Dira stared back, looking shocked, while her violet eyes continued to meet Jason’s stare in silence. She was clearly unsettled. She looked on the verge of tears. “How can you ask this? Ask for my people, who have lost so much, to be thrust into the middle of things again? It’s too much!”
“All I’m asking for is for you to reach out to the neighboring Allied worlds.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you, Dira. They’ll listen to you … you’re one of them. Tell them it’s now or never—to get every one of their space-faring ships headed toward that wormhole immediately. They need to move fast … right now!”
She nodded, her eyes losing focus as she contemplated what was needed of her. She nodded again quickly, regaining her composure. “I’ll do this for you, Jason.” There was no smile—no kindness in her tone. She turned, walked away quickly and then she was gone—the connection cut.
Chapter 25
Jason made his way to the front of the ship and found Ricket and Bristol sitting together, reviewing the prison barge schematics. Billy and Sergeant Jackson stood behind their seats, looking over their shoulders. Before joining their impromptu meeting, Jason looked into the cockpit. Grimes looked tired. She’d need to be relieved soon.
“Want me to relieve you for a while?”
“Maybe in a few … I’m tracking some new movement behind us.”
Jason moved into the cockpit and sat next to her. “Show me.”
He hadn’t expected to see the armada of thirty ships so near. “They’ve closed in on us.”
“I’ve had my eye on them. But it’s only been in the last minute or two that they’ve really kicked into high gear. They’re outpacing us now … nearly twice our speed.”
“How long?”
“They’ll be upon us within four minutes.”
Jason turned back toward the crew compartment. “Guys, anything we can do to get the prison barge moving faster?”
Both Ricket and Bristol looked up. Ricket said, “No, Captain … if anything, she’s slowing down.”
“Why’s that?”
“We’ve been pushing her ion engines at near maximum for over two hours. I’d guess it’s an internal safety function, caused by overheating. Although we’ll need to capitalize on that same function later on, right now it’s a problem.”
What was also a problem was the Starlight, sitting in open space with thirty warships poised to overtake her. Not to mention that battle droid—the icon for which, at that moment, Jason had lost sight of on the display.
“This is crazy! It’s time we phase-shift into the prison barge. Ricket, find us a suitable location there and forward the coordinates to Lieutenant Grimes.”
The words had no sooner left his lips when a series of intensely bright energy bolts struck the Starlight. A cacophony of thunderously loud sounds filled the interior of the small ship. Boom Boom Boom poundings, as one plasma strike after another relentlessly struck her.
Jason reached for something to hold on to, while Billy and Jackson, standing behind him, were thrown to the deck. An alarm blared from the console and Grimes, teeth clenched, spewed a series of curse words Jason never would have guessed were in her vocabulary.
“It’s the damn droid!” Grimes yelled over the noise.
Jason got a glimpse of it through the forward observation window—and then it was gone.
“It’s coming around to take out our propulsion. Shields are failing!”
“Can you get a lock on it?”
Grimes was busy maneuvering the little ship—not taking her eyes off the console for even a second. She steered the ship through a rapid series of maneuvers that threw Jason from side to side, then forward and backward, to the point he wondered if he would throw up from space sickness.
The Starlight began returning fire and the concussive pounding to her shields lessened somewhat.
“Ricket, can you get us out of here?”
“Working on it …”
Jason looked up to see the battle droid sitting less than seventy-five yards away—directly in front of them. “What’s it doing?”
“My sensors tell me the thing’s switching to micro-missiles,” Ricket replied, standing now to Jason’s left.
“Incoming!” Grimes yelled.
The bright white flash was the last thing Jason saw before everything changed.
Several long moments passed before he realized he was still in one piece; that it had only been the ship phase-shifting to somewhere else and not the life-ending strike of a micro missile. They were now within Dreathlor prison barge. Collectively, he heard the rest of the team around him let out their breaths. Slowly, one by one, the Starlight’s console and cabin lights came back online. Grimes was still gripping her controls and looking intently forward, through the observation window. Jason placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “Hey … you okay?”
“Yeah. That was intense.” She pointed out the window. “Where are we?”
Jason followed her gaze and smiled, “That’s right, you weren’t with us. What you’re looking at are thousands of holding cells.”
“They call them pits,” Gaddy added, from farther back in the cabin.
They were positioned up high, maybe two hundred feet above the dimpled black landscape below. Jason leaned forward and tried to make heads or tails out of where they’d ended up.
“Cap, you might want to come take a look at this,” Billy said.
Jason got to his feet and headed aft. Billy was standing about mid-way back and looking out a side window. From this perspective, things made more sense. The Starlight wasn’t parked on top of anything—it was precariously embedded into a structural support beam.
The ship began to shift forward. Jason looked up to see Traveler standing up near his seat. “Nobody move. Stay perfectly still. We need to phase-shift down to the deck.” Carefully, Jason looked for Ricket. He was still forward, near the cockpit.
