Chapter 14

Jade nervously tapped her fingernails on the control board, watching the countdown clock.

00:04:00:53

Three more hours. They could safely remain cloaked for three more hours.

Beside her, Nemay was sleeping with his mouth open.

Jade flinched a Sleath fighter zoomed past the viewshield.

Nemay's eyes snapped open at her sudden movement. "What is it?"

Jade shook her head. "Nothing."

"Oh. Okay." Nemay leaned over to look at the clock. "That's not good."

"Ya think?"

"Sometimes." He tilted his head back to go to sleep, then looked back at Rhade. "You sure you're okay?"

Jade nodded, got up, and stretched. "I'm going to go to the 'fresher."

"Don't worry," Nemay said confidently. "Nothing can break through the cloaking."

BAM! Something slammed into them from behind.

Losing her balance, Jade fell back on top of Nemay. He held onto her as the Shadowdancer shook violently. The countdown clock stuck for a few seconds, then immediately jumped down to 00:01:57:21.

You can let go, Jade thought, but the words got lost. "Something must have crashed into us," came out instead.

"Whatever hit us made us lose most of our power," he said, looking over her shoulder at the console. "We'll only be able to remain safely cloaked for another half hour if we still want to be able to fly."

"And what'll happen if that clock reaches zero?" Jade asked warily.

"The Shadow will explode for lack of power," Nemay responded. "Nice, huh?"

"Mm-hm," Jade agreed sarcastically.

There was an awkward silence for a second as both Nietzscheans realized that she was sitting on his lap.

A blip on the sensor screen caught Jade's attention. "We have an unidentified slipfighter," she said. "Heading for the Worldship."

"Open communications," Nemay told her. "I'll disable the cloaking."

"Right." Jade cleared her throat and moved back to the pilot's chair as Nemay leaned down and flicked the "Unidentified slipfighter, this is the Shadowdancer," she announced. "Please respond. Repeat, this is Commander Jade Rhade of the starship Shadowdancer; do you read me?"

A slight tremor made the ship shudder as Nemay shut off the cloaking. The countdown clock disappeared

"This is Gaheris Rhade, Jade. I'll need your assistance." In as few words as possible, he explained the situation and the plan.

"Wonderful," Jade said. "And what's to stop us from getting blown out of space?"

"My superior good looks and charm?"

"Very funny, Gaheris."

Preview of Chap15: Boa pisses off Rommie, Dylan gets a bad message from Trance