Not moving meant the scout ship could take advantage of not expending the energy to move.
This time, it fired a barrage of gold and yellow scattered pulses at them.
The fire power came thick and heavy in a fireworks blossom bursting forth like a bright yellow gold chrysanthemum.
With that large of an area of firepower blooming upon them, it didn't matter if he was cloaked or not. Their entire area was covered with deadly weapon discharge.
Alekai's only option was to ducked the barrage by moving under and around the scout ship.
He pushed down on the handlebars and dropped the Gear below the range of the chrysanthemum fireball.
During the precious few moments it took to move Bessie, they got struck by one of the pulses.
Bessie's shield held up with Jesse's ingenius maneuver.
Since she no longer had to pilot, Jesse had turned her attention to monitoring and maintaining core systems.
At the moment she knew they would be hit, Jesse had quickly routed energy towards the area of contact, shoring up its strength immediately before the moment of impact.
"Shields holding. We're still at 80%." Her fingers danced over the monitors, touching the entire shield area with practiced hands.
She could also see where he was focusing energy to start evasive maneuvering so she began pushing energy into the areas that he was getting ready to use.
"Good. Keep the energy moving where I need it Jesse." He drawled with lazy indifference.
"How is it you sound so bored with all of this? My heart is literally pounding like mad!"
"One moment at a time, Jesse." Alekai chuckled.
In one quick twist of the bike handlebars, Alekai shot past the apoidean scout ship and rammed three different weapons at the one spot that he could see minimal activity.
The scout ship's shields held up to the first two weapons bursts but the third, a small but potent missile, slipped through before the pierced opening could be fortified.
Another quick twist of the handlebars and Alekai had repositioned the Gear so that its feet pointed at the scout ship, minimizing the area exposed to anything it could throw at them.
In a moment of intense brightness, the scout ship burst into a chemical flame so intense, they had to avert their gaze.
Jesse diverted the bulk of Besse's shield power toward the Gear's feet where most of the fiery carnage was bombarding.
In seconds, the flying burning debris hit them.
It was a surreal soundless moment full of pressure and heat that the shield could not fully contain.
For a moment, it engulfed the tiny Gear with all the chemical inferno that had come blasting out of the apoidean scout ship.
Where the fiery debris and shrapnel hit, the shield glowed red and orange. Where it broke through the shield, it turned yellow and then a bright white.
"Hang on!" Jesse threw everything she had at the Gear's shields.
At the same time, her fingers worked their turtle magic.
She strengthened and solidified the transparent carapace that had encompassed them from within the Gear's shield.
Alekai's jaw dropped.
He could now see the shield-within-a-shield that Jesse had encompassed them with at the start of the fight.
In mere seconds, the carapace had turned opaque, insulating them within a dark cool shell that blocked out the radiant light and heat.
Alekai felt as if they had been momentarily encapsulated in blessed darkness within the loving embrace of her carapace.
The expanding gases rocked the tiny Gear, pushing it backwards a bit, but Bessie held on.
A few minutes more and they were alone once again, within the deep darkness of the Void.
The shield had held up, protecting them from the worst of the barrage of shrapnel and burning masses.
The entire fight lasted no more than five minutes.
They were the longest five minutes of Alekai's life.
His brain, which had gone into overload, gradually unwound from its tight coil of concentration. He slowly released a sigh of relief.
Five minutes translated into 300 seconds.
He had been focusing on each and every single second of those five minutes, monitoring a dozen panels filled with weapons specs and numbers of rounds of missiles.
Perhaps he needed to figure out how to not focus so hard on such a tiny segment of time.
"Are you okay?" He heard Jesse's voice come through on the intercom.
"Yeah. Are you hurt anywhere?"
"No, I'm fine. Not sure how Bessie is doing though."
"I have done a complete diagnostic check." Bessie's voice broke through their conversation. "My system is mostly undamaged. We are low on power."
"No surprise there since the shields took so much power at the end to keep us from being roasted alive." Jesse sighed. "Bessie, take all non-critical functions offline to save energy."
"All non-critical functions have been taken offline. Energy should be fully recharged in seven hours, twenty-two minutes."
"Okay Alekai. I'm only going to say this once."
"I'm listening."
"You big idiot! You know what you just did??? You just got me in big trouble with the Captain! You also almost got us killed just because you wanted to play around with your brand spanking new toys! And who gave you permission to take my navigation offline like that? I fly this Gear! That's one of my jobs! I pilot and shield you. YOU are only allowed to STRIKE. You are not allowed to dip into my job of flying the Gear! And if you want to work with me, you better damn well talk things through with me! There is none of this do whatever the hell you please and make whatever the hell decision you wish WITHOUT consulting me! And another thing!!! What in the world was that maneuver that cost us so much energy? Why would you do…"
Alekai leaned his head back onto the headrest and listened to Jesse's long diatribe.
He rubbed his eyes with fatigued fingers and took a deep breath.
He most likely deserved it.
Alekai had been a loner all his life and was not used to discussing things with a partner. He needed to learn how to do this quickly because if he didn't, sooner or later, Jesse would really kill him.
"…do you understand me???"
"Yes, I understand." He responded wearily.
"Now. I'm gonna call the Captain and tell her what just happened. I want you to keep quiet and don't add anything to the discussion. Do you understand???"
"Yes, I understand." He replied again in the same tone of voice.
For a moment, there was silence in the cabins. It seemed as if Jesse had run out of things to rant at him.
"Caravan. This is Jesse. Come in Caravan."
…
"Caravan. Are you there? Caravan?"
…