Brash and the Schrodinger Snare Ch. 02

"Holy shit, Cindi," I said, slowly.

"D-Dad got it for me for my birthday s-so I could tool around Venus..." Cindi blushed.

I blinked, then rewound my brainmemory.

Now that I thought about it, Cindi did live in a mansion at the edge of San Francisco. Like, it had three stories. And two wings. And there had been several gardeners who had run for cover when I had landed. Also, the interior was all gilt and gold. But I had been kind of distracted by the punching and Cindi being distressed and the shotgun.

"Cindi, are you rich?" I asked.

Cindi flushed. "My parents are- hey!" she yelped.

P90 had walked up to the side of the Rusty Dragon and was tapping at the FOB. After a few seconds, the side door swung open and the ionic engines started to whirr quietly. P90 nodded slightly.

"You can't just jack my ship!" Cindi shouted.

"Listen, kid," P90 said. "Literally every second we spend hashing this out is another second for Mind Flayers to teleport in, suck your brain out, turn you into a thrall, and start using you to try and stab Brash's eyeballs out." She looked at Cindi. "Everything I did is to keep you and your brother safe."

Cindi looked at me. I nodded. P90 might be slightly blunt, but...

She...was totally right.

Cindi looked back. "W-Wait, do you even know how to sail a spelljammer!?"

"I'm sure we'll figure it out," P90 said, her voice faintly muffled since she had stepped into the airlock. Kira and G282 followed.

"You need to be an arcanist!" Cindi said, running forward. "The better, the faster you get."

"I'm a dragon, does that count?" I asked, following after her.

"No!" Cindi shouted. "You're an innate spellcaster. I don't know if the spelljammer helm will even recognize you, Brash."

I pouted. "Jerk helm."

"So, we need you, then?" P90 asked.

"W-Well, I-" Cindi spluttered.

P90 grabbed her, yanked her in, and I had enough time to yelp in shock before I had to leap into the airlock. Because while the spelljammer helm required a wizard in it, the ionic engines sure didn't. The Rusty Dragon swung around with a quiet whir and the nose faced the garage door. I scrambled through the narrow corridors, coming to the cockpit. It looked exactly like the Millenium Falcon cockpit. P90 had taken up the controls and had jammed Cindi into the other seat, which had the spelljammer helm hanging over it on a series of pipes and tubes.

"Open that door," P90 said.

"No!" Cindi shouted.

About seven different lasers shot through the door at once. They cut and sliced in a wild pattern, sending up sparks from inside the garage. Several washing machines burst into flame, while a wall covered with tools crackled and rattled, the tools spilling across the garage floor as they were knocked free. The smoldering chunks of the door fell inwards and I saw what the Mind Flayers sent when they didn't want to send their bony asses. They looked like Orcs, but their eyes were vacant, their mouths hanging open, their green skin having turned a hideous grayish color. But the laser rifles they held were definitely serious looking.

Cindi grabbed onto the helmet and locked it around her head. "Punch it!"

"Wait!" I said, then ran backwards -- but P90 didn't wait. She punched it. The ionic engines roared to life. Normally, they wouldn't have pushed a piece of Tupperware. Not under Earth gravity. But with the spelljammer helm making a bubble of floatiness, they could send the Rusty Dragon leaping forward like a bullet. Fortunately, I got to the airlock and was able to swing outwards. I slashed with a psi-sword, sending one of the thralls sprawling on the ground, his laser rifle cut clean in half.

"Chase us into space, you dumbs!" I shouted.

The Rusty Dragon banked upwards. Wind screamed past my head.

And behind me, I saw the thralls vanishing -- teleporting back to the Mind Flayer ship.

"Okay!" I said, swinging the door shut. I scrambled back to the bridge. "Good news, Cindi! Your bro will be fine!"

Cindi was clutching the arm-rests of her chair, squeezing it so tight her knuckles were turning white. Kira was strapped into the passenger seat along the side of the cockpit, while G282 was curled up in the corner, her hands on the back of her neck. I had to brace myself against the wall to not go skidding away. Then I realized I could fix that! I shifted to my cat-sized dragon form and leaped onto Cindi's lap.

