THE STONE WOLVES (GFL Novella VI) | Ep. 23

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Welcome to the serialized audiobook, The Stone Wolves,

season 11 of the Galactic Football League series,

written by Scott Siggler and J.C. Hutchins, performed by Scott Siggler.

The Stone Wolves is also available as an e-book

and is an ad-free, unabridged audiobook.

For links to purchase any version, visit ScottSiggler.com

slash the dash stone dash rolls,

or find it at ScottSiggler.com slash books.

Chapter 18, The Plunge.

Killing and bit back a groan as centrifugal force

slid him into a holotank, snapping it off at the base,

the fluid it contained, splashing across the garbage-stream floor.

Half-soaked, he sat up just as V-Den pressed a tentacle tip

against his chest.

Take it, she said.

I have to get the backup power online.

He reached to his chest.

She pressed something into his palm and then shot out of the cabin.

Her wings rippling double-time.

If she didn't get power online, there was no way Diana Zara would survive.

And if it was going down, the holerun would go down with it,

because beans would not decouple without the rest of the crew.

Killing looked at what was in his hand.

The little device she'd used to collect red wires DNA.

My Schmeck's leg is damaged.

Zant said, I have been shot in the hip joint and midsection.

That calm voice of hers, always so damn calm.

My leg, it wasn't hers, it was the Schmecks.

Moving the device into his pocket,

Killing fought against the ship's violent spin and stood.

I and Redwire, both down and coughing, but moving, didn't look hurt.

Zant Schmeck prone on the deck.

Its left hip torn to shreds, a ragged hole through the mechanical midsection.

Only a few wires and shreds of metal kept her from being two separate pieces.

His lungs burned.

The arrow had automatically sealed the bullet holes against the poisonous atmosphere

before there was any serious lung damage, but he, Ia and Redwire,

would have sore throats and a cough as their body cleared out damaged tissue.

If that was the worst they suffered,

Killing would give a prayer of thanks to high one.

Back out the way we came, he shouted.

Use the bulkheads to brace yourself.

He followed his own advice.

One hand on the cabin wall, he moved to the entry hatch.

He could see in the dark as could Zant.

Ia and Redwire didn't have that ability.

Killing then did something he rarely did.

He focused his thoughts, activated his sub-dermal scramblers.

Lines in his face lit up red, casting a dim illumination onto the floor

and the bulkhead beside him.

Follow me, he said.

We have to move, fast!

As he moved to the cabin door, he flashed glances, saw that Redwire was already up.

Ia hadn't bothered to stand.

She was crawling on hands and knees, one shoulder on the cabin wall to brace herself.

The girl was tough.

Killing exited the cabin, scrambling through the tilting corridors of Diana's arrow.

Trash and debris slid against the walls, colliding with the preposterously placed computer terminals and other gear.

He heard his crew panting and scrambling behind him.

They were in a death spiral and they didn't have long.

Quarter lights flared back to life, half the strength they'd been before.

The ship lurched, it felt like being an elevator that had unexpectedly ground to a halt.

Killian adjusted, then realized that while Diana's arrow had slowed, it had not stopped.

They were still going down, down to a certain death.

Lolls bought us time, he said.

Don't waste it.

Another explosion somewhere in the yacht, another knee rattling shutter rippled through the hull.

He fell face first into the sliding trash, heard the metal gong of Zan Schmeck hitting the floor.

Zan abandoned Schmeck, he said.

I need all your attention in the old run.

It was a hard order to give, but it was a necessary one.

She loved that Schmeck.

If they survived this, beans could make her another.

I will have to control Nav from my quarters.

Zan said, her voice in his combat.

Status of date upcoming.

To her credit, she didn't even ask Killian or red to bring her Schmeck with them.

She knew the stakes.

Killian pulled himself up, absently wiped blood from a fresh cut on his cheek, continued down the corridor,

the red glow from his face, a beacon for the others.

The docking hatch was just ahead.

Diana's arrow started to vibrate in a way that did not bode well.

He reached the hatch, opened it.

Light from the old run poured in.

He shut off his sub-dermals, happy to be free of that reminder of his more violent moments.

He looked for an intercom button, saw that the comms panel at the hatch had been removed,

replaced with something that looked like an ancient sextant combined with a data cube player.

