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  Evolve

  Lost Fagaran Ship, Volume 4

  Edward Antrobus

  Published by SEAM Publishing, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  EVOLVE

  First edition. June 23, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Edward Antrobus.

  Written by Edward Antrobus.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  I

  Jim dropped pieces of the spacesuit on the floor as he stormed across the ship to the bridge. “Where’s Krazirk?”

  Bobby shook his head while simultaneously trying to shrink into his seat. “He’s gone, Jim. He booked out of here as soon as the smelter blew. We were too occupied with trying to save you to track his jump.”

  “Captain?” Fike straightened in his seat but kept his gaze glued to his feet. “We are being hailed by Fagare High Command. And, uh, they don’t sound happy.”

  “Put them up on the screen.”

  “Don’t you dare.” Brua stepped onto the bridge. She had taken the time to properly remove her suit, while Jim’s still stood in the bottom half of his shell.

  Fike looked from Jim to his mother and back. “I’m sorry, Mother, but you don’t have any authority to give orders on this ship.” He reached towards his console, but the Brua grabbed his hand.

  “Hold on, Fike.” Jim squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to quiet voices only he could hear. “Brua, why don’t you want him to connect that call?”

  She let go of Fike’s hand. He flexed his fingers before dropping the hand into his lap. His arm rose an inch before settling back down again. He repeated the motion twice, before settling down and resigning himself to the idea that his mother was apparently in charge.

  “They are going to order you back to stand trial for desertion and destruction of the Twelfth Fleet.”

  “But the two have nothing to do with each other,” Bobby shouted nearly rising from his chair before the seat’s material pulled him back. “If we had stayed, we would’ve been destroyed in the surprise attack along with everyone else.”

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. They’re going to want someone to blame. And you’re convenient.”

  “Well, we need to do something,” Fike said, pointing at his screen. “The hails are getting persistent. “Procedure, if they don’t get a response, is to send a ship to investigate. The Commander has probably sent an entire fleet already, considering the defeat we had. If we don't respond, they will assume we have been compromised. It will be a shoot-first-ask-questions-later kind of situation.”

  “Melissa, plot a course home,” Jim ordered. “I want to be ready to make a quick getaway if we have to. Fike, go ahead and put them on screen now.” Krazirk, Jenkins, Kahl. It felt like the majority of the people in this galaxy had a beef with him.

  Kahl’s face glowered larger-than-life on the viewscreen. “I knew you weren’t fit to be a part of my fleet. But this is beyond the pale. Billions of hours of production time, not to mention hundreds killed, because you couldn’t follow a simple command.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Jim said. “If Cheq wasn’t such an old fool, a single pirate ship wouldn’t have taken out an entire fleet in minutes.”

  “You will respect your superiors,” Kahl thundered. Jim half expected storm clouds to appear behind the image.

  “Well maybe we would,” Jim countered, “if there was anyone around here that was actually better than us. I’ll get your Ensign back to you, but I’m not participating in your kangaroo court. You never actually wanted our help. So, you can just forget we ever existed.”

  The corners of Kahl’s mouth curled into a frown. “While I want nothing more than to be done with you, that ship is Fagare property, and we will have it back. The Interceptor is en route as we speak.”

  “Well, there will just be empty space when they get here.” Jim turned his head Fike’s direction. “End transmission.”

  "Seven warp bubbles collapsing near the outer rim of the asteroid belt," Melissa said.

  "They aren't messing around, are they?” Jim watched the viewscreen as multiple spherical distortions grew in size. “Bobby, how fast can you get us out of here?" He didn't want to wait around until they reached the size necessary for a Fagaran warship to enter.

  "Computer hasn't finished working out the coordinates," Bobby said.

  "We'll get us out of here,” Jim commanded.

  "The computer will have to rework everything if we move,” Bobby explained, “We just –"

  "Just do it!" Jim shouted.

  Bobby grabbed the holographic controls and punched it. The Resolve lurched as they shot through the asteroid belt away from the oncoming ships.

  "We need to get away from sources of gravity,” Brua said. “It takes ages longer to compute the warp trajectory when you're near a mass. And that's if your computer will even let you.”

  "This ship has let us do stuff much stupider than that." Chris chuckled. He scanned the sky around them, looking for anything to engage. But they were well out of range of the Fagaran fleet, which was just starting to reenter real space in the system.

  Jim snapped his fingers. "How close can you get us to the sun?"

  Everyone looked at him. "You want to get closer to a huge mass?" Brua shook her head. "Were you not listening to what I just said?"

  "That's basically how we shook off that smart missile," Bobby said.

  "You told me you outsmarted that smart missile." Fike's eyes widened. "That doesn't sound smart to me."

  Bobby ignored the statement. "Jim, I assume you want the far side of the star to be out of visual range?"

  "Yeah. How soon can you make that happen?"

  Bobby's hands flew through his controls. "As soon as I hit this." He pointed at the world control on his console.

  “Incoming message from the Interceptor.” Fike said.

  “Open the channel one way,” Jim said. “But don’t acknowledge. Bobby, make it so."

