The Wars of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (find a book to read .txt) 📕

- 'Listen to me carefully,' he growled at them, 'if you don't cooperate, you'll just die from suit decompression. Who are you?'

They both paled. But these were professional soldiers after all. They weren't going to give up that easily. So in defiance, they continued to remain silent.

Without saying another word, Zorin carefully poked a small hole in the laces of their suits and helmets.

- 'Wait,' Radsoil barely muttered. 'Neola's guilty.'

- 'Huh?,' Zorin just gaped. 'So there were others. Very interesting. Where is she?'

- 'Down in the caves,' Edward joined in.

Zorin left them without paying attention. Soon the decompression would finish them off completely. But he couldn't leave the pilot alone. She was too valuable. And she had to catch that Neola, too.

It wasn't long before he caught up to her and pinned her to the ground. She screamed and struggled, but Zorin managed to restrain her.

- 'There may be a slight change in your plans,' he said breathlessly.

When they returned they saw that there was indeed only room for four in the speeder. Zorin sat furthest back, keeping an eye on all three of them. One wrong move on their part and he'd blow their brains out. And with a clear conscience at that.

- 'What will be the course of the flight,' Sasia tried to ask him in a cool voice.

- 'Well, given what your colleague told me, I think I'm really going to fly in your direction!,' replied Zorin unperturbed.

Sasia was like being struck by thunder. But she steeled herself and said.

- This flight could be extremely risky and we could all die. Are you sure your body will be able to take the strain? We don't have special spacesuits, and I did the calculations under very primitive conditions. We may not be able to dock with another vehicle at all.

- 'You talk too much, my girl,' Zorin replied in a slightly altered voice, 'you obviously haven't noticed the state I arrived here in. That we are from two opposing camps doesn't change things much. We can help each other. You are deserters and I am a failed commander. I have tactical knowledge that those pseudo-commandos down there don't, but I have another quality that is even rarer. I can read minds. And I can see very easily when someone is trying to throw me overboard,' his voice held an unconcealed threat.

- 'Let's take off then,' Sasia confirmed. 'Everything is your responsibility.'

Zorin kept watching them, but none of them moved. The speeder peeled smoothly from the surface. The thrust of the four main engines had reached full power and it slowly rose vertically. Then came the hard part. They needed to reach an acceleration that would help them overcome the stratosphere and get out into near space in open orbit. Here, the trained warrior was not in his own waters at all. But he had no choice. There was no turning back. And he was a fugitive like them.

Gradually, as the machine rose, everything began to blur before his eyes. It was definitely different than the ziruarx here, but he had to endure. His body was clad in Radsoil's spacesuit. It was a little wide for him, despite his extraordinarily broad shoulders. They'd glued the small hole shut with embossed fabric glue. Everyone was required to carry a small tube in order to prevent more reversible decompressions if the suit's integrity was compromised. Zorin hoped it would last. He even prayed out loud. He could feel the first signs of that particular crush on his own body. And the pain was serious. He gritted his teeth. And tighter still his weapon, which he kept pointed at the backs of the three of them.

It was necessary to mention that the atmosphere of Zegandaria consisted of only two layers, the stratosphere and the exosphere. There was no presence of an ozone layer or thick and dense clouds of hydrogen sulfide. Just thick layers of haze that consisted mainly of water and methane and various gases. And as we said, it was poisonous and suffocating. The planet's eccentric orbit made some of its regions a veritable desert, while others were simply subject to regular downpours. Rodwell, where they had practically taken off from, was just such a destination. Sasia would have chosen a far more comfortable location on a whim, but unfortunately that was impossible.

Reaching the stratosphere didn't take them too long. Maybe about twenty-five minutes or even less. It was difficult to position themselves in the exosphere, where the situation was quite different. The hull of the machine had already begun to crack. Although it was a modern combat speeder, it was not suited for space travel.

- 'We've made it,' Sasia said after they'd been shuddering in a state of very low gravity for over an hour. 'Now get some oxygen from the reserve capsules. Get the erronian vests ready as well.'

These vests were special. Made of extremely strong BD 18 grade quizon, they were used for hanging ropes and other oddities. They would go out into open space, but not before alerting patrolling ships. ‘The Emsato 199 was the closer one and it would have been more convenient to board. Yes, they were going to be real pirates now.

- 'Get the weapons ready, but hide them,' Sasia ordered.

