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At first it was only a blue-brown curve, growing larger on the display. Then the sensor feed sharpened, and she saw the storm wrapped around the upper atmosphere. Dark clouds churned across half the planet in a vast, ugly spiral, shot through with white flashes.

Her eyes widened. “You what? You want to what… hide us in that? Are you actually insane?”

Rann chuckled, but there was no real humor in it. Lines of tension pulled tight around his strange eyes. “It might have been said a time or two before.”

“But the storm will tear us apart!”

He shook his head, sliding her a sideways glance. “Not quite. It’ll give it a good go, but this thing has enough plate on her to make it to the other side. We can hide beneath it, then⁠—”

“He’s going to kill us,” Layla snorted from somewhere behind them. “He’s actually going to kill us.”

B turned, ready to agree, but Stevie was watching the screen with narrowed eyes. She knew that look.

“Do it.”

B gasped and opened her mouth to argue, but Stevie lifted her hand. “Look, it’s the least shitty option of a shitload of shitty options. We have to try it.”

“You are both totally insane,” Blythe grumbled, swiveling back to the copilot’s controls.

The engine management display was a mess. Heat climbing too fast. Fuel mix uneven. The vent systems had only just stopped threatening to blow them all into tiny little pieces, and now Rann wanted to shove the old girl into a planetary storm.

Still, if they were actually doing this, she was damned if she’d let him burn out the engines before they got there. Rerouting auxiliary power, she shut down the galley circuit, then killed lighting in the crew quarters. Not much. But every scrap helped.

“Does this ship have any weapons?” Rann asked.

“No, it’s a trader.”

“Is there anything aboard that can be turned into a weapon?”

She blinked at him. “Like?”

He slid her a sideways glance. “Thrust engines. Burn ships that get too close. The vents. Anything we can vent at them. Cargo we can throw. Even the damn cutlery in the galley. Anything.”

Blythe looked at the approaching contacts, then back at him. “No, nothing that would have any effect anyway.”

“Draanth it all to hell,” he hissed. “Okay, hold on.”

Then he gunned the engines harder.

She grabbed the edge of the console as the ship bucked hard.

The forward screen filled with one of the black ships, far too close now. Its hull was ugly and armored, all sharp angles and weapon ports. A thick cable shot from its underside.

“Rann—”

“Yeah. I see it.”

The first grappler slammed into the trader’s port side, and metal shrieked. The whole ship yawed violently, stars spinning across the screen. Layla cried out somewhere behind them.

Rann swore in a language Blythe didn’t know, hands flying over the maneuvering controls. Another grappler hit, and the ship jerked hard enough to throw her sideways into Rann’s shoulder. Catching her automatically with one arm, he shoved her back toward her seat.

“Sorry,” he said, distracted.

“Don’t be. Fly the bloody ship.”

He nodded, and the engines roared as he fired the maneuvering thrusters. For a second, the trader twisted away from the nearest cable, the hooked clamp scraping along the hull rather than biting in.

Her heart jumped.