The Plasma Shadow

  Chapter 22

  Ned was awakened by a sound that was both annoying and out of place, so he tried to roll over and ignore it. It was a few seconds before he consciously recognized the sound: it was the battle alarm. Ned sprang out of bed and contacted the pricom. “What is going on?”

  “We have Dread Phoenix on warp range sensors. It’s approaching way too fast – as quickly as White Mercury left.”

  “On my way.” Ned engaged his armor and ran to the pricom. Apparently Smardwurst had just arrived, because he was still in his bedclothes, and his feet were bare.

  Ned’s eyes were wide. “They must have one of those Plasma-charged warp boosters Rax was talking about.”

  “We’re still too far out to make it to any protected planets. No ships are in range either.”

  Smardwurst turned to Ned. “Any ideas?”

  Ned thought frantically. “Can we make it to any planet? That might help me charge my power.”

  “There is a habitable planet in the Kirelis system,” the navigational officer reported. Güzhmäk nodded approval for the course change.

  “We cannot take on that ship in our current state,” Smardwurst said solemnly.

  Güzhmäk was less reserved. “We would not stand a chance fully powered! One shot from that thing’s main weapon and we’re gone!”

  “So you don’t attack,” Ned said. “They can’t charge it themselves unless they fire on their own shields. You get me onto that ship and then hide on the other side of the planet until help can come.”

  “It has a lot of fighters too…”

  “We can deal with the fighters,” Smardwurst said confidently, although Ned was not sure how sincere the sentiment was. “Can you survive aboard the ship?”

  “Rax’s power should cancel his. Once I reach him, it should be over quickly. And even if it doesn’t completely drain his power, he doesn’t know how I beat Rax. I might be able to seal him off from his power the way I did with her.”

  “That is hardly an assurance of success.”

  “It’s the best we have. And it should give Green Scorpion some time to get away.”

  “We are not going anywhere.”

  Güzhmäk did not seem quite so certain. “If Nedward’s plan requires him to defeat Dren, then he won’t have much trouble getting off the ship afterward. It may be wise to take cover behind the planet. We may be able to outmaneuver them in phase space.”

  “We’re not going to make it there, sir.”

  Even Ned could see that from the warp readout. They had maybe a couple of minutes before Dread Phoenix caught up.

  Ned turned to Smardwurst, trying to ignore the beating in his chest. “My ship’s shields are recharged, right?”

  “They should be. Mostly.”

  “It will get me there.”

  “You cannot pilot it in. That ship has a lot of weapons, and they will all be targeting you.”

  “They’ll be firing through the vortex right in front of me. Your squadron can protect me from the Vortak fighters. I can make it in.”

  “And you plan to eject from the cockpit?”

  Ned took a deep breath. If he did this, this would obviously be his fighter’s final voyage. “I can get close and teleport out. I’ll go for a spot without that weird webbing and aim for a big, open space.”

  “I do not like it.”

  Another warning sounded. “Sir, are we going to stay at warp? They’re practically here!”

  “No,” Smardwurst said. Drop us to phase space and prepare to make a run straight for the ship. We will get Nedward as close as we can and then pull back.”

  The ship was already dropping out of warp, and Güzhmäk was sending orders to the squadron, which Ned knew was not at full capacity, especially if Smardwurst had ordered shield repairs to Ned’s fighter as a priority. He gave Smardwurst a determined look. “If we get separated, I’ll head for the Kirelis system. See you soon.” He put up his helmet and sprinted toward the launch bay, drawing in all the power he could hold. So much for planning, he thought. He was almost glad that Mirana was not here this time, because this upcoming flight was looking pretty hopeless.

  Whatever had happened while he raced to his fighter must have happened quickly, because the battle was already underway when Ned cleared the landing bay. He headed straight for the red and black silhouette of Dread Phoenix and tried to dodge, but laser blasts larger than his ship started slamming into him almost immediately. He opened a vortex in front of his ship, just wide enough to cover him and just long enough to open out behind him, and the head-on fire died down, but even at a relatively close range it was draining to maintain a vortex that big. A few shots hit him from the sides, but he did not have far to travel; Dren was accelerating straight for him.

