The Explendian battleship was not going to let us get away that easily. I’m not sure what I expected, but a little bit of cloud cover was no match for their sensors, and they stayed hot on our trail as we closed towards the surface of the planet.

  “We’ll be in range of their outer guns in 12 seconds,” came Felix’s emotionless voice. He said it with the same urgency as if they were near enough to offer us an ice cream, rather than blow us out of the sky.

  “Keep going!” Baltrax’s voice was hard. “Aim for that canyon.”

  We were approaching one of the larger continents in the southern hemisphere. Like the rest of the planet, the green of nature had taken over, but as we got nearer, the mountainous terrain became more obvious. Bluffs and cliff faces cut into the landscape. And there was one gouge in the terrain as if a giant had slashed a gargantuan sword, leaving a deep cut in the earth.

  The ship lurched to the side, and I grabbed hold of my seat to stop myself from being flung to the floor. The air outside the Dragon Nova exploded.

  “Evasive manoeuvres engaged,” Faithon said belatedly.

  One day, I’d remember to use the available seat belts.

  “Niva,” I shouted. “Get us out of here!”

  “No. We are not leaving.” Baltrax’s voice was quiet, but allowed no argument.

  I argued anyway. “We’ll be blown to pieces. C’mon girl. Take us away from here. Just over the horizon.”

  Ryan? I don’t know what to do. Niva’s wide eyes flicked between me and Baltrax as the ship continued its descent, jigging and jagging as the battleship’s speculative long-range shots hounded us.

  “Inadvisable,” Felix’s voice rang out. “Previous shifts showed a 6.4% degree of error. If that occurs localised to a planet, then it is unclear where we might end up. Gravitational effects have also not been factored in during prior experiments.”

  “Keep going,” Baltrax said. She was going to get us all killed.

  The battleship was getting closer by the second. We were only moments from the temporary safety of the canyon walls, but it wouldn’t be long before their targeting computers locked onto us.

  Three seconds.

  Two seconds.

  The canyon was only a few ship widths wide, which limited our options for evasion. As we flew down into its depths, a final shot from our pursuer crashed into the back of our ship.

  This time, I was sent sprawling onto the floor.

  Niva was at my side in an instant.

  Ryan ok? her voice whispered in my mind.

  Alarms rang out, and Felix said something about the main engine being offline.

  “I’m alright,” I said to my companion. I had landed heavily, but apart from some aches and pains, I’m sure I would be alright.

  She seemed sure-footed despite the ship’s floor shaking like an earthquake. I grabbed her shoulders and hauled myself back to my feet.

  “Main engine out. Manoeuvring thrusters only.” Felix continued. “Orders, captain.”

  Baltrax paused for a few seconds, scanning her console. “There’s a cave big enough for the ship.” She tapped at her console, pinging the coordinates over to Felix. “Aim for that. And give me a scan of the rock. They won’t bring the battleship down here, so we have a few moments.”

  Baltrax was right, the battleship would never fit down here, so they had two options. Either blast the canyon to pieces or send a smaller boarding vessel. Our lives came down to whether we were interesting enough for it to be worth attempting a capture.

  They must have known I was on board as they took the second option.

  Which gave us precious time to try and come up with an escape plan.

  “Scanning,” Felix said as we approached the cave.

  Staying in the gorge was a death trap. Explendian soldiers would be swarming the area in minutes. Our only hope was to hide.

  “There is an extensive network of cracks and fissures in the surrounding rock, big enough for us to walk through. They are close, but there is no clear path through to them from that cave.”

  “Where is the nearest cave with access to the tunnels?” Faithon asked. He was frantically manipulating his console. “Wait, I’ve found it. There's a cavern entrance 10km to the east, along the gorge.”

  “No time,” Baltrax said. “Continue to the current destination.”

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  No one spoke as Felix piloted the ship down, and within a few moments, we had landed, hidden from view within the cave. The drop ships from the Explendian battleship would not be able to see us. But if our sensors were good enough to find the network of tunnels, then this cave would not hide us for long.

  “They are scanning us,” Felix said, the slightest of quivers noticeable in his voice.

  We were trapped. And there was nothing we could do to stop them from finding us. We needed to get through to those tunnels.

  “Can we blast through, with the main guns?” I asked.

  “And bring this whole cave down around us?” Faithon replied. “We need something more surgical.”

  An almost frantic glee filled me as I realised our only option. “The Armoury!” I stated aloud. “I’m finally going to be allowed in the Armoury.”

  Baltrax glanced at me and, despite everything that was happening, she smiled. “Felix, release the security locks. Code: alpha, six, nine, seven, beta, epsilon, seven.”

  Every expeditionary ship had an armoury. It was the one room on the ship, aside from Baltrax’s private quarters, of course, that I had never been able to set foot in.

  Yes, it was not going to compare to even the smallest military-class ship. And no, I did not suddenly have hopes of taking out hundreds of the elite Explendian soldiers. And yes, we were probably going to kill ourselves. But I was going to have one hell of a time doing it.

  “Come on, Niva,” I shouted as I exited the bridge. “Time to lock and load.”

