“Warning,” Nambaba's calm maternal voice said.
Death in this backwater asteroid field would be preferable to any punishment she would get for losing one of The Zar’s herd. “Hold course,” she commanded.
Oh, how she wished she could punish the beast for all the problems it had given her. The maddening adolescent had given her such a bad shift that she imagined she could taste its silica-rich blood. Raine's quivering finger tightened around the trigger in anticipation of the coming shot. "I'm a dragon officer," she growled through clenched teeth. "I must protect the mooncalf."
“Visual contact in one micron,” Nambaba stated.
The mooncalf’s gnarled golden nose appeared beyond the asteroid. Raine took deep breaths, while reminding herself of honor and duty as she counted off the seconds until she could see all five pairs of wings beating in harmony and the targeting program turned from red to green.
She jerked the targeting from a killing shot to a near-miss and fired.
The hydro jet exploded past the mooncalf's starboard side, as she accelerated her ship toward it, in an attempt to turn it back toward Vilecom, its home moon. The madrox’s nostrils flared large enough to berth Nambaba, while its five pairs of golden wings frantically flapped as it twisted backward. A moment later, it disappeared behind a different asteroid.
Raine thrust the nav-stick forward and accelerated around the rock in the opposite direction.
"Target lost," Nambaba belatedly stated the obvious.
If she returned without the mooncalf, she’d be tortured until she begged for death.
Her antiquated spaceship turned tight around the asteroid. When a jutting beak of rock blocked her way, she eased out of the turn, but the nav-stick flopped forward like a piece of beached seaweed, and Nambaba dove toward the rocky outcrop at full speed. Raine yanked the nav-stick back. The trajectory didn’t change. She moved it from starboard to port. Nothing.
Warning whistles shrieked through the cockpit. The entire console seemed to strobe scarlet. The view-screen skewed sideways toward the asteroids’ surface.
"Collision alert." Nambaba serenely stated the obvious.
“Change course to avoid.” The controls didn’t move and the ship remained jammed on the collision course.
Raine dropped her targeting array and then punched the console with her fist. Next, she grabbed the nav-stick, but now, instead of being free, it was stuck in a dive. She clamped both hands on the nav-stick, and strained to pull it back. Sweat broke out on her brow. Her helmet’s visor fogged. And for all that effort, the nav-stick only jerked backward a notch, so they were still racing toward the unforgiving rock.
More alarms joined the clamor booming throughout the control-hub.
“Collision alert," Nambaba repeated.
Raine hit the thrust-reverser. It sputtered, but didn't power up. "Illegal maneuver." As usual, Nambaba's computer generated voice sounded too calm in light of the circumstances.
Raine punched the control panel again. “This is an emergency.”
Nothing happened.
Raine slammed her fist against the button a third time. "Override!"
The asteroid's craggy surface filled half the panoramic view-screen. So close she could identify rock formations. At this speed and with the rock’s mass, there wasn’t space to maneuver.
But she had to try.
She smashed the button a forth time.
"Collision warning." Another siren joined the din. Trust the Overlord's maintenance program to make certain that all the alarms functioned, while fundamental safety and navigation systems were barely operational.
Raine struck the thrust-reverser with all her might. A burst of pain went from knuckle to shoulder, but the course stayed the same. Raine heaved her entire one-hundred-twenty-pounds against the controls. The nav-stick jerked free. Her solar plexus’ hit so hard she felt the impact from her forehead to her toes. Despite the pain, she pushed with her legs.
The stick shot forward so fast, the seat harness cut into her shoulders jerking her backward. On the view-screen, rugged rock still dominated. "If I die, so does Dalf." Raine gritted her teeth and held on.
"Command does not compute."
"Allow pilot override."
