The Chance Encounter: The Linda Eccles Series - Book One

by Robert Woodard

  The missile obviously had heat seeking capability, so could she use that to her advantage? All she needed was to find something reading hotter than her ship to divert it, but what? With no sun to speak of, she could not use that as a backdrop to confuse the missile. In fact, her ship had to look nice and hot against the cold space that surrounded her.

  Even worse, she trailed overheated exhaust. That missile would follow the exhaust right up her ass and blow her ship wide open. To avoid that, she would need to get sideways to the missile. Letting it hit the hull instead, thereby protecting her propulsion, seemed sound, but that would expose a good number of her crew to the danger. Linda could not stomach that thought. There had to be another option.

  Linda realized that if she could get the missile to focus on her heated exhaust, while she remained sideways to it, the missile just might pass right through the wash and continue on its way. To do that would require two things. She would have to get the exhaust good and hot, and then she would need to make a perfectly timed, desperate, maneuver.

  Getting up to pace, she knew the timing had to be perfect, so she needed to have her orders all lined up and ready to go. If the plan worked and she got rid of the missile, she had to do something to keep the alien ship from sitting back there taking potshots at her until one finally struck home.

  Coming back to her chair, she looked at tactical. A good part of the display was taken up by the planet they had just cleared. The sight gave her pause. Could she use that giant orb to her advantage? What if she swung starboard in her wild ride to shake the missile loose, and then kept right on heading for the plants surface? With a little luck, she might confuse the alien commander enough to get around him.

  It seemed plausible. The commander would surely watch her wild maneuvers while the missile chased her. Once the missile passed by, it would seem logical she would not reverse course again until the missile ran out of fuel. By then, just maybe, she would have bought enough time to slip past them to make a disparate climb up and over the planet. Once at the top, she could angle left to make an all-out run to the jump point.

  Linda could see it all in her mind. At the top of the planet, she would still be invisible to the other ship, and the one chasing her would not be able to communicate with them until they came within line of sight of each other. It could work. It had to work.

  Linda dropped down to the lower section of the bridge and came up behind the Communication Specialist. She silently cursed Sharon for her lack of professionalism in her failure to return to the bridge. She would throttle that skinny bitch when this was all done.

  “Comm, open a channel to emergency control,” Linda ordered.

  “Channel open, Captain.”

  “Emergency control, this is the Captain. I will be making very rapid maneuvers so be ready to act quickly. When I give you course corrections, you need to make them with the utmost speed.”

  “Yes, Captain”

  Linda recognized Rebecca’s voice as the one that responded. Turning to look over at navigation, she said, “Nav, give me a countdown of the target, please.”

  “Target is nine-thousand out, Captain, and closing fast.”

  When the missile reached a thousand yards out, Linda knew it was time to act. She was pressing her luck, and that of the entire crew, but the timing had to be perfect to work.

  “Full propulsion, hard to starboard,” Linda ordered through communications to emergency control.

  Linda could hear Rebecca’s repeated orders through the overhead speakers. The ship had already begun its swing before the Lieutenant finished talking. The lumbering ship could never match the turn radius of the missile, she was sure of that, but that was not her plan. She wanted to confuse the weapon until it lost contact with her ship.

  “Three hundred!”

  “Emergency down!” Linda yelled. “Drop the bow to drive us with propulsion. When I give the word, reverse the bow to drive straight upward.”

  “Yes, Captain!” The response boomed down from the overhead speakers to fill the entire bridge.

  “Two hundred meters, Captain!” The Navigator’s elevated voice reminded Linda of the danger.

  The Privateer drove down like a dive-bomber. Linda yelled out, “Now, climb for the stars!”

  The computer’s equilibrium module was unable to counteract the rapid change in the ship's positioning, forcing Linda over backwards. Landing on her bottom, she remained on the deck listening to the whines and creaks of the hull from the stresses being put on the ship. She once again had to let her shirt go to use both hands to soften her fall. To her surprise, the bottom of her shirt had stayed stuck to her wound, but it stung all the worse for it.

  “100!”

  Linda closed her eyes and hoped that the sudden downward thrust of the propulsion output would confuse the weapon enough to get it to plow right through her heated exhaust wash. She knew it was getting hotter by the second.

  “Captain, I show the weapon has passed beyond us. It does not appear to be reversing course. I think it lost us,” the Navigator reported.

  Linda blew out a rush of air before coming to her feet. Once standing, she rubbed her tailbone. It stung from landing on the unforgiving surface of the bridge deck. She ordered, “Level us out and make for the planet’s surface. I want to get so close that I can pick flowers. When I give the word, you are to climb up and over it. Get me on top, and the very minute you are clear, adjust course to the jump point.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Rebecca’s voice sounded over the speakers.

  ◆◆◆

  Being blind to what was happening on the opposite side of the planet made Jeftrick pace with impatience. Had the Claw Plunge fired another rocket, and if it did, did they hit the prey ship? For a brief moment, he thought about ordering the Slayer to drop below the planet to see if he could make contact, but then decided against it. The last thing he needed was to be underneath his prey when it came racing around the planet.

