“I think you’re on to something, Dei,” Thrym said, voice tight with excitement. “Do the same manoeuvre, but this time we open fire across the port side.”

This time Elara swooped along the underside of the ship. It was a dangerous move. That’s where the poacher’s guns were located. But it was also an unexpected move.

When you’re up to your neck in poacher poop, the unexpected is your best chance, Romy thought.

As their tiny craft rose in line with the colossal battleship, Romy tensed her body, hovering her thumbs over the triggers. She tilted her head to the right, waiting, waiting.

The scream to fire echoed in her ear. Without blinking she directed her weapon across the port side of the poacher’s ship.

Her sense of hearing was useless in the booming uproar of fire. Romy pivoted the gun on its axis, giving the enemy everything she had. Their battler jerked backwards as one of Thrym’s missiles bulleted towards the back end of the craft.

Elara spiralled them underneath the massive ship once more, and for the longest second in Romy’s short life, she stared straight into the mouth of a gun—one hundred times her size.

And then Thrym’s missile connected.

The dark space was lit with the initial explosion. It was large enough that their stabilisers couldn’t counteract the entirety of the force. They were flung backwards, along with dozens of smaller poacher crafts. Groaning, Romy craned her head to watch as secondary explosions erupted all along the port side of the ship.

The roar of the explosion was followed by an eerie silence, as though a blanket had been thrown over Romy’s senses. And in that black hole, her insides quaked at what she knew was coming.

“Get us out of here!” she screamed, slamming her safeties on.

Elara dropped the battler in a violent uncontrolled loop as the biggest explosion Romy had ever seen blotted the expanse of space in a wall of white and red.

The rocketing force slammed her against her harness as a hundred thousand wreckage meteors whizzed in all directions like shooting stars. If not for the suit, her entire chest would be cut to bits from the harness.

She couldn’t contain her screams as they zigzagged. Nausea threatened to best her. In those few moments she wouldn’t have known if there was a Critamal sitting right next to her. Her ears were roaring, her eyes still blinded by the flash.

“We’re nearly there.” Elara’s voice crackled in her ear.

The silence in the cockpit spoke louder than words. Something nearly tangible—fear, she supposed, saturated the small atmosphere of the ship.

Romy didn’t dare open her eyes.

Until. . . .

“Stabilising now.” Elara sighed the beautiful words. “E2.” Safety.

Her sound of relief was echoed by the rest of the knot. E2 was directly in front of Orbito One.