Kara holstered Tooth and Claw on either hip, the vintage twin pistols’ respectively silver and obsidian gleams shone in the bright light outside of the supply cage. She grabbed her gear-belt from over the quartermaster’s counter and tried her best to rein in her agitation as she donned it around her waist. The sheer mountain of bullshit paperwork she’d been forced to sign in the past few minutes had her jaw clenched in simmering rage.

It was worse than the damn DMV ever was.

But Kara, despite herself, slowly released her exasperation like she’d been holding in a deep breath. The amount of forms was certainly unusual, but the quartermaster didn’t appear to be messing with her and he was just doing his job.

“Don’t worry, I’m not taking it personally,” She smiled faintly, trying to assuage his obvious discomfort and to not seem like a complete and total bitch. “At least I’m finally done.”

He cleared his throat and cautiously slid yet another holo-pad over to her through the security gate. Her smile faded gradually as she scrolled down the pad’s lengthy electronic form.

“Karhan, right?”

“Uh, yes ma’am?”

“I’m taking it personally now.”

After a few more arduous minutes, filled with glaring and cursing, she finally escaped her administrative hell and quickly headed to the departure bay where her team was waiting.

The rustic doors shuttered open at her approach, but she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw that the wide room was completely empty. Perhaps…she had taken so long that they left without her…and maybe she could sneak in a nap or two before—.

“Oh there you are.”

Frackin, fucking, piece of…

Kara spun around melodramatically to face Rorik, her hair flinging into her eyes as she turned. “Here I am, now where is everyone else?”

“Had to move to a different bay, some sort of malfunction in this one.”

“Shocker.”

“What took you so long?” He asked as they started down the corridor.

“Oh, dealing with the quartermaster. They must’ve added to the requisition process in the past month. Because I’m pretty sure I had to sign away my soul and cosign that guy’s lease to get the fuck out of there.”

Rorik laughed, weirdly a little harder than she thought it warranted. He then casually grabbed Tooth from her right hip before amateurishly trying and failing to spin it with flair.

“I could never quite do it like you can,” He said as he almost lost his hold on it. “Don’t have the finger dexterity.”

“Really? Here I thought you were just pretending to be all thumbs.”

“Don’t be an ass, it’s too early. What made you dust these bad boys off?”

“Woke up feeling sentimental, I guess.” Soren’s embossed initials atop its slide seemed to gleam at her words.

Rorik gently replaced the hefty, heavily modified LAR Grizzly in its holster as they skirted past some maintenance crewmen. Crewmen who quickly pretended they were hard at work on an electrical panel upon seeing them. “Fair enough. Also, you got some additional personnel coming with you now.”

“Why? And who?”

“Gonna have your team grab a couple of ships instead of just one, so we can be done with it faster. But I got you Lonny as your new number two and some big buff guy named Kel from security, both enlisted, both volunteered.”

Kara’s head started to ache at the mention of that bubble popping bastard. “Oh don't do this to me, anyone but Lonny, please?”

“Please? That's…rare. Why do you hate him?”

“I don’t, he's a nice guy and a good leader. But the thought of having to stand next to him for one miserable moment makes me wanna jump out of an airlock.”

“You’re not making any sense,” He smirked. “And the man volunteered, who I am to pull it from underneath him for no good reason?”

“The goddamn Captain, that’s who,” Kara shook her head with a humorless chuckle. “Fine whatever, but I swear if he gets on my nerves chewing his fucking gum, I'll kill him and then I’ll get you next.”

“I know you will, sport.” Rorik ruffled her hair like she was some snot-nosed little kid or something.

It took all of her willpower to not shoot him right there.

"But, regardless, Operation Grand Theft Starship is a go."

"Yeah, I'm naming them from now on."

They stopped outside the door to bay six as it opened and most of Kara’s team were busily preparing one of the shuttles for departure. Each dressed in a variety of different civilian clothing in order to better fit in amid the human populace.

Her eyes locked angrily on the aforementioned Lonny, who was leaning casually in the corner…doing what he does best. A faint migraine started at the base of her skull at the very sound of his smacking.

