Battleship Raider, Paul Tomlinson [inspirational books for women .TXT] 📗

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

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Also by Paul Tomlinson

About the Author

Battleship Raider

Copyright © 2019 by Paul Tomlinson

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, or used in any manner whatsoever, without the express permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in the context of a book review.

Battleship Raider is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

First published April 2021

Publisher: Paul Tomlinson

www.paultomlinson.org/outlaws

Cover image and design © 2021 by Paul Tomlinson

Dedication: This book is dedicated to the original intergalactic thief and conman Slippery Jim diGriz and his creator Harry Harrison

Prologue

I was beginning to miss the desert. The jungle was hot and  humid and the flying insects were bigger than my head. Much bigger. They buzzed around like a gyrocopter stunt team. And anyone who tells you green is calming never saw a snake with a big flat head the colour of a leaf. The only thing that kept me hacking through the undergrowth was the promise of hidden treasure. That and the fact that I was bursting for a swazz and I was afraid to unzip in case something locked its nasty mandibles on my man-thing.

Did I mention the humidity? Every part of me was running with sweat and my clothes were soaked through. I was going to end up with all-over diaper rash. I’d always taken feeling dry for granted but now I was thinking of it as one of the must-have features of Paradise.

I paused to catch my breath and silently curse the old fool that had offered me this crazy ‘opportunity’. And the young fool who accepted it. That would be me, Quincy Randall. Thief, conman and part-time idiot. If I’d known what this expedition would be like, well, I’d probably still have come. I needed the cash. But I’d have brought more changes of underwear.

I heard something incoming and swung the machete – then watched one of the giant insects spiral down towards the damp black soil. A long pink tongue snatched the wounded flyer out of the air. I couldn’t see the mouth it belonged to, but I could hear the crunching. I shuddered, reminded of the hidden dangers the jungle was home to. Including creatures that were big enough to eat me.

The umbrella-sized leaves ahead of me stirred as a little yellow frog launched itself into the unknown and beyond them I saw... what? Dappled sunlight on tarnished metal? I hoped that’s what it was. That’s what the old man had promised I would find. I ducked another dive-bombing insect and hacked away at the foliage with renewed vigour, trying to catch another glimpse. If this was the wreck I’d been told about, maybe the treasure was here too.

Chapter One

The old man told me his name was Jack Sterling though I suspect that, like me, he’d had a few different names during his time. I met him in the prison in Margotsville, a desert town that lay almost two hundred miles north of the equatorial jungle. Old Jack had been found guilty of killing a man in a bar fight, or so he told me, and seemed content to live out his remaining days within the prison’s walls. I had been arrested as a result of a misunderstanding regarding ownership of a sand yacht that I had won in a card game.

The old man had been in prison long enough to know how things worked and he somehow managed to get jugs of the local moonshine smuggled into the cell we shared. Dragon’s Tears the locals called it. Dragon swazz more like. Old Jack liked to drink and talk, and I was happy to drink and listen.

“You stole a sand yacht?” he said, looking at me in a way that said ‘What the heck would you want a sand yacht for?’ Or maybe he was just squinting because he was soused.

“Technically I only sort of stole it,” I said. “There was a misunderstanding.”

“You’d better come up with a better story than that when you go up before the judge.”

“It was a beautiful ship,” I said. “You ever seen paintings of those old paddle steamers? It looked like one of those. Layered like a wedding cake... just floating over the desert like a mirage.”

“How do you steal something that big?”

“I didn’t steal it. Not exactly. I won it fair and square. Or so I thought. I had the registration document in my hand.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was playing poker with this guy. People called him One-Eyed Jack on account of his eyepatch, but his real name was Marmaduke – or was it Maurice? Doesn’t matter. He had a ‘tell’. When he had a good hand he’d touch his eyepatch – as if he wanted to show it to his missing eye.”

Old Jack smiled. “You cleaned him out! Got everything, including his yacht.”

I smiled too . Until I remembered what happened next.

“Turns out it was registered to the guy’s wife. He didn’t have a penny to his name. Gambled it all away.” I don’t usually drink much and this hooch was making my brain feel spongey. “To save himself, Maurice told his wife I’d stolen the papers. I saw his wife and