The view-screen's rocky image magnified the panorama and revealed a thin crack. As the seconds ticked by, the crack enlarged until it resembled a gigantic mouth opening to devour Nambaba, like it had the dust-covered ship that was already in the bottom of the crevasse.
ooo
Tem-aki absentmindedly fingered the embossed insignia on her spacesuit as she studied the mineral analysis of the large asteroid she had landed on. Despite its high iron content, it wasn’t worth the fuel to haul the huge rock to Guerreterre. Tem-aki stretched her back by extending her legs and pointing the toes of her heavy turquoise boots, causing the insignia on her uniform to appear to flicker like burning flames.
If Guerreterre hadn’t been experiencing a rare peacetime, this work bay would have been filled with enough weapons to vaporize a small moon. Fortunately for her, during peacetime, replacing the arsenal with a science lab had been a priority. Using the old warbird for research gave her more room for experiments than any other space lab she had ever been assigned to. Tem-aki closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to bask in the luxury of getting a great ship like the Dasya Voltain and the chance to follow her brother. But if these rocks only had basic elements, which just about any world could provide, she’d need to look elsewhere and that would mean, she would lose her chance to search Larwin's last known coordinates.
Tem-aki swallowed. Despite what the official paperwork and atmosphere-free surroundings said, she refused to believe he was dead. She’d fought for this assignment after getting word of his death, so she could finally have closure, but thus far, that had alluded her. Tem-aki shook her head at her naïve belief that she could find something as small as a ship in a square light-year of space, yet she was unwilling to give up her self-imposed assignment. Her mother acted like a search was a total waste of time, but she had acted that way as long as Tem-aki could remember and she suspected it was because it was rare for a warrior to live beyond his teenage years, so her mother had probably begun to accept Larwin's death as inevitable as soon as he qualified for the military academy.
Tem-aki studied the computer’s analysis. Despite the iron content being too low to interest Guerreterre’s Supreme Commander, it might be high enough to interest some of the more primitive industrial worlds her planet controlled. She chewed her lower lip. Unless she found something marketable, soon, she would be reassigned.
Something thudded against the hull of her ship so hard that the screen flashed black. “What the-” Tem-aki dashed to the auxiliary control board and smacked a toggle switch. A hologram image of the Dasya Voltain inside the asteroid’s deep canyon shimmered into view; semi-transparent dust and rocks rained down onto her ship's image, as the clatter of the real ones bombarding the hull echoed through her ship.
Were asteroids subject to earthquakes? She’d never heard of such a thing, but that didn’t mean it was impossible.
“Computer, analyze cause of disturbance.” Despite her impatience, the holograph image swirled and changed, expanding outward until it showed an odd thing undulating through the asteroid belt in pursuit of a madrox. “What the-”
“It is a scyphozoan style spacecraft,” Dasya Voltain said.
“Who uses them?” Tem-aki asked, as she stared at the ungainly thing that looked more like an unraveling ball of spaghetti than a spacecraft. Surely something that cumbersome in appearance couldn’t be a war ship.
“They were in service on Kalamar fifty years ago.”
Tem-aki frowned. She’d heard of Kalamar, but couldn’t recall where or why. “Are they an enemy?”
“Negative. A treaty was established ninety-three-years ago.”
Dasya Voltain had to be wrong. Guerreterre didn’t make treaties with other worlds; they simply took them over. The madrox
in the hologram darted deeper into the asteroid field and the raggedy-looking spacecraft went after it. Tem-aki shook her head at the bizarre behavior. Spacecraft went into warp drive to avoid the energy-sapping dragons, they didn't follow them. She squinted at the images, certain that her tired eyes were betraying her, but the old spaceship continued to weave through the asteroid field in pursuit of the beast. If Kalamar pilots chased madrox and the beasts actually ran from them, she could understand why her world had a treaty with their world – going against crazies, who had weaponry that terrified a madrox would probably have forced the Guerreterre's forces to fight until the resources were wiped out, and the planet was probably just as worthless a project as finding useful resources in this asteroid belt.
A flicker of movement brought her attention back to the hologram image in time to see the madrox fly over the cleft she was in, again. A heartbeat later, the spaceship went over. If the dragon ever got tired of leading that nutty pilot around and started looking for other entertainment, this hole could become a trap.
