Jack pushed the engines harder. They were nearing the edge of the debris field.
Jack weaved the ship as more angry red plasma blasts shot by them…
The shards were closing in, nearly on top of them. Jack punched the engine one more time to try to squeeze out a little bit more speed…
Almost there…
As they came rushing up to the edge of the debris field, Jack activated the hyperdrive. A couple yards ahead of them, space seemed to ripple and tear open, as a shimmering light escaped from the large rectangular window into a different dimension.
Jack’s ship barreled through it and into hyperspace!
Unfortunately, so did a handful of shards, which punched through right before the window closed, cutting the final – and not so lucky – shard cleanly in half as it did so.
“Enemy contact,” said Green wearily. “They followed us through our window before it had a chance to heal shut.”
As Jack looked on the viewscreen before him he temporarily forgot about the six shards that had made it through and were in pursuit. Before him was nothing but white, filled with tiny black dots that were clustered together all over the place. It almost looked like a big polka-dotted canvas. All around him, he saw huge bodies of black orbs, one of which had dark rings circling it. Behind him was a massive black body, which seemed to radiate darkness into the white around it. All the dark masses were almost on top of each other, probably separated by the distance of just a couple of miles. It took Jack a minute to recognize that he was looking at his own solar system, albeit a condensed version of it.
The large thing behind him was obviously the sun, and the orb with rings around it to his left had to be Saturn. Jupiter, Neptune, and even Pluto were close by, but they were just large, dark spots, like huge bowling balls floating in the pure white of hyperspace.
Before Jack had a chance to really take in the surreal sight, Shepherd’s commanding voice broke in.
“Lightspeed!” barked Shepherd. “Now!”
Jack didn’t hesitate. He angled the ship along the computer’s coordinates and ordered it to engage its lightspeed engines.
Jack felt a rumble course through the ship as the engines engaged. The space before him swirled and warped into a tunnel, rushing up to encompass the ship. Brilliant blue light rippled around the tunnel walls, almost like it had when Jack had portgated down to the Earth’s Ancient temple.
“Lightspeed engaged!” cheered Green. “We are now successfully moving at 99% the speed of light!”
Everyone on the bridge breathed a sigh of relief. Shepherd stood up from his console, looking extremely tired.
“Good work, Jack,” he said.
“Thanks,” said Jack as he swiveled his chair to face him. “So are we really moving at the speed of light? I mean, is this what it’s like?”
“Actually, we’re only moving at 99% the speed of light,” smiled Green. “Any faster and we’d be converted into pure energy.”
“So it’s not really ‘lightspeed,’ huh?” said Jack, just a little disappointed.
“Don’t worry, it’s fast enough,” said Shepherd.
“Um… guys?” piped up Anna, looking at her console.
“What is it, Princess?” asked Shepherd.
“I’m picking up something following us,” she said.
Shepherd looked at Jack alarmed. Jack accessed the ship’s sensors and on the holoscreen in front of him an image of six Deathlord shards materialized, flying in two, three-ship formations down the lightspeed tunnel behind them.
Jack heard Shepherd suck a quick intake of breath between his teeth.
“Oh, my,” said Green. “The shards… they’re… they’re following us?”
“How is that possible?” growled Shepherd. “They’re fighter craft, they’re not big enough to carry lightspeed engines.”
“It would seem the Deathlords are full or surprises today,” moaned Green. “First they’re able to jam our subspace communications, now they reveal fightercraft with hyperspace capabilities.”
“That must be how they were able to get the drop on our ships,” said Shepherd. “They launch a wing of fighters ahead into hyperspace. They’re too small to be picked up by our early-warning beacons, so they jump in unnoticed and attack, beaming in boarding parties and clearing the way for the main fleet.”
“You must admit,” said Green, “their advancements in technology are rather astounding.”
“Admit it while you get our shields back up,” growled Shepherd.
