“Ship!” she shouted, although it made no difference. The canyon was now their closest cover and they were already moving at top speed. So she just listened to the sound grow in volume until she could tell it was coming from behind. Then it shifted to a roaring as the ship dipped sharply.

The canyon opened before them like a street alley as Ayna heard a cannon fire. The blast hit the ground before them with a terrible boom, sending scorching hot air blowing into Ayna’s face and stopping her in her tracks. Bers turned and fired from his giant gun with a heavy THUM THUM THUM.

“Go go go!” Herdis shouted and continued on. And Ayna did go. She ran on, through the cloud of burning fumes and around the deadly hot crater. It hurt. Everything hurt. But this was a matter of survival, and that overrode everything else. She entered the canyon, ran past a hesitant-looking Saketa and just followed Herdis’s back around a bend.

There was another blast from a ship-mounted weapon and another boom of impact, but it sounded like this one had gone into the cliff face. Out of the immediate firing line Ayna now turned to look back. She was worried for Bers for a moment, but the big man came around on her heels, as did Saketa.

The ship roared by overhead and she caught a glimpse of it. It didn’t seem to be the same one as earlier.

Fan-tastic.

Bers and Herdis aimed their weapons upwards, but the pirates didn’t twist for a downwards shot. Perhaps they were simply going too fast. Perhaps the ship wasn’t agile enough. Perhaps they had a better plan.

The group continued hurrying on, slower than before from a combination of weariness and the canyon floor being made all of loose rock. The ship seemed to circle about, but the canyon had a zig-zagging course and quite a lot of overhanging edges. Ayna allowed herself to cautiously hope that they wouldn’t be able to take a shot... and that the pirates still wanted them alive, and so wouldn’t just collapse the canyon walls down on them.

“Stop!” Bers shouted after they’d made a bit of a distance. Ayna turned to look at him and so did the others. “Vadana! Can’t flee ship!”

He shook his gun.

“Must fight!”

It felt wrong to hold still to the sound of the pirates moving above, but they really did need to be smart here.

“We are very outgunned,” Herdis said. “There is a split up ahead. Another potential route. It’s narrow, but if it’s not too narrow for us then we might actually evade them.”

“That seems slim,” Ayna commented. She almost suggested something about looking for a cave system, but that would just be way too convenient.

“If we have a clear shot at them, they have a clear shot at us,” Herdis countered. “With the main gun, and whatever else they have.”

“They will not simply stop,” Saketa added to the discussion. “Unless they think they might lose the fight. And their comrades are surely coming in fast to aid.”

“Yes!” Bers said and quickly pointed towards both entrances to the canyon. “Boom! Collapse! Trap!”

Ayna saw a flash of indecision on Herdis’s face and felt for the woman. Bless her heart, she was trying so hard to lead them through this, and doing a better job than Ayna ever could have. But there was no good solution here.

Bers turned to Saketa, and so Ayna and Herdis did as well. His countenance was somewhere between pleading and demanding. The Fringer woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“I will try,” she said after the exhale. “That is all I can promise. Now we must hurry. One ship is bad enough, and, as he said, they might just collapse the entrances.”

Saketa turned to face the road ahead.

“We-”

They all caught a glimpse of the ship as it dropped something. It seemed to be near the entrance and Ayna threw herself to the ground and covered her head, expecting a blast. But nothing came.

“Hurry!” Herdis said.

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Again they did hurry, keeping near the eastern wall as well as the ground would allow. The canyon went into a slow left-hand turn, then a right-hand one, and it was halfway down the latter that Ayna started to hear something new.

“Something’s... up ahead!” she announced between breaths. “In the... canyon!”

“What do you mean ‘something’?” Herdis asked.

“M... machinery, I think,” Ayna replied.

“Bots,” Herdis growled. She pressed herself into the wall for cover and looked down the length of her rifle.

Ayna did the same, just further back, and drew her pistol. Bers crouched behind a boulder. And Saketa just sort of stayed out in the open.

“It’s coming!” Ayna shouted, just in case the others didn’t hear. Seconds later the first bot came into view. She caught a glimpse of a vaguely spherical hunk of metal floating slightly above head-height, before Herdis’s shot exploded against it in a shower of light and sparks. Bers fired as well, but seemed to just hit the other canyon wall. Ayna added her comparatively puny weapon to the output, before going as flat against the wall as she could.