Doctor Maiyan was present as well, even though to her knowledge, she hadn’t been assigned. She was also rather unexpectedly trading spit with Kel passionately in the other corner. It only came as a surprise to her because she had her pegged as a lesbian or something.

“Oh, before I forget for the 50th time?” Rorik reached into his pocket and held out his hand. “Here you go.”

“Oh, great…I've always wanted an old and raggedy, scuffed up comb with missing teeth. You really know what the ladies want…Cassandra’s got a lot to look forward to on birthdays and anniversaries.”

“It's not a gift, it’s already yours. Got it from the holding cells on Azrhar, officer in charge said you left it there at some point.”

Kara grabbed it and sniffed at it. Her scent was long gone, but it did give off the slightest sensation of recognition. She put it in the inside pocket of her charcoal-gray jacket for later inspection. “Thanks for holding onto it, I guess.”

“Yeah…well this was nice and all. But if you don’t mind getting the fuck off my ship, that’d be great.” He said as he slowly prodded her to the door.

“Don’t get all sappy on me, kid.” Kara turned on her heel with a smile, greeting a few of the crew before heading towards the shuttle itself.

A small, pewter and alabaster vessel with tiny engines, and two even more pathetically miniscule weapons mounted to its front. It was literally the last starship she would want to board. But as long as it got them to the space-station above Knun in one piece, she supposed it would suffice.

“Lieutenant!” Maiyan embraced her from the side gleefully, and at first she thought she was going to try and judo-flip her to the ground. But instead, she tightly held onto her. “I hope your journey is a safe one!”

“Uh…did I say or do something to make you think this would be okay?” She snapped harshly.

Maiyan patted her back gently. “Not at all, you just looked like you could use one.”

Kara typically rewarded unwanted physical contact with immediate and severe violence. But, in the past few days she had come to realize that Maiyan was a genuinely nice person, to a fault even. And Kara would feel somewhat bad about it afterwards. Not to mention the warmth of the hug was taking most of the fight out of her anyway.

Maybe she had needed one.

“Alright, alright, thanks,” Kara said as she finally broke free of her hold. “Everyone who’s going, get aboard, let’s get this shit show started, huh?” She guided Maiyan back towards the entrance. “Might want to retreat to the hall, Doc.”

Kara was just glad that she wasn’t going too. She was a sweet kid, she liked her, but she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to deal with Lonny’s chewing and her chipper optimism at the same time.

“Uh, Lieutenant?” A male warden-first class she’d never met before, asked cautiously.

“You need directions to the shuttle or something kid? Want me to draw you a map with your favorite color crayon?”

“What’s…a crayon?”

“Never mind, what?”

“I just figured, if you wanted to go with your friend here, I’d be happy to step down for you.”

“I’m sure you would, but—.”

“That sounds like a splendid idea,” Rorik sprightly added from the doorway. “Cracking starship security has gotta be child's play for her. I mean, if you’re game Doc?”

“Of course Captain, frankly it would be nice to see something besides the Gizotso for once. Could you have someone somewhat knowledgeable feed my specimen?”

“Of course, I’ll see to it gets done regularly.”

Maiyan beamed happily as the loud mouthed warden handed over his belt and holster with a deep smile on his face, before quickly making his getaway.

Kara glared at Rorik with just a hint of violence as she stepped through the shuttle’s hatch. Waiting until the last man boarded, she hit the controls and the inner bay door descended slowly in unison with the shuttle’s rear hatch as a painful alarm filled the air. But before they were fully sealed, Rorik got her attention again.

“Kara?!”

“What?!” She had to duck her head to even see his face.

“It still only takes one form to requisition weapons, I just couldn’t help myself!” Rorik’s faint smile deepened with a playful wave as the door shut with a metal clang.

Kara stood in total darkness before the shuttle’s red, internal lights took over and she realized what he had meant. Her hands squeezed into fists hard enough to crush diamond as a reluctant smile widened on her face.

Dead...man...walking.

----

“That one looks pretty good,” Adrax pointed at a slow moving nearby cargo ship lining itself up for a landing, its heavy and visibly aged engines whining in protest. The glare of the red, rising sun gleaming off of its hull made Cassandra squint as she tried to further inspect it.

