by GARY DARBY
Just before they reached the opening, Dason pulled his L-gun while El’am slid a gleaming short sword out into the sunlight. With vigilance, they approached the opened hatchway and stuck their heads inside the dark compartment.
Dason switched on his vest lights and scanned the inside. He said to El’am, “Do you have any idea what this is?”
The warrior turned his head from side to side, as he examined the interior. “I am not certain, but this may well be a Mongan survival craft.”
“A lifeboat?” Dason asked.
“Yes.”
Dason stepped inside and played his lights on the velvetlike pads and small oblong cabinets that lined the walls. He had taken only a few steps when his foot hit something that made a metallic clanging sound against the floor.
He shone his light down and sucked in a breath. He bent down and held up the object for El’am to see.
El’am grabbed the sword and held it up to the light. “I know this,” he breathed out. “See the two curved notches on the hilt, and these amaranth stones set so, and so. This belongs to Elder Tor’al!”
Their eyes met and held for a second in realization of what their find meant. Then, without a word, both tore through the cylinder’s remaining portions in search of the elder or his Sha’anay companions.
“Empty,” Dason said with a hint of frustration in his voice after a fruitless search.
“Yes,” El’am replied, “but there is this.” He held up the short sword. “Could it be that the elder, A’kan, and Mo’sar escaped the Mongan ship?”
“If they did,” Dason replied in a grim tone, “and the Faction brought them to the top—”
“Then they are in the hands of your enemies, and now our enemies,” El’am replied with a soft growl. “These humans who act like devil dogs.”
Chapter Eight
Star date: 2443.076
The Alpha Prime Planet, the Helix Nebula
“Back to the ship,” Dason hurriedly urged. “There’s nothing more we can do here but we definitely need to let someone know about all this.” The two stepped from the Mongan craft into the soft morning light. With a sudden snarl, El’am seized Dason’s shoulder, his long fingers digging into Dason’s soft tissue.
He spun Dason, pointing with the tip of his sword toward the distant horizon.
A Mongan battle cruiser! Flying low and fast straight at them.
Dason started to shout, “Run!” but the big alien was already lumbering toward the Zephyr. The two stormed up the ramp and squeezed through the airlock.
Dason slammed into the pilot pod and hit the emergency boost-out. The Zephyr leaped into the air, gaining speed with each second, but it wasn’t enough. The Mongan craft closed the gap.
Dason aimed the Zephyr’s nose straight up, trying to coax every bit of speed out of the little craft that he could. “Can you go to hyperlight?” El’am asked.
“No. We’re too close to the planetary mass, and I’m not real keen on busting through the nebula at that speed.”
He glanced at his sensor display. “Two more coming at us,” he spit out, and heeled the Zephyr over and away from the two Mongan cruisers that had appeared off his port side.
“Human Dason,” El’am observed, “they do not fire on us. They may be trying to capture rather than kill.”
“Well,” Dason answered, “if it’s all the same to you, being a Mongan hostage isn’t exactly high on my to-do list.”
“I do not understand your ‘to-do list’ but if you mean that you would rather die in combat than be a Mongan slave, then our hearts and minds think as one.”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Dason grimaced as he skewed the Zephyr to the right and left in a series of sharp S turns that caused one hulking Mongan ship to have to decelerate so as to not collide with its partner.
Dason’s last turn left the planet’s large moon looming straight ahead. “I can outmaneuver them,” he declared, “but they’re faster than we are, and I’ve got the ship’s engines close to red-lined now.”
He drew in a resigned breath. “She’s given about all she’s going to give without going to hyperlight and those cruisers are still gaining on us.”
He stared at the moon’s glowing orb that framed a quarter of the sky to their front. An idea formed in his head. “But,” he mused, while his eyes narrowed in thought, “there’s just a chance that we can get a little extra boost from that moon ahead.”
Dason had the Zephyr do a corkscrew maneuver through a series of high, thin cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere, and then headed straight at the moon.
