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

back. He held up two fingers, indicating a pair of threats loomed nearby. He prepared his weapon and spun around the corner.

I heard four or five quick pops, then a pair of thuds.

“Clear,” Edgar said. As I moved the cart forward, a tiny stream of blood trickled across the floor under the wheels. It belonged to one of the now-dead Rox crew members. They were in exo-suits and must have been off ship when the gas was deployed. Edgar had tapped each of them in the head with a hollow point. They were murderers, anyway, I told myself, reminding myself of Jiang’s assurance that I was a good man. I was still torn on whether to believe him.

“Are you okay?” Romy asked Edgar, looking at the blooming wound on his upper thigh. He smiled through a grimace and shook it off.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” a muffled voice said from behind us. “Turn around slowly, weapons low.”

We did as instructed. There was a Rox crew standing there with an automatic weapon pointed at Edgar. He had us all dead to rights if he was fast enough. The man was roughly my size and had curly brown hair. He scanned the scene from Edgar to Romy, finally settling on me and the utility cart. He smiled from behind the mask.

“Hi Denny,” my brother said. “You look like shit.”

If I’d been wondering how I was going to react to seeing Avery alive and well, the answer came in the form of a tightness in my chest and a tense jaw. I wanted to scream at him and smile at the same time. I did neither. I just stared at him, stunned.

“It’s good to see you, too,” he cracked, lowering his weapon.

Edgar snapped his own gun back up, aiming at Avery. I raised an arm to calm the situation. “It’s my brother, Edgar.”

“I know it’s your brother, dumbass,” he said. “I was on this ship with him, remember? I’m pointing my gun at his face because I’m not sure we can trust him.”

“That’s too bad, tough guy,” Batista said. She was standing next to Edgar, her own gun touching his temple.

Avery smiled once again and started walking toward us. I could see Edgar seething, but he lowered his weapon.

My brother stopped about a couple feet from me. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I went for snark. “I told you not to call me Denny.”

He pulled off his mask, smirked and we shared a look that said we’d find time to discuss things after we were back on the Stang. Then he turned to Batista. She came in for a hug.

“Aw, puke,” Edgar said.

“Shut up, Boom-Boom,” Avery replied.

I watched as Edgar turned dark red. For the first time since I’d known her, Romy laughed. Well, it was more of a snort.

“Boom-Boom?” she snickered.

“I guess we know why he went AWOL,” I joked.

The light-hearted moment was interrupted by a torrent of bullets that shredded the wall next to my head. Fragments of metal ricocheted off my body as we all dove for cover.

“Watch the drive, you idiots!” Griss yelled at his crew.

I couldn’t see how many were with him, but there should have been none. In my haste, I must have messed up the formulation for the gas. Edgar returned fire as Batista and Avery scrambled behind the utility cart next to me.

“This part of your plan, Denny?”

“Call me that one more time and I’m leaving you here,” I hissed.

He put his hands up in mock surrender. Meanwhile, Marcum stirred to life. It took him a moment to orient himself.

“Why am I being transported like chattel?” he asked.

“I’ll explain later,” I said. “Just stay put for now. I mean, the closer you are to the device, the safer you are anyway.”

“In theory!” he cried.

“Avery, tell me there’s an easier way to get back to the airlock without going through Griss and his men,” I said.

“We could just jump out the side door,” he said.

I walked into that one. I had forgotten how similar our senses of humor were, a fact that never helped us bond; we were always just poking at each other.

“Let’s pretend I wanted to get back to the Stang alive,” I said.

“Ohhhhh…” he mocked. “We could go right up the gut.”

Edgar fired off a few more shots, wounding somebody based on the scream at the other end of the corridor. He looked at us and agreed with Avery. “Let’s go up the gut.”

“Am I missing something?” Batista asked. I had the same question floating in my head.

“The Rox has a single corridor that spans from front to back, or face to ass, if you will,” Avery explained. “It goes right through the bridge and the galley. Right up the gut. The shortest distance between two points and all that.”

Romy leaned closer to me, nervous. I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it probably looked more like a pained grimace. We all backed up a few feet so we were behind Edgar and Avery, who were sending the cover fire at the enemy. During a break in the maelstrom, Griss laughed.

“Got you pinned down, Avery!” he barked. “And I can see your ugly mug on the cameras too, Boom-Boom! It’s going to be fun taking you both apart, piece by piece.”

“Come and try it!” Edgar dared. Then he whirled and shot out the two cameras in the vicinity.

Griss laughed. “You’ll never make it, boys. Give up now and I promise I’ll just space you. I’ll make it quick. This is a limited time offer!”

Edgar responded by rolling a grenade down the corridor. It exploded into a ball of gas and fire, and the percussion stunned me for a moment. The next thing I knew Edgar was next to me, pulling me toward the “gut” corridor.

“Boom-Boom…” I stammered, dazed.

He slapped me hard across the face to wake me up. It worked, but damn if he didn’t hit me hard enough to break my jaw. I checked it a