Escape

The Dionysian sets off with Vescent fighters on their tail.

And the fun begins.

The words had barely left the captain’s mouth when, suddenly, the floor tipped beneath Leta’s heels and her whole body went sliding with it. Instinctively her hand shot up to seize a metal pipe above her head while her widened eyes shot from the radar screen and to the wide bay window.

Leta was finding it harder and harder to believe her eyes. Above Fiearius’ head, through the smudged glass, the view of the Fall’s End docks was beginning to lower out of sight. What had once been a landscape view of other immobile, sleeping ships in the bay was now shrinking and shrinking, replaced by the tops spires of city buildings and low clouds and --

Three four, no  -- six other small fighter ships. Just as the radar had warned. Just as Leta already knew.

“Border guards,” said Leta. She choked in her throat. “We won’t get far.”

With that, the metal bar she grasped unexpectedly lurched in her hand. In fact, the whole ship did, as if the entire machine flinched in protest. Was this a normal take-off, she thought hysterically, or had they just been hit? The only answer she got was from the captain, who shook off the impact like a dog throwing water off of his coat. Steadying himself, he seized the controls once more and muttered to the dashboard, sounding amused, “You got my attention, baby, relax.”

Too stunned to speak, Leta stared wide-eyed at the back of the captain’s head a moment longer before hastily pressing through the cabin, using the wall for support before collapsing into one of the passenger seats and grabbing the seatbelt around her waist. Corra did the same beside her, but with much more grace. “Told ya this is the best seat in the house,” she said, surprisingly cheerful.

“He’s nuts,” Leta groaned. “They won’t let us go anywhere.”

Beyond the window, the city shrunk into miniature and in seconds disappeared entirely. Now there was only the blurring light zooming past the windows, as if they were shooting through a dark tunnel. On either side of the window, slipping in and out of sight, the fighter ships whipped soundlessly. Leta fixated her eyes on the dancing birds, the swerving of the Dionyian’s bulky wingspan, the unending vibrating of the metal floor and her seat and the walls that shook like thunder.

Acid churned in her stomach.

Somehow, the captain was not alarmed by the storm raging through the ship’s walls. Grasping the clutch with one hand, he used the other to punch a switch in the dashboard. Apparently, it was the intercom, as he said "What are we lookin' at, little brother?" A second later the wall speaker crackled to life.

"They're Orion F-Class Fighters,” came Cyrus’ voice from the wall. “G Series, looks like they've got the 650W upgrade modul--”

"Not helping,” Fiearius interrupted, his voice remarkably even even as he seized a gear so roughly that the entire cabin tilted left, a motion that somehow didn’t seem to phase him even as Corra clutched onto the seatbelt and Leta was nearly tossed out of her seat.

Her stomach was still doing sickly somersaults, her hands clutching the armrests, when Cyrus’ annoyed voice responded, “They've very fast, small and can shoot a lot."

"I can see that," Fiearius replied, pulling the ship in another harsh, sudden angle that sent a shelf of broken ship parts crashing into Leta and Corra’s heads. Over the tumbling crash of metal upon metal, Fiearius suggested thoughtfully, "Talk to me about shields."

“Their weapons shields can withstand a blast up to--" Cyrus began, but was cut off.

"You know the weapons shields aren't what I was talking about," said Fiearius, and even though the pressure in her ears was suffocating by now, Leta was suddenly stricken with alarm at the malicious lilt in the captain’s voice.

"Tell me about their impact shields, little brother," he mused again.

Reluctantly, as though it was painful, Cyrus recited, "Due to the superior speed and size of the Orion F-Class as well as the self-sustained pilot ejection unit, all auxiliary power modules are routed into the weapon shields." He took a deep breath and sighed. "Impact shields were dropped from the design."

From her far corner of the cabin, Leta glimpsed the side of Fiearius’ face and the broad smirk that arrived on it. "That's what I thought," he said, satisfied. "Route all the power we can spare out of the engine and into shields."

