Author: Robert Wagner
Category: Other
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A minute passed and they were still caught in the dull blue glow of the tractor beam. Herra switched on internal comms. "Um, Kohora. We're still in the tractor beam."
"It is a weak one,"Kohora came back. "You should have no trouble pulling your ship free."
That wasn't exactly the point in her mind. Maybe Kohora wasn't as important to his people as he thought. She could worry about that once they got out of the station.
"You heard our guest, Virgil."
"Herra," Virgil said, exasperated. "You don't even know the status of the repairs. You going to break my ship again?"
She let the my ship comment slide. "I'm going to let you power up the engines and pull us out. Then you can fill me in once I take her out towards the wormhole."
Virgil's eyes practically rolled back enough that Herra figured he could see the back of his skull from the inside. One dramatic sigh later and Virgil flipped the ships systems back on one by one. A rumble and a disturbing sounding cough came from the back of the Dauntless.
"You can't expect much more from me. We're only flying on one drive core. The Ishalan weren't exactly helpful either."
Herra raised the eyebrow that wasn't covered by the headset. "I didn't say anything. Take her out sub commander." Virgil shook her head but gave her a wry smile all the same.
Chen had slipped in back behind her at the science station. "I thought you would want to know that all encryption on the computer systems are still intact."
"Good to know. Thanks Chen."
Virgil eased forward on the stick. The Dauntless swayed back and forth as gentle as a baby rocker, then broke free. As Kohora said, there wasn't much power holding them in place. The slowly rotating rectangular tube with jutting docking platforms at regular intervals now laid before them. As far as Herra could see there were no attempts to stop them.
"I've got the engines throttled as high as we dare push them. You can't push them any higher than what I've set them at. Spit and duct tape is holding them together." Virgil looked over at her, nervousness etched on his face. "You take us out of here."
Herra caressed the controls. She went slowly forward. The space station was a tight squeeze for the Dauntless. She eased the ship towards the exit, wary for any attempts to stop or destroy them.
"You know, I've never been close to an Ishalan before," Virgil chattered. "Always thought they would smell...beasty."
"Is now really the time for this?" Herra questioned. She jogged the Dauntless to the left as a little Ishalan ship shot by the other direction. She was sure she was only millimeters from the side of the station. It hurt her that the Dauntless was responding so sluggish. She imagined this is what flying one of the Ishalan's rectangles would be like. She began to sweat in her suit.
"But really he smelled quite lovely. Like watermelon a little bit. Probably smells better than I do at the moment. I smell like fried electrical regulator bathed in human sweat. Can't wait to have a proper bath."
They were just about at the exit. A ship began to back out of the bay right in front of them. Herra jammed the sticks forward. Something went clunk in the back of the ship.The Dauntless leapt through the closing gap. She briefly wondered if collision klaxons were going off on the Ishalan ship. She had the Dauntless collision detection systems disabled years ago. Beside her Virgil made a sound like a leaky airlock.
They were through the exit and out into space an instant later. Herra turned the engines up to the limit Virgil had set in the system. She thought the blackness of space never looked so good.
Up head the planet loomed. The bigger ship that Kohora had first contacted them from was still in orbit around it. Herra could just make out its features. She could also make out the ship was turning ponderously in their direction.
"Chen, these are the coordinates of the wormhole Kohora gave me." Herra rattled them off. "Send me up the course."
Seconds later a flight plan appeared on Herra's console. With a swipe it was now overlaying her viewport. She turned the Dauntless in a corkscrew then into a loop. That put the Ishalan cruiser behind her and nothing but open space in front of her.
"What happens if I disengage your throttle limit and power our remaining engine to maximum thrust?"
"Boom." Virgil expanded his hands out in a circle for dramatic effect.
Herra's lips became a thin line. She didn't know the Ishalan. She didn't know what they would do. They had the word of Kohora but that didn't mean he was right. They were smaller and would have had no trouble outrunning the cruiser if the Dauntless wasn't crippled by all the damage it had sustained. Any moment now her ship could just quit on her. Or Dauntless could jerk to a stop, caught in a tractor beam. Or simply be blown out of the sky.
"Chen, you keep our sensors in a laser tight focus on that cruiser. Virgil, keep making sure that we don't go boom."
"We are accelerating away from the Ishalan cruiser at 0.2 meters per second. The cruiser is still expending most of its energy breaking away from the planet."
"Okay. Let me know if that changes."
A few more tense moments passed. Luckily for them the Ishalan's wormhole was in system. Only twelve minutes away if Dauntless was operating at normal capacity. Herra stranded her eyes, trying to will it into visual range.
