Lost Empire

Chapter 46

Ship# - name - prime

0001 - Tempro

0003 - Conner

0097 - Ace - Zimmel

0098 - Lucy

0101 - Shelby (mother ship) - Derrick

0125 - Lars

0200 - Ellen

0301 - Rodrick

0403 - Johnathon

0667 - Marco - Brown

0778 - Jan

0798 - Celeste - Shelby (human)

0908 - Tara - Mara

0999 - Zan

1000 - Sherry - Lucie (for the moment)

Derrick watched in horror as the beam bounced almost directly back toward the empress. 'There's not a lot I can do, ' he thought as he pulled a strange looking weapon like device from his side and shot at the beam. 'I can't completely disable it but she'll live, ' Derrick thought.

Derrick's beam raced against the beam that was heading for the empress. Finally overtaking it passed it striking the empress. Derrick breathed a sigh of relief it had worked. Then he watched horrified as the energy beam from her gun struck within a half meter of her and stopped. Well, almost stopped, and then it was slowly eating its way through the shield he'd just protected her with.

'Damn it! I was afraid that it didn't have enough power, ' Derrick thought. Then he started to breathe a sigh of relief as he saw that the energy beam was starting to dissipate. Looking closer he saw it wasn't going to all fade.

"Move empress or you're going to get hit!" Derrick yelled as the woman stood there stunned. "Move damn it! It still has enough power to seriously hurt you!"

Still the woman stood there as the beam drew slowly closer to her. Finally seeming to awaken she tried to move away just as the shield failed and the beam struck her arm. There was an acrid smell of burning flesh as the woman began to scream.

Derrick moved back as the lead programmer and the emperor rushed to the fallen woman. Moving as quickly as he could Derrick beat a hasty retreat before the emperor started blaming him. Finally outside, Tempro immediately flashed him out of there. A moment later the emperor appeared looking for the man that had just saved his life.

Gregor looked at his wrist comp as it signaled him. IMT energy again? Somehow this man had secret and classified technology, though in this instance it had saved his life. 'Perhaps, ' Gregor thought, 'I have this one all wrong.'

Derrick appeared in the control deck of Tempro. "I see that the confrontation was successful." Tempro told Derrick.

"What!? This was supposed to happen?" Derrick asked incredulously.

"Yes, I have often wondered how the empress lost the use of her arm. After this she never left the emperor's side. You see he truly did love her, tried to show her every day after this happened. I also seem to remember a short search for a thief or assassin though it was never made clear. Plus the search was called off an hour from now. Almost everything is as it should be."

"Yes I know," Derrick said as he fingered the disk he hadn't been able to install in Mary.

"I'm afraid that you'll have to try again Sire. From everything I can see this is the last thing that needs done before we can go back. Might I suggest you go now while everything is in confusion? They are obviously hunting for you everywhere but the palace," Tempro suggested.