by Florian Nagy
Chapter 13
The Ameerian flagship flew trough hyperspace. Its engines were ablaze with the energy it had expelled when it had escaped the battle. Its hull stood strongly intact, and it streaked forward determinedly. Already, its attackers were on its trail. Its launch direction had been recorded and its trajectory estimated. The Ameerians did not know that the Imperium vessels were there: their ripples through hyperspace had not yet reached the Ameerian flagship at its present speed away from their focal point, but the Ameerians knew they were being followed. They knew they weren’t out of danger.
Onboard the Vigilante, the crew were busily repairing what they could of the damage sustained during the skirmish. The small group of five ships pressed their advance heavily on the fleeting ship. Their superior engines would allow them to catch up with the Ameerian flagship in several days.
The makeshift design of the raider ship and the inefficiency of its engine now dragged heavily on the its crew but brightened the thoughts of the people of the Imperium. The ship had caught itself in an impossible predicament. It had just barely escaped the battle, making a getaway but allowing its pursuers to immediately follow in its footsteps. It was now travelling along a straight line in hyperspace from which it was impossible to deviate, making it impossible to shake pursuers. Sooner or later the flagship would have to drop out of hyperspace, which would alert its hunters in a matter of minutes. They would drop out after the ship and follow it, yet, the flagship would have precious few minutes in normal space to possibly coordinate a new jump or try to find a way to hide.
The Ameerians knew that quickly calculating a second jump trajectory and executing it would leave ripples in space that would then be tracked again by the Imperium, and the chase would begin anew. They knew they could drag it on for some time, but their inferior engines would eventually cause them to be caught at a stop, when they would run out of time to coordinate a new jump.
Still, they reckoned that if they did not spend too much time in this first flight to allow their pursuers to catch up, they could jump again in a new direction and choose the place of battle. Maybe even with some luck they could contact allies who could be of assistance. They knew their hunters were severely weakened and could be wiped out with a well placed counter-attack.
Their current course was leading them away from the rim and towards the center part of the galaxy. They were approaching the central galactic sectors of the Sagittarius and Perseus arms, the populated hub of the galaxy where the Rekkeds and Ameerians had their homes.
They knew that if they advanced too far they would be caught by their hunters or step into Imperium space to be pinned down by countless patrols. The prudent course of action seemed to be to try to redirect their flight path towards friendly territory. They would have several days in front of them in largely unpopulated space, but then they would come upon Rekked and Ameerian space. In the time they had available to them, they doubted, however, that they would be able to make it far into any populated space.
The problem that existed was of course that the Ameerian systems were not friendly to the renegades. Although a strong minority of the Ameerian populations supported the brave defiance of the human scourge, most of the people did not care for such matters of “independence.” To them, peace and prosperity spoke for itself, and much louder than hollow promises of glory, which carried only death and destruction in their wake.
The renegades had a widespread system of support that they often could fall back on. There were countless operators functioning in several sectors of the Imperium and its rim. The question to be asked was which of these could be relied on and which had the means to defeat the Imperial task force.