The Temporal Knights (81 page)

“Two minutes to target,” Matt announced and swung the ship hard to the right and back again as a Skawp ship flew directly over them. They took another hit on their right forward array and suddenly the intercom was down.

“One minute to target,” Matt said for Murphy’s benefit.

“Acquiring target,” Murphy replied and a set of high-powered invisible lasers lit up the palace as it quickly moved toward them.

“Put them in a good place,” Matt suggested but his partner did not hear him as he concentrated on the target. He placed one laser dead center and another near what to him appeared to be a set of massive doors along the western wall.

“Thirty seconds.”

“Twenty.”

“Ten.”

“Nukes away!” Murphy yelled and both men felt the ship shudder as the heavy bombs shot from their tubes. Moments later they watched as the weapons rocket engines ignited and they streaked down to their targets.

The view of the palace filled the forward monitor as Murphy struggled to keep the lasers on the target. Matt spun the ship left and then back to the right before pointing the nose straight to the heavens and opening the engines up full.

“Fly straight!” Murphy yelled and Matt gritted his teeth and ignored his every instinct to avoid the shots that were lighting up the sky all around them.

Twenty seconds later the first nuclear bomb struck the palace, a second and a half later the second bomb hit and burrowed deep within the fragile honeycombed structure. Both bombs penetrated far below the surface, much farther than they were designed to go, but the palace of the Skawp Queen was not made of hardened concrete and steel, but of delicate wood and paper, a substance derived from the mouths of her builders. The bombs exploded one right after another, destroying miles of underground caverns and tunnels. As the two human pilots raced away they watched as the palace bulged upward toward the sky and then completely disintegrated, leaving nothing but a blazing, blackened whole in the center of the city.

“Yeeeee haaaaaaa!” Murphy yelled as the ship was once more struck by a high energy weapon and a panel behind them exploded in protest.

“Target destroyed!” Matt reported and opened the engines up full. “Let’s see what this piece of shit can do!”

The Skawp ship was indeed a marvel and they pushed through the outer atmosphere at an alarming pace. The first artificial ring was passed them before they even realized they were closing on it, but the trailing ships were also marvels and after initially falling behind began to close once more.

“Matt!” Murphy yelled as dozens of ships poured from the largest ring and headed directly for them. At this speed and in space, Matt could do little maneuvering. He could make slight course adjustments only. He fired the thrusters until he was sure he would not hit the final two rings and then ignited the interstellar engines.

“Now!” Murphy yelled and fired their own pulse weapons at the ship streaking directly for them. He kept firing over and over again, until suddenly the ship before them silently exploded and they shot past and into space. The ship was moving incredibly fast now, and was beyond the Skawp moons in less than a minute. Matt pulled up and out of the planetary plane as they pushed their way toward one-tenth the speed of light.

“Damn!” Murphy said and pointed to the monitor showing their rear view. There were two ships following closely but they were now a bit farther back, caught by surprise when Matt fired the interstellar engines while still within the boundaries of the planet. But behind the nearest pursuit ships, Matt saw thousands and thousands of ships pouring from the planet, moons and rings, and all of them were turning and heading after them.

“Can we out run them?” Murphy asked.

Matt shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I have the engines wide open, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

They detected hundreds of other ships converging on their position from around the star system but thankfully none of them were in their direct path.

“Matt!” Ellyn exclaimed as Giffu helped her and little Oldalf down the stairs. “Ye did it! The queen’s palace was destroyed. I
canna believe the weapons…” she added and moved over and gave him a quick kiss that Matt returned.

“Strap in,” he said after he kissed his son on the forehead. Giffu was likewise kissing Murphy but the two women did as he asked though the ride at the moment was as smooth as if they were still.

They raced away from the Skawp world, keeping ahead of the trailing ships as they finally reached one-fifth the speed of light. It wasn’t until the next morning that they realized several of the larger trailing ships were slowly but steadily gaining on them. The enemy was still very far behind, but they were coming inexorably closer. By the time they reached one quarter the speed of light a week had past, but it was definite, hundreds of large Skawp ships were gaining, and by Matt’s calculations they would be within firing range in approximately three weeks.

“Perhaps their top speed is less than ours,” Murphy suggested but they could do little more than wait.

The days slipped by and all the while the Skawp ships drew ever nearer. They reached one-third the speed of light and still the trailing ships grew larger and larger. Matt tried to ignore the constantly approaching threat, wanting to enjoy these last days with his wife and son, but the approaching Skawps doused what little joy he had.

“They should start firing sometime tomorrow morning,” Murphy whispered to Matt while the women were above fixing a bit of lunch. It was no secret the enemy was close; their ships now filled the rear view screen.

“We’re at max…we can’t go any faster,” Matt replied angrily, growing more resigned to their fate every day. “I just hope we killed that bitch!”

“Do you think they’d still come after us like this if their queen was dead?”

Matt shrugged. “Who knows what goes on in a Skawp’s mind?”

§

The lead ship began firing eight hours later, though they were still just out of range. The dazzling pulse weapons remained brilliantly white all the way to their target, but when they hit they did little damage. But as the hours past and the enemy ships drew closer, their weapons gained in strength and the ship was soon vibrating regularly from the impacts. A half dozen more ships began to fire their weapons, but there was little Matt could do except keep the engines throttled to full power.

“We could try to rotate and return fire,” Murphy suggested just as a loud alarm full of hissing went off and a dozen lights lit up on the navigational equipment.

“Was something hit?” Matt asked in a panic as his son started to cry loudly. Ellyn bounced him on her knee and tried to console him, but the noise from the alarm was loud and grating and made them all feel like crying.

