by Bill Parker
~
Jess could faintly hear Jack’s voice, but was it just in her mind? Their whole world collapsed in an instant. They tumbled in light gravity. Their stomachs cramped as they scrambled for any reference to up or down when sound returned around them and echoes of their own cries in the darkness returned. Gravity returned and they fell in a heap on the deck. Jack brought the lights up slowly.
“I am sorry to have to bring you all up here that way, but you had a force field up that I couldn’t reach through.” His eyes were on Jessica as Benjamin thanked him profusely for saving his family. “Just how did you get us out of there?” He asked Jack.
“You know that crystal necklace I gave Jess? It’s a beacon of sorts. It let me zero your position in precisely. And then, well, it’s a long technical explanation. Let’s just say that I timequaked a portal.”
“And just where is ‘here?’”
Hank walked into the room.
“Welcome aboard the Crystal Dragon,” he told them, “but time flies before us. Captain Henry Morgan, at your service. Benjamin, do I understand correctly that you are a gunner’s mate?”
“That was many years ago.”
“Well, you are again. I find myself shorthanded. Jack and I can fly this thing, but I really could use a trained hand with the guns. You will find them very familiar by Union standards.”
Jessica recognized the crew of this ship as they moved to the bridge. They were all of the contractors!
“Glad to have you aboard Jess,” Calamity called out to her from her battle station.
On the bridge, Ben strapped himself into his gunner’s stations. Jessica and the rest of her family found seats for themselves as the Crystal Dragon moved in jumps. Space blinked around them. Their course plotted out in 3-D on a tactical display in front of Jack and Ben. The Crystal Dragon moved like no other ship that Ben had ever seen. It went instantaneously from one point in space to the next.
The Crystal Dragon closed in on six Jag ships in battle formation. Jack ran the engineering console while Henry did the piloting. Captain Henry Morgan was maneuvering on the Jag ships. He moved the Crystal Dragon just like a normal starship for a bit… just to draw them in. They bought it.
“I am going to make two jumps,” Captain Morgan told his new gunner. “When I give you the signal, shoot at everything for all you are worth… but not one shot before.”
Chapter 4
And so the tale is told by the people of Benara-3, of how they were saved that terrible day from those demon-faced Jags, by a Pirate ship called the Crystal Dragon. Now many they believe and many they don’t. And some will say that the Dragon went on to defeat an entire Jag armada that day. But then who really knows? Now let me introduce myself. My name is Jacob Morgan. My Mother is the lovely Jessica. My Father, they call the One-Eyed-Jack. And I’ll only be asking you this: If the Crystal Dragon didn’t save all of those people that terrible day, then who did?
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If you liked this story, please read my novels…
Five Moons: Resurrection
“We come in peace” is what we told the anoza when human explorers first encountered them, but you would have to ask the anoza how that worked for them. They would tell you fast and quick that humans were cast into the outer darkness because of the evil in our hearts. It didn’t take them long to figure that out when we left the blood of four innocents on their hands. In fact, we convinced them of it by trying to hide the evil that was done. Union Fleet flew an unmarked ship into space docks after the Corporate War, intending to secretly scrap it out, intending to get rid of the evidence. A time-space distorted Tesseract had killed its crew of humans, or so they thought. Or, was that just a rationalization to hide their shame?
By the end of the Corporate War, Dallas Blake had lost everything: his wife, his daughter, his whole family. He was a man in need of far more than just a new beginning. What Dallas needed was a resurrection. Dallas went to the Union Fleet space docks to buy a war surplus scout-class ship. Instead, he unknowingly buys the Tesseract. It does not take Dallas long to find out that its crew of artificials seems way more human than they should be and every bit as much in need of a resurrection as Dallas.
But, Dallas Blake is outworlder to the nines and ready for whatever life throws at him, except maybe for Mariah. Despite the fact that she is extremely smart and multi-talented, she can drive a sane man crazy and frequently does. And, oh, by the way, did I mention that Mariah is techno? Mariah is but one of the mysteries of the ship once called Tesseract, now named the Five Moons.
But no one was cutting Dallas any breaks. The ship’s alien technology and artificial life forms are the mysteries that he must solve as the action-packed rescue of Emma from more than just the mercenaries that kidnapped her leads Dallas and the crew of the Five Moons into danger.
At this point, however, I must warn you – Five Moons: Resurrection is not your father’s science fiction. It is funny. It is a love story. It is a mystery. It is science fiction with the full flavor and robust action of a guns blazing Western. So, put on your recon armor, grab your pulse-rifle, and get ready for full contact, take no prisoners sci-fi that does not quit on your mind to the very last word.
Novels in the Five Moons Series:
Five Moons: Resurrection
Five Moons: Convolute
Five Moons: Entangled
Five Moons: Nexus of Fates
Five Moons: Revolution
Five Moons: Zep Tepi
Five Moons: Suzy Que
Short Stories by Bill Parker
Life 2.147
Legend of the Crystal Dragon
A single quantum of time
Quantime
Novellas by Bill Parker
Heart of the Crystal Dragon