“These are intelligent beings,” she said, shouting over the roar of the engines. “Even if they are our enemies, it's not the same.”
“It can be if you choose. This is a war, and those bastards are doing their best to destroy us. You did your bit for our side, so now you're a soldier. You saved my life, again, and I'm never going to be able to repay you.”
You're safe; that's enough! “Get me off this planet!”
“My pleasure. The blast should have disabled the other scout, so I doubt if they can follow us. Good job with those mines.”
“There are still the ones in the laboratory, and two more.”
“Two more? Where did you put them?”
“One on each of these scout ships ... just in case. I set them to a different channel.”
“Shit!” Ben grinned nervously, concentrating on his flying “Clever, but don't trigger them yet.”
“How long until we reach the base?”
“Five more minutes. I don't want to fly this thing too fast; I'm not familiar with it. The courier ship is ready to go, so we should be able to take off straight away.”
The scout jolted without warning, and Echo lurched towards the side opening, prevented from falling out by her safety harness. “What in the hells was that?”
“Felt like a blast hitting the undercarriage.” Ben gasped, focused on his piloting. “I guess the other boat wasn't as damaging as I thought.”
“We're being chased?”
“Looks like it. They must have flown like maniacs to catch us, but there they are ... right behind us.” With the second vessel closing the gap, Ben jerked the control stick and jogged to one side then back again, doing his best to dodge laser energy bolts. He flew lower as he lined up with the air base ahead.
Echo hung on as Ben swerved the scout once again. “Do you think we can make it?”
“You bet we can ...”
In a blaze of intensity, the sky dissolved in overpowering daylight. Far behind, the experimental device had exploded, triggered by the mines inside its cowling. Incomplete, untested and detonated in the wrong way, it reacted not as intended, but like a normal bomb with nuclear force. The blast flowered in a blinding ball of radiance, expanded in all directions, followed by a wave of heat that washed over the forest-clad mountainsides, reducing the trees to ash. From the center of the conflagration, a hemispherical bubble of pure force ballooned outwards, destroying everything remaining in its path.
Almost expended by distance, the explosive wall of energy reached the pursuit scout first. An expert flyer, Koll battled to compensate for the blow, heading off at a tangent as he wrestled his craft back to equilibrium.
By the time the shockwave hit Echo and Ben, they were lining up for a landing on the airstrip, now only a kilometre ahead. With less experience than his pursuer, he fought to keep the alien ship level as they barrelled towards the tarmac. Weaker now, the wall of destruction rolled past, sweeping over the air base with little remaining strength.
“Hang on,” Ben said. “This is going to be rough.” Seconds later the scout thudded to the ground and skidded out of control over the hard surface, streams of sparks flying from the landing gear as they slid and spun sideways into the buildings. Echo closed her eyes again and hung on, convinced she would die but powerless to do anything to prevent it. Focused on the scream of the skids, she waited for the final, inevitable crash.
The car stopped hard up against the side of the same building they had lived in for weeks while repairing the dispatcher. Echo opened her eyes again as Ben climbed from the battered cockpit. “Out ... now!” he cried. “This thing could burn at any minute.”
Echo unclipped the safety harness, tumbled out of the ship and scrambled to her feet. In seconds, Ben was at her side, grabbing her by the arm and pulling in the direction of the maintenance hangar.
“Not as good as my last landing. We need to go before they come back.” Grasping her hand he urged her on as they ran past the disabled terran ships. The roar of the pursuing craft assailed their ears as it glided in a broad arc around the field, lining up for another attack.
Enough of this! Echo thought as she stopped, took a deep breath and turned to face their attacker.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ben yelled, turning back.
“I'm ending this.” Sliding a hand into her pocket she grasped the radio control unit and pressed the switch one more time; across the tarmac, the wrecked scout shattered with a resounding clang, as the single mine within detonated. The cab flew high into the air above the roof of the building, ejecting a sheet of flame as the fuel tanks ruptured.
High above, the pursuing craft jerked as the tail section blew away, then flipped and dropped to the surface with a loud crash. Seconds later, it too exploded.
Ben grabbed Echo by the arm again and pulled her towards the hangar. “Tough little buggers to kill aren't they.”
The failing force of the first blast was sufficient to knock Koll's ship into a spin, but using all his skills – as a flyer he was without peer – he had managed to set the little craft back on an even keel. No sooner had he done so than something else slammed into him. The second shock tore the scout apart and sent the wreckage tumbling. Instinct kicked in as he flicked the release on his safety harness and launched himself out of the cab seconds before it hit the ground.
Prone on the ground, Koll tried to recover. Shooting pains shot up his legs and through a shoulder; he could neither stand, nor even move without pain, but at least he was alive. Motionless, he peering with blurred vision through blood-smeared eyes at the departing humans, and realised he had failed!
