Jethro: First to Fight
Read Jethro: First to Fight Online
Authors: Chris Hechtl
From the
universe of the Wandering Engineer:
First to Fight
Jethro book 2
By Chris
“Jekyll” Hechtl
Copyright:
This is a work
of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional.
Any resemblance to other people is in parody or is purely coincidental. ;)
All rights reserved, including the right
to reproduce this book and or portions thereof in any form.
Copyright 2013
by Chris Hechtl
ISBN:
BN#:
Cover
art Copyright 2013 by Chris Hechtl
Copy
edited by: Gord Archer, Jacob Larson, Brandon Bynum, Thomas Burrows
Dedication:
I'd like to
dedicate this to the hard working volunteer copy/proof readers I've got.
Gord Archer
Jacob Larson
Brandon Bynum
Thomas Burrows
Jim Olson
Jory Gray
Chris Mechmaster
Smith
Mark Anderson
Tim Brown
Rick Boatright
Mercedes Milner
And finally, Rob
Miller.
Thanks guys for
believing in me and helping me out. Any mistakes are of course mine folks, not
theirs. :)
Author's
note:
For those of you
confused with the time line, this book takes place directly after Jethro Goes
to War and in parallel to books 4-6 of the Wandering Engineer. It ends just
before the end of book 6 Pirate's Bane of the Wandering Engineer.
(Adapted from
the Terran United States Marine Hymn)
From the falls
on Montezuma
To the shores on
Tripoli;
We fight our
country's battles
On land or in
zero gee;
First to Fight
for right and
freedom
And to keep our
honor clean;
We are proud to
claim the title
Of United
Federation Marine.
Our flag's
unfurl'd to ev'ry breeze
From dawn to
setting sun;
We have fought
in ev'ry clime and place
Where we could
take a gun;
In the snows of
far off moons and lands
And in the sunny
tropical scenes;
You will find us
always on the job:
The United
Federation Marines.
Here's health to
you and to our Corps
Which we are
proud to serve;
In many a strife
we've fought for life
And never lost
our nerve;
If the Army and
the Navy
Ever look on
Heaven's scenes;
They will find
the streets are guarded
By United
Federation Marines.
Captain Yan'kelly of the Lieandra
clacked his mandibles as the ship exited hyperspace. “We've exited the jump
point Captain. No problems,” the ops officer reported, looking over her
shoulder to her Veraxin Captain.
“Very good. Time to Protodon orbit?” the
Veraxin asked, looking at the navigator. They had spent the voyage out from
Antigua getting used to the newly restored ship. She was exponentially faster
than before, able to hit the low notes of the Beta band with ease. Admiral
Irons had been right, she was a proper ship once more. 4 months to Kathy's world
from Antigua, a run that would have taken then a solid 14 months before,
trudging along in the lower notes of the Alpha band of hyperspace. They would
have also been out of fuel when they had arrived, but now their newly repaired
fusion reactor and hyperdrive had conserved a quarter of their precious fuel.
Enough of a reserve to head to Kathy's world if necessary.
He clacked his mandibles as he waited
patiently. That was good, it allowed him a buffer, some breathing room should
the Protodon sharks try to extort more credits out of him for fuel. He'd love
to see their expressions when they found he didn't need a full tank!
“At least eighty five hours Captain.
Give me a bit more to refine my data and get back to you on that,” Mallory the
navigator replied. “We're underway now Captain.”
The Veraxin clacked his mandibles once
more. That was another thing, transiting subspace or so called 'real space'
from a jump point to a planet had usually taken a week to two weeks depending
on the local astrography. Eighty five hours wasn't bad for them, not with the
jump point twenty three light minutes outside the oort cloud of the system.
“Very well. Do we have anything on sensors yet?” the Veraxin asked. That was
something else, having neutrino detectors and fully operational sensors. Their
eyes were keen once more, not clouded with age.
Chancy the sensory officer looked up
with a frown of concern. “Actually we do Captain. Ships. Several of them.” His
computers were still processing the video data while they waited for a return
from the lidar.
“Several?” The ops officer asked, eyes
wide. “Are you sure Chancy? You know we've never had a neutrino detector
before.”
Chancy nodded grimly. “If I'm reading
this new fangled neutrino detector right, yes. Besides, we're getting them on
gravitics as well.”
“How many is several?” Mallory asked,
now sounding worried.
“Now now, let's not get ahead of
ourselves,” the helmsman said. “It could be a couple of freighters.”
“It is. But more than a couple. Try 16
ships so far detected in orbit of the planet. I'm still refining the...
Captain!” he turned, voice cooling. “We have a ship approaching us from the
main body.”
“A ship?”
“Yes sir. A small one. She just changed
course.”
“Changed course. You mean she was headed
here?” the Veraxin asked.
“To the jump point sir. And sir, we're
getting communications traffic,” the sensory officer reported. He pulled an
earwig device off his console and put in his ear. “Localizing.” After a moment
he frowned and shook his head. “Some of it is traffic from the fleet. I can't
make heads or tails of the audio or the data telemetry, I'm guessing it's
encrypted.”
“If they've got something to hide, we
aren't where we want to be,” the navigational officer said nervously, already
tapping at her console. “Captain, if we turn around now, we can brake our
forward momentum but it will take about an hour to get back to the jump point
after that. Call it three hours total.”
