Chutes & Ladders (Prosperous Book 1) Read online

  Tru was interrupted from answering when Amanda suggested, “They might be Terallians on that shuttle. They seem to be rounding up all the surplus ships they can for their imaginary war.”

  Tru glanced at her. She was in a strangely good mood – he’d have to ask her about that later.

  “Aris catch up and pull them into bay three. If they are Terallians, I’d like to have a chat with them. Jackie, tell Zalet to have security secure that bay and meet me there.”

  “Amanda, you have the Control until I get back,” Tru told her.

  “I’m going with you.”

  Tru turned to her. She didn’t look away from him.

  “It would be best for you to—”

  “I want to know why they are trying to start a war, sir, and jeopardizing their position in the Union. And I’m sick of them shooting at us.”

  Tru almost argued, but as his XO she had a right to make this request. He shrugged a little.

  “Meet me outside of the bay.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get shoes and socks on.” He pointed at his bare feet.

  She glanced down and then nodded once. “Gracie, transport me—”

  She was gone before she could finish. Tru turned to Reuben. “You have the Control until we get back.”

  He nodded once.

  “Gracie,” Tru said, and she transported him back to his quarters.

  Tru and Amanda approached the two security guards standing by the cargo hold door.

  Tru held his hand out to one of the guards. “Pistol.”

  One handed Tru his weapon. Tru held his hand up to the biometric reader, and the door disappeared. He held the pistol at ready, eyeing the shuttle as he led the way. Overhead, three security guards walked onto the catwalk with rifles aimed at the shuttle exits. Cautiously Tru approached the central airlock on the right side of the ship.

  “Gracie, what are you reading in there? How many Terallians?”

  There aren’t any Terallians onboard. I don’t know what they are, but there’s two, and I think the vitals I’m reading indicate they’re scared.

  Tru’s brow furrowed. “An unknown species?”

  I believe so.

  “Are you sure there isn’t any shielding?” he heard Amanda ask Gracie.

  Positive.

  Tru walked up to the airlock and tried to use the control panel to open the door. It didn’t open.

  “Get Jackie, Gracie.”

  In a matter of seconds, Jackie materialized next to Tru.

  “Unlock this door,” Tru ordered.

  “Me, sir?”

  Tru looked at her. “Joan! Get this door open!”

  Jackie stepped up to the control panel and held her hand over it. Tru stepped back when it sparked, and the door slid open. He quickly pulled Jackie behind him, staring into the dark ship. The interior lights were off. The light spilling through the cockpit window and the open airlock wasn’t enough to penetrate the darkness.

  “I need a light,” Tru said, holding out a hand.

  Someone pressed a flashlight into his hand, and he switched it on as he brought it under the butt of the weapon. Tru slowly stepped in, gliding the light across the cockpit.

  A hiss came from behind him, and he spun. The light caught something brown colored before it disappeared. But the way it disappeared struck Tru. It wasn’t like it had gone under the bench or behind a chair; it looked like it had suddenly cloaked.

  “I want two guards in here and shut that door. They may have Chameleon abilities.”

  “They’re also whispering,” Jackie said.

  Tru looked back. She was leaning against the hull just outside the door, examining her fingernails.

  “Which of you two is the expert linguist?” Tru asked.

  She looked at him. “Jackie.”

  “Jackie, get in here and tell them we aren’t going to hurt them.”

  “No! They’re hissing like snakes, and we draw the lines at snakes, sentient or otherwise.”

  “Jackie, get in here now.”

  Jackie wilted for a moment before joining him. She shot him a glare and then turned her attention to the darkness at the back of the shuttle. Two security guards stepped inside and closed the airlock. No one spoke for a long moment.

  “Jackie,” Tru said

  “What?”

  “Talk to them.”

  “They stopped talking.”

  “I want Jackie back now.”

  “I am back!” Jackie retorted.

  “So then talk to them!”

  “I can’t talk to them. I didn’t hear enough to understand them, sir.”