“Computer, start engines and prepare for departure.” Before she finished the sentence, she felt the deep rumble of the engines coming online.
She frowned at the hologram image. Had her brother died at the claws of a madrox? She shook her head. Such a primitive beast could never have brought down a Colonel in the Shadow Force. Still, the beast and the crazy pilot chasing it were the only anomalies she’d seen in the weeks she’d been prospecting the asteroid belt, so maybe she should check them out further.
As Dasya Voltain exited the cleft, Tem-aki transmitted her research file to the Mineralogy Department, while she searched for a safe place from which to observe the odd chase.
The big question was if she could get approval to change her geological survey to a reconnaissance mission.
Chapter 3
Though Raine’s muscles screamed with pain, she continued fighting for control. It seemed like an eternity before Nambaba's trajectory shifted toward another plume of suspended dust, where the mooncalf's tail had fanned the asteroid’s surface.
A moment later, the antiquated ship entered the unnatural haze. Solid particles slammed against the panorama-window with such force that Raine feared it would crack. Worse, the image on her navscreen looked like a burial shroud was wrapping around her ship. Gooseflesh erupted across her skin at the thought. Abruptly, the display went black. She needed to see more than she needed extra hydro shielding. “Nambaba, purge all sensors.”
Still flying blind, Raine visualized where the asteroid had been before everything had gotten clogged with dust, placed her feet against the console, kept pulling back on the nav-stick and prayed for a miracle.
Nambaba's hull moaned in agony.
Thunk! A larger rock smashed against the hull sending an echoing crash throughout the ship.
A muted, high-pitched shrieking sound began and quickly got louder and louder. She usually heard something similar during reentry through Kalamar's humid atmosphere and had learned it was caused by the ship's trailing tentacles rubbing together, but the shriek had never lasted so long or been so loud. She hoped the purge was causing the horrid noise and it would soon be over. Eyes tight shut and teeth clamped she hung on.
Suddenly a calliope of alarms began screaming warnings of doom.
"Spirit," Raine prayed, "either give me strength or instant death!" Nambaba shuddered so violently her sweat-soaked hands slipped inside her gloves. She expected the hull to collapse around her or a snagged tentacle to snatch all possibility of deliverance away.
There was a loud hiss that drowned out all other sounds, then stopped as suddenly as it had begun. “Purge complete.”
Raine opened one eye and saw an open star-field. Either the Spirit had given her a miracle or she was dead. Sweat dripped from her forehead, splattered on the console, then puddled. Corpses didn't perspire, did they? Her joints ached from her ears to the souls of her feet and her right shoulder felt as if it was on fire, but she'd survived. "Thank you, Spirit!"
Releasing her death-grip on the nav-stick, Raine flexed her fingers.
"Nambaba, where is that demonic beast?"
"Command does not compute."
"Nambaba, locate the mooncalf."
"Searching." Moments later, the thin reddish line of a heat-trail materialized on the navscreen. It looked like the dragon had returned to its original heading.
"Nambaba, increase image."
"Enhancing." The image enlarged until she could see the mooncalf’s wings flare as it navigated a solar current.
It was heading toward a large, black orb. What held such appeal for the heat and energy-loving beast? "What sort of power does that place have? And please don’t tell me it’s some sort of black hole."
"Command does not compute."
"Your programmer needs to be recycled," she growled. "Nambaba, scan the mooncalf's apparent destination."
"Sixty-two-percent likelihood that the objective is this ash-covered planetoid." The computer magnified the dark sphere in an insert box on the screen.
"What sort of energy source is attracting it?"
"Readings are inconclusive."
"Can you pinpoint the mooncalf's precise objective?"
"Negative."
What would have enough intensity to entice a mooncalf across… “Nambaba, how far have we traveled?"
"One-hundred-seventy-light-years."
Raine swallowed hard. "Which sector are we in?"
"Uncertain.”
“Nambaba, explain.”
“The border between Guy-N and Alif has changed many times."
