Parasite E-Book

Patrice Martinez

• Herausgeber: Tektime
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Pursued by an enemy combat ship, pilot Roman had to abandon his craft and retreat in an escape pod, fleeing toward a perilous planetoid on the outer edges. Alas, cornered on a rocky promontory, Roman braced himself to face the terrible predator that had come to add him to its gruesome hunting trophy collection.

PUBLISHER: TEKTIME

Leseprobe

PATRICE MARTINEZ

PARASITEShort Story

Translated from French by Cristina Botilca

By the same author:

Novels

Under Patrice Martinez

La Revanche d’IxionLa Tombe d’HestiaL’Univers-Dieu de Tau-ThétisLa Reine MellifèreBaaz des Steppes

Under Yan Derupé

Le Grand Pavois – La Princesse Blanche

Illustration: GBTaylor – Pixabay

Publisher: Phanès-éditions

ISBN: 979-10-91877-80-0

Legal Deposit: 04/16/2024

Any other use of this information or data, and any reproduction, even partial, is strictly prohibited and constitutes an act of counterfeiting punishable by law.

1

As the capsule entered the upper atmosphere of the planet, the cockpit suddenly began to shake and the fuselage wavered under the sheer force of the air penetration… The alarm system screamed like a madman, caught in the unstoppable clash with the powerful high-altitude air currents. Roman grabbed the control levers again, just as Mother tried to keep them:

“For safety reasons, please return autopilot control to Mother... I repeat, kindly relay control to Mother...”

Roman cut the connection with Mother, relying instead on his seasoned skills as a fighter pilot.

“Greee, go analyze every section of the fuselage!” he grumbled at the onboard computer, endowed with artificial intelligence mimicking the piloting prowess of the crème de la crème of fighter pilots the Constitution of the Three Worlds had recreated in laboratories—a remarkable, if artificial, model since the first attacks by the Saurians, some eight years ago already.

That’s why he had ejected the escape pod from the combat vessel when one of the enemy star-runners opened full fire; and despite the speed of the Union’s fighter, Roman was caught by the heavy artillery emerging from the Saurian assault craft, the missiles hissing as he plunged the nose of his spacecraft into the sulfurous atmosphere of the planetoid. He had to eject from the ship when it was struck by one of the tactical missiles chasing his craft like a pack of rabid dogs...

The enemy had probably not noticed the detachment of the escape pod from its mooring, because if they had, the enemy fighter would have expertly obliterated the Union’s vessel—without hesitation!

The siren kept wailing its litany in an aggressive tone, as the capsule plunged into a thick soup of blackish clouds some ten thousand feet above the surface of the planetoid. A host of volcanoes spewed their sooty, sulfurous fumes over a land partially devastated by seismic activity, while in the southern region, a vast primeval forest unfolded like an opulent emerald drape, broken only by a few volcanic ridges that jutted their peaks above the lush panorama of the immense woodland stretching across many acres.

Then, the jagged contours of the ground began to take shape before his eyes, his vision blurred by the violence of the capsule’s dizzying descent. The vessel shuddered under the velocity, threatening to break apart at any moment. Roman gripped the control stick with such force it felt like his wrists might snap, the friction clawing at the rescue craft like a beast with talons. The vessel was falling relentlessly, its fuselage glowing red-hot from the friction of the air...

The stick vibrated intensely as the volcanic landscape unrolled beneath his wide-eyed gaze, awestruck by the savage beauty of the place. The rescue ship had only a minimal energy reserve, just enough to allow for a landing in the event of an emergency ejection. Roman waited for the right moment to trigger the retro-thrusters that would stabilize the craft and allow for a flawless landing.