Wanderer's Odyssey - Books 1 to 3: The Epic Space Opera Series Begins

by Simon Goodson

  Jess made sure the robot was nearby and waiting for orders. Just in case. Then he turned his attention to getting the Wanderer repaired before they reached the Quarantine Zone. If that wasn’t sorted then any danger from Dash would become academic. They’d all be dead or captured by the Empire.

  For a moment, his shoulders slumped. Would they ever be free to just enjoy life? Then he chuckled at himself. He was free. Far more free than he had been his entire life. He wouldn’t let the Empire capture him. Whatever happened, even dying, was far better than spending even a single hour as a prisoner again. He was still smiling as he dived into the connection with the Wanderer and started to prioritise repairs to the battered ship.

  Chapter 25

  “At last…” Jess muttered to himself as the Wanderer’s main shields came back online. He checked the time. It had taken nearly an hour of focused effort and the shields were only at about sixty percent of full strength. It was still a great improvement over depending on the pitifully weak emergency shield generators.

  He glanced over to Dash and Ali who were sitting surrounded by displays. Jess had kept a small part of his mind watching them, watching for any aggressive acts by Dash. Ali had requested changes to the layout of the hold several times. The Wanderer wouldn’t accept the changes unless they came through Jess. He had approved them without checking, counting on Ali to spot any problems.

  Now he stood and stretched, then walked over to peer at their displays. As Dash had predicted, the troopers had split into two groups. The larger group of seven troopers was slowly advancing down a corridor. The smaller group had set up barricades in a small dead end and was holding there, weapons trained on the approach.

  Jess checked the accompanying information. Both groups were quite close to each other. The group that was moving was heading towards the back of the Wanderer.

  “What are they doing?” Jess asked.

  “The larger group is scouting,” Dash said. “The smaller is trying to establish a secure area.”

  Jess frowned. “Why? And why are they moving so slowly?”

  “Watch the larger group. You’ll see!” Ali said.

  Jess focused on the screen again. The troopers were being particularly careful, testing the walls, floor and ceiling as they went. Jess thought he could have crawled faster.

  One of the troopers jumped back as a section of wall suddenly fell outward. A high-powered laser hidden in the wall immediately pummelled his armour. Another panel fell out of the other side and a machine gun riddled him with bullets.

  The trooper staggered under the onslaught, but he stayed standing. His armour was holding out. Several troopers fired at each of the automated weapons. The laser was soon silenced. The machine gun was a tougher beast, but Jess could tell it wouldn’t last long. The weapons could startle the troopers, annoy them maybe, but not cause the caution he was seeing.

  Then it happened, almost too fast to see. A trooper disappeared from sight. After a moment Jess realised he had fallen into a pit. A section of floor had simply disappeared. It had opened almost like one of the Wanderer’s doors. No, exactly like one.

  Several troopers ran towards the pit, but they were too slow. The entrance swung closed again. Jess stretched out with the ship’s sensors and found the pit was more than it seemed. The section acting as a trapdoor was several feet thick, as were the walls and floor. Jess checked the changes Ali had sent, spotting this pit and a number of others with a similar design.

  Something changed in the pit’s walls and floor. Jess sensed energy flowing through them. Heating them. With a start he realised the plan was to roast the trooper alive.

  “Wow! No wonder they’re being cautious. That armour will protect him, though. I can route extra power to the pit to make sure he dies.”

  “We don’t want to kill him,” Dash said. “He’ll get damn uncomfortable but they should be able to get him clear before he collapses from the heat.”

  “But why?” Jess was confused again. That reminded him of his earlier conversation with Dash. “Wait… this is what you were talking about isn’t it? Focusing on our goal, not just on killing our enemy.”

  Dash smiled and nodded. “That’s it. This should keep them busy for an hour or two, and it will make them even more cautious when they start to advance again.”

