Broken Boundaries

07 - Fight or Lose

This time when Alain woke up he knew what to expect even though he'd fallen asleep early after eating. Asitha and Tiness slept next to him in his own bed, which meant they had taken him to it after he fell asleep. There was a vague memory of getting into bed so it could have been he was barely awake enough to get to his pod while they supported him. Either way he was pleased the miracle cure worked because his headache was as good as gone and most of the muscle aches as well. The peaceful look on the girls' faces was pleasing as well, but the wish to get really close to them tightened his chest, especially when he looked at Tiness. The image of her as a cute Silth woman clashed with the physical reality, and unlike the clear preference when it came to humans, he couldn't deny he was still attracted to her. He couldn't see her as anything but a fluffy female with cute personality and feel the same attraction for her as he did with Asitha. He groaned inward at the curse of having fallen for two creatures he'd never imagined he'd fall for.

An urgent buzzing tore him from his train of thought and the girls woke up startled. 'What's that!?' asked Asitha as she sat up at once.

Alain leaned over Tiness to pick his tablet from a recess in the wall, the sensation of her body against his only lasting for a second before his mind went into emergency mode. He punched up the console from the Walkurea and silenced the buzzer while reading the log entry that triggered it. 'Oh crap!'

Asitha moved closer to him. 'What is it!?'

'The Walkurea detected incoming projectiles.' Alain said and pulled up the area chart. 'Multiple incoming at high speed, probably comet debris.'

Tiness sat up next to him. 'Straight for us!?'

'We're in the target radius of 400 kilometres.'

'How much time?' asked Asitha.

'Six standard days.'

She hissed. 'We have to evacuate.'

'But where to?' asked Tiness. 'If we escape with our pods we can't go far on our fuel reserve, and heading to the nearest Silth outpost takes too much time.'

'There's still some fuel left on the Walkurea, we could escape with that, but I don't want to abandon this place and have to return to Earth if the debris does hit the ships and destroy them.' Alain said while he rechecked the detection system. 'I don't want to leave you and our home.'

Asitha's heart skipped a beat at the sight of his serious face. She didn't want to return to Silth and the unhappy existence that would await her there. 'What other option do we have?'

'Can't we deflect or evade the debris?' asked Tiness. 'Can't we use the weapons or the shields of the warships?'

Alain shook his head. 'Only part of the shield works on the Walkurea, it won't cover the Amaroth or us. And even if I could get the canons to shoot makeshift projectiles it's too little to make an impact on the debris. It would likely just make things worse by turning larger pieces into clouds of smaller pieces.'

He sensed her grip on his arm and the urge to protect her and Asitha grew stronger. "What can we do!?" he thought while he looked at the cone of the target area displayed on his tablet.

'Could we give this whole thing a push with the fuel we have?' asked Asitha.

Alain looked at her. 'We could push it with the pod thrusters but they're too weak.

'And the Walkurea? You can control it, can't you control the engines?'

Alain pondered. 'I could fire them but it would cause a rotation and probably not get us out of the way. We need to control the Amaroth as well.'