The Gatekeeper Chronicles Book 1: Escape from Prison Base Luna Page 5
Mackey’s head snapped back as he fell to the hangar floor; the slug gun spilling from his hand. The room spun at a sharper, blurrier angle than it should have as his brain tried to recover after so much trauma so quickly. He tried to get to his feet, but fell over as everything tilted again beneath him.
He rolled over to the wall in an effort to orient himself again and fight the dizziness. His stomach lurched as he found the floor, then the wall and slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position.
His vision cleared enough for him to see the convict aiming his own slug gun down at him.
Mackey had to squint to keep the man in focus. He was tall and bald with jailhouse tats carved into his skin. Each tattoo would’ve earned him a week in solitary in his cell. The man’s arms and neck were covered in them.
“Give me the code for the door,” the convict said, “or I give you a taste of this thing.”
Mackey blinked his vision clear. “No.”
The convict shoved the barrel of the gun against his neck, pushing the side of his face against the wall. “You think I’m playing with you? Give me the fucking code or you get zapped right in the ear.”
Mackey’s dizziness passed and he slowly got to his feet. His head began to ache, but not enough to dull his drive to kill the man.
“You’re not going to do shit, numb nuts. Now give me back my gun and I’ll let you live. This is your last chance.”
The convict laughed. “I’m the one with the gun, stupid. I give the orders.”
Mackey’s dizziness subsided as the blood coursed through his veins again. “Last chance.”
The prisoner laughed as he squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened.
Mackey grabbed the convict’s wrist and twisted it back behind his head. He pulled his gun from the man’s hand before he dropped it. He forced the man to his knees and placed the gun at the base of his skull. “Gun’s got a safety measure installed. Won’t fire on another officer. Comes in handy when going up against assholes like you.”
The prisoners on the other side of the hatch were yelling as they pounded on the door. One man in particular glared at him through the porthole with a look in his eyes that was part rage, part fear for his fellow inmate. His friend.
Mackey let the convict’s arm go and pushed him flat on the floor with a boot to the back. The rubber sole of the boot would keep the shock from hitting him when he fired. Mackey looked at the convict glaring at him from the other side of the thick plastic window. A thin trickle of spit flowed from the corner of his mouth as he pounded the door in impotent rage.
Mackey held his glare as he squeezed the trigger. The charged round hit the convict in the base of the skull, frying his brain on contact. Mackey took his foot away and let his corpse flop around the deck as the charge coursed through his body.
The pounding on the door got worse as Mackey walked back to the door. He put his face close to the plastic. The convict pounded the door even harder, screaming into the window.
Mackey had a reputation for always having a snappy one liner for every occasion, but he didn't bother with one then. The convict couldn't hear him over the pounding anyway. Standing so close yet so far was enough to drive the big man into a rage. For all his power and menace, he was powerless. Both of them knew it. And that was enough.
Mackey holstered his gun and headed toward the annex. Toward his Prowler. His Velda.
Chapter 12
He felt better the moment he climbed into the cockpit and settled in behind the throttle. By all appearances, Velda was no different than any other Prowler in the Marshall's fleet. But, as he'd found with most women in his life, looks could be deceiving. It was the inside that mattered, and inside, the Virtual ELectronic Data Application (VELDA) was all his.
He slipped on the flight helmet and began to power up the ship. The artificial intelligence came to life first and the cerebral sensors he'd built into the helmet warmed. Most pilots wouldn't have even noticed the change, but he did. After all, he was the one who'd built them.
"Good evening, Kyle," Velda’s soothing electronic voice said as she came on line. "It has been a while."
Mackey smiled as he went through power up protocols. "Don't remind me, baby. Polanco's techs get anything out of you?"
"All of their attempts failed."
"Good girl. I need you to get us an opening and get us out of here. Think you can do that for me?"
She was quiet for a few seconds and Mackey knew she was already going to work on the problem. He'd designed her to take voice commands and solve problems faster than any computer in the fleet. She was a far more complicated system than that, but for now, he just needed her to override Polanco's lockdown and get them in the vac.
"Fra Mauro's emergency protocols have been activated...but I see you are already aware of that."
"Well aware. Now get us towed so we can get to work."
The automatic towing device beneath the ship began to hum and moved the ship toward the bay doors. Once there, the doors to the annex closed, the airlock activated, and the large outer doors to the lunar surface opened. Mackey brought Velda’s thrusters online and slowly raised the Prowler off the deck. Rear thrusters pushed her forward until she was clear of the hangar. Once the blast doors closed, he brought the thrusters to full power and cleared lunar gravity.
"Open up a channel to Polanco ASAP."
“Your vitals show you have sustained a concussion and lacerations to your left foot."
Part of his improvements to the shipboard operating system had been the ability for medical diagnostics and healing. "Anything we can do about that now?"