  So far, one rocket was loaded and sat ready to launch. A second rocket was now being worked into a tube. Lashing his tongue out, Jeftrick could not wait to surprise his fleeing prey with a rocket smacking them right on the snout.

  Opening his mouth slightly, Jeftrick snapped it shut with a loud pop.

  ◆◆◆

  Sinska stood within the control chamber and silently tried to coax more speed out of his ailing ship. The tactical view had shown the prey ship making a violent reversal of direction before he lost it behind the planet. The sensor had picked up the missile when it fired and followed it all the way to the target and beyond, until it finally ran out of fuel and drifted away.

  The prey had made such an aggressive maneuver against the rocket that Sinska could not help but be impressed by it. The commander of that ship used the propulsion venting to drive heated exhaust directly into the path of the rocket’s heat tracker. Sinska suspected the rocket never knew the difference. It followed that heated exhaust right on past them. Tracking had shown it meandering left and right while trying to find a target. Meanwhile, the prey ship had already headed in the opposite direction.

  Continuing to stare at the tracking display, Sinska tried to guess what the prey ship would do next. Their last course placed them heading directly at the planet, but which way would they go? If they veered to their left, the prey ship would run smack into the Slayer. Turning right would bring them to the Claw Plunge, and Sinska did not think either of those options would appeal to this crafty prey.

  Could they land on the planet’s surface? That did not seem likely to him. Perhaps they would reverse course again, but that seemed unlikely, too. If there was one thing Sinska could count on, it was his prey’s desire to get to the jump point where they entered the system. They had constantly maintained that course, so he doubted they would abandon it now.

  The planet seemed like the key. They were using it in some way, but what did it mean? If they could not go around it, maybe they intended to go over or under it? The thought pleased Sinska.
He would be in a perfect position to get back into the action if that was the case. It did not really matter whether they went over or under the planet for he would be waiting for them to emerge.

  “Underlord, are all tubes loaded?”

  “Yes, Overlord.”

  Staring intently at the monitor displaying tracking data, Sinska waited for the ship to appear. He had hurt them once, he planned on hurting them again. He hissed out his desire to inflect that hurt in revenge for what they did to his ship.

  ◆◆◆

  With the Privateer following the curvature of the planet’s surface, the propulsion units were shut down to allow the restricted coolant flow to do its job on cooling the drives. Until they needed to change course again, Linda would let them sit idle.

  From a distance, the planet’s surface had looked brown and smooth. But up close now, it offered a variety of shades ranging from tans so light as to be almost white, and browns so dark as to give the appearance of black. Peaks and valleys dominated the landscape. Linda failed to see any sign of life whatsoever. Although the Privateer rocketed along, she could still make out the lack of vegetation on the surface clean to the horizon.

  The planet did not seem to offer anything that would appeal to anyone, and that made it ideal for UMU to exploit. The company execs would probably have salivated over the data on this planet had the probe made it back in one piece. The thought brought up disgust for the company, their mission, and her part in it. They existed to strip a planet of anything of value that would pile on the credits.

  Linda got up from her chair and walked around to help loosen her knees. The fall from her chair had hurt more than she first realized. She felt bruised and beaten all over, and her chin, which had finally stopped bleeding, stung like it was under attack by fire ants. It all combined to give Linda an extremely sour mood. She felt trapped in a nightmare from which she could not awake, and it was pissing her off the longer it lasted.

  As she sat heavily in her chair again, she looked at the status board. The shield generator still burned red, and Andrea had reported that it was down for the duration. Linda felt naked without those shields. Three areas blinked red, too—both propulsion units and the cooling system that limited her movements. Come on Andrea, get that cooling system fixed.

  Looking at navigation, she could see it was still dead—the last problem that prevented her bridge from being whole again. Whatever the problem, it appeared to be related to the Nav console, and not the Nav computer. Silently, she thanked the designers of the Privateer for having such solid backup capability built into her ship. Without them, she would have been in a world of hurt.

  Being in a world of hurt reminded her that Sharon still had not appeared, and as bad as Sharon was, it was not like her to disappear like this. While she knew that people could panic in highly stressful situations, causing them to do funny things, she had a hard time believing that Sharon would run and hide. If she had, her career was over, as she would never receive another command, ever. No captain would take a chance on her, and no company would give her a ship of her own. Sharon would become a liability now, and as much as Linda wanted her off the Privateer, it bothered her that it had to be under this kind of situation.

  “Comm, open a channel to emergency control,” Linda ordered.

  “Channel is open, Captain.”

  A soft tone flowed down from the speakers above. Linda asked, “Lieutenant, is Commander Launtra still there with you?”

  “I’m here, Captain,” Bill responded.

  Linda suspected that Bill was sitting back and letting Rebecca run the show to build up her experience and confidence. She silently applauding him for doing it and gave her yet another reason why she felt he would make a fine XO for her.

