The Quarry

[Rage Menelas]

[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Of course, Ryan was ready to do a little 'fishing' himself after he watched his boss reel in a few; Charlie was happy to allow his new apprentice to try his hand at it.

It took awhile to get the hang of manipulating the ship system simply by laying his hands on the console and thinking what he wanted done, but Ryan finally grasped the concept. Before long he had hauled in one himself, and then another... Charlie beamed like a proud father.

Let us try another lake now, he said. These creatures can be elusive after they've seen several taken.

Okay... Ryan nodded, mind if I drive?

Uh, not just yet... there are too many things you could run into on a planet. Your first flight lesson should be out in space, where there is a much wider... uh... margin of error.

Although it made sense, Ryan didn't like that answer. He was having too damn much fun to relinquish control just yet. But he knew how to accept an order he didn't like, so he just nodded in compliance and pushed away from the console.

Charlie brought the ship up out of the lake and headed it out across the brilliant Pella'agrene mid-day sky. They were both casting about for their next fishing target when a trio of bright red beams skidded past the window. Charlie went into action immediately, instinctively throwing the ship into an alternating series of dives and climbs, while simultaneously searching his console for some sort of data. He apparently found it.

It is a Szearfetti ship, he announced, half to himself, she must have picked up our signature coming into the planet. Later Ryan found out what that meant. It was hard to disguise a ship entering an atmosphere. Every ship had a distinctive signature caused by her heat-shields. Anyone with the right equipment could pick it up with ease as she threw off sparks from reentry.

They reached the apex of an especially steep climb and Charlie rolled her over and made a long corkscrew dive for the planet far below. He must've figured he could more easily lose their adversary among the canyons down there, for she made a bee-line for a particularly large one now.

It sounded like a good idea to Ryan, nothing Saar'floe had done to this point had worked to accomplish that. Their chaser stuck to them like glue, several lancing beams striking them from behind, causing an alarming jolt to the crew whenever they did. Ryan just clung to his chair and prayed. Suddenly he realized they were firing back as evidenced by the sporadic sound and feel of weapon-fire emanating from the ship.

About the time they neared the canyon, the enemy landed a viscous blow point-blank on their stern. Saar'floe pitch-poled end over end, sailing up high in that attitude until she lost momentum, then paused for a fraction of a second, teetering at height and plunged downward transferring her motion into a flat spin as she did so. If Ryan had never been sick before he was now... all over the bridge! Then the impact came... ushering in with it total blackness...