“Okay. Time to get to work, Skipper.”
Mike and Jake went to work with the ship’s computers. He would eventually need to spend time on the big picture, figure out what obstacles he’d have to avoid during the voyage so he could set a proper course right from the beginning, but it was too soon for that. It didn’t really matter where he went at the moment – he just needed to establish a pattern that the Chessori would follow.
He set up a jump, executed the jump, then waited for the Chessori to emerge from its own jump. They got their first tag, but they needed more. Over the next week and a half he made one jump each day, with Jake attempting to calculate in advance where the Chessori would emerge from hyperspace. Each repetition improved the accuracy of his prediction, and the Chessori did, indeed, follow a pattern.
Not all jumps were perfect, but Mike learned from his mistakes, and he discovered that it didn’t matter to the Chessori if he made a mistake. It followed, no matter where they went. The Chessori emerged from hyperspace, on average, twelve and one-half minutes after Resolve completed each jump, an amazing feat. This guy was good, Mike decided, but after consideration, he decided that was in their favor. If the Chessori stayed this good, and if he continued to follow his pattern, Resolve had a good chance of nailing him.
When Jake made two perfect predictions in a row, Mike decided they were ready. Mike really needed George to compute the tactics of approach, but in his absence Reba gave him a general plan and he worked out the details himself.
The crew prepared for action. Resolve dropped from hyper, and Mike came about in a complex maneuver that placed them abeam and ahead of the exact point Jake had calculated the Chessori would emerge from its jump. He brought Resolve up to speed perpendicular to the Chessori’s expected path, knowing he risked overshooting, but knowing, also, that if the Chessori emerged from hyper where expected, it could not escape. Any direction it turned would be favorable to Resolve, allowing Mike to cut the corner during a stern chase. All of this depended on the Chessori continuing its same pattern of behavior, but Resolve had given the Chessori no reason to do otherwise.
It worked! The Chessori appeared on Resolve’s screens precisely where predicted. It could run away, but it could not escape. Mike waited to see which direction the Chessori would turn, prepared to set an intercept course immediately.
Reba, her targeting system streaming data into her awareness, was the first to sense trouble. The Chessori had turned directly toward Resolve, the one thing they had not anticipated and the only smart thing it could do. Reba screamed commands at Mike to reduce speed. The gunners needed more time! The ships would pass head-on at incredible speed, making the shot nearly impossible, and she would have only one chance.
Ellie reconfigured the weapons, taking Otis’ laser away from him and assigning it to herself. There was no possibility that a manual shot would be effective. Ellie had two guns, and Reba and Jake each had one. Their minds were tuned within the net to act as one. They had a slim chance.
Mike’s respect for the Chessori captain, already high, increased. This guy was sharp, and he had seen Resolve in action. He would know he was no match in a one on one confrontation. Though expecting a lazy exit from his jump, and unprepared for a fight, he had chosen the one course of action that would limit his exposure. Suddenly, the odds had been equaled. Each would have one chance during a high speed pass, and rarely did the guns get through shields instantly. Gunners had to pound away at shields mercilessly, weakening them until a shot broke through.
It would be over in the blink of an eye. The moment approached, and Resolve opened fire at extreme range. The Chessori’s timing was impeccable. The moment Resolve fired, he activated the mind weapon. Ellie and Jake both sent spasms through the net, and Mike couldn’t act quickly enough to cut them off. Reba’s shots missed.
Mike looped Resolve around to reengage, but the Chessori was too far away and traveling further away every moment at unthinkable speed. It had abandoned the fight. Reba safetied their weapons, knowing they were no longer needed. She left the net, her thoughts on Ellie. Mike, still holding the net together but collapsed on the floor from the spasms sent through his body by Jake, brought them about on a course toward Triton.
