Lord of the Storm by Justine Davis

Author:Justine Davis
Language: ara, eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: BelleBooks, Inc.
Published: 2014-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

SHAYLAH ACTIVATED the computer with a quick command.

“Ready, Captain,” the oddly genderless voice said after running the voice scan. Shaylah glanced over her shoulder as Wolf joined her in the conroom, fastening the flight suit she’d found for him. He glanced at the scanners, and she saw his eyes narrow at the size of the blip that had activated the alarms. She turned back to the computer.

“Quick scan. Identify and give coordinates on intruder,” she said.

“Working.” A pause. “Cruiser weight, Diaxin class. Range, one thousand twenty stellar miles and closing. Speed sublight, acceleration factor five.”

“Eos,” Shaylah whispered.

“Verify request?” the computer asked politely.

“Armament,” she snapped.

“Full standard range, plus four nitron torpedo bays, one laser gun. Six Y-class fighters indicated.”

“Great,” Shaylah muttered.

“A laser gun,” Wolf said slowly. “Not a Coalition vessel, then.”

“No,” Shaylah agreed, “we did away with those years—” She broke off, and her head swung around as she looked at him. “How did you know that?”

He shrugged. “I must have heard it somewhere.”

A nice, vague nonanswer, Shaylah thought again. He had them perfected. It irritated her, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it now. She turned back to the computer.

“Affiliation?” she asked, although she knew it was probably a wasted effort.

“None apparent,” the voice returned.

“Of course not,” she muttered. There was only one answer, and the moment she raised her gaze to Wolf, she knew that they both knew it.

“Skypirates,” he said flatly.

“Yes,” she said grimly. “And a ship that size must have a crew of over a hundred. Even if my crew were here, we’d still be outnumbered five to one.”

“And outgunned.”

“Against four nitron torpedoes? That’s putting it kindly.”

Wolf glanced out the viewport at the barren expanse of the asteroid. Then he looked at the computer’s ongoing flow of information, reporting the big cruiser’s steady, unwavering approach. Then he turned back, his gaze intently on Shaylah.

“No course change,” he said.

“I won’t ask where you learned to read instruments,” Shaylah said dryly.

He shrugged, the flight suit tightening across his broad shoulders. “Do you think they’ve detected us?”

“Probably not, at least not yet. They couldn’t be expecting anyone to be here, and our quick scan shouldn’t have registered long enough for them to be sure, if they weren’t looking for it.”

He glanced out the viewport again. “That’s a . . . sizable rock,” he said.

Shaylah followed his glance, then her gaze shot back to his face. He was watching her, waiting. She got it then and moved quickly to disengage the self-pilot.

“It won’t help for long,” she warned. “They’re going to register the ion drive when they get close enough.”

“Yes. But if we can keep the asteroid between us, maybe they won’t know we’re here until it’s too late. It takes a while to turn a ship that big around.”

“And we’re faster,” she acknowledged. “We can make a run for it around the other side.”

Shaylah made a delicate adjustment in the controls as they slid into the shadow of the asteroid. It would be a tricky proposition, keeping

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