Morgan Selwood 3: A Victory Celebration (5 page)

He dragged himself away with a groan. "We
have a ball to attend." Panting, he waved her away. "Go and get
ready. We're going to have a lot to talk about in bed."

She stood and smiled down at him. "Talk?"

He rose and smacked her gently on the butt.
"In due course. Off you go. And that's an order."

Grinning, she bowed her head. "As you
order,
Srimana
."

Turn
the page to find out how the adventure started in…

MORGAN’S
CHOICE

Chapter One

Steam rose from Jones’ food pack, filling
Curlew’s
tiny common room with the aroma of beef stew. “That’s one month down.” He took
the container out of the warmer and brought it the two steps to the table.

Morgan glanced up at him, still chewing, as
he sank down on the bench opposite. She swallowed her own food. “Yeah.”

One month’s worth of the existing food
supply gone. Another month, maybe a little longer if they rationed even further
and then perhaps they’d be fishing Tariq’s body out of the cargo hold,
wondering if a bit of cannibalism might be in order. The thought made her gag
but at least it was an option. Running out of air—that was something else
altogether.

She speared some more synthetic plast-food
from her own food pack and lifted it to her mouth.

A staccato bleeping shattered the silence.

She flung her fork on the table, leapt
through the forward hatch into the bridge and dropped into the captain’s chair,
her heart pounding with a mixture of excitement and tension, hope and
apprehension. She flicked off the wide-range scanner’s alarm and reached into
the computer system with her mind to adjust the sensors to maximum
magnification. Something had just come out of shift-space close enough to
trigger the warning. Maybe she’d got it all wrong and
Curlew
was still
in Coalition space. Because otherwise…

In a fraction of a millisecond she’d loaded
the ships’ images into her implant, extrapolated, rotated to adjust for angle
of approach, measured. The largest of the three ships was two point one five
times
Curlew’s
length, but it had a quite different profile, long and
angular. No bulky cargo hold, so not a freighter. The two smaller ships were
more recognizable, if unfamiliar; small ships with narrow profiles shaped a
little like arrow heads. Short wings, so they’d probably be capable of
atmospheric flight. She checked against the ship database on her implant.
Unknown ships, unknown origin. A worm of apprehension twisted in her belly.
Stupid. What had she expected? Of course they weren’t Coalition ships.
Curlew
had plummeted so far beyond known space the navigation system was as useless as
the shift drive.

One thing for sure—the ships were headed
this way.

The red numbers on the view screen counted
down time until intercept. Twenty-four minutes, thirty seconds… twenty seconds…
ten seconds. Until they reached here. And then what? Whatever it was, it was
better than dead. Surely.

“Are they ours?” Jones’ voice startled her.
He sat in the navigator’s seat on the other side of the bridge, gripping the
arm rests with rigid fingers. He’d better keep his hands off the controls.

“No. At least, they’re not Coalition
ships.”

“Shit.”

His Adams’s apple bobbed. He might be a
prat but he wasn’t stupid. No non-Coalition worlds had spaceships worthy of the
name. And yes, she was scared, too.

Were those ships manned? Maybe ‘occupied’
was a better word. Wriggly green things with three heads? Energy beings? What
other aliens had she ever seen on the holovids? She tried to lick her lips but
her mouth was dry. Hard to imagine that she might be the first woman to
encounter an intelligent alien. Let’s hope she lived to tell the tale, maybe
end up in somebody’s history book. She rolled her shoulders to loosen up tense
muscles. “Better suit up.”

She pulled a survival suit out of the
compartment in the bulkhead next to her and scrambled into it with practiced
ease, while Jones struggled with the fastenings on the front of his suit. She
helped him fit the helmet over his shoulders. He clamped it in place; the
instrument lights reflected in the curved transplex, distorting his features.
He mashed his lips, as nervous as she was.

Five minutes until intercept.

The fighters were visible without
magnification now, dark shapes in front of the starscape, one slightly behind
the other. The view screen showed them in color; grey, like their larger
companion.

