Jonathan glared at his screen, “WE’RE BLOWN! THEY’RE CLOSING-IN ON OUR POSITION!”
“Warning: Weapons lock has been acquired on this vessel.” the Main Computer droned.
Another series of abrupt explosions filled the viewscreen with light, and rocking motions tossed the crew horizontally. Aaen was struggling to stay upright, much less keep their heading consistent—and with the tactical station being offline, and Jensen lying in the back of the bridge unconscious, the concept of shooting back seemed like it went from ‘futile’ to ‘impossible’. Tactically, this left few direct-action alternatives. With that mutual realization, he and Maxon almost instantly had the same thought: between running, fighting, and hiding, given the circumstances . . . the odds weren’t good, especially with an apparently incompatible high-powered stealth device sitting in the back of the bridge. Connecting it to the ship’s main power grid and then interfacing it with the shuttle’s shield matrix and then activating it would be helpful if it were possible—
—Another sharp rocking motion almost immediately followed y two more—Aaen turned around for a moment and looked at Maxon. They each subconsciously knew they were thinking the same thing: talk to Jonathan.
Maxon snapped to look at him and asked, “Do a scan. Is there anywhere we could hide?”
The weapon-lock alarms continued, and lights were again starting to blink, but not from new damage to the shuttle, but from the fact the engines were drawing so much power from the Translight core, Mason observed, as a matter of fact, almost twenty points more than what the Translight core could comfortably and safely put out. She started to panic in silence, being without any immediately obvious solution to present to Maxon. Worse, she realized she would have to recommend lowering the power draw, or they would be forced to eject the core to save the shuttle—but that would leave them on emergency power, and with only four class-VII power cells to keep them alive with life support—and only for about twelve hours, at best, two full-power cannon shots, and sketchy long-range communications to enable them to stay in contact with the rest of the fleet . . . she took a deep breath, which did nothing to ease her nerves after realizing that the Translight core
Aaen adjusted their heading a few times and executed several tight barrel-rolls as evasive maneuvers. Several large, bright-green plasma torpedo warheads narrowly missed grazing the hull.
Jonathan stayed crouched next to Jensen while he executed this order. Seconds later, his screen flashed, “—YES! There’s an asteroid field about two minutes away if we can maintain this speed. Most of the asteroids are rich in a lightly magnetic metallic element . . . it should provide an effective screen from their targeting sensors.”
“Could buy us some valuable time!” Aaen added.
Maxon turned to Aaen, “Can you get us there, Commander?”
Aaen donned a panicked, skeptical look as he turned his head to the left while glaring at his computer screen—there was another fierce rocking motion, “right now they’re shooting at a really small target... if we can keep the translight core cool enough, for long enough, I can get us there.”
“We’re running out of coolant, fast!” Mason added.
“Changing course!” Aaen was very fluid with the controls. The hull quickly maneuvered to port, rolling moderately, the nose came up slightly and then leveled out.
“I can see the asteroid field!” Jonathan pointed, then checked his computer screen which flashed, “We’re about another minute out! We’ll start to fade from their sensors in roughly thirty seconds!”
A violent flurry of rocking motions caused the cabin to shudder. They were getting closer, and so were their weapons! Aaen noted. The shock from the last near-miss almost sent the hull into a multi-axis tumble in who-knows-what-direction so abruptly that the sheer force alone would have likely crippled the shuttle’s navigational systems.
The asteroids were the size of baseballs and watermelons in the viewscreen—jagged pieces of dark grey and black rock The view screen experienced a bout of abrupt, intermittent, and random distortion and static...
“. . . Steady as she goes,” Maxon ordered anxiously.
“—Aye,” Aaen acknowledged.
Jonathan checked his screen, “The Rotelan fleet is taking a position at the edge of the asteroid field. We’re about three light years from the edge of their side of the neutral zone.”
This announcement caused Maxon to grin. “Find a good spot to set us down for repairs, Commander. Mason, how are the repairs coming?”
“Translight drive will back online. I need to power down the translight core though so I can finish repairs.”
“Good, ‘cause I doubt we’ll make it out of here and back then get back home on impulse power, even as good as these engines are,” Aaen observed.
“Agreed,” Maxon added.
Aaen flew around several asteroids before approaching one about half the size of a starbase. He turned on the navigational lights and then soft-landed inside a cavern with multiple jagged tunnel exits.
“Captain, I need to power down the translight core to finish repairs,” Mason observed.
Maxon nodded, “Switch to auxiliary power.”
A declining grumbling mechanical hum indicated the power levels were dropping. The overhead lights gradually faded out and the alarms stopped. The only light came from the operational computer stations. Jonathan administered first aid to Jensen. He woke up a minute later, expressed gratitude, and then sat back in his seat, disappointed at what happened to his computer screen. “What happened?”
Jonathan brought him up to speed on what was going on.
Maxon looked around her as she said, “Okay, everyone, we need to figure out how we’re going to get out of here. Something tells me we can’t hide in here forever.”
*****
Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."
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