“No, we aren’t! How will we win from a safe distance?” D’Rump asked. “Send in the Comets, but we stay here and finish off these bad CLF people. Very bad people.”
After nodding, Schilling then barked orders at the crew. “And activate the gamma beam emitters too,” he shouted.
Trident circled around off La Corona’s starboard bow. On the Caprice’s bridge, Perez glanced at her displays. “We have to get that barge under control. Can we target the thrusters?”
“Not recommended, ma’am,” the helm officer advised. “We’d have to hit all simultaneously, otherwise…”
“Roger that, it spins like a pinwheel,” Perez said. “What about a system override?”
“The control signal is out of range,” the communications officer explained. “Its origin is an interceptor in the Trojans.”
“Notify Bergeron!” Perez ordered. “They have to locate that Comet and override its signal.”
As Perez spoke, a gamma beam emitter fired from La Corona and pierced Trident’s forward shields, then dissolved two layers of armor plating on the bow. The impact rocked the ship and cast the interior into brief darkness.
Although filled with static toward the end, the broadcast from Trident to Bergeron made it through to her, Alice, and the pilot of the third beater, a senior officer named Amos Doyle.
“In all honesty, detectant,” Alice said, “to navigate these asteroids, we’ll have to slow down to reach that Comet.”
“And then it’ll move, like a little space mouse,” Doyle said, “and we’ll have to hunt it down again and again.”
“Ah,” Bergeron said, “then we draw it out.”
“Pardon the interruption,” Doyle said, “those Comets with the fake CLF identifiers are swinging back toward us.”
“And so are their incoming missiles,” Alice announced. “I’ll take high!”
“I’ll take low!” Doyle replied.
“And I’ll split the difference,” Bergeron added.
Back on the bridge of Candy Lady, Duffy watched the nearby Caprice, Protector, come under assault by a new pack of Comets.
“Good,” she said, “now let’s bring Captain Havlock aboard.” While she walked over to join Ming and Zeke at the cargo handling stations, Ariel stepped aside. Eli had answered her question earlier—it was about Leo’s whereabouts—so she passed that information Peter, Cassy, and the cargoists.
“By your leave, captain,” Ariel said, “I am returning to the drive deck.”
“Please do,” Duffy replied, “you aren’t needed here.”
As Ariel walked away, Zeke said, “If he gets low enough, I can pull him in with one of the freight transfer arms.”
“Why is he struggling with this?” Duffy asked. “It’s like he’s never flown a beater before.”
Zeke and Ming glanced at each other. “He may have suffered damage to his thrusters,” Ming said.
“I’ll bring him in, but we all best stay here,” Zeke said, “in case the worst happens, and his boat explodes.”
“Agreed,” Peter announced. “In fact, Captain Duffy, you may want to take cover in the briefing chamber. That’s a reinforced cabin. We’ll stay at our posts.”
“Good thinking, Peter,” Cassy said. “You’re smart as a fox and twice as handsome!”
While Ming escorted Duffy into the briefing chamber, Eli watched one of his screens switch off and reboot. A moment later, he sent an encoded, ship-to-ship signal through his Trans-Holo interface to the Comet controlling the thrusters attached to Gravy Boat. The signal, if it worked according to his expanding knowledge of the transport’s modified Quantum operating system, would override the Comet’s spec-channel and assign control of the thrusters to his workstation.
As he watched his displays, he heard Zeke shout, “I got him! He’s down!”
“Shhh,” Cassy said, pointing to the briefing chamber.
“Oh, right,” Zeke whispered. “He’s down. Ming, you owe me more coin.”
“I’ll give it to you once we are out of here,” Ming replied.
Eli waved his hands above his head. The override worked. He tapped an icon on his rebooted display, giving the full-reverse command to all the thrusters attached to the food barge. He calculated a burn time and station-keeping destination, transmitted the data through the spec-channel, then joined the other Digis in a race to abandon ship aboard Leo’s beat boat.
Three additional Comets joined those attacking Protector.
