Wreckers: A Denver Boyd Novel by George Ellis (ebook reader ink .TXT) 📕

to blows, we had a bigger fish to fry. Klaxons sounded and red lights lit up my dash.

“We’ve got heat,” Gary said, referring to the new blip on the screen that was headed our way. The Burnett had begun firing on us, even as the Bear engaged her with its own rail guns.

“Alright, take over and evade…are those nukes?” I asked, seeing the purple signature of the blip as it homed in on us. “Damnit.”

I turned to Edgar and Batista. “Knock that off. Edgar, you wanna give it a go?” I motioned toward the weapons panel. The big man didn’t move. He just kept staring at Batista.

“What the hell is a Shrek?” he asked.

“Later!” I yelled, hoping to instill enough confidence in the command for him to listen. “I will explain all about the big green ogre –”

Edgar snapped his attention to me.

“– big green and extremely heroic ogre known as Shrek. I’ll even make you popcorn as you watch the movie!”

Edgar grunted and turned around toward his station. “This hunk of junk got any missile busters?”

I ignored the insult, knowing the question was rhetorical. “Batista, when you’re done trying to start fights, you may want to strap in.”

She moved to the co-pilot seat and did just that. I kept one eye on the monitor, where I watched the Bear and warbird attempting to strafe each other into oblivion. My other eye was on the camera in my quarters. “Gary, make sure Pirate gets tucked in.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do realize I’m a supercomputer, right? I don’t forget things like that,” he replied.

On the camera, I could see Pirate scurry into my quarters and through the open door of the padded cubby I’d designed for him. It had taken nearly six months, but I’d trained him to hide in the cubby whenever klaxons sounded, meaning whenever we were about to do some unpredictable maneuvers. Once he was in the cubby, it was Gary’s job to shut the gate and set the foam to expand based on Pirate’s position. It basically was like putting the cat in bubble wrap. Not perfect, but better than him being flung against the walls in the corner of whatever room he happened to be hiding in. Batista had teased me about the cubby when she first learned about it, but I could see that she too had a micro-sigh of relief when Pirate was safely foamed into place. He’d grown on her.

“How we doing on that nuke?” I asked, noting the blip was getting closer and closer. We had maybe 45 seconds until impact.

“Worry about your own problems,” Edgar said, preparing his counter-strike. Okay, then. I hoped the guy was as good as Desmond claimed when he forced me to take him on board.

Following Edgar’s advice, I continued plotting a course to take the Stang the long way to Jasper. That meant a looping route through pretty dense federation territory, but the prospect of being disintegrated by a future ship was an easy trade for actually being blown up by a current one.

“Last warning, we’re about to go to 15 g’s,” I told him.

He snorted, not even bothering to sit in his chair. I did see him flex his legs a bit though. Hey, his funeral.

I hit the gas, as they used to say, going to 90% of the Stang’s capacity.

The force came down like an anvil on my chest. An anvil that weighed a few hundred pounds. For a moment, it knocked the wind out of me and I saw stars. I could hear Batista grunt in the seat next to me. The speed probably bought us another 15 seconds or so to deal with that nuke. I strained to tilt my head and saw Edgar still standing in place, though he was now in a powerful crouch, all his muscles tense, holding him in place. He could have sat in the chair, but he was making a point.

“Loose,” he announced.

I turned to the scan and saw a green dot heading to intercept the federation nuke.

“How many?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” he replied. “One.”

I stared at the dot. One? What the hell was this psycho thinking? The Stang had a dozen nuke busters – and this guy had only sent one? I could see if he only fired like five or six in an arrow formation, but one?

“Got a little confidence, do we?” Gary chirped. “This Shrek guy is ballsy.”

“He’s gonna get us all killed,” Batista said, straining under the g-force. “Can you fire any more from there?”

“Working on it,” I answered.

Suddenly I felt two vice grips on my upper arms, holding them in place. They belonged to Edgar, who had somehow crossed the cabin despite 15 g’s. “How is that possible –”

“Watch and learn,” he said, cutting me off. I didn’t really have a choice. Although Gary did. “Gary, send a second salvo.”

“Uh, slight problem there, Denver…”

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, which was already somewhere around my knees thanks to the g’s.

“I disabled his weapons access,” Edgar explained. “Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.”

Who did this guy think he was, I thought to myself. I watched the monitor as the green dot approached the purple blip…and sailed by as the blip evaded it. Not good. Batista was right. The big moron had just got us all killed.

“Wait for it,” he said, enjoying the look of fear on my face. Once the buster was past the nuke, it somehow swung back around and was on its tail, picking up speed. “Missiles are all the same. Good at avoiding head-on countermeasures, but terrible at watching their back.”

A second later, both the dot and the blip were gone. Just like that. I had given us maybe one chance in five, but Edgar had made a joke of the whole encounter. I eased the throttle and felt my lungs begin to function more normally.

I stared at the screen in disbelief for a few moments. I had obviously misjudged the man.