  Kahl’s voice echoed over the ship’s intercom. “Crew of the Resolve. You are under arrest for mutiny and destruction of the Twelfth Fleet. Stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

  Bobby's hand slapped against the activator switch, but nothing happened. He hit it again with the same result. His lips curled into a frown. "I don't know what's wrong."

  Chris snorted. "You revoked his ability to do anything stupid, remember?"

  "See!" Fike said.

  “Resolve,” Kahl repeated. “Acknowledge and stand down.”

  "Resolve,” Jim said, “let Bobby make the jump.” After all this time, Jim still couldn't break the habit of looking up at the ceiling when he spoke to the ship.

  “Resolve.” Kahl started getting angry. “Ack—”

  Bobby tried the controls once again, and the ship shuddered. A groaning sound rolled through its internal systems.

  “Where did they go?” Kahl shouted at someone on the Interceptor, apparently not realizing that he was still broadcasting.

  “They—they just warped into the star,” came the response, fainter from someone further away from the captain’s microphone.

  “Scan for wreckage,” Kahl commanded. “Let’s make sure this isn’t another one of their tricks.”

  "Status report," Jim barked.

  Melissa grimaced at her screen. "We've got damage to the port engine and thrusters two, three, and seven. If we stress that engine, it's likely to come off."

  "Again. Crap. Okay.” Jim said. “Bobby?"

  "We're half the distance of Mercury from
this sun," the pilot reported.

  "We can’t stay here for long." Brua leaned over Melissa's shoulder. “Your ship isn't designed for the heat and radiation of being this close. We'll fry."

  Jim bit his lower lip, tasting blood. "Bobby, takes us out on thrusters until we're far enough away to do another jump. Melissa, do a scan as far outside of this system as you can. I want a spot we can manually warp to that's far enough from this star that the computer will be able to calculate a warp trajectory back home without taking forever. Chris, monitor the coms for Fike. Don't engage. Not with weapons, not with comms. Not unless they find us and we come under fire. Brua and Fike, I'd like a private word with you."

  Fike looked towards the door and back to the console in front of him.

  Jim noticed the hesitation. "Consider it an order, son."

  Fike's lips turned into a frown. He gave Jim a stiff salute. "Just transferring the coms to Chris. Sir."

  Brua followed Jim out to the hallway. "I don't think he liked you calling him 'son.’"

  Jim gave her an awkward smile. "I didn't mean it that way. It's an Earth, expression."

  "We use it too,” Brua said. “But, just be gentle with him. It's got to be awkward to be under the command of your mom's boyfriend."

  "I'll take that under advisement."

  Fike joined them in the hallway. "You wanted to see me, Captain." He spit the words out like an insult.

  Jim looked around the space. He hadn't paid it much attention since they had undergone repairs at the Fagaran space station. The damage from the ancient plasma blast that had killed his ancestor's wife had been scrubbed away. But the implanted memories still intruded into his own consciousness from time to time, and part of him couldn't shake the feeling that his relationship with Brua was somehow betraying Chemogg's memory. The thought was stronger than even his concern regarding his love for Melissa's mother.

  It was ridiculous, of course. Even Jun had eventually remarried, or else Jim wouldn’t be here today. But the thought weighed heavily on him as he tried to figure out how to deal with Fike’s curtness.

  "First of all,” Jim said, “I understand you're in a tough position here. It’s not easy for me, either. But I expect respect on the bridge. Feel free to disagree with me all you want. I value your fleet experience. But I expect better behavior from you."

  "So do I," Brua added.

  Fike wilted under the rebuke before straightening. "Understood. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

  Jim clapped him on the back. "It probably will. And that's okay. Just as long as you’re trying. But I need to talk to you about the future."

  "You're not marrying my mother, are you?" Fike blurted. He covered his moth with his hand. "Uh, not that I have a problem with that."

  Brua burst out laughing. "It's a little early for that discussion."

  Jim smiled at her, his expression earnest. "At the very least, we have to survive the next hour first. Kahl isn't going to just let us go. We'll be on the run. If you come with us, you will be to."

  "I've been flying a cruiser for eighty years,” Brua said, looking thoughtful. “Maybe it's time I settled down somewhere.” Then she smiled back at Jim, a twinkle in her eye. “Who am I kidding? I feel young again when I'm with you. I'd follow you pretty much anywhere in the galaxy."

  "Well, somebody has to make sure you treat my mother right." Fike grinned. "Captain, your methods are unconventional, and you've angered the entire fleet with them, but you get the job done. I'll see this through."

  Jim exhaled, a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. "That's good to hear."

  "Jim," Chris's voice echoed through the open door. "I think you better get back in here."

  They returned to the bridge, and Chris pointed at the screen. Seven blue dots, representing the Interceptor and the six warships that comprised its escort, streaked across the representation of the Courcare system. The ships shot through on a parabolic arc that would reach the Resolve within twenty minutes.

  "The mass of the sun will keep us protected for a while,” Chris said. “But as soon as they reach this side, they will be in firing range. I can maybe take one, but not all seven. We got any more plucky ideas that they won’t see coming?"

  "Just the one we're already working on," Jim said." Bobby, how we looking on that?"

