At that point the static discharge of weapons fire had swamped the transmission until it had become unrecognizable. Only a few minutes later the freighter had disintegrated into a searing ball of atomic flame, taking the unfortunate creatures it carried with it – the only ones so far that had met Kyle with open friendliness and no apparent hidden agenda towards him.
While the seconds ticked away, the X soon put safe distance between her and the clashing Boron and Split fleets, allowing Kyle the luxury of time to reflect upon his situation.
The monotonous diet of nutri-bars was beginning to become tedious, and if he didn't get a shower and a change of clothes soon he was pretty sure he would choke on his own stench. But naturally the fuel status of his ship was worse and of greater concern: the magnetic M/AM tank held fuel mass for less than 24 hours at full thrust! Whether he liked it or not, he had to put all his eggs in one basket. There was no turning back now. This wasn't the first desperate situation he'd ever found himself in, but it would have been fair to have at least one or two alternatives. It looked like he would perhaps never be able to return to Earth again anyway. He'd get over the homesickness one day and he didn't have a family. But he'd forever miss his friends and acquaintances, especially Lin. He gripped the Morpher Globe in his leg pocket, the sphere that could, amongst other things, also take on the form of Earth, and recalled Gisbert's words: "…keep it with you always and return it to Earth, unharmed and in peace, someday."
"I'd really like to, my friend," Kyle murmured.
The X had now covered half of the distance towards the jump-gate, while behind her, the gas planet Gho-Czman on its solar orbit moved between the two jump-gates. Kyle watched two freighters of different origin – probably built by different species – take on reckless sling-shot manoeuvres that would rapidly change their course employing the gas giant's gravitational pull. Apparently they had been approaching the Teladi jump-gate for some time already, but hadn't been visible on the gravidar due to Gho-Czman's huge mass.
"Valerie, how long?"
"Fourteen minutes, forty-eight seconds, Captain."
Ten minutes later Kyle could make out details of the jump-gate with the naked eye. When Valerie reported something going on at the jump-gate Kyle saw it almost simultaneously with her announcement. Two times it strobed blue and white in the centre of the ancient contraption, then four black Xenon battleships were spat out, their retro-thrusters blazing wildly.
"Well my friends", Kyle said dryly as the Xenon passed by the X with high velocity, still decelerating, "that would be a little off the mark then." Clearly they hadn't counted on him being so close to their territory already, and were now busy decelerating enough to be able to turn around and get back on his heels. It would take them minutes until they were able to do that, and he'd be long gone through the jump-gate into the unknown by then. Maybe – no, very likely – the rest of their fleet was waiting for him on the other side.
As he approached the gate, the gravidar showed another ship entering from Teladi space. It was a Split destroyer, as thin and lethal as a blade, bristling with weapons.
"Time to run," Kyle said, but it was an ironic comment. Without doubt, he'd able to outrun this ship as well, he was sure of that.
The gravidar showed something more, a blurred, hard to pinpoint blip that didn't look much like a dot, but more like a small, semi-transparent cloud of sorts. It raced across the system at an impossible pace, leaving behind a washed-out trail on the screen.
What was that – a gravidar malfunction? Maybe, but there was no time to take care of it – the jump into enemy territory was imminent! During the final moments before the gate activated to pull the X through the event horizon of its artificial singularity, Kyle watched the newly arrived Split destroyer fire a handful missiles in the direction of the Boron warships. They were still fighting with the seven original Split ships, but Kyle never knew whether they were hit by the missiles or not; he hoped, though, from the bottom of his heart that the friendly Boron would prevail and save their skin.
Jump!
The well-known vortex of blue and white energy sent the X into a fray that defied all description. Black Xenon ships of all sorts clashed with a multitude of craft designs unknown to Kyle. A fierce thunderstorm of nuclear lightning-bolts jittered through space incessantly in the most glaring multi-coloured sheen. Without even a second's intermission, missiles and spacecraft exploded, while the gravidar reported a vast chaos of blips, ships, projectiles and an immense cloud of debris, drifting apart at high velocity. It was an all-engulfing maelstrom – everywhere.
"Warning, incoming fire." Valerie announced calmly and opened a view field with the image from the rear camera. There was a black spacecraft homing in on the X, firing on the shuttle's shields with surgical precision. Again, the powerful M/AM propulsion system helped the X outrun the enemy ship, but still it was close enough to remain within weapon's range for several more seconds.
The forward-facing lasers installed by the Teladi couldn't help him here and were of no use. Wild evasive manoeuvres wouldn't be advisable either with the propulsion working at maximum load – the dampers were already busy cancelling the current inertia caused by the X's acceleration and couldn't take much more. To be on the safe side, Kyle reduced acceleration by a few percent. Then he jinked and rolled the X with tiny movements from his flight-stick into a miniscule slalom, almost invisible from the outside, but sufficient to confuse his enemy's weapons array. Only every third salvo from the Xenon laser hit the X's weak energy shield now, and the generators thanked him by slowly regenerating to their full capacity again.
