Read Online Desperate Times (Lost Planet Warriors Book 1) by K. McLaughlin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: K. McLaughlin
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having met another Terran, I knew that there was no way I could do that to Kim.
In the old days we would never have even considered retreat. We would simply have fought, and died if necessary, to fulfill the dictates of honor. I would have to watch carefully that desperation did not turn what remained of our race into something that it was not.
The Nova Star entered the yellow sphere on my tactical display. This would either be the finest hour of my race, or the worst. And it was up to me to decide. I prayed to the Goddess that I was up to the challenge.
“Spin the ship!” I roared. “All plasma beams, focus fire on the mothership. Launch shuttles to engage the smaller craft.”
My ship pivoted almost in place, inertial dampers allowing a course change which would have been impossible without them. Our powerful forward beams licked out through space, smashing the surprised Skree. They returned fire, their plasma splashing across various screens as we pivoted, diverting most of the impact.
“Fire phase torpedoes!” I said.
“Torpedoes away.”
The five missiles become new tracks on the screen, streaking away from my ship toward the enemy as we turned to grapple with them. Then they blinked out of existence, narrowly avoiding the counter-fire the Skree launched to destroy them. They appeared a moment later, just meters from their targets. At five different points around the Skree ship brilliant explosions lit the starry night.
“Screens down across sixty percent of the mothership,” Carrick reported.
“Hammer them with everything we have,” I growled. Then I entered new course directions which would take us even closer. We would close with the foe. We’d smash them to bits. And if all else failed, I still had the drives programmed to overload in a few moments notice. We could still take the ship with us into the abyss if we needed to. I prayed that we would not need to. In my heart, I knew that Kim would come through. Somehow she would find a way.
Chapter Fifteen
Kim
A s we streaked ever closer to the sun I found myself strangely wishing Bran were here, and worrying if he was still alive. As much danger as we were in aboard my ship, his ship was at much greater risk. After all, I didn't have crazy alien bugs trying to blow me up. Yet. That would happen shortly, if we didn't get the navigation issue solved. I punched the communications link on my console.
"Kara, how's it going?" I asked. "We're about four minutes from the corona."
"Fucking asshole Cymtarran bullshit POS goddamn..."
They were still working on it. I let the link go. Then I fired up our own navigation systems, to see if I could fine tune the course any more than I already had. We needed to get in close to the sun, to pick up enough particles. But even in jump space, warping space around us, passing through an object like the sun would obliterate us instantly. Hitting any object with more mass than your ship was a Bad Thing.
Gravity waves created navigational hazards, screwing with the ability to precisely target a route. The closer one got to a large mass, the harder it was to avoid becoming a pancake against that mass. That's why most ships entered at the very edge of the solar system. Worse yet, we had no active sensors while in jump. I was relying on the data we had uploaded from pre-jump.
Harder didn't mean impossible. I churned through pages of gravitational data, the most recent data sets we had from Earth's astrogation satellites. I ran the numbers, double-checking everything. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to envision what those waves would look like, how their impact against the bubble of space/time around my ship would impact it. I was building a three-dimensional model of gravity waves and impossible space in my head, and it was giving me a headache.
I wondered if travelers from the age of sail had tried to do anything like this - had attempted to see the wind as it flowed around them and filled their sails. What would
In the old days we would never have even considered retreat. We would simply have fought, and died if necessary, to fulfill the dictates of honor. I would have to watch carefully that desperation did not turn what remained of our race into something that it was not.
The Nova Star entered the yellow sphere on my tactical display. This would either be the finest hour of my race, or the worst. And it was up to me to decide. I prayed to the Goddess that I was up to the challenge.
“Spin the ship!” I roared. “All plasma beams, focus fire on the mothership. Launch shuttles to engage the smaller craft.”
My ship pivoted almost in place, inertial dampers allowing a course change which would have been impossible without them. Our powerful forward beams licked out through space, smashing the surprised Skree. They returned fire, their plasma splashing across various screens as we pivoted, diverting most of the impact.
“Fire phase torpedoes!” I said.
“Torpedoes away.”
The five missiles become new tracks on the screen, streaking away from my ship toward the enemy as we turned to grapple with them. Then they blinked out of existence, narrowly avoiding the counter-fire the Skree launched to destroy them. They appeared a moment later, just meters from their targets. At five different points around the Skree ship brilliant explosions lit the starry night.
“Screens down across sixty percent of the mothership,” Carrick reported.
“Hammer them with everything we have,” I growled. Then I entered new course directions which would take us even closer. We would close with the foe. We’d smash them to bits. And if all else failed, I still had the drives programmed to overload in a few moments notice. We could still take the ship with us into the abyss if we needed to. I prayed that we would not need to. In my heart, I knew that Kim would come through. Somehow she would find a way.
Chapter Fifteen
Kim
A s we streaked ever closer to the sun I found myself strangely wishing Bran were here, and worrying if he was still alive. As much danger as we were in aboard my ship, his ship was at much greater risk. After all, I didn't have crazy alien bugs trying to blow me up. Yet. That would happen shortly, if we didn't get the navigation issue solved. I punched the communications link on my console.
"Kara, how's it going?" I asked. "We're about four minutes from the corona."
"Fucking asshole Cymtarran bullshit POS goddamn..."
They were still working on it. I let the link go. Then I fired up our own navigation systems, to see if I could fine tune the course any more than I already had. We needed to get in close to the sun, to pick up enough particles. But even in jump space, warping space around us, passing through an object like the sun would obliterate us instantly. Hitting any object with more mass than your ship was a Bad Thing.
Gravity waves created navigational hazards, screwing with the ability to precisely target a route. The closer one got to a large mass, the harder it was to avoid becoming a pancake against that mass. That's why most ships entered at the very edge of the solar system. Worse yet, we had no active sensors while in jump. I was relying on the data we had uploaded from pre-jump.
Harder didn't mean impossible. I churned through pages of gravitational data, the most recent data sets we had from Earth's astrogation satellites. I ran the numbers, double-checking everything. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to envision what those waves would look like, how their impact against the bubble of space/time around my ship would impact it. I was building a three-dimensional model of gravity waves and impossible space in my head, and it was giving me a headache.
I wondered if travelers from the age of sail had tried to do anything like this - had attempted to see the wind as it flowed around them and filled their sails. What would
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