Did curious killed us? or a ball of ice, dust and rocky?

Another huge rear-facing thruster come out from Dwarm, the mid-scale commercial spaceship. The kitchen of the ship wobbled a few seconds which almost made Niki spilled her fresh brewed coffee. She licked the coffee drops on her hand and shout to the transmitter on the ceiling: “Dash, take it easy!”

Dasharath responded her through the open broadcasting radio in the chamber:”Sorry about that, commander.”

“How far are we?”

“One mAU to planet Idun.”

“Good, keep the speed. Go easy.” She then lowered her head and took another healthy sip of her coffee, allow the aroma lingering in her mouth. Ship suddenly jerked again, she slammed her coffee mug on the counter, “Dash! What do we say about keep the steady speed to save our fuel? We won’t be able to make it if you keep fucking drive my ship like a hopping rabbit!”

“Eeeee---Eeeeee”, Screaming siren ripped the quiet morning apart, “Niki,” Dash’s voice muffled through speaker, “Skanda’s bastards found us.”

Niki froze for a second, then stride through the meeting hall to the control room. Dash turned his leather chair around, revealed six large holo monitors behind him. From the screen, Niki saw a light blue spacecraft is approaching them from 125 degree south. The spacecraft is five times larger than the Dwarm, it also packed twelve guns under each of its wings. Dash turned back, fingers dancing on the keys. “I’m gonna use rest of reaction mass to accelerate the ship, this will keep us agile enough to dodge their gun fire for a while. But..” He looks at Niki, “ it might eats large part of the fuels we have left. This ship’s propulsion system is not that energy efficient. Old model problem.”

Niki nodded to him, “Do what you have to do.” Then she press on the green broadcast button, “Padam, how many weapons do we have in inventory?”

“Five ray guns, plus one missile the vessel carries under. ”Tactical Specialist Padam answered from the rear lobby transmitter.

“Five? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Sorry, Ma’am, that’s how much I can sneaked out without being noticed by these swine’s patrol police.”

“How long can we hold these bastards if they start fire at us?”

Dash looked at the screen:“Optimistically, five minutes. If the ship is upgraded with reactive armour like I suggested, it would give us fifteen minutes.”

“Don’t you start that with me again. Padam, I need you and Ashwin to hold these five guns, if Skanda’s ship start fire, you shot them back. When they fly into the range, we fire the missile.”

“Roger it, Ma’am.”

Niki glared the blue spacecraft drifted a little bit far off Dwarm’s tail, thanks to Dash’s engine buff. From the radar, the fighter ship now became a big green circle right behind the Dwarm. Information management officer Kiran rushed into control room with one hand carry a mobile computer. Niki pointed at the radar to her with dreadful look.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Kiran showed Niki her data screen:“The ship is a Shiva III, not the most advanced Skandian combat ship, they probably think they don’t need that much effort to trace us down.”

“What’s this model’s flaw?” Niki asked.

“Shiva III is great on jumping solar systems because it’s mass was designed to be minimal. It only equipped with two process units that control different functions of the ship.”

“So if the CPU of the ship malfunctioned ,the ship won’t be able to go long. Can we mess with their system somehow?”

“Maybe. Give me ten minutes..” Kiran seated on the chair nearby and started to program the codes.

“I’m afraid You have five minutes before we all get roasted. ”

Kiran sighed deeply, eyes locked on the screen.

“If we get through this, you need to brew me a pot of fresh pour over coffee and bake me some cookies.”

“You can get anything you want in this ship.” Niki seat herself on the main control chair, pressed the chamber broadcasting button:“Crews of Dwarm, this is your command pilot speaking. We are chasing by a fighter ship from Skanda, I need you all evacuate to the emergency dock and get your ass in the capsule. You eject yourself once I count down to five. If you ever made it to the Idun, stay alive. ” She felt her throat is aching, “We are the last hope of Drugian, Durgians don’t allow themselves to kill by swines. Your life is your honor. Hold your honor for your family and for the Dwarm. Don’t ever look for revenge, don’t you dare to find your way back to Durga, just, stay alive.”

Needling pain started crawling from her shoulder blade, Niki stood up straight. Her folded grey wings on the back are now widely opened up,she let the bones of the wing stretch out freely which occupied one third of the control room. Dash was astonished by the dimed silverlight glowed from every inch of the wings smooth feathers. He had never seen such huge atavistic wings before, he himself had only two L shaped cartilages attached on the shoulder.

He forced his focus back to the screen and yield:”Shit! They are lowering down! They are locking us!”

Niki takes in the deep breath, Kiran is still writing codes on her screen.

“Hold yourself,” Niki looked at the blue spacecraft that cutting through the dark space like a blade. It is getting closer and closer, its steel wings are flipped and revealed the dark muzzles.

“Five, four, three, two……”