Page 21 of Fighting Gravity
“Incoming,” was all he said and I knew.
“Valerian?”
“Pirates. They’re closing in fast. Three ships. They know we’re damaged.”
8: Rhone
I roared out a complaint, throwing my balled fist into the wall hard enough to make a shallow dent beside Quinn’s head. She leapt up from the bed and pinned herself against the opposite wall. There was plenty of valuable material on the Argos. Plenty of tech that a pirate wouldn’t know what to do with, but they’d be happy to sell it to those who did.
And pirates always came in squads and always when a ship was at its most vulnerable. That was a problem with free space. There were no laws. No ruling race. No territorial restrictions.
“How close are we to Tao?” I asked into my wrist coms.
“Close,” Crex said.
Just when he answered, the ship quivered. I knew what a vibration like that meant. It meant something was too close and we risked being knocked out of the jump. I glanced at Quinn. Her eyes were darting about the room, but rather than panicking, she was looking and observing. Soaking in everything that was happening.
“Leave the jump,” I ordered.
The ship jolted and the air thinned for a split second as the Argos left the jump. Quinn stumbled forward, hitting the bed. I headed for the door. Rage fueled me at the idea of pirates getting a hold of my ship. They’d gut her. Peel her apart. Take everything from her and the Argos deserved so much better after all she’d done.
The moment I got to the doorway, the alarms faded and the ship stilled, the engines slowing to a near stop. I halted to listen, turning back to face the room where Quinn looked eager to follow me and find out what was happening. She was braced and listening to the change in atmosphere as well, but just as soon as everything went silent, there was a sharp shift that threw us both off balance. I reached out, grasping the doorframe on either side of me as Quinn flew forward. She slammed into me as the whole vessel seemed to tilt on its side, the gravity equalizers temporarily miscalculating what direction was what.
“Kaar!” I shouted into my coms. “The gravity!”
“We’ve been hit!” he answered back. “The consol is damaged!”
“Drek. Evacuate engineeringnow!”
The ship continued to tip. Quinn wrapped her long limbs around me, but when another quake raddled the Argos, one of my hands slipped from the slick ledge. I fell out into the now-tilted hallway, my body hitting the wall. Quinn rolled off of me, losing her grip. As her hand slid down my arm, I closed my grasp around her wrist. She swung toward the wall, slamming into it hard.
“Urok!” Crex said through the coms. “Eight small ships have converged.”
“Fire on them. Kill everyone.”
I could hear the Argos warming her weapons. I felt her thundering echoes as she fired on our attackers. Looking down at Quinn, I noticed she’d found a bit of footing against a partly open seam in the neighboring door. When I saw that she’d gotten a finger hold, I slowly let her go and released my grip on the door.
Why the hell did I catch her anyways?
When I dropped, I landed hard. It was a long descent to the turn in the hallway. What was once a corner in the wall was now the floor.
After I landed, I peered up at Quinn just as she lost her grasp and slid down the slick surface. I could have let her fall. I could have let her break her legs and left her there to deal with later. Seeing as I’d only gone to her chamber to kill her or torture better answers out of her, it would have made sense. Instead, I reached out and cushioned her fall.
The Argos was floundering. Our systems were going to fail. It was easy to predict that much.
As soon as she could touch the floor with her feet, Quinn pushed off of me and gave me an infuriated scowl.
The ship jolted again and I knew she’d taken another significant hit. I stumbled forward, bracing my hands on the wall and caging Quinn beneath me.
“What the fuck is happening!” she shouted.
“We’re under attack.”
“No shit. Humans?”
“Pirates. Chelkir, most likely. They have the most advanced weaponry and they hunt this close to space stations knowing ships need them for emergency repairs. The look for wounded travelers.”
“Guess it wouldn’t be smart to hitchhike, huh? Because it feels like they’re winning this battle.”
