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optics could only maintain a link during minimal body movement, and any stray reflection carried the risk of advertising their position.

  As Denek dug his boots into the ground for another crouching jump the gravel to his right exploded showering him with shrapnel. Molten rock splattered over his visor’s optics instantly overloading his vision, leaving him isolated inside his armor. Trained reflex made him drop to the ground, switch to active targeting, and select sustained fire on his weapon in the same movement. Now that he had been discovered there was little point in worrying about giving away his position anymore. His armor responded by shedding the outermost layer of his lenses, restoring his vision in less than a second but still it wasn’t fast enough. As he regained sensory input and the moon’s dirty landscape again formed in his vision, he watched two targeting beams converge on Crim’s armor and several threat indicators flashing across his own grid.

  His weapon roared to life, solid neutronium slugs tearing through the tenuous atmosphere, the vicious recoil hammering into the stabilizer-servos of his shoulder. Fractions of a second after exiting the muzzle, the active munitions ignited micro-thrusters dispersing the hail of projectiles into a storm of destruction with devastating precision.

  Clouds of debris erupted across the desolate landscape, the thumping explosions more felt through his contact with the ground than heard through auditory pickups in the thin atmosphere. Denek’s intense concentration made the scene unfold as if time itself was holding its breath. Crim’s armored figure was slowly uncoiling at the beginning of another flat arc in the moon’s low gravity, twisting in freefall like a cat trying to land on its feet, while Crim’s own armaments blossomed into a hellfire of destruction. Denek’s hyperspectral visor shifted rapidly through its full range, trying to maintain visibility in the growing inferno of debris intermingled with the unleashed fury of his and Crim’s weaponry.

  His response had been fast and precise, but his choice of weaponry left him at a disadvantage. The active slugs would have deflected most incoming projectiles in mid-flight, but afforded little protection against energy weapons. As he hit the ground elbows first, the blinding trace of a high energy beam raced across the gravel towards him. As Denek watched the twisting string of intense heat come towards him like a poisonous snake ready to strike, he had little doubt about what would happen when that beam finally shifted to his helmet. He wasn’t going to make it.

  At the last instant the massive bulk of Crim’s armor blocked out his view, intercepting both the path of the advancing energy beam and the last of Denek’s projectile stream. Eye’s widening in shock Denek willed his muscles to release their tension, to lift his finger still pressed against the trigger with all the unmovable weight of a mountain. Two of the slugs screaming towards his friend’s back recognized Crim’s friendly armor in time to divert themselves, but the closest remaining hammered into his shoulder, a cloud of blood, fractured armor plating, and shredded bone erupting into the toxic atmosphere. The impact spun Crim around in mid-jump, revealing a still smoking scar seared across his chest plating where he had intercepted the beam to protect his friend. As Crim crumpled to the ground only a hand’s breadth from Denek’s face, the debris cloud of the destroyed beam turret rose behind him like the halo of a saint illuminated in the blue glow of the gas giant now dominating the sky above.

  “Crim!” Denek shouted, scrambling to his feet to reach the now still armor of his friend, dust slowly settling around him.

  “Ouch,” Crim replied weakly over the com line. By the time Denek reached him, Crim’s armor had already automatically sealed the breach at the shoulder, and immobilized his arm. Denek saw with relief that the massive armor plating on his chest had been sufficient to absorb and deflect the beam’s energy.

  “You damned moron, what the hell did you do that for?!” Denek raged at him, as he slapped self-sealing patches from his kit on Crim’s shoulder and chest just to be on the safe side.

  “Sometimes, when you realize that your choices really matter, you find that you really don’t have any choice at all,” Crim replied grabbing his friend at the forearm.

  Denek took his friends hand into his own and signaled for immediate evac. He crouched in silence looking at the scarred and dust-covered face plating of Crim’s helmet, never turning his gaze, until the plasma flame of the hopper reflected in Crim’s dark lenses told him the transport had arrived.

  ###

  Dear Reader, thank you for your interest in my work – I hope you enjoyed this story; please post a review (good or bad) where you purchased it and connect with me online. I greatly value my reader’s opinions, and personally read each and every one of them!

  The Author

  About the Author

  Born and raised in Western Europe, Ralph Ewig immigrated to the US in 1992 at the age of twenty. He has lived in both the Seattle and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, and holds three degrees in the field of aeronautics and astronautics from the University of Washington. To date, he has worked as a musician, a roadie, a lumberjack, a vineyard apprentice, and with many government and commercial space organizations; he is currently a Mission Operations Engineer at Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).

  Ralph currently lives in California together with his wife, continuing his pursuits of space exploration, creative writing, motorsports, martial arts, and sailing. He maintains an active blog on ralphewig.tumblr.com.

  Titles by Ralph Ewig

  Choice

  Freedom

  Power

  Eleuthera

  Sadaka

  Xenia

  Deyja

  Keynsho