"Fiearius, don't--"

"Just f*****g do it, Cyrus," he snapped, and with a growl in his throat, he pulled the gear into the sharpest swerve yet. Now, the view of the bay window shifted in a flash as the Dionysian was spun directly around 180 degrees. Now the ship faced the blurry blue-green mass of a planet and, in the foreground, the six fighter ships.

Directly.

Before she knew what the captain was going to do, Leta knew what the captain was going to do. “He’s not -- “ she started, though it was in that moment that the ship surged forward into the assailants and the metal rattling within the cabin drowned out any other noise.

Leta anticipated every excruciating second of the impact. She squeezed her eyes shut and, below, her chair went from humming, to vibrating, to positively shaking in protest beneath her grip. Through the slits of her eyes she saw the silhouette of Fiearius, and beyond him, the peak of the Dionysian break through the fleet, a half-dozen silent explosions in the darkening sky as the walls roared and roared around them.

Dimly, Leta thought she could see, now, how this might be satisfying, in a terrible, destructive, awful sort of way. Even with the grimace masking on her face, she glimpsed one the metal sheets imprinted with the Society symbol blast apart as easily as beach-glass. It flew past the window of the ship and was lost, lost into the black of space.

The moment of peace was short-lived.

Easing her eyes open fully, Leta realized three things just as the cabin swam into view. First, the walls had slowed their shaking. Second, Fiearius was laughing like somebody had just told him a particularly off-color joke.

And the last thing she noticed was her stomach. It was lodged somewhere in her throat.

Hands shaking, body trembling, Leta fumbled to pull the seatbelt off her waist and pushed herself to unsteady feet. Her legs wobbled as she crossed to the door and staggered out of the cabin into the hallway. Behind her, dimly, she heard raucous yelling echoing from one end of the ship. It must have been the crew. Celebration, perhaps? Or perhaps, pain from that impact.

She picked the other direction.

The grated metal floor was rocking up and down like a boat on water and the air was as thick and heavy as she staggered forward. The pit in her stomach was not shrinking, but growing and growing, and before she could think to do otherwise, she stopped short, she grabbed the nearest railing and her mouth filled.

It was too much.

Leta could not truly remember the last time she’d gotten sick. She certainly couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten sick in public. Coughing, eyes watering, she bent over the railing for several agonizing seconds longer until, finally, cool, steady air began to inch into her lungs.

Behind her, as her senses returned, she heard the approach of forceful, pounding footsteps. Cyrus, she realized, as she glanced with streaming eyes over her shoulder and the young man stalked past her in a furious rush toward the bridge.

Seconds later, just as Leta was shakily wiping her mouth with her wrist, the hallway near the bridge erupted in shouting. It was undeniably Cyrus’ voice that yelled, probably at his brother, "What the f**k was that?!"

Leta straightened herself up and watched as the party of three -- Fiearius, Cyrus and Corra -- exited the bridge. Something of a swagger was in Fiearius’ walk while Cyrus followed, muttering darkly behind him, "You are damn lucky our shields held. They're meant for minor debris or stray rocks. Not for high-class fighter ships moving forward at full sp-- “

“But it did work,” Fiearius replied, smiling.

“Do you know what it means to have a hole in your ship at a hundred twenty thousand feet?!” Cyrus yelled, tossing his hands in the air. “‘Cause I promise you won't like --”

"Relax, little brother," sighed Fiearius, putting his hands on his brother’s shoulders as they walked. "It's fine. Everything's fine--”

Merely a stunned observer, Leta was frozen against the railing as she watched the three of them approach down the hallway without sparing her a look. It occurred to her as their conversation continued (“I don’t know, Cy-cy, we are still alive,“ Corra was saying now), that they were going to stride right past her lest she wave her arms and yell.

The realization caused a sort of sudden anger in her chest. Anger she did not she even possessed. Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself away from the railing and forced herself in front of them. The trio awkwardly stumbled to a stop before her like dominos as she glared at each of them, most especially at Fiearius.

“You need treatment,” she growled. She ignored their stunned looks. “And I need off this ship.”

Author's Note

For the illustrated chapter and extras go to caelum-lex.com