Contents
Lunar Escape
Copyright
Book Club Teaser
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
Exclusive Content
About the Author
Lunar Escape
By
C.P. MacDonald
Copyright © 2019 C.P. MacDonald
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by 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.
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Chapter 1
The spaceship, dented, dinged, its hull a patchwork of mismatched plates from years of service, floated without power in the shadow of the majestic Harbor Space Station. The night side of the Earth spun below, its darkness was jeweled by the bright lights of the major cities on the American continents.
When he dropped out of a maintenance hatch beneath the space station, Calin Aku tightened the grip of his cybernetic arm on the black plastic weapons crate that floated in front of him. Even in the weightlessness of space, the mass of the 1.5 meter long crate was difficult to maneuver. He pushed off from the space station with his legs and aimed toward the dark ship that floated 25 meters away. With the large Harbor Station above him and the Earth below him, he was a trivial speck in the vast nothingness of space. As he floated across the expanse to the ship, he watched the Earth spin below him. At this distance, it looked peaceful and beautiful but in reality, he knew it was a crap planet to live on. He believed that anyone who had any sense at all left as soon as they could.
All around him in the distance he could see the flashing navigation lights of the congested space traffic lanes. They encircled the Station for ships to fly in and out of the busy docks in organized streams. His plan, and hope was for none of them to fly close enough to notice a spacesuited smuggler and a powered down ship in the shadows. He wasn’t hauling an illegal weapons crate out of a rarely used maintenance hatch in the shadow of the largest space station above Earth for fun.
His aim was spot on as he flew into the dark opening underneath the ship and into the cargo hold of the Sea Rover. The Sea Rover was his ship. Its hull dotted with a jumbled mix of welded steel plates that betrayed its years of service, but it was his. The ship was a retired Corvette Runner from the Planetary Patrol Division. With two high-performance military grade engines, gimbaled for 180 degrees rotation on two pylons, she had extreme maneuverability and power, perfect for any self-respecting smuggler. Normally she ran with a crew component of three but for years it had just been him and an Engineer.
“OK, I’m in.” He said over the suit radio.
“Copy.” Came the reply from Dean, his Engineer. “Power coming back online.”
The lights above him flickered with the return of power and the loading ramp behind him sealed closed. But before he could get his feet underneath him the gravity plates in the floor activated, sending both him and the weapons crate to crash to the deck with a loud bang.
He let loose a string of cuss words in a mix of Russian and Spanish when his face smacked into his helmet as he hit the floor.
While the air filled and circulated throughout the ship he secured the crate of weapons to the deck with cargo straps. After he retracted his helmet into the suit collar, he ran his fingers through his medium length dark hair and wiped the sweat from his face. Cybernetic arm strength or not that weapons crate was heavy. Crammed full of blaster pistols and repeating rifles and other toys, there was enough hardware in there to arm a small revolution. And to put a small fortune of credits in his pocket. With an almost affectionate pat to the weapons crate, Calin left the cargo hold and raced up the central hallway to the cockpit. Dean Gorney, his Engineer, was sitting at the Engineering station at the back wall of the cockpit. He was also in a spacesuit and had just slid his helmet back. He had stayed onboard the powered down Sea Rover as Calin met with Jonus, their contact inside Harbor Station who had sold him the weapons crate.
“Took you long enough, it was getting chilly in here. Any problems?” asked Dean as he slipped his hands out of his gloves and rubbed them together.
“Nope, everything went according to plan for once. Jonus says 'Hey'”. Calin answered as he strapped himself into the pilot’s seat and waited for the ship's twin engines to warm up. He felt the ship come alive under his hands through the control yoke and through his seat, the faintly perceptible vibrations increased as Dean spun the power generators up to speed.
“That cheap son of a bitch still price gouging?” Dean asked.
“Not this time. Once I told him my client was someone in the Caldera underground he even gave me a discount. You know he hates Governor Silas as much as anyone.” He gingerly touched his lower lip, which had begun to swell. “When you get a chance, add a curve to the gravity plate power-up sequence so they don’t ramp up to full power all at once.”
“Gotcha boss,” came the reply. Calin didn't have to turn around to know a smile had spread across Dean’s face as he asked, “did’ja get a boo-boo?”.
Calin ignored Dean’s ribbing as his hands flew through the pre-flight checklist. Dean may be his Engineer, but he was also his best, if only, friend. So what some people saw as insubordination he considered friendly banter.
“The engines are taking too long to warm up, I don't want to stick around here any longer than we have to,” He complained.
Dean exhaled in frustration, “That’s because the engines need a complete overhaul, they are a half a million miles overdue. As I keep telling you. Boss.”
