Oblivion: The Complete Series (Books 1-9)

by Joshua James

  “That’s all right,” Eli told him. “It’s nothing more than we expected. I’m grateful to you for trying.”

  Tim winced. “I convinced them to waive prosecution in light of the extenuating circumstances, as long as you leave Earth immediately. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better than that. If we try to get Wescott prosecuted, they’ll go after you first. All of you will get convicted and sentenced long before they even consider the evidence against Wescott. As it stands, it would be Yasha’s word against his. I’m really sorry, but I suggest you take the deal.”

  “We’ll take it.” Eli jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Thanks for this. It’s good to see her up and ready to fly again.”

  Tim shrugged. “It was the least they could do. She’s a good ship. She deserves a few more parsecs before you put her out to pasture.”

  Eli willed himself to look dead into the young man’s eyes. “What I mean is...thank you. I know I haven’t always been the best bedfellow. I appreciate everything you’ve done—for all of us. I owe you a big one.”

  Tim’s gaze skated sideways toward the ships lined up in the lanes. “It’s me who should be thanking you. I misjudged you. You really pulled it out there at the end. I didn’t think you would, and that was a mistake. I’m sorry.” He paused. “Nobody on that panel wants to admit it, but there’s no way any of us can express our gratitude to you for what you did. I only wish I could do more so you didn’t have to leave again. You deserve better.”

  Eli nodded over Tim’s shoulder toward the door. “You’d better be careful around here. Wescott will come after you next, now that he knows you know his secret.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Tim replied. “When I was in there addressing the panel, I saw fear in his eyes. He’s worried.”

  “You’d be better off coming with us. You’d be more than welcome.”

  Tim didn’t blink. “I appreciate that, but my place is here. Besides, someone has to stay here and keep an eye on him from inside the Squadrons. Maybe he’ll slip up again and I’ll be able to prove what he’s up to.”

  “Suit yourself. My offer still stands.”

  Tim’s cheeks colored. “Thanks, but I don’t think I’m cut out for your line of work.”

  Eli smiled. “You don’t say.”

  Tim snorted, but in a second, he locked his eyes on Eli and the smile faded off his lips. “If you need anything, you let me know. Whatever happens, you have a friend in the Squadrons. Don’t forget that.”

  “I won’t.” Eli held out his hand, but Tim ignored it and embraced him. Eli clapped the young man on the back. “You take care of yourself.”

  Tim pushed him back. His eyes sparkled with moisture. “You, too. Fly safe out there.”

  Eli headed for the Boomerang. One by one, the others marched up the ramp, and the hatch shut behind them. Eli went to the cockpit and sat down in the command chair. River took the helm, and Jood got behind the engineering console. Waylon and Yasha buckled into their seats behind the bulkhead.

  Through the window, Eli watched Tim retreat beyond the guard rail. Then he turned around and remained there in plain sight while the tenders fired up. River lifted off, and Eli held up his hand. Tim waved to him through the window, and the base slipped out of sight.

  The Boomerang ascended, and all sight of Earth vanished. The horizon teetered for a second. Eli stole one last look at the rounded curve of the planet. After all the conflicting emotions of the last few days and weeks, he didn’t know exactly what he felt about leaving Earth so soon.

  He didn’t need to know. He was going back into space, which, when he thought about it, was where he belonged, too. He never really was cut out to live on Earth. Out there, beyond the stars, he knew his ground. He knew the rules. As long as the Boomerang kept flying, he and his crew would keep plying the trade lanes and the outposts of distant planets and moons. They would keep earning a living with speed and cannon, the way they always did.

  Jood spoke up from his station. “We are clear of the platform. We are clear to launch.”

  “Hit it,” Eli said.

  River slammed the throttle all the way forward, and the Boomerang streaked over the horizon and into the dark embrace of space.

  Epilogue

  Two months later

  “What the hell was that?” Eli spun the command console around as a scorching splinter cannon round blasted off the Boomerang’s hull.

  “We are being fired upon,” Jood said matter-of-factly.