“What’s the worry?” asked Jack. “I mean, yeah, it sucks they’re on our tail and all, but they’re just following us. It’s not like they can fire on us or anything, right? We’re moving at the freakin’ speed of light. Nothing can go any faster than that, can it?”
“Normally, you’d be correct,” said Green as he went to work directing the ship to fix its generator and bring its shields back online. “But I need to remind you… we’re only moving at 99% the speed of light.”
“And plasma fire doesn’t need to worry about converting to pure energy,” grumbled Shepherd.
A shiver ran down Jack’s spine. He looked up at the holo-image in front of him as red bolts emanated from the tips of the six shards behind them. The blaster fire began to move toward them, ever so slowly, as if it were a worm crawling along through space.
“You gotta be kidding me,” said Jack.
“The shards have opened fire,” said Anna. “We’ve got six plasma blasts heading toward us.”
“Time to impact?” asked Shepherd.
“Four, maybe five minutes,” said Anna.
“It’s not enough time,” whined Green. “The shield generator isn’t even fully repaired yet!”
“Maybe I can change course…” said Jack, “…maneuver the ship out of the way.”
“You can’t maneuver us while in lightspeed, Jack,” said Anna. “We’re going so fast, the slightest shift in course could angle us into a collision with something.”
“What about dropping out of lightspeed?” asked Jack.
“With six plasma blasts and shards that close behind us?” said Shepherd. “We’d be smashed to pieces the minute we slowed down.”
“Well… can we do anything?” asked Jack.
The silence that came from his party let him know his answer. Jack looked up at the screen as the plasma bolts inched closer.
“Screw it,” he said. “I’m moving the ship.”
“Jack, you can’t!” insisted Anna.
“It’s either take our chances with a course adjustment or get slammed into by those blasts with no shields,” said Jack. “I, for one, am willing to take that chance.”
Anna looked at Shepherd, who grimaced. Jack looked over his shoulder at the man.
“I know I can do this,” said Jack.
Something about the tone of Jack’s voice gave Shepherd some hope. Maybe it was bravado, or maybe just ignorance of the dangers involved in the maneuver. Regardless, Shepherd didn’t see much of a choice.
“Do it,” he said.
Jack turned his attention back to the ship’s controls. “Everyone hold onto something,” he said as he began the maneuver.
The ship started to move, but it did so slowly. Jack strained against the controls of the ship, pushing it to keep moving. It continued to drift to the right, but it felt to Jack like he was trying to change course while swimming upstream in a river.
Behind him the Deathlord plasma blasts kept on course, continuing to inch forward unrelentingly.
Jack kept pushing the ship. Alarms and alerts began to pop up on the screen before him, letting him know they were off course, but he ignored them. He needed to get clear of the blasts.
The ship continued to veer more and more to the right as the deadly energy bolts got closer.
“C’mon, c’mon…” mumbled Jack. He could feel sweat starting to bead on his brow as he kept trying to force the ship out of the way of the incoming fire.
The blasts wer
e almost upon them. He had cleared most of them, but one on the far edge was still en route to impact.
He could feel the ship shiver and whine as he continued to turn it within the confines of lightspeed. Just a little more, he thought. Please, God, just a little more…
But it wasn’t enough. The blaster bolt caught up with them and struck their left engine. The entire ship began to shake and rumble as alerts sounded.
“We’re hit!” screamed Jack.
“Port side engine is damaged,” called out Green. “It was a direct hit!”
“I gotta drop us out of lightspeed!” said Jack. “The ship’s about to tear apart!”
Indeed, the stress of the damaged engine trying to keep them at their current speed was causing the vessel to rattle violently, and the ship even went so far as to communicate to Jack it’s displeasure with the current situation.
“Do it!” said Shepherd.
Without a moment to lose, Jack powered down the lightspeed engines. The brilliant blue tunnel around them evaporated as the strange mirror image of hyperspace came back into view… except in front of them was no white space...
Just a massive wall of solid black.
