Ghost Jumper (Interstellar Getaway Pilot Book 2), page 1
GHOST JUMPER
INTERSTELLAR GETAWAY PILOT
A. A. WARREN
GHOST JUMPER
A. A. Warren
Copyright © 2024 by Andrew Alexander Warren. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
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CONTENTS
Readers Group
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
THANK YOU!
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CHAPTER ONE
Sweat drips down my face, and my helmet feels like it's glued to my scalp. It’s hot and cramped in the cockpit of my Mark 35b Trident star fighter. The recycled air I breathe reeks of sweat and engine lubricant. A million blinking lights and wailing alarms scream for my attention, but I ignore them all. Instead, I keep my eyes focused on the tiny sliver of metal streaking through the black void ahead of me.
It’s just one target. One ship among thousands, maybe more. Machines of war blot out the flickering heavens. Swarms of fighters, gargantuan battle cruisers, emergency transports fleeing the planet below... They're everywhere. Energy beams crisscross the black, and plasma explosions fill the cockpit of my tiny ship with a neon glow.
The only thing standing between me and that cold last dance in the void is the armored hull of my Trident fighter, a ship built by the lowest-bidding contractor, someone who wasn’t even a member of my species. Humans don’t build much of anything anymore. Not anything anyone wants, anyway.
Centuries ago, we had our shot. And we blew it, big time. Now, humanity’s greatest value to the new masters of our galaxy is as soldiers. That’s the nice way to put it.
Cannon fodder might be a little more accurate.
The targeting alarm cuts through the surrounding chaos, and I focus my attention on the ship I’m chasing. It’s rolling over, trying to pull off an Immelmann turn so it can circle back to target my rear end.
“Nice try, asshole,” I whisper to myself. My voice sounds hollow and distant in the cockpit. I match the enemy fighter’s maneuver, keeping it lined up in my sights. The floating holographic crosshairs in my visor glow red, and I hear that beautiful electronic chime. Target lock.
I squeeze the trigger on the Trident’s flight stick. Brilliant blue energy beams streak between our two ships, pulsing as my triple cannons cycle their output to avoid overheating. The Vrell fighter darts around the first volley, but the second burst clips its rear engines. Sparks leap from its thruster jets, and the ship tumbles away on a random vector, wobbling like a child’s toy.
It explodes somewhere off my starboard side, but I don’t see it. Instead, I'm too busy dodging enemy fire. I close in on a League cruiser as it cuts through the swarm of fighters. Streaking behind its rear fins, I search for cover.
Two loud squawks of static blast through my helmet. I know the signal by heart. Fleet-wide communication, priority one.
“All vessels, repeat, all vessels!” The voice has that weird accent they’ve never been able to program out of the translation software. “Medical Frigate Bel’Daroth under attack. League fighters, please respond!”
Bel’Daroth. Laura’s ship.
I glance down at the cockpit’s dash, look at the tiny scrap of paper tucked into a crevice between metal panels. Laura stares back at me from the picture. She’s making that funny smile of hers, the one where she rolls her eyes. I can almost hear her laughing, probably at my expense.
I call up the frigate’s coordinates on my nav display and break away from the cruiser. The Bel'Daroth is in low orbit, just over the shimmering planet below. I divert power to thrusters, maxing out the Trident’s speed. The rapid acceleration compresses the G-Shock gel in my seat, and I can feel the skin on my face and neck pulling tight. My throat mic activates as I respond to the distress call.
“This is Sundance 1971-J, responding to Bel’Daroth distress call. I’m on my way!”
I know Laura can’t hear me. She’s not on fleet comms. Instead, she’s tucked away in a naval hospital, deep within the bowels of the ship. Probably covered in three different colors of blood, fusing together the mangled bodies of idiots like me. But I repeat the words like a mantra, a silent whisper, too quiet for the throat mic to pick up. I’m on my way, Laura.
A new alarm wails through the cockpit. “Warning,” a synthetic voice drones in my helmet. “PPP energy signature detected.”
PPP… phased plasma projectile. The Star League’s been working on the design for a decade now. Never quite been able to stabilize the interaction between the energy containment field and the explosive plasma within. Unfortunately, our enemies, the Vrell Confederacy, seem to have solved that minor problem.
“Warning!” the computer screams again. “Two launches detected! Warning!”
I divert more power to thrusters, shutting down two of my three cannons to steal a little extra juice. “All squadrons, this is Phoenix Squadron Leader, Sundance 1971-J!” I shout. “I’m tracking both projectiles, but I’m out of the strike zone. Any other ships in range?”
“No good, Sundance!” a deep voice crackles back. It’s Joven Kosik, another human pilot.
Joven’s my wingman, call sign Highball. He should be in formation right beside me, but in the chaos of battle, we got separated. A chorus of similar replies fills the comm channel. I’m the closest ship with eyes on the incoming fire.