Outside, light gave way to the darkness of space and the mighty Helix Nebula burst in full view; its dark, roiling clouds of gas and dust stood like ramparts encircling the sky.
A smattering of stars broke the dark green curtain, their brightness overshadowed by the nebula’s wall cloud.
With deft fingers, Dason played his fingers across the control board, adjusting their trajectory as they flashed through space, the Zephyr’s nose pointed straight at the glowing orb.
Over his shoulder, he called out to El’am, “You might want to buckle in back there; this is going to get a little hairy.”
He stole a quick glance at his display board. A small smile played across his lips. The three Mongan ships were still following, but they hadn’t accelerated to catch up either.
No doubt, they thought he was on a suicide run and willing to smash his ship into the moon rather than be a Mongan captive.
Closer and closer loomed the lime-colored orb’s pinnacled mountains. At the right instant, Dason tipped the craft’s nose up, aligned it with the moon’s craggy horizon, and rotated the ship so that he and El’am seemed to be hanging upside down relative to the surface.
In seconds, towering peaks flashed underneath the Zephyr. The little craft hugged the moon’s curved, craggy shell so close that Dason felt like he could almost reach out and touch the mountaintops.
They flashed around the planetary satellite and at the right instant, Dason hit the acceleration control, asking the little craft for even more speed.
They blasted out and away, gaining velocity from the orb’s gravity well. Dason watched while the Mongans, hanging back at first, suddenly realized what he had done and gave chase.
Dason’s unorthodox maneuver had not only gained them time—it had also put distance between the Mongans and the Zephyr.
He heard El’am behind him. “Human Dason, I know not what you meant by ‘hairy’ but if it means that one’s hair stands on edge—”
“Yeah, something like that,” Dason agreed. “I bought us a little time from those three, but I’ve got two more closing on different azimuths.”
He chewed on his lip, mulling over their options, before saying, “They’re boxing us in, and I don’t have any more tricks up my sleeve. We’re going to have to go to hyperlight, it’s our last option to try and escape.”
“Human Dason,” El’am said, “you expressed misgivings earlier about your ship going through a nebula cloud at faster-than-light speed.”
Dason let out a long breath. “I was taught to never fly a deep-space craft at hypervelocity through a nebula cloud.”
In a grim tone, he added, “But I was also taught to never say never.”
He inputted the proper commands and said, “Here goes nothing.”
“And that may well be us if this does not work,” El’am replied in a somber voice.
Dason punched the hyperlight control. In an instant, the Zephyr plunged into n-space. For a few seconds, there was nothing but utter darkness and silence. Then, a violent shuddering and vibration broke the quiet.
The ship rocked from side to side in a heaving motion that caused Dason to reach out and hold onto the control board while El’am braced himself against the bulkhead.
“Grav waves!” Dason shouted out. The scouter bucked and tilted to one side before righting itself. Dason could almost hear the ship’s bulkheads shriek from the titanic forces that tor
e and pounded at the craft.
The Zephyr reeled, throwing Dason and El’am to one side. “Too much!” Dason exclaimed. “She can’t handle this!”
A loud, flat voice intoned, “Warning! H-drive overload! Structural failure . . .”
Numerous red lights blinked across the flight control panel. Shuddering from the enormous g-forces, the Zephyr flashed out of n-space and came to a dead stop.
Dark, billowing, green-tinted clouds washed over the craft. Peering out through the sylcron windows, Dason said over his shoulder, “We came out inside the cloud.”
“So I see,” the warrior replied. “But can we leave it?”
“Checking on that now,” Dason answered as he programmed the compu to run a comprehensive diagnostic on all the craft’s onboard systems. “Those waves just about split us wide open. I’m afraid we might have some serious damage.”
El’am leaned over and gestured at the churning cloud mass. “If the Mongans followed, they might well find us, but it will take some time. The cloud density and electrical charge will degrade their sensors.”
