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The Wolf Hunters

Episode

2

The Toll of a Slow War

Part 2

By

Lutrian

ver. 3.0

Recap

My name is Arthur Harrison. I am 114 years old. The world changed in front of me in the blink of an eye, when otters from another planet, made contact with earth. From the high of having an entire crew of space otters ravish me, to the low of watching one of my best friends die in a transporter accident, I've experienced it all. Or so I thought.

Last night, two unlikely friends left, possibly to never return. Today, they are in grave peril, and I must do my utmost, to try to save them.

* * * *

I quickly made some course adjustments, then fired the sublight engine, which gently roared through the ship's hull. Once the ship began to move away from the planet, I switched then off, and checked my course again. "Okay, ready. Engaging hyperdrive, now." I pressed a large button on the console. The main screen flashed green, as swirls and eddies of green, blue, and violet began streaming past. "Point one c, Point two c. Locating ideal entrance vector. Okay, we can jump at point nine-six c." The ship shuddered and rocked as it sped through that awkward zone between realspace and hyperspace, being buffeted by the very forces that helped create and shape what we call the universe. "Point five c." I counted as we continued to accelerate. "How are we supposed to catch them. You saw their transporter in use. They're using a Niquentorian system, which likely means a much more advanced hyperdrive."

Carl turned towards me, "I think they only have a single small Niquentorian hyperdrive."

"Affirmative," said Captain Benson. "Niquentorians generally run a few dozen hyperdrives in series. These Motricians are running a single micro-drive the size of one of our borderjumpers. Imagine a hyperdrive small enough for a man to lift and carry, yet it's capable of functioning like a full size drive. They're probably using it so they can have more cargo space, for salvage and piracy."

"And harder to hit and damage," Carl turned back to his console, and checked the ship's schematics, again. "Are we going to engage them?"

I checked my console, and saw that we were at the nominal velocity. I pressed another button, and the screen flashed green again, and the stars were gone, though the swirls and eddies continued to rush past. The deck steadied, and the shuddering subsided. I slowly drew back the throttle. "We've entered hyperspace. Currently traveling at ten c, and accelerating. We should be at our normal cruising velocity of three thousand times light speed in about twenty minutes. Maximum speed of thirty-eight hundred times light speed should be achieved in about an hour."

The captain sighed. "We need more." He pressed a button on his armrest. "Engineering. How fast can you push us. We need at least four k."

The voice of chief Engineer Sam Cleary could be heard, over the intercom. "We can get you just over four k, but we can only maintain it for six hours, maximum. Maybe longer, but the risks are dire."

"Okay, get on it, on the double."

After a few moments, Sam, in Engineering, said, "You got it. Just keep in mind, six hours, max. The longer we continue past six hours, and more likely we burn. Recalibrating the nav console, now."

The display on the nav console shifted to accommodate the additional speed settings. I moved the throttle further back. "We'll be topping out at four point one-eight times the speed of light. So what are we going to do when we intercept them. We can't engage them directly. A single borderspatial missile, and it would be like having the Tsar Bomba go off inside the ship." Checking the status screens, all the status indicators were still green. When I looked at the blip of the enemy ship on my screen, and the data that was being displayed, what little confidence I had, began to ebb. "They're still accelerating. They're traveling at four point three k. Four point four! Shit. We're not going to catch them, and they'll intercept in eight hours."

Karen asked, "Should we raise the Stellar Wind, and warn them?"

"Negative for now," said the captain. "We don't want the Motricians to intercept our communications." After a pause as he appeared lost in thought, he ordered, "Contact the Motrician vessel?"

"Sabre of Justice, to Kyrrrandarr's Claw, do you copy." After a moment, Karen said, "They're requesting visual."

"On screen," said the Captain.

"Be a moment," said Karen. "The computer is analyzing the data stream."

After a moment, the feline face of the Motrician captain appeared on the main view screen, her emerald eyes fixing themselves apparently squarely on Karen. "Ah, I see that you have one of your females serving on your bridge."

Captain Benson got to his feet, and approached the main screen. "I request that you stand down, immediately. You are pursuing a Federation civilian passenger vessel. Stand down at once."

Her image glared at the captain. "I have reason to believe that at least one of the fugitives resides on that vessel. Hail them, and request that they drop to normal space for inspection."

"You are in Federation Space, and in violation of Federation sovereignty."

