Arc of The Immortals: Book 1

Pursuit: Chapter 3.1 Flying and Dodging

Action, Suspense, The Chase is On, Hunter and Prey

Arc of The Immortals / Pursuit the Book 1 of a Series

Chapter 3.1 Flying and Dodging

one scene of violence

Image by Julius H. from Pixabay“How much of a lead to we have over him?” Touzdae asked.

“ — Five or ten minutes maybe. I’ve never seen anything like it. He learned how to slow time in an instant.” Jac.

“I have some ideas…”

“Good, someone is thinking,” Fish chimed in. “Thank you Touzdae.”

Touzdae took the navigation controls and adjusted the jump.

“Hmm…” Jac forever commenting.

“The Hades Corridor has Obz Fire Ring, The Trent Gravity Well. Then there’s the Corintenian Asteroid Density, the Ice Rings of Purgje, and — -”

“And if all else fails there’s — -Cowl is almost ready to go Nova. If necessary we can force into Nova with a Neutron Burst. And if he makes it that far, he’d be a fool or suicidal to follow us,” Jac stated.

“And what does that make us?” Touzdae asked.

The Needle Ship pierced the jump space and lurched into a transdimensional leap.

“There may have been a few things I didn’t tell you about Pursuer,” Uncle Harry said sheepishly.

“Yeah, like superior mimetic abilities.”

“Right… the rest you can guess…”

“Pray, tell Harry,” Touzdae encouraged him.

“Genetically engineered to target, copy, hunt, and destroy without mercy. Plus it’s learning and exponentially increasing its abilities with each kill.”

“Meaning the League doesn’t have any control over the thing, right?” Jac looked at Harry with amused disgust.

“Hmm.” Harry lowered his head. Jac shut his eyes.

“Oh God,” Jac said.

“What? What?”

“Can you do the melding chair at trans jump speed until we get to The Gravity Well?”

“For a while, yes, I think I can. Sure.” Touzdae replied building confidence as she discarded “unsure” actions.

“Okay then, let’s do it. I need to do an inner visioning.”

She took the chair.

“Best speed to Hell… Hades Corridor,” she cried

There was a momentary shift of time and space where everything stopped. Started with elongation except for Touzdae. She disappeared within the melding chair.

“The transdimensional jump is okay now somehow. Curious…” Fish mused.

The Space Fish elongated as it stretched into a new trans-jump speed. Nearby star systems folded within and appeared within the jump corridor.

Jac climbed down the ladder into the main salon of the Fish. He paused momentarily at the pool of life beneath the tree. The green-leafed holographic tree waved in a breeze under an azure blue sky. Sparrows, crows, and a red-tailed hawk flew back and forth.

He turned and entered the passageway. He went straight back into the captain’s cabin. The original Fish didn’t have this addition. It was new, only three or four hundred years. Fish had wanted it. She said it was insurance in the future, but she wouldn’t explain beyond that. At first, Jac protested the addition. It conformed to his boyish fantasies of sailing ships of the 17th and 18th century Earth Terra Prime. He was ecstatic. Also, it was an escape craft should the impossible happen.

Fish’s species lived an average life span of ninety thousand years. Still, when his Ma and Fa found her she was dying. Agreements made, vows consecrated, and bonds formed. His Ma carried Jac in her womb. Fa’s injuries occluded his ability to share the physical pregnancy. The Nez was then transformed into the Nez Fish and in effect though inadvertently a new species was born. A new species of one.

Jac assumed his upright meditative position.

Bhantu, Jac’s Teacher and Guide stood with Bendel and the younger Jac at the edge of the Levelz.

“I think you should go first, Jac,” Bendel said.

The older Jac stepped forward and lightly tapped Bhantu on the shoulder. Bhantu shrugged.

“I know you’re there. Be patient.”

“Who are you talking to Bhantu?” The younger Jac asked.

