It's A Deadly Job, But Somebody's Gotta Do It

"That thing's going to explode," Tempest said, and he sounded worried. "If you want to get us out of here alive, you'd better get moving!"

I hit the throttle and banked to the left. Behind me, the station exploded in a ball of fire, depressingly silent. In the far distance I saw the Trellix fleet racing toward us at great speed. I steered the Dragon toward the freighter, which fled in the general direction of the approaching fleet.

"Is this going to work?" I asked as I brought the Dragon in for a landing on the upper surface of the freighter.

"How am I supposed to know?" Tempest asked. "What do I look like, an expert on NOVA drive engineering? For all I know, we're gonna end up fragged if we try to bring that thing back with us!"

The whine in the engine started to build. "Time to give another blood sample, Jonny!"

I gripped the controls tighter and the needles dug in. This time, I didn't even grunt. The rocking of the ship was worse than before, the whine even louder. "I don't think we're supposed to use the NOVA drive this much!" Tempest yelled. "The diagnostics are all coming back at critical!"

"Now is not a good time!" I said, looking at the vid-screen. The fleet was nearly in weapons range, and this time we hardly had any power for the fields. "We don't have a choice, Toolbox. We've got to jump."

A jump window opened in front of us, and SO-4 came into view. There was an eternity of waiting, with Trellix fleet growing nearer the whole time, before the window passed over us.

Klaxons started sounding immediately. I looked around the cockpit frantically. "What's going on?"

"I'm getting strange readings from the freighter." Tempest replied. The engines were powering down, but the vibrations weren't stopping. "Frag!" Tempest shouted, nearly bursting my eardrums. "There's an artificial gravity field developing within the freighter!"

"What did you do?" I demanded, accusing him. "Did you bring us in too close to the station?" I had a brief glimpse of SO-4, and all my crewmates, meeting a tragic death as an artificial gravity field sucked them into the freighter.

"No, you idiot!" Tempest yelled back. "The field isn't coming from between the freighter and the station. It's coming from within the freighter! It must have something to do with our overworked NOVA drive, or maybe with the fact that the freighter isn't part of the ship."

There was only the shortest pause before Tempest yelled, "Why are you still sitting here? The gravity field is growing exponentially! If we're no-"

I didn't hear what else he said as I pushed the throttle to full. There was a grinding sound as our engines heaved against the rapidly increasing gravity field. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, we pulled away from the freighter. I craned my neck around, and watched as the sphere crushed in upon itself.

"Frag!" I said, more a curse than a description. Then the gravity field was gone and the Dragon lurched at full throttle toward SO-4. I quickly brought it under control and headed toward the hangar.

Commander Fear was waiting for us. He was inside and climbing the ladder to greet me as soon as the hangar had enough air to support life. "No trix?" he asked seriously.

"We tried, Commander," I said, trying to sound professional. "There were some unexpected difficulties."