Battleship Raider by Paul Tomlinson (book recommendations website .txt) 📗

The co-ordinates he had given me were for this middle section. The hunk of wreckage in front of me was supposed to be the treasure chest. Looking at it, it was impossible to judge which part of the ship it was – it was a slightly curved block of grey metal, pitted and scarred by its descent through the atmosphere. Judging from the curve, the section was half-buried – or the lower part of it had been torn away.

All those who were able to, had abandoned ship and the rest had perished. This wreck was their tomb. It seemed almost sacrilege to swazz up the side of her, but there are some things that a man just has to do. I’m not one for prayers, but I would drink to the memory of those who died – once I was safely inside. As I rezipped, I noticed for the first time how quiet it was near the wreckage. There were no insects or birds in the air and nothing scurried through the undergrowth. Perhaps the collective memory of the jungle creatures still recalled the damage caused when the battleship came down – ‘This thing turned your great aunt Edith to charcoal’ – so they all kept a respectful distance.

Or, more likely, all the little critters had shut up because there was a big critter on the prowl.

I listened, straining my ears. Was that something big I could hear moving through the undergrowth? With images of sabre-toothed lizards in my head, I unsnapped the flap on my holster and practised a couple of quickdraws. Then I set down my pack and opened it. I had a couple of palm-sized drones – I called them Gnat and Mozzie – and I sent them up to survey the area. They fed data back to Trixie.

“What’s out there?” I whispered.

“Insufficient data to identify life form. Approximate mass in excess of one thousand pounds.”

Definitely something big. “How close is it?”

“Fifty yards and maintaining a path parallel to your current position.”

“Passing by?”

“Negative. Pacing backwards and forwards.”

“I smell like food and he’s wondering whether I’m dangerous. Will a single bullet kill it?”

“Define bullet?”

“Twelve-millimetre explosive cartridge.”

“A single direct hit to the thorax offers a fifty-six per cent chance of a kill.”

I didn’t like those odds, especially when I couldn’t even see what I was shooting at. “Perhaps if I fire off a few shots it will scare him away?”

“I am unable to advise.”

“Or it might just anger him and make him charge...” I started pacing myself. “To hell with it.” I drew my pistol and looked out into the jungle. “Trixie, give me the best sight you can.”

The computer projected a target in front of me, giving me something to aim the barrel of the gun at. The target lit up green when I was aiming in the right direction and I squeezed off three shots. The projectiles tore through the jungle and I heard then explode. There was a bellow from the unseen creature, though whether of anger or pain I couldn’t tell. And then there was a thrashing in the undergrowth.

“Please tell me it’s running away,” I said. The pause before Trixie answered was much longer than I was comfortable with.

“The target is withdrawing.”

I let out a sigh. “Monitor that area,” I said.

Here be dragons. I’d originally thought it was a joke, but Old Jack was deadly serious.

“They’re dangerous, Quin. Sneak up on you. I lost one of my men. Gobbled up he was. ‘Course, that’s one advantage of having a team. If one of them gets took, you get to live for another day.”

The trouble with stories like that, even if you don’t believe them, is that they sneak into your subconscious and make you uneasy. And if you haven’t got a team, odds are that you’re the one who will get gobbled up. I wanted to use the drones to find a way into the Celestia. They would be able to fly under the jungle canopy and hopefully discover some sort of opening that I could use. But I wasn’t going to have them do that until I was sure the dragon – or whatever it was – was gone for good. The drones had motion and heat detectors that were much more effective than my own in-built survival systems. Gnat and Mozzie drifted off to see what had become of the big bad beastie.

While I waited I twisted open a can of instant coffee and watched it steam as it heated up. I drank it straight from the can because the smell as I poured it into a mug might attract Fangzilla. And flies might squit in it. I’m not a big fan of the instant stuff, but it’s a hundred times better than the stuff they served in the prison. I think they reused the water from the cabbage boiler. As I finished up the coffee, a fly buzzed past the end of my nose and I was reassured to hear the jungle coming back to life around me.

“Any sign of the beast?” I asked.

“I am registering nothing of that approximate mass.”

“I’ll take that as a no. Bring the drones in.”

Old Jack Sterling said the crash had torn a hole in what was now the east side of the wreck. I would start my search there. With Gnat and Mozzie hovering just in front of me, I had Trixie project the video into the air in front of me. She could have given me the full immersive experience by firing the images onto my retina, but I wanted my peripheral vision working full-time looking out for anything that might snatch me up for a snack. I gave the drones their instructions and sent them on their way.

While Gnat and Mozzie were doing their thing, I turned my attention to a snack of my own. The packaging of the protein bar claimed it was beef stroganoff, but they all taste like an old man’s slippers. As