The Chessori would not willingly approach Resolve on equal terms, of that Mike was certain. He left the net and stood awkwardly, hobbling toward Ellie, his leg only partially functional with Jake hiding out there. Reba was already at her side. She picked Ellie up as though she were a rag doll and carried her to the lounge. Mike followed, sitting morosely in a chair while Ellie and Jake got their wits about them again. Everyone avoided eye contact.
“Sorry,” Ellie mumbled.
“It’s not your fault,” Reba stated bluntly. “We gave it all we had, and we had a good plan. I never expected them to act so quickly and so perfectly.” Thoughtfully, she added, “I wish they were on our side. They’re good!”
Minutes later a claxon sounded, Otis’ yell close on its heels. “Battle stations!” he commanded, more strain in his voice than Mike had ever heard. Mike and Reba burst onto the bridge, Ellie stumbling behind them as the ship lurched.
The bottom turret opened up as the ship lurched again, harder. Reba didn’t wait to plug-in. She just grabbed the controls for the top turret and panned space, looking for a shot. She saw nothing. Mike plugged-in as the bottom turret kept up a continuous pounding, his only thought to project the shields at maximum strength. That done, he brought the ship under control as he came fully into the net.
There it was, directly below them, limiting their ability to return fire to the bottom turret only. The ship lurched again. He sensed a bright flare of energy and knew instantly from his previous training with George that a shield had been breached. He rotated the ship to bring Reba’s guns into action and headed directly toward the attacking Chessori.
Reba’s guns hammered at the Chessori ship, which ducked under them and sprinted away at high speed. Mike’s surprise and slow reaction gave it the edge it needed, and he quickly realized that pursuit was useless. He turned away and started working on a damage report, keeping an eye out in case the Chessori returned. Jake joined without his usual grumbling to help.
They’d been hurt. One lower shield was burned out, another badly damaged. They would be able to repair the one, but not the other. The Chessori ship had resumed its station well out in space, no threat for the moment, though that could change if they let their guard down again.
They had nowhere to go now and no plan, so they just let Resolve drift for a time. They had serious wounds to lick, both physical and emotional.
Mike and Jake left the net after routing sensors to the screens on the bridge. They would not be caught with their pants down again. Otis rose from the central shaft in a huff and padded a few steps into the bridge, then stopped, awarding each of them with a fierce glare. Mike decided that if a cat could stand angrily with its hands on its hips, that’s what Otis was doing. Surprisingly, most of his anger focused on Reba.
She squared her shoulders to him and lifted her chin. “I apologize, Otis, to you and to everyone else. That was my fault. I know better.” A grimace crossed her face, to be replaced by a look of respect. “Thank you for saving us.”
Otis let his glare rest on each of them before speaking, breathing deeply through his nostrils to let them feel his anger. He had their full attention and did not need to raise his voice. “We are each of us guilty here, some more than others, myself included. We have committed the most elementary error: we underestimated our opponent. Reba and I are well-schooled in this. The rest of you have learned a valuable lesson, never to be forgotten.” He looked at each of them again, his eyes narrowing. “This will not happen again.”
Chapter Thirteen: Free At Last
Resolve and her crew drifted aimlessly while the clock ticked away. They were down to only a few days before the enemy fleet could be expected to emerge nearby, but they had nowhere to run that offered any more hope than did their p
resent position.
They needed a new plan. More important, they needed rest. Mike had heard that long travel through space would be boring; he only wished it was true. His body labored under the stress, but it was equal to the task. The state of his mind, however, unsettled him. Thought processes had grown numb from the never-ending demands of the ship and their predicament. He needed to focus but could not.
“I need some exercise,” he announced.
“I’ll join you,” Reba agreed, jumping up and following him. They went down the central shaft and along corridors to their cabins. They talked on the way, but by silent agreement talk of their predicament was off-limits. They changed into workout clothes, then jogged down the spacious corridor and down two levels to the gym. The two of them worked-out hard for over an hour with little conversation passing between them, and though talk about their predicament was off-limits, that did not prevent them from thinking about it. Following a shower and a change of clothes, they all met again on the bridge. Mike and Reba felt refreshed. Ellie, nearing the end of her watch, looked washed-out.
