Page 59 of Into Orbit
They were lurking in an asteroid belt around a small moon, which was how our systems had missed them. The peacekeeping ship would pick them up soon enough; the ships were trading hits back and forth in a strange, slow battle that would show on the space conditions radar as soon as our ship got close enough. It was how I’d found them; the Pod’s system had registered the disturbance as a solar radiation storm, which I’d thought odd, given the distinct lack of suns nearby.
I watched as an asteroid roughly the size of our peacekeeping ship was struck by a rogue missile, breaking into a million shattered pieces. The shockwave reverberated through the belt, splitting smaller asteroids on its way. The Pod shook when it hit us, the shield system giving a high-pitched blare of warning before the Pod stabilised.
I shook my head. ‘This can’t be right,’ I said to myself. ‘Thiscan’tbe right.’
Roth ships came in two models: the hunting craft that Maeve said looked like spiders – whateverspiderswere – and the rarely-seen spherical ships carrying dignitaries. When Maeve had seen a picture of the spherical ships, she’d laughed until her eyes shone with tears.I wish Hollywood could see this, she’d choked, but never explained what she meant.
I’d seen the hunting craft rope in countless victim ships. I’d seen them land on terra and unfurl their mechanical legs, scuttling after their prey. I’d even seen a spherical dignitary ship launch an anti-matter missile at a small moon, watched as itdisappeared. Not exploded, not imploded. Just simply and suddenly ceasing to be.
But I’d never seen two Roth dignitary ships targeteach other.
One had been on our radar; after the starling’s light show, the scuttler had returned to it like an ice wolf retreating to lick its wounds. It had clearly been trailing the cephalopod prince, possibly hoping to take home a prize captive.
The other dignitary ship was entirely new, but given the readings on my screen, its path through space was similar to our own. Which meant it could have been close to Earth, for reasons I had zero knowledge of.
‘What are they doing?’ I muttered, bringing an image up on the navigation screen. As I watched, one ship shuddered, quaking under the blow of the other craft’s weapons. A few moments later it retaliated; the opposing ship’s shield glowed briefly as it absorbed the heat missile.
The Roth shields were strong, the second strongest I knew. They were made to hold out for long periods of time against a range of weapons – but not, usually,their own. I estimated it would take half an hour or so for one of the ship’s shields to falter and those weapons to start doing real damage.
Before I’d left, Juniper had showed me how to look for residual energy patterns left by our Pods, warning that the patterns were almost impossible to spot from a distance. I was fairly certain that the stolen Pods had flown to the dignitary ship to my right, which meant that Willow was on board – somewhere. I ground my teeth as the other craft shot blow after blow against Willow’s ship; though its shields were holding and the weapons had yet to do any damage, he’d feel the shock as the shield absorbed each hit, and his ears would ring with the noise.
And if the ships kept this up, and a missile got through …
I swallowed and pushed the thought away. I refused to think about it. Willow was as essential to my life as breathing; nothing would touch him.
I wouldn’t let it.
I studied the two ships as they played out their silent battle. The Pod’s defences were strong, but nowhere near strong enough to join the battle alone and withstand becoming a target; when we flew the Pods into conflict, we did it as a fleet. I tapped the control panel, thinking it through.
The Roth that had stolen Willow clearly needed him. Roth ships usually had their own medical officer, so either the ship had lost their doctor, or there was a species or situation on board that the doctor couldn’t handle. The chances of Willow still being alive were good because of that; they wouldn’t have taken him if there wasn’t a reason. They’d made no attempt to do our ship damage, nor to hurt any of the crew, which was a distinctlyun-Roth way of approaching things; it puzzled me, but I didn’t have time to mull it over properly.
I needed to make a decision.
The Roth were powerful, but we Tirians were equally so. We wouldn’t be the universal peacekeepers if our tech wasn’t cutting-edge, our shields the strongest, our weapons devastating. The Pod could get past either of the ships’ shields; I had blueprints of the dignitary ships, letting me know where I could sneak inside.
‘But which one to choose?’ I murmured.
Willow was in the ship to my right, the ship that seemed to have come from Earth. I wouldn’t know preciselywherehe was being held until I was inside and I could pick up his bioprint. I imagined he’d be under guard, though they’d hopefully be distracted by the battle. I could try to find him, then get us both out.
Ifthe shields held.
If they didn’t hold, the battle would start for real, and Willow would be in even greater danger. So would I, if I snuck on board to get him.
My other option was the craft to my left; the craft that had been tailing the cephalopod prince.
The Pod’s weapons wouldn’t take it out, but Icouldget on board. I could find its control room and sabotage it from the inside.
It would be dangerous, but if I could neutralise the ship before the shields failed, then Willow would stay safe. Well, safer. If anything, it would buy us more time to conduct a rescue.
It wasn’t much of a choice after I realised that.
I raised the Pod’s shields and directed it forward.
The only unguarded point of entry on a Roth dignitary ship was, unfortunately, the waste chute. It was disguised well, barely discernible on the underside of the ship’s rounded hull, distinguished only by the slight wearing of metal where the chute’s cover slid back and forth to allow the ejection of frozen waste into space.
The Pod rode the shockwaves as I got closer to the ship. I struggled with the turbulence for a few minutes, swearing as the Pod was pushed off course by a rogue shot. The Pod was small enough that I hoped they wouldn’t notice me amidst the asteroids and increasing amount of debris, but that didn’t mean I was safe.
The dignitary ships were deceptively big. They weren’t as large as our peacekeeping ship, as they were intended for transport rather than long-term accommodation, but they still dwarfed the Pod. My fingers flickered over the controls, getting the craft ready to land on the ship’s hull.
