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CHAPTER 4

Slinkie wasn’t kidding, I could hear it in her voice. “Slink? Can’t see what I’m supposed to be flying away from.”

“Attack shields engaged!” She seemed focused.

Randolph hit the auto-helper. “Captain, would you like Ultrasight assistance?” The auto-helper had a pleasant, soothing female voice. It drove me crazy.

“Ya think?”

“That’s a yes!” Randolph didn’t mind the auto-helper. Sometimes I got the impression they were dating. I mean, he’d even named it. “Audrey, we have invisible attackers.”

“Going to Ultrasight now, Chief.” The auto-helper called Randolph Chief because he was our head mechanic. He was our only mechanic, but there were times not to argue semantics.

A film went over the windshield and suddenly space was crawling with scaries. Because of how it worked with and against the hyper-drives, Ultrasight—which allowed you to see literally everything, including sound and anything cloaked—used up a lot of power, which was why we normally didn’t have it on when we were flying. Most spaceships didn’t even have it installed. Only huge battle cruisers and their ilk could manage hyper-drives and Ultrasight at the same time.

There were a dozen ships out there. Most of them were larger, but none of them actually looked like military ships. However, they still resembled an armada. They weren’t shooting at us, which was good. They were maneuvering to net us, which wasn’t.

“We’re in trouble.” I hit the thrusters and started Evasive Maneuver #206. I had a lot of evasive maneuvers. Normally I saved #206 for when I needed to impress someone. Right now, I used it because I didn’t want to be captured.

“Radio communications are jammed,” Slinkie said. “I can’t raise Herion Mission Control, and I can’t communicate with any of the ships out there.”

“Military?” Randolph asked as I spun the Sixty-Nine like she was a prima ballerina while also weaving through the air erratically.

“Nope. Well, not official military.”

“Pirate armada.” I knew the Governor wasn’t looking at any of this. He sounded very sure.

“Right. At least, pretty sure you’re right.” I spun us past three different attach cables. If they hooked onto us, the magnetism would hold us in place—only a few pilots had ever gotten free from an attach cable and had a ship left to talk about. I was one of them.

However, it wasn’t good for the ship or the nerves to let an attach cable hook you, so I was focused on avoiding them. The capture nets held between several of the ships made this a little more difficult, but not impossible.

The laser cannons, now, they were starting to head things into the realm of impossibility.

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Framed