“Damn,” Maxo said. “They will pick us apart without any beat boats to help us.”
“Shall we withdraw, sir?” Verona asked.
Maxo rubbed his face and eyes. The longest shift of his career was catching up to him. All heads had swiveled his direction.
“Sir,” Yuri interrupted, “the thrusters…the barge. The thrusters have reversed direction and the barge is slowing down.”
Cheers acknowledged Yuri’s announcement.
“The transport is transmitting the remote-control signal,” Yuri added. “I don’t know how that’s possible.”
“I do,” Maxo said, nodding and smiling.
“Your orders, sir?” Verona asked.
He looked at his displays and decided to instruct Bergeron, Alice, and Doyle to rejoin Trident along with Protector. “You cut off the head,” Maxo said, “you kill the snake. Full-speed ahead!”
Aboard La Corona, D’Rump was angry. “Sad!” he yelled at everyone on the bridge. “How come the barge is slowing down?”
“The thrusters, sir,” his helm officer said, “they are in reverse.”
Schilling stepped forward to intervene. “I’m sure we can solve this—”
But the rest of his assurances were drowned out by explosions below and above La Corona’s bow. Two of her Comets met their demise by missiles from Trident.
“Fire everything at that Caprice,” D’Rump yelled. “And follow that barge!”
As his ship turned around, it launched, emitted, and blasted everything it had at Trident, but still the Caprice fought back with help from Maxo, Bergeron, and Alice. Doyle perished but not before taking out four Comets and landing two solid missile hits on La Corona’s wide stern as the dreadnought sailed toward the returning barge.
“Maxo, we are a mess, but alive,” Perez said.
“Permission to pursue D’Rump while you cover my rear flank?” Maxo asked.
“Granted!” Perez replied. “One-one-Charlie, stay with us and send Officer Mirza to escort Protector.”
“Tally Ho!” Bergeron replied.
Maxo ordered additional missile launches while Alice’s and Protector’s plasma cannons disposed of the remaining Comets. Gamma beams then hit the Caprice hard, disabling the ship’s missile control systems.
“Alice?” Maxo asked over the radio.
“One-eleven-Adam, go!” she replied.
“Do you have any missiles left? Ours are inoperable.”
“Just cannons, sir,” she said, “…and pellet launchers.”
“How will those help?” Maxo asked.
Alice accelerated her beater to full-patrol speed and hit the afterburner. “Wait for it, Maxo.”
“Roger that,” he replied.
Preoccupied with the Caprice on their tail, La Corona’s gunners ignored the CLF beat boat that screamed past them.
Dodging space rocks at high speed took Alice’s breath away but she had no trouble planning her next move. With the dreadnought well behind her but approaching fast, she circled around a patch of asteroids and began to warm up the beater’s pellet launchers. She popped a piece of jerky in her mouth then aimed and fired three salvos of four pellets each toward the space rocks.
They hit their targets—three asteroids, each about thirty meters wide. The pellet strikes hammered the space rocks. They spiraled and tumbled into the path of the oncoming dreadnought. One struck a jarring blow behind the bow, another amidship, and the last plowed into the stern’s upper decks.
“Wait for it,” Alice repeated.
<
br /> Yet, La Corona plied ahead, until the stern’s hull breached.
Six million gallons of water from a tropical-themed swimming pool ejected into space. The plume pushed La Corona into a cartwheel, quickening with each escaping gallon, on a collision course with Jupiter.
Alice chomped on the piece of jerky in her mouth and said, “One-eleven-Adam requests permission to come aboard Protector and kiss Detectant Magnaveer!”
With cheers and clapping in the background, Maxo sighed and said, “Permission granted.”
Chapter 11
Never Forget
Six months later, Maxo reclined under a thatched-roof shelter listening to the Southern Ocean Orchestra on a wide beach near Adelaide, Australia. His plaid swim trunks were wet, and his unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt fluttered in a light breeze. Behind silvery astronautor sunglasses, he watched Leo and Ariel return from splashing and joking in the surf.