She growled. "Your species and Federation's claims on this region are dubious at best. Tell your friends to drop to sublight, and submit to our inspection."

"Negative!" the captain shouted, sternly. "Stand down!"

"Chuthnu!" she hissed, having used the Zephenidian term for Human as a kind of exploitive. "Stop wasting my time. Your ship is much slower than mine. We'll have our quarry and be out of your presumed jurisdiction before you can even reach the wreckage of your Federation civilian passenger vessel. Don't try calling for help. You don't want to send any of your friends to certain death."

Karen turned to the captain and said, "They want that Zeph. Why don't we tell the Stellar Wind to drop to sublight, and hand him over."

The captain screamed, "Karen!"

The Motrician grinned, showing her large canine teeth. "So the Fugitive is on that ship. That would be a smart move. Listen to your betters, captain."

Captain Benson glared at Karen. "Cut coms! I said, cut the fucking coms!"

Karen slowly reached her hand to her console, and pressed a button. The screen dissolves back to the tunnel of mist and eddies of hyperspatial travel. "I'm trying to save lives, here."

"Karen! You jeopardized our mission. What you proposed, would also be extremely illegal, and tantamount to murder. That Zephenidian is a protected refugee. I should have you confined to quarters, for insubordination!"

Karen got to her feet. "If that's what it takes. We need to protect our own, not some fucking alien."

"Sit down, Karen!" yelled the captain. "I've not dismissed you, yet. Can you do your job? Can I trust you not to fuck up again? If it wasn't for the fact we have no one else skilled to man the communications' system, I would not hesitate to lock you up, and have you escorted off the ship as soon as we return to civilization. Got it?"

After a pause, Karen reluctantly said, "Ah, yes sir."

"Do not subvert me again. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir, I understand." she quietly said.

"Man the station. You've been on this ship almost as long as Art. I'd hate to lose you. What I'll do to you, will depend on how this all ends."

Karen's behavior did not surprise me. I never thought of her as a total xenophobe, but she did seem to exhibit a lot of hate towards the Zephenidians, more than most of the other crew members. She was never keen on the idea of transporting Zephenidian refugees, which had happened once before. Maybe twice, if you count the relatively brief time Jurrukush was on the Blade of Truth. I glanced down at my console and watched as the Motrician vessel increased its lead. After a few moments, I brought up and superimposed some additional data on the current sector. Hyperspace was not a smooth medium. There were eddies, slipstreams, wormhole-like conduits, and other similar anomalies. As I watched the vast ocean of hyperspace on my monitor, I thought of a riddle. "Captain. In hyperspace, how does a slower ship catch up to a faster one."

The captain sat back in his chair, and was lost in thought. "Ah, when the navigator of the slower ship knows the area better, and can find the shortcuts?"

"Bingo." I said. "We have an advantage. Me, and my familiarity with this region of space. I don't think the Motricians are aware of most of these, or if they are they're trying to play things safe. A lot of these aren't properly mapped and I would be a bit hesitant to try them out. But yeah, I think I can catch them. I just need to find the proper shortcut."

"Excellent," said the captain.

Of course I still had other concerns. "But Captain, what do we do? Once we're in range, we can't engage them directly. Black market Niquentorian weapons, I mean, I'm not even sure our shields could stop a single hit."

"We'll burn that bridge when we get to it." The captain got to his feet and walked over to Karen's console, and leaned over to her. "Remember, we're not supposed to do what we think is easy. We're supposed to do what is right. The easy thing would be to get them to hand the Zephenidian over to the Motricians. But that's not the right thing."

She protested, "But the Zeph took Art Hostage. Remember."

I raised my voice, "Karen, don't drag me into your little conniption fit. He had to survive. Daryl probably told him about you. Daryl was a bit paranoid and wasn't very trusting. He sometimes looked at me like I was some kind of creep wanting to get into his pants or something. The Zephenidian took me hostage because he was scared, and Daryl likely told him not to trust us. I mean, look how things turned out. He showed himself as an awesome tactician. I actually would have loved for that Zephenidian to have joined the crew, I mean other than the fact that we would have been blown up by a bunch of deranged space cats, a few hours later."

Karen lowered her head. "I'm sorry. Maybe it's been too long since someone reminded me of my duties. It won't happen again."

"Thanks, Karen," said the Captain. "Please remember that. Each refugee is valuable. Each one means one less of them, and a possible source of intelligence for the Federation. It may be what our friend knows, that's resulted in his being pursued." The captain returned to his chair.

