“Why aren’t we getting away?” Sujay asked in panic.
As the ship arced around the planet, a monstrous fortress just outside of the planet’s orbit came into view. It was an ivory white, mechanical moon designed to house millions of droids. It was also very hostile to trespassers.
“Freighter ship, you are trespassing in private air space. Leave now or prepare to be fired upon,” a mechanical droid voice warned over the comm.
“All shields at full power!” Forrest ordered. Sujay weaved his fingers through the controls and watched as dozens of Kingsman’s ships pursued the Dreamweaver while hundreds of ships spilled from the Ivory Moon and headed right for them.
“Please tell me you have a plan,” Sujay said.
“Yup,” Forrest replied.
“Are you going to tell me about it?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“You’re a negative nancy. You’ll panic and tell me how we’re going to die!”
Sujay rolled his eyes, but Forrest’s plan was coming to fruition.
“Freighter ship! This is your final warning! Leave now or prepared to be fired upon!” The mechanical voice repeated over the comm.
“Ignore them,” Forrest said as he looked over to Sujay. “And get ready for a jolt to starboard!” Sujay understood the plan and tightened his harness. Both men held steely gazes as the ship veered a hard ninety degree turn, and made the calculations to jump into hyperspace.
As the ivory ships closed in upon the Dreamweaver, their sensors warned of a band of incoming onyx-colored fighters.
“Kingsman!” A voice shouted over the comm. It was a voice that Forrest and Sujay had only heard rumors of, and belonged to a reclusive being whose exploits bordered on legendary.
“Nergoth!” Kingsman spat.
“I knew that you’d try to invade me!” Nergoth shouted.
“Keep your hands off of my prize! Men! Fire at will!” Kingsman ordered.
The scene behind Forrest and Sujay erupted into a massive battle between Nergoth’s and Kingsmen’s fleets. Missiles and blaster bolts streamed on the edge of space, the clash even drawing Kingsman’s personal frigate into the fray.
“Boy, it sure is a good thing that the droid pirate Nergoth and Kingsman hate each other” Forrest said with a sigh of relief.
“What would you have done if they maintained peaceful relations?” Sujay asked.
“We would have been royally screwed. Just like your mom was-”
“I knew it! Just shut up and make the jump to hyperspace!”
Alcyone was a tranquil world, and one of the few that the Core could credit as being an overwhelming success through terramorphing efforts. One of the only planets free from disease and an atmosphere that didn’t collapse, Alcyone was a lush, green temperate world with massive, pristine freshwater lakes, crisp air and only one major city, Alcian. The lakes of Alcyone were formed during the terramorphing process when the planet was heated to a liveable temperature which forced the massive freshwaters glaciers to melt.
The planet was encircled by a massive Core fleet blockading the planet. Embargoes were expensive business, and contraband would be valuable.
There were six battleships, eighteen destroyers, twenty nine frigates, and thousands of individual fighters, all flying in a swirling vortex to ensure that no one could get in...or out.
“We’ve got to run that?” Sujay asked.
“I can run it.”
“You always say that!”
“Because I always run the blockade! Name one blockade I’ve never run!”
“Mathis.”
“That doesn’t count! You distracted me!”
“What? You were the one downloading those pictures of half naked-”
“What matters is that we made the delivery alright?”
“After hiding inside of that asteroid!”
“It worked, that’s what matters! Now, calculate my trajectory, while I go find some fresh pictures of your mom.”
“Ugh, you and those stupid jokes…”
“Do we have any intel on why there’s such a heavy blockade?” Forrest asked.
Sujay used his military credentials on the Core mainframe and pulled up the dossier of Alcyone. Since Sujay made it to Lieutenant, he had access to the Core’s military database, but after he left the military his credentials and logins were revoked. Sujay merely hired a couple of computer guys to restore his access.
“According to the official report Alcyone’s trade has been shut down because they refuse to export any more freshwater, Sujay said.
“And what kind of booty are they calling for?” Forrest asked.
