The shuttle was approaching rapidly. Twitch turned his head every few seconds to scan the distance, while his fingers danced over the console to ready the Grimalkin for manual launch. On the Rusty Bolt, he could use the flight controls without ever looking at them, and he was getting used to the different layout of the Grimalkin, but he was not yet as fast or sure.


    Next to him, Red was on the comms. She had headphones in her ears, both to keep her conversation out of the bridge talk between Twitch and Grubs and so that the hypercardioid microphone would pick up only her voice and not transmit anything else from their ship to the tower.


    ?What do you mean“, the traffic controller was saying, ?medical emergency? You have no clearance for take-off. I repeat, no clearance.“


    Twitch gritted his teeth. He screen estimated the shuttle arriving in less than one minute now. Which meant that within half that time it would be close enough to be caught in the blast-off turbulences. Not only had he no personal intention to cause anyone harm, it would also further complicate matters if something happened.


    Grubs slammed the final button on the engineering side of the sequence. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Loudly slamming the last button had been an unwritten code between them for years.


    ?Well, you see“, Red was saying into the microphone, ?the thing about emergencies is that we don’t really care about your clearance. Just make sure the trajectory we’ve sent over is clear of anything that wouldn’t welcome us slamming into them, will you?“


    For the past three minutes, it had been her job to keep the tower busy and distracted. Firing up the engines of a spaceship was not something that could be done without detection. Grubs had changed the usual startup sequence as much as possible to ensure a late detection, but the last few minutes before launch were impossible to hide.


    ?Even if“, the tower was responding to Red, ?I could approve your launch, I would not approve the trajectory you have given me. That’s a direct ascend that takes you over densely populated areas.“


    Red glanced over to Twitch and saw the display in front of him switching from red to green on one system after the other. Two more to go. Seconds until he would fire up the engines. Her second glance was to the screen showing the shuttle approaching. It worried her much more than the tower or even any military ships in orbit. It came straight from the Felindar craft they had seen when they touched down. And the AI had identified it as a Felindar shuttle. It had launched shortly after their launch preparations became obvious. Had they run an ordinary launch sequence, it would have plenty of time to reach them. But as it was… her thoughts were interrupted by Twitch firing up the launch thrusters. The Grimalkin shuddered and roared. The voice in her headphones became even more urgent: ?You have no clearance to launch. Shut down your engines immediately!“


    She smiled despite the link to the tower being audio only. ?As I said, we don’t much care. Bye.“ And Red switched off the comm link. Her task was complete. The tower had hesitated with any grounding measures until they were already lifting off.


    Twitch pushed the power control forward and the Grimalkin jumped up from the landing pad, the sudden acceleration pressing the crew into their seats. Like most ships designed for planetary landings, its decks were stacked vertically and down actually was down. The inertia dampers would activate in a few moments, once they were clear of any ground structures. As they did, perceived gravity returned to normal, and Twitch pushed the power to full. The ship accelerated rapidly straight up into the evening sky.


    The Felindar shuttle had been still outside the area blasted with superheated exhaust, so no harm done. ?Good work, boys.“, Red acknowledged. The Grimalkin was rapidly ascending and would cross low orbit in less than one minute. Ten minutes after that, geostationary orbit. And a few minutes later they would be far enough out of the gravity well to jump into hyperspace.


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    The city was falling away behind them, its lights set against an almost dark ground. The sun was coming back up over the horizon from their perspective, but down there it was early night.


    Down there, the Felindar shuttle was now well outside visual range, even with optical enhancements. But Twitch had set sensors to track it. Red could see the shuttle turning around and flying back to the Felindar space ship. They had made it. Their velocity was still climbing fast and the trajectory Twitch had calculated made it near impossible for any military ship to disable them in a way that would allow a boarding operation.


    The metallic roar of the engines had changed tune a few seconds after launch, as they had reached supersonic speeds. It was still roaring underneath them, but the sound could not reach them through the surrounding air anymore. Only the vibrations and sound transported through the ship structure remained.


    Somewhere a sound let the crew know that traffic control was hailing them, but they did as Red had told the controller and ignored it. Forty seconds after blasting off, they crossed the Kármán line. They were out of Erulas’ atmosphere, heading towards the stars, towards space and towards Binary Bloom. Red breathed a sigh of relief.


    Six minutes passed, with the Grimalkin accelerating away, the planet getting smaller underneath. The sensors were scanning the nearby space, blue dots on the holographic display indicating other ships. None of them were close enough to their planned route for a clean interception.


    ?What the?“ Twitch suddenly exclaimed and turned his attention to the map. The sensors had detected a ship launching from the same spaceport they had just left, and the computer was showing a projected trajectory identical to their own. Twitch typed a few commands to restart the calculations, his fingers flying over the console and his foot tapping nervously. His eyebrows went up as he saw the numbers, and the other two following his finger pointing at one in particular. It was labeled ?estimated acceleration“ and the number was 62g. Almost four times theirs.As human ships went, the Grimalkin was a pretty fast one - and yet, according to the computer, this new ship would catch up with them in just over one minute.


    The crew looked at each other. ?Felindar ship?“, Red croaked, her voice breaking at the surprise development.


    Grubs sent the sensor data through an analysis routine. Twitch focussed on piloting, they were within the region that satellites and space stations occupied. His pre-calculated trajectory was done to avoid even getting near one, but better safe than sorry.


    Red swallowed and cleared her throat. ?Can’t be.“, she said, ?They’re more advanced than us, but launch speeds are not that different among the races of the galaxy.“


    ?The ones we know well enough.“, Grubs corrected her, ?The AI says this is a Xylar ship. Fighter or shuttle. Size of a truck. Point of origin is the Felindar ship.“


    Red turned to her pilot: ?Twitch, can we escape into hyperspace?“


    He shook his head: ?Not for at least three more minutes.“


    ?It’ll be here in one.“, Red stated what the AI was showing, ?Get us into hyperspace as soon as it’ll not rip the ship into pieces.“


    Behind them, the Xylar ship approached, covering the distance at an impossible speed. It had hit the sound barrier less than a second after launch, and left the atmosphere within 20 seconds. Closer and closer, and they could do nothing. With the acceleration the other ship had demonstrated, it would laugh about any evasive maneuvers they could try.


    Red was combing her hair with her fingers. She looked at the map, then at the hyperspace calculations the AI had started, then back at the map. Twitch was right, there was no way they would be able to jump before the Xylars reached them. But if they had enough speed, they might make it before the aliens could board them.


    The Xylar ship came close and passed them less than a kilometer away. As it did, something glowed bright blue at its side and shot towards the Grimalkin. Red closed her eyes. It was a fitting end, shot down by the aliens she had plundered so often.


    Sirens blared and the ship shook as if it had been hit by a hammer. Then a loud whirring sound that quickly dissipated. The ship AI had shut down the engines. But the ship was still in one piece. No damage reports appearing on screen, either.


    Twitch scanned the displays. Then a mixture of fascination and fear took hold of his face. ?I didn’t know they could do that. Didn’t know anyone could do that.“, he said slowly. He pointed to the ship status screen. They were in hyperspace. Without having jumped. The Xylar ship had dragged them into hyperspace as it passed, and was pulling them along still.