* * * *

About five hours later, their lead appeared insurmountable, as they were barely two hours from intercepting the Stellar Wind. I had not found any decent or safe hyperspatial anomalies. We were coming upon an area of destabilized subspace, with a major high-speed eddy pattern. I had used this anomaly once before, a few years ago, and we almost got lost in the hyperspatial void. It was fast, but extremely dangerous. I was hesitant to bring it up to the captain. Watching the scanner and schematics, showing the Motrician vessel as it continued to close with the starliner, the situation was growing more and more critical. "Captain. The Ashara-Tarr upwelling zone. It's a place where the universe seems to be getting torn apart. I can use it, but we could end very dead in the process."

"The Ashara-Tarr maelstrom, I remember that. Art, do you think you can pull this off safely?" asked the Captain.

Art looked at this scanner, trying to map the anomaly. Zones showed speeds exceeding 20kc, or 20,000 times the speed of light. Other zones and bands were slower. The Sabre of Justice had a modern realspace linkage scanner, the system that allows a vessel to navigate in hyperspace and not wind up lost. The RLS would allow the ship to remain "linked" to realspace at a speed of about 9236 times the speed of light. Exceeding that speed would cause the ship to be thrown into the hyperspatial void, and be lost. Short bursts beyond that speed might still be possible, but the risks increase exponentially beyond 9236c. There was an exception, a type of slipstream, often called a hyperspatial wormhole conduit, provided it had had well-mapped endpoints. I took a while to plot a few simulated courses, some of which failed, with the ship being thrown into oblivion, while others had the ship get rammed out of hyperspace, turning into a hypervelocity kinetic nuke. "Fuck!" I cursed, as I worked with the computer, trying to find something which wouldn't tear the ship apart, or send it into who knows where. "It's this or nothing."

"Are you sure," said the captain.

"If I turn the ship to a course due starboard, and into the eye of the Ashara-Tarr maelstrom, provided we don't get torn apart, or thrown into the void, we might be able to catch them. The eye has a wormhole conduit that will take us rapidly to a point just ahead of the starliner. We double back and take care of our friend here, maybe buy the Stellar Wind some time to get further into federation space, so the Motricians, hopefully, would give up."

"Excellent."

"I just have one question, captain." To say, what I was about to do, was risky, was an understatement. There were too many variables, including some which weren't within my control. The various sub-spatial slipstreams and upwelling zones were turbulent, thus our speed would not be constant or predictable. When I had last attempted this maneuver, I had only skirted the edge of the maelstrom for a boost of speed to evade pursuit by a pair of Zephenidian Morningstars. I had never attempted the eye, though. It had been done before, mostly by stunt pilots. There was one famous instance where a Wolf Hunter navigator used the maelstrom's eye to avoid a Killerdeath_and a small pack of _Killslays. All the Zephenidian ships attempted to follow his ship through the maelstrom. None of the pursuing ships came out the other side. I knew that having a decent hyperdrive engine would be critical in such a maneuver, however, I assessed the engine of the Sabre of Justice, as marginal, at best. "Captain, is it worth it?"

"There are ten crew members, and thirty passengers on that ship. They will all die unless we help."

"There is another problem though. I'm going to have to abuse the engines to try to keep us within the velocity range of the RLS, or we'll end up who knows where."

The captain pressed a button on his seat. "Captain to engineering. We need even more from the hyperdrive!"

"Are you out of your fucking mind," said the voice. "I'm already seeing microfractures on the hyperdrive's containment vessel. You gotta be joking."

"It's an order!" said the captain.

"Once I set everything up, I'm getting out of the engine room and taking a stiff drink in the mess hall. Unless you pay me hazard pay."

"Do it!" ordered the Captain.

"Don't tell me that Art's going to attempt the Ashara-Tarr." The voice sighed. "Taking all the safeties offline. Please promise me, that there will still be a ship left, by the time I'm done shitting my pants." The com unit clicked off.

"Art, she's all yours."

I set a course due starboard, and watched as we oriented towards, what appeared on my screen as a multicolored whirlpool. Each color was mapped to a specific velocity, from green, which was below about 5000 times light speed, yellow, wich was 7000, and orange which was about 9000 times light speed. Most of it was red, and inside was violet, and it stared back at me with malice. Only problem, was that this was merely a two dimensional representation of what was in reality, a complex multi-dimensional instability in hyperspace. "Plotting a perpendicular course through the outer maelstrom. Impact in 5, 4, 3, 2, and, one."

