We clung to the nearest pieces of solid metal, hearts in our mouths as the blast made the ship tremor.

“Reliance, cut to minimal power, cut local drive engines, immediately.” I shouted.

“Understood captain, minefield procedure?”

“Yups, but that’s weird, usually crap like that shows up on sensors.”

“There is a possibility they utilise ceramics, and mask themselves in the debris.” Jenel suggested.

“Crap, just what we need, undetectable mines. Please tell me they’re at least the static kind.” I grumbled, today was definitely not turning out to be a happy dear diary day.

“How the hell should I know? Do I look like an ordinance expert?”

“Captain, the likelihood is high that these devices are capable of limited homing. Ships record show them as in development.”

“Fan, bloody, tastic, detection mines, cartel leaders, every damn merchant looking to make a quick buck in the sector, and mother superior, debt collectors, may all be after us, anything else wanna kill us while we’re here? Maybe the wonky turrets, if we hold still long enough to conduct a rebuild, maybe The Chomper would like a turn too? Well, they can all kiss my ass. Reliance, we’re going to need to do something crazy here. Nara, find as much fuel as you can find for the emergency rockets. I doubt these things are wired to think that old school.”

“You mean to tell me, you are thinking of taking us through this entire damn minefield using ROCKET?”

“Hey it got us to the moon right?”

Jenel facepalmed. “Yeah, and all it took was about a dozen attempts, a few craters, and an entire competent team of frikkin literal rocket scientists. They don’t say it’s not rocket science for easy stuff for fun, Eileen. “

“Then we should thank them for doing the legwork then, shouldn’t we?” I replied, smirking, I knew that eventually this was going to lead to an I told you so moment, it always did, but for now it was our best shot, given what we’d blundered into. “Jenel we need something big and magnety.”

“A little more specific maybe honey?” She sighed. “Magnety? Not really specific there, are we talking, stick something to the fridge? Or this thing belongs in a Looney Tunes cartoon?”

“Full Looney Tunes. If these mines are ceramic, then they ain't magnetic, know what is magnetic? Probably the vast majority of the rest of the crap floating round out there, you’re getting your wish sweetie, we’ll get rid of one of the gunships.” My heart bled for what I was about to do to the poor thing, but I like myself not dead, which kinda took priority. I liked collecting this junk, sure, but when you’re dead somebody else gets all your crap. (In my case probably Tyr, or worse the sisters, theoretically I left it to Jenel and Nara in a will, No way I was letting my darlin’s go without, just because my ridiculous actions finally caught up with me, but if they end up spaced too? Well, the sisters and Tyr would be like a pack of jackals. Who had been living on a 3 shakes a day, and rice crackers diet.)

Nara scarpered off to gather together every scrap of fuel for the boosters she could find, we weren’t exactly expecting a lot, though. Rockets these days? They weren’t exactly in use a lot outside a few of those “minimalist” colonies, you know? The ones that the crew cold sleep to, or even worse, send out a generation ship. (Those things never end well, something about trying to settle with the genetic diversity of the Hapsburg’s doesn’t really go well in the long term.) Where a good pitchfork is considered cutting edge tech, where electricity after the journey, is treated as the height of decadence.

Not that those places usually last long, in a grudge match between farmer Giles, and whatever the local beasties are. Well, my money is definitely on the acid spitting, multi limbed monster. Cause even if they just sneeze on ‘em, most of the time those guys don’t usually have a xenobiologist. Alien sniffles, seldom end well. Pro-tip, if you can’t shoot back, get the hell out of dodge, or get shots, then maybe settling the savage planet is not for you.

Well for now, the priority for me was finding a gunship, fit to fly, preferable by remote, that wouldn’t hurt too much when it got blown the hell up. I really didn’t fancy my chances there, still, I headed back to the hangar, treading carefully through the half lit corridors. I didn’t even mind so much exploring in the dark, but if even one person said “hey, who turned out the lights?” I was running like hell.

To distract myself I flicked through my playlists, as weird as it may sound, fear of the dark was an oddly comforting thing to listen to right now. Maybe it was the way the singer didn’t treat themselves too seriously, or the guitar being awesome, but I found myself singing along, despite how fragged up the situation was.

****************************************************************************

Jenel was now quite convinced her girlfriend had lost her mind. She carefully started stripping out the coils of from an old launch rail. They were electromagnetic, that should do them. As she got to work, the sound of terrible, terrible singing, echoed around the place. She suppressed another sigh, as she rummaged for a power source.

“Really hope this holds long enough,” she muttered to herself, as she thought a little more about this ridiculous plan. They were essentially going to use a gun ship that, all by itself, was worth their entire debt, multiple times over. (Initial debt that is, the interest? Well, the less she had to think about that, the better The Cartel did not play nice as far as money was concerned, and would squeeze this crew for every cred they were worth. Which realistically was probably more in black market parts trade than the debt.) As a mine sweeper.