Trident Fury (The Kurgan War Book 3) (33 page)

Wendy nodded. “I know. We can use one of its smaller moons to mask our electronic signature while we wait for the
Algonquin
to arrive. Is the jump engine warmed up and ready to go?”

“As ready as it will ever be,” said the pilot. “Don’t forget that this ship was due to be mothballed and hasn’t made a jump in several months.”

Wendy cringed at the thought of the engine stalling in mid-jump. The last thing she wanted was to be captured once again. Death was preferable to the horrors they would face back in the mine with a horde of enraged Kurgans.

Tarina stuck her head in the cockpit. “Why haven’t we jumped? Is there a problem that I need to know about?”

“No. We were just about to make the jump to our RV,” replied the pilot.

Wendy looked into the tired eyes of her friend. “I’ll stay up here. Why don’t you go back and look after Michael and the other passengers? They don’t need two backseat pilots bugging them.”

Tarina smiled at Wendy, turned, and left the cockpit.

The co-pilot activated the jump computer. “Jumping in five-four-three-two-one.”

Enclosed in a black bubble, the shuttle jumped away. Fourteen minutes would pass before they came out of their jump. Wendy sat on a hard metal bench and looked over the co-pilot’s shoulder at the navigational computer. When she saw that they were traveling faster than the speed of light, she sat back and allowed herself to relax for a few minutes.

“How long until we RV with the
Algonquin
?” Sheridan asked Tarina.

“I think Wendy said about half an hour. The
Algonquin
was covering the withdrawal of the rest of the task force, so we’ll get there before her.”

Sheridan sat up and looked around the room. The look on everyone’s faces was a mix of joy and sadness. Those that could help were looking after the injured. A couple of med kits had been tossed inside the shuttle before coming down to the planet’s surface. His heart ached when he saw a couple of people kneeling beside a body covered by a blanket. To have come so far only to die when they were safe did not seem fair to Sheridan. Cole had given him an injection for the pain and had taped up his chest so it didn’t hurt too badly when he tried move around.

“What do you think will happen to us when we arrive back with the fleet?” asked Tarina.

“I don’t know. I suspect that after a thorough medical, you’ll all have to go somewhere to decompress. The intelligence boys back home are probably salivating in anticipation of interviewing all of you.”

“Do you think they’ll let us go back to what we were doing before we were captured?”

Sheridan knew that Tarina loved her work with the First Special Warfare Squadron and would be crushed if she couldn’t get back to her old unit. “I don’t see why not. But first you need to take some time off to heal your body and your mind; you’ve been through a lot since you were captured. You really do need to look after yourself.”

“Yeah, I guess I could use a nice vacation by the beach. I wonder if they’ll let me visit my parents?”

“Who knows?”

“What are you two officers taking about?” asked Cole as he took a seat on the floor. He handed over two ration packs and a couple bottles of water.

Sheridan thanked him and turned over his pack to read the menu. “Beans! After all I’ve been through, you give me beans.”

Cole chuckled and took back the meal. “I just wanted to see the look on your face. Here, have my ravioli. I don’t mind cold beans.”

Wendy checked the clock counting down until their jump ended. They had forty-five seconds to go. Nervous excitement began to build up inside of her. She had never rushed through a complicated jump calculation before. With so many objects in orbit around a gas giant, she silently prayed that they didn’t come out of their jump right into an asteroid.
 

“Okay, coming out of our jump in three-two-one,” said the co-pilot.
 

In the blink of an eye, the shuttle ended its faster than light journey. The cockpit windows were filled with the planet K-195. Various shades of orange ran like bands around the planet’s surface.

“Any sign of the
Algonquin
?” asked Wendy.

“No, none yet,” replied the co-pilot. “Wait, I’ve got something appearing on our port side. It’s fifty thousand kilometers away.”
 

Wendy looked over at the monitor. Her blood chilled when she saw that instead of the
Algonquin,
it was a Kurgan long-range fighter. “Crap! Get us out of here.”

“We don’t have enough fuel left to make another jump,” explained the pilot. “The best we can do is maneuver at sub-light speed for about ten minutes. After that, we’ll be out of fuel.”

Wendy looked out the cockpit window and made a snap call. “We can’t stay out here. Take us into K-159’s atmosphere.”

“That’s insane,” protested the pilot.

“Do it!”

The pilot turned and applied full power to the sub-light engines. The shuttle quickly accelerated and raced toward the gas giant. On the screen, the Kurgan vessel took up the pursuit.
 

 
An automated voice came over the ship’s speakers. “Warning, you are being targeted. I say again, you are being targeted. Missile inbound. Take evasive maneuvers.”

The pilot gritted her teeth and banked the shuttle over to the right. Without slowing down, she dove between a couple of large asteroids, missing one by less than ten meters. Behind them, a Kurgan anti-ship missile struck one of the asteroids, blasting it apart.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Tarina as she slid down on the bench beside Wendy.

Wendy pointed at the computer screen. “We’ve got company.”

“Where did he come from?”

Wendy shrugged just as the ship rocked as it entered the planet’s atmosphere. In the back, some of the people cried out, unaware of what was going on. Within seconds out of the cockpit’s windows dark orange clouds appeared. All of a sudden, the shuttle was bucked up in the air by the winds surging up from an electrical storm below them. The pilot hurried to slow the descent of the shuttle so she could better fly the craft in the turbulent atmosphere.

The co-pilot said, “We’ve got winds approaching five hundred kilometers an hour coming at us from the starboard side.”

“Where is the Kurg fighter?” asked Tarina.

“He’s followed us down,” replied the pilot. “He’s about three thousand kilometers back and closing.”

