Second Flight (Uplink Squadron Book 2) by J.N. Chaney & Chris Kennedy

Author:J.N. Chaney & Chris Kennedy [Chaney, J.N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Variant Publications
Published: 2022-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

13

BLASTER THREE-NINETEEN, HANGAR BAY, SPACE STATION FREEDOM, EARTH ORBIT

“All right,” Baker said as he entered the system. “Time to go.”

Irina met him in the foyer, tapping her foot as she materialized. “Perhaps you could give me a little more information on what the plan is? Where are we going? What are we planning on doing when we get there?”

“Wow, someone’s feeling their oats this morning.”

“I don’t know what that means, and I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t explain it to me. Not if you’re planning on leaving today.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Some of my systems haven’t had any maintenance recently. I can almost feel them starting to fail… It may be a long time before this fighter is flyable again. I can feel a cascading failure just waiting to happen.”

“Hmm,” Baker said, finally catching on. “Perhaps I should start over.”

“Perhaps you should.”

“Okay, so I just came—”

“That’s not starting over,” Irina said, shaking her head. “You have to leave and come back in order to start over.”

“Seriously? You want—” He stopped when one of her eyebrows rose. After a moment, he sighed. “I’ll be right back.” Baker exited the system and unplugged, then he took a deep breath and let it go slowly, along with the frustration. Once he was calm, he plugged back in and found Irina sitting cross-wise on a large reclining chair, eating grapes and looking bored.

“Hi, Irina,” Baker said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, although a bit bored sitting here. Thanks for asking, though. How did the meeting go?”

“Good, I think. Unfortunately, they’re not sure when we will ever understand the alien’s version of the jump drive. Until we do, Tau Ceti is out of reach. So, in the meantime, the decision’s been made to go back to the Procyon system and then to the system beyond it to find out what’s going on there. A lot of traffic has gone back and forth through our system; Command wants to know what the aliens are doing.”

“How long do we have before we leave?”

“We’re leaving as soon as we’re ready. We have to go back to Ganymede and get the squadron ready to board the carrier.”

“The Revenge again?”

“They renamed it. The powers that be didn’t think that was a very forward-looking name. They’re now calling it the Enterprise. There’s a lot of tradition there.”

“So we’re going to boldly go back to where no one else but us has gone before?”

“You’ve been watching old shows!”

“Maybe. Daiyu, Sofia, and I were trying to see what you find interesting in all of those things. It isn’t the dialogue or special effects; both are lousy.”

“Well, they are pretty old.”

“Old? We decided the right adjective is ‘awful.’ They are all just pretty awful.”

“Well, if you’re done making fun of my taste in—”

“You don’t have any taste; that’s the problem. We’d make fun of it, if it existed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.”

“Can we leave now?”

“I need a couple more minutes.”

“For what?”

“I’m downloading something from the station.”

“What kind of something? Must be pretty big if it’s going to take you a couple of minutes.

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