A Secret Quest, Page 7

  It was difficult for the Galutians to counter the separate attacks. They were forced to duck down behind hastily-erected barriers in order to avoid being vaporized by Hastings' men. It wasn't until nearly all of the soldiers had moved positions and they were able to shuffle the princess that much closer to Dash's vessel, that the raiders were able to make an adjustment. But the adjustment they made showed a true understanding of tactics.

  Without any commands or audible orders given, the raiders began to slowly creep farther apart from one another. While such a move did weaken the center of their line, it also helped fan out their range of attack, which was infinitely more valuable in the present situation. No longer were they concentrated in a central ball. Now they were spread out and more resistant to the soldiers attempts at attacking from different angles.

  In a flash, the tide of the fight had turned in the raiders' favor. The Alpheenians were forced to stay crouched behind whatever protection they could find. Hastings knew that each shot either side squeezed off burned more and more precious oxygen. There couldn't be more than just a few minutes of breathable atmosphere left. He actually started to believe they might not make it out of there in one piece.

  The colonel glanced over in the direction of Dash's ship. It looked like the young man was up to something. He had pulled a small crate out from somewhere inside his vessel and was opening it. From the crate, Dash pulled a rather large and nasty looking pistol. From the look of the thing, it had been modified heavily. It was probably the only means Dash and his father had of defending themselves. The young man grasped the weapon in his hand and slowly aimed it at one of the raiders.

  “Oh, no. Don't...” Hastings thought to himself. But before he could say anything, Dash's finger squeezed the trigger and blistering orbs of energy were flung from the weapon.

  Unfortunately, Dash's marksmanship was rather poor and he missed his intended target by a rather wide margin. In return, two of the raiders on the end swung their weapons around and launched their fury at the young man. Dash was barely able to leap from harm as several bolts of raw power exploded around the port's opening.

  “Get back, you idiot!” Hastings shouted. He was hoping Dash would now clearly see the error he made. It was never wise to draw unwanted attention to your only means of escape. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”

  All of her life, Dyamatti was told to let those around her do the heavy lifting. It was their job to protect her, not the other way around. All it took was one well-placed shot and that would be it. Most of the time this philosophy worked with little trouble, but sometimes the princess would question her father's advice. It seemed to her that when things got most precarious, it was she alone that could affect the outcome and save everyone involved. But there had never been an instance such as this before. Her men, although giving a valiant effort, held no chance of success. She would just have to deal with King Laurentis' lecture when she returned home.

  “Enough!” Dyamatti barked. “This ends now!”

  Both Tyra and the colonel instantly knew the princess' intentions. But before either of them could offer an objection, she cast a harsh scowl to inform both of them that she was not to be silenced this time.

  From deep inside, Dyamatti gathered her power. Her eyes glowed with the essence of the energy that flowed through her body. A faint ripple began to form in the air around her. The light began to shimmer as the force of her power resonated into the air. Unlike past encounters, this time she wasn't holding back. She was going to unleash the full force of her strength. Tyra could see this in the princess' focused gaze. He almost pitied the raiders for what was about to come.

  With nothing more than a thought, Dyamatti surrounded herself with a field of raw energy and rose to her feet. First one of the raiders shots impacted uselessly against the impenetrable aura. Then another shot. Within seconds, all of the raiders had trained their weapons on the princess and fired one round after the other at her. Each blast only served to anger the princess more and more. She held out her right hand and a beam of bright blue plasma erupted from it, tearing through the crates and barrels the raiders hid behind like they were made of paper.

  A series of intense explosions rocked the docking area. The Galutians were flung far and wide before Dyamatti's might. Not a single raider was spared her rage. After only a few short seconds, all that remained was smoldering debris and bodies.

  The princess cast her gaze out the windows at the last raider ship hovering just away from the asteroid. Not even at the distance of hundreds of meters was it safe from her. She casually waved her hand through the air and the small vessel was wracked with a fiery detonation which caused tremendous damage.

  Perhaps realizing the inevitable, the unseen pilot powered up his vessel and quickly made his escape. The ship banked in a hard turn and retreated with any available speed it could muster.

  With the last of the raider threat over, Dyamatti allowed her powers to withdraw back into her. She took a slight step back and then feel to her knees. Using her gifts always took their toll on her, but this time it had sapped her completely. She couldn't even stand.