“Take us into the electrical storm. It’ll mess with his targeting computers.”

“As well as our ship’s electronics as well. Besides I’m not sure how far we can descend before the pressure outside crushes our hull.”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“Remind me not to volunteer for anything in the future,” declared the pilot to her friend as she took the shuttle down into the raging storm.

Lighting flashes lit up the ship as it dropped deeper into the depths of the planet’s gaseous atmosphere.
 

Wendy glanced over at the screen and saw the Kurgan fighter closing in on them. Its pilot must have realized what they were attempting to do and was hoping to catch them and use his ship’s cannons to blow them apart.

A loud moaning shriek echoed through the shuttle. Everyone in the back compartment turned their heads up and looked at the roof of the craft as if expecting to see some horrid creature trying to rip its way inside.
 

“This is not my idea of an escape,” said Cole, hanging onto a strap to prevent him from being thrown about the cabin.

“Mine, neither,” added Sheridan.
 

In the cockpit, the four women stared intently at the computer monitor as it displayed the pressure building up on the hull. No one had to say it, but they all knew that they were approaching crush depth.

Wendy turned her eyes away and glanced at the targeting monitor and saw that the Kurgan fighter was nearly on them. She didn’t doubt that if he didn’t get them, the pressure soon would. She closed her eyes, reached over, and took Tarina’s hand. If she were going to die, she would be with her best friend and not alone.

A massive crumpling sound of metal being twisted and compressed came over the shuttle’s speakers. Someone in the back cried out in fear.
 

Wendy opened her eyes and saw that they were still in one piece. She looked for the Kurgan on the screen and saw that he was no longer there. Joy raced through her heart. “He’s gone, the Kurgan is gone. He’s imploded. Get us the hell out of this storm.”

The pilot turned her head and saw that the monitor was blank. In a flash, she pulled back on the shuttle’s controls and brought the ship’s nose up. She applied power and brought them out of the maelstrom and headed back into space.

“I think there’s another vessel in orbit. It’s about forty thousand kilometers away,” said Tarina as she read the information on the screen.

“Friendly?” asked Wendy.

Tarina smiled. “It’s the
Algonquin
.”

A cheer erupted from the cockpit that raced through the rest of the ship. They had made it. It was time to go home.

In a dark corner not noticed by anyone, Angela looked around at the people in the compartment with her. They weren’t her people. She was alone and for the first time in months, she was afraid.

Chapter 47

Not since he was a young boy, after his sister’s death, did Michael Sheridan feel so helpless. He stared down at the note in his hand. He had already read it over several times, yet he found himself reading it again trying to see if there was something more to the message.

The doors to his quarters slid open. Cole walked in with a grin a mile wide on his face. “Oy, what are you doing here? I thought you’d still be at the officers’ mess. After all, it’s not every day that your father gets promoted to full admiral.”

“I’m not in the mood to celebrate.”

Cole heard the bitterness in his friend’s voice and stepped inside the room. “What’s up, Captain?”

Sheridan handed over the note. “Tarina slipped me this note this afternoon.”

“She can’t be serious?” said Cole after reading the paper.

“She has no reason to make it up.”

“Wow. I never saw that coming. So Angela is a Chosen female? Have you told your dad?”

Sheridan shook his head. “Tarina and a lot of people owe her their lives. I’m not sure how to approach my father about it. I’m worried that the counterintelligence gurus back home will want to convert her and send her back as an agent when all she wants to do is get back to her children.”

“You know there’ll be hell to pay if fleet finds out that Tarina and Wendy are hiding a Kurgan among the other freed prisoners; they’re likely to accuse them of being Kurgan sympathizers.”

“I know. The problem is I can’t speak to Tarina anymore.”

Cole scrunched up his face. “Why not?”

“She and the rest of the prisoners have been moved from the hospital frigate,
Nightingale
, to a cruiser for the trip back to Earth. Do know where they are going to do their decompression?”

Cole shook his head.

“Camp Gault in Western Canada, that’s where.”

“I did my squad leaders’ course there. It’s in the middle of nowhere. Great spot to house people while you spend weeks debriefing them until they die of boredom.”

“If Angela wasn’t spotted during the preliminary medical and psych screening on the
Nightingale
, she undoubtedly will be found out at Camp Gault.”

 
The phone on Sheridan’s nightstand rang. He picked it up and listened to the message before hanging up.
 

Cole noticed that the look on Sheridan’s face was even more somber. “Something up?”
 

“It was Captain Killam. My father wants to see both of us in the briefing room right away.”

“Perhaps they want to promote us,” said Cole trying to lighten the mood. “They were handing out promotions and commendations like candy at the mess when I left.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve never heard the Captain sounding so troubled.”

“God, I hope that nothing has happened to the ladies.”

Sheridan stood. He put the note in a jacket pocket before quickly checking that his uniform looked proper. “Come on, Master Sergeant, let’s see what my father wants.”

A couple of minutes later, they entered the briefing room and found it deserted, except for Admiral Sheridan and Captain Killam sitting at the far end of the table.

Michael Sheridan came to attention. “You wanted to see us, sir.”

“Yes, Michael. Please take a seat,” said his father.

Both men took seats directly across the table from the two senior officers.

“Michael, I have never doubted your word and this pains me just to bring this up. However, before Captain Killam shows you why you were asked to come here. I have to know if your report regarding your actions on the ice moon during the retrieval of the Kurgan codes a few months back was one-hundred percent accurate.”

Sheridan sat back. He was somewhat confused by the question. “Sir, I left nothing out. Why, is there a problem that I am not aware of?”