That Synching Feeling: Shadows of Mallachrom, #2

By Michelle Levigne

Rover Pilot Nureen Keala, Rhianni Day's best friend, is on patrol on the other side of the galaxy from Mallachrom. She would rather be supporting Rhianni's mission, but the bureaucrats aren't cooperating. Responding to a distress call puts Nureen in the wrong place at the wrong time. She falls through a vortex into another universe that has never heard of the Rovers or the war against the Talroqi.

On a space station belonging to the Trefarian Empire, Tedrin Creed has been waiting for the vortex to open again. Five years ago, Talroqi ships attacked his ship. After sending his crew away to safety, he defeated the Talroqi before the vortex sucked down his ship. He has been lying to the Empire's people ever since, waiting for the vortex to open, so he can go home. When a ship and a pilot claiming to be a Rover fall through, his chance has finally come.

Problem: This ship is like no Rover ship he has ever seen, and the pilot doesn't like him, or believe he is who he says he is. Nureen has every reason to distrust this man who claims to be Tedrin Creed. She knows all about him. He was her grandfather's best friend, and died a hero fifty years ago.

Time is the problem, in several ways. The vortex and the way home will only be open for a short period of time. Can they learn to trust each other and escape the dangers of the Empire before time runs out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writers Exchange E-Publishing
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781922548061

Michelle Levigne

On the road to publication, Michelle fell into fandom in college and has 40+ stories in various SF and fantasy universes. She has a bunch of useless degrees in theater/English/film/communication/writing. Even worse, she has (or had) nearly 100 books and novellas with multiple small presses, in science fiction and fantasy, YA, and sub-genres of romance. Her official launch into publishing came with winning first place in the Writers of the Future contest in 1990. She was a finalist in the EPIC Awards competition multiple times, winning with Lorien in 2006 and The Meruk Episodes, I-V, in 2010, and was a finalist in the 2018 Realm Award competition, in conjunction with the Realm Makers convention. Her training includes the Institute for Children’s Literature; proofreading at an advertising agency; and working at a community newspaper. She is a tea snob and freelance edits for a living ([e-mail] for info/rates), but only enough to give her time to write. Her newest crime against the literary world is to be co-managing editor at Mt. Zion Ridge Press. Be afraid … be very afraid.     www.Mlevigne.com www.MichelleLevigne.blogspot.com @MichelleLevigne

Book preview

Chapter 1

Maktai Sector

Rover Pilot Lieutenant Nureen Keala retreated to where she always went when space was too quiet, she needed to shred someone, and the warty Talroqi ships hadn't appeared or attempted battle in days. She went to the scout craft Slipstream and got as far as she could from her assigned ship, Star Sword, without losing contact. After all, it wouldn't do for the chief pilot to be away from the ship if a full battle situation ambushed them.

Fat chance of that happening. Nothing had happened in the Maktai Sector since Commodore Tedrin Creed defeated three Talroqi battlecruisers, saved several nearby planetary systems, half an armada, and vanished into a vortex fifty years ago. It was as if the galaxy mourned the loss of one of the fleet's greatest heroes--and her grandfather's best buddy since basic training days. Nureen thought that fitting. But that didn't make it any easier to be here on the rim of the galaxy furthest from the action.

What she wanted was to be in orbit around the colony world, Mallachrom, ready to support her best friend since childhood, Rhianni Day. Something peculiar and inexplicable was happening there, and Rhianni had been sent to lead a Rover team to investigate. After delivering some poachers and unusual air samples to Rover headquarters, Nureen--and Star Sword, of course, because where the ship went, the triple pilot team went, and vice versa--had been assigned to Maktai. No explanation. No chance to argue with Commander General Day (Rhianni's uncle, scorch it!) and beg to be re-assigned to supporting Rhianni's team.

It wasn't like she could risk her career, jump ship, and find her own transport. Nureen had been bred--almost literally--for her post. It was generally assumed when the mental bonding of ship and pilot occurred they were paired for life; either the life of the ship or the life of the pilot. Leaving the Star Sword was almost like cutting off a limb. And there was the pride of being assigned to a ship of that size, carrying three full squadrons of dirtside troops and all their equipment and transports, along with twenty battle-class shuttles and ten scout craft that included Slipstream. No one had ever been assigned that much galactic tonnage at such a young age, much less made chief pilot. Besides, she was fourth-generation Rover. Obedience, as well as the need to sacrifice herself in service, was programmed into her genetics.

That didn't mean she had to like it, or put up with it quietly. At least, not when she was out of communication range of the upper brass.

Off-duty, she regularly took the Slipstream out to practice short-range evasive maneuvers and battle simulations. With the cabin sound pickup turned off, so she could work out her frustrations by imagining General Day was the enemy with whom she held a space ballet/destructive duel. She always returned to the ship sweaty and exhausted, her throat sore from shouting.

But at least she wasn't going to blow an O-ring on her captain and her fellow crewmembers.

So that was where Nureen was at T-minus twenty minutes until she had to head back to the ship and get her requisite six hours of sleep before going on duty again.