“Phase-shift systems, as well as most others, are down, Captain.”
“Without this ship and its ability to phase-shift, everything comes unhinged,” Jason said.
Traveler sat back down and the Starlight wavered, then slowly eased back to a level position again. Jason was about to say something but held his tongue.
“Ricket … see what you can do to bring vital systems back online. Bristol, you’re coming with me.”
“What happened to nobody move?”
“We need to concoct some way for this prison ship to blow up. Will you be able to do that?”
Bristol, back to chewing the inside of his cheek, shrugged. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You don’t sound overly confident. Ricket, be prepared to phase-shift us to wherever we need to be.”
“I don’t need Ricket’s help to blow up this old pig.”
“Fine. Listen, Bristol, this is what I want you to do. As slowly and carefully as possible, walk forward toward me.”
While Bristol did as he was told, Jason did the same until they met roughly in the middle of the aisle. The Starlight began to tilt backward. Both Bristol and Jason took a half step toward the cockpit. The ship leveled out and momentarily teetered there, before coming to rest. “My guess is we’re at the pivot point. Our sudden departure should have minimal impact on the ship’s levelness.”
Another shrug from Bristol as Jason pulled up the ship’s schematics and mirrored them to Bristol’s HUD. He zoomed in on what he was fairly certain was the old barge’s engineering section. “Here?” Jason asked.
“That’s it, but I’m not so sure our combat suits are sufficient protection from the radiation that’s emitted in there. Not to mention its over-the-top magnetic fields. Robots and droids go in there, not organics with a functioning brain.”
“Well, we’re going to have to chance it. We’re just about out of time.”
“Captain, I would be happy to go, my physiology is better—”
“No, Ricket, that’s not an option. Especially after what
you’ve been through over the last few days. Just get this ship operational.”
Jason took one more look at the schematic, checked to see if Bristol was ready, and phase-shifted into the middle of engineering.
* * *
Their phase-shift into engineering wasn’t a smooth one. Jason had the impression his body was rushing—being propelled for an instant—before he was slammed face first into a bulkhead. Gravity. He tried to push himself away from the bulkhead but found it impossible to move.
Bristol, who was less than three feet away, pushed away from the bulkhead and looked back at Jason. He smiled and shook his head. “Captain … I could let you think I’m a lot stronger than I look, but I know time is ticking. You need to go into your HUD suit environ settings and readjust the suit’s gravity compensators. Put it somewhere around eighty percent.”
Jason did as he was told and immediately felt things return to normal. He pushed off from the bulkhead and joined Bristol in the middle of the large compartment.
“What a shithole,” Bristol said, turning around on his heels to take in the dark dingy space. Jason agreed. How this ship still functioned at all was a mystery. Everything looked old and rusted, as if it belonged in his junkyard back home. The compartment was egg-shaped and clearly not intended for human, or other organic, life forms. There were no flat decks to walk on, and virtually every surface had sharp angles and protruding pipes. It was only by sheer good luck they weren’t killed when they phase-shifted in here. Bristol was on the move again, and heading for a long console by the opposite bulkhead.
“Terrific.”
“What is it?”
“There’s no human way—or Craing way, for that matter—to interface with this equipment.” He pointed to a row of slim connector interfaces on the console.
Jason was being hailed.
“Captain!”
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
“The battle droid … it’s attempting to breach the prison barge’s hull.”
“Is that even possible?”
“I have no idea … But Ricket seems to think the droid may have advanced drilling capabilities. He says we should hurry up.”
Jason had to chuckle at that. “Well, we’ll just stop having our tea party and get back to work, then. Keep me updated on Ricket’s progress.” Jason cut the connection and returned to his open channel with Bristol.
Bristol stood, his hands on his narrow hips, and looked overhead. “Our only option is to go after the fusion cooling coils. Anything else we do will immediately shut down the engines. We also have to disable all the temperature sensors.”
“How do we do that? Is that something you and I can do in a hurry?” Jason asked.
“Hold on … I’m reviewing the schematics.”
For the first time, Jason heard something other than the loud drone of ion engines. It sounded like heavy power equipment. It sounded like … drilling.
Chapter 26
“We need Ricket,” Bristol told Jason.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t know what to do with any of this old crap.”
“Fine,” Jason said, annoyed they’d just wasted five precious minutes. He hailed Ricket and described their current situation. In less than a minute, Ricket phase-shifted into the engineering compartment. He was immediately thrown against the side bulkhead.
Jason had forgotten to mention he’d need to change his suit settings. Fortunately, Ricket seemed unhurt. He was also far quicker making the necessary adjustments to his suit’s gravitational compensation settings.
“Captain … the battle droid is attempting to breach the outer hull. I’m not sure how much time we have before it succeeds.”
“Then you need to hurry, Ricket,” Jason said, gesturing towards the old console.
Ricket, who carried a small satchel over one shoulder, did a quick look around the compartment and stepped over to the console.
