(eng) Mike Shepherd - Jump Universe 01 by First Casualty

Author:First Casualty [Casualty, First]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

Rita bounced out of her car and across the lawn. She looked as excited as a puppy .. . and cuter. Ray smiled, in spite of his own day. First he would listen to whatever made her dance; his news could wait. The front door flew open. “Ray, you won't believe it. Dad, are you home?” she called.

“No, hon,” her mother answered from upstairs. “But I expect him home early.”

Rita gave Ray a hug where he sat in his chair, then settled down at his feet. “Hon, the most wonderful thing happened. We intercepted a message from a ship that was lost.”

“Like we wrote your ship off.” Ray leaned forward; a forehead so excited needed a kiss. Rita accepted it demurely, then captured his cheeks with both her hands and kissed him solidly. His wife was excited, and not just about her news.

With her tongue wandering his mouth, Ray could almost forget the letter in his pocket. Rita came up for air. “We will save that for later. First you've got to hear what happened.”

Licking his lips slowly, Ray asked, “What happened?”

“The message got shuffled to Technology. There's only three of them, but they knew what they had after a page. One ran down the hall looking for me. 'Mrs. Longknife, you're a pilot. Will you read this?' It's so nice when they call me Mrs. Longknife.” She smiled, the tip of her tongue escaping her lips.

Bending quickly for a kiss, Ray asked, “And what was this they wanted you to read, Mrs. Longknife?”

“Ray, a ship came back from a bad jump!”

The blank look on his face was not what Rita expected.

“Ray, ships have been going into jumps and never coming out for centuries. If you make a bad jump, you don't come back.”

“And why were we poor passengers never told?” he growled.

“Because we pilots worry about it enough for all of you.”

Ray drew back, aware he'd stomped his bride's professional pride. He kept his mouth shut. Excited, her glower was short-lived. “In the early days, they had a lot of bad jumps. For a century they've become rarer and rarer. We haven't had one in fifty years. You know what causes them?” Ray shook his head, not about to risk another misstep.

“Speed! Speed and spin. The faster you go into a jump, the farther you go.”

Now Ray was puzzled. “You said you took the jump into that hellhole at twice the speed you would have if the admiral hadn't ordered it?”

“Spin and speed,” Rita repeated. “Spin the ship up, hit a hole at high speed, and zoom, you're halfway across the galaxy. Think about it, Ray, a whole new bunch of jump lines to survey. Millions of systems to visit. Enough cheap resources and good land for humanity to stretch out in. Ray, we've got to get this damn war stopped so we can get on with the real stuff of life!”

Which brought Ray back to the letter in his pocket. He pulled it out and handed it to her.

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