Gina and Kate sat silently in the dojo, each relaxing after the tough workout Kate had put them through. Gina finally gave up on sitting and laid down flat on the mat, her chest rising and falling quickly, her body gulping every last bit of available oxygen as though it would its last. “You, woman, are a taskmaster,” she choked out.
“Oh, come on,” Kate replied. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“No, you’re right. It even felt good for a while. But I am seriously exhausted.”
Kate lay down next to her. “Bah. This will toughen you up. You fly, right?”
“Atmosphere only,” Gina told her. “My dad started teaching me when I was fourteen.”
“So you’re used to pulling all those Gs. Work on your cardio fitness and it’ll get easier and easier.”
Gina rolled onto her side and faced Kate. “I hope so. Maybe I’ll even move on to space flight.”
“Can’t be that hard, can it? No gravity to worry about, no crashing,” Kate offered, rolling over to talk to her friend.
“Ha!” Gina giggled. “The lack of a horizon is tricky, sure. But gravity? There is always gravity…”
Alarms screamed throughout the ship as systems faltered or went offline. Gina struggled to get their movement under control, her frustration growing. “Sonofabitch!” she screamed. “I can’t keep us steady while taking these hits!”
At the rear of the bridge, Sarah blew her stack. “Well I can’t hit these bastards back if the ship isn’t steady!”
“That’s enough!” Jack roared. “Do your jobs!”
Kate turned back to Jack. “I have an idea,” she said, taking time to make sure she looked at both of the women, then back to Keys. “We’re a very short distance from the rings, which are made of mostly rock and debris. Stuff that the port side is still protected from. Why don’t we flip around the Omegans…”
Jack cut her off. “Make them give chase, scrape off the fighters for a few moments…”
“Fire into the rings and use the material as extra weaponry against them, and it should clog their targeting computers for a minute or so as well,” Sarah finished. “I like it and I can do it.”
Before Jack could say anything else, Gina was engaging the engines and maneuvering the War Angel in an arc around the Omegan cruiser. “Keeping the starboard facing them, Captain,” she reported.
“Yes!” Sarah exclaimed. “Just took out one of the fighters!” Her eyes stayed glued to her tactical readout. “That seems to have stunned them for a moment.”
“As does our movement,” Kate added. “Their last couple of shots weren’t direct hits.”
Jack cleared his throat. “They’ll adjust quickly enough.”
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