Using her implant, she magnified the image
of the protuberances jutting from both short wings. Muzzles? The twinge of
apprehension in her gut strengthened. Surely they wouldn’t just destroy
Curlew
?

The fighters closed in, one on each side,
circling around the freighter. Like sharks around prey.

She opened a communication channel. “This
is Coalition freighter
Curlew
. We require assistance. Can you help?
Over.”

Silence.

She tried again, on a broader channel that
might include the on-coming larger ship.

Still nothing.

She flexed sweaty fingers inside her
gloves.

The larger alien craft edged closer, the
blunt nose growing in the view screen. The ship had adjusted its course so that
it was running over the top of
Curlew
. Closer it came and closer, its
hull clearly visible in the view screen. Scarred and battered. Not a new ship.
And were those hatches all along its length?

Jones peered up as if trying to see inside
the ship. His eyes were very blue and wide with fear. She probably looked the
same.

A muffled clunk reverberated through the
hull. Jones jumped. Morgan pushed down a surge of adrenalin and checked the
sensor data. A rigid connection extended from a hatch in the alien vessel to
the top of
Curlew’s
cargo hold.

“What are they doing?” he said.

The two fighters took up position, one on
either side of the larger ship. She felt
Curlew
lurch a little as they
changed direction and then they were underway, suspended beneath the belly of
an alien vessel like prey being returned to the village after the hunt.

“They’ve kind of taken us in tow,” she
said.

He grabbed her arm, his panicked fingers
pressing hard against the sleeve of her suit. “What are you going to do about
it?” His voice was a rasp.

She snatched her arm away. “I’m going to
shut down the engines.”

The soft grumble of the sub-light drive
died away, leaving only the sound of her own breathing and the thundering of
her heart.

“But—”

Oh, good grief.
What did I do to get
stuck with this idiot?
“Do you want to hold out for a better offer? One
more month and we’re dead, Jones. Finished. Starved to death, out of air.” She
thrust out a hand, pointing to the cargo hold. “Couple of months we’ll be
mummified, just like Tariq. I’d rather take my chances here.”

He backed off, mashing his lips.

A familiar shimmer of energy appeared on
the screen, away in the distance. Morgan aimed the sensors, magnified. Sure
enough. “Another ship just came out of shift-space, heading this way.” She
checked the preliminary data. Wow. “That thing’s enormous. It’s five klicks
long. And I reckon it’s a warship.”

“Why?”

Save her from fucking accountants. She had
to explain everything. “It’s huge, it’s dark with minimal running lights and
it’s very, very fast.” She glanced at the data. The ship above them was
speeding up. What could that mean?

The sensors identified twelve rapidly
moving pinpricks traveling in formation; a squadron of the warship’s own
fighters? She increased the magnification; black, rectangular. The two fighters
shadowing
Curlew
changed vector, on an intercept course with the new
players.

Six of the black fighters peeled off to
engage the two grey fighters. But the other six continued in pursuit of the
larger vessel and
Curlew
. In moments a brief, brilliant explosion marked
the end of one of the two arrowhead fighters. Its companion lasted a little
longer until it, too, exploded into a ball of fragments and energy. The
attacking ships’ shields sparkled as the debris impacted and disintegrated.

Morgan felt, rather than heard the alien
ship above them release the link. The vessel’s hull seemed to slip backwards as
Curlew
continued its momentum.

“They’ve let go.” Jones’ voice oozed
relief.

“You don’t say?”

She watched its progress on the rear
sensors as the long grey shape receded behind
Curlew
, pivoted and
powered away, its engines glowing yellow-white, toward the squadron of fighters
from the warship. Strange. It couldn’t hope to win a battle at those odds. If
she didn’t know better she could almost imagine the ship was trying to protect
Curlew
.
That prospect sent her heart into overdrive. Why would the freighter
need
protecting from the new arrivals?

She brought the ship’s drive back up to
readiness and strengthened the shields. Best get out of the way and hope
Curlew
wasn’t going to be a target, too.

