Yet another missile launch, striking the poorly-protected front. An alarm sounded around the bridge, "Energy Low" flashed on the main screen.
"Jumping!"
The view distorted in impossible ways. Time flickered - one moment people were moving with impossible speed, the next as if they were in deep water. The main screen illuminated with the Witchspace tunnel.
Then it vanished, almost as soon as it had appeared. Once again the ship was floating in normal space.
"Quick," the secondary gunner remarked laconically.
Marchero was searching her console in confusion. "We're not at Esdi."
"At least we're still alive," said Silsi. "Jumping without proper control like that, we're lucky to be." Still in one piece didn't answer two important questions - where were they, and when. The jump was short, so the risk of time and space displacement (away from the intended target) should not have been too great. Probably.
Marchero turned her chair to say, "We've only jumped about five hundred AUs. Not in any significant direction, as far as I can tell. Where do you plan on going next? There's a really nice bit of empty space I know near here. Maybe even medieval deep space, if we've moved too far in time. Well, Sir Knight, when are we?"
It was a few minutes before Aeyris, exploring the comms equipment, found a timing beacon. "I'm sorry to disappoint Milady, we're only out by forty-three minutes." He gave Marchero a sarcastic smile.
"Right, re-program the hyperdrive. We'll have the leisure to do it properly this time."
The co-ordinates for Esdi were re-entered. Then they sat back whilst the computer tried to calculate the ideal jump parameters, to a far greater tolerance than before.
While they were waiting the bridge door opened. The pirates' medic came in, carrying a few bits of a very basic first aid kit. With him came another pirate, holding a twisted metal rod. Part of it looked like it had been melted at some point. "Someone had wedged the door with this," he said. "We've been in a fight, have we? Looks like it took a direct hit."
The medic quickly cleaned and protected Aeryis's wound. "How's Tikapora?" Aeyris asked him.
"Fine apart from being one arm down, as far as I can see." The medic shrugged. "Doesn't seem to have caused him any distress at all."
"That's good." He gingerly touched the bandaged leg, then leant on it. "Seems like it'll hold for a while. How's everyone else?"
"A few bruises from being tumbled around," he was told. "No-one is seriously injured. I'm more concerned about longer-term issues. Garath found primary life support monitor, and he says that quite a bit of the reserve oxygen has been used up in having to re-pressurise twice. And there are more of us in here than it's designed to cope with."
"How long will it last?"
"No idea. There's been no noticeable change in CO2 levels yet. Everything else checks out fine, for the moment."
Aeyris walked over to the unoccupied engineering station, limping slightly, and sat down. "What's the inventory report?"
The man holding the metal bar stepped forward. "There's very little on board. Only enough food for three days, and water for a week. The water recycler's damaged. We're looking at it right now." Aeyris dismissed the two; they left the bridge to return to searching the ship.
It was not long before they were due to hyperspace when Silsi found something. "There's a weak signal on the edge of the scanner," she informed, a note of surprise in her voice.
Almost before anyone could reply to this unexpected news Marchero added "And I think that the hyperdrive had been pre-programmed to bring the ship here."
"Visual ID?" Aeyris asked.
"Too far away."
"Ship status?"
"No serious damage," Kirrik told him. "The shields are nearly recharged, and the hyperdrive should be ready in a minute or so."
The bridge descended into silence. The other three were watching Kirrik and Aeyris, waiting for a decision.
It was Kirrik who spoke first. "I want to investigate. We'll go in carefully, and jump if there's any trouble." Aeyris shrugged in response, so Kirrik ordered Silsi to move in slowly.
The scanner image grew stronger as they moved closer. On the viewscreen a point of light became gradually brighter, slowly resolving into several separate spots. The mark on the scanner remained single. Other sensor readings started to register low EM emissions, seemingly white noise.
As they crept closer it became apparent that the object was large; the lights appeared to form a ring, although no details could yet be discerned.