The Chance Encounter: The Linda Eccles Series - Book One

by Robert Woodard

  Chapter Eighteen

  Although the exit vector remained several hours away, the inaction of the alien ship gave Linda a little ease. She felt there was really nothing left for her to do now but wait out the time it would take to reach the jump point. Having sent the message to Rapatine, she felt her duty to the company had ended for this mission. Her focus now would be solely on getting her ship home safe and sound.

  With the alien ship almost lost in the darkness behind them, Linda pondered over whether to let Sharon take an extended break. It seemed pointless to have them both on the bridge while the Privateer continued to put the safety of distance between the two ships. While she thought it over, a tiny flash on the monitor caught her attention. Squinting at the firecracker-like flare of light, she tried to imagine what had caused it.

  “Contact, bearing one-two-seven! Contact heading is two-eight-four on a collision course! Contact speed is 151,000 kilometers per hour.”

  Jerking her head left, Linda quickly studied tactical. A tracking line showed the target driving slightly ahead of her ship, but in a slow arc toward her. A second projected intersect line appeared, showing the target would pass behind the Privateer, but far too close for comfort. Linda tried to decide if their commander had aimed poorly, or if it was simply a warning to get their attention again. Deciding she did not care which, and that she had enough of this nonsense, she would show this alien ship she could shoot, too.

  Punching the comm icon with the bottom of a closed first, she then twisted her wrist and selected the weapons compartment with her middle finger. When she received the connection tone, Linda said, “Mr. Launtra, this is the Captain, we have an inbound target. Take it out!”

  “Understood, Captain.”

  Linda found Bill’s calm, cool sounding response to the situation reassuring.

  ◆◆◆

  Bill had already seen the target appear and had anticipated Linda’s order. With tactical showing the rate of overtake of the target at two minutes and twenty-four seconds, that provided plenty of time for him to select, target and fire at it.

  Lightly tapping the blinking box still showing the system in passive mode, Bill selected active from the options. More options suddenly appeared on the console, and he hit the charge icon. Below his feet, a steady hum filtered up as the plasma generator came to life. While he waited for the weapon to charge, Bill locked the targeting computer onto the incoming target. Overhead, the turret swung into position to line up with the target, creating a heavy vibration that infiltrated the compartment. A rattling sound behind him signaled the vibration of the plasma conduits as they loaded the charge pots within the turret.

  Having received a firing solution, Bill set the firing option to one bolt per barrel. The rapid-fire of the two bolts would place both shots on target almost simultaneously. As Bill waited for the plasma to finish racing up the conduits, he said, “Don, prepare to fire.”

  On his left, he could see Don flip up the clear protective cover from the fire icon. It was a simple precaution against an accidental firing of the weapon. Don had his index finger over the icon ready to tap it.

  After a final check of the target lock and firing solution to make sure nothing had changed, Bill said, “Fire.”

  Overhead, Bill could hear the whoosh of energy releasing from the first barrel, follow just as quickly by the second shot. The sequence had proven so fast that he did not hear the turret align the second barrel before firing it.

  Shifting his eyes to the monitor on his left, Bill caught a glimpse of the two balls of pure energy rocketing away from the ship. They reminded him of white balls shooting out of a roman candle. The plasma balls quickly grew smaller and smaller as they headed toward their target, their bright light remaining clearly visible against the background of darkened space.

  Switching his eyes to the monitor in front of him, Bill could see the target line of both projectiles tracking true to target. Unless the target moved, it was going to receive both bolts dead center.

  The bolts covered the distance between ship and target in a matter of seconds, creating a bright flash on the monitor to his left. On tactical, the target track simply disappeared. A direct hit had eliminated the threat, and Bill felt a sense of relief.

  Activating the comm unit, Bill said, “Bridge, the target has been destroyed.”

  “Commander, this is the Captain. I want you to drive that ship off. Give it a good reason to leave my ship alone.”

  Bill could hear the anger in Linda’s tone. There was no doubt in his mind that she took the firing on her ship as a personal assault. He couldn’t blame her, either, as he felt similar anger toward the alien that felt the need to fire on a ship clearly intent on leaving the area. He would give anything to in the mind of that alien commander right now.

  The other ship had swung left, and he had to wait for it to clear the rear of the Privateer for him to target on it. Overhead, the turret swing vibrated as it spun around from the right side of the ship to the left. Bill took advantage of the delay to adjust the shot selection from two to three. The alien ship reappeared on the targeting scope, and the firing computer locked onto it and quickly sounded the firing solution tone. Looking at Don, he saw him ready to tap the firing icon again.

  “Fire,” Bill ordered.

  Don tapped the icon and the whoosh of plasma release quickly followed. The conduits rushed more plasma into the pots, and one of the cannons within the turret fired a third time. Looking at tactical, Bill could see that all three shots tracked true to target.

  ◆◆◆

  A hiss of frustration escaped Sinska, along with his tongue, while staring at the blinking lights of the prey ship. Pulling it back into his mouth, Sinska felt thankful for having the foresight to pull the Tail Whip off the prey ship’s tail.

