Truehearts & The Escape From Pirate Moon by Jake Macklem (ebook audio reader TXT) 📕

out of sight. “Follow my entry angle exactly. Once we break into the upper exosphere, on my mark, pull up hard. Don’t break into the Thermo layer—lightning will fry us.”

“That’s your plan?” Smith did not sound confident. “Not a lot of room for error.”

“Would you rather get in a shootout with that cruiser? We drop just inside the exosphere and slingshot out the other side. They have to go the long way. It gives us a chance to get to the gate. We can do this, Smith.”

“You can do this, Ace!” Smith’s voice was on the verge of hysteria.

She’s losing it. “I ain’t doing this alone, hussy.”

“You’re a real shank-hole, you know that?” Smith sounded stronger.

The lights on Ace’s console flashed. “They’re firing their mags!”

The use of mag cannons was outlawed, but pirates favored them. Dozens of cannons on the cruiser fired, scattering thousands of metal shivs at over half the speed of light.

“Ignite main thruster!” Ace shouted as she flipped a switch. She was not prepared for the intense pressure from the G’s. Inertial dampers must be damaged. Her blood struggled to reach her brain. Just a few more seconds. Don’t pass out. The ship started to shake under the stress. Blackness crept in on the edges of her vision, then everything went still and quiet. The engine cut off, her main fuel module depleted. As the blood flooded back into her brain, the blackness retreated. Regaining her awareness, Ace realized she had dropped below the exosphere.

“Smith you with me?” Ace asked, steadying herself. A blur shot past her. Smith’s fighter!

“I’m here!” Smith’s voice was shaky.

Beeping and sirens rang out through the cockpit. Looking down, the cacophony of light and alarms from her sensors warned that the magnetically propelled flechettes were closing rapidly. “Smith we have to change course now! Pull up!”

“Acknowledged,” she responded.

Ace slammed the stick back and held it. The ship rattled. “Switching to reserves! Thrusters on my mark for a three count!” Ace watched the dropping elevation and the closing pieces of metal. Her hand hovered over the ignitor. If we are going to break loose the angle has to be perfect.

“My ship can’t take this!” Smith shouted.

“It will hold!” Ace swallowed. I hope. “Mark!” She slammed the ignitor and the momentum of the ship shifted, the shivs closing even faster. “Shivs incoming!”

“Shivs?” Smith screamed.

Waves of lightning flashed through the clouds. Spreading as far as she could see, they looked like a mountain range dotted with glaring peaks. Pretty but deadly. “Barrel roll and accelerate back out of the planet’s exosphere!” Ace slammed the stick and the ship responded.

“What?” Smith cracked over the headset.

“Do it!” Ace held her ship in place, building speed as she prepared to propel her ship back into space on the other side of the green gas giant.

The stick rattled against the bones of her fingers. “Almost there!” Ace felt relief as the exosphere began to thin and the black of space and stars filled the windshield of her fighter.

“Hart!” Smith cried.

“Smith!” Little tinking sounds reverberated through the hull of Ace’s fighter. Alarms wailed as a white wave of webbed lightning rushed toward the craft from the planet and washed over the ship. The Warthog’s alarms stopped screaming at her as all the electric devices ceased functioning. She floated aimlessly in silence. “Smith? Come in?”

Ace leaned forward in her seat, craning her neck around to scan the area. There was no sign of Smith’s ship, but she did see the cruiser falling toward the planet. That shock wave knocked them out too. What caused that discharge? A pit opened in Ace’s stomach and her throat threatened to never let her breathe again. It was Smith’s Warthog. Smith is dead. Water filled the corners of her eyes and ran down her cheeks. I’m the last one.

Shank you, Smith! Surprised by her emotions, she swallowed against the knot in her throat. They weren’t strong enough. I am. I’m not gonna die out here. Ace shut down everything and tried to reboot the fighter. Nothing happened. Start, damn it. Start!

Smith’s gone. She drifted away from the big planet, unsure if she had enough speed to escape its enormous gravity well. The whole team’s dead. In a broken ship, out of fuel, with nowhere to go, she was not sure it really mattered. And I‘m stuck in the black. Shanking great! Exhausted and with no one to impress—the sobbing tears came freely. It was the last mission. It was close, Mick. We almost did it.

The shaking ship woke her up. Ace realized she had escaped the giant only to be captured by the gravity of one of its moons. Crashing will be quicker than drifting. While she gathered her wits, the ship broke through the clouds, and below was a streaking rush of reds and purples, mountain tops and valleys. She could see bodies of liquid linked by streams and rivers and she saw trees. Life. Maybe oxygen!

Ace tried to reboot the instruments. Nothing. She worked the control stick; it felt like molasses but the flaps responded. Ace fought the stick as the ship fell out of the sky. I can glide in for a landing… probably.

 2: Ace

Clink-clink.

The tripwire! Ace’s eyes popped open.

The night sky was littered with millions of stars and she knew none of them. Shifting carefully in the nook of branches, a sharp pain ripped through her side. Damn ribs!

Ace paused to relax and let the agony of it wash over and through her.

She looked down to the ground below. Just over sixty centimeters tall and almost as wide, a creature was using its tusks to gouge up chunks of dense soil. It hopped up and brought its front legs down onto the clumps to crumble them, then rooted through the loose soil with