Excerpt: Death & Destruction: Fluffy Kittens

“Shit, shit, shit...”

Whetu dragged the control yoke hard over to starboard, and the On The Breadline performed another one of those turns which glued everybody to the opposite side of the hull. She then dropped the nose, and pitched the Breadline into a breakfast-emptying dive.

“Hello? Hello? Can anyone here me? I’m frightfully sorry to bother you, but if you can hear this signal, please respond. And if you happen to have a warship, could you possibly steer it in our direction? Thanks, awfully.”

John Ramone, Attorney Outlaw, was possibly the most polite speaker in the Five. It was impossible to believe that anyone hearing his heartfelt plea would not be moved to rush to the Breadline’s assistance. The only problem was that there wasn’t likely to be anyone around for a light-month in any direction, so, by the time the signal had got there, and they had thought “what a nicely spoken young man, we really should help the fellow out” and pushed their ship along a course towards the source of that genteel communication, three months would have gone by. The Breadline’s requirements were a little more pressing. Speed of light? It’s never as fast as you think it is.

The comms pipe from engineering whistled, and Dan-Dan (the Engine Man) provided the latest update on how Whetu’s gravity-scourging turns were using up fuel.

“Somebody remind him how little fuel we’ll need if one of those missiles hits us,” she growled.

Just behind her, the gallant captain of the Breadline was hunched over the Polaris display, watching numbers tick over, and trying to remember if port was 090 or 270. And were they allowed to call anything ‘up’? Polaris juddered, and another stream of numbers clattered onto the board. Several of the digits on the third line stuck, numeral ‘0s’ quivering nervously. Dak tapped the display irritably, and updated Whetu on their status with a shriek of “INCOMING!”

“Bastards!”

Ramone toggled off the communications array. “How many missiles can they possibly have?”

“Well,” Dak replied, feigning an expertise in these things that he didn’t really have, “that lead boat is a ex-Republican Navy Voss Class Missile Frigate, and so I imagine missiles are pretty much their thing.”

“They are firing an unreasonable number of them at us.”

“They’re Ferals!” yelled Whetu, turning the ship on its head. “Unreasonable is what they do!”

A streak of light zipped past the forward viewports, blinding Dak for a moment (seeing as he was pressed right up to the glass after that last turn). The missile, burning across the dark at nine-tenths light, began a steady turn as its homing program began searching for the On The Breadline once more. There were three more missiles inbound close astern, and another four had just been launched by the Voss. With those and the Feral ships, Polaris was struggling to cope. And Polaris was doing well compared to the human components of the crew.

“Hello? Hello?” Ramone tried again.

Another whistle on the pipe, this one from the other side of the access hatch to the bridge. Most of the rest of the crew were out on the gangway above the cargo hold, taking it in turns to peer through the small round window into the bridge, where they watched the mime show as Whetu tried to keep the Breadline and the missiles at a respectful distance.

“In the spirit of this being an autonomous collective, with a consensus-driven command paradigm, might the crew enquire of the Honorary Captain what is going on?”

Dak leaned into the communication mouthpiece. “They’re still shooting at us.”

“If we don’t get some help soon, we’re doomed,” moaned Ramone.

“Then doomed is what we are,” Whetu muttered in return, “because there’s a limit to how long I can keep this up.” She dragged the telegraph back and forward a few times, causing its bell to chime like it was midnight in an asylum, then slammed it back to Full Speed Ahead, in the optimistic belief that this might get Dan to coax a little more speed out of the straining engines.

“If only someone was out there,” sighed Dak.

“Ummm... hello? Unidentified freigher with all the incoming missiles, this is the fuelling station Teal II. Can we be of any help?” The deep, resonating, slightly graven voice at once gave a frisson of hope, while also being chilling and portentous.

Dak’s eyes opened wide. “If only I had ten billion credits,” he said quickly, straining his new lucky streak. After the inevitable lack of a cash downpour, he keyed the communicator.

“Teal II, this is the completely innocent and peaceful freighter On The Breadline, on a humanitarian mission to bring... umm... toys to orphans. We are under attack by Ferals. Can you assist? Our current coordinates are...”

