Episode 26

“Mr. Teiro, engagement in approximately sixty seconds.”

“Roger that, Koume. Hard to starboard. Cut the engines! Swing her left thirty degrees! Let’s see if we can’t throw their timing off.”

Taro yanked the Plum onto a new heading before banking the hull sharply. From the enemy’s perspective, the ship was now sliding through the void at a drunken, diagonal crawl. Probably looks like we’ve had one too many high-octane fuel cocktails, Taro thought.

“Plum to Stardust. How’s it hanging, Alan? You making progress?”

“This is Stardust. Progress is a strong word. ‘Festering mess’ is more like it. The pier is trashed, so we’re having everyone hop over in suits. These folks move like they’ve got magnetic boots made of lead.”

“Plum here. Roger that. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but the bad guys are crawling out of the woodwork like cockroaches. Pick up the pace, will you?”

“This is Stardust. Yeah, yeah, I’m on it. Give me fifteen minutes and we’ll have the whole lot tucked in. Good luck out there.”

Taro pulled a face at the comms. In a normal world, fifteen minutes was barely enough time to microwave a burrito. In the middle of a space battle, it felt like an eternity in purgatory.

“Luck, huh? God, I’m already up to my neck in bad luck. All turrets, open fire! Let’s pluck these pigeons one at a time.”

The radiation from the nearby star was turning their beams into a fuzzy mess, forcing them to wait until the enemies were practically knocking on the door. Eight streaks of blue light screamed across the blackness, vanishing into the distance like over-eager fireflies.

“Crap, the solar flares are acting up! I can’t get a steady reading on the dosage!”

Taro spat a curse at the blinding glare of Star Adela and began frantically punching corrections into the firing computer. The Plum spat out another volley. This time, the beams found meat. Immediately, the enemy swarm blossomed, returning fire in a chaotic, radial spray of light.

“Whoa! Hey! Dates are supposed to be one-on-one! I didn’t sign up for a freaking group session!”

Taro yanked the controls, narrowly dodging the first wave of fire, but the enemy was quick on the draw. Their trajectories adjusted with terrifying speed, and the Plum’s hull began to ring like a struck bell as the first beams connected.

“Marl! Can you jam these guys?!”

“I’ll give it a whirl!” Marl shouted back.

The Plum’s beam jammer—a pricey little toy they’d bought with their hard-earned credits—hummed to life. Incoming beams began to warp and bend, curving away from the ship like they’d suddenly developed a phobia of its paint job.

“Oho! Now we’re talking! Marl, toggle the intensity every few seconds so the hardware doesn't melt. That should buy us some breathing room. Koume-chan, you’re on shield duty!”

Taro let out a ragged sigh of relief. Normally, their shield levels would be circling the drain by now, but the gauge stayed pegged near ninety percent. Koume was flicking the shields on and off with surgical precision, activating them for mere milliseconds exactly where the beams were about to hit. It was a masterclass in battery conservation.

How the hell is she doing that? Taro wondered. Controlling a beam shield is like trying to catch raindrops with tweezers.

On most ships, leaving the shields at full blast would drain the batteries in thirty seconds flat. They weren't meant to be "on"; they were meant to be "there" only at the moment of impact. Ideally, you’d match the shield strength to the incoming shot—a 10 for a 10, a 100 for a 100. But calculating the angle, position, and decay of twenty different beams at once? That was a job for a god, or a very overworked AI.

“Thank you, Mr. Teiro,” Koume chirped. “But honestly, once you get the rhythm, it’s quite simple.”

“Right, simple. About as simple as juggling chainsaws,” Taro muttered with a wry grin. The sheer mental load of tracking twenty chaotic targets made his head hurt just thinking about it.

“Mr. Teiro, it appears the enemy is merely eyeballing our trajectory. Might I suggest moving the ship in an irregular pattern?”

“Good idea, but let’s save it. We’ll go evasive if the batteries redline and we have to kill the jammer. For now, I want a steady platform so I can actually hit something.”

“Understood, Mr. Teiro. Enemies six and nine are dead in the water. Number seven is still kicking, though. I suspect it’s carrying its own jamming suite.”

“Got it. Leave the nerd for last. Focus on thinning the herd!”

“Um, Taro? The enemy count on the radar isn't going down,” Marl said, her voice climbing an octave. “Is that… supposed to happen?”

Taro glanced at the display. Are you kidding me? Even as he watched, the number of red blips jumped up by three. He was knocking them down, but they just kept coming.

“Shit! They’re flanking us from behind the station! This is why I hate optical scanners. Remind me to buy a Stabilizer for the sensor array if we live through this.”