“It’s too big, too bulky. We want something a little smaller with a bit more atmospheric speed capabilities. Kind of like that one over there.”

“Sweet, let’s go get that one then.”

“I said kind of, that one’s a bit too small. Needs more cargo or passenger space,” She smiled happily, unashamedly enjoying Adrax’s annoyed expression. “Besides, what’s the rush? We don’t have to depart for another couple of hours. Consider this a nice little shore leave, relax a little bit.” Cassandra grabbed the cold glass of ice tea from the thin metal table, taking in the colorful variety of the passing crowds and cars with casual regard.

“I’d happily consider it shore leave if I could be drunk off my ass with my face wedged in-between her beautiful—.”

Cassandra eyed him curiously as he started a lewd grabbing gesture with outstretched hands.

Adrax frowned into a faint smirk as he lightly picked at the umbrella positioned at the table’s center. “Wedged into a good book, I mean. But, instead I’m sitting here ship-watching like a retired human with nothing better to do.”

Jakobs took a very audible bite out of his toasted Bregonian steak-burger and a good number of the falling crumbs found a home in his brown beard. “Cass is right, enjoy the little things. We might not touch down anywhere this nice for a while,” He hungrily eyed the other man’s plate as he chewed. “You gonna eat that?”

Adrax absently scooted his plate of wamu and chicken pasta salad over to him, having only eaten half of it. The meal’s unique blend of savory, sweet, and spicy aromas, almost made Cassandra reach out and intercept it for herself. She hadn’t paid much attention to it, but…

She was definitely ordering that when the waiter came back around.

“Too bad we missed movie night too.” Jakobs continued evenly in-between bites, unintentionally eliciting a disappointed frown from Adrax.

“I know, I had been…looking forward to it.”

“It was a damn good classic from what I’d heard of it, 20th century, it’s crazy how long that’s been.”

“Yep, heard something similar.”

“Something about buddy cops fighting South African drug dealers or—?”

“Alright, I can’t just sit here shooting the shit anymore,” He dropped some loose fissens on the table and shot to his feet. “Permission to at least get a closer look at port security, see more of what we’ll have to work with when we finally make our move?”

Cassandra glanced around at the other tables, annoyed at his usual lack of subtlety. “Depends, are you going to go around announcing it to everyone on the planet?” She asked angrily between clenched teeth.

“I promise to be a fucking ghost.” He rushed off, purposefully trying to avoid hearing her say no. Now it was her turn to frown, as she visualized cracking him in the back of the head with the umbrella as he got further and further away.

If he started trouble needlessly…oh she didn’t know what she’d do.

“What’s his problem?” Jakobs asked, but he was obviously more concerned with his meal than Adrax.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Truly it was, because she was clueless as to why he’d become so restless and anxious when they landed. The very mention of movie night of all things seemed to especially upset him for what she assumed was a stupid reason. She huffed as she leaned on one hand, perhaps later she would ask him about it in private. But how nicely she’d ask depended on his attitude at the time.

They had only arrived on Dramos an hour ago; a tiny, little Union world that rested along the Directorate border. Neat rows of modest, low, and blue structures lined the avenues of the city, every other structure adorned with intricate carvings and colorful murals depicting scenes of the Union’s struggle for collective cooperation.

But from what she knew about this particular government’s history, most of these pictorial storyboards were gravelly exaggerated. Had they been truly accurate, they’d all be painted red, stained with the blood spilt to get this far.

Not that she or any wolf could talk, but at least they didn’t hide their propensity for violence behind pretty pictures and propaganda.

Regardless of the Union’s lies, or whatever trouble Adrax was liable to cause, they would be on schedule for their rendezvous with the Seraphim, she’d see to that. Their joint search pattern worked the most effectively when they extrapolated each other's data as quickly as possible and moved onto the next predetermined rendezvous point. As long as they were in the same system, or a very close by system, they didn’t need a beacon to contact each other. But with so many of them being sent out in stolen, smaller craft, they needed supplies more times than not. Rations in particular.

The last thing anyone wanted was for someone to change in a confined space surrounded by a vacuum.

