The Rim Rebels by William Zellmann

Author:William Zellmann [Zellmann, William]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Published: 2012-06-21T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

As Via snatched her finger from the microjump button, Jirik shouted, "We're too close to the edge!" A high whine announced that the inertial drive generators were online, and Via's fingers flew as she keyed in coordinates to take them farther inside the nebula. As soon as her fingers slowed, Jirik activated the inertial drive, and the Lass began a ponderous turn deeper into the interstellar dust cloud.

Bran, blind in engineering, could stand it no longer. "Pirates?" he asked over the intercom.

"Don't know yet!" Jirik shouted in reply, "Shut up! Tor! What beacons?"

"Robot ore hauler!" came the reply. "Would you believe it?"

"Not yet!" Jirik shouted. "Blip size fits, though."

"Is it changing course?" Came Bran's voice over the intercom, "Is it headed for us?"

"Negative," Jirik replied, unconsciously returning to Navy terminology, "She's bearing past us, from low-right to high-left. No other blips."

"No other beacons!" came from Tor.

A tense silence fell over the ship as the Lass lumbered deeper into the safety of the nebula. Only the faint whisper of dust motes against the hull could be heard as the silence dragged on.

Both Jirik and Tor jumped at Via's satisfied "Good! Cut drive!" Jirik cut the drives, and killed their forward motion with the steering jets, then slouched back in his chair. The relaxation of the tension aboard the Lass was almost tangible. They were comparatively safe here. Unenhanced sensors would be unable to detect them in the swirling dust and gases, but their own enhanced sensors were easily able to gather the readings and bearings required for recalibration. If a suspicious ship did emerge near the nebula, they could simply retreat even farther into the cloudy nebula to avoid its presumably enhanced sensors.

The relaxation was palpable, but far from complete. Via's fingers flew on her computer Keyboard, computing the jump point and the length and direction of their next jump. Jirik maintained a close watch on the passive sensors for the emergence of any traffic, and Tor was equally attentive to his 'comm scanners.

Bran, unemployed for the moment, carefully refrained from breaking the concentration of the bridge crew. Once Via computed the next jump and the next jump point, which would presumably be outside the nebula, Bran's chance would come. They would need every centimeter of acceleration that the old bitch could muster for the dash out of the nebula to the jump point. That, after all, would be when they would be most vulnerable to interception.

It was more than three hours later that Via pronounced herself satisfied with her calculations, and Jirik, monitoring her course calculations at the command terminal, agreed. The jump point, unfortunately, was nearly half a million Kilometers outside the nebula. Even at max acceleration, the old bitch would need over half an hour to cover that distance. If a pirate emerged from supralight while they were running for the jump point, they were in deep trouble. They debated the wisdom of retreating even farther into the interstellar cloud to get a "running start." Bran and Via favored the idea, but Jirik wasn't so sure.

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