Grace's instructions were matter-of-fact, as if this was nothing more than a training exercise. As if every second that passed wasn't a moment stolen from death.

'Now stay close. We're not out of this yet. Hold your positions relative to mine and stay as tight as you can. Ellie, can you feed your navigation data to the Jubilee?'

Ellie looked helplessly at the controls. She could intuit flying something well enough, but that? 'I don't know how to do that. I'm sorry.'

'That's alright, Ellie. You're doing wonderfully! Okay, listen carefully. This is what I need you to do. I need you to locate the exit on your scanner, and then head straight for it. I'll fall in behind you and continue on your vector. Understand?

'Yes!'

'Good. When I give the word, you need to fall back behind the others. Stay as close on my line as you can. Just make sure you're not in front of me. Have you got all of that?

'Yes, but we can't go in a straight line anymore. The ships moved.'

Tila answered before Grace could reply. She understood the plan.

'That's okay, El. That's why you have to get out of the way.'

'I will.'

'She doesn't like being last,' Tila said to her mother. Grace noted the strange tone of concern in Tila's voice and hid it behind a smile. That was something to discuss later.

Ellie recalled the stored waypoint and oriented her ship. It was only a few degrees up and right of their position. When her Valkyrie was pointing in the right direction she said so.

'Is that working?'

'Perfect, Ellie, you did that just right, now it's time to get out of the way.'

'Uh,' said Malachi, 'I have some bad news.'

'Mal, no, not now! I don't want to hear it,' vented Tila.

'You do. We have more cabal incoming. All directions.'

Tila looked down at the Jubilee's scanner and thumped the controls.

'Oh, could they just not! For one minute!'

The Jubilee pulled ahead of the Valkyries, forming the point of a spear. Turret weapons spun to orient forward and prepare for a frontal assault. Tila held on and watched the scanner. From up ahead, a half-dozen red chevrons were creeping toward the centre of the display. Another group popped onto the display behind them on an intercept course.

'They're coming. They're everywhere,' she told her mother.

'I know.' Grace checked weapon systems. The side guns had cooled and were ready for action.

'There's a lot of them.'

'I know, Tila.'

'What are you going to do?'

'We're going to leave. Ellie says this is the way?'

'Yes.'

'Do you trust her?' Grace pressed another sequence of buttons. The upper turret whirred to face forward, it's arc of fire bracketed to only a few degrees off centre. The spinning barrels now the sharp end of a cone.

'Always.'

'Then this the way.'

'They're coming closer,' Malachi warned.

Grace smiled. 'I know.'

Cabal fighters appeared in front of them, and Grace opened fire.

She held nothing back. Gone was the acrobatic flying and stealthy manoeuvres. Now Grace drove forward without relent, without wavering. Every weapon on the ship sprang to life. The Last Jubilee had become the glowing point of a spear thrusting into the heart of the enemy.

The side guns cut perfectly straight lines through space, the width of the Jubilee, marking out the limits of their escape corridor.

Tracking systems acquired targets in the path ahead of them and fed data to the guns.

The twin guns on the chin gimbal mount tracked left and right. The turret turned, rose and fell. They worked together, finding and eliminating every threat in their path. Each gun tracking different targets to maximise the devastation.

The first ships in the path died instantly. Other Cabal, too slow to learn their lesson, tried to engage Grace and her charges head-on, only to explode within seconds under the barrage of fire.

Grace cleared the road ahead. Every Cabal ship that crossed their path vanished in flames.

The cabal learned their quick, painful lesson and abandoned their frontal assault.

The next wave of attacks came at them from the sides and the rear. Grace released the turret and let it find its own targets. It spun right, identifying the closest ship, the biggest threat. Another fighter exploded as the barrels span and cut the enemy ship in two.

The side and chin guns kept firing forward. There was no target there but the fleet. Nothing to shoot back. Nothing to miss.

Grace flew on. Hands making light adjustments to the flight controls, trigger finger clamped to the joystick.

Tila gripped the arms of her chair. She didn't know where to look. All around cabal fighters were exploding as the Jubilee's turret tracked and destroyed ship after ship, after ship. The scanner showed Ellie and Malachi close behind them. In front of the Jubilee sharp, glowing fragments of cabal fighters cooled and flashed past.

The guns continued to fire, continued to tear into the wrecks ahead of them. Tila watched as the energy blasts ripped through the remaining armour on the space hulk ahead, watched as the guns tore into the shielding, pipes, plating, water tanks, bulkheads, superstructure and machinery of the interior of the dead ship. Watched as the guns pounded the same space again and again and again, weakening, damaging, and destroying the wall ahead.

Cutting a hole.

Opening a door.

The Jubilee's turret took out the last fighter attacking them from the front and side. The scanner continued to track the cabal ships approaching from the rear. It passed this information to weapons and the turret whirred to cover the space behind them, but not soon enough. The turret opened fire at new targets, sending a new stream of pulse energy over the heads of Malachi and Ellie, but the Cabal were already firing back. Energy blasts zipped through the vacuum between and around the three escapees. Most were directed at the Jubilee.

