HAWK

CHAPTER ELEVEN: SPIDER (6/6)

Kas wasted no time in turning and running back down the Calista's spine and towards the rear doors. She swung into them like an acrobat, arriving next to the red lever which she thrust back up to start the doors closing. She waited long enough to be certain nothing was about to chase in after her, then propelled herself towards the cockpit. She didn't even glance at Hik's corpse which was spinning idly by the far wall.

Kas somersaulted into her pilot seat and buckled up. The viewport looked clear, but Kas didn't like the quiet. She grabbed the thruster and urged it forwards. The Calista shuddered, and for a second, Kas was convinced it wasn't going to move. But then the rumble of the engine filled her ears and the ship began to pull away. The mothership's huge mouth widened and peeled back as the Calista sought to escape, but as Kas expected, it wasn't to be so easy.

Multiple red lights struck the viewport from several directions, all concentrated on the exact same spot. Kas saw the centre of the window start to glow orange and calculated she had around twenty seconds before they broke through.

'C'mon you piece of junk!' she growled. She inched the thruster forwards, careful to not overload it and stall. The Calista was gaining speed but at a painfully slow rate, and by now over half the viewport was tinged with orange light. Kas could already feel the heat coming through.

'To hell with this.' She grabbed the control column and slammed it to the left. The Calista rolled in the air until it was upside down, sending the red beams slicing diagonally across the ship's belly. Kas continued the roll, anticipating the spiders would give chase - and they did. Two appeared in front of her and landed right on the viewport, their slender limbs spreading like claws on its surface to keep purchase. They then raised two legs each and touched them together as if they were holding hands. The linked arms turned red hot at the tip and fired a joint red beam on the centre of the viewport.

'Get off my ship!' Kas shouted, twisting the column so that the Calista spun wildly, desperately trying to shake them off, but to no avail - the spiders were holding tight. Kas tried to see through the spreading fire to the alien ship's open mouth, but the blackness of space was hard to distinguish. She was having to rely solely on her proximity HUD to make sure she didn't fly into a wall. As if she didn't have enough going on, a third spider flew in to join its two siblings and added another pair of limbs to the attack. If they breached her ship, the beams would burn her alive.

Kas let out a roar and slammed the thruster forwards, full whack. The Calista bucked and stuttered and surged forwards at a brisk pace. Kas checked the proximity sensors and knew she was finally free of the mothership. The spiders, however, were still very much attached to the viewport.

'Calista, tell me you can reach those plasma grenades!'

'Plasma grenades detected.'

'Detonate all of them!'

'Authorisation required.'

Kas slammed her hand on the blue gel pad and screamed: 'AUTHORISED!'

The explosion lit up the cosmic void like the birth of a new star. Kas didn't see it directly, but the Holo-HUD turned pure white. A millisecond later, the bright blue wave of the giant vessel's destruction overtook the Calista like a tsunami. The onslaught of the alien ship's wreckage impacted on the Calista's deflectors as if all of Hell's fire was raining up at her, washing her with debris and mechanical death. Kas squinted at the viewport and could just about make out the three small black blurs that were the spiders still clinging to the surface. She only blinked once, and they were gone.