“Uuuhh, not much we’re carrying...oh, here we go. They want ship parts. Big orders too. Wow, these are Core military-level volume orders. Almost like they’re getting replacement parts for an aerial fleet. We could dump all those engine fuselages in the cargo hold…” Sujay suggested.
“And tack on a minimal 600% hazard pay fee,” Forrest said as he clapped his hands together like a grinning monkey.
“We’ll be able to pay off Kingsman for the Dreamweaver and finally become free men!” Sujay said as his eyes glimmered.
“Try to find out who the Admiral is. See if it’s one of our old chums,” Forrest said.
"It's Ivanov running the blockade. He always sticks to the basics. The old fashioned Chinese Wall technique. Crude, but effective," Sujay replied.
"I can run it," Forrest said.
"You already said that!" Sujay replied.
"Well, when I find a blockade I can't run I'll say so. Calculating trajectory," Forrest said.
“You never take the care and attention to plan your trajectory right. You always rush in, fly fast and break my ship in the process.”
“Your ship? How dare you Sujay Malak?!
“I take far better care of her than you do Jack Forrest!” Sujay mocked.
“That is simply not true! I take great care of-” Forrest was interrupted by a green light that blinked on the dashboard. "Oooohhh! The propulsion jets are ready. Here we go!" Forrest screamed as he slammed down on the accelerator.
"Oh yeah, you take such good care of the Dreamweav-" Sujay said as he was thrown back into his seat when the ship launched forward. He pulled himself to the dashboard to project flight patterns for their path through the blockade using his revised star map. Sujay tapped in a frantic pace at the projected map as he created and dismissed dozens of courses for the pair to take.
"Destroyer is on top of us! We're marked!" Sujay said.
"Whoooo!" Forrest screamed as his hands spiraled around the controls, and forced the cargo ship into a barrel roll, which brought him within centimeters of colliding into an incoming frigate. The maneuver proved unbelievably frustrating to anyone who was tracking the pair, since the Core ships couldn’t acquire a lock.
The destroyers and frigates were too large to move in such small confines, which was how Forrest liked to best outmaneuver them. There was always the risk that they would be blown out of the sky, but the Core blockade fleets almost never fired on a little cargo ship on the chance that they’d hit one of the other Core ships. Once they’d weaved outside of the destroyers and frigates though, they would have to run like hell. This blockade however, had a different setup.
"Fighters have spotted us," Sujay said. He braced himself for another run of Forrest’s insane flying maneuvers. While Sujay was used to Forrest's erratic piloting, and his air sickness had long been cured, Sujay strived for a little less excitement in his life. Forrest loved the feel of rising and falling in the midst of the stars and believed that the adrenaline rush made him a better pilot. His senses and reflexes became sharper. The needs of the moment damned the needs of the future. It was all about living in the present, pure and simple.
Five fighters pursued the Dreamweaver. Given its status as a small Manta Class Freighter ship, the fighters thought taking down the Dreamweaver would be like shooting a fish in a barrel.
"A
re we in a hurry?" Forrest asked.
"Nope, our schedule is clear," Sujay replied.
"Good, because I felt like taking the scenic route!" Forrest said as he activated the secondary thrusters. The ship screamed forward, and arced along the atmosphere towards Alcyone’s North Pole. The Northern regions of Alcyone were lined with imposing mountain ranges, which enhanced the planet’s aura as a tranquil paradise.
“Fine place for a ski resort. No wonder why the admiral want’s-” Forrest was cut off when the fighters opened fire. "Scuffords! Divert all shields to the rear!" He ordered.
Sujay swiped at the controls, lowered the shields in front and raised them in the back. A couple of the blasts hit home, but the shields deflected the full brunt of the blast.
“Now for a little boost!” Forrest said as he triggered the emergency (and illegally modified) thrusters.
“We’re about to enter orbit!” Sujay screamed.
“We’ll skid the atmo, and hopefully lose a few of them,” Forrest said.
“That’s your plan? Skid the atmosphere, increase drag along the belly of the ship and hope that the Core fighters dip one degree too much against the planet’s atmosphere, which tears their nose off and blows the ship to smithereens?” Sujay asked.
