Easy Prey by Stephanie Barr

Author:Stephanie Barr
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: humor, space opera, romance, science fiction, adventure, orbital mechanics

"You think you're pretty smart," Damon began.

"Don't I?" the pilot replied perkily. "By the way, your energy weapons, Mansan and Limnal will have no effect on my ship. A friendly word of advice."

Damon had been shaken by the precise—and accurate—description of his highly unusual ship, but that last was totally unexpected. Maybe the pilot was bluffing. "So you say."

"Oh, please, try," the pilot pleaded, stifling chuckles. "Laughter is my favorite thing to do except needling Nayna."

Damon's eye caught the chronometer and his body felt the slight adjustment, through the dampers, of their burn for rendezvous. The little bastard was right under him and clear as day on camera. "Time's up, funny man. Shall we board you or punch you full of holes? Prepare the blasters," he snapped to the gunner, who took his thumb of the Mansa and moved his hand to the blaster arrays.

"Hmm," the pilot said. "I'll take neither."

On Damon's camera, the ship yawed 180 degrees and blasted her main engines, so the Orca flew right past her. The tail cameras caught the scout ship sinking into the opaque atmosphere.

"Shit," Damon said with feeling.

"Still have them on sensor, Cap'n. Should I fire?" the gunner, Sil, said.

"Don't fire!" West and Damon said at the same time.

Sil, ex-space navy, didn't argue but definitely looked disgruntled. Damon explained. "He's going to sink into the atmosphere until he changes course. If we disable him, we'll have no way for us to fish him out except to go down after him, and this ship isn't rated for atmospherics, especially pressures like those. Even his ship can only go so far, but we'll have to wait for him to come back."

"I've lost 'im," the gunner said with a grimace. "Stupid clouds."

"Can't see him," Damon said. "Any sensors that might be able to track that bastard?"

Comm and Track, a tidy redhead named Tela, shook her head. "No transponder signal and, this close to the atmosphere, we're getting static interference. This gas giant has a pretty powerful magnetosphere. Even our cameras are a little touchy."

"The good news," Damon said, "is he can't stay there long. In that much atmosphere he can't hold orbit and flying will be turbulent even a few clicks in. Plus, the pressure on that bastard's got to be too much for that ship if he goes very deep. So, he will come back out and probably soon. But I don't have any idea where. What do you think, West?"

West thought, then shrugged his shoulders in defeat. "He could do anything. If it were me, I'd come back just under cover and swing around the world beneath us so we wouldn't know, high tail it when I got to the far side while we were still twiddling our thumbs."

"That'd be smart. I could see that, but I don't think this little smart ass is going to flit off without taunting us. That was a showy move. I think he's going to come back to play with us. We better be ready."

Eyes turned back to sensors.

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