  Two soldiers swiftly ran to her aid and scooped her up. Each man placed on of her arms around their shoulder to support her weight. With careful steps, they headed toward the small ship at the end of the docking ring.

  “Everyone get on board.” said. The battle may have been over, but they still needed to make haste.

  The group all made their way to Dash's ship and began to board, except the colonel who paused to inspect one of the fallen raiders. Tyra closely followed the princess up the gangplank and into the vessel. The old politician gave a slight smile at her and said, “I guess we can call that a successful field test of the bracelets. I've never seen you do anything like that before. You did good, Dyamatti. Your father would be proud.”

  All the princess could do was give a weak smile and nod in return. The experience had totally drained her. After expending herself to such a degree, it could take hours or more for her to fully recover. But Tyra was right. Never before had she felt such complete control over her ability. The small platinum bands would certainly serve their purpose. And with practice, there was no telling what she would be able to accomplish.

  Hastings looked down and the broken body before him. There was nothing remarkable about the raider that the colonel could see. It was a Galutian, plain and simple. But what Hastings saw in its hand was very surprising, indeed. He bent down and pried the object from the dead fingers of the raider and held it up where he could get a better look at it. It was a weapon, but not just any kind of weapon. It wasn't even Galutian. It was Ikaranite. There could be no doubt.

  After he was able to process the information and let it sink it a bit, the colonel knew that the stakes of the game just got much much higher. The Ikaranites were the ones pulling the strings, just as Hastings suspected. And it appears they were trying to give their Galutian pawns every advantage they could.

  As he finally made his way to the ship, a horrifying thought leaped into his mind: Who told the Ikaranites about the hyper-gate? That was the real question. If the skwibs knew about what the Empire was doing, they had to have operatives placed deep inside the government. With that being the case, what else did they know?

  When all members of the Alpheenian party had boarded, Dash hopped into the pilot's station and began firing up the engines. At the same time, he disengaged the docking port and sealed the hatch. All those inside felt a slight bump as the ship was released from the colony's grip and drifted away.

  The sub-light engines came to life and propelled the ship further away into the expanse of space. With the current threat handled, the colonel allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. That was one of the most tense scenarios he'd seen in all his Cycles of service to the king. It was finally over. All that was left was to make the jump to warp and race across the finish line; that being the Empire's borders. Very soon now, the colonel would be accepting the gratitud
e of the king and the respect due him for his actions.

  Except that it wasn't over. Perhaps the universe had something against Colonel Hastings and was taking out its anger on the poor man. Maybe he committed a great sin in a previous life that he was now paying a penance for. Whatever that case, he was about to receive some of the worst news he'd had since this whole journey started.

  The colonel hastily shuffled his way to the fore of the craft to find Dash sitting in the pilot's chair. “Let's get out of here.” he said. “Bring your star-drive online before anything else happens.”

  “Uh...about that.” Dash replied almost as if he was apologizing.

  “Please tell me there isn't a problem.”

  “Well, see...” Dash started to explain trying not to anger the man before him whose face was starting to turn quite flushed with approaching anger. “The star-drive isn't working.”

  Hastings shook his head and rolled his eyes. He probably should have been expecting something like this to happen. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” he fumed. “You mean to tell me that we jumped on this tub and we can't even get back to the border?”

  Dash hopped up from his chair and reached for a small mechanical piece lying on the console. “We can fix it though. With this!” he proclaimed as he held up the part.

  “Fix it, then!” the colonel exclaimed. “Now!”

  “I could, except...well, it's kinda dangerous without the pre-stage flow limiter. See, in order to install this part, the star-drive has to be active. Stupid, I know. But it has to sync up with the field in real time. Without the limiter, the field will become active as soon as I plug this in.”

  “How is that a bad? We'll just make sure the navigational fields are in place before you make the repair.” Hastings countered.

  “You don't get it.” Dash continued, “this part goes directly into the plasma assembly on the main graviton emitter. That's on the outside of the ship. I have to go outside, do an EVA.”

  The colonel gave a few choice curses under his breath. “You'd be killed the second you swapped out the bad part for the good one. I get it.” he said, finally understanding the young man. “So why don't you have this limiter you spoke of?”

  “That's what me and Da were looking for, only you guys showed up before we could find all the pieces. Da saw your ship and he wanted to get back just in case you were...well...not nice people.”

  That explained why Hastings saw Rip run back into the colony. He suspected that the young man's father had become angry when he found out Dash didn't have all the parts. Rip knew that the repair would be deadly.

