Josh shouted, "Four hours. That means we have time. Let's finish this stupid bird."
Cherry said, "We don't have that much time. They are all aimed at dead center. We need at least two hours to change their course. If they even brush the atmosphere, they'll be sucked down to the planet. As fast as they are moving…"
He left the rest unsaid. The three looked at each other, then the Captain asked, "Can we blast them to pieces?"
Cherry said, "If we made the pieces small enough. Trouble is, you shoot one in two you now have two pieces to make smaller. If we blast one into a hundred…"
"I get the picture. If we shoot them, we need to do it now, not two hours from now."
Josh said, "We need to finish this battle fast. Lemmy and the others can't get off that rock. Both of those ships' drives are locked to them."
The Captain said, "We should back off and go rescue Lemmy first, then come back to get this ship."
Josh said, "You forget, there are two more ships out there. We'd be between them and a sitting duck. Look at the pounding we're taking from this big guy."
Lemmy came back on the comm. Her voice much louder, "They're pushing us much faster. Do you think they know we're on here?"
Cherry said, "I don't see how. If they knew you were there, they would have landed and picked you up. I'm sure they want to ask that Exec what he told us."
A shot from the battleship rocked Belle. Another followed close behind, causing the view screens to go dark. Josh screamed, "Now what? Can anything else go wrong?"
Cherry slapped at the buckles on his seatbelt. When they fell away, he leaped to his feet and rushed out of the cockpit. Josh flipped switches and tried different things with the computer. Not a light could be seen.
The Captain shouted, "Is there anything —"
He stopped as Josh waved a hand at him while he concentrated on the dash in front of him. Cherry's voice came over his personal comm, "Josh, I need some help back here. That last shot broke some things loose in the power distribution."
Josh asked, "Can you use the repair bots? I'm working on something here."
The Captain said, "I'll go. I may not know what's going on, but I'm an extra set of hands and eyes."
As he stood to leave, Belle bounced from the shots hitting her shield. The Captain almost lost his balance but managed to stay on his feet. The artificial gravity fell to zero so he pushed himself off the seat and swam down the passageway.
The pounding on the shield grew worse, so Josh moved the throttles to the main engines. He felt the movement and backed off. The pounding stopped. He yelled at the comm, "Cherry, I need some sensors. I'm blind and we're moving. I have no idea which direction. We could be on a collision course with that battleship."
A snarl came back, "I'm working on it. I'm only one android."
"Then get the Captain working on firing up a bunch of the repair robots. If we don't get something quick, we could all be dead."
Josh didn't catch what he muttered but knew it wouldn't be complementary. Out of frustration, he flipped the switches on the comm to the frequencies Cherry had used on the Nagini. Without a view screen or other sensors, he had no way of knowing if the snakes were responding.
An hour and a half went by. Josh called Cherry to tell him he was coming back but Cherry told him to stay put and be ready to fly. Josh noticed he didn't hear or feel any shots hitting the shield. Every minute or so, he tried the different sensors to no avail.
He tried to raise Lemmy on his personal comm but all he got was static. Josh yelled to the empty cockpit, "Where are those other two ships? What are they doing? What is that big one in front of us doing? I need some eyes."
Suddenly a view screen to the side came to life. An inky field of darkness broken by points of bright stars was the only thing he could see. His hand almost pounded the keys as he tried to switch scenes.
At last he brought up the images from the remote detector in the asteroid field. His eyes widened in shock at what he saw. Hundreds of the smaller Nagini were swarming around the two spaceships. Josh fumbled with controls until he had zoomed in enough to see the ships were lifeless. Not a glimmer of energy showed.
He tried to switch to the remote detector near the planet but nothing worked. Going back to the other one, he attempted to look at the battle scene around him. The space between the asteroid field and the planet was just too great. The sparkle of sunshine coming off the distant planet was the only image he could get.
The artificial gravity came back on, causing Josh to settle heavily back into the pilot's seat. He squirmed to get comfortable as he continued to try to change the scene on the view screen. Another view screen flickered, then two more.
Josh worked his eyes between the three screens for several seconds. They continued to flicker, but no images appeared. He banged his fist against the console in frustration. Slowly, a blurry image appeared on the front screen.
