The Hounds. A battered frigate and two corvettes, the kind built for firepower not finesse. The belt worked against Luna here. Too much rock to build real speed, too many blind corners. Wide open space would've been better odds. Out here the Hounds could just herd them until they ran out of room.
The comm suddenly crackled..
A long pause. Breathing. Then.. "Uh. Luuna… Missst."Another pause, like the person needs to remember the next word."You. Stop. Now."
Ash looked at Rhea with a bewildered look on his face. Rhea looked at the scanner.A muffled thud sounded on the other end. The sound of someone being shouldered out of the way and a voice snapping, "Move it, you idiots can't even string a few words together."
Then a different voice came through. Smoother and human. "Luna Mist, this is a resource inspection on behalf of the Hounds. Cut your engines and hold position. Any cargo recovered from the salvage is subject to levy. Cooperate and this stays simple."
Ash blinked, then let out a short laugh. He knew that voice.
"Is that who I think it is?" Ash asked, still half grinning.
"Yeah," Rhea said, jaw tight. "The same crook. Jackal Draven."
Jackal Draven was one of the few who had folded to the Iron Hounds early. Back when the gang first docked here two years ago, he'd been just another scavenger trying to scrape by. He'd sold out his own crew and became Korv's underling, and over time buttered up the brute leader with slick words and useful information. Now he even commands one of their scavenging ships.
Rhea's fingers moved to the thrusters.
"Yeah, I knew these dumb skulls wouldn't think this up. Of course this crooked bastard is behind it."
"We have three ships on your position. Don't make this difficult."The interceptor was already sliding out from behind the rock, swinging wide to bracket them from the other side.
"They're boxing us in," Ash said.
"I know."
"Luna Mist. This is your last warning."
"Hold on," Rhea said.
She killed the main thrusters, fired the jets hard, and spun Luna on her axis in a tight ugly arc that dropped Ash's heart to his stomach. For a second they were pointed directly at the corvette. Then Rhea punched the engines.
Not away. But at them.
"Are you out of your—" Ash started
The Frigate broke left. It's an old slow ship, bad at turning in close quarters, and the pilot clearly wasn't expecting anyone to be stupid enough to charge head on. The gap it left was tight. A corridor between the corvette's hull and a long flat slab of rock, maybe thirty metres across at best.Rhea threaded the Luna through it without flinching.The Corvette scrambled to follow, but too far back now, the angle completely gone.
"What the fuckk!!" hey get after them you id–" Jackal's voice crackled through the comm, composure finally gone, before the signal broke up and died in the rock and static of the belt.
Ash watched the two Hound signals shrink on the scanner, then disappear entirely as the belt closed in around them.He sat back in the harness.His hands were shaking slightly. He pressed them flat on his thighs and said nothing about it.
"You could've told me the plan," he said finally.
"There wasn't time."
"There were at least three seconds."
"Well I'm sorry, next time I'll give you a heads up"
He looked at her.
You're completely insane," Ash said.
"She handled it fine,see. Saving our asses again" Rhea said.
They pushed deeper into the belt. The asteroid belt wasn't an empty void. It was a vast, slow moving ring of rock and ice orbiting the dim red dwarf star Eryndor. The entire belt spanned hundreds of thousands of kilometers, far beyond the narrow habitable zone where the small rocky planet Obisara circled. Scattered across the system were the stations Stellar Prime, Careyn Hub, the busy transfer point, and Kaelis Anchorage on the far side.
The adrenaline from the escape was fading, leaving behind a heavy tiredness. Ash rubbed his face, then reached into the small storage compartment and pulled out two sealed ration packs and a couple of water pouches. He tossed one to Rhea.
"Figured we might as well eat while we're not getting shot at," he said. Rhea caught it without looking, tore the seal with her teeth, and took a bite.
They drifted in silence for a minute, the only sounds the hum of life support and debris ticking against the hull.
Ash chewed slowly, then asked. "We escaped, but we can't just turn around. I'm pretty sure they'll be waiting for us at every normal exit."
Rhea nodded. "Yeah, I know. They might've already commed Korv, but the cowards aren't gonna follow us into uncharted territory either."
Ash smirked. "As opposed to someone else."
Rhea shot him a sideways glance. "It was this or getting blown up and floating in space. You're welcome."
Ash laughed under his breath. "Do you know where we're going?"
"God knows," Rhea said, adjusting course around a slowly rotating boulder.