Space Witch: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 2)

by Michael-Scott Earle

  As soon as I hit the ground, I heard the rifle shot echo across the valley. The car jerked left, and the group of men shouted. There was another spray of gunfire from the same direction as the hill with the sniper, and I rolled Eve over so that my body was between her and the guns.

  The bullets pinged off the metal of John’s stopped vehicle like buzzing flies, and I turned my head to assess the situation. The lanky cowboy was crouched by the side of his truck with his laser gun drawn. Blood covered his leather jacket and hat, but the man didn’t appear to be injured. Two of the other goons were also taking cover next to John, so I guessed the last had caught the bullet.

  “What do we do?” the man asked as he raised his laser pistol over the edge of the vehicle. Almost as soon as he brought his hand up, a bullet bounced off the metal next to him, and he dropped back to the dirt road with a gasp.

  “Don’t move!” I shouted to them as I gestured for Eve to crawl away from me. There was a ditch on the side of the road, and the decline would give her better cover than my body.

  As soon as I saw my friend dive into the ditch, I rolled over onto my side and then somersaulted after her. The bullets started to hit the dirt road closer to me, and my sudden movement caused them to fire with more urgency. I tumbled into the ditch beside Eve with a clumsy roll but managed to land on my shoulders instead of my head.

  One sniper on the top hillside. I estimate about four hundred meters. I sense three other gunmen on the other side of the road about ninety meters away. One is by the outcropping of large rocks, one is prone in the ravine ten meters up the road from the rocks, and the third is behind the oak tree.

  I recovered from my fall and climbed up a bit so I could make an attempt to see where Eve was referencing. When I heard a flurry of shots, I figured the gunmen had already picked targets, so popped my head up for half a second and then down. I saw the group of rocks and the oak tree, but I couldn’t actually spot the ravine. One thing was for certain, I wasn’t going to be able to return fire effectively with just my revolver and pistol.

  I was going to have to get close.

  “Hey!” I hissed at John and his men.

  The three looked at me, and the terror was plain on their faces.

  The weapons they wore on their hips were obviously there for decoration. The young men had never been in gun fight.

  “I’m going to run to the other side of the road. When I give you the signal, pop up and return fire to give me some cover.”

  “But--”John began to say.

  “If you don’t do as I say we are all gonna die here,” I interrupted him.

  The men nodded, and I waited for a lull in the crossfire. As soon as I heard it, I barked at them, and the trio poked their heads out from behind the vehicle and started firing their laser pistols.

  I dashed across the road and half expected to catch a sniper bullet in the chest. The sniper must’ve been reloading, or he might’ve had his sights targeted on the car. Either way, he didn’t see me, and I made it across the road and into another ditch before the attacking group could get a bead on me.

  The shooters opened fire again, but only one of them had seen me. I guessed it was the one by the rocks so I began to crawl in that direction on my belly. If the shooter didn’t change his position, I’d be able to reach and take care of him. But if the man got smart and switched his back more toward the hill or attempted to jump into the ravine with his friend, I was going to be in a bit of trouble.

  Then I remembered that I had Eve.

  Tell me when, and I can instruct them to shoot. I can hear your thoughts plainly.

  The vampire woman’s voice entered my mind easily, and it cut through the blasts of rifle fire like a beautiful song.

  There was a cactus plant in front of me in the small ravine. It blocked the direction I wanted to crawl to, and I debated my options. It would probably be best to plow through the cactus and the subsequent pain, but then I realized I was only thirty meters from the side of the rocks.

  It also became clear to me that these men were not military. Their shots were sporadic, their aim unfocused, and as far as I could tell, they were not communicating with each other about our movements. My first guess was the man behind the rocks knew my position, but had gone back to shooting at the car.

  “Tell John to shoot at the hill where the sniper is. You and the other two men shoot the rocks,” I whispered.

  Eve didn’t talk into my mind for a few moments, and I wondered if she actually heard me.

