by T. R. Harris
We attached safety lines to the airlock, as well as each other, then using magnetized boots, set off for the forward section of the ship, taking measured steps on the metal skin of the Noreen II. The comm system was controlled from the pilothouse; however, we could still communicate between suits.
“Careful,” I cautioned. “If you go drifting off into space I wouldn’t know what to do.”
“I think if anyone’s going to take a misstep, it would be you.”
“Excuse me, Ms. Cole, but you seem to have a nasty habit of putting me down every chance you get. Is it all because I pinched your cheek back at my house—or what remained of my house?”
I saw her shake her head inside the helmet. “I’m sorry, Jason. It’s just that everywhere I go, I run into people discounting my skill and expertise.”
“Because of your looks?”
“You said it, not me. But that seems to be the consensus.”
“Count your blessings, Angela. You not only have beauty and brains—but as I mentioned before—you also have skills. You may not know this, but all of the men aboard are ex-Army Rangers. It takes a lot to put one of us down.”
Angela laughed. “Yeah, surprise is often one of my most valuable assets, at least initially. But then size does matter, as it does in most things.”
“I understand Bruce Lee was only five-three.”
“I match him at that.” Angela turned to look at me in the glow of her helmet light. “I think I could have taken him.” Her smile was intoxicating.
But now we were at the forward viewport, or at least what remained of it. The pressure explosion had removed most of the glass from the opening, but not all. We used our boots to knock away some of the more threatening shards, knowing that a rip in a suit would not be advisable. Then Angela glided through the opening and into the dimly lit pilothouse. I followed a moment later.
Most of the control consoles were still lit and the first thing I did was activate the blast shield. The thick metal door emerged from a hidden compartment above the shattered viewport and vibrated shut. There was no sound through the airless compartment.
Angela located the atmosphere controls and slowly began to feed air into the pilothouse. I took a small fire extinguisher off the wall and began to spray tiny blasts of the white, powdery discharge near the seal on the blast shield. As I feared, it streamed out along multiple paths around the metal barrier as the pressure inside the compartment increased.
“Sealing foam,” Angela announced. She looked around the dimly-lit room. “Where’s it kept?”
“On the starboard bulkhead, that box with the double circle on it. That’s the alien symbol for emergency equipment.”
Sealing foam was some pretty neat stuff, similar to polyurethane foam back on Earth. A tiny bead would expand fifty-fold, filling every crack and crevasse and hardening in a matter of seconds. Once solid, it formed an air-tight seal good for about forty-eight hours. After that, the hostile environment of space and stellar radiation broke down the chemical compound. By then either another coating was required or more permanent repairs had to be made.
Although I lived on an alien planet, I hadn’t spent very much time in actual outer space. The journeys I made were mainly aboard huge passenger ships with their attendant staff and crew. Maintaining my own starship was new to me. Before buying my first Noreen II, I had a small Nova flitter. It was pretty basic; no air lock, no separate pilothouse. It was more like an SUV in space, whereas my Noreen was an opulent motorcoach. However, my experience as a starship captain was limited.
Case-in-point: this was the first time I’d applied sealing foam to a breach. With the miniscule amount required, I naturally thought I wasn’t using enough. So when the bubbling cream-colored foam began to expand, it surged out from the edges of the blast shield a good three feet. The pilothouse was small enough already. Now I’d just cut the space by a third.
“You do know we can’t cut this stuff once it hardens?” Angela asked. “We’re going to have to wait until it degrades to chip off that gigantic tumor you just made.”
“Sorry.” I stared at the giant glob until it stopped expanding toward me. “How do you know so much about starships? You’re a cop.”
“When I get interesting in something I go all-in. As I made my trips off Earth, I spent a lot of time with the crews.” She smiled through her helmet visor. “In that case, my looks came in handy. The guys liked having me around. Knowing how things worked also gave me a greater sense of security when hurdling through space in a metal can.”
The seals were holding allowing Angela to pump more air into the pilothouse. Pressure gauges climbed and then settled out. The temperature inside the pilothouse also climbed to an acceptable level until we could remove our helmets.
The internal gravity was still off and would only come back on once the generators were rebooted. Angela and I pulled ourselves into seats and fastened safety belts. I reached out to activate the pressure door.
“No, wait,” Angela said, placing a gloved hand over mine. “Do you believe the Galactic Lights are real?” she asked.
“Everything seems to be pointing that way,” I replied.
“And you know where they are?”
“So I’m told.”
“This could be a game changer.” Her voice carried no excitement, just concern. “Five objects the size of softballs that can destroy worlds. You better make sure they get into the right hands.”
“I could use your help making that happen. Enic told me not to trust anyone, even Lefty.”
“That could be wise.” She was surprised by the revelation. “I did some research on your friend—in fact, on everyone who had access to the president. You do know he has a pretty checkered past, at the least the parts that showed up. There were a lot of gaps in his history. Seeing how connected the Union is, it’s hard for someone to fall off the grid for years at a time, unless they were doing it intentionally.”