A single PPP is more than capable of taking out a frigate. Now, two of them are heading for the medical ship. Ten thousand five hundred souls in harm’s way, including civilians.
Including her.
“Copy that,” I reply. “Moving to intercept.”
All traces of emotion leave my voice. There’s no room for feelings, no room for bullshit pilot bravado. A PPP moves at sublight speeds, but it’s still damn fast, and it’s smaller than a fighter. Shooting one down is almost impossible. Taking them both out before they reach their target… that’ll take a goddamn miracle.
More ships and debris streak past me as energy blasts reflect in my canopy. I’m laser focused on two tiny bundles of glowing energy tearing through space ahead of me at thousands of kilometers per hour. My crosshairs blink on and off. The Trident’s targeting systems struggle to lock on to the closest projectile. I’ve only got one cannon active. I’m stealing power from the rest to keep up with the damn thing.
Taking a deep breath, I nudge the flight stick a millimeter to the right. I’m close enough to see it clearly now. It looks like a tiny sun, a glowing bundle of explosive plasma ejected at maximum velocity by magnetic drivers, held in check by a matter containment field. And when that field disrupts on impact, the resulting explosion is…
My crosshairs light up, and I hear the chime again. Solid lock. I fire my single cannon. An azure beam lances from my Trident’s nose, piercing the containment field and detonating the plasma.
Blinding light fills my cockpit, and the shock wave buffets my tiny fighter. Some damage-control warnings sound off. The radiation surge fried a few nonessential systems. I ignore it and reorient myself on the second projectile. In the distance, light from the nearby star glints off the hull of the medical frigate. It’s getting close. I’m only going to have one shot at this.
At these speeds, with a target this small, instrument readings are meaningless. My human senses aren’t fast enough to take in the barrage of data flooding my display. I’m flying on instinct, making microadjustments to the flight stick as I streak closer and closer to the projectile.
Almost there… Almost there…
The crosshairs light up. I take a deep breath and hold it. Just breathing can throw off your aim by a fraction of a millimeter. That's all it takes to turn a hit into a miss. I steady my nerves, and then…
My ship shudders as enemy fire rakes across the tail section. I squeeze the trigger, but it’s not even close. The shot goes wide. I’ve lost flight control. I rer
The enemy fighter swoops around then turns to face me. It cuts engine power as well, drifting closer and closer, matching my ship’s tumbling motion through the void. We’re only a couple meters away from each other, and I can see the pilot through the clear canopy. See the cruel smile on his face.
His ship is all flowing curves and strange angles. It looks more like some kind of undersea predator than a ship made by human hands. I guess that’s because human hands didn't make it. Its pilot is a Vrell, and his beady yellow eyes peer out at me from behind his visor.
There’s a design painted on the side of his canopy. Ten human skulls, marked with red paint. That means the alien pilot who’s about to kill me is a double ace, ten kills. Only five kills decorate my cockpit, so at least I’m punching up.
“You fly well, human.” His deep, gravelly voice crackles in my helmet's speakers. The last voice I’ll ever hear, apparently, translated by an alien computer so I can understand his gloating before I die. I start to answer, but a new signal floods the comm system.
“All units, all units! Cease hostilities. Flight Command has disengaged weapons control. A truce is now in effect!"
The enemy pilot stares at me through his cockpit, snarling in fury. But before either of us can speak, another explosion ignites the darkness. I raise my hand, shielding my vision from the blinding light.
The PPP hits. The medical frigate is gone, replaced by a glowing cloud of plasma gas and burning debris. All hands lost, everyone onboard dead.
Everyone.
The last thing I remember is the alien pilot’s sneering grin as I scream and scream and…
I was still screaming when I woke up.
Same dream as always. The war, the Bel’Daroth...
Laura.
I sat up so fast I hit my head on the pod’s ceiling. The neural prods on either side of my head retracted back into the dingy white plastic walls with a quiet hum. The prods were supposed to force my brain into an artificially induced sleep state, guaranteeing up to six hours of peaceful, dreamless slumber. But they didn’t do jack for me. They never did. When the nightmare came, I always woke up screaming.
I’d tried everything. Fried so many brain cells with alien narcotics it was a miracle I was still breathing. Not to mention booze. Lots of booze. But nothing ever made the nightmare go away. Not for long, anyway. It always came back, as raw and painful as a freshly picked scab.
Rubbing my head, I glanced around the tiny sleep pod. There wasn’t much to see. It was a polycarbonate egg, maybe twice the size of my body. Just enough room for most species to lie down and grab some shut-eye while they waited for launch clearance on whatever ride was carrying them out of this hellhole.
As accommodations go, pods were the bottom of the barrel. But they were cheaper than a hotel, and the pod facility had direct access to the station landing bay. Free parking... It was that last perk I was interested in.
