Space Drifters by Paul Regnier

Author:Paul Regnier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Enclave Publishing
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

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I gritted my teeth and held on tight as the ship trembled and spun. The walls and ceiling of the bridge rumbled violently. It seemed at any moment cracks would form and the ship would tear apart. The engines whined with effort. I called out to Blix, but I couldn’t hear my voice over the noise. Once again my head spun with dizziness, and I felt as though I might drift off into another strange dream.

Suddenly the shaking stopped. Without fanfare, the ship righted and the engines wound down to normal. The viewing screen displayed the welcome sight of a dark, star-filled sky.

I shared a surprised look with my crew. “Iris, what happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Iris said. “But I feel so much better now. All systems indicate normal operations.”

“We made it!” Nelvan exclaimed. “Thank God. That was awful.”

“Any sign of the wormhole?” I said.

“I’m not picking up any readings,” Iris said. “It’s like it disappeared.”

The tight muscles around my neck finally relaxed. “That’s it. New ship’s rule: no wormhole travel. Ever!”

“Oh dear.” Blix paused a moment, studying his console.

“What now?” I said.

“Well, it seems we are very close to Bleelebach. Not too far away from the Skeeda wormhole.”

“It put us right back where we were?” I swiveled my chair to face him. “You mean it could have put us anywhere in the universe, but it decided to put us smack-dab in the center of danger where Casglo is searching for us?”

Blix shrugged. “Luck of the draw, Captain.”

My neck muscles tensed up again. “Iris, get us out of here. Where’s the nearest civilized planet?”

“The planet Glurivelle. Approximately two point three days’ travel.”

“Take us there, fast as you can.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The ship accelerated forward. My head was spinning. My only hope was that while we’d been stuck in zero space, Casglo had flown far away from this spot.

“Uh-oh.” Jasette was looking at readouts on her forearm computer.

“What now? I can’t take any more bad news.”

She turned to me, somber faced. “I just looked at the bounty-hunter boards. Mar Mar upgraded your bounty to one hundred thousand vibes.”

No words came out of my mouth for several moments. My head hurt. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d felt so trapped.

“Maybe it will take awhile for news to get out.” Nelvan tried to muster an upbeat tone to break the tension. “Give us time to get away. How many bounty hunters are out there anyway?”

“Enough to make things very difficult.” Jasette said.

“It doesn’t help being so close to Bleelebach,” Blix said. “That’s a haven for hunters.”

My mind was numb. There was too much bad to think about. So I focused on my old pilot training. In space academy, during crisis simulations when we were presented with impossible scenarios, they taught pilots that any moment spent worrying about the crisis was a lost moment of potential victory. We had to use those few, precious freems to consider a broad plan. After that, the goal was to focus on the details, one at a time. Glimpse your next few actions, they said.

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