Zorin obeyed her, as here he had no doubt they were going to play his numbers. They all poured out of the ship's rumen and floated like babies into their mother's amniotic waters. Then they managed to attach special boarding hooks and secure themselves to the hull of the patrol ship. Whether they wanted to or not, they had to act as a team.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: EMZIROU

The bright spot grew larger. And it was closing in on Kenji's little escape pod with extraordinary speed. Its outline stood out very vaguely, but he was able to make out ‘Emzirou’. It couldn't be! He had heard that name! It was surely a large transport shuttle that could bring him to a safe haven! But how could he get her attention!

He was unable to steer the capsule as he wished, for he could easily veer from its flight path. And the autopilot might not be activated quickly enough, and he might lose this last chance of contact with other intelligent beings in open space, dooming himself to a slow doom. But it could have done something else! He pulled out a small exonium bomb he had carefully stashed in his spacesuit. He dropped it into a special launcher on the flares, and from there the bomb was simply sucked out of vacuum and flew out into open space.

At first nothing happened. There was absolutely no effect. But later, the shock wave created by the explosion seemed to stir up the space dust and rocks that passed dangerously close to its little life-saving shell. Yes, the cloud in question was very small against the infinite expanse, but the shuttle seemed to notice it.

The Emzirou activated red lights that were on either side of its hull. It was a distress or alarm signal. Gradually, the shuttle began to approach the appropriate destination.

Special aileron ropes, much stronger than the zerethium ones, were launched from the transport shuttle to the other small craft. They began to pull it to a close enough distance where an artificial gravitational field created by the shuttle would now suck the capsule in. This took long enough, due to the fact that there were quite a few problems with fixing the capsule, due to its extremely unconventional shape, which resembled a semi-curved rhomboid with the tips cut off.

It was still dangerous as many things could go wrong. Once the gravitational field was activated, the capsule lurched a bit clumsily before entering the larger space beast's rumen. ‘Emzirou’ had made it. It had been saved!

Someone was trying to open the capsule, but apparently without much success so far. Kenji was wearing a spacesuit so even her unsealing wouldn't be lethal to him. They could make out various vague silhouettes that had crowded around.

Kenji felt like a newborn that would leave its mother's comfortable womb at any moment and return to the hostile outside world. After a few minutes they removed the endosian cover and he saw faces he thought he had seen somewhere.

Captain David Penrose greeted him, grinning ear to ear. They had just returned from the colony, where they had stowed all the necessary provisions and equipment. Pindor was the only one who had managed to make it onto the ship, and Liroith and the others were still there, where a prison riot of unsuspected proportions had broken out. The colony, as we know, consisted of over five hundred prisoners and at least six hundred guards, separately administrative and command staff. In all about six hundred men. And that was no small number for such a remote point.

Even as Viar's greasy face came into view and he saw the overly strong guards, it was clear to Captain Penrose that something was amiss. Of course, they were only serving the final destination and there was no reason to get mixed up in this if they pretended they didn't see anything. The captain feared the shuttle would be detained and they arrested at the colony. But, thankfully, no such thing happened.

Pindor had saved himself in a very strange and unusual way. He was half dead when Liroith and the others came out of their comfortable hiding place and attacked the unsuspecting guards. They were armed with simple asteron cutters they had stolen from the warehouses and quarries. Combined with the surprise attack, they had gained a significant advantage.

Pindor's half-opened eyes had miraculously remained untouched when a plasma blast had torn through his collar and he was only left standing thanks to the suit's hydraulics. Throughout the whole ordeal he had walked almost as if in a dream, since the hydraulics were controlled by the neuroimpulses generated by the prisoners' brains, so they could get to their feet even if a guard entered their cell in the middle of the night. The distance between the execution site and the shuttle was less than a hundred meters, and Pindor was not relying on his own strength, but on the little remaining energy powering this exoskeleton of biobatteries.

No one had paid attention to him, for the plasma blasts had kicked up enough dust and broken crystals to distract attention from him for a time while the guards tried to restrain the prisoners.

One of the shuttle crew had spotted him when he was about ten meters away from them. They were just finishing unloading. Viar had retreated with his retinue, but as bad luck would have it, an accidental bounce had hit him in the suit's tether and he could have very easily died of decompression. His proximity to the transport shuttle saved him. He just walked inside, not realizing what he was doing. Captain Penrose was speechless as a large man wearing a battered spacesuit stood in front of him, foam coming out of his mouth and blood all over his face. He immediately noticed