Ilise had served at the war front, and seen guns ranging from names starting with α-A and ending with ω-Z and appended with endless digits. A Δ-R-96 with its 11.2 mm sized barrel hole glared at her with its lethal setting on. A single shot in a vacuum could travel as fast as the Lighting Strike, which was faster than her propulsion jet or own physical strength pushing off the Exec ship. There was no way she could move faster than his trigger finger to get out of the way, either. The common name of the Δ-R-96 gun was too on point for the situation; “The Reverse Fucker.”

“You gain nothing by killing me.”

“I know. It's why I haven’t killed you yet.”

He could have left off that last word. “Then why don’t we put that gun away, get this prototype and pretend none of this happened.” A blatant lie, she was going to write up all the paperwork on his treacherous ass and even ask Alice to lock him up in the room again—with handcuffs. Even better, there was a nice panel she could have opened again and shoved him behind.

Her brain had entered overdrive at a sight of a tiny barrel hole and was not helping her calmly approach this matter.

“We both know you can’t resist doing paperwork.” He jerked his head but kept the gun steady. “Let go of the saw and move back to the pod. Slowly.”

Carefully she pushed the saw away from her body, but it was tethered to her, so as it reached the end of its tie, it equally bounced back to her. Thankfully, the blade's safety was still on. It was a standard model that would only work if it sensed a living ligament holding it and pressing the button down. It would stop if it ever sensed flesh by the blade. The blade glistened off her helmet light. It could work, it wouldn’t stop the Reverse, but if she avoided the gun, she could get out of the situation. This was about to be an intense game of paddleball.

“Move,” Saar growled at her.

She debated about where she would go.

A smile spread across her face as she realized Saar had literally played all his cards. He openly admitted he did not want to kill her. He could not. The Execs would not help him since they were just recently on opposite sides of a gun shootout. Tony did not have a pirate infatuation with Saar, but he was not exactly back on speaking terms with Ilise. Tony would only be a thorn in Saar’s side.

She was going to reward her brain with some blues music later for giving her this insight. The playing field changed, they would not be playing paddleball, but racquetball.

She bent her elbows, hands flat on the Exec ship's outer shell, and gave a significant push as if she was launching herself into a burpee. With the decreased gravity, she flew past Saar fast and toward pod 1. She even added additional propulsion from the suit to go more quickly.

“Stop!” His voice rang through her helmet speakers. But she was right, he did not shoot her.

The data analysis was known for not having the quickest or best shot, but he could still hit a large sitting duck fish in space. The pod’s front shield burnt and cracked with the hit. If another hit the same spot, the air inside would equilibrate with the rest of the space quickly. Ilise’s tether line plotted out her path from the pod to the Execs and back, looking similar to an overcooked, wet noodle on a map wiggling back and forth. Near the hook was Saar. He cursed and moved towards her tether. As his fingers latched onto it, she did something he could never do and shot at the gun in his hand.

Years after being honored with the sharpshooter pin, she still was as quick and accurate. Her Reverse was set to stun. The shot sent a jolt up through his gun, suit, and up his arm - enough to cause the tingles, nothing more. The military-grade suits were resistant to the stun. She should have switched settings and destroyed the gun and a few fingers. Having a sensation equivalent to a funny bone did not change his plan as he pulled the gun again to aim. She turned on her propulsion to increase her current moment toward the pod and to pull him along. Two weighed-down forces, pulling on the one lead, made it nice and taunt - easy for the standard issue knife of a space suit to slice through it. Yes, she was bringing a knife to a gun show.

As she cut through, she changed her direction of momentum to go below the pod and left Saar to go smack straight into it. As an additional precaution, she took another shot at his gun. Even though it was not a fully charged stun shot, it was enough to disrupt his aim. Saar scored high on tenacity, not as high as herself, but still admiral, which was why she had picked him for the crew. He took a second shot from his Reverse and put another ugly crackling mark on the side of the shuttle. That repair was coming out of his pension.