"Oh shit!" Virgil exclaimed. "Pull back on the engine thrust by twenty percent. That damn stunt I pulled with the battery backup must be causing this." His fingers raced over his boards.
Against every instinct she had Herra did as Virgil asked. Ahead of her space seemed still. The visual overlay still had them at eighteen minutes until reaching their destination. Herra felt like hours had already gone by. A red blip appeared on the map.
"What's that?"
"Ishalan cruiser is now approaching us," Chen said. "It's gaining on us at 0.1 meters per second at the speed we are going. I apologize Commander but I don't know the range of its tractor beams or weapon systems. The ship will overtake us before we reach the wormhole if we don't increase our speed in ten minutes time."
"Thanks Chen for marking it on the map. Virgil, if there is anything you can do to keep the red dot from reaching us, now's the time."
"Nope," Virgil shrugged. "I've got no tricks over here. I've made all the repairs I can. We're out of supplies and out of options. Just try to go faster."
"What about the boom?"
The red dot closed the distance to their position on the map. Herra saw a green energy bolt flash overhead and to the left of her viewscreen.
"Looks like its boom either way." Virgil tapped several times on his console. "I will try to keep the shields up and flowing to the rear. With everything poured into the engines, I can't promise much."
Herra's face was grim. She couldn't believe the Ishalan craft was shooting at them. This was a violation of the treaty and an incident that could escalate into a full conflict between their civilizations. If she reported it.
"Chen. I think you have it right when you said the Ishalan are scared. More like terrified and desperate. To risk kidnapping us and now firing on us."
Squeezing her hands tighter around the flight sticks, Herra squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and reopened them. She increased speed back to Virgil's throttle limit. As much as the Dauntless would allow she spun in a corkscrew left and then right. It felt like flying a small moon. The pursuers didn't open fire with everything they had. Herra was sure they had more laser batteries. Only a smattering of green laser fire surrounded them. So far they hadn't been hit.
"Chen, you can turn the overlay off. I think I see the wormhole ahead." The holographic image winked off.
Earth controlled wormholes always had a few beacons around them, marking the entrance for ships. Really important ones might also have a few orbital cannons or even a small platform nearby, for mining. Otherwise they were left in their natural state. Herra saw that wasn't true for the Ishalan. They had built a massive ringed structure around the wormhole. It wasn't really round though. It was more like an octagon.
Beeping came from both her and Virgil's console. "Hit on the shields. It just about fried them," Virgil said.
Seeing the wormhole Herra had automatically flew straight towards it. She juked the Dauntless to the left and right. A bitter, metallic smell began to wafe up into the cockpit. Still the engine output was steady so Herra didn't pull it back.
"How's our friends following us doing Chen?"
"They are holding steady. Neither closing the gap or falling back."
Herra made another tight spiral down and back up, keeping the nose of the ship pointed at the wormhole structure growing larger in her view. Her mind went to a weird place of fretting over how inefficiently she was using the remaining fuel. She chuckled to herself. She needed to focus on staying alive.
The Dauntless was close enough now to see little vehicles that flitted across the surface of the wormhole. They looked like ungainly insects skittering across an oil slick. A ship about the size of Dauntless emerged from the wormhole. It flew towards them rapidly. Herra pulled as tight a loop as possible, emerging from it at an angle perpendicular to the wormhole. More green lasers erupted around her.
She immediately pulled a reverse maneuver, pointing Dauntless back at the structure. Herra looked over at Virgil. Virgil frowned before nodding. He tapped a few time on his console. The throttle limits came off the engines. Herra punched the remaining one to full thrust. She even dropped shields to put everything she could into escaping.
With a sound like a kicked dog the Dauntless increased speed. Ever so slightly the wormhole became the dominant view. The laser fire ceased. Straight ahead was the wormhole. They would be going in. Herra cut all the power to the engines. Momentum guided them. Shields went up. Herra closed her eyes. The colors danced on the back of her eyelids. Squeezed tight she hoped to open them again.
Ahead of her was a planet covered with a green-yellow haze. It was one of the most beautiful things Herra had ever seen. She let out a lungful of air she had been holding.
She punched Virgil playful in the arm. "Looks like your spit and solder repairs held long enough. Where to now Chen?"
Herra could hear Chen tap at her console behind her. "Right on the other side of that planet."
Herra powered back up the engine to minimum thrust. Her hands hovered over the terminal, anticipating having to shut it down at any moment. Her board remained green for a few breaths. Herra took that as a good sign. She twirled the Dauntless around, worried about pursuers.