  This was the tricky part. He was going to have to let go of the protective vortex in order to teleport through the shields, but Dren had apparently learned a lesson from Ned’s previous tactics and had spread the shields out wider. They were less concentrated this way, but it also made it seem practically impossible for Ned to stop his fighter and project a Plasma stream all the way into the ship. He ran through his options while the seconds ticked away, and then the ship was right in front of him. Ned dodged to one side and tried to angle toward the large room he had met Dren in last time, figuring that the open space would provide a forgiving landing spot. But Dread Phoenix began to roll in response to his movement. The thought crossed Ned’s mind that Dren might be trying to prevent him from approaching the Plasma weapon, which so far had not been able to fire since no one was attacking the ship.

  Fine, Ned thought. If Dren was focusing his attention up there, that meant Ned had a second to act. Letting the protective vortex fade, Ned turned the other way, moving toward the bottom of the ship now, picking a spot that seemed relatively free of the red crystal. When he was right up against the shields, he pushed through the ether as far as he could and teleported himself clear of the cockpit. He came out in open space but inside the shield bubble. For the moment, all of the ship’s weapons were still firing past him, presumably at his fighter, but Ned’s immediate attention was on the huge mass of metal rushing past him. With nothing to draw power from, Ned let himself drift for just a moment while he focused a second vortex into what felt like an open area and then teleported himself inside.

  An instant later he slammed against a wall, scraping a huge gash out of it as he slid across it with his momentum from outside. The angle of the wall made it feel like he was moving downhill, and even in the disorienting tumble he was momentarily grateful for the gradual stop. When he finally did roll to the ground, his armor was already warning him of damage, and he had not even been fired on yet.

  Fighting against the heat-charged Plasma, he started drawing energy toward him as he took in his surroundings. The map readout on his visor told him that he was a few decks higher than he had been when he boarded the ship with Mirana. The outer hull was very close, and he started moving in the opposite direction just in case Dren decided to try blowing a hole in his own ship to flush Ned back into space. There were no tremors from weapons fire to the hull, but soon Ned heard footsteps.

  “Dren!” he called through his com link, broadcasting to every frequency available. “Are you really afraid to meet me face to face! I’ve had enough of your little servants!”

  The Vortak were upon him then, firing as they came around a turn in the corridor. Ned sent missiles into them, and the silence that followed the explosion gave him a few more seconds to gather power. He moved a little farther before several more Vortak burst into the corridor. They were everywhere, and Ned knew he was going to use up his missiles pretty quickly if he tried to move past them that way. He put everything he had into his Plasma shield and rushed a group of them, then stopped just as two of them rushed him, claws raised. Ned reached inside himself and drew out a bit of the Ice Plasma and sent it out in a beam of steaming energy, slamming into first one Vortak, then the other. They stumbled back as the white ligh
t hit them, and an instant later they vanished in a flash of red light, leaving behind nothing but ash.

  Ned’s shield faltered a bit, he was so surprised at the result. He returned fire to the group attacking from behind him, then ran forward a bit, spraying Ice Plasma at a few more Vortak as he got near. It was just a small bit, and Ned could feel the heat pressing in from all directions, but again the Vortak he struck burst into flames and vanished. This time Ned thought he could sense the Plasma sort of withdraw from them as the Ice Plasma struck, and he suspected he understood what was happening: the Ice was cancelling whatever Plasmic power allowed them to thrive in the heat, essentially reverting them to regular Vortak. Without the Flame Plasma, they had no protection against the ship’s high temperature. The raw Plasmic energy expanding within them could not be healthy either.

  Of course, Nakmar Dren would have seen what had just happened and would reach the same conclusion. As he moved down the corridor, dispatching Vortak as he went, Ned wondered whether he were giving away his advantage by using the Ice Plasma that way. Oh well, he thought. Too late to worry about that now. He was trying to think how to use the situation to his advantage when he came up against a large vein of the red crystal, which stretched diagonally across the passage before branching out into the wall. More Vortak appeared, but Ned stopped and fired a few missiles, clearing the passage for a moment.

  “Are you seeing this?” he yelled into his com link. “Your friends aren’t having much luck! Are you really that afraid to face me yourself?”

