“We got more debris incoming,” Eura warned.
“Jack, you’ll need to ride them as they fire,” Adequin said. “Goal is a ninety-degree roll, so counter back as needed to get that underside forward.”
“Shit—yeah, I know. I’ll do my best, boss. Ready on your mark.”
Straps cut into Adequin’s chest again as the ship jolted hard. A blazing red warning burst onto her overview screen as hull integrity predictions plummeted.
“Now or never, Rake!” Griffith yelled as Adequin called out, “Mark!”
Jackin fired, and Adequin punched the air-lock override. Her weight slammed back against the seat as the ship shifted. A cold pressure built against her eardrums, and she sucked in a shallow breath as the atmosphere seemed to lose saturation—diluting until thin and feeble like the air at the top of a mountain peak.
Though the Synthesis’s direction of gravity maintained the floor as “down,” Adequin could sense the subtle shift as they began to reel from the recoil of the expelled weapons, turning their underside forward to face the Tempus.
“You got it, Jack,” Adequin encouraged. “I can feel it working.”
Jackin swore between calling out bursts of fire and his modified bearing adjustments.
“Sensors show a fifty-degree roll and counting,” Eura confirmed.
“Holy shit, North—you’re doing it,” Griffith said.
“Void,” Jackin grumbled. “Mind not soundin’ so surprised?”
Proximity warnings overtook the small cockpit again, carpeting their temporary optimism in a din of blaring klaxons and abrasive amber light.
“That was it,” Eura announced, tone hard. “The effusion cylinders went up—along with the rest of the ship. Large-scale debris and radiative impacts imminent. Incoming bearing, uh … oh-one-zero, carom two-six-three.”
“Cease fire,” Adequin ordered, and Jackin complied. “Match that bearing—weapons free.”
“New bearing set, firing,” Jackin called as he spun the ordinance-turned-thrusters in the direction of the blast to coincide with the ricochet.
“Impact—” Eura began to call out, but her words dropped from her throat as the ship heaved.
Adequin’s head snapped back against the padded headrest, sending a shock of pain down her back as the full force of the shrapnel slammed into the shield bubble, and the fractured pieces of the Tempus propelled them inward. Away from the Divide.
Alerts erupted across the dash: shield-impact alarms, hull-integrity warnings, evasive-maneuver advisories.
“Shields?” Adequin called out over the blaring alarms.
“Holding—forty—two.” Jackin grunted each word out from behind clenched teeth.
“Dammit. The heat sinks can’t keep up,” Griffith said, the words wavering in his chest with the violent vibrations. He tossed a defense-systems screen up in front of Adequin.
Adequin ground her teeth as she stared at the four climbing thermal gauges. “You mean the ship’s not meant to have every single one of its guns firing at once?”
The previously thin, cool air had taken on a muggy quality, warming and thickening as if the strained heat sinks were leaching warmth up through the decks.
“We gotta decrease the rate of fire,” Griffith warned.
“We have to hold out until we can warp,” she insisted, forcing firmness into her tone even as the temperature gauges hiked higher and higher.
The ship lurched, and the velocity readout on the dash continued its steady escalation, one of few instruments that seemed to work. Just a few more seconds.