Tila ducked as the first shots found their mark and pulverised the armoured ship. Inside the Jubilee, each hit sounded like a hammer blow on a heavy tin roof. Tila flinched. Grace remained calm.

'It's going to be alright, Tila. She's a tough little ship. She can take a beating.'

More hammer blows struck the Jubilee, rattling the occupants in their seats. The scanner fitzed under the assault. The hits continued, tracking along the upper hull. Tila held on to the console for support. The turret whirred, tracked, fired back at once ship. Fired back at another. Missed the third.

The cabal found their target. The turret exploded. Superheated barrels became shrapnel in a bomb as the power lines overloaded. The blast kicked the Jubilee down and away from its exit vector.

The cabal circled for a new attack opportunity, one safe from the angry replies of the Jubilee's turret.

Grace thumbed the comm switch.

'Ellie, Malachi, break now. Go hard for the exit. Then head for the beacon. Go now.' She didn't wait for an answer.

Malachi and Ellie looked into each other's scared faces, and obeyed. The doorway Grace had opened was big enough to set them free from the fleet, and through the shattered window they could even see stars.

Ellie's waypoint had already updated, and the line through her display was short and straight.

The Jubilee was off its line so they simply opened up the throttles. Engine cores responded at once and the Valkyries roared once more.

Malachi slowed a fraction as they approached the exit to let Ellie pull ahead.

'Go,' he said. He saw her nod and her ship was through the hole and gone. He accelerated again, adjusted course to follow her through, and was out. The rolling chaos of the fleet was behind them at last, and ahead the calm sea of the night sky.

But there was one ship still to come.

A cabal fighter made another pass and scored another hit. Now she no longer had to shield the unarmed Valkyries, Grace rolled and turned the ship in all directions, taking them on a wild corkscrew journey to the exit.

She lined the ship up with the hole she had cut, cut any lateral motion, accelerated to full, then cut the main engines. The Last Jubilee became an object in motion, remaining in motion.

'Hold on,' warned Grace.

Thrusters flipped the ship up and over through one hundred eighty degrees. Tila felt her stomach leave her body through the back of her neck and settle down again.

Cabal fighters lined up for another attack. Tila draw a breath.

'Now we have weapons,' said Grace quietly.

The gimbal mounted weapons targeted the last of the cabal and opened fire. Nothing happened.

Another cabal fighter raked the Jubilee with gunfire. Tila saw a worried look pass over her mother's face.

'We have armour there too, don't we?'

'No armour's impregnable.'

'What about the side guns?' said Tila.

'They're fixed emplacements. I can't use them without changing our orientation, and if I do that we miss the exit.'

The cabal circled closer, birds of prey ready for the kill.

Grace leaned forward for a visual check of their surroundings. They were passing within two hundred metres of a derelict cruiser. The cabal would have to change their angle of attack in order to maintain their lines of fire. They would have to swing down and around, and come at the Jubilee from underneath.

Tila tapped a frantic finger on the scanner.

'Can't we just run?'

'They'll follow us. Out there we have no where to hide. No weapons. If they make it outside it's over.'

'How do we stop them here? We don't have any weapons.'

'That depends what you consider a weapon.'

'What do you consider a weapon?'

'Anything that helps me win a fight.'

'Do you have a plan?'

'I will do. Hold on!'

The Jubilee flipped around again. Lateral thrusters fired, kicking the rear of the ship to one side and spoiling their exit vector ever so slightly.

'Ready countermeasures,' said Grace, for the second time.

Cabal blasters intersected the space they had just occupied. The enemy pilots adjusted course and coloured lines tracked the Jubilee through space.

Grace rolled the ship, rotating the profile she presented to her rear, and stayed on the course she had chosen, which Tila could see was actually slightly off-course.

But the fighters are looking at us, following us , and assuming we're heading for the exit.

Laser fire raked the sky.

'Ready,' said Tila. ' We don't have much left.' Her fist hovered over the button.

'We have enough.'

'One thousand meters,' said Grace.

The Cabal ships began spiralling around each other to maximize their chances to hit. Hammer blows crashed into the Jubilee.

'Five hundred metres,' said Grace. 'Do it.'

Tila slammed her fist down.

Flares and chaff roiled from the ship. The unfolding wings of an angel of death.

Incandescent, white light filled the sky, blinding the cabal pilots. Sonic booms thundered the full spread of the electro-magnetic spectrum, blinding the cabal sensors.

Grace corrected course by a matter of degrees, reignited the engine at full burn and pushed hard on the controls.

Around them the flares died, the cabal pilots saw too late where the exit had really been, but it was too late to change course. Far too late. They died along with the flares.

The Last Jubilee burst throughthe fireballs, through the hole, and was free.