Change of Plan [https://i.imgur.com/yyrLhbF.png]
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Between the bridge and the shuttle bay, where the group had arrived, most of the Concord had managed to burst into flames the way all ships did when their scuttling routines were triggered. Whoever designed such vessels needed a stern talking to, and perhaps a one-way trip out an airlock that they might survey their creations from the outside. That said, pirates weren’t known for keeping their stolen ships in pristine, working condition, so the sudden and aggressive amount of fire and disgorged sparks could be excused, at least in part.
“I swear to god!” Dante pulled a hefty length of wire out an external panel and hooked it into a port whose function was known only to him.
A great shuddering groaned its way through the Concord’s superstructure and spooked Rosie’s already frayed nerves as she stood by Dante’s side and proved entirely useless to him. “Where are they?”
“Oh, they’ll be playing patty cake, or braiding each other’s hair!”
Rosie took nervous steps towards him. “What if we don’t—”
“Hey, none of that,” Dante said. His ship, the Kestrel, issued a protest of its own and disgorged an arc of blue-white power that set the hair along his forearms tingling. “I think this will work.”
Danger. Detonation in three minutes. Evacuate.
“What is this, exactly!” Rosie grasped after some reassurance she wasn’t about to be vaporized.
He traced the cabling from port to port for his own recollection and slammed the access panels shut one by one. “Bypassed the starters. The ignition skips straight to launch. Ratchet as hell.”
“Is that bad?”
“Should work in… well, in theory.” Dante nodded to himself and, when he noticed she wasn’t very reassured by her pilot’s hesitance, turned all the way to face her. “I’ve seen it done before. Once.”
That went a little way in stemming the tide of worry pouring from Rosie’s every grimace and tremble, and she went back to pacing in circles as metal screeched and the Concord’s bowels ruptured a little. Diego considered elaborating on the anecdote before he recalled how it ended—with a considerable explosion—and he clamped his tongue between his teeth. Still, the Kestrel was a newer model, and hopefully a little more resilient than the vessels of old. Either way, they would find out shortly.
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Some precious moments later, as Rosie was working through a catalogue of prayers on the off chance an all-knowing creator happened to be listening, one of the shuttle bay doors opened and Melissa soon came barging into the cavernous room, rifle trained on no one in particular. She would have pointed it right up Dirk’s ass as a form of motivation, but he was as usual bringing up the rear, still lugging the unconscious doctor with all the due care and attention he usually afforded his missions and their often irreplaceable cargo.
“Commander!” Rosie said, waving her arms and calling out to catch the attention of a woman who already knew where she was going.
The fifteen seconds it took the two of them to cross the floor stretched to eternity against the incessant wailing of alarms and obnoxious heartbeat of the warning lights. Something deep within the Concord detonated properly, and nearly staggered Dirk off his feet.
“Is it ready to fly?” Melissa said. It was more a command than question.
Rosie shrugged, skittish and overwhelmed. “I—I think so.”
“Help him with the doctor.” She thumbed to the idleness standing Dirkly behind her. Rosie nodded like she was on an inspection parade and not the shuttle bay of an urgently doomed ship before stretching her arms out to take hold of something of the doctor’s unconsciousness. Melissa left the two alone to pretzel the old woman into the Kestrel’s hangar and boarded the ship via one of its side doors.
Danger. Detonation in two minutes. Evacuate.
Dante’s ship, a freighter stolen from his time working for Interlane, could not be called a manoeuvrable beast by any stretch of the trying imagination, but at least it was roomy, if overloaded with hanging cables and popping fluorescent lights that scared the shit out of its passengers when they all crackled on in unison.
“Dante!” Melissa hammered on the cockpit’s door.
It unlocked with a hiss of air and hinged upwards. Many passengers had lost a tooth to that pneumatic power. “We have to go. We have to go!” he said, thumbing buttons and dialling dials.
The Kestrel’s dashboard flickered and a small, holographic head emerged from its emitter. “Minimum safe distance in fifty seconds, Dante.”
Oh, good. Even their own ship thought they were screwed.
Melissa peered through the main screen to watch the door she’d just come through in the bay explode into a jet of scorching cinders as Dante punched more controls on the dashboard. Another deep shudder rocked them as the Concord, and all its contents, began to list to port to the tune of scratching, twisting, screaming metal and the muted detonating of circuitry. The warning sirens were failing, and their bellowing was that of the ship itself: its final, dying call.
Danger-r. Detonation in one-one minute. E-Evacuate-e-e—
Dante took hold of the flight sticks and rocketed his ship up into the air, turned its considerable length on something like a dime, and slammed the sticks forwards. The holographic head closed its immaterial eyes as Melissa braced against the ceiling. Ratchet as hell.
The Kestrel paused, streaked forwards, and vanished into empty space.