The imminent threat was over for the time being, but they would not allow Kyle more than a short breather since the X would approach more enemy ships in a few minutes. Kyle made no mistakes in dodging the Xenon for longer this time, with simple evasive manoeuvres like the last. Certainly, he could accelerate faster. But this sector was utterly teeming with the black spacecraft. Those who were just a few light seconds ahead needed only to match their heading to his and then cross his trajectory laterally, firing from all weapons. There was absolutely nothing he could do against a manoeuvre like that. There were enough Xenon ships in the system to repeat this almost indefinitely, until, eventually the X-Shuttle's shields would break down.
However, right now it appeared the Xenon were planning something different. Far ahead a couple of them had left the pre-calculated trajectory of the X. Kyle watched them taking on long-stretched parabolic paths towards the jump-gate he was aiming for.
"Not half bad," he murmured in a tone of grudging appreciation. If he understood their actions correctly, they would approach his trajectory again and fly parallel to it, on all sides, although far ahead of his current location. With time, he would inevitably overhaul them, and then the Xenon and their lasers would be in his back. Depending on their number and the velocity they were able to gain until then, they would remain anywhere from seconds to minutes within weapons range. And since they would be forming a 360° circle around his path of flight, so many of them this time, he would not be able to shake them off again with a little panning of the flight-stick.
They would burn his shields to oblivion and end his sojourn right there, halfway to salvation. Perhaps they would aim for the X's engines, not expecting something as dangerous as a M/AM system as the source of her propulsion. The electromagnetic flask that held the antimatter in check would break, and the X would be sent to the great big junkyard in the sky, with a dying flame as bright as any sun. Afterwards, the Xenon would have learnt something – namely, the nature of the X's propulsion system. And that it wasn't a good idea after all to fire at such a thing if one wanted to capture it.
Kyle wished that the Xenon weren't there to make this experience so treacherous for him in the first place.
"Valerie, can we safely ignore the spacecraft that are behind us at this point in time?"
"Yes, Captain. We're out of their weapons-range for good. Those in front of us, however
, have a choice of seven potentially successful interception manoeuvres, if my estimation is correct."
"Seven? Holy… I can think of only four offhand. What alternatives do you see to avoid lethal fire?"
"None if we are to keep the current flight-plan. If we change trajectory with full thrust and head for open space, we will most certainly be able to escape immediate fire."
Kyle thought for a moment. This solar system had only two jump-gates. Should they change course and head for the void until the fuel ran dry? Their enemies would catch them sooner than later.
"And what would we do then?" To Kyle's surprise Valerie didn't answer, but he could see from her activity display that she was relentlessly working. Her neural integrators – her equivalent of a CPU so to speak – was plodding away with high saturation and eventually she brought herself to an answer.
"Captain, I'd like to answer that in slanguage."
"Go ahead."
"Whatever we do, Captain, they have us by the balls."
Kyle almost choked on his own saliva when he broke out in loud laughter.
"Captain, what's so funny about it?"
"Well, 'they have us by the balls' – that's funny on more than one level. It's almost poetic. I never knew you were a deep poet, my girl."
"That wasn't in the least bit poetic, Captain, and you know it. I've got an incoming transmission."
It took Kyle a second before he realised that the last sentence spoken by Valerie in the same calm tone as the one before, needed him to make a decision. "On screen," he demanded – and what he saw stole the breath from his mouth for a long unnerving moment.
The creature had three eyes and apart from that looked just like the Grim Reaper himself: bony, tall, with leathery, nicotine-coloured skin and uncannily long limbs with several intersections and joints. That was a Xenon? He stared at the creature silently, waiting for it to take initiative.
"This is Priest Captain Slitmanckelsat, first Cleric of the mighty vessel Grace Workmanship, beholder and arbiter in the name of the Pontifex Maximus Paranidia, Disciple of Bashra's, and Preacher in his own right. The God realm of Paranid springs to your rescue, soulless alien!"
"Valerie, where's this coming from?" Kyle demanded. Instead of a spoken answer, the on-board computer opened another view field and zoomed in on a large spacecraft, drawing a white circle around it.
It was none of the black Xenon ships, but one of those they were fighting with. Another species he had heard of, but had not met yet. Why did that "priest captain" claim they were here to rescue him? How could they possibly have known what route he would take? How did they manage to show up to the party with a whole damn fleet – that's what it looked like on the gravidar – and have some Xenon for dinner as a pastime, while they waited for his appearance? His racing thoughts were cut short when the Paranid, who had heard his command to Valerie, spoke again with a voice that sounded like rustling paper.
"Alien pilot, if you want to live, reduce acceleration, so our holy convoy ships can reach you and escort you to the jump-gate".
"If I did that the Xenon could reach me as well", Kyle retorted. The strange three-eyed creature stared pupil-less into the camera.
"You speak the truth, pilot. But the machines will not fire to destroy you."
"They want to blow my hull wide open!" One moment – machines?
"That is correct, alien pilot. They will, however, not fire at your propulsion system."
"They will not?" Kyle asked puzzled.