“Well,” Dason said harshly, “I hope that if they did follow, the grav waves tore them apart.”
El’am nodded. “A fine thought indeed, human Dason. Unfortunately, I do not think the Mongans would risk hyperspeed through the nebula.”
Dason leaned over to scan the compu readout of the ship’s operating systems. After a few seconds, he turned back to an expectant El’am. “Well, as my people would say, good news and bad news.
“Bad news, the hyperlight drive and our n-space comms are out of commission. I wouldn’t even know where to begin repairing either. However, I do know that if we try to go hyperspeed—well, let’s just say that for a few seconds we’d make for one bright light in the cosmos.
“We have short-range comms, but that’s all, so we can’t call for help from my people.
“The good news is that for now we’re still able to draw energy off the hyperdrive engine; enough to power our grav-generator and other systems. The nucleonic engine is operational, so we have sublight propulsion, but it’s going to take us a while to get anywhere from here. Sorry.”
El’am rumbled low in his chest and said, “We still live, human Dason, and for the time being have outwitted the Mongans. I suspect that your merry chase left them in a fine, foul mood. That in itself is an excellent thought to contemplate.”
Dason shrugged one shoulder. “If you say so, but in the meantime, how good are you at doing repairs? Any chance that you could at least fix our communications gear?”
“No,” El’am stated flatly. “My knowledge of such things is small and limited to Sha’anay technology.”
He gave an almost human sniff through his large nose. “My mentor once tried to teach me how to repair some of our most basic mechanical devices. After I damaged several of our wrist communicators, he sent me away to train instead on weapon mastery.”
Dason nodded and pursed his lips together. “Okay then,” he said in a brisk tone, “we’ll make sure that you stay away from the delicate stuff.”
He half-muttered to himself, “Doesn’t hurt to ask, right?”
Turning back to the pilot controls, Dason tapped out a directive to the compu to bring up the nav star charts for the space surrounding the nebula. Gazing at the holographic image, El’am asked, “Perhaps your clansmen have outposts nearby?”
Dason shook his head. “No. For us, this is relatively unexplored space. We had just started exploring the nebula when all of this happened. What about the Sha’anay, any chance you would have something close?”
El’am scrutinized the image before he waved a hand at the star chart. “We have few permanent settlements, and those are small and mainly for the building of new ships and weapons. At sublight speed, we would grow old and die long before we reached the nearest in this part of the galaxy.
“We depend upon our fleet for what other resources and repairs we need. And I do not know where the fleet now gathers.”
“When Tor’al and I were together on the planet,” Dason replied, “he showed me the remaining Sha’anay homeworld. Is it far from here?”
“Very, very far, human Dason,” El’am replied. “With one’s eye alone you cannot see our home star, Be’lez from here. It lies in another spiral arm of the galaxy. I have never even been there. I was born aboard one of my clan ships, the Sem’pi.
“However, we have a tradition that each of us may make one voyage back to the homeworld during our lifetime. It is my hope that I may live long enough to make that journey.”
Dason drew in a breath. “Tor’al told me that you seek out the Mongans and engage them in battle whenever you can. If that’s true, do you have any idea of when the Sha’anay will return to the nebula?”
El’am leaned back and considered Dason’s question. “I am but a novice, a cub, among my people, human Dason, and so it is not within me to know how my people’s leaders would think on this.
“Will the Sha’anay return? Of a surety, but I think not until we have gathered a sufficient battle group and that may take some time.”
He turned to Dason and asked, “What of your people, will they return?”
“I believe so,” Dason answered. “But, like yours, it may be awhile. From what Captain DeNair on the Saratoga told me, it looks like we got hurt bad. Like your people, I have the feeling that the Imperium is going to have to regroup before they return in force.”
“So, we must make our own way then,” El’am stated.
“It would appear so.”
