Wanderer 3: Tainted Universe (19 page)

“
Not if we play things right,” Dash replied.  “We come in as if we have every right to be there.  We contact the forces and tell them we’re on a special mission and have been waved through the previous layers.  They won’t buy that for long, but every minute of confusion increases our chances of getting through safely.”

Jess nodded.  Dash made sense.  If he was being honest.

What do you think,
he sent to Ali.

I don’t know.  It all sounds plausible but… I just don’t trust him.

No, I don’t either.  I’m sure he’d still take the Wanderer given a chance.  But I don’t see how being captured or killed by the Empire can possibly play into his hands.

Unless he’s an Imperial agent,
Ali sent. 
We know he fought for them.  We only have his word that he truly turned rogue.

Do we have any choice?
Jess asked. 
Crossing the Quarantine Zone seems to be our only choice now.

I know.  Just don’t trust anything he says, even if you can’t see the angle.

Don’t worry.  I won’t.

Jess returned his attention to the room.  Quick though the conversation with Ali had been it had still been obvious.  Sal was looking decidedly angry, and some of the friendliness had left Dash’s face.

“I think that’s settled then,” Jess said.  “We look as normal as possible each time we enter a new layer.  We use any tricks we can to confuse them, to make them hold off firing for as long as possible.  Then we get through as quickly as the
Wanderer
can manage.  Dash, is there anything else that would help us?”

Dash shook his head.  “Nothing I can think of.  And I’ve been thinking about it a lot.  Let me handle talking to the forces though.  I can talk the talk, and that will buy us extra time.”

Jess sensed Ali tense at that.  He didn’t need to wait for a message from her.  There was no way he’d risk Dash sending out a coded message of some sort.

“
No,” he said.  “I’m the captain.  I’ll do it.  In the end I’m responsible for all your lives.  This is something I have to do.”

Dash looked ready to disagree, then simply shrugged his shoulders.

“You’re the captain,” he said.

“
Good.  How about our other problem?  What have the troopers been doing?”

Jess had a fairly good idea from checking the
Wanderer
’s sensors, but he wanted to change the subject.

“
They’re being much more cautious,” Dash said.  “We managed to catch them out several times.  One suffered a broken arm when we combined an assault with several weapons with multiple pits opening.  The suit supports his arm and supplies painkillers but he’s still struggling.”

“
Are they going to be a problem while we get through the Quarantine Zone though?”

“
I don’t see how they could be, but we certainly shouldn’t relax our guard.  Can you still spare Ali to keep monitoring them?”

“
Definitely.  Knowing someone is keeping a close eye on them will help me focus on what’s going on outside the ship.”

“
We’re really going to do it?” Ali asked, eyes sparkling.  “We’re going to break through the Quarantine Zone?”

Jess couldn’t help but grin.  Ali’s earlier fear seemed to have evaporated.  He felt the same.  Now they were committed all of his worries were replaced by a building excitement.

“Damn, we really are,” Dash said, smiling too.

Even Sal joined in.  In that moment the excitement glossed over their differences.  They were about to do something crazy.  Something terrifyingly exciting.  Something that eclipsed even the fantastic events of the past few weeks.

Damn, I wish we could get away for a while,
Ali sent.

Images leaked from Ali's mind accompanied the message.  Images that made the breath catch in Jess’s throat and his heart pound.  Something about the danger they were heading into made the images particularly enticing.

Well most of the repair work will be automatic for the next twenty minutes or so,
Jess replied.
  Care to join me on the flight deck?

Try and stop me!

“I think we’re done here,” Jess said.  “I need to go to the flight deck to check on the repairs.”

He stood.  Ali stood too.

“I’ll come too,” she said.  “I need to check a few things.”

Jess struggled to avoid blushing.  Keeping to a normal pace was difficult.  He wanted to run, dragging Ali along.  Instead they managed to just walk quickly.

The first door opened, leading them into the short passageway beyond which lay the flight deck.  As soon as the door slid shut behind them Jess tried to grab Ali.  She grabbed him first, and it was her that made it into the flight deck first, but only just.  As they started to yank each others clothes off Jess just about remembered to lock the door behind them.  Then both of them were naked and Ali was in his arms, all warm skin and passion.  Their urgent need swept everything else away.

*****

Sal stared after Jess and Ali, a hollow feeling in her chest.  Just for a moment everything had been good.  Realising they were really going to cross the Quarantine Zone, and just how crazy an idea that was, had given everyone a buzz.  Then Jess and Ali had ruined it.

