HyRope: Home!

No response.

HyRope: There’s a ship out here. Do you know about it?

No response.

The ship followed patiently, tracking at pace. After trailing for some time, it leisurely overtook her position and spun to face her while continuing to fly backward. Naecia braked, pivoted ninety degrees, and accelerated up the rows of grid nine hundred. Even if she could make it back to the platform and summon an emergency shuttle, she doubted the ship would simply hang around so she might escape, assuming it was there for her.

Heat alert. She was taking the ‘ceptor beyond its limit. A glance back. The ship righted its lateral movement and casually turned to follow. No doubt, she was its target. Oddly, her curiosity as to why tamped her panic.

Naecia called through the com again and again. It was all dead. She even tried her implant, which would only be good locally. Nobody.

When the ship carried overhead again, Naecia turned once more, this time heading East toward grid nine-zero-one. Perhaps its stratosat wouldn’t be down and she could hail Home and warn them. More heat warnings sprang onto the display.

She raced down the rows and crossed column zero. Grid nine-zero-one lay in the distance, on the far side of a wide plain. She darted across. The ship banked smoothly, again overtaking and rotating toward her, as if waiting for the right moment to pounce. Her suit was burning up. Its cooling system was tied to the ‘ceptor. Sweat pooled inside the forearms and ran down her legs. Nobody was built for the unchecked climate of Vask, least of all a Scellan. A person could last ten or fifteen cyclets in a powerless suit. Twenty in the shade. Another alert. She didn’t let up. Her only hope was to reach the next grid and reconnect with Home.

The ship made its move, speeding ahead to just outside the nine-zero-one border where it slowed to a stationary hover.

She keyed the com even though her starshield showed no connection.

HyRope: Home? Home? Home? Answer please. Unidentified ship at null zone between nine hundred and zero-one. Answer please. Home?

Out in front, the vessel descended. Naecia steered wide. As she drew alongside it, the ‘ceptor died and she rattled off a chain of choice Drevian expletives before sliding off and running full pelt toward the neighboring grid.

HyRope: Home, come in! Home–

She attempted to hurdle a pipe at the grid’s boundary and an energy pulse caught her midair, slinging her up and over a large junction rack and into the dirt, knocking the wind from her lungs. She lay still, her spiracles held open in a frozen cry for air. She gasped, feeling her starshield for fractures.

HyRope: Home?

Static.

Home: HyRope – lost – repeat – transmiss – ping – Home –

HyRope: Grid nine-zero-one. She struggled to fill her chest.

Unidentified ship. Hostile. Warning.

Home: We lost you HyRope – over grid – back to nine hundred – check –