Jason was still watching the progress of the prison barge. It would reach the outskirts of Ot-Mul’s Drac-Vin armada within minutes. “Let me know when the prison barge is poised to enter the wormhole … if it makes it that far. Keep an eye on that droid, and also on the other three, which undoubtedly will be close to Ot-Mul’s command ship. Phase-shift us away to safety as you deem necessary.”
“Where are you going?”
“To make sure our reception party is ready.”
By the time Jason reached the stern, he was finalizing his interstellar connection back to the Minian.
* * *
His father was waiting for Jason’s hail. His holographic form abruptly appeared—the admiral looking less than happy. “Where the hell have you been?”
“You mean besides averting a battle droid, and trying to figure out how to make the engines of an impregnable prison barge go critical … while steering the damn thing into a wormhole?”
“A lot is riding on you. Until now, nobody was sure you were even alive. Anyway … moving on, I don’t know what you said to Dira, but it seemed to work. Warships are coming in from every corner of Allied space. Nothing compared to Drac-Vin, mind you … but Jason, Ot-Mul’s forces will have a real fight on their hands. Like nothing the Alliance has ever assembled before.”
“That’s good. Excellent news, Dad. We’re doing everything we can on this side. Expect the first wave of Ot-Mul’s warships to start entering your end of the wormhole anytime now. He’ll send through a battle droid … unless I’ve totally misread him. That will be key.”
“Well, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. More assets are arriving all the time, but we’ve got a multi-fleet barricade established. We’ve got close to fifteen thousand ships ready to unload everything they’ve got at anything sticking its head out of that wormhole.”
“Good. Now I just need to give Ot-Mul a little incentive. Be ready. Everything is hinging on me coaxing Ot-Mul to enter that wormhole earlier rather than later.”
As the admiral’s feed faded away, Jason was formulating exactly what he was going to say to the supreme commander of the Drac-Vin forces. He was as ready as he’d ever be. He was concerned Ot-Mul had yet to send any ship through the loop wormhole. What the hell is he waiting for? He used his NanoCom to hail Ricket.
“Go for Ricket.”
“I need to establish a visual comms connection to Ot-Mul.”
“I’m on my way.”
Jason saw Ricket emerge from the forward end of the ship and hurry down the aisle. He took Jason’s virtual notebook from him and got to work. As was evident by the two white flashes, the Starlight phase-shifted twice within the last few minutes—Grimes doing her best to evade the thirty Craing cruisers and the battle droid. Ricket handed the virtual notebook back to Jason.
“I have directed an incoming hail to the command ship. Ot-Mul will know it’s coming specifically from Captain Jason Reynolds.”
Chapter 27
With the exception of the psychopathic Captain Stalls, Jason could not remember ever having such a strong visceral response to another individual. But now, seeing Ot-Mul’s visual representation hovering in front of him, it was enough to make his clenched knuckles turn white with sudden rage. He did his best to keep his expression passive, even bored-looking.
Jason wanted to be the first one to speak—to set the stage for their ensuing conversation. “Can you feel it?”
Ot-Mul, who had been poised to say something, stopped to consider Jason’s strange question.
“It’s all coming to an end, Ot-Mul. How many defeats have you suffered now? Let’s count them off … The Craing worlds have embraced independence, leaving you basically homeless. You’re now space hobos. Also, those three fleets—Fleet 9, Fleet 173, and Fleet 25, the fleets you sent to secure Earth’s solar system—have willingly joined the Alliance. And now you’re about to lose that big prison barge as well.” Jason chuckled out loud. “It’s no wonder you can’t hold on to your people … are they still deserting at every opportunity?”
