“Debris incoming!” Eura announced, then started shouting approximate approach vectors over the din.
Adequin barely had time to silence the grating alarms before the ship jerked and the straps of her overtightened harness dug deep into her collarbones. Griffith let out a series of staccato grunts, cradling his bruised rib cage tighter with each jostling impact.
Adequin gritted her teeth, then the onslaught finally ceased. “Report.”
“Shields eighty-four,” Jackin answered, tapping furiously into his console. “Recharging.”
“Keep them topped off. Pull from ancillary systems if you need to.”
“Copy.”
“Eura?”
“Looks like that was just the Tempus’s anterior atmo cycler…” Eura replied. “Minor, compared to what’s coming, sir.”
“Atmo…” Griffith mumbled. “What the fuck is this ship we’re on anyway? Feels like a Nautilus?”
“It’s a lighter version,” Adequin said, “but yeah, same bones.”
A glint of amusement fractured his pained grimace. “Remember when we were on Palias-V, and we had to steal that armored Nautilus to get off that infernal space station?”
Adequin chuffed a laugh. “Self-extraction at its finest. But let’s reminisce later, eh?”
Jackin grunted, “Seconded.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Griffith sighed, “super-fun war memories. What I mean is, we had to get past the orbital defenses, and they’d frozen out the guns. So Antares jury-rigged that shield atmo bubble thing so we could just ram into that satellite and take the whole grid down.”
Jackin slid him a shocked look, and Adequin nodded as Griffith’s point became apparent. “Because Viator systems let you override air-lock safety protocols…”
Griffith inclined his head. “So you should be able to vent the atmo.”
“Uh, into the shields?” Jackin asked.
“Exactly,” Griffith said. “We KO’d the satellite and bounced right out of orbit as a result. Which wasn’t ideal at the time, but now…”
Adequin nodded slowly. Now, it was exactly what they needed.
She chewed her lip, racking her brain to try and remember how Antares had pulled that shit off. The woman had been the senior-most Titan among them, and the very definition of maverick, constantly proposing objectively dangerous ideas which—because they worked more often than not—were seen as brilliant instead of lucky.
“Void,” Jackin chuffed. “Rake, are you really considering this?”
“It’s sound, North, I swear,” Griffith said. “It not only gives a spatial buffer—”
“At the cost of integrity,” Jackin interjected.
“—but can increase integrity,” Griffith went on. “The added tension supports the shield as a whole.”
“Like pulling a piece of fabric taut,” Adequin offered.
“Fuck,” Jackin cursed, then mumbled, “I hate how much sense that makes.”
“No harm in trying, Quin,” Griffith encouraged.
“Except that it sounds ridiculously dangerous,” Jackin argued. “We don’t design our ships that way for a reason. Besides, once the Tempus blows, how do you know we’ll ricochet off the debris field and not just plow through it?”
Adequin shook her head, the back of her throat going dry. “I’m choosing to be optimistic.”
“Physics doesn’t really give a shit about your existential disposition, Rake!”