Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2) by Darcy Troy Paulin

Author:Darcy Troy Paulin [Paulin, Darcy Troy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The ship appeared in a distant orbit around the large ringed sphere of a gas giant which was according to Snow, just as she expected. Linda's files on the system predicted the huge planet and her estimate of their entry point put them in orbit about said huge planet. Light from the distant star glinted through a broad band of rings and across the surfaces in the ship. With the brightest and most dangerous rays filtered out, a stunning rainbow played across the interior of the silent cockpit.

As it turned out, Snow's Decision turned out to be pretty great. Assuming you were looking for an amazing view of an amazing space-scape and assuming you were not looking for Akoronite. Because all indications were that there was little or none to be found.

Though it would have taken longer to determine that the system was void of the rare mineral, it took less time to rule it out as having much promise. But they agreed it was important to spend at least a small amount of time at their first interstellar stop.

There was a little discussion on what to name the planet. And though 'Snow's Decision Seven' would be an acceptable name according to protocol, it seemed like their first stop outside of their system deserved something more specific. Linda listed a number of suggestions with the roughly translated meaning of 'First Stop' and Snow settled on Primera Parada. She liked the sound of it.

Primera Parada had moons. Many moons. The largest, given the placeholder label PP-Eleven by the stellarpedia software, was somewhat larger than Mega, or Grailliyn or even Earth. The tidally locked planet shepherded the inner edge of its parent's ring system and was shrouded in an impenetrably thick swirling atmosphere. Any desire to visit the surface of the newly discovered world was quickly abandoned when Linda's estimate came in of the atmosphere’s surface crushing pressure. Ultimately, they stayed no longer than it took to gather useful positioning data, and to track some of the larger moons orbiting Primera Parada.

The pressure was then on Max.

“Let's see how good Max's Decision is,” Snow said, the Cheshire Cat grin on her face stealing much of the sting of her attempt to counter-haze him.

Max knew he was in a poor position. He had no experience at all with astrogeology. He also knew that they shouldn't be wasting time with his ignorant choices of destination, but he didn't want to be a poor sport, so he rolled with it. Besides, if they had any kind of certainty, there would be a list and they wouldn't be required to play guessing games at all. “Where's the shortlist, Linda,” he asked.

“Here you go, boss,” Linda said. A list of locations that were deemed to be possible sources of Akoronite filled the screen. It wasn't a very short, shortlist. “Might I suggest—”

“No, no, LC,” cut in Snow, “save that info. You're up next.”

“Slippery slope…” Linda said, though Max barely noticed.

Max considered the locations. He filtered them by position and viewed them by the map.

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.