"Shield is down!" you can hear Sarah's voice as another plasma bolt rocks your vessel. The twenty-six year old blonde yanks the steer wheel for a sharp turn, and from the cockpit's window, you can see another shot blazing past you.
"Damned thing just can't graze them!" you can hear Becca yell from the comm. The twin lasers on top of the ship under her jurisdiction. But the ship after you is a cruiser that belongs to the Harlan Star Empire. And a small frigate like yourย Artemisย can't win a fight against it.
"Can we fucking jump now?!" Becca asks from the comm.
"Bots are still repairing the jump drive!" Sarah yells back. And after a quick turn you can see another shot going past you.
The worst thing in all of this is that you just stand here. In the beginning, when the harlan cruiser dropped out of hyperspace, it was easy for you to order a jump to a different location. Like drinking a cup coffee in the morning. But after the first shot hit you, and Sarah said that the hyperdrive is offline, you froze: as you realized that it's game over.
You are in the middle of wild space. Your ship intentionally left here so you could get some shuteye. Earth might be at war with the harlans, but in here nobody is going to help you. What's worse is that the harlans are ruthless slavers. Their subjects minds' broken to the point that their only conscious thought is to serve their owner. And if you give up now, the same is going to happen to you.
However you either surrenderย now, or the harlans are going to blow your ship to pieces.
At first, you don't think you can give out an order like this. But your mouth starts to move seemingly on its own, and one by one the words come out of your mouth.
"We have to surrender," you tell them.
"What?!" Sarah and Becca asks in unison.
"We have no shields. And we don't have the armor to handle those shots," you answer. Your tone cold as ice.
"What the hell are you saying, Mel?! Those bots could repair the FTL drive any minute!" Becca snaps at you, and you can hear her actual voice too, loud enough to get through the layer of metal between the two levels.
But that is the problem with these kind of decisions: The grass is always greener on the other side. But if you look at the situation logically, you can see that the cruiser was able to hit you four times since the start of the chase, and the repair bots made no indication that they are about to finish the job. This means that if you continue to fight, your ship getting destroyed is the only logical outcome.
"No they won't, Becca," you say. "No they won't."