Lords of the Endless Plains by Blaze Ward

Author:Blaze Ward
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781644704028
Publisher: Knotted Road Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTY

Drew supposed that, had things turned out differently, he might have ended up flying a ship like this.

Imperial Auga Cargo Vessel 00356142895. AKA Workshop, at least for now.

If he’d finished his training under Hylda. Gone on and gotten his proper Danumash Sailing Master certificate.

Then gotten hired to pilot a beast bigger than anything he’d ever seen. Even Wren paled in comparison, but the Workshop was basically a small troop transport with stupidly enormous cargo bays attached. Plates some twenty meters wide by four hundred long, with enough headspace that the curve of the plates themselves could fit inside.

You shut down gravity and left it off for most of the ship. The remaining crew had been sixteen folks who Dan had taken onto the station with the same shuttle run that had delivered Drew to fly and a dozen engineers to get everything turned back on.

Or at least enough turned on to steal the beast.

Back home, Wren was big cargo bays, half of which had been emptied out for now. Workshop could hold large villages back there.

But he sure as hell didn’t want to go back to Danumash.

Uly needed him. Hell, the galaxy needed him.

Heady stuff.

A comm line chirped.

“Workshop, this is Roscoe,” Drew said, looking around his empty bridge.

Only needed one person to fly it, really. The others were for monitoring things. And there was a pretty command chair where one useless Ugotha female had sat when she commanded.

Drew was where he belonged, in the pilot’s seat.

“This is Dan,” the Commander replied. “We’re ready to launch from here.”

Drew reached over and hit the big purple button on his dash.

“Bay doors are opening now,” he replied. “Mind your ceilings on landing.”

She laughed. Workshop had more headroom than the flight bays on the station.

One by one, three Probes and an Ultra-Bomber eased out of their launch tubes and lined up.

Drew brought them in one at a time, aftmost bay being the emptiest one.

Corsac Fox launched a shuttle at the same time, but it parked off his stern and watched.

Eventually, it landed as well, and Drew watched each of the four ships disgorge a pilot and an engineer, who boarded that shuttle and departed with it.

Drew eased the bay shut again and triple-checked that everything was secure.

He was flying a small planet today. At least it felt that way.

Similar turn radius. And about the same acceleration.

“Corsac Fox, this is Workshop,” Drew finally announced. “We are ready for flight.”

Zh’Adom was already gone, having disappeared in all the chaos, while everyone had been watching Dan and Uly work.

Confusion.

Drew didn’t figure that ship would return to Ixtin for a long time. Maybe never. Folks around here might not be as understanding in the short term.

“Workshop, this is Corsac Fox,” Sterling replied. “Begin acceleration on your current heading and transition to warp bubble as soon as you can.”

“Moving now,” Drew said. “See you at the first rendezvous.”

Only rendezvous. Back at Taeli.

This beast would take nearly three weeks to make that sail, when Zh’Adom had done it casually in eight days, and Drew had piloted the Fox to doing it in just under four.

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