Fracture - Book One of the Glass Galaxy Trilogy

Chapter 27: Escape

All the air in the room violently rushed out through the hole my maestro's foot created in the cargo door, and I watched as Abaddon, Reaper, and Kaeya were sucked into the void of space.

Their arrival on Viliana's ship was confirmed by their shouts of pain in my earpiece as they haphazardly flew into her waiting cargo bay, and I let out a sigh of relief. "Get out of here, Viliana," I said into my earpiece. "I'll follow you guys with the Liberation."

"You're really going to risk your life for that damn ship?!" Viliana shouted angrily. "Isn't one person dieing enough?"

"I'm not risking it for the ship," I replied calmly, my emotions still subdued by Kaeya's power, "I'm risking it for the ship's contents. We need the Prodigy Suit to stabilize Kaeya's psychic powers."

"You're insane, you know that?"

I tore open the damaged cargo door in front of me with my maestro's powerful arms, making enough room for me to move through, "I do. Now get out of here."

The cargo door of Viliana's ship closed, and her ship vanished into the black expanse. I tested out the maestro's thrusters, cautiously accelerating out through the hole in the cargo doors, and then I turned towards the station's docking bay.

Two red dots appeared on my display: a pair of Federation frigates undocking and moving towards me.

"Power down immediately or you will be destroyed!" came their message. I responded by accelerating towards them.

They wasted no time opening fire upon me with their railguns, but I deftly spun out of the way of their shots, my maestro exceptionally agile with the absence of any equipment or armour.

Then an idea popped into my head.

I dodged another volley of fire from them and then put on a burst of speed, closing the distance to them as fast as I safely could. I landed next to the bridge of one of the frigates with a heavy crash, several warnings about damage to my maestro's legs blaring, and then I threw a punch at the reinforced windows protecting the bridge.

They shattered beneath the force of my titanic fist, and violent depressurization pulled out any loose objects in a flurry of small debris. Unfortunately no crew came out with the debris: they were properly prepared for a fight.

I went to accelerate upwards, pulling away from the damaged frigate, but as I did so the other frigate fired on me once more, hiting my left arm and tearing it entirely off.

Both legs heavily damaged.

Left arm destroyed.

Thrusters fully operational.

I pushed my suit's thrusters as hard as they could handle, the g-forces of my acceleration causing my vision to diminish to little more than a small tunnel as my heart struggled to circulate my blood under the pressure.

I rocketed towards the docking bay, flying towards it at a frankly idiotic speed so the frigate couldn't get any more shots at me: unfortunately I overestimated the damage I had done to the second one.

The incoming fire warning came too late for me to dodge, and a railgun round tore through the back of my maestro, destroying nearly half of my thrusters and disabling the shoulder joint for my right arm.

With half of my thrusters down there was no way I could slow down before reaching the docking bay. I might still be able to survive the impact.

I opened up a broadcast towards the docking bay as I hurtled towards it, rapidly closing the remain kilometres, "This is Special Technician Kalani Shairolette of the Teracon Navy Reserve. I am requesting to land on the Liberation."