(Posted on 06-30-2000)
Chapter 4-Lone Ship
Doc! Doc! Doc! Help me!! Doc can you hear me? I'm down here!
I hear you. Where are you?
Down here! Follow my voice!
Alright I'm. . . .AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!
AWAKE
I awoke with a unnerving startle on board Greg's Arada. Out of nowhere, I had not known what the words had meant. Who was yelling to me for help? The person had a deep voice, with a young touch to it. It was strange. As a child, I had been taught by my mother that dreams always meant something. Even if it was incorrect things that were in it, they would always have some sort of complex symbolism. They tell you something. For me, and to this point in my life, unlike the past I no longer wanted them to hang on me as they did so persistantly before. Now I had wanted them almost completely gone from existence. They had driven me to the last point of irritation.
"Something bothering you?" Hunter asked.
"Yes, a dream I just had. So what's for breakfast?"
"Heh. You really want to know? Have you ever tried a Manala Miranu salad?"
"Salad, for breakfast?"
"They're practically scrambled eggs from humans, my friend."
"Alright, do you have a replicator?"
"I most certainly do. What would you like?"
"Just get me a Pepsi Rich."
"Okay, coming right up."
He got up from the helm's chair, and walked over. My eyes, although they were heavy, glanced over to the viewscreen. It was a planet. I couldn't tell which one, but I knew it wasn't outside UE space.
"Where are we?" I asked, suspiciously.
"Saalia," Greg replied. "If Jade is anywhere around this system, he has got to be either at something like the last planet that rotates Saalia's star."
"Are we going to go check anytime soon?"
"I'd think you'd want to eat first," he said, puzzled.
"My mind is not on my stomach. You don't understand, he taught me everything I know about courage."
"Is that so, Doc? What all did he teach you?"
"Lots of things. He taught me that life is actually worth something."
"Hmmm. . .sounds like a good role model."
"Pish! Not really. He used to own his own Renegade fleet."
"A pirate?!?!"
"Yes, a pirate," I finally finished.
Now Greg Hunter was even more intersted in Jade and me than ever. What he didn't know was that his interest would grow beyond any point than he ever knew possible. The relation between Jade and me was something that was so sophisicated that it wasn't even funny.
Enough about Jadeand I. It was time that I was to start thinking about where Jade could be, and why. I looked over to Greg, and he was just eating his salad, wondering what I was thinking. I wouldn't let him know yet.
"So if he was a pirate," Greg began. "That means that someone could have taught him some very interesting trickery. His own fleet, you mean he commanded it?"
"Yes."
"That's not good. This might be even more difficult than I thought. In that case, we need to get out of here now!"
Quickly, he walked over to the control console. Hitting one switch after another, he finally hit a single red button. The Arada roared to life, it's systems powering up with a vortex-like watery sound that made me fascinated. He looked over to me.
"Buckle your seat belt," he said with a grin.
Hovering over the ground, it lifted off aggresiveley, and quickly. At full speed, it pierced the atmosphere surrounded by a beautiful cloud of fire. I looked out the window, my heart rate normal, my state of mind completly calm. I knew about Jade's actions. He was definately hiding for an important reason that I didn't know about.
Zooming past the ongoing traffic, he cruised past a satellite and with only a few seconds more, we launched into hyperspace. Immediately, he pounded to the next system with a blinding flash of light. It was a DSN system. The detective warped into about three more systems, and then before I knew it, I was looking at a Miranu planet.
"What system are we in?"
"Leita," Greg replied.
I looked to the viewscreen. It looked like a large planet, from the distance that we were at. I glared with a stern gaze torward the targeting computer. I unbuckled the safety straps, and walked over to the console just to the left of the detective.
"What are you doing?" Hunter asked suspicously.
"Seeing how many Miranu Freighters are here, maybe even a shuttle, just something that doesn't fit in."
Suddenly, the communications console blinked to life with static, then a voice came on.
"Herna Lie bella gerni, hou."
"Acivate the translator," Greg said to me.
I looked over to the right of the console that I was operating, and flicked a switch.
"Please identify your ship, now."
"This is the Hunter No. 5. Permission to stay in the system," Greg requested with a firm tone.
"Permission granted."
I glanced over to him. His face wore a focused look, seeming to say he wanted his goals to be finished as soon as they could be. This mission was like a pang to me. It distracted me, and put my mind on pause. This was something that I wasn't sure I could really pull off.
As I observed the targeting console once more. Something caught my eye as I was scrolling through the ships in the system. A Miranu Courier had unidentified elements in it's imagery scan.
"Bingo."
"What?" Greg said, his voice hopeful.
"This Miranu Courier has what looks like a Azdgari weapons system."
"No big surprise, could just be a custom ship."
"That's not all. The Azgari never go into UE Space on their own, or even in groups. The navi-system is made up of UE components, and the weapons are uncharted."
Greg looked over at me in surprise. His heard lifted from the console slowly. Then he twitched his body to face the moderately-sized viewscreen. The planet was shown there, almost like Earth, it's purple clouds were a thing of unseen beauty. Greg Hunter obviously found himself at a realization. . .
Chapter 5-Jade Is Found
The Arada wrenched into the traffic ahead. Half circular space craft roamed about. Zachit Fighters zoomed all around us, and the ship that we had targeted stopped near the atmosphere of the planet. I knew in my soul that that was Jade's ship. It had to be. My mind was clear about the subject, and there was not a single doubt.
"Get us closer," I ordered.
With those words, I felt the ship go up and to the right, my stomach lurched, but that was not my concern. We came hurling at the Miranu Courier.
