Recoil the emberling boo.., p.1
Recoil (The Emberling Book 2), page 1
RECOIL
THE EMBERLING
BOOK 2
DANIEL YOUNG
CONTENTS
The Emberling Series
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
Also by Daniel Young
Free Books!
THE EMBERLING SERIES
ALL BOOKS AVAILABLE IN KINDLE UNLIMITED
Exiled
Recoil
Surge
1
Taggart slammed his plasma cannon hard to the left, following a fast-moving fighter craft across his field of view. He smashed his into the enemy’s hull, but more guns spouted from the fighter’s side to smash his gun placement in return. He recoiled from the shot, and when he recovered enough to open fire a second time, the enemy was gone.
He swiveled back to the right, searching for another target. Attackers surrounded the Legion on all sides. The ship’s other three cannon placements spouted off just as fast, and he saw right away that they weren’t having any better success than he was.
Four giant gunships belonging to the Sleepwalkers space pirates surrounded the Legion, but the gunships didn’t attack. They left that to their faster, smaller attack craft.
Yannik Xawei hammered one of the attack craft, but it was moving too fast for her to damage it. It stayed ahead of her shots and pounded the Legion with some kind of exploding ordnance that Taggart didn’t recognize.
All the Sleepwalker vessels looked like a Frankenstein mishmash of many ships glued together. Weapons of every kind dotted their hulls, so they could shoot in any direction. Lasers, plasma cannons, EM pulses, and ordnance guns showered the Legion, burying the ship under countless explosions.
“Get us through, Merrel!” Taggart yelled. “We have to get through to the Colonial Militia Headquarters. They’ll drive these bastards off.”
“I can’t!” Merrel yelled back from the cockpit. “The gunships are blocking us.”
“Can’t you pull one of your maneuvers?” Yannik yelled from the placement adjacent to Taggart’s. “You got through them just fine before.”
“There’s only one problem with that—”
A brutal smash of EM fire cut Merrel off from saying whatever the problem was. Three more attack craft approached the Legion on Taggart’s side. They were gunning straight for his placement.
He brought up his cannon and opened fire. He swiped his gun back and forth across the oncoming enemy line, but then he noticed Yannik targeting the attack craft on the far left end.
Taggart trained his firepower on that one ship, too. He and Yannik worked together, and the ship exploded. The other two enemy craft rocketed past the Legion, and Taggart heard his father, Gideon Wollett, yelling to Qiao on the ship’s other side. “Bring it around to the rear! Here they come! That’s it! Don’t let him squeeze in on us.”
Taggart turned back to the part of space he could still see. The attack craft kept whizzing into sight and then racing out of it before he could acquire a target. He heard Yannik cursing in the next placement. She must be having as much trouble as he was.
“Hold on!” Merrel yelled.
Taggart glanced forward, and gulped when he saw another six Sleepwalker vessels coming closer—but these weren’t the smaller attack craft or the giant gunships.
They were something in between, and they were all perfectly spherical They didn’t have the same cobbled appearance as other Sleepwalker vessels. These were just balls with hundreds of guns sticking out of them.
They revolved in every direction, spitting gunfire everywhere. They streaked toward the Legion, and Merrel reacted with lightning-quick reflexes. He punched the engines to full speed and charged the things.
The four gunners rotated their cannons to the front and opened fire on the spheres, but they and Merrel were flying too fast.
Lasers spouted from the spheres and smashed into the Legion’s cockpit. “Merrel!” Taggart yelled, but no one answered him.
The Legion plummeted for the spheres and angled between them, taking dozens of laser shots all over the hull. Taggart hammered the enemy with cannon fire, but he couldn’t blast his way through the guns covering their skins. He wasn’t even sure if these things were manned or robotic. Did it matter?
“Help me, Taggart!” Yannik yelled. She had swiveled her cannon to the rear and was plastering one sphere with punishing ferocity.
Taggart slammed his gun into reverse and unloaded on the same target, but unlike their previous victory, the sphere didn’t budge. None of their shots even damaged the outer guns. Taggart didn’t understand the problem, and before he could figure it out, another crushing smash struck the Legion on the opposite side.
“Dad!” Taggart yelled.
No one answered him.
“Qiao!” Yannik called.
Still nothing.
Taggart’s blood ran cold. Was anyone on the Legion left alive besides Yannik and himself?
He gritted his teeth and turned back to the battle. The Legion still flew around in space. The ship turned somersaults between the remaining spheres. Merrel must still be flying.
He steered toward another sphere, and this time, pulse fire erupted from the other placements on the opposite side. Someone over there was alive enough to shoot back at the enemy.
The Legion corkscrewed around two spheres, but they didn’t pursue the way the attack craft did. The spheres stayed in one place, and their lasers traced wild arcs to hit the Legion wherever it went. The gunners couldn’t keep up with so many weapons.
The Sleepwalkers must not have had to man their guns. They could just keep shooting no matter what.
Taggart took one last look around and spotted a small grey dot in the farthest distance. It was the Colonial Militia Headquarters satellite, but the Legion was nowhere near it.
