Ready for a relaxing Saturday read? Star Mage Saga book six, Flight From Sanctuary, goes live on Amazon in just over two weeks, but you can get a taste of what Carina Lin faces on the next stage of her journey in this week’s snippet.
Missed what happened in part one? Go here.
Chapter Two
Carina approached the Bathsheba’s bridge, on her way to discuss the approaching cloud of anomalous spacetime with Hsiao. It was a place she’d rarely been during her time on the ship. In the months before she’d entered Deep Sleep, she’d preferred to leave the day-to-day running of the ship to Cadwallader.
Passing through the entrance doors triggered detailed memories of the lieutenant colonel, and a wave of grief washed over her. She’d gotten so used to the man’s presence in her life, it was hard to believe she would never set eyes on him again.
In her early days as a merc, Cadwallader had been an object of fear to her. The man had been such a hard-ass, merciless taskmaster, one stern look from him was all that was required to instantly bring every soldier in the vicinity into line. But since she and the Black Dogs had become reacquainted, she’d glimpsed another side to him. She’d come to understand his love for the long-dead John Speidel, and, occasionally, gentleness and concern for her had broken through his adamantine facade.
She wished she’d gotten to know more of that side of him before he died. The requirements to maintain control of a bunch of aggressive misfits must have made his life a lonely one.
“I don’t think we’re in any trouble just yet,” said Hsiao, apparently reacting to Carina’s facial expression.
“I was thinking about something else,” she replied, sitting down at the navigator’s station. “Can you bring up a holo of what we’re facing?”
Hsiao spoke to the interface on her seat arm, the lights dimmed, and a holo appeared in the center of the bridge.
Carina recognized the Regians’ star system: four gas giants and the creatures’ own rocky planet in orbit around an M-type star. The cloud she’d first seen while aboard the Duchess, fleeing the Regians, floated within the system and extended deep into space. The Bathsheba’s computer represented the anomaly as a slowly shifting amorphous gray mass, through which the light of the Regian system’s star and planets shone fitfully.
As she watched, she could see the movement Hsiao had reported. A finger was reaching out, slow and lazy, though in fact it must have been moving extremely fast. She guessed that the same sort of event had probably caused the deaths of Lomang, Mezban, and several soldiers.
She said to Hsiao, “People died when that thing edged into our flight path, but I think that was because they were inside a moving ship. The cloud jumped them forward or backward in time a little bit, and when they re-entered normal time, the ship had moved away.”
Hsiao shrugged.
Carina continued, “What’s going to happen if the cloud hits us while the Bathsheba’s stationary? Maybe nothing at all.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said the pilot. “Is there any point in speculating? We should get out of the damned thing’s way. I would have moved the Bathsheba as soon as I saw the cloud approaching, except we aren’t in immediate danger and I didn’t like to do anything absent a direct order. Who’s in command now that Cadwallader and Atoi have passed? You?”
Carina grimaced at the proposal. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be responsible for everyone aboard. Responsibility for her family was enough for her for the time being. “I hadn’t thought about it. We’re all still settling down after our escape. But, about the anomaly, have you tried to find out our position?”
Hsiao also grimaced, in reply.
“Exactly,” said Carina. “This isn’t Geriel Sector. It isn’t any sector on the Bathsheba’s data base. We’re in uncharted space, right? How many more of these spacetime anomalies might be out there? What happens if we crash through another one while underway and all of us blink out of time synchronicity?”
The pilot shook her head. “I’m not sure your guess about what happened to Lomang and the others is correct. If the cloud timeshifted the people we lost, why didn’t it timeshift part of the creature we were flying inside, too? You can’t argue that it only affects living creatures because the ship was alive.”
“I thought about that. The starship comes from the same planet as the Regians, so it must have evolved their ability to move in time, too.”
“And it understood we couldn’t do that so it decided to help us out by evading the cloud?” Hsiao asked skeptically.
“It isn’t impossible,” replied Carina. “Do you have a different explanation?”
“No, but that doesn’t make yours correct. Anyway, this is all moot. If the Bathsheba stops too fast while traveling at even low speed we’ll all be messy puddles. Trying to slow to a full stop wouldn’t be wise if we do encounter another cloud. The best thing we can do if we encounter one is to alter our trajectory to go around it, if it’s possible to do it in time.”
“But you’re the only one who can fly the ship. I mean, I could try, but…”
Hsiao moved both of her hands over the flight controls protectively.