He turned to study the holographic star chart and ran a hand over his mouth while he mused aloud. “We have food and water and if we’re careful, we can stretch it out for quite a while.
“The nucleonic engine has enough go juice, theoretically, to take us halfway across the galaxy, in a few million years, of course.”
“I—” Dason started to say and stopped. The ship’s sensor panel had begun to blink. He touched several control pads, peered at the display for several seconds and then said, “Uh oh. There’s another ship out there, and not very far away.”
“The Mongans followed us!” El’am spat out.
Dason’s fingers flew over the console board before he let out a small puff of air that lifted his short bangs and leaned back. “No, not unless they followed us in a lot smaller ship than the ones that tried to gun us down.”
He ran a finger over the display. “The sensor is saying that it’s much too small to be a Mongan cruiser. In fact, it’s not much bigger than this Zephyr.”
“Does it move toward us?” El’am asked.
Dason shook his head. “No, it’s moving up and away, and quite slowly, too.”
Peering at the display, he said, “That’s odd; the sensor compu is saying it’s not under powered flight. More like it’s in a free-fall trajectory.”
He turned to the warrior. “Do you or the Mongans have deep space vessels of that size?”
El’am hesitated. “The Sha’anay do not, and of the Mongans, I do not think so. Our planetary and interplanetary craft are several times larger than that vessel.”
Dason ran his tongue over his lips while he considered the sensor data. “It could be an Imperium ship,” he mused. “One that the Mongans attacked and it didn’t make it through the nebula.”
He cocked his head a little to one side. “Maybe it’s abandoned and set adrift or perhaps the crew is unable to help themselves.”
“Or,” El’am muttered, “they have made the Last Journey.”
He paused and then said, “There is but one way to find out, human Dason. If it is one of yours, perhaps it has a way to communicate.”
“Perhaps, and you’re right, there’s just one way to find out.”
Dason started to power up the engines when El’am laid a hand on Dason’s shoulder. “My mentor Na’thic once said, ‘Only the foolish race toward danger when there is time to go slow and see what truly lies before you’.”
“Your m
entor sounds like my Scoutmaster,” Dason observed. “And we would be smart to listen to either of them. We’ll go at this slow and easy.”
Dason nudged the ship forward and set his course on a gentle arc that would slide them into a position to the unseen ship’s aft section. For several minutes, they glided through the billowing wisps of cloud and stardust.
Keeping his eyes glued to the sensor, Dason kept one hand hovering just above the thruster pad. If the other ship unexpectedly showed life, he would hit the boost control, and they would power out at full acceleration.
He had also programmed the weapons console to lock on and fire the ion cannon on his order if the mysterious ship turned on them.
“Closing,” Dason said to El’am in a quiet voice. “We should be able to see them in a few moments. No sign that they’re powering up; only a faint energy signature.”
Dason slowed the ship even more, until they were creeping along at a few meters a second. They passed through a dense cloud tinted battleship gray and broke through into clear space.
One look and Dason knew that their mystery craft would pose no danger to them.
Like a slow-moving wheel, the ship tumbled through wavy curls of gaseous material. The vessel’s nearest side was torn open in a jagged line, like a giant had grasped the ship with two hands and twisted until the ship’s seams split apart.
Fragments of metal pieces, plastics, and blackened fabric tumbled and floated along with the craft. From what little Dason could see of the vessel’s interior, it appeared to be open to the vacuum and absolute zero temperature of space.
El’am crowded into the pilot pod, pressing his face close to the sylcron window. His eyes narrowed almost to slits, and his breath was like a hiss as it left his lips. He turned to Dason, his expression hard, nostrils flaring above tight lips.
“Human Dason, that is exactly like the ships that brought the pod from the lake. The same that carried these law-breakers of yours—the ones who made off with Elder Tor’al.”
Startled, Dason asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” El’am stated in a firm voice. “See the double black line near the stern, and the bow’s sloped nose? I recognize both. Yes, I am certain.”
