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.Cutting all power and bringing them to black out once more, Jess held her breath.Or tried to—her g-suit’s partial-pressure breathing made that impossible.Are we safe? Jess wondered.The Galleon’s monitor continued its shrill warnings that the satellites were searching for them.She glanced quickly to see if the Red Dawn had slipped through or if it had mimicked her maneuvers.She cursed.Lobster had matched her move for move, which meant his flank was now partially exposed to the live lasers.For several seconds, it looked like the confused satellite had decided no one was there after all.And then Jess heard Lobster’s voice in her ear.“They’ve got a lock on you, Red Galleon.You are hot, I repeat, YOU ARE HOT!”Cursing again, Jess confirmed what Lobster reported.A laser had begun its deadly work, cutting through the outer surface of her ship, melting a streak across the hull.“No you don’t!” Jess shouted.She initiated another blast full forward while shouting to her brother.“Missiles, Ethan, now!”He’d anticipated the command and released a dozen missiles which mimicked the Galleon’s heat signature, aiming them at the satellite.Jess waited to see if the missiles would grab the laser’s attention.They did.She felt buoyant, jubilant as she shouted to her brother, “It worked, Eth!” Then she cut all power to her ship, hollering to Lobster, “Get your ship out of range, Lobster! You’ve only got a few seconds! You might not get another chance!”Meanwhile, the satellite laser ruthlessly targeted and destroyed the Galleon’s missiles within less than one minute’s time.Jess used the distraction to turn the ship away from Mars and the high orbit death traps.She initiated a brief burn to pick up speed and then went dark.There was a tense minute’s silence.Was the cloak providing some protection, confusing the laser’s targeting protocols? The satellite knew what quadrant to search.Before Lobster called the warning, Jess saw the laser targeting her ship’s aft section once again.She felt a boiling fury at the thought of the blackened streaks, the melting metal.She fired her engines once again, sending the ship hurtling forward, but the laser adjusted course as well and continued heating its way through the metal exterior.Jess heard an auditory warning.“Twenty seconds to hull breach,” said the ship’s audio.“I’ve got you, baby,” Jess muttered to the ship, hoping the Galleon could handle what she planned—it was time for something unconventional.She shouted at Lobster to get clear and abruptly cut the aft engines, flipped the ship 180 degrees using the side thrusters, and then fired the thrust rockets well above safety ratings.The ship groaned and Jess shut everything off once again.She felt a blackening rush that told her she was about to pass out.Vaguely she recognized the sound of someone being sick in their helmet.A second later, her pressure suit and her own efforts brought her back to full consciousness.She noted with intense relief that the Galleon had evaded the laser, which continued to overshoot its target.No ship should have been asked to do what Jess had just demanded of the Galleon.The satellite locking system was baffled, and the cutting laser shut off, seeking its target anew.Jessamyn saw multiple warnings flashing on the panels before her.“I know,” she whispered to her ship.“I know.Hold together for me.” She double-checked the calculations she’d made before throwing the ship in the new direction.“By Ares, Lobster, get yourself out of range, now!” Jess called.Her limbs felt odd and she suspected she’d see pervasive bruising from the g’s the next time she had a chance to look.The Red Galleon continued on a silent trajectory away from Mars, away from the Terran satellites designed to confine her people to low Mars orbit.She heard several deep sighs over her comm-system.“Everyone okay?” she asked.“I sure hope so because we are out of danger, people! I repeat, we are out of range!”As if in response, Jessamyn heard the laser detectors wail once again as the targeting system locked onto her ship once more, but at this range, the cutting laser was too weak and unfocused to give the ship anything more than an ugly sunburn.The Galleon continued on her silent course for a few last seconds before Jess fired the engines again and corrected course for Earth.“Red Dawn, we are en route,” called Jessamyn.“You ready to go grab some rations?”Jess heard a crew member coughing, fighting nausea.“Lobster, you okay?”And then, with a certainty that didn’t require checking her instrument panel, Jessamyn knew what had just transpired.Her mouth filled with a metal taste which she tried to swallow away.She felt the void created by the Red Dawn’s absence.She had no need to search the skies for dismembered pieces spinning away from one another.She knew the truth.They were gone.All dead.Chapter EightWE ARE SMALL CREATURESNo!Her mind pushed back, hard against the insistent fact: the Red Dawn was no more.It’s a mistake, thought Jessamyn.And weren’t mistakes things you went back to fix? You gathered the pieces together, put everything back where it ought to be, and said, “Let’s try that again, shall we?”Death, always intrusive, felt so wrong here—a wrong-ness that grated along her spine like a rock traced upon glass.Lobster, red-bearded and laughing, couldn’t be merely “no more.”Seated alone in the pilot hotseat, Jessamyn couldn’t see the others.But she could hear their feelings in the way they breathed.A hitched gasp, an inhalation suddenly held, a sigh too agonizingly long.The Captain broke the silence.“Communications specialist, you will please send a transmission to MCC indicating the loss of our sister ship and the loss of …”Jess heard the strain in Kipper’s voice as she forced herself to continue.“The loss of Captain LaFontaine, First Officer Tedjomuljano, Payload Specialist Ben-David, Communications Specialist Neru, and Negotiations Officer Wu.”“Aye, Captain,” replied Ethan.“First Officer Jaarda, will you please confirm our course heading?” asked Kipper.“I’ve adjusted course to take us to Earth,” replied Jessamyn.There was no question of doing anything else—the Red Galleon would have to accomplish both missions now
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Tematy
IndexChristine Wood [Life Plan 01] A Life Plan Without You (epub)
Cheryl McIntyre [Infinitely Infinitely (epub)
Clair Delaney [Coral 01] Coral (epub)
Christine Cody [Bloodlands 01 Bloodlands (epub)
Christina Ross [Unleash Me, A Unleash Me, Vol 3 (epub)
Christine Flynn [The Hunt for Once Upon a Christmas Eve (epub
Christian Fletcher [The Left Left on the Brink (epub)
Christopher G Nuttall [Royal The Royal Sorceress (epub)
Christina Ross [Unleash Me, A Unleash Me, Vol 1 (epub)
Small Bertrice Piekielnica