Novum: Exile: (Book 2) by Rhea Joseph

Author:Rhea, Joseph [Rhea, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2014-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Jake didn’t say another word to anyone but headed to his quarters and pressed the “do not disturb” button on the door. Once inside, he grabbed the small model of the Rogue Wave from his desk and threw it across the room. It hit the far wall, breaking off one of the rear fins, and landed on his bed. He stared at it for several seconds then dutifully picked it up and sat it back on his desk. The model had been Captain Coal’s, given to him by his wife a few months before she left him. “A captain’s life is a lonely one,” Coal used to say whenever he drank too much. Some days, he felt he understood what he meant. He took a deep breath and laid the broken fin on the desk next to it, promising himself to fix it later.

He undressed and tossed his clothes into the cleaner. One of the lesser talked about benefits of command, he had come to realize, was that both his room and his first mate’s had their own toilet/shower room, or, as Shippers called them, heads. He stepped inside his and took a long, hot shower then stepped out and threw himself down on his bed, not bothering to dry.

He awoke sometime later and glanced up at the clock. Just over six hours had passed, but he still felt the ugly mixture of exhaustion and frustration as before.

He thought about trying to go back to sleep when he noticed a pair of women’s shoes lying in the corner of the room. He walked over, picked them up, and realized they were Jane’s. He was confused until he remembered that Jane and Jessie had hidden from the probe in this room. In fact, they had hidden in the same shower he had used a few hours ago. He placed the shoes on the floor next to the door and turned back to the bed. Halfway there, he stopped and walked back to the door.

“Bilge,” he cursed aloud as he grabbed his clothes from the cleaner, quickly dressed, then opened the door and headed up to the bridge. Most of his crew was up there, crowded around Ash’s console.

“Captain on the bridge,” AJ yelled as she snapped to attention. “Sorry,” she said a moment later. “Old habits die hard.” Jake had insisted that she drop Shippers Guild formalities on the bridge, and she sometimes forgot, but this was different.

He glanced over and saw Ash casually turning off one of the screens on his console. “So, what’s your plan?” he asked as he approached the group.

“Sir?”

He looked at Raines. “I might be new at the captaining thing, but I wasn’t born in a pod.” As he said those words, it suddenly dawned on him where the expression came from.

“I don’t know what—” Raines started to say, when Jake cut him off.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I gave you all orders to continue on our original course, but that doesn’t mean I expected you to just give up.

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.