocky outcropping, ripping the stone and earth free from the wall as they passed.
“Any damage?” Ashley asked.
“No breaches, shields are down to ninety two percent. We're okay,” Finn replied.
“How's my sky?”
“We're clear of port traffic. Our friends have caught up,” Larry reported.
Several more impacts on the shields were reported on Finn's station and he looked over to tactical. “They're firing at the canyon walls, trying to bury us!” He pointed at the projectile warnings on Leland March's station hurriedly before turning back to his engineering station.
Ashley fired the thrusters hard, increasing their speed to a suicidal velocity, nicking the sides of the canyon with the shields, leaving a dusty wake behind. The rough, craggy split ahead loomed larger in the cockpit screen by the millisecond. “I know you're not sure about what you're doing Leland, but could you at least tell me what you're seeing?” she asked irritably as she made constant fine adjustments to their trajectory. At the last instant she pulled up and increased the throttle to full power.
The inertial dampeners whined louder than the engines as they accelerated away from the ground beneath, towards the grey skies. Everyone was pressed into their seats by the relatively small amount of gravitational forces the compensators couldn't adjust for. Finn managed to hook his safety line to his station just in time to lean against the support in his vacsuit instead of being hurled to the back of the small bridge.
As the Cold Reaver's turrets came to life Leland tried to get the missile launchers turned around so he could lock onto their pursuers.
Finn sent more power to the rear shield emitters as they started taking direct fire from the small Eden Fleet drones' powerful pulse cannons. “Shields down to forty three percent. We have ten seconds at best, trying to route more power.”
“Do your best, how many have our gunners killed?” Ashley asked as they broke through the clouds to blue sky.
“They've knocked one down, but I can't get the missile launchers turned aft.”
“They don't turn aft! Just be ready,” Ashley said through clenched teeth. Her speech impediment, the lisp that made lazy mush out of many of her consonants was gone. No one had ever seen her so frustrated.
“We're good for hyperspace in a few more seconds, just get us there in one piece Ash.” Larry said as he calculated a course as quickly as he could.
“Get ready to reverse thrust and focus shields front,” she said more quietly.
Finn knew exactly what she was doing and smiled. Her combat skills had grown well past what he'd expected through the weeks of simulations she'd flown in while the Triton crew trained just downspin of the Ambrosia nebula. “Ready,” was all he had to say.
She flipped the ship end over end and the emergency deceleration engines at the front fired, the shields took several hits from the oncoming Eden Drones.
After seconds of waiting everyone in the cockpit finally heard the tones indicating that the main missile batteries had solid locks on the attacking ships and Leland unloaded the launchers, sending all forty eight heavy missiles at them all at once.
“Oh my God!” Ashley exclaimed as everyone in the cockpit flinched, ducked and instinctively threw their hands up over their faces. The missiles exploded less than five kilometres from the ship's nose, sending brutal shock waves and shrapnel back at them. The Cold Reaver shook and rocked.
“What happened?” Leland shouted out over the sounds of decompression and collision alarms.
“Decompression in forward debarkation, we lost our lower turret, no shields. Closing the compartments off,” Finn reported hurriedly.
“Can we enter hyperspace?” Ashley asked, she struggled with the controls, forced to guide the ship free of the planets gravity while flying backwards with only partial engine power.
“Checking.”
“What happened?” Leland asked again.
“You never fire that many missiles, especially not at four point eight clicks,” Larry called over his shoulder. “Try thinking for once!”
“I didn't know! I've never worked on this ship!”
“That goes for any ship! It's common sense!”
“Leland, go check our passengers,” Ashley ordered. “Finn, hyperspace?”
“We're good. I'll have to watch the emitters we have closely though. Generating a field on navigation's mark.”
“Mark in three, two, one, mark,” announced Larry loudly.