  I sprinted down the corridor until I reached the always-locked door. I must have pressed my palm to the entrance panel a hundred times, but this time there was a beep of acceptance. The reinforced door slid open, and I feasted my eyes on… three guns hanging on the wall of the three-foot square cupboard.

  Wait, really? This was it? Now, I hardly had dreams of walking into a massive white room, with rifles, plasma guns, grenades, laser-edged knives, and all manner of military hardware. But just three guns was, to say the least, a disappointment. Two of the weapons barely counted as that. One was barely a rifle, more of an overgrown handgun. A KX-3 Kinetic Driver, so old that it still required a magazine to hold physical slugs. Another was even worse. A handgun that shot ionised beams, so old I didn't even know its model number.

  I, of course, took down the GX-7 Gravotonic Service Rifle. Not the best weapon, but still standard issue in the Explendian military. I hefted the weapon in two hands and looked along the sight. It probably weighed half as much as Niva, but I could do some serious damage with this baby. The graviton charges would rip through the best body armours as if they weren’t there. It would create rapidly shifting micro-gravity vectors inside an enemy's body, causing catastrophic damage to internal organs. It did not have the destruction of plasma, but, in the right hands, it was devastating.

  This was going to be–

  A three-fingered hand clamped down on the weapon and effortlessly pulled it out of my grasp.

  Then, without even acknowledging me, Baltrax turned away and walked towards the ship's exit.

  “Hey,” I shouted after her. “That was mine. I got here first!”

  I was still staring after my departing weapon when Faithon reached over and took the KX-3. He shook his head at my outrage and quickly followed Baltrax.

  “No, wait!” I shouted to no avail.

  Felix was nowhere to be seen, but I quickly grabbed the remaining ion handgun. Not that it would do much against anything with any kind of protection. How was this even fair?

  The cave went back about 50 meters. It was a dark hollow in the rocky terrain. The air was cold and damp in my lungs. Water dripped down from the ceiling, creating several small pools and, in places, mosses and fungi clung to the walls and floor. The walls were solid granite. The graviton rifle was powerful, but I worried it would not be enough. And my pitiful ion gun was not going to help.

  Niva bent her head down to lap at one of the pools.

  Baltrax, Faithon, and Felix were standing near the back of the cave. Felix had a small tablet linked to the scans he had made from the ship. He pointed to the part of the wall which, he said, was closest to the tunnels and our only hope of freedom.

  “Come on, Niva!” I said. “Let’s join the fun!”

  The little dragon lifted her head and looked at me, cocking her head to the side. What is happening? What fun? she asked.

  In all the chaos of the last few minutes, I had not managed to explain things to her. I was unsure how much she had picked up. She seemed so smart when talking with Felix, but at other times, almost like a child. We were being hunted by an elite military, and here she was calmly taking a drink from a puddle.

  “The bad men are still coming for us. They will find us if we stay. We need to get into the tunnels at the back of this cave so we can run.”

  She looked around, eyes wide. Niva cannot shift here.

  “I know,” I said, soothing her. “I know. Baltrax has a gun. She’ll shoot through the wall.”

  As I spoke, the cave shuddered around us. My three shipmates had backed off from the wall, and Baltrax had levelled her Gravotonic weapon and pulled the trigger. An invisible stream shot out of the weapon and sank deep into the wall. Cracks developed where she was aiming, and fractures radiated out along the walls.

  It was not enough. The weapon was causing damage to the structure of the bedrock, but not enough to bore a hole.

  Bad men! Niva called out.

  “Yes, I–”

  A fiery bolt flashed past me and crashed into the wall by Baltrax. The stone exploded outwards, sending the Taurovian sprawling off her feet.

  She landed hard, head crashing into a rock, and then dust from the blast filled the cave and obscured my view of her. I grabbed Niva and threw us forward, ensuring the ship was between us and the entrance to the cave. I did not want to be the Explendian soldiers’ next target. I heard more shooting. Faithon was firing back, and I joined him, shooting my gun blindly back through the dust.

  “Niva!” I shouted. “With me.”

  I ran towards where I’d seen Baltrax fall, using the dust cloud as cover. She was dazed, but was slowly getting back to her feet. She would not be quick enough, so I ran to her weapon and picked it up, discarding my peashooter. This would do more damage. I aimed out of the cave and fired. I could not see any of the soldiers, but we just needed them to be cautious. They would have scanned the cave and expected us to be trapped. They weren't going to run headlong into oncoming fire when they believed there was no chance of our escape. We just need to buy some time.

  “Niva,” I called out. “The wall where Baltrax was shooting!” I gestured to where I thought was the correct spot. “Do your cold thing. What you did on the ship when we found you.”

  More speculative shots were fired into the cave. Whether they were firing as blind as we were or it was some kind of suppression tactic, I didn’t care. Rocks were flying around the room, and I didn’t think the structure of the cave would last long enough for us to find out.

  It was time for us to get out of here. I didn’t wait to see if Niva had understood my words, but a coldness around me confirmed that she had. I pointed my weapon at the wall and depressed the trigger.

  My weapon’s blast hit the frozen stone.

  And the entire cavern groaned.