Linda felt the immediate shock that came with those words that created a stunning numbness within her. All she could do was ask herself how something like that could happen, and while on her watch, too. Shaking off the stunned feeling in her brain, she asked, “How?”
“I found her in a side passageway off the crew’s quarters. It appears she had taken a shortcut through that compartment to get to emergency control. Apparently, when the missile exploded, Sharon was launched upward, where she struck her head on the overhead so hard it caved in her skull. I had a corpsman called, and he said she was probably dead before she hit the deck.”
Barely hearing Bill’s words, all Linda could think of was how badly she had treated Sharon. It brought tears to her eyes. She quickly cut them off by looking at tactical to see if another missile had been fired. There would be time later to think about Sharon, she told herself, but not now.
“Bill, I am elevating you to acting XO to take over Sharon’s duties. I want you to remain here on the bridge with me.”
Bill only nodded his head slowly a few times, seeming to understand the situation at hand. Giving the tactical view another glance, Linda could see nothing had changed, but the Privateer was close to topping the planet.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sinska’s tongue lashed out at the monitor when the Prey Ship appeared over the top of the planet. The ship was hugging the surface so closely that it was hard to see on the live viewer, but their sensor picked it out of the mass.
His guess had been correct, and now Sinska had the upper claw again. Tracking showed that the ship produced zero propulsion output, and he tried to make sense out of that. Their propulsion drives must be working, otherwise, how did they make the course changes to get to where they were now? Something did not seem right, and that made him cautious.
If there was one thing Sinska was not going to do with his prey, it was to take them for granted. This prey was crafty and dangerous, but he also had a score to settle. He let his mind ponder over the glory he would receive if he could do what five other ships could not—capture this prey. He would return as an Overlord to be recognized. Coming into Kracks with the Prey Ship in tow would show all of Kracks what a superb hunter he truly was. Gugg mothers would sing his praises to the lings while the Masterlords would consider him for a future council member position. Hissing his own admiration, he could envision himself as the youngest Kracks ever to become a Masterlord. He could see it all, and his glory was on a ship coming his way.
Returning his focus onto the tracking display, he watched as the ship produced propulsion and swung left to bring it back onto a course heading for the expected exit point they had been shooting for all along. The fact that their propulsion came online, made a course correction, and shut down again, gave him pause. Sinska had a sneaking suspicion there was something wrong with their propulsion drives. It gave him satisfaction to think that his mine had done that to them.
With the Prey Ship and the Tail Whip driving toward the same point in space, he had the advantage. Even though the prey ship was faster, Sinska knew they could not reach the jump point ahead of his mines. Now he just needed to get the angle right to lead the mines right to them. Only this time, he would adjust the launches to account for any evasive action his prey may take.
The Prey Ship was well away from the planet’s surface now and more visible on the live viewer. With no way of knowing if their weapon still functioned, he felt leery of it. This was all about revenge, though, so he would launch his mines regardless of what his prey did in return.
“Underlord, I want to launch all four mines at once,” Sinska said. “I want one to track onto their current course and speed. The other three I want to bracket them in a triangular pattern. One on top and the other two slightly down and off on their left and right sides. I want them to be placed so that no matter which way the ship turns, raises or lowers a mine will be close by to detonate.”
“At once, Overlord,” Bresk said.
Having completed the first task of wounding this prey, he now was ready to take it down. He could already envision one of the mines landing that final blow that would end this chase and let him triumphantly tow them back to Kracks. Along with the glory that awaited him, he was dying to see who it was that gave him such a fine chase.
◆◆◆
Jeftrick found the disappearance of the ships puzzling. He expected to see the Prey Ship either coming toward him, or heading further out into space, but it was not found in either location. Even if the two ships had destroyed each other, his sensor should have picked up some traces of it. Perhaps his prey doubled back somehow. If so, how had they gotten past the Claw Plunge? Had the commander of the Prey Ship guessed correctly and gotten past them before they could reload a rocket? Even so, the Claw Plunge should have been able to close in enough to rake them with their energy cannons.
“Overlord, I found the Claw Plunge. They are just now clearing the top of the planet,” the Underlord reported.
“They have gotten behind us!” Jeftrick yelled. “Get us turned around, Underlord. Take us back around the planet to line up with their known entry point.”
A sinking feeling came over Jeftrick. His risky move in trying to cut off the prey was now letting it escape. Although he would try, there was little hope the Slayer could get anywhere near that pesky ship again. His prey would run right to the jump point and disappear out from under his nostrils, and there was nothing to be done about it.
Jeftrick could not believe he had been so easily deceived. While blinded to his prey, his prey did the impossible by evading the Claw Plunge. If failure was going to happen, Jeftrick was going to make sure that the Council knew it was the Overlord on the Claw Plunge who failed to stop them, not him. His maneuver was carefully thought out, but the Claw Plunge failed in her duty to keep the prey from escaping. He could not wait to see the data capture aboard the Claw Plunge to see how the Prey Ship managed it.
