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

in her belly. A small fire that quickly lashed out to ignite a roaring inferno of anger. Shank that! Rocks and dirt bounced off of Ace as the Tree-knocker landed behind her. The beast’s fetid breath was hot on her neck and she felt its tail slam into the ground.

She spun around to face the creature, fitting as much of herself as she could behind her metal sheet shield. Towering over her on its back legs, the creature was heavily scaled except for its underbelly, the skin there so thin she could see the veins and arteries throughout its chest cavity. It has a weakness! The creature lashed out, its barbed tongue smashing against the shield with a reverberating thwack. Pus-like liquid pushed from the little sacs under the barbs. Poison too?

The Tree-knocker retracted its wicked tongue and opened its powerful jaws even wider—a hundred, blade-like teeth prepared to rip Ace apart. Its eyes burned with furious hunger as it roared. It could bite me in half. A claw came slashing down, crashing into her shield. The force of the blow flung the shield from her hands and threw her through the air—slamming into the pile of trees. The Tree-knocker advanced again but she quickly rolled off the trunk and into the collapsed tree pile.

Ace tumbled down through the jagged tangle of boughs and landed hard on the ground beneath the pile, the ragged ends of broken branches digging into her back. Three meters above her, the knocker‘s claws tore through the fallen trunks. Each swipe tore chunks out of the trees, showering her with a rain of splinters. Why couldn‘t the trees be real wood?! She scrambled to her knees and pushed through the pile, desperately scanning the debris around her for a path she could use to reach the top of the heap.

An angry bellow reverberated through the clustered mess of wood. It‘s pissed that I‘m not there! The pile shifted as trunks and branches snapped behind her. She rolled to her left and the space she had occupied filled with splintered spikes of a tree. It's digging into the pile! Reaching up, she started to climb. Twigs and branches scraping across her arms and face, she ignored the pain and focused only on the fading red light of the sky above her.

Breaking through the last of the red leaves, she emerged at the top of the pile. It was much larger than she first thought. Almost a mountain. Searching frantically, she finally saw the glint of metal. There it is! She pulled herself up onto a horizontal trunk and stood. Extending her arms and keeping her knees bent, she maintained her balance as she walked the length of the tree toward her makeshift spear. Ain’t nothing ever easy. The pile shook from the Tree-knocker’s thrashing; Ace reached the spear and yanked it free.

Below her, the Tree-knocker continued to search for her. Half of its enormous body was buried in the tree pile, its back legs unsteady, huge talons dug into the trunks and its tail stuck straight up in the air for balance. I’m only going to get one shot at this. Ace examined the area. I need an advantage, damn it. Her eyes settled on a tree. There.

Ace hopped from tree to tree, using her smaller size to her advantage to move through the tangled pile. She reached the spot she had identified and frowned. Will this work? Standing wide-legged, she thrust the spear between two trees and leaned back, pulling the shaft, using it as a lever. “C’mon!” A snap echoed and the Tree-knocker stopped, then scrambled to back out of the cavern it had created in the pile. Ace reached into the raging inferno of her soul and, for a moment, saw the brilliant light of her greatness. “Arhhh!” The pile shifted.

With a crack, the trunk gave way and the pile collapsed. The Tree-knocker roared as the trees slammed against it, pushing it down to its side. Ace fell and rolled against a trunk, waiting for the movement to stop. She slowly pulled herself up and looked down the pile to the carnage below. A trunk had pierced the creature’s side, pinning the beast down. Its front legs were trapped under the log it had landed on. Labored breath slowly lifted and lowered the enormous chest cavity. The sound escaping the beast reminded Ace of a whimpering dog.

Standing up, she drew the creature's attention. It started to fight against its impromptu prison and stopped with a screech of pain. Its eyes locked onto Ace as she carefully worked her way toward the beast. You are amazing. If you had wings you’d be a dragon. When she was meters away, the Tree-knocker thrashed one more time, tearing its side open even more. Looking in its violet eye she saw fear and pain. “It was a good hunt. I thought you had me there a couple of times.” She widened her stance, shoulder-width apart. Spear in hand, she raised her right arm and held out her left hand with fingers spread. She spotted her mark and focused her aim. “I will honor you.” She threw her spear.

  5: Cam

Camron Shaw stared at his reflection in the mirror, making sure he was cleanly shaven. Want Gwen to see me at my best. He wiped down his viberazor before placing it back in his meticulously arranged backpack. Turning from his small sleeping bunk, Cam tapped a button on the vidport to connect to his family via Gate-Link. The ship‘s communication relay converted the signal into a tight-beam energy pulse that the jump gates transmitted through their power matrix. While not instantaneous, it was nearly so.

The small screen flashed the words “Camron Shaw calling Shaw Residence. 4:27 a.m. local time.” The screen turned white and slowly the colors and shapes came into focus. Cam saw Gwen leaning back from turning on the screen.