Imperial Privateer: Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire Book 5 by Andrew Moriarty

Author:Andrew Moriarty [Moriarty, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Head south to get away from the lava, Centurion.” Scruggs’s voice rang out over the radio. “You need to get out of there before you’re trapped.”

Ana carefully set his fishing lines on the ground. This side, they terminated in loops for easy pulling. On the far side, they were tied to fifty grenades clamped onto the larger trees. Wouldn’t do to yank that accidentally before he got farther away.

The nearest tree was an oak, with numerous thick branches. Ana grasped the lowest one and hauled himself up, climbing steadily. “How long ‘til Navy gets the ship over here?”

“He says he’s not coming. It’s too dangerous, the lava’s too close.”

“Really? Tell him I say he’s a cowardly weasel who is a disgrace to the uniform.”

Scruggs paused, then responded, “He says he doesn’t wear a uniform anymore and reminds you that there are four other people on this ship.”

Ouch.

Ana coughed as he cleared the lower branches and paused to wipe the sweat from his face. The lava shimmered with a hot rage, even a hundred meters away. A little higher and he got a view across the forest. The rings of lava were advancing. Two narrow streams, faster than the others, had surged around this part of the forest, making a nearly closed ring. He might be able to beat it if he ran that way, but that would mean abandoning the laser container. Single trees were tipping over and bursting in flame. The area in the middle of the ring was still empty of boiling rock, but full of pointed trees.

“Tell him I’m going down and pulling the cord. Explosions in two minutes.”

“Centurion, I don’t think you have two minutes.”

Ana reassessed the rolling lava. “I think you’re right. Ten seconds to detonation.”

“Ten seconds? How are you going to get—”

Ana jumped.

He was thirty feet up the tree, but the ground was soft mud, and he aimed for a lattice of mixed branches and crashed through them. The springy, snapping branches slowed him, rolled him over, and dropped him on his back into the mud.

“Ooooough.” Ana gasped a breath, then another, then started laughing. “The old guy still has it.”

He’d lost his earbuds, so he couldn’t hear, but his microphone was intact, so they could hear him. He grabbed the loops of fishing line from where he’d draped them, and raced forward, feeling the little tugs as the grenade pins pulled out. He jumped over a rock, slipped in the mud, rolled but kept his hands on the loops, and slid in behind a big tree. “Fire in the hole.”

“I can see hardly anything in the cameras,” Dirk said over the intercom. “I don’t know where he is, exactly. We’ve got four pointing down, and—whoa!”

Bright flashes marched across all four of Dirk’s screens, sprawling out in a spiral pattern. Ana had arranged the central trees to blow first, then circle out, so they would have room to fall. The explosions cleared the smoke and dust. Dirk got a quick view of a

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