by Joshua James
The ship’s dorsal laser cannon discharged and hit one of the spheres, but dozens more assembled around the ship, all firing in unison.
Part of Eli wanted River to take his precious ship to safety, even it meant abandoning him and his daughter on this moon, but his primal will to live wouldn’t let him.
He and Quinn covered the last dozen feet in a mad dash and hit the ramp simultaneously.
The instant Eli’s foot touched the grate, he felt the Boomerang hurtled straight up. Quinn missed her footing and skidded almost all the way off the ramp. She would have crashed back to the stony ground if Eli hadn’t had a strong grip on her wrist. As it was, he was yanked all the way back down to the bottom edge of the ramp. He braced his legs against the ramp support to stop his slide, then flipped on his back and wedged his heels. Quinn’s feet flailed in space outside the ship and she grappled for his other hand.
She screamed something, but Eli couldn’t make it out. Maybe it was his name. Maybe it was a prayer. Probably it was a little of both.
The air below distorted as the Boomerang’s thrusters roared. Eli found his chin digging into his chest as the downward pressure mounted, making Quinn’s slight frame seem much heavier than it really was.
He felt the support he was wedged against wobble and realized the ramp was retracting. If he didn’t get Quinn in soon it would be too late.
“I got you!” he shouted, not at all sure that he actually did. Eli’s fingers went numb gripping her wrist, but he locked his jaw and willed himself to hold on.
He had the package in his other hand. “Grab my arm!” he shouted.
She swung wildly, grabbed the edge of the metallic case instead, and started dragging herself up. She’d just managed to get a grip on his wrist when Eli saw the unmistakable round shape of one of the ships floating in the air just over her shoulder. It looked close enough to reach out and touch.
Something flashed on the base of it and Eli watched helplessly as a rocket roared toward the Boomerang. When no better ideas presented themselves to him, he squeezed his eyes shut and kept pulling up on Quinn with all the strength he had.
“Hang on,” he screamed. “Hang—”
The ship rocked violently and light flashed behind his closed eyelids before he was bathed in a cloud of heat.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he bounced upward and his back lost contact with the ramp. Quinn seemed to be thrown forward on the same cloud of heat that washed over Eli. She slammed into him as he wrapped his arms around her.
Then he watched in horror as the case slipped from his grip and floated lazily in the air behind her back. He waved wildly for it, tipped it, then watched it bounce away. It rolled down the ramp as Eli and Quinn landed in a heap at the top of it. The package would have gone right out the back if the ramp hadn’t completed it retraction into the floor of the ship at that moment.
The case settled against the bottom lip of the ramp as the hatch locked shut with a hiss.
Eli spared a single moment to lock eyes with Quinn, then the ship rocked from another impact. She started to say something but Eli waved her off.
“We’re not out of this yet,” he said as he scrambled to his feet. He grabbed the package, patted it once, and then charged up the aft ladder.
He rushed into the cockpit in time to see the horizon slipping below the front window as the Boomerang skimmed the moon’s thin atmosphere. “How many are there?”
River growled her deep-throated rumble. “Too many to count. We can’t hold them all.”
“We’ll have to outrun ‘em.” Eli stepped toward the command console, but another hit sent him reeling. He crashed into the chair and barely scooted into it before the Boomerang teetered in mid-air.
Jood crossed to the engineering station. “They have the advantage over us and, to all appearances, they can match our speed. It’ll be close.”
River roared, fighting over the controls. “Here they come!”
That was the moment Dr. Timothy Knox chose to make his appearance. “You just had to land and collect that package, didn’t you? You’re pathetic, aren’t you?”
Everyone ignored him. “Get us the hell out of here, River!” Eli roared.
“I’m trying!” she yelled back. “We’re miles from any shelter and all those things are converging on us from all over this damn moon. We’re sitting ducks.”
Jood called something, but Eli didn’t catch the words through the din of rockets smashing into the hull. The Boomerang teetered at a dangerous angle.
“They got the port tender,” River thundered.
“Do we have escape velocity?” Eli gasped, already knowing the answer as weightlessness kicked in for a split second while the internal systems grappled with the sudden shift.
River bared her teeth, yowling like an animal. Her thick arms strained the controls, and she tilted almost level to the floor. “We’re falling back.”
“Here?” Tim yelled from the threshold. “We’re light years from the nearest trade route.”
Eli couldn’t resist the urge. He spun around and roared in Tim’s face. “You want to get off now? Be my guest.”
Jood kept his attention fixed on his instruments. “She’s spinning out of control. Divert fuel from the port tender to the starboard. I’ll try to break our fall.”
“Done!” River called back. “The port tender’s fried anyway.”
“We’ve got company,” Jood said. “Two of the ships are breaking off from the main group and following us down.”
Bastards can’t even let us die in peace.
“Transfer weapons control to me,” Eli said.
Three
Eli didn’t wait for a response. He plunged his hands into the weapons control ports on either side of his console. They clamped around his fists and formed to his fingers and palms. His forefingers slotted into the trigger mechanisms, and his thumbs came to rest on the lasers. The system took half a second to come to life under his control.
