Chapter 18.

Thaum had everything under control. There were no more holes in the hull. The thruster that almost left the ship with Alice's room is now semi-working. Which was quite good, considering most of the nanite materials were used plugging holes and making a new support structure for the thruster. He had also ditched his pursuers, so Thaum stretched and left the captain's seat.

He found Alice standing dumbly outside her room. She said, "door won't open."

Thaum replied, "your room was ejected into space along with half of my thruster."

"oh," she replied.

Thaum squared up to her, "how is Ellora?"

She shrunk against the wall, "the medbay says she has a concussion, and it is fixing it. Something about her race doesn't take high g-forces well."

Thaum absently noted to find someone else to train to be a pilot, "So. How did you fuck up."

She looked around and stuttered, "umm, I- I."

"rule 1." Thaum interrupted.

Alice repeated, "I can tell you anything, and you will be reasonable. and... I see. Ok." She breathed, "I think I know how they found us. I have been looking up information on anything we are passing by. We have probably been spotted a few times, and each time they have another data point to link our passing with my searches. It's called a time-correlation attack, I think."

Thaum rubbed the bridge of his nose, "or the guy that gave me that console probably tipped off the empire that it was in our possession. I'm going to kill that guy."

Alice breathed a shuddering sigh of relief. Thaum rolled his eyes and went to the med bay. Alice called out, "hey, where am I going to sleep now? My room is gone."

Thaum shrugged, "I am not your mother. You figure it out."

Thaum checked on Ellora. She was sleeping. The readouts said recovery would take a few hours, so he left her and went to bed.

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Rustling in thaums bed woke him up. He didn't open his eyes until an unexpected perfume caught his attention. He rolled over to find a wide-eyed Alice bundled up in a sleeping bag staring back at him.

Thaum joked, "couldn't resist my charms, I see."

Alice quickly stated, "I tried sleeping on the floor, but the replicator refuses to make a matres. I even turned off the gravity in the cockpit to sleep in the air, but my stomach kept me awake."

Thaum chuckled, "your body for a bed, how cheap."

Alice pointedly said, "aren't you sleeping with Ellora."

Thaum casually replied, "I can multitask."

...

After a moment of silence, Thaum shrugged, "look, as much as I enjoy the game, I'm not in the mood for playing. I can sense you want to have sex and also that you are nervous. That is normal. So I'll make this easy for you. All you have to do is nod, and I'll turn off the lights and take care of everything."

Alice receded into her sleeping bag. Drawing the strings which closed the opening around her face. She buried her head in the pillow and gave a faint nod looking anywhere but at him. Thaum had to admit the reaction was quite cute.

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A few hours later, Thaum was woken up again. He swore, "I swear I'm fucking getting a bigger ship if I keep getting woken up." Ellora gave him a sheepish smile as she climbed into bed.

Alice looked scandalised that Ellora would enter the bed when there was already a woman in it. Thaum ignored them both. Only telling them to take their whisper argument to the airlock and open it if they kept him awake any longer.

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An alarm ripped Thaum from sleep. He bolted upright, "so who decided to die today."

The computer answered, [two Empire frigates have detected us. Interception in 6 minutes.]

Thaum rushed to get fully dressed. Alice rolled out of bed and complained, "they found us so quickly."

Ellora wiggled into a compression suit, "We can run in any direction to lose them as much as we want. But they can easily connect the dots to get our heading."

The group went to the cockpit and got ready. They doubted those frigates had a galactic console. There would only be short-range communications, thus probably little to no backup.

Thaum surprised them. He wanted to fight instead of flee. He scanned the area and flew to a nearby asteroid to hide behind. He would use the terrain as cover to fight one at a time.

However, the two ships flew out in such a wide arch that he couldn't get the jump on one. They fired first at the first revealed edge of his ship.

He rolled. The distance had given him extra time. Beams skim his ship's shields, and they flicker. Thaums ship might have bigg guns, but he is still an entire ship class below. He can't afford to take hits.

He fires. Plasma blooms as he is forced into another roll. Both girls grunt along with the struggling inertial dampeners.

The ship shudders as the enemy scores a lucky hit. Thaum spins and retreats around the asteroid. He notes the new massive hole in the enemy ship.

The moment he sees the second enemy, there is already a barrage hurtling toward him. "Fuck." Thaum still wasn't used to enemies having such precise communications.

Several things happened in a second. He turned HARD. It felt like it snapped his neck even with his head haloed in place. Most of the barage hit the half repaired thruster and deleted it from existance.

The rest smashed into the cockpit. It was the most armored section of the ship, but not enough. The shields immediately gave way. The battery supplying it vaporized in the struggle. Holes punched through the cockpit.

Every warning Thaum knew flashed on the now broken screen. The sounds were drowned out by space ripping air out of the ship.

The cockpit flight seats flickered with a personal shield around them. Thaum knew they wouldn't stop anything, but it would keep them breathing.

Energy thumed around Thaums brain, slowing everything down. You don't hit people with spells like that with people you intend to capture.

Thaum spun and rolled the ship. They missed. The maneuver being evasive and unpredictable by merit of the ship being fucked.

Thaum viciously thought, "I'm done." His ship went invisible; an explosion played out in its place. He took a moment to settle the spell to his ship before leaving.

He phased through the hull and flew over the enemy ship. He grabbed on and proceeded to control the enemy ship manually.

First, he puppeted the pilot. The captain asked and then ordered the pilot to stop. Their ship was on a crash course with their ally ship.

Officers tackled the pilot and tried to rip him out of the flight seat. Thaum glued the man there. Three men couldn't budge the pilot and they saw the pilot's face. His eyes were wide, and his mouth wasn't moving, but he was screaming.

The captain had enough. He pulled his pistol and blasted the pilots head off. But it wasn't the pilot controlling his body; it was Thaum.

The crew became part of a horror movie plot. A dead pilot was flying the ship, insistent that he take the rest of the crew with him to the afterlife.

The ships were close. The captain yelled something to the computer, and Thaum felt the controls go dead. The thrusters started pushing off course, but Thaum would have none of that. He reached out to the other ship and yanked their controls.

Thaums head flashed in pain. The ships were close relative in space, but that was still a great distance for magic not designed for it.

Thaum flew off the hull and watched the disaster play out. Hundreds of flairs spewed from the ships before impact. Many got caught up in the crash or debris. They were life pods.

A minute later, everything was still. Thaum scanned his ship, then spent the next hour ripping open lifepod doors. There would be no survivors of this battle.

Once done, he phased into his ship. Alice and Elora were in space suits working on the ship. They turned to him with dropped jaws. He ignored it and got a damage report.

A thruster was completely gone along with a few sub-systems. The hull was littered with holes, and there weren't enough supplies to fix them. The only room considered safe from blowout was his own, which explains the space suits.

A remnant of a lazer removed Elloras arm. Luckily it was the mechanical one. She was more annoyed than injured because it was a custom piece. Thaum waved her concerns away, saying he would get her a new arm.

Thaum could practically feel the barely suppressed questions from both of them. Work was more important. They needed supplies, and two broken ships would more than supply them. The nanite repair system came from a similar ship, so they were sure to have some of the right supplies.

Ellora was most suitable for scavenging but was missing an arm. Alice didn't have the skillset. So Thaum was forced to divine the supply's locations and retrieve what was left of them.

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