Jakobs ordered yet another entrée to satisfy the bottomless pit he called a stomach, and she ordered the pasta along with him. And as she tapped the tips of her claws in eager anticipation, Cassandra’s thoughts started to drift towards something even more delicious than wamu and chicken, towards someone actually.

Things had been going well with James, very, very well. They had similar senses of humor and she sometimes caught herself walking around smiling all goofy-like for no apparent reason. And his surprising tenderness at times warmed her in ways she hadn’t experienced since her last long-term romantic relationship. Which was…

Stars had it been that long?

Her and Priya’s…situationship was more recent she supposed and had been fulfilling and amicable at its break. But it had been mostly physical; rough, hard, and dirty in every way she loved. With only a few truly tender emotional moments in between the copious amounts of sweaty and degrading sex. Even to this day, Priya’s body reacted to her on some deep primal level. She could almost feel her energy emanate from her whenever Cassandra got nice and close. With sexual fantasies of both Priya and James running through her mind, an interesting idea suddenly occurred to her…

“Uh, you okay, Cass?” Jakobs asked as two piping hot plates arrived at their table.

Cassandra shook her head to clear the fog of arousal that had taken over her mind. “Yeah, why do you ask?”

“I don’t know, you just looked…excited. And as best as I could tell, you were staring at that napkin like you were planning to do something…pornographic to it.”

She smiled and blushed as she grabbed her fork. “You’re seeing things, I was just…thinking.”

But as she was about to take her first bite, her comm-bead crackled in her ear. “Guys, I think I’ve found a suitable ship, I’m going to make a move on it. I’ll send coordinates for the pick-up point once I’m airborne.” Adrax whispered confidently.

Cassandra almost flung her fork off the table as she reached up to respond. “Adrax, stay where you are, if you so much as scratch your fucking back without my say so, I’m going to rip your spine out through your ass!”

He didn’t respond and some of the other customers on the outside patio stopped to stare at her with confused and judgmental looks, while covering their children's ears.

“It’s just an expression, but how about you all mind your frackin business?” She said steely as she rose to her full height, and most of their attention immediately returned to their meals.

“Does this mean we can’t have dessert?”

Cassandra hastily slipped on her pearl-white and plum-purple bomber jacket and rested her hand on her holstered pistol. “Later, let’s go before that idiot makes things harder than they need to be.”

Jakobs rose to his feet without any protest, but before they took off, he made sure to grab as much food as he could and stuffed it into his pants pockets.

Following Adrax’s scent, they crossed the road behind them. Dodging fearlessly through the moderate-speed traffic and completely disregarding the irritated honking of car horns.

Cassandra knew that rushing to stop him at this point would be futile; most likely, he had already attempted and probably failed whatever reckless plan he had concocted. All they could do is salvage the situation and hopefully get off planet, before things got really bad. Before the UDF (Union Defense Force) increased their threat level and potentially shut down the port entirely.

But regardless of how things were about to go, she couldn't wait to get her hands on Adrax and just maybe follow through with her previous, graphic threat.

-----

Blow...pop…blow...pop…blow……POP!

Kara was dead…she just had to be, because her current predicament was surely some form of punishment from the deepest and hottest hell imaginable. As the two of them sat there waiting for part of their team to return, Lonny seemed to be trying his damndest to have her jump across the table and rip his head fucking head off.

His short black hair was neatly slicked to the side and his signature, ever present grin was worn as smugly as humanly possible. And his feet were posted up casually, as he appraised the human passerby without a care in the world, steadily working on his fifth piece of gum. Her only solace was knowing that he’d eventually run out…unless of course he brought more than one pack.

Which given her past luck…

Kel and Maiyan rematerialized from the out of the throng of people walking through the expansive atrium that was Food-Court Number 4. Their hands seemed incapable of not being all over each other, it was as cute as it was annoying.

“How’s it looking?” Kara asked almost excitedly, grateful to have someone else to occupy her attention. Inadvertently taking in the particularly sweet and delicious scent of some sort of fried pastry as she opened her mouth.

