text: As I sat there looking at the display I was nervous. It had been far to easy to get away; sensors and video could be fooled. “Cass”, I called. “Get to the aft porthole and see whats behind us.” As she came through the door from her lab she looked at me quizzically. “I thought we lost em’”, She said. But she continued walking aft towards the small porthole window next to the airlock. After a couple minutes I heard her voice over my cochlear. “*I don’t see anything out of the ordinary, just space rocks from this death trap you pulled us into.*” I reply back with my inter-phase “*It’s a planetary ring debris field not a death trap. Keep an eye out there for a bit. Look for straight lines. The universe doesn’t work in straight lines.”* “*Whatever you wanna call it.”* was the response I got as I flipped a switch and the metal plates that covered the forward facing portholes slid back. In doing so the revealed the beautiful “death trap” as Cass so eloquently put it. We had the ship in a slow orbit around the planet a midst its gorgeous rings. The debris were all colors but mostly blue for some reason. With my inter-phase I got a hold of the pilot. “*Hey Derek can you nab a small sample of one of those blue rocks?”* “*Sure thing boss. Are we hidden well enough?”* He asked. “*I don’t know.”* I sent back over my inter-phase. “*I have Cass looking out the aft porthole. But it felt to easy to me. Kill the main power we can drift around with the maneuvering thrusters for a bit. I want as small of a power output as possible.”* “*Done and done.”,* Derek said. As I settled back into my seat I peered into the scopes on my instruments; looking for a blip, listening for some static, trying to see what I sensed; that we were being hunted. While I was scanning the radio frequencies looking for any anomalies I felt the familiar pressure in my head and Cass got back in contact over the inter-phase. “*Hey Captain, I just saw stars wink out and reappear in a line. It looks like it is moving towards us. I saw it aft about 270 degrees and up from our plane about 65 degrees.”* “*Thanks. I’ll dial that in on my scopes.”* I replied. As I dialed the scopes and instruments in I got a hold of our gunner on my inter-phase. “*Taylor load up. We have incoming. We didn’t shake em all the way. What do we have left for ammo?”* Her frazzled reply came over the inter-phase. “*We don’t have much left. One nuke, four conventional warhead missiles, two counter missiles, and about enough plasma for one laser burst of 15 seconds or less. We burnt through most of it blasting our way out of that mess we stumbled into.”* “*Okay,”* I reply. “*Is the defense shield back online at least? If not this is gonna be a short fight.”* “*Yes,”* she thought back at me. “*I just finished getting it set up. It’s priming the charge now. We need 45 more seconds till we can deploy it.”* Just as she finished speaking the radio scopes locked on to the ship following us. From the outline we may be fortunate. It looked like a scout/research vessel. It didn't seem to have spotted us yet, or at least they were not letting on that they had. I looked at our power readouts wincing and not for the first time wishing we had better stealth capabilities. Knowing roughly the capabilities of their ship, their location, and now being able to now track them on scopes I started to come up with a plan. I opened up my inter-phase to the other three and started to explain, “*Okay everyone here is my plan. First Derek get us out of line of sight with that ship. Bring us around that larger asteroid. Taylor I want you to take one of our conventional missiles and eject it out of the ship but leave it inert. Let it drift away from us. When I give the signal remotely activate it and sent it toward that ship. That should draw their attention away from us at the same time bringing them closer. As soon as they drop their shields to launch their counter missiles fire the last three conventional missiles at them and then fire the nuke. Then bring up our shields and Derek, get us out of here as fast as you can. We can use the laser to knock any of their missiles down that happen to get through the nuke and the debris field behind us. Cass you are going to be charting a course so we can slip away from here and back to friendly space. Any questions?”* They all agreed to the plan and started preparing to implement the operation. While the crew were all working on their tasks I was keeping an eye on the enemy ship. They had begun a grid pattern search and seemed to be focusing in on the most blue of the asteroids. This peaked my interest, anything that the enemy was interested in we should be as well. So I entered a command for the computer to do a spectral analysis of the sample that Derek had gotten earlier. Mostly magnesium with some unknown chemical compounds. I tucked that knowledge away in the back of my mind for later. Returning my attention to the enemy ship I noticed that the grid pattern had reset and it was moving closer. I opened up the channel on my inter-phase again and asked, “*Hey everyone how are we doing? Their ship is getting a little to close for comfort.”