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    Space Cowboy
    Space Cowboy
    Space Cowboy
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    Space Cowboy

    By Byron Gordon

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Novella
    Recommended Ages: 17+

    He is a heroic maverick marked for death.

    She is an interstellar cop with a thirst for revenge.

    Together they take a ride they'll never forget as they run from mafia hitmen, investigate a tragic cruiseline accident, and get caught in the tightening coils of the underworld.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherByron Gordon
    Release dateJan 10, 2015
    ISBN9781311290007
    Space Cowboy
    Author

    Byron Gordon

    Byron Gordon grew up in the rural Eastern Shore of Maryland, USA. One of six children, he soon discovered his love of reading, ranging from the clever humor of P.G. Wodehouse to the epic fantasy of Tolkien to the fast paced science fiction of Timothy Zahn. Fed on this widely varied diet, his imagination blossomed and he began to write, desiring to create worlds and adventures of his own.After realizing the bleak financial prospects of an aspiring writer trying to break into the fiction realm, Byron enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. He spent an extra week in Coast Guard Boot Camp (Cape May, NJ) for writing during the breaks between classes. After Boot Camp he traveled to California for training in radio communications. Following the completion of his training, he spent three years on a Coast Guard Cutter, interdicting and repatriating illegal migrants. He currently is still on active duty and plans search and rescue efforts on the east coast of the USA.Despite the intense, and often hectic, schedule that military life entails, Byron has continued to write in his free time. While writing a complete novel still proves elusive, he has composed multiple short stories and a small amount of poetry. In the spring of 2011, he started publishing his writings electronically and now has a fair number of short stories and poetry available online in a variety of formats.

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      Book preview

      Space Cowboy - Byron Gordon

      Space Cowboy

      Byron Gordon

      Copyright © 2014 Byron Gordon

      All Rights Reserved

      Cover Art by Joseph Wheatley

      Smashwords Edition

      License Notes:

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All characters, locations, and events portrayed within are entirely fictional and original to the author. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

      Space Cowboy

      Jamie loved free fall.

      The endless expanse of the void swallowed him as he shot out of the starboard launch tube of the SRC Aquarius. The ship, one of the five Savior-class vessels the Space Rescue Corp had commissioned receded behind Jamie as he zipped through the void towards his target. The merchant vessel in front of him was drifting silent, dead to the world, it’s fires gone cold. There would be little to no oxygen onboard, the three survivors picked up by sensors would be those who had made it into their emergency suits or found a trapped air pocket.

      In an air pocket, the average human male would have approximately three-point-four metric minutes to survive. The average female would have a little longer at approximately four-point-two minutes. In an emergency vacuum suit, otherwise uninjured, that time increased to eighty-six metric hours. Most humans could not survive past that without water, making additional air pointless.

      Of course, Jamie reminded himself, that only mattered if the ships reactor did not blow. Which is why he got to soar through ten kliks of the void, his survival entirely dependent upon the thin Vylium suit that he wore. If the Aquarius was alongside when the merchant’s reactor exploded, the entire ship could be destroyed, its crew wiped out. Far better to risk only one individual than the entire ship.

      The apparent corporate coldheartedness of the SRC caused a lot of controversy down planet side, but it did not bother Jamie one bit. Instead he grinned as he shifted his balance, pulsed the mini-ion thruster in his left hand and swung around a deadly meteoroid.

      He was simultaneously expendable and indispensable. The entire rescue mission relied upon him getting to the ship and relaying his findings back to Aquarius. Everything relied on him, on his skill in traversing the void and properly clearing the dying vessel.

      The void made life important.

      Because the void was freedom.

      Because the void was death.

      Jamie felt the adrenaline level rise in his veins as he used his ion thrusters to brake his velocity and land lightly on the surface of the merchant vessel. He keyed his transmitter as he located the airlock.

      Aquarius, Salver One. Am on the hull of the ship and preparing to enter. Will provide full report of ship’s status in two-point-five minutes.

      Copy that Salver One. Be safe in there.

      Jamie grinned, synced his helmet’s HUD with the ship’s internal system and keyed the override code into the airlock. It slid open silently and he dropped into the belly of the dying starship.

      It took him point-five minutes to determine the reactor was on the verge of entering an overheating death spiral. He had two minutes before it was unrecoverable.

      Another point-five minutes and he had reached the engine bay and looked through the view port built into the entry hatch. The sensors in his suit told him the engine bay was flooded with radiation. Radiation that would eat through his suit in seconds.

      Jamie could see the chief engineer laying face down on the deck. A trail of melted skin stretched behind him, marking where he had crawled towards the emergency vent control. Exposing the engine bay to the void would slow the overheating process and allow for a controlled shutdown of the reactor. The engineers fingers twitched, still trying to reach the control switch.

      Jamie brought up the engine room controls on his HUD and keyed for emergency vent. The air in the bay gusted out through the vents. The engineer’s body, ravaged by radiation exposure, broke into several pieces and flew out into the void. The cold filled the bay, sapping heat away from the reactor, and averting the meltdown.

      Jamie initiated the reactor’s shutdown procedures and headed for the ship’s bridge. He keyed his transmitter.

      Aquarius, Salver One. One survivor lost in the engine room. Reactor entering controlled shutdown. I deem it safe for Aquarius to come alongside.

      The Aquarius acknowledged his transmission and assured him that they were on there way. Jamie reached the bridge. Shutting down the reactor had killed the onboard power and he had to cut through the hatch to get through to the bridge. Fortunately the plasma torch mounted on the left arm of his suit was designed for exactly that purpose and he was through the hatch in four-point-six minutes.

      The bridge had been depressurized in the accident, but the captain and his mate had enough time to don their emergency suits. Jamie found them strapped into their flight chairs, shaken and worried. They visibly relaxed when they saw the bright orange emblem of the SRC emblazoned on the chest of his suit. A quick scan of his sensors showed that both of them were suffering slightly from shock but otherwise they were fine.

      An hour later, Jamie had the two survivors were onboard Aquarius and headed to the medical bay. He de-suited and headed for the onboard gym. There were two other Salvers onboard and he figured he would have enough time to workout, eat, and catch a nap before he would be back on shift.

      #

      Captain Merrick found him in the gym, her heavyset body graceful and at ease in the zero-g environment, her silvering hair cut close to her scalp. She always reminded Jamie of the ox-like beasts of burden from his home world of Axos-5, though he would never have said that aloud. She waited patiently as he went through the movements of his training kata, her lips pressed together firmly, her eyes calm

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