by Rachel Aukes
FLIGHT OF THE JAVELIN
©2020-2021 RACHEL AUKES
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Contents
BLACK SHEEP
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
FREE STATION
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
ROGUE PLANET
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Epilogue
Thank you for reading FLIGHT OF THE JAVELIN
More In Sci-Fi
ABOUT RACHEL AUKES
BLACK SHEEP
Chapter One
Captain Halit “Throttle” Reyne ran her third lap through the Gabriela’s vacant corridors. She could hear her boots hit the floor, but she couldn’t feel them. In fact, she couldn’t feel anything below her hips.
The ship’s motion sensors turned on the lights before her, and she knew from fifteen years of being on board the Gabriela that the lights would also turn off behind her. Her lungs burned—it was a good burn, like sipping a glass of dark rum. She pushed herself to run faster. Her leg braces clicked with every step.
The cargo hauler that had been repurposed as a colony ship was over a half mile in diameter and seven levels high. Much of the ship was divided into cargo holds around a massive central storage space capable of carrying anything under eighty feet tall in its hold. She knew every inch of the ship and could run it practically blindfolded.
A smudge of grime on the wall caught her eye. The hallway curved to the right, and she took the turn while still looking at the stain. Her left leg brace squeaked, and her leg went out from under her. She tried to catch herself, but her momentum propelled her forward and sent her toppling to the floor. She put her hands out in front of her in time to keep her forehead from slamming into the hard plastic surface.
She grimaced from frustration rather than pain, knowing that she’d allowed herself to become distracted. She should’ve been focusing on keeping her feet squarely planted on the floor. The distraction had cost her. She pushed up and rolled onto her butt to examine her braces. The spiderwebs of black alloy and straps remained wrapped around her legs, and each pivot point showed no damage. That was the good news.
The bad news was the dark wetness soaking the material covering her left knee.
Throttle blew out a breath. “Not again.”
She tugged at the fresh tear in her gray pants to find a deep gash across her kneecap where a strap of her leg brace had sliced. Practically indestructible, rilon was a strong yet flexible alloy used to build warship hulls, making it the perfect material for printing leg braces. Unfortunately for Throttle, that meant her body would give out long before her braces.
She pressed her palm against her knee, trying to staunch the blood. Rivulets formed between her fingers and small streams ran over her skin. She smacked the floor with her free hand. If Birk was awake, he’d scold her for running so fast, like he’d scolded her dozens of other times before. But then he’d feel bad and tinker with her braces, trying to improve them.
She wiped her bloody hand on her pants before pulling her fe
et closer and planting them squarely on the floor. With them under her, she used the wall to help press herself upward into a standing position. The braces worked great at giving her stability to walk, but they did nothing to bring sensation back to her legs. She was paralyzed from when she’d been shot in the back at two years old in an execution lineup with her family. She’d been the only survivor, but she faced a lifetime battle against a broken body.
All the corridor lights snapped on and alarms blared, giving Throttle a start. Her wrist-comm chimed a split second later. She swung up her forearm and tapped the device. “What’s going on, Eddy?”
“Sensors have picked up flooding in cargo bay twenty-three B. Diagnostics show that it’s not a system error. I’m heading there now to check it out.” The hardware tech’s voice came through unevenly through the comm’s speakers as though he was running.
She exhaled before speaking into her comm. “On my way.”
“Every damn day, something has to break around here,” she muttered to herself. The previous day, it had been a malfunctioning solar sail. A week ago, they’d lost their fourth passenger to a cryopod’s faulty carbon dioxide exhaust system.
She took two steps to stabilize her rhythm before breaking into a run back in the direction from which she’d come. As she ran, she tapped her wrist-comm, tapped on the image of one of the other crew members on duty, and brought her arm closer to speak. “Nolin, shut down all water lines on level B. And turn off that damn alarm.”
“Working on it,” the ship’s navigator replied.
Throttle ran through the hallway, past several dozen cargo hold doors until she reached one near the end of the corridor. The alarms silenced, leaving a ringing echo in her ears. She swiped her wrist-comm over the small wall screen by the door. The screen chimed, and the door unlocked. She slid the door to the left, into its wall casing, and stepped inside. Lights came on through the long compartment, showcasing two rows of cryopods. Pausing long enough to close the door behind her, she took off at a jog between the rows, paying no attention to the hibernating occupants, and headed straight toward the end of the compartment where there was a second door.
“Do you need me, Captain?” The soft voice of the ship’s medic came through Throttle’s wrist-comm.
“Not yet, Aubree, but you’d better get a kit ready just in case. I’ll update you as soon as we know this isn’t a false alarm,” Throttle replied.
“Understood,” came the other woman’s voice.
Throttle opened the door. Before her stood the ship’s massive central cargo hold. A full seven levels high and nearly three hundred meters across, entire ships could be—and had been—built within the bay. Now, the space held thousands of crates of food and supplies, with a single massive 3D printer sitting in the middle. Everything was strapped down since gravity was kept at .05 g to increase the lifespan of food and to make moving crates easier with less effort required.
