The stars winked goodbye as the metal shields slid out from the belly of the glass ship, like hands wrapping them in darkness. Over and around, until only three viewports remained. One large for the pilot, and two small for the gunners, decks below.
“I warned you before the last job about leaving bodies behind,” Lira said suddenly, banking them left to avoid a cluster of space trash cartwheeling endlessly through the black. Her voice wasn’t harsh. And yet Andi still felt the painful truth of Lira’s words.
Blood trails were far easier to follow than any other. And after all these years of running, it was possible that the Patrolmen had finally caught up to them because of Andi.
“I had to kill him,” Andi said. “He almost shot Gilly. You know that, Lira.”
“The only thing I know for sure is that the ships behind us are closing in,” Lira said, glancing at the radar.
The patrol ships could have come from anywhere in the galaxy, but a nagging in Andi’s gut told her they hailed from Arcardius, the headquarters of the Unified Systems. A planet with cities made of glass and buildings towering on floating fragments of land in the sky, where military life reigned supreme and a pale-haired general ruled with an iron fist.
Home. Or at least it used to be.
After years of work, the Arcardian fleet had finally been rebuilt after the war against Xen Ptera, the capital planet of the Olen System.
These new ships were faster, better equipped.
Lira laughed. “It’s too bad we’ll have to miss their party.”
“Maybe that’s why they’re here,” Andi said. “To hand deliver our invitations.”
“They won’t catch us.” Lira dug her fingers into a metal cup soldered to the ship’s dash, the words I Visited Arcardius and All I Got Was This Stupid Cup inscribed on the side. Andi grimaced as Lira pulled out a hunk of Moon Chew and popped it into her mouth.
“That stuff can kill you, you know,” Andi said as the ship groaned and lurched. She was thrust sideways against her bindings as Lira quickly steered the ship to the right.
“I enjoy flirting with death.” Her Second smirked.
They fell silent as the Marauder soared on, Lira navigating the ship left and right, up and down, the tails trailing them as if this were a mere game of chase.
But this game they were playing rarely ended with laughter and fun. It would end with bodies burning in the sky, the air sucked from their lungs as they succumbed to the void of space.
Andi rapped her fingertips on the armrests. Her rouged nails looked tipped in blood, a playful nod to those who had given Andi her pirating name.
She was frustrated and hungry and, thanks to the nightmares, reaching a level of exhaustion that shouldn’t have been humanly possible to survive. Usually she would’ve been up for the challenge because, in Lira’s terms, she lived for the thrill of a life dangling on the edge of death.
But as she looked at Lira’s hands guiding the ship, a very different image took their place.
In her mind’s eye, Andi saw her old home’s moons, those beautiful orbs of red and blue beside Arcardius, the ice rings circling them like frozen guardians. She saw her younger, gloved hands, the Spectre sigil on them winking in the light as she clutched a traveler ship’s throttle. She felt the rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins. Then that fateful crash of fire and light, the screech of machinery and a girl’s piercing scream. And blood, rivers of it, drying on hot metal...
A voice buzzed into the pilot’s com system, and Andi flinched back into the present.
“What is it?” she barked.
Beside her, Lira punched the engine, the Marauder screaming as it rocketed forward.
“I got ’em comin’ in hot!” Breck shouted. Andi could imagine her gunner several decks below, lying flat before her massive hull gun. “Almost in my sights now. Can’t outrun ’em?”
“If we could, don’t you think we would have done so already?” Andi growled.
“Godstars, Andi.” Breck’s voice was deep and throaty. “I can see the sigil now. They’re Arcardian Patrol. We’re gonna be space bits.”
Andi tapped the rear-cam, zooming in as the ships gained speed. The exploding star of Arcardius stared back at her. Her insides turned to ice. There was only one reason they would have traveled so far from their domain.
So this was it, then. The enemy she’d run from all these years had finally found her.
Though dread threatened to freeze her insides, Andi straightened her spine and steeled herself. She wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Andi reached up and pressed her responder, ignoring Breck’s final words. “You girls in position?”
“Gilly’s on Harbinger, I’m on Calamity. Permission to engage?”
Andi smiled through her fear. “Granted.”
The channel fell silent, and then it was just the captain and her pilot, hearts racing in their throats, stars streaking past them like rips in the fabric of the universe.
And then Andi felt it.
The lurch.
The bump.
A knife of rage sliced through her. “Those bastards just shot at my ship.”
“Test fire?” Lira asked, but then she cursed, and suddenly they were spiraling to dodge blasts as the sensors screamed warnings. “On second thought...”
Andi gritted her teeth. Too many shots.
“Cap, they’re turning up the heat.”
This time the voice was Gilly’s. In the background, Andi could hear the familiar tick, tick, tick of Gilly’s gun firing from down below, the BOOM of Breck’s right after, one shot after another at the oncoming ships. “They’re closing in, starboard side.”
“Faster, Lira,” Andi growled.
She pulled up the radar and zoomed in on the other two blinking red dots, ignoring the shaking in her hands. They were growing ever closer, and now the Marauder’s prox alarms were blaring. What in the blazes were they using to run their ships?
Tick, tick, tick.
BOOM.
Shots blasted, piercing whines that shook Andi down to her bones.
It was all she could hear, all she could feel, louder and louder with each blast that sent the Marauder careening off course. She switched to the ship’s rear-cam again.
The three ships were directly behind them now. Two sleek black triangles with massive guns on their hulls, the other crisp and purple with smoke stains from Breck’s magnetic ammo, birdlike in its wingspan, with enough space to swallow Andi’s ship twice over.
The Tracker.
Her brain screamed stats about it—designed for speed rather than agility. She’d spent months studying the ship at the Academy, desperate to explore every inch of its well-designed insides. Even the best tech had its flaws, and if they weren’t also being chased by the two Explorers, they might’ve stood a chance against the Tracker. But truth be told, smaller ammunition wouldn’t be able to affect the reinforced siding. And with its dodging tech, they’d have one hell of a time hitting the beast with the Big Bang.
“Take them down!” Andi commanded. “Go faster, Lira.” She clenched the armrests, leaning forward as if her body could help her ship pick up speed.
“I’m trying,” Lira said. “We haven’t refueled in weeks, Andi. At this rate, we’ll burn out. We’ll have to lose them instead of outrun them.”