  There was no response; maybe Dren really was worried. In hindsight, Ned would have preferred to have his enemy face him in overconfidence rather than hiding like this, while Ned’s power and ammunition wore thin. But as long as Dren felt he was on the defensive end of things, maybe there was a certain advantage to that as well. “You’re scared, aren’t you?” He looked up, hoping a camera somewhere would capture a dramatic view of him. “You’re thinking about what’s going to happen to you in this heat once I drain your power.”

  There was no response. It had not come out quite as menacingly as Ned had hoped, but a taunt was a taunt, he supposed. He bit his lip. If he was going to run, he had better know where he was going. Just to make sure, he fired a few laser shots into the red crystal. He could sense a definite movement in the Plasmic ether, upward through the vein, presumably toward the source of the weapon’s power. Probably toward Nakmar Dren. He fired missiles at a few more Vortak, wishing this plan of his was a little clearer in his mind. There was something up there worth attacking. He wanted to believe that the Ice Plasma would work here, just like Rax had been able to use her power even when surrounded by fire on Izralith. To test this out, Ned reached out and touched the red crystal. He half expected it to attack him, but the hard surface did not respond, so he sent a bit of Ice Plasma into it. Immediately the red light died around his hand, and bits of the crystal crumbled away. Now that is encouraging, he thought. He cleared the area of Vortak again and teleported as many decks upward as he could reach.

  The new location looked pretty much the same, although there were more crystal veins visible. There were no Vortak here, and Ned wondered if maybe they were congregating around strategic points, like maybe the weapon’s power source, where he was headed. The thought was not encouraging, but he took advantage of the chance to gather more energy. He moved forward slowly, roughly working toward a spot underneath where he guessed the weapon’s power source would be, but the silence made him nervous for some reason. He started imagining what kind of traps might be waiting for him here and decided that he had gathered as much power as he was going to get with the Flame Plasma’s hold all around him. He pushed upward through the ether again and teleported himself through another vortex.

  This time he was just a short distance below the power source, and the room quickly filled with Vortak. Ned had to use a lot of his Ice power to keep back the hoard of creatures, who were now scaling the walls and ceiling to get a good shot at him. he was worried about using up too much energy on his Plasma Shield, so he dropped it from time to time, letting his armor take some of the damage. He hoped Dren could not sense how low his power was running. Ned had to keep his enemy feeling defensive.

  “Still relying on your bugs,” he called out, still just hoping that Dren was listening. “You coward. I can see why Viper sent Rax first. At least she wasn’t afraid to use her own power. At least she put up a fight!”

  Something he had said must have had an effect, because the power source up above started to move. Ned fired off some missiles to conserve Ice Plasma, and the Vortak started to scatter. It had worked; Ned could feel Dren right above him. He moved back as a section of the ceiling started to melt. Finally he got a response over the com link.

  “You dare speak of her that way. Kayleen Rax was ten times the Plasma Master you are. You are the one who ran from me, cowering with that pitiful girl. And now you pollute my fortress with your insolent presence.” The ceiling fell away in a shower of molten metal, and Dren dropped into the corridor in front of Ned. “This is for Kayleen.”

  Ned caught the cyclone of fire that erupted from Dren’s hand in a wall if Ice. He could feel the Ice Plasma straining, surrounded by so much heat, but he was able to call out enough to cancel Dren’s attack. It was time to find out just what this twisted gift from Rax could do. Ned pushed the power outward, and the fire began to evaporate into white steam. Ned used more of his reserve, and quickly the entire beam of red light vaporized; Dren was now just keeping it at bay with an intense heat shield around himself. Sensing just how much Plasma had been released by the canceling of the two powers, Ned drew this neutral energy into himself and sent it out as a powerful bolt of blue lightning, slamming Dren to the ground.

  Ned’s heart quickened with excitement as he realized just how strong a position he was in. He rushed forward, charging another ice blast. “I’m glad you appreciate her power,” he heard himself call tauntingly as he raised his fist to strike as Dren regained his feet. But then, to Ned’s surprise, Dren turned and ran, scattering red fire in random patterns behind him as cover. Suddenly the Vortak were back, attacking Ned from all directions. Ned ran after Dren, but he stopped after just a few steps. Something felt wrong. “Why had Dren run? Was he really so afraid for his life? He certainly had reason to worry, but in spite of all his taunting, Ned did not think of the man as the kind to run away from a fight. What if he had been trying to draw Ned down that corridor? Toward a trap, or…

  Away from the weapon’s generator.

