Page 145 of Homebound
“We’ve got to do something!” she exclaimed, adrenaline starting to push through her veins, mixed with fear.
Simon hesitated before offering an answer, and the fact that he did so made Gemma’s spirits plummet. “Butan has no weapons for defense. It isn’t armored to withstand rocket fire. It is as maneuverable as a sweeper on a narrow street, and only when the navigation system decides to respond to commands. And we’re almost out of the crystal powder to feed the boosters.”
Gemma placed her hands on her chair’s tarnished armrests that had long ago lost their padding. “Is there good news?”
“Pirates prey on the fringes of well-traveled routes.” Simion cocked his head in that distinct manner of his. “I guess we’ve made it to our destination.”
“That’s wonderful! It means we’re close to being saved. We can’t give up now.”
“I’m not giving up.”
“What’s our plan?”
“Evade.” He didn’t have to spell outUntil the crystal power is used up.She got it. She wasn’t going to think about what would happen after.
“How much time do we have?”
The pixelated control screen in front of them, the only working one out of Butan’s three, was by now clearly showing an outline of an object behind them. As they watched, a heat source separated from the object and started a rapid progress in their direction.
This time, Butan's temperamental collision warning system reacted appropriately. The panel lit up, a discolored indicator above the cockpit window flashed in warning, and the aircraft was suddenly flooded with sounds of a reedy alarm.
“We don’t have any time.”
Simon jerked a lever and pushed three adjacent buttons in. Butan reacted by whistling and whooshing deep in its bowels. Gemma took the sounds to be those of a sharp acceleration, but of course, weightlessness and vacuum prevented her body from feeling any change in speed or trajectory.
“What is happening?”
“Trying to drop off to a lower plane.”
“Is it working?” Her heart was in her throat.
Simon didn’t reply. His attention was consumed by the monitor where the missile resembling a pencil was traveling speedily, zoomed in on them. If it found its target, the derelict Butan would have little to offer in terms of parts.
“Are we turning away? I can’t tell.” Gemma was straining her seat belt, stretching her neck to get closer to the screen.
“We turned. We’re dropping. Let’s hope the missile is not self-aiming.”
Suddenly, the siren stopped bleating, and warning flashes stopped. With bated breath, Gemma tracked the missile’s on-screen progress as it got closer and closer to the dot that represented Butan. She braced for impact, reaching for Simon’s hand to hold on to. He squeezed her fingers back.
“It’s passing us by. Look, you can see it.”
As he said it, Gemma tore her eyes from the screen and focused on the dark cockpit window. Above them, the oblong shape of the projectile appeared and hovered as if suspended before growing smaller as Butan angled down and away.
On the screen, the missile passed the center with the dot and kept on going.
Gemma expelled a breath and relaxed her cramped hands. “Are we safe now?”
“We’ve survived the first round.”
“They aren’t going to leave us alone,” she came to a bitter realization.
Simon answered her implied question indirectly, “Lucky for us, their weapons are basic point-and-shoot types. I can dodge them.”
And that was what he did. Time stretched, hours blending into one thick, gooey unit of existence that wouldn’t end, filled with acute concentration for Simon and a swirling mix of apprehension and uncertainty for Gemma.
The pirate cruiser relentlessly pursued them, constantly adjusting its position to catch Butan into its crosshairs. Once it did, as it invariably was able to do, it would release another one of its lethal projectiles, making Simon scramble to maneuver their clunky contraption away from danger and putting Gemma into the state of sweaty panic.
Exhaustion had begun to set in. She unbuckled - what was the point of fastening seat belts when any collision would be their last? - and got some water. Her throat was parched and she was weary from stress.
