Death Drop by Sean Allen

Author:Sean Allen [Sean Allen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Science Fiction/Fantasy
ISBN: 9780983284093
Google: BjlEYgEACAAJ
Amazon: 0983284091
Publisher: Vintage Six Media
Published: 2011-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30: Clipped Wings

The two big Rolfing 88s at the end of the dock reared on their mounts and locked on the back half of the Ghost, ready to reduce her to scrap in the blink of an eye. “Shit!” Dezmara shouted as she scrambled up the cargo ramp. She turned sideways and squeezed between the rows of containers lashed to the deck of the ship. She shimmied awkwardly in the tight space with her hands at her sides and the kranos pinned facing back toward Luxon, and every second scraped through her brain like a dull blade across brushed metal. The guns were still locked on and the bright orange warning still flashed in her eyes. She had no idea why the portmaster didn’t open fire or what had happened to Simon or what they were going to do if she actually managed to get the Ghost in the air; she just kept on moving.

The warning in her helmet added to the pounding of her heart, and the noises melded into a hammering frenzy. Her wounds throbbed and her muscles ached as the impossibly cramped space between the cargo containers seemed to inch closer with each blast of the warning inside the kranos. “You should’ve faced the other damn way!” she cursed at herself. Normally Dezmara didn’t have any problems with tight spaces, but being forced to watch those two big guns begin to spin on their mounts was more than she could take. Just as a scream of panic roiled up from her stomach and clawed at the back of her clenched teeth, she shot out from between the canisters.

Dezmara staggered sideways into the opening at the back of the cargo bay before finding her balance. She turned and dashed the last few strides to the interior door and jabbed at the controls wildly with her right hand as she pounded on the portal itself with her left. “Simon, godammit! That asshole has us locked—let me in! Those guns are going to tear us apart. Take’em out! Simon, do you copy?!” Dezmara tried the current code, and the four previous, but the only response from the door was a series of loud, angry beeps each time she hit the ‘verify’ key. The oculo engaged automatically, as it was programmed to do in all cases of attack from behind, and the higher octave beep that distinguished its function from the rest of the gadgetry inside the kranos was the last sound she heard before the boom of large caliber machine gun fire.

Dezmara fell through the door and it slid shut behind her. She could feel the Ghost shake and hear the dull thunder of machine guns echo through its outer skin and fill the main deck. She scrambled to her feet and sprinted down the passage toward engineering. She skittered through the door, falling on her hands and knees and crashing into the back of Simon’s chair. She spun it around with a jerk, and it turned way too easily—Simon wasn’t there.

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