Dewey glanced at Tiffin again, then turned to Jake and nodded. "I'll do what I can to help. I'm in."
"Then it's settled," Jake said. "Sarah."
"Yes, Jake?"
"I put the coordinates in the shuttle computer already to map it. Pull them and set a course. It's been too long looking over our shoulder. We're doing this. I know the kind of ship he uses. If we can surprise him, he won't have time to call in support. You outclass him defensively and offensively...not to mention your charming personality."
"I had no idea you had weapons systems," Dewey said.
Tiffin turned to him. "Oh, yeah. She does."
"Any firefight is a risk, Jake," Sarah said. "You know that."
Jake shrugged. "Life's a risk. I just want to be able to live it without his ongoing attempts to sabotage it."
"Where exactly are we going?" Dewey asked.
"We'll fold to cover most of the way. It's far, but we'll have to fly in the last few hours.
"Why not come in closed with the fold?" Tiffin asked.
Jake took a moment, then said, "Can't risk it."
"Risk it?" Dewey didn't like the idea of more risk being added to an already deadly situation.
Jake exhaled, then said, "The General's hiding out in the middle of one of the largest asteroid fields this side of the galaxy. Dense with flux ore. If we fold into it, good chance we clip one containing the flux ore and blow ourselves up."
"The stuff in that one that almost collided with the ship?" Tiffin asked.
"Exactly," Sarah said.
Dewey slumped back into his chair. "I see."
"We'll make the jump to just outside the asteroid field in about an hour," Jake said, then looked at Sarah's camera. "That work?"
"Can we do it?" Sarah said. "Yes. Is this mission the best idea you've had? No. But...you know I'm with you."
Jake nodded toward the camera. "Thanks, darling. I couldn't do it without you."
Tiffin stood up. "Okay. So, I guess call me if you need me before we get there."
Dewey stood too.
"Thanks," Jake said. "Yeah, why don't the two of you relax until then. Maybe get a drink in the lounge."
"She's not really old enough to be drinking, Jake," Sarah said.
Jake chuckled. "You really think that matters, under the circumstances?"
"I'm just going to go to the lounge. Enjoy the view. It's...peaceful."
Dewey took her hand in his, ignoring the tinge of embarrassment he felt at openly displaying his affection. "I'll join you."
She smiled at him and the two left the bridge.
Chapter 31
"They're hailing us, Jake," Sarah said. "What do you want me to do?"
Jake glanced at Tiffin and Dewey, who were sitting in front of two of the control stations. Jake had been instructing them earlier on what the different readouts meant, and what the buttons and sliders handled. Jake then turned back to the main viewing window, which had a semitransparent overlay. Sarah had brought up the rear view, so Jake could see all the ships she alerted him about.
There were at least a dozen. It was a patrol group of an organization knew better than he care to. He'd had a few entanglements with them over the years. Staying off their scanners was, in Jake's mind, always a good idea.
"Who are they?" Tiffin asked.
Sarah answered for Jake, who was trying to figure out what he was going to tell them in a moment. "The Galactic Enforcers," Sarah said.
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Tiffin asked.
Jake stepped in front of the main screen, looking at the ships, which were fast approaching. "Depends on whether you're on their good list or bad list."
"Which list are you on?" Dewey said.
Jake kept his eyes on the screen. "Hard to say. Depends on how good their memories are."
"You know, Jake," Sarah said. "We have the location of the General. Maybe we could share it with them. I know they'd be interested in his whereabouts. He probably has a list of crimes longer than anyone else in their files."
Jake glared at Sarah's camera.
"It's not a bad idea," Tiffin said.
Dewey nodded slightly. "Make sense."
"No." Jake looked at the ships on the view screen again.
"But," Sarah said, "with that many ships they could bring him in. We're just one ship."
