The Razorwing jolted violently as it tore from FTL space, the sudden deceleration slamming me against my harness. The ship groaned under the strain, and the air was forced from my lungs as the dampeners struggled to compensate
The stars outside the viewport snapped back into fixed points; their sudden stillness was enough to make me queasy as my gut twisted around itself. I gripped the armrest with white-knuckled hands, struggling not to bring up the remains of the last meal I'd eaten as alarms blared throughout the cockpit.
“What... the hell?” I muttered, barely audible over the blaring alarms. I glanced at Zara. She was slumped forward in the pilot’s seat, her hands limp on the controls, her head tilted at a disturbing angle. Cold and sudden, fear shot through me, gripping my chest like a vice. My thoughts were going hardwire as I pleaded to whatever passed as a goddess out here. Please be ok.
I looked around the cock pit as I tried to calm the panic that I felt rising. I focused on my breathing. Slowing down each breath as I counted. After a few moments. I felt some of the tension leave me. Opening my eyes, I noticed Jax was sprawled on the floor behind us, groaning as he tried to push himself up. A red streak marred the side of his forehead, trailing down toward his jaw. His fingers trembled as he reached for support from the cockpit equipment. His skin had gone a sickly shade of pale.
“Jax!” I yelled, fumbling with the harness before I finally got it released. I tumbled out of my seat. The deck tilted beneath me as the Razorwing continued to drift, like a leaf caught in an unseen current, and my legs buckled as I hit the floor hard. The metallic taste of bile continued to burn at the back of my throat, but I forced the nausea down and crawled over to Jax, my hands shaking as I reached out to steady him.
“Still in one piece… mostly,” Jax groaned, wincing as he touched the wound, blinking rapidly as he tried to clear his vision. His voice was slurred, but his lips managed to twist into a strained grin. “You… look like you’re about to throw up.”
I Ignored the way his words wobbled in my ears as I searched for the medkit. After a few frantic seconds passed, I finally grabbed the medkit that was stowed near the bulkhead, tearing it open and pulling out the bandages and antiseptic.
“Stay still. You’ve got a nasty cut,” I said, fumbling to tear open the sterile packaging. “Hold still, dammit.” I pressed the cloth against his head, trying not to think too much about how much blood there was. “What happened? We were mid-FTL jump, and then…”
“Then we dropped out,” he rasped, his brow pinching as I taped a bandage over the wound. “Dropped out hard. What the hell, Alex? Did we hit something?”
“Not sure. Possible that something went wrong with the FTL drive,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at Zara. She still hadn’t moved. I watched her for a second, letting out a slow breath as I could see the slow rise and fall of her chest, faint but steady. I swallowed, my throat tight. “Must’ve malfunctioned.”
Just as I was about to crawl my way over to Zara, she stirred, her head jerking up with a sharp gasp, her eyes flying open in a moment of panicked clarity. “What… what was that?” She groaned as she rubbed the back of her neck, blinking rapidly to clear the fog from her mind. “The drive… did it malfunction?”
“Seems like it,” I said, my voice taut with lingering adrenaline. “We dropped out, but we’re not dead, so there’s that.” I tried to make light of it, but the joke fell flat in the sterile air.
Zara shook her head, her eyes narrowing as she turned toward the console. Her fingers hovered over the console for a few moments before she shook them. Zara took a deep breath as her hands flew over the controls, this time running diagnostic checks and system sweeps. She bit down on her bottom lip.
“No, this wasn’t the drive. The drop wasn’t triggered by anything inside the ship,” she said, her voice dropping to a low murmur. Her brow furrowed as she stared at the data streaming across the screen, her expression growing grimmer with each passing second. “Something external interfered… some kind of distortion. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
A shiver rippled through me as I glanced out the viewport, the void of space seeming darker and more oppressive than usual. We were in an unfamiliar sector, with no visible suns, planets or known routes to give us any clue as to where we were. For all I knew, we’d been thrown halfway across the galaxy, stranded in some uncharted region where no one would ever find us.
Before Zara could finish her thought, the comms crackled to life, cutting through the tense silence with a burst of static, followed by a voice that dripped with venomous contempt. “Attention, unidentified vessel,” it spat, the words slow and mocking. “You are within the borders of Lord Dower. Power down your engines and prepare to be boarded. Comply, and we might let you keep your lives.”
Zara’s eyes hardened, her lips curling back in a snarl as she switched the comms over to broadcast. “Come and try, and we’ll see who dies today,” she snapped, her voice like ice. Her fingers moved swiftly across the controls, rerouting power to the shields and pulling up the targeting systems. “You want this ship. You’re going to have to come take it.”
Outside, the darkness lit up with the glow of enemy engines closing in from all directions. There were half a dozen ships at least, their hulls battered and scarred from countless battles. They formed a loose perimeter around us, weapons charging and locking onto the Razorwing.
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“Alex, get to the turret,” Zara ordered, her voice tense but steady as she pulled the ship into a hard bank. “Jax, see if you can get the weapons online. We don’t have time to sit around.”
As I scrambled toward the turret ladder, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the air had grown colder and heavier. It wasn’t just the outlaw ships surrounding us—it was the fact that something had pulled us out of FTL. Someone out here had the power to reach into the currents of hyperspace and yank us back into real space like we were nothing more than a drifting piece of scrap. And that meant they had more control, more knowledge than we did.