"No. The Xenon know pretty well that your spacecraft is equipped with matter-beam propulsion. Should the antimatter be released, your spacecraft would be completely destroyed."
Kyle recalled the previous confrontations with the Xenon. "I was not under the impression that they actually knew that."
"They know it. You have to trust us. You have no choice."
And with that, the bony alien hit the nail on the head. If he wanted to escape the Xenon, he absolutely had no choice but to entrust the Paranid with his life. But how could he be sure that he wasn't simply jumping out of the frying-pan and into the fire? Well, if in doubt, he'd simply trust the ones who wouldn't shoot at him!
"Valerie, what's your opinion on this? Give me a chart of all the enemy sectors ahead of us."
Valerie projected the map onto the tactical screen. There were five jump-gates ahead of Kyle and the Paranid fleet. The end-point of the journey was marked by relative security in a sector belonging to Paranid Prime, named "Priest's Pity". At the current velocity, it would take the X three days and eighteen hours. Fuel would suffice only and if he'd make only the most necessary course corrections. Other than that, he'd have to keep free-falling through the sectors ahead. He hoped he could trust the Paranid completely – because without constant acceleration, the Xenon would sooner or late catch up with the X.
"Captain, the probability of remaining undamaged rises to almost fifty percent if we accept priest captain Slitmanckelsat's proposal. Fifty-seven, if we can keep the shield generator's capacity above twenty percent until the next jump-gate."
The three eyes of the alien on the view field were slightly twitching in different directions. "To whom are you talking, unholy alien?"
Kyle subtly shook his head. "Unholy", "soulless", the Paranid had an exquisite understanding of how to belittle their allies – up to a point where one had to wonder if one was foe or friend to them. "With the brain of my ship, Valerie", he answered.
"How many eyes does Valerie, brain of the alien ship, have?" the priest captain asked.
"Valerie? How many external cameras do you have?"
"I have six of them, Captain."
"Six", Kyle told the Paranid.
"Six is a multiple of three", the alien said after a few seconds of silence.
"Correct, and that would almost make Pi", Kyle, who did not understand the aliens remark, retorted.
The Paranid's eyes twitched in unison and aligned themselves in an almost parallel fashion to give Kyle a piercing stare. They did indeed have pupils, as Kyle could now see, but their colour made them nearly undistinguishable from the eyeballs.
"Three isn't Pi!" the agitated Paranid snorted. "We demand you immediately stop offending the Holy Three-Dimensionality with heretical speeches like that! Just reduce your acceleration by half and after each jump-gate, set the mathematically shortest course to the next gate. The Holy Fleet will form a corridor for you."
With these words, the view field dimmed, and Valerie switched it off.
Kyle rolled his eyes. "Are there only cholerics, fanatics and LSD users in this god-forsaken universe?"
"No, Captain," replied Valerie who thought she had been addressed, "there are also the Teladi."
Kyle slapped his palm against his head. "How in the world could I forget them?"
CHAPTER 26
Evidence militates in favour of the theory that there once has been life on P62-13. But where is it now? I really wish we could land to investigate. Ondronov seems worried.
Dr. Juri Kawashima
From the Logbook of the Winterblossom
"Now, colleague?" the Teladi inquired. "You wanted to show me something. Instead, you're staring at this writing for half a Mizura." He winked cunningly. Surly this Gui/tar meant something to the Argon – more than he wanted to admit – and that would cost additional credits!
"I'm sorry." Elena answered. She squatted, one knee to the ground and placed the guitar in playing position on the other. Her thumb ran over the strings. The instrument wasn't tuned, but someone had had it in their hands much more recently than seven hundred years ago, had cared for it and put new strings on it; probably not longer than five or six years previous. And certainly this wouldn't have been this grasping saurian looking down on her.
With skilled hands, she tuned the old instrument and strummed a few simple chords. How did it go? She had learned it once and hadn't been bad, but had not practiced for too many years. Well, right – now she had it! She played the opening chords of t
he Stardust Symphony and sang the first verse of the lyrics:
Stars of dust: ice crystals of silver, rain of gold.
Stars of dust: twinkling diamonds as old as the suns.
Stars of dust: myriad worlds in the countenance of void.
Stars of dust: day and night eternally entwined.
She looked up to the Teladi who gazed into the distance with an unreadable expression on his face.
"That's beautiful", an unmistakably human voice said from behind. Elena peered over her shoulder to see a tall, slender man with curly, blonde hair. She stood up and handed the instrument back to the eager claws of the Teladi.
"My name is Ferd Harling", the man said in accent-free ancient Neo-japanese. "Why don't you play a little more? The Stardust Symphony is one of the most beautiful classical pieces!"
"You know it?" Elena asked surprised.
"But of course! Partly at least. My mother used to sing it to me when I was a boy."
The Teladi pushed between Elena and the man, before they could even shake hands. "Now then, honourable colleague, what do you think will be an adequate price for this beautiful piece of art?"
Farnham's Legend: The beginning of the X-Universe saga (X Games Book 1) Page 19