Carina lifted her lip at one corner. “Very funny. My point is, unless you plan on spending the rest of your natural days and then some flying the Bathsheba, you’ll have to go into stasis. And while you’re out of commission, who’s going to alter our flight path?”
“Some of the mercs have flying basics under their belts, you included.”
“But do you think I could navigate around a cloud like that without putting us all in jeopardy?”
“You’re right,” said Hsiao. “Depending on how far away we are when we spot a cloud, if we’re traveling at top speed, you might not have time to alter course to avoid it. I might find it hard myself.”
“And we must travel at top speed,” Carina said.
“But maybe you’re being too pessimistic,” the pilot went on. “Who’s to say we’re going to meet another one of those things? Let’s just deal with this one. Then we can worry about any others lying in wait.”
While they’d been talking the finger sprouting from the anomaly groped closer, a great puff of aberrant physical law pushing in their direction.
“It’s going to reach us in a few hours,” said Hsiao.
“Okay,” Carina said. “Do you want to do the honors?”
“Sure.” Hsiao focused on the flight controls. “Any particular direction you favor?”
“Away from here.”
“That’s nice and easy.” The pilot opened her controls and studied the screen. Then suddenly she bent closer toward it, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Son of a bitch!”
“What’s wrong?”
Hsiao turned to Carina, her eyes wide and disbelieving. “We’re out of fuel. We’ve got nothing, not a gram. We’re dead in space.”
Carina got up and strode to the pilot’s station. “How come?” She could understand it if they were low on fuel. The Regians had flown the colony ship awfully far. But it was too much of a coincidence that the ship had entirely run out at exactly the moment the aliens had arrived at their system. “Are you looking at the right gauge?”
“Of course I am,” Hsiao replied irritably.
“Then, I don’t get it.” Carina checked the readings herself, but the pilot was correct. Unless there was a gremlin in the Bathsheba’s system, the ship’s tanks were empty.
“I think I might,” said Hsiao. She brought up a different screen, displaying short-range scanner data.
“Bastards,” Carina murmured.
The scanners were picking up a large mass of deuterium-tritium. It could mean only one thing: at some point during the battle for the ship, the Regians had emptied the fuel tanks.
They’d understood more about starships than she’d given them credit for. Realizing they couldn’t win, the aliens had decided to strand their vanquishers.
“Maybe we aren’t totally screwed,” said Hsiao. “We still have the Peregrine. If the Regians didn’t also dump her fuel she could tow the Bathsheba. It’ll be slow going, but it’s better than nothing.”
“If they didn’t dump her fuel too,” Carina said. “Actually, that isn’t the biggest concern right now. What else is going on out there? Anything new happening on the Regian planet?”
Hsiao switched screens again. “Yeahhh…there is something. Wait a minute. I’ll feed this through to the holo.”
Carina straightened up to look at the 3D image of the planet.
At first, the surface only appeared marked by tiny specks. Like the light from the world, the specks flickered, shifting marginally in time due to the effect of the gray cloud.
“Uh oh,” said Hsiao. “I don’t like the look of them.”
Neither did Carina.
The specks grew larger, taking on a distinct shape: the gentle sloping dome of the living starships the Regians had enslaved.
It could mean only one thing: the aliens had evacuated the Bathsheba’s fuel tanks not out of pure spite but in order to give themselves time to launch a second attack on the ship.
“Shit,” said Hsiao. “What are we going to do?”
“Check the Peregrine’s tanks.”
“On it,” the pilot replied, rising from her seat.
“You can’t do it from here?”
“Nope. The techs could never marry the two systems. I’ll comm you when I know.”
As Hsiao left, Carina returned her attention to the holo. The creatures the Regians flew had grown a little larger, but it would still take them hours to reach the Bathsheba—enough time to evacuate everyone to the Peregrine and leave, if necessary.
However, she suspected Hsiao would discover the Regians weren’t so dumb as to leave the humans a ship to get away in. Also, the Bathsheba was essential to her plan to reach Earth. Without the colony ship, they would never do it. The best they could hope if they left on the Peregrine was to discover a habitable planet where no one wanted to kill them.
They should stand their ground and fight, but there were a hell of a lot of Regians on their way, and the aliens had defeated them before through sheer force of numbers.
Suddenly, Carina found herself missing Cadwallader more than ever.
What would the lieutenant colonel have done?
I hope you enjoyed this week’s snippet of Fight From Sanctuary. More next week!