  We are ready in three, two, one.

  I jumped out of the ditch as soon as Eve’s count reached one, and made a fast sprint toward the rocky boulders. The gathering of stone stood a good eight meters high, and consisted of five rocks stacked like discarded children’s toys. At first I didn’t see the shooter, but that was because he had taken refuge behind the rock and was pulling his rifle in the direction of the vehicle. A bullet from Eve’s pistol hit the top of the rocks and laser blasts smashed into the stone near him. The man was on the defensive and didn’t realize I was on him until my revolver was pushed into his face.

  I pulled the trigger, and he never had another thought again.

  His rifle was a classic AK-47 style. The design hadn’t changed in three thousand years, but that was okay. It was an effective weapon to use against lightly armored opponents. I switched my revolver to my left hand and took the rifle from the man’s dead hands. I slid back the lever to make sure none of his blood or brains were jammed in the action, and my movement caused one of the rifle’s shells to eject from the side of the weapon. The motion was enough to convince me the rifle was in good repair, and sufficient for my needs.

  I kept the boulders between the sniper on the hill and me while sneaking toward the ravine’s location. The remaining three shooters must have heard my revolver shot and expected that I wouldn’t be able to creep up on them. My guess proved correct when the shooter from the ravine let loose with a volley of burst fire that smashed into the end boulder of my cover.

  “I’m gonna need another burst of cover fire,” I said. “Hold for my signal.”

  We will aim for the three positions.

  I pushed my arm out from behind the cover and then pulled it back in when the ravine shooter let another burst of bullets fly toward my position. It was all that John, Eve, and the two men needed to pop out from behind the vehicle. A flurry of laser beams and bullets smashed into the ravine and the tree. I guessed the hill sniper was still around, but I was going to have to risk another move, or we would be pinned down in this location for another hour.

  I sprinted from the cover of the boulders and pushed the muscles in my legs until they screamed. It was only about fifteen meters to the side of the ravine, but as I got closer, I saw the crevasse dropped a good thirty meters down. The rifleman was positioned on a ledge beneath the top rim, and he turned his head to gawk at me. The ravine was only about three meters wide, so I jumped through the air, spun my shoulders, pointed my rifle in my right hand at the center mass of my target, and pulled the trigger. The burst of bullets left the AK with a fiery spray and pelted the man’s back like a shower of deadly rain, leaving half of his chest on the rocky ledge where he hid.

  The momentum of my jump carried me across the ravine, and I felt a bullet from the sniper whiz by my body as I traveled through the air.

  This was a practice move for my muscles and skeleton. They were already working to loosen and prepare for my impact with the ground on the other side of the ravine. I dropped into a roll as I landed, snaked across the ground, then popped up on my legs and continued running toward the last gunman’s position behind the tree.

  Eve knew what I was planning, and she must’ve instructed the other three men to begin firing. Laser blasts peppered the tree in front of me, and I heard Eve’s pistol crack through the wilderness like a whip. The sniper didn’t take another shot while I ran. It reinforced the fact that these men were not military trained. There was no way Eve could’ve hit the
sniper from her position on the ground with a pistol. If I’d been in the sniper’s place, I would’ve settled in and taken my shots without any sort of fear of repercussion from my targets below. I was fortunate that they weren’t trained, and the wide-eyed expression on the man behind the tree made me believe they hadn’t prepared for violent opposition.

  He moved to duck behind the tree, and the revolver in my left hand spat a meter long fireball. The bullet took the man’s leg at the hip joint, and the limb tore off like a cooked chicken bone. The man let out a frantic scream, but his cries only lasted another half second before the fourth bullet from my revolver reduced his skull to a smoking ruin.

  The sniper on the hill was still a worry, and I ducked behind the tree so he wouldn’t have a clear view. He still took a shot, but it missed my head by a good half meter and his bullet smashed into the bark of the giant oak.

