The Chance Encounter: The Linda Eccles Series - Book One

by Robert Woodard

  The Linda Eccles Series Order:

  - The Chance Encounter

  Coming soon:

  - The Search for Kracks

  - The Curanian Dominance

  - The Lasting Accord

  - The Benanan Remnant

  Other Books in publication by Robert Woodard:

  The Gibbons Series:

  - Sleeping Through the Nightmare

  - The Gibbons’ Seven

  - The Gibbons’ Migration

  - The Gibbons’ Battle for Cara

  Coming Soon:

  - The Jewelry Box Letter (Murder Mystery)

  - Remembrance (Murder Mystery)

  - The Awakening of Jenni (Sci-Fi)

  A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

  The Linda Eccles Series – Book One

  By

  ROBERT WOODARD

  Chapter One

  “Damn it, Sharon! I don’t want to hear about another week,” Captain Linda Eccles said in frustration, and a little harsher than she Intended. Failing to keep her emotions under control seemed to be a constant occurrence whenever she was in the presence of her executive officer these days. However, this time her own anger surprised even herself.

  “That’s what Tyrone told me, Captain,” Commander Sharon Bresee responded. Her light-grey eyes became more visible after having flown open in clear shock over Linda’s attack.

  Sighing heavily, Linda tried to reach deep within to pull up a steel curtain of control to keep from leaping across her small desk to pull Sharon’s hair out by its naturally blond roots. As Captain, she needed a leader who could take charge and get things done, and that did not define her second in command. In fact, Sharon presented a sniveling coward when it came to confrontation.

  Linda wondered how someone who stood as tall as Sharon, at least six feet, she guessed, could be so afraid of disciplining others. Perhaps she lived a pampered life—the prima-donna. Maybe she grew up in the “popular girls” clique, Linda told herself, where all she had to do was bat her eyelashes and guys would come running to be at her beckoned call. After all, her long-legged, slim-figured, blond-haired, perfect-complexioned self surely meant the world owed her a favor—the damn twit.

  Linda was not totally sure if some of that hatred of her XO came from childhood memories of being tormented by those same “popular girls” that she kept deeply hidden, or if it was well-earned through Sharon’s poor performance. Thinking it was probably a bit of both, and when Linda factored in her sour mood of late, it all added up to Sharon getting her wrath.

  Her other problem child was Tyrone. While he was a competent chief engineer and could be relied on to keep things moving down on the surface of the planet, the man did like to pad his time estimations. Linda laid into him a few times for just that tendency while Sharon, on the other hand, swallowed his malarkey like a cod racing for a baited hook.

  “What is his excuse this time?” Linda asked. Her words hissed out on her breath like a leaky airlock.

  “It’s still the wind. It dropped down to sixty knots, but it’s still too high for them to work outside. They can’t finish the crew’s quarters until it gets down to no more than thirty.”

  Linda could envision the work progressing on the planet’s surface. The three main buildings were already set up. The warehouse, which always went first on every one of their setup missions, and once in place, it gave the ground crew a place to work inside, out of the elements, and without the need for environmental suits.

  The central building, or commons as it was better known, went up next. Housing the kitchen, dining area and recreation room, it was the main area of use when the miners, yet to arrive, were off duty. The crew’s quarters were typically built close to the commons and connected by an enclosed walkway, and that had yet to be completed.

  Fortunately, the storage building was up, too, and with those three buildings in place, anything left to be finished could be done in the warehouse. Linda felt that the miners surely could put in a little extra work whenever the company got around to shipping them here. After all, the purpose of her ship, the Privateer, was to set up an environmental station in preparation for the arrival of company miners. She suspected the company execs would put up with a little work left over for the miners if it kept her on schedule; especially when they were due back for overhaul. Besides, she was already getting static from the company about not having finished yet.

  Universal Mercantile Unlimited, or UMU for short, was just like every other multinational conglomerate, that being they were all about the bottom line—profits over all other things. The thought made Linda snort in disgust. Were the money-focused Board of Directors, and the CEO, for that matter, really going to give a damn if she left a little work behind? Linda doubted it, and they would probably look the other way at her little indiscretion.

  “You get back down there and tell that chief engineer he has two days to get it done. On the third day, I am weighing anchor and the Privateer is sailing for home; with or without them aboard,” Linda ordered. She was tired of Sharon’s failure to light a fire under those on the planet’s surface. Tapping on her monitor, and asking, “You know what I received today?” She didn’t bother to await a reply. “It’s another damn inquiry from the execs at UMU wanting to know why we aren’t heading home yet. They keep reminding me that they have reserved a berth in the shipyards for our overhaul. If we miss it, we get to spend another couple of months station-side waiting for another one to come available. We will end up with some of our crew jumping ship when their contracts expire rather than waiting it out and burning through their credits.”

  “Unless the wind cooperates there really isn’t much they can do, Captain,” Sharon argued.

  “They can still make up the rest of the walls and get them ready to install. If we have to leave them in the warehouse, the miners can complete the installation when they arrive. Can they not?” Linda narrowed her eyes while daring Sharon to contradict her, which she didn’t.

