Chapter 9
Shuttle
Kyber burst from the conference room, taking the guard waiting outside by surprise. Jabbing his elbow into the man’s face, he snatched the Seneecian’s weapon from his belt and began running down the corridor, toward the lifepod bay. He only had a short time to make it there before Duruk hit the alert—
A high-pitched blare filled the ship. Kyber continued running through the ship, bypassing confused warriors who had paused to listen to the explanation for the alert that would immediately follow. He paused momentarily at a juncture, glancing both ways. There was the remote possibility they hadn’t been taken where he suspected. Knowing his brother, there was another way the man used to be rid of—
A familiar, beloved scent hovered in the air.
He sniffed again, and his body tensed with recognition.
Kelen.
If he hadn’t stopped, he would have missed it.
He took another step toward the lifepod bay, and her scent was stronger. Barely detectible, but stronger. He took off, following it.
He was almost to the bay when Duruk’s voice came over the intercom. “D’har Kyber is the enemy of Seneecia! Stop him at all costs! Stop D’har Kyber!”
As Kyber neared the end of the corridor, he couldn’t help but inwardly smile in amusement. Less than a handful of these warriors knew who he was. Add to that, the chevron emblazoned on his skin still noted him as being a Por D’har. One glance at his emblem, and the majority of the crew would dismiss him. He prayed those precious few seconds gained because of it would be enough.
The bay door slid open a split-second before he entered the large room. His brain took in the scenario before him as he raised the blaster to take out the four guards preparing and placing Kelen and the rest into individual lifepods. Several called out his name, but this was not the time for a welcome ceremony.
After removing the controls from one unconscious guard, he freed them from their shackles. “Get everyone out of those pods! Now!” Not waiting to watch them help those who had already been placed inside the single unit containers, Kyber raced back to the door and slammed down the inner locking mechanism. On every ship there were two such locks—at the lifepod bay and at the shuttle docking bay. Since both bays opened directly into space, the locks were a safety measure, meant to prevent the ship from decompressing and imploding.
He turned around to see everyone waiting for him. His eyes locked onto Kelen’s, and the need to pull her into his arms was almost overwhelming. Steeling himself, he strode over to where they were gathered.
“Is everyone all right?”
“We’re fine,” Cooter assured him. The man had taken possession of one of guards’ blasters. Fullgrath, Kleesod, and Massapa had the others.
“What’s happening, Kyber?” Sandow asked tightly.
Kyber shook his head. “I don’t have time to explain. We have to get out of here. Now. Before they manage to get the ship to unlock the bay.”
“Is the ship under siege?” Mellori questioned.
Kyber threw him a wry smile. “Yes. I’m the siege.”
“But they were evacuating us,” Jules informed him.
“Yes. They were going to jettison you out into space to die.”
His remark left them momentarily stunned, and they didn’t have time for that.
“We need to get out of this bay now!” he repeated with a growl.
“How? And go where?” Massapa questioned.
Kyber glanced around the bay as he tried to recollect the schematics for the ship. It was Gaveer who reminded him of what he was trying to recall.
“The access tubes!”
“Yes! Hurry!”
The Seneecian led them to the farthest end of the bay and dropped to his knees to begin undoing the plating in the floor. Kleesod joined him, quickly removing the panel to reveal a square-shaped tunnel. “Go to the shuttle bay,” Kyber tersely ordered.
Gaveer nodded and dropped into it head-first. Kyber shoved Kelen toward the opening. “Go!” he urged her. She entered without comment.
As Kleesod helped the rest of the Terrans into the tube, Massapa directed his attention to the opposite side of the bay. “Want to slow them down for good?” The Seneecian didn’t question Kyber’s actions. The man had already figured out how close they’d come to death.
Kyber glanced over at where the man was pointing. It was the panel where the lifepods were monitored as they were being loaded. He gave the man a nod. “Do what you can.”
Massapa grinned and took off as Fullgrath went down into the tube, leaving Kyber and Massapa as the last to join them.
“Where’s this thing taking us?” the former weapons master demanded to know.
“It interconnects with the shuttle bay,” Kyber informed him.
“Wait! We’re heading for the shuttle bay?” Mellori’s voice drifted back to them.
“We have to get off this ship as soon as possible,” Kyber told them.