The ship shook and shuddered. A wave of shimmering green appeared on the viewport and seemed to lunge at the bridge. The ship lurched and shook even harder. "Art," said the captain. "Don't try to rush it, and don't try to fight it. Ease us in. If you have to travel with the slipstream to keep us in one piece, do so."

The ship seemed to strain as I eased the ship into the orange zone. "When we enter the red zone, I will have to start reversing the hyperdrive, so we don't lose RLS lock. Okay, this is going to be unpleasant." I pressed a button on the engine controls to set the hyperdrive for a braking maneuver, which is pretty much reverse, then slowly pushed the throttle forward. The ship protested by whining and shaking. A few moments passed as I eased the ship into the outer section of the red zone, where I pushed the throttle almost all the way as far as it could go. "We're at 6kc now, approaching 7. Trying to keep our velocity nominal." So far, everything was still in the green, but there was still the eye to push the ship through. The last time I had entered this zone, I had used far less reverse power on the hyperdrive, and only proceeded as far as the ship was, now. "Captain, I'm easing us as deep into the anomaly as I dare to. I will have to make a break for the eye, itself. I'll only have one chance to do this. If I screw up, now, there won't be enough left to conduct a matchbox funeral."

"Stop being morbid." The captain adjusted himself in his chair. "Just don't screw up. Succeed, and get that starliner home."

I watched the schematic of the huge bloodshot eye on my navigation screen. The eye covered an area of about fifteen light years, but our current speed made it not seem quite so large. Still, we were only half-way to the eye, and the trip would become much, much more perilous. Watching several simulated runs for the eye fail, I did not feel too confidence. Running the simulation, was like playing those old games where you must launch something with a slingshot, or other device, planning height, angle, effects of gravity and air resistance. Out here, there was no air resistance, but the various zones of the anomaly still effected us in a way that was not too dissimilar. I tried a few different angles of attack, then got one that worked. As I watched the simulated blip pas through the eye, and shoot off the screen in the slipstream, I sighed with relief, and tried the simulation again. To my horror, it failed, the blip hitting a zone of instability, and being sent flying off the screen out of control. I tried a few more times, and saw that it was succeeding about two thirds of the time. "Okay. Okay, prepare yourself for," I paused as I plotted the course. "This is going to be rough. Ready, set, ah, now."

I ran the automated computer program, this time with the ship being under direct control, while I watched and prepared to override the program if there was the slightest sign of it failing. The ship turned into the dark violet zone at the edge of the eye.

The ship shook violently, and the engine screamed as it attempted a hard deceleration. The viewport was a chaos of mists and eddies, which moved as if the ship was in an uncontrolled spin. There was a beep from the captain's chair, and a click as the captain answered the intercom. The voice of the Sam, down in engineering, was almost screaming. "We're losing her. The engine's containment vessel is fracturing. We're losing the ship!"

I tried to push the pleading voice out of my head, as I brought my hands back to the controls to take partial manual control. The ship shook again. A wall panel near the view screen sparked and flamed. "I need to punch it," I mumbled. "I need to push us through. If I accelerate, would I loose the RLS, but still hit the slipstream in the maelstrom's eye?" Another wall panel, near the weapons console erupted into flames, and the bridge began to fill with smoke. "Captain, I'm going to have to risk losing the RLS link. We're going to break up, if I don't try this. I need to attempt to throw us directly into the eye, like shooting a bullseye. If I succeed, we'll be ahead of the freighter. If I fail, we'll either disintegrate, or we'll wind up in Oz or something."

"Don't freeze up on us, boy!" urged the captain.

I set the course and pushed the throttle back, hard. The ship lurched and shook like we had crashed into something, as the engine below us shrieked, seemingly in pain. A beep came from the captain chair, and as the captain answered it, I heard the engineer shout, "We've got a rupture in the containment vessel. We're losing her. Dammit captain, the engine is going to explode!" I gritted my teeth as the ship continued to shake itself apart. The blip, that was the Sabre of Justice, moved closer and closer to the eye. Many of the engine status indicators began to flash yellow, with a few, showing as red. Worse, on the navigation screen, flashed the ominous message, "WARNING, RLS LINKAGE FAILURE!!!!" This was bad. It meant that we might never see home again, unless I hit that bullseye. I gunned the engines and crossed my fingers.