Cindi started to pet me, her fingers working along my scales hard enough to almost hurt. Which made sense, this was tension petting.

Through the cockpit window, I could see the atmosphere grow thinner and thinner and thinner. Then...we were through. We floated in a vast blackness. Behind us was the Earth. Before us was the shimmering ring of UNDF headquarters. The space-station looked like two huge donuts made of delicious, delicious silver. That silveriness was a lie, it was actually aluminum and composites. Ugh. But the station itself was surrounded by the First Fleet. The Rusty Dragon wasn't the only spelljammer craft that humanity had built in the past few years.

The first battle in space humanity had ever been fought had been with their old surface navy fleets, retrofitted to spelljamming. They used the same trick now, but rather than building surface navy ships, they built ships made for jamming. They looked sleek and deadly and were bristling with everything from railguns to nuclear missile launch tubes.

"Unidentified craft on heading ought five five one," a gruff sounding voice spoke through the radio. "State name and intentions."

Cindi picked up the intercom. "This is Cindi Fong!" she said. "On the ship, uh, the Rusty Dragon."

"...state name and intentions immediately." The voice responded.

"What is going on!?" Cindi shouted at P90.

"If I didn't miss my guess, the Mind Flayers are fucking with us," P90 said, frowning.

A low droning bleeeeet sound started to come from...me. I blinked and started to poke through my internal HUD to try and find out why I was emitting a loud bleet noise! I mean, it was fun, don't get me wrong. But it might have been important.

"What does that mean?" Cindi asked.

"Oh! That's my missile lock alarm!" I said, helpfully.

"Repeat, state name and intention or we will open fire," the guy from First Fleet said.

"Oh." I blinked.

"Veer off!" Cindi said to P90. P90 just narrowed her eyes and switched a flip to make the ionic engines go even more fasterly. The Rusty Dragon shot forward. "Veer off, you crazy bubblegum bitch!" Cindi screamed.

"We need to get out of the gravity well as fast as we can," P90 growled. "Then we can go to subspace. The longer we stay, the more chances the Mind Flayers can target our ship for teleport attacks."

Cindi groaned, grabbing onto the armrests even harder.

"Annnnd..." I paused. "Launch."

In the distance, I could see several bright white dots appearing. Those dots were, uh, tactical thermonuclear weapons, and they were flying straight at us. That might sound like overkill, but to be totally fair, I'd be pretty hard to kill. Also, in the past year, the UNDF had fought five engagements with everything from space kraken to neutronium elementals. They had gotten a bit nuke happy, according to Dad. P90 grinned, then turned the nose so she was flying straight at the nukes. I squeaked, grabbing onto Cindi tight, my eyes wide as saucers. Cindi gulped, and Kira started to pray under her breath.

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit," Cindi whispered, squeezing me even tighter.

The missiles were still tiny dots.

Then they were gone -- only a momentary blur of motion as they shot past.

P90 smirked. "Nukes have a minimum range before they armed," she said. "We got in that range and-"

My missile lock alarm went off again and I squeaked. "They've reacquired!"

Behind us, the missiles had turned off their engines, flipped around, then burned hard to chase us. Now they were zooming towards our butt, faster than we could possibly go. A glowing light flicked on, glowing near the button that would turn on the subspace drive. I reached for it, but P90 slapped my hand away. Her eyes narrowed and she growled through her teeth. "Almost...almost...almost..."

"Ten kilometers!" I said, then squawked as Cindi squeezed me even tighter, trembling.

P90's brow furrowed.

"Five!" I shouted around Cindi's squeezing.

P90 reached slowly out. Space was a jerk and kept me from hearing the roar of the rockets behind me. But I could imagine them, roaring as they drew closer and closer and closer.

"Three!" I squeaked.

P90 slammed the subspace button.

A fraction of a second later, the nukes went off with a flare of brilliant white light. When the light had faded, it looked like we had totally been blown up. I would totally admit to P90 it had been clever.

After my heart race slowed down.

TO BE CONTINUED