Warlord's Invasion (Starfight Book 1) by Lee Guo Read Free Book Online Page A

by. Hull stresses created loud jarring noises throughout the shuttle. People within the compartment voiced trembling concerns. “Are we going to be okay?” they asked.
    Vier did not answer them. She kept watching the monitor. The missiles came closer and closer.
    Then, when they entered the counterbattery range of the Dartmouth, the bigger ship fired all its gravitron beams. One missile was taken out. Then another. But there were dozens of them.
    The Dartmouth isn’t taking out the missiles fast enough. They’re going to surpass the Dartmouth and hit us.
    She watched in a stunned silence. Then something happened that utterly surprised her. Just as the leading missile was about to pass the Dartmouth and speed toward her shuttle, that missile detonated on the Dartmouth instead. Then another, and another. Every missile within the enemy missile salvo smashed into the Dartmouth.
    Then she gasped. A sudden realization dawned upon her. The reason those missiles appeared to be targeting her shuttle was to get the Dartmouth to slow its speed to protect her—the real target of those missiles hadn’t been her at all, it was the Dartmouth!
    Our shuttle is just not that important. I am not that important.
    The enemy believed that a human warship was far more important than whatever passenger her shuttle carried, so much that it used the shuttle’s apparent importance to the warship to prevent the warship from escaping into hyperspace.
    “Open a channel to the Dartmouth,” Vier ordered.
    “Yes, ma’am…Channel open.”
    “Dartmouth, do you read? What is the status of your ship? Damage?”
    There was screaming in the other end. People cried for help. The captain yelled amidst a flurry of activity. After a long pause, Captain Compton’s voice returned, “This is Compton. We’ve suffered severe damage to our primary propulsion systems. Our hyperspace translator is about to lose containment in its antimatter stores. We’re jettisoning it.”
    “But you won’t be able to translate into hyperspace,” Vier stated.
    “It doesn’t matter. Our gravitic drive is offline. We won’t make it to the edge of the gravity well before the enemy warship overtakes us.”
    Vier paused. “Do you have shields and weapons?”
    “Gravshield generators are all operational. The main graviton shield has been broken, but we’re regenerating it with new gravitons. Primary power is still online. The main lances are fully powered.” He paused. “Think of it this way, admiral. You’ll get to witness how well our warships do against the enemy warships in a knife fight.” Compton then yelled at someone far away. “Sorry, I must go. The ship needs me. There’s little time before that thing gets here. Look, Admiral. You and I are pragmatists. We have to be to get this far in the chain of command. View the situation this way: you get a free ticket out of here. It’s obvious by now that they aren’t focused on taking you out or they could have easily done so already. I’ll transmit all our data logs to you until we’re unable. Admiral, make sure high command makes full use of it. Make sure they pay for what they did here. Closing channel. Compton out.”
    “Goodbye, Compton.”
    “Goodbye, Admiral.” Compton yelled again to someone far away, then the transmission went quiet.
    There was silence in the cockpit as she stared at the minimap on the monitor. “Time to hyper transit?”
    “Twelve minutes, Admiral.”
    More minutes passed. Idly, she watched as the two dots came close to each other. Then, the enemy warship entered weapons range of the Dartmouth. The Dartmouth fired its main Polaron beam lance, lashing out at the alien ship like an injured dog baring its teeth. The alien ship countered using some unknown weapon that the shuttle’s sensors couldn’t analyze. A sudden bright flash of light appeared right on top the Dartmouth and it careened in a random direction. Vier knew its gravitic drive was down, so its sudden movement