Julius Rosenthal will make candy no more and other short stories by Nicholas Russell (tools of titans ebook .txt) 📕

broken. The door made the sound of grinding metal as it slide open ending with a low hiss. A stark white beam cut across the room flooding its path with light.

The light flashed across the right side of the engine housing giving Ram enough time to scurry around the nearest power control tower. The room echoed terribly allowing Ram to easily make out Masons mutterings. “Damn, Captain I told him not to hire that woman.”

A small amount of light shined back on Mason, giving his face an eerie pale glow as he moved around engines housing. Ram did her best to look around for a weapon but nothing close and in the dark her options were limited. Mason was drawing closer his light sweeping left and right randomly. She pulled herself into a tight ball trying to keep hidden for as long as she could. There was a chime at the door and Mason grumbled as he walked back. He brought the internal comm. system online and the voice that came out was easy to recognize. “Dimmit, Mace be quick that pervert up there has sealed off the flight deck. I don’t want her doing any real damage to my ship.”

The captain’s voice was haggard and pained but still carried that weight of his anger. As Mason spoke you could tell the day was beginning to wear on him as well “Don’t worry I have the nav system locked down he won’t be able to stop the jump and she doesn’t know enough about the engines to cause any real harm.”

“Oh yeah then why am I making this call in the dark.” The comm. link deactivated and Conners started back towards around. Ram had used the time to move to a better position she was set up now to try and take Mason from behind when he returned to the open housing.

Ram still didn’t have a weapon but was hoping that surprise would be working in her favor. Standing in front of the hatch Mason tucked the flash light under his arm and looked at the switches. While you could switch the systems off however you liked powering them back online was a whole other story. A ships engineer had a system and the system was different for each ship you powered a ship up and down in the same order ever time. When you broke that routine things could go bad. And they could go bad fast. Ram was standing and had taken a few short hesitant steps when without warning Mason turned using the light as a club.

Ram barely had enough time to bring her arm up to block the attack. Mason had swung with all his strength and wasn’t ready to mount an offensive after that first swing. This gave Ram the upper hand and allowing her to get a quick kick into his left knee before diving away. She needed to keep the system down as long as possible and her best chance at doing that was to keep Mason away from that panel. He wasn’t thinking when he attacked and had busted the room’s only light source. If Ram played her cards right she could keep him going long enough for Conklin to pull off a miracle.

Keeping low to the ground and staying as quite as she could Ram tried to put some distance between herself and Mason. A very low hum filled the air both Ram and Mason froze as the red Emergency lights flickered on. The two adversaries stood facing each other. Ram shifted her feet ready to run when Mason decided to make his move. Masons breathing was heavy and his eyes were shifting from side to side. He wasn’t ready for a fight and Ram knew it, the lights had caught him off guard and now he wasn’t sure what his next move should be. It had been easy to attack in the dark but now that he could see her face it was a different matter. He was between Ram and the door, hoping to catch him off guard she stepped forward and brought a leg back to kick. Mason side stepped before she even raised her leg, and Ram bolted for the door.

She only got two steps before Mason jumped, landing square on her back. The two went down hard with Ram taking the brunt of the fall. Without looking she sent an elbow back. The crunch of teeth echoed around the room for the split second before being replaced with a cry of agony. Mason rolled left and Ram rolled right. Managing to get to her feet first and delivered a quick but solid kick to Mason’s ribs.

Ram was ready to deliver a second kick when Mason cried out “Stop... Please stop.”

Ram stepped back keeping herself ready to strike as Conners started to get to his feet “I can keep you safe, Conklin won’t reroute the system in time. The ship will try to make this jump I can keep you safe, but not if this ship tears itself apart.”

Mason kept his arms raised as he sat back “I can stash you in the cold bay till we get to port, seventy-two hours and your free to go. Show me what you flipped off, what order you did it in and you are free to go. We’ll keep it between us and it will all be fine,”

Ram stepped back as Mason started to get to his feet. Standing at a side stance Ram was ready to make a run for it, and when the intercom chimed on a second time she knew what she had to do. “Lucinda, someone here wants to talk to you.”

The voice that followed was garbled but Ram knew who it was. “I wasn’t able to get the Nav system off line we only have...”

His voice was cut off and replaced by the captain “You are out of