“We’ve got a man in a few key sections, they’ll report when they find a couple of ships worth stealing. But this place is huge, and with all these junkers and flying scrap piles coming in, it might be a minute.” Kel reported evenly with his incredibly deep voice. Even though he was talking to her, his eyes were focused entirely on Maiyan, with a pool of sweat bubbling at the top of his bald, ebony head, highlighted by the blinding overhead lights.

“That’s fine. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“I still don’t see why we can’t all just grab our own individual ships and hightail it out of here? We’d find the Primum in no time at all with that many vessels.” Lonny added animatedly, with the strangely pseudo-Australian accent he’d managed to obtain, even though he wasn’t old enough to have actually seen Australia.

“Because too many ships means more problems. Fuel, repairs, having to wait on stragglers during our rendezvouses, etc. A smaller, more manageable number with the total personnel we’ve got available will be more effective than going for quantity.”

“Ah, yeah that makes sense.” Lonny spit his gum into a napkin on the table, and Kara’s spirit physically lightened.

“I was thinking though Doc?” Kara continued. “Like Kel said, this station is massive. If we could get you near a secure mainframe interface, you think you could hack into the computer and see what’s docked on the entire station at once?”

“I’m still no expert, Lieutenant, I only watched a few crash courses on the Unified Database about basic protocol decryption,” Maiyan chuckled softly. “And the beacon’s security was probably child’s play compared to an entire station.”

Kara rubbed at her chin and warmly placed a hand on Claw’s grip, a gesture of concentration she would’ve thought long forgotten. “Yeah, the only reason I didn’t bring it up sooner is because if it goes wrong, we might set the whole station on lockdown. And only add to our woes.”

“That’s a definite possibility,” Maiyan smiled as she pondered. “But…it does sound like it would be fun to try at least, doesn’t it?”

Kara returned it mischievously. “Oh for sure, beats sitting here by a long shot, I—.”

Another popping sound seemingly cracked the air like thunder, but this time Lonny…had done it right into her ear, purposefully and so close, that she felt his warm breath expel from the bursting bubble.

It all happened so fast that Kara came to with her hands around his throat before even she knew what had happened. She sent them hurling to the floor, knocking over their drinks and several tables in their relatively uninhabited corner of the dining section as they rustled on the ground.

“You son of a bitch! I’m going to fry your fucking—!”

“Pull her off before she kills him, Kel!”

“I’m trying,” He grunted as he grabbed onto her waist and pulled. “She’s damn near an elder, she’s strong as fuck, help me!”

After a few long moments of back and forth struggle, Kel and Maiyan combined finally managed to loosen her grip upon his windpipe as she cursed at him incessantly. Air rushed into Lonny’s lungs with a deep and desperate inhale. He choked and spit up violently before it gradually turned into a harsh, hushed cackle.

“Oh, I’ll give you something to laugh about, bubble boy, let me go so I can wring his neck!” The two of them pulled her to her feet and struggled to hold her back.

Some of the humans around them had stopped to observe the altercation, but the smartest of them sped up to leave the area.

“Lieutenant,” He coughed again as he stood. “Kara, I was just messing with you,” Lonny laughed even harder, his face red and his eyes watery. “I realized how much it annoyed you and I was just joking, it…it won’t happen again, I swear it.” He threw his pack of gum on the ground with a smile.

Everyone’s a goddamn comedian aboard the Gizotso.

She slowly relaxed herself with deep calming breaths, before laughing as well, her arms now laxed. “Okay, you got me, you got me good kid,” Kara glanced at the onlookers. “It’s all just a misunderstanding folks, we’re all good here,” She then looked to Kel and Maiyan smiling as some of the crowd hesitantly started to disperse. “You guys can let go now, I totally overreacted, and I'm big enough to admit that.”

They did as she asked slowly, but the very millisecond their fingers cleared her arms, she launched herself back at Lonny at full speed, sending them both skirting across the ground.

“This is going to be a much longer journey than we anticipated isn’t it?” Maiyan asked no one in particular as she watched them noisily roll around at her feet.

----

“Just get aboard!” Cassandra shouted as she took a round to her shoulder, quickly returning the homicidal gesture with fully automatic fire from her Zenith-1.

