A I Apocalypse by James David Victor

Author:James David Victor [Victor, James David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairfield Publishing
Published: 2019-01-19T07:00:00+00:00

9

Old and Future Friends

“I said HALT!” the voice growled, deep and menacing from the shadows, and Captain Eliard heard the pound of running feet coming towards him. Dark shapes were charging into the stables hangar, and they were large, very large, the captain saw. Far bigger than a regular human. Heavy tactical suits? Armcore?

Eliard jammed the final connector home and twisted it tight before pushing himself back from the top of the Aeon modular craft, allowing his body to slide down the far side. He didn’t have time to put the protective plate on, but he could do that when he had gotten the thing airborne and away from these looters.

I’ll land out on the old Ferrari Plains. Eliard’s boots hit the floor and his heart was thumping a sharp staccato rhythm in his chest. Fix the rest of the craft. Replace the plate. Fine-tune her for warp flight…

THAP! THAP! There was the sharp crackle of sparks from the metal floors of the stables as the looters fired at him, but not the incandescent glows of energy weapons. This was the sharp ricochet sparks of projectile weapons.

Guns!? Eliard almost swore. Only the meanest and cheapest mercenaries used projectile weapons, and usually that meant that they were planet-locked. Weapons that shot solid bolts or caps of metal were insanely dangerous in space. Whether in the void or on a spaceship, you had a far greater chance of rupturing some vital part of the ship, or the metal-on-metal ricochets would just as easily kill you and your side as any of those you might be facing.

But Eliard had been a pirate captain for a long time. He knew what this meant: the people who were after him were probably bandits of some kind, maybe they had been stranded on Branton when Armcore had attacked, or maybe they were even ex-Brantonites themselves, looking for a bit of money and payback now that they had the city and the palace to themselves.

Using projectiles also meant that they were probably poor.

THAP-THAP! Another couple of sparks ricocheted off the hull of the Aeon.

Not my boat! Eliard thought in alarm. He couldn’t afford to lose the only means he had to get off-world. The tubular craft was even now starting to shake and rise on its low-output thrusters, gales of steam being forced into the room as its engines started to cycle.

“STOP!” the heavy, croaking and growling voices roared as more shots were fired, some hitting the vessel and others hitting the back wall.

But the captain thought that he must have some advantage, at least. For one, the steam was obscuring the boat and him from his attackers, and two, if these were looters down on their luck, that meant that they had probably never seen the like of the Device that was Eliard’s right forearm. He could probably rout them and break their morale easily when they saw what it could do…

“Prepare to die!” Eliard screamed his most blood-curdling pirate cry as he leapt up to

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