The warning klaxon blaring in her ears, she groaned and strained not to black out from the g-forces crushing her back into her seat as she pulled back hard on the flight stick, whipping the nose of her Liberator in a near-180 and hit the afterburner, trying to shake the rapidly closing missile...
Creaking metal and a sudden jolt partially brought Carina back to consciousness. Her surroundings were a dull red blur, and she couldn't be sure which way she was oriented. Weakly she tried to sit up, but she could barely manage to shift. Something was holding her firmly in place. Was she even lying down? Sitting?
Pulses of energy screamed across her field of vision, inches from the duraglass canopy, the polarized ions making her hair stand up on the back of her neckn even within the cockpit. She banked and burned hard again, weaving the best she could in the hailstorm of incoming fire.
Where was she? She could hear her breath echoing through some mechanical apparatus, and something was clasped onto her face. Her oxygen mask... it was her mask. The shattered visage before her... was her helmet's faceplate cracked? Smashed? She became aware of a warm liquid trickling down the side of her head, pooling around her neck. Her vision cleared barely enough to make out the dull metallic interior of her cockpit... no, her escape pod. Had she been fragged?
She swore in Spanish as she watched her shots be harmlessly absorbed into the shields of the frigate that had opened fire on her. Another siren blared. Another hard bank. Then deafening white.
A low-frequency hum vibrated her surroundings, and she became aware she was moving, being steadily towed somewhere. With every bit of effort she could muster, she tried to reach the transmit button on her stick, but with another sudden jolt, all went black again.
