* * *
The Shikkeron was just over six miles away when its missile tore apart Salak’s ship. The concussion shook up the Shikkeron, but the old brigantine held together. Jebbson then recommended that Ardon point the Shikkeron at Salak’s two remaining cutters, feigning an attack. After seeing their command ship consumed in a cloud of blinding fire and hearing Ardon’s threats about the undying Phoenix, it took little more convincing to have the cutters make a hasty retreat.
The Shikkeron turned, limping for the Nebulan Cloud Bank tributary and soon disappeared off the radarscopes. Once in the channel, Ardon had no choice other than follow the river to its end, the ship being too badly damaged to attempt an exit. There could be no communication with the fleet until it left the far distant Nebulan Sea.
A thorough search revealed little other than the wreckage from the Shikkeron’s port igniter and boiler rooms along with the bodies of the four crew members swept from the ship. Two of the Shikkeron’s five pilots escaped their stricken fighters and survived. The other three were never found. Lowenah’s children eventually concluded that the Shikkeron had blown up with Salak’s ship, but news from the two enemy cutters was of a far different sort. From their stories grew the legend of the ghost ship, Shikkeron, and its captain, the Therioskotia – a legend that would one day come back to haunt Asotos’ world.