Page 45 of Yorix

Chapter 24

Yorix

Schordo! The weapons on a research vessel are basic, an obvious oversight by the Galactic Council that we’re now paying for. This nebula did not show any inhabited systems for parsecs, so who were these hrecksers? Had we unwittingly crossed paths with a military patrol checking their furthest borders? Whoever they were, they did not appear to understand Galactic Standard as the computer had, upon detection, automatically sent out a greeting explaining we were peaceful explorers. Either that, or they understood just fine and decided to respond with force anyway.

It was obvious they wished to cripple our vessel, as first they targeted our defensive weapons array, after pounding our shields hard enough to break through here and there. They did not aim to destroy, and that chilled me as I did not want those hrescksrs to get their hands on my Bride, nor on myself.

“I’m going to try to set us down on the moon. I’ve already sent a data packet with the distress call. If we can manage to hide from them until help can arrive, we should be okay.”

“But won’t it take five days?” she asked, taking her seat and hurriedly fastening herself in.

“We’re on the edge of our explored space, but not beyond it. There will be an outpost or patrol closer than that. A day or two at most, with any luck. It’s going to be a rough landing, however, as they've damaged our landing stabilizers.”

Rough landing was putting it mildly. I had to hope they didn’t keep firing at us, and if they did, that they didn’t hit our engines so I could at least attempt to guide us to a more or less level spot.

“Okay, do it.”

I spared her a glance, making sure she was secured properly before jinking right and beginning a rapid descent towards the moon.

“Ahhh!” she screamed, watching the ground rush towards us far too fast. We had just kissed the upper atmosphere when it happened. A strong jolt and we stopped dead.

No…no…no!

“Tractor beam engaged.”

“Schordo!” I scream, slamming my fists on the console in rage.

“Second unknown vessel decloaking.”

“What’s happening?” Lynn asked, her voice trembling as we began to move backwards.

“They’re tractoring us in. We’ll have one chance to get away.”

We still had engines, so if I set it up right, I could hyperdrive us out here. Something that in hindsight I should have done as soon as they began firing, instead of firing back trying to disable their weapons.

“Once they’ve got us in their landing bay, they’ll turn the beam off. If I manually fly us straight out, I can hit the hyperdrive and get us out of here.”

“What about their shields?”

I’ll have to time it before the shield goes back up,” I admitted.

She turned fearful eyes on me. “Do you think they’ll kill us?”

“They haven’t been friendly so far,” I pointed out.

“If we fail, will we explode?”

“We’ll crash into the shields and violently rebound. Strapped in, we’ll probably be injured but survive, but their ship will be hrecked and anyone in that section will probably be dead.

“And if we get out and you activate the hyperdrive that close to their ship?”

“We may tear part of their ship away and it will follow in our wake.”

“So, us or them or bust.” She closed her eyes. “Tell me when it's over. I can’t look.”

My sweet, brave mate had had enough. She was intrepid enough to traipse through the universe to observe its wonders, but this senseless violence was, as the human saying went, doing a number on her.

I could see the landing bay. What was that around the opening? A bunch of holes angled towards the opening? Why?