“We’re already living in a shoebox, Taro! Where are you going to put more gear? You’re a transporter, not a hoarder!”

“Maybe we should focus on the ‘living’ part before the ‘hoarding’ part?!” Koume interrupted, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. “Mr. Teiro, Miss Marl—the shields are at fifty percent, and we aren't even halfway through the projected combat time. To put it bluntly: we’re hosed.”

“Yeah, I gathered,” Taro grunted. A few stragglers had managed to get behind the Plum, peppering their engines with point-blank fire. They’d already bagged ten of the bogeys, but the swarm looked thicker than ever.

“Plum to Alan. How’s the rescue? It’s getting a little spicy over here!”

“This is Stardust. Sorry, kid, we’re lagging. We’ve only got thirty percent onboard. There aren't any suits for the kids, so it’s a total nightmare.”

“Kids? You mean the people left behind are children?”

“Yeah. Mostly little ones. Apparently, they were rushed to the Control Tower first, but an accident sealed the main hatch. They tried to save them first and ended up trapping them. It’s enough to make you want to punch God in the face.”

Silence settled over the Plum’s cockpit.

“…Hey, Koume,” Taro whispered, his fingers flying across the gunnery controls. “How long can the Plum hold out once the shields hit zero?”

Koume looked up at him, her digital eyes wide. “Unknown, Mr. Teiro. We’ll be relying on the hull plating, but we aren't exactly an armored cruiser. We might stay afloat for a while, but our ability to actually fight back will be up to Lady Luck.”

“Right. Luck. My favorite lady,” Taro said, his face hardening as he watched the shield gauge tick down. “Seal all non-essential decks. Vent the atmosphere in the outer blocks—I don't want any oxygen feeding the fires. Koume, use the Spare Shield exclusively to keep the engines from exploding.”

Marl didn't argue. She knew that tone. “Understood,” she said softly. A moment later, the ship groaned as heavy bulkheads slammed shut, vibrating through Taro’s boots.

“Well… there goes any cargo that wasn't in a vacuum-sealed container,” Taro sighed. “This is going to be a financial disaster.”

“We can make more money, Taro,” Marl said, trying to sound brave. “Can’t make more Taros. That’s twenty down, by the way. At least these guys are morons. If they had half a brain and attacked all at once, we’d be space-dust already.”

“True. They’re just ‘move and shoot’ drones. If they ever learn how to use actual tactics, the Empire is in serious trouble.”

“Then let us hope they remain uneducated, Mr. Teiro,” Koume said. “Shields at zero. Here we go. Everyone… do your best.”

Taro and Marl shared a grim, jagged smirk. A second later, the shield gauge hit bottom. The ship didn't just vibrate; it bucked like a wild animal.

“Gah! Dammit! It’s way bumpier without the safety blanket!”

Taro white-knuckled the controls as a hit slammed into them, feeling like a physical punch to the gut. The monitors flickered, colors bleeding before snapping back into focus.

“Upper armor plate is shredded! Damage Level 4!” Marl screamed. “Turret 3 is hit! One of the barrels is a slag heap, but the other one’s still spitting!”

“Roger! Koume, if they pop a Warp Jammer, tell me immediately! That’s our priority target, or we’re never getting out of this!”

“Acknowledged, Mr. Teiro! Target twenty-five destroyed, twelve is disabled! Spare Shield is at eighty-five percent!”

Taro gritted his teeth so hard they ached. Beside him, Marl let out a sharp yelp every time the hull groaned. They were a three-person circus performing in a burning tent. They fired, they jammed, they zig-zagged through a storm of hot light. On the radar, the Plum was a tiny dot surrounded by a sea of red, like a man trying to fight off a beehive with a toothpick.

[HULL INTEGRITY: 70% — YELLOW ALERT]

The BISHOP system flashed a warning in harsh amber. The ship lurched violently, followed by the sickening, muffled thump of an internal explosion.

“Mr. Teiro! Block 4 bulkhead is compromised! I am purging Cargo 3!” Koume’s eyes were moving at a speed no human could track, her hands blurred as she manipulated the ship’s sub-systems. “Enemies 34 and 28 are down! Total hostiles have increased to forty-two! Spare Shield control is glitching—switching to manual!”

Another bone-rattling vibration rocked the ship, followed by a deafening roar of escaping gas.

“Turret 2 is gone! The whole mount just blew!” Marl yelled, her voice bordering on panic. “Everything in that sector is [RED]! Taro, we’re at the limit!”

“Crap! Alan! Talk to me!” Taro bellowed into the comms. “We’re dying over here! Are you done yet?!”

Thirteen minutes and thirty seconds had passed since the first shot. To Taro, that final minute and a half felt like it was going to last for the rest of his very short life.