“Jack, shut up. Turn the ship around. You need to head inward as fast as you can.”
“Shit, shit, shit—”
His ion engines roared to life in a glow of blue, and the ship slowly turned inward. But they didn’t accelerate; they sat hovering, as if held still by some invisible grip.
Jackin’s voice returned. “The Divide’s gravity’s pulling us outward. We’re too close to it. Warp won’t engage. Rake—I don’t think I can get out of it.”
“Oh, come now,” she said with a dry, pained laugh, “you always said you were the better pilot. Time to prove it, Optio.”
Jackin didn’t respond at first, then his voice reappeared, light and airy. “Damn right I am.”
Adequin shifted in her seat and let out a breath. “Flip those landing thrusters and kill grav. You’ll be lighter on your feet.”
“Rake, I—”
The comms cut out completely. Adequin’s stomach roiled. Her fingers hovered above the holographic controls and she stared at the viewscreen. She pressed the link again.
“Jack, you there?”
Nothing. The fact that the comms had worked at all was a miracle.
The Argus continued to shrink in a colossal shower of static light behind the SGL. Jackin’s thrusters rotated and lit up, discharging outward. The ion engines continued to fire. They inched forward almost imperceptibly, slow but steady. Adequin gnawed on her lip, waiting.
After a few minutes, instead of breaking away, Jackin’s ship came to a slow stop.
His garbled voice reappeared. “It’s—use—free.”
The ship continued to struggle, and the light storm carried on behind it. The Argus was almost two-thirds gone.
Adequin slipped to the edge of her seat, leaning over the controls. “Jack, listen. In a minute, I need you to break right on my mark, then floor it. I’ll flash our search light at you once. Understand?”
The comms crackled with a short, unintelligible response.
“I need confirmation. Do you copy?”
By some miracle, his voice came back loud and clear. “Copy, boss. Break right on your mark.”
“Hold on,” she announced to no one in particular. Feet shuffled around her as she slid back and slipped the seat belt harness over her shoulders and across her chest. She swept the steering controls into the air above the console, then turned the ship to speed directly toward Jackin.
She took a deep breath. She hadn’t flown a ship in five years.
She became vaguely aware of protests around her—shocked gasps and murmured dissent. Mesa appeared beside her and said something in her ear, but she didn’t listen.
She could have shut them up by explaining that regardless of the fact that she’d never leave Jackin behind to die when there was something she could do to stop it, they also needed something very important from the SGL in order to make it out of this alive.
Instead, she ignored them and focused on quelling her nerves about the maneuver she intended to attempt.
“I need a read on that gravitational field,” she said to anyone who’d listen. In the corner of her eye she saw Puck slide into the copilot’s seat, swiping open menus.
“It’s at 541 klicks,” Puck said. “Current approach speed is 16,058.” He fumbled his harness over his shoulders and strapped in.
Adequin’s mind raced, trying to confirm the math as quickly as possible. “Okay, I need a hard mark at 22.6 klicks. Lead me up to it.”
“Yes, sir, but uh,” he stuttered. “What’re we doing?”