Accord of Mars (Accord Series Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

survey the damage well from my vantage point. The blast doors had done their job, limiting the areas where the explosion could go. It looked like some of them had failed - that must have been a powerful bomb! But enough held that the station was mostly intact.
    “You’re going to need a new office,” I said. I meant it as a joke, but it was hard keeping my tone light while gritting my teeth against the pain.
    “Damn them,” George replied. “I have people trapped in there…in that.” He waved his arm at the mangled mess.
    I scanned the area carefully. At least one of the hostiles had been outside George’s office and was likely dead. Were there others? Did they have a backup plan in case we somehow escaped? Amateurs would assume we would just die from the bomb. Professionals would assume likewise, but would have a backup plan in case we didn’t.
    Sunlight flickered off something moving over to my left. I squinted. Someone was out there in a space suit with a thruster pack.
    “Can you tell if he’s one of ours?” George asked.
    “He’s a hostile,” I said, casting about for options. I was out of ammunition.
    “How can you tell?”
    “I radioed to my ship to come help with SAR. I didn’t tell anyone where we were,” I said. There had to be something I could do besides wait for him to kill us. “The only people who could have heard that message and known right where we were are the ones who planted the bomb.”
    He was coming right at us on maximum thrust. It took me another precious few seconds to spot the rifle he was carrying at his side. The sight wasn’t a shock.
    “Not friendly,” I said. I looked around for anything that might give us a way out of this mess. We were sitting ducks, floating out here in space without any way to move around. I spotted the fire extinguisher. It must have been pushed out through the gap by the air rushing out, same as we had. Since it had the same initial velocity, it hadn’t drifted far from us. I reached out, trying to touch it. My fingers fell short. Another foot or so, and I’d be able to reach it. But it was too far away.
    The hole in my suit might be the answer I needed. I twisted in place so that the hole was facing away from the extinguisher. Then I released my grip on the hole. Air rushed out of my suit into space, and the annoying alarm in my helmet went off again. But the action of the air escaping created a reaction - pushing my body slowly toward the extinguisher. It wasn’t a lot of thrust. I was practically creeping along...
    But it was enough. I grabbed the hole again, cutting off the airflow. Twisting around, I reached out. This time, the canister was easy to grab. I latched on.
    A bullet pinged off the extinguisher, almost spinning it out of my grip. The enemy knew what I was up to and was shooting. He was still moving at full thrust though, so his aim was crap. I had to hope our luck would hold. I fired a jet from the nozzle, pushing me toward George.
    “Grab on to me!” I said. He spun in place, hands reaching - and caught my leg. As soon as I felt both his hands holding tight, I fired the jet again. We shot away from the gunman. It was hard to control our direction of travel though. We were a badly balanced load, and kept spinning off course. If I kept us too close to the station we might crash into the hull, or worse yet impale ourselves on sharp debris floating in space.
    Only one other option. I changed course.
    “Not trying to back seat drive,” George said. “But where are we going?”
    “Deep space. Clear of the station.”
    “Right,” George said. “And if he follows us?”
    “I’ll deal with that. I’m done with this game,” I growled. I opened up my radio comms again, switching to a secure Navy channel. “Hawk One, I need a pickup.”
    “Roger,” came the cool reply.
    “Be advised hostile chasing us,” I said.
    “One dead hostile, coming right up.”
    I kept the link open. No sense trying to hide now. The bad guys knew