  Of course. After all, as much as Ned wanted to hunt Dren down – every ounce of power throbbing inside him practically demanded it – the real threat to the Empire and his friends was not Dren at all; it was this ship. And the ship’s powers came from somewhere up above. Aware that his power was already running low, Ned teleported again. This new corridor was empty for the moment, and Ned took the moment to feel out the location of the power source above him. He found it quickly – a faint point of energy compared to Dren’s presence, which was now moving back toward him.

  The voice over the com link was frantic: “You call me a coward, and then you run away like a child? Come back and face me, you puny little rat!” Dren’s rage only confirmed Ned’s suspicion. As worried as Dren was about facing the Ice Plasma, he was more worried still about that weapon. Ned teleported a final time, spending just about everything he had left except for the Ice.

  This time he knew he had made it. He was standing in a small room, whose walls, floor, and ceiling were composed almost entirely of the red crystal, which rose from the center of the floor into a pedestal, atop which sat a large, multifaceted ball. There was only a single door leading out. Immediately Ned walked over to the pedestal and placed his hands on the sides of the ball. He sent his regular power into it first, hoping to learn something of what he was seeing. Immediately he felt the crystal respond, sending his power out along its many branches. He could sense the ship’s Plasma weapon right behind him,
like a huge, empty vessel waiting to be filled. He could sense the rest of the ship as well, although much more vaguely. It was like the crystal veins had become an extension of his hands.

  Ned frowned as he sensed the life force of several Vortak approaching the door. He felt like he could accomplish something amazing if he were just left alone for a few minutes with this device, but there was no time to experiment. He brought his power to life, hoping that the crystal would make known some new ability. He almost dared to think that he could bring the weapon to bear against the Vortak out in space, but either because the crystal was not charged or because it was attuned to Dren’s power, it offered him nothing. It was just there.

  Ned reconsidered his position one last time as the Vortak started firing at the door, which apparently they could not open from the outside. A very large part of Ned wanted to fight his way past them and then find a way to use the rest of the Ice Plasma he was carrying on Nakmar. But he knew he had already given up that opportunity, and he could not risk letting this ship continue its attacks on the Anacronian fleet; even with their endothermic particle beams, Dread Phoenix was just too much of a threat. So Ned put his doubts aside and drew out the Ice Plasma, sending it into the crystal. Ned was surprised when it turned a pale shade of blue, accepting this new power in a way he had not experienced with his first attempt. He could feel it moving out into the veins. It could not fill all of them; the Ice Plasma quickly drained from Ned’s store and became saturated in the crystal web almost immediately. But it remained in his control, rooted where his hands touched the ball, and Ned knew what he had to do in the seconds remaining.

  Aside from this room, the highest concentrations of the crystal were in the ship’s most critical sections: the weapons, shield generators, and propulsion. Ned remembered the barrier he had sensed when trying to teleport a missile into the warp core. Already he could tell that that was too far away to extend his power, even with the assistance of this new device. But there was another concentration, right in the middle of the ship. That had to be a power core, and maybe the pricom. Ned sent the Ice Plasma into this mass of crystal, draining from everywhere else so he could make it stretch far enough. He felt the power settle in his target area just as the door flew apart, and Ned knew his time was up. He flared the Ice Plasma with one final command. From the ball at his hands to the twisted roots he was reaching out to, the crystal under his control shattered into a violent spray of tiny fragments.

  Ned was thrown back as the pedestal and everything around it exploded, and the room itself splintered in several places. The Vortak that had just burst in were knocked around by the fragmenting crystal, and Ned fired missiles into the group as he crawled to his feet. He knew there would be more out there soon, but for the moment there was silence. The momentary rest offered him no relief, however; Ned became painfully aware of just how weak he had become in his head-on attack of this ship. I have to find a way off this thing.

