It took several hours to arrive at the edge of the Sui system. Natalya had never been there, no reason to. It was an empty solar system. Several of the planets, and a few moons circling yellow and red gas giants, had been designated as possible sites for Prosper-forming. Ptolemy said at least one of them had been approved before Prosper’s civil war prevented any work from being done.

In the time between their arrival, Natalya had the crew gear up. Ptolemy shared Shihuangdi’s interior layout with Natalya, claiming that he was friends with one of the foremen who had built the ship. There was no way of knowing where Jasper would be, but they located the brig at the bottom of the ship, adjacent to the large, rectangular cargo bay. Weapons control systems and guidance were in the upper middle, with crew quarters on the outermost sides.

Maneuvering Chimera like a piece of debris was no small task, especially since Augustus had to use the opalescents to get there. Thankfully, Sisi rigged up the universal transmitter to broadcast that the ship was merely a transport vessel from The Moon, not worth looking into. It was simply a matter of switching the transmitter to a weaker frequency, that of the old capital ship Ranger, when they neared Shihuangdi.

Sisi helped Natalya heal her wounds and repair the ship. She wasn’t exactly skilled with the medical equipment, but she prevented tissue damage on Natalya’s skin and sealed up her wounded calf. By the time they reached the Sui system, Chimera was as fixed as he could be and Natalya felt ready, or as ready as she could be. She, Co, Sisi, and Augustus loaded into the second lifeboat, since it had more fuel, and Natalya prepared herself for the coming battle.

“Good luck, Captain,” Ptolemy said through her communicator as Augustus fired the lifeboat into space.

“Be ready to pick us up if things go sour,” Natalya told Ptolemy, readying her carbine. “And keep Chimera safe.”

“I shall do that, Captain.”

Augustus had left Chimera tumbling like a piece of debris, powering down everything but the bridge life support and the weakened distress beacon. This made launching the lifeboat a little tricky, but Augustus fired the thrusters just clear of the tumbling craft. The second they were far enough away from Chimera, Sisi activated her welpro, enveloping the lifeboat in a bubble of gravity that would scan as nothing more than an empty spot in space.

“They can also be used as rudimentary explosive devices, but they’re perfectly safe since I’ve quintuple-checked them. Plus you’d need a detonator of some kind. That’s why I don’t mind sitting on them,” Sisi said from her position atop a plastic-lined crate half as tall as her.

Sisi was worried her welpro wouldn’t have enough energy to keep a sustained gravity well for as long as they needed, so she’d hooked the device to one of the ship’s auxiliary batteries and placed it inside the lifeboat. With Sisi using the battery as a chair, Natalya in the front seat beside a scrunched Augustus, and everyone wearing their enviro-suits, there was barely enough room for Co and her enormous weapon.

“Can’t you detach that?” Sisi asked after Co accidentally bumped her with her robotic arm.

“No,” Co replied.

“What’s the point of having an artificial limb if you can’t detach it for comfort in—”

“It doesn’t come off.”

“No dismemberment will be happening on this mission, intentional or otherwise,” Natalya insisted. “Now quiet, both of you. We’re approaching the ship.”

The shuttle only had a small viewscreen and weak scanners. It was meant to be used in emergencies, so the nano-carbon of a windshield was the primary way for the pilot to see where they were going. Natalya looked through the clear cockpit at the trillions of stars twinkling around them like a sea of diamonds.

A yellow gas giant, a slight orange hue in its swirling mass, hid the stars from view. Its surface churned and boiled in a golden tempest, swirls of blue and green cracking through the surface.

The stars immediately in front of the lifeboat, however, were invisible. The red gas giant, a much calmer, distant red dot, was too far away to affect their view. And the yellow gas giant’s light only projected so far. But Natalya soon realized that the sector of empty space wasn’t from light blocking her view of the stars. It was Shihuangdi, the ship looming ahead of them.

As they approached, the black ship grew from an empty block of space to an angular shape, and finally Natalya’s eyes adjusted to where she could fully see its features.

The ship’s insectoid layers formed a twisted fantasy hovering silent and still. Natalya had to shake away these thoughts, however, and reassure herself it was just a ship, a well-armed capital ship, but a piece of metal with moving parts and a crew no different than Chimera. It was just much, much bigger.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I wish Pili was here,” Sisi gulped.

“Here we go,” Natalya said as Augustus angled the lifeboat on a straight course at the ship’s nose. They had to go head-on and drift into Shihuangdi’s cannon. Using the thrusters too much would open them up to detection, so Augustus had to perfectly angle the shuttle’s trajectory from far out. It was like throwing a dart at a bull’s eye a few million kilometers away.

“She’s a shy one she is,” Augustus said, licking his lips in concentration as he caressed the shuttle’s controls. “Don’t let her size fool you, blacky’s selective. She needs a subtle touch.”