“Sure! I’ve done this thousands of times!” Forrest replied in a vibrant cheer.
“This is suicide,” Sujay whispered to himself. He increased the shields on the bottom of the ship as well, which stretched the power core to the limit as the ship’s engines teetered on the edge of collapse.
Each bump along the atmosphere felt like skidding across concrete. The two were tossed around in their seats like rag dolls, but Forrest never lost control of the ship despite the turbulence. The shields on the bottom of the ship took most of the beating, but each time Forrest struck the atmosphere, he risked one of the engine’s parts being knocked out of place. However, Forrest knew that the cargo ship just had to hold out longer than the fighters. One of the Core ships dived under the Dreamweaver, but the heat proved too much and the ship erupted into a fireball.
“That’s one!” Forrest screamed.
The debris from the first fighter flew into the face of the third fighter. Pieces of shrapnel sheared off the wings which caused the ship to dip into the atmosphere and tear the nose off, while the pilot sealed inside plummeted planetside. “That’s two!” Forrest screamed again.
“They’re not breaking pursuit! We can’t hold on much longer,” Sujay said as he watched the thermostat rise.
“Yup! Let’s cool things down a bit,” Forrest said as he calculated another trajectory. This one arced into the polar ice caps below. Forrest shifted gears, and prepared to veer starboard towards the surface of Alcyone. He arced the ship, ignited the gravity well boost and braced for the polar mountains that were up ahead. Three more fighters followed, which left Forrest at a disadvantage since the fighters were more maneuverable than the Dreamweaver was.
“They have a lock on us!” Sujay said.
“Deploying flares,” Forrest said as he keyed in the command. The back of the ship erupted a series of bright red lights, which jammed the targeting sensors of the pursuing fighters. Their launched missiles exploded behind the Dreamweaver and the sonic blast bounced off their shields.
“Preparing to level off,” Forrest said as they approached a snow-capped mountain range.
The red warning light flashed again. One of the enemy fighters had a lock on them.
“Forrest…?” Sujay asked.
Forrest focused on the controls, almost oblivious to what was going on around him.
“FORREST…?” Sujay screamed.
“I got it,” Forrest muttered. It didn’t persuade Sujay.
Forrest dived into the deep valley between two mountain ranges. The pristine beauty of the mountains was spectacular...if the two had the time to enjoy the view.
The alert signaled that missiles had been fired. They closed in on the Dreamweaver.
“FORREST!” Sujay screamed.
“Right. Deploy flares on my mark,” Forrest ordered as he grabbed the gravity well throttle.
Sujay moved his shaking hand to the flares control. Beads of sweat trickled down his brow as he hugged the dash of the Dreamweaver.
“NOW!” Forrest screamed as he jerked down the gravity well throttle.
Sujay deployed the flares. The ruby lights attracted the heat-seeking missiles and the incoming fighters were helpless to stop Forrest’s bait.
The explosions from the rockets triggered avalanches on both sides of the Dreamweaver. Forrest held down the gravity well throttle, weaved through the canyon in short, sputtering bursts to avoid the massive avalanche. The incoming fighters weren’t so lucky as massive sheets of snow and ice buried them in a tidal wave of snow. The pristine mountains became the final resting place for those three unlucky fighters.
“Wooooo!” Forrest screamed in excitement, as he raised his hands in triumph. Just then, the engine to the Dreamweaver sputtered, choked and belched black smoke. Forrest’s maneuvers may have saved their lives, but his antics overwhelmed the ship's engines.
“That’s not good,” Forrest said.
“Not good? We’re stranded up here in the arctic! I don’t even have a coat for this kind of environment!” Sujay screamed.
“Relaaax Sujay. We’re out of danger now. Most likely blew one of the lines that carries oil through the engine. Black smoke is almost always oil being leaked. We’ll just set the ship to autopilot and wait to get to Alcian,” Forrest said.
“You literally blew a gasket in there! A piston may be destroyed or the reactor was cracked! Alcian is thousands of miles away! How will we ever make it there in one piece?” Sujay asked.