  Something about seeing Nedward’s fighter explode had intensified Smardwurst’s sense of guilt for sending his friend Ned off alone. Normally that feeling would have lingered, but in this case it was quickly overshadowed by the challenge his entire crew was facing to keep its distance from Dread Phoenix and to hold off the Vortak fighters that were swarming his ship, trying to finish what the Ice Vortak had started on Izralith, or at least to prevent Green Scorpion from getting a clean shot at a warp jump. The Vortak were certainly doing their job so far; Smardwurst had lost another couple of fighters, and Mandible had taken so much damage that he had been forced to dock it and do what he could from the captain’s chair. Of course, Güzhmäk would argue that this was where Smardwurst belonged in the first place, but protocol offered no consolation when his crew was fighting for their lives alone in deep space. And while the immediate decisions of battle did not leave a lot of room to think about Ned, somewhere in the back of his mind Smardwurst doubted that his friend was still alive. It was looking like the rest of the crew would be joining him soon.

  Suddenly the battle readout of Dread Phoenix snatched Smardwurst’s attention. It showed a fluctuation across the ship’s power grid, and its shields shuddered a bit before auxiliary power brought them back up. A faint, red haze escaped from the ship’s Plasma weapon.

  “Something happened on Dread Phoenix,” an officer reported. “Its central weapons platforms are offline.”

  “That’s no help to us,” Güzhmäk growled. “Even if the whole thing blows up, these fighters are going to finish us off. We have to get out of here.”

  “They’re not giving us an opening,” the helm officer said frantically. “They’ll blow our engines apart the moment we engage a warp field.”

  Smardwurst looked out at the array of viewscreens, hoping for inspiration. Instead, he saw another of his squadron’s fighters explode, pinned down by a pair of Vortak ships. He clenched is fist in anger. “Call them in,” he ordered. “They’ve done all they can out there. We are leaving.” The fighters actually had warp capability, but they were slower than the ship, and the odds of a starfighter surviving a hyperspace jump in the middle of battle were even lower than a starship had.

  Everyone on the pricom was clearly nervous, and Smardwurst shared the feeling, but there was a small chance that they might survive at warp long enough to reach Kirelis, and there was no chance out here. And as for Nedward… well, at least he was still alive and had apparently done some damage. His chances were probably better there than they would be on this ship anyway.

  Smardwurst’s thoughts were cut short as Kjrvlnk, who he had all but forgotten was on the pricom, abruptly ran out the door without a word. But whatever he was doing would have to wait; Smardwurst had just a minute or so to come up with some kind of an idea to get out of here without being ripped apart. He was far from confident in his plan when Güzhmäk turned to him with an earnest look. “Fighters are aboard, Captain.”

  “Good. Prepare to discharge all of our weapons at once. Detonate missiles between us and them; that might throw off their targeting.”

  “Ready.”

  “On my mark.”

  “Captain, there’s-”

  “Now.”

  The weapons fired, and then everything on the viewscreen faded as Green Scorpion’s warp field moved them into hyperspace. Less than a heartbeat later there were bright flashes from multiple directions as enemy lasers struck. The warp field buckled, intersecting the ship itself, and explosions tore through the hull in several places. A violent tremor shook the pricom as six or seven alarms went off simultaneously. It was as if the ship were shouting “I told you so” at Smardwurst for ignoring the laws of physics.

  “Captain! We’re venting drive plasma from the starboard engine, and we’ve lost a field coil on the port one.”

  Güzhmäk muttered something ominous as more reports rushed in.

  “All weapons are offline.”

  “Gravity is down in the port section.”

  “Shields are gone!”

  But that was all just noise to Smardwurst; they had survived the jump, and there was just one question that mattered now. “Can we stay at warp?”

  “We’re down to warp three; anything more and we’ll blow the engines apart. Even at this speed I don’t think they’ll last more than a few minutes.”

  Still not helpful. “Can we make it to the planet?”

  Everyone turned and looked at each other.

  Smardwurst sighed. There was no sense in asking them to spend their time calculating odds. They would just have to wait and see.

  There were not many options for Ned to consider. In spite of the damage to the walls, there was still just the one way out of this room, since he had no energy left to teleport. So unless Ned planned to defend this position forever, he had to move forward. But then what? He could probably find an airlock and jump into space, but even if he somehow managed to avoid getting shot, there was no guarantee that anyone was still out there to pick him up. There were probably escape hatches somewhere
nearby, although on one of Viper’s ships, even that was not necessarily a safe assumption. That left shuttles, or other fighters. It was possible that some were still docked in a launch bay somewhere, but even if Ned could reach one, how would he start it? He tried contacting Green Scorpion, but it was no surprise when the link failed, blocked by interference mechanisms on the ship. Finally Ned decided that whatever he was going to do, he needed to get away from here before he became pinned in. He stood up, trying to ignore his suit’s warning system and the weakness he felt in the middle of all this heat, and started forward.