“Actually, you complete misunderstand the very nature of a space station if you think we can come to your assistance.”

He had a point, Dark had to admit. “Oh, so... when you offered help before...?”

“It was more theoretical than actual. Perhaps if you tried negotiating with your pursuers? They might have a great many orphans of their own...”

Dak grimaced. No matter how many times came up against an intellect greater than his own (and that was many, many times), it never quite felt right.

“Teal II, your transponder doesn’t appear to be showing on our Polaris.”

“Well, no... it wouldn’t. Imagine if those fellows firing all the missiles at you were able to see this station.”

“Don’t you have defensive armaments?”

“Goodness, yes. Heaps. But they’re not shooting at us, are they?”

Oh, this guy was good.

Whetu’s brow furrowed, and she pushed back a lock of hair and wiped away a bead of sweat. “Could he not maybe give us his coordinates? You know... for the sake of the orphans.”

Dak shrugged. These were the kind of moments when he liked to remind the crew that they were a syndicate, and that the position of captain was purely a formality.

“Should the space station not show up on Polaris anyway?” whined Ramone. “It’s a lot bigger than a missile.”

“It should, if it was close enough. But there are so many returns, how would we know which one was Teal II?”

“Would it be the one that wasn’t moving?”

Dak opened his mouth to agree, then realised that is wasn’t just a matter of speculation. The return designated Gamma was dead ahead of them, no vector, speed zero. He shouted out the direction to Whetu, who put the Breadline through a barrel roll and faked a turn to starboard, then pushed straight for the space station.

Dak keyed the communicator. “Teal II, this is Breadline. For your own peace of mind and all, have you put your weapons systems on standby? Just in case, say, three Feral raiders and seven missiles here to come in your direction?”

“I appreciate the advice, captain. But, I repeat, the Ferals aren’t shooting at me.”

“Well, no,” hissed Whetu. “Not yet.”

She pushed at the telegraph, to ask for Very, Very Full Ahead, and gritted her teeth. Hunched over the Polaris display, Dak was trying to do complicated maths in his head. The homing missiles had all settled into Breadline’s wake, and they were closing indecently quickly, fanned out in a loose arc maybe five or six kilometers across.

“Well?” she asked.

“I think we get there first,” Dak murmured, trying to work logarithms on his fingers.

“Great.”

The leaden, doom-implying voice from Teal II came back over the communicator.

“Errr...”

Whetu muted the speaker. She needed to concentrate.

“How close are you going to get before you make the emergency turn?” asked Dak, somewhat dry mouthed. He imagined the space station beginning to take shape through the forward screen. If it followed the usual Imperial design, its core was a cylindrical spike of black iron, fifteen kilometers from end to end, with each tip capped by a brass and glass dome. The centre of the spike was somewhat wider than the ends, and from it radiated eight spokes connecting the spike to an outer ring, the best part of twelve kilometers in diameter. The ring was the business area of the station, studded with docking ports, engineering bays, refueling points, duty-free outlets and fast food franchises.

That was how he imagined it, because he certainly didn’t have time to see it. Polaris began to whine a warning chime, a great deal more urgently than it announced each tracking missile. Whetu turned off the automatic collision avoidance system, bit her lip and narrowed her eyes and tried to get her first glimpse of a speck in space they were approaching at about 200,000 kilometers a second.

There was a flicker. It was like seeing a cobra strike, or lightning, or a catered lunch disappear at a corporate meeting. It wasn’t there, it wasn’t there, oh! Gone!!

In the rapidly increasing distance astern, several satisfying flashes occurred. Polaris marked the declining number of incoming targets and fell silent, or at least a lot quieter. The loudest noise on the bridge was Dak hyperventilating.

Whetu de-accelerated, and began a long turn to bring the ship about. It took a while - a fair few hours, in fact, before they returned to the Teal II. Dak’s need for the toilet and Nathaniel Meade’s temper had neither much improved in the interim.

“Did you just fly through the spokes of my fucking space station?” bellowed Meade, his voice up an octave and a few dozen dBs. “Are you completely fucking insane?”

“Teal II, this is Breadline. Permission to dock?”