◆◆◆
Linda had just one last hurdle to get over to be free to exit this nightmare. The first alien ship they encountered was right where she expected them to be based on its last-known position as projected out by tactical. It had worked its way into the fray again, only this time she had nothing to defend herself with except the knowledge that their missile did not track heat. The other ship was far enough away that their energy weapon would be useless, if not out of range completely, and she had plenty of distance to maneuver if they fired their other weapon. Even with limited mobility with her ship's drives, she could move around enough to avoid whatever they threw at her.
“Captain, I am detecting multiple weapon launches from the alien ship,” the Nav Specialist reported. “I’m feeding them to tactical now.”
The overhead monitor showing tactical suddenly came alive with four incoming lines. The pattern clearly defined itself in relations to her ship. One mine was projected to strike her ship while the other three were fanning out slightly to bracket her in a clear attempt to prevent her from maneuvering away from them.
“Perhaps it is time to risk a jump from here, Captain,” Bill said in a low voice as he stood next to her chair.
“I agree, Commander,” Linda responded. “Let’s just pray that the sensor drops us out fast enough should something be in our path.” She still had the vision of the planet being in front of her when they first arrived into this system.
“I recommend a two-minute jump. That is about all the warp drives will take before they overheat, according to Andrea when I last spoke with her.”
“Agreed, Commander.” Linda glanced at tactical again to see the missiles were nearly halfway to them already. “Nav, plot for a two-minute warp jump using as much of our original incoming path as is feasible with our current angle. Just don’t take too long in doing so.”
“Right away, Captain,” The Nav Specialist responded while her fingers went into action on the plotting console.
Even though the jump was risky, Linda knew she was out of time. She had pressed he
r luck and skill as far as she dared. It was time to get away while she still could. She just hoped the sensor could detect and drop them out if something wound up in their path, especially without the shields to deflect anything too small for the sensor to detect in time to react.
The seconds seemed to tick away quickly, while the incoming missiles drew ever closer. Tactical counted down the distance between each missile, and the one racing directly at her ship stood only twelve thousand meters away now and was closing fast. If they lost the race against time it was too late for Linda to do anything about it.
“Course plotted,” the Nav Specialist said.
When the plot warning popped up on the screen, Linda walked over to the navigation station and entered her authorization code to override it. Due to the issues with navigational controls, Linda had a communication channel with emergency control left open, which would prove a time saver now.
“This is the Captain. We are passing down the nav coordinates to enter warp. Execute it immediately upon receipt.”
“Transmitted,” the specialist said.
Out of the right view port, Linda could now see the odd-looking missiles approaching. Rather than pen-shaped, it looked more like an oversized whiskey barrel, and it was closing with her at an impressive rate. She felt the ship entering warp that made her body lean due to the equilibrium adjustments on the bridge being slightly off due to all the damage the ship sustained. Being sideways to the bow, she had to sidestep to avoid losing her balance. Deciding she didn’t want to risk flying across the bridge again when the ship dropped back out of warp, she walked over to her chair and sat.
With the Privateer now in warp, the bridge went quiet. Linda suspected everyone was silently thankful they were leaving the aliens and their weapons far behind. Linda knew she sure was.
The Privateer had not been in warp long before sharp, annoying warning tones sounded overhead, and the once blinking red lights on the damage control board now burned solid for both the cooling system and the warp drive. Looking at tactical above the Nav station, Linda noted the time display showing their length of travel. They had been in warp for only fifty seconds.
“Captain, Engineering, we must drop out of warp before the light-speed unit blows apart! We have reached our maximum heat tolerance!”
When Andrea’s overly excited voice came over the speakers, her tone indicated the seriousness of her request. Linda didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she said, “Emergency Control, exit warp immediately. Bring us to a controlled stop.”
Linda again felt the slight forward pull on her body that caused her to tighten her grip on the arms of her chair. Looking over, she could see Bill using the railing to keep himself upright. She then looked out the view ports when she heard the forward jets kick in that slowly bled off speed until they finally floated freely in space.
“It would seem that your calculation for the length of time we could remain in warp proved a bit off, Commander,” Linda joked as the stresses of getting out of that system melted away.
“My estimations are only as good as my source, Captain” Bill said with a chuckle.
“Good answer, Commander.”
For the first time since getting the order change from UMU, Linda felt like her old self again. Even her haunting recollections of the bullies seemed content to return to the deep, dark pit of her childhood memories.
◆◆◆
When the Slayer finally cleared the curvature of the planet, Jeftrick witnessed the flash created by his prey escaping his clutches. He could see that his opportunity for glory vanished with it. As his tongue slowly protruded from his mouth, he lowered one eye to watch the duel tips of the forked appendage wiggle back and forth.
Slowly pulling the tongue back in, Jeftrick slumped in his chair. What would await him upon his return to Kracks? Instead of returning with the glory of the Prey Ship in tow, he was now going back with only two functioning ships out of the five. What would the Masterlords think of that? The thought of returning to Kracks a failure struck hard at his heart.