No intercom.

Instead, he cupped his hands through his mouth, screamed as loud as he could, and hoped she could hear him.

Lulls, we are leaving!

I accrawled past him and through the docking hatch.

Killian waited a moment, hoping to hear Vden respond.

If not in person, at least from some unseen bit of speakerphone.

Red wire ran past, slapping Killian on the shoulder as he did.

An age-old silent signal from the stone wolf's days.

The slap meant Killian was the last one left.

Lulls, answer me!

She did not.

Killian could wait no more.

He dashed through the hatch and into the oren.

It, too, was spinning, but there was no trash, and he knew the ship as well as he knew his own face.

He headed for the bridge.

Zan, beans, talk to me!

Zan answered first, her voice rapid, but his calm and measured as it always was.

High one, but did he love having her as a Zaxel?

Three ships in firing range, she said.

I am returning fire as best I can.

The ships targeted both us and the arrow.

The arrow took a direct hit to the impulse engines and the power plant.

That ship will not survive without our assistance.

We lost one of our two altitude thrusters.

If we remain tethered to the arrow, we will hit the ocean surface in less than three minutes.

Killian's heart sank into a stomach.

If he didn't decouple, the oren and arrow were both doomed.

But if he decoupled, another stone wolf would die.

Zan, continuously signal to the arrow that Lolls needs to get over here.

Killian said as he reached the lift.

Beans, whatever you need to do, give us more time.

In the combat, Killian heard beans let loose a string of sclerino curse words.

The little guy was already working away.

Killian gripped the handrails that ran up the sides of the lift,

using what tiny shred of religious faith he still had left to pray that his fat bottomed girl would hold together.

At the top level, he rushed toward the bridge.

He heard the whine of several alarms and claxons coming out of the room, echoing down the corridor.

The oren's lurching spin brought back unwelcome memories of battles endured while on the killing.

He shoved those unwanted thoughts back into their dark hole as he stumbled onto the bridge and toward his chair.

He stopped, cold.

Red wire was in the chair.

The man's hands extended, surrounded by glowing control icons.

Red, get your ass out of my-

But there's a gunner station up here, manit!

Red wire said, his voice ringing with an undeniable tone of command.

I'm getting a sada here!

It was an idiotic decision.

The man barely knew the oren and had never flown it.

And yet, Killian found himself moving towards Zan's empty nav station.

Red was the best pilot he'd ever known.

Even without personal experience flying the ship, maybe that was the best choice.

In short, it was a 50-50 toss-up.

Decided by nothing more than the fact that Red had got there first and was already in the chair.

A glance at Aya, strapped into her station, palm sliding across the calmskins.

Zan stuck in her hold, both of her schmecks gone.

Beans, somewhere in the oren, doing the things that only beans could do.

Killian sat down in the rarely used nav station chair.

It was too small for him.

He strapped himself in anyway.

He ignored the nav gear.

Zan was managing those duties from her hold, and instead called up the primary targeting interface.

I've got weapons control, he said.

Killian tapped the glowing icon to turn off the automatic firing.

Fire at will, red wire said.

Keep them off us, killer!

I'm trying to counter our spin!

Killian's eyes took in the weapons display.

Three unidentified bogeys out there, moving fast, far enough away that they were only blips.

He glanced at red wire in the captain's chair, and beyond him, the bridges crystal window.

Outside, the tsunami and volcanic islands whipped from left to right as if they were spinning in circles and not the oren.

He had brought his crew to a hell planet, and, like clockwork, things had gotten even worse.

He heard Aya calling out to Viden, telling her to get aboard the oren ASAP, but heard no response from the hurrah.

Killian focused on his display.

Flashing lightning joined with beyond hurricane winds and shifting pockets of air density, messing with the sensors.

Why couldn't the system get a lock on the bogeys?

Were they Kergerk fighters?

Did Kergerk even have fighters?

Zan, red wire said.

Can you hear me?

Zan's voice came over the bridges speaker film.

Yes, I can. Are you in the captain's chair?

I am, red wire said.

Cut the tether to the arrow and seal us up.

Killian felt the rage inside him surge against the NASDOR block.

Belay that order, Zan.