  He had to make his way across shattered crystal and twisted metal, but eventually Ned reached a section of corridor that was mostly intact. He stopped at an intersection, trying to sense what might be approaching. Dren did not appear to be close, and Ned hoped that the Flame Master was still afraid of the Ice Plasma, unaware that Ned had used it all up. There was a faint movement somewhere to the right and below, which might have been the Vortak. Ned sensed nothing to the left, but when he looked at that direction he noticed something. The corridor ended some distance away in a solid metal wall. Ned started toward it, beginning to piece together what it might mean. The red crystal had reached all the way through the ship, even through the outer hull. If he had destroyed enough of it, that might have caused a breach or two nearby, and it would make sense that the ship would have emergency bulkheads to seal off corridors that were exposed to space. Ned was still not sure what advantage that might offer, but it seemed foolish not to at least investigate a potential exit point, especially one that would probably not be guarded.

  Ned’s scanner indicated that the bulkhead was fairly thick, but he planted some grenades and stepped back, pressing himself against the wall and activating his boots’ suction functionality in preparation for the strong wind he was expecting. It turned out to be a wise precaution; as soon as the grenades detonated, the air in the corridor rushed through the gap he had just blown, and the adhesion pads on his feet were the only thing that kept him from being blown along with it. The wind only lasted a moment, though, before another bulkhead quickly slammed down a bit farther up the corridor he had come from. When the remaining air had vented and he was sure everything was still again, Ned continued down the corridor.

  As soon as he climbed through the hole in the bulkhead, Ned started seeing evidence of the damage he had caused. Broken crystal started crunching underfoot, and holes in the walls and ceiling bore evidence of where the veins had penetrated the metal just a short time before. Ned was starting to wonder if the hull breach might just be caused by those relatively small holes when he came around a turn and the floor ended abruptly, exposing the deck below. He ran to the edge and saw that he had reached the outer hull; a gaping hole marked the spot where a crystal vein had once reached out, presumably to gather heat energy as the shields were struck. Ned’s mind reeled a bit at the perspective shift; he was used to looking at walls practically in front of his face, not a sparkling starfield billions of miles away.

  There was still no sign of pursuit, and Ned realized that they might not even know where he was. After all, he had not used his power since destroying the Plasma weapon, and in spite of their ability to cling to walls, all of the nearby Vortak seemed to have been blown out into space. Either that, or they had died in their attack on Ned. Either way, Ned was eager to make use of whatever advantage he might have at the moment, so he jumped down to the lower deck and made his way to the hole in the ship.

  The artificial gravity gave out as he stepped away from the corridor and into the broken metal shell, and Ned moved slowly, letting his boots grip the metal. Looking out, he saw that he was near the back of the ship’s forward weapons tower. None of the weapons he could see were firing, and he decided to believe that this meant that his friends were safe.

  Ned almost tried calling them, but he knew that doing so would pinpoint his location to any Vortak scanning for a signal. Instead, he peered down at the ship to see if there was anything interesting to learn. He could pick out other weapon platforms and what he assumed to be shield generators, along with the obvious warp drive section near the rear. The crystal was intact over most of the ship, but as he peered out through the opening he was standing in, Ned saw several other holes in the hull nearby. One of them was right in the middle of a missile launcher assembly. That looked interesting.

  Still expecting an attack at any moment, Ned stepped out with one foot, bracing himself with one hand as he bent his knee to let his boot attach to the outer hull, a full ninety-degree angle (or whatever that figured out to be in Anacronian numbers) to where he had been standing. He had been in space before, but standing on the outside of an enemy vessel got Ned’s heart pounding quickly. Afraid he might freeze up and change his mind, he began making his way across the hull toward the opening he had spotted. He hoped desperately that no one would think to look for him out here, or that the crew was too busy with repairs to look at all. He found that keeping his eyes down, toward the hull, helped him ignore the ridiculously dangerous position he was in, and finally he had reached the hole. He carefully attached one boot and then the other to the inner surface, and then he was back in the ship’s artificial gravity field.

