"Can you not hit anyone?"Veta snapped at Freya.
"I am a better shot than this," Freya said as she tried to lock onto targets better.
"Just shoot everywhere," Bianca said."It's not like we have backup."
"On the contrary," Veta said."Telemetry reads five Rhimodian ships approaching and moving into protective positions."
Caoimhe sighed."That's not what they were supposed to do."
"Did you really think those boys were going to let us sneak by alone?"
"They're taking away from the battle!We need all attention on the fighting in the system," Caoimhe said."We have to keep them all distracted, because we can't get through if they're paying attention to us."She started to march up to the controls and, well and--
"What do you think you're doing?"Veta asked.
"I was going to yell--"
She paused.
Veta looked at her.
She looked down.
"No communication," Caoimhe said.
"Listen, I'm not surprised.You shouldn't be either.All those boys have a special attachment to us.Right now, they are our backup.We're going to need them when we reach this weapon of your father's, anyway.Can't really blow it up with just the blasters on this."
"You can't blow it up," Caoimhe said."We have to go inside."
"We have to what?"Bianca asked.
"The weapon can't be blasted, but we can go inside and blow it up from the inside."
"How big is this thing?"Eleanor asked.
"It's big," Caoimhe said.
"Well, that's great," Veta said, the sarcasm almost dripping out of her mouth.
She flew the ship to the right, a little sharper than she probably had to, and Caoimhe fell into her sister.More blaster fire pounded against the ship.
"We can argue about details later," Freya said."For right now, we have to get through these Terran fighters and get back into Terran space."
Caoimhe nodded."Whatever this weapon is that my father's created, we have to stop it.Genocide is not an option."
"Not for you, but it's the Emperor we're talking about.Genocide is always an option for him."
"If we can even get close to this thing," Bianca added.
Caoimhe shook her head."I have a plan for that."She handed Veta a data card."Once we're clear, use the route there to get to it."
"Did you think of everything?"Freya asked.
Caoimhe shook her head and glanced outside the ship, watching the Rhimodian fighters flying around their ship, defending it from the Terran vessels."No," she said."No, I didn't think of everything.Some things just happened."
"Well, we're here,"Veta said."And there's not a damn thing out there."
Veta wasn't wrong.They had arrived at the point where the coordinates said that the Emperor's weapon was, and there was nothing there.It was just a void of space.They were barely within the Terran Empire's boarders, so no planets were visible in any direction.they were, in essence, alone in space.The nearest thing to them was the faster-than-light warp tunnels that peppered the galaxy, but there was no entry point nearby.
