Doorways to Everywhere (Tourist Trap Book 2)

Chapter 75

Somehow Zeke's ship hadn't been blown up yet, but the situation was getting more dire by the second. He could see more and more enemy ships constantly approaching. He was hammering on his laser buttons as hard as he could, just blasting away at anything that happened to fall in his path. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Max turned in the other direction and firing his lasers just as rapidly.

"Hang tight," Milosh said. "Reinforcements just about to arrive."

"Huh?" Zeke said. "What are you talking about? What reinforcements?"

*

Sarah just had time to hit the eject button before her ship turned to a billion scraps of metal all around her. A transparent bubble enveloped the cockpit and she and Milosh were propelled away at a rate so rapid, the explosion looked like a tiny dot of orange light just a second later. The bubble began to descend slowly and gently towards Ingleblott.

"Well, Milosh," Sarah said with a sigh. "We're alive for the moment, but we're out of the fight now. It doesn't look like there's much hope. I'm sorry you're going to lose your planet. Once it's gone there won't be anywhere for us to go either. Looks like this is the end."

"Is not giving up yet," Milosh said. "Milosh give exact coordinates for laser. Reinforcements be here in a few seconds."

"What?" Sarah asked as she looked at the laser. Right next to it a doorway suddenly appeared and the Starswan flew out of it with its guns blazing. It scored several direct hits on the giant laser and then dodged out of the way as the weapon of mass destruction went up in a spectacular fiery explosion. Something connected to the laser must have been controlling the enemy fighters because they all immediately stopped in their tracks and fell towards the surface of the planet below.

*

Within an hour, the surviving members of the fleet regrouped on Ingleblott. The crew of the Starswan was surrounded by cheering Miloshes. Zeke couldn't help but wrinkle his nose in disgust as he landed his ship and saw Trey standing there with a huge smile on his face and his arm around Sadie. She was looking up at him with puppy dog eyes.

"I still don't get what she sees in that guy," Zeke muttered. "I was just as heroic out there as he was. Probably more so. He was probably practicing his ping-pong skills while that whole thing went down."

He climbed out of his own ship and threw his helmet to the ground in disgust. Before he knew what was happening he found himself wrapped up in a big furry hug. When he was finally released he stared at what looked like two filthy bears covered in black soot. "Bobby? Cindy? You guys survived?"

"We hit our eject buttons before our ships blew up," Bobby said. "We took a few scratches, but we're both okay."

"There were eject buttons on those ships?" Zeke asked. "I didn't know that. I guess it's a good thing I didn't get hit."

"Your ship looks like an older model," Cindy said. "Maybe yours didn't have one."

Zeke thought about that for a moment. "That jerk Nulfar was probably hoping I was going to get killed. Where is he, anyway? If he survived the battle, I'm going to have to have some tense words with him."

"Looks like someone else managed to eject," Cindy said as she pointed upwards.

Zeke looked up to see a transparent bubble float gently to the ground. Sarah and her Milosh stepped out and dusted themselves off.