The Plasma Master by Brian Rushton

Author:Brian Rushton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, adventure, aliens, science, dragons, space, starships, plasma, starfighters

Chapter 15

The view from one of Galactron’s many viewports looked to Gerran Marnax as if it were snowing flakes of rainbow. At most warp speeds the hyperspace shadows of stars appeared as white dots, but Galactron was one of the fastest ships in the galaxy. At the moment it was taxing its warp drive to its fullest capacity, and the warp field surrounding the ship was so powerful that it refracted the light from the stellar phase shadows, turning them into dazzling pinpricks of color.

If I fail, Dark Viper will have command of every one of these stars within two years. Since StarBlazer’s loss at Ergana Prime, Marnax had become more and more convinced that it was going to take more than skill and tactics to defeat the Anacron Empire. It was going to take an incredibly powerful Plasma Master as well. If Nedward Simmons hasn’t found a way to become that, I don’t know what we’ll do. And that was assuming the boy was still alive.

There was reason to believe that he was. Marnax had decided upon reaching his fleet’s rendezvous point that there was nothing useful he could do until all of his allies had satisfied themselves that their own homeworlds were not in immediate danger of sharing Ergana’s fate, at which point they would rejoin him. Instead of waiting, Marnax had set off at once to see what had happened to Smardwurst and his charge. Galactron had recently detected two starships at the fringes of the sensors’ range, and they were headed for StarBlazer space. If they were Imperial ships, they would most likely have gone directly back to Venom to report to Dark Viper. In a more populated region of space the transmission booster stations in-between star systems would have allowed communication at many times the current range, but out here there were no such stations, so the approaching ships had been in sensor range for six minutes and still were too far away to contact. It would not be long now, though.

The intercom clicked. “General,” Marvis Harvey called, “They’ll be in range in just a moment. Do you want to contact them from your office?”

“Yes, thanks. Marnax out.”

Harvey was still not over having his homeworld razed by the Empire. The civilians had all survived, but even if StarBlazer won this war soon they would all have to relocate to whatever planets could be made available. It might take several generations before Ergana Prime could be made capable of sustaining life again. Harvey had been hurt badly by the loss, and lately Marnax had been worrying about him.

The automatic door opened and closed as Marnax left the observation room. He nodded to a couple of crewmembers as he walked down the corridor to his office, and they all met his nod with a smile and a salute. The crew, in general, was taking the defeat well. Marnax knew that their confidence was rooted as much in him as it was in StarBlazer’s collective power.

That, he had decided, was a good thing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.