Kamak wasn’t in the cockpit, but Tooley wasn’t waiting on his approval anyway. She pulled out of the hangar and broke into evasive maneuvers right away.

“Strap in, this is not going to be a smooth ride,” Tooley warned the crew. The Timeka station’s bulky frame was providing them cover for now, but they were between it and the sun. If they wanted to break free of the system, they needed to go around the station, and face off with whatever forces were attacking it.

“I will take the gun,” Farsus said. It was a small weapon, comparatively speaking, but the Hermit’s sole cannon was better than nothing. “The rest of you may assist by picking a god and praying.”

To Vo clasped her hands together, but no one else did. Corey grit his teeth, kept his eyes on the cockpit window, and readied himself for anything. He still wasn’t ready for what he saw.

He was still an amateur when it came to stellar combat, but based on the firepower at play he had been expecting a fleet, perhaps a few massive frigates and accompanying fighter escorts. What he saw instead was a single ship, so massive its frame engulfed most of his view of the stars. The titanic battleship was built like a wheel, with massive metallic spokes supporting an outer ring loaded with bulbous gun emplacements, hangar bays, and defensive shielding. Farsus locked eyes on the goliath war machine and stared at it, mouth agape.

“The Great Wheel.”

His revelation was silenced as Tooley swerved hard to the right, avoiding a burst of incoming laser fire. Except for the Hard Luck Hermit, the skies around the Timeka station were empty, meaning the massive wheel had only one target to focus on. Had it been anyone but Tooley at the helm, they would have been dead in seconds. Only she was skilled enough to keep them ahead of the hail of laser fire, and only she was recklessly confident in herself enough to recognize their way out.

‘Tooley, why are we flying directly towards the giant death circle?”

The Hermit was now barreling at full speed directly towards the Great Wheel, and showing no sign of stopping. Tooley gripped the controls and tried to focus on flying, even as she explained herself.

“It’s a wheel,” Tooley said. “All the guns are on the outside, so the safe space is on the inside.”

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Corey took another look at the Great Wheel. The gaps in the ship’s “spokes” looked barely large enough to fit the Hermit, and the entire vessel was rotating, making it an even tougher needle to thread.

“And then what?”

“And then something,” Tooley said. “I’m working on it.”

She executed a tight barrel roll to avoid the next salvo of laser fire and then checked her instruments. The Great Wheel was located just outside the sun’s gravity well. Once she was past it, she’d be free to make a light speed jump. Assuming she wasn’t shot down first, and that she didn’t crash into the wheel. And that she could actually make the calculations in time.

Unless she didn’t need to make calculations.

“Hey Corey, remember that wire I made you help me fix?”

“Yeah, the one that- oh no.”

“Oh yes,” Tooley said. She kicked the panel near her chair where the wire was hidden. “We need a jump and we need it now, bud. You have twelve ticks.”

Corey pried open the panel, which was thankfully still loose. Tooley had been too lazy to properly secure it after fixing it. The recently-replaced wire still stood out from the rest, and Corey grabbed it and sliced it in half. A jolt traveled up his knife and into his arm, but the mild shock didn’t kill him. The jury was still out on whether any number of other factors in the current situation might kill him, though.

“Alright, wire’s cut, now- fuck!”

Corey got off his knees just in time to see a wall of dark green metal consume the entire cockpit. In response to Tooley’s charge, the Great Wheel had reversed its rotational direction at the last second, in the hopes of disorienting her and causing her to crash. Tooley didn’t even blink.

The ship pitched hard to the right as Tooley veered hard in that direction, spinning the Hermit to match the Great Wheel’s rotation. Their attempts to outwit her had only made her job easier. By changing direction, they had slowed their rotation speed, making it that much easier for Tooley to thread the needle and fly right through two spokes in the massive wheel.

Seeing that their gambit had failed, the crew aboard the Great Wheel turned their weapons towards the opposite side of the battleship, hoping to catch the Hard Luck Hermit as it barreled the other direction. Dozens of high-powered cannons made ready to fire, and found themselves aimed at a blank void. The Hermit was gone.

Exactly two point eight-three-nine lightyears away, straight down, Tooley finally took her hands off the controls. Veering straight downwards and making an immediate blind light-speed jump had been complicated even by her standards, but it had paid off. She could only imagine the Great Wheel was still trying to figure out where they had disappeared to.

“I really need you all to appreciate how good I am at this,” Tooley sighed. To Vo’s head popped up from its hiding place behind her hands.

“We’re still alive?”

“Hey.”