Lieutenant Keala, report, Captain Solrak said, breaking into her musings.

Keala reporting. She grinned at her reflection against the darkened viewport window. Nureen had almost forgotten to turn the pickup mic back on before talking. If she was going to get herself dishonorably discharged, it was going to be for something spectacular, not for sloppiness.

We're picking up energy fluctuations going off the scale at both ends, about thirty kliks from you. Coordinates coming through. What are you reading?

Systems-- All the alarms on her console went off at the same time. Readings coming through now, sir. She narrowed her eyes and slid into what pilots referred to as the bright zone, where the electrical signals in her brain merged with the crystal network that ran her scout craft. When not in use, Slipstream was in full system merge with the ship's system, so it could also become an extension of Nureen's mind when necessary.

Now was definitely necessary.

Vortex, sir, Nureen reported. She blinked, consciously registering the word after it left her lips, and almost pulled out of the link. Double-checking--

That's what we've been getting, too. We were hoping you'd have a different analysis, that much closer.

Picking up a mayday. She knew better than to wait for the order. Going in.

Backup?

Unsure at this point. No specs on the craft except that it's-- She closed her eyes, the better to visualize the readings spilling through her inner mental screen. The craft is smaller than my scout, contains one life form, and is falling into the vortex.

Sending assistance. Don't fall in, Keala.

Don't intend to, sir. She grinned at the visual pickup crystal, teeth bared in fierceness rather than humor, and tipped two fingers off her forehead in salute.

The auxiliary controls slid up out of the console, toggle ball for the left hand, joystick for the right hand. In rescue situations, especially with a rare space phenomenon to deal with, standard controls for the scout craft wouldn't be fast or sensitive enough. Sometimes, primitive was better. Between her mental link with Slipstream and the auxiliary controls, Nureen had a better chance of survival than ninety percent of the rest of the Galactic Fleet.

She shot her craft toward the lip of the vortex and the tiny green spot of energy that was the unknown ship in distress.

All-Maker, Source of Life, guard this fool, she muttered as the first gravitic streamers from the vortex reached out greedy fingers for her ship.

Getting in was easy--she wanted the whirlpool of gravitic and magnetic forces to pull her in, closer to that struggling little ship. Half her concentration focused on tracking the patterns, looking for the weaker zones among the stronger radiation bands of the helix pulling everything into the galactic whirlpool of the vortex. The trick--or so older and wiser and luckier pilots had always told her--was resting long enough in those weak rings to catch her breath and use them for a jumping off point, but not so long that the downward motion pulled her in.

A tiny, quiet spot in the back of her mind wondered what the chances were that this vortex was the one that took her grandfather Killer Keala's best friend, Commodore Creed. What were the chances of it returning now, while she was here, grumbling in this sector of space? Well, her grandmother always said the All-Maker had a nasty sense of humor.

Squeals came over the cabin speakers and Nureen turned down the volume. The EM pulses were messing with the communications. It sounded like someone was trying to talk to her. In case the other ship had better receivers, she called out her ship's code.

The squeals changed to the clicks and shrieks that had sent a chill down Nureen's back and through her guts the first time she heard similar sounds.

Talroqi. That little craft slipping into the vortex wasn't any recognized Talroqi craft. How could she have fallen for such a stupid trick?

No, please! I'm not the enemy, a buzzing voice pleaded. --beyond me. They chased me in here. Help me, please!

Nureen used side thrusters to move up a level in the vortex, putting her above the little craft, even as she got closer. Supposedly, the hive creatures didn't know how to shoot straight up. But if this was an unknown Talroqi ship, her advantage was probably shot to the Netherhells anyway.

Then the EM static field relented for a few seconds and her ship's display as well as her mental screen cleared, and Nureen saw the classic bumpy cylinder of a Talroqi queen ship. Energy readings indicated despite the gravitic pull of the vortex dragging the larger, heavier ship down into it, the Talroqi were expending at least a third of their available energy to wrap tangle fields around the little craft. That meant they wanted whoever was inside that ship.

Why?

Enemy of my enemy is my friend, she muttered, and spun the ball sharply forward. There was no down in space, but Nureen still felt as if she had tipped straight down on a steep track with no end in sight. Slipstream dove and she flung her own tangle field around the little craft as she came so close she could feel her ship's skin scrape against its hull.

Her momentum popped them out through the side of the vortex. The gravitic pull snapped like the dragging roots of carnivorous plants suddenly breaking under the touch of fire. Slipstream leaped forward, throwing her back into her seat and setting off every proximity and thrust alarm, threatening the seals on her craft. Her emergency air mask shot down from its hatch, automatically sealing over her face and startling a scream out of her--she had forgotten that particular piece of equipment was even there.

Then she got control of her craft and hit thrusters from six different angles, to fight the roll that wanted to send it tumbling through blessedly empty, quiet space.

The vortex and the Talroqi ship were nowhere to be seen. Neither was the Star Sword. Nureen pushed that little detail aside for later--as in when she had enough information and a safe place to hole up and assess the data,