“We can't go back. That jump line is
empty. We need fuel.”
“We can't go back, but should we go
forward?” Chancy murmured. He frowned, cupping the earwig with one hand and
tapping at his console. He changed frequencies and stiffened. Slowly he turned
to the Captain, eyes troubled. “Captain, you need to hear this,” he said
softly.
“Put it up,” the Captain said.
Chancy nodded and hit a key, taking his
earwig out.
“This is the colony Protodon to any
passing ships! Run! We are under attack from Horathian pirates! Repeat run!
Flee for your lives! Escape and bring warning to others!” There was a squelch
of static and then the message repeated itself. After a moment Chancy stabbed
the cut off button.
“Well!” the Veraxin chittered. “We can't
go back and we can't go forward. I'm assuming that ship approaching had been
headed to the jump point but is now oriented on us?”
“Aye Captain.”
“Funny how they could see us so well
just after we jumped. They must have a neutrino detection ability as well.
Size?”
“Does it matter sir? She's some sort of
warship I bet,” Chancy said. “Even a shuttle with a pop gun could tear us a new
one if it wanted to do so sir.”
“True. Can't go forward, can't go back.
We're limited on fuel. The other jump points?” The Captain asked, turning his
eye stalks to the navigator.
Roger poked Mallory. She oofed and then
looked at her console, busying herself with it for a moment. “Captain, from the
look of this the pirates came from the beta-95a3 jump point. Chancy, is
that tag you just sent another fleet?”
Chancy nodded. “Another group of ships.
About a dozen.”
“Wonderful.”
“So we can't go there. Our only hope is
Kathy's world. But can we make it to the jump point in time?” the Captain
asked.
Mallory stared at her console, crunching
the numbers for a minute. The bridge was fraught with tension. Finally she
nodded. “It'll be close sir, but we can make it. We'll be on fumes when we exit
though Captain.”
“That's not good,” Chancy replied
softly.
“Tell me about it,” Roger sighed. “But
I'll try to save what we can. Captain, I suggest we shut down nonessential
systems. Conserve what we can. Hell, convert waste water to fuel if we can do
that too.”
“Make it so ops,” the Captain said,
signaling first level agreement. “Helm, lay in the course Miss Mallory will
feed you. Get us there, preferably ahead of the competition and in one piece.”
“Aye Captain.”
“Make sure you record all this.
Everything, sensors, communications, everything,” the Captain ordered.
“Anything on ship sizes? Classes?”
“Mostly small ships like the one
pursuing us sir. I believe it is a frigate or gunboat. Maybe a corvette. I'm
not sure, I'm not getting a good enough return from the Lidar right now. Most
of the ships in the main body and scattered in various orbits of the planet
seem to be frigates, corvettes, and gunboats. There are some civilian ships I recognize
too, a couple of Clydesdales, a Moth, a yacht, and a tanker. About a
dozen others, but most are out of range to get good readings. Two or three big
boys, but we don't know what they are. They mass somewhere around 80,000 tons
but they seem to vary in shape so they aren't the same class. The ship behind
us...” He tapped at his console and then overlaid the readings. After a moment
he pursed his lips. “Based on her mass readings, she must be a frigate or
corvette.”
“So, she won't be able to chase us for
more than what? Two or three jumps?”
Mallory frowned. She compared the
readings of the pursuer with her own calculations for jump and fuel
consumption. She used her most pessimistic thoughts on their speed and range,
then gave it a fudge factor of about twenty percent. Slowly she nodded. “If
they stay on our tail they could chase us out of Kathy's World with about a
third of a tank, but we'd lose them in Beta 452C. They'd have to turn back or
they'd run themselves dry. They'd need to refuel in Kathy's world in order to
return to Protodon sir.”
“I see. And no other ships are
following? Attempting to cut us off?” the Captain asked, turning to Chancy. He
didn't want to run into an ambush at the jump point after all their work in
avoiding their pursuer.
Chancy shook his head. “No sir, and
before you ask, no, I don't have any ships detected at the jump point.”
“Good to know,” the Captain said, using
his true hands to show first hand relief. “Keep me posted.”
As they ran across the edge of the
system for the nearby Kathy World jump point Chancy reported their pursuer had
changed course to follow.
“Anything on their dialog?” the Veraxin
asked.
“Not the encrypted stuff. But I did pick
up something about where they are headed next.”
“Please, oh please tell me it's not
where we're headed,” Mallory said, eyes scrunched tight as she prayed.
Chancy shook his head. “No, it's
Antigua.”
“Shit.” Mallory's eyes popped open. They
were mournful.
“Sir, what do we do?” Roger asked.
“Refuel in Kathy's world and keep
running. There is nothing we can do except bring word to others.”
“And from there sir?”
“The only place we can go, Pyrax,” the
Veraxin chittered. “The admiral said there was a fleet base there, let's just
hope it's still there.”
Chancy scowled. “Sir what about Antigua?
They are sitting ducks!”
“They're on their own for now. There's
nothing we can do for them. The admiral was right, they made their bed, now
they get to lie in it. Maybe the Navy can bail them out. We sure as hell
can't,” the Veraxin said. He slumped on his stool. “Spirit of Space help them.”