For a split-second, he wondered about his gunner and then dismissed the thought: the fool was not important. Braced against the pain, he slid his hand down to his hip and withdrew his pistol from its holster. Those animals would come for him, and he would be ready for them.
A horrifying reality flooded into his mind. Always, he had considered these creatures a worthless annoyance, but now he understood it was not the case at all. The two humans inside the hangar were without doubt the spacer who had escaped weeks earlier, and the damned animal from the mountains behind the base. His subordinate had assured him they were dead, but not so. Brask's fault ... all Brask's fault!
Now free, they would soon come to kill him. It no longer mattered: instinctively aware of what had hit him that first time, he knew his men and ships were gone, and he was alone, stranded and seriously injured. The blast had destroyed all evidence of the events of the past few months, but unless a rescue arrived in the next few hours, he would die on this airfield regardless.
A sudden sound at the hangar drew his attention. The main door stood wide open, and the roar of engines reverberated from inside. Koll's heart sank as a sleek, dark shape emerged from the shadows of the interior. The terran ship, looking every bit space-worthy, rolled out on the tarmac, its engines whining as power mounted.
“No,” Koll gasped. He had seen that ship in pieces. How could those animals have put it back together? he wondered.
In a cloud of dust, the spacecraft rose into the air, hot exhaust washing across the field as it slid up and away towards the clouds. Koll lifted his head as the blast eased, and looked up at the small speck receding in the distance.
This was not over yet, he thought.
Chapter 16
Echo floated toward the colossal, blue, brown and white ball on the main vision-screen. She had never seen her own world, or any other for that matter, from space. Once again, she found herself unprepared; the sight was overwhelming.
At first, the take-off acceleration forced her back into her seat and terrified her, but with the ship in zero gravity, it was over now. The nausea still troubled her regardless, her stomach threatening retaliation for the third time since takeoff.
“You'll be fine,” Ben said, in his element now. His strength and calmness reassured Echo enough for her to be able to assess the situation with a clearer mind.
Still f
ighting to keep her body in check, she examined her surroundings. Built for utility and not comfort, the ship's interior was spartan, and less than inviting. Doesn't matter ... I'm free, finally!
Settling into one of the seats in the cockpit, she contemplated the tiny living space, little more than a dinette and small galley. Further aft, Ben hovered over four coffin-like sleeping compartments, two on each side of the cabin. A door at the back led to a bathroom and then to a storage bay, both of which Echo had already checked out.
The bay was empty, except for what supplies she had been able to prepare while Ben had been repairing the ship. Luckily, Ben had loaded them as soon as he restored the ship’s internal systems. This was going to be a long ride, Echo thought.
“We're safe now?”
“Yes. At least, no one is left to chase us. That device went off like an old style nuclear weapon; can't be any survivors.”
Echo turned her attention back to the screen. The ship was approaching the end of its second orbit of the planet, and the site of the recent cataclysm stretched out below. An irregular, pale, grey patch centred on her old home, extended across the ridges almost to the next town, marking the extent of the blast. The forests, her beloved trees, no longer existed, a long smudge of dark smoke extending across the face of the world almost to the snow-capped peaks of the main range.
“Where do we go now?”
“We return to my base. This boat should be able to take us home without incident.”
“Will we be there soon?”
“It takes time, even with the wormholes. About two months.” Ben saw Echo's alarm. “Don't worry; we'll sleep most of the way. Those cubicles,” – he nodded his head towards the rear of the cabin – “are stasis chambers. We climb in, and wake up when we arrive home. The computers will keep us safe, and the time will fly by.”
“What if we're attacked on the way?”
“Unlikely. You would be surprised how hard ships are to find in open space. The only time we can be detected is between wormholes. On the off chance the Tolleani do spot us, the ship will wake us in time to evade them. Nothing to worry about!”
Nothing to worry about, Echo repeated in her mind. Now that she was safe, her mind was working overtime. All she ever knew – her family, her friends, her town, her entire existence – was gone. No home, no life, no purpose, nothing but the clothes she wore, her crossbow, and Ben.
“What about us?”
“Us?” Ben could see she was almost in tears again, not at all surprising for someone who had come through the hells and survived. He had seen the same reaction many times before, in the eyes of colonists rescued during previous campaigns, but this time it was more than relief at having escaped. This was about him. Reaching across he grasped her hand in his own. “You think I'm going to leave you?”
“I ... I don't ... I want us to stay together. You said you loved me ...”
“I do. No way am I letting you get away. I'm never going to find another like you. What man wouldn't want a gorgeous, kick-ass mate.” For a moment, they sat in silence.
“What are we going to do when we reach your base?”