I wasn’t ready to tell her about Lefty lying to me about how he got the job protecting Enic, but I was glad to have an ally in my suspicions of my old Army buddy. Lefty had always been a ruthless and pragmatic individual. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had his own operation working, contrary to mine.
“I’ll keep an eye on him. We served together for six years. I know him pretty well. Hopefully I’ll be able to head off any issues that come up.”
“Be careful, Jason. He’s at the top of his game, while you’ve been selling real estate for the past decade. Hardly an occupation that hones ones military skills.”
I took the off-handed insult with a smile. “You would be surprised how ruthless and cold-blooded the real estate industry can be. One must constantly be on the lookout for hostile forces trying to take you down.”
Angela wasn’t buying my cavalier attitude toward Lefty.
“Just watch your back, and I’ll watch mine.”
I realized then that Angela’s hand had remained on mine during the conversation. Now she removed it and I activated the door release, wondering how much I should read into the gesture. I shrugged. Who knew? At least I was making progress.
Chapter 14
It took Angela about five minutes to reboot the gravity drive and restore internal gravity. By then, Bennett was yelling from the pilothouse.
“Approaching craft, five at last count,” he reported. “They’re on a straight intercept course.”
Lefty was in the salon. He called down the corridor at me. “Does this luxury liner have any weapons?”
I left Dominic and Angela to finish replacing the wall panels over the engine compartments and rushed to the pilothouse.
“My other Noreen had more. I took them off the Nova. This one only came with a single flash cannon for warding off pirates and other threats. But I did get some of my buddies at the Consulate to let me have a small Nexus Repeater and a Dynamic diffuser shield. Force of habit; one can never have too much offensive and defensive capability.”
“That’s not much ag
ainst military craft,” Lefty pointed out. “Bennett, any designations yet on the incoming?”
I took the pilot seat while Lefty slipped into the second seat.
Angela entered the pilothouse. “I don’t suppose you have any experience space-borne weapons systems?” I asked her.
“Sorry, I’m a little limited in that category. The boys never let me play war with them.”
“How about you, Lefty? Any experience in open space combat tactics?”
“A little, but you tac board doesn’t give us many options. My advice would be to run like hell.”
“I agree, what with discretion being the better part of valor and all that. This little craft is pretty fast in its own right. Are all systems back online, Angela?”
“As they were before. You can punch it anytime.”
And punch it I did. We entered a deep gravity-well moments later and raced off toward the Quad. Lefty reported that the pursuing starships were only slightly faster than we were. After all, they were large military warships with a lot of tonnage. A quick calculation showed it would take five days for them to catch up to us. By then we’d be at our destination.
Unless they called ahead and set up a roadblock. We couldn’t outrun intergalactic comm relays. To that end, I began to make course deviations to keep the Union ships from guessing our destination. At this pace, nine hours would be added to our transit time, but that was an acceptable tradeoff in my opinion. Better safe than…dead.
********
The next three days passed without too much drama, and I spent most of the time studying Angela Cole and her interactions with the other men onboard. For a woman who had been so defensive about her looks and the quest for respect, I found she could certainly use her attributes to her advantage when the situation called for it. She seamlessly transformed into the sweet, Southern belle, very attentive and complimentary of everything the three macho military men did and said. I knew she was simply trying to extract information, yet I was amazed by how effective the strategy seemed to be working. Without hesitation or reservations, the men began to fill in the gaps in their mercenary histories that Angela had mentioned before, even bragging at times about all the illegal shit they’d pulled.
I wondered if I was as gullible as Lefty, Dominic and Roger, so easily seduced by the Pink Side? I concluded I wasn’t. I had a lot more common sense than to let a beautiful face and knock-out body manipulate me that way. Not me…not Jason King.
********
There were two single bed staterooms in the Enterprise, and the five of us hot-bunked it throughout the journey. On the third day out from Sylox, Angela and I bumped into each other coming out of our respective compartments across the passageway from one another.
“Good morning, Jason, did you sleep well?” Her voice was as sweet as a morning breeze.
“I did, for a change. I’m feeling better about the mission with every passing light-year.”
We pressed against each other in the narrow confines, her splash of brilliant gold hair at chin level. I don’t know how she did it, but she smelled of lavender. I didn’t have any lavender anything aboard.
“Can I see the key again,” she asked, looking up at me with sparkling eyes.
I didn’t ask why she wanted the key; I just handed it over to her.
She studied it. By then all of Enic blood had been cleaned off its surface and it caught the overhead lighting with flashes and flickers. She placed her finger on the tip of the needle. “You say Enic poked you with this and that somehow coded the key to your DNA?”
“That’s what he said. I wish he’d asked first.”
“That would have been more polite,” Angela agreed.
Then she punctured her palm with the needle.
“What hell are you doing?” I kept my voice low—yet emphatic—not wanting Lefty to know what just happened.
“Now it’s coded to my DNA.”
“You don’t know that,” I countered. “I could be a one-time thing once removed from his body.”
“I know, and that’s why we need to stick together. We don’t know who it will actually work for.”
