Dreaming of Atmosphere by Jim C. Wilson

Author:Jim C. Wilson [Wilson, Jim C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B015FWI2E8
Goodreads: 27402877
Publisher: Jim C. Wilson
Published: 2015-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

28.

We only had just shy of three ship days to prepare ourselves for the shift back into normal reality. Maxine and Crege worked around the clock formulating evasive manoeuvres, while Fel’negr and Tac worked on the electronic warfare side of the coming fight. I was working in shifts with Mal, Eric, and the two Argen crewmen going EV to weld the synthetics to our outer hull.

Artemis, for once, helped out as well. I took her and Zoe through a damage control training session, and got them at least partially proficient working on hull breaches and using polycrete foam. Zoe, in turn, gave Artemis first aid training, although I could tell that Artemis already had a passing familiarity with basic aid. About what you would expect a soldier to have. This, along with her familiarity with small squad tactics and strategy, gave me even more to ponder on about her background.

The most of my time I spent running through drone simulations, practicing Interceptor formations and attack runs. We only had four left, and we had to make them count. When I did have free hours to spend I went down below decks to the cargo hold and practiced more on my nano-paradigms. Although my nanites had absorbed plenty of data regarding the Jump Gate shift, my own mind was still having a rough time trying to visualise how to get the Spatial Translation paradigm to work. The best I was able to achieve was to make myself dizzy and fall over a few times.

Max called us all into the cargo hold a few hours before we were due to shift, and gave us all the low down on the plan. She paced back and forth, her usual briefing posture. No one was on duty in the command module, since we were within a Jump still and there was no hazards that affect us.

“I know we’ve had a rough time of it already, first the pirate attack then the drones before we left Argessi. The Viridian March was also a little too hairy for my liking. We don’t normally do so much fighting on a job, even when we take a bounty. You can scratch this one up as par for the course. We all knew there’d be some fighting, one doesn’t fly into an exclusion zone full of hostile aliens without realising that. But this time we’re facing a very powerful enemy, one who we’ve already slipped the noose before and they’ll be looking to even the score. We cannot let that happen.” She paused to eye us all before continuing.

“We’ve done a great job getting ready for this fight, and that’s not always an advantage someone gets going into a battle like this.”

“How are we sure they’re waiting for us?” asked Mal.

“Seth’s nanites are affected by the shift a little differently than people or ships. They somehow flew through the Jump Gate ahead of us and saw the organo-ship waiting for us.”

“But how do we know they’ll attack us? Maybe they’re just waiting for a courier or something.

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