Gunship Read Online Free PDF Page B

bay floor.
    “Yeah, great, thanks for that!” Ty leaned over and slapped one of the smaller crates to Skeeter while still probing his shoulder with his index finger. “What were you doing down here anyway?” Skeeter normally stuck close to Duv on the bridge when things got tight.
    “Oh, yeah. Duv wanted me to look at the laser damage and see how bad it was. It fried some of the circuits to the main engine room and some of the ones to life support, too.” Skeeter pointed up to the blackened front wall of the hanger bay.
    “What? Shit, would you look at that!” Reilly gazed up at the front of the loading bay. The last laser round that had missed them had gone into one of the main control boards above the first catwalk. “It wasn’t shooting at us. That thing was trying to bring down the ship.”
    Most cargo-class gunships had two control boards on the loading bay deck. Disabling the lower one could cause all kinds of issues and if hit with a high enough voltage could even short out the engine in older models. Reilly had spent extra to make sure the electrical system was protected against any kind of overload or interference and had built in a backup electrical system just in case. That was the only reason the ship was still in the air now instead of at the bottom of a canyon.
    “One Enforcer jumped on the back—Duv says he’d never seen them do anything like that before. He was jinking and getting ready to roll to shake it off”—Skeeter reached the bay floor and picked up the small crate—“then it just dropped back off again…pretty weird.”
    At that, Ty looked over at Reilly. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
    Reilly punched the comms speaker on the deck. “Duv, run a scan for foreign objects on the hull. Tell me the minute you find something.” She clicked off. “Ty, I want you going through all of this cargo, everything, and tell me what has us getting so much attention since we started this mission.” She glanced down at her arm, which was bleeding again. “I’m going to go find Gunny and get this stitched.”
    Reilly stepped up and onto the catwalk, continued climbing, and then turned down a passageway that opened into a common room where the crew took their meals. Just off of the main area was a smaller kitchen area, and past that another room and then a bunk area. She found Chang in the kitchen.
    “So, you made it back in one piece, huh?” he said, turning and then raising an eyebrow as he took in Reilly’s bloody arm. “Hmmmm, or maybe in a few pieces…sit down here.” Chang pointed at a small stool in the corner by some potato peelings and then pulled an ISU medical kit out from under the counter. Reilly obediently sat as he began to unwrap the black cloth. He hissed appreciatively.
    “This is pretty deep—you always did suck at knife fighting.” He pulled out some disinfectant and supplies along with a needle and stitching thread as she gingerly rolled up the sleeve on her t-shirt. “It’s going to leave a pretty scar for you to add to your collection.”
    “It was an Enforcer, a class three. It was going for Ty. And I don’t remember ever losing to you in a knife fight!” Reilly grimaced as Chang jabbed her with a needle to numb the site and started to stitch up the wound.
    “Overconfidence is a fickle creature that if not tempered with humility can lead to a sudden precipitous fall.” Chang smiled brightly as he continued stitching. “You just ignore the odds, and someday it will get you killed. My grandfather used to say, ‘One who drives like hell is bound to get there!’”
    The shipboard comms crackled to life. “Captain.” Reilly picked up and hit the transmit button while Chang focused on his sewing.
    “I found something—looks like a tracker on the starboard hull of the ship,” Duv reported. “I don’t know if it has a detonator, but it’s definitely sending out a signal. What do you want to do?”
    Reilly looked down and thought for a minute. “Duv,