A loud alarm blared and warnings popped up on the holoscreen that impact was imminent. It would seem Jack’s lightspeed maneuver put them on a direct course into something very, very big.
“Gravitational contact, directly ahead!” squealed Green.
“Jack! Get us out of hyperspace! NOW!” screamed Shepherd.
Jack engaged the Brane Accelerator and a window back into the normal universe tore open in front of them just in time to avoid the impending collision.
The ship barreled through, coming out the other side. Jack tried to turn the ship, but the port engine finally gave out. Behind them, the six shards that had been following came out of hyperspace as well, their momentum carrying them past Jack’s ship.
“We’re out,” said Jack. “So are the shards.”
“Keep as much distance from them as possible,” said Shepherd. “Professor, do we have any weapons? Shields? Anything?”
“We barely have an engine,” grumbled Green.
“I’m reading a strange contact out here,” said Anna, looking at her console. “It’s massive!”
Jack looked at the screen, but other than a rather beautiful nebula not too far away, Jack didn’t see anything except the darkness of space.
Then, Jack’s brain tingled in alarm. He should have been able to see some stars, or something – but in front of them, there was just a wall of solid black.
“Where are we?” asked Jack.
“Our maneuver took us off course,” said Anna. “I have no idea what our current location is.”
Jack glanced at his radar. “The shards are coming around,” he said. “They’re locking onto us!”
“Put everything you can into the engines,” said Shepherd.
“I’m trying,” said Jack. “But we can barely outrun them when we have both engines working.”
Shepherd gritted his teeth as he looked at the holoscreen. The Deathlord shards converged on the ship, raining plasma fire down on it. The ship shuttered from the impacts as the shards flew past in their strafing run.
“They’ve taken out our engines,” said Green.
Jack tried to maneuver, but it was no use. They had no way to accelerate, or even move at all for that matter. Now they were being carried strictly by their momentum; they were helpless in every sense of the word.
“They’re coming back around,” said Anna, looking at her console.
“They mean to board us,” said Shepherd. “Jack, out of the seat. Anna, to me. We’ll have to fight them off.”
“No, wait!” said Anna. “Something is happening…”
Jack called up the sensor readings on his holoscreen. Sure enough, he saw the shards suddenly start to scramble on their turn to intercept them.
“Whoa,” said Jack. “What’s going on?”
“Something… something’s out there…” said Anna.
Jack magnified the image on the holoscreen. Suddenly, he could see something… it looked like a black cloud that was moving through space, chasing the Deathlords as their ships tried to maneuver away from it.
Tendrils from the cloud caught one of the shards. The cloud swarmed over the vessel, disintegrating it before Jack’s very eyes.
“What is that thing?” asked Jack. “It looks like… it’s eating the shards!”
“Where did it come from?” asked Anna.
Green’s console beeped. “It’s part of that massive gravitational contact we saw in hyperspace,” said Green.
Jack adjusted the ship’s viewscreen. Sure enough, the part of space with no stars that he had noticed was now swirling and bubbling, alive with what looked like lightening, almost as though it contained storm clouds. Pieces of it broke off and shot forth, chasing after the Deathlord shards, as if their very presence awakened the cloud and made it angry.
As nimbly as the shards were able to maneuver, they were eventually caught by the dark clouds, and when they were, nothing remained of them.
“Dude,” said Jack. “It’s destroying the shards! Way to go space cloud! WOOT!”
“It’s not a cloud… it’s swarming them,” said Anna. “Like… insects.”
“Jack,” said Shepherd. “Can you get in closer on whatever it is?”
Jack pulled up the sensor display of the ship and zoomed in on the massive wall of darkness in front of them. As it magnified, Jack could begin to make out tiny movements. He adjusted the filters on the readings, and suddenly, shapes began to appear.
The clouds were made up of trillions and trillions of tiny insect-like things. They had long bodies and large mouths with many sharp edges, along with pincers on their sides and barbs on their tails. They looked like a strange cross between a worm and a scorpion.
