Chapter Eleven (2/2)
and he was gone.
**Dax love Fido** he thought the empty spot that had been Fido for eons. He concentrated on the battle at hand.
Dax knew he couldn't stop it, knew he couldn't kill it, but he could hurt it. Wound it. Slow it down.
Maybe that will be enough.
The crew of the Sweet felt that ghostly plucking at their bones again. Nakteti and Vekan saw the glitter again. They watched as the newcomer's ship rolled, obvious intending on making a broadside to broadside attack run.
They watched the two other ships dance. The newcomer smaller, more agile than its opponent, moving in to fire close range weapons, fading back to use longer range ones, always where the opponents weapons didn't strike. The newcomer deployed decoys and vanished, fired off jammers and strobing pulses of energy designed to confuse and blind sensors, always moving to get behind the larger foe.
Both of the combatants were massive compared to the Sweet but they moved like smaller ships. Lektat steathily moved the Sweet further and further away, trying to avoid the attention of either of the two ships.
”Acceleration on the big one's dropping. I can't be positive but I think our friend hit something,” Vekan said softly.
”Finally,” Nakteti breathed. The fight had been going on for almost two hours and all four of her hands ached from squeezing the arms of her crash couch.
”We might have a problem of our own,” Chakuva said quietly.
Nakteti frowned at him and he tapped one his active display boards.
”I've got some motion sensors reporting movement. I don't have many left, most of the systems are still down, but twice I've had a crew-member report that something was moving on the other side of a wall. Something heading this way,” Chakuva said.
The reminder that some of her crew was still alive was a cold comfort to Nakteti at the idea of something launched by that horrific ship boarding her poor wounded Sweet.
”The armory,” she started suggest.
”Gone. Same with security,” Chakuva said.
”Where is it?” Nakteti asked.
”Hang on,” Chakuva pressed one hand to his ear, listening to another crew member. He looked up, his eyes wide with fear. ”Taltek saw it. He's only a few decks away. He said it's a large four legged robot.
”And it's heading our way.”
Nakteti opened her mouth to reply when a new signal appeared on her display.
//Fido goodboi//
//Fido sorry not ask to come in//
//Fido help newboi//
//Dax say Fido take newboi to CONFED//
//sneaky sneaky time//
//Fido love Dax//
Nakteti looked up. ”Does anyone know what a Fido is?”
The crew shook their head.
//Fido help newboi//
”Captain, that Fido thing is asking me to let it steer. It's showing me a jumpspace coordinate,” Lektat said, still staring at his panels.
”Tell it the front of the hull is open to space and we're stuck in here,” Nakteti said, fighting the urge to just go limp and let the universe just finally kill her.
Lektat nodded, tapping on his display. It felt weird that the only thing Nakteti could hear was her own breathing, her ship groan around her, and the radio. She felt like she should be able to hear more. Anything more. Just... more.
//jump jump jump//
That was all the warning Nakteti got. The ship shuddered as the jump engines fired up and the jumpcore dumped all its power into the drives. Several intact screens exploded as they overloaded, the lights brightened, then dimmed.
And they were in jumpspace. The colors whirling, tastes dancing on Nakteti's tongue, metallic plinking coming to her ears, and the smell of a warm summer day flooding her nasal cavity.
Then they were out.
Out of habit Nakteti glanced at her screen, looking for a reading on how close they were to the boundary, what kind of star they had come out to, how many planets were nearby.
Instead there was nothing.
Just empty space with stars in the distance.
//woundlick//
//Fido help//
//Fido miss Dax//