And our pod was starting to get pulled toward it.
“We can’t catch a break, can we?” Z groaned.
“What is wrong?” Eve asked.
“The carrier’s pulling us back. Can you help?” the blonde hacker asked.
“I am providing cover fire. The other ships were attempting to destroy the drones,” Eve replied. “I will try to assist you after I deal with these miscreants.”
Persephone suddenly streamed across the windows of the pod. The manta ray craft twisted through space in a graceful barrel roll and banked up away from us. The lasers on the front of the dark starship lit up with a red line of hatred, but I couldn’t see if they hit their target.
“Can you increase the power to the thrusters?” I asked Z as I pointed at the control panel she had plugged her skull into.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do,” she said as she looked up at the window at the crumbling carrier. “These things are really stupid. They are just set to either drift in space or punch through the atmosphere of the nearest inhabitable planet. They’ve got enough thrust to go for two months in space, but that’s only because of the lack of resistance. I’m going to try to make it think we are breaking into the atmosphere. It will probably burn through most of our power though.” She looked at me with an eyebrow raised.
“Do it,” I ordered, and she nodded.
Z closed her eyes, and I let out a long sigh. Despite the roar of the thruster on the pod, we continued to drift toward the carrier. The massive ship now looked like a crushed can, and the ends of it were spewing plasma fire while they tried to twist inward.
“Persephone and I have eliminated one of the destroyers and one of the frigates,” Eve said casually. “The remaining two are focusing their limited fire on us. I do not think I can pull you from the atmosphere until I finish them off, and that might take us another five minutes.”
“You took out two starships yourself?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“No, Persephone and I did. It was mostly her. She is upset that you are in danger,” Eve replied. “I am as well, of course, but I am letting her protect you.”
“What are you talking about?” Z opened her eyes, and the engine started to sputter.
“I will explain later,” the vampire woman said. “We are glad you are both alive. Can you--”
“The thruster should push hard now. Get ready for--” Z started to say, but then the thruster turned off. “Uhhhhh. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Can you fix it?” I said. My broken eye socket was itching terribly, and my headache suddenly disappeared.
“That was fixing it! Piece of--”
“Try again,” I growled and blinked. My other eye was working, and I could see the terror on my friend’s face much clearer now.
“Okay,” she said with a sigh and closed her eyes.
Persephone flashed across our viewport, and her black-winged shape was silhouetted against the purple background of the gas giant. There was a group of drones following her, but it was obvious that she was outpacing them, and their laser beams all missed her quick movements.
“Work! You! Fucking! Piece! Of! Space! Junk!” Z shouted as she slammed her palm into the button pad of the escape pod. I reached out to try and stop her, but the engines suddenly lit, and the escape pod began to pull away.
“Huh. I didn’t actually think that would work.” The blonde woman let out a dry laugh and then leaned back into her harness. The pod thrusters were pushing with much more force than earlier, and we quickly outpaced the gravity pull of the destroyed carrier.
“Uhhhh, Eve. We are heading to the moon. Are you going to be able to snag us before we enter the atmosphere?” Z said after the moon loomed in our viewport.
“I am trying. The other two carriers have launched drones. I am attempting to destroy them, but I am unable to use our weapon inventory. I can only use the front laser array,” the vampire woman replied.
“Okay, so… that’s not good.” The hacker gulped and looked at me.
“We can land on the planet. Then she can pick us up,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s a good theory. Only two problems with that, though,” Z said with a sigh.
“I have a feeling I’m not going to like what you tell me,” I growled.
“Nope. The first problem is that we burnt through most of our power getting away from the carrier. I don’t know if we’ll have enough juice to slow our plummet onto the moon.”
“That’s a problem,” I agreed.
“So, we’ll probably die in a few seconds, again. Shit, you would think I’d get used to this by now. I feel like a cat with nine lives or something.” Z started to laugh, and her blue eyes fixed on me.
“Let’s say we live. What is the second problem?” I asked.
“Our landing spot is less than two kilometers from where we parked Persephone before. The Alloprize army is all over the place. If we don’t burn up in the descent, which I’m pretty sure we will, then we are going to get filled full of bullets as soon as we land.”
“Fuck,” I groaned.
“I cannot disengage with these ships.” Eve’s voice came across the transponder, and the woman sounded more upset than Z did at the news.
“Hey. We did our best,” the hacker said as she closed her eyes. “Hopefully Jatal and his smelly crew of freedom fighters made it to the surface and managed to get away. Maybe they can win this now that Alloprize has lost most of their fleet.”
“Yeah,” I sighed as the sides of the pod began to heat up. The landing thrusters were engaging, but the pod’s main one was still on, and it was pushing us faster into the atmosphere.
Then I got an idea.
“Turn the pod upside down,” I said to Z.
“Huh?” She opened her eyes.
“Use the main thruster to soften our landing. You said we are running out of power? Flip the pod over so it is trying to escape the atmosphere.”
“Hmmm. I can’t really pilot this thing like that. It is preset to fly to the closest area.”
“Tell it to fly back to the carrier,” I said as I looked up at the main thruster. “And then cut the engine to a quarter.”