The pistol roared as it tore into the latest Union soldier to turn into the landing bay. The unexpecting woman’s rugged dark gray armor deflected a few bullets, but not enough. She would’ve screamed, if not for the new hole in her windpipe. As blood poured through her fingertips, she abruptly joined her dead comrades on the ground in a heap.

The forcibly disembarked passengers screamed and howled in fear as they huddled behind the many pieces of maintenance equipment strewn about the open space. Each man, woman, and child staring up at her like she was the devil himself. She didn’t blame them, their peaceful journey had ended in violence at her hands.

The slightest tinge of regret tugged at her heart at the children’s terrified faces. The killing had been rather senseless, she wasn’t being paid and it wasn’t for food. But damn if she was finally taken down by glorified security guards after all these years.

Especially today of all days.

Jakobs ran out from his nearby cover and towards the ship, stopping to retrieve some food that he dropped.

“If you so much as touch that piece of bread, I’ll feed it to you through the other end! Leave it!” He heeded her warning with a smile and got aboard.

Cassandra had picked the first thing with engines and weapons that didn’t look like a piece of shit. But the lavender and silver finish of the small, T-shaped transporter stood out a tad bit more than she would like.

Adrax rushed from underneath the ramp. “All hoses are disconnected, the fuel tanks aren’t full, but should get us out of here well enough.”

“Then get aboard.” She seethed as she closed the ramp after them, having to restrain herself from turning her weapon on him and squeezing the trigger. Adrax had always been a nuisance, but his actions today were bordering on outright sabotage.

It wouldn’t fix their problems, but it would’ve felt good.

Cassandra plopped down at one of the four seats horizontally aligned in the cockpit. The fabric and the well-kept space were comfy, and of muted purple and red shades. Most of the panels at her fingers were standard, but there were a few discernibly customized interfaces whose functions she couldn’t discern at first glance. “Power-up here, shields there, sub-light drive here, I think.” Cassandra meticulously flicked the variety of toggles up or down, seemingly at random.

“When’s the last time you actually flew?” Adrax asked from her right, sounding a bit worried.

She grunted as the round in her shoulder made a painful exit. “Been a minute. But I used to pilot dropships for a good while before I got into analysis. Why?”

“Just hope you know what you’re doing. Give me the Gizotso’s thick, rusty walls over this little metal coffin any day.”

“After the stunt you pulled I could give a damn what you want. Strap in and shut up, I know what I’m doing.” Cassandra pulled at the control yoke, lifting them into the air to the roar of the activating engines. “See?”

The top of the ship screeched loudly as they rammed into some sort of previously invisible energy shield that shimmered in reaction to them. The impact violently rocked them and the ship abruptly side to side.

Adrax and Jakobs visibly tensed to either side of her and stared fiery accusatory daggers into the sides of her face.

She blushed. “Well…I still know what I’m doing.”

“Lucky Lady-69 set it back down, now! Your ship and crew are beholden to Union Detainment Order 4A! Any further criminal or hostile actions will be dealt with accordingly and—!” Cassandra lowered the volume of the comm down to barely a whisper, the man’s yelling was liable to give her a headache.

A small army of Union troops ran in and took positions around the bay at his harsh words. And when she didn’t comply with his orders, a chorus of small-arms fire skittered along the ship’s viewport glass and pinged along its hull, but they might as well have been rocks.

She studied the many emitters projecting the field and began charging what looked like the controls for the forward weapons. When the digital meter reached its capacity, she compressed the yoke’s trigger, and aimed where she thought the base of the emitters would be seated in the dark stone walls. Listing the ship from left to right as the bright azure energy beams tore into the dull terrastone with a thunderous roar.

It wasn’t until she went half the length of the circular wall and nearly emptied the weapon’s capacitor that the shield finally sputtered and dissipated in a flash of light.

The voice from the comm before began screaming and she could hear the spittle of rage in the man’s gravelly voice. “You crazy bitch! I hope you like gulags, because—!”