The wormhole looked identical on this side. The same massive structure was built around it. Some of the same little ship flitted about the horizon. Herra did a quick scan with her short range scanners. She didn't pick up any ships.
"Chen get me long range scans. Also, where is the next wormhole?"
The readout from Chen appeared on her screen. It looked as if they were in the clear. Also the next wormhole was on the other side of the green planet they saw when they came in. How fortunate. Sure is nice to have a break.
Herra brought the Dauntless back around and at quarter engine power she accelerated towards the planet. She maintained a vector to use the planet's gravity to assist going around it. She'd baby the Dauntless as much as she could.
Three peaceful system jumps later and they were on the edge of where Ishalan space ended. There would be a buffer zone of unclaimed systems and then they would be home. The last wormhole they had traveled through had been natural, no big structures. It looked as if the Ishalan didn't have a presence in this system yet. Herra imagined the threat to the ship was gone, for now.
"Virgil, how about you pilot us the rest of the way home?"
Virgil, who had been dozing in his chair the last seven hours, snorted awake. "Huh? Where are we?" He rubbed at his eyes.
"Check the chart. You'll see. We're a stone's throw from Earth space. Chen and I are going to take a break." Herra had asked and then tried to order Chen to take a break but the woman stubbornly refused. Herra was now going to physically escort her to her quarters if need be.
Herra got up and patted Chen on the top of her shoulder. Chen looked up with droopy, red rimmed eyes. She started to protest before catching herself. She worked up a hint of a smile.
"I don't know about you, Chen, but I feel like I can sleep all the way to Sol. Virgil's got this. If not, well, at least we'll be asleep."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Virgil shot at her. "Of course I got this."
After seeing Chen off to her quarters Herra chimed Virgil's door. It opened a few moments later. Kohora stood with a white bed sheet wrapped around his midsection. Herra could see the same color patterned hair that covered the back of his head and neck extended down to chest. His arms were also covered in hair down to the elbows. If Herra didn't know any better she would say he looked embarrassed.
"I'm sorry, Herra. I didn't think to bring anything other coverings with me but the uniform I was wearing. Not the smartest thing I've done."
Herra shrugged. "Wasn't like you had time to pack up like you were going on vacation. I'm sorry to disturb you but I thought you might like to know we've one jump from a Earth system."
"I needed to get up and get dressed. You aren't a disturbance. Thank you for letting me know."
The door to Virgil's room started to shut but Herra stopped it was a hand. "No reason to hurry yourself. It will be four hours until we reach this system's wormhole. Then it's a six hour trip from that wormhole to the Earth one. In fact I was going to get some sleep myself, before my body just decides to shut down on me."
"I see. Still I must prepare." Kohora peered through the crack in the door. "Was there something else?"
"I just wanted to say...you're people put up a good pursuit. Tried to blow us out of the sky."
"I'm truly shocked by that. Maybe I'm not as an important to the fleet as I thought. They were willing to risk even the data you carry being vaporized to get it back. Please accept my apology."
"I wasn't looking for an apology. More, I was mentioning it as a reminder that things might not go the way either of us wants them to. You thought those in charge would act a certain way, but they surprised you. I think the Earth's leaders might plan on one or two courses of action, but I could be surprised too. Fear of the unknown, has a way of twisting that. Pulling on it like gravity waves pulling your ship off course."
Herra thought by the look in Kohora's eyes that he was taking in what she was saying seriously. "Good night then."
The lights in her quarters were dim. She left them at that setting. She stripped off her flight suit. The softness of the sheets and firmness of her pillow didn't have a second to register on her skin before Herra dropped off into blissful sleep.
Six hours later Herra sat behind the flight sticks, still weary, as Dauntless exited the Earth wormhole among a bustle of traffic. Not far from the entrance Herra could see the blue and red blinking lights of Earth Station One. It was one of the few things all the governments did right in her opinion. None laid claim to the wormhole once it was discovered. Each government of Earth had a presence on the station and in the defense force around the wormhole.
As they began the two hours journey into the solar system, Herra switched on the autopilot and tried to relax. They were safe for now. Her mind was a jumble of what had happened out there and what was to come. She attempted to run through what she would tell them back on Earth. If she could reach in one in power and get them to listen to her. She knew one thing for sure, the galaxy was about to get even more interesting.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert lives in the Kansas City area, is a husband, and a father of twin boys. Somehow he also fits in the time to write. He has had a love of science fiction and fantasy books since he's been a teen (which was a long time ago). Post apocalyptic stories fascinate him, probably a little too much. He's also a life long gamer, going back to the Atari 2600 (see, told you it was a long time ago.)