  Tru started to scold her, but a loud hiss cut him off. He and Jackie looked in its direction. Tru lifted his pistol, taking a slow step toward the noise. Jackie began a slow retreat toward the airlock.

  “We don’t want to hurt you,” Tru said. “We just want to talk.”

  He heard one of them say something. Jackie repeated it. There was a reply, and she said something else. The hissing moved to his left. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement. It looked like a wave of heat moving through the open space, and it was headed for Jackie. He fired, and the beam hit something solid. He heard it hit the floor and the being’s camouflage failed. The creature looked like a human male in his early twenties. There wasn’t a clean spot on him, his hair was unevenly cut, and his clothes had repeatedly been patched. He had a slight baby face with puffy skin around his mouth. A milky liquid dripped from the fangs as they slowly retracted into his mouth.

  Tru was struck by a strong sense of d‚j… vu. Why did this feel familiar? Had he seen this creature somewhere before?

  Tru slowly knelt down to get a closer look at the creature. He heard a hiss from behind him and turned slowly, tightening his grip on his pistol and flashlight. He didn’t see the movement of air like he had before. Was this creature different?

  Tru suddenly recalled his premonition of the angry spirit attacking him and looked down at the body. The clothes were the same. The premonition was happening now! Tru turned to order everyone out when pain shot up his arm. He jerked back with a scream of pain.

  “There!” he heard Jackie yell. “Tru, shoot! TRU, SHOOT IT!”

  Tru couldn’t focus on anything. He felt like he’d been crushed by a boulder as pain exploded in every muscle, bone, and organ. Anaphylactic shock set off a chain reaction in his body. He gasped for breath and gagged on the air that made it into his lungs. There was a deafening roar in his ears that synced to the white light bursting before his eyes.

  “Th-the g-g—” Tru collapsed.

  Jackie and the security guards stared at the creature one of the guards had shot. She was a dirty, gaunt, blond haired five-year-old that looked as innocent as a cherub. But the illusion was lost when Jackie looked down at Tru’s arm. It was slowly dissolving into a mucus goo

  “Gracie, transport Tru,” Jackie said. When he wasn’t transported she yelled, “GRACIE, TRANSPORT TRU TO INFIRMARY, NOW!”

  Tru disappeared.

  “Get the XO,” Jackie ordered the security men.

  One of the guards opened the door.

  “XO,” a guard called. “We’ve subdued the creatures.”

  Amanda walked in and stopped short, staring at the creatures.

  Jackie plopped into the helm chair and started working on the computers.

  “Where’s Captain Barnett?”

  “The kid bit him, and his skin was turning to goo; I sent him to Infirmary,” Jackie told her. “I left those aliens for you to deal with since that’s your job.”

  “It was my call to send Captain Barnett to Infirmary.”

  Jackie spun the chair around to stare at her. “Oh. I’m sorry. I figured that since his skin was dissolving and he had no color and was barely able to breathe, that maybe I should act fast. Next time, I’ll let someone die just so you can make the same decision.”

  Panic was starting to show on Amanda’s face “Was he conscious?”


  Jackie’s glare only hardened. “Oh yeah, Amanda. As his arm was dissolving, he jumped up and started doing a dance number, and then transported to Infirmary. You are a fucking idiot.”

  “We— I—The Terallians…” Amanda went straight to panic. “How the hell are we supposed to get past the Terallians and out of this nebula?”

  “Well, we could always surrender,” Jackie answered sarcastically. “Getting to see you sliced and diced would be worth a lifetime of slavery or even death.”

  Amanda’s panic turned to anger. “Rhoades, get into the ship logs. See if there’s anything useful in there.” Amanda walked out, adding, “And send those two creatures to the Brig.”

  Jackie rolled her eyes. “No. Please. Let me do my job. I insist.” Jackie sneered. “Fucking bitch!”

  Captain Barnett is being transported, Gracie announced over the Infirmary intercom.

  Q’al and his medical staff turned, watching Tru appear on a bed. For a moment they stared at his slowly dissolving arm.

