Bringing Stella Home Read Online Free Page B

and the noise stopped.
    “ We’ve docked,” Ben said,
unstrapping himself before the Fasten Seat
Restraints sign flashed off. Stella nodded
and did the same. In the aisle, the other passengers were already
spilling frantically from their seats, pushing past the
stewardesses despite their best efforts to keep some semblance of
order.
    Ben stood up and took his sister by
the hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
     
    * * * * *
     
    “ Undock with the station,”
came Adam’s voice over the intercom. “I’ll be on the bridge in a
minute.”
    A message from local traffic control
flashed across the screen, ordering all vessels to cease undocking
operations until properly authorized. James hesitated.
    “ But Dad,” he said, “the
port authority—”
    “ I don’t care what the port
authority says, we’re getting the hell out of here. Do
it.”
    James swallowed and closed
the message. He then sealed the airlock and began powering up the
engines. The ship’s computer ran through the warm-up sequence,
checking the Llewellyn’s various systems. Everything cleared. Behind him,
the low hum of the engine sounded through the walls.
    With the undocking process
underway, James glanced out the forward window. Several of the
other ships at the station had broken away from their airlocks,
engines flaring as they desperately scrambled to climb out of
Kardunash IV’s gravity well. Out of the corner of his eye, he
caught the flash of a larger ship as it passed into jumpspace.
James tapped his armrests with his fingers and bit his lip;
the Llewellyn was
a local freighter, equipped only with sublight engines. No jump
drive.
    He glanced down at the blue oceans and
swirling clouds of Kardunash IV, still nervously tapping his
fingers. With the sublight engines, at least they would be able to
escape the planet’s gravity well—that was more than the people on
the ferry shuttles had. More than—
    Ben and Stella.
    He bolted upright in his seat. Ben and
Stella—they were still on the shuttle! If they didn’t find their
way to another ship, then—
    The door hissed open behind him,
making him jump. His father strode onto the bridge, taking his seat
at the pilot’s chair.
    “ How are we looking?” he
asked as he brought up the controls.
    “ Engine’s at forty-five
percent,” said James, his voice quivering. “All other systems are
go. We’ve sealed off the airlock and are ready to detach from the
station.”
    “ What news can you give
me?” asked his father. “Where’s the fighting worst?”
    “ The night side,” said
James, glancing at the scanners. “Dad—”
    “ Good. Drop the cargo and
plot us a course for a full reversal. I want us climbing the
gravity well in the opposite direction before our orbit takes us
into the battle.”
    James frowned. A full orbital reversal
meant using more fuel in ten minutes than they had burned in the
last three weeks. Once they hit their target arc, there would be no
turning back.
    “ But Dad—”
    “ Just do it. It’s the only
chance we have to get out of here alive.”
    James swallowed and turned
to his console, hesitating only a second before keying the command
to eject all cargo. Outside, more than fifty tons of high-grade
steel jettisoned from the cargo hold. He watched on the display as
millions of credits worth of cargo drifted out of the open bay
doors and fell slowly toward the peaceful planet below. It was a
terrible waste, he knew, but the Llewellyn would never be able to
escape in time with all that extra mass weighing them
down.
    “ All systems go,” said
Adam. “Detaching from the station. Prepare the bridge gravitic
dampers.”
    James turned frantically to his
father. “Dad, Ben and Stella are still out there. We can’t leave
yet—not without them!”
    His father hesitated over the
controls, as if teetering over the edge of an abyss.
    “ We can’t do that, Son,” he
said, his voice low. “We don’t have time. They’re probably on