* Derek was the first to respond,” *I am ready to fly as soon as the fireworks start going off. Been keeping us out of sight behind the astroids. One button, five seconds, and we are out of here at speed.”* Taylor came in next, “*I have sent the missile out of the ship and it is a good distance away from us now. It will be a good distracion. Shields are primed and ready to activate. All the other missiles are primed and in their tubes set to launch in the sequence you wanted.”* Cass came in last and said “*We have a course plotted. I sent the slip point to Derek already. It is three miles out of the debris field we are in. So almost five miles in total. We will need to make two slips though. Our slip field generator cant handle a sustained slip that whole way. We are much farther out into the unexplored regions that we have been before.”* “*Excellent work everyone.”* I said. “*Lets wait for them to get a little bit closer.”* So we all sat there. Waiting. Watching. Hoping that they didn't detect us before we could start the plan. When I felt that the time was right I opened the team channel with my inter-phase and said, “ *It is almost time. Get strapped in if you are not already, we don't need a mess on the bulkheads. On my mark. Five, four, thee, two, one... MARK!”* With that word, mark; it all started. The missile floating in space reoriented itself and shot off toward the enemy ship. I was slightly surprised at how far it had drifted away. Immediately the enemy ship turned and lowered its shields to send out a counter missile. By the time its shields had lowered all our other missiles were in space and rocketing toward them from a different angle. As we were flying away with our shields up nearly bouncing off asteroids at points I saw the flash of a nuclear explosion in space, the porthole automatically dimming to save my eyes. I turned to my scopes and didn't see anything following us at first. Then with dread my mouth went dry as I saw two blips on my scope start to move towards us at a terrifying speed. Over my inter-phase I said urgently, “*Taylor we have incoming! Get the laser ready! Cass divert power from forward shields to rear and mid sections! Derek don't hit anything and how far are we from the slip point?!* Derek replied, “*We are nearly there one point seven five miles to go! Slip jump generator is primed and ready. What is chasing us? How did they survive a nuke?!* Then Taylor came through, “*They are fighters, they must have been powered down and didn't power up till the fighting started. That ship had an escort. Now just get us out of here and let me shoot!”* As she finished speaking the rear laser array came online and crackled to life. I knew with the shields those fighters had there was no way a 45 second laser burst would destroy one but it might hold them off long enough. As I had that thought the super-heated plasma laser spouted out of the array and hit the shield of one of the ships and it peeled off to let its shield recharge. The other kept on us and let two missiles fly. Taylor made short work of those with the laser but we were getting perilously low on ammo. As the slip field began to glow around us both of the fighters came in for one last pass. Both let go two missiles each and began firing their kinetic weapons as well. Taylor took out the last four missiles and as our shields began to dip dangerously low everything went white. I leaned back into my chair and sighed with relief. We were in slip space; safe from weapons and enemies. I unbuckled from the command chair and began to walk to the bridge. I walked up to Derek and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Nice flying.” I said as I reached around him under the console. His eyes went wide as I pulled a brand new bottle of whiskey from his hiding place under the control panel. “Uhhhh I don't know how that got there.” Was his statement as I looked at him with a grin. “You sure?” I asked. As I pulled the cork out with a satisfying POP. “You know that its against regulations to have alcohol on a ship during a mission like this.” “Yes sir.” He said. Suddenly sounding a lot more formal. “That's why I am just as surprised as you to see it there.” I just chuckled to myself and asked him. “How long until our next slip jump?” He looked at his instruments and replied, “We have twelve hours of this slip jump, then we have to let the generator cool down for at least two hours. Then its another ten hours of slipping till we get to the closest outpost.” “Okay,” I say. Then take a pull off the bottle. I put the cork back in and turn around. I open up a channel to the crew with my inter-phase. “*Everyone get your things in order and meet me in the mess hall. We have a twelve hour slip to kill and Derek brought something special to share with the crew. I figured that surviving a fight like that; we earned a reward.”* At that the ship adrift between realities, floating in literally nothing, resounded with cheers and the sounds of footsteps on floor panels. I took another pull from the bottle. When every mission can be your last; you have to enjoy the little things when you can.