  “CODE BLUE, STAT!” Q’al screamed.

  The medical staff scrambled.

  “What happened, Gracie?” Q’al asked.

  An unknown species bit him, Gracie told him. She sounded close to hysterics. He saw this happening weeks ago. He didn’t know if he lived or died. Q’al, if he dies—

  “Gracie, focus!” Q’al turned to a monitor, tapping the touch controls on it. “Where are the species that bit him?”

  Both were transported to the Brig.

  Q’al ran to a cupboard and pulled out a canister with a rubber cover over the wide mouth and a small control panel with six buttons.

  “Doctor Ilka, have nurse Tipton help you isolate the venom’s protein. Doctor Lareshth and Nurse Henrich, prep the surgery theater.”

  The doctors obeyed, barking their own orders at the other medical staff.

  “Transport me to the Brig, Gracie.”

  Compliance, Gracie said and transported him.

  Chapter 28

  AMANDA SAT ON THE FLOOR OF THE TOILET STALL SOBBING INTO HER HANDS. She had never had to single-handedly command of a ship before, let alone one that was under attack. How was she going to take Tru’s place? The crew hated her, and with danger at their door, they would never listen to her. Amanda tried to draw a breath and couldn’t. She felt panic starting to rise as she tried again and again to draw a deep breath.

  “First Executive Officer Wrigley,” she heard Jackie say outside the toilet stall.

  A deep breath suddenly filled her lungs, followed by a feeling of dread. Jackie was the last person she wanted to deal with. She tried to collect her nerves, even as she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  She jumped when the stall door slammed open. Jackie stood over her, leaning on the doorframe. Amanda pulled herself to her feet. She tried to look proud but couldn’t.

  “I’ve longed for this day,” Jackie told Amanda with a smug, wicked grin. “The day I got to watch Amanda Wrigley fall apart, and no one was there to rescue her. This is priceless!”

  Amanda pushed past Jackie and went to the row of sinks. She turned on the water and began scrubbing her face. She jumped when someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. Jackie held out a towel to Amanda with an annoyed glare.

  “When we’ve had marauders attack you’ve jeopardized lives because of some really fucked up disorder, but you really need to stop rubbing your fucking face off and pull it together! Our problems just got worse.”

  Amanda snatched the towel away and dried her face. “What are you talking about?”

  “I decrypted the Paskian shuttle communication. Those two creatures we have in the Brig are called Jit. Some Terallians came across them at an outpost and found out another race called the Varlikon are offering a million qubits for each Jit returned to them because allegedly they are slaves. But that is an awfully big reward for escaped slaves. The most interesting part was they now have new orders to take control of Prosperous, by any means necessary, and take her to the nearest Terallian outpost. Now they want all of us dead, not just you and Tru. Damn! And here I was hoping we could give them you and they’d go away.”

  “If there were Terallians on that shuttle, why didn’t they attack us when we entered it? Where are they?”

  “Oh! They were still on the shuttle, but they were just puddles of goo. My guess is the kid and guy bit them, and their venom dissolved the ever loving shit out of them. I mean, there’s not even teeth, that’s how—”

  “Enough! I get it.” Amanda leaned over the sink as nausea washed over her.

  “We have to get this information about the Terallians to Merchant Raitor,” Jackie told her, “and there aren't another communications buoys between Righel Prime and us. Which means we have to get to Righel in one piece.”

  “And how do you propose we do that!” Amanda put her hand on her stomach, muttering, “I can’t do this. I don’t know how to command a ship.”

  “Well, you’d better figure it out fast because the sonar showed five more ships have arrived. You need to be on the Control trying to figure out how to get us out of this. Like, twenty minutes ago, you needed to be there.”

  “Aris said we’re in a negative position, we can’t make a dimensional reposition, and I don’t… I don’t know—”

  Amanda gagged a couple of times, and dry heaved over the sink

  Jackie threw up her hands and backed up a couple of steps. “Yeah, you are a fucking worthless pile of shit. I’m gonna go back to the Control and us stupid subordinates will play some cards until we run out of food, water, air, or they come into the nebula, shoot at us, and blow us all to hell.” Jackie walked away. “Either way, I’m going to have some fun first.”