  "The computer doesn't like the idea of forming a warp bubble this close to a star. I've got to do half of this manually. I know all the math, thanks to what happened on the moon base. But that doesn't mean I actually understand all of it."

  "Well, you’ve got fifteen minutes,” Jim said. “The longer we’ve been gone when they arrive, the less chance they'll be able to track us."

  "Maybe I can help," Brua said. "Give me a chair."

  Jim nodded. "Once you have a solution, don't even wait. Just get us out of here." Jim made his way to the elevator. "Resolve, we have any extra chairs in storage somewhere?" A map on the elevator’s display panel lit up, marking the route to where the spare stools for the galley were stored. Jim sighed. The entirety of the ship lie between him and his quarry. It would take him most of the time they had left to get there and back.

  Jim waded through the cramped aisle in the storage hold. Of course, the stools had to be all the way in the back. Supplies of things that Jim couldn't even identify were stacked in uneven piles all around him. The fact that few of them had fallen over was a testament to the ship’s inertial dampeners. He climbed over the few odds and ends scattered on the floor. Obviously, they’d pushed the ship passed its capabilities more than once.

  Without warning, the ship went sideways. Boxes of the lightweight material that made up their uniforms fell on top of Jim. In the distance, the klaxon warbled its alarm. Finally, Jim had found the one place on the ship that his eardrums were safe from that blasted emergency signal.

  "Resolve, patch me through to the bridge," Jim said, but nothing happened. Then he remembered the ship’s annoying habit of ignoring all requests it could not fill. He dug himself out from under the boxes and made his way towards the door. At the entrance to the storage hold, he paused. He went back—wading through the now much-more-jumbled contents of the room—and retrieved the stool he had come for. It would probably just become another projectile in the next emergency, but at least Brua would have somewhere to sit.

  "What just happened?" Jim said once he was back on the bridge.

  "We jumped into a micro meteor." Melissa's face was several shades paler than normal, and her knuckles were leaving grip-marks in the fluid-like chair plastic. "It was too small to pick up on the scanners at that range. It caught the very edge of our bubble."

  Jim put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "Then we were lucky. If we had landed on it, we would've blown apart the ship."

  "And half the system," Chris added.

  "I suppose the Interceptor saw it."

  Chris nodded. "Pretty hard to miss. Hell, the Earth saw it. At least they will in a couple hundred years when the light reaches them."

  "What’s our status?" Jim asked.

  "The port engine is gone." Melissa said.

  "Can we still jump?" Jim asked. If they couldn't form a warp bubble around the ship, chances of escape just went into negative territory.

  Bobby bit his lip. "I've been running the numbers, and maybe. The starboard engine should be able to do the job, if we feed it more power. But the bubble will be tight, and it'll be a bumpy ride coming out of it."

  He turned to Brua. "What are your thoughts?"

  She shook her head. "When I was training to become a pilot, we were told to stay put if we had any engine damage at all and wait for somebody to respond to the distress beacon. Fike might have some insight on military methods."

  "Standard procedure is to do the same,” Fike said. “Now I don't want to encourage you guys to do anything crazy, but that kind of seems like it's your brand. What you're talking about, it has been done before. As soon as we hit real space, we will have to get clear of the c
ollapsing bubble fast. If we get caught in it as it evaporates, part of the ship will be in real space, but the other part won't. I don't think I need to explain how bad that would be."

  Jim scratched the scruff that had accumulated on his chin since this adventure began. "Okay, Brua, you help Melissa get us a solution to warp us back to Earth. Bobby, rig us up for remote control of the ship. I want us in the shuttle when we make the jump in case something goes wrong."

  Jim checked the display for what seemed like the millionth time. At least, that's what Melissa claimed when she shoo’ed him out of the way. "Dad, you're really not helping."

  "I need to do something," he said.

  "You want us in the shuttle in case something goes sideways." Chris looked up from his own console where he was closely following the Interceptor’s progress. "Maybe you can put our stuff in there. I picked up some, well let's just say, 'specialty' items on Fagare Prime. Cost me a lot of credits. Hate to lose ‘em."

  "Fine," Jim said, reluctantly. It wasn’t the worst idea, but he hated to leave the bridge when so much was at stake. Luckily, all of Chris's belongings were already packed and ready to go, so Jim didn't have to discover what these 'specialty' items were and decide whether or not he needed to have a conversation with his ship’s weapons expert.

  Whatever they were, they were heavy. He shoved the container into a niche in the storage hold of the shuttle and made sure it was secure. He really didn't want to break his ankle again.

  “We're all set," Brua's voice called out over the intercom. "We'll meet you in the shuttle in five."

  "And how close is the Interceptor?" Jim asked.

  Chris's voice replaced Brua's. ”They'll be in range in six."

  "That's cutting it pretty close. Everybody drop whatever you're doing that isn't a hundred percent necessary and get down here." Jim strapped himself into the seat in the middle of the shuttle's bridge. It wasn't decorated or stylized in any way to show that it was the captain's seat, but it seemed like the most obvious spot. At the very least, it was the one spot that didn't have a console directly in front of it but could reach any of them in a pinch.