Page 87 of Red Scale Daddy
A flare from her launcher streaks past my shoulder and blinds the third drone. I use the opening to smash the second into the first, then kick both toward a charged foam patch. Electricity snaps over their plating. The smell rises immediately, bitter and cooked, and I am grateful for the filter.
Roma finishes the coupling.
I hear it before she says it: the actuator housing whirs, catches, and locks into partial alignment. A low mechanical tremor runs through the port vane assembly. The damaged section moves a few centimeters, then stops, but the motion is controlled.
“Partial response restored,” she calls.
“Good. We leaving?”
“Not yet. I can patch the routing.”
“No.”
“It will take ninety seconds.”
“No.”
“Dux—”
A drone drops from the ridge and lands on top of the Lamplight.
Its claws bite into the upper hull with a screech that makes Roma’s face go white with fury. Two more follow, skittering across the ship toward the damaged port plating.
Something inside me goes cold.
“They’re going for the wound,” I say.
Roma sees them, and the repair plan dies in her eyes before she can defend it.
“We retreat,” she says.
“Now you’re speaking my language.”
“Do not enjoy being right.”
“I enjoy survival.”
“Debatable.”
We run for the ramp.
The low gravity turns the dash into bounding chaos. Roma moves ahead of me, carrying the repair kit against her side, boots striking stone and pushing off in long, controlled arcs. I stay behind her, firing upward at the drones on the hull. One round sparks off plating. Another finds a joint and knocks a drone sideways, but it clings with three limbs and keeps crawling.
Roma reaches the ramp and slaps the control.
Nothing happens.
She swears.
I like her swearing too much.
“Manual release jammed,” she says.
“Move.”
“I can?—”
“Roma, move.”
