Excerpt From "Star Drifter" Chapter 4

[Excerpt] Star Drifter, Chapter 4, "Pursuit" ©1991 Steve Anthony

An excerpt from "Star Drifter." This is in Chapter 4 where Jason Garrett's ship has come out of a sudden jump to light drive in an unexpected place. Since I work full time as a technical writer, and always have several creative writing projects in the works but limited time to actually pursue them, “Star Drifter” has been a years-long project of mine. This particular portion was written in the early 90s and I was a little put out at myself for not having finished it as I sat in a movie theater and watched the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D crash in “Star Trek: Generations” nearly re-creating the crash of the spaceship Transient from my story visually before me. What could I do, challenge the makers of "Star Trek" for using a scene from a book written by an unknown author that wasn't finished and no one had ever read? Not likely. It's not like they could even know about it. They say if you have idea someone else has it as well. That was the case with the two books, "The Glass Inferno" and "The Tower" that became "The Towering Inferno" but at least the authors of those had finished their stories.

I’m not even sure if this is ready for anyone to see, and it probably needs work, but here it is. I guess the biggst question here is, "Does it make you want to read more?"

She smiled back at him and wished he would take her into his arms. Finally he did, and her heart started pounding as he reached out to pull her close, starting to kiss her. As her senses blurred into the moment, a loud, alternately rising and falling tone pierced the silence, and the ship lurched, nearly throwing them to the floor.

"What's that!?" She was startled at the noise.

"It's an alarm. We're entering the atmosphere of a planet." He tried to remain calm.

The ship lurched again. He carefully made his way forward and crouched below the main viewport that stretched along the front of the control room. Reaching out, he pressed a button and the alarm went silent. Then he unlatched a small panel and reached inside.

"Get to a control lounge. There are belts inside the armrest. Slide them out and strap yourself in."

He struggled unsuccessfully with a lever inside the panel, then turned around and sat down with his back to it. Reaching up behind his head with both hands, he grasped it again. Pain from his injuries registered in his face and he groaned as he stretched, pulled down with all his strength, and finally managed to pull the lever free. He stood up and stepped back, intently watching the viewport. The metal plates covering it silently divided in the middle and began to slide to each side, gradually revealing a planet bathed in beautiful brilliant blue. It nearly filled the entire viewport.

"Behold the handiwork of God," he said in the midst of his awe. "I've seen a lot of planets, and man has made his share of artificial moons and colonies, but there's only one that looks like this."

"Earth!" exclaimed Letha. "It's beautiful! I've heard stories, but I never imagined it was like this!"

"You mean you've never been to Earth?" His eyes never left the viewport.

"Never. I was born and raised on Stevenson's Colony. I've never even been in space before."

He finally turned and made his way to the other lounge, stretching the belts across his chest as tightly as possible and buckling them. Then he shook his head from side-to-side and chuckled.

"For a first timer, you certainly know how to put in an exciting day.” He looked at the viewport again. "Take a good look at it, because it may be the first and last time you see it."

The ship began to lurch and shake more violently, seemingly ready to burst apart at any moment, as it rapidly accelerated toward the blue mass in front of it.

"We're going down fast and hard. I may have restored enough power to keep us from burning up from friction, or totally disintegrating on impact, but it's not going to be pretty in any case."

"Jason, will you have any control over where we land?" There was urgency in her voice.

"Not enough to get you within a hundred kilometers of wherever it is you think you want to go. Auto guidance is out. The best I can hope to do is keep us upright and as steady as possible. The hydraulics will do most of that with a little prodding from me. If you want to go somewhere specific, I suggest you call another shuttle."

As his fingers nimbly pressed buttons with each new jolt of the ship, an orange glow began to surround the borders of the viewport and rapidly fill it, becoming so bright that they had to shield their eyes. One of the control panels he had repaired suddenly shorted out, startling them and sending a shower of sparks in their direction before erupting into flames. Above it a cloud of vapor hissed down and when it stopped, the flames were gone. Then, as rapidly as the glow had appeared outside the viewport, it died away, leaving them with the view of an ocean's surface sliding far beneath them at a dizzying speed. A land mass appeared before them on the horizon and grew larger with each passing second.

"Jason, have you heard of a place called ‘The Ring’?"

"I'm surprised you have."

"Can you get us there?"

"So this is where you wanted to come all along." He turned his head and looked at her intently. "Why Earth? Why the Ring?"

"I'll explain later. Just do what you can to get us there, okay?"

As he gazed into her striking blue eyes she had him with one word; one pitifully spoken plea, "Please."

"All right, but I can't promise anything. I hope you understand."

"Yes."

"I'm familiar enough with the land masses to recognize them, but we're already in our last orbit and frankly, I was going to use it to slow us down a little. If you really want to do this, it'll lower our chance of survival considerably."

"I know."

He hesitated, trying to be sure that she really did understand, "All right then. Let's do it."

Looking intently at the viewport, he poised his fingers just above a lever and at what seemed like the right moment, slid it down, and pushed a button. The view port shields slowly closed together again and they stared at them until they could no longer see the rapidly approaching ground beneath them.

He punched one final button and yelled, "Hold on!"

A loud humming emanated from the Transient’s power pods as it struck the ground with its belly and bounced back up into the air. From what seemed like another reality, he thought he heard a scream. Letha? The ship came down again and slid several hundred feet where it struck a large tree and glanced off it to the left, sending a shower of wood splinters, gravel, and debris into the air. Another tree sent it back to the right, where it smashed rocks apart and ripped through several large bushes, tearing them out of the ground by their roots. It continued sliding, dragging rocks, brush, dirt, and the bodies of a few unfortunate birds and small animals with it, finally coming to rest only a few feet from the edge of a cliff, as a huge pile of debris and dust hurtled past it, and crashed into the bottom of the canyon below with a thunderous roar.

Less than fifty kilometers away, the Guardians awoke from their synthetic sleep, and prepared to make their way to the site to investigate the intrusion.