Lost Fagare Ship 2: Absolve by Edward Antrobus

Author:Edward Antrobus [Antrobus, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Space Opera, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion, military science fiction
Goodreads: 33981482
Publisher: SEAM Publishing
Published: 2017-04-13T17:00:00+00:00

Jerrol slid into a jump seat near the rear and pulled down a console. He beat at the keys, and the door opened slowly.

Jim looked at his wrist again. “Fifteen seconds.”

Bobby pulled on the throttle, and the shuttle turned sideways. Jim grabbed onto the unused cargo tie-down as his feet slid out from under him. The unsecured cargo around him clanged and rolled about on the floor, or, Jim supposed, the ceiling. The shuttle rails scrapped against the opening airlock. The ship shuddered and stopped. Bobby’s feet pressed against the floor as he put all his weight into the joystick.

Five. Four. Three. Two.

The shuttle came free, and they shot into space. The ship behind them exploded into white light. Bobby put as much acceleration into it as the shuttle could provide. The artificial gravity caught up with the change in their orientation, and the floor became down again. The loose cargo thudded to the ground.

So did Jim.

Air escaped his lungs when he landed. The toe of his boot caught the floor, and his ankle twisted painfully as the rest of his weight came down on it. A hand appeared in his vision, blurred by pain. He reached out to it, and Chris hauled him up, his harness still tangled around his other arm. He winced as he put weight on the foot.

“You okay, boss?”

Jim opened his mouth to answer but the ship shuddered suddenly, and he fell back to the floor. Glancing up at the screen, the shockwave had caught up with them. The shuttled pitched and rocked as an expanding plasma field surrounded them. Debris knocked at them.

Jim grabbed at a handhold and pulled himself back up slowly. Leaning against the bulkhead to take the weight off his rapidly swelling ankle, he flinched at each dinging sound of metal against metal. “Can we reduce the gravity in here?” He winced again as the buffeting swayed him and forced more weight onto the injury.

He heard a tapping sound behind him, but the effort of turning around to satisfy his curiosity didn’t seem worth the additional pain. He felt lighter and the pain eased, if only just a little bit. Jim finally turned. Jerrol looked a little green. “Motion sickness?”

Before he could answer shuttle lurched and the stars in the viewscreen shifted. “We just lost the starboard engine,” Bobby announced.

“Can we still get back to the ship?” Jim hobbled up to the front of the shuttle.

“Yeah, but it will take us a while.”

“I’m not sure we have that long,” Melissa said. She pointed at her holo-screen. “Big chunk of the Star Destroyer is coming up behind us. Think it might be the bridge. At our current speed, it will overtake us in fifteen minutes.”

“Take evasive maneuvers,” Jim barked.

Bobby eyes moved to Melissa’s screen and then back to his. “That thing’s too big. I’ve got no real power to give. It would be like trying to get out of the way of a tanker ship in a rowboat.”

Jim sighed. “Can we ditch some of our cargo? Surely we can get by without some of this junk.

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