Tamed By the Alien Pirate by Celia Kyle Page 0,54

my love.”

“Pessimism is in my blood, Thrase. It’s part of what makes me such a good tactical officer.”

“It also makes you a pain in the ass sometimes.” She chuckles, her voice distorted by her space helmet. “But I love you anyway.”

“For that much I’m glad, at least.”

I taxi the Dart about on its horizontal axis until we’re facing the cargo bay doors. The alarms sound as I remotely open them, using my officer’s lanyard from earlier. Open space appears, and the Queen flashes past. I frown at the sight of the brand-new gamma array on the starboard side, which has been turned into a melted ruin. But she’s still flying, so we still might be able to save her and the crew inside.

“This is it, Thrase. Once I flip this switch, the engines will engage and we’ll either fly out of here safely, or, or…”

“Or we’ll explode. Speaking of which, why did we have to bring the torpedo with us? Couldn’t you have rigged it to go off after we left the ship?”

“I could, but the hangar bay is specially reinforced to contain such an explosion and redirect it out into space. We might hamper them a bit, but the ship would survive.”

“I see. Then we’ll have to put your risky plan into effect.”

“My plan? We both came up with it.”

Thrase chuckles behind me.

“Indeed, but don’t you know how scientific credit goes? If it works, it’s our plan. If it fails, it was exclusively your idea.”

“I can see our union is going to be far from dull.”

“And you wouldn’t have it any other way. To quote Swipt, punch it.”

I engage the thrusters, and we tear out of the hangar bay into space, straining the inertial dampeners to their limit. Even with the dampeners in effect, Thrase and I both cry out with the effort of staying conscious as g-forces pummel our bodies.

But once we’re at top speed, the sensation of acceleration disappears. I take us into a wide, curving bank, intending to position us behind the Mephisto’s massive rear thruster array.

Again my HUD flashes, this time warning me of multiple weapons locks.

“Brace yourself, Thrase. Their point defense cannons have a lock on us.”

“Then let’s hope your piloting skills haven’t gotten rusty.”

I flip the control sphere to the left, twisting us so that in relative terms we’re sideways in respect to the capital class ship. This presents a smaller profile to the point defense cannons, which light up the blackness of space with their intense emissions. We avoid contact, but the temperature rises well over forty degrees inside the cockpit in mere seconds.

“Are you well, Thrase?”

“I’m sweating into my suit, but I can manage.”

The Dart shakes as we get a bit too close to one of the blazing beams of green light. My HUD flashes with a damage report. Hull integrity is at sixty percent. Another hit, and we’ll be dead in the air.

Or just plain dead.

But I can’t stop our attack. If I do, the Queen and her badly damaged squid-like ally ship are doomed. And they we would be dead anyway because this tiny star fighter doesn’t stand a chance of escaping a capital class ship.

So I hit the afterburners and we are pressed into our seats hard. The massive, circular thrusters loom large in my view, soon growing to take up my entire field of vision. I blink sweat out of my eyes as the heat intensifies. At least when we’re this close to the thruster array their point defense cannons can’t target us…

With fading vision, I pull the trigger stud to release the fission torpedo. The armature works to perfection, releasing the missile and engaging its insanely powerful thruster drive. I pull off, “diving” sharply in relation to the Mephisto’s horizontal plane but I continue to track the torpedo with my sensor array.

It disappears into the halo of the event horizon of the thrusters… and then explodes. Sound doesn’t travel in the vacuum of space, so an eerily silent ever-expanding globe of fire and debris signals our success.

One by one, the thrusters go dark, and the Mephisto begins to list hard to starboard. Thrase and I shout in jubilation, cheering like fans at a BBL game.

“Nice shot, love.”

“My thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you, of course.”

“Indeed.” She gasps suddenly. “What about Num?”

I notice a purple streak flashing faster than a beam of light toward the strange squid ship, and I grin.

“I think he’s found his way home. Shall we do the same?”

“Yes, most definitely… but