MoonRush (44 page)

“Who’s talking nasty about my baby?” A familiar voice spoke from deep within the ship.

Jarod took a few steps back, shocked. A familiar, but now thoroughly bandaged, head poked through the door. The rest of his body followed in short order, a wrench clutched in his hand.

“Simon?”

The little person grinned at Jarod, showing all his teeth. “Wow, Jarod, you look like crap.”

Jarod laughed out loud, grabbing the diminutive pilot and giving him a bear hug. “You should talk.” Jarod held him out at arm’s length. “I thought they were sending you home.”

Simon snorted, his expression turning a bit sour. “Sure. Until they found out I didn’t have insurance. Then they kicked me out. Luckily
,
I found the
Eureka
on the scrap heap. Damn fools couldn’t recognize
that
she only needed a few cosmetic repairs.”

“I could see how they made that mistake.” Rob looked around the hold, eyeing the new dents and dings with obvious suspicion.

Simon raised his wrench in mock menace. Rob ducked in mock fear.

From her vantage point near the window, Cleo cleared her throat. “Uh, guys… Maybe we should think about loading up.
”

Jarod went to join her and looked out to see squatters gathering at the top of the hill, pointing at their ship. Jarod whipped around and called out to the entire crew.

“Prep for evac… Now!”

Jarod made his way as fast as he could up to the cockpit, making ready to seat himself in the copilot seat, but Simon herded him over to his own chair.

“My sight’s not that great. I’ll drive shotgun. You pilot.”

“Me?”

Cleo echoed Jarod’s surprise. “Him?”

Rob apparently couldn’t resist putting in his two cents as well. “Have you seen the last three ships he’s flown?”

Ouch. Sure
,
it was true, but…

“He can handle it.” Well, at least Simon believed in him.

Probably just to round out the crew, Buton chimed in. “The flying, yes. The landing, not so much.”

There it was. The sad thing was, Jarod had nothing to say to disprove any of it. He was pretty sure that he mostly agreed with them.

Simon just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Unfortunately, I’m seeing about four different control panels.”

They all looked at one another for a long moment. Then Rob sighed and plopped down into the navigation station’s chair.

“Let’s do this thing.” He glanced at the instruments in front of him. “All clear. All green lights…Mostly.”

Jarod took a deep breath. “Okay
.
Rogues, strap in!”

He fired up the engines. Looking at the monitors, Jarod could see that their ship starting up had attracted the squatters like moths to a flame. Ragged men were throwing themselves onto the hull of the
Eureka
from all sides. The ship was not moving. Jarod looked over at Simon.

“It’s not gonna lift off!”

“Patience, Jarod, patience.”

Jarod growled back, “If one more person says that to me…”

He fought the controls, doing everything he could to get the ship off the ground. The
Eureka
partially lifted off, but the extra weight from the crazed cultists dragged her back down to the
M
oon’s surface. Jarod bit off a choice piece of profanity and pushed even harder.

“This was definitely
not
on the test.”

Off to the side, Simon squinted at the instruments in front of him, turned his head to the side to look out of the corner of his eye,
and
then began pushing buttons. As far as Jarod could tell, it was totally at random. Simon finished pushing the last button with a flourish.

“That should do it. I think. Hopefully.”

Jarod watched everyone on board give each other significant look
s
. He then gripped the controls harder, sent up a quick prayer to Shiva or
W
h
om
ever, and hit the throttle. The prospectors tumbled back to the surface as the ship finally lifted off. The whole encampment they were leaving behind was engulfed in chaos from the pressure of their liftoff and the random falling bodies.

As they shot toward
the
MoonBase, a frantic voice called out over the radio.

“
Eureka
, you are not cleared for approach. I repeat, you are
—
” Simon cut off the call.

“Strange. All we seem to be getting is static.”

Jarod called back to Mia. “How are we doin’?”