“It is not yet your concern. One day you will understand and the meaning of the better friend will become clear to you. For now, I need to know: do you choose first descent into the Levelz?”

Jac nodded. Bendel fitted the Helmet to Jac’s head.

“Here is your gossamer,” Bhantu fitted Jac’s shoulders with the wings.

Jac stepped off the edge only with his inner vision as guide, down to the city of spires and fog. Many students jumped off the circular ridge. They glided on wings into the maze known as the La Maz in the territory of the Levelz.

He sailed downward gliding across the length of the city maze. His flight became unstable as he hit an updraft. Lack of confidence, he had told himself and forced a slow deep breath. He nearly grazed a spire; lost and gained his confidence again. He righted himself and settled in for a landing at the mouth of the maze. Upon landing with his outer eyes blinded by the crash helmet he opened all his senses. Bold, he strode into the maze.

Pursuer stood there. He grabbed Jac by the shoulders pulling him off the ground into the air as powerless as an insect, trapped.

“I’m going to pulverize you. You’ll die a slow miserable death, runt.”

The Pursuer sliced off Jac’s left ear with his razor-sharp beak.

“A spoil of war.”

Startled Jac opened his eyes.

The Pursuer was cackling in the cabin. Jac touched his ear and noticed it was bleeding.

Pursuer’s Needle Craft had fired a long-range particle weapon at the Fish. The beam pulverized its rear defensive shield and depolarized the machinery on board. The Fish reacted with a jerky pitch and yaw.

“That was personal.” Fished retorted. “You’d better get to the bridge, Jac. — Boosting shield gain, readjusting genetic grid, modulating flow.”

The Fish dropped out of the jump tube, veered a sharp right and down, and shot forward.

Pursuer’s Needle Craft fired again. The burst blocked and neutralized by the new aft force field; this pleased Jac.

Pursuer clicked focus from panel to dial in the small cockpit of the Needlecraft. It/he peered through a scope. He depressed a switch and fired a cannon burst.

The Fish reflexively jerked like a shrug as the laser cannon burst into a focused explosion off the aft port stabilizer.

“That was close,” Harry said jerking from the shock wave of the explosion.

“He doesn’t want us to go down into that gravity well.” Touzdae quipped. Jac floated up through the deck hatch. With a mere gesture he displaced Touzdae in the melding chair.

The ship swung under a Red Gas Giant Planet and braked into the upper atmosphere.

Pursuer’s Needle Craft popped out of the jump tube. It was adjacent to the Fish, then swallowed by the upper atmosphere of the gas giant. Nez Fish bounced through the atmosphere. It flew out through two moons in close orbit, banked a sharp left back towards the Giant. The Needlecraft matched the Fish.

“That was just a primer. Now, down the boilermaker.” Jac melded deeper into the chair his left hand on the control console and his right on the steering column.

“Down… we go,” he added.

Jac pushed the stick forward and down into maximum power. They left the gas giant.

The Fish spiraled towards a smaller planet. Two moons orbited the planet with two satellites circling one moon. The one moon in an irregular ecliptic orbit moved dangerously close to the other moon. The larger of the two satellites had a smaller irregular chunk circling it. The Fish sliced between the planet and the Moon’s orbit surgically close to collision.

“Strap in,” he commanded.

As they passed the second moon the ship was sucked down into a gravity well. The Fish, then pulled down into the larger moon’s gravity. It disappeared and slingshotted into the next orbital roller coaster ride. Nez bumped up and down and flipped over on herself; tumbling with a blurred trajectory.

The Fish stretched and elongated as it slammed into a wall of gravity, shrank, and popped to the end of the alley. Then it rammed clear, leaving a trail of blurred light streams.

The previous chapter:

Derelict Genetics Station

Chapter 2.2: Science-Fiction, Suspense, Pursuit, Escape-No Escape

medium.com

The next chapter:

Flying and Dodging

Chapter 3.2: The Chase is On, Action, Suspense, The Hunt