“Emerald!”

  “They weren’t there before! Not according to the sensors!”

  “Fuck. Okay, this is going to be unpleasant.”

  He throttled their speed up as high as it would go and they set off. Slowly. Too slowly.

  “Loon?”

  The frog’s pads appear to be draining mana. Limiting my speed.”

  “Ekaterina, do you have a shot?”

  “The angle is too close for the Loon’s armaments. I will see what I can do from my Class, though I’ll have the same problem.”

  “Do it anyway.”

  “Want me suited up?”

  “No.Not if they can jump onto the hull out of nowhere.” Heath didn’t even hesitate, operating on instinct and a healthy dose of [Leadership].

  He sank into [Ship Link] for a moment. The frogs weren’t doing damage, just draining the ship. Not quickly, the Loon’s mana engine was a beast and there was plenty of argo out here to process. But it would be a problem if they did nothing. Or if they brought a swarm of their friends with them.

  Heath saw one path forward and he took it. With gravity compensation turned up as high as it could go, Heath flew.

  Spirals and loops, sharp turns that sent the Loon careening out into empty space. Each more dangerous than the last. Heath gritted his teeth at the unsettling feeling, like his stomach would fly out of his throat.

  It worked.

  The first frog was sent flying after one diving spiral and sharp deceleration combination. They would all have harness-shaped bruises tomorrow, but Heath didn’t slow down.

  Their second unwelcome guest splatted against an asteroid when Heath dipped far too close and then cut them into a dive that pushed against what the ship could handle.

  Without the drain, more of the engine power was available and Heath used it, getting them up to their top speed in far too short a time span. [Piloting] was screaming warnings at him, while reveling in the thrill of the insane maneuvers. Before he could do anything about it, the third frog was gone.

  “Got it,” Ekaterina crowed. “They do something to shield themselves but no defense is perfect.”

  “Great. Jenny Mae, you conscious?” Heath called out. With no more attackers, he pulsed [Hull Integrity] and [Engine Efficiency] while turning them back towards the jump gate.

  A moan came over the bridge speakers.

  “We’ll see a Doctor. Just as soon as we get out of this hellscape.”

  They burned at top speed for an hour, ignoring the automated messages from the nearby planet requesting they reduce speed in controlled space.

  “Loon, on screen” Emerald said.

  Their view of the flight path to the gate was swapped with their long-range sensor readings of the station.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  It was glowing.

  “Shit, is it going critical?”

  “I don’t think so,” Emerald said.

  They watched as the glow became brighter and brighter, overwhelming what the sensors could translate into visual media. Then the accumulated energy blasted out in a sphere, the station itself going dark again.

  “Goodbye moon frogs,” Copperfield said.

  “Would have been nice if they had done that while we were inside their shields.” Ekaterina said, caustic as ever.

  “I don’t think they could.” Heath answered. “One of the packages we brought was a defense array rated for rank-three monsters. I bet the station master did a rapid install and went with it.”

  “An untried, untested, rapid deployment of a new weapon in response to a threat,” their Wizard said. “And you people claim to be part of civilization.”

  They all laughed. It wasn’t a good joke, but they needed a bit of release. Even Ekaterina cracked a smile and a chuckle at her own comments.

  “Time to jump, four hours and forty-five minutes.”

  “Thanks Loon. How are you holding up?”

  “Do not worry Heath, my systems are operating at full capacity. It is well within your Skills’ ability to handle the damage.”

  “Sounds good. Keep an eye on Jenny, when we get through the gate, we need the shortest path to a decent healer, any Class.”

  One of the best things about life as a spacer was the in-between. When he could decompress with his friends or listen to a book or do something fun, without having to be in adventure-mode all of the time. When they could plan for what the next adventure was going to be.

  One of the worst things about life as a spacer was the in-between. When he had to watch his friend put on a brave face, because it was going to be two days to any sort of medical attention, and their supplies onboard could only do so much.