The next instant, a semi-transparent image was projected just above his console showing a composite view of the space in front of the ship. Data scrolled along the top and bottom of the display as a set of crosshairs bounced in the center of the floating image.
It took Eli a moment to get his bearings. The Boomerang had a pair of forward laser cannons and one tail turret. They were designed to respond to hand movements within the control ports.
The forward cannons had more limited movement than the rear turret and Eli immediately saw that was going to be a problem. The horizon wobbled and spun around in a mad swirl that made any kind of manual targeting hopeless.
The system was designed to aid him by overlaying a targeting bubble on the projected display. When something entered that field, the weapons port would vibrate and automatically track it. But even it struggled in these circumstances.
A pinpoint flew by so fast that he only registered after it was gone that it had been one of the round ships. A second followed and Eli fired. But the second ship wasn’t even visible by the time his lasers sliced through the air.
“Jood, can you stabilize us? I can’t get locks on anything.”
“I cannot yet,” Jood said calmly. “But will soon.”
The Boomerang was practically out of control. She was spinning like a top and there were friction forces building up that were causing flames to lick up so high that they interfered with the projected view.
Eli watched as the pinpoints once again zipped past. He fired in frustration but hit nothing but air.
After what seemed like an eternity, the horizon began to slow its sickening spin. Eli sensed that the ship was steadying, although now there was a new problem. The projected view didn’t show the horizon at all anymore. The ground filled the view from edge to edge.
“Uh, Jood,” Eli said. “We’re heading straight down.”
“For the moment, that is purposeful,” he said.
Before Eli could reply, a loud boom echoed through the cockpit and Eli lurched for
ward, his wrists snapping against the tops of the control ports.
“They are locking in on us,” River shouted. “We can’t keep taking hits.”
Eli twitched his thumbs and the targeting computer obliged him by shifting the view to the dorsal laser cannon.
And now he saw both ships clear as day against the reddish hue of the moon’s atmosphere.
They might see the now-steady descent of the Boomerang as an easier target, but it made them easier targets, too. And the dorsal turret was far more powerful.
Eli fired before the first of the two points even came within the targeting bubble, then let his hands slide sideways, shifting the angle of the cannon until the enemy ship, which was growing in size every moment in his projected targeting view, bumbled right into the beam of energy Eli was laying down.
The small craft seemed to quiver for a moment, then the entire bulbous shape buckled inward. The ship did a somersault in the air and tore to pieces as the stresses at those speeds caught up with it.
Eli shifted to the other ship just as a pair of oblong structures attached to the underside flashed.
A red light blared and two lines streaked toward the Boomerang in Eli’s projected view, highlighted by trajectory data. They were rockets. Without necessarily waiting for Eli’s response, the automated tracking system switched to the leading object and Eli fired.
The rocket exploded instantly.
But the second one broke through the cloud of debris before Eli’s systems could retarget it. Luckily, the initial explosion did enough to put it off and it slipped harmlessly below the Boomerang before it could reacquire her.
Still, it was close enough for River to yelp in surprise.
The second ship followed its rockets and flew right over the top of the Boomerang, belatedly recognizing the threat posed by the rear laser turret.
This was usually the point where the Boomerang was in real trouble. An enemy that was faster than it and that was aware of its limited firepower was deadly.
But as Eli twitched his fingers and again flipped to the forward view, he realized that his initial attempts with the forward cannons were so woefully poor that the enemy ship must not have even realized they were there.
Which meant he had one more chance.
With the Boomerang now more or less stabilized, he could take his time and get a better shot.
Of course, the ship was stabilized pointing straight down but that was Jood’s problem and there was nothing that Eli could do about them crashing into the side of the moon and giving it a new crater. That was just how it was going to go.
The bulbous ship, now just in front of the Boomerang, flipped over in midair while still keeping relative distance. In space, such a move wouldn’t be that impressive, but down here in the atmosphere, it was striking.
The maneuver meant the round ship got its weapons spun around and facing the Boomerang. But it also caused the ship to hold its relative position for half a second. And that was all Eli needed.
He felt the vibration in his hands that told him that the automated system has a lock. He squeezed down with both his fists and the twin cannons fired simultaneously.
The ship was ripped in half as the dual beams of energy hit it dead center. It exploded in a fireball of debris that fell backwards toward the terrain below.
“Gotcha!” Eli said triumphantly.
Then his tunnel vision opened up and he realized that the entire view was dominated by fine details of the surface of the moon. It was rushing at them at breakneck speed. They’d smash right into it in moments.
“Jood!” he managed to yell, then when nothing else came to mind he said it again. “Jood!”
As he said it, the image started to shift and Eli just spotted a glimpse of the horizon at the very top edge of his projected view. But they were far too low now to have a realistic chance of pulling out of their dive in time.
“Extend the landing gear,” Jood ordered.
River slapped something on her panel.
