Boneyards Read Online Free PDF

one of Coop's sideways insults, Stone understood that he had just called her stupid without uttering the word.
    “Tell me again why I'm helping you,” she says.
    “Because you're as curious as I am,” he says.
    She smiles just a little. Then she looks at the opening he just crawled through. “Boss, I think we need a team of about one hundred if we're going to do this dig right and get the information as quickly as the captain here wants it. I—”
    “No,” Coop says. But he's not speaking to her. He's speaking to me.
    “No?” I say.
    He nods. “I got the information I wanted. Something happened here. I want to go on to Sector Base Y.”
    “But we don't have any real answers,” Stone says.
    This time, he does look at her. “I have all the answers I need. Something horrible happened here. You figure out what that was if you want. I'm not looking for the details. I'm trying to track the Fleet, and this place won't help me.”
    “You know where Sector Base Y is?” I ask. It had taken him months to find Sector Base W, mostly on missions with a small team from his own ship.
    “I do,” he says. “I was hoping we could get our answers without going the extra distance.”
    “How far is that?” Mikk asks.
    “It's about the same distance between sector bases,” Yash says. “So as far as we are from Sector Base V.”
    Sector Base V is well inside the Enterran Empire. Mikk blanches. The distance is huge.
    “We have an anacapa on Nobody's Business Two ,” Coop says. “We can do this.”
    Stone turns ostentatiously and looks at the destroyed base. “I think there's a lot to learn from this place, Boss.”
    “I agree,” I say. “But this is Coop's mission. He asked us to run it, not decide where we're going. We can always come back here.”
    Stone sighs. “I hope you're right,” she says.



“G o, go, go, go !” Squishy waved her arms, shouting as she did.
    She stood in the mouth of the corridor and watched as scientist after scientist fled the research station, running directly toward the ships.
    The corridors were narrow, the lights on bright, the environmental system on full. It would have been cold in the corridors if it wasn't for the panicked bodies hurrying past her. The sharp tang of fear rose off them, and she heard more than one person grunt.
    “Go, go, go!” She continued shouting and waving her arms, but she had to struggle to be heard over the emergency sirens.
    An automated voice, androgynous and much too calm, repeated the same instructions every thirty seconds: Emergency evacuation under way. Proceed to your designated evac area. If that evac area is sealed off, proceed to your secondary evac area. Do not finish your work. Do not bring your work. Once life tags move out of an area, that area will seal off. If sealed inside, no one will rescue you. Do not double back. Go directly to your designated evac area. The station will shut down entirely in…fifteen…minutes.
    Only the remaining time changed. Squishy's heart was pounding. Her palms were damp, and she kept running her fingertips over them.
    “Hurry!” she said, pushing one of the scientists forward, almost causing him to trip. “Get the hell out of here!”
    Another ran by her, clutching a jar. She stopped him, took the jar, and set it down.
    He reached for it. “My life's work—”
    “Had better be backed up off site,” she said, even though she knew it wasn't. The off-site backups were the first thing destroyed, nearly three hours before. “Get out of here. Now! ”
    He gave the jar one last look, then scurried away. She glanced at the jar too, saw it pulsating, hating it and wanting to kick it over. But she didn't.
    She stood against the wall, moving the teams forward, getting them out. No one was going to die this day.
    A woman clutched at her. “My family—”
    “Will find you. They've been notified of the evac,” Squishy said, even though she had no idea if that was true.
    “Are they far enough away?” the woman