“Is it worth the bother?” Irin asked. “They know we’ve been around, and the whole satellite thing is a trap anyway, they could be waiting for us. We might just as well go straight up.”
“Sounds good to me, I just want to get out of here in one piece with the evidence,” Sal joined in the conversation.
“Okay then, let’s go. Myra, take us towards the gas giant we passed on the way in, maximum speed.”
“Will do, Dave.” We sank back into our seats from the acceleration, until the inertial dampers kicked in.
As we climbed away, we could see lights over the site of the ruined city, suddenly there were flashes and Myra spoke, “Detecting missile launch, there are three surface to air missiles locked in on us.”
Sal groaned, “Great, can we outrun them?”
“Negative,” replied Myra. “And we are too close to the planet for trans-light. I am deploying countermeasures.”
We watched helplessly as the missiles closed in on us, a clock on the panel was counting down what might be the last seconds of our lives as Myra fired flares and sonic repeaters, designed to confuse the missiles guidance systems.
Once again, I was grateful to Urssa for refitting the Sprite with the Federations toys, now they were being put to good use against their makers. Two of the missiles exploded, but the third came on, our engines were howling at full thrust and Myra counted down, in a flat, dispassionate voice,
“Ten seconds to impact.” “Eight.” “Seven.”
“Commencing evasive manoeuvres.”
“Five.”
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