  Of course we are, Eli thought. The one constant in the universe was its unswerving need to punish anyone with a plan.

  “Think they know about the new job?” Waylon asked. “Or is this just bad luck?”

  “Yes,” Eli said.

  River and Jood attacked their instruments. The conversation they’d been engaged in, something about a bet that had lasted since they’d left Earth months ago, died in an instant.

  “Where did this bastard come from?” River snarled.

  “Who is it?” Eli asked.

  “We cannot pick up any identity signature coming from the vessel,” Jood said. “Our detectors cannot penetrate the ship’s scramble cloud.”

  Eli whipped back the other way to stare at him. “Scramble cloud? That’s impossible. Only the Allied Squadrons’ ships use scramble clouds.”

  Jood didn’t look up. His fingers flew in a blur over the engineering station. “It cannot be a Squadrons ship in this sector, and it is using vapor combustion tenders.”

  The Boomerang shuddered as another bombardment of cannon fire ricocheted off the port side.

  “Get us out of here, River!”

  “I’m trying, but there’s—” An explosive concussion hit the ship from behind. The Boomerang lurched forward and tossed everyone out of their seats. River slammed down on the console in front of her and the engines spluttered.

  “Hit it, River!” Eli boomed. “Just do it!”

  She slapped her hand onto the controls and the Boomerang took a flying leap. In a split second, it rocketed into the distance. The momentum flung everyone backward.

  “Where is he?” Eli said over his shoulder. “Is he falling behind?”

  A punishing blow answered him—from starboard this time. “How far are we below full throttle, River?” Eli called across the cockpit.

  She growled through gritted teeth again, but she didn’t answer. She hurled the helm hard to starboard. The Boomerang careened in a wild arc, tumbling over on her side. She tilted all the way onto her back before Eli saw the huge looming green surface of a planet in front of them.

  River pounded the helm harder than ever. The Boomerang streaked into a dangerous plunge and zoomed around the planet. It grazed the atmosphere as seven more rapid flashes zipped under the Boomerang’s belly.

  “River...” Eli warned.

  “Shut up and let me fly her, will ya?”

  Eli frowned but said nothing as River concentrated all her power on wrestling the helm in wild looping swirls.

  The ship had been overhauled in almost every way imaginable on Earth. She was even faster than she’d been before.

  The Boomerang dipped and dived between unknown moons and asteroids. Eli lost track of where they were, and he didn’t care as long as River didn’t crash his ship into some rock at the ass-end of space.

  “They know how to fly,” Jood said. “They’re keeping pace with us.”

  Eli clenched his jaws. He didn’t bother to mention that the continuous thumps of cannon on the aft end already told him that.

  All at once, Eli shot out of his chair. He jabbed his forefinger at the window. “There, River! The Kitiuk Outpost!”

  “I must point out, Eli,” Jood intoned, “that the Kitiuk Outpost issued a warrant for our arrest after we abandoned Keld Jawid there.”

  “You don’t have to remind me,” Eli said.

  At that moment, a scream shook the ship and another craft whizzed over the cockpit window. It raced away ahead of them. Eli’s heart sank when the strange
ship slowed in front of the window, pivoted, and faced the Boomerang.

  “So much for the Kitiuk Outpost,” River muttered.

  Yasha stumbled around the bulkhead and leaned against the doorway. “What the hell is going on?”

  No one replied. Eli opened his mouth to say something, but he never got a chance. The two vapor combustion tenders on either side of the strange vessel started to glow. Four more cannons detached from its lower hull and locked into position.

  River jabbed her console and the Boomerang blasted straight forward. The surge pinned Eli into his chair. He had to fight just to hold his head upright. At the same instant, the enemy unleashed all his weapons at once.

  Eli gulped hard, but he should have known better. The Boomerang teetered in a perilous, circuitous course, dodging one blast after the other. River’s heavy jowls quivered with the force with which she stabbed the console.

  Eli started to feel sick to his stomach, but he resolutely refused to say anything when he noticed River steering toward the Kitiuk Outpost. He didn’t care if the Outpost Detachment did arrest him, as long as they stopped this stranger from destroying his ship.

