Beyond Hyperspace Book 3, P.J.Lawton [top business books of all time txt] 📗

it, I thought. But what type of ship was this?

Moving closer we were stunned. I had seen ships like this before. What the colonist thought was an old freighter was in fact a battle scarred but still deadly Space Raider. How did we know it was a Raider? Besides the organic camouflage, it fairly bristled with plasma and laser cannon ports. It was small fast and lethal.

…As the Intergalactic War wore on the Galactic Alliance had taken small Type II freighters and outfitted them with the more modern equipment, engines, and armament. Because of their size and speed they made perfect scout and attack ships. If this was an Earth ship then they too must have been part of the Alliance. I wondered why we had never heard of them.

These small fighting ships had been built to last. Aside from normal deterioration that included two years of inactivity, this one looked to be in fair condition even though it had to be over ten years old. Looking over the ship I couldn’t believe that the crew had parked it here and simply walked away. I guess they were just tired of war….

Searching nearby, we found the graves of what must have been the crew. They weren’t graves really, just piles of stones each with a small marker. The last remaining crewmember must have buried them prior to his return to the inhabitable zone. We held a small memorial ceremony for the dead, then set to work.

It took two days to decipher the inner workings of the ship. The language differences posed a small but not insurmountable problem. I still couldn’t believe our good fortune. We’d been expecting to find an old worn out hulk of a ship with limited capacity but what we had found was incredible. This Raider had been outfitted with H-2 type hyper-drives that still appeared to be in fair to good working condition. It helped that the original crfew took care to ensure that the drives were shut down for proper storage. The H-2 drive was the prototype for today’s more modern drives. Although the H-2 could be considered antique by today’s standards, it could still push a ship this size at almost twice light speed. My old ship had been outfitted with H-3.5 drives but would have had a hard time outdistancing this one.

I couldn’t wait to get it into space, once we had replenished the fuel supply of course. The ship’s old fuel cells were nearly empty but with the extra supply of the newer fuel rods on our old ship we would have no trouble converting them thus giving us more than enough fuel to re-supply the cells. Since the main drive systems were similar there wouldn’t be any compatibility problems.

Three days later, the solar sails had recharged the power sufficiently to bring the thruster engines on line. With little difficulty we lifted off and made the short hop to the settlement. It felt wonderful to be flying again but the joy was short lived. Landing at the Terran compound we couldn’t believe what we saw. Destruction and carnage were everywhere. The eruption from days earlier had been devastating. Although it was over fifteen kilometers away, the force of the explosion was massive. We learned that many were dead or dying; some from the force of the blast, others form the poisonous toxins released into the atmosphere. Leading the clean up effort was Jonas.

Pulling him aside I said. “My God Jonas, what a mess.”

“Yes, though a mess would hardly describe it. I see you had goof fortune at least.”

With some pride I pointed toward the Raider and said, “Yes, here it is. I realize the ship isn’t very big but I have a plan. Come over and have a look and I’ll explain it to you.”

For the next half hour I showed Jonas the ship and outlined my plan. The Raider’s cargo holds could be fitted out as passenger compartments and with supplies would hold about one-hundred-fifty persons. My plan was to load to capacity, lift off and using my old somewhat outdated star charts to find a sympathetic world. With a bit of luck I could deposit the travelers and return for another load. With enough time I could save the remaining colonist.

Jonas had been surprisingly quiet during my tour and talk. When I finished he waited a few seconds than delivered the big blow. My plans might just be for nothing.

“I’m sorry Van, but it’s just not going to work. There just isn’t time.”

“What do you mean Doc, it has to work.”

“I guess I had better explain. The eruption and explosion was about two kilometers from the main Human compound. About fifty percent of the Humans were killed outright or died within the next two days.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Fifty percent of the Humans would have been almost two-hundred-fifty people.”

“Not only Humans, as you can see, several of our folks died as well and the death toll is climbing every day. The atmosphere is poisoned and will take hundreds of years to be clean enough to actively support life again. That is if there aren’t any more eruptions. And, you and I both know that’s not going to happen.”

“That’s all the more reason get quickly going. That way I can return for another evacuation.”

“No Van, you won’t be able to return. At most we have a few days left. Our science team determined that the next one would be one hundred or even one thousand times stronger than the last one. By all our calculations, this planets inhabitable zone will cease to exist.”

