Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,68

body, just see from the stars outside.

“And inertial dampers working better than before. Let’s find an asteroid to test the laser on. Any of those close by, Grandmother?”

“Sure,” Koyanara chirps. “Take your pick. Lots of objects nearby. Is it a little weird that they’re so close to the station?”

Zaroc has a tight little smile on his face, plainly enjoying the flying. “Maybe someone placed them there for this exact purpose, testing weapons. All right, I got one. Oh, the laser aims by itself. Never knew it was gimballed, but I’m not complaining. Firing.”

In the distance, a tumbling rock explodes without flame, just coming apart in a cloud of dust.

“See that, Averie?” Koyanara asks. “That’s a real weapon. No mind control needed.”

“It’s powerful,” I reply, honestly impressed. “I guess I’ll keep my gun.”

“Yeah, you really—” she begins, then goes quiet. “Zaroc, something weird is going on. Those other asteroids around us are moving.”

“Tumbling?” he asks, suddenly tense.

“No. Not tumbling. Moving as if under power. Coming towards us… oh, sweet Fate. Turn around. Turn around!”

Zaroc reflexively throws the ship into a tight turn that I barely feel through the seat. “What?”

“Those aren’t asteroids,” Koyanara says urgently. “They’re camouflaged spaceships. Big ones. Oh…”

The control room is quiet for a second.

Then I gasp as at least twenty blindingly blue plasma bolts shoot past the windshield, coming from different directions and making a criss-crossing pattern that looks like a chain link fence.

“Barrage fire,” Koyanara says. “They’re trying to box us in. Get on the offensive, grandson.”

I hold on to the armrests as Zaroc flies the ship in violent maneuvers that make it hard to aim at us. Still, blue bolts streak past.

“I’ll shoot at them,” Zaroc says, a determined calmness in his voice. “Can you handle the missiles, Grandmother?”

“Not easily. Averie?”

I lean forward. “What can I do?”

“You’ll have to figure out the missile controls. I can do the aiming. You have to pick targets and fire.”

The console in front of me lights up like a Christmas tree, all alien scripts and symbols. In the middle is a 3D screen that obviously shows this ship as a green icon in the middle, and all the enemy spaceships as red dots around it. It looks a lot like red flies buzzing around a dead racoon.

It’s not a touchscreen, but there’s a joystick, and the controls are pretty simple. I mark an enemy with a blue square. “That one, Koyanara?”

“Any one of them is fine. Yes, sure. Now fire.”

I press the fire button on the joystick, and a yellow streak shoots from the ship. On the display I can see how the blue target is trying to run, but the white missile closes in and hits it. The enemy ship explodes in much the same way as the rock – just turning into dust without any flames.

“Score one for Averie!” Zaroc cheers. “Keep going.”

“Well done. I guess you don’t need me, after all,” Koyanara says. “I’ll just shut up so you can concentrate.”

Zaroc flies the ship and fires the laser, while I focus all my attention on aiming the missiles. After the first one, the enemies are aware of that weapon, so of the next ten I fire, only two hit their targets. But there must still be thirty enemy ships around us.

The ship shakes as it’s hit by something, then again and again. Suddenly, my console goes dark.

“They blew off all the missile pods,” Koyanara hisses. “Zaroc, we’re losing. Get us back to Cromp Base.”

“That’s the plan,” Zaroc says tightly. “Though I get the feeling that’s exactly what they want us to do. They’re being very careful to not hit us too hard – they’re not shooting to kill, but to herd.”

The windmill-like space station spins in front of us, coming closer very fast. Zaroc barely slows down before the ship hurtles in through the narrow opening to the docking bay, and is then braked hard by the station’s own forcefields before we can crash into anything.

The ship is placed in the same spot as before.

“And we’re back where we started,” Koyanara says. “Except if we leave, we’ll be attacked again.”

Zaroc slowly peels his hands off the controls. “Were they pirates?”

“Thirty ragtag ships like that? Could be,” Koyanara says. “It was organized, anyway. At least we’re safe in here.”

My heart beats fast and hard, but I don’t feel much relief of having survived that fight. We may not be able to leave this place.

I look out at the walkways and the other spaceships in the docking bay.