Galaxy of Heroes

Genie was not programmed to depend on luck. Joe depended on it far too frequently.

He was absolutely correct that luck had been the factor that had brought the two of them together. After all, he had won her from Capt. Jace Spade in a poker game.

The trackers were moving in quickly toward the cruiser and were preparing their ships for the endgame—a game they all knew would be played out in the next few seconds, one way or another.

Genie monitored the scanners as the missiles zeroed in on the cruiser. Two missiles had locked on and would hit their mark in moments.

Genie knew exactly what the trackers were thinking as they skimmed the periphery of the asteroid belt. They were certain she and Joe had only two options: surrender, or be blasted—with surrender being the logical option.

But the time for surrender had passed as the missiles zeroed in. For the trackers, this mission had now become a matter of watching the fireworks.

If Genie ran from the missiles, the cruiser would have to leave the asteroid belt, which would bring them into range of the trackers’ pulse cannons. Grimes watched on the cruiser’s scanners as the missiles streaked in for the kill.

“What do you say, babe?” he asked nervously. “Should we give my plan a shot?”

The trackers would probably not have considered Joe’s plan, Genie thought. It was too dependent on luck—suicidally so.

Genie recalled the first time Capt. Spade let her play games of chance on the Red Wrath’s computer. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out the computer’s strategy. It relied on number-crunching computation. But Genie had a living organic neural network functioning in tandem with her computer circuitry. It was the synergy between her organic neural net and her computer circuitry that gave her an edge over both human and computer. She could beat the ship’s computer consistently in any game she played against it. She played games of chance with more skill than any computer, and with more competitive passion than even the likes of Capt. Spade.

Luck or no luck, Genie had no intention of returning to the dark caverns of that awful Vanarian moon. “Let’s do it,” she said.

“Let’s do it, Genie-baby,” Grimes said.

Genie fired up the cruiser’s remaining engine. The ship blasted with a lurch out of the asteroid belt on a trajectory toward the fiery gap between the Altiva and Cantos stars. Genie worked rapidly, plotting the coordinates that would give them the greatest possibility of a successful traversal, as well as cause the most confusion for Governor Zegra’s trackers.

The missiles streaked out of the asteroid belt and closed in on the fleeing cruiser. Genie gunned the ship’s big engine. She released clouds of chaff and employed countermeasures, allowing the cruiser to pull away from the confused missiles.

The trackers were slow to react to the unexpected move. But it didn’t take them long to change their battle plan and reset their headings toward Altiva Cantos. Their ships gunned their engines for a hot pursuit.

“Here they come!” Grimes said.

The trackers zoomed into an angle of pursuit so as to cut off the cruiser as it passed close around the binary star. However, they soon realized that the cruiser’s trajectory would not take it around the dual stars, but right between them.

“They’ve figured it out!” Grimes exclaimed. “They’re circling around now!”

The cruiser would be within range of the trackers’ pulse cannons in a matter of seconds.

“They’ve got us!” Grimes said.

Blasts from their pulse cannons rocked the Craaldan cruiser. But the robust vessel survived the first salvo. The Craaldans knew how to build warships that could survive a scrap or two.

The console lit up with flashing warning lights. The hull had been breached at several impact points, but the engine remained intact.

“One more salvo and we’re through!” Grimes said.

The gravity of Altiva Cantos exerted its powerful pull. Momentum increased. Suddenly, the trackers broke off and terminated the pursuit, turning their ships away from the intense gravitational field.

Genie and Grimes watched on the scope as the trackers’ dark ships reversed course and headed back toward Meglos.

“They decided not to pursue us into the star,” Genie said. “They must believe we are committing suicide.”

The Altiva Cantos binary star loomed before the cruiser, filling the cockpit with blazing light.

Cantos was the smaller star that orbited the larger Altiva. Cantos’ blistering orbit swung it in near its sister. Titanic gravitational forces tugged and pulled at the surfaces of the twin stars, forcing up powerful solar flares that jetted back and forth between them.

There was no turning back now. The enormous gravitational fields of the binary star now had the cruiser in its grip, pulling it in.

“I’m raising the radiation shields,” Genie said. “We need to get down to the antimatter storage deck.”

She unhooked herself from her chair and floated up across the cockpit in the zero gravity. Grimes unhooked himself and followed her. They descended the central transport shaft by grasping the handgrips and pulling themselves hand over hand into the interior of the cruiser.

Genie found a console on the wall of the shaft and punched in numbers in Craaldan script. She opened the hatch to an empty antimatter containment tube and pulled herself in. She grabbed Joe by his collar and pulled him in with her. She slammed the hatch shut, sealing the two of them inside.

There was no light source in this empty tube. Grimes saw nothing but inky blackness. Genie, however, could see Grimes with infrared vision. His body temperature was normal and he appeared calm and relaxed.

“We should be safe in here,” Grimes said.

Genie wasn’t entirely sure of the accuracy of that statement. She wondered if the low temperature and the narrow confines of the tube would distress Joe’s organic body.

She could feel the intensity of the gravitational pull exerted by Altiva Cantos. She knew the fragility of the human form. Humans in space were always one quick moment from death.

“Are you comfortable?” Genie asked.

Sgt. Joe Grimes wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. “I’ve never been more comfortable in all my life,” he said.