Chapter 8-The Blockade
"I need to go talk to Korso!" Cale hollered as he came storming toward the bridge. He had just nearly been killed had he have fallen off the ramp toward the planet surface below or been obliterated by the Qu'ut atmosphere as the Valkyrie plummeted upward. Cale took heavier steps and balled up his fists for he was angered by Korso.
"What are you going to do about it?" Akima asked.
"Pick a fight." Cale answered to her who was behind him because she didn't want to be in his way when he was mad, "He could have killed me, Akima! And you as well." Cale hurriedly walked into the bridge to see Korso come rushing down from the pilot's stairwell.
"Cale, Akima, good your here. I need your help." Korso said. Cale went rushing toward Korso with both fists out and ready to beat him to a pulp. Korso caught his approach and grabbed him as he stepped to his side. "This isn't the time to be doing this!" Korso yelled while trying to restrain Cale.
"Yeah, whatever!" Cale replied trying to free himself from Korso's firm grasp.
"Look out there, that's the reason I sped like that." Korso said trying to calm him down. Cale began to settle down and looked through the large cockpit window. His eyes widened like quarters when he beheld the sight of hundreds upon thousands of Drej slijah. The blue U-shaped crafts lingered in square rows of about forty wide and deep. In the midst of them, was a Drej mothership. Not as big as the Alahenena, yet intimidating enough to turn away armies. It rotated on its vertical axis counterclockwise and its three columns on either end appeared like horns, so menacing and cruel in appearance.
"That could be a problem." Akima said in shock.
"Stith, get up here, we might need your shootin' skills!" Korso announced as he pushed a button and spoke into his watch.
"I'll be right there." she answered. Just then a beeping button was blinking on and off. Akima ran up and checked it out.
"Captain, they're hailing us." she said.
"On screen." Korso replied. Akima obeyed and pressed the blinking button in conjunction with a few others. A holographic screen came up in front of the cockpit window and covered it with a translucent image of two Drej creatures.
"Greetings, I am general Tigaj of the royal slijah fleet." the Drej on the right said, "We understand that you are in search of the Orb."
"I'm Captain Joseph Korso of the civilian class yacht, the Valkyrie." Korso answered as he stood before the screen and in front of his seat, "How did you arrive on that bit of information?"
"I am Droheh Molalah, we have visited your human installation, Kronos, in search for the Orb. After several torturing techniques we managed to find out about you." the blue energy being stated.
"That's right, we're in search of the Orb." Korso said, now becoming a little squeamish, "What have you come to do?"
"We merely want to know if you hold it," Tigaj said, "If you do we will use force if necessary to plunder it."
"What if we are lookin' to destroy it?" Korso quite boldly asked.
"We'll be forced to tear your craft apart." Tigaj growled as he held out his hand and clenched his fist.
"Your not takin' us out without a fight." Korso said, getting closer to the screen. The hologram shrunk into a vertical line and shrunk even more into a dot and disappeared. Stith staggered in with a white cloth tied around her wounded leg.
"What's the pro..." she began, only to see for herself the doom that loomed outside, "Oh. Anyway, let's teach these guys a lesson!" Stith said.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Can't we just jump into hyperspace and get outta here?" Cale asked.
"We can't because the navigation computer won't allow it," Akima explained, "it needs a clear path for it to work and there's too many stingers out there. 'Sides, don't you want to watch Drej sizzle?"
"I like your attitude," Korso replied, "Stith, you take hull cannon, Cale you take the right cannon, and Akima, left." He pointed to each of the controls and they each ran to their station and turned on the laser cannons. There was a small, round, green screen in the center of the controls and displayed all of the stingers that were in their trajectory. Korso sat down in his seat and quickly spun it around to grab a hold of the flight controls.
"We'll annihilate these valiant creatures!" Molalah exclaimed as he stood there watching the fleet with Tigaj. "We can capture their craft, can we not? They would be briefly useful to give us the next lead to finding the Orb."
"It will be difficult to capture this particular craft," Tigaj replied, "It will require several hits from the New Technology."
"But it would be beneficial to us to take them in." Molalah exclaimed.
"True, but we can track them with only one hit from the New Technology." Tigaj explained, "It would be much easier to follow them than to find it for ourselves." Tigaj then went back to a control panel that allowed him to communicate with several other authorities that were in slijah in order to control them. It was some sort of contraption that ran off of telepathy.