Jason’s words were starting to have the intended effect. Ot-Mul, surely not used to this level of verbal disrespect, at least not to his face, turned ice cold. “And you, Captain Reynolds? What of your own world? Has your populace enjoyed the little playthings I’ve introduced into your home world’s environment? Nothing like a few million molt weevils to stir things up, huh? And how many Allied worlds has my Vanguard fleet destroyed at last count? Is it in the hundreds or in the thousands?” A smile washed over the Craing commander’s face as he looked aside, as if relishing the memory of something horribly pleasant. His eyes came back to Jason. “It’s really quite spectacular … invigorating, really … you see, to watch that kind of utter destruction, knowing all stems from my directives. There’s a word for that kind of command … influence … that extinguishes billions of lives, just like that.” Ot-Mul clicked his little fingers—holding his hand up high enough for Jason to see it. “The word is God, Captain. I am a God … and I am your God.”
It was then Jason realized just how delusional the small Craing bastard was … how drunk with his own power he’d become.
Ot-Mul’s brow elevated, as if a new thought was crossing his mind. “Wasn’t one of those planets only partially destroyed? Jhardon? A lovely planet … it will be my first stop, on my way back to Allied space. Within the hour it will be nothing more than space dust. Must finish what I start, eh? Tidy things up.” The smile remained on Ot-Mul’s thin lips as he stared back at Jason.
Jason’s mind’s eye flashed to Dira and he felt his inner rage escalate.
“As for the loss of an old, antiquated prison barge,” Ot-Mul continued, “well, that has little effect on the inevitable, Captain Reynolds. You want it … take it … it’s my gift to you.”
“Thank you. I accept your gift. Unfortunately, its longevity will be short lived.”
Ot-Mul’s smile slightly wavered but quickly returned—looking forced. “And why is that, Captain?”
Jason saw a message waiting for him on his HUD, and Grimes was signaling from the front of the ship.
“Let’s just say that any influence you’ve yielded over Allied space has come to an end. Take a look around, Ot-Mul … because this is where you and your fleet will remain, in this sector of space, for years to come … if not indefinitely.”
Silence followed as realization slowly set in. Ot-Mul was looking away now—most likely at a logistical screen, which showed the progression of Dreathlor prison barge toward the loop wormhole. He looked back at Jason. “Foolish. Your fatal mistake was telling me your intentions. That prison barge will be destroyed long before it reaches that wormhole. After that, you will live long enough to watch the destruction, annihilation, of everything you care about. Then I will, mercifully, let you die.” The comms feed evaporated, leaving Jason staring at a bulkhead.
“Captain!”
He was halfway back to the cockpit. “One second.” He slid into the open seat next to Grimes. “What’s happening?”
“That’s happening,” Grimes replied, exasperated.
One look at Dreathlor prison barge and Jason knew. It had slowed down to a crawl.
“They’ve been picking off the heavy cruisers affixed to the hull. There’s only two left and they’re both on the starboard side of the barge … it’s completely off kilter.”
Jason nodded, letting it all sink in. He needed Ricket. He turned and found him standing at his side. Of course he was! “Ricket, if we were to set the Starlight down on the port side of the prison barge could it compensate enough—”
“Yes … just might, Captain. The Caldurian antimatter drive technology provides for an impressive thrust to weight ratio.”
Suddenly all getting to their feet, the rest of the team picked up on the fact that soon they’d be getting off the ship. Billy, his visor up and soggy stogie protruding from the corner of his mouth, interjected, “So we’ll be target practice for a while?”
“The Starl
ight’s shields are far more robust than those on any of the Craing ships. Is that enough defense against, potentially, thousands of warships? Probably not. But, Captain … there’s a far bigger issue at hand.”
“Dreathlor is going critical,” Jason said.
Ricket didn’t say anything. Like Ricket, Jason knew the odds of survival for any of the Starlight’s crew was practically zero. He tried to push the bleakness of the situation out of his mind.
“How close is the prison barge to the wormhole now?”
Grimes glanced at her readings. “Up till now, the remaining affixed heavy cruisers have been propelling the barge to come in from the side … skirting the Drac-Vin forces, for the most part. But as you can see, that’s all changed. I’d say no less than one thousand ships are flocking, poised to surround Dreathlor. To answer your question, if the cruisers were unimpeded and had the Starlight’s added thrust … I’d say five minutes out from the mouth of the wormhole.”
