“They aren’t going to be paying that much attention to you,” Juliette said. “You can probably flip around them before they even realize.”
“She is right, Zea,” I said.
“Ahhh, okay,” the hacker gasped, and I saw her shoulders tense through her suit as she clutched on the controls.
“You are going to head bearing 1.458 and -4320.03. Once you get up there, angle your nose down as close to their hull as you can, but don’t scrape them. It will slow you down too much, and alert them to what you are doing. As soon as you start to wrap the towline around their top, I’m going to come up from the bottom and fly to your port si -- go! Go! Go! Go!”
“Hollllyyyy Shiiittt!” Zea screeched as the Jotnar cruiser twisted in the air and shot toward the Elaka Nota ship. Our vessel was no Persephone, but she was surprisingly agile, and we closed the distance between us in about three seconds.
Then Zea yanked back on her controls a second before we rammed the larger ship, and we angled up and away.
“Down! Down!” Juliette shouted, and Zea punched forward with her arms to bring our ship’s nose back around.
“Too much! Too--” Juliette’s words were cut off when the chin of our cruiser impacted the hull of the Elaka Nota ship. I would have thought that the shields would have caught the impact, or at least deadened the ram a bit, but they must have had them down so they could attempt to board the corvette.
The scraping noise filled our bridge, and for half a moment, I thought my teeth were going to rattle out of my skull.
Then we bounced off the larger ship.
“Down more, but don’t hit it again!” Juliette yelled. “I’m coming up and around your port side! Stay your course!”
“Got ittttttttttt!” Zea growled into our transponders as she angled our nose down so that we were twisting around the bottom of the large vessel like a spinning dolphin.
“Turn right two degrees!” Juliette ordered, and Zea did a half second before the corvette whipped around the bottom of the Elaka Nota cruiser in the opposite direction. For a stomach dropping moment, I thought we were going to slam into each other, but then we passed across each other, and Zea continued to angle our ship so that we flew right around the sides of our enemy.
The Elaka Nota ship fired one of their heavy plasma cannons, but the shot wasn’t even close to hitting us, and they couldn’t angle the weapons tight enough to aim at us.
“One more loop!” Juliette shouted as our ships darted past each other again. Zea wasn’t speaking, she was just grunting into our transponder as she crushed the controls in her grip.
“That’s it! Slow your-- Zea! Too fast! Too fast!” Juliette shouted.
“Shiiittttt!” Zea hissed, and then a horrific tearing sound ripped through our ship followed by a thunderous thud. The harness dug into my shoulders suddenly, and the corpse of the Jotnar man was thrown across the bridge like a football.
Surprisingly, no alarms went off.
“That’s one way to do it!” Juliette cheered. “Bear 34.50 by -235.35 and 456. Full fucking thrusters! Go! Go! Go!”
“On it!” Zea shouted as I felt the engine flex its muscles and pull like it was deadlifting.
As we started to move forward, I realized that Zea had kind of body slammed us into the top of the other cruiser, and our belly was pressed into the top of their drone ports. I was a bit fearful that my plan wouldn’t actually work, but as we started to put down some engine power, we began to drag the larger vessel toward the cloud of shrapnel, missiles, and destroyed Nordar ships.
“Cut your engines eighteen percent, Zea,” Juliette said as we began to twist upward, “You’ve got more torque than my corvette.”
“Got it,” the hacker replied, and our bound ship began to straighten out again.
“Soooo, they are sending us a communication again,” Juliette laughed. “You wanna talk to them?”
“No,” I growled. “Looks like we get to the edge in fifteen seconds. I’m guessing that we’ll flip around so their thrusters throw them in?”
“Yeah,” Juliette said. “Zea, this will be the hardest part.”
“I’m ready,” the hacker said, and then the Elaka Nota ship fired a few shots that weren’t anywhere close to hitting us.
“They are freaking out,” Juliette said.
“I want them to panic, I want them to--”
“Adam!” Eve shouted, and we all stopped talking. “They have someone like me. That is how they found us. She is trying to attack me with her powers.”
“Fuck,” I growled. “How are you?--”
“She is not as powerful as me,” Eve hissed. “Still, she keeps trying. I do not wish to hurt her, but I fear I might have to. What should I do? She is my sister.”
“She isn’t your sister,” I said. “Your sisters are sitting right next to you. This woman is a weapon Elaka Nota created to fight you.”
“Yes, you are correct,” Eve said. “I will deal with her.”
“Deal with her fast,” Juliette said, “cause things are about to get fucking crazy. They are really pulling with their engines.”
“Yeah,” I said as I saw our speed began to slow. “Eve, how are you doing?”
There was a few seconds of silence, and then Elana spoke. “She’s just sitting in her chair with her eyes closed.”
“Fuck,” I growled as I focused on the screen. We were almost there, but I could see the the front thrusters of the Elaka Nota cruiser spraying out massive bursts of fire in an attempt to keep us from pushing it into the mess of garbage.
Then our speed seemed to slow to a crawl.
“They have some serious power on that boat,” Juliette growled.
“We are going to do it now,” I said. “Let’s flip it over and then hit our front thrusters and release. Eve?”
“She still has her eyes closed!” Elana shouted. “Will she know to take off the towline hooks? Should we wait?”
“Fuck,” I growled again as I looked at the screen. We had maybe another five hundred meters until the edge of the garbage and then another five hundred meters until it got oppressively thick. A ship going full throttle would cover that distance in an eyeblink, and I knew that our opponents couldn’t stop themselves if we could flip around and cut them loose.
But if we didn’t have Eve, we would just get pulled into the missiles and shrapnel with them.
“Their hold is opening!” Juliette shouted. “They are probably going to pour their drones out.”
“Eve?” I asked.
“She’s still not responding!” Elana shouted. “I’m touching her hand and nothing.”
“Ten drones out!” Juliette hissed. “Adam!”
“Spin us!” I shouted as my stomach flip-flopped a thousand times.
“Zea, angle up 88.09!” Juliette commanded. “Full throttle, you are going to do most of the pushing and I’ll steer.”
“Come on babyyyyy!” Zea urged as she yanked back on her control.
For half a moment, nothing seemed to happen.
Then we started to spin upward like a yo-yo.
The G’s slammed my stomach into my spine, my eyes almost instantly lost focus on the screen, and the edges of my vision started to blacken. I knew everyone else but Kasta was feeling the same forces because I heard the combined gasps of six women.
“Eve!” I shouted. “Wake up! Eve!”
“Shiiiittttt,” Zea groaned. “Eve, please…”
“I am here!” the vampire shouted. “Tell me when!”
“Zea, cut your engines, and Eve cut the hooks on my signal,” Juliette said with a surprising amount of calmness. “Annnnndddd. Now!”
I saw Zea jerk her arm back, and our cruiser seemed to relax. My vision was still spinning, but I managed to focus on the screen in time to see the Elaka Noka cruiser belly flop into the field of trash. Their engines were pushing full throttle, and I saw a hundred sparks of light as metal shards scrapped, punctured, and tore into the hull.
“Fire on the missiles!” I ordered as I fingered the controls of my cannons.