The Line of the Sol Empress

Chapter 27.3

[Hope]

Yellow lights blinked on the monitoring panel as the quantum drive hummed to life. The ship shook, enough that Hope grabbed the ladder for support. But after a moment, the shaking subsided to an eerie calm. She glanced up at the panel, reading a relative velocity number of twenty-seven-point-three C.

"Whoo-hoo!" Hope shouted, lifting her fists high.

"Awesome, Hope," Gabriel said over the intercom. "Glad we didn't die."

A joy warmed her heart. She remained in the drive room, continuously monitoring the drive status. After several minutes, the core temperature climbed to a caution level, and the numbers blinked yellow. In two more minutes, they blinked red and warning beeps sounded.

"Are you seeing this?" Gabriel asked.

"Yes. Shutting down now. Any sign of the frigate?"

"Nope. Maybe we hit it with the stingers."

Hope smiled. "Have to admit, Gab, that was some amazing flying you did."

"Don't jinx me, Hope."

With Gabriel's help, Hope ran full diagnostics on the quantum drive and recharged the cooling system. However, excessive vibrations from the fusion reactors concerned her, even though the diagnostics revealed no serious issues.

She joined her brother on the bridge. "What now?"

"Since our coms are toast, we go find a long-range com and call dad, preferably somewhere with no Commonwealth presence." With a touch of a button, Gabriel pulled up a holographic star map. "Unfortunately, the Corsair's range is limited." Using his finger, he selected a few occupied star systems beyond the outer colonies and scrolled through the listings. "There," he pointed, "Ephenia. Kinda a backwater world, but no Commonwealth base, although it has a Trade Consortium office."

"Okay. Let's go." Hope paused before bringing up that which troubled her mind. "Do you think Eshe and Celeste are all right?"

Gabriel leaned back and crossed his arms. "Well, Eshe is as fierce and resourceful as they come. And Celeste has come back from the dead once before. So, yeah, I think they will be all right."

Hope closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I wish I had Gab's optimism.

When Hope reopened her eyes, she noticed Gabriel eying her up and down with a smirk. She narrowed her eyes. "What?"

"You're a mess."

Her mind formulated a biting retort, but then her eyes drifted down to her body. The green coolant had stained her gray overalls, particularly from the knees down. Black lubricant smears marked the upper half of her outfit as well as her hands, and, she thought, probably on her face. Tangles of long dark hair partially obscured her vision.

Hope sighed. "I don't look much like an Empress, do I?"

"That's okay." Gabriel smiled. "You do some of your best work messed up."

After two days, they reached the desert world of Ephenia, which orbited binary stars, a Sol-like yellow sun with a smaller red dwarf companion. Narrow streaks of greens marked the muted reds and browns of the continents, separated by shallow turquoise seas. The primary exports from this world, lithium salts and rare-earth metals, were loaded onto Consortium freighters at two space ports at opposite sides of the planet.

"And that is why we don't want to dock at the space ports," Gabriel explained. "Too much Consortium presence there. Besides, us showing up in a stolen Commonwealth Corsair would look really suspicious."

Hope scrolled across a surface map on the forward display. "The principal city, Oran, has a Sol Priestess office. And it will have a long-range com." She turned to Gabriel. "Are you sure you can land this ship? A Corsair is not designed for atmospheric flight."