“Take her out, Mr. Grimm.”

“Aye-aye, Cap’n!” the ever-loving blue-eyed Rock said cheerfully, smoothly pulling the massive Starholder out of dock once more.

Everything that needed to be on board was on board. There was even some cargo from passing freighters being sent to Xandar, although a lot of it was Terran food, rapidly becoming famous thanks to Dealer’s efforts on the Colosseum, and there was a thousand tons of Electroluxed Volturium, perfect superconductor material at room temperature worth a bloody fortune even in space.

Easily enough to justify an attempt at the ship, even without everything else.

Of course, we were heading to Shi’ar space for the coronation first, we just hadn’t told anyone that.

I had been promoted from Chief Medical Officer to Specialist-at-Large, since that was basically what I did anyways, having nothing to do in the med bay. They were stocked up on emergency Potions, I’d taught one of the Core-using medics how to use a Healing Dorje for REAL emergencies, and the Healing Trap would keep anyone alive until I could get to them.

I watched our course get set for a hyperspace jump point, the first jump going to test the engine out and make sure it was running fine, then we’d do the longer one to Shi’ar space.

Everyone was watching our spotter, skulking out there at twenty thousand miles, watching us line up for the shot to Xandar... and then slide past the angle smoothly on the new course and vector.

“Hyperwave transmission,” Cyclops reported from his observation point, unable to hide the amusement in his voice. “I’m guessing that’s panic?” he noted for all of us.

“Excellent news, Cyclops. Return to the bridge after we’ve jumped. Mr. Grimm, punch it,” Captain Richard Ryder ordered formally.

“Heh, heh! Clobberin’ causality, Captain!” Ben called back, and hit it.

The inertial compensators couldn’t compensate for all of it as the engines of the Starholder pumped and began to translate space, making it shorter. As space shortened, naturally relative velocity increased. In a blur and streak of full acceleration, we passed lightspeed and moved into hyperspace, stepping outside and above normal reality.

“Smooth as silk, Captain,” McCoy reported, fingers dancing as the holoview of everything shifted to the gravity wells and distortions of hyperspace and normal space interacting. Tachyon waves and gravimetric readings were functioning within parameters, and only the mildest of adjustments were needed to the Starholder’s pre-calculated course.

“Drop sensor relays!” Rich ordered.

“Relays away!” Cindy confirmed, and the area behind us stayed static as we pulled rapidly away from it, the relays staggered along our course to catch anyone frantically coming up behind us.

“Engineering, how’s the Core?” Richard called down.

“Oh, just wondering when you’re going to give us some work to do, Captain! Have we even made the jump yet?” Ebersol called back confidently.

“Good to hear! Keep her steady at cruising, Fixer! We’ll be pulling some of your juice out shortly!”

“Ready to pump hard, Captain!” Ebersol laughed, and everyone smirked, even Richard. Eyes flickered back and forth between the weirdness of hyperspace ahead and around us, and our backtrail.

The beep was quiet, but everyone heard it. “Contact on first signal relay, Captain,” Cindy said calmly, keeping her voice as even and distinct as possible, even as the first red dots came streaming in urgently after us.

“Fixer, you seeing this?” Richard called down.

“Aye, sir!” he replied immediately, humor evaporating as the number of red dots increased.

“We’re pulling some juice, Engineering. McCoy, make sure they can’t catch us until we want them to.”

“Calculating new velocity...” Hank murmured, as Ben watched and began to push the hyperdrive up. The red dots shooting after us seemed to slow down suddenly in relation. “We probably can’t outrun them, Captain, but there’s no way those ships can threaten us.” Another wave of beeps rang out as the main force of the pursuing fleet suddenly entered relay range. “There we go. Now, those we can probably stay ahead of all the way to Chandilar if we want to.”

“Let them read our wake, then,” Richard mused. “Maintain yellow alert. All hands, we are being actively pursued by hostile forces. We are assessing their strength and appropriate countermeasures as we go. They cannot catch us with a threatening force at this time, so we will set the time and place of our meeting.”

“Captain, we’ve got an issue...”

Everybody turned to look at Cindy, whose fingers were dancing over the keys of her station, shifting power to the forward sensors.

“Damn.” “Sweet Aunt Petunia.” “Oh my stars and garters.”

“Now this is going to be a shakedown cruise. All hands, red alert and battle stations. The plan just got thrown out the window. We are heading right into a hyperspace storm at flank speed. We don’t know where we are going, and it is likely we will soon be engaged in hyperspace combat,” Richard announced to all and sundry.

Standard energy attacks and missile rounds would not work in hyperspace without the protection of a drive field. Hyperspace assaults generally came down to boarding actions.

