Steal the Demon: A Science-Fiction Novella by Robert Roth (free novels to read txt) 📕

me.” A virtual representation of the ship and hangar bay blossomed open in front of her. Several more spider tanks had emerged from the lift onto the main deck. She focused on those and zoomed in. Since their AI was gone, they were either operating under their own control software, or being remotely piloted by Al-Zamani Sec personnel. “Activate defensive shields and the Close-In Weapons System.”

“Defensive shields are inoperable while the ship is inside the hangar,” the ship responded.

“Override.”

“Override is not possible.”

“For fuck sake. What about the CIWS?”

“Point-defense weapons active. Please designate targets.”

Kimiko selected each of the three spider tanks and designated them Tango-one, Tango-two, and Tango-three. “Targets designated. Weapons free.”

“Weapons free,” the ship confirmed. The main engine’s low hum was immediately drowned out by staccato vibrations from the point defense cannons, a collection of small gun turrets meant for close combat. The Shaitan was hardly a warship, but it had clearly been built with self-defense in mind. Kimiko watched her display as the nearest spider tank exploded under a hail of slug-fire. The other two began to dance around the main deck, awkwardly avoiding the bursts of small, high-velocity projectiles rocketing toward them. One of the tanks managed to get a blast off from its turret, aiming for one of her ship-mounted guns, but it missed, striking the hull plating instead. She felt the impact of the turret blast as a dull thud. “Taking fire,” the ship confirmed. “No damage detected.”

It was a good thing the hull was armored, since there were no defense shields to absorb the blaster fire. “Paradox, where are we with the hangar door?”

“Twenty seconds. You should know that a squadron of heavy-interceptors has just launched from another hangar bay.”

“How many is that, exactly?”

“I count eight of them.”

Another phalanx of spider tanks joined the growing chaos on the hangar deck. Waiting for the door to open no longer felt like a viable option. “That’s some Welcoming Committee. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

Grimly determined, she flicked a finger through the control space, armed the coil guns, and then targeted the hangar door. The targeting icon immediately lit green, and she fired. A fifteen-centimeter tungsten spike accelerated with a banshee’s shriek and launched at nearly three-hundred thousand meters per second–one-tenth of one percent of the speed of light. Even at such a small fraction of light speed, it was still faster than the eye could see. But it left a faint, glowing trail of phased matter behind before punching through the hangar bay door like it was made of paper. Kimiko fought to hold the ship steady against the sudden decompression inside the hangar bay as she fired the second barrel, blowing the hole open wide enough for the ship to pass through.

She kicked on the main engines, and the Shaitan shot out of the hangar bay at a quarter thrust, superheated exhaust from the ship’s drive cones melting everything behind it into glowing slag. A cluster of angry red callout tags popped up on Kimiko’s display as the ship’s controller detected multiple targeting beams trying to paint the light-absorbing outer hull.

“Activate defense screens,” Kimiko called out. “Paradox, target those heavies and prosecute with extreme prejudice. Weapons free.”

“Weapons free,” confirmed Paradox. “Selecting targets.”

An incoming fire alert popped up in her virtual display. The nearby Al-Zamani heavy-interceptors started firing once she was clear of the Shipyard. She twisted her hands inside the control zones, forcing the ship into a seven-g turn to starboard that almost made her stomach leap out of her mouth. But the internal grav-generators quickly compensated, countering the acceleration force enough to cut its effect in half. Kimiko had dealt with far heavier g-forces while racing, regularly pushing herself to the edge of consciousness while still maintaining control of her spacecraft. She knew that, with the ship’s help, she’d be able to manage even more.

The Shaitan felt surprisingly nimble as she rolled it to port. They slipped between the firing lanes of two interceptors, providing Paradox the chance to strafe them both with CIWS fire. The dozens of control thrusters and vectored thrust capabilities of the primary engine cones supported even more aggressive maneuvers than her last one. In her display, she saw several drives light up behind her, as the Al-Zamani fighters repositioned themselves to keep her in their sights.

“Splash one,” Paradox called out, as one of the heavy interceptor icons in her HUD bloomed in a virtual explosion.

Kimiko ignored the continuing incoming fire alerts as she rolled the ship back to starboard. Pointing the nose toward a maneuvering Al-Zamani interceptor, she unleashed double-barreled particle fire from the ship’s dorsal-mounted turret. The blasts went wild as the interceptor dove out of her firing lane, but Kimiko didn’t care. She kicked the ship up to half-thrust and shot through the newly created opening in the net of fighters as grav-generators and her pilot’s seat both fought to keep her from falling out the back of the ship.

“Alert,” the ship’s controller announced as several new icons blipped into existence on her display. “Missile launches detected. Four missiles inbound.”

The missile racks were what made her pursuers heavy interceptors, but Kimiko was still surprised they’d decided to use them, especially with the risk of hitting something other than her. She was rapidly approaching Davida Station’s traffic lanes, and the space around her was about to get a lot more crowded. Maybe the Al-Zamani pilots thought they could disable her before she reached Davida’s control envelope. If she did nothing, with a handful of missiles on her tail rapidly closing the gap between them, they likely would.

Quickly scrolling through her defensive options, Kimiko selected and launched one of the drones she had aboard. The tiny autonomous craft started loudly broadcasting its position into the universe, successfully drawing two of the missiles off her tail. That left two still in transit, which Paradox easily handled with the CIWS guns.

Glancing through the crowded field of icons and callouts in her display, Kimiko spotted a heavy interceptor that was lining up aft