Er'dox and Yren appeared at the docking port, carrying the stasis pods between them with careful urgency. The pods were intact, thank god, power cells at critical but still functioning, vitals reading stable for both occupants. Will Peters and Lisa Tran, alive by the narrowest margin, held in technological suspended animation by Will's brilliant, desperate engineering.
I couldn't look at Will's pod. Couldn't see his face through the frosted viewport. If I looked, I'd break, and I couldn't break yet. Not until everyone was safe.
"Pods secured," Er'dox reported. "Raider forces are regrouping. They're bringing heavier weapons."
"How heavy?" Vaxon dropped back to our position, took cover behind a bulkhead. Energy fire scorched past his head, close enough that I felt the heat through my suit.
"Plasma cannons. Enough to cut through this bulkhead in approximately ninety seconds."
I keyed in the final connection sequence, watched the power flow stabilize through the bypass. "Engines online. We're flight-ready."
"Everyone aboard. Now." Vaxon moved to the docking port controls, began the emergency separation sequence. "Elena, pre-flight checks?"
"Skipped. We're flying on hope and jury-rigged circuits."
"My favorite kind of flight." His marking patterns flickered, not fear, I realized. Amusement. The massive Zandovian warrior was actually enjoying this insanity.
Men. Alien men. Whatever. They were all crazy.
The team scrambled aboard. I slid into the pilot's seat because no one else knew the modifications I'd made, and Vaxon dropped into the co-pilot position despite it being comically small for his eight-foot-eight frame. His knees hit the console. He adjusted without complaint, hands moving across the tactical displays with the same lethal efficiency he'd shown fighting.
"Separation in three," he announced. "Two. One. Release."
The docking clamps disengaged. The shuttle lurched away from the derelict, and I immediately felt how wrong everything was. The ship handled like a drunk elephant, sluggish response, power fluctuations sending shudders through the frame, warning alerts screaming about a dozen critical systems.
But we were moving. That's all that mattered.
"Raider ships adjusting intercept vectors," Vaxon reported, his voice clinical. "Weapons locked. Firing."
The first volley hit our port side, and the shuttle spun. I fought the controls, using the erratic maneuvering thrusters to our advantage—unpredictable trajectories were harder to target. Another hit, this one aft. Alarms blared about hull breaches in non-critical sections.
"I need a flight path," I said through gritted teeth. "Something with cover."
Vaxon's fingers flew across the tactical display, calculating angles and trajectories faster than the shuttle's computer. "Asteroid cluster, bearing two-seven-three mark six. Dense formation, multiple collision hazards."
"Perfect." I banked hard, pushing the damaged engines to their limits. The shuttle screamed in protest, metal groaning,systems redlining, every component performing beyond rated specifications because physics was more of a guideline than a rule when your life depended on it.
We plunged into the asteroid field at a speed no sane pilot would attempt. Rocks tumbled past, some small as fists, others massive as buildings. I threaded through gaps that shouldn't exist, relying on instinct and spatial awareness and pure desperation.
The raider ships followed. Smaller, more agile, better armed. But they didn't know these asteroids like I was learning them, didn't understand that I'd spent six months maintaining a ship that moved through space at speeds that made normal flight look like standing still. I'd learned to think in three dimensions, to see trajectories before they happened, to trust my instincts when logic said something was impossible.
"Incoming," Vaxon warned. "Port side, high angle."
I dove beneath a tumbling asteroid, felt the raider's weapons fire scorch past overhead. The asteroid took the hit instead, fracturing into smaller pieces that scattered like deadly confetti.
"Use that," I said. "The asteroids. Can you target them to create obstacles?"
Vaxon's markings flared bright. "Tactical asteroid deployment. Clever."
He opened fire on strategic targets, not the raider ships directly, but the rocks around them. Asteroids shattered, creating clouds of debris that forced the raiders to adjust course, slowed their pursuit, and bought us precious seconds.
But seconds weren't enough. The raiders were still gaining, still firing, and our damaged shuttle couldn't maintain this pace indefinitely. I could feel the engines failing, power fluctuations getting worse, systems approaching catastrophic cascade.
"Vaxon," I said quietly. "I don't think we're going to make it."
"Yes, we are." He said it with such absolute certainty that I almost believed him. "Trust me, Elena. We're getting out of this."
"How? I'm out of tricks. The ship's falling apart. They're faster than us, better armed, and there's three of them."
