Lost Empire 8

A part of this chapter was inspired by an idea that Baron Rod and I collaborated on late one night after he read Chapter 7 I thought it added quite a bit to the story
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Shelby had engaged the hyper-drive as soon as she could, almost immediately 2 of the remaining Ranger ships gave chase.
“Status Shelby,” Derrick asked groaning trying to sit up and get off the bio-bed.

“At present we have 2 of the remaining 3 operative First Class Ranger ships giving chase; I estimate that we will be out of their sensor range in 25 minutes 33 seconds.” Shelby reported. “DERRICK!” Shelby yelled, “you are still too unstable to attempt to stand. Please rest ’til such time the bio-bed has allowed you to exit.” Derrick grumbled but lay back down, watching as they quickly out distanced the following ships.

“Are you picking up any transmissions from the Rangers?” Derrick asked.

“Yes Derrick, apparently the commanding officer of the ship that fired on us has been taken into custody.” Shelby reported. “They are trying to speculate as to who we are, no one has said anything, and they are still calling us an extremely fast ship, attacked without provocation. Apparently they are preparing an apology for us for the offense, and that no charges will be brought up against us.” The mouth of the Shelby hologram dropped open. “They want us to come to the Republic capital for it.”
Derrick growled, there was no way in hell that he was EVER going near that den of iniquity again. Shelby noticed that Derrick’s heart rate and pulse had increased.

“Derrick, are you alright? I am detecting your heart beating faster and massive amounts of adrenaline being released by your body.” Shelby asked a little afraid.

“I will be Shelby; the Capital is a place I want to never be in or near ever again.” Derrick spit out his anger growing more by the second. “I was disgraced through the streets when I refused to re-enlist; I was their greatest hero ’til I refused to kill for those asinine pricks anymore. If I could I’d destroy the entire city and every THING that claims to be alive there.” For a moment, Shelby was shocked at the sudden burst of anger from Derrick, but then she remembered the many atrocities that she had seen in Derrick’s head. Most by the other Republic troops, Derrick had tried to keep his self out of it to no avail. No wonder Derrick’s anger is so great she thought, those were horrible things that he and his men had been forced to do.

Sighing she wondered how Derrick had stayed sane in all that time, how he had managed to remain a decent person. It would be several hours before the bio-bed was going to release him, Derrick decided to get an update.

“Shelby, any word from Conner?” He asked.

“The last I had from him was that he’d arrived at the point the others were and was tri-angling our position, though we are almost 1/10 of the way to where he left the others. I estimate it will take 6 days, 10 hours 30 minutes to get there.” Shelby reported.

”I am afraid that taking the first 2 might have over taxed his trans-warp generators. We may have to reach them with hyper-drive, though I am anxious for all of us to be together.” Derrick admitted.

“As am I Derrick. As weak as the others were, they are so defenseless out there; even Conner is only 50% with his weapons. If he has lost trans-warp then it will indeed be some time ’til we are reunited. I estimate it will be another 35 hours 15 minutes 20 seconds ’til my own trans-warp is operational.” Shelby sadly said. Nodding Derrick went through the reports and damage reports of Shelby’s systems.

Derrick had been studying her system schematics for almost an hour when he began to get an idea. “Shelby can you generate any Critela particles at all?” He asked.

“Calculating now, also running diagnostics. It appears that I can produce a small amount of the particles, but I cannot sustain them for a prolonged period.” Shelby answered.

“Query Shelby,” Derrick asked. “If you release the Critela into your trans-warp generators, at 1 minute intervals, I am seeing a chance to increase re-gen of the generators by 33%.”

“Calculating now, yes I am seeing a 32.9% increase in re-gen of generators. Though this plan of action has great merit I can only produce the particles every minute for an hour, then I would need 30 minutes to start the process again. Under these conditions the re-gen time would be reduced from 35 hours, 10 minutes, 29 seconds to 24 hours, 3 minutes, 33 seconds.” Shelby replied.

“Alright,” Derrick sighed, “it will have to do, we need to re-establish contact with Conner and the others. Shelby I want you to call all of them on every frequency you can that won’t alert the Rangers or others to their and our location.

The hologram of Shelby’s eyes grew wide; this was something she hadn’t even thought of. If they were monitoring as she thought they should be, then there was a greater chance of contacting them. Shelby began the long process of cycling through all the frequencies sending out a message that only the others would understand and reply to.

Finally, an hour later the bio-bed released Derrick, finally able to get up he started to go through all the readings he had on Conner the last time he’d seen him. A few minutes later, he saw what he thought he might. The strain of taking the first 2 had once again damaged his generators. Damn it Derrick thought, I’m going to have to apologize to him when I see him again, I just hope that my impatience didn’t get him destroyed again. It was only a few minutes later that Shelby got a response to all her calls.