"Here we go!" Korso hollered from his seat as he firmly pressed the accelerator. The Valkyrie's six engines immediately turned on and sent the ship forward. Korso turned it around and did a loop-the-loop so they would have more combat space and could hit them head on.
The slijah began screaming forward, row by row, to meet the Valkyrie. The rows divided into groups of four and began to fly off to the sides. The Valkyrie kept on its pace as it hurtled toward the endless amounts of blue crafts. "Here they come." Akima said with anticipation. Finally the ships clashed and let loose all their firepower. The slijah bombarded the Valkyrie with torrents of laser blasts. The Valkyrie returned their green blasts of four into the horde and took out about ten.
"I'll try to get us beyond them so we can make a jump to hyperspace." Korso said while twisting and turning in his seat to steer the craft, "You guys just fight them off."
"What do ya think we're tryin' to do here?" Cale sarcastically replied. He had a stinger in his sights. It was red and went up to the right, so Cale turned the cannon to center the craft in the screen. When it reached the center, the stinger turned green, alerting him to fire so he pulled the triggers. The image went away, "Hey, I got one!"
"Good for you." Stith hollered from her post as she was eliminating stingers from her screen as if they were fish in a barrel. Akima always joked that Stith was such a good shot that she could shoot the eye off of a flea from fifty paces away and you could pick which eye! Akima wasn't a bad shot herself, mainly because Stith taught her how to shoot.
"Come on, you soil-sucker!" Akima yelled, full of frustration for this particular stinger that her laser blasts just were barely missing it behind the tail. The stinger kept flying in a zig-zag pattern as it dodged her blasts. Finally, she pulled a little in front of the fighter and gave it a lead. With eager eyes she blew it to smithereens. "Yes!" she celebrated by bringing her fist up and pulling it firmly back.
The stingers kept in their line formations until they were called upon. The purpose behind this was to keep the blockade. The Valkyrie flew like a bird trying to escape torrents of rain. It dodged and averted to the best of Korso's flying ability. It was hit, here and there, but for the most part, was escaping most of the blasts. "I've got an idea. You guys fire into the blockade as I ram through it head on." Korso said from his seat. The Valkyrie steered upward and started its run into the blockade with about five stingers trailing behind it. The lines immediately began firing upon the yacht and it took several hits. A loud crash was heard. The entire cockpit shook and Akima and Stith fell out of their seats. Sparks flew and went everywhere. Computer screens fizzed and popped.
"This is ridiculous!" Cale exclaimed. He jumped out of his seat and ran over to Akima. He slid on the sides of his legs when he reached her and held her to make sure she was all right. "I've got an idea that's better than this!" He yelled to her as smoke filled the room. Loud crashes could be heard all over the room and an occasional piece of metal fell from the ceiling. "Stay here!" he added. Korso gave a barbaric roar from frustration of not being able to get through. Cale ran out of the bridge, stumbling as the interior tipped one way and then the other. He staggered in there until he was able to find the door and crawled out.
Once Cale made an exodus from the bridge, he stood up and made an all out run for engineering. The last thing he wanted to happen was that the Drej would destroy the Valkyrie or even worse yet, Akima would die and not him. He didn't want to have to live without her. She was the reason he made every step possible, all the way to engineering.
On the bridge, Korso turned away from the blockade and turned back toward the planet. The Valkyrie from the outside looked like a flying wreck. It had small holes here and there and was singed from repeated fire. The top right sub-light engine was even beginning to peter out. It would flash and go out and then come back on again. Stith managed to get back up and stood in front of the blaster controls. "I can't aim straight!" She expostulated with frustration, "The whole targeting system is whacked!"
"What's the problem?" Korso asked as two blue shots hit the Valkyrie just before the cockpit window.
"I aim at a Drej fighter and the targeting system turns away from it." Stith said as another crash was heard. Akima sat on the floor and backed up against a wall. She embraced herself from every hit that the Valkyrie took. She held tightly on to a pipe that ran up the wall.
"Come on, Cale, whatever you're gonna do, do it fast." she muttered to herself.
