Dauntless (Taurian Empire Book 5) by Nate Johnson

Author:Nate Johnson [Johnson, Nate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-03T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“What are you doing?” Cassie asked as she stepped into the aft compartment to find him bent over a workbench shaving metal from a valve. A heavy smell of machine oil permeated the room. In the far corner, the 3D printer buzzed and chirped as it created some other obscure part.

The man did love to tinker, she thought to herself. He was most happy fixing something or creating some new gadget. For all his big, brash courage. Deep down, he had the soul of an artist.

“I’m making a weapon,” he said without taking his eyes off the small piece of metal he was working on.

Okay, a fierce and violent artist, she thought as she smiled to herself. “What, swords and sledgehammers won’t be enough.”

He smiled slightly. “No not this time. Not if we want to keep them from standing off and cutting us up into little pieces.”

She paused, waiting for him to explain what he had planned. But the man was already lost. He’d forgotten she was even in the room as he focused on the task before him. Shaking her head, she turned to leave. Maybe AMI had an idea what was going on.

How had she gotten herself into this? All she’d wanted was to find out what had happened to her friend. A feeling of hopelessness washed over her. How could they stop Tony Rose? It seemed impossible. People wanted her dead.

When she reached the command deck she slumped into her chair, put her feet up on the console and stared out into the blackness.

Would she die out here? she wondered. Would her family ever learn what had happened to her if she did? Or would they spend the rest of their lives not knowing? Always hoping she would return.

It seemed so unfair. So unjust. Especially now.

“Jake,” AMI called, pulling Cassie out of her daydream.

“Yes,” he answered, his voice sounded detached over the radio, missing a bit of that deep resonance that she had come to love.

“Contact, bearing sixty-two degrees relative, angle one point four. Distance point six AU.”

“Any ID?” he asked.

“No, and I figured you didn’t want me advertising our position by pinging them.”

Cassie jumped up from her chair and hurried aft. When she rushed into the compartment, Jake had put down his tools and was staring off into space. She knew he was running the numbers through his mind. Evaluating different scenarios.

Biting her lip. She stopped herself from asking questions.

“Do you think they’ve picked us up yet,” Jake asked the computer.

AMI paused for a second. “They are not using a high gain radar. Like this vessel’s commander, they never installed one obviously. A poor choice, if you ask me.”

“No one asked you.”

“True,” AMI continued, “as for detecting us. I doubt it. Not yet. The belt is behind us. Their weak radar signal will get lost in the background. But they know we are out here somewhere, just not where yet. They will have detected my own radar but I don’t think they have enough to triangulate.

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