Jason turned back to Ricket. “Do we have that long before those ion engines go?”
“Maybe … we’d have to move now, Captain. I’ve provided the Starlight with the necessary coordinates.”
Jason nodded toward Grimes. “Do it.”
Immediately, there came the familiar white flash. Grimes positioned them several hundred feet above the hull of the Dreathlor prison barge. As she brought the little ship down, Jason’s eyes held fast to the logistical display. Ot-Mul’s fleet had slowed. Those that were virtually on top of them had moved away.
“Incoming, Captain. Five, ten, thirty … one hundred thousand fusion-tipped missiles inbound and locked on to us,” Grimes said. She looked back to Jason, immediately confused by his smile. “What? Not even Dreathlor will survive that kind of nuclear barrage.”
It was Billy who enlightened her. Pointing to the display, he said, “Looks like the Drac-Vin forces are making a beeline for the wormhole.”
Grimes shook her head; she still wasn’t getting it.
Billy leaned in closer and squinted his eyes. “Look, there … Ot-Mul, and three of his four battle droids, they are getting the hell out of Dodge. Don’t you see … the plan worked … Ot-Mul’s entering the wormhole.”
The Starlight rocked as Grimes put her down onto the prison barge. She wasted no time grappling onto the hull surface and bringing the drive up to full throttle. Jason spotted Bristol earlier, seated mid-ship—still on his comms. He’d continued to maintain contact with each of the two remaining heavy cruisers; his work was cut out for him—coordinating the thrust of the mismatched four ships for optimum speed, as well as steering the lumbering prison barge toward the wormhole. All in all, no small feat.
Jason noticed Ricket was getting jittery, moving from foot to foot.
“What is it, Ricket?”
“The prison barge … Dreathlor … it’s going to blow up within the next two minutes.”
“How do you know—”
Ricket cut him off, “I don’t know, Captain, how I know … but somehow I do.”
And Jason knew enough not to doubt anything Ricket said. His expression, alone, put a chill down Jason’s back. Ricket was scared. “Close your visor, Billy. Grimes, initialize your SuitPac.” Currently, she was the only one who hadn’t activated her battle suit. Both did as told and Jason used his HUD to phase-shift the team, as a whole unit, into open space.
Chapter 28
He didn’t phase-shift away with the others. Quickly, Jason took over the now-vacated pilot’s seat. First, he ensured each of his team’s life icons were still active and accounted for. Fortunately, he’d phase-shifted them to a section of open space some distance from the prison barge, as well as from any Drac-Vin warships. If Ricket was correct, he now had less than two minutes to do what needed to be done. He took a quick glance at logistics and saw incoming Craing missiles rapidly approaching—like an ominous dense cloud. External temperature readings on the Starlight were now spiking … beyond a doubt, Dreathlor was going to blow up anytime now. He brought the little Caldurian ship’s drive up to maximum and pushed it past its red line. Jason felt its G-forces increase slightly and heard the drive pitch whirling higher. Warning tones sounded around the cockpit. Earlier, Jason realized after talking to Ricket and Grimes that the moon-sized prison barge wouldn’t make it into the mouth of the wormhole before the missiles hit. His decision to phase-shift everyone off the Starlight had been impulsive … but one he was still glad he’d made. What he was now planning was as close to committing suicide as he’d ever come. The approaching missile cloud was still poised to overtake the prison barge but at least he’d prolonged the inevitable.
Jason was being hailed.
“Go for Captain.”
“I would have preferred to stay on board with you, Captain,” Ricket said.
“I appreciate that, Ricket. I didn’t see the need for us all to die. Listen … I need something … anything I can do to increase the propulsion on the Starlight … even if it’s only for several seconds.”
There was silence for several agonizingly long moments. Then an abstract thought occurred to Jason. “Ricket, what would happen if I requested an interchange wormhole … while still affixed to the prison barge?”