"One really good ship," Jake said. He heard Sarah sigh, then he turned to face Tiffin, Dewey, and Sarah's camera. "Look, yeah, you're right. They could probably bring him in...unless he has somebody on the inside he can call on to get them to stand down. Wouldn't be the first time. But, let's say they do. It won't last. It never does. He's been hauled in more than once. The Enforcers. Local authorities. Whoever. It always ends up the same way. A few weeks pass. The whole matter is treated like a galactic security secret. Before you know it, words spreads that he's out again and disappeared to who knows where."
Jake expected more protests over his decision, but no one said anything else for several moments, then Sarah spoke up, "He's right. I'm not saying I like it in this instance, but he is."
Dewey rose from his chair and walked closer to the view screen, looking at the fleet of ships. "That doesn't mean it isn't the best move."
"Dewey." Jake's voice sounded more stern now. "You made your decision earlier. I'm going after him. I'll be damned if I'm going to let these guys screw this up."
"Jake," Sarah said. "They're still hailing us. They're saying if we don't respond soon, they'll consider us hostile and act accordingly."
Jake nodded. "How soon can we make the jump?"
"You don't want to answer them?" Sarah asked.
"How soon?"
"Uh, I can have us ready in less than a minute. I already set the coordinates, and the system has been prepping for a while."
"Good," Jake said. "Start the sequence, then open up the channel with the Enforcers."
"You know once I initiate the fold sequence, we can't shut it down. The system would overload. And they'll detect the change in our energy signature within twenty seconds or so, as close as they are."
"Yeah, I know all this. Just do it. Go ahead and give me visuals on the channel too...after you initiate for the fold."
"You're the captain," Sarah said. "Here goes."
A thin pale man wearing a crips blue uniform appeared on the large view screen. Jake waited until he heard the familiar click of the ship-to-ship audio channel making the connection. "This is the captain of the G.D.S. ship. What are you fellas doing out here?"
"Please confirm your vessel registration number." The man sounded impersonal, but efficient.
Jake understood this part was routine. He also understood not complying would be the Enforcers' cue to surround his ship, or, if they were feeling impatient or particularly entitled today, possibly just blasting it to pieces.
"Registration?" Jake said. "Oh, yeah. Let me think. Uh. You know what. I'm going to have to have my Lieutenant pull that up for me. Just a sec." Jake turned to Dewey. "Lieutenant, if you would please. Give this gentleman the registration number. You know I can never remember that damn thing."
Dewey looked wide-eyed. "Uh, yes, Captain. I'll...Right away." Dewey stepped back to the chair he'd been sitting in and turned to the controls. Without actually touching them, he made it look like he was pushing several buttons in front of him, then he leaned closer to one of the small view screens beside the controls and pretended to read from it.
Jake smiled at the uniformed man, then looked at Dewey. "Lieutenant, you got that registration yet? Don't make the man wait. They don't have time to waste on boring civilians like us." Jake faced the uniformed man again, but strolled closer to his captain's chair. "I bet you guys have a lot more important things to do out here, huh?"
"Jake?" Sarah said.
"Now?" Jake said without looking away from the officer on screen, who appeared annoyed and possibly suspicious.
"Yes."
Jake took another step toward his chair and grabbed the back of it t
o brace himself. "Tiffin, Dewey, you may want to hold on to something."
The officer on the screen became irate and knew something was going down. "What are you-"
The comm channel broke its connection before the rest of his words came through. The ship had moved into the fold in space, leaving no way for the Galactic Enforcers to follow them or know where they had gone.
Chapter 32
Tiffin's stomach felt queasy from the jump through space. Careful not to accidentally push any of the buttons or switches on the dash in front of her seat, she places her forearm against a bare part of the metal below them to brace herself.
Dewey put a hand on her shoulder. "You alright?"
She nodded, giving herself a moment more to recover before speaking. "Yeah, I'll be okay." She lifted her head and looked at him. "Just a weird feeling, that's all."
"Agreed."
Jake stepped clear of the chair he'd been using to brace himself for the fold. "Dewey, did you ever find the registration number?"
Tiffin looked at Jake and saw he was grinning.
"I didn't know if you were expecting me to make something up, or what," Dewey said. "I wish you'd tell me next time before something like that."