  “Probably,” Sharon responded. “But you know they’ll raise a stink with the company by complaining that it’s not in their contract to set them up.”

  “Perhaps, but by then we will be dutifully out on another mission and far away from here. So, who cares if they complain?” Linda could feel her blood starting to boil with impatience. She decided to cut off the conversation. “The Privateer leaves orbit in three days. As the Executive Officer, you better have this ship ready to leave, or you will be here greeting the miners whenever they arrive.”

  Linda turned back to the monitor on her desk, sending a clear message to Sharon that the conversation was over, and she should leave. Taking the hint, Sharon turned and left the cabin. Linda knew her XO had no desire to return to the planet surface and argue it out with Tyrone. That was Sharon’s problem, so Linda decided she did not care.

  Staring at the closed door, Linda tried to figure out how she ever got stuck with someone as worthless as Commander Sharon Bresee for an executive officer. Some vindictive captain had probably conned the company into believing she was a top candidate deserving of consideration for bridge command, and then the company placed her on Linda’s ship. Well, Linda could play that game, too. She would get that waste of breathable air off her ship just as soon as they returned to their berth on the spaceport above Rapatine.

  Shaking her head, Linda wondered how Sharon reached the level of Commander with such glaring faults. With her title, she was ever so close to commanding her own ship, yet she relied on others to do her job. Linda no longer had the patience to try to coddle her along, so she would have to go. Besides, she had a solid replacement in min
d by the name of Commander Bill Launtra, her trusted weapons officer and third in command.

  Sorry Sharon, but you have to go. Linda frowned over her silent words as she mulled over how best to get Sharon off her ship.

  Chapter Two

  Overlord Jeftrick stood looking out the entrance of his gugg. His dwelling was dug deep into the hillside and housed his females, their eggs, and the young lings. Jeftrick felt proud of his gugg, having dug it out of the hillside using his own labor. Thinking that over, he tried to remember how long ago that had been. He recalled starting it when he first made Underlord and completed it well before his promotion to Overlord.

  Behind him, Jeftrick could hear the lings playing in the gugg. Many of them newly hatched; they would grow quickly to become underlings and then migrate into the Kracks’ workforce. Jeftrick had no memory of being a ling, himself, or an underling for that matter. In fact, he could barely recall the day he became an Overling—that first critical step into leadership. Too many solar cycles had passed to remember such things.

  Looking up at the fast-rising sun, he wondered how many times he had watched it rise with each planet cycle and run its path through each seasonal rotation, or solar cycle. Too many, he decided.

  After glancing down on the stone structures far below—those buildings housing all the functions supporting the wishes of the Kracks Council—Jeftrick turned to begin the slow decent to the valley floor. Following the narrow path that wound down the hillside, he enjoyed the rising temperature that felt good against his tan and brown scaled hide. The warming effects of the sun did wonders to revive him after spending a cool night in his gugg.

  Jeftrick could already feel the heat another day would bring. By midday, the intense heat of the sun would drive most Kracks into the shade for a respite. The dust rising with each step he took reminded Jeftrick of just how arid the planet was, especially this time a year when rain refused to fall. Even in the off months, when the sun was furthest away, rain always seemed slow in coming and not long in staying.

  Even though the hillside blocked his view, Jeftrick could envision the huge stone structure that held their water reserves on the other side. Siphoned from nearby watering holes, it provided much-needed water to the Kracks, even in the worst of times. Thinking about it, Jeftrick decided he wouldn’t want to make constant trips out to some watering hole whenever he became thirsty. Besides, keeping away from the watering holes allowed their prey to feel safe congregating around them, and Jeftrick lived for the hunt, even if his work kept him from it for much of the time. He had to hunt at least every ten to twelve planet cycles in order to keep his gugg supplied with fresh meat. An unhappy gugg meant unhappy females, and unhappy females made for an empty gugg. Jeftrick shook his head while thinking it never ended.

  Studying the path ahead, he noticed how the trail had compacted with so many Kracks moving along it each planet cycle. Even so, he still had to dig his claws into the dry soil to navigate the steepness the path’s decline presented. Looking over the edge of the path, he knew that more than a few lings had been lost when they ventured too far and fell to their deaths. Jeftrick figured that was nature’s way of weeding out the stupid ones. There never seemed to be a shortage of lings, anyway.

  Finally reaching the valley floor, Jeftrick made his way to the Chambers of Space. Once a bustling area of activity, the chambers within sat mostly empty now. Early space exploration created the boon, but a loss of support by the Council started its slow decline. From what Jeftrick remembered being taught, ships were built and sent out to explore the possibility of life on surrounding planets. The hope was to find ever more challenging prey to feast on, but the entire venture had proven fruitless. It also had not helped that the overlords that commanded the ships rebelled against the long voyages away from Kracks, where they returned to find their females had ventured into more active guggs. Even the development of light-speed drives did little to encourage overlords to command ships.