“But what am I going to do? At best I can carry about one-hundred-twenty maybe one-hundred-fifty folks. What about the rest? Who decides who goes and lives, and who stays and dies? I can’t do that. I really can’t.”

“It’s already been decided. Many of the remaining Humans have voted to stay even in the face of death. They simply believe that it is Gods will and that they are in his hands. This is their home and they will live or die here.”

“But that’s not rational! Don’t they understand? What about the others? There could be as many as a hundred that want to leave. What about them?”

“Our research has determined that the toxin infection is one-hundred percent fatal. The Council decided that should you locate and prepare the old ship for space flight, no one showing symptoms of infection would be a passenger. In the last couple of days many more have become infected. Since we can’t be sure if the infection is spread by physical contact or simply by breathing the air we had to make a decision. The oxygen scrubbers on the ship can clean the air. We will have to limit physical contact to those folks showing no infection. Van, I doubt that you’ll have as many as one-hundred-fifty total folks when you lift off. You need to leave as soon as possible. How soon can you go?”

“We need to get the supplies loaded, transfer the fuel rods, and download the computer data. Without the computerized star charts we would be flying blind. If we work through the night and all day tomorrow we can board and leave tomorrow night.”

“I just hope we have that much time. I’ll put the word out for all those leaving to come in right away.”

“Good, I’ll supervise preparing for liftoff and you can bring the people own board when we’re ready.”

“No Van, I won’t be going along. ”

“You mean..”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. I am starting to show the symptoms, headache, nausea, dizziness and rapid heartbeat. I probably have only about two, possibly three days left.” With a quiet sad chuckle he said. “At least I’ll be around long enough to see you off.”

***

The loading went a little faster than anticipated. By the middle of the next afternoon we had enough supplies to last several weeks. If the journey took any longer, well, hopefully it wouldn’t.

With the First Officer’s help all the uninfected passengers were safely stowed away. After all loading was done we had one-hundred-twenty-three passengers and a crew of five. At sixteen-hundred hours we were ready for liftoff. Just as the last of the passengers were loading the ground started to violently shake. The intensity of the quakes was growing by the second. It was now or never.

Preparing to board I stopped and gave one last glance to our adopted home. At the edge of the blast off zone stood Doc Jonas, arm lifted in a silent wave. I raised my hand to return the wave and silently mouthed the words, “Goodbye old friend, I going to miss you terribly.” I felt tears begin to form as the airlock slowly closed.

Taking my place on the battle bridge I quickly wiped away any trace of tears and said. “Okay First Officer, take us up to standard orbit, half thruster.”

“Roger Captain, he we go.”

Within a matter of minutes we had achieved standard planetary orbit. Through the forward view screen we watched as the planet below went through quake after massive quake. Suddenly there was a long string of explosions, at least fifteen or twenty. Looking toward the First Officer I just shook my head knowing that nothing could possibly live through that.

“Move us to a little farther away Rico; I don’t want to take any chances. Move us to extreme sensor range.”

We were about one-hundred-thousand kilometers away when the end came. Busy at my console I almost missed the final blow. With a massive blast half the planet exploded! Stunned, we simply sat and stared.

The First Officer was the first to speak. “My God Captain, did you see that? It’s gone. I can’t believe it.”

With great sadness and quickly wiping my again damp eyes I answered. “Yes Rico, I saw it. I’m afraid their gone. Tranquility doesn’t exist anymore.”

Again there was a long silence. It was if no one wanted to be the first to move on. Finally the first officer spoke. “Captain, I should set a course now, before shock waves reach us. Are we heading for Terra?”

I sat quietly for a few seconds a massive wave of nausea and dizziness overtook me. After the blinding pain in my head eased up a little I looked toward the First Officer.

“No Rico, not Terra. It’s been over a year since the Torags came to our system. We don’t even know if Terra survived. At H-2 it’s several weeks journey and we simply can’t chance it. We need to find someplace closer.”

“Roger Captain. But where are we going?”

I knew that if any of these people were going to survive this ship had to reach a suitable planet quickly. Thinking of another world much like Terra that we had heard so much about, I pointed toward the forward view screen and the hundreds of twinkling sparking lights. “There First Officer, that’s where we’re going, to Earth.”