Cassandra turned the comm off as she retracted the landing gear. But upon slowly lifting into the sky, a small ultramarine patrol ship with a bulky fuselage purposefully blocked their continued ascension defiantly. But unbeknownst to them, Adrax had already evaporated any drop of patience she had left.

“Could’ve just sat there and ate your fucking pasta!” She yelled and unleashed a barrage targeted at a central point on their bow. The sudden and precise focus of the high energy particle beams almost immediately overwhelmed the tiny vessel’s shields, and sent it back down to the ground in a ball of green flames and smoke.

Aiming the nose to the upward and shifting more power to the engines, she sent them hurtling in the viridescent sky. The sudden force of their momentum pushed them back into the plush cushions.

Adrax audibly cleared his throat. “Something tells me that you’re a little upset,” He patted her shoulder.” And I’m getting the sense that you’re probably mad at me?”

“Not now, not fucking now!” She shouted absently, until his words fully registered. “What do you mean probably?!”

The carmine rays of the setting sun flared in the viewport before its auto-tint systems compensated for the glare. Not even a second passed after they reached the lower altitudes of the upper atmosphere, that a panel began to blip and bleep with what looked like ships setting up intercept courses from the rear.

Eight ships, to be precise.

The friction of the atmosphere gradually faded away as they exited into space. The rush of the wild and roaring wind was replaced by the still silence of the vacuum.

“I can only access the forward cannon controls on my console, either of you got any more weapon toggles on yours?”

“Nah, all navigation and dedicated sensors on my end.” Adrax said.

“Let’s see,” Jakobs fiddled with the toggles until something cylindrical launched out the rear of the ship into a small satellite. The rear camera flared on the overhead monitor as a massive explosion reached its bright orange peak. “Oh…I guess that one fires the rear neutrino torpedoes. Good thing I’m not a weapon’s officer.”

Cassandra eyed him and frowned deeply. “Switch chairs. And without accidentally blowing anything else up, do you think you can plot us a ceespace course out of here?”

“Uh, well I was a navigation officer long ago, but…I’m a little rusty though,” Jakobs munched on the scraps from his pockets as he and Adrax shifted past each other to take their new seats, the former now to her right and the latter to her left. “Anywhere specific?”

“Right now any direction that gets us out of here in one piece. They’re catching up and we don’t have time for hesitation or mistakes.”

“No pressure, huh?”

Weaving through the midst of inbound traffic, Cassandra once again took in the sheer mass of the many orbital drydocks around the planet. Gigantic silver spheres lined with rows of luminant windows; their visages not unlike a cloud-breaker in the night. The spheres themselves were surrounded by equally massive rings lined with a variety of ships in different sizes and stages of construction.

“How about that course, Jakobs?”

“We’ve got to get further out, we’re still in the Knun’s gravimetric field. At this speed, I’d say about a minute or so until we’re clear of it.”

A minute wasn’t much usually…but it was obvious that their pursuers were going to catch up long before then.

“Cass…you seeing this?” Jakobs asked stiffly.

She glanced at the sensor panel and saw even more ships incoming from a nearby revolving moon. Their weapons were primed and they threatened to cut them off completely.

Her heart thumped in her ear as her thoughts raced. Her fingers danced over the control yoke in nervous preparation. Diverting power to the rear shields and weapons appropriately, she held her breath as the enemy on both sides approached the Lucky Lady’s estimated weapons range.

As the potential direness of their situation fully rested on her brow, she realized that she might have been wrong before, she might die at the hands of glorified security guards after all, but…

Damn if she’d make it easy on them.

Adrenaline flooded her bloodstream as a dull shrill finally confirmed multiple enemy target-locks. “Let’s fucking go!” She roared as she squeezed the trigger, whipping the ship around in preemptive maneuvers and rolls.

The security vessels opened fire in unison, some nearly colliding with them as they overshot and soared past them. Streaks of luminescent rounds both projectile and energy alike lanced through the void towards them in a coordinated pincer-like field of weapons-fire.

Cassandra banked hard to the left and right, the hull and her neck groaning in pained protest; twisting and turning them like a psychotic marionette. Incoming fire intermittently found its mark along their stern, rocking the ship dangerously with each blow. A quick glance at the status displays showed that shield integrity was rapidly depleting by the second, they couldn’t take too much more.