Two red circles flashed on the cockpit window and a voice from the overhead speakers announced, “Warning, two Planetary Patrol ships have altered course and are heading on an intercept course at high speed. Contact in 30 seconds.” The voice belonged to Rose, the Artificial Intelligence and his unofficial copilot of the Sea Rover. Already the flashing red circles had moved and gotten larger.
“Dean, are we ready to go?” Calin asked, the urgency in his voice unmistakable.
“Just a second… just a second… now!” replied Dean as he finished the calibration of the output from the ship’s power supply.
Within a split second of Dean’s answer Calin threw the throttles full forward to blast them along beneath Harbor Station. The glow of the twin engines lit up the station above them as they rocketed through its shadow.
Behind him Calin heard Dean complain, “I told you we needed to upgrade the stealth tech. It's a piece of junk, old, out of date, glitchy, and almost useless.” After a pause Dean added with an impish grin, “Almost like the Captain.”
Calin suppressed a smirk as he f
ocused on piloting the ship within a few meters of the surface of the station above. He replied. “All right, all right, point taken. When we get out of this mess see what you can do to improve our stealth function. But keep it cheap, understand?”.
Dean muttered "Finally," as Calin turned his attention back to losing the patrol ships behind them.
He followed the curved hull of Harbor Station and flew as close as he dared. He ducked under, around, and sometimes flew through the support structures and towers that stuck out from the station. The main body of the station was a cylinder over a mile long and half a mile across. But it also had support structures that stuck out from the outer skin for private corporation expansions and their docks. There was always some construction or expansion taking place it seemed. He had timed this job during the night shift, so there were no spacesuited construction workers to avoid as they flew in, around, and through the various construction zones.
Rose chimed in again with an update, “Patrol ships 500 meters and closing.”
Dean couldn’t help but ask, “Can you fly faster, please? I have a hot date tonight I don't want to miss, spending a night in the brig is not on my agenda.”
“But I don’t want to get a speeding ticket,” replied Calin sarcastically through clenched teeth as he dove the Sea Rover through the open support beams of an unfinished tower. Then he pulled back and twisted the control stick to barrel roll the ship and loop back around to fly head to head against the patrol ships.
“Rose,” he commanded, “reduce power to the bow cannons to 50 percent, maybe we can scare them off.”
At 50% he knew the forward cannons wouldn’t do any damage, but he bet a visual flurry of laser fire flying toward them would scare the crap out of the Planetary Patrol Division pilots. As a former PPD pilot himself, he knew patrol duty around Harbor Station was assigned to rookie pilots straight out of the Academy. They were more like traffic cops than actual military enforcers, and he preferred not to kill them. It would draw too much attention to his activities. The previous Captain of the Sea Rover, and his former boss, lived by her rule that smugglers sneaked when they could and ran when they couldn't. Her belief was that a firefight with the PPD always brought you unwanted attention. It was a noble philosophy that ended up getting her killed, so it was not something he subscribed to himself.
“Rose, a general forward spread, full auto. Fire!” he ordered.
The laser light show that erupted from the front of the Sea Rover was blinding and impressive. And it had the desired effect, the rookie pilots juked in panic and veered off. As a bonus, one patrol ship clipped a station tower with a stubby wing to spin out of control and out away from the station.
The remaining ship looped back around and returned fire. Rose automatically raised their shields while Calin twisted and turned the ship into evasive maneuvers. He knew his shields wouldn’t hold out against fully powered cannon fire for long. His meager shields were primarily used against micrometeors and space dust at flight speeds. The current government, the Solar System Authority, made it illegal for civilians ships to install high-grade powerful shielding. Which was one reason it was high on his wish list of upgrades.
Rose chimed in, “I’ve detected a radio burst from the patrol ship, they have called for reinforcements. I highly recommend we leave the vicinity with due haste.”
“Well, this wasn’t part of the plan.” He grumbled and ducked the ship around a large billboard sticking out from Harbor Station that advertised Virtual Reality Mars vacations. “Rose, are we far enough away to go stealth?” he asked.
Rose replied, “Negative Captain, optimum stealth range is another 1000 meters.”
With a sharp exhale in frustration he growled, “I guess we have little choice. Dean, we’re heading to the Junk Yard.”
“Shit.” Was Dean’s curt reply as he tightened his safety harness with a hard tug.
The Junk Yard was the dumping ground of space in orbit above Earth and it covered several square kilometers. As the designated location for junked ships, satellites, and construction debris from the Harbor Station, it was a no-fly zone for any spacecraft, civilian or military.
