Martian Jump Gate (Tin Man Space Opera Adventure Book 1) by James David Victor

Author:James David Victor [Victor, James David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairfield Publishing
Published: 2022-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

The compound felt crowded with everyone on Keppler gathered inside. It was the first and only time they would all stand in the same room. Things were so compact between the people and the ships that there was barely room for Kyle and Tir’s battling egos.

Tir stood front and center ready to begin his briefing when Kyle stepped in to cut him off.

“Here’s the deal,” Kyle began. He maintained the composure of a military officer but spoke with a frankness that the Manifest workers responded to. “We’re ready to fly. The work you’ve all done on these ships is impressive. You turned working machines into fighting machines. Unfortunately, that was the easy part. Now, we need to use them.” His voice left no room for question. Some of the miners had held out hope that the path to Phobos would be clear, that the moon would be empty of enemies, full of their friends waiting to throw a party when they arrived. Kyle gestured for Isaac to address the group.

“The drone returned a few hours ago,” Isaac said. “We’ve just finished analyzing the data.” He waved to a man to his left, who pushed a cart to Isaac’s side. The modified mining drone sat on top of the cart. Isaac plugged a computer into a terminal on the drone’s side and projected an image on an empty section of wall. Grainy at first, the picture cleared with some adjustments. Most wished it hadn’t.

“What the hell is that?” someone in the crowd said.

“That,” Isaac said, pointing to a large dark section of the image, “is an enemy ship.” A round of curses rolled through the crowd, shaking Isaac, who seemed to take them personally. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Are you looking at the same picture?” a miner asked. His name was Talbot. A mouthy one that Shoji had come to know well. He was adversarial by nature, which made him a real chore to teach. He questioned everything, challenged Shoji for the sake of challenging him, but the same headstrong nature that made him a pain as a student also made for a good pilot. He charged ahead without fear, and he would take the fight to the enemy.

“Yes,” Isaac said. “That is a very large ship. From what little intel we have, we liken it to a destroyer-class ship.”

“Oh, well that’s not so bad,” Talbot said, throwing his hands in the air.

Shoji slapped him on the back of the head. “Let him finish.”

Isaac nodded in appreciation. “It has a large payload of munitions and the capability to transport a dozen starfighters.”

Talbot glanced over his shoulder to check whether Shoji was still in slapping distance. After locking eyes, the miner turned back forward and remained silent.

“But we don’t believe it is operating at full capacity,” Isaac continued. “Thermal scans show the ship running on a skeleton crew. If they launch all their starfighters, the destroyer crew will be spread too thin to pose a significant threat. If they don’t launch any starfighters, then we will be able to focus all our fire on the destroyer.

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