Taggart’s plan to turn the Emberling over to the authorities hadn’t worked out the way he planned…but then again, none of his plans ever did work out the way he expected. He should have expected this.
Merrel must have been thinking the same thing. He gunned the Legion’s engines and sprinted for the Colonia Militia satellite. Did he really think he could break through? He veered hard toward one of the giant gunships. All their guns opened up to destroy the Legion, but Merrel paid no attention.
He dove between them and pulled in close to the ship’s side. He skimmed between all their guns, trying to pull the same trick he pulled the last time. He wove past cannons and laser ports. He veered around EM charging stations. The stars welcomed him on the other side.
The spheres whizzed right on the ship’s tail. They smashed the Legion forward and jostled it sideways. The ship crashed into obstacles on either side, ricocheted off, and tumbled on in its wild flight to escape.
The stars appeared on the other side, and Taggart’s spirits soared. Could Merrel really pull it off a second time?
“Go, go, go!” Yannik yelled. “We can make it!”
The spheres must have sensed the same thing. They put on speed and crawled up on the Legion’s tail. Merrel dodged laser shots that hit the gunship’s cannons. They exploded, and he plunged through them to barely squeak past another barrier in his path.
Taggart had never seen Merrel fly like this. Merrel reacted with pinpoint precision. He cut a fine curve around corners, vaulted more guns, and avoided dangerous shots from the spheres.
He led them on a wild goose chase through a maze of interconnected canyons. They followed him closely without ever breaking off their pursuit—so closely that he ended up smashing several of them on their own guns and leading others into friendly fire.
The attack craft hovered beyond the gunship’s perimeter, waiting for Merrel to come out. He couldn’t hide in here forever.
He finally worked his way around to the other side. “Stand by!” Taggart called to anyone who might be listening. “As soon as we show ourselves, be ready to defend the ship on our way to the satellite.”
“Right,” Yannik replied, turning her cannon backward toward the attack craft waiting for them.
She and Taggart both aimed for the nearest one. They could work together to buy the Legion a little more time. That was the best they could hope for, and hopefully, it would be enough.
Merrel must have read their minds. He hit the throttle and erupted out of the maze into clear, open space. He yanked the helm so hard and so fast that the spheres kept buzzing ahead and didn’t follow him. He got the jump on the Sleepwalkers’ attack craft, and Yannik and Taggart opened fire.
They caught the attack craft completely by surprise. Yannik and Taggart pounded the nearest ship, and it exploded right in front of all its friends while the Legion broke away.
Taggart slammed his gun to the rear, targeting the next attack vessel in line. Both he and Yannik were facing backward toward the dwindling gunship.
The Legion hurtled ahead with nothing standing between it and the Colonial Militia Headquarters satellite. They were going to make it!
The instant he laid his eyes on the satellite, dozens of Comet-class attack ships and larger destroyers launched from the Headquarters. They charged for the battle and opened up their EM cannons on the Slee pwalkers.
The Sleepwalkers broke off their assault on the Legion to defend themselves—or at least some of the Sleepwalkers did. There were still plenty of attack craft buzzing around to threaten the Legion with annihilation.
The next instant, the Colonial Militia streaked into the battle, and a dozen Comets surrounded the Legion. The Militia unloaded on the Legion just as viciously as they targeted the Sleepwalkers. The Militia couldn’t tell the difference, or maybe they just didn’t care.
Matched screams caught Taggart’s ear. They came from the cockpit and the other cannon placements, but not through the ship’s onboard communications system. They came through the rear compartment.
That shouldn’t have been technically possible, since the wall of Taggart’s placement and the walls of the other three placements stood in the way, but he still heard them. The rest of the crew must have been screaming really loudly.
He didn’t think anything of that until his eyes popped when one of the big gunships zipped into the Legion’s path. The gunship came from nowhere and slid in front of the Legion before anyone could react.
Not even Merrel responded in time, but he probably wouldn’t have been able to, even if he’d seen the gunship in time. Both the Legion and the gunship were moving too fast to avoid each other.
The Legion plunged straight for the gunship’s sides, diving between the many cannons and lasers covering the gunship’s hull. Merrel tried to pull up, but before he could do anything, a yawning chasm opened in the gunship’s bottommost skin and swallowed the Legion whole.
2
Yannik, Taggart, Wollett, Qiao, and Merrel all screamed in unison as the Legion plummeted nose-first into a bottomless well of blackness. The ship whizzed downward, running faster and faster. Taggart let go of his cannon and flung his arms in front of his face, but that did nothing to stop the ship’s fall.
He felt the ship swooping back and forth against some kind of curved flume. Each centrifugal turn slowed the Legion, but only slightly.
At last, the Legion plunged into a long, straight run. It lasted so long that the ship’s momentum finally dwindled to nothing. Taggart started to relax. The Legion would stop soon, and then he would find out where he was.
He shuddered when he remembered that he already knew where he was. He was inside a Sleepwalker gunship. This was the last place in the world he wanted to be.