  “Commander,” Linda said, “Find out the status of the cooling system, and then hunt down Commander Bresee. Accompany her to the bridge.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  I’ll have your license for this, Sharon, Linda silently told herself. She was going to get to the bottom of what happened to Sharon to get that mystery off her mind. Bill would find her wherever the little twit was hiding. He would also light a fire under Andrea to get that cooling system fixed, which is what Linda needed right now. Without the cooling system working correctly, they could not warp for home.

  Placing her attention on tactical, Linda sized up the situation. Her execution of the course reversal had worked like a charm. Not only had she outsmarted the missile, but she had caught her pursuer sleeping. They had neglected to react to her course change until it was too late, and now they seemed to be confused as to her true intentions. Linda enjoyed having outsmarted the little green bastards. Feeling the sting of her chin when her face tightened into a smile, she wondered what the aliens really looked like.

  Shaking the thought off, she focused on the three ships still in action. Even though two ships were out of her line of sight, tactical projected their position on the assumption the ships had not altered course, giving her a rough idea of where they should be located.

  She noticed her pursuer had finally gotten behind her. At first, they had stayed on course after she shook off the missile, and she suspected the commander had thought she would reverse course again. Then, when she ended up parallel with them, the commander must have realized the deception, as their ship swung right to get around on her. By the time they had managed it, Linda had a comfortable lead once again.

  Smiling, despite her stinging chin, Linda wondered what the commander of the ship coming around the planet would think when he popped out to find the Privateer and her pursuer gone. She would love to be on their bridge when that happened. If her ploy worked correctly, the planet would still be between them. However, if they detected the trailing ship rising over the planet, her ruse would quickly end, but they would be too far out of position to do anything about it.

  Linda saw the red blob appear on tactical before the Specialist yelled out her warning that the alien ship had fired again. Without any propulsion exhaust being emitted, she took a chance that the heat-seeking capability of the weapon would have a hard time picking her out against the mass of the planet in front of her. Unless she missed her guess, the missile would never get a target lock and would end up passing well behind her.

  “I think there may be something wrong with the weapon, Captain. It’s not tracking onto us. I show it making slight left and right adjustments, similar to the last weapon after it lost contact.”

  Linda smiled, and then grimaced from the sting of her chin. Touching it, she could see it had started oozing blood again. Ignoring it, she looked at the monitor and could see the same erratic behavior from the missile on tactical. While she had not planned on using the planet as a backdrop against more missiles, it proved to be the perfect solution—a nice byproduct of her desire to get out of here.

  The sound of the bridge hatch sliding open caused Linda to turn to see if Sharon had finally gotten her butt in action, but it turned out to be Bill. Glad to see his presence on the bridge, she decided he could be her acting XO until Sharon decided to show herself. He will continue to be my XO unless Sharon has a very good reason for being out of action for so long.

  Bill changed direction when he looked at Linda and deviated to the back wall of the bridge. He approached the first-aid kit and pulled out something bulky. He then came over to Linda while tearing open a sealed packet. When he pulled out a wound patch, Linda understood what he was doing.

  “Here, Captain, press this against that wound.”

  Linda pressed it against her chin, feeling the all too familiar sting. Ignoring the pain, she asked, “What’s the word on the cooling system?”

  “Andrea located the source of the coolant problem. The explosion buckled the hull in the port side exposure compartment, where the coolant pipes run through to bleed off heat. The outer hull buckled inward to pinch off both incoming pipes. The coolant flow has been restricted at that point. The only way to fix it is to cut away the pinched sectio
ns and add new piping, but to do that would require closing off the exposure vents. I told her to hold off until I talked with you.”

  “That was good thinking, Commander. The repairs will have to wait until we exit this system. I will need to make a course correction to aim at the jump point, and then make the jump into warp.”

  “The light-drive will overheat quickly once we attempt to use it.” Bill said.

  “I understand that, Commander. If we can get a couple of minutes out of it, that will put a lot of distance between us and this place. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, Captain,” Bill said with a nod. “More than enough distance to drop out of warp and make repairs.”

  “The repairs can wait then,” Linda said, nodding her head in approval of her own decision.

  “I also spoke with Andrea on the condition of the shield generator, and her reply was that the explosion overloaded the unit. To use Andrea’s own words, ‘It blew to high heavens.’”

  Linda nodded, having already been aware of that problem. Turning her head forward, she checked on the missile and found it no longer appeared on tactical. It had hopefully run out of fuel, and the trailing ship had not fired again. She felt relief that the alien creatures seemed extremely slow at reloading.

  Looking up at Bill, she noticed he was frowning heavily. He seemed to want to say something, but also appeared to be holding back. Fearing the worst was about to come, Linda said, “Do you have anything else to report, Commander?”

  Bill jerked his head for her to move to the back of the bridge, near the door. When they were both there, he said, softly, “Sharon is dead.”