“How does it feel to be home?” Ariel asked.
“I’m from West Java,” Maxo said, “not Australia.”
“And I’m from Vancouver,” Leo added. “But you probably don’t care.”
Their laughter trailed off into silence, then Ariel said, “Earth. I mean Earth.”
“Ah,” Maxo replied, smirking. “A lot has changed, and a lot has stayed the same, so I guess I feel…the same. I see how I’ve changed, and how I’ve stayed the same. I feel at home and like an alien.”
“Those glasses sure make you look like an alien,” Leo snorted.
“Actually,” Maxo removed the astronautors and polished the lenses with his shirt. “These are for you, Lee. Put them on. They will help you see better in pilot training.”
“That’s right,” Ariel said, applauding, “congratulations to our newest CLF tech corps cadet! I still can’t believe what you did!”
“What we did,” Maxo said. “What we did together to help each other.”
“And to help the colonists,” Leo added, gazing around from behind his new reflective silver glasses.
“And to help right the scales of justice,” Ariel said.
“How quickly they can become so out of balance,” Maxo said, “when we aren’t paying attention or not doing our part to hold them up.”
Leo popped open three big cans of ice-cold lager and passed them around. “So, what’s next for you, Maxo,” he asked.
“Well, first I’ll be dropping off Ariel at the First Precinct,” Maxo said, “so she can claim the keys to Candy Lady.”
“I put in a fair bid at the auction,” Ariel replied. “I’ll make for a good captain yet.”
“I’m sure you will,” Maxo said. “And say ‘hello’ to everyone for me. Eli, Peter, Cass, you know, the whole crew. I’d sail anywhere with them.”
“Then what?” Leo asked.
Maxo sipped his beer and laughed. “Court. I’ll be testifying for the prosecution in the cases against Havlock and Duffy.”
“Heh, heh,” Ariel said.
Looking skyward, Maxo added, “Then I’ll meet up with Alice. She got promoted to Detectant and is assigned to a new ship.”
“Oh, which one?” Leo asked.
“Magistrate. You may have heard of it,” Maxo replied. “She survived the attack on Themis due to some quick-acting engineers.”
“Oh, I’m so happy for her,” Ariel said.
Leo nodded and took a sip of beer. “Me too.”
“I will also be joining Magistrate’s crew,” Maxo said.
“Who’s the captain?” Leo asked.
Maxo smiled and chugged his beer, then said, “I am.”
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel P. Douglas is the pen name for identical twins Phillip and Paul Garver. Phillip is a U.S. Army veteran who also served as a senior analyst in the U.S. intelligence community and currently works for the federal government. Paul’s career includes over 30 years in the museum profession. He has worked for cultural and historic sites in California and Virginia, as well as for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Named a Foreword Reviews 2014 IndieFab Book-of-the-Year Awards Science Fiction Finalist, Daniel P. Douglas is also listed by BestThrillers.com as one of 2015's Best New Mystery and Thriller Genre Writers and is a Readers Favorite Award winner.
Phillip and Paul enjoy writing pulse-pounding, edge-of-your seat science fiction, conspiracy, mystery, suspense, and thriller stories and screenplays. Their characters are often ordinary people who tread onto a collision course with destiny, where survival means confronting personal flaws and fighting for good in the eternal battle against evil.
They explore this theme in a number of published works. Their first novel, “Truth Insurrected: The Saint Mary Project,” centers on a decades-old government cover-up of contact with extraterrestrial life. “The Outworlds” series is comprised of adventure stories set in the early twenty-fourth century at the fringe of human civilization. Their “Richter's War” series blends sci-fi with hard-boiled intrigue in Los Angeles during World War II.
Born and raised in Southern California, Phillip moved to Arizona to attend college, and Paul moved to Virginia to further pursue his museum career. Both have travelled extensively across the United States and around the world. They now reside in New Mexico with their families and many pets.
Learn more at https://www.authordanielpdouglas.com/
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