But her sudden maneuvers had avoided most of the barrage and sent them hurtling back towards a drydock. Using its bulk as cover, she turned in and out of its rings many crevices, barely avoiding a fiery death by mere meters with each passing second.

The dock's oversized weaponry turned to track them, but they hadn’t yet opened fire. Either due to their close proximity, or because their own were in pursuit.

The fighter formation that had followed them from the planet was in direct pursuit. And the other to their port, leading them back towards Knun and keeping them from whipping around and heading further out into space.

Adrax fired as best he could with the rear cannons, turquoise beams of energy sliced through the space between them. Impacting along the dock’s shields and some of the pursuing craft; hits and misses alike lit up the tactical display.

“Can you squeeze any more juice out of these engines or at least keep it steady!? I can’t put enough pressure on them!” Adrax yelled over the commotion.

“Sure can, but we’ll likely explode and do their jobs for them. And moving sporadically is the only reason we aren’t dust right now, so do what you can!”

“I have a bad feeling about—.” Jakobs started.

“Don’t fucking jinx us…mama’s starting to feel lucky as fuck right now.”

Cassandra intensified her strings of evasive maneuvers, and like a leaf caught in a turbulent breeze, she whipped hard into a nauseating turn around a drydock sphere. A brief spray of vomit escaped from between Jakobs’ clenched fingers and sprinkled along her cheek, but she was far too into the zone to care.

Adrax unleashed a volley of neutrino torpedoes from the rear, striking the first pursuer as it came over a construction ring, where it exploded in a ball of white light.

“Nice shot!” But her momentary jubilation caught in her throat at the sight of the sensor panel. There were many more ships than before, and all the luck in the galaxy wouldn’t save them if they were completely surrounded on all sides.

Think Cass, think!

As the noose tightened around them, a stray thought prompted a slow grin to emerge as she put the planet in the center of the viewport and placed all power into the shields and engines.

“The hell are you doing, we can’t fight back without guns!” Adrax huffed and sat back in his seat, the weapons now useless. “And why the hell are we headed back, I thought the idea was to escape!”

“There is no escape Adrax, at least not a conventional one…you guys think this ship would hold up underwater?”

Jakobs audibly scratched the crumbs from his beard. “Underwater? You don’t mean…never mind, I’ll feel better not hearing the words aloud.”

Cassandra tore back into the upper atmosphere, with a veritable swarm of fighters chasing after them. But the Union ships had stopped firing all together. Either because they thought them good as dead or because they held out hope to take them in and make them suffer typical Union justice.

And from what she knew, capital crimes often meant being tortured to death, strapped to an interrogation table. But in their case, they would be studied and prodded by their scientists when they realized their wounds healed almost as quickly as they could inflict them.

Like a meteor they hurtled to the surface, the hull was ablaze, the durtanium alight like an ember. Sweat dripped into her eyes as the yoke shook in her hands. Alarms were beeping angrily at her; the hull was overheating and reaching critical levels.

Breaking through the opaque clouds, her eyes finally caught sight of the massive green ocean looming below them. The beauty of Knun’s many continents and the curvature of its globe took her breath away.

“I’m deploying every external surface we’ve got, drag-fins, landing gear. If you’ve got anything that pops out, do it!” She shouted as she shifted power to the forward shields, cut the engines, and turned almost every thruster to maximum power. “Cross your fingers boys.”

A drag-fin almost immediately tore off and they tilted slightly to the left, forcing her to use the side thrusters to keep them from spinning out of control.

The ocean grew steadily and ominously closer, filling the viewport completely. Her life seemed to flash before her eyes. Her mom, her dad, her siblings, all long dead…and James, even though he was only a recent addition to her life.

She glanced at the two men sitting beside her, both clawing onto their armrests like scared children as impact with the ocean was nearly upon them.

Cassandra smiled, their trepidation was more than valid. If they didn’t slow enough in time, they were about to be squashed like bugs in a tin can against the rock solid watery wall of destiny.

All they could hope for, was that the ship dubbed the Lucky Lady, was fittingly named.