Void Contract by Scott Rhine

Author:Scott Rhine [Rhine, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B00VJEPHPE
Published: 2018-07-10T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The next months were a bit of a letdown for Bella, who had been eager to experience new worlds. It turned out that travel between the stars was slow and pretty uneventful. By the time the Fleet entered a new system Bella was quietly going stir crazy. The system was pretty primitive by her standards and Omar appeased her by taking the newly modified Moving Finger out for a spin. He landed the ship on an unoccupied island so that they could stretch their legs as it were.

Though the atmosphere was suitable for humans, it had a green tint which Bella found fascinating. The life which populated the island was somewhat similar to that of her homeworld, both having been seeded by organisms from old Earth. There were some sharp differences though, creatures which held only a rudimentary resemblance to their forbearers. While the Fleet restocked its tanks of biomass and other essentials, Bella climbed trees and reveled in her newfound strength. Other days she simply basked in the green tinted sunlight, giving her skin a dusky tone that began to approach that of her companion. They returned to the Fleet a happy crew, ready to face whatever lay ahead.

Bella noticed that Omar seemed more at ease once the Moving Finger docked at the Sikorsky. She attributed it to a new sense of independence. He volunteered the Finger for assignments whenever the Fleet moved into a new system. For her part, Bella was eager for any opportunities which promised action. She wanted to get into the thick of things, try out her new strength in real life situations. Much to her chagrin, real combat was dirtier, rougher and more lethal than anything she could have imagined. She might never have had time to learn that lesson if her body had not been augmented to triage itself. Bella knew she would never forget the face of the first man to slide a blade between her ribs. His cold expression never changed as he killed her. Nor would she forget his look of surprise as she rose from the ground and snapped his neck. Some part of her regretted his death even with the full awareness that he had had no compunction about killing her.

Bella knew this was the price of traveling the stars with the Fleet. Some part of her was happy that she had chosen to work with Omar, whose ethical boundaries kept them out of the less savory combat missions. She was reasonably certain that the men and women whose deaths she was directly responsible for deserved what they got. She could not help but hear, however, of other missions the Fleet carried out. The easy manner in which her fellow soldiers spoke of civilian massacres kept her from forming any deep bonds with them.

She found that she preferred the systems which provided more pleasant memories, high tech worlds where the Fleet was welcomed with open yet cautious arms and alien worlds where philosophical dirigibles drifted across vast wildernesses, sending out swarms of young.

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