Rising Threat (Liberators Book 3): A Military Sci-Fi Thriller Space Opera by SJ Schauer

Author:SJ Schauer [Schauer, SJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dawnrunner Press
Published: 2021-12-06T16:00:00+00:00

Main Airlock, UCSBTS-27413

Zithe’s patience was wearing thin as he waited beside the airlock. It took the Pogrin’s Payback a full thirty pulses to claw its way into a safe orbit alongside their own. Even then, it took another twenty pulses for Mikle, and to his surprise, Alieha to guide their transport into hard dock with the crippled ship. By that time even the observer corvette had slipstreamed into the area.

He found her skill curious as he’d never known her to fly anything. Her explanation that her older sister ‘learned’ it to her just didn’t feel right. Something else was going on there.

He pushed that out of his mind as he heard the sound of the final docking latch snapping into place. He turned to the hatch in anticipation. The light above the hatch flashed blue and the airlock cycled open. He remained stoic as his medical teams raced past him to assist in treating the injuries aboard the other ship, real and simulated. He wanted to wait for his engineering teams, but they were still outside linking the hardline connections to slave the two transports together.

Zithe waited until Blazer had arrived in his spacesuit before he waved his entourage forward. Blazer, Trevis, Nash, Gokhead, and Tadeh Qudas, with the personnel droid Que Dee in tow, boarded the ship behind Zithe. Zithe met Cadet Teflin and his command staff on the other side, their supervising officer Commander Eshrin waiting in the wings. Zithe made sure to follow protocol as he boarded and fit his feet into the loops on the deck in front of Teflin as the rest floated behind him. He issued the Anulian salute. “Permission to come aboard, skipper?”

Zithe read the reluctance on Cadet Teflin’s face like a news report. “Granted,” he replied between gritted teeth. “I noticed that your people didn’t bother to request permission.”

Zithe raised an eyebrow as if considering that. “Standard spacefaring protocol dictates that emergency medical and repair crews need not wait for permission to board a stricken craft when rendering aid. You should know that as ship’s captain.”

Telfin grumbled back at them, and Zithe had to suppress a smile at the man’s displeasure. “Fine, this way then, please.” The group pushed toward the ship’s engineering bay. “Like I said before, the Moglis jumped us for no reason when we were taking scans of the moons around the eighth planet.”

Zithe shook his head and pulled Teflin aside. “That’s not what your logs indicated.”

Cadet Teflin stared back at him, eyes narrowed. “What in the sheol are you talking about? How did you get into our logs?”

Zithe had to play this straight, they’d done nothing wrong to access the logs but Cadet Teflin was not in the mood to be tested. “When you uploaded your ship’s damage report, it included your comm logs. Those showed several pulses of transmissions between the ships before they’d fired the first shot. Your sensor logs revealed that it was a warning shot.”

Teflin turned away, shaking, his fists clenched.

“Things obviously escalated after that.

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