“Negative!” Murphy yelled. “There’s another ship coming straight for us. Eleven o’clock high and moving fast…very fast.”

Matt glanced toward the top of the windows but couldn’t see anything, but one look at the large view screen confirmed the Captain’s report. There was another ship closing on their position very rapidly.

“Can we avoid it?” Murphy asked as he fumbled with a host of switches trying to find one that would turn off the grating alarm. 

“Negative!” Matt yelled, just as the cabin went silent except for little Oldalf’s pitiful cries. The Skawp ships chasing after them ignored the new arrival and continued to fire. Matt fought the controls as the ship rocked and bucked under the barrage and then the lights went out. Both women screamed in unison and Oldalf wailed even louder, but moments later a bank of dim emergency lights flickered on.

“Oh my god!”
Murphy exclaimed and Æthelgifu was about to chastise him when she caught sight of the approaching ship in the forward windows. The ship was closing incredibly fast and even at this distance she could tell it was enormous, larger than their own ship certainly, and larger than anything the Skawps had thrown at them thus far. As the seconds past and the ship raced closer, Giffu’s mouth popped open. The ship was massive…much, much larger than she previously guessed.

“Engines at maximum,” Matt reported stunned at the size of the approaching vehicle. Another pulse hit their ship and it shuddered so violently that if he’d not been strapped in Matt was sure he would have been thrown from his chair. He glanced back and was amazed that somehow Ellyn still held Oldalf, who was now screeching at the top of his lungs, obviously very afraid.

The large ship kept growing and growing until suddenly a large green fan of light swept from its underside and flashed through space enveloping the trailing Skawp ships. One by one they exploded silently, metal fragments dispersing out into empty space. For a moment Matt believed the ship meant to save them but then the fan of green light swept back their way. Matt only had a second to fire the port thrusters before the light washed over them and all went silent.

The engines shut down; the thrusters shut down and even little Oldalf went still, and all at once they were floating in their harnesses, completely weightless…but they did not explode. They were traveling at nearly half the speed of light and continued to race across space even with their engines inoperable. Even so, the strange ship continued to close on them, so massive that they could no longer see it from end to end.

“Mayhap tis larger than all of Somerset,” Ellyn exclaimed, slightly breathless.

“Check the engines,” Matt ordered then rapidly checked his control panel. “Main power is down; artificial gravity is not functioning; life support down; communications are down; all of our systems are offline."

Murphy was still in the process of getting free of his restraints when suddenly the lights came back on and the gravity was restored. He froze and watched as the ship above elegantly matched their speed and position. Matt immediately tried to fire the engines but they remained silent and inoperable. They were stuck, trapped.

Matt was sick at the unfairness of it all. Somehow the Skawps had won!

They all sat stunned and filled with sorrow, as an enormous bay on the side of the alien ship began to slide open. Inside, the alien ship was very bright against the dark of interstellar space. Matt tried the engines again, but they remained stubbornly silent. Suddenly their port thrusters fired and they began to drift slowly toward the open chasm.

“Matt!” Ellyn exclaimed, her voice shaky and loud with fear, but he just shook his head.

“I didn’t do it. The Skawps must be controlling the ship,” Matt replied, slightly panicked. “There’s nothing I can do.”

As if to confirm his statement, the thrusters fired briefly once more, changing their heading slightly until they were moving directly toward the massive bay. The door finally came to a halt but the opening was easily large enough for a hundred ships their size.

Giffu, afraid she might die at any moment, quickly snapped out of her shoulder harness and moved to Murphy and knelt beside him. Ellyn and little Oldalf soon followed. Matt took his son from his wife and placed him on his lap. The boy immediately tried to reach the panel of lights but Matt made sure to keep him well out of reach.

They all watched silently as their ship drifted to and then through the immense opening. Matt tried to reverse the thrusters but again they failed to react. They floated inside and everyone was again struck by the immense size of the ship that had captured them. Matt estimated the bay to be at least ten miles wide and five miles high.

“Incredible!” Murphy mumbled. “Why haven’t the Skawps killed us?”

“I don’t know…it’s not like them,” Matt whispered and then shrugged. “I guess we should just sit back and enjoy the ride,” he answered. “If they’d wanted us dead, we’d be dead.”

“Do you ladies have any ideas?” Matt asked, and glanced down at Ellyn and then over to Giffu, but both were quiet.

“Mayhap ye should try’n talk with ‘em,” Giffu suggested and Matt’s eyes went to the control panel. The communications system was switched off. He must have turned the controls off when all the systems went down. He pressed a green button on the glass panel and a voice blasted loudly over the intercom.

“Major Matthew Thane of the United States Air Force...please acknowledge,” the voice requested and everyone stopped dead. They each glanced up and stared at the monitor, but it was now blank. There was no sound on the ship except for the cooing of little Oldalf as he struggled to reach the control panel. Matt turned briefly to Ellyn, whose eyes were wide with disbelief.

“Major Matthew Thane of the United States Air Force...please acknowledge,” the voice repeated. It was a woman’s voice, strong and clear.

“Doesn’t sound like any Skawp to me,” Murphy commented, stunned as their ship settled with a clang on the floor of the bay.

Matt shook his head and handed Oldalf back to his kneeling mother, the boy screeched but then went after his mother’s hair. Matt glanced at Murphy, shrugged and pressed a button on the console. “This is Major Thane,” he answered, still unable to think clearly.

“One moment please,” the voice said and after a few seconds the monitor flashed on revealing a handsome, older woman with long, flowing auburn hair. Standing next to her was a much younger woman, a girl really, in her late teens, or perhaps early twenties. Matt broke into a huge grin, not because he knew either person, but for the simple fact that they were both obviously human.