Rogue Battleship (Green Zone War Book 5) by Jake Elwood

Author:Jake Elwood [Elwood, Jake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

The road wasn't impressive by Earth standards, but Tom figured it was fairly typical for a colony world. It seemed to have been formed by dumping a lot of water-rounded rocks on the ground, pouring asphalt over them, and more or less smoothing it all out. The end result was bumpy but navigable, a strip of asphalt with smooth curved rocks poking up like cobblestones.

Tom was accustomed to the laser-straight roads that cut through the Canadian prairies. This road meandered and wandered, curving to follow the contours of the ground, bending to avoid outcroppings of crystal. He figured it would be frustrating to drive on, between the bumps and the curves. Walking on it was downright irritating. He had to constantly watch his step, all the while glancing up and down the road and scanning the horizon in every direction for threats.

Tom walked at the head of the column, while O'Reilly brought up the rear. The day was getting warmer, the heat exacerbated by exercise. Tom undid the top button of his uniform shirt and sighed, wondering how much warmer it was going to get.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

He glanced at the woman walking beside him. He didn't know her name. She was tiny, with dark skin and straight hair and an exasperated expression. She said, “What kind of colony imports mosquitoes?”

Tom looked around, checking for flying bloodsuckers, but didn't see any. He looked at the woman and raised an eyebrow.

She lifted a hand, ready to swat, then lowered it. “I can hear a mosquito. It's getting louder, too.”

Tom cocked his head. All he could hear was the scuff of feet and the grumble of conversation from the spacers behind him. Well, what's the good of being Commodore if you can't tell people what to do? “Everybody be quiet!”

The spacers fell into a startled silence. Tom kept walking, trying to move his feet quietly. He could hear the steady slide and slap of feet against the roadway, and birdsong from the closest clump of trees. Was that there all along? It's nice. Sounds like chickadees ….

There. Under the sound of birdsong and the rustle of grass and a light breeze. A wining drone, faint but growing louder.

“That's no mosquito.” Adrenaline lashed through his system, but he made himself stand frozen for a moment. He turned in a circle, scanning the terrain in every direction. The closest trees were on the left, but they formed an isolated clump. On the right, at a distance of fifty meters or so, there was a wall of pines that seemed to be connected to straggling fingers of scruffy forest that stretched for at least a kilometer.

“Aircraft coming!” Tom bellowed. The whole column fell silent, heads turning, eyes focusing on him. He pointed to the distant line of trees and took a deep breath. “We'll take cover in those trees. Double time. Let's move, people!”

They were halfway to the trees when someone gasped and pointed at the sky. Tom said, “Keep moving,” then turned to look.

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