They could have stayed.  They could have kept the feeling going for longer.  But no, they didn’t.  Instead they had rushed off.  No doubt to discuss how little they trusted her and Roberto.  To make plans to get rid of them as soon as possible.  A spike of fear shot through Sal.  Could they be planning to dump her and Roberto as they crossed the Quarantine Zone?  To throw them to the Empire?  A few days before she would have sworn Jess would never do something like that to anyone, let alone her.  Now she wasn’t so sure.

Could she and Roberto do anything if that was Jess’s plan?  It seemed unlikely.  He had complete control of the
Wanderer
, while she and Roberto didn’t even have a weapon.  If Jess decided to turn on them they’d be helpless.

She needed to discuss it with Roberto, but she couldn’t.  Certainly not with Teeko standing nearby, and probably not anywhere.  She was starting to believe that Jess was tracking everything she and Roberto did.  Listening to every conversation they had.  What if she whispered her fears to Roberto and Jess heard?  She might be giving him an idea that hadn’t occurred to him.

Sal slumped back onto the sofa, wrapping her arms tightly around her body.  Dash leaned in, placing a hand on her arm and asking her what was wrong.  She simply shook her head then dropped it to her chest, fighting to keep her tears on the inside.

How could things have gone so wrong?  She’d felt so happy when she, Jess and Matt had first escaped in the
Wanderer
.  She’d sworn that she would never again be subject to the power of other people, forced to wait helplessly while they determined her fate.  And yet here she was in exactly that situation.

What made it worse, made it intolerable, was the fact that Jess was the one with that power over her now.  Jess who shared her background, who knew the horror of living as a slave.  Despite her best efforts the tears broke free, flooding down her cheeks.

*****

Dash tried to comfort the sobbing Sal, while struggling to work out what had upset her so badly.  Just a couple of minutes before she’d seemed fine.  Everyone had been caught up in the buzz of what they planned to do.  Even Jess’s hostility towards Dash had vanished.

Dash hadn’t been surprised when Jess and Ali disappeared into the flight deck.  He’d suffered from pre-mission horniness himself more than enough times.  In fact he was feeling it now.  A part of him had hoped Sal had the same feelings.

She hadn’t.  As soon as Jess and Ali left her body language changed.  She withdrew, hugging herself.  When Dash had asked what was wrong she shook her head, refusing to speak.  Sobs started to wrack her body soon after.

Dash continued trying to comfort Sal.  Was she scared of the coming conflict he asked.  She shook her head, but wouldn’t tell him what was wrong.

He sat, arms wrapped around Sal, with pain piercing his heart.  He wanted to help, to take away whatever fear or pain was eating at her, but she wouldn’t let him in.

Part Three - The Quarantine Zone

Chapter Twenty-Six

Adrenaline threatened to flood Jess’s system.  He had to use his implants to keep it under control.  They were close to the Quarantine Zone now.  Very close.  They could hit the first tar pit at any time.

Jess sat in the pilot’s chair.  Dash and Ali sat in the seats behind.  Sal sat behind them.  All four were tightly strapped in.  Teeko was wedged into his empty bath holding onto Ben.

“I just thought of something,” Jess said.  “When we hit the tar pit should we just drop out, as a normal ship would, or should I keep the
Wanderer
in jump space as long as I can?  That would shorten the distance we have to cover in real space, but would it make them suspicious of us?”

“
Good question,” Dash replied.  He thought for a moment before replying.  “Go as far as you can, but act normal once you do drop out of jump space.  That should make them think any problem is with their tar pit.”

Jess nodded.  “All right!  Ali, how about those troopers?  What are they up to?”

“Not a lot,” she replied.  “They are still exploring, but they do it so slowly it’s easy to keep turning the rooms ahead of them into a maze.”

“
Good.  Do you think we should warn them to strap in?”

She chuckled.  “Maybe.  I doubt they would listen though.”

“Well, that’s their…”

Jess stopped speaking as his mind was snapped into maximum speed.  Jump space around the
Wanderer
suddenly felt sticky and heavy.  The
Wanderer
was fighting hard to stay in jump space.  To Jess it felt like the ship was clinging to one crumbling hand hold after another.

He managed to keep the
Wanderer
in jump space for nearly ten seconds.  While a short period of time it made a significant difference to the distance they had to cover in real space.  Jess estimated it had taken them through more than twenty percent of the tar pit’s influence.

They crashed back into real space.  Fighting dizziness Jess forced himself to check space around the ship.  What he saw just didn’t make sense.

“What the hell…” he muttered.