Alif’s center was home to Guerreterre's Shadow Warriors. Her heart slammed against her ribs. “Does Guerreterre claim this part of Guy-N?" Mouth dry, she waited for the computer to process the information.
"We passed a Guerreterran marker buoy shortly after you ordered pilot override, therefore, it is highly likely we are in their territory."
Cold sweat bathed Raine at the thought. Some claimed that the sadistic perverts killed the inhabitants of the planets they conquered for entertainment. Others whispered that they were cannibals and ate the inhabitants. She shivered. She was inclined to believe the ones who claimed that the Shadow Warriors enslaved the people they conquered to toil in their mines. While that wasn’t a much better fate, at least it was some sort of life. Regardless, whether it was fast or slow, the shadow demons destroyed every planet they conquered.
She should know, because two years before, they had ruined her family.
Had the ash-covered rock, which attracted the dragon once been a living, breathing world that Shadow Warriors had sucked the life from? Raine gulped. "Nambaba, examine everything within ten light-years of our location for heat and energy readings consistent with a masked ship." Raine scrutinized the mooncalf's destination, and thanked The Spirit that Kalamar's Overlord had the power to protect her world from such a fate.
Unfortunately, she wasn't where he could defend her.
Silence ensued while lights on the console flashed and programs whirled. Perspiration trickled down Raine's spine. "Scan negative."
"If there was a boundary buoy, there must be a ship in the vicinity to enforce their claim. Scan again."
"Scan negative,” Nambaba repeated far too quickly.
Raine frowned, as she tried to make sense of the conflicting information. Perhaps Nambaba’s charts were wrong or the marker had been overlooked. Since her job did not entail leaving the orbit of Vilecom, Kalamar's nursery moon, the current inter-galactic war zones probably had not been fed into Nambaba's data base. Raine took a deep breath and concluded that she had no way of knowing how close she might be to Guerreterre's space, but she certainly had a job to do and that meant she must get the mooncalf back to Vilecom.
ooo
Wheezing in the mountaintop’s thin air, Thunder leaned against the jagged, freezing rock wall and marveled how the dragon’s passing had made some areas smooth and slick as a pond on a windless day, while
leaving other areas sharp enough to slice skin from bone.
When GEA-4, who remained full of vigor and agile as a mountain goat, finished securing the rope she’d brought, he cautiously moved closer to the portal's black, gaping maw. Looking in, he barely recognized it as the same place he had previously visited via myst. The ancient cavern had distended and reformed until neither stalactites nor stalagmites remained to mark the ancient cave. Here, the dragon’s immense heat had smoothed all the stone walls so much that where the sun hit, light glinted, as if on water.
GEA-4 methodically moved down the rope until her silvery-white hair vanished in the gloom. Thunder wished he knew why he needed to be here; he simply knew he had to.
At least he’d thought he was needed here.
Several times, during the exhausting climb, he’d wondered why he had such a strong feeling about the need, when GEA-4 obviously would have made the climb faster without him. And now, when his need for air kept him from doing anything of value, it seemed like his presence was more of a problem than a benefit.
Yet, he remained convinced that he had to be here.
He turned away from the gaping hole and looked around the plateau. For over a millennium, the balata had thrived under the golden gaze of the stone guardians. Now, the only balata were growing from the seeds Larwin had planted in the center of Nimri’s garden, to commemorate their victory over the dragon. He hoped the fragile purple saplings survived to spawn a new grove of promise. Hoped he was able to circumvent the coming disaster, whatever that might be.
Thunder closed his eyes against the dismal furrow of melted rock leading from the Star Bridge to the cliff overlooking their valley. Did everything the beasts touched end up barren? Nimri had once myst-traveled to the land of their ancestors. Upon returning, she’d told him the rough, barren land lay under a black sky, which held rocks instead of clouds. He shuddered at her description and the memory of her near-death experience on that lifeless land. Spirit-travel to the old world would have been an amazing experience, but Nimri was correct, it was far too dangerous.
Thunder Moon: Book 2 of the Chatterre Trilogy (Chatterre Triology) Page 3