  The question of whether this ship was armed or not had just been answered, and it was a very effective weapon that he had no plans on letting loose on his Tail Whip. Regardless of the directive from the Council, he was done with this ship. It wanted to leave, and Sinska had no further plans to prevent it.

  “Overlord, I am picking up some strange energy readings,” the Scanning Overling reported.

  The words caused Sinska to glance at the live viewer. Two white dots were rapidly coming his way, and they grew larger as they raced toward his ship. His mind quickly associated them to the same weapon his prey had used to take out the mine.

  “Full up! Full left!” Sinska yelled out, but he could see it was already too late.

  The balls of light grew to the size of boulders as they bore down on his ship. The Tail Whip’s bow rose sharply as it turned further away from the prey ship, leading Sinska to realize the critical mistake he made in his evasive maneuver. Before he could take corrective action, or dwell on it, the first shot struck the top of the ship, quickly followed by a second hit. The ship bucked like a dying prey when he felt a third jolt. The impact lifted Sinska out of his chair, and he felt a floating sensation before coming down hard on the deck.

  The entire control chamber went dark, and the vibration of the propulsion drives reverberating through the steel decking died away. Looking around in the dark, Sinska could see the dim light of the filaments within the emergency lanterns slowly starting to glow. Evenly spaced around the interior walls, the lanterns' backup power tried to bring the bulbs to life.

  For many beats, all Sinska could do was sit in the dark of the chamber and wait for the lights to become bright enough to see. The ship became so quiet that he knew they had been hit hard. Electrical was out—that he could see. Propulsion was out—that he could feel. How bad everything else was would have to wait until he could send Bresk around to ascertain the damage.

  The lights finally provided enough illumination for Sinska so see around him. All the seats were empty, with the Overlings only now getting up to occupy them again. Bresk lay off to his right but was slowly coming to his feet. Getting up himself, Sinska worked his way over to the Underlord to make sure he was
okay.

  Bresk had blood flowing down his neck from a gash just below one eye. Sinska knew the Underlord must have hit something hard to have punctured his tough hide. Grabbing onto Bresk’s muscular arm, Sinska asked, “Are you okay, Underlord?”

  “Yes, Overlord. I can still perform my duties.”

  “I need you to take a survey of the ship and tell me how bad we are hurt.”

  “At once, Overlord.”

  Bresk turned to walk away, requiring Sinska to release his firm grip on his arm. When the Underlord slid open the chamber door and disappeared into the dim lighting beyond, Sinska returned his attention to the control chamber.

  All the power was out, and it gave the chamber an abandoned feel. Sinska suspected that the impact of the last object must have struck somewhere around the power relay chamber to cut power. He hoped that Bresk would find it repairable. Being blind and helpless, with a ship out there just waiting to finish them off, did not provide Sinska any comfort.

  Not having anything to do until Bresk returned, Sinska plopped into his chair where he fumed over his ill-conceived maneuver of the ship that placed them into this current state. He caused the Tail Whip to expose its upper loading hatch to the incoming shots. He basically negated the advantage of his double-hull construction by exposing the weakness of his ship. He realized that he should have kept his double-thick side hull to the incoming shots.

  As the beats ticked by, Sinska kept expecting the Tail Whip to be struck by another salvo of whatever weapon that ship fired. His confidence slowly rose with each passing beat. Perhaps the ship had simply elected to take advantage of his ship’s loss of power to make their escape, or, hopefully, they thought his ship was already dead. Should he keep the power off if they could get it restored to avoid the prey ship knowing he was okay? If they believed he was dead, why give them a reason to doubt it by generating energy readings?

  Bresk reappeared. Reaching his side, the Underlord said, “The damage is not bad, Overlord. The top hatch to the repair chamber was blown open, allowing one of the shots, probably the last one, to enter and blast through the decking, and then blow out the main electrical relay panel.”

  “Why has the backup relay board not kicked in?”

  “That is the worst of it, Overlord. The back wall blew out and severed both primary and backup power lines. I left an Overling in charge of running a new set of power cables from the generator to the backup circuit board.”

  “How long do you think it will take to restore power?”

  Bresk hesitated before answering, and Sinska suspected he was thinking over all that had to be done. He finally answered, “I am not sure, Overlord. The wiring will have to be brought up from the storage chamber before it can be run, and the electrical chamber will need to be sealed off before we can get underlings in there. Maybe a few thousand beats; perhaps longer.”

  “What else did you discover?”

  “The propulsion drives are okay. They only shut down because the cooling pumps failed due to the power loss. Once we get power up the propulsion drives can be brought back online. In the main passageway the overhead has buckled. I did not detect any air leaks, but there is definitely structural damage to the external hull. If we take another hit up there, we could have a complete hull collapse.”

  “How many of the crew did we lose?”

  “I do not have an exact count yet, but we lost all the overlings and underlings that resided in the repair chamber, and those that worked in the electrical chamber.”

  Sinska wondered what the Council would do to him once they received word of how his actions had stripped away so many young, promising Kracks. Hissing out his frustration, he pushed the thought from his mind to focus in his ship. The damage did not appear that bad. They could make repairs and be an effective ship once more. If he learned one thing from this disaster, it was that the weapon the prey ship used did not seem to have deep penetrating power. Had the shots struck along the double hull, the damage may have been negligible.