  “We’re three REMs out,” Jood announced. “If we can get around the—” A brutal smash cut him off. Just as fast, he started speaking again. “They got the port strut. They are targeting the tenders. One more hit like that and we’ll lose propulsion. If we cannot get near enough to the Outpost, we will never be able to …”

  Eli didn’t wait to hear anymore. “Transfer weapons control,” he said as he plunged his hands into the ports on his console. He’d rather run from trouble than try to shoot his way through it, but sometimes there wasn’t a choice.

  The lasers took half a second to lock into position. The next instant, he unloaded on the enemy, firing all his cannons at once.

  The unidentified ship opened up at the same moment, but River pirouetted around another nameless moon. The stranger’s guns smashed into the surface and the Boomerang peppered its sides a glancing blow.

  Jood’s fingers hung suspended over the engineering console. “You knocked out his scramble cloud, Eli.”

  “I did?” Eli was as surprised as anyone. The Boomerang’s weapons systems had been upgraded on Earth, too. Maybe it was time to start rethinking his run-first strategy.

  “The identity signal is coming through.” Jood glanced up, not at Eli, but at the Kitiuk Outpost veering ever closer beyond the window. “It is a Squadron vessel. It is the Dmitri.”

  Eli wheeled around, too stunned to think straight. “That’s impossible.”

  Jood dipped his eyes back to his console. “There is a message coming through from the outpost. It is an encoded hailing frequency.”

  “Can you decipher it?” Eli asked, wondering why the outpost would do that.

  Jood’s fingers danced over his console. “It is an advanced encryption, but I believe so.”

  A confused jumble of static squawked from the intercom. All mixed up in the noise, Eli very distinctly made out the words “…in front of her...cut her off...can’t let her near the Outpost...”

  Eli froze. “What the hell?” It was obvious the message was meant for the Dmitri, not the Boomerang. “Are you sure that’s from the outpost?”

  “It’s through her relay,” Jood said. “But there is no origin header embedded in the message.”

  Through the racket and din of cannons pounding the hull, Eli barely heard Yasha hiss behind his ear. “That’s him, the bastard. I’d know that voice anywhere.”

  Eli turned to look at her. “Who?”

  Yasha’s expression was pure rage. “Wescott,” she snarled.

  FIND OUT

  WHAT HAPPENS

  NEXT!

  Click here to read

  VENGEANCE!

  (Outcast Starship Book 2)

  Stuff at the end

  Hey there reader, it’s Joshua. I hope you enjoyed the first book in the Outcast Starship series!

  Daniel and I aim with this series to create something like the classic science fiction serials of yesteryear. To blend the swashbuckling bravado of Flash Gordon with the knowing coolness of Buck Rogers.

  Not sure we got there, but we’re working on it!

  Fans of my pulp-heavy newsletter, The Reader Crew, know that I'm a sucker for classic Golden Age science fiction. From the 30s and 40s pulp magazines, with their short stories and serials, right through to the paperback craze of the 50s and 60s, I love what the future looked like in the past.

  And because of that, I thought it would be fun to link to a story from that era I love so much.

  Please enjoy a free copy of Suicide Rocket right here.

  This is a great example of one of the everyday stories that filled the pages of pulp magazines in the 30s and 40s. It was written by Manly Wade Wellman and appeared inside the March 1942 issue of Amazing Stories.

  At its heart are classic American protagonists: chest-thumping, red-meat-eating men willing to put it all on the line because it's the right thing to do. Call it the blue-collar roots of modern science fiction.

  I hope you get as much of a kick out of it as I did.

  —Joshua James

  P.S. Seriously, if you enjoy old pulpy goodness, you’ll love The Reader Crew. (You should totally sign up for free.)

  P.P.S. If you’d prefer to go straight to Vengeance! (Outcast Starship Book 2) and find out what happens to Eli and Yasha and the rest, just click here!

  Copyright © 2020 by Joshua James & Daniel Young

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.