I took a deep breath. My pulse settled back to normal. My mouth felt dry and sticky at the same time. I reached to my left and pulled a clear plastic tube from the wall. Then I tapped a few buttons and stuck the end in my mouth. A stream of thick, mushy liquid flowed through the tube, and I slurped it down. It was a protein-rich mash, formulated for human biological needs. The stuff tasted like liquid misery, but you could live on it. Plus it was free, which suited my current financial situation just fine.
I choked down the slop, wiped my mouth, and touched the interface pad implanted in my neck, just under the skin.
“Bax, you there?” Silence. I tapped the pad again. “Baxter, do you read me?”
A series of grunts and barks reverberated through my skull. I knew it was just a synthesized approximation, but it sounded exactly like a dog... and not just any dog. My dog, the scrappy little pup I smuggled food to on the refugee ship when I was six. Supposedly, the alien engineers pulled the tones from long-term memories stored in my hippocampus. Whatever they did, they nailed it. Baxter's bark always brought a smile to my face.
But Baxter was no ordinary dog. A neural implant in my skull translated my synthetic copilot’s barks, growls, and whines into Galacom. In other words, Baxter could talk. And only I could understand him.
I tapped the interface pad again. “Wait, wait, slow down!”
Baxter continued barking in my ear. It was his programing... stubborn and protective.
I sighed. “Did Kosik send the coordinates or not?”
More barking.
“Yeah, I know you don’t trust him.” I bent my knees so I could reach down and tighten the straps on my boots. Baxter continued his nonstop barrage of whines and growls. Sliding my thumb over the pod's payment terminal, I tried to calm him down. “Hey, would you just listen for a sec? Joven and I go way back. We’re old war buddies.”
I listened to my robot dog complain for a few more seconds and wondered for the billionth time if buying the synthetic canine had been a mistake. It’s not like they don’t make humanoid synths. But robotic humanoids creeped me out. The pure mechanical models looked like they could kill you at any second. And the ones who could pass for organic human? They were even worse. No matter how lifelike they made them, the blink cycle was always off. It’s a little thing, but once you noticed, it got under your skin.
Besides, I liked dogs better than most life-forms. In my experience, they were far less likely to shoot you in the back and steal your ship. Which was exactly what my last copilot had tried to do. Not that I was bitter or anything...
Baxter’s barking paused, and I seized the opportunity to get a word in. “Everything’s gonna be fine. Trust me. Just keep the engines warmed up. I’ll meet you at the Shadow Hawk in an hour.”
Baxter gave a final growl, letting me know what he thought about my character assessment. I couldn’t say I blamed him. Like most humans, Joven was a two-bit hustler trying to make his way in the galaxy. But a job was a job. Humanity wasn’t too high on the food chain these days. And guys like me and Joven... We had to take the work where we could find it.
Running a Ghost Jumper ship like the Shadow Hawk wasn’t cheap, and it definitely wasn’t legal. But I’m not in the business of turning down easy credits. Sure, I had a code. Rules I refused to break, jobs I wouldn’t accept, no matter how big the payday might be. But this wasn’t one of them.
I cut the link and zipped up my leather jacket, making sure the Cerberus Hybrid pistol in my shoulder rig wasn’t too obvious. I sat up again, careful this time, and tapped the pod controls. A three-dimensional hologram of my face hovered before me, flickering in the dim light. My reflection looked like it always did: hair a little too messy, eyes a little too red, skin a little too pale. I looked like every other spacer struggling to make a living.
I tapped another button, and the pod lid opened with a loud hiss. I gave my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dim light outside. Then I climbed down the ladder and jumped the last meter to the ground. The sound of my boots hitting the metal grate echoed through the stacks. There were hundreds of identical pods stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. But I was all alone as I sauntered down the catwalk and disappeared into the shadows.
It was time to go to work.
CHAPTER TWO
The metal lift platform descended into the abyss of the starport, belching clouds of white steam into the air. For a moment, a single shaft of light beamed down on me from above. Then the metal hatch clanked shut overhead, and the only light came from the dim industrial green tubes running along the starport’s walls.
It was an early-morning cycle for most of the station, so the central hub was quiet and empty. I stepped off the platform and glanced around, checking to see if anyone had clocked my presence. But I was alone in the cold metal shaft. Ventilator fans hummed to life, flooding the area with a rush of recycled air and blowing a few crumpled food wrappers and cigarette butts across the deck. The lev-train rumbled overhead as it left for its next stop. Then it was gone, and an ominous silence filled the air.
Blue indicator lights on the floor pointed to a series of doors arranged around the circular shaft. Chipped, faded numbers marked the walls, barely legible beneath a grimy film of grease and chemicals. Checking the display on my comm card, I read the numbers on the screen then set off down a catwalk. I stopped at one of the airlock doors and swiped my card across the security terminal.