“Hey … where’d you get the tools?” Bristol asked, gesturing toward the satchel.
“Aft storage compartment,” Ricket replied. Several small hand-held devices were placed on the console and what looked like a spool of thin optical cable. He also had a toothpaste-sized tube of some kind of transparent gel. Bristol moved to Ricket’s side and the two proceeded to squirt ample amounts of the gooey stuff into several open connectors, then inserted the cables between the connectors, as well as into one of Ricket’s hand-held devices.
“Captain, not having any viable way to connect to the ion engine’s circuitry, I’ve attempted to make a gel-interface.”
“Using that stuff in the tube?”
“Yes. It’s not perfect. But we’ve now established basic system protocols and can direct the mechanism to ignore the temperature sensors.”
“That sounds like a good thing,” Jason said, encouraged.
“Well, yes. But we still have the problem of shutting down the cooling coils.”
“What does the ship use for cooling?” Jason asked.
“Water. It’s a closed system.”
“Can we break the pipes feeding the …”
“No, Captain … the pipes and conduits on this ship are made of the same exotic materials as on the hull. We wouldn’t have enough time.”
“Does the cooling system share the water with the rest of the ship, or is it a separate, independent system?”
“No … it’s a shared system,” Ricket replied.
“Good. I have an idea. But I’ll need Traveler and his hammer.”
Bristol gave Jason a sideways glance and smiled. “The toilets?”
Jason nodded and hailed Traveler.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Are you able to phase-shift off the Starlight without it becoming overly unsteady?”
“I will try to do that.”
“Get the others to help … you’ll need a few to counterbalance you—then meet them at the pivotal point, just like Bristol and I did.”
“I will try.”
“Grab up your heavy hammer and stand by for a diagram showing all of the ship’s heads locations. They’ll be similar to the one we entered before rescuing Ricket.”
“I remember that place. It was foul.”
“Well, you’re probably not going to love what comes next, either. Destroy the toilets and flood the bathrooms. Destroy every toilet on the ship. It’s important that every water seal is broken. Sorry, shitty job … one that has to be completed very quickly. Come to think of it, go ahead and enlist Jackson’s help … bring him with you.” Jason cut the connection and turned back to Ricket and Bristol. “Hope that does the trick.”
Jason answered an incoming hail from Grimes. “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
“All indications suggest the battle droid is having trouble breaching the hull. It moves from one position to another … I think it’s looking for a weakened point of entry.”
Jason realized he was no longer hearing a drilling noise. “That’s good news, Lieutenant.”
“Captain, can you send either Bristol or Ricket back here? We still don’t have our phase-shift function restored.”
“Hang on, I think we’re almost done here,” Jason replied, clicking off. His HUD showed a rise in external temperatures. Traveler and Jackson must have already been making good progress.
“Captain, the cooling coils are shutting down from a lack of circulating water. Normally, the engines, or other parallel systems, would initiate the shutdown process.”
“It’s becoming unstable?”
Ricket checked one, and then the other, hand-held device and looked up. “No … it’s already moving toward critical.”
Jason wasted no time. “Listen, when you phase-shift back to the Starlight, enlist the help of the others to counterbalance the weight you add to the ship. Just like when you phase-shifted off the ship, you’ll need to reverse the process. Bristol, you’re first.”
* * *
It took a full four minutes to get the three back on board, followed by
Jackson and Traveler. The Starlight became off-balanced multiple times, swaying up and down like a teeter-totter. Even the slightest movement by any of the crew caused a problem.
Both Ricket and Bristol were steadily working on the Starlight’s phase-shift problem and her other vital systems.
“Captain, external heating temps are reaching four hundred degrees and rising fast,” Grimes reported.
Jason, standing mid-ship alongside Billy, said, “Understood. Just be ready to phase-shift us into open space. You hear Ricket’s go-ahead, make the shift. Don’t wait for my command.”
Another thought crossed Jason’s mind. Were his ten heavy cruisers still affixed to Dreathlor’s outer hull? He posed the question to Grimes.
Jason heard Ricket over the open channel: “Go! Phase-shift systems operational.”
In a flash, they were back into open space. Jason quickly ran down the aisle toward the cockpit. As he reached the copilot seat, Grimes was bringing the Starlight’s drive up to full throttle. She looked over to Jason. “Five of the ten cruisers are still there.”
“Give them the go-ahead to head for the loop wormhole. Tell them to bring their drives up to maximum.”
Only then, as Jason watched Dreathlor prison barge slowly move toward the distant loop wormhole, the now-crowded staging area less than a light-year away, did he realize he was sending the crew on those five heavy cruisers to their certain death. No matter how he tried to justify the fate of that old barge in his head, he was having difficulty coming to terms with the fatal outcome for those crewmembers.
“Battle droid’s back and making its way toward us, Captain,” Grimes said.
Scrapyard Ship 7: Call to Battle Page 14
