Free Titan Encounter by Kyle Pratt Page B

can help, but I prefer to take you alive.” He laughed uproariously.
    Suddenly Justin
noticed Naomi, eyes closed and motionless, standing out of the view of the
communications camera.  How did you get on my ship? He stepped
slowly forward and then noticed a slight distortion of the pirates face. He
sighed. You’re a hologram .
    Ferren seemed to read his
mind and laughed again. With a sweep of his arm he said, “Sit down. We should
talk.”
    “What
about?” Justin directed his thoughts to Naomi. What’s going on? But, there was
no reply. He moved to the captain’s chair and sat.
    “I want you to
surrender, of course.”
    “Why should I?”
    “You’re a Titan, we
need to kill you.”
    Justin glanced at
his shipmate, pressed mute on the console, and asked, “Naomi, what are you
doing?”
    Keeping her eyes
closed, she shook her head. 
    Pressing mute once
more, he caught the pirate in mid sentence .
    “…talk about it. Oh,
and I must withdraw my offer of marriage to your sister. You do understand.”
    Justin shook his
head in disbelief. You married to her? Never going to
happen. She’d cut off body parts you haven’t seen in years thanks to
that fat belly. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.” His voice
dripped sarcasm. “I understand your situation, really I do. Why marry someone
you’re going to burn at the stake in a few days.”
     The pirate
smiled. “Exactly.   Now about your surrender,” A
pained expression crossed his face and he rubbed his bulbous chest. “I would
prefer you make this easy.”
    “So, that’s your
terms? I surrender so you can kill me—and my sister?”
    Ferren frowned and rubbed
his left arm. “That slave you’re so fond of might live. So, yes those
are…” 
    “No.” Justin ended
the transmission. His face felt warm. Does everyone know how I feel about
Naomi? Turning to her, he asked, “Is everything okay?”
    For a moment, she
stood like a statue, then with a sigh her shoulders
slumped. “I was out of view when he called.” She smiled mischievously. “I tried
to give his overworked heart a good hard squeeze.”
    “Give him a heart
attack?”
    She grinned.
    “You can do that?”
    The grin slid away. “Apparently not at this distance.”
    Recalling Ferren rubbing his chest and arm he smiled. “I think he’s
lucky you stopped trying.” He glanced at the controls. “How soon will we return
to normal space?”
    “Anytime
now.”
    Minutes later Justin
bent over the captain’s console, straining against the seat harness. “I’ve
brought up sensor displays. When we exit the wormhole you pilot. I’ll watch Ferren .”
    Naomi nodded. “I’ve
programmed in several evasive maneuvers.”
    “Then we’ve done all
that we can.” Justin leaned back in the chair and together they waited.
    Justin stared at the
chronometer before him and pondered the temporal qualities of the phrase,
“anytime now,” Then forced his eyes to return to the sensor displays. His slow
scan of the console halted over a slowly changing readout. “ Ferren is closing on us.”
    Naomi fastened her
seat harness. “I am certain his sensors are better than ours.  Most likely
we are about to return to normal space.”
    As if to validate
her words, the sensors detected the wormhole event horizon. Stars appeared to
break out from a central luminous mass and slide to various positions. Light
flashed as Justin attempted to speak. The words choked in his mouth. Weightless
and disoriented he floated against the harness.
    The ship shot from
the gate.  With a thud gravity forced him deep into the seat.
    Justin squinted at
the screen. “What is that?”
    The collision alarm
sounded.

Chapter
13
    Justin’s eyes
widened as waves of wreckage swept past.
    Naomi swung Surfeit
hard to starboard as the aft section of a battleship rolled over them. Turning
back to port to avoid other random ship parts of various shapes and sizes, she
slid the vessel under the ruined superstructure of another