  The smile was genuine, as were the words. To Jess they seemed condescending. He used his connection to the Wanderer to hide the burst of anger they triggered. He managed to simply nod.

  “You seem to have everything in hand,” Jess said. “Where’s Sal?”

  “Sleeping,” Ali replied, not looking up from the displays. “The ship finished fixing her arm about twenty minutes ago. She still looked pale so I sent her to rest.”

  “Good. We’ve got shields back but there are still a load of repairs to complete. I’ll get back to it. You seem to have the troopers under control.

  “Defeat troopers Teeko can.”

  Jess jumped a little.

  “Teeko! I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

  Ben was sitting on Teeko’s back, as usual. Jess was slightly surprised to see them both. They’d been spending far more time in Teeko’s cabin than anywhere else.

  “Defeat troopers Teeko can.”

  “You can’t reach them. They’re in the hold…”

  Jess trailed off as he glanced at Ben again. Teeko had retrieved Ben from the hold somehow. There was no door or opening between the crew area and the main hold. Jess had double checked. Yet somehow Teeko had gone into the hold and brought Ben back.

  “How did you do it?” Jess asked. “How did you get Ben from the hold?”

  Teeko moved its flexible shoulders in a shrug. It looked more like a copied movement than anything natural to the alien.

  “Called Ben did. Went Teeko did. Returned Teeko did. Explain Teeko cannot.”

  “Have you always been able to do this? Why didn’t you use it to escape the arms merchant long before we arrived?”

  “This new is. Done before never.”

  “You’ve never done it before? Have you tried since you fetched Ben?”

  Teeko shook its head. This movement looked far more natural than the shrug, even when the head doing it was narrow and had two sets of eyes.

  “Again can do it. Sure am I.”

  Dash shook his head and spoke carefully. “Thanks… um… Teeko. But it would be too dangerous. There are too many of them. You might get hurt.”

  Jess hid a smile. Teeko made Dash nervous. Jess enjoyed watching him squirm whenever Teeko was near.

  “Scared Teeko not! Fight will Teeko!”

  “No! Don’t leave me,” Ben cried from the alien’s back, grabbing Teeko by the neck and clinging tightly. “Please, Teeko. Don’t leave me.”

  The young boy started to cry. Teeko reached up with one flexible arm and wrapped it around the boy. The movement would have been impossible for any human.

  “Thank you, Teeko,” Jess said. “But Dash is right. It’s too dangerous at the moment. Once we wear them down, and the robots are starting to pick them off, then we might need your help. Stay here for the moment. Stay safe and look after Ben.”

  The alien stood stock still, considering Jess’s words. As seconds built towards a minute Teeko finally spoke.

  “Jess friend well speaks. Jess friend right is. Teeko Ben care for will. Teeko fight ready is. Teeko help Jess will.”

  “Thanks Teeko,” Jess said. He turned to the others. “I need to get on with repairing the Wanderer. Let's get together again in two hours. Sal should be able to join us then. We need to discuss our tactics for crossing the Quarantine Zone.”

  Dash and Ali agreed. Teeko moved towards the food machine, comforting the still crying Ben. Jess decided to head for the flight deck. He wanted some peace and quiet, something he was unlikely to get if he stayed put.

  * * *

  Two hours had passed. The small group was together once more. Jess glanced around at the others. The divisions in their group
were painfully obvious. Ali sat beside Jess on one sofa. Teeko stood next to Jess. Ben was riding on Teeko’s back as usual. Sal sat close to Dash on the other sofa, casting suspicious glances at both Jess and Ali.

  “If the charts are accurate we’re now two hours out from the Quarantine Zone,” Jess said. “We have to assume we might encounter it sooner, though, if the Empire has increased security.”

  “What state is the Wanderer in?” Dash asked.

  “Pretty good, considering the battering it took. Shields are over ninety percent. Most of the weapons have been fixed or replaced. Nearly all of the damaged thrusters have been repaired as well.