  When they arrived in Mosaic, the relief across the crew was palpable. No one liked seeing their normally upbeat Administrator forcing her smiles. It wasn’t the first time one of them had been injured, but one of the benefits of devling guild-controlled dungeons was the healing available nearby. Prices were extortionate, but no one suffered for long.

  “I’m perfectly capable of getting to the clinic,” Jenny Mae argued. “Just prop me up.”

  Heath sighed at the blatant lie. The smart-bandage had formed a cast, and even done its best to realign the bone, but the nano injections couldn’t heal a break enough to bear weight in less than three days.

  “The clinic does home-calls. We’ll bring the healer to you,” Heath said. He left no room for arguing and he would make it an order if he had to. “Copperfield, you're with me. Ekaterina, you hunt down some resupply, Jenny Mae, send her the budget and the list. Emerald, can you find us something to eat? I think we could all use a pick-me-up.”

  With that they broke apart, each to their own task.

  Heath set off with his mechanic/engineer/tank/all-around crewmember in tow. The station clinic was easy to find. Though clinic was a misnomer. It was more of a hospital combined with a logistics command center. Walking inside he was hit with an artificial floral scent, with an underlying tang of antiseptic. A good sign, to Heath’s mind. It meant they cared about hygiene.

  With Mosaic system’s unusual geography, the population was spread out on dozens of small moons and asteroids. The central healthcare organization was well-used to hopping around to treat patients from their headquarters on the massive station. It was a simple form and a half-hour wait before a Classed Doctor was able to accompany them back to the ship.

  Heath spent the time reading through the hospital’s material on their operations and the history of the system. Surprisingly, they employed teams of combat Classers, who accompanied the healers on rounds to the farthest flung homesteads. The whole setup would be more trouble than it was worth if not for what those settlements produced.

  The asteroids grew ore. Not that they were made of the ore, or mined for it. In some way he didn’t understand, the mana-conductive material grew in perpetually-harvestable seams. Seams which conventional mining couldn’t access without destroying the asteroid, and the source of the wealth.

  Another sample he promised himself he would add to his collection. Just as soon as Jenny Mae was back to full speed. After assurances that a broken leg would be healable without taking out a loan to afford the Doctor’s Skills, they returned to the ship.

  “Oh, must have mixed up the numbers,” Heath said. His cheeks burned with embarrassment as he turned and set off for berth twenty-one instead of twelve. He hadn’t made a mistake like that since he first became a spacer.

  The trio arrived at dock twenty–one. It was taken, but not by the Loon. The passenger shuttle was disembarking a group of locals, done up in their best outfits for a chance to spend a day having fun on the station.

  “What?”

  This time Heath jogged back to berth twelve. Still empty. He pulled out his comm, it should be patched into the ship while he was on station.

  “Jenny Mae, did you disembark the Loon?”

  He got no reply, and looked down to see the comm wasn’t picking up the Loon’s signal at all. He switched to call Ekaterina.

  “Hey, where are you?”

  “The bulk supply depot. As requested.”

  “So you didn’t hop back on the Loon for a little sightseeing?”

  “No.”

  Heath looked up to Copperfield, who had reached out to Emerald. The Swashbuckler shook his head with a frown.

  “Look, boys. We have a lot of work to do. Pranks like this aren’t funny.” The Doctor was flushed with the running around, and looked ready to call the station guards on the two of them.

  “It isn’t a prank!” Heath said. “Give me a minute.”

  Leaning against the nearby wall, he sank into [Ship Link]. His most amorphous skill was usually a sea of sensation, as his body disappeared from his senses and he merged into the Loon. That was gone. His link to the Loon was still there, and he could feel the ship still existed, but little else.

  More to the point, it was nowhere near the station. “Fuck,” he hissed.

  Copperfield dealt with the Doctor while Heath put his full focus into the [Ship Link]. But no matter what he tried, he couldn’t feel anything on the Loon’s side of the link. Like a glass wall had been set up in the metaphysical space where his class lived, he could see the Loon on the other side but he couldn’t hear anything.

  He surfaced to find the worried faces of the crew staring back at him. “They’re gone.”