At the end of passageway was a double secure door. Not knowing if the bridge crew had been alerted or not, Adam’s team slowed and took up flanking positions. Then Adam fingered the controls to the door and it slid open…
Sitting at the controls, with their feet up on the consoles, were three aliens, not Juireans, and they were completely taken by surprise as the Humans swarmed into the room. Adam’s men literally threw the aliens out of their chairs and toward the rear of the bridge. Others took up guarding positions over the aliens.
Kaylor finally arrived on the bridge. “Can you fly this one, too?” Adam asked him.
Kaylor moved up to the controls and considered them for a moment. “This is a Class 5 starship. It’s a complicated monster.”
“Yeah, but can you fly it?”
Kaylor studied the controls once again, and then looked at Adam. “Of course I can.”
Adam patted him on the back. “Good. Turn her away from the planet on chemical drive. Small bursts, nothing to attract attention.”
Sherri moved next to Adam. “The Juireans are going to notice if we attempt to bolt out.”
“I know,” Adam said. “That’s why I want you stay here with Kaylor and listen in on the comm. Kaylor, be ready to punch it when I say so.”
“Punch what?”
“Never mind.” Adam looked straight at Sherri and smiled. “Keep an eye on him. He means well.”
Adam left the bridge and returned to the landing bay just as Riyad was returning from the generator room. “Doesn’t seem to be very many people home. Guess they’re all down on the planet licking their wounds.”
“Good, come with me.”
Adam lead Riyad and his men into the landing bay. “Try to find anything that will explode.”
Riyad recoiled from the statement. “Explode?”
“Yeah, I need something that will blow up the Cassie 1, and in about ten minutes.”
Riyad looked at Adam as if he’d gone insane. Adam noticed the look. “We need a diversion to get this ship into a well.”
Riyad nodded and began to survey the landing bay. Soon he found barrels that he recognized as propellant for the chemical drives. He called Adam over.
“Great. Let’s get five of these aboard. I also found a repeating bolt launcher.”
In a few minutes, the super-strong Humans had hefted five barrels of chemical into the stateroom aboard the shuttle. Then they set up the bolt launcher aimed at the nearest barrel. Riyad placed a datapad on the launcher and set the timer for ten minutes.
While this was going on, Adam quickly packed a duffle bag of his ‘Human’ clothes, and then went to the pilothouse to program an auto-course for the shuttle.
They left the ship and ran for the airlock. Once cycled through, they watched as the Cassie 1 backed out of the bay with small jets of air. Then the sleek shuttle spun about and streaked off on her last journey.
Adam ordered the other men to begin a systematic search of the ship for aliens, and then he and Riyad set off for the bridge, Adam holding his bleeding side as he went. Riyad had to help him up the last flight of stairs.
“Get ready!” Adam said as he entered the bridge.
Chapter Thirty
Overlord Yan’wal, Commander Siegor and Giodol all stood on the massive bridge of the UN-444. Yan’wal was furious. Siegor had just delivered the latest casualty report from the surface.
“Eighty percent of the Guards have been killed. How can this be? Who are these creatures?”
“Our superior numbers were negated by the confined space we had to fight in. And the Human targeting was especially effective,” Siegor said. He knew this was the end of his career. Even though both of the recent battles with the Humans had resulted in victories, the losses were way beyond anyone’s imagination. Juirean life was far too valuable to be lost in such numbers, and for so little gain. This time, however, the bodies of three Klin had been found, yet that hardly justified the price they had to pay. Yes, the Klin were present, but not in any great numbers.
“Have you heard from your agent?” Yan’wal asked Giodol.
He was about to answer when a technician interrupted. “My Lords, there is a shuttle cutting across our forward position. The transponder is registered as belonging to Counselor Deslor.”
“Deslor?” The three senior Juireans turned to the main screen and saw the tiny speck streak across their view, with the planet Zylim-4 far below.
Just then the point at the end of the streak exploded in a fiery ball of chemical blue and green. “Was it fired upon?” asked Siegor of the technician.
“No, My Lord. None of the ships fired.” Then he looked closer at his screen.
“What is it?” Siegor asked.
“One of the battlecruisers just activated a well.”
The Juireans moved quickly to stand behind the tech. “Which ship?” Yan’wal asked.
“It was last in the line. And it’s gone now.”
“Call the ship, immediately!” Siegor commanded.
After a few attempts, the tech turned to the assembled Juireans. “They are not answering.”
Yan’wal gritted his teeth. “Track their gravity wave. Siegor, send three ship after them. It must be the Humans.”
Chapter Thirty-One
A half hour later, Adam had Kaylor dissolve the well and initiate a ninety-degree turn to port. They proceeded on chemical drive for another five minutes before Adam commanded the ship to go dark, including internal gravity.
As they waited in the dim emergency lighting, holding onto whatever they could to keep themselves from drifting around the compartment, Kaylor noticed an approaching gravity wave. Class Fives were fast and powerful vessels. They disturbed the space around them for hundreds of kilometers. Then the wave streaked by. In fact, all they really knew was that a gravity wave appeared, and then began to quickly dissipate.
After another half hour, Adam had Kaylor initiate another well, and they bolted off. They repeated the maneuver three more times before Adam began to feel confident they weren’t being tracked.
“What now, boss?” Sherri asked after most of the Humans had left the bridge to find sleeping accommodations, the galley or the head.
“I need to see Jym, in private. Keep Riyad occupied.”
Sherri lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you later if anything promising comes out of this.”
Jym met Adam on the bridge. After he entered, Adam shut the door and pressed the security lock. Jym looked at him nervously.
“Relax, buddy. I just need you to plot a location for me.”
“For Earth?” Jym exclaimed, suddenly excited.
“I don’t know. It could be of any place. And I only have a partial.”
Jym sat down at the massive navigation console, marveling at its sophistication. “Can you operate this?” Adam asked.
“Sure. This is all wonderful stuff.” For the first Adam could remember, Jym smiled.
Adam gave him the coordinates. “You know this doesn’t help much?” Jym said.
He was right. All coordinates for locations in the galaxy consisted of four points. The first was the distance from Juir. The next was from the galactic core. These two sweeping arcs would intersect at certain points depending on which direction one was looking. Since Adam was hoping the coordinates were for the Far Arm, he had Jym plot them out in that direction.
The next part of the coordinates was the direction. This was mainly determined by which section, out of 92, that the destination was in. Adam knew that the last digit was “1.” The Far Arm took up twenty-four sectors, ranging from 12 to 48. That would leave three sectors ending in “1.” As Jym plotted the possibilities, Adam’s heart began to race. A cross section of the Far Arm was materializing. These distances and sectors were definitely in the Far Arm.