“Fine. I’ll use the emergency channel and see if we can get it towed. Just know that you’re cutting into our profits!” Forrest accused.
“Me? You’re the one who had to weave and twirl in the sky, skid across the atmosphere and keep your hand pressing on the gravity well throttle!” Sujay replied.
“Oh, I’m so sorry that I saved your life Sujay! If it wasn’t for me, we’d have been blown to smithereens! I’ll bet if I told your mother of what happened today, she’d get down and thank me properly…” Forrest said as he pressed the emergency beacon signal.
“Don’t you bring my mother into this!” Sujay screamed.
“Oh! Oh! Ooohhh! Yes, Mrs. Malak, I did save your son. Your gratitude and enthusiasm certainly shows! Be careful when talking, you might choke!” Forrest said with his eyes closed and his hands resting on his thighs.
“You son of a bitch!” Sujay screamed as he slapped Forrest across the face.
The autopilot landed the Dreamweaver softly on the ground while Forrest and Sujay slapped each other inside the cockpit. The two were locked in such an equally matched struggle that they nearly missed the response to their emergency beacon.
“Dreamweaver, you have requested a tow? Repeat, Dreamweaver, you have requested a tow? We have received your emergency broadcast,” a static male voice said over the comm.
“Yeah, we have a faulty engine…” Forrest said while panting.
“That you broke,” Sujay said.
Forrest stared daggers at Sujay, then continued over the comm. “We have a faulty engine which seized up here in the arctic on our way to deliver parts and we cannot risk the flight to Alcian. Please provide assistance.”
“Blockade runners,” The voice on the other end said. “Sit tight, we’ll have a pair of tow ships come get you. Expected waiting time is twelve hours,” The man said.
“Twelve hours?” Forrest exclaimed.
“Every available resource is tied up at the moment. You’ll just have to wait like everyone else,” The man said, clearly irritated.
“Fine,” Forrest replied.
After fourteen long hours, a pair of tow ships descend to the site. “Alright, Dreamweaver please turn your ship on and set it to Neutral. We can take it from there,” one of the pilots said
.
“Roger that,” Forrest replied. “You’re a lot friendlier than the other guy.”
“It’s a stressful time for all of us, what with the embargo of the planet. Thank you for requesting a tow, the fee would be a lot less than the fines you would’ve had to pay had you flown in with a belching ship.”
“I do what I can,” Forrest said as he kicked back in his pilot chair. Sujay rolled his eyes. The tow ships connected their cables to the Dreamweaver and sealed off the engine’s exhaust.
“Sealing up the exhaust, won’t that cause carbon monoxide to flow back?” Sujay asked.
“Nah,” Forrest replied. “The engine’s in neutral and since we’re being towed, there shouldn’t be a lot of exhaust. Plus, the filters inside of the cap they put on the exhaust system will draw out most of the carbon monoxide.”
“Ugh, why are you so smart about the ship, yet so dumb about everything else?” Sujay asked.
“Well, your mom thought I was real smart about how I got her off when I-”
“Are you really going to spend fourteen hours making ‘your mom’ jokes?”
“Well, I gotta find something to do! Not like you brought cards!”
“Oh sweet Vishnu, give me strength,” Sujay said.
Alcian glimmered like a jewel against the surrounding pristine lakes. It was a sprawling, clean metropolis. The buildings gleamed in the morning sun, and gave a warm, saffron glow to the cityscape. The tow ships were cleared for landing and pulled into a docking port with the Dreamweaver attached. The two men looked at the city below, but it wasn’t a bustling hive of activity. The city had a strange feeling of abandonment, like an orphan whose mother was forced to give her up. A small entourage waited to greet Forrest and Sujay.
“By the stars…” Forrest gasped.
“What?” Sujay asked.
“Tim Riley!” Forrest screamed in excitement.
“Who is…?” Sujay asked.
“Jack Forrest, scum lower than what I scrape off of my boots! C’mere!” Riley said as he embraced him.
Horsemen United: Horsemen Origins Books 1-5 Page 10
