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

duck. Between me floating around like a wayward puppy and the ship being tethered to The Yunan, my uncle had limited options to defend us.

“Stay clear of the nose,” my uncle said, just before a flurry of rail gun fire blasted from the Stang. I followed the trajectory of the blue streaks and saw a green ship evade the salvo just in time. It was about the same size as the Stang, just a bit thinner and longer. It veered to the side and seemed to be coming around to find a better offensive angle. It wouldn’t be hard for them. With the Stang in visual range, they’d be able to see that it was tethered to The Yunan.

I was still a hundred yards away from the Stang and desperately wishing I could speed up when I felt something latch onto my arm. I turned to see Jiang’s smiling face behind his visor. He pulled me toward the back of the transport pad he was riding. It was a flatbed style transporter used to ferry small lots of cargo around the ship. I swung myself onto the bed and we zipped toward the Stang’s open cargo bay door.

Once we landed inside, the bay doors closed and the room pressurized.

“We’re in!” I yelled into the helmet’s comm system just before tearing it off and breathing some fresh (recycled) oxygen. I turned to Jiang as he removed his helmet.

“Thanks for the lift.”

“No problem,” he said. “Tracers?”

“That’s what Uncle E says,” I replied. “You got any weapons on The Yunan?”

He pulled out his handheld. “Limited, but yeah.”

We arrived in the cabin just as Uncle Erwin was launching countermeasures against a pair of missiles headed right for us. “Ah, nice of you to give my nephew a ride. Strap in.”

I lowered into my co-pilot chair and checked the Tracer ship’s specs. It was not the most heavily armed or armored, but it had enough firepower at its disposal to take us out, especially in our vulnerable position. Jiang buckled into the seat near the weapons station and watched the monitor.

“Got anything good on that ship?” my uncle asked, echoing my question.

Jiang explained that he had a few missiles that may or may not fire properly. He had never had the need to use them, plus he’d have to remotely control the weapons system from his handheld. It was possible, he said, but there was just as much chance the missiles might choose the Stang as their target as they would the Tracer ship.

“Scratch that plan,” I said.

“I do have an EMP device that might work,” Jiang added.

My uncle nodded at that, then told us to brace for impact. One of the missiles had been taken out by the countermeasures, but the other had slipped through. It would reach us in a few seconds. My uncle dialed up the manual guns and dropped down the eyeglasses that usually rested atop his head. Then he grabbed the video game style joystick (it even had an Atari sticker on it that made my uncle chuckle every time he referenced it).

“Here goes nothing,” he said as he fired at the missile, trying to detonate it before it reached us. The Stang had armor plating and could handle smaller weapons fire and even missile explosions in the proximity, but a direct hit would likely tear a hole in the ship’s shell. And that would be that.

The blast rattled every part of my body, from my bones to my teeth. I had the sudden sensation of being hurled sideways and pummeled in the stomach at the same time. A few seconds later, I looked over and saw my uncle rubbing his bloody forehead. Jiang was woozy as well.

But we were all alive. “Guess I got it just in time,” Uncle E said.

“Minimal damage, none of it structural,” Gary said. “But that was cutting it pretty, pretty, pretty close, my friend.”

“We need to get out of this position,” Uncle E decided. “Sorry to undo all your work, Denver.”

“Undo the shit out of it!” I replied as he flipped a few switches. I watched on the monitor as the cables I’d just spent four hours fastening to The Yunan released in quick succession, lashing out into the black.

The Stang instantly sprang to life, my uncle flooring it (so to speak). We rose out of the donut hole and zoomed off in a direct line to intercept the Tracer ship. My uncle looked at me. “What are you waiting for?”

Oh. Right!

“Switch!” I yelled to Jiang as I unstrapped my safety belts. He did the same and we swapped positions. Once I was buckled into the chair at the weapons station, I plotted a few solutions and sent the Tracer ship a barrage of missiles, followed by rail gun fire.

“That’s good, but don’t spend it all at once,” my uncle reminded me.

“I know, I know.”

Truth be told, I was acting purely on muscle memory. It was the first time I’d ever had to actually use the weapons, as it was the first time the Stang had been in a scrape since I came aboard. Luckily, we’d practiced three times a week with a simulation. Each time, my uncle ratcheted up the complexity with a different number of ships or types of attacks. The point is, I had already fought this battle before, in theory.

Of course, theory wasn’t reality. My missiles were easily detonated by the Tracer ship. I did manage to strafe one of the wings with some rail gun fire, but it was impossible to tell how bad the damage was. Given the fact the Tracer ship continued to weave and accelerate, it was likely superficial.

My uncle was pissed. He wasn’t usually the type to get angry. But I guess trying to kill a man and his nephew was enough to make anyone a little upset. As he gave chase, trying to establish a more advantageous position for the Stang, Jiang was verbalizing his disgust with the Tracers and everything they stood for.