As expected, the Empire’s forces were grouped together in a massively powerful formation.  Dash’s estimations had been wrong, or out of date at least.  The
Wanderer
had tagged three battleships, not just one, and seven battlecruisers.  All the smaller classes had far more ships than Dash had suggested too.  The fleet dwarfed even the huge forces that Dash had warned them of.  Had Dash mislead them?

It wasn’t the size of the fleet that had Jess stunned though, it was the fleet’s positioning.  The entire fleet was formed up
behind
the
Wanderer
.  The short additional period in jump space had been enough to carry the
Wanderer
well past the blockade.

“
That’s… bloody crazy,” Dash muttered.

“
What are they doing?” Jess demanded.

“
How are they doing it would be a better question,” Dash replied.  “The source of the tar pit should still be well in front of us.  I can’t see any ships out there though.”

Jess studied space around them using the
Wanderer
’s sensors.

“
It’s behind us,” he said.  “With that fleet.”

“
But that’s not possible,” Dash argued.  “The tar pit should have forced us out into real space long before we reached the fleet.”

“
Normally, yeah.  They’ve done something to the tar pit though.  It’s… hard to describe.  They seem to have distorted it so the generating ship is at the very edge, not in the centre.”

“
Show me.”

Jess pulled up a display to show what he meant.

“Son of a bitch!  I’ve never seen them pull that trick before.”

“
But
why
are they doing it?” Ali asked.  “Their positioning means any enemy ships would arrive right on top of the fleet.”

“
Not if they were coming the other way,” Dash pointed out.  “Then they’d have twice as far to cover.  That’s why the formation is like that.  They are the last line of defence.  Anything getting past them would be through the Quarantine Zone.”

“
If they do the same at the other end, bunch at the end away from the Quarantine Zone, then we’re in trouble,” Jess said.

“
It’s possible.  Likely even.  We’ll just have to deal with it… when we get there.”

The gap was barely perceptible, but Jess noticed it.  What was it Dash nearly said?  Was he going to say
if
rather than
when
?  Or something else?

“
So what do we do?” Ali asked.  “Stick with the plan and run for it?”

“
Damn right,” Dash replied.  “As fast as we can.”

“
Already on it,” Jess said.  “We were moving about as fast as they’d expect from a ship this size.  Now we’re blasting up to full speed.  There shouldn’t be much in the fleet that can keep up with us, and whatever there is should be easy to deal with.”

“
With luck we won’t have to fight,” Dash said.

They fell silent.  Dash and Sal studying the displays to see how the Imperial fleet would react, Jess and Ali using their implants to do the same.  A minute passed in silence.  Then two.  Finally Jess broke the silence.

“What the hell are they doing?  They haven’t moved.  They haven’t launched any fighters.  They haven’t even tried to contact us.”

“
I have absolutely no idea,” Dash admitted, a frown on his face.  “This just doesn’t make any sense.  They’re acting as if we aren’t here.”

“
Or we don’t matter,” Sal said darkly.  “Maybe they’re waiting for something worse.”

Jess felt a chill settle in his stomach at her words.  Just what could the fleet be waiting for?  And what could have the final layer of the Quarantine Zone so worked up?

“Well, if it is then we’ll find out soon enough,” Dash said.  “I think it’s unlikely though.  They probably have orders to allow any ship that gets past them to travel further in.  This layer ensures any ships can’t retreat with details of the blockade and the next layer will deal with any ships that press on.  They’ll get a shock when they try that with us though.”

Despite Dash’s words a worried silence soon fell across them all.  Jess spent more and more time scanning space ahead of them for any signs of danger or ships exiting jump space.

The minutes slipped by without any response from the fleet and no other dangers presented themselves.  Jess almost wished they would.  The thought of a good clean fight with an enemy they could see seemed a much better option than all the waiting.

An alert drew Jess’s attention to a region of jump space.  He had the ship’s weapons aimed and ready to fire almost immediately.  It took him slightly longer to realise there wasn’t a threat.  The ship was telling him there was a small area of jump space that was stable.  Not enough for the
Wanderer
to break free of the tar pit yet, but a good indicator that they were nearly clear of its effect.  And still there had been no response from the fleet behind them.

The
Wanderer
flagged several more clear patches of jump space over the next few minutes.  Finally it detected a much larger area.  Without hesitating Jess used that area to throw the
Wanderer
into jump space.  The first handful of seconds were painfully rough as the
Wanderer
constantly scrabbled to stay in jump space.  Then things smoothed out and they were flying cleanly.