  “Structurally, we aren’t doing so well. I’ve patched things up as well as I could but those repairs need a lot more resources than we have. More time, too.”

  “Can the Wanderer fight?”

  “Yes. But not everything the Empire can throw at us. And I’d really like to avoid meeting that battlecruiser again anytime soon.”

  “If you want to cross the Quarantine Zone, you’ll face worse,” Dash said firmly. “Even on the Wanderer our chances of making it through are damn slim.”

  “Don’t you think you should have told us that before we got to this point?” Ali demanded.

  Dash looked embarrassed. “I got carried away. The Wanderer had done so many amazing things I started to think getting through the Quarantine Zone would be easy. I’ve seen the truth since then. There are ships out there that can hurt us, and hurt us badly. That battlecruiser, for example.”

  “For someone supposedly on our side, you have a nasty habit of dropping bombshells,” Jess said, anger in his voice. “So just what should we expect to see?”

  “I really don’t know,” Dash replied. “I only went through once, and that was more than twenty years ago. Some parts of that journey are etched on my memory, but there’s no guarantee it won’t be completely different.”

  “Just tell us what you saw.”

  “OK. I was just a junior squad leader back then. We were on a transport barge. Somehow Dozer got us a space at one of the few real windows, in a room reserved for high ranking officials. Dozer argued that as I was the most senior member of our team I deserved the room. I was young then. Young and carefree. I accepted his reasoning, which meant we got a firsthand view. Though, to be honest, we saw more on the display screen than we could out the window.

  “Anyway, the defences are layered, each layer built around a jump space inhibitor. A tar pit. Anyone trying to travel through the Quarantine Zone will be ripped out of jump space at least seven times to face one of those defensive layers.

  “Each layer is the same. A handful of very large ships, and at least one battleship. If you think the battlecruiser was tough to deal with, just wait until you see a battleship.

  “So… a handful of those very large ships. Dozens of destroyers and frigates. A couple of hundred corvettes. Thousands upon thousands of fighters and gunships.

  “The tar pit is always on board one of the biggest ships. The other ships are deployed in groupings surrounding it. Any ships travelling through jump space get dragged into real space well away from the forces. The only options are to turn and flee or to cross the space controlled by the quarantine force and travel on far enough to escape the tar pit’s influence. No one without proper authorisation can ever get through, and only Imperial ships ever have that authorisation.”

  “So we’re going to die?” Ali asked.

  Jess glanced at her. She seemed less worried about that possibility than the troopers who were still aboard. Maybe it wasn’t dying she was scared of, but being taken hostage again.

  “Maybe,” Dash answered with a shrug. “It’s down to the Wanderer, and to Jess. If any ship can make it through, it’s this one. But it won’t be easy.”

  “All we can do is try,” Jess said. “We don’t really have any option. The fleet is still out there somewhere, tracking us down. The only way to stay ahead of them, for the moment at least, is to keep running. That means going through the Quarantine Zone.”

  “We have advantages,” Dash said. “The forces we meet won’t know anything about the Wanderer. If we keep moving fast enough we can surprise each defensive layer with the same tricks. The Wanderer is much faster and more powerful than anything else the same size. It can take far more punishment, too. If we’re lucky, the forces in each layer will underestimate us.”

  “We can get into jump space sooner than they’ll expect, too,” Jess said. “So we get as far through as we can without revealing our abilities, then we try to blast our way through with speed and brute force?”

  Dash grinned. “Yeah. Not the most elegant of plans, but simple is generally better.”

  Jess couldn’t help grinning back. “Why not? It’s worked well for us so far.”

  “Hang on,” Ali said. “After the first layer they’ll know something is up. As soon as they see us they’ll know we managed to survive the forces in the previous layer. They’ll come at us harder and faster because of that.”

  “Not if we play things right,” Dash replied. “We come in as if we have every right to be there. We contact the forces and tell them we’re on a special mission and have been waved through the previous layers. They won’t buy that for long, but every minute of confusion increases our chances of getting through safely.”