He glanced over at Yannik’s cannon placement. The light from her controls glowed on her features in this blackness. She looked up and met his gaze.
A devastating crash slammed both of them back in their seats. The Legion smashed into something solid and unforgiving, and then everything went quiet. The controls cut out, and all light died to pitch dark.
Taggart scrambled to get out of his seat. He unclipped his harness and then groped his way to the placement door. He knew his way around the Legion well enough to know where he was at any given moment.
He floundered into the rear compartment and slid open the other placements. “Dad! Qiao! Are you all right?”
“Oh, we’re just swell,” Wollett growled. “Couldn’t be better. When’s lunch?”
Taggart ignored him and went to the next placement. “Qiao! Are you hurt?”
No one answered. “Damn it!” Taggart muttered.
Yannik’s placement slid, open and her voice came out of the dark. “What’s wrong?”
“Qiao isn’t answering…and neither is Merrel.” Taggart pawed his way to the supply cupboard under Wollett’s berth.
Taggart patted down several zippered pouches of emergency supplies and finally pulled out a light. He flicked it on and shone it into the cockpit. “Damn it!” he hissed.
“What’s wrong?”
“He’s injured.” Taggart pounced on the first aid kit.
“Give me your light,” Yannik told him. “I need to check on Qiao.”
“If you take the light, I won’t be able to see.”
“You aren’t going to help Merrel and leave Qiao to die,” she countered. “Give it to me.”
“No.” He yanked it out of her reach, seized the first aid kit, and clambered into the cockpit.
Merrel lay folded forward from the waist, with his face smashed in on the dashboard. Blood covered the parts of his features that Taggart could see through his helmet.
Taggart propped the light on the dashboard and got to work in a hurry. He pulled Merrel’s helmet off and scanned his head for fractures. He didn’t find any, but Merrel had a bad concussion and a broken nose.
Taggart started to repair the damage when he heard Qiao talking in the rear compartment. He could stop feeling guilty about taking the light away from Yannik, but now wasn’t the time to say, “I told you so”.
A deep boom shook the Legion, and he froze to listen. Some machine started to hum, and the Legion started moving, but the ship’s engines weren’t running. The gunship must be moving the Legion, and Taggart didn’t like the idea of finding out where.
He pounced on Merrel, working as fast as he could. He repaired the fracture to Merrel’s face, sealed the gash on his forehead, and snapped a capsule of smelling salts under his nose.
Merrel shot upright with a roar. “What the hell…!”
“Easy, pal.” Taggart patted his friend’s shoulder. “You’re okay. We crashed. You got hurt.”
Merrel jerked right and left, and the light came on in his eyes. “The gunship! We’re inside the Sleepwalkers’ ship.”
“Yeah.” Taggart put his first aid kit away and picked up the light. “Come on. We need to arm up.”
They went back into the compartment to find Wollett and Qiao already digging into the Legion’s weapons locker. Wollett handed Taggart a few rifles. Yannik rummaged around under her cloak, and Qiao brought out his giant battleaxes.
Merrel put his helmet back on and pulled away the destroyed eyepiece that usually controlled his shoulder gun. He still had his forearm repeaters, and he hefted his plasma cannon for good measure.
The Legion kept humming along wherever the Sleepwalkers were taking it. It didn’t stop moving until all five of the friends stood ready for battle at the base of the ladder that led to the top hatch.
Merrel aimed his cannon at the hatch. “How do you suppose they’re going to—”
The ship banged into something else, and the noise stopped. The five friends listened for any sound coming from outside.
Without warning, a massive shockwave struck the ship, and Taggart blacked out.
He woke up sprawled on the floor. His rifles were gone. He dragged himself up and looked around at his companions, only to find that they had all been disarmed, too. Merrel’s guns were all gone, including his repeaters. Wollett had lost his rifles, and Qiao’s axes were nowhere in sight.
Yannik started patting down her cloak. Everyone could see from her panicked expression that this must be the first time in her life she’d been completely disarmed.
All five got slowly to their feet. Wollett rubbed his head. “What happened?”
“They knocked us out, obviously,” Merrel replied. “They neutralized us and then disarmed us.”
“You say that like you’ve been through this,” Yannik countered. “Tell me you haven’t been a prisoner of the Sleepwalkers before.”
He fixed her with a hard glare. “Do you know anyone, ever, who’s been a prisoner of the Sleepwalkers?”
She didn’t answer, and the silence hung heavy over the Legion. Taggart didn’t know anyone who’d ever been a prisoner of the Sleepwalkers either, because the Sleepwalkers didn’t take prisoners. They attacked ships, took what they wanted, and killed anyone who lived long enough to survive the battle. That was the Sleepwalker way. They were pirates.
“What are we going to do?” Wollett looked around, but there was nothing to see but the ship’s interior. “I guess they’ll be coming for us pretty soon.”
At his word, another bone-crushing smash struck the Legion, and something punched through the ceiling. The friends yelled in surprise and sprang away from the blow. Taggart and Merrell went one way, Wollett went another, and Qiao tackled Yannik to the ship’s rear.