The black boots of Saar’s space suit looked like little bug feet as he kicked and swung about to adjust his own propulsion, but it wasn’t enough as he splattered into the front shield before bouncing out and back.

Wish we had a camera wiper for that buggy mess.

“Alice?”

Don’t vocalize! Your mic is still open for him. I can’t read Saar’s thoughts, but there sure are a lot more thoughts coming near this area screaming about opening the door manually.

Ilise spun to face the Exec ship's lower door and located the prototype for the stealth technology near it. How much time do you think we have?

They’re arguing about how they’re engineers and don’t need a user manual to open a door. So at least five.

The effects of the Lighting Strike would be off by then. Darkstorm could shoot another partial charge once if the idiot Chardy kept one going. Tony should spam him with messages, making sure it would happen. She wasn’t certain what it would do to the hybrid mashed-together Exec ship, but a battlecruiser would only be stunned for thirty seconds with a second shot this fast.

Every second mattered then to get out of the way of the second strike. Every moment wasted on these Exec pirates only ruined her career more. Holidays at her parents would be never-ending lectures on how she became like her sister. She kicked and sprinted in space to order the propulsion to move her back to the Exec ship. Saar’s tether danced around in a fun shape, while Ilise made a mental note that her own was severed. No problem, the suit she had only dipped into the upper eighty’s for battery, rushing over to the Exec’s ship consumed more of the power. Oxygen tank at ninety-five percent, and there was no damage read in the fight. She would risk it to get that box.

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Mess with their emotions to cause more confusion. Ilise ordered Alice. With legs and arms swimming through space, she finally headed back to the small, stealth prototype box. The saw bumped into her abdomen as she flew close to the device. It would take a good three minutes to cut it off. Fortunately, all the power was off for the Exec disgusting thing of a ship. She would be safe cutting through all the wires.

Barely a meter away from the device, arms stretched out, a tingling shot shook her body, enough to give her the hiccups.

“I said stop.” If this was like the Western movies she loved, that Reverse would smoke after hitting her with the stun. “Hand over the captain's reins of the Darkstorm to me, and I will let you remove that box.”

She gripped the hand trigger of the saw, kicked back to land next to the dingy ship, and started up the blade. The classic pipe music of a gun show was about to start, and she stupidly kept bringing blades to them. “You won’t tell me what to do.” She pushed the saw into the box, the metal turning red from the heat, the shaving parts flying up and out from a fan in front of the blade. The cutting was going too slow. She gently kicked her feet to turn on her propulsion system and add more pressure to the saw. “If you are still loyal to the Cadoon, you would help me retrieve this now. We’ll get the Darkstorm back next.” No one needed a Nereus’s trait of mind reading to know that was all Ilise cared about.

The speech must have worked as she cut through half of the prototype without feeling more tingling shots. Saar needed a motivational speech to come over and help, apparently. “Look, I'll let you have Tony add an alert if I write up any paperwork on this incident.”

“Drop the saw!”

Saar’s resoluteness was becoming too enduring. “I’m already halfway done. One more minute!”

A large gorge on the metal next to the prototype cracked down and reached where the box had disengaged from the ship. It was awkward in a space suit to turn around, but out of habit, she twisted her head, to only see the inside of her helmet. As the rest of her body properly adjusted, the dazzling white-yellow light coming out from the open door of the Exec lit up the space, causing Saar’s shadow to stretch out to her. His back was to her as he waved his arms around wide, gun raised in the air in surrender.

“Don’t shoot, I have what you want.” Saar’s voice crackled through the open line. The Execs took two more shots, both missing Saar. But the threat was there enough that he let go of his Reverse. Yeah, they were definitely getting screwed. Six armed pirates in oxygen masks faced the Cadoon officers, who floated in wide open space.

“Sure looks like you’re snatching instead of giving.” A rifle took aim at Ilise.

“Switch mic line to public open,” Ilise ordered her headset.

“I’ve got a copy of the AI of Darkstorm.” Saar had a good poker face. “If you shoot me, you could destroy the card.”