The fighters approached, six growing
rectangles. She could see details, now. A cylindrical body down the center,
angled down wingtips, tubes slung under the wings. If they were going to engage
it would be soon. Two more followed, fresh from destroying the grey fighters,
Oh, fuck. Morgan held her breath. The six slowed down, intent on the long grey
ship. But the other two swept on to match vector with
Curlew
, one on
each side. Nobody was firing. Yet.

The larger ship angled itself with
surprising agility to meet the attack, shifting position from minute to minute.
Gun turrets appeared like spines, protruding all along its hull. They fired in
line, blasts of beams shooting out at the attacking fighters. If it had been a
fireworks display, it might have been pretty. Shields flared blue as the
attackers took evasive action and regrouped.

The grey ship shifted position again,
rotating on an axis. A missile seared past, then exploded as a beam from the
defending ship hit it. Deflections spattered against
Curlew’s
shields,
enough to start an amber warning light flashing in the bridge.

Morgan considered easing
Curlew
a
bit further away but the two sentinel ships hadn’t moved. Another complicated
maneuver brought the gray ship closer to
Curlew
. A bay opened in its
hull. Oh, fuck, they’d fired a missile. Her heart thundered. No, not at
Curlew
—at
one of the guard ships. The explosion sprayed all over the fighter’s shields
and ricocheted to
Curlew
. The shields put on a light show of sparks. The
amber light on the console turned red. Rear shield down to seventy-eight
percent. Shit, that was all she needed; destroyed as collateral damage. She
diverted power to the shield generator.

Two of the attackers fired two missiles
each, four hunters tracking for a kill. The grey ship finished one but it
couldn’t dodge them all. The first hit weakened the shields; the next two
finished her. Radiation and debris from the explosion flowed past
Curlew,
causing the shields to light up like an advertising display in downtown
Torreno. The warning system brayed an alert to go with the flashing red light.
She turned off the alarms.

Only
Curlew
left. She would have
swallowed if her mouth wasn’t so dry. A trickle of sweat oozed past her
hairline. Still the two fighters shadowed the freighter.

A voice. A tremor surged through Morgan’s
body.

She couldn’t understand the words but the
cadence was almost recognizable. A business-like voice, issuing calm
instructions which probably translated as something like ‘this is warship
whatever. Identify yourself.’

“This is Coalition freighter
Curlew
.
We need help.” For what it was worth, she transmitted
Curlew’s
identification sequence.

She counted her heartbeats; one, two,
three, four. She’d heard words, not unintelligible hisses or clicks. Words, she
was sure of it. The voice spoke again. It sounded like an instruction. But
what?
Think, Morgan, think. What would they want?

The fighter to the left of
Curlew
took up position in front and the one to the right dropped around behind,
edging close. The voice spoke again, a few more unintelligible words.

Best guess would be ‘come with me’. She
engaged the drive and matched speed and course with the leading fighter.

Not ten klicks away, the warship’s huge
bulk took up the entire display on the view screen. The profile looked narrow
but that was only because of the vessel’s length. Two-thirds of the way along
its length and down to its stern a second level jutted above the first.

The leading fighter slowed to a stop.
Another unintelligible command. She shut down the engines and hoped Jones
wouldn’t notice her hands shaking. Nope. He was too scared to notice anything.

“What now?” he asked.

“Why ask me? How the fuck would I know?
They could be strange, flesh-eating beings with three heads who eat humans for
dinner. Maybe we’ll be on the menu.”

He scowled. “Why do you always try to make
a joke when it’s serious?”

“It may not be a joke. If it’s not the
Coalition and it’s not the Festive Fairy…” A shudder ran through
Curlew’s
hull. “Hang on. They’re bringing us on board. That was their grav beam catching
on.”

About the
Author

Greta
van der Rol loves writing science fiction with a large dollop of good old,
healthy romance. She lives not far from the coast in Queensland, Australia and
enjoys photography and cooking when she isn't bent over the computer. She has a
degree in history and a background in building information systems, both of
which go a long way toward helping her in her writing endeavours.

http://gretavanderrol.net

Additional Titles from Greta van der Rol

The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy

The Iron Admiral: Deception

Supertech

Starheart

To Die a Dry Death

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