“So what do we do next, Captain?” she asked as she stretched tired shoulders. “I’m out of ideas.”
“So am I,” he replied, looking at Reba and Otis with a raised eyebrow. Reba pursed her lips in defeat. Otis just returned Mike’s look with a steady stare.
“Okay,” Mike replied to their silent responses. “Though a solution is not evident, we can state the problem simply. We have anywhere from a few days to a week or so before the fleet arrives, and that will be the end of it for us. We can’t reach help in that amount of time. We have to either take out, or shake off, the tracker out there. I see no other solution. Any comments?”
Otis spoke first. “He’s sharp. And clever. He chose precisely the right course of action to fend us off, and he did it instantly. We will not get near him again unless he chooses to fight. His last attack was probably against orders, most likely a slip of judgment by an angry captain. He’s probably kicking himself for that attack right now, though again, it was precisely the right thing to do, and he broke it off the moment we got our act together.”
“Can we lure him into another trap, make him angry again?” Reba wondered aloud. “For example, could we use this jump mechanism to jump right beside him, take him by surprise?”
All eyes turned to Mike. “It doesn’t work that way,” he mused, thinking through the multitude of computations he had made. “There’s no way I know of to make a jump that small. The system deals in light-years, not seconds or nanoseconds. Unless there’s something George didn’t show us . . .” He had a quick conversation with Jake, and Jake agreed. “We don’t think it’s possible. Any more ideas?”
Silent stares met his gaze.
“I had a thought while we worked out,” he said, sitting down in one of the crew seats to gather his thoughts. “What does a ship do if it’s in the middle of a jump and has a mechanical malfunction with the drive or one of the hyperspace computers? Is there a mechanism for stopping in mid-jump during an emergency? I haven’t seen anything like it in the programming, nor has Jake. Princess, Otis, have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Ellie shook her head, but Otis lapsed into thought. “I’m not an expert, but I know that this ship is kept up-to-date with every safety feature known to our civilization. What you say would seem logical. You have seen no sign of its existence?”
“None at all.”
Reba interjected, “Could there be a program that’s only active during the jump? Have you looked during a jump?”
“No, we haven’t. The jumps I’ve been making are pretty short, and I’m busy monitoring things until it’s over.”
“Maybe we need a longer jump,” she stated with a twinkle in her eyes.
A longer jump was, indeed, what they needed. Two of them, in fact. Each took a full day to set up, pushing Mike’s abilities to the limit, and also bringing Resolve closer to the earliest time the enemy fleet could be expected to appear. Mike abandoned his course to Triton. He wanted long jumps, very long jumps. He headed out into the emptiest part of space he could find.
Jake stumbled onto the emergency stop program toward the end of the first jump, but he did not have time to activate the program. They were ready during the second jump, however, and executed the program without hesitation. They had no way of telling if the maneuver was risky or not, they just did it. Resolve dropped from hyperspace in moments, somewhere completely different than the jump coordinates the tracker had sent to the Chessori. They didn’t break out inside a star or planet, not even near a solar system, and they breathed a sigh of relief. Jake immediately set Resolve’s computers to work locating themselves, while Mike began preparations for a new jump, this time in the direction of Beta VI. By the time that jump ended, they were light years from their original trajectory. More important, the Chessori ship did not materialize behind them.
They had bought time for themselves, all the time they needed to do things right for a change. Mike felt free of immediate threat for the first time since the Chessori ship had come crashing to Earth. For Otis and Ellie, it was the first moment without fear for many months.
Chapter Fourteen: Seer
Far across the galaxy, a young woman struggled to untangle herself from the bedding. She hadn’t slept well in weeks, but this night had been the worst by far. She sat up, ran her hands through the tangles of her dark hair, then got out of bed, deeply troubled. Dreams of impending disaster had been getting worse, and the dark circles beneath her eyes had lately drawn comments from others around her. Lack of sleep was bad enough, but incessant worry had turned her into something of a shrew, so out of character for her.