“Give us Bob and the rest of the crew back.”

“They're orbiting the moon on a timer. Unless you can override the AI algorithm that Darkstorm wrote, you won’t be able to stop them before that timer is off.” Saar continued, creating a great distraction while Ilise blocked what she was doing with her body. Her arm twisted at an odd angle and slowly pushed the saw through the stealth prototype, grateful for the silence of space.

“Well then, we'll just shoot you in the head and search your body later.”

Saar glanced up at his floating gun, it barely had moved away from him. “You sure you could only hit my head and not the card? What if I hid it there? Or my boot? You don’t know.”

Ilise glanced behind her. Oops. She was going diagonally into the prototype. After backing the saw up a bit, she pushed down hard. Her left tricep screamed and burned with pain. A brilliant red warning popped up in her helmet display: LEAK DETECTED.

Foam filled the left side of the suit. Glancing down, she could see the clumpy yellow material spew out of the hole and stiffen immediately. Spots of it were stained with her blood. Her arm was locked into its position. Without the emergency insulation, she would be dead, and her oxygen would have dropped to zero, instead, it was at thirty-two percent. Her battery kicked on the suit-warming system to correct for the second it took for her suit to seal up. She had to get this prototype out now, there was no point in retreating.

“You almost hit the box, you idiots!” Saar exclaimed. “Shoot again and I'm going back to the pod and we will blow up your ship before your power gets on.”

Get back here. We’ll reel in Saar. Alice gave the heads up.

Thankfully, Ilise cut her line earlier and could keep working on the prototype. She turned the saw back on and focused on cutting this last quarter.

Buy me one more minute! Ilise hollered as much as one could as a thought and emotion.

You better tell him that. I can’t read his thoughts. Alice’s cold facts matched the heat levels of space surrounding Ilise.

“Saar, get back to the pod!”

Another shot missed her on her left. A sudden neon blue and red light highlighted her. Curses filled the open line, the pod was shooting. The shots from the pod lit up space, a familiar lighting pattern she knew, and embraced the feeling of being in the trenches hoping to all gods, all luck, to the flying asteroid passing by - that she would survive the day.

Saar cut his line and went to the Execs. They are now shooting us.

At long last, the saw cut through the prototype, and the box drifted away. She let go of the saw and grabbed the box as best as she could with her right arm, sprung tight into a ball, and pushed off the Exec ship. Kicking and carefully twisting, she saw the Exec’s offering a hand to Saar. Three others were using their rifles and guns to shoot at the pod, pockmarking it with cracks. The one with the rifle took aim at Ilise and shouted in the open line. “Give us back that box!”

“Forget the box,” Saar spoke but did nothing to stop the aim at Ilise. “I have the AI analysis on the Psi Trident waves. With your hobnosh engineering, you’ll make something better.”

Ilise had rounded below the pod and shifted her directions, awkwardly, with the right side of her all stiffened up. Oxygen was dropping fast with her increased breaths caused by the pain, twelve percent remained. Going to the Exec's ship to stop Saar meant certain death.

“Officer Saar, I will flag you as a traitor. Do not hand over that data.”

There was no way he had actual information on Tony… Shit, the day they landed on the prison planet she had ordered him to go through the wave data. That was his entry point, and she granted it because it was his job. That meant then he was thinking of turning on the Cadoon military even before this disaster. He hated the pirates that worked with Charyd, the Execs were no better. There was nothing to be gained from working with an organization like them.

As she finally rotated, she saw Saar give her the one-finger salute as the door to the Exec shipped closed. There was no way of knowing he actually had information on Tony.

“I got you, miss.” Scooball’s voice came through the military line a moment before he hooked her with a chain.

Seconds later, both she and Scoobal were being pulled into the pod as she watched the last shots finish shooting at the Exec's door. The paint was ruined, the light was even cracking out in spots, leaks in the ship.

A message came through to her comm and she took off her helm once inside the pod and looked at it. It was from Tony stating the obvious: “Fire issue: We have been exposed.”