The Mind Field by Blaze Ward

Author:Blaze Ward
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Hard Science Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Space Exploration, Galactic Empire, Space Opera, Space Fleet, ai, Exploration, action adventure, Military, Suvi, hard sf
Publisher: Knotted Road Press
Published: 2015-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

Part Five

Javier refrained from smugness. Outside. Inside? Different story. After all, Dad loved him best. See?

That thing on the wall had brought back a lot of memories. Most of them things he’d rather not remember, these days. He’d kinda forgotten how ugly things had gotten in his life after his first ex–wife left and his career with the Concord Navy started to ramp down with the budget cuts.

Out of work. Out of married. Down on his luck and himself. Amazing he had survived. Even gave religion a try at one point. For a long weekend. Those people had just been too weird to be believed.

He was much better now. Even Sykora really only occasionally got him mad enough to go back there. Okay, weekly. But that was down from daily. Hourly. Whatever.

The Shepherds of the Word. The Prophet of the People. The Union of Man. Things from the history books.

That painting there meant that this ship had, at one time, belonged to one of the actual Shepherds, one of the close followers of Rama Treadwell himself. The Prophet who had preached a universal brotherhood of man that should be reflected in a union of worlds. The Union of Worlds.

The battle that had destroyed A’Nacia had been, in its own bizarre way, the culmination of Treadwell’s life and teachings, twisted though the outcome had been. Even after he simply disappeared from history while traveling in deep space, his words had resonated. Some people had thought that that disappearance was what triggered the Unification War.

Javier wasn’t sure. He was kind of sketchy on that history anyway. After all, it was just about 650 years ago. And the Battle of A’Nacia was nearly 600 years ago, at the other end of the Unification War.

The Shepherds had faded, down the centuries, until they were only a few small monasteries tucked in out of the way places that were too damned cold and frowned on gambling and drinking. Silly people didn’t understand what made human organizations successful.

For luck, Javier touched the painting. He spun in place and scanned the hallway, correlating naval architecture with what he had learned in school.

Skinsuits didn’t allow it, or he would have cracked his knuckles.

“Right,” he said, mostly to Sykora. She and Ilan Yu were the only two looking at him, anyway. “Bridge at that end. Two cabins right behind it on one side, office and stores on the other. Wardroom and Rec room behind the hallway, most likely. Big engineering section back there.”

“Recommendations?” Sykora asked. There was no doubt she was in charge here. None. Devil take the hindmost if you asked her.

“We have power,” Javier replied. “Heat would be nice, and I want to see if the environmental system is up to handling a dozen people.” He smiled extra evil at Ilan. “You’ll get to practice on a very old system.”

“Joy,” Ilan replied with a tired sarcasm. Still, it was his job, and he was pretty good at it over on Storm Gauntlet. This should be a much less complicated system to fix up.

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