They hurried on hands and knees through the dimly lit, squarish corridor. At one point, Fullgrath sarcastically remarked, “Does anyone else find it ironic that we’re back to crawling through more itty bitty-ass tunnels again to reach a bigger room?” No one answered him, but there were a few chuckles.
Word came down the line when they reached the shuttle bay. Kyber sent an order up to Gaveer to lock down the shuttle bay, and for Kleesod to ready the first shuttle he could reach that was large enough to accommodate them all. By the time he and Massapa emerged from the access tube, the others had already boarded one of the crafts and were waiting for them. Kyber and Massapa rushed inside. Kleesod sealed the door the behind them.
“Interior bay entrance is locked,” the Seneecian stated.
Kyber took the middle seat, noting that both the pilot and navigation chairs remained empty. As neither Massapa, Kleesod, nor Gaveer were bridge certified, he whirled around to where the Terrans were strapping themselves into seats.
“Kelen, Jules, I need you to take the helm, please.”
The two showed surprise at the request, but hurried to the front to take their seats.
“Oh, cool. I’ve always wanted to drive a pressure point,” Kelen remarked, sliding her hands into the two depressions on the console in front of her.
“Be careful. It is very sensitive,” he warned her a second before the ship unexpectedly lurched forward, taking them by surprise.
Kelen gave an embarrassed laugh. “So it seems.”
Kyber hit the button to begin opening the outer doors. Lights started flashing as a warning siren gave notice of immediate decompression. “We have to hurry. Kelen, take us out of here the second that opening’s wide enough.”
“Affirmative, D’har,” she crisply responded.
Jules held out his hands in exasperation. “I can’t read Seneecian. How am I supposed to navigate?”
Undoing his harness, Gaveer moved up to the console and pointed out the three basic features the navigator needed. “Input, distance, duration. In most cases, we use the same names for destination points as Terrans do. A majurr is our spacial mile, equivalent to approximately four point three of your kilometers. A babvar is equivalent to your parsec. And a hunta is one of your hours, give or take.” The Seneecian flashed him a brief smile. “You do the math, bright boy.”
Jules took a deep breath. “Ooookay. Where to, Kyber?”
“Try to discover where we are, In the meantime, Kelen, when you can, take us out four hundred meters, then turn this vehicle around to face the ship.”
This ship’s warning suddenly changed to a wail. The doors slowed, stopped…then began to close.
“They’re onto us!” Cooter cried out. “We’re not going to make it!”
“Not if I can help it. Hold on! This is going to be tricky!” Kelen squared her shoulders and focused on the narrowing opening.
Kyber felt the craft lifting, and the view outside the viewscreen changed as she rotated the shuttle vertically. Gradually the transport moved sideways, gaining speed as she tried to squeeze it between the tall doors.
Kyber barely had time to hold his breath when they slipped past the bay doors and out into space. By the time she righted the shuttle and turned it to where they were following the Seneecian ship on a parallel course, the bay doors had closed.
“They still have to re-pressurize the bay,” he called out. “Kleesod, take out those outer hatches!”
“Yes, D’har!” the man almost responded gleefully, and hurried over to the navigation board to take control of the weapons.
The shuttle vibrated as two warheads were fired from the belly of the craft. Everyone stared at the twin beams of light arching forward, striking the bay’s outer doors. There was a miniscule flash of light as that section of the hull evaporated, leaving a yawning gap. From where they were, they could see some of the shuttles within the ship had been damaged, but for the moment there was no way Duruk or his men could come after them. Not unless he used the massive warship itself to give chase, which Kyber believed the man would.
“Jules, any idea where we are?”
The navigator dragged his attention back to his readouts. “As far as I can tell, somewhere near the Bak Dur Bak system.”
Another faint memory nudged his brain. “Is there not a Terran defensive outpost in that system?”
“Uhh, yeah! Yeah, I think there is, although we’ve never been this far deep. Hold on.” The man’s fingers flew over the board. “Got it! Shit, I wish I knew how to punch in the coordinates.”
“Just give them to me,” Kelen tightly ordered. “I’ll wing it…somehow.”
Kyber turned to Kelen. “Set course for that outpost with all haste. His shuttles may be out of service, but I would not be surprised if Duruk tried to come after us with his ship.”
“You got it!”
“By the way, my one, nice trick with the vertical move.”
Although he couldn’t see her smile, he knew one was spreading over those beautiful, full lips as she took the shuttle out of that sector of space and away from the Seneecian warship.