The ship lurched again. The view began to stabilize, then there was a blue-green flash. A swirling tunnel of color raced by on the viewscreen. Everything seemed strange, as it we were underwater. Movement felt slow and voices muddled. The bridge lights seemed to form trails and everything just wavered in a way that made me feel nauseous. "S, ah, somethings happening." Speaking felt like I was on some kind of drug. "Ah, ah, fucked up." Looking back at my nav screen, the RLS warning still flashed. The navigation screen was blank with the text, "Navigation data failure." I didn't know if we made it into the eye of the maelstrom, though I had hope that we had succeeded. It seemed that the ship was being pulled into realms of hyperspace, humans were never meant to experience. I had no ideas where we were, nor any indication of what to do. Do I decelerate, or let the slipstream carry us. I had to make a guess. I slowly drew the throttle forward, and listened as the engine whined and screamed. "Come on, baby. Find the universe. Come on, get us home." After several tense minutes, the RLS indicator flashed, "Linkage reestablished!, recalibrating nav data." After a few moments, the navigation screen became repopulated. To my relief, we had emerged from the conduit, just ahead of the starliner."

"We got a mess on our hands," said the voice from engineering. "I got to take her offline for repairs."

"Negative," said the captain. "But I think the worst is over. Art, what's our status?"

"We made it. We overshot the freighter, slightly, but we can double back and intercept the Motrician ship. Orders."

"Intercept those cats!" shouted Captain Benson.

"Aye, Captain," I said, as I set a course back towards the pursuing vessel."

Karen, who had been rather quiet, finally spoke. "Captain, the Motrician ship is haling us."

"Don't acknowledge," said the captain. "Let them figure out how we just overshot them."

"Fighting them would be suicide," said Carl at the weapons station."

"I don't think we'd have to," said the captain. "We drop the Motricians into normal space with our wake, then we escort the starliner to the nearest Federation colony which has adequate defenses, probably Alchoa II. If they resume pursuit, we keep dropping them."

I checked my navigation screen. "There's another hyperspatial anomaly ahead. Simple slipstream, well mapped, and everything. I think we could lead the freighter through it, and it should get us to the Alchoa system." I saw that the Motrician ship would overtake the freighter in less than an hour. At our current velocity, it would be mere minutes for us to intercept. "Captain, we should be able to intercept the Motrician vessel in less than ten minutes."

"They're still trying to hail us," said Karen.

"Let's see what those cats have to say. On screen."

"How did you? You took the maelstrom?" growled the feline alien as she glared at Captain Benson, before fixing her gaze on me. "Obviously that freighter, or its contents, is extremely valuable. Is that Zephenidian really worth you risking your lives like that? We look forward to taking that ship down."

"We will not allow piracy, you fucking bitch!" shouted the captain.

"Than your lives are forfeit, apes." The screen went dark, replaced by the view of the hyperspatial mists.

"Art, we're counting on you." encouraged the captain. "This is going to be like hyperspatial jousting. Keep them in our wake."

"It's going to be tough," I looked back down at the navigation screen. "They're faster than us. We may not have many shots at this. I just don't know how maneuverable they are. Or how skilled her navigator, is."

The wait seemed to drag on, as I watched the blip of the Motrician vessel draw near. Switching to a different view, I checked the extent of the vessel's wake. Her ship was slightly larger than ours, and her wake was vast, a bit larger than the Sabre of Justice's wake. "Captain, I'm going to attack her at an angle, and try to loop in front of her. I want to try to take her down in our first pass."

"Affirmative," he said. "She's all yours."

Glancing back at the status lights, most still showed as yellow, with a few flashing red. "This is going to be tough, especially with our damaged hyperdrive." I waited as the target neared. I glanced up at the main screen, though there was no hope of actually seeing much, beyond what one usually sees while traveling through hyperspace. "Okay, swinging around, now!" I grabbed the manual control and spun the ship, doing a very rough hyperspatial approximation of "pulling a donut." The hyperdrive whined and strained again. On the viewscreen, the view panned and it appeared we were in a tumble. I stabilized the ship, watching our wake intersect the Motrician vessel. The ship turned and slowed a bit. "We slowed them, sir, but we need to do another pass." The ship shook violently, as my screen showed some kind of shockwave propagating from a point port of our ship. "What the hell?"

