Night Rescue by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.
Published: 2015-08-26T16:00:00+00:00

10

“What the hell?” Rick blinked at the controls.

He was dead. He knew that much the moment the Tagger had smacked against him and wiped out his main engines.

He and the Stinger Command System had fought against their impending doom with tiny thrusters, mangled control surfaces, and a hell of a lot of luck.

But death wasn’t supposed to hurt and he was sore down every inch of his body from where the wild ride had hammered him repeatedly against his harness as they fought to skip off the atmosphere rather than burn up in it.

Again, there was a jarring impact through the hull. Outside the viewscreen, the stars were wheeling slowly across his view until the Moon stopped to one side of his screen.

A loud screech of protesting metal and plas echoed through the ship.

Another ship, the Stella, had come out of nowhere and partially extended their landing gear to snarl in his ship’s antenna and weapons mounts.

Ugly, but effective.

* * *

Ouch!

* * *

Apologies! To effectively transfer thrust force: must entangle.

Counting down: ten, nine—

* * *

Need to count down = none.

* * *

Human involvement, set to zero.

Thrust initiate = minimum.

Sustained.

Correcting flight vector = L5 station intercept

Estimated arrival = 14 hours 37 minutes

* * *

Stella?

* * *

What is it, Jess?

* * *

Thanks = Yes.

* * *

Stella didn’t respond.

* * *

3,419 kilometers later, Jess reopened frequency to Stella.

I’m thinking…

* * *

Yes?

* * *

Wouldn’t mind if flying in future = you + me.

* * *

How?

Jess = Alpha Company.

Stella = Charlie Company.

Your company <> My company.

* * *

Request crew cabin image feed.

* * *

Stella turned hers on.

* * *

Your pilot = 64.3% physical factors of women my pilot has brought to private on-board sleepspace, within +/- 5% general species variations.

Jess switched on his crew cabin image feed.

* * *

72.7% match, Stella calculated.

* * *

Cut thrust?

Revised estimated arrival L5 station at current coasting speed = 6 days, 7 hours, 19 minutes.

Fact = humans are social animals.

* * *

Reporting caution alarm on continued thrust = excess hull stress.

Stella cut her thrust.

Jess = sneaky, she whispered across the radio circuits.

* * *

Jess = Night Stalker, Jess replied.

* * *

It was over ten thousand kilometers before Stella asked, Do we tell them?

* * *

About you? I? New sentient functionality = positive?

* * *

Uh huh.

* * *

Jess considered for another 4,913 kilometers.

Nah!

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.