burst shooting forward from braking thrusters embedded in the harvester’s nose caused it to float back away from the ship more quickly. Applying side thrust, the little ship quickly slid to the right, clearing the ship just before the large drive section was about to slam into it from behind. As it cleared the side of the ship, it snap-rolled to the right and swung its nose down, firing its main engines at full thrust as it accelerated quickly away from the Aurora on its journey to the moon below.
“The harvester’s away,” Mendez chuckled. “Damn that guy-”
“Flies like a nut,” Cameron finished. “Yeah, I know. But that nut’s the only hope they’ve got right now.”
Nathan continued looking out the broken front window of the main house. The air outside was still thick with black and gray smoke from the burning wreckage of Tobin’s ship, less than a dozen meters away. Thankfully, there had been no more shots fired at them by the snipers since they had made it inside the house. “What the hell are they waiting for?”
Deliza sat in the corner, holding her younger sister in her lap, keeping her little head against her chest to keep her from staring at her mother’s corpse on the living room floor. Jalea knelt beside them, trying to calm the child.
“Reinforcements,” Vladimir suggested.
“Yes,” Jalea agreed, rising from the girls to move back toward the others at the windows. “They must be coming from elsewhere-a ship in orbit, perhaps-or they’d already be upon us.”
Nathan looked outside again, trying to see the snipers through the smoke. “If we could just get past those snipers, we might be able to make our way back to town on foot, maybe find another way off this moon and back to the ship.”
“I expect there is a Ta’Akar ship nearby,” Jalea advised him. “If so…”
“…then the Aurora’s got her own problems to deal with,” Nathan surmised. “Hell, they’ve probably already jumped away.”
“You worry too much, Nathan,” Vladimir said. “They will come for us. You will see.”
“God, I hope you’re right.”
Suddenly, the snipers began firing through the windows. Blasts of energy broke through the remaining glass, slamming into floors and furniture, sending splinters flying in all directions and charring everything they struck. Jalea grabbed the girls, dragging them down to the floor and pushing them into the corner tucked in behind a cabinet.
Vladimir scrambled on his hands and knees to the side window and began firing blindly toward the ridge line with his hand gun, hoping he’d get lucky and hit one of the snipers. Following his friend’s example, Nathan scrambled to the opposite side and did the same.
Moments later, the shuttle began firing its pulse cannon at the main house. Each blast tore through the roof, passing through the upper floor and breaking through the ceiling above them, bringing a shower of debris down on top of them with every blast. The young girls screamed with each blast.
“Jesus!” Nathan yelled. He had little doubt that they were all about to be either buried in a pile of burning debris or completely vaporized.
“They’re trying to drive us out into the open!” Vladimir replied. “To force us to surrender!”
“By bombing the crap out of us?” Nathan asked as he continued firing wildly out the window.
One of the main beams cracked and bowed downward, bringing more debris from the ceiling above. With the following blast, the beam split completely, crashing to the floor narrowly missing Vladimir.
“We’ve gotta get outta here!” Nathan hollered, scrambling across the shattered living room toward the kitchen. “Through the back!”
As if the shuttle’s gunner had heard him, the next few salvos impacted the back half of the house, collapsing the kitchen roof. Nathan opened the kitchen door just in time to see the ceiling come crashing down, dust and debris bouncing up into his face in the doorway, knocking him backward into the living room. “Guess not!”
Josh looked out the forward windshield over the nose of the harvester as it raced along less than fifteen meters above the surface of the Haven countryside. In the distance, maybe twenty kilometers in front of them, he could see the pillar of black smoke rising from the surface, spreading to the right as it rose into the sky.
“Twenty seconds out,” his co-pilot, Loki, reported over the whine of the engines. The two of them had been flying the harvester together for nearly six months, ever since Josh had first arrived on Haven.
“Volander landing party, Harvester. Do you copy?” Josh waited a few seconds for an answer, but got none. “Guess we’re gonna have to surprise them,” he smiled.
Loki tightened the shoulder straps on his flight harness. Although Josh was an amazing pilot, he had a tendency to do things without warning. “You sure you wanna go in so fast, Josh?”
“This’ll have to do,” Josh chuckled.
As the distance closed, they could begin to make out the shape of the enemy shuttle as it circled over the sinkhole, firing its pulse cannon at targets below.
“Pulse cannons,” Loki pointed out.
“I see them.”
“I’m assuming you’ve got a plan?”
Josh said nothing, only clucked like a chicken.
“Great,” Loki said, grabbing the hand-holds on the top edges of the front and side consoles to brace himself. He knew what was coming, and he knew from experience that he’d best hold on tight.
As they rapidly closed on the enemy shuttle, it continued its slow circle, turning toward the oncoming harvester.
“Oh shit!” Loki cried.
For a brief moment, Loki was sure he could see the faces of the flight crew on the shuttle as it suddenly rolled sharply to its right to avoid colliding with the onrushing harvester. Josh immediately rolled slightly opposite the enemy ship, pulling his nose up ever so slightly to send his ship into a tight, high-g turn. “YES!” he cried out in victory. “I NEVER FLINCH!”
The enemy shuttle did not pull his nose up as he rolled, which resulted in a sudden loss of altitude bringing him below the top of the sinkhole and sending him diving toward its wall.
Inside the main house, the sound of the harvester rocketing by at high velocity shook the entire structure, knocking them off their feet. For a brief moment, they were deafened by the roar of the harvester’s main drive as it blew past them at incredible speed.
“What the hell was that?” Nathan wondered as he picked himself up, noticing that the bombardment had stopped. A moment later the ground shook once more as a tremendous crash came from outside. Nathan spun around to look out the windows. Through the smoke he could barely make out the image of the enemy shuttle as it slammed into the side of the sinkhole, falling into the greenhouse below before exploding.
“Holy shit!”
“Volander landing party, Harvester. Do you copy?” The voice coming over his comm-set was unfamiliar to him, but Nathan answered the hail nonetheless.
“This is Captain Scott! Who’s calling?”
“It’s your ride, Captain! That sweet little commander of yours sent us to bring you home!”
“Sweet little commander?” Vladimir wondered.
“He must be talking about Cameron,” Nathan said.
“Great!” Nathan told him over the comms. “How did you take out that shuttle?”
“No time to chit-chat, Captain. I’ve gotta deal with a few snipers first. Get your people ready to move out! I’ll be down in a minute to pick you up!”
“Copy that!” Nathan answered.
“There’s another explosion at their position!” Kaylah reported.
“Who is it?” Cameron snapped. “Is it the harvester?”
“No, sir! I show the harvester still maneuvering!” Ensign Mendez reported with excitement. The son-of-a- bitch took him head on at max velocity!”
“Christ! He played chicken with them?”
“That guy is insane!” Mendez exclaimed.
Loki flinched as sniper rounds struck the nose of the harvester. “They’re shooting at us, Josh!”
