Chapter One
Propping her boots on the console, Jade leaned back in her chair and admired the blue-green disk in the distance. It had grown from a speck to something substantial and the outlines of the continents were clearly visible.
She grinned and hummed a childhood tune. She’d proved them wrong. They’d all said it was too early for her to go solo. Yet, here she was on her first mission and about to deliver much needed supplies to the stricken rebels of Planet Kalamar.
Proximity Alert!
The metallic voice rocked her out of her daydreaming and she swung her legs off the console. A red light was flashing, indicating the navigation system was making rapid calculations.
“Where?” She peered out the windows into the void of space. Nothing there but stars and her destination—Kalamar.
Proximity Alert!
The monotonous female repeated her warning. Jade wished she’d reprogrammed it with a male voice, something that matched the forthright bark.
Approaching from the stern.
Jade zoomed out a view screen, which took its source from the rear camera. She saw a huge black shadow blocking out the stars. It was big and moving fast.
Her spacecraft, which she’d nicknamed Stealth, was basic: no armaments and built for speed. It also had a good size cargo hold and a few nifty maneuvering thrusts.
She flicked a few switches and the ship swerved to the left.
A loud clang ended the movement and the violence of the stoppage threw her off her seat. “What was that?”
Tractor beam engaged!
“Who has one of them?” she asked nobody. The downside of flying solo—no ear to bend when trouble came knocking.
The military had sophisticated technology, some of the large rebel factions, too, but the relief organization with which she was associated had nothing like it.
The engine cut out. It had to. The force of the beam would rip Stealth apart. What kind of mighty ship had ensnared her? Whatever it was, she couldn’t outrun it.
“Shut down everything but life support,” she commanded.
Under attack. Forced docking in progress. Confirm command.
“You heard me. Do it,” Jade snarled at the annoying computer.
The lights on the console flickered, then went dull. The flight bridge descended into semi-darkness.
Jade hurried down a passageway toward the cargo bay. She punched the key panel and entered the lockdown code. Another deep clang echoed along the corridor. Somebody was attempting to gain access through the airlock.
She ran to the far end of the bay, crouched and pressed her palm to the unlit panel. The hidden hatch released and she crawled into the small space, closed the hatch behind her, and curled into a ball and waited.
It was her best hope—playing dead. If she could persuade the intruders the ship was abandoned, hopefully they’d leave her and the precious cargo alone.
She waited in silence. More clanging, and strange sounds she couldn’t identify, then footsteps. The stomping footfalls of a solitary person. They stopped, restarted, and gradually moved closer. Jade held her breath, convinced that her heartbeats were so loud they would be audible throughout the ship.
Then somebody, the intruder, kicked the hatch door.
“Open it or else I’ll shoot it open and I can’t guarantee you won’t be hurt.” The deep voice of the man easily penetrated the walls of the bolt hole.
Jade wrung her hands together. What to do?
One trip out. Just one and she’d been caught. But by whom? A bunch of rogues, lowlifes who stole, or the military?
She was in trouble either way.