Beyond the Fringe by Miles Cameron

Author:Miles Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion

One Hour

2784.10.29

The Second Astrogation Officer of the PTX Special Cruiser 偷天換日 Tou Tian Huan Ri ‘Stealthy Change’ was a popular man. First, Kim Jong-jik was politically harmless, because as an Earth-born of Korean descent, he could never be part of any of the main power structures. Second, because he was funny, and his puns were never offensive and always called forth groans, he was welcome in the officers’ mess or in any workshop. He could hold his drink, he did his job, and he competed with absolutely no one for precedence.

He also had an almost bottomless source for Scotch, and even if it wasn’t ‘real’ Scotch, it was, two years out from the Left Naval Station of the Imperial Planet, sufficiently close to Scotch to merit the name. How he managed to dispense it from his tiny shared cabin suggested that he had friends in high places, and yet …

And finally, because as a ‘Worker-Officer’, a man promoted from the ranks, he seemed easy with everyone, whatever rank. He was welcome wherever he turned up: cheerful, energetic, funny and self-effacing, always willing to bow a little lower. Several of the ship’s senior officers managed to dislike him, as he was obviously beneath them, but they didn’t show it in front of their troops.

Besides, they almost never had to interact with him, because he was second astrogator, and the first astrogator was Second Captain Jiang Shunfu, an elite keju-board-certified genius who was politically untouchable for the simple reason that he was the best astrogator in the extensive PTX fleet. He could be curt; he could be rude, and he was almost always blunt and direct. It seemed to emanate from the same wellspring as his genius. It made him difficult to discipline.

Especially this voyage. They were eleven jumps out from their home dock in the magnificent Left Fleet Yards by the Celestial Palace Orbital, eleven jumps that had taken them over two years. They had made longer leaps into the Deep Black than any ship in fleet history, except their consorts, Special Cruisers 长征 Long March and 长城 Great Wall, respectively. The three of them had waited in the infinite cold of deep space, as their sealed orders required, and conducted military operations against a hidden enemy, as still more secret orders required, and now …

And now, 长城 Great Wall was so much radioactive dust, her crew of three hundred and fifty all dead in a twenty-second long combat with one of the DHC’s supposedly antiquated Greatships, and her sisters were running in the Deep Black, too fast, and too far from home.

‘Prepare for free fall in ninety seconds,’ said an automated voice. Kim was in his acceleration couch in Astrogation. On the impressively new-design Special Cruisers, Astrogation was its own airtight space behind the bridge, with the Combat Centre in another airtight chamber, like chapels off a great temple. The main bridge was for the command staff, and that had both military and political overtones, like everything in the Empire.

Kim

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