Chasing the Stars (23 page)

I turned back to my console, plotting distances and escape routes to the nearest star system where we might hide behind a moon or use the gravity of the local sun to slingshot us out of range of the Mazon weapons. Nothing doing. As Aidan had said, the nearest star system was over a day away.

The Mazon were only minutes away and closing fast.

‘Vee, it’s useless. We can’t outrun them or outgun them,’ said Hedda from tactical. ‘To stand any chance at all, we need to surrender.’

‘That’s your plan? To surrender to them?’ asked Vee coldly. ‘D’you know what the Mazon do to their human prisoners? We’d be experimented on and tortured and they’d make sure to keep us alive for as long as possible for their own amusement. Is that what you want?’

‘Hedda, we are not surrendering,’ frowned Mum. ‘That’s not an option. If we go down, we go down fighting.’

‘Aidan, what’s our engine output capacity?’ asked Vee.

‘Making our way through Barros 5’s atmosphere depleted some of our engine’s power. We’re running at seventy-two per cent capacity.’

‘Vee, let me take command. I’ll make sure we put up a good fight,’ said Mum.

‘How about we try something a little less suicidal first?’ said Vee.

‘Like what?’ asked Mum.

Silence.

‘Aidan, how far are we from the Zandari ion storm?’ Vee asked.

As if rehearsed, every single person on the bridge turned in horror to stare at Vee – me included.

‘You want to try and hide in an ion storm? You’re not serious? D’you know what will happen to us if we get stuck in there?’ said Mum.

I cringed. Mum was taking a bad situation and making it worse, even if she was right.

‘Aidan, how far are we from the Zandari ion storm?’ Vee repeated, ignoring my mum.

Aidan swung round in his chair, a deep frown cutting grooves at the sides of his mouth as he faced his sister. ‘By the time we get there, the Mazon ship will be close enough to target us.’

‘We only need to out-manoeuvre them for long enough to enter the storm,’ said Vee. ‘You and Nathan will need to make sure they don’t get a lock on us.’

Oh, is that all?
I thought with what I admit was a touch of sarcasm.

An ion storm. Did Vee know what she was doing? If we entered an ion storm, the ship’s engine power would drain away in less than a minute. The emergency reserves which ran the life support and other essential systems would last maybe half a day at most. We’d be sitting ducks. I wouldn’t have dreamt of challenging Vee’s decision in public but it seemed to me all she was doing was prolonging our agony.

‘Aidan, can you get us into the ion storm before the Mazon can attack?’ asked Vee.

‘I can try – but the probability of succeeding is zero point—’ said Aidan.

‘Never mind the maths. At this point, I’ll take any chance of success I can get.’

‘Vee, what you’re proposing is lunacy,’ argued Darren. ‘You obviously don’t realize that the ion storm will drain the power from the ship’s engine.’

‘Not only do I realize it, but that’s the essential part of my plan,’ Vee replied.

‘To leave us dead in the water?’ Darren said, appalled.

‘The Mazon have us in their sights now. Their primary objective is our destruction and they will follow us into hell itself to make that happen,’ said Vee.

‘All the more reason to turn and fight,’ argued Darren. ‘Hand over this ship to someone who knows what they’re doing.’

‘Look, I don’t have time to argue with you. We’re going to do this my way. If you don’t like it, there’s the exit,’ said Vee, exasperated.

‘You’re condemning us all to a slow painful death within an ion storm,’ Sam piped up. ‘I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy.’

‘We should surrender,’ Hedda insisted.

They were all doing my head in so God knows what they were doing to Vee.

‘For God’s sake!’ I snapped. ‘Vee’s the captain of this ship, not any of you—’

‘Stay out of this, Nathan,’ Mum ordered. ‘Olivia, I’ve checked the ship’s logs. You’ve never been in toe-to-toe with a battle cruiser and had to strategize your way out of a bad situation. I have. Let me take over.’

Vee studied my mum as she spoke, her unimpressed expression obvious. ‘Have you all quite finished?’

‘We need to do whatever is necessary to ensure our survival. If that means taking this ship from you by force, then so be it,’ said Darren.

‘No, Darren. We won’t do anything of the kind,’ said Mum. She turned to Vee. ‘Olivia, you must see the logic in letting me take charge. I’m asking you to let me take over.’

‘If you do, we’re dead for sure,’ said Vee. ‘Commander, I’m a survivor. I’m asking you to trust me.’

Mum and Vee regarded each other. No one on the bridge spoke.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ said Mum at last.

‘Catherine, you cannot be serious? You’re going to place our fate in the hands of that . . . that child?’ Darren leaped to his feet, beyond outraged.

‘Being younger than you doesn’t make me a child,’ Vee snapped. ‘And I’m sick up to the back teeth of you and your attitude.’

‘Like I give a shit,’ Darren hissed.

‘Sit down, Darren,’ Mum ordered. ‘I think I’m beginning to see what Vee has in mind.’

I’m glad Mum was because I sure as hell wasn’t.

‘Aidan, head for the Zandari ion storm. Maximum velocity.’ Vee was busy at her monitor, her fingers moving at speed as she checked over her calculations.

‘At maximum velocity, we’ll reach the ion storm in twelve minutes and eighteen seconds but by then the Mazon ship will be close enough to wave to,’ said Aidan.

‘As long as they don’t get a clear shot at us and they follow us into the storm,’ said Vee, her tone remarkably calm. ‘That’s all I care about.’

‘I still don’t see . . .’ said Aidan. ‘Oh!’ A slow smile crept over his face. ‘Oh, I get it.’

What?

‘For us lesser mortals who haven’t quite caught up yet, how about an explanation?’ I said, exasperated.