“And if Lefty gets the same idea, there may be five of us with needle holes in our hands. Worst still, you may have cancelled everything out, making the key useless.”
“I’ll take that chance.” Angela suddenly threw her arms around my head and kissed me.
“Am I interrupting something?”
The deep, gravelly voice came from the main salon. Lefty was looking at the two of us. He wasn’t smiling.
I felt Angela palm the key in her left hand before releasing me. She snuggled behind me, pocketing the key while displaying a coquettish grin.
I smiled. “Sorry, dude, but it was love at first sight.”
I wrapped my right arm around Angela and pulled her to me again, planting another hard, wet kiss on her full lips. I held it for as long as I could, even as Angela dug her fingernails into my side.
“Yeah, whatever,” Lefty grunted. He looked suspicious, but he always looked suspicious. “The two of you better knock it off and come to the bridge. We’re entering the Quad, and already we’re picking evidence of space battles taking place. Enic said the Lights were located where the worst of the fighting was taking place. It looks like he was right. We may have a gauntlet to run before reaching Ackonnon.”
Lefty returned to the pilothouse.
I flashed Angela a lecherous smile. “Was it as good for you as we for me?”
For an answer, she wrinkled her nose. “Damn, when was the last time you brushed your teeth? You’re disgusting.”
I shrugged off the insult and stayed back a moment, admiring the scene as the feisty beauty huffed her way toward the pilothouse. What was that saying: Hate to see you go, but love to watch you leave?
Then I shuddered. I was fortunate Angela hadn’t handed my balls handed back to me on a silver platter. As previously noted, Angela Cole was a man-eater, and in more ways than one.
Chapter 15
We were a thousand light-years out from Ackonnon and relay stations in the region showed two active engagements taking place, along with another that had just concluded. The number of units involved in each battle were relatively small—only about twenty-five ships on each side—but they were deadly. Forces from the Janis Coalition had emerged victorious in the largest battle, if counting nine remaining ships for the winner to five for the loser as a victory. Now the remnants of the small fleets were bolting away from the area, with neither side having the ability or willingness to hold the ground.
The bottom line was there was a lot of traffic between our present location and Ackonnon, and all with nervous alien trigger fingers for any newcomers wanting to play their sandbox.
The ships from Sylox were still with us but now only two hours behind. We would have to slow down as we entered the systems around Ackonnon, allowing them to gain even more ground. The only thing we had going for us was our small size. Any cursory scan could tell we weren’t a warship, yet those following us definitely were. I offered to my small team a plan, wherein we’d sweep close to one of the opposing fleets—preferably the Suf-D’s—and have them engage the Union ships following us, believing them to be reinforcements from the Conn. I was sure at that some point comm channels would be linked and the confusion cleared up rather quickly, but it might give us time to get to the planet and lost in ground clutter.
I took the controls and banked the Enterprise toward the staging area for what remained of the three Suf-D fleets. There were fifteen gravity signatures clustered just outside the planetary halo of a small yellow star. They already had us on their screens before I made the course change, yet had chosen to ignore us. But when I moved in their direction, that attitude changed. The surviving warships formed into a small cone shape and engaged gravity-wells to meet us. I slowed to barely ten-light and the Union ships moved up on us rapidly and without hesitation.
All the players were known to each other, and the Su
f-D’s could tell by the signatures of the ships behind us that they were huge vessels with quad engines. As the forces converged, the weapons on the Union ships went hot, glowing with increased energy on the tact screen. Well…it wasn’t a real tactical screen, not on my little ship. It was simply a proximity monitor that could pick up energy radiation. But still it served the purpose
I took a microphone from its cradle and opened a channel in the clear. Everyone in the area would be able to hear me. “Nearing target forces; charge all weapons and prepare to attack,” I said in my most authoritative command voice. “You are ordered to disregard any comm chatter without proper encryption. The enemy will attempt to mask their true intentions and identity. Follow your tracks to target vessels and engage once optimum position is achieved. Command out.”
Lefty’s creased forehead said it all. “They’ve gotta be some dumb lumps of rock to believe that bullshit,” he said.
I snorted. “They’re aliens. You’d be surprised what I’ve been able to feed them over the years. Let’s just hope they fall for this, as well.”
I shifted course again and accelerated, taking a more aggressive tac toward the oncoming fleet. “Ms. Cole, send all available energy to the weapons and shields. Light us up.”
“We’re not really going to attack, are we?” Angela asked as she went to work at one of the spare consoles in the pilothouse.
“No, I just want to get them thinking. These guys just came out of a fight that was essentially a draw. They’re battle weary and scared. This new engagement will look like fifteen against six—maybe five-and-a-half, according to our gravity signature. I’m hoping they’ll be looking to salvage a victory for the day by taking on a much smaller force.”
New communications erupted from the wall speakers, originating from the Union warships. “Attention oncoming forces. This is Sub-Captain Vendos of the Galactic Union. You are requested to stand-down as we pursue a fugitive starship escaping from Sylox. We are not a threat to you, yet any actions against us could result in serious diplomatic repercussions.”