“Fine. Plenty of fuel with reserve—”

The sudden rocking of the ship cut off Mia
’s words
. A small police cruiser ship darted past, the wake creating the turbulence they were feeling.

Jarod swerved to avoid bumping into the offending craft. “Damn
!
Doesn’t anybody follow a flight path around here…?”

He continued to take evasion action, but the first ship was joined by another, then another, and another. Soon
,
the skies were swarming with police ships blooming out of the station, heading right for the
Eureka
.

“We’ll never make the MoonBase.”

“Then choose a new destination!” Simon fired back.

Fantastic suggestion. Only one problem.

“Where?”

Simon simply pointed to the view screen. “How about that big blue marble in the sky?”

“The Earth?” Buton sounded confused. Buton
never
sounded confused.

“Do you see any other option?” The little man raised his eyebrows, his eyes crossing just a little bit.

Jarod held up a hand to stop the conversation, then rethought that idea
. H
e had to use
both
hands to swerve out of the way of yet another police cruiser.

“Don’t we need to refuel at
the
MoonBase?”

Simon gave a maniacal grin. “Nah. The Earth’s gravity’ll do the work for us.”

Cleo touched Jarod on the shoulder and spoke quietly. “Don’t bother questioning your karma now, Jarod.”

Mia was not nearly so gentle. She yelled at him.

“Just drive the damn thing!”

That was it. That was the encouragement Jarod needed. He zipped through the web of police cruisers, fighting for every inch of progress.

“Crap
!
” He narrowly missed running into one of the ships. “Damn
!
” Even closer. “They
really
need to write a new test...”

Simon, still squinting at the view screen, urged Jarod, “Pull up.”

Jarod did so, forcing the controls back toward himself, but Simon wasn’t satisfied.

“Harder, steeper.”

The
Eureka
responded by shaking, her hull feeling
as though
it would pull apart. Jarod yelled back at the little man.

“Can she take this?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Somehow that response was far from soothing.

The fight was now less with the careening ships and more with the gravitational pull of the
M
oon. The ship continued to rattle, but the engines proved that they were up to the task. The
Eureka
broke free of the Moon and pointed her prow toward Earth.

CHAPTER 14

Aboard the
Eclipse

March 31, 2049

1813 hours,
LST

Gil watched from the
Eclipse
as the
Eureka
managed, against all odds, to evade the local law enforcement. His day had officially reached a new low.

Gil had expended so much effort to thread his way into the new security team that was now in force on the
M
oon. All the mobilization they were seeing right now was due to his work and influence.

And Jarod was still getting away.

The
Eureka
made another astonishing hairpin turn to avoid one of the police cruisers. That ship should not be able to be doing what it was doing. The thing looked like it was on its last leg, and yet they were performing maneuvers that Gil would have hesitated to try back on the
Vanquisher
. Once again, Jarod was being reckless.

But what really pissed Gil off
was
that it appeared to be working.

Another couple of double backs and insane twists later, and Jarod was in the clear, leaving behind all of the
R
ent-
A
-
C
ops and their pathetic efforts. You just couldn’t buy off good help these days. Pathetic.

This had gone beyond ridiculous and into the realm of unbelievable. Someone had to do something. He could feel Jarod and his prize slipping through his net. The loss of money. The loss of prestige. The loss of influence. This was unacceptable.

“You
have
to do something! He’s getting away!” Gil felt the words burst out of his mouth, aimed at the captain of the ship.

The captain locked eyes with Gil for an interminable moment, staring down his nose at
him
. How quickly this man had forgotten what Gil had accomplished. If being allied with this moron weren’t vital to getting Jarod and his cargo, Gil would’ve jettisoned this partnership a long time ago. Stavros turned on his heel, dismissing Gil completely.

“Not for long. Plot an intercept course.”

Gil felt the ship hum underneath him
,
sens
ing
massive stores of strength yet untapped. Stavros might be an idiotic stuffed shirt, but he certainly had some nice toys. One more reason to stick around. This sucker had
power
.