You said.

Do not disengage from the arrow.

Red wire spun the captain's chair, faced Killian.

We had dead in 30 seconds if we don't, red said.

Killian couldn't believe his ears.

But Lose is still aboard.

Red wire pointed behind him toward the rain splattered windshield.

Splashed down in 25 seconds, he said.

Entire planets are at stake.

We can't die to save one sentient.

Zan, decouple now.

The all are enjured, hard.

And for a moment, Killian thought they'd hit something.

Beans' voice blared from the speaker film.

Second thruster back online.

That gives us more time before we take a bath, but not much.

Red wire spun his chair, again faced toward the windshield and the liquid death that lie

beyond it.

Now so close, Killian could make out the frothy tops of the massive waves below.

A storm of religious proportions down there, hungry for a new victim.

Off to the north, a tornado must have touched down.

A wide swirling spout of furious liquid rose.

Killian saw that it wasn't the only one.

Lightning kissed one of the swirls.

For a moment, making the entire water spout glow like the wrath of a god.

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We're being hailed.

I said by one of the ships that attacked us.

Killian's eyes flick to the weapons display.

The system still hadn't identified the bogies and he suddenly knew why.

Just because you can detect a smuggler ship once doesn't mean you can do it a second time.

He knew who it was.

He knew why the bogies hadn't shot to kill.

Put them through, he said.

Voice only.

The speaker film crackled with a static laden voice.

This is Harmony Ponsky.

Transmit coordinates to the borehole and we will cease targeting your thrusters.

For a moment, Killian's anger overpowered the NASDOR.

He was going to kill Harmony Ponsky.

All the Ponskies.

Then go back to the borehole and make sure Melody paid the final price.

And just like that, the moment passed.

Red wire again turned in his chair, made eye contact with Killian.

All the decades spent apart vanished.

The two men knew how to communicate to each other,

how to convey the bare necessities of information required for survival.

Red tapped his wrist, extended five fingers, then three, then pointed to the deck,

and finally drew fast finger across his throat.

Fifty-three seconds until he cut the connection to the arrow.

A silent but highly accurate clock started in Killian's head.

Red wire then pressed a button on the captain's chair arm rest,

leaned in close to it, and said something Killian didn't hear.

Red was talking to Zan.

Fifty-two seconds.

The man wasn't leaving the decision up to Killian.

Fifty-one.

Hello, Harmony, Killian said.

Loud enough for the bridge's mics to pick it up.

Your sister is in the borehole, right?

You're losing altitude, Olorin.

Came her fast answer.

The data cube on the punch beacon was slick, but no more tricks.

You don't have time for them.

Forty-eight.

Killian felt himself calm.

He had to trust Red to pilot, beans to fix, what needed to be fixed,

Zanda analyzed how to get the Olorin out of there,

and I had to do what she could to reach Eden.

Forty-six.

For once, Killian would do all the talking.

How did you find his Harmony?

An old friend sends his regards.

Harmony said.

He said, you know him from Laramie-three.

Thorn.

Forty-two.

Beans in the combat.

Skipper, I'm on the arrow.

I need twenty seconds, and I get us out of here.

Rage monster inside Killian tried to stir, but Killian had control of it now,

and would not let it out.

A second clock started in his head.

Thirty-nine and also eighteen.

Beans had disobeyed orders and crossed back over the tether.

Nothing Killian could do about that now.

Nothing but listen to his crew and help them out of this jam.

That's no friend of mine, Harmony.

Killian said.

You came yourself.

I admit I'm impressed.

Thirty-six and also fifteen.

I wanted to make sure the job got done right this time.

Harmony said.

You're quite the chatty patty for someone who's about to smash into an ocean of acid.

Let me give you some more motivation.

A part of Killian's awareness focused on the weapon system.

He knew at least one of the ships was coming in for an attack run.

He could hear it in the woman's voice.

He could also hear the worry, the fear.

If she didn't get the location before the oleron crashed,

her sister would rot in prison forever.

Thirty-three and also twelve.

We'll give you the location, Killian said.

We're out of control.

We need help.

He wasn't much of an actor, but he didn't need to be.

They were out of control.

They did need help.

Twenty-nine and also eight.

