by J.J. Mainor
Chapter 26
Anders sat in the pilot’s seat, or the captain’s chair as he liked to think of it, surrounded by an array of controls and screens. He was thankful these cargo ships were fully automated as it gave him time to figure out the controls before they were to face the Freedom.
Dirk sat in the co-pilot’s seat, fancying himself in control of this operation. Anders patiently answered his questions and quietly patronized his “orders,” all the while glad he had the good sense not to play with the controls in front of him.
Remy and Magnus squeezed into the tight cabin looking for their own update.
“We can expect to find the Freedom,” Anders warned them, “once we’re free of the gravity. No doubt Colonel Fortune informed them we have the data stores. They will do whatever they have to in order to stop us.”
In the mind of Anders, the stockpile of artillery he watched Pittman scramble up and stow remained to be fired. They had no such artillery to return. Their first volley from the planet had been a scramble of their own. Magnus took the pattern of the large drill heads they had used to reach the magma chamber and multiplied it within a single file, allowing them to scramble up dozens of them in a single shot. Given the pointed tips and their design for cutting, they would drive themselves further through the ship’s hull than a standard missile.
The tactic would work again, except they would have to take down their inhibitors to do it. “Colonel Freedom won’t blow us out of the sky, but he can still get that data if he has to scramble this ship piece by piece.”
While the group waited quietly around him, the first order of business was getting access to the external sensor data. Since the ship wouldn’t recognize the Freedom as a hostile vessel, there would be no warning of its approach. Once he had a fix on the other ship, he searched around for weapons control. Why the ship was designed with weapons when it was meant to fly without a crew was a mystery. Maybe it was no more of a mystery than why it was designed with a bridge and crew quarters in the first place. All Anders cared about were the pulse cannons below. They would have no affect if the Freedom’s inhibitors had been repaired, but they were all he had to fight with.
The blip on the screen indicated the Freedom was on approach. Anders turned quickly to Magnus behind him. “Get to the scrambler. If we have a hole in their inhibitor field, scramble whatever you can. Take the crew from the bridge if possible.”
Remy opened his mouth to object, but Magnus was already away and down the hall. He had to settle with the belief that the man would save the patterns as he had with his own men.
Anders found what he was certain were the weapons controls and looked for navigation next. It would be nice if he could take evasive maneuvers as they fired rather than just let Freedom’s arsenal pick off their cargo pods.
As their ship broke free from LX-925’s gravity, maneuvering thrusters fired and set the ship on a slingshot course around the planet. The Freedom, still badly scarred from the first strike, altered its own course to intercept.
“Have you found the navigational controls yet,” Dirk asked nervously through clenched teeth.
“Only one way to find out,” Anders said as he pushed a button. The ship fluttered as the auto navigation went offline. It pulled toward the planet. Anders pushed a few more buttons trying to correct the course.
Then Magnus shouted down the hallway in a panic. “The inhibitors went down and the scrambler activated!”
Remy ran back to check it out and offer a hand if he could. He thought on a subconscious level how much he didn’t want to be on the bridge after Anders suggested they scramble the Freedom’s bridge crew. When he turned into the scrambler’s room, he caught the dissipating white light as it melted away from a stranger standing on the plate.
“Who are you,” the stranger asked with great surprise.
“We’re the crew of this ship,” Magnus informed him. “Who the hell are you?”
He stepped from the scrambler plate and looked Magnus over. Then he approached Remy to study his features. “I’m Flash Forward. I’m the pilot of this ship.”
Remy snickered at his ridiculous name. Given the highest ranking officers he had thus far met took oddly suggestive names, he wasn’t surprised. “Looks like we have a name for this this ship.”
“What do you mean?” The connection went over Magnus’ head.
“Your government names their ships after the commanding officer. If he’s the pilot, then this is the RS Forward.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Forward snapped. “Cargo ships don’t receive designations. You think the Republic wants to broadcast its shipping to the entire galaxy? Now tell me what the problem is. The computer only brings me out of storage if there is a problem. So what is it?”
Magnus began to answer when Remy cut him off. He knew if this guy was a secret tucked in the ship’s programming, then he wasn’t exactly on their side and probably wouldn’t respond well upon learning Republic property had been hijacked.
“Confederation forces captured the RS Freedom,” Remy lied. “They’re pretending to be the Republic crewmen. They’re trying to destroy us before we can get away to report it.”
Forward raced from the scrambler room to the bridge in a panic. “Why didn’t you say so,” he berated Magnus and Remy towing behind him. Reaching the bridge, he practically shoved Anders from the captain’s chair.
“Who are you?”
“This is Flash Forward,” Remy introduced.
“This is some kind of joke,” Dirk barked with disdain.
“No,” Remy explained, “he’s the pilot and he’s going to help us get away from the Confederation forces that have taken over the Freedom.”
Dirk looked upon Remy as a raving lunatic, but Anders recognized the deception and shooed him off the bridge before he could spoil it.
“You and Magnus need to man the scrambler before they get in range.”
Forward brought up the navigation screen and with a magical touch to the controls in front of him, made the ship sway to and fro as he stabilized the roll and pitch of the craft. Anders took the other chair and asked for the weapons control.
“After you screwed up navigation, you shouldn’t be trusted with a slingshot, let alone the weapons this thing bears.”
“I have weapons experience,” he explained.
“And how do you expect to fire an energy weapon through their inhibitors?”
“We’ve already inflicted heavy damage,” Anders gloated. “We expect to find gaps in their protective field.”
“That’s something, I suppose.” His derisive tone told them both he no longer thought of them as worthless idiots, although Remy couldn’t speak for himself. He still didn’t have much of a role beyond standing and watching. He was, however, smart enough to keep quiet when he didn’t have anything to add. Better to stay out of the way, he reasoned, than to try and help and make things worse.