Free Warrior Chronicles 3: Warrior's Realm by Shawn Jones Page B

tactical officer reported the weapons armed and charged. Cort turned to the sensor and communications officer and said, “Anything?”
     
    “No sir. Passive sensors are clear, but I am recording everything. Wait. I am getting a signal from the target planet. I cannot decode it, but maybe the admiralty can do something with it. I do not think they know we are here. It appears Admiral Book did right by us, sir.”
     
    “I want to blow the ship and transition to another part of the system at the same time. Suggestions?”
     
    Navigation spoke. “It would take timing, but it can be done with the Gauss cannon, sir. I can program the ship to transition just as the plasma leaves the drive field. Where do you want to go?”
     
    “Just inside the debris field. The one from the planet, not the ship.”
     
    “Yes, sir. We will actually arrive before the slug impacts.”
     
    “Do it, then.”
     
    “Weapons and transition drive synchronized. Firing.”
     
    The viewscreen changed to an image of the planet, then black space. The sensor officer said, “Twenty seconds until we have visual.”
     
    “What?” Cort asked.
     
    “Time delay sir. It has already happened, but the light from the explosion isn’t here yet. Ten seconds . . . Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” The screen lit up and immediately went dark again. “I am picking up multiple signals from the planet. I think they are launching ships.”
     
    Cort said, “That was a quick response.”
     
    Tactical responded to the General. “If they are the same species that diverted the crystal, we believe they utilize a tachyon detection system. If so, they knew the moment the explosion happened.
     
    “It’s still damned fast. They had to have ships on standby.” Who the hell are you bastards, and what do you want? “Keep sensors going, and move us to the dark side of the planet. I want to get in close and get all the data we can. Then pull back to the planetary debris field,” Cort ordered.
     
    “Yes, sir.”
     
    An hour later the enemy formation returned to the planet and Cort ordered the Taurus back to the ship’s debris field. “I want to know everything we can without letting them know we are here.”
     
    “We can drift around the debris and passively scan it, General. That should keep us black.”
     
    “Do it. Then we will head back to the planet and you can drop my team.” Cort was impressed with the navigator who had taken temporary command of the ship just before the mission. The Taurus ’s original captain had been killed when he opened the Jonah Drive System housing just hours before departure. A great tactician according to his record, he wasn’t a physicist and didn’t realize that once dark energy began generating the drive field, you could not open the chamber without being vaporized. After the ship was repaired, Admiral Cook ordered additional safety measures. Unfortunately, there was not a qualified captain available for the mission and General Addison made the decision to ship without one.
     
    Three hours after returning to the wreckage of the alien ship, the Taurus had a complete image of the debris and was able to use the data to virtually reconstruct the ship like a child’s model. The navigator-turned-captain commed Cort and said, “General, this data needs to go back to the Federation. That puts us in a bind, because as much I would like to continue our stated mission, I think we need to go home, sir.”
     
    “You got that much, Captain?” Cort asked as came fully awake.
     
    “Yes, sir. We gathered so much data, I could sell these people spare parts. The only thing we are missing is what was in the path of the plasma slug, and we can extrapolate a lot of that. Admiral Cook and the weapons people really need this data sir. I could transmit it, but to do so could expose us to detection.”
     
    “Alright, Neil. take us home. Drop me at Solitude on the way.”
     
    “Yes, sir.”
     
    Solitude Orbit
     
    After the shuttle