Nyx yelps as a ball of fire explodes, sending her flying backward.

  She narrows her eyes as she picks herself up. “Dum goblun fire shooter!”

  She finds the goblin with the stick and necklace of skulls and bones. It’s laughing at her.

  One of the sharp sticks lands just where she fell. Hadn’t she killed all the stick shooters?

  Nyx glances at the smoldering and broken machine gun as she takes the pistol from her belt and hides behind a tree.

  There’s a guttural roar as one of the big goblin things swings a large sharp piece of metal at her. She ducks and rolls out of the way, then shoots it several times, a few shots going wild as she loses control of it as she’s laughing, “Mya! Mya! Mya!”

  The hobgoblin roars as it falls over, dead or dying. Nyx isn’t sure which.

  She shoots it once in the head to make sure, “Mya!”

  An arrow nicks her arm, “Sparks!”

  She spins and fires at the goblin archer.

  It hides behind a tree, and she misses.

  She changes her clip as she hides behind another tree, which soon explodes in a ball of fire.

  She loses vision in her left eye as flaming chips of wood pepper her face. There’s no pain, but her body is being injured as normal.

  Nyx growls and flattens her ears, her tail fluffing as she charges the goblin mage.

  Two goblins rush out of a thicket and jump at her.

  Nyx hisses and aims at the closest goblin.

  She feels a pressure on her back, and her shots go wild.

  Just as the lunging goblins reach her, she looks back to see an arrow sticking out of her shoulder.

  There’s pressure in her chest and neck as the goblins stab her.

  Total deaths: 2

  The forest resets, shredded trees return to normal, and the goblins disappear.

  She hears clapping. It’s Cai as he reclines with a bucket of popcorn and a bag of brightly colored things that smell sour and sweet, “That’s really good for a first try.”

  Nyx purrs, “Mya! Cai!! Again!”

  Cai chuckles, “Won’t let one death let you down, huh? Honestly, that laughing as you mowed down dozens of goblins was kinda concerning.” He puts the snack down, “Let’s end the simulation for now. I have some practice pistols and rifles that haven’t seen use in nearly a century. I was thinking Barnard Station would be great for real-world training since narrow corridors will be closer to any combat we’ll actually see. And you need to train your muscle memory. Simulations don’t do that.”

  Nyx grins and her tail wags, “Mya! Spark yeah! Gonna be shootin’ yer az, Cai!”

  “Donati, end simulation.”

  Nyx wakes in her seat and unbuckles, “Cai, let’s be gettin’ goin’!”

  Cai unbuckles himself, “You’re in a good mood, huh.”

  Nyx scowls, “I’m not in a sparkin’ good mood!”

  “Your tail is wagging and you’re smiling. You’re also a lot less hostile than when you snuck into the cargo hold a few hours ago.”

  She crosses her arms. Is she?

  Nyx realizes she is smiling. No fear. She feels safe.

  Until she sees Blackie staring at her as they pass through the plant area. It’s like she’s invaded his space, and he won’t forgive her for it.

  Nyx growls at him and smirks as she follows Cai.

  Cai stops near the airlock and opens a locked safe recessed into the wall, “The guns are here. We’ll be using the guns in practice mode.” He hands her a pistol.

  It’s lighter than the one in the simulation. The coloring is like their suits. Black, with gold and teal trim. There are no seams or screws like the pistol she’d used. It has a place to insert a clip, a place to eject a shell, and a scope.

  He hands her a clip that has strange bullets that are missing the bullet part, “These are blanks. They’ll feel like firing a real round with recoil but won’t hurt anyone unless you get too close.”

  Nyx puts the clip of blanks into the gun, “Mya! Got ya!”

  She licks her lips in anticipation as she looks from the gun to Cai.

  Cai scratches his chin, “Why do I feel you’re going to enjoy this more than me?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Nyx is fantasizing about chasing Cai through the station corridors and doesn’t hear him.

  Cai pats her head, “Listen, the suits will track where you fire. If one of us gets a hit, it’ll tell you where and how injured you are if it was a live round. Just hold your tape or hole patcher to a simulated hole for how long it tells you to patch a leak.” He puts his helmet on, “Donati, overlay my form on Nyx’s helm to have mouse features.” Before Nyx can say anything, Cai raises his wrist computer, “Donati, show my adorable friend a mouse.”

  “I’m not sparkin’ adorable!”

  A hologram showing a strange critter with large ears like a dish, a long nose with long hairs growing off to either side, and a long, hairless tail appears. She’s not sure whether it’s cute or weird, especially the tail.

  “Yer sparkin’ weird,” she says as she puts on her helmet.

  As soon as she puts her helmet on, the glass lights up like a screen. She sees her oxygen level. Five hours' worth. There’s power, but it’s so much longer than the oxygen, at fifty hours, that she’s not concerned at all. Her old suit had helmet torches that lasted twelve hours, so this much will be more than enough, and that’s with the display on, let alone her helmet torches.

  Next, she notices a gun symbol with ammo remaining in the clip. There’s also an icon that shows her where she’s aiming the gun, “Cai, this is bein’ sparkin’ amazin’!”

  Cai gives her one of his pretty smiles, and she hears him over the comms, which are placed perfectly near her ears unlike her old suit, “Isn’t it?”

  She looks at Cai and starts spinning, startled, as she loses control of herself in the low gravity. He has mouse ears, a nose and nose hairs, and a tail. She can tell it’s the helmet putting the image over him, but it still weirds her out. And strangely, it makes her hungry.