  Suddenly, one of the pilot's consoles started lighting up with activity. From what Hastings could make out, it appeared to be a warning. Dash plopped back down in his chair and swung it over so he could view the information.

  “Oh, shit. I think you pissed off whoever those people where that attacked you.” the young man said nervously. “We have more ships coming in.”

  “How many more?”

  Dash pointed to the blips of light on his monitor as he counted each under his breath. It took far longer than Hastings liked for him to stop counting. The young man turned his chair to face the colonel. Hastings knew it wasn't going to be a good response just from the look on the man's face.

  “Thirteen. About nine minutes out.” was Dash's answer. “What are we gonna do? This ship doesn't have any weapons.”

  What indeed? Hastings thought. They were essentially dead or captured already. The only thing left to do was inform the princess. Chances were, she was far too weak still to fend off any raiders. And even if she wasn't, the colonel had no idea if Dyamatti could even handle that many ships.

  He walked to the back of the small craft, where he found the princess sitting in one of the few chairs aboard the ship. She was being comforted by Tyra and still obviously quite weak from her earlier expenditure. Strangely, the councilman had the look of a proud, yet concerned, uncle. It seemed that the councilman and the princess were closer than Hastings was aware.

  “I hate to disturb Your Highness, but we have more problems. The star-drive isn't operational and we have more raider ships incoming.” the colonel said, with more than a small amount of regret in his voice.

  Dyamatti slowly nodded her understanding. Her elegant hands pressed against the chair as she attempted to rise from it, saying as she did, “then I still have work to do.”

  “Dyamatti, no.” Tyra said softly. “You're still too weak. Who knows what will happen with those bracelets if you push yourself.”

  “He's right, Your Highness.” Hastings concurred. “I'm afraid that isn't an option.”

  Slightly trembling, the princess stood upright. She had made up her mind. Although her father would tell her that it was Hastings' job to sacrifice himself and his men for her, she was having none of it. They had done their jobs and if the raiders weren't stopped, it would all be for nothing. Even if she did manage to somehow survive, she wasn't about to have that stain on her soul.

  But before she could speak her commands, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Dyamatti's head snapped to the source and saw Dash grabbing a protective helmet from one of the shelves. In his hand was a small mechanical object she didn't recognize.

  “What do you think you're doing?” Hastings asked.

  The young man beamed a large smile and said, “I'm saving the princess.”

  “You'll be killed, you idiot.” the colonel snapped back.

  “I got nothing left, anyway. My Da's dead and I got no one back on Farlocke. Besides, I'm not one of your men. I don't take orders from you.”

  “What's going on? What are you two on about?” The old politician questioned, not understanding anything the other two men were talking about.

  Hastings turned back to the councilman and said, “That part will fix the star-drive. But the drive has to be active when he installs it. As soon as he puts it in...”

  “He'll be killed.” Tyra replied, finishing the colonel's statement.

  The old councilman approached Dash and looked him squarely in the eye. There was no sign of doubt or wavering. The young man was clearly not playing games or bluffing. He knew he was about to die and he was at peace with that decision.

  “The Empire greatly appreciates the sacrifice you make today, my boy.” Tyra said as he grasped the younger man's arm and gave a good squeeze. “You will be remembered throughout history for your deed.”

  Dyamatti glided in her fashion over to Dash. She placed her slender hand against his cheek. She moved closer and placed a long and tender kiss on his lips, much to the shock and dismay of those around her. Except Dash, that is. He very nearly fainted.

  His eyes rose up to meet hers. She was absolutely beautiful. Her soft orbs stared back at him with gratitude and regret.

  “What was that for?” he whispered to her.

  “Because you earned it.” she replied softly. “Thank you, Dash.”

  He beamed a wide grin at her for several seconds and then began moving toward the airlock. Before donning his helmet he turned to Hastings and said, “You owe me one.” in a half-joking tone.

  With the press of a button, an environmental force field dropped into place, isolating Dash. He placed the helmet over his head and sealed it tight. After a few quick taps of the controls, the airlock slid open and revealed the blackness beyond. He stepped through, and he was gone. The airlock sealed itself automatically.

  A voice crackled in over the comm. It was Dash's. “Go to the pilot's station and wait for my signal to activate the star-drive.” he said.

  “Got it.” Hastings responding and made his way back to the small bridge area in the fore section.