Last Call (Stranded in the Stars Book 1) Read Free

you’re afraid of the falling rocks. No one's stopping you.”
    “Hmm, you’d like that wouldn’t you? To extend this damned cat and mouse chase a little longer?”
    They weaved in synchronicity through the meteors that began to resemble raining gunfire. Jack was impressed with how the pirate evaded collision as if the man had a sixth sense.
    “How much are the bureaucrats paying you for my capture?”
    “Enough.”
    Fearlessly, Jack flew right into the storm, wanting this shit show to end. He personally didn't give a damn about the pirate nor that he delivered breeders to the Trentians. The Trentian men wanted to procreate and they needed viable Earthian females to do that.
    During a gruesome period of the war biochemical weapons were released that made many of the future generations of Trentian females impotent. It had been a sick thing for the Earthians to do but he understood the tactical logistics and advantages of that move.
    Besides, most Earthian females couldn't get to Trentian colonies fast enough; if they were virile, they were treated like queens. The halfbreed children were beautiful.
    “Oh come on, tell me, it’s a matter of pride.” Larik quipped through the intercom.
    “A single ton of Pyrizian Ore.”
    The pirate didn’t immediately respond and Jack thought it may be because of what the price of his head was worth.
    “Damn.” Jack laughed at the expected response. Pyrizian Ore was a very rare, very strong star ore that was often used to create powerful and advanced weaponry. It could only be found in fading white dwarfs, dead stars on their last stretch of life.
    The meteor shower increased in intensity the closer they got to the planet’s surface.
    The effort Jack took to dodge the meteors was causing him to lose any gain he had made on the pirate and Larik, the lucky bastard, was getting away. Right when he was about to make a final push to capture the flyer, a loud noise permeated the air and at the same time as all his systems went red.
    Cursing, he quickly diagnosed that a football sized meteor had crashed into his right drive. The colloid silver nanoparticles that his ship was using to manage any variations in temperature couldn't keep up with the shifts.
    He wasn't going to lose his ship and a repair could easily be made but he was going to drastically lose speed, a lot of speed.
    Jack repositioned himself to use his body as an energy source and forced his ship into overdrive, making one last push to get close enough to Larik. He wouldn't last long as a battery but he may still get the job done today.
    It was then, during several critical seconds and closing in on success that his ship got hit again. What the hell was that? He found no readings on the second impact and had no choice but to give up the chase, to land, and repair his ship.
    He watched as the pirate ascended into the sky and flew away, the communication link disconnecting after a faint taunting laughter snaked through the intercom.
    Grudgingly, he changed course to land on the rock called Argo.
    ***
    Jack maneuvered his vessel as carefully as possible, unconsciously scanning all meteor activity happening around him. Slowing down and then abruptly picking up speed while zigzagging left and right, he felt like he was still dancing through a rain of bullets like he had done often during his war days.
    He was almost in the clear, dipping into Argo's atmosphere where the meteors reacted and turned back into meaningless specks of dirt. The chemical reactions that were happening outside his ship were briefly intriguing but he soon lost interest as he descended to the ground.
    This planet will do just fine.
    He scanned everything for miles in every direction from his location. There was less life here blipping on his radar than a graveyard on Earth. He could immediately sense the giant behemoth wurms deep under the outer crust of the planet.
    Those fuckers are big. His scans indicated that the monsters were sensitive to light and