Chapter 14 #2
We zoom across the sky and slow as we appear near a planet. I’m not sure which one it is, but it isn’t home. I barely get the ship turned before the Intergalactic Alliance vessel comes out of the hyperjump portal. They were so close they were able to follow us.
“We’ll have to make multiple jumps and try to lose them,” I mutter. “Erik, load some coordinates.”
“On it. Ready when you are,” Erik confirms.
This is dangerous. Hyperdrives generally need to recharge and vent, otherwise you can burn them out. If we burn out the hyperdrive we’ll be sitting ducks, and with no weapons, we might as well be dead. Luckily, this hyperdrive is better than the one we had in our ship, so it should hold up.
We can’t die. Not when we’ve found our mate. We’re going to survive this. We’re going to get home. Our future will be secure.
“He’s still behind us,” Erik calls out. “Jump again!”
“Fuck,” I sigh, engaging the hyperdrive.
The soldier is a good pilot. I’ll give him that.
We pop in and out of hyperjump multiple times, and all we manage to do is take more hits as he follows us through the portals.
The panel in front of me is smoldering. Something is on fire, based on the scanners.
If he had stronger weapons, and I wasn’t evading most of the direct hits, this ship would already be in pieces.
“I’m getting critical warnings! I can’t engage the hyperdrive again!” I shout. “If I do, we may lose it.”
“He didn’t follow us… wait, no, he’s coming. If we jump again, he may not be able to get a reading on us!” Erik yells.
“Fuck!” Sigurd growls. “Just jump, Ivar. We don’t have a choice.”
“I punched in the coordinates,” Erik says. “It’s not a big jump, but it’ll get us away from here.”
I take a deep breath and hit the hyperdrive.
It engages and we zoom ahead, everything around us turning into a blur as we go through the portal.
When we finally slow down, the screens in front of me are all flashing critical warnings.
There’s a planet directly ahead of us, and when I hit the brakes, nothing happens.
“Shit, we lost the hyperdrive and the fucking brakes!” I holler. “We’re going down!”
“We lost them,” Erik says.
“Doesn’t matter now. We got bigger problems,” I snap. “I’ll try to land, but grab onto something because it’s going to be bumpy.”
“You okay, mate?” Sigurd asks, looking over at Avery.
“Um, no, but… yeah,” she murmurs, grabbing a bar beside her so tight her knuckles turn white.
It’s all I can do to keep the ship from plummeting toward the planet. The hyperdrive is gone. The steering isn’t working very well. We’ve taken way too much damage, even if the Intergalactic Alliance ship is no longer pursuing us.
“What kind of planet is this, Erik?” I ask, trying to keep our deceleration slow enough not to turn the ship into a fireball in the planet’s atmosphere.
“The closest peaceful one I could find,” Erik says. “It’s called Mallow. Intergalactic Alliance hasn’t scanned them in nearly a century, but they should be similar enough for us to blend in.”
“I hope their tech is advanced enough for us to repair this ship,” I groan. “Otherwise, we’re never getting home.”
“They were doing well the last time the Intergalactic Alliance was here,” Erik says. “Not sure how far they’ve come since then.”
“Cloak is still holding. Thank goodness,” Sigurd assures us.
We descend toward the planet at a safe speed.
I maneuver until I spot a city. There are lights first, then skyscrapers, and from what I can tell, it looks like a decent-sized city.
That’s our best bet if we want to blend in.
I just have to find somewhere out of the way to land.
And pray the cloak holds, because if they spot us, it won’t go well.
If they don’t know they’re alone in the universe, it’ll be disastrous for us.
“Over there.” Erik points toward the trees. “Forest outside the city. That should be a good place to hide.”
“If we can make it that far.” I feel the controls vibrating in my hands.
“It looks a lot like Earth,” Avery comments, finally daring to peek out the window. “But maybe all planets do because of Cosmic Influence.”
“Some of Midgard looks like this,” I say. “Or used to, before the plague. Now the cities are mostly abandoned.”
By some miracle, the cloaking device keeps us concealed, and I manage not to crash the ship. I steer it past the city, find a clearing in the woods, and begin our final descent. We still land with a thud, but it doesn’t seem like the ship takes any additional damage.
“Really glad our father made you learn to pilot ships.” Sigurd lets out a sigh of relief. “Avery, are you still okay?”
“Much better now that we’ve landed,” she says.
“Scanners are offline now too,” Erik tells us. “I won’t be able to get any readings from here. I’ll go explore and see what we’re dealing with.”
“We’ll find somewhere to make camp,” I mutter as I get out of my seat. “Hopefully in a cave or something. We’ll leave a trail for you to find us.”
We’re on a strange planet, but we’re alive. Our mate is still safe. Even if the Intergalactic Alliance ship figures out where we are, we’re a needle in a haystack now.
Now we just have to find a way home.