“Aye, Captain,” she said as she leaned forward in her straps. It only took a moment of her working, and then the pod flipped through the orange fire to face the opposite direction. We were still falling, but the drop was less rapid, and the sides of the pod had shifted from a red to a bright orange color.
“Push engines to thirty-five percent,” I ordered as I looked out the viewport.
“It doesn’t really work that way. I have to--”
“Make it happen, or we are going to die,” I growled, and she nodded.
Then the glow around our pod lightened up a bit.
“We’ve got ten seconds of thrust left at this rate!” she screamed.
“I have eliminated another destroyer. Please get to the surface safely.” Eve’s voice was faint in my ears because of the roar from the pod entering the atmosphere.
“Seven seconds!” Z screamed, and the thruster pushing up against the atmosphere flickered off for a moment before it turned back on.
“Hold on!” I growled. I wanted to reach over to Z and wrap my much larger body around her, but it wouldn’t help much. These pods were meant to take a beating, and anything that would penetrate these walls would tear through my flesh without hesitation.
“Four, three, two--”
“Cut back to ten percent!” I ordered the moment the pod stopped shaking and the orange glow faded from the hull.
“Cutting to ten percent!” Z yelled.
But then the thruster hiccupped, spat, and died for a moment. The spin of purple rock below us was like a whirlpool that never ended, and we were sinking into the deadly depths.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” Z shouted, and I saw her cheeks stretch against her skull as her body fought against the G-forces.
The thrusters kicked back on, and the pod lifted up for half a
moment. It felt like my spine was being forced out my asshole, and my vision faded began to twist with blackness.
I was conscious long enough to feel us smash into the surface of the moon, but I passed out when we made our first bounce.
Chapter 14
“Adam? Adam? Z? Please respond.” Eve’s voice brought me out of my unconsciousness with a gentle pull.
“Here,” I choked out the word into my transponder, and then I opened my eyes.
A flickering red light cast a morbid glow into the interior of the pod. The opposite sides from where Z and I were strapped in were crumbled like a plastic jug that had been stepped on, but there didn’t appear to be any damage on the side where we sat. My friend was still unconscious, and her blonde hair draped over her face in a way that prevented me from seeing if she’d been injured.
“Thank the stars,” Eve said. “You haven’t responded for a few minutes.”
“I don’t know how Z is. Hold.” I reached up to unlock my straps, but it was hard to move my arm. I was so damn tired. I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep.
My hand was human. I must have changed form when I fell unconscious. It meant that the monster inside of my DNA wasn’t powering my body anymore, and I would need to sleep soon.
I gritted my teeth and managed to reach the buckle of the harness. I popped it open and then fell the meter or so to the crumpled interior of the pod. It felt good to lie against the warm metal there, and I allowed my eyes drift closed.
“Adam? Adam? Adam?” It was as if Eve was pulling me out from under twenty meters of water. I kept trying to swim to the surface, but I just couldn’t move into the sun. The water here was so warm, and it hugged me like a thousand lovers.
“Adam!” Eve’s scream echoed in my mind and sent an electric current through my spine. I sat up against the inside of the pod and then banged my head against one of the chairs.
“I’m awake. I’ll check on Z,” I said into the transponder. Then I moved to my friend and smoothed the hair back from her face. I didn’t see any cuts or bruises there, so I reached my fingers to unfasten the buckle between her breasts.
“Ha, so flirty. What about Eve?” the hacker whispered with a chuckle.
“Huh?” I asked as I pulled my hand away from her, but then I realized that the hacker was unconscious again.
“It looks like Z is okay,” I said to Eve as I reached back to unbuckle my friend. She fell into my arms as soon as I released the harness, and I slid her over onto my right shoulder so her chest draped across my back.
“That is a relief. I just eliminated the last frigate. Persephone is undamaged, but I had to fly onto the opposite side of the moon to evade some drones. I will return to pick you up in eight and a half minutes.”
“I’ll pull her out of the pod so we can wait for you. Did the other pods make it to the surface?” I asked.
“I believe most of them did. The first one was shot down by one of the Alloprize destroyers, but then I began to attack them, and they ignored the rest of the pods.”
“Alright, we might have more passengers to pick up.”
“I will look for them en route to get you. Be there soon,” she said.
There were two exit doors to the pod. One of them was all sorts of crumpled by our impact with the surface of the moon, but the other looked undamaged. I stepped toward it, reached for the handle, and then twisted the grip. It rotated but didn’t open, so I had to kick my foot into the hunk of metal. The third kick dislodged it from its hinges, and it popped away to expose the purple surface of the moon.
I crouched on my knees and crawled sideways out the door with Z on my shoulder. It was a somewhat tricky maneuver because of her lanky body, the rifle strapped to her back, my shotgun and rifle tied to me, and my exhaustion, but I eventually got us out and leaned the woman against the outside metal of the pod.
I fought against my desire to pass out and stepped back into the escape craft. Under each chair were mini lockers filled with food, water, blankets, and other survival gear. I was able to get the contents of three of the lockers out, but the fourth was too damaged by the impact of the crash, and my tired hands couldn’t muster the strength to pry it open.
