“In case, what?” Bain asked.
“Well, we'll get back to that spot sooner, and see what's been happening while we're gone.”
“You think something dangerous is going to happen?”
“Slingshot effect has always been a good means of escape if somebody decides to chase you.”
“Oh.” He settled back into his chair, and decided that now would be a good time to start loading another data pod. Just like Lin had said—just in case.
In one hour and twenty-two minutes they would be back to the same spot in orbit above the planet. In forty-eight minutes, the planet's occlusion factor vanished. Both Lin and Bain sat up straight in their seats, and watched the screen as Ganfer resumed the simulation with new data.
The two life-pods were still in place, but their energy flow had been halved.
Next to them sat a tall, egg-shaped object; black covered in a golden grid that slowly filled in solid gold starting from the bottom. It was literally filling with energy, covered in a field of energy.
“Bain,” Lin said an unnaturally still voice, “one important lesson in being a Spacer. When your gut instinct gives you a warning, you listen.”
“What are they doing?”
“Preparing for launch. Ganfer, get us out of here!” Lin yanked hard to tighten her safety strap.
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Chapter Fourteen
Bain tightened his own belt before she could reach over and do it for him. He pressed the command sequence that activated the stellar dust release control. Lin chuckled, just a moment, and Bain knew she had seen what he did.
Gravity grabbed onto them, and tried to turn them sideways as Sunsinger tore free of orbit without any preliminary moves.
On the Mashrami launching pad, the ship was now one-third solid gold with energy. Bain couldn't take his eyes off it. When the simulation vanished, he let out a yelp.
“Conserving energy,” Lin said. She let out a little gasp as the pull of acceleration loosened and stopped trying to turn them sideways. “Full speed for the Knaught Point. Bain, I want you down here. Give me any data you think I'll need.”
He nodded and bit his tongue to keep from asking how he would know what Lin would need. Bain didn't watch as Lin struggled across the bridge to get to the access door and the ladder to the dome. With acceleration, gravity kept insisting that the back wall of the bridge was the floor.
Bain concentrated on the rear sensor array, sorting through every bit of information that came from the planet. He tried to calculate what the numbers were that would translate into a ship launching from the planet's surface.
The seconds ticked by and became minutes, and the minutes turned into clusters of fives and tens and then fifteens. No movement came from the planet surface.
He wanted to ask Ganfer if the Mashrami could have stealth weapons. If Humans could figure out shields to trick the Mashrami sensors, why couldn't the aliens do the same thing against Human computers and sensors? Bain kept his mouth shut. Ganfer was too busy getting Sunsinger away from the planet and heading to the Knaught Point to spare even a fraction of a percent of his attention on such a silly question.
Bain watched the planet behind them, and every five minutes, spared a glance for the sensors pointed in the other directions. It wouldn't help if they escaped the Mashrami only to run into something or someone else before they reached the Knaught Point.
“Bain—anything?” Lin demanded, her voice a rough scratch coming from his collar link.
“Nothing. They aren't moving.”
“Good!”
Then the Knaught Point was nearly on top of them. Bain devoted one screen to watching it. The computer simulation pulsed in waves of energy of all colors. For a few seconds, remembering everything Lin had told him about Knaught Point creation theory and what that energy had done to the Mashrami world, he almost felt afraid of it.
Then he remembered something Lin had told him months ago: Everything is dangerous if misused, if turned away from the purpose Fi'in created it to fill. Everything, even poisonous plants and deadly radiation, can be turned beneficial and useful if we only figure out how it was meant to be used.
“Here we go!” Lin shouted.
Bain slapped his hand down hard on the stellar dust release lever—just in case. He closed his eyes, and dug his hands into the sides of his chair cushion, and held his breath.
Knaught Points were easier if he closed his eyes, Bain discovered. He almost laughed aloud when he realized that. The world turned upside down and tried to turn inside out, but didn't quite make it. His stomach didn't quite try to climb up his throat. If he had to be on the bridge instead of in the dome where he could watch everything, Bain knew closing his eyes was the way to go.
“Through!” Lin's voice cracked. “Bain—”
His eyes snapped open, and Bain scrambled to study the rear sensor screens.
“Nobody behind us!” he shouted back, before Lin could finish her question.
“What was that stellar dust for, then?” She nearly laughed.
“Just in case.”
Lin did laugh, now. Her voice echoed off the dome and rang down into the bridge.
“We are being hailed,” Ganfer announced.
Bain reached over to Lin's side of the control panel, and hit the controls to open the communication channel. Who else would it be but the Rangers? They had only been a few hours behind Sunsinger from the beginning.
“This is Ranger flagship Cutlass, calling Free Trader Sunsinger. Please respond.”
Bain was impressed—that was Captain Gilmore speaking, instead of his communications officer.
“For Fi'in's sake, Lin—talk to me! Ganfer, are you listening?”
“This is Sunsinger,” Bain said, almost before he tapped the button to open the channel from his side. “We're all right, Captain.”
“Where have you two been?” Gil demanded. His voice threatened to crack, but there was a hint of laughter waiting to be released in it, too.
“Playing tag with the Mashrami, what else?” Lin said. “Come on over. We have got a humdinger of a story for you.”
“You'd better believe I'm coming over. Cutlass, out.”
Bain laughed now. He slouched in the comfort of the thick cushions of his chair, and closed his eyes and laughed until he could hardly breathe and his stomach hurt.
* * * *
“The war is already won, then,” Dr. Anyon said quietly. He had come over with Captain Gilmore, the two of them crammed into one of the Ranger attack craft meant for one man, and containing enough weaponry and survival gear to take out any of the Mashrami ‘cities’ that Sunsinger had detected on the planet's surface.
“I wouldn't say ‘won,'” Gil said, nodding. “We have a lot of skirmishes yet to go. The Mashrami won't ask for help, they won't communicate, so it's easy to say they won't give up, even when they know they're losing. They'll keep fighting down to the last man—or whatever they really are. But yes, Humans will win, eventually.”
“The Mashrami are just a bunch of big bullies,” Bain said. He grinned when the other three adults frowned for a moment at his words, then nodded and started smiling. “They know they can't win, maybe there aren't any worlds that can support them—but they're going to ruin it for the rest of us.”
“Spoilsports,” Anyon said. “Appropriate.”
“Their reaction to crisis shows their philosophy of life,” Lin said. She floated back to the table with more cups of tea and chocolate. They had been talking for nearly two hours now, filling the Ranger captain and doctor in on everything that had happened, starting with the energy tsunami. “They've condemned themselves, because they would rather put all their resources into fighting us than surviving. They won't cooperate, they won't ask for help. They see all other life as the enemy, so they attack it, and become the enemy of all other life.”
“That's so stupid,” Bain muttered.
“Yes, it is.”
; “You remember that, Bain,” Gil said. He lifted his cup of tea in salute. “Work with others, help others, you all survive. Fight everyone, and even if you win the little battles, you eventually lose the war. The Mashrami are going to die out, because they would rather take than ask; they would rather destroy than share.”
THE END
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Dead World [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 3] Page 12