I activated Asshole to check the ship's status. The Modesto was severely damaged and active scanning by the Rraey ship indicated it was lining up for another series of missiles.

"It's time to go," I yelled to Fiona Eaton, our pilot.

"I don't have clearance from Control," she said.

"In about ten seconds we're going to get hit by another volley of missiles," I said. "There's your fucking clearance." Fiona growled.

Alan, who was also plugged into the Modesto mainframe, yelled from the back. "Missiles away," he said. "Twenty-six seconds to impact."

"Is that enough time to get out?" I asked Fiona.

"We'll see," she said, and opened a channel to the other shuttles. "This is Fiona Eaton, piloting Transport Six. Be advised I will perform emergency bay door procedure in three seconds. Good luck." She turned to me. "Strap in now," she said, and punched a red button.

The bay doors were outlined with a sharp shock of light; the crack of the doors blasting away was lost in the roar of escaping air as the doors tumbled out. Everything not strapped down launched out the hole; beyond the debris, the star field lurched sickeningly as the Modesto spun. Fiona fed thrust to the engines and waited just long enough for the debris to clear the bay door before cutting the electromagnetic tethers and launching the shuttle out the door. Fiona compensated for the Modesto's spin as she exited, but just barely; we scraped the roof going out.

I accessed the launch bay's video feed. Other shuttles were blasting out of the bay doors by twos and threes. Five made it out before the second volley of missiles crashed into the ship, abruptly changing the trajectory of the Modesto's spin and smashing several shuttles already hovering into the shuttle bay floor. At least one exploded; debris struck the camera and knocked it out.

"Cut your BrainPal feed to the Modesto," Fiona said. "They can use it to track us. Tell your squads. Verbally." I did.

Alan came forward. "We've got a couple of minor wounds back there," he said, motioning to our soldiers, "but nothing too serious. What's the plan?"

"I've got us headed toward Coral and I've cut the engines," Fiona said. "They're probably looking for thrust signatures and BrainPal transmissions to lock missiles on, so as long as we look dead, they might leave us alone long enough for us to get into the atmosphere."

"Might?" Alan said.

"If you've got a better plan, I'm all ears," Fiona said.

"I have no idea what's going on," Alan said, "so I'm happy to go with your plan."

"What the hell happened back there anyway?" Fiona said. "They hit us as we came out of skip drive. There's no way they could have known where we would be."

"Maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Alan said.

"I don't think so," I said, and pointed out the window. "Look."

I pointed to a Rraey battle cruiser to port that was sparkling as missiles thrust away from the cruiser. At extreme starboard, a CDF cruiser popped into existence. A few seconds later the missiles connected, hitting the CDF cruiser broadside.

"No fucking way," Fiona said.

"They know exactly where our ships are coming out," Alan said. "It's an ambush."

"How the fuck are they doing that?" Fiona demanded. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Alan?" I said. "You're the physicist."

Alan stared at the damaged CDF cruiser, now listing and struck again by another volley. "No ideas, John. This is all new to me."

"This sucks," Fiona said.

"Keep it together," I said. "We're in trouble and losing it is not going to help."

"If you've got a better plan, I'm all ears," Fiona said again.

"Is it okay to access my BrainPal if I'm not trying to reach the Modesto?" I asked.

"Sure," Fiona said. "As long as no transmissions leave the shuttle, we're fine."

I accessed Asshole and pulled up a geographic map of Coral. "Well," I said, "I think we can pretty much say the attack on the coral-mining facility is canceled for today. Not enough of us made it off the Modesto for a realistic assault, and I don't think all of us are going to make it to the planet surface in one piece. Not every pilot's going to be as quick on her feet as you are, Fiona."

Fiona nodded, and I could tell she relaxed a little. Praise is always a good thing, especially in a crisis.

"Okay, here's the new plan," I said, and transmitted the map to Fiona and Alan. "Rraey forces are concentrated on the coral reefs and in the Colonial cities, here on this coast. So we go here"—I pointed to the big fat middle of Coral's largest continent—"hide in this mountain range and wait for the second wave."

"If they come," Alan said. "A skip drone is bound to get back to Phoenix. They'll know that the Rraey know they're coming. If they know that, they might not come at all."

"Oh, they'll come," I said. "They might not come when we want them to, is all. We have to be ready to wait for them. The good news here is Coral is human friendly. We can eat off the land for as long as we need to."

"I'm not in the mood to colonize," Alan said.

"It's not permanent," I said. "And it's better than the alternative."

"Good point," Alan said.

I turned to Fiona. "What do you need to do to get us to where we're going in one piece?"

"A prayer," she said. "We're in good shape now because we look like floating junk, but anything that hits the atmosphere that's larger than a human body is going to be tracked by Rraey forces. As soon as we start maneuvering, they're going to notice us."

"How long can we stay up here?" I asked.

"Not that long," Fiona said. "No food, no water, and even with our new, improved bodies, there's a couple dozen of us in here and we're going to run out of fresh air pretty fast."

"How long after we hit the atmosphere are you going to have to start driving?" I asked.

"Soon," she said. "If we start tumbling, I'll never get control of it again. We'll just fall down until we die."

"Do what you can," I said. She nodded. "All right, Alan," I said. "Time to alert the troops about the change in plan."

"Here we go," Fiona said, and hit the thrusters. The force of the acceleration pinned me back into the copilot's seat. No longer falling to the surface of Coral, we were aiming ourselves directly at it.

"Chop coming," Fiona said as we plunged into the atmosphere. The shuttle rattled like a maraca.

The instrumentation board let out a ping. "Active scanning," I said. "We're being tracked."

"Got it," Fiona said, banking. "We have some high clouds coming up in a few seconds," she said. "They might help to confuse them."

"Do they usually?" I asked.

"No," she said, and flew into them anyway.

We came out several klicks east and were pinged again. "Still tracking," I said. "Aircraft 350 klicks out and closing."

"Going to get as close to the ground as I can before they get on top of us," she said. "We can't outrace them or outshoot them. The best we can hope is to get near the ground and hope some of their missiles hit the treetops and not us."

"That's not very encouraging," I said.

"I'm not in the encouragement business today," Fiona said. "Hold on." We dove sickeningly.

The Rraey aircraft were on us presently. "Missiles," I said. Fiona lurched left and tumbled us toward the ground. One missile overflew and trailed away; the other slammed into a hilltop as we crested.

"Nice," I said, and then nearly bit off my tongue as a third missile detonated directly behind us, knocking the shuttle out of control. A fourth missile concussed and shrapnel tore into the side of the shuttle; in the roaring of the air I could hear some of my men screaming.

"Going down," Fiona said, and struggled to right the shuttle. She was headed toward a small lake at an incredibly high speed. "We're going to hit the water and crash," she said. "Sorry."