"Greg, not too fast. I don't want to seem like a threat."
Without a worded reply, he simply acknowledged my request by making a face of acceptance, and easing up on the accelator. His sight never leaving the viewscreen, his eyes never blinking. As for me, I was simply admiring the way he piloted the ship. Yet at the same time I was also looking to see what the Courier was going to do. Both of us were hardly talking, me barely, him not at all.
Then with a simple pause, as we came in slowly, the other ship made an extremely unexpected move. Spinning around once, it's engines roared to life fast, and it started speeding into the orbit of the planet as fast as a starfighter.
"Move!!" I cried.
"I am, try to hail him."
I looked over to the console and hit a green glowing button. A small screen on it displayed a short message in green text. SENDING TRANSMISSION. . .At the same time, I was tightly grasping the arm rests on my chair. Greg was standing up, managing to stay in one spot with all of the insanity. The viewscreen showed the stars and ships zoom by in a fuzzy blur. The planet's beauty being shown to the left, a blue glow emmiting from the planet. The Miranu Courier would not set off. It wouldn't fire so close to the traffic, because that would get the Zachit's attention. This much I knew. However, what really concerned me in this moment was why the ship was running from our particular ship. There was nothing suspicious about us. Just the fact that our hyperspace engine had been modified. Several of the other personal ships had done thngs like this, and yet the shipping was only cruising away from our ship. Maybe it was because the detective had been approaching him much too fast. Or maybe it was because the artificial intelligence in the other computer just plan didn't like us!! We didn't know at all. . .
Again, I glanced over to the small screen. It's words let out a huge relief in my tense shoulders. I looked over to Greg whom was still moving at a fast pace torward him.
"Stop," I said.
Greg looked at me, and then to the communications console quickly and then stopped. My body was forced forward slightly, but then I fell back into my seat once more.
"This is Doc Mason," I said into the commlink. Desperately, now my emotional state was once like it had been. I was now deperatly hoping to find something. My urges leapt out, my head feeling hot, and clouded. Yet my prayer was answered.
"Doc?!?! Thank God!"
It was Jade. It was Jade Reib. The unknown son of Elizabeth Reib. Now I was so glad that he was there I didn't know what to say. Except to rely on my previous worries, and my previous thoughts on his motivation and why he was hiding.
"Jade, what's wrong? Why have you been hiding?"
"Hiding? I haven't been hiding. I've been running."
"Running from what, Jade?"
"Them! I was involved in the Igadzra Project Hellfire. They wanted to conduct experiments on me to study my DNA. Once they have human DNA that has been biologically created, they want to make clones. They attempts to do this previously have-----"
His voice was cut out by static. My anger rose. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. I knew it in my veins. I glared over to Greg who was standing right next to me. He was looking at me. The console that he was operating suddenly gave out a constant beep.
"Picking up unknown jump signatures. Switching to right side view."
The viewscreen flickered to a different view. It was the view that the right side of the Arada had. Strange, organic looking ships were cruising torward the traffic. Zachit Fighters zoomed from all directions to immediatly ask for their identification. Before they could do that, I saw the most horrible sight of my life. 23 Zachit Fighters blew up with a single concentrated beam blast. Their fire errupted with a massive blast, taking out whole freighters, destroying chunks of Lazira's and Arada's. Skimming our shields, the beam faded out.
"What the hell is going on?!" I yelled in rage.
The alien ships released dark gray dots in the distance. Their fighters were released. More than 40 spat out, and screamed torward us in a tinglingly fast manner. It was a surprise that the Miranu were not ready for. The large ships were massive. A beastly 10km long, and 7 km wide according to our scans. My head jerked over to the tip of the left part of the viewscreen, Jade was already gone. I looked back over to the massive ships. Two of them stood side by side, facing the planet.
"Move up to them, make an attack pass!" I yelled.
"What? Are you insane?"
"No, I'm just smart. Go!"
Without furthur argument, Greg went over to the combat seat, and strapped himself in. I sat down in my chair, and strapped in, too. The remaining ships in the systems split up., some of them harshly damaged, head down to the planet's surface. Greg's hand gripped the joystick, my hand grasped the accelerator. The ship boosted up to full speed. Photon cannons spit powerful blast towards the swarm of fighters, that looked terrifying. They were dark gray and they had a design that was similar the Azdara, only their wings were like spikes, and their cockpits had a pointed beak like array at the front.
They fired what sounded like blaze cannons at our ship, but they a had a green and purple look. Greg was an ace pilot. His skill was elite. He dodged just about every shot, our shields holding. Yet the few shots that did get us did serious shield damage.
"Sheild status 43%! It won't go any faster."
We approached the ship on the right, which we saw several black things turning torward us on the warship's surface. Turrets! The ship span around several times, and the ship ahead of us, although looked huge as it was, only got bigger as we approached it. We veered to the left, at full speed, took a violent turn that made the ship rattle with a disturbing feeling. The nose of the large dark ship we were approaching started firing at us with a purple blast instead.
Without Greg's approval, I hit a random system on the navi-computer and the ship jumped out, in between the two ships. We warped into the next system, our ship spinning out of control, Greg hit a switch, and I felt myself lift up off the ground. The gravity lifted off, and eventually disappeared altogether.
"What are you doing?"
"It's too dangerous to try and do anything with the gravity still on, we'd be thrown around."
"But we're heading straight torward Mira!" I cried in panic.
Floating torwards me, he simply had an unreadable face as he said the words, "That's why we have to hurry, Doc."
(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 06-30-2000).)