She stepped out on a gangway and grabbed the railing as she immediately felt her loss of weight in the lower-gravity cargo hold. She scanned the cavernous space to search for the right compartment number printed large on each door. When she found the door that read 23-B, she swung over the railing and positioned herself across from it and three levels down. From the corner of her eye, she saw Eddy pulling himself along the B-level gangway, wearing nothing but a pair of underwear and carrying his tattered black tool bag.
With a deep breath, she pushed off from the gangway and shot like a torpedo toward 23-B. She aimed high to let gravity bring her down to the right level. She flew across the open space and savored the exhilaration she felt every time she flew around the central hold. It was her favorite activity on the ship, and she never went a day without flying.
The gangway approached, and she reached out. She grabbed the railing and twisted herself around to land on her feet moments before Eddy reached her.
He scowled. “I hate it when you do that. You make it look easy.”
“I told you I’d show you how. You just have to show up.” She gave the pale, skinny mechanic a once-over. “Though, I hope you decide to wear clothes when you do.”
“I was getting ready for bed when the alarms went off.”
“Good thing you don’t sleep naked.”
“I do sleep naked, but I took the time to put my underwear on.” He squeezed past her to get to the wall panel outside 23-B. He set down his tool bag, swiped his wrist-comm over the panel, and typed in several commands. His body relaxed and he gave her a smile. “Good news. The compartment’s not flooded. It’s just another sensor malfunction.”
“So it says,” Throttle said with little confidence and tapped her wrist-comm. “Nolin, confirm the water lines have been shut down on level B.”
“Confirmed, Captain.”
She grabbed the railing and wrapped her other hand protectively around his wrist and tugged him to not stand directly in front of the door.
He eyed her grip and gave her a frown. “It’s just a malfunction. Nothing to worry about.”
“It’s my job to worry,” she said.
He shrugged, turned, and grabbed the handle with his free hand. He slid the door open. A wall of water slammed outward. Propelled by the buildup of pressure from within the cargo compartment, it knocked both crew members off their feet. Throttle held tight as a waterfall shoved them off the gangway. The minimal gravity in the central cargo hold did nothing to stop the onslaught. Throttle’s fingers slipped on the wet railing, but she tightened her grip. After spending much of her life confined to a wheelchair, her upper-body strength was superior to that of many men, and she used every bit of it to hold on to her crew member.
The onslaught punched at the pair with brutal force. She couldn’t tell if Eddy was still conscious. As for herself, she could neither see nor breathe, but she held on, hoping the lashing torrents would soon end. If she let go, Eddy and she would be smashed around the cargo hold or, worse, drown in a low-gravity pool of water, unable to swim free. Her lungs soon burned. The muscles in her fingers ached.
The water volume decreased, and the pressure no longer slammed liquid against her body like a million icy needles. Throttle sucked in a breath. She pulled herself and a coughing, gagging Eddy over the railing and lowered both of them to the gangway. Water still trickled out from the compartment, but at least it was no longer a tsunami.
She grabbed his shoulder. “You okay?”
He continued to cough while he slowly held up his thumb.
She patted his back and took in the scene around the open area. A white-rapid river of water was ricocheting off the far wall, the first of which had already returned to the side of the bay where Throttle and Eddy were, pounding the wall a level below them. Water hit the cargo hold’s surfaces in a surreal game of Ping-Pong as it slowly descended downward in the low g. Already, water dripped from several crates of food, and rivulets ran off the printer. She turned around to look inside the compartment to see cryopods overturned and sitting askew. At least half of the pods had red warning lights flashing.
She grimaced and tapped her wrist-comm to open the channel. “Nolin, Aubree, this is not a false alarm. I need you both down at cargo hold twenty-three B right now. We have a flooding mess and cryopod problems.”
“I’m on my way. Are either of you hurt?” Aubree asked.
“We’re fine,” Throttle replied.
“My tools,” Eddy said between coughs.
She glanced at the mechanic to find his bag missing. “And, Nolin, bring your tools,” she added.
“I have them with me, and I’m heading down to you now,” Nolin replied.
Eddy dragged himself to his feet. “I need to find my tools.”
“We’ll find them later. We kill the crisis first,” she said, voicing what had quickly become her most used maxim, with crises appearing nearly daily of late.
She stepped inside the compartment and the gravity immediately weighed her down. Her legs would’ve buckled if the braces hadn’t held her in place
. The water that had drenched her a minute earlier now poured down her skin and clothes, leaving hair clinging to her face. She wiped the long strands away from her eyes and walked around a cryopod that had nearly detached from the floor. The passenger, a middle-aged man, remained asleep, oblivious to the chaos that had taken place around him.
Eddy stopped at a pod with a solid red light. “Oh no.”
Throttle looked over his shoulder to see the pod broken open and filled with water. The occupant, a teenaged girl, lay inside the small pool with several of her connection cables detached. She looked asleep, but the screen on the pod displayed DECEASED in bright red letters.