Heat scatter. Atmosphere leak. They were being buffeted around; bodies being littered into the vacuum. Hunters in hot pursuit.
Trying to fire up impromptu transit gates in an overly active theatre was a recipe for shrapnel spread.
Hague punched the anchor-stutter button, hoping they had no phase weapons that could match and dispatch. It was a desperate ploy that kind of half worked.
This coyote run from Darc Alpha was never going to be an easy journey, but the recent switch from capture to kill had dialled up the danger levels ridiculously.
Darc was designated as A SubText Script Quarantine Zone, but the way the blockade was designed there were going to be infinitely more unspoolings than there needed to be. Hague wasn’t happy with that, so he and his companions were ready to do anything to get the people out.
It wasn’t far until they hit SafeSpace, just past the Daygar Margin, near Kept 6. They had taken heavy fire which had affected their forward thrust, but they were limping along nonetheless.
He had not expected them to construct a makeshift perimeter near the Margin. Even knowing what he knew, he had not expected them to fire on a ship with civilians onboard.
When one of the passengers, seemingly affected by SubText had begun to unspool, he had not expected them all to be gathered into a pocket of Unscript. He had not known he had a local Reality Engineer on board who might fashion an exit with their hack-rig. He had not thought he was going to survive. He wondered how surprised those hunting him had been.