“They’re alive?” asked Anna, amazed.
“Incredible,” breathed Green. “How many of them must there be, that combined they could create such a huge gravitational anomaly?
“You mean, you guys have never seen these things before?” asked Jack. For some reason, running into something his friends – who were way more experienced in space travel than he was – had never seen before was kind of scary to him.
“A space faring organism which seems to be able to consume solid matter almost instantly?” chuckled Green. “No, I can’t say I have. Though it gives me yet another great subject for a paper to write for the Valghanah Journal of Science!”
Jack watched his screen as the swarm consumed the last Deathlord shard.
“So… um… you don’t know if they’re friendly or not?” he asked.
“No clue!” said Green cheerily.
“My guess would be, not,” said Shepherd dourly.
Jack looked at his sensor readings and saw the clouds that had consumed the shards converge and begin heading toward them. Suddenly, he found himself missing the Deathlords.
“Uh-oh,” said Jack.
Shepherd looked at the readout, as well, and saw the swarm coming toward them. “Professor, do we have engines yet?” he asked urgently.
“Still being repaired,” said Green.
Shepherd cursed. “Jack,” he said. “The Entanglement Engine… can we use it?”
Jack’s eyes lit up. He had completely forgotten about the Entanglement Engine. It was a separate engine from the thrusters, and last he had checked, it was almost online. Jack pulled it up through the ship’s readouts. Sure enough, it read: “good to go.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Jack. “It’s ready again! I can jump us out of here!”
A small glimmer of hope sparked in Shepherd’s eye. “Do it!” he ordered.
The swarm cloud was getting closer, rushing headlong toward the ship as Jack called up the Entanglement Engine display. It asked for coordinates again.
“I don’t know what the coordinates mean,” said Jack. “It could take us anywhere!”
�
��Anywhere is better than here,” said Shepherd. “Do it NOW!”
Jack looked at the list of previous coordinates and glanced at the viewscreen to see the swarm rushing up to him. He had to choose a destination, and he had to choose one right that second.
Jack knew the first entry would take them exactly where they’d jumped to the first time, and he certainly didn’t want to go back to what remained of Earth. And since he didn’t really have time to consider any of the other coordinates, he was left with the second option on the list.
The string of numbers flashed as Jack made his decision and moved into the destination field. The familiar hum returned as the Entanglement Engine charged up, and Jack felt it getting ready to engage.
Suddenly, the swarm cloud rushing toward them was replaced with a bright light, and when that light cleared, the cloud was gone. Now, there was just the comforting sight of empty space.
Jack breathed a sigh of relief. “We did it,” he said. “We jumped.”
“Where to?” asked Shepherd.
“Checking the computer now,” said Anna. “I’ll see if I can pull up any star charts that might match…”
Jack looked to the side of the bridge’s viewscreen, and his heart sank.
“Don’t bother,” said Jack. “I know where we are.”
Outside, Jack could see the unmistakable image of Saturn, and past that, the familiar yellow sun he’d woken to every day of his life.
Just as Shepherd, Green, and Anna saw it, too, alerts beeped on Jack’s radar. There was a large contact directly behind them. Jack called it up on the viewscreen and saw a Deathlord mothership towering over them, as though it were getting ready to swallow them up.
“Oh… crap,” murmured Jack.
He’d jumped them right back into the clutches of the Deathlord fleet.
And this time, there was no escape.
Chapter 19
One could only imagine what was going on in the minds of the Deathlords as they had set about on a course to leave the Earth’s planetary system after their prey had dramatically escaped into hyperspace, only to have those who had evaded their clutches not a short while ago suddenly appear before them out of the blue.
However, if the Deathlords were indeed surprised to see the Ancient vessel, it did not last long. Moments after detecting the Earthship almost directly in front of it, the Deathlord Flagship – known to those aboard as The Inferno – promptly engaged its tractor beam, ensuring that this time, the ship would not execute any type of sensational exit.
Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet Page 20