  Ned let out a deep breath and looked around. There were a lot of obscure computer readouts showing a language Ned could not decipher, but the assembly to his left was recognizable enough. The hand grips and trigger buttons were built for thinner, sharper limbs, but Ned knew a missile targeting system when he saw it. He quickly took hold of the two handles and gave them a gentle pull. The view on the screen in front of him swiveled, and Ned smiled. It seemed almost funny how the most dangerous devices in the galaxy were also the easiest to use. Now it was just a matter of picking a target.

  This was only going to work for a short time, Ned knew. And because of the height of the tower he was in, Ned was not even sure that the missiles would be firing below the shield bubble; if not, he might not be able to do much damage even at this close range. But he was sure as Venom going to try. The warp drive was a clear target, but Ned preferred not to blow himself up along with the ship, so he targeted a shield generator midway across the ship instead. He squeezed the trigger, and the whole launch assembly gave a satisfying shudder as a projectile sped out of an aperture directly below him and slammed into the bulge in the hull ahead of him. Evidently the shields extended too far to protect the generator from the ship’s own weapons, because the missile erupted into a silent but blinding flash, scattering metal in all directions. Ned fired several more times, and soon a larger explosion tore a huge hole where the generator had been. Pale light flashed in the space around Dread Phoenix as the shields around that generator failed completely.

  Maybe it was just the adrenaline pumping through him, but Ned could not help but laugh. It was a short-lived feeling, though, because all of a sudden Ned became aware of several points of energy moving toward his position. It occurred to him that his was not the only missile launcher on this ship, and the Vortak now knew exactly where he was. He had to get out of there, but he still had nowhere to run, so instead he moved the targeting reticle up to the rear of the ship. He had to believe that it was possible to damage the drive section without causing a warp core breach, especially when firing from in front of the engines. It was worth a shot. Ned fired again. Again the hull erupted with explosions, but with each shot Ned was relieved to find that neither the damage he had caused nor any incoming weapons fire had managed to vaporize him.

  Suddenly everything in the room went dark, and Ned realized that the Vortak had cut power to his launcher. It was an effective way to stop his attack, but he wondered if maybe he had done more damage than he had realized by shattering the crystal veins in the ship’s core. Surely they would have taken him out by now if they could fire from any of the weapons arrays down there. In any case, the Vortak moving through the corridors were very near his position now, so Ned ran back to the opening in the hull, pondering the option of just ju
mping into space and hoping no one would notice him. But he stopped abruptly as something huge moved downward to block his view of the ship and the starfield beyond.

  Ned’s breath caught in his throat, but after the initial shock he realized that he was looking at the jet-like form of an Anacronian fighter. The storage compartment on its underside was open, and Ned did not need instructions; he jumped clear of the missile launcher assembly, grasping desperately for the small, empty space behind the fighter’s cockpit as he flew through the short gap of empty space. The compartment door began closing as soon as Ned was in, but he turned in time to see the image of Dread Phoenix distort and vanish. Ned realized with a mix of surprise and relief that whoever was piloting this fighter had jumped to hyperspace, leaving Dren’s ship and the threat of its weapons behind.

  Of course, at warp it would be impossible to dodge any incoming fire, so if Dread Phoenix managed to pursue them, it would probably take about ten seconds for the warship to destroy a single fighter.

  “Nedward. You survived.”

  Somehow, the Vortak in the cockpit ahead of him managed to convey as much surprise as Ned felt. “Just barely,” he replied. “Is everyone else okay?”

  “No,” Kjrvlnk replied simply. “They decided to try a hyperspace jump to Kirelis while under attack. We are headed there to join them, if they make it. It seems that Dread Phoenix is too damaged to follow us now, but there are two shuttles that have just begun pursuit. This fighter is in no condition to battle them.”

  “Can we contact Smardwurst?”

  “I just tried. There is no response.”

  Ned lay back in the cramped darkness and sighed, feeling weak and helpless. He was not sure what worried him more – what pursued him from behind or what he might find ahead. He suspected that neither would be very pleasant.