He saw the flash of movement on the weapons monitor.

Had a moment to respect the depth move of a ship

sticking to a downward spiral of a cloud to buy a few split seconds of visual cover

before coming right out of it and launching a missile.

Killian returned fire.

His fingers working like the fingers of his younger days,

firing a burst from the top-mounted twin 30-millimeter anti-aircraft battery.

He felt the oleron shutter from the missile's impact,

heard the explosive report of the detonation.

His eyes took in his readout.

Had he got the bastard?

He didn't know.

A red X appeared on his display.

Twenty-five and also four.

Top Guns destroyed.

He said loudly and in a panicked voice for Harmony's benefit.

Well, actually, that wasn't acting either.

Twenty-three and two.

Whatever Beans had planned, his time was up.

Aya, Goldman said, cut them off.

Killian heard Harmony utter the first bit of a single syllable,

but that was it.

Beans, red wire said, talk to me.

The Sklono's voice came back instantly.

Power merged across both ships.

All engine controls gathered.

Hit it.

Red wire tilted both outstretched hands to the right.

In the same instant, Killian felt the oleron bank in that direction.

Felt the ship accelerate, then level out.

The mad descent had stopped.

The ship rattled and bucked, buffeted by the nightmare storm outside.

Killer, red wire said, let them have it.

Killian's eyes locked onto the readout.

All three bogies are above us, he said.

I wasn't lying.

Our top guns are gone, firing rockets, but I think they're jamming them.

I'm on it, Aya said.

Top Guns gone, Roger, red wire said.

What else do we have?

Same array on the bottom of the holes, 360 mount.

That allowed Killian to shoot to the rear,

but only at ships below the plane of the oleron centerline.

Something the three bogies seemed to know.

They're trailing, but still from above, Killian said.

And they're closing in.

Red surprise move had given the oleron arrow a head start,

but two ships joined together, couldn't possibly hope to outrun

the Ponsky's light haulers.

I've got their scanner frequencies, Aya said.

Do you want me to jam them?

Killian started to say yes, but before he could, red wire spoke first.

No, they have live sighting the faster than us, he said.

Jam on my command.

Killer, get ready to fire when a target presents itself.

I'm going to change the game.

Everyone, hold on.

The man banked his hands to the left and tip them down.

The oleron went into a steep dive.

Red, what the hell are you doing?

This is a cargo ship for high one's sake.

You can't maneuver like this, not here.

As if an answer, Killian saw a large hole up here in front of the captain's chair.

The oleron, big and bulky, tethered to the longer, heavily modified arrow,

which was trailing wind whip smoke from two places along its fuselage.

Killian looked past the hole out to the windshield,

and to a swirling kilometers high pillar of sulfuric acid beyond it.

Beans, red wire said.

Can the oleron survive a dip in this ocean?

A brief one.

Beans responded instantly.

His voice overly amplified by the speakerphone.

Thirty seconds.

Without requiring extensive repairs.

If we're under for more than two minutes, we aren't coming out.

A dip in the ocean.

What was?

Oh, no.

Killian's testicles tried to crawl into his belly when he saw what red wire had planned.

Red, don't you even-

Hold on!

Red shouted just as he piloted the oleron arrow straight into the massive hurricane spun acid spout.

The hurricane had been damaging enough.

This was on another level.

Everything shook.

Gear rattled.

Pictures fell off the walls.

Nuts or bolts or other loose bits bounced around the bridge.

Even strapped into a seat.

Killian gripped the sides of the weapons console.

So hard, he felt the metal bending beneath his hands.

And then, even through the fist of God's shaking, he felt something else.

The oleron arrow was rolling over.

I, a jam!

Now, now, now!

Red wire said.

Kill her!

Do you think?

Everything went silent.

Everything slowed.

Killian found himself chilled by the endless expanse of the void.

He'd been here before.

More times than he could count.

The dead sense.

He knew he was in a ship.

New there were others with him on the bridge, but also that none of these things existed.

But he was a part of the blackness of space, the hands and fingers of the void itself.

Killian could see from the ship and also see from outside the ship.

See the trail of mist and sulfuric acid as the oleron ripped out of the massive spout.

The violent world was upside down.