Cale stood in front of the warp core computer. He tried to hit the manual warp button, but again, it wouldn't allow it. "C'mon, c'mon." he said as he pressed the button a second and a third time. He pressed so hard that the tip of his finger was slightly bent backward. When the computer wouldn't allow the hyperspace jump the third time Cale pounded on the control panel with both fists. "No!" he exclaimed.
Cale looked around, trying to think quickly. He held his head with both hands over the ears as if he was trying to keep every idea in. The interior of the ship shook again, this time the lights flickered off and then back on again. Cale stumbled around trying to keep his balance as the ship rocked. He eventually failed and fell on his back before the computer. He groaned from his fall, but when he looked up, he saw a panel underneath the warp core engine.
"That's it! It's so crazy, it just might work!" he said as he stumbled upward and made his way over to the panel. He grabbed on to one edge and groaned as he slowly tore it open. Inside were several wires Cale ripped them out and began studying which one did what. "So let's see," he said to himself as the ship shuttered again, "this one goes to the computer and this one goes to the warp core..." he continued his search until he found a thin, red wire. It had a tag on it that read, 'MANUAL OVERRIDE'. This must be it.
"Hang on to something!" Korso yelled, "I'm gonna try a risky maneuver!" He then steered the injured Valkyrie back toward the planet. Akima managed to get up to her copilot's seat and buckled herself in. Akima saw what he was doing and she gasped. The tip of the ship began to have flames rip around it.
"We're coming in precipitously! We're gonna bounce right off the atmosphere! Are you nuts?!" Akima taught, holding onto her seat.
"That's the idea," Korso replied, yelling a little over the rumbling noise of them going into the atmosphere, "I'm going to use it to bounce us back out outside the blockade!" Korso gnashed his teeth because of his difficulty in keeping the ship steady. The helm shook all over the place.
"Hope you know what you're doing!" Akima exclaimed.
Cale fumbled around with the wires as he pulled the metal slightly out of the rubber. He pulled the one wire to the hyperdrive system over to the cut manual override wire. The hyperdrive wire he left whole, but he just removed some of the rubber casing so he could connect them. He just about had them together when he dropped the override wire. He quickly followed it down and held the two pieces of metal. He wrapped the override snugly around the hyperdrive wire and slid out from underneath the panel. He sat up and unfolded his legs to stand up. He dove with an outstretched hand and reached for the button. "Here it goes!" he said with his fingers figuratively crossed. He firmly pressed it down. Cale's hopes began to float when he saw a blue light come from the engine.
The Valkyrie continued going through the atmosphere until it violently turned upward. It rumbled and shot upward from the planet. "It's working!" Korso exclaimed. Stith was holding onto the laser controls and she was thrown back. The Drej saw the Valkyrie's creative attempt to escape and the entire fleet began to pursue the craft. Before they could even fire a shot off, the warp engine turned on.
"What the-," Akima said as the stars around them began to become white lines and they hurtled forward. "That must be what Cale went to do!" she excitedly said.
Cale came running back into the cockpit. Korso turned around and got up from his seat. "Nice goin', kid." Korso said. Akima unbuckled herself from the seat and ran up to Cale. He held his arms open and she ran into them. They both embraced each other tightly.
"We did it! We made it out!" Akima exclaimed with her head over Cale's shoulder.
"Yeah, that was close." Cale said while pulling his head back. Akima did the same. They both stood there and looked into each other's eyes. Cale smiled and leaned forward to kiss her. She held her head up and invited it. Cale's hand went up to the back of her head and held her tight. They were both very relieved.
"Hey you two," Korso interrupted as he stepped down the stairs, "you have a room for that." They each held on to each other, but paid attention to Korso. "We're back in business."
Gune came in and rubbed his eyes. "I fall asleep. What happen?" he said as he looked around at the bridge a little confused. Stith walked from the turret controls to where Gune was standing.
"Nothing, Gunie," she replied, "just had a little trouble escaping from the Drej." Stith took Gune by the arm and walked out of the bridge.
"But why everything all smashed up?" he asked in broken English. She didn't reply until they were out of the room. Cale looked from Stith to Akima.
"Come on, baby, let's go 'celebrate'" he said as he led her out with a sly smile. She giggled a little and rested her head on his shoulder as they left. Korso stood there in the bridge all alone. He surveyed the damage and shook his head.
"This is gonna be a long trip." he sighed.