Wanderer's Escape by Simon Goodson

Author:Simon Goodson [Goodson, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Published: 2013-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Jess cursed as he wrestled to stabilise the ship. Amber and red statuses were springing up everywhere, and through his connection to the ship each ached or stung. His skin felt as if it had been scalded. The immense explosion from the fuel tank had bled over into jump space making the ship buck and sway violently. Even with his thoughts massively accelerated by being linked to the ship he was struggling to stay on top of everything.

The extent to which the explosion would leak into jump space had surprised him. He'd known what the tank contained – in fact their plan depended on it. As the missile struck he'd thrown most of the Wanderer into jump space. Most but not all. The outer shell, together with enough other hull segments to make a convincing wreck, had been jettisoned and left behind. Proof of the ship's destruction. Though in fact everything left had been produced during flight for that express purpose. None of it contained any trace of the ship's advanced capabilities.

As they had planned the immense explosion bled over to jump space. In doing so it smeared both real and jump space enough to completely obliterate the tell tale scars on space indicating a jump. All the evidence would point to the Wanderer being destroyed and, for a while at least, they'd get some peace.

The explosion had been too powerful though. The ship bucked again. Hull stress warnings blossomed down the right side of the ship. Jess reinforced the shields on that side, using them to hold the ship together. The jump drives flashed warning then critical alarms as they frantically scrabbled against the rippling surface of jump space around the ship. Another shock wave crashed into them from behind shaking the flight deck.

And then it was over. The ship steadied and jump space around them returned to being smooth and undisturbed. Sensors showed a spreading wave of disruption behind the Wanderer, but they were outrunning it now. Jess felt as if he'd been wrestling the ship for hours. A quick check showed it to be nine point seven two seconds.

Running through the alerts he identified priority areas for repair, shifted shields to reinforce the worst damaged areas. He took offline those systems that weren't currently needed, reducing the strain on the engines which had taken a severe beating and badly needed to be overhauled. The powering down allowed rolling maintenance on the engines, starting with the most heavily damaged.

After reviewing and prioritising thousands of alerts he checked the time again. Twenty eight seconds since jump. Satisfied nothing needed his immediate attention he let his mind revert to normal speed and slumped down in his seat with a deep sigh.

Twenty eight seconds, he thought. Felt more like twenty-eight days.

“Are we clear?” asked Ali quietly.

“Yes. Just. That was closer than we planned for.”

“Well done. I got a bit worried there during the rough patch but luckily it was over so quickly I couldn't really get scared. Thank the stars it didn't last very long.

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