Five minutes went by as Josh tried everything he could with the computer to sharpen the picture. Nothing seemed to work. The rest of the view screens flickered to life. Josh's eyes jumped from one to the other.
At last, the front view cleared and came into focus. Josh saw the five huge Nagini attacking the big battleship. The spaceship had quit firing in their direction, but instead was concentrating on the monstrous snakes.
Any blast that hit the Nagini did no visible damage, but seemed to enrage them more. Josh saw that the spaceship had to be at least twice as long as the biggest snake, but that didn't stop them from slamming into it. Each crash jarred the huge ship.
As he watched, the blast and bolts appeared to be weaker. Two of the Nagini smashed into the ship and latched onto it. The shield visibly shrank. Josh saw the engines fire, then the view screens went blank again.
He yelled, "Cherry, I need those view screens back. The Nagini are attacking the battleship and it's moving. I need to be able to maneuver."
"Listen, I'm doing everything I can. I have the Captain and six robots working on repairs. This was supposed to be a shakedown cruise, not a full-fledged battle. There's lots of problems back here."
"I realize that and as soon as we take out that battlewagon, we can go get Lemmy. She'll have Belle fixed up in no time."
A snarl answered, "Yeah, if we have enough food left to keep up with her. What about the other two out in the asteroids? Have you seen anything of them?"
"Yeah, they're out of the fight. They had a swarm of more than a hundred of those smaller snakes. I saw they were dead in the water before I lost my view screens."
"Leave me alone for a minute and I'll try to get something back up."
Thirty seconds later, the view screens started coming to life again. Josh started to jerk the controls to take Belle out of the way but stopped. The big ship was quartering across her bow. Jumping to the seat the Captain had sat in, he activated the controls for the weapons.
When he saw an opening without Nagini in the way, he fired. The blast hit the right engine causing the big ship to roll and yaw to the right. They nose-dived toward the planet. As it hit the atmosphere, the snakes backed off.
Josh leaped back to the pilot's seat and buckled in. He yelled over the comm, "Hang on. I'm going after them. Keep my sensors on."
Belle leaped ahead and he switched control of the weapons to the pilot. He twisted the controls until Belle's crosshairs lined up on the other engine. The blast tore the engine completely off the spaceship. Josh saw the pilot fire all the retro rockets, desperately trying to slow the ship down.
Following the ship into the atmosphere, he watched it spiral toward empty land below. The retro rockets and thrusters appeared to be doing their job. The warship slowed its entry speed. A yell from Cherry brought Josh's attention back to Belle.
The alarms and gauges indicated he was entering the atmosphere much too fast. He slowed drastically to drop the heat. The front shield appeared to be holding, but the rear o
f the ship had suffered from the excessive speed.
Moving slower, he went back into orbit. Watching the images on the view screen, he saw the big spaceship right itself and go into a shallow dive. The nose dropped then made contact with the ground.
The battleship slid across the empty land leaving a giant furrow behind. Dust, rocks, plants and debris swirled in the rooster tail that trailed the ship. When it stopped moving, a great cloud of dust and debris hung above it, blocking any sight of it for several minutes.
When he could see it again, he knew it wouldn't be taking off any time soon. Most of the ship lay buried in the dirt. He said, "Belle, I need the track of those rocks coming at the planet. We need to move them off course."
In a few seconds, Belle put an image on the left screen showing the rocks. Josh said, "Plot a course through hyperspace to intercept them. Start with the big one in the lead."
Josh pushed the comm button, "Hang on. I'm going to jump through hyperspace to head those rocks off."
The Captain, standing next to Cherry, said, "You can't jump this close to the planet. How can your calculations even come close?"
"Josh is the best pilot I've ever known. If anyone can do it, he can."
"We'd better hang on. This could get rough."
As the two wedged themselves in, Josh jumped to hyperspace. Belle lurched and vibrated as she entered hyperspace. The movement coming out was even worse. The gravity dampers had trouble overcoming the surge forward as Josh rapidly slowed them down.
When he came into normal space, Josh looked for the bigger rock that had Lemmy on it. He didn't see it anywhere. "Belle, where's the rock with Lemmy? Show me her track."
An image came on the screen. When the Nagini attacked, the two ships had pushed the rock off at a tangent. It now sped off by itself. When Josh asked for a projected trajectory, he saw it would hit the sun.