Eli found his voice. “Brace for impact!”
The next instant, it felt like the force of a supernova flung him forward. He sailed out of his seat. He crashed into River, who was getting yanked out of the pilot’s station at the same moment.
Through the confusion, Eli caught sight of Jood behind the engineering console. His immobile features focused on the cockpit window. He never moved.
At that moment, an almighty concussion hit Eli in the head. Screams and the squeal of twisting metal obliterated everything, and darkness descended over his eyes.
Four
Something cool touched Eli’s head. “Are you okay, Dad?”
His eyelids fluttered. He relaxed into the bliss of looking up at his beloved daughter’s beautiful face. Her crystal-blue eyes were full of concern. For the thousandth time, he thought how like her mother she was.
The next moment, she vanished and he found himself staring up at the hateful visage of Tim. He pressed a gauze square to Eli’s forehead. “You’re hell-bent on getting yourself and your whole crew killed, aren’t you?”
Irritated, Eli shot upright and smacked his hand away. “Get off me. I don’t need a doctor.”
“No, you need a hearing before the Judge Advocate.” Tim flung the bloody gauze into his med kit. “It’s only your dumb luck you haven’t gotten yourself killed a long time ago.”
Tim had more to say—he usually did—but Quinn shouldered past him and knelt down next to Eli. “It’s all right. We’re all alive. That’s something.”
“Alive, yeah,” Tim snorted. “We’re alive now, but we won’t be much longer, thanks to his reckless behavior—again.”
He snatched the medkit and barged away, halting several yards past to go to work on River. She was stretched on her back, and blood seeped through her straggly, ropey hair.
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Quinn murmured. “It’s not your fault those things came after us.”
Eli forced himself to his feet even though his skull throbbed like a jackhammer. It took a moment to get his bearings. He was outside with the Boomerang slumped on her belly not far away. “What’s the damage?”
He didn’t really have to ask. The cockpit window was missing. The landing gear had been torn clean off in the emergency landing, and Eli couldn’t see the port tender. The underbelly had been compressed to a concave mess of pockmarks and punctures, with boulders and rubble embedded in the destroyed hull. She wasn’t going anywhere for a while—if ever.
Quinn strode around him. She stopped between him and the Boomerang. “It’s not that bad, actually. It could be a lot worse.”
Eli guffawed. “Could it?”
“Honestly,” Quinn said. “You have to look on the on the bright side. No one got killed.”
The last thing Eli wanted to do right now was to look on the bright side. Bright side? There was only one possible bright side. “Where’s the package?”
Quinn puffed out her cheeks. “Is that all you can say? Aren’t you going to ask if the others are okay?”
Eli struggled to keep his composure. “If we lose that package, we don’t get paid. If we don’t get paid, we might die out here. You get that, right?”
He was sure she didn’t. Everything had come easy to her in her short life.
Quinn pursed her lips, but she couldn’t look mean or harsh no matter how hard she tried. Her rosy features complemented her charming personality too well.
It rankled his nerves.
“You really need to change your attitude, Dad,” she chirped. “Your crew is all alive and well except River, and her injuries aren’t life-threatening. As far as your precious package is concerned, it’s in your cabin. It’s perfectly safe.”
Eli started off toward the Boomerang without another word. He liked his attitude right where it was.
When he entered his cabin, he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the metal case lying on his bunk. Everything else vanished. That package contained all his hopes. The rest
of it could go hang.
Eli hefted it in his hand. It didn’t feel like all that, but looks could always deceive. It vibrated hidden suggestions up his arm and made his insides burn, imagining the possibilities.
It was safe. The damage to the Boomerang, the endless squabbles, the constant conflict between himself and Tim, with Quinn caught in the middle—the package would take care of everything. It offered a beacon of light through the shadows.
He pivoted around and kicked the door shut before he crossed to his wall safe. He spun the dial to enter the combination. He gazed at the package for another long moment before he set it inside.
Eli took even longer before he took a deep breath and locked the door. Even then, he rested his hand against the safe. It was still in there. It was still intact, so everything was all right.
He’d made a mistake, letting his daughter come aboard. The truth was that he’d wanted a second chance with her as much as she wanted one with him. He ought to know better than to try to rewrite the past.
Then she’d dragged along that rotten piece of space trash, Tim Knox. Eli didn’t give a rat’s ass if the kid was a doctor in the Allied Squadrons back on Earth. All those decorations and accolades didn’t amount to anything out here.
Hell, Eli had been in the Squadrons himself, back in the ancient past. He’d been captain of a destroyer-class attack vessel. That was before the bottom fell out of his world and he’d had to take refuge in the ass end of space, scratching for handouts on these petty bounty jobs.
Screw it. He was proud of what he’d made of his life out here. So he wasn’t a naïve officer pretending to be some big hero. Good. He’d grown up. If Tim or anybody else didn’t like it, they could scurry on home to Earth and leave the scum of the galaxy to their business.
A loud knock startled him out of his thoughts.