Carl yelled, "I, I don't understand. "I think they fired something. You can't shoot weapons in hyperspace. It's, it's..."

"Niquentorian weapons," the captain said. The ship shook again, and our velocity began to drop as well. "Maybe some kind of hyperspatial disrupter. They're trying to drop us from a distance."

An idea struck me. The shockwave gun or whatever she used, though likely extremely dangerous, seemed so far, to be less significant than the actual wake, that typical vessel produced. "She doesn't want us near her ship. They're trying to scare us off. I'm taking us in. I think they're trying to compensate for a general lack of skill."

"Are you sure?" asked the captain.

I increased the throttle and locked my course almost dead on, with the Motrician ship, like I was attempting to play chicken. I've never heard of two ships colliding in hyperspace, if that was even possible. But to be safe, I adjusted the angle ever so slightly. The ship shook violently, and several of the yellow indicator lights began to flash red. "It's now, or nothing." At the last moment, I turned the ship directly in front of the Motrician vessel. The blip sputtered, then faded, appearing to almost stop. It was still visible, producing only a slight wake, but now they were in borderspace, having dropped to sublight. "Take that, bitch!" I set the course back towards the starliner. "The engineer's going to hate me."

"The Motricians are hailing us again." came Karen's voice.

"Tell them to take a long walk out a short airlock." said the Captain. "I'm through dealing with her."

"So what now," asked Carl.

I was unsure myself. "I don't know how long the Motrician ship requires to recharge its hyperdrive. I mean, it may charge quickly, or it might take a while. I'm not taking any chances. We need to get to the freighter, and escort it, where it will be safe. As for Daryl, I'm going to suggest that he and his friend book passage on a Lutrian vessel, and maybe head to Ak'koS or some similar place, as far from the border as they can go."

* * * *

It took almost two hours to rendezvous with the starliner. As we approached it, Captain Benson ordered, "Karen, raise the Stellar Wind."

"Sabre of Justice to Stellar Wind. Do you copy."

A voice with a thick Slavic accent burst from the com unit. "We copy. What the hell is going on!"

The captain pressed a button on his armrest. "You were being pursued by Motrician pirates. We dropped them out of hyperspace, and we need to get you home. Does your navigator use any hyperspatial anomalies."

"Anomalies?" asked the voice.

"Hyperspatial wormholes, slipstreams, upwelling zones." answered the captain.

"No, no, that's stuff is dangerous."

Looking back on my screen, I saw the blip return. "They're back, and they're resuming pursuit."

"I'm going to patch you in to Art, or navigator. You're going to have to use an anomaly to get to the Alchoa system, quickly."

"But, but, those are dangerous." the starliner captain protested.

"That Motrician ship is far more dangerous. Patching you to Art." The captain pressed another button on his chair console.

The voice came out of the small com unit on my console. "You mean that ship is back?"

I spoke at the com speaker of my console, "This anomaly is actually very safe, and used a lot. I'm just hoping the Motricians unfamiliarity with this sector, keeps her from following." I checked the status indicators. A few of the red lights have turned yellow, suggesting that some minor repairs have been conducted. "Okay, I'm going to pull ahead, but offset enough to keep you out of our wake. Do exactly what I do. The entrance is fairly large, but the velocity range required to enter is fairly narrow."

"What if the Motricians are listening in," he asked.

"I wouldn't care. It's a fairly fixed velocity slipstream. If you go to fast, or slow, you end up dropping out of it. It's why it's so safe. You can take it as far as it goes, or drop out early." I checked my console to make sure everything was as nominal as it could be. The Motricians were definitely gaining again. "Basically once we go in, they won't be able to gain on us, till we reach the Alchoa system."

"So what's the catch?" asked the captain of the Stellar Wind.

"You have to travel at exactly 1,622 times light speed, give or take maybe two percent. Once you enter, maintain this speed. You will go much faster, about nine thousand times the sped of light. Hopefully your ship has a modern RLS system." I waited, and watched as the Motrician vessel slowly gained on us. They were accelerating rapidly, suggesting that they might be listening in to the conversation with the starliner. I had not informed the captain where to enter the anomaly so obviously they were trying to reach us before than. But time was up. "Captain. Drop speed to 1,622, and continue straight."

