She was alone on the Clarke. The escape pods off the ship seemed not to attract attention. At the very least, no missiles were sent in their direction. Not every crew member was happy to go; she’d had to threaten Neva Balla with a charge of insubordination to get her into a pod. Coloma smiled grimly at this memory. Balla was going to make an excellent captain.

The ships targeted and hit the sections Wilson and Schmidt were in. Coloma zoomed in and saw the wreckage and the bodies vomiting out of the holes in the Earth Station hull. Remarkably, Coloma’s tracking data told her both Wilson and Schmidt were alive and moving. “Come on, guys,” Coloma said.

Wilson’s data indicated he had been sucked out of gate five. Coloma grimaced at this but then watched his BrainPal data further. He was alive and just fine, aside from hyperventilating slightly. Coloma wondered how he was managing this trick until she remembered that he was scheduled to do a jump with a U.S. soldier later today. It looked as though he were doing it earlier than he expected. Coloma watched his data for a few seconds more to assure herself that he was good, then turned her attention to Schmidt.

Her data on Schmidt was less exact because his PDA did not track his vital statistics, unlike a BrainPal. All Coloma could tell was that Schmidt was on the move. He had gotten himself down the ramp of gate seven, which the Clarke’s shuttle pilot had damaged, meaning it was filled with vacuum. Despite that, Schmidt had planted himself in an escape pod. Coloma was curious how he’d managed that and regretted that at this point it would be unlikely that she would ever find out.

The escape pod launched, plunging down toward the atmosphere.

The Erie Morningstar launched a missile directly toward it.

Coloma smiled. She went to her display, tracked the missile and vaporized it with the final blast of her antiparticle beam. “No one shoots down my people, you asshole,” she said.

And finally, Coloma and the Clarke had the attention of the interloping ships. The Erie Morningstar launched two missiles in her direction. Coloma waited until they were almost on top of her before deploying countermeasures. The missiles detonated beautifully, away from the Clarke, which was now swinging itself around as Coloma plugged in a course for the Erie Morningstar.

The Erie Morningstar responded with two more missiles; Coloma once more waited until the last minute before countermeasures. This time she was not as lucky. The starboard missile tore into the skin of the Clarke, rupturing forward compartments. If anyone had been there, they would be dead. Coloma grinned fiercely.

In the distance, three ships fired on the Clarke, two missiles each. Coloma looked at her display to gauge how long it would be until impact. She grimaced at the numbers and pushed the Clarke’s engines to full.