It had started with a vision of the Palace on Triton. The Palace stood in all its glory, but it was devoid of life. As usual, she didn’t understand the vision. Worse, it didn’t make sense – the Palace and its surroundings teemed with life, always.
Years earlier, Daughter had named her a Seer and sent her to Rrestriss, one of the most ancient worlds in the Empire, for training. She had received a wonderful education, but in terms of helping her control her visions, the Rress had failed utterly. It wasn’t their fault. She needed another Seer to train her, but Seers were the stuff of legend. There had been no Seers within living memory.
Krys believed that the title was misplaced. True, she occasionally saw things that might happen someday in the future, but seldom were these visions clear, and only rarely did she understand them. Some of her predictions had come true over the years, but so rarely was she in a position to observe most of them that she had no feel for the accuracy of her predictions. Besides, what good were predictions if they only made sense after the fact?
But tonight . . . tonight she had seen a clear vision of Daughter in mortal danger. She didn’t know where Daughter was, and she couldn’t identify the threat, but Daughter occupied a special place in her life and in her heart. She had to act despite her doubts.
She pulled a chain from beneath her nightgown and stared at the locket. Never before had she attempted to use the locket that identified her as Friend of the Royal Family, but she had the name of another Friend here on Centauri III, and she needed help.
The Friend also happened to be the highest ranking fleet officer in the sector. Her hand shook as she considered what she had to do. She was just Krys, an orphan befriended by Daughter. She had no place in Empire politics, but for Daughter’s sake she had to act. It was time to find out if the locket served any purpose other than decoration.
She made her way to Sector Headquarters. “Please inform Admiral Chandrajuski that a Friend of the Royal Family requests an immediate audience,” she said to the receptionist.
The response amazed her. Within minutes she was shown into the Admiral’s office. She didn’t know who or what to expect, but the creature who greeted her literally took her breath away. The nine foot tall Gamordian resembled a praying mantis, completely green and, to her, beautiful. Long, spindly legs moved with d
elicate precision as he crossed the office toward her, his long neck lowering gracefully to place his triangular head at her level. A wide, lipless mouth filled with many, many small, sharp teeth, would have frightened her had it not been for his eyes. Close-set wrinkles surrounded light green eyes with black pupils, seeming human despite their color. More, those eyes seemed to telegraph an ageless wisdom.
“Welcome, child,” he said solemnly, his voice surprisingly mellow. “I am told you are a Friend.”
Not trusting her voice, she held out the locket to him. A leathery hand with long fingers deftly plucked the locket from her hand for examination. He turned to a nearby table where he drew a similar locket from a drawer. He compared the two, then brought them to her for comparison. They were identical as far as she could tell.
“May I ask your name?” he asked.
“I am Krys, sir.”
“Just Krys? No other name?”
“My official name when Daughter discovered me at the orphanage was just a number, sir. She let me choose, and I chose the name Krys.”
“Why did I not know of your presence here?”
“We’ve been sworn to secrecy, sir.”
“We? There is another Friend here?”
She nodded. “He serves under your command. His name is Lieutenant Val.”
“He, too, has only one name?”
“Yes, sir. We met Daughter twelve years ago on Hespra III. She took us to Rrestriss where Val prepared for the Academy. After the Academy, I joined him here. That was three years ago.”
“Hespra III? Twelve years ago?” Chandrajuski thought for a time, then his long neck swooped in her direction again, his face inches from her own. “You’re those two?” he demanded.
“You know of us?”
“I know that a boy, a one-legged beggar, somehow managed to get past all Daughter’s security, including her Protectors, to stop an assassin. And he serves under me? Why didn’t I know?”
Last of the Chosen (Spirit of Empire, Book One) Page 16