They drifted toward Shihuangdi, surrounded by their bubble of gravity. Even though sound couldn’t travel between them and the capital ship, they stayed deadly quiet. Sisi bit her lip, checking her welpro every half second to make sure it was still functioning.

Shihuangdi’s pointed bow looked like it was going to pierce the shuttle as it grew in front of them, the mirage of their journey making it look like the unmoving ship was ramming the lifeboat. But Augustus’s throw was solid, and they drifted alongside the black ship like a minnow swimming past a shark. Natalya sighed with relief that the capital ship didn’t have a window on its nose. The bridge was in the armored interior, meaning no open cockpit. Still, she held her breath, praying they would pass any observation windows unnoticed.

“You see? She’s opening up to us. Come on, baby,” Augustus said as they neared the cannon’s opening. Augustus bit his tongue and widened his eyes as the lifeboat scraped against the upper lip of the cannon, then slipped inside.

“Ooh, that feels good,” Augustus laughed and fired a tiny bit of the thrusters to even out their flight.

Natalya rolled her eyes.

The cannon was three times as wide as the shuttle. That didn’t diminish Augustus’s achievement. But it did make it easier once they were inside. Since few scanners were looking for objects inside Shihuangdi’s guns, Augustus used the thrusters and kept the shuttle on a straight path.

“Ptolemy’s schematics said there was a breach at the far end, on the right side,” Natalya said. There was no light inside the cannon, but the shuttle’s weak systems included infrared scanners. Natalya frowned at the scanners, trying to decide which way was up, left, or right in the perfectly circular cannon.

When they neared the end, she spotted lines in the sides, tiny gaps in the metal walls. The massive weapon worked on the same principle most blasters did. Nuclear fusion-powered energy built up in the chamber and blasted out. For added power, a solid piece of material could be loaded into the barrel, adding a cannon-slug of super-heated mass to the energy. While missiles could be guided and lasers modulated to a proper shield frequency, this type of weapon could obliterate a city.

There were some cannon-ships Natalya had studied that loaded external materials, using meteors like bullets in an ancient muzzle-loading rifle. Most capital ships had breaches, openings through which Chimera-sized slugs could be loaded.

Once they located the breach, Augustus fired the nose thrusters and brought the shuttle to a drifting halt.

“Beautiful,” Augustus said, puffing on his vaporizer.

“Save the afterglow for when we get back on Chimera,” Natalya said. “Okay, everyone, helmets on.”

Natalya didn’t expect the cannon’s interior to have artificial gravity or oxygen, so when she popped the shuttle’s hatch open all the air puffed out. Co led the way, her massive gun slung over her shoulder as she swam out the hatch. Natalya came behind her, carbine ready. Sisi detached her welpro from the battery and followed, and Augustus held one of Co’s shotguns across his shoulders as he tumbled through the dark cannon.

Co and Natalya flipped on lights attached to their helmets, solid beams of white penetrating the dark. “There,” Natalya said, drifting toward the wall.

A rectangular crack lined the curved metal walls. Natalya investigated the crack and found a door-shaped hatch. Maintenance was sometimes required, especially after repeated cannon-slug firings, and such a door would allow for repairs even while opalescent.

There was no handle, as it was an aperture hatch not intended to be opened from the outside. Natalya used her momentum to arrive at the door. She, Co, and Augustus were used to maneuvering in zero g after their many exploits smuggling refugees. Sisi, however, tumbled end over end, flailing her arms as if she could alter her trajectory.

“Sisi, over here,” Natalya insisted as the woman started floating toward the back of the cannon.

“One second,” Sisi said. She used her welpro to pull herself toward the door. She was still tumbling, however, and ended up flying toward the ceiling. Once there, she pointed her welpro at the hatch a second time and bounced to the door.

Co caught her, keeping Sisi from flying out the cannon, and held her beside the aperture hatch.

“Thanks,” Sisi said with a smile.

Co didn’t respond. She simply helped Sisi get her datasheet out and pressed it against the door.

“It’s not coded,” Sisi said, her datasheet scanning the other side of the hatch. “It requires a simple lever to open.”

Sisi placed her welpro against the side of the door. Sparks flew out of the cracks in the doorway, but the hatch opened.

Co peaked inside and saw the door’s controls were obliterated, crunched together like someone had punched them.

“Oops,” Sisi said. “Little too much power.”

Co floated inside the airlock, stopping in front of a second hatch. This one had a lever as well, but a little red light indicated it couldn’t be opened until the other aperture was closed. Natalya, Sisi, and Augustus entered as well, and Co had to wrench the external hatch closed manually, her robotic arm grinding with effort as she sealed it.

The light on the other hatch turned green, and Natalya placed her hand on the lever.

“Weapon maintenance probably knows the door was opened. Be ready. Don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to,” Natalya ordered, floating in front of the interior hatch.

“I prefer non-confrontational methods anyway,” Augustus said.

“Just keep that shotgun ready. I doubt you’ll be able to love these guys into submission.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

“Just get ready for it.”