Exile: A Military Sci-Fi Series (The Acheron Book 4) by Rick Partlow

Exile: A Military Sci-Fi Series (The Acheron Book 4) by Rick Partlow

Author:Rick Partlow [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2020-12-21T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter Eleven

“Lander two-zero-four, you are cleared for launch.”

The last word was still ringing in Sandi’s ears when the Warlock’s mooring clamps released and the shuttle’s belly jets kicked her free of the docking bay. The bare metal womb of the bay dropped away and she was swallowed up in darkness, the dull greys and whites of the ice giant below them only visible due to the computer interpolation of the views from the external cameras. The moon was a smaller circle passing across the larger arc of its parent world, shadowy and indistinct, hiding its mysteries under layers of nitrogen clouds. Yet it had already given up one of those secrets to Ash Carpenter and the Acheron…

“Prep for boost,” she warned the Savage/Slaughter mercenary platoon arrayed behind her in the rows of acceleration couches. She thought she saw Lt. Benitez scowling at her through the faceplate of his pressure suit’s helmet from the right-hand chair. Oh well, she would have been mad, too, if she’d been kicked out of the pilot’s seat for a stranger.

The main engine flared behind her and four gravities pushed her back into her seat with sudden brutality; she retreated into the interface, trying to shut out the discomfort and distraction, concentrating on the bird, on the flow of power through her body and the flow of data into her mind. She could see the traces of the raider base now, just hints on thermal through the clouds of the moon as it rotated beneath her…and she could see the fusion burns coming up through that atmosphere, two of them rising quickly to meet her.

It was the pirate cutters. It couldn’t be helped, they’d had to Transition at the minimum safe distance, then burn in on the Warlock’s fusion drive until they’d been close enough to launch the lander. It was too long, too far; they’d all known the enemy would see their warp corona, see the thermal signature of their drive and have time to scramble the cutters. They could shoot her down before she brought her human cargo to the ground, which was worrisome of course, but they could also just run the hell away. That they couldn’t allow, because then they’d just come back at their leisure, in two weeks or a month, or three months.

This had to end today. And Ash was going to end it.

“They’re on their way up,” she told him, forcing herself back into her body long enough to speak. “Take them out.”

She could see his drive flare burning around the terminator from the other side of the moon, and she had to smile. He always said she was the better pilot, but when he was jacked into the Acheron, he was truly alive, and she couldn’t imagine him ever doing anything else.

His reply came in a moment later after a second’s delay at the mercy of the speed of light.

“I got ‘em.”



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