Ship: The Kurgan

System: Stygian Outrim, approaching the Morlin Asteroid Belt

THE HARNESS WHIRRED TO LIFE as Linares fastened it around Ash's chest. His breathing slowed as the device sapped heat from his body to lower his core temperature and diffused the radiation combusting within him. The red veins in his neck fully receded as he leaned his head back on the wall and opened his eyes, clear again, to look at Linares.

"Thank you," he managed. Linares said nothing.

"Look alive, shitbirds," Qarnan interrupted, "We ain't outta this yet."

"What do you mean?" Linares latched onto the task at hand.

"I mean those geeks ripped up my baby's insides," he patted the dashboard, "The engine ain't at full performance and we got war pigs on our ass!"

On cue, one of the monitors by the flight controls blipped to life and displayed a series of red dots closing in on their position. Linares and Ash locked eyes, then got up beside Qarnan's seat.

"I'll do what I can with the engine," Ash said.

"Weapons?" Linares asked.

"Down the corridor, right ladder! Sheriff, you go left!"

They sprinted out of the bridge and down the corridor to the midsection. Linares jumped up a ladder to the right, Ash to the left.

Linares clambored into a worn leather seat above two crude steering gimbals and strapped herself in. She slipped her hands inside and felt the firing controls as the metal dome around her shifted. The blast shields drew back to reveal a plexiglass dome with a pair of plasma cannons jutting out. She just managed to get her bearings as kinetic rounds from Orovian Shrike fighters rocked the top of the Kurgan, the worn metal held firm but the damage was stacking. Linares gripped the controls and thrust her arms forward, and red plasma erupted from the turrets and destroyed two fighters, with more on the way. She shifted the turret, keeping up fire as the fighters tried to regroup and strafe along the larger Kurgan's side.

In the cockpit, Qarnan jerked the ship side to side, dodging the Shrikes' torpedoes as two of the fighters closed in on the port and starboard sides, trying to box him in. He grinned and yanked one yolk upward and thrust the other downward, sending the ship into a corkscrew formation. The broad, sturdy wings of the Kurgan smashed clean through the lighter built Shrike fighters, and the rest backed off, their psych tactic having failed against the tougher ship and her unintimidated captain. He watched them regroup on a rear camera monitor, then thumbed an intercom console on the dashboard. "How's it comin' on the engine, Sheriff? Light show like this ain't gonna be fun much longer."

Ash bounced off the wall, cieling and floor as the ship settled out of its corkscrew. "Peachy," he groaned into the comm, "Just peachy!" Recollecting himself, he assessed the Rotus engine once again: a massive, rotating slab of metal, twisting wires, tubing and circuitry crackling with electricity and poor rad-containment. If he himself wasn't infinitely more radioactive, it would be a terribly unsafe work environment. He climbed one of the steel arms holding the Rotus engine aloft and studied it. Scorch marks, frayed wires and loose metal rattled about as the slab spu. "They only just started taking it apart before we escaped, but they weren't exactly gentle."

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Qarnan's voice crackled back on the intercom, "We ain't got the juice to make it to a Rift Lane, but I got an onboard Rift Generator on there, they take that yet?"

Ash hesitated. "…You have a what??"

"Yeah, yeah, illegal shmillegal," he jabbed back, "It's fer rainy days — I'd call this pretty frackin' rainy!"

"It's not just illegal, it's a portable black hole, you're lucky you didn't—" he stopped himself, shutting his eyes and pushing the thought away. "I'm working on it, just keep her steady!"

The engine slab spun rapidly, but Ash was able to get a good look at its makeup after a few seconds. Waiting for the right moment, he dove onto the rotating engine, clinging to the top edge with one hand while gripping a toolbelt in the other. Strenuously, he secured himself to the engine with a suspension cable. He sighed with exasperation and set to work with a welding scalpel.

Meanwhile up above, Linares chased off a cluster of retreating fighters with a plasma volley, but failed to noce a pair branching off the opposite direction as they launched guided missiles. "Damn it," she spat, pivoting the turret and firing wildly at the oncoming missiles, pulling the steering gimbals hard enough to bend them as her rain of plasma finally lined up. She hit one missile, detonating it miles away. She nicked the flanges of the second one, but couldn't land a shot on it before—BLAM, it erupted not ten feet from the hull of the Kurgan, throwing it off course.

The impact shook the entire ship, throwing Ash off his purchase on the engine, tools falling from his hands and belt as he hung taut from the cable and spun in violent circles with the engine.

In the cockpit, Qarnan shook in his seat and fought to regain control as they hurtled towards an asteroid field. He barely managed to steady the ship and pull up, the belly scraping across the surface of a few massive space rocks. He grunted and checked the comms again, "My baby's takin' a beating, Sheriff, talk ta me!"

Ash pulled himself up on the cable and back where he was, but without his tools. He looked at the engine and spotted it: the portable Rift generator, a tome of metal coursing with dim blue-white light. Singularity drives required for Rift travel were radioactive, he reasoned, and this one was obviously cracked and leaking. He pulled his lips in and shrugged. "Be ready to jump in ten seconds!"

"The Rift ain't workin', Sheriff!"

"Just do it!" Ash barked, slapping a hand on the generator. He tensed every muscle he had, he even felt his brain curdle from the intense focus, and he squeezed his synapses and blood vessels tight, picturing a narrow stream. He forced the Tectonic Mantle into a constrained hold, and extracted just a trickle of primordial radioactive power, and willed it down the veins of his arm, through his hand and into the generator. Orange light overtook its dim blue-white, and then coursed through the rest of the machinery as the engine hummed with new life. "NOW!"

Orange lightning crackled across the Kurgan's surface as a narrow, lava-like Rift lane opened before them. The ship zoomed inside and blinked out of existence. Qarnan held on by the controls, his legs and rear lifting out of the seat and trailing backward before he managed to anchor the ship to the Rift lane's trajectory, and leveled out. He plopped down in his chair, panting through a mad grin. "WOO!" he laughed, hopping out of his chair and dashing out the back of the bridge. "I dunno what you did, Sheriff, but—" he hesitated. Ash dragged himself up from the engine room, dizzy and dazed, while Linares fell down the ladder from the turret, rattled and coming down from adrenaline.

Qarnan chuckled and strode by. "Heh. Lightweights."