Condition Evolution 3: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure by Kevin Sinclair (early readers .TXT) 📗

you were going to our destination. Preferably somewhere relatively isolated too, please.”

“Sure, Shaun. Bear with me a moment.” The comm went silent, the ship continued to move erratically. As much as I wanted to pace, I took a seat before I had an accident. My mind was ablaze with scenarios and concerns, so it was a relief to be brought out of my cyclical thoughts by Astrid’s voice.

“Hey, Shaun. I’m sending over the coordinates for the jump directly to you. Good luck. We’ll see you soon.”

“Great! Astrid, thanks so much for your help. I'm really grateful fate has put us all together again.”

“Me too, Shaun. We’re a team, so you don't have to thank me for doing my job. Now, go and get safe.”

With that, we ended the link. I quickly brought Ember up over the comm. “Shaun?” she answered as a question.

“It doesn't seem to be getting any easier for us, Ember. We’re gonna have to make a jump. I’ve just spoken to Astrid, and they’ve agreed to pick up Elyek and the others. The Thoth and its crew won't be marked, as we now seem to be.”

“That makes sense. I’ve been chewing over leaving Elyek back there, even though I knew we wouldn’t have left them there forever. Well done for getting that sorted out.”

“Thanks, Ember. It’s a relief, for sure.”

“How will the Thoth and Seshat find us if we jump? I mean, I know they can track us, but if we do a full jump, that might take them days, if not weeks.”

“Ah, yeah. Don’t worry about that. They’ve found us a job. I’ll explain later. Their pilot has just sent over some coordinates in that direction. Somewhere quiet in the area. So we’re gonna use those coordinates.”

“Brilliant thinking, Shaun. You’re impressing me in more ways than just your jammy-bastardness lately. Keep it up.”

“Will do,” I said, “Now, gotta go get this jump sorted out. See you soon.”

“See you, Shaun. I'll come along in a bit.” She left, and I missed her immediately. She always loaned me a lot more confidence in myself than she rudely took. I jumped up out of my seat. I had shit to do. I needed to get the space-folding drive charging quickly. As I walked out of the office, I saw Calegg hadn’t moved an inch. Everything was just as intense as I left it.

I was about to tell Calegg to sort out the folding drive when it hit me that he was 110% focused on getting us out of here, and couldn’t do this alone. And Elyek was not here. To my shame, I had no clue how to switch the fucking thing on and had never bothered to learn. I smashed the buttons on the comm on my bridge chair for Ember. “Do you know how to turn the bloody folding drive on?” I cried desperately over the private channel.

“No, sorry Shaun. We should probably do something about that soon. I'll ask the Veiletians, now. One of them might be able to help.”

I frantically paced by my seat, praying one of them might be able to help. A flood of relief washed over me when four Veiletians came running in only seconds later. “Hey, guys!” I greeted them eagerly. “This is the folding-drive control panel. We need to set it charging to escape. I also have coordinates to enter. It takes 15 minutes to charge, so time is precious.”

“We’ll work it out, Captain. Have no fear,” the confident, red-haired Veiletian replied. I won't lie, I was a little happy they were among those who had turned up. They had been amazingly useful so far. They all moved over and began looking over the terminal. They talked quickly and quietly among themselves.

To my surprise, it wasn't the red-haired one that took charge at the panel; it was a tall, slender Veiletian, fingers flashing like lightning over the screen. “There!” they said proudly. “It is charging.”

One of the other Veiletians now moved to the panel, gently shifting the other out of the way. They began to go through the panel at lightning speed for a short while, a calm in the storm. Finally, they looked up. “I can reduce the charge time. Regrettably, this will cut the power to non-essential parts of the ship. Unless you have any other sources of power?”

“Do it! But I don’t think we’ve any other sources of power, other than fuel. Is that any good?”

“Suldr!” one of the Torax shouted over.

“Oh, shit! Of course, I didn’t even think about that. We’ve a load of Suldr fire gems.”

“They will do, perfectly,” said the Veiletian now at the terminal. “We should use the ship's power for now. Then, we can replenish what is used with Suldr.”

“Okay. How much time can you take off the charge rate?”

They didn’t answer; just began tapping at the screen again. The lights began flashing. Speaking eventually, they announced, “I’ve re-routed power from the ship and bypassed the safety measures to prevent overcharging the drive’s cores. We now have five minutes until we can make the jump.”

I nodded then opened the file on my chair. “Here are the coordinates to put in, guys,” I said.

The one who had set the ship to charging came over and then hit a few buttons in quick succession on my terminal. “There! All done. It’s set,” they said, sounding smugly satisfied.

“Don't you need to enter them in the folding-drive?”

“No,” they looked at me oddly. “The captain's terminal has a direct line to all of the systems on the ship.”

“Oh, right,” I replied, a little embarrassed – I had a lot to learn.

“Don't worry, we’ll get you up to speed, Captain.”

“Oh, thanks. That’d be great. If you guys can offer any other help on the bridge, I'd be more than grateful.”

They nodded and moved back over to the folding-drive terminal.

With that problem sorted, I went back over to Calegg. I was torn. He was clearly under a lot of strain still, but I wanted him to know we appreciated