  In reality, the man could keep us locked down here for the rest the day. He had the higher ground; we didn’t have a lot of cover, and we couldn’t escape in the vehicle without the man lining up a delicious shot.

  I poked my head out the other side of the oak to shoot a quick glance up the hill, ducked back behind the tree, and then leaned out of the other side. What I had seen gave me a good idea of where the man’s position was, but I was going to have to run for about one hundred and twenty meters through open space to reach the side of the hill where I saw a path and more boulders I could use as cover. In my human form, I guessed that I could make the distance in twenty seconds. If I was in my half changed form, it would probably take me around five.

  Eve broke into my thoughts: Do not change right now. It will play our hand too early for John Samson and his men. I can use my transponder to call Z. She can do a flyby and use the shuttle’s weapons.

  “Confirmed,” I said.

  I waited behind the tree for what felt like an hour, but was only ten minutes. I had no idea if the sniper had repositioned or left the hilltop, and I didn’t want to poke my head out from behind the oak tree to find out for sure.

  There were several viable strategies to military combat. One of the most important ones that the movies never talked about was the ability to “out wait” your enemy. I’d spent countless hours, days, and weeks stuck in foxholes or behind cover just like this waiting for my enemy to either get bored or make some other mistake that I could capitalize on. To pass the time, I let my mind wander through the events of the last couple days, but I tried not to think about Eve too much. It was too distracting.

  I felt my transponder vibrate in my vest pocket, and I holstered the revolver in my left hand so I could pull it out.

  “I got your location. Is the target on the hill to your east?” Z asked.

  “Confirmed,” I said as I checked the compass reading on the device in my hand.

  “Ahh, I see the fucker. Standby. Cover your eyes.”

  The manta ray shaped shuttle craft drifted over the skyline to my west, and a salvo of plasma fire erupted from the nose, wings, and underside of the craft. It was a mixture of blue and purple fire, and the entire hillside to my west erupted in explosions. It was almost as if someone had dropped a small nuclear warhead on top of the hill, and I had to raise my arm over my head and dive to the ground to keep a tidal wave of dust and dirt from slamming into me.

  “Well, I hope you like your barbecue extra crispy because that guy sure did,” Z cackled over my transponder.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said into the device.

  “No problem. I found a water source and tested it. It’s clean and has plenty of minerals. I’ve already made my first delivery up to Persephone. I’ll be in touch as soon as I finished the last one.”

  “Got it. We’ll talk then,” I said as I put the transponder back in my pocket.

  The rifle at my feet was another AK model, and the design looked a fraction newer than the one I had slung over my shoulder. I picked it up, checked the action, and then grabbed four spare magazines off the corpse. There were another three empty magazines on the ground, and it appeared he was prepared to use a lot of ammo.

  “Whewee! You weren’t kidding about the military experience!” John Sampson shouted to me once our shuttle had drifted away.

  “No, I was not.” I walked back to the ravine and the corpse of the man I shot there. He carried the best looking rifle of the trio, and the design looked very familiar. I picked it up in my hands and flipped over on the side to take a look at the etching. It was a GKS multi-caliber rifle with branding indicating it came from the Saturn Union. The weapon was a long way from home, but I was very happy to see it. These weapons were a bit hard to maintain, but it was able to use virtually any type of chambered caliber bullet. They needed a separate power supply to function, but those could be charged with solar radiation easy enough. The corpse had an extra battery on his belt, as well as eight pouches filled with a variety of ammo. The belt was covered with gore, but I unbuckled it from his waist and threw it over my shoulder anyways. I’d clean it off later. The weapon would be useful.

  I could understand a group of men wanting to bushwhack the son of the most prominent rancher, but the possession of this GKS rifle added an unknown variable to the equation. Unlike the AK-47’s, this was an expensive piece of equipment, and these men were not good enough to justify such a weapon.

  Someone had given them this and probably told them to kill John Sampson.

  “Any idea who doesn’t like you?” I asked the lanky man.