The roiling sky at the bottom of the windshield's view, the turbulent, hungry ocean at the top.

Red wire had flipped the ship.

Killian used the weapons display and also did not use it.

The sky filled with glowing lines, telling him where those to be killed would be.

One line pointed high above.

He fired six rockets at it, finger twitches tapping off each round.

Even before he launched, he knew which way the target ship would fly because the glowing lines showed him.

The line, the ship and the rockets that followed it plunged back into the impossibly wide cyclone of acid.

Would the rockets find their mark?

He did not think so.

The wind was too strong and the rockets were not made to fly through such things.

But it did not matter because the dead sense told him another target would present itself.

Killian was already firing the bottom, which were now the top, anti-aircraft battery, before the second target shot out of the whirling column.

His first elbow was wide right.

The dead sense was slightly off, which happens sometimes, maybe due to too many computational variables, he'd never been able to figure that out.

But he corrected almost instantly and did so far faster than the struggling bogey pilot could correct his ship's path.

A dozen, thirty millimeter tungsten rounds, torn to the nose of the oncoming ship.

Killian now saw it was a modified light hauler, the same kind he'd faced at the GAN's prime station, and at the spaceport.

Although that hadn't really been him, then that had been the other, the one who shared the same body, but hid from who he really was,

that cowered in the booze and the pills, who stayed in a tiny cabin and tried to pretend that life wasn't about killing.

The hauler's front flashed with fire once, the flames instantly whipped clean by the high winds, then it exploded, a flashbang that scattered a puff of shrapnel.

Just as the hauler began to plummet toward the ocean, the oleron arrow angled upward.

Killian searched the existence around him for more threats, for more lines, he sensed neither.

Another enemy slain.

Sight and sound and fear rushed back at him so fast and so hard that he cried out in surprise, overwhelmed by the return to the real world.

The cold void did not like letting him go, and it made him pay.

Mean status?

Red wire in Killian's chair. The man looked older than Killian remembered.

The oleron, accelerating, leaving the planet's atmosphere.

And while last more than 30 or 40 seconds, I said, but I'm positive they lost us for now.

Killian saw Red wire push a button on the captain's chair.

Beans, red said, we need to jump both ships simultaneously. Can you do it?

Killian heard someone speaking, but couldn't lock in what was said. A high-pitched voice.

He knew we should know who that was, but he couldn't place it.

Excellent, Red wire said. Zan, is that course locked in?

Killian heard another voice. In his head, this time, a voice he recognized. A voice he trusted.

Stipper, it is me. I am here. You are safe.

Safe? He didn't feel safe. What had just happened?

I killed again. He said in a whisper. Didn't I?

He wasn't asking. He wasn't sure what had happened, but he knew what it felt like after he took a life.

You had to, Zan said. It was us or them.

Was that an excuse? Maybe, yes. If Zan said it was, then it was true.

Because Zan did not lie to him, ever.

Killian heard Red wire say something, wasn't sure what the words were.

Whatever Red wire was saying, someone cut him off. Someone speaking loud over the bridge speaker film.

The bridge. He was on the oleron. His ship.

Skipper. Zan said. The voice only in his head again, soft and calm and steady.

Red wire wants us to punch to MT734. Do you approve of that order?

MT734. That was a planet, wasn't it?

He heard I, his voice. Distant, but also close.

My block won't last much longer. If we're going to do this, we need to do it now.

Skipper. Zan said. I'm going to approve the punch. Do you understand?

Killian nodded. Yeah, he said. I understand.

He did not understand. Lock it in.

Red wire said. Beans do it.

The bridge and everyone on it started to shimmer.

Killian felt his gorge rising. Couldn't stop himself from throwing up.

He sat down where he was, felt something wet beneath him, and faded into sleep.

You have been listening to The Stone Rolls, season 11 of the Galactic Football League series,

written by Scott Siggler and JC Hutchins, performed by Scott Siggler, produced by Steve Rickeyberg.

For more information on Scott and more free stories, go to ScottSiggler.com.

Copyright 2025 by MT7 Entertainment. All rights reserved.

No part of this audiobook or any part of this recording may be used or reproduced in any matter

of the purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

The music is the song The Kids Are Coming For You by The Band Superweapon.

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