The Constrictor swung around, causing the next shot to miss. The raider did not follow, but returned to its original course as the Vipers struck again. Now they were closing from a different angle, more slowly, but hopefully away from being struck.
There was a brief warning "whoop" and the "Incoming Missile" message flashed on screen. With a light tap on his chair's armrest controls Aeyris activated the ECM and grunted in satisfaction as an explosion lit the forward screen. He wasn't the only one to notice. The nearest Viper aborted its attack run and retreated to take station near the Constrictor.
"What's he doing?" Marchero asked indignantly.
"Ignore it," barked Kirrik.
The Schriy raider was not ignoring it, though, and turned to abandon its pursuit of the transport in order to face the two craft now hurtling towards it.
"Slow!" Aeyris told Silsi. "Don't run ahead of the Viper. Sawaka, lock a missile on that ship."
Now they took a curving path to delay the time when they themselves would once again be targeted.
"Problem!" Sawaka announced suddenly.
"What?"
"The shields aren't recharging! Look!" The indicator was, indeed, still sitting on the three quarters mark.
"We're lucky they work at all," Kirrik pointed out.
Still they closed, and they were well within range before Silsi fired. But when she did, she was certain that the military lasers would strike their target. They did, producing a spectacular flare of light. The Viper opened fire shortly afterwards, but whereas the Constrictor had hit rear section it struck against the cone. The flare dimmed and spread, but nothing touched the hull.
All at once the Viper veered out of the way, its drives glowing brightly as it changed course as quickly as it could. For a second no-one gave it much thought, then suddenly Kirrik yelled, "Get back! Abort the run!"
For a moment Silsi instinctively turned to stare at him, nonplussed.
"Turn away!" Kirrik screamed again. The pilot recovered and pulled hard on the joystick, attempting to dump forward velocity at the same time.
The ship seemed to explode; there was a bone-wrenching crash and a glaringly bright flash before the lights went out, leaving the odd chaotic flicker from a confused instrument. For a brief moment there was no sound from anyone, then voices broke out, screaming in terror, swearing in anger, crying in pain.
Another jolt. The noise increased, in amongst it was Aeyris' futile attempt at trying to restore order. From somewhere drifted the acrid stench of smoke.
A third time something slammed into the Constrictor. The screaming voices on board were silenced. The ship tumbled into space, spinning fast and out of control.
The room was long, with windows down either side and in the ceiling. The only break from the black space beyond them were the steady lights of of a couple of ships; the stars could not be seen from the illuminated room. Eight makeshift beds lined the walls, their occupants battered and still unconscious. A pair of nurses were was moving down the rows, examining each patient before leaving the room.
Arrachachak was the first to awake, and even then it was a while before he began to notice his surroundings. The giant tried to sit up, but grunted in pain and laid back.
"Anyone here?" he called quietly from his prone position. Nobody answered.
The time passed slowly as he lay there, staring at the ceiling, until he heard a rustling and a groan from elsewhere in the room.
"Who's that?"
The other person groaned again as they began to come round.
"Arrachachak?" Sawaka's voice asked.
"Right. What's going on? I can't move much to see."
Sawaka was lift herself up on her elbows and peer around the room and give a report.
"I don't know where this place is," she began, "but it looks like a hospital ward. There are several other beds."
"Who's in them?" Arrachachak asked urgently.
"I can't see them all properly," Sawaka replied in a tired voice. "Marchero's next to me. There's Garath, and I think it's Mu next to him. Kirrik's here, that's probably Silsi over there. I can't see who it is in the corner."
"Aeyris?"
"I don't think so." She dropped back onto the bed and closed her eyes. "What's going on?" she asked plaintively.
"Like I know."
One by one the six other people gradually woke up, revealing the man in the corner to be Mychov. All were hurt, some more than others, but the fact that they had come round at vaguely the same time suggested they had all been kept asleep artificially.
Recollections about what had happened were understandably vague, and no-one could remember beyond the final bang when the ship had died. Talk of those events distressed a couple of them, and soon they all gave up on attempting conversation.
They were eventually attended by a doctor, recognisable as the man who had treated some of them back on the listening post. He proved almost as uninformative as previously, only this time there was the odd flicker of a grimace on his face as he tried to evade their questions.