Kaylee’s Lament

Part Twenty Six

“How bad off are you?” Mal said into the pickup. From the monitor, the face of Duncan MacKlintock stared back, face contorted with worry and eyes filled with grim determination. He was wearing a spacesuit – that was a bad sign – but the helmet was off, so Mal knew the damage wasn’t extensive enough to depressurize the ship.

“We’re pretty bad off,” Duncan said, conversationally. “They came outa nowhere, like they knew we’d be here. They came in fast, didn’t give us enough warnin' to scoot. Devon’s doin’ a pretty good job keepin’ them at bay, but it ain’t like they're goin’ anywhere. Eventually, they’ll hit us with a mag cable, fry our ‘lectronics, and pop our atmo.”

“’Can’t let that happen,” Mal said with a shake of his head.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Duncan said.

The problem was that the Sky Hawk’s usual method of escape from predators involved seeing them before they saw you. The bigger the ship, the bigger the nav footprint, the easier to detect. And if they didn’t know where you were then you could get away in a hurry before they were in range.

If a ship knew right where you were, though, and it had enough legs, it could get on you before you had a chance to get away. Devon was a good enough pilot to evade capture for a while, but a pirate ship usually had multiple ways of bringing down its victim. You couldn’t dodge all of them. Not forever. Eventually, the weapon would zig when you zagged and it would find a target. Unless you could shoot back and discourage that kind of behavior, it was only a matter of time before they brought you down.

“Can you shoot back?” Mal asked, a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Do I look like a warship? Biggest thing in my armory are a couple anti-armor rockets and a heavy machine gun. We already threw the few anti-personnel mines we had at’em. Didn’t do diddley. Y’all get away from here while he’s got a bead on us.”

“That ain’t gonna happen, Duncan,” Mal said, frowning. “I ain’t gonna let you get