  “Underlord, go back and oversee the running of the power cables. Put as many Underlings as you need on the repairs. I am blind up here. Get me power.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Readings!” Linda ordered.

  “Sensor shows energy output is zero,” Sharon responded. “Propulsion output is zero. Their sharp turn to port has placed them on a zero-one-zero heading.”

  “You are not getting any energy readings at all?”

  “No, Captain. None.”

  Linda had only wanted to drive them off, not destroyed. The sudden fear that she had decimated their ship flowed through her. Even though they fired at her ship, she could not accept the deaths of an entire ship’s crew due to her actions.

  “Nav, bring us about. Take up an intercepting course. Full propulsion,” Linda ordered.

  Sharon came over to her chair, and quietly asked, “Captain, do you think this is wise? Our orders are to return without delay.”

  “I am well aware of my orders, Commander,” Linda said while trying to keep her voice low to avoid being overheard by the others on the bridge. “I will not leave a dead ship in my wake. If we can help them, we will.”

  “They fired first, Captain.”

  Linda sighed in frustration. “Look, Sharon. If we leave now, we leave a mess behind us, and any chance to reach out to this species will be lost. Perhaps, just perhaps, if we show some act of kindness before we depart,” Linda shrugged, “maybe it will go a long way in building a lasting bridge down the road.”

  “I understand, Captain.” Sharon moved away to stand off to one side of the upper bridge section.

  Several minutes passed before the outline of the alien ship began to appear. The sight reminded Linda of a spirit trying to materialize in a darkened room. Another thirty minutes brought the ghostly image of the alien ship into focus, and in another hour, the ship materialized into finer detail. The ship moved away at a slight angle like a child sliding sideways down a snow-covered hill on a sled. Even so, the Privateer was winning the battle of distance over the alien vessel.

  “Nav, make course and speed to run parallel to the alien ship,” Linda ordered.

  The alien ship maintained a slight tilt to the left. It reminded Linda of a ship listing to port as it took on water. As they neared, she could see that the top hull had been blown open, and a cloudy dispersal of air continued to flow outward from it. She found the sight troubling, as any ship with emergency hatches would have sealed off the damaged section by now. She wondered if their loss of power had prevented any inner hatches from closing—a poor design if it had.

  With the Privateer moving along a parallel course with the alien ship, Linda could clearly see the full extent of the external damage. A plasma bolt had struck the ship on the top. A huge square hole could be seen where a double-hatch had once been. One half of the hatch was missing, and Linda suspected it probably kept going straight when the ship turned left. The second section of the hatch stubbornly hung onto the ship, but only by one of its three hinges, the other two having pulled loose from the hull.

  In front and back of the hatch opening, Linda could see where the top of the hull had bubbled upward, as if some cancerous growth tried to force its way through the skin. The inside of the opening appeared black, like a cave entrance, not affording her the ability to look within the ship.

  “The damage doesn’t look too bad,” Sharon said.

  “I agree,” Linda said while nodding. “If the plasma bolt had penetrated far enough into the ship to take out the propulsion system, the ship probably would have blown apart. More likely they just blew out the circuits, or perhaps severed some power conduits. Unless these creatures are totally incompetent, they should be able to make repairs to get the ship running again.”

  “If they can make their repairs quickly, we could be in a lot of danger being this close to them.”

  Linda thought over Sharon’s concern for a few seconds before realizing her XO made a good point. Nodding again
, she said, “Your point is well taken, Commander. I don’t see where we can do much good here. Let’s get turned around and headed back to the jump point.”

  “Yes, Captain.

  ◆◆◆

  “Overlord, the power cables have been rerun to the secondary circuit. The Tail Whip will have power shortly,” Bresk said as he entered the chamber.

  “That is very good news, Underlord,” Sinska responded. He looked up when the overhead lights flickered.

  With the lights now on, Sinska could see that all the consoles and monitors were coming back to life. Looking at the forward monitors, he could already see small circles of light appearing on their dark surfaces. The circles slowly grew larger until they overtook the screens.

  Sinska kept his focus on the monitors while silently wishing for them to hurry back online. He did not like being blind to where that other ship was and what it was doing at this very moment. Finally, the image from the front of the ship filled the right monitor’s screen. Quickly flipping through the external viewer options, Sinska found the prey ship. To his surprise, the prey ship was not far off on a course taking it away from his ship. For a reason he could not comprehend, the ship had come over to them but appeared to take no action to finish him off. He again wondered if this prey thought his ship was already dead. If they had, his sudden regaining of power would end that belief. Watching the monitor carefully, he waited to see how his prey would respond.

  The familiar rumble of the propulsion drives reverberating up his legs and tail indicated life coming back to his ship. Lashing his tongue at the prey ship, Sinska wanted revenge. His prey was so close that Sinska felt like he could reach right out and latch onto it.

  “Underlord, quickly prepare a mine for launch. I want the magnetic field to activate as soon as it clears the tube. That ship is so close to us now that there is no way they can react fast enough to stop it from striking them.”