Ben reached down beside his seat and lifted the small data block taken from the Tollean laboratory. “First up, we give this to the authorities. With any luck, details of both the bomb and whatever downed my ship are on here. You're going to be famous, you know.”
“Famous?”
“Yeah. If I am right about this disk, it may be a turning point for humanity.”
“And us?”
“There could be a promotion in this for me, and if so, it will include certain privileges. Somewhere to live outside the base might be nice – a place of our own.”
“What if they send you away again?”
Ben squeezed her hand. “Well, as long as the war continues I am still an officer, and I will be for some time. I go where I'm sent, but you will be there when I come home, won't you? If they transfer me to another base you come with me ... assuming you want to.”
“Yes, unless you find another gorgeous, kick ass mate.”
“How likely is that?” he asked with a grin.
Echo settled back in her seat. The future looked brighter, her mind finally at ease. She loved Ben, but wondered how she would feel about him if not for all they had been through together.
Her father once told her danger made strange bedfellows; now she understood his meaning. Life would be different. She was not sure how, but better. She was uncertain how she would cope with normality after the last four years.
The old life she had anticipated was nothing but a distant memory, but a new path was opening. Where it would lead she had no idea, but Ben was a beginning. Echo knew that deep down, and despite Ben’s opinion of her survival abilities, she was still the seventeen-year-old child who watched the initial attack on Corros. In many respects, she had a great deal to learn and a lot of growing up to do, but now, at least, she had the time to do so. Maybe, with Ben's help...
The remnants of her childhood slipped out of sight on the video screen. Echo let out a loud sigh.
“Let's go home, lover,” she said.
End
Author’s Note:
Dear Reader:
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Mike Waller
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Dark World
(Book 2 of Echo’s Way)
Preview
Ben eased back, gazing up as Echo sat astride his hips, her hands pushing down on his chest. Gods, what a vision ... beautiful! A vague smile flickered across her angelic face as she rocked back and forth, skin shimmering like silk in the half-light, lost in the heat of the moment as a wave of ecstasy washed over her.
Where are we? At first, Ben was unsure. The room was dim, old, worn, and ruggedly built, but comfortable and familiar. Corros! The prospector’s cabin, that’s where!
A fire glowed in the nearby stove, the flickering light reflecting from the sheen of perspiration on his partner’s limbs. Why such a stunning creature stayed with him was beyond comprehension, but she did, and Ben counted his blessings.
His blue eyes gazed up as she ran her fingers through his light brown hair, across the ever-present stubble on his chin and along the line of strange characters tattooed down his right flank. He knew those characters fascinated her, but in all the time he had know her their meaning had remained a secret. She believed they held a great secret, perhaps a love or tragedy from a past time, and he did not want to disillusion her with the knowledge they were meaningless.
High in the forested mountains of Echo’s home world, the old cabin was warm and welcoming. With easy deliberation, Ben raised both hands and...
Wait! An urgent buzzing alarm sounded in the deepest recess of his mind. The Tolleani destroyed this place. The forest, the mine, the town ... gone. This is impossible!
Realisation dawned as the buzz wormed its way into his brain, the irritation growing louder and more persistent with each passing second. Eyes half open, he stared up at the dull, grey ceiling in the master’s cabin of his new ship.
A dream ... again ... damn!
Heart pounding, he wiped the sweat from his brow. Dreams of Echo had become more frequent in recent weeks.
After escaping from the now Tolleani controlled
planet Corros, he and she were at first never apart. With his resumption of duty and reassignment, it was over a month since they had last been together.
The escape had been a year ago. Prior to that, Echo spent four years alone, the sole survivor of an invasion that killed every other human in the planet’s three mining settlements.
Sent to investigate the chance of re-taking the colony, Ben’s spacecraft crash-landed when attacked by an unknown prototype weapon at an alien research base occupying one of the mine sites. Not long after capture, he escaped from the Tolleani and stumbled upon Echo’s refuge in the forested canyons of the surrounding mountains. Only with her help did he survive. Twice, she saved his life.
Now they were in love. That she would wait for him until this mission ended did little to ease the pain of separation by light years of space from the woman he adored.
Still half-asleep, and irritated by the rude awakening, he dragging himself to the edge of the bunk, yawned and scratched at the stubble on his chin. A slap on the intercom screen stopped the annoying buzz.
“Yes, Jerry?”
“Sorry to disturb you, Cap,” a voice replied. “A distress call just came in on the common band. Thought you ought to know.”
Ben pushed up from the berth and tumbled into the opposite bulkhead. The mission was several weeks old now, but after months either in hibernation or planet-bound, returning to the routine of life in a zero-gravity tin-can required a certain re-adjustment. One lapse of attention resulted in a new bruise.
Jerry Bayer, the first officer, was the only other person on the control deck. With a quick nod of acknowledgement, Ben turned to the command console.
Solitude's End Page 13