“I don’t know, Captain … it may be too late—”
Jason cut Ricket off and quickly went about initiating the necessary steps to request and bring about a short-distance interchange wormhole. Ricket’s two-minute window of survival was coming to an end. Jason was resigned to the fact that if the exploding ion engines on Dreathlor didn’t kill him, those incoming missiles surely would.
He waited in silence—he wondered which of the three possibilities would come first. While he watched, Jason saw more and more Drac-Vin forces move into the mouth of the wormhole. That was at least something positive. He only wished he’d witnessed Ot-Mul’s expression upon confronting the Allied welcoming party on the wormhole’s other end.
Warning messages were now popping up on multiple console displays in rapid succession. Apparently the temperature on Dreathlor’s outer hull was so hot that the Starlight’s landing struts were beginning to soften … soon they’ll melt. The first of the approaching missiles was nearly upon him. He contemplated targeting them with the Starlight’s plasma cannon … but with so many inbound, what was the point? And then it happened—the interchange wormhole request was granted. Space began to distort around him and a new wormhole formed right in front of the prison barge. This was the largest interchange wormhole Jason had ever seen. Everything was happening in the blink of an eye and before he knew it, the two ships were crossing the threshold. There was no time lag—the Dreathlor prison barge, with the attached Starlight going along for the ride, was catapulted across thousands of miles of open space.
When Jason realized what had just happened, he let out a slow breath and waited for his heart to start beating again. A quick check of the console told him the missiles were no longer an immediate threat. Instead, looming before him through the observation window was the gaping mouth of the loop wormhole. Huge and black, it completely filled his field of view. There were also hundreds of Drac-Vin warships surrounding them—all moving toward the blackness ahead.
A smile crossed Jason’s lips. Willing his hands to move, he triggered the little Starlight to disengage its grappling hold on the prison barge’s hull. He brought the ship’s propulsion system back into the black safe range and steered the Starlight away from the prison barge and the fast-approaching wormhole. He pinpointed the location of the assault team, then phase-shifted to their position, where they still were—several thousand miles back the way he’d come.
The team had formed into a V-formation, using their battle suits’ integrated propulsion thrusters to navigate them forward. But with the closure of the loop wormhole, and limited phase-shift capability, they surely would die soon. Jason brought the Starlight in close and waved to the team from the observation window. No one waved back.
It didn’t take long before, one by one, the
y phase-shifted on board—using the same procedure to enter the stern of the ship they’d used before—then each quickly getting out of the way to make room for the next. Jason stayed in the pilot’s seat and Grimes took the seat next to him. Billy and Ricket, the rest of the team behind them, stood at the entrance to the cockpit. Grimes said, “Good thing that worked out okay, Captain … because I was most definitely ready to kill you.”
But Jason wasn’t really listening. His eyes were focused on the display. All eyes moved to the display. The prison barge was entering the wormhole. It was difficult to make out, as hundreds of thousands of warships, in the process of also funneling in, were close around it.
The explosion was magnificent! A brilliant display of white, and blue, and many colors—amazing colors—some colors Jason had never seen before. A collective cheer filled the confines of the Starlight. Whoops and high-fives continued for several minutes before Jason stood, gesturing for Grimes to swap seats.
“Can we verify that the wormhole has indeed been shut down?”
“It’s no more, Captain … gravitational readings are completely gone; the spatial anomaly has disappeared,” Ricket replied.
“Good,” Jason said. “We’ve got to return to Allied space, Lieutenant.”
She slid into her seat and immediately went to work. “Captain, hmm … I think that last interchange wormhole stunt, which was amazing by the way, jumbled the Starlight’s interstellar comms. I’m not getting anything back from the interchange. Phase-shifting’s not an option right now either.”
“We have another problem,” Jason said.
“I see it,” Grimes said, now taking evasive action.
It was the last remaining battle droid. At least Jason hoped it was the last one. “Can you phase-shift us out of here?”
“Working on it,” she said.
The droid was closing in on their position and firing its energy weapon. The Streamline began to shake violently.
Scrapyard Ship 7: Call to Battle Page 15