While losing three ships seemed bad enough, letting his prey escape would probably be too much for the Council to forgive. Looking at the live viewer showing empty space, Jeftrick tried to figure out what this all meant. Would the creatures return, and if they did, would it be in overwhelming numbers seeking revenge? What would the Council Members choose to do about it?
Swinging an eye over to tracking, Jeftrick realized work still needed to be done. Having cleared the planet, he could now see the Tail Whip and the Claw Plunge. Both ships had stopped to hold position while awaiting new orders. Jeftrick decided it was time to collect what he had left of his fleet and get them all home. He would contact the Council for further direction. Jeftrick was not looking forward to the response he would get from the report.
“Underlord, have the Claw Plunge sent over to the Wicked Bite to see what they can do, and to prepare to tow them back to Kracks. Notify the Tail Whip to attend to the Biting Prey.”
“Yes, Overlord.”
“I will be in my chamber.”
Jeftrick rose slowly from his chair. His body felt sluggish from all his time on the bridge, with little attention to food or sleep. After he sent his message to the Council, he planned on rectifying both of those issues.
◆◆◆
Sinska had risen from his chair with excitement as his mines closed in on the Prey Ship, but then sank back into it when he saw the ship disappear into light speed. His last chance to seek revenge on those that harmed his ship had simply vanished before his eyes, as had his chance at glory. Who would now atone for what happened to his ship, the loss of the Tracker, and the severe damage to the Biting Prey and Wicked Bite?
Sinska knew the entire ordeal had finally ended. After receiving orders to provide support and a tow to the Biting Prey, he put the Tail Whip into motion again to intercept the damaged ship. While he had hoped for a quick return to Kracks, the need to provide support to the other ship negated that for him.
All the work the Underlings had done to shore up the damaged hull and bulkheads in preparation for going to light speed was for naught. The towing of the Biting Prey would have to be done with propulsion only. It would be 178 planet cycles now; the time needed to tow the Biting Prey, before the Overlord would see Kracks—178!
◆◆◆
Linda fidgeted as a corpsman worked on stitching her chin. He had wanted to take her to the small sickbay first, but Linda was having none of it. Her place was on the bridge until her ship made it back into warp. She told him to do it there. He didn’t seem happy with that order, but he complied.
“That should do it for now, Captain, but I advise you to take it easy for a few days,” the Corpsman said. He then held up a syringe.
“What’s that for?” Linda asked.
“It’s a neuro-blocker to kill the pain. It might make you a little drowsy.”
“Not now. Once this ordeal is over, I’ll stop by sickbay if the pain gets too severe. That’s all for now, and thanks.” Linda then waved him away.
As the Corpsman left the bridge, Linda lightly touched her chin, feeling the thick bandage he had placed over the wound and taped in place. The wound stung from the pressure of the stitches, but she tried to ignore it.
“Commander, find out how long engineering will need to make repairs,” Linda ordered. Each word created a new level of pain.
“Yes, Captain,” Bill responded.
As Bill moved over to communication, Linda looked out at the distant stars beyond the portals. The trouble they left behind represented only a speck some fifteen-billion meters away now, and it wasn’t far enough in her way of seeing it. When they could enter warp again, she planned on making the distance a whole lot more.
From where they now sat, they would have to jump back to their starting point, the system they left when she received the troubling orders, and then plot from that point for their final stop at Rapatine. It would add time, but also be the safest way home, and Lin
da was all for that. Her lack of shielding made any deviation a risk not worth taking.
Left to her own thoughts, Linda played back the entire ordeal from beginning to end. She could see so many things she could have done differently. Once she had ascertained the probe was destroyed, she should have turned back and exited. Once they noticed the alien object, she should have just marked its location for future reference and left. Once the alien ship had been disabled, she should have just kept on going instead of turning back to help. Any of these actions would have kept Sharon alive and her crew safe. Even the five ships that came in to cut her off would have been out of position in the latter case if she hadn’t turned back to assist the first alien vessel. In the first two cases, they never would have appeared at all before she had safely entered warp. Shaking her head, Linda saw so many mistakes she had made.
“Captain, Andrea estimates it will take at least thirty minutes to get the heated coolant out of the damaged sections of the pipe, and then another two hours to reroute the piping,” Bill said.
So lost in her own thoughts, Linda hadn’t heard Bill return to her side. She said, “Very well. The bridge is yours, Commander. I’ll be in my cabin. Let me know when we are ready to get underway again.”
Linda left the bridge. When she entered the passageway to her cabin, she felt completely exhausted. Whatever she had been running on finally ran dry, and she felt wiped. Entering her cabin, she crashed onto her bed, thankful for the exhaustion that would keep her from focusing on Sharon’s death.
◆◆◆
Bill watched the Privateer drop out of warp into the very system they had worked in for the past six months. The repairs had been completed, and he had received orders from Linda to make this first leg of their jump for home. She had remained in her cabin while Bill stayed in charge of the bridge, in rotation with the other officers.
“Comm, notify the Captain that the Privateer has dropped out of warp, and that I await her order to return to Rapatine,” Bill ordered.
The Chance Encounter: The Linda Eccles Series - Book One Page 22