  Now, the once active fleet of ships sat useless in their moorings high above his head. Looking up, Jeftrick could just make out the docking station, and the ships surrounding it. There was still a small space fleet in action, though, that required him to have to be in the building. It was not really a bad job being responsible for directing and monitoring the six minelayers that serviced the surrounding space. The minelayers were the last ships built as a final change in direction for what Kracks did in space. Jeftrick commanded such a ship himself, once.

  Some time ago, before Jeftrick was even hatched, some council member decided that placing exploding mines in space around the Kracks’ planet was a good idea. Looking up at the sky, he knew there were millions of mines floating around overhead, even though he could not see them. So, here he was, having to coordinate the ships that kept all those mines in place and working.

  A few solar cycles ago, someone came up with the idea of setting out monitoring buoys that kept an eye on various sections of space. Each buoy was placed in an important location, and now monitored space for any unwanted intrusion—like Jeftrick ever expected something like that to happen. On the off-chance something actually did come around, the buoy would detect and record the activity, while also transmitting the results to a rebounder located above the planet, which in turn would relay the data down to the surface where the signals were constantly monitored. Jeftrick felt that the buoys only created more devices his overworked minelayers had to service.

  Finally reaching the Chambers of Space, Jeftrick entered. Keeping his two, independent, rotating eyes pointed forward, he deliberately avoided looking into the long ago emptied and neglected chambers. Thinking back to the days when he worked aboard and commanded a ship of his own, Jeftrick wondered how he ever managed to get through it. He had been relieved when orders came for him to take over as Overlord of Space and getting his feet on solid ground once again. Thinking back, he figured that had been at least four solar cycles ago, now.

  Entering his work chamber, Jeftrick walked over to the large wall chart to review the current location of each minelayer. It didn’t show much change from yesterday. He currently had four ships in service and two docked. Of the two docked, one was being re-supplied while the other received minor repairs.

  He paused at the sight of the brown-colored pin that represented the ship, Tail Whip. It seemed on schedule, which was good considering that Overlord Sinska commanded that ship. Jeftrick had recommended Sinska, so how well the Overlord did would be a direct reflection on him. Sinska had been his Underlord when he commanded a ship, and Jeftrick was confident he could do his job. He had better, as Jeftrick sure did not want any negative repercussions. He had ambitions of becoming a member of the Kracks Council sometime in the future.

  Hissing out a sigh, Jeftrick walked over to his desk to sit behind it. His ever-efficient aide, an Overling, had already brought up his monitor, with the screen showing the prior day’s status report that awaited his review and approval.

  Curling three of his four charcoal black claws along the fleshy pads of his hand, he tapped on the screen to select the first page of the report. It proved to be a clearance order for the minelayer in resupply. An attachment included the outline of the work assignment for the ship. Tapping approval, the page disappeared, and Jeftrick knew it was on its way over to the council chambers for review.

  Tapping on the next page, an updated work assessment displayed for the other docked ship. Jeftrick frowned as he read that more structural fatigue was discovered in the side launch bay.

  “Great, more delays,” Jeftrick hissed. His red tongue flashed out at the screen in disappointment before slowly sliding back into his mouth.

  Pulling up his to-do list, he tapped the sturdy keys to enter a reminder to readjust the other assignments to make up for the added workload each ship would have to accommodate. None of the overlords were going to be happy having to keep their ships out longer, but what could he do? Hissing, he approved the attached work order and moved on to the next page.


  Jeftrick looked up as his aide walked into his chamber. The Overling began updating the wall chart to reflect the latest ship communiqués. Gripping one of the colored pins between two claws, the Overling pulled it off the board, and relocated it in reference to the ship’s new location. As the Overling continued to work on the board, Jeftrick went back to reviewing the report. By the time his aide had completed updating the chart, Jeftrick had approved the final page.

  “Do you need anything, Overlord?”

  “No, Overling, you may resume your work,” Jeftrick responded.

  When the Overling left, Jeftrick decided to take a quick mental break before jumping into his to-do list. He looked out the window and watched some underlings as they cleaned the area around the building across from the walkway. He watched with interest as an Overling directed the work. The sight caused him to try once again to recall his days as an overling, but it was just too long ago to remember much detail. Having seen ninety solar cycles, Jeftrick figured he had lived close to half his life already. Sighing, he decided that life went by too fast.

  With both eyes swung forward to observe the underlings’ activities, his mind focused on his future. Jeftrick had his sights set on being a member of the Kracks Council. The current Council Leader was getting long in the tusk, and Jeftrick suspected he would be handing off his reign to one of the other council members soon. When that happened, a seat would open up, and he planned on being the one to occupy it. Of course, Jeftrick knew he would have to be made a Masterlord first, but he felt ready for that. After all, some of his ideas had been adopted by the Council already.

  Was he not the one that recommended using the accidental discovery that energy could be produced by the sun as a method to control mines? By tapping into the sun-powered energy, it would reduce the fuel consumption used by the mines to keep them from drifting away. That would then reduce the amount of time minelayers spent retrieving them for refuel. The first series based on that sun-powered design would be coming out in the next batch, and Jeftrick looked forward to seeing how well they worked.