Excerpt – Treasure of the Rogue Moon
I went to the cockpit. The pilot already had his hands up. I pushed him out his door and sat in the chair he had just vacated. With the touch of a few buttons, I heard the reactionless drives start up with a whine. I jerked back on the stick, and the transport jumped into the air.
The door gun fired with the sound of ripping steel. I looked out to see why. One of the other three prisoners—the one in the IC uniform—was down, but Commander One was protecting the other two by strafing the IC troopers. I didn’t know what the rate of fire was for that gun, but traditionally, every third round was a tracer so you could see where you were shooting. But the tracers almost looked like a laser as Commander One shot at the ground in front of the troopers, kicking up dust and sand. Shell casings swarmed away from the gun like angry bees, raining down on the floor of the transport.
“Hold them off!” I yelled.
I dropped the transport down next to the prisoners, and they scrambled aboard.
I took off again and headed for the fence. The top of the barrier turned red.
I stopped. Did that mean that the entire fence was at 100 gees? Did I dare cross it, or would the artificial gravity slam me into the top and crush us?