“Adam?” I heard Z call out, and I hurried to crawl back out of the sideways positioned door.
“I’m here,” I said.
“Good. You aren’t naked,” she said once she saw me. She was still sitting in the spot I left her, and it appeared that she had made no effort to stand.
“Yeah. Why would I be naked?” I asked.
“Because I died and went to heaven?” She tilted her head and laughed.
“You are strange,” I said as I looked at the wreck of the pod. I really wanted to sleep for the next year, but I needed to get the lay of the land and figure out of there was a nearby position that we could fall back to in case the Alloprize army showed up before Eve got here.
“You are the walking tiger-man. I’m not strange,” she said as I pulled one of the water bottles from the supplies and handed it to her.
“Fair enough,” I said before I tore the cap off of my own water bottle. I drank it in a few seconds, tossed it on the ground, grabbed onto the edge of the pod door, and hoisted myself up.
It felt like I weighed a thousand kilograms. My arms didn’t want to lift me, and my legs didn’t want to bear any weight. I needed to sleep for a good twelve hours.
Z didn’t say anything as I climbed up the pod, so I guessed she knew my intent. Once I made it to the apex, I was able to see in all directions. I pulled out my transponder, scrolled open the display screen, and then figured out which direction was north. Z was facing southwest, and the cave where we had landed Persephone less than half an hour ago was about three kilometers to our east.
Where the giant cloud of dust was.
“Shit,” I cursed under my breath as I held my hand over my enhanced eyes. I could easily see the gleam of the sun and purple gas giant off the glass of the lead vehicle of a caravan, and I recognized the Alloprize colors.
“Eve, we’ve got a group of Alloprize armored vehicles heading in our direction. I estimate they will be here in two minutes,” I turned around atop the pod and tried to see if there was anywhere where Z and I could take cover. There was a small ravine about two hundred meters to our south, and I estimated that we could probably get there right as our enemies arrived at the pod.
“Why can’t we catch a fucking break?” I heard Z call out from below me, and her voice also echoed through my transponder.
“I’ll be there in four minutes, perhaps five. I do not know how to pilot Persephone as well as Z does,” the vampire said.
I let out a long breath and considered my options. If we stayed at the pod, we might be able to hold off the men for a few minutes, but all they would need to do is drive one of their vehicles around us, and they would have a clear shot.
If we ran to the ravine, there might not be any cover. Then we would be exposed in the open, and they would be able to capture or snipe us with ease. If there were a cave, or way to take cover, then we’d probably be able to last until Persephone arrived.
Didn’t Jatal say there were mining caves all over this moon?
“We are going to run to a ravine some two hundred meters to the south of our pod. I’m hoping there is a cave we can take shelter inside until you reach us,” I said to Eve.
“I will try to hurry. Please be safe,” she responded, but I heard Z groan from below me.
“Z, what’s wrong?” I asked as I slid off the pod. I didn’t have the strength to land correctly, and I tumbled to the ground.
“Nothing.” She grunted, and I felt her hands pull on the shoulder of my armor. “Just a bit sick of assholes trying to kill me. When we finish kicking these fuckers in the collective dicks, let’s take Persephone to a planet with a nice beach and plenty of alcohol. We’ll have enough rhodium to pay for a vacation.”
“If we get out of this alive,” I said as I stood. My legs were sore, an
d I had one of those headaches from lack of sleep. I began to take a few steps, and it felt like twenty-kilogram weights were attached to each of my ankles.
This was going to be a really long two hundred meters, and I didn’t even know if there would be a cave we could take cover in.
“Uhh, can you run faster?” Z asked after we started to jog. She had quickly outpaced me and slowed down as she looked over her shoulder.
“Yeah. Keep running,” I gasped. “Look for a cave or a way down when you get there.”
“I don’t want to leave you behind,” she said.
“I’ll be fine. Just hurry. It will save time if you go ahead.” I tried to get my feet to move, but all I wanted to do was sleep. It was harder to keep my eyes open than to move my damn legs.
I saw Z sprint on ahead, and I tried to focus on pumping my fists when I ran so that my legs would follow suit. The strategy seemed to work a bit better than trying to make my legs work by themselves, and my pace began to increase.
I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw that the vehicles driving over the purple surface of the moon were probably only a kilometer away. I checked the edge of the ravine and saw that I probably had another one hundred and twenty more meters to run.
It was going to be close.
Z made it to the edge when I was still about seventy meters away. I saw her lean over the edge, look left, look right, and then jump up with a wave toward me. She pointed to her right and then began to run that direction. I altered my course a little, and our paths intersected when I made it to the edge of the ravine.
Just as the first bullets whizzed over our heads.
“Fuck!” Z shouted as she ducked low. The enemy soldiers were trying to hit us while they were still riding.
“What did you see?” I asked as I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her so that I was between her and the vehicles.
“There is some scaffolding here. Looks old, and I couldn’t see a cave, but there has to be something or else they wouldn’t have bothered. It’s twenty meters or so.” Another spray of bullets flew around us, and one of them bounced off my armor. The kinetic energy pushed my chest into the blonde hacker, and she let out a surprised yelp.
Space Witch: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 2) Page 13
