He didn’t respond. Yet I knew he had appreciated my words, as his look of intense stress seemed to change slightly into resolve.
At that moment, I felt completely impotent, a total fraud. All these people saving our bacon, and there I was, wandering around like a lost fucking lamb, burning my hand on a damn crewmate’s shoulder. “Shaun, you’ve brought these people together. You’ve organized the escape with your telepathy. And you’ve arranged for Astrid to collect Elyek, while coordinating efforts on the Uprising,” Havok said, uncharacteristically soothingly for him. My hand was already healed thanks to his ministrations.
“Thanks, man. I don’t know if you're right, but it was nice to hear,” I responded, just as a massive impact shook the ship. Everyone was reeling from that one. We felt a series of smaller hits as we continued our hasty withdrawal. At that point, it didn’t feel like we were going to make it. A second big impact, and the power cut out; only the dim emergency lights remained on. It seems I had overestimated our ability to get away from the moon.
Calegg turned to me, horrified, “I've lost controls. We're dead!”
Our screen to the outside had gone blank, as had everyone's terminals. The Uprising was a sitting duck. We all looked at each other, almost saying goodbye with our gazes.
“Uh, hey everyone,” a Veiletian said, “I'm really sorry but this is my misjudgment. I may have miscalculated how much energy would be drained from…” The folding-drive suddenly kicked in. Blackness descended.
Once the jump had completed, those who hadn't been seated now picked themselves up from the floor. The Veiletian randomly continued speaking, as if nothing had happened “…drained from the ship in the process.”
“You mean, we didn’t lose energy because we’d been badly hit?” I groaned, still disorientated.
“I thought it odd, because our shields were still holding,” Calegg said.
“Luckily, our enemies also thought we were finished from their assault,” the red-haired Veiletian added.
“So, we’ve jumped. Yeah?” I asked.
“Yes!” The Veiletians all said together, joyously. One of them asked for the Suldr to recharge the ship's functionality for efficiency.
I sent them off with a couple of the Torax gunners to get what they needed. As they left, Ember was just arriving on the bridge. “Phew! Well, that was fucking close,” I said to her, then had a mild panic attack, “Shit! We didn’t let Elyek know what the plan was! They won’t know to contact the Thoth. And can Astrid even get in touch with them?”
“Don’t worry, dipshit. I sorted all that out. All we need to do is recover and wait for them to arrive tomorrow. Okay?”
I let out a huge exhale of air through puffed out cheeks. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” I said, deflated.
“You're potentially immortal. You'll never get too old for this shit.”
“You know though, I’ve just done to Elyek what I berated Ogun for doing to me. I ran and deserted them.”
“Don’t be stupid. They’re in a Veiletian enclave, where they’re safe and comfortable. In fact they actually used to live there. And we have a ship that’s far safer to travel on than ours going to pick them up exactly when they’re supposed to be picked up,” Ember offered.
“Thanks for trying to justify it Ember, but I ran. Whether or not it was for the right reasons, I left one of our best friends and crewmates behind.”
“Well, you were too hard on Ogun anyway, maybe this will give you a bit of perspective, you dipshit.”
I laughed at her reply, “Yeah, it has. I feel like an asshole.”
“That’s fine Shaun, you are an asshole. Now stop moping and go see Calegg, he looks like he could do with some attention.”
I responded with a shrug, then walked over to Calegg. Poking him with a finger to make sure he had cooled down, I then grabbed him in a hug while singing his praises. “Great work my friend. You sure saved our bacon.”
“That was so intense. I hope we never have to do that again,” he replied as we broke the hug.
I turned around to the others. “Really well done to everyone! That was a great team effort. Does anyone know how bad the ship is?”
“No,” Calegg answered, “We won't be able to tell until all the systems come back online. I totally thought that when the systems went down, we’d been hit bad and that had caused the power cut. If it was just the folding drive taking power, then hopefully the damage isn’t too bad.”
“I bloody hope so.” Just as I finished speaking, the lights sprang to life, followed by the terminals.
“Brilliant. Calegg, tell me how bad it is? No, wait… tell me how good it is?”
Calegg scanned his screen for a few moments before looking round to me. “It's actually not that bad, Captain. Hardly anything got through the shields, and what damage there is, is negligible.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic! Thanks again, Calegg.”
“Yeah, Calegg. You did amazing,” Ember added as the bridge doors opened, admitting the four Veiletians and their two Torax escorts.
“You too, guys. I doubt we would’ve escaped if it weren’t for you.”
They looked surprised by my addressing them.
“Yeah. How the hell did you know how to speed the folding drive up like that?” Ember asked the Veiletian who did it.
“I didn’t know of this ship’s drive, but I do know that any charging technology can usually be sped up – although it is not always safe to do so. I checked through the drive’s option files and settings. It was risky, but I had felt it was worth trying it to escape. Thankfully, you had the foresight to stock all that Suldr we found hanging in your
