Free A Planned Improvisation by Jonathan Edward Feinstein Page B

reactivating. None of the images in the ship’s screen remained in sight long as they tumbled through space under the onslaught of the other ship’s guns. The tumbling, chaotic view persisted   almost two seconds, which Park knew might have been as long as an hour to someone not under partial stasis and then, just as suddenly as the other ship had fired on them, it stopped.
    “Report!” Park ordered.
    “Our automatics are working,” Iris told him. “The battle board claims we sent two missiles and several phaser shots at them. Still in Missile range though.”
    “I think they’re trying to run for it,” Tina reported even as she brought Phoenix Child around to give chase.
    “Fire!” Park urged. Iris twidled the buttons of her battle board and a missile sped away with accompanying phaser fire. “I could use a good plasma caster about now,” she grumbled.
    “Working on that,” Ronnie told her over the intercom.
    “Their star drive is coming on line,” Marisea reported.
    “Damn!” Iris swore. “just out of range.”
    “For what?” Park asked, but she did not answer. Iris had time for only one more shot, and she chose the gravity cannon.
    An explosion in space is always something to see, preferably from behind a highly polarized shield. As Iris fired the gravity cannon, there was an almost blindingly bright flash of light and a rapidly expanding cloud of debris from where the mystery ship had been. “Did we vaporize it?” Park asked, not seeing more than a little debris .
    “Analyzing,” Ronnie’s voice reported. “No, not likely. That explosion was all wrong. We would have felt the shockwave had the whole ship gone up. I think all we did was clip one of its wings. I’d like to collect as much debris as possible, however. A metallic material that can be programmed to change shape like this did…” she trailed off.
    “Permission granted,” Park told her. “Collect all the souvenirs you want, then we’ll go back to that base and do the same thing there. Our friends on Earth are going to have a lot of junk to sift through when we get back.”

Part 2 – Home Field Advantage
     

One
     
     
    Veronica Sheetz found herself swamped between overseeing the new ships at Questo being fitted with the star drive modules and trying to analyze the odd metal fragments they had brought back to Earth. Finally, she had to put the metal fragments aside and concentrate on the ships. It had been her intention to retrofit Phoenix Child with the star drive and the ship had, in fact, been designed with that in mind, but between recent modifications to the ship and changes to the star drive itself meant it would be cheaper to build an entirely new ship rather than strip the Child down and modify it again.
    Dannet, however continued to press her for an analysis of the odd metal fragments until she finally had to ask Park to call him off. “I just can’t get anything done if   he’s going to call me every few hours,” she told Park.
    “You’re supposed to be going back to Questo this afternoon, aren’t you?” Park asked.
    “I haven’t even packed yet,” Ronnie complained.
    “Maybe you should just keep enough clothes in both locations so you don’t have to pack while going back and forth,” Park suggested. “You mostly wear the official Van Winkle coveralls while working anyway.”
    “That’s a point,” Ronnie admitted, “but it’s not just clothing. It’s my tools.”
    “I’ll authorize the purchase or manufacture of a duplicate set of anything you use,” Park offered. “All you should need to carry with you is a computer pad and your torc.”
    “Just the torc,” Ronnie laughed. “I don’t use a customized pad like you do. Any will do. Well, that’s something to shoot for, but it won’t help today. Just keep Dannet off my back, will you.”
    “Maybe I can offer him some of the fragments and let his own people look at them,” Park suggested.
    “His people are all diplomats and