Jake chuckled. "Aw. Where's the fun in that?"
"Sarah," Tiffin said. "They won't be able to follow us here, will they?"
"No," Sarah said. "Not without a tracker on the ship. There's no way to link the point where we were with where we are now, after the fold happens."
"And," Tiffin said, "where are we now?"
Jake gestured for Tiffin to turn to the viewing window. "Take a look."
She got up from her chair and walked to the center of the room, staring out the window at the field of asteroids. "Oh, wow. There must be thousands of them."
"Millions is more like it," Sarah said.
"He's out here?" Dewey asked. He'd moved away from his station too.
"Still a good distance from here," Jake said. "But we had to fold out here. Too risky in there."
"Jake," Sarah said. "This is unbelievable."
Tiffin glanced at Sarah's camera. "What?"
"I've scanned hundreds of the asteroids," Sarah said. "It's not just some of them that are volatile. All of them have a high percentage of the flux ore."
"What's that mean?" Dewey asked. "We're not going through then, right?"
Jake shook his head. "It means we're going to do some of the best maneuvering the galaxy's ever seen and get through that minefield."
Tiffin looked at the view screen and noticed one of the asteroids disappeared. A moment later, one appeared elsewhere in the field, a good distance from the ship. She watched it spin as it drifted toward another one. She could see the two were going to collide. She stared at them, waiting to see what would happen.
The flash of light from the two impacting asteroids lit up the view screen for an instant. A moment later, Tiffin saw the the debris-filled wave of energy blasting outward from where the two asteroids had been. The spray of flux energy and rocks set of several more asteroids that were in the blast radius. The cascade of explosions sent a shockwave that rocked the ship.
Tiffin scrambled to the nearest chair, all of which were fixed in place to the floor. Grabbing it to steady herself, she said, "There's no way we'll make it through that."
"She's right," Dewey said.
Jake looked at Sarah's camera. "You okay?"
"I put the deflector shields up when I detected the blast wave coming. The ship integrity is fine."
Jake turned to Tiffin and Dewey. "You see. Not so bad."
"Not so bad?" Dewey sounded extremely unnerved. "And what happens when one of those explodes beside the ship, or directly into the ship?"
Jake took a seat in his captain's chair and put his hands on the controls atop the arms of it. "We'll make. Don't worry. Sarah."
"He has a point, Jake," Sarah said.
Jake pushed a couple of the buttons on the right arm of his captain's chair. "I'll do the flying myself. Just make sure you tell me if one of them suddenly appears on a flank outside the main view."
"This is a bad idea," Sarah said.
Jake glanced at her camera. "You know I can do this. We'll be fine. Just keep an eye on the sides of the ship."
Tiffin hurried to one of the stations and sat in front of it. She pushed several switches and adjusted one of the sliding controls.
"What are you doing?" Jake sounded irritated and somewhat alarmed.
Tiffin didn't bother to look at Jake. She punched in the code she recalled from her study of the ship's systems. The small display in front of her lit up, showing thousands of dots, many of them slowly drifting. "I have this. Don't worry." She engaged more of the controls below the screen. "Sarah, can you feed the final destination into my station?"
"Uh, yes," Sarah said. "I..."
"Go ahead," Jake said.
Tiffin noticed Dewey standing beside her now, watching what she was doing. She stared at the display screen, waiting for Sarah to add the location of the General's ship into her station's data. A moment later, she saw the vector indicator appear on the screen, marked with the remaining distance to get there. "I see it. Thanks. Now...hold on." She rapidly hit several buttons, making slight tweaks with a series of knobs and sliders at the same time. "Okay. Yes. I think that's it."
"That's what?" Dewey asked, leaning in to look at the screen in front of Tiffin.
Sarah turned around in her chair and nodded to Jake. "You're good to go now. Oh." She looked back at her station and hit one more button, then faced Jake again. "Now." She looked at the main view screen filling most of the wall in front of Jake. "The real-world live image of the asteroid field before them now had a faint vector overlay which showed the best course through the field. "There's your map. Just remember, it'll adjust to correct for the asteroids' drift."
