Dawn by Eleanor Porter (best finance books of all time TXT) 📕

“Why are you following us?” Jessie demanded, his face filling the screen on the other ship. “Who sent you?”

In answer they opened fire, the quad guns sending a barrage of deadly orbs from the plasma cannons and heat seekers shot out of the tubes, locked in and raced towards them.

“Oh shit!” Jessie said and hauled the controls hard to the right, feathered the foot pedals and went into a spiraling dive. The plasma orbs tried to curve and follow but his angle was too sharp and they flew past. The missiles had their own energy source and turned to give chase. Maddy hung upside down in her seat as Jessie rolled away again and she targeted them. Her mind worked faster than the ancient computer on the ship and her eyes darted, calculated then tapped the triggers. She blew the missiles out of the black sky and sent volley after volley into the fleeing ship but they bounced harmlessly away, deflected by the rear shields. The two pilots fought for position, rolling, spiraling and feinting, sometimes closing to within a mile of each other but Prashad was good. One of the best. His long years of experience made up for what he couldn’t match with Jessie’s’ twitch speed reactions and ability to respond instantly. The Madroleeka command ship was taking a beating. Maddy kept the heat seekers off of them but they kept coming, volley after volley while at the same time the big plasma gun hammered away at their shields. The brothers fought well as a team and had never been beat.

“We need to break contact.” Maddy said when Jessie continued to ignore the warning alarms that were getting more urgent with every round that hit them.

“Jump back through the portal, it will give us time to flee.”

“I’m not running.” Jessie said and went into another spiraling dive to avoid a volley of boulder sized plasma rounds.

There was nothing she could do; she was barely able to keep the barrage of heat seekers off of them. If she let up for even a second, they would punch through the shields.

The reptilians had a bigger ship, more weapons and powerful shield generators but Jessie had speed. He spun away from a volley of plasma balls, rolled hard then shot under the brothers. He came up at an oblique angle in front of them, his wing passing within feet of their front ports, close enough to make the pilot throw his hands over his face, sure they were going to crash. Scarlet spun her guns, tracked her target while hanging sideways going a thousand miles an hour and fired once directly into the plasma cannon at near point-blank range. There was a satisfying series of explosions and debris flew from the ship as they shot off to circle back around. Jessie had flown insanely close to get inside their shield generators.

Jessie and Maddy watched the monitor as it jumped and colors faded in and out. The other ship had been breached and they saw the pilot struggle in the rushing air to patch the holes with sticky sheets of flexible alloy. Various sirens and warning buzzers where loud in the ship and danger lights flashed on the control panel. Smoke poured from the rear of the ship and a deluge of fire suppressant covered the interior. The lizard man unstrapped the gunner, laid him on the floor and worked on him for a moment before giving up. There was a lot of greenish fluid leaking out of him from dozens of deep cuts.

They watched the fuzzy, jumping screen and the joy of his daring victory faded. The man was on his knees, head bowed over his fallen comrade. His ship was in complete disarray with dangling ceiling panels, smoldering wires and warning lights flashing on every instrument.

“Should we offer to help?” Jessie asked. “He’ll die out here if we don’t, won’t he?”

“He is Reptilian.” Maddy said. “He will not accept help. He will kill you if you try.”

“I think he was planning on killing me anyway.”

“He will kill you twice, then. It is a grave insult to offer aide to one you have vanquished in battle.” She said. “We are close to the gate and he is drifting towards it. On the other side there is a little traffic. A trade ship will help him.”

They watched him mourn but before Jessie could switch the monitor off, give him a little privacy with his sorrow, the lizard man stood abruptly and walked to face the shifting images on his screen. He stared directly into Jessie’s eyes and showed his teeth, both rows of pointed fangs exposed. He held his gaze for a moment then shimmered away as the disabled ship was pulled through the jump gate.

“We must avoid him in the future.” Maddy said. “You have been marked.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Jessie agreed. “Dude looked pissed.”

32

The Agro Planet

“Are we there yet?” Jessie asked, his feet up on the console.

“No.” Maddy said “We will arrive in twelve hours thirty-seven minutes.”

Jessie made a Jacobs Ladder with the loop of string he was playing with.

“Are we there yet?” he asked again a few minutes later.

“No.” Maddy said. “We will arrive in twelve hours thirty-one minutes.”

“Are we there yet?” he asked a moment later.

“No.” She said “We will arrive…

“Never mind.” He cut her off, annoyed. “It’s more fun when the other person gets aggravated.”

She turned and smiled at him. “Yes, it is.”

He stopped fiddling with the string and stared at her.

“Oh you tricky devil.” He said and grinned back when he realized she’d turned the joke on him. “You’re getting good.”

He leaned back in the captain’s chair and sighed, bored out of his mind. Space travel sucked, it felt like you were sitting still for days. No wonder nobody ever went anywhere that wasn’t close to a jump gate.

They had been gathering supplies for months from various spaceports and planets as they kept jumping towards