Empire of Bones by Terry Mixon

Author:Terry Mixon [Mixon, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Adventure, military science fiction
Goodreads: 22823737
Publisher: Yowling Cat Press
Published: 2014-07-24T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

The news about the implants interested Jared, but it got him no closer to solving the riddle of getting home. The probes had scoured the system and only found the one other flip point. No other weak flip points were present. Perhaps they really were rare.

He’d decided the science teams could continue examining Courageous for samples of technology to take home while Athena probed the next flip point. If there was trouble on the other side, it was better to go without the freighter. That increased his options somewhat and kept the non-combatants out of danger.

He sent two probes back to the other side of the weak flip point. One would wait for anyone to come into the system, transmitting a distress beacon. It had the full logs for the mission thus far, encrypted of course. They could send other probes back to update it as they learned more, as long as they were close by.

The second probe was on its way back to the Empire. It had to make two flips to get to an occupied system. Its distress signal would draw help from Fleet. If it made it all the way. Baxter wasn’t certain it would. And even if it did, it would be over a month before help could arrive.

He reluctantly pulled Kelsey off Best Deal to go with them as they explored further. If he’d had his way, she would’ve stayed where she was, but orders were orders. He did leave a couple of lieutenants to restrain the scientists from doing anything truly foolhardy. He hoped.

They’d also continue the inquiry into Carlo Vega’s death. Since the investigating officers didn’t know his suspicions about the source of the poison, they’d conducted an exhaustive set of interviews centered on the freighter’s galley. As he’d expected, they’d determined there was no reason for the suspect substance to be anywhere near the food preparation area.

Two labs had some for experiments, but security was somewhat short of Fleet expectations. They couldn’t even be certain any was missing. Jared would bet his salary from the entire exploratory mission they’d never officially identify the source of the poison. Or the poisoner.

Those thoughts occupied his time until Kelsey strapped herself into her unofficial seat on the bridge. She watched the two ships shrink on the screen until they were indistinguishable from the stars behind them. Only then did she turn her attention to him. “It’s unbelievable. I never expected to find people like this…just bodies. It puts a completely different light on this kind of mission for me. I feel like a vulture.”

“I can understand that point of view, but it’s wrong. None of the people who died on Courageous would begrudge us taking them home or salvaging what we could. In fact, their Captain gave us his explicit permission. In their shoes, I wouldn’t mind. Would you?”

She took a deep breath. “I suppose not. What do you think about the implants?”

“Since none of the Fleet or marine personnel survived the battle of Avalon, they could’ve all had them and the civilians would’ve been none the wiser.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.