Since he had run out of options, he was about to touch the navigation table when his ship’s display wall zoomed in on a bunch of strange silhouettes that were somewhere in front of him. Their bizarre, tubular shapes, full of irregular bumps and with huge eggs at one end, had nothing in common with Grammian ships. It was the Rigulian fleet! Gill felt his hearts bouncing madly. He only had to solve the little detail of contacting them with the Grammians on his tracks…
He decided to keep his direction. Would the Grammians have the guts to blast him right in front of the Rigulians? Somehow, he doubted it. After all, the reason why Baila didn’t excavate an ugly pit in the crust of the mining planet in place of Ropolis was that he wanted Gill’s bracelet “intact.” Perhaps it was going to work again, he thought, trying to stay positive, although he wasn’t particularly keen on testing the assumption on his very tail.
The three Grammian ships on his left approached menacingly. Then something happened in front of him: two ships detached from the Rigulian fleet. They’re coming to my aid!
His happiness didn’t last long, though, because they were Grammians, too. Now the gray ships surrounded him from three sides. Ugo was obviously right; the Grammians were part of the Federation—otherwise, how could their presence in the midst of the Rigulian fleet be explained? Perhaps even if he was going to meet the Rigulians, they would hand him over to Baila…
He realized that the Grammians weren’t firing at him, a pleasant surprise, but it was a good time to do something—anything—to avoid being boarded. Evasive maneuvers! Would his desperate wiggle fool anyone?
In his trips through the ship, he had eyed twenty small, unarmed rescue modules, easy to board from the bridge and just as easy to program. Maybe he could use one of them to slip to the Federals unnoticed. Of course, his enemies didn’t seem stupid, and until proven otherwise, he wouldn’t consider them as such. He’d run, but he’d run in style… However, he noticed right away the small crack in his plan—namely, setting up his Grammian ship as a decoy. There was no way to make it do some maneuvers while he was in the rescue module—even Ugo couldn’t find any trace of artificial intelligence on the ship.
The Grammian ships nearby approached cautiously, ready for boarding, when one of the small rescue vessels from Gill’s ship launched at maximum speed toward the Federal fleet. The move confounded them for a moment, but they quickly made up their minds: the three nearby continued their approach, while the two coming from the Federals slowed down to intercept the module.
Deep in the belly of his ship, Gill jumped inside the second rescue module and picked a destination on the cockpit display to activate the launch sequence. Then, a split second before the airlock closed for launch, he jumped out, helped by his bracelet.
The attackers were only moments from docking when the chaos started: four modules burst forth, one after another, toward the Federals.
The Grammian ships were now in trouble, unable to board all four modules, which quickly passed their position, totally oblivious to the threat. Lacking better options, the Grammians turned the ships and proceeded to follow them, applying surgical strikes to the engines to stop their acceleration.
The surprise might have ended there, if not for Gill’s ship starting a crazy bombardment with rescue modules launched in all directions.
Gill quickly launched all twenty modules, but he took pains to send the next-to-last one toward the Rigulian fleet at low speed and quickly launched himself in the last one, in the general direction of the three Grammian ships. From the perspective of the Grammians, seeing the modules coming into view from the other side of the ship, it appeared as if his module was actually the next-to-last one launched. What Grammians in their right mind would suspect him of being so mad as to fly directly into their claws?
The Grammians immediately understood the gravity of the problem: they only had seven ships, two of which were too far away to have even a theoretical chance of helping in any way, while there were twenty rescue modules. And without boarding them, they had no way of finding out if Gill was inside one of the modules or had stayed in the large ship.
The three ships passed Gill’s module, ignoring it altogether, as they did with the other modules sent in illogical directions, rushing to catch the ones going toward the Rigulians. Predictably, as Gill had expected, they blasted the engines of the one apparently launched last.
Finally, after they disabled all the modules going toward the Rigulians, the Grammians started to board them while two of their ships chased the other modules launched in random directions.
Gill waited, tense, afraid to make the slightest change in direction, convinced that it would arouse their attention. It was all but certain that one of the two Grammian ships would have fried his engines if the hunt hadn’t been interrupted in the rudest way possible by the suicidal jump of Gill’s ship toward the group of the three Grammian vessels closest to it.
One of them avoided the collision by clearing the way in the last split second, while the rest took a defensive stance. They weren’t attacked, though, because the troublesome ship changed its trajectory again, this time running in the opposite direction of the Rigulian fleet. It didn’t stay long on the new course; after a few moments, it made several chaotic tumbles and jumps so quickly that it was impossible to follow—let alone board!
All five ships abandoned the rescue modules, it now being obvious that they were nothing but a pathetic attempt to divert their attention.
Of course, the Grammians shouldn’t be blamed for being so predictable and doing what they had to do—what logic told them to do. The Grammians were soldiers, the kind of disciplined creatures trained to react according to the drills. Like any good soldier, they had the tendency to extrapolate the reality based on their training scenarios—and when they did that, their reaction came swiftly, naturally, without sophisticated thoughts and choices. Well, nothing was more damaging to such a way of thinking than treading a path of reality that was very familiar at first glance but held “surprises” that were completely out of place.
Their assumptions helped the Grammians to make monumental mistakes, like the decision to follow the ship. Before launching the rescue modules, Gill had ordered several hot bozal cakes and crammed them into the gloves of the Grammian suits anchored to the floor around the navigation table. As soon as the balls melted the bozal pulp, they landed on the tactile surface of the navigation table, triggering the chaos.
It took some time before the jumpy ship stabilized its path in one direction, moving away from Gill and the Federal fleet. His spikes wrinkled in tension, Gill dared to make a slight change in his destination. Seeing that they still ignored him, he made another small change and another one, until the new trajectory was leading straight to the Federal fleet.
The Grammians didn’t notice him—they were too busy gathering around his previous ship, which now floated aimlessly, its engines and shields blasted to pieces. They stuck several thick, flexible tubes on its fuselage. A small army of invisible soldiers floated through the tubes to cut the fuselage. They had no idea what kind of monster they were fighting, but obviously, Baila had prepared them better than their unfortunate brethren from the ship they were now boarding.
Taking note of the approaching rescue module piloted by Gill, one of the Rigulian ships came out of formation, crossing his path. It didn’t seem to have hostile intentions, so Gill maneuvered along its slick fuselage until he found an irregular opening. He managed to steer the module inside without causing major damage.
After coming to a stop, he left the capsule. In front of him was a large, green, naked, slimy creature propped up in a mud-filled vat. He had reached the Federals!