Battle bots were armoured, of course.

Ayna had a good angle to see Saketa dart about on the rocky ground, dodging a blast that came her way. Then she did it again.

Bers kept on firing, but Ayna suspected it was Herdis’s next shot that actually brought the bot down. Ayna risked looking about and realised the ship was hovering near the opening they’d entered through. She saw another drop, like the one that had started the current mess.

“More bots! Behind!”

Another one came on the heels of the first, except it was fast enough to evade Herdis’s shot. An arc of lightning blasted out of it towards Saketa with a crackle, and another mounted weapon took a shot at Bers. The big Fringer fired back with his monster and this time his aim was true. The anti-vehicle weapon did the job in one hit, turning the bot into a spray of fire and charred metal.

The ship was out of sight again, but fired its main gun. It hit the top of the cliff with a boom, spraying shattered, scorched rock down their way. Then they did it again. It was simple fear tactics. But damn, was it ever effective.

Saketa glanced skyward, seemingly looking for her chance, but her view was evidently no better than Ayna’s.

“Herdis, there are more coming up behind!” Ayna reiterated.

“Let’s go!” Herdis shouted and led the charge again.

They ran down along the canyon, around the latest bend, as more rubble rained down from above. There were two more bots and the entire group opened fire. But these were either better programmed, better maintained, or better controlled than the others, and wove about wildly while firing back. A blast hit Herdis somewhere on the torso, but she stayed on her feet and landed a shot. It damaged a repulsor, which allowed Ayna to land a shot of her own, but she had no idea if it did any actual damage.

Bers sprayed fire, much faster than a normal hand-weapon would have allowed, and struck the other bot. Even an imperfect hit sufficed to destroy it, and a one-two double from Herdis and Saketa’s rifles then brought down the other one.

Ayna wanted to feel as if this was a victory while they ran past the smoking metal, but surely the pirates had a feed of what their bots were up to. And indeed the ship now went along the canyon, firing the main gun a few times along the way, going for the canyon exit.

Bastards bastards bastards, Ayna thought as rubble kept raining down.

They made it around the final bend and the exit came into view. The ship hovered by the top of the cliffs, facing them directly. Saketa struck a pose, looking focused. Bers and Herdis raised their weapons. But the pirate gunner was quicker.

The shot was fired wide, into the ground, but the resulting shockwave blew Ayna off her feet and into a clumsy, backwards roll. Instinct kept her moving, crawling painfully over rocks in the hope of finding cover.

There was another flash from the ship, but this one was different. Ayna looked towards it from the edge of a depression and saw their main gun smoke and spark, just before Bers fired another shot, either hitting the weapon again or very near it. But the ship had other weapons, and simply swerved about a bit, bringing a side-gun fully to bear on them.

The ship went into a wild spin, swaying in the air like a drunken dancer. Or perhaps more accurately, like a batted fly. Saketa had risen to one knee, face set, both hands held out. She’d done her thing again, although to a lesser effect.

Bers kept firing and Herdis joined him, but the pilot recovered and simply dipped the ship beyond the cliffs, out of their sight.

“Wha-”

Ayna coughed.

“What now??”

Plasma came in from the sky and she thought she heard it strike home on starship armour. Another shot followed and there was the sound of an engine swerving to get clear. Ayna looked up and saw a familiar profile making a rapid descent.

“It’s the Addax!” she shouted.

Bers kept on firing towards the pirates as they rapidly made distance, heading the way the previous pirate ship had gone.

“The other ship is coming!” Herdis announced, looking through her scope.

“Get in!” Gaylen’s voice boomed through his ship’s speakers. “No time to waste!”

He reversed the thrusters for a sharp stop that was no doubt very unpleasant for everyone on board, and steered down to a bit off a cliff’s edge just beyond the canyon. The cargo door was already opening by the time Gaylen hovered the craft just off the edge, almost touching the door to it. Someone stood just inside of it, hooked to a safety harness.

Ayna broke into a run towards this miraculous escape, and so did the rest. She heard the ships coming.