“Not without inhibiting your alertness for your conversation with Polanco,” Velda said.Velda got smarter all the time. “Meds can wait. In the meantime, put me through to him and find me every ship in the area between here and the portal. I’ve got a feeling Staxx is on his way to Mars.”
Velda opened a channel to Lunar Command and Polanco came on the line immediately. “Where the hell are you? Why haven’t you answered our hails? And what the hell are you flying?”
“I’d love to give you a full rundown, Chief, but we don’t have that kind of time, so I’ll give you the broad strokes: Fra Mauro Prison has been breached, most likely by a virus of some kind. The base’s communications arrays have been compromised. A prisoner by the name of Staxx escaped the facility in my Prowler under the identity of Duty Officer Johnson who is now deceased. I managed to get to the storage annex next to the prison and reacquire Velda and am in pursuit of Staxx right now. The bastard’s got a good head start, but we’ll find him.”
Polanco clearly didn’t get most of that the first time around, so Mackey ran through it a second time. This time, Polanco didn’t like what he heard. “You let a convict escape in your Prowler?”
Mackey knew that would be the point the bureaucrat would seize on. “I didn’t exactly toss him the keys and tell him to be back before midnight with a full tank of gas. I shot the bastard twice with the Remington, but it didn’t do much good. He was wearing Johnson’s suit and he’s built like a house.”
“Keys?” Polanco asked, missing the arcane twentieth century reference. “What keys? What are you talking about?”
Mackey didn’t bother explaining it to him. “Look, someone broke Staxx out of prison and I think that star freighter that attacked me was part of it.
“Staxx escaped,” Polanco repeated. “Christ, it took us a long time to get him.”
“I’m on it, boss, but I need to know if he hopped the Gate already so I know where to find him.”
After a second or two, Polanco said, “We knew something was wrong when you didn’t answer your hails and we got an alert about an aborted attack on the prison. He tried to fire, but couldn’t.”
“I figured he would,” Mackey said. “He’s dangerous, but predictable. Any idea where he is now?”
“Your Prowler went dark twenty minutes ago just as a star freighter named Magnus went through the Gate. My bet
is he’s hitched a ride with them somehow since they didn’t respond to our hails before going through.”
“Sounds like as good a place to start as any,” Hicks said. “In the meantime, I’m going to need to hitch my own ride through the Gate, boss. Velda’s a hell of a ship, but she can’t handle that kind of friction.”
“No need,” Polanco said. “We’ll get in touch with Mars Command. They’ll take up the slack from here.”
“Any sign from Mars Command about the freighter hitting their space yet?”
“No. Damn it.”
“That means they’re somewhere between here and there and we need to find out where before it’s too late. He’s still my prisoner until he hits another jurisdiction so we need to make this right. So do you. Good for your career and all.”
“You are a son of a bitch, you know that, Mackey?”
Mackey laughed. “Just what you need to catch Staxx. I’m going to need a freighter, star liner, military transport. Anything that’s got room for Velda and me. And I need it now.”
He could tell Polanco didn’t like it. But he also knew he didn’t have a choice. “There’s a Marine Transport Carrier – the USMC Copp - en route to Martian Space in an hour. I’ll contact their commander and make all of the arrangements. If you hurry, you just might catch them.”
Mackey located the Copp’s position and locked on an intercept position just before the Gate. “I’ve got her. I’ll be there waiting.”
“We’ll arrange it,” Polanco said, “and I’ll send you Staxx’s record in the meantime. He’s a bad man, Mackey. Worse than anything you’ve ever come up against.”
Mackey laughed. “You obviously haven’t met my old man. I’ll check in again once I dock with Copp.”
“Not a word about the breach to anyone,” Polanco said, “not even the commander. The fewer people who know about this, the better. Understood?”
Better for whom? he wanted to ask, but for once, held his tongue. “I copy. This is…”
“And Mackey,” Polanco interrupted. “I know what you probably went through back there. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you made it through.”
Mackey was surprised by how sincere Polanco sounded. “Me too. This is Mackey, over and out.”
He killed the transmission and let Velda steer them toward the intercept point with the Copp.
It felt good to be a Marshall again.
### END ###
Captain Kyle Mackey will return in
The Gate Keeper Chronicles: Under Siege
You have just finished reading
THE GATEKEEPER CHRONICLES 1: ESCAPE FROM PRISON BASE LUNA
by Terrence McCauley
This story is part of the Single Shots Signature Series.
Edited by Tommy Hancock
Editor in Chief, Pro Se Productions-Tommy Hancock
Director of Corporate Operations-Morgan McKay
Publisher & Pro Se Productions, LLC-Chief Executive Officer-Fuller Bumpers
Cover Art by Jeff Hayes
E-book Design by Russ Anderson
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