Conflagration

Noémie out!

"WHOOP-WHOOP! TRAFFIC! WHOOP-WHOOP! TRAFFIC!" sounded the computerized voice alert of the TCAS system. On the Traffic Collision Avoidance System display, Erin saw two blue dots coming at them. This is how it all started the first time, she thought. She shifted in her seat and steeled her nerves. Last time, she was flying by the book and doing a deorbit burn. This time, she was ready for it. She had expected an attack. That's why she'd made such an effort to pick up so much speed slingshotting around the planet. She glanced at her speed. 21milliC, or 2.1% the speed of light.

The hardpointer didn't have anything as fancy as a tactical display like Tolbert's fighter had had. The closest thing the civilian freighter had was the TCAS, which was really designed to avoid mid-space collisions with other planes. She looked at the speed readout on the two approaching objects and saw they were approaching at 2milliC, relative. Most likely they were missiles, and most likely they were EMPs.

Then, a much larger object appeared on the TCAS. Erin didn't know what it was at first, but then it occurred to her. So far as she knew, there was only one vessel in the whole system as big as that. It had to be the Ready Sophia. She didn't know if the pirate ship would fire on her or not, but she was hoping they wouldn't. She was hauling a small fortune of lady.

On the TCAS display, one of the pursuing missiles veered off and seemed to turn towards the Ready Sophia. Then, she watched as that missile just disappeared from her screen. She had no idea what all was going on back there, but she was glad that one of her pursuers was gone. The other one, however, continued to slowly gain on them. Missiles were fast, but she doubted if they carried much fuel on them. Eventually, they had to run out of fuel. The only question was whether the missile would burn out before it could close the distance.

She thought about what all she could do to increase her speed and the only thing she could think of was decrease mass. She could jettison the shipping container and/or the mech. She brought up the cargo page on the MultiFunction Display. The mass of the mech was listed as 8,588kg. That was a lot of unnecessary mass. It was also an expensive piece of company property. She'd already jettisoned the wings and the empennage. Likely, those were going to cost her her job. What loss, then, would it be to jettison the mech at this point?

"Don't you fuckin' think about it," Lyssa said from the cockpit door. She was wearing a standard EVA suit, minus the helmet. "I got plans for that mech."

"What could we possibly need that thing for?" Erin asked.

"Hull repairs."

"Huh?"

Lyssa told her what she was planning on using the mech for.

"Oh," Erin said. "That's kind of brilliant. Hopefully we won't need it, though."

"Well, if we do, it's our ace in the hole. So don't jettison that mech."

The TCAS sounded out its now-familiar warning, "WHOOP-WHOOP! TRAFFIC!" and Erin quickly silenced the annoying alert as she glanced at the screen. Six new, blue traffic icons had appeared from the area of the Ready Sophia. For a second, she was worried that these were Villalobos' fighters sent after her, but then she saw their speed. They were moving at 1milliC relative to the hardpointer. If she was moving at 21milliC, that meant this new traffic must be moving at 22. The only way for even a fighter to achieve such a speed was by slingshotting around the planet. Tolbert, Erin thought. It could only be Tolbert.

"Reckon I can guess who that is," Lyssa said.

"Yup. Without a doubt."

"She's gonna catch us eventually, ain't she?"