  “Well, nobody really likes my father. You’ve already met one of his former business associates in the saloon. This is obviously Cynthia’s doing.” The cowboy shrugged.

  “Does Cynthia have access to military grade weaponry?” I asked as I pointed to the GKS multi-caliber rifle hanging over my shoulder.

  “No. Or least, I don’t think so.”

  Eve walked to the other side of the vehicle, and I saw her eyes drift over to the corpse of the man sitting in the passenger seat. I didn’t know exactly how much she’d need to feed, but I guessed from her look that she was hungry.

  I will be okay. It has just been many years, and it might take a lot for me to get back to where I once was.

  “How much farther to your place?” I asked John.

  “It’s another twenty minutes.” The tall cowboy looked at the body of his friend in the Jeep. “We need to bury Clyde. It’s our tradition to do it as soon as--”

  “We can spend time burying your friend, and maybe get attacked again, or we can return to your compound and bury him there.” I turned my eyes back to look at the hills. The one with the sniper was still smoking, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other guerrilla fighters out there.

  “Yeah, let’s get going.”

  “Smart decision,” I said as I helped Eve get into the back of the vehicle.

  Chapter 3

  The Samson compound was much larger than I expected. I had thought it might be twenty hectares, but as we drove down to the valley, I guess it to be more along the lines of ten thousand. A few different creeks, or maybe small rivers, ran through the property, and the grassy fields were filled with an endless wave of white, brown, and black cattle.

  There was a wall around the part of the property nearest the road. It wasn’t the thirty-meter high concrete barricade that surrounded Elaka Nota’s shipyard on Trappist - 1e, but it was still a two-meter tall structure of brick and cement. There was a gate along the road, and two men with assault rifles guarded the entrance. They knew there was a problem as soon as we turned and drove toward them, and they opened the gate to usher us in without asking more questions.

  Ten minutes later we were parked in front of the main compound, and five minutes after that Eve and I were sitting in a decorative lobby inside the Samson residence. The place continued with the classic Western design theme. There were stuffed bison, cattle, and deer heads in addition to paintings of men riding horses, stands with antique saddles, and polished wood carvings. The couches were made of thick dark b
rown leather, and I imagined I could sleep well for two days straight if I lay on one. The house smelled of sandalwood, oil, and expensive leather. My sensitive ears could hear the whisper of home electronics and machines, but I didn’t see any in the common area. I guessed any devices must’ve been hidden behind walls or within certain pieces of furniture.

  They had a lot of wealth.

  “My father will see you now,” John said as he opened a set of double doors on the opposite side of the room.

  Eve and I stood up from the couch and followed the young man through the doors. The next room looked to be an office of some sort. There was more wood shelving, wood ceilings, a rug made from the fur of some gigantic beast, and a wall of leather bound books. Behind a large stone and antique wooden desk sat a muscular, mostly bald man. What hair he did have on the side of his skull was gray, but the man’s face was distinguished, and his hooked nose reminded me of his son’s.

  “Ahh! So these are the two pistoleros that save my son’s life?” The man stood from behind his desk and walked right up to shake Eve’s hand first, and then mine. “I truly thank you both for the assistance you brought my family today. If you hadn’t been riding with my boy, well, he might not be here right now. I kinda like the kid, so I thank you kindly. I’m Wayne Samson.”

  “I am Adam, and this is Eve.” I gestured to the beautiful woman.

  “Like the Bible or something?” the man asked with a confused look on his face.

  “Or something,” I said. “Saving your son was no problem.” I sat in the leather chair where the man gestured. “Your son mentioned that you might have work for us. We are looking for supplies for our starship, and we don’t have any local currency.”

  “Starship? What kind of bird do you have? I’m guessing a hyperdrive?” The man waited for Eve to sit before he moved back behind his desk and took his own chair.

  “Confirmed. We can get around the solar system without problems. If you need something delivered to another system it will take a few weeks, but we can make any sort delivery you might need.”