  “Cai!” She starts giggling as she realizes what he’s done, “Mya…Ya bein’ lookin’ dum ridiculous!”

  Even as she’s laughing, she knows she’s changed in just a few hours. How many years since she laughed like this?

  Wrench, he always tried to make her laugh. He always tried to make her day a little less dark. If he didn’t die when the Az Gaper’s engine exploded, he might still be out there.

  Nyx realizes at this moment she shouldn’t be here playing “Cai.” Her ears flatten. “Can ya be findin’ the Az Gaper. If my friend is bein’ livin’ I wanna be savin’ him like ya were savin’ me.”

  Cai’s face softens as he processes her request, “It’ll be hard. We’ll know the direction, but not how far. Unless they have a hyper beacon, we can’t find them in deep space. If they went back to La La Land Station, I guess that would be the best option. What was the condition of the Az Gaper’s FTL?”

  Nyx shakes her head, “It was always bein’ dum funky. But Wrench could be fixin’ it.”

  Cai looks at the airlock, “Then we better go. If their fusion drives went out, they’ll be on battery power and they may have lost atmosphere. It’s been a while, though, so I hope not. Let’s get moving. Donati, predict the Az Gaper’s FTL path after it jumped to FTL to escape Lalande C.”

  A moment later, a chart of the local stars appears as a hologram with a line leading into deep space.

  “Hmm… It’s not quite on the way to La La Land Station, but I say we check for a hyper beacon before heading there. If they’re on battery and leaking atmosphere, we don’t have the luxury to check the station first. If they are at the station, then they’re safe.”

  Nyx merely looks at the hologram, her tail swishing from stress, “Cai. There.” She points to a spot on the Az Gaper’s path. “Gaper’s fuel line probably was leakin’ in the engine. Air line was always leakin’ but since we’re breathin’ it already, we weren’t fixin’ in much.”

  Cai nods, “The hydrogen mixed with the oxygen and with the engines so hot…”

  Nyx’s ears flatten, “They were makin’ a flashin’.”

  “Yeah, hydrogen fusion engines don’t usually explode like that. They usually melt or just fail when the magnets go out.”

  Nyx points to the spot she did before, “Donati! Get yer az away from the station and be makin’ an FTL to the spot I’m pointin’ and make it bein’ fast!”

  Nothing happens, and she scowls at Cai.

  Cai backs off, “Okay, okay. Yeah I haven’t cleared you for command of the ship. Donati, you can obey Nyx’s command this time.”

  There’s a grind of metal from the airlock as the Dontati releases the docking clamps. The sound of thrusters, and soon they’re under thrust.

  They settle on the floor.

  Cai hops in place, “Ah… simulated gravity.”

  Nyx squats and hugs her knees, “Wrench, ya better be livin’, ya piece o’ shunk…”

  Cai pats her head, “It’ll only take about forty minutes at full speed to get there. If they’re alive, we’ll rescue your friend.” He then puts the guns back into the locker. “We’ll practice later.”

  “Spark yeah, we will.”

  Cai looks at the ladder, “Let’s head to the sensor room. I’ll teach you how to look for hyper signals.”

  They climb three decks to the sensor room.

  By the time they reach it, the Donati is already in FTL, and Nyx realizes the ship really can fly itself. On the Az Gaper, they had to dock by eye as the main computer hadn’t worked in years. The only computer still working was actually the nav computer, because if that went down, they couldn’t jump to FTL.

  Cai teaches her how to read the hyper sensors, but it’s all complex and uses words she doesn’t know. She also has a hard time reading the various messages and notifications that appear, but she gathers that most of it is useless noise.

  Cai glances at a peak in the waveform, “See anything yet?”

  Nyx looks at the waveform in question, “It’s freakin’ the spark out. Is it…”

  “Do you remember how I taught you to adjust the sensor to look in different directions?”

  Nyx growls. So many buttons and options, “This?”

  She pushes a button, and a different waveform turns off.

  “You just turned off the low-gain hyper sensor.”

  Nyx reads the text above the waveform in question, “Sparkin’ Earth…”

  She tries a different button, and soon they can hear vibrations as a sensor moves on the hull.

  The waveform strengthens into a repeating pattern, and a message pops up: “Mayday hyper signal detected.”

  “Mya!” Nyx is elated. She doesn’t care about finding the right button, but this means she found Wrench.

  “Okay, Donati, drop out of FTL and plot a new FTL course to intercept the ship broadcasting the mayday.”

  They’re soon on course for the Az Gaper.

  “We’ll be there in two minutes. I’m going to charge the mining laser just in case, but hopefully we won’t need it.”

  Nyx feels her heart rate increase. Just a few hours ago, she never wanted to go back to her ship of nightmares. But now she’s going back for a friend.

  She’s too nervous to talk to Cai and watches as the hyper signal strengthens and the FTL time counts down.

  “Exiting FTL, beginning scans. We should see them before they see us.”

  Nyx watches as Cai turns on the other sensors.

  They drop out, and Nyx holds her breath.

  “There it is. Little less than a half a million kilometers.” He looks at her, “We’ll do a short-range jump. The Donati should be able to…” He pauses, “Sparks… Looks like someone beat us here.”

  Nyx recognizes the ship. It’s another pirate crew, ‘The Hellish Abandoned,’ and it’s already docked to the Az Gaper.