  Amanda looked up, watching Jackie walk toward the door. She hated to admit that Jackie was skilled at helping captains get their ships out of tight spots. A few times Amanda caught herself wondering why Jackie went into communications because she was a walking encyclopedia of tactical maneuvers, ships, and armor specifications. Amanda had stolen more than one of Jackie’s ideas to make a captain think she was competent in that area, which had only fueled the women’s hate for each other.

  “Jackie, wait.”

  Jackie stopped, looking over her shoulder.

  “What should we do?” Amanda asked. “I know you have a solution. Tell me what it is.”

  “I am not helping you,” Jackie hissed.

  “The crew and Gracie need your help. Please tell me. What is the solution?”

  “You’re on your own, Wrigley!”

  Jackie walked up to the door and held her hand over the biometric pad. It didn’t open. She looked up, pursing her lips.

  “Gracie, open the door.”

  If you have a tactical solution that could save us, Ensign Rhoades, you need to tell us.

  Jackie turned, leaning on the wall. “I’m not telling this bitch anything, Gracie! For years she’s taken credit for my ideas, and while she gets raises and promotions, I get screwed!”

  Then tell me.

  Jackie looked at the ceiling. “No.”

  Would you rather let this crew, me, your captain, die because of something Wrigley did in the past? I demand that you tell me your plan of escape.

  “You’re like some super computer, Gracie. I’m sure you’ll figure this out, and then you and XO queen-bitch here can get us out of this mess.”

  On the contrary, Jackie, I haven’t come up a survivable solution, and neither has TAC Officer Reuben. I may have the computer at my disposal by you have your psychic abilities and you are quite insightful. You know something that I don’t. I do not want to die in this nebula, and my boy is lying in Infirmary, dying. He needs to be at Righel Prime, now. So please, Ensign Rhoades, put aside whatever issue you have with XO Wrigley, and help us.

  Jackie didn’t say anything for a long time. She finally sighed and with a roll of her eyes, said, “Fine! But only because you’re asking, Gracie. We have to make a dimensional reposition while we’re still in
the nebula.”

  Amanda scoffed. “Aris said we’re in a negative position. We can’t reposition.”

  “We are in a negative position at the moment, but if we cross to the other side of the nebula, we’d be in a positive position. And we would have to reposition from inside the nebula because we are outgunned and we have to use it for cover. Also, the hydrogen in the nebula will probably ignite and explode when we reposition, and take out anything next to it, and follow us out of dimensional space, so exiting will prove challenging.”

  “I think Reuben or Gracie would have come up with that plan if it worked. I clearly underestimated you.”

  “Oh, clearly!” Jackie spun to face the door and slammed her fist into it. It sparked, and the door opened. Jackie stormed out, and the door didn’t close behind her.

  Amanda sighed, dropping her head. “Are there any other tactical maneuvers that will work, Gracie? Are you sure you’ve looked at every option, even the most insane ones, like that one?”

  I have played thousands of scenarios since we have taken refuge in this nebula. All have a ten percent or lower survival ratio. And the majority of the higher percentage ones were just as insane.

  Amanda looked at the door. “What about her plan? Would it work? What’s the survival ratio?”

  “I’m running the scenario now.”

  Amanda waited the few seconds it took Gracie to run through the scenario.

  Surprisingly, the survival ratio of Jackie’s plan is twenty-six percent. We will not be able to use sensors or readout station data. We will have to rely solely on star charts.

  “That sounds like a problem. Why does that sound like a problem?”

  Many star charts haven’t been updated since readout stations were put in place. Most are fifty to a hundred years old. Plus, celestial bodies and other phenomena are not stationary objects. We run the risk of repositioning into the middle of a sun, a planet, or something equally lethal, such as a black hole. Or run into a dark matter pocket that would drain my power in seconds, killing everyone instantly.