Jess slumped back in his chair, pushing sweat soaked hair away from his eyes.  After all the excitement, all the worry, getting away from the fleet felt like an anti-climax.

“We made it,” he said.

Dash laughed.  “Don’t sound so down about it.  Trust me, things won’t stay that easy.”

“How long to the next layer?”

“
The time between layers varied.  Somewhere between half an hour and a few hours I seem to remember.”

“
Then we can relax for… shit!”

Jess wrestled with the
Wanderer
as it fought to remain in jump space.  Another tar pit?  Already?

This time the
Wanderer
returned to real space far sooner.  He simply hadn’t been prepared for hitting another tar pit so soon.  He’d managed to hold on for just three seconds, and every moment had been a desperate struggle.

The crash back to real space was even harder this time.  Jess immediately detected ships far closer to the
Wanderer
than he’d like.  He started the
Wanderer
on a tumbling series of evasions even as he took in the situation around them.  Once again all the Imperial forces were drawn up at the edge of the area affected by the tar pit, and once again it was the edge from which the
Wanderer
had approached.  The
Wanderer
had passed them in jump space, but only just this time.  She was still in weapons range of many of the larger ships, and the fighters would have a chance to swarm her.

With his mind accelerated by his implants the next few seconds seemed like long minutes to Jess.  He wanted to get as far as possible before the Imperial ships reacted, but he didn’t dare risk flying too straight a course.

Dash had been right about the battleships.  Up close they were far scarier even than the battlecruiser.  Jess was sure they could easily swat the
Wanderer
out of existence with a single lucky shot.

Jess planned for being attacked within a second or two.  He thought they might get seven or eight seconds if the Imperial forces were slow to react, surprised by the
Wanderer
emerging beyond their fleet rather than within it.  He hoped to get fifteen seconds before the defenders opened fire, enough time to begin moving beyond reach of some of the more distant ships, but it seemed unlikely.

The first few seconds dragged past without a reaction.  Nothing fired, nothing moved.  Several more seconds dragged past without a reaction.  Jess felt more and more tense with every passing second.  Each was an agonising wait for him, but he didn’t dare let his thoughts slow down.  When the attack came the difference between life and death might be measured in hundredths or thousandths of a second.

At twelve seconds he couldn’t believe they hadn’t been shot at yet.  He knew the devastating response from the Imperial fleet must be due at any moment.

At thirteen seconds he started to consider the possibility they’d reach fifteen seconds before being attacked.  At fourteen he began to think that just maybe they would.

At fifteen seconds the ships able to target the
Wanderer
started to reduce.  Far too many still could, but fewer than before and reducing all the time.  Jess started to look ahead.  If none of the larger ships moved then forty-three seconds should see the
Wanderer
clear of all their weaponry.  Even if they got moving it would only add another couple of seconds until the
Wanderer
got clear, though those seconds could easily be the difference between life and death.

Twenty seconds.  Still no ship had moved and none had opened fire.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Dash said.

To Jess the words seemed to take minutes, not seconds, but still there was no reaction from the immense fleet.

“Nothing.  No movement.  No firing.  Why not?”  Jess played his words through the
Wanderer
.  He didn’t want the distraction of trying to speak at a speed the others could understand.

Jess, I’m scared!

Even the message from Ali seemed to come in slowly, over many seconds.  Ali’s implants allowed her to think more quickly than normal, but they were no match for Jess’s.  The churn of emotions she was feeling came through too.  Fear, worry, confusion.  Even a touch of anger.  A desire for something, anything to break the tension.  An echo of all the emotions Jess was feeling.

I don’t understand what’s happening
, he sent back
.  I’m keeping the Wanderer pulling evasive manoeuvres and I’m ramped up as fast as I can go.  If we get clear without them opening fire then we can work out why.  For the moment I just want to get clear.

Is there anything I can do to help?

Actually yes.  Check on the Imperial troopers.  If they somehow work out that we’re distracted they might try something.

All right.

Jess relaxed slightly.  He hadn’t realised he was worrying about the troopers until he spoke with Ali.  He still couldn’t believe the fleet was taking no action.  It was feeling more and more like a trap.  Yet the
Wanderer
was edging closer and closer to safety.  It had been nearly thirty seconds since the
Wanderer
broke into normal space close to the fleet.  Unless it started to move the
Wanderer
would be clear in another thirteen seconds.  Even now a significant portion of the fleet was too far distant to be a danger, and the
Wanderer
was outdistancing the weapons on more of the fleet with every heartbeat.