“Cyclops, I’m going to need you ready for hull duty. Jewel, you’re with him. Cannon and missile crews, pull out and armor up, be ready for boarding actions. New assignments are as follows...” Peggy Carter started calling out into coms, her fingers also blurs of motion as she reassigned the weapon crews and emergency repair teams on the fly.

There was a beep in my relay, Kismet and I both being assigned outside. We both immediately headed into the fall tube, jumping in and diving down towards the hangar level we could deploy from with the most speed.

The crew was running around now, moving to hardpoints of internal defenses that we hadn’t expected to use, but had ready nonetheless. The invaders were not going to be happy to find out that we loved solid explosive munitions more than rote energy beams, but we’d happily mix and match all types.

Kismet had been very happy to receive her own uniform and helm, and if her long golden hair followed her in a plume, nobody was going to say anything.

We zipped into the hangar deck less than ten seconds after receiving the orders, the shuttles that had survived or been repaired being locked down by the ship’s systems, as they weren’t useful in hyperspace combat.

Jewel and Cyclops were already here, armored up and ready to go.

SHIELD troopers in combat armor hurried in for the weapon stations, equipped with both material and force-field defenses, along with a lot of shooty-shooters they were all aching to use. Breaching the hangar decks was the fastest way to do a boarding action, so we expected the main thrust to be here, with some troop carriers trying to settle on the hull at various airlocks, and also force their way in with heavy beamers at various points.

Peggy was running that whole action, with squads waiting to deploy as the ships set down and managed to breach. However, they were going to have one devil of a time in some ways, because we had some internal defenders they just weren’t prepared for.

Grimm had already been assigned to the hangar, totally capable of suplexing a raiding vessel, meaning McCoy was now piloting and Ensign Cleary was on navigation.

The hull crew’s job was naturally to blow the shit out of anything on the hull. Cyclops could totally do that, and Kismet had the firepower to do so as well.

I had one Xandaran-tech Nova-charged blast cannon, and one gauss rifle shooting adamantium-tipped Compressed explosive rounds. One gun was for blowing up carriers and breacher points, and the other was for dealing with any fighter-style spacecraft they were silly enough to equip with a drive field.

“Ebersol, did you get that special project done?” I asked him over coms.

“Oh, Hell, yes. Just have to know where to load them!” he replied with grim eagerness.

“What’s the project?” Peggy instantly broke in.

“We’ve got ten missiles we installed short-range drive fields on. They’ll last about two seconds in hyperspace,” I reported. I’d made up the drive-fields from Xandaran tech, Ebersol had installed them. “Munition bays four, eight, and twelve, Fixer?”

“That’s an affirmative!”

“Jenkins! I’m pulling you off Engineering defense! Flap those wings and get those missiles racked!”

“I’m on it!” the Beetle called back immediately, zipping towards the nearest bay and the launchers nearby, whose crews had mostly been pulled.

“All hands, thirty seconds to hyperspace turbulence. Engage magnetic boots and have something to hold onto. There is going to be a lot of inertial shearing!” Gwen Stacey called out to everyone.

I clamped down with everyone else, Attract sticking me tight, while Kismet grabbed a rung nearby to anchor herself. We were all watching our suit displays if we had them (most of the SHIELD crew had less developed armor, although the Xandaran additions were much appreciated). Jewel and Cyke booted themselves to the floor and grabbed rungs as well.

“Fifteen seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight...” Gwen counted down for everyone, even with the timers helpfully there for everyone.

The first shudder, very easily sensed after the incredibly smooth flight so far, came at five, and it began to build, and an odd hum started coming from the hull.

“One! Entering storm!”

The whine of the drive field around the Starholder rose sharply, even as there was a distinct sensation of being tossed or shifted thataway, and yeah, non-secured stuff started rattling and sliding around.

“We’ve lost course bearing and navigation points,” McCoy said on the command channel. “Feeds from the sensor relays are down. Bringing engines to one-tenth. Mister Ebersol, all power to inertial compensators and the drive field.”

“We’ve power to spare and more, furball,” Ebersol replied, and if the shaking didn’t stop, at least it remained muted. “I’ll keep the safety margin at 300% and upgrade as it picks up.”

That was a lot of juice, but since we weren’t needing to power weapons, it was fine. It should keep us safe from any sudden waves, and if the turbulence built, he’d increase it to keep pace.

Storms weren’t uncommon, but truly dangerous ones were. This shouldn’t be an issue, as it was basically a navigational hazard, and we wouldn’t be able to drop out of hyperspace until we were clear of it.

The pirates behind us probably considered it a stroke of luck. After all, Terrans should just fall over and die in the face of nasty ruthless space pirates only seeking to kill and slaughter, right?