‘The Mazon will follow us into the ion storm and their engine power will drain just as quickly as ours,’ said Mum. ‘As Hedda said, they can outrun us and they outgun us. Vee’s trying to level the playing field. This ship is much smaller and Vee’s hoping to make that work in our favour.’

‘Nathan, I need you to position us as soon as we enter the storm so that we turn through one hundred and eighty degrees to face the way we came,’ Vee ordered. ‘If my calculations are correct and you face us the right way, even with no power our momentum means we should drift out of the storm after about one hour.’

‘Won’t the Mazon do the same thing?’ I said.

‘Not necessarily, but if they do and both our ships manage to drift outside the ion storm, it will only take fifteen minutes for this ship to recharge with enough power to get us moving again,’ said Aidan. ‘It’ll take the Mazon ship eighty-nine minutes before they can do the same and we’ll be long gone by then.’

‘And if we don’t turn the ship around in time or Nathan gets the calculations wrong?’ asked Darren, still not convinced.

He had to ask.

‘We’ll drift deeper and deeper into the ion storm with no navigation system to help us get out. Eventually our emergency life support system will fail and everyone will die.’ Aidan spoke as if it were no big deal.

‘The Zandari ion storm is this quadrant’s ships’ graveyard,’ said Vee quietly. ‘I don’t intend for us to be another one of its victims. Nathan, are you on top of this?’

‘Yes, Captain. Don’t worry. I’ll get it right,’ I said with a confidence I was far from feeling.

‘That would be preferable,’ said Vee.

‘Aidan, drop a location buoy just before we enter the ion storm, and whilst Nathan is turning us I need you to drop us three kilometres, co-ordinates zero, minus three point two, zero. OK?’ said Vee.

‘Drop us?’ Mum said sharply.

‘Descend, then. Aidan knows what I mean,’ Vee said impatiently. ‘I know there’s no up or down in space.’

‘Why are we going to drop?’ I asked.

‘We don’t want to be where the Mazon expect us to be,’ Vee explained. ‘Just in case they decide to try their luck at plotting our predicted course to blast us into nothingness before their power drains away completely. So we’re going to move about three kilometres below them.’

Darren sat down again. He wasn’t happy but Mum was willing to go along with Vee’s plan so he had no choice but to do the same. I turned to look at Vee but her head was bent over the panel in the arm of her chair. She had more important things to worry about than me at that moment, but I still needed to look at her, no matter how briefly.

‘Attention!’ Vee broadcast a ship-wide alert. ‘We’ll be entering an ion storm soon with a Mazon battle cruiser on our tail. Please don’t use any electrical devices that might leave an electromagnetic footprint or the Mazon will use that to track us – that includes not using the food and utility dispensers. This will apply until the ship’s engine recharges and restarts. That is all.’

No one on the bridge spoke as we raced for the Zandari ion storm. I kept a careful eye on my panel, checking and double-checking the timings of the manoeuvre I was about to attempt. I’d used a number of simulators and studied everything I could about Earth vessels before we were exiled. I’d even been allowed to sit as co-pilot at the flight panel of Mum’s old ship, but none of that had been anything like what I was about to attempt. I knew all the controls better than the back of my hand, but if I messed up, there was no reset button. Much as I wanted to turn round and look at Vee again, much as I longed to mouth a message to her in case we didn’t make it, I didn’t dare. I needed to concentrate and get this right for any of us to stand a chance.

The silence on board the bridge was a living, breathing thing. We hadn’t even entered the storm yet, but no one spoke. Anjuli moved to sit next to Darren, who completely ignored her. Everyone was ignoring her. When . . .
if
we got out of this, I had a few questions of my own for her, starting with ‘Why?’ and closely followed by, ‘Dafuq?’

The Zandari ion storm was now visible on the viewscreen of the bridge – and fast approaching. It was one of the most spectacular sights I’d ever seen. Spectacular and deadly. It was a vast green, purple and red gaseous entity which stretched on for many hundreds of thousands of kilometres, always shifting and changing. Some said there had to be a small star at the heart of it, creating its own gravity well, but no one had ever emerged from the ion storm to confirm that – at least as far as I knew.

Then I saw the alert on my panel.

Oh God! ‘Incoming!’ I shouted.

Our ship lurched to starboard to avoid an incoming Mazon blast. There was less than one hundred metres between the detonation of the blast and us. Much too close. But Aidan had made sure it wasn’t a direct hit.

An alert sounded around the ship which Aidan immediately quashed.

‘Get ready. Zandari ion storm coming up on my mark.’ Pause. ‘Three, two, one,
mark
,’ Aidan announced.

I activated my program to get my own mark for optimal timing, then turned the ship through one hundred and eighty degrees as directed whilst Aidan did his part. The instruments were already going nuts. The ion storm was bending and distorting signals. I was getting echoes and false and phantom readings, but luckily I had already compensated for that. I let the ship’s momentum swing us around for the final thirty-three degrees, hoping fervently that my calculations were correct and I hadn’t screwed up.

In about an hour’s time we’d know one way or another.

An hour and seventeen minutes had passed and we were still wihin the ion storm. If Aidan and Nathan had done their jobs properly it shouldn’t take too much longer to emerge from it. I looked up past the transparent dome of the bridge. All around us, forks of energy like white lightning flashed in all directions throughout the red-purple mist which currently engulfed us. A quick glance around the bridge revealed that no one was looking at anyone else, never mind speaking. The tension on the bridge had wrapped around each of us like a shroud. Our engine capacity was at zero and we were drifting. It was impossible to tell if we were drifting out of the storm or further into it but I had confidence in Nathan. His knowledge of this ship and its capabilities was matched only by mine and Aidan’s.