Unbreakable by W.C. Bauers

Author:W.C. Bauers [Bauers, W. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, War
ISBN: 9781466847293
Google: jfsCBAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00L73GTLI
Barnesnoble: B00L73GTLI
Goodreads: 22572576
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2015-01-13T05:00:00+00:00

Thirty-two

APRIL 5TH, 91 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 1530 HOURS, RNS ABSALON, INBOUND TO THE ROCK, ETA 33 MIKES

Ensign X’atti Quartz sat at his station on RNS Absalon’s bridge, on the secondary command level, which was situated directly in front of and below the captain’s chair. He’d just completed his third scan of the watch, looking for anomalous readings within the asteroid field encircling the planet Ramshacke. The results were next to impossible to decipher due to the field’s wealth of heavy metals, which interfered with sensors. On his fourth scan Ensign Quartz—XM to his closest friends—picked up a ghost, which he attributed to a pocket of radiation from a rather dense thorium vein in a cluster of asteroids. Probably throwing off a false positive, he figured. But XM decided to use the ghost for practice and ordered Absalon’s forward array to isolate the anomaly.

As several mikes passed, XM was no closer to an answer. Just when he thought he had a firm fix on whatever it probably wasn’t, and just as he thought he was close to being able to cut through the radioactive interference to actually prove nothing was really there, his readings rescrambled themselves.

Impossible. Noise doesn’t flow like this, he thought. It’s random and this—something tells me this isn’t as random as it’s trying to appear. Unless, there really is something out there. Hmmm.

Quartz’s mind ticked off the possibilities. First, the proverbial ghost was in his machine, possibly a glitch in the calibrators. Second, the relay cones were damaged. An unlucky strike from a small chunk of rock could have caused such damage. The deflectors occasionally missed something. Third, maybe the static was coming from a derelict mining beacon. Fourth, an as-yet-unidentified alien craft bearing an as-yet-undiscovered race of being was mucking with his sensors, which was about as likely as a black hole materializing within Montana’s gravity well to gobble up the planet whole. And then he smiled at how ridiculous it all was. The fantasy of aliens and the fact that he was an ensign sitting at a post he was grossly underqualified for. Yet here I am nonetheless. He allowed himself a brief moment of private revelry at his very good fortune.

XM was young for his post, with a pubescent face and the wiry, developing frame to match it. A first lieutenant normally filled the billet he now sat in, and on occasion a second lieutenant stepped into a manpower shortage, not a lowly ensign with one bar on his collar. But top marks at the Naval Academy on Hold and perfect scores in both astrophysics and geospatial calculations, plus the behind-the-scenes meddling of an academy patron, had created the perfect confluence. Much to his surprise, he was short-listed for his first staff position and assigned to his current role as Absalon’s senior Electronics Warfare Officer, first watch.

He sat at his station and counted his blessings. Here he was, eight weeks into his snotty cruise and already a bridge officer. In reality, XM held a slightly

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