Borderlands: The Fallen Read Online Free PDF

goods. Once he’d succeeded, actually had the money coming in, she’d be delighted. He hoped.
    Zac hadn’t succeeded at much in recent years. He was a trained engineer, but he had a tendency to take shortcutsin getting the work done, just so he could get the paycheck and move on to the next job. It’d worked until that portable bridge had gotten stuck halfway, stranding a dozen people between skyscrapers for three hours. The portable bridge had teetered in the air, might have crashed if he hadn’t flown over there on a quickchopper and reprogrammed it.
    Zac felt a sick gnawing doubt as he climbed into the DropCraft’s cockpit, buckled himself into the seat, and read the coordinates into the navigator. Could Rans be setting him up? Was it all about the “advance” he’d given him for the landing coordinates? Rans had been a reliable guy in the old days, but he seemed different now. He stank of desperation.
    Crazy chance he was taking, even if Rans was on the up-and-up. Zac was leaving his wife and son in orbit, and heading down to a hostile planet. True, he’d only be planetside for a few minutes. But there were risks—probably more than he could know. It was a planet of imponderables.
    “Destination fixed and confirmed,”
said the craft’s computer.
“Close heat shield hatch and press ignition.”
    That whirring came overhead, unmistakable this time.
    He looked up, spotted the small, spherical drone hovering nearby, angling itself as if about to dart down at him.
    So it
had
been following him. The expert Rans had shown the pictures to must’ve shared them with someone else. Maybe he’d shown them to an operative of the Dahl Corporation, or Atlas. And they might not want this little expedition moving ahead.
    “Uh, I
do
have ship-to-planet landing permit,” Zac toldthe drone. Which was true—he was legal to take a quick trip to the surface. “And I did a transfer rental for the DropCraft …”
    The drone didn’t respond. A red light started flashing on its top. Zac knew what that meant.
    He had to get out of here. He fumbled at the console, found the tab marked
Hatch Close/Auto Ignition,
and thumbed it. The shield hatch hummed closed—but not before the drone zipped in. It hovered inside the DropCraft, whirring angrily to itself right in front of his eyes, the red light now flashing with furious rapidity.
    “No, wait—!” Zac said as the airlock closed over the DropCraft—and the bottom dropped out of the DropCraft bay.
    His stomach seemed to fly up to catch in his throat as the DropCraft plummeted out the lower hull of the Study Station and into orbital space. On autopilot, the craft veered down toward the atmosphere, as the security drone, now inside the cockpit with him, slipped to hover near the navigational unit on his left. He grabbed at the drone—but it fired a short, sharp laser into the craft’s navigational unit.
    A
crack
, and smoke drifted up from the blackened unit, choking the cockpit.
    Zac coughed, turned in his seat, grabbed the whirring disk—it sparked, jolted him, punishing with electricity. He held on, raised it over his head, smashed it down into the bulkhead of the cockpit. It cracked, gave out a last, sad hum, its red light going out.
    He tossed the drone aside and stared out through the transparent heat shield as the DropCraft plunged into the atmosphere—spiraling out of control. Red-and-blue-streakedvapors were swirling over the little vessel, flames guttered up around its prow … as it veered sharply down toward the planet’s surface.
    Marla and Cal were in the little stateroom, with its three sleeping snugs, its small table and chairs, its single viewscreen showing a digital image of space outside with the planet they were orbiting—or in-flight entertainment. Cal was flicking through the entertainment guide as Marla went again to the door and opened it to look down the corridor.
    No Zac. He hadn’t gone to the bursar’s office—she’d called there and they