"Wow," Sarah said. "I never thought of using the sensors that way. How'd you manage to come up with that?"
"Yeah," Tiffin said, looking at the station controls beside her. "I know it's not what this is normally used for, but...I pulled in some of the ship's other systems. Made them do calculations for something different than their normal job." She felt pleased with what she'd cobbled together.
"That really is impressive," Dewey said.
"Thanks, Dewey." Tiffin looked at Jake. "Just follow the path as closely as you can." She grinned, knowing she'd been a huge help...and shown once again that allowing her to remain on the ship was the right decision.
"This'll work nicely," Jake said, engaging the controls on his chair to take the ship forward into the asteroid field.
"Go slow, Jake," Sarah said.
He nodded. "I have this. Don't worry."
"So," Dewey said, "we're really going to go through...and confront him, the General?"
Jake chuckled. "Yeah. That's the plan. I know you all think I'm crazy for doing this, but I..."
"You what?" Sarah asked.
"I have an angle," Jake said. "It may not be as bad as you all seem to think."
"What do you mean?" Sarah asked.
Jake looked at Sarah's camera, then to Tiffin and Dewey. "I don't want to risk all of you in a ship-to-ship battle with the General...even though Sarah's more than up for the task."
Tiffin was confused. "But, that's exactly where we're headed. I don't understand."
"Neither do I," Dewey said.
Jake looked at Sarah's camera again. "You remember the time we went to Daedalus-5?"
"What?" Sarah said. "Yeah, I do. That was years ago. What does that have to do with anything?"
"The cargo I picked up," Jake said.
"If I remember correctly," Sarah said, "we never made that delivery. So. Why are you bringing that up?"
"I never intended to make that delivery in the first place."
"And according to my records," Sarah said, "we still have it. Or did. I guess you threw it into the pile in the secondary cargo bay you use for target practice."
&nb
sp; "What was it?" Tiffin asked, understanding Jake was about to reveal why the incident was important. "The cargo?"
Jake shook his head. "Not that thing. I've kept it safely tucked away for a reason."
"Jake." Sarah sounded frustrated. "You're not making any sense."
"It'll make sense soon enough," Jake said, easing the controls to pilot the ship in the clearing through the next section of the asteroid field, following the path Tiffin plotted. "We're on our way now to finally make the delivery."
"To him?" Dewey asked.
"Exactly." Jake glanced at Dewey and Tiffin. "You two don't have to worry about a fight with the General. What I have on the ship, he's been wanting for a long time." Jake looked at Sarah's camera. "I have a feeling he'll agree to call us even in exchange for it."
"You stole his ship," Sarah said. "And..."
"Yeah, and in his mind, there are quite a few other reasons to want to make my life miserable, or end it altogether."
"This is not a very convincing argument for why what we're doing is not going to result in us all getting killed," Dewey said.
Tiffin felt frustrated too, but more because she wanted to know exactly what could possibly convince the General to leave Jake and Sarah alone for good. "What is it?"
"It's not important what it is," Jake said. "And frankly, it's a little hard to explain. You'll just have to trust me. He wants it more than he wants to take out me and Sarah." Jake turned to Tiffin and Dewey. "Or the two of you." He looked at the view screen again, continuing to pilot the ship along the course Tiffin plotted. "So-"
"Oh! No!" Dewey fell to the floor. His eyes were wide open, but from the way he moved his head around, he seemed to be seeing something that no one else in the room could see. "No! That can't be." He shook his head feverishly, curling his body then drifting into a quiet trance-like state.
Tiffin had rushed to his side as soon as he fell. She tried to rouse him from whatever was happening to him. "Dewey! It's Tiffin. What's happening?" She gently nudged him with both hands on his side. "Dewey. You're okay. We're here...on the ship. It's me."
"Is he okay?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know," Tiffin said. "He's..." She looked at his eyes, which were still open, but he didn't seem to notice her by his side. "I'm not sure." Tiffin looked at Jake. "What should we do?"
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