The Razorwing strained as Zara yanked us into a sharp bank, engines protesting. I was still scrambling into the turret when I spotted it. A flash of light cut through the void. Recognition slammed into me. It wasn’t just the outlaws out here.
The Vanguard.
The military cruiser dominated the battlefield, a behemoth of armoured plating and powerful weaponry, cutting through the enemy fleet like a razor. Its turrets spat out bolts of searing plasma, each one leaving a trail of light across the void as they slammed into the outlaw ships, tearing into their hulls.
Even from this distance, I could see the devastation it was unleashing, the way its sleek, deadly form danced between incoming fire with an agility that seemed impossible for a ship of its size. A surge of hope coursed through me, mingled with a cold, determined edge.
“Where the hell did they come from.” Shouted Jax.
Zara’s hands were a blur over the controls, jerking the Razorwing into a spiral to evade a burst of laser fire that streaked past, close enough to leave scorch marks on the outer plating. “Alex, we’re in deep here,” she called out, the strain evident in her voice as the ship shuddered from a near-miss. “What’s the play?”
Before I could answer, the comms crackled to life again, this time with the familiar, commanding voice of Captain Thorne. “Razorwing, this is Captain Thorne of the Vanguard. We’ve intercepted the outlaws, but there are too many to handle at once. Requesting permission to let loose and fully engage.”
“Permission granted,” I replied instantly, my grip tightening on the turret controls as the Razorwing’s engines roared, propelling us headlong into the chaos. “Do what you have to.”
The Vanguard’s engines flared with a sudden surge of power, and in the blink of an eye, the massive cruiser executed a precision jump. It vanished from its position as though snuffed out, only to reappear behind one of the outlaw ships, its turrets already blazing. A barrage of plasma fire tore through the outlaw vessel’s shields, shredding the hull in an explosion of fire and twisted metal. The ship disintegrated, fragments scattering like confetti across the darkness before vanishing into the void.
"Did they just—?" Zara's voice trailed off, her eyes wide as she took in the maneuver.
“Jump drive,” Jax said, his tone a mix of awe and apprehension. “Military-grade tech. Allows the Vanguard to jump short distances within a combat zone. They can reposition faster than anyone can counter.”
The sheer tactical advantage of the jump drive hit me like a shockwave. The Vanguard was a phantom, appearing and disappearing at will, striking with devastating force before the enemy even knew where to aim. I watched as the cruiser executed another jump, flickering out of existence only to reappear directly above an outlaw cruiser.
It was like watching a predator drop onto its prey from above. The Vanguard’s plasma turrets unleashed a punishing salvo, hammering the outlaw ship’s shields. The energy barriers flared a blinding white before collapsing, and then the plasma bolts punched through the unprotected armour, tearing the cruiser apart in a fiery detonation that lit up the whole sector.
The Razorwing bucked as Zara threw it into a sharp dive, narrowly avoiding a pair of missiles that streaked past, leaving a trail of debris and embers in their wake. I swung the turret around, targeting the closest hostile. A raider ship banking to line up its shot. I squeezed the trigger, sending a burst of red-hot projectiles slicing through space, and was rewarded with a less-than-satisfying picture as the raider’s shield absorbed the shot.
“Damn it, Alex, fire again! Hit 'em before they get another shot!” Jax called out, but there was no time. Zara twisted the Razorwing around, barely missing the raider’s twin laser burst. I could hear the ship’s metal groan and shriek as Zara pushed Razorwing to its limits. It wasn't enough. The raider’s ship swooped in low, its pulse cannons hammering at the Razorwing’s shields, making the entire ship shudder with each impact.
“Zara, we need to shake them off!” I yelled, struggling to keep the turret aimed at the target.
“Working on it!” Zara growled, throwing the Razorwing into a gut-wrenching spin. The maneuver flung me sideways in the turret, but it disoriented the attacker just long enough for the Vanguard to intervene. The military cruiser appeared above the rogue ship with another blinding flash, unleashing a withering storm of plasma that tore through the raider’s defences. The outlaw ship didn’t even have time to flee; it erupted in a furious blaze of molten metal and vaporized circuitry.
The Vanguard surged forward, punching a hole in the outlaw formation as it executed yet another jump, reappearing behind a cluster of three smaller ships. The cruiser’s broadside lit up like the wrath of a god, plasma and railgun fire stitching across space and raking through the outlaws. One ship disintegrated almost instantly, its hull split apart by the relentless bombardment. The other two tried to scatter, but they didn’t make it far before the Vanguard’s pinpoint accuracy reduced them to drifting wreckage.
The battlefield was now a storm of debris and explosions, a chaotic symphony of fire and metal as the outlaws fell one by one, outmatched and outmaneuvered. Every time an outlaw ship tried to regroup, the Vanguard would appear at an unexpected angle, cutting them down with terrifying precision. It was like watching a masterful swordsman dismembering a mob of attackers, each strike perfectly calculated, each blow fatal.
The Razorwing continued to weave through the debris, Zara guiding us clear of the destruction. But I could feel something drawing at my insides. The outlaws had underestimated the Vanguard’s capabilities, and now they were paying the price, but had we underestimated the outlaws?
One of the last enemy ships broke away, retreating in a desperate scramble. The Vanguard’s turrets tracked them for a moment longer before falling silent. The comms crackled again. “Razorwing, this is Captain Thorne. It appears to be all of them. Do you require a…”
The Vanguard jolted violently as a heavy impact slammed into its side. “There’s still one left!” Zara shouted. “Oh, hell... that’s a destroyer. We need to move. Now!”