Josh called on the comm, "Captain, do you know how to run a tractor beam?"
"Sure. How would I get to be a captain if I didn't?"
"I don't know. Maybe family money. I need your help."
A few minutes later the Captain appeared in the cockpit. Josh waved him at the co-pilot's seat as he maneuvered closer to a rock. Finally he asked, "Captain, how long will it take you to get your spaceship fired up?
"Just a few minutes. Why?"
"The rock it's on is heading out that way. It'll miss the planet but is heading for the sun. These rocks have to be moved right now or they'll hit the planet."
"That's a pretty small rock Lemmy and the others are on. What if you lose it?"
"I don't think we will, but what do we do? If we go after them, these rocks hit the planet. If we move these now, then go after Lemmy, we have a chance to rescue both."
The Captain grimaced, "We don't have a choice do we? What do you need me to do?"
"I think we can save some time if you use the tractor beam to grab two more rocks and put them on this one. Then while you hold them together, I'll push them into a different trajectory. We'll have to hurry to get all of these done."
"Let's go. We don't have much time."
Josh eased up to the first rock. The Captain quickly snagged it. When Belle came close to the lead rock, the Captain pushed the asteroid he had captured at it. His eyes kept flicking at the clock on the view screen and he shoved the captured rock into the other, harder than he'd planned.
The captured rock bounced away when he released it. They had to jockey around for several minutes until he had it planted on the first. Beads of sweat dripped from both of them. The Captain said, "I'll do better next time."
Josh moved Belle back to another one. The Captain captured it and Josh moved back to the first rock. As the Captain eased the captured one to it, the view screens blinked and went dark. Josh groaned, "Not now. Cherry, we need these screens."
A few seconds later, the screens came back to life. Josh called to Cherry, "We're trying to clear the asteroids heading to the planet. Cherry, you've got to keep these screens on. We don't have a second to spare if we're going to save the planet."
"Josh, I'm doing the best I can. I'll try to make the screens the priority to keep on."
When the Captain had the third rock settled, Josh told him to keep them together as he gave them a shove. Josh said, "Belle, show me the trajectory as I move them. I'd like to miss the planet by at least twenty-five thousand miles just to make sure gravity doesn't do something strange. We'll only get one shot at this."
The Captain nodded his head that he was ready. Josh nudged the throttle forward. Nothing happened. He moved it more and the projected trajectory wavered on the screen. More throttle made it move.
When the trajectory showed a twenty-five thousand mile miss, Josh backed away from the rocks. He hurriedly flew back to the next three. Things went much smoother. They both relaxed a little as that set of rocks went into a new trajectory.
They smoothly captured the remaining three rocks and started to shove them into a different path. As Josh advanced the throttle, the engine stopped and all the controls blacked out. Cherry yelled over the comm, "I know. The engine quit. I'm on it."
Josh muttered, "Any hurry would be greatly appreciated. We only have a few minutes then we're going to have to burn one whale of a lot of fuel to make these rocks miss."
Twenty tension-filled minutes later, Cherry called, "OK, try it."
The engines fired and moved the rocks. Josh saw that the trajectory barely moved. He kept adding more power. The line crept across the face of the planet. Glancing at the fuel gauge, he saw it moving lower.
The Captain whispered, "Are we going to make it? Do you have enough fuel to finish this and go get Lemmy?"
Josh just shrugged and kept his eyes glued to the line moving on the planet. When the line moved far enough away from the planet, he cut the engines. Cherry called, "Did you do that or did they stop again?"
"I did it. Now we need to go find Lemmy."
Josh looked up at the view screen. The line marking Lemmy's path had disappeared. He asked Belle about it, but she had no record of it. Josh called Cherry, "We have a problem up here. I set Belle to track Lemmy, but when we had that blackout; it dumped any record of it. I have no idea of where that rock went. I do remember that it was headed for the sun."
"Just like that little fur ball to get lost. I want to be there when she gets shoved out of an airlock into the sun or the maw of one of those snakes." Josh heard more muttering, then Cherry continued, "I'll be right there. I can't let her get away. Stupid little fur ball needs my guidance all the time – can't leave her for a minute without her getting into trouble."
Chapter 26