"Aye!" I began pulling up on the throttle, myself, slowly easing the ship to the correct velocity, and I watched as the starliner also complied. The view on the screen began to grow more wispy, as if the normal hyperspatial medium was being buffeted by some kind of wind. The console beeped, as we began to accelerate on our own, gaining almost a thousand times light speed per second. We quickly topped out at about 8,983 times the speed of light, and remained steady. Alchoa still would be a few days away, even at this speed, but as long as the starliner didn't deviate from my instructions, it would be safe. Glancing back at my screen, the Motrician ship decelerated as it attempted to use the anomaly. The Motrician ship began to rapidly accelerate, where, like us, they steadied at 8,983 times light speed. The ship began to accelerate, reaching 9,000 times the speed of light, then 9,100. Suddenly, the Motrician ship abruptly decelerated, dropping back down to 4300 times light speed, and quickly fell behind.

"We did it. Captain, the Stellar Wind is safe."

Captain Benson got to his feet. "Art, you performed admirably. Carl, take over the Navigation console. Art, Karen, come with me to the Trans Com briefing room."

I rose from my seat, and watched as Carl left the weapons console and sat down at the navigation console. Down the corridor, about two a hundred meters, we emerged in Trans Con, then entered through the door on the right side of the room. I took my seat on the bench, as Karen sat next to me. The captain sat at the computer console on the opposite of the table. Captain Benson glanced at me, then at Karen. "I don't know where to begin."

I nodded, and Karen seemed nervous.

"Karen," said the captain. "Your performance. You jeopardized our mission."

"I, I apologize. I'm sorry," she said as she lowered her head.

"Apologies don't matter when lives are at risk. You risked everyone. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I, I just didn't think, I, I think I was."

"I am seriously considering replacing you, and kicking you off my ship in the worst shithole I can find. I will not tolerate your insubordination."

"I was speaking my mind, giving my opinion." she countered.

"While we had an open com channel with a potential enemy? I don't fucking care if you hate Zephenidians. Our job is to protect human, and other Federation members from threats. That goes for Zephenidians who turn. Do I make myself clear?"

Karen lowered her head again, and started sniffling slightly. "What do I need to do?" she asked quietly."

"Did you loose someone to the Zephenidians?"

"My brother disappeared about ten years ago. His ship was never found. I think it's Zephenidians, but no one knows."

"Karen, I'm going to give you another chance, If you screw up again, you're gone. Also, the next Zephenidian refugee we rescue, if he or she is cool with the idea, you're going to have to kiss. Not a peck on the cheek, or nose, but full on making out, like for ten minutes. Do I make myself clear."

She grimaced. "I, I understand. I, ah, accept your conditions."

"Karen, you're dismissed. Get back to the bridge, and don't screw up again."

Karen slowly rose to her feet, and walked out the door, back into Trans Con, then turned left towards the main corridor.

"Now, Arthur Harrison." the captain turned to me. "I can't express to you just how much I commend you, for your actions today. You saved many lives. You took risks, calculated risks, but in the end you pulled us through. I'm sure Sam, down in engineering, hates your guts, but we pulled through."

"Thank you, Captain Benson." I said. "So, what's going to happen, now?"

"We go to Alchoa, for some badly needed repairs, and planet leave. We'll plan a better stopover, later. I know Alchoa is kinda crappy. I'm going to make a report on the Motrician vessel, and submit it to both the Wolf Hunter General Assembly, and to the Federation police, to have it and its crew declared as pirates and fugitives. Unfortunately, I have this horrible feeling that this is not the last time we have to deal with them."

"Yeah, same here." I sighed.

"How about late movie night. Heavy Metal? We've been running ourselves ragged, and I'm sure the crew could enjoy this. Karen can watch the bridge, as punishment."

"That would be awesome."

The captain got to his feet. "Mess hall in twenty minutes. I'll inform the rest of the crew."

* * * *

The darkened mess hall was almost packed, with people seated at every table. I sat at the table nearest to the wall monitor sipping on a rum and Coke. On the screen, was the hand-drawn animated image of a space-shuttle type craft. A glowing hatch had opened on its belly, ejecting a 1959 Corvette into space. The car slowly fell to earth, piloted by an astronaut, accompanied by some twentieth century rock music. Maybe things weren't so bad, after all. I saved a lot of lives, including two friends I might never see again. Yes, I had begun to think of Daryl's Zephenidian mate, as a friend. I knew I would miss them dearly. I turned my attention to the screen as the car made touchdown in the desert, deploying its parachute a bit late, before driving off, as the movie's opening credits continued.