Calin pulled back on the stick and blasted the Sea Rover straight out from the station at full speed. He weaved under and over the busy traffic lanes and flew for the Junk Yard coordinates with the remaining patrol ship stuck on his six. He slid the ship side to side to avoid the cannon fire from the rear and crossed the wide open space to dive into the Junk Yard without slowing down. Like he hoped, the patrol ship came to a dead stop right outside the zone. Even the military had to get special permission to fly inside the Junk Yard. To fly inside it was a nightmare for any pilot, with the constant and chaotic rotation and collision of all the space junk. Repulsor satellites contained all of this chaos to a few square kilometers. It was a traditional initiation for new PPD pilots to test their nerve and fly through the Junk Yard as fast as they could. Someone kept an unofficial time log of who made it through the fastest for bragging rights. Back when he was a PPD pilot fresh out of the Academy, his flight was in the top three fastest ever recorded.
He resisted the urge to slow down and continued their suicidal high-speed flight through the Junk Yard. He danced around and sometimes through the discarded ships in the Yard. A loud screech echoed through the ship as one engine pod dragged along the surface of a derelict ship, a shower of sparks lit up the darkness.
“Damn, that’s going to leave a mark,” Dean complained.
Rose announced, “Patrol reinforcements have arrived, and they have entered the Junk Yard.”
Dean spotted the derelict hull of a large Planetary Patrol Division Destroyer and pointed. Calin flew over and around the damaged hull as close as he dared to the far side and hoped his sensor signal would blend into the junked ship.
He sighted a large opening ahead in its hull and warned his engineer, “Dean, prepare for a Smuggler’s Run,”.
Once in front of the hole of the tumbling ship, he punched the reverse thrusters to full power to bring them to an abrupt stop. Carefully, he backed the Sea Rover into the large opening in the Destroyer's skin and into an internal cavity. With a slight bump, the Sea Rover tumbled along with the hulk of Destroyer hull.
Dean had already prepared for this gambit, which they’ve done several times before, and killed their main power to shut the ship down. “Rose, go to sleep,” Calin ordered. Now they were just another hunk of junk in the Junk Yard.
They both raised their helmets and sealed their spacesuits. Without main power, the Sea Rover would get cold fast. They sat there silently and looked out the forward viewport into the Junkyard. Within a few minutes the PPD patrol sped past them, searching for them among the floating piles of junk.
“Just another day on the job,” Calin said over the suit radio.
Chapter 2
The metal fingers of his cybernetic right arm tapped impatiently on the blaster strapped to his thigh; clink, clink, clink. If his client didn’t show up in the next few minutes, there would be hell to pay Calin thought. The constant clang of the pipes above his head did not help with his agitation. A middle of the night meet in the Sub-Level of Caldera City to sell a crate of illegal weapons would make anyone nervous.
The warehouse door creaked open and footsteps echoed down the corridor toward him, a group of three by the sounds. Calin stood up from the weapons crate where he had sat for the past thirty minutes and shook his left arm, the flesh one, to get the blood moving again. Finally, he thought, time to get paid!
His client strolled into the center of the warehouse with two bodyguards in tow, the smoke from a cigar encircled his head. A white scar ran along the side of his face, a stark contrast to his dark skin, and disappeared into the short black hair and beard. Calin never liked dealing with Jerret. He was a street thug with delusions of leading a revolution against the Caldera City government. Calin himself had a legitimate hatred for Governor Silas but he didn't itch to get into an armed conflict against him.
Besides being the Governor of Caldera City, Silas was a corporate level criminal with the Planetary Patrol Division in his pocket. As a smuggler and pirate Calin preferred to live on the fringes, on the edge of society where the rules where more… flexible.
He would never admit it out loud, but Jerret’s revolution had merit. The city government enforced harsh laws on the citizens with long work hours, with hardly any civil liberties to speak of, and substandard living conditions. But as far as Calin was concerned, to live dirtside on Earth was even worse. Years of climate change had ruined agriculture to the point food rations were a normal procedure for most of the planet. Pollution had made the air toxic to breathe in most of the major cities, but that was where all the work was. These were the main reasons why people immigrated to the Moon if they could, either through official channels or unofficial ones offered by people like himself. He didn’t consider human smuggling evil if the client smuggled themselves in hope of a better life. Even then, to live on the Moon wasn’t paradise. Some newer colonies and city settlements were still young and small enough not to be burdened with ridiculous rules and regulations, if you could get on. But most of the non-specialized jobs on the Moon were in the mines. And the city governments like Caldera City controlled the mining companies. So it was not a surprise that Governor Silas was also the CEO of the Exoplanet Corp., the company with the largest mining operation on Luna.
And then there were the revolutionaries like Jerret, who got up on their soapboxes and preached to the masses to stand up to corruption, to stand up to the government and corporations. But for Calin, it was easier to ignore the rules he didn’t like, do what he wanted, and do his best not to get caught. And so far his way has worked for him.
Jerret sauntered up and plopped down on a nearby crate, gave Calin a curt nod and exhaled a large cloud of cheap tobacco in his direction. “So dude, you got my weapons?”
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