"The target vessel is crippled," The controller's voice came through Pirra's headset. "Prepare for launch in one-minute."

Taking a deep breath, Pirra braced herself.

They weren't going out of the coilguns, those had to be kept clear for combat. Instead they were in bays normally used for drop pods, like the kind they had been sending down to the damaged colonies. The normal pods had been taken out, and replaced with boarding pods, which were sturdier, with some defensive systems and better maneuvering thrusters - as well as grapples and blast-cutters for slicing into an enemy ship's hull.

In other bays, twenty-nine other pods were readying for launch.

Her squad was split between 1 and 2, with the next two squads in 3, 4, 5, and 6. The remainder were empty; decoys for enemy fire, containing only drones.

If they made it, good. But if they died and the teams all made it, they would have done their job.

"Launching in thirty seconds," the call came.

"All sticks green," Pirra's system told her.

"Enemy PDCs and navigational lasers are disabled," Jaya's voice came through. "Launch will still be slightly hot; there are numerous weapons installations on the nearby asteroid that we are still dealing with. There may be errant fire, but we do not expect them to target the pods."

"Understood," Pirra replied.

The automated launch system spoke again. "Ten seconds until launch."

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She heard her team breathing, bracing themselves for G-Shock.

"All packaged and ready to go!" Kiseleva yelled.

"And ship us off to hell!" the rest of the squad roared.

"Launching in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1."

Pirra braced, straining every muscle; then the G-shock came and she was crushed back.

It was not the swift ramp-up of the coilgun when used to launch a shuttle. It was an explosive burst of a hard thirty Gs, enough to black out even the heavily trained and augmented Response veterans. That was, if they weren't prepared.

Even with all her augments she felt herself almost black out. Fighting as hard as she could, she kept herself awake.

As her vision returned, she checked the vitals of her teams. Only two of them had lapsed in consciousness on any of the pods. None of them in Team One. Out of thirty-six, that was good.

"We are en route," she called out. Then, to her system, she ordered; "Show external forward view."

Her view became as if the pod around them did not exist. And it was a damned war zone.

Flashing tracers from PDCs streamed through space, and she was thrown in her seat again as her pod broke left, dodging something - she couldn't even see what it was.

Looking back, the Craton still loomed, eating huge amounts of fire into her frontal cone. The pirates on the asteroid base were firing literally everything they had; her system counted down the types of flak and she saw everything from artillery shells to small arms being fired.

The armor of the Craton was too hard for any such thing, she thought, even as something hit it and exploded, leaving behind the tiniest of craters and a lot of carbon scoring. A laser raked across it next, with little effect.

The Craton was returning fire in deadly salvos, launching clusters of missiles, pulses of laser that only showed up in infrared, and bursts of PDC fire, striking enemy weapons and their shells en route in equal measure.

Dead ahead was the pirate ship, only a few scattered lights showing. She could see at once the blackened scar where the coilguns had knocked out its zerodrive, and the smoking mess that had once been its engines. Other craters along its side had once been PDCs or lasers or missile launchers.

Even as she watched, one PDC on it roared to life, firing a long burst towards the Craton, but before it even finished a missile slammed into it, blowing it apart.

"Incoming fire, incoming fire!" an alarm blared.

She saw the line of tracers, saw them hit one of their pods, shredding one whole side off. Her eyes widened and her heart stopped, but as it spun from the impact, she saw thousands of tiny drones spilling out, and breathed a sigh of relief. It was not one of the teams.

"Pod five is hit! Pod five is hit!" came a call.

She twisted again, seeing metal puffing out into a cloud from the side. A navigational laser had hit it, the pulsed beam exploding the metal into plasma.

"Craton, Pod Five is down!" she called.

"We see it. Rescue drones en route. You have fifteen seconds to impact. Good skill, come back alive," Kai said.

"Brace for impact," Pirra said, breathing hard and fast to prepare for the landing. "And give them hell."