One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand...

Rick hit the kill switch as Garuda crashed out of jump. Had he done that, or had Dylan? No time for that. Did he have a functioning crew left?

"Sound off!" he called, trying desperately to make his eyes focus. The flight deck swam around him. It shouldn't be spinning like that. The universe shouldn't be swimming like that...

"Commander! He's out. G-7, you need to take over."

He heard it distantly, as if he was underwater, as if it was something which didn't apply to him.

"Bring us around. Intercept course."

That was Dimitri, giving orders. Dimitri? What was he doing here? Where was Jason?

"This is Galaxy Security warship Garuda. Disengage your forcefield or we fire."

Garuda? That meant...

The fog cleared from his brain as if someone had wiped it away in one sweep. Rick sat up. "I'm back. Report."

"Mecha right where we expected it," said Dimitri. "It's big. And... firing!"

"Evasive!" Rick snapped, trying to catch up. There it was, on the main screen. Not that big by Spectran mecha standards. Two banks of rocket gatlings, both spitting missiles at them. They weren't what worried him, though.

"Raven, keep dodging," he ordered. "Osprey, my target marker, stand by." On the screen, he targeted that central mass of girders, barely visible, very poorly lit, but he'd seen something like that before, he knew he had. Oh, for Jason's perfect memory... but his subconscious said 'plasma weapon' and they were in no shape to go fiery themselves.

Dylan threw them right and then down, and the first wave of rockets missed, sailing past. The second wave was closing fast, and Rick left his pilot to deal with those, concentrating on the rear-facing viewscreen.

Crap. Homing missiles, not ballistic.

"G-10?" he asked.

"No," said Paula. Not that Rick was surprised. Poor kid was going to feel beyond rough when she woke up.

"G-9. Rear point defense." Jen was a better shot, but Paula wasn't bad.

"On it."

And now you leave her to it. She'll tell you if she needs help. He still activated the chaff, loaded and ready to fire at the push of a single button. She was dealing with chasing missiles at a relatively low closing speed, but the way Dylan was throwing Garuda round the sky, hitting the side of a barn wouldn't have been trivial.

"Osprey?"

"Range is good. I'll need three seconds straight and level to get lock."

The mecha did look a lot closer, and that plasma weapon was starting to glow an ominous orange.

"Hurry, Raven."

Dylan threw them into a full spin to the left. Three missiles just barely missed their starboard wing. "If I stop for half that we'll be hit."

"Chaff's ready. Call it."

"Okay." Another gut-wrenching manouevre. "Ten o-clock forward in three. Two. One. Now."

Rick hit the button, and the mass of silvery strands exploded away from Garuda, up and to the left, expanding into what should be a much bigger, more desirable missile target than their ship. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, but then the incoming missiles veered towards it.

"Steady!" Dylan shouted.

Eight hundred yards off their port bow, there was an almighty explosion as multiple Spectran missiles took out several rolls of tinfoil. The next wave of missiles wavered, and visibly altered course back towards Garuda itself.

"Impact in two," he warned, and at that moment the Super launcher fired. It was unmistakeable, a noticeable chance in momentum even for a ship this size.

"Missile away," Dimitri said unnecessarily.

Now let's hope you can shoot straight. Rick didn't say it, instead watching the giant warhead streak away from them towards its target. And then vanish off the bottom of the screen, as Dylan spun them hard the other way to avoid the next set of missiles.

"Can't keep this up," the pilot gasped.

"Loading chaff," Rick responded, and did it. How many missiles did that mecha carry? Would it stop shooting when the Super hit? Would the Super hit? Would the plasma weapon fire first? He activated his own controls and set his own screen to stay on the mecha, ready to take over if necessary. He'd rather take a hit from five rockets than a plasma burst, but Dylan was far too busy to worry about tactics.

He could see the Super, just, blazing towards its target. If the plasma weapon fired now, it would be mutually assured destruction, he hoped. Dimitri had a second one loaded and ready, but no chance of getting target lock while they were on this sort of evasive pattern. At least missiles were stupid and would fall for chaff just as well a second time as they had the first.

That plasma weapon didn't look ready to fire. This might just work.

It wasn't going to fire.

The Super hit, as close to dead centre as Rick could have asked for. Vanished. For an instant, there was nothing, and then the whole mecha shuddered and simply split, great sections of superstructure cartwheeling away in all directions, and at the centre of the explosion a giant plasma ball, expanding and fading to a dying red glow. Harmless. Beyond it, the flat blackness of the forcefield was replaced with the blue-green marble of Earth, sun off to one side, starfields away from it.

Behind him, Paula swore, and Rick belatedly remembered just how many pursuing missiles she must be dealing with. Chaff wouldn't fire backwards, unfortunately. Something to suggest for the future.

"Bring us round hard, G-8," he ordered. "Chaff going high."

Dylan took him at his word - that was what, a nine g turn? Rick waited until he could see the pack of missiles following them on the main screen, and then punched the button. The silvery strands shot out upwards, their pilot pulled them downwards, and there was a most satisfying series of explosions as missile after missile piled into the dummy target.

"Scan for stragglers," he said as the last explosion died away.

"Screen is clear," Dimitri responded so quickly that he must have been checking it already. "I think we did it."

I think we did. Rick wanted to stand up and cheer. Instead, he said, "Systems check. Stay sharp." He desperately didn't want to make a stupid mistake, not now, not with the mecha in pieces and the forcefield down.

"G-10's still out cold," Paula said.

"You see to her. No, belay that. You contact ISO. I'll see to her. G-8, you have my systems."

He pushed himself to his feet - he was going to hurt tomorrow, they all were - and headed for Jenny's seat. The alarm at his console would have gone nuts if she had a serious medical problem, and the most likely thing was that she was exhausted and in implant recharge, but still... if it had been him, he'd have wanted to be awake.

Yup. Pale and shaky, but asleep, not unconscious. Rick slapped her cheek, gently, as being the only bit of available bare skin. "Come on, Jen. Time to wake up."

She groaned, and shifted, and her eyes opened. Focused slowly. She blushed scarlet. "Commander - I... I'm sorry. What...?"

And Rick finally allowed himself a smile. "We won. We're going home."

"ISO USA's still not responding," Paula said. "But they're not responding at all. The spoof's gone."

He suspected the spoof was in multiple pieces, cartwheeling away from their current position to burn up in the atmosphere at some point. ISO still not responding? Maybe something dreadful had happened inside that dome. Maybe it wasn't over yet.

"G-8, take us back," he ordered. "G-9, keep trying to contact them. G-7, G-10, scanners. I want to know if the ground-based forcefield's gone, as soon as we're close enough to tell."

He made his way back to his seat and dropped into it as Dylan accelerated them back towards a re-entry profile. Compartmentalise. Forget the mecha, that was gone. Forget how tired he was. Think about what was happening on the surface, and get ready to make decisions just as soon as he had any new information.