Free Slave Empire - The Crystal Ship by T C Southwell

dead!” Tallyn shouted, pulling her away. A wind blew
past them as air rushed from the Draycon ship’s breached hull.
Distant thuds underscored the battle sounds as airtight doors
closed automatically, sealing off sections of the ship in an effort
to save her crew. The ship’s neural net started a new monologue,
announcing in its soft female voice, “Warning: hull breach. All
crews abandon ship. Warning: hull breach. All crews abandon
ship.”
    Rayne tried to
prise Tallyn’s fingers off her wrist, exhaling puffs of faint
yellow mist. “Let go of me! Let me help him!”
    Tallyn grabbed
her other arm, trying to avoid the kicks she aimed at his shins. An
energy shell engulfed them in a moment of golden silence, and when
it dispersed they stood in Vengeance’s hospital. As Tallyn released
her, Rayne punched him in the jaw, staggering him. Two orderlies
hurried over as he stared at her in stunned surprise, stopping when
he raised a hand. Rayne’s eyes were wild in a face streaked with
the yellow slime that soaked her suit.
    “ You bastard! You killed him!” she shouted.
    “ He was hit by an explosion.”
    “ I could have helped him!”
    Tallyn shook
his head. “He was dead.”
    “ You don’t know that! Did you bother to check?”
    “ There wasn’t time. I had to get you out of there, and
besides, he was a criminal.”
    “ He was my guardian!”
    Tallyn
signalled to the orderlies. “Give her a sedative.”
    Rayne wrenched
free when the men attempted to lead her away, walking, stiff with
rage, further into the hospital. Tallyn strode to the lift.
    Entering the
bridge’s peaceful gloom, he studied the main screen. Against the
intense blackness of the void, sprinkled with a dusting of
glimmering stars, the battle raged with ponderous majesty. Streams
of blue laser light flashed towards Norvar, pulverising her
disintegrating hull. The three cruisers that had attached
themselves to her retracted their boarding tubes and moved away. A
sizeable section of the red saucer came away with them, sending a
wave of debris into space. Norvar had been torn apart.
    He asked
Marcon, “Did we get all our men off her?”
    “ Yes sir, all except for a few casualties.”
    Tallyn nodded
and looked at the screen just as one of the sleek black ships
veered away and was engulfed in an energy shell. It shot off into
deep space, gone in an instant. “What ship was that?”
    Marcon
consulted his holograms. “Scimarin: the Shrike’s personal ship. It
looks like the rest of his ships are leaving too.”
    “ Leaving us to deal with the Draycons.”
    “ Well, it was never his battle, anyway.”
    “ Thank you for pointing that out, Marcon. What are the Draycon
ships doing?”
    “ They’ve broken off their attack, and the Gorder Bonn
Priesthood is transferring survivors from Norvar.”
    “ Good. We’ll stay until they leave the area.”
    “ How’s Rayne?” Marcon enquired.
    “ Angry and ungrateful. When I reached her cell, the Shrike was
there. He would have shot me, but an explosion went off close by,
and he was killed. She accuses me of killing him, which is
completely unfounded and untrue.” He fingered his jaw. “She seems
to be extremely upset about it.”
    Marcon shook
his head and returned his attention to the main screen. The three
cruisers had left Norvar and joined the rest of the Shrike’s ships.
Two of them had buckled, breached hulls, and the third was scorched
and pitted by laser fire. The five red saucers clustered around
Norvar, while Tallyn’s ships hung in the background, awaiting
orders. He wondered why the Shrike’s ships had not left, then
realised that the three cruisers were too badly damaged to go super
light.
    They would
transfer their crews to other ships, then a skeleton crew in
spacesuits would fly the crippled vessels to the Shrike’s nearest
base, he assumed. Again he pondered the slaver’s motives for
risking his life to save a human girl. Even if he had not planned
to make the ultimate