  Jess nodded. Dash made sense. If he was being honest.

  What do you think? he sent to Ali.

  I don’t know. It all sounds plausible but… I just don’t trust him.

  No, I don’t either. I’m sure he’d still take the Wanderer given a chance. But I don’t see how being captured or killed by the Empire can possibly play into his hands.

  Unless he’s an Imperial agent, Ali sent. We know he fought for them. We only have his word that he truly turned rogue.

  Do we have any choice? Jess asked. Crossing the Quarantine Zone seems to be our only choice now.

  I know. Just don’t trust anything he says, even if you can’t see the angle.

  Don’t worry. I won’t.

  Jess returned his attention to the room. Quick though the conversation with Ali had been, it had still been obvious. Sal was looking decidedly angry, and some of the friendliness had left Dash’s face.

  “I think that’s settled,” Jess said. “We look as normal as possible each time we enter a new layer. We use any tricks we can to confuse them, to make them hold off firing for as long as possible. Then we get through as quickly as the Wanderer can manage. Dash, is there anything else that would help us?”

  Dash shook his head. “Nothing I can think of, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Let me handle talking to the forces, though. I can talk the talk, and that will buy us extra time.”

  Jess sensed Ali tense at that. He didn’t need to wait for a message from her. There was no way he’d risk Dash sending out a coded message of some sort.

  “No,” he said. “I’m the captain. I’ll do it. In the end I’m responsible for all your lives. This is something I have to do.”

  Dash looked ready to disagree, then simply shrugged his shoulders.

  “You’re the captain,” he said.

  “Good. How about our other problem? What have the troopers been doing?”

  Jess had a fairly good idea from checking the Wanderer’s sensors, but he wanted to change the subject.

  “They’re being much more cautious,” Dash said. “We managed to catch them out several times. One suffered a broken arm when we combined an assault with several weapons and multiple pits opening. The suit supports his arm and supplies painkillers, but he’s still struggling.”

  “Are they going to be a problem while we get through the Quarantine Zone?”

  “I don’t see how they could be, but we certainly shouldn’t relax our guard. Can you still spare Ali to keep monitoring them?”

  “Definitely. Knowing someone is keeping a close eye on them will help me focus on what’s going on outside the ship.”

  “We’re
really going to do it?” Ali asked, eyes sparkling. “We’re going to break through the Quarantine Zone?”

  Jess couldn’t help but grin. Ali’s earlier fear seemed to have evaporated. He felt the same. Now they were committed, all of his worries were replaced by a building excitement.

  “Damn, we really are,” Dash said, smiling too.

  Even Sal joined in. In that moment the excitement glossed over their differences. They were about to do something crazy. Something terrifyingly exciting. Something that eclipsed even the fantastic events of the past few weeks.

  Damn, I wish we could get away for a while, Ali sent.

  Images leaked from Ali's mind accompanied the message. Images that made the breath catch in Jess’s throat and his heart pound. Something about the danger they were heading into made the images particularly enticing.

  Well, most of the repair work will be automatic for the next twenty minutes or so, Jess replied. Care to join me on the flight deck?

  Try and stop me!

  “I think we’re done here,” Jess said. “I need to go to the flight deck to check on the repairs.”

  He stood. Ali stood too.

  “I’ll come too,” she said. “I need to check a few things.”

  Jess struggled to avoid blushing. Keeping to a normal pace was difficult. He wanted to run, dragging Ali along. Instead they managed to just walk quickly.

  The first door opened, leading them into the short passageway beyond which lay the flight deck. As soon as the door slid shut behind them Jess tried to grab Ali. She grabbed him first, and she made it into the flight deck before him, but only just. As they started to yank each other’s clothes off, Jess barely remembered to lock the door behind them. Then both of them were naked and Ali was in his arms, all warm skin and passion. Their urgent need swept everything else away.

  * * *