Page 51 of Right on Time

“Go, babe!” She cheered under her nose when their plasma shot cut an enemy sphere in half. Then she screamed as Nitiel kept going straight toward the two halves.

He turned the ship sideways at the last moment and slid in between.

“Loe?”

“I’m okay!” So much for not screaming. “Was that the last baddie?”

“Nine more. Shield at 40%.”

Chloe laughed hysterically. “Easy peasy.”

She screamed again when a sphere nearly collided with them.

“Goddess! They’re ready to sacrifice some of their own!”

Perfect. They had to watch out for kamikazes now as well… They were definitely going to survive this.

“Seven targets left. Shield at 20%.”

Yep. Going. To. Survive. For sure.

The ship shook as a laser beam hit them. Nitiel, still as calm as at the beginning, sent the fighter into a downward spiral, running from lasers and spheres alike. Chloe screamed throughout. Didn’t puke, though – she was a champ.

The spiral ended with the ship upside down, and that was when she saw it. A console attached to the ceiling – now the floor. Could it be…?

“Nitiel, can I help somehow? With the console back here?” she asked before she realized what she was proposing. She must have gone crazy, her brain scrambled from the insane maneuvers.

“It’s too dangerous!”

“More dangerous than dying? Tell me!”

“You have to get to the landing pad, but I can’t slow down or keep the ship steady! Stay put, Loe.”

He was right. She would never make it to the jelly in the center of the room. “And once on the pad?” she heard herself ask.

“Goddess damn it!” Chloe had never heard Nitiel curse before, which only served to prove she wasn’t overreacting: the situation was deadly. “Mold the gel around you. I’ll lower the console from here; it’s connected to a plasma cannon.”

Okay. Okay. Trixie had shown her how to manipulate the jelly. Nitiel was going to hook her up to a badass weapon. All Chloe needed to do was keep her neck unbroken on the way to the landing pad. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Her fingers shook so hard that it took her three tries to unbuckle. Then Nitiel took a sharp turn, and her whole body left the ground for several seconds. Her hands holding the seat belt were the only reason she didn’t fly across the room to crash into the opposite wall. She did crash into the seat and the wall behind it, though, when Nitiel righted the fighter.

“Loe?!”

“I’m alright!” Bruised and close to hyperventilating, but he didn’t need to know that. She would not disappoint him. He had risked his life for hers enough times, now she would do the same for him. “Tell me when to go.”

“Now!”

She threw herself at the pad before she had time to freeze in fear. Her upper body sank in the jelly just as the ship spiraled down. She’d made it! “I made it!”

“Thank the Goddess!”

Chloe put every ounce of muscle she had into getting her entire body on the pad, then guided the jelly over her middle in a semblance of a buckle. No time to form a proper seat. “Ready!”

“Lowering the console now. Put your hand in the green holosphere and squeeze your fingers to shoot. Do you see the targets?”

“Yes.” Two dots on the tiny screen of the console were jumping all over the place, while two others were moving fast ahead. How the heck had Nitiel managed to hit the others, let alone take all but four down? “What are they doing?”

“Half are trying to destroy us, the others are speeding toward the station.”

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