Constitution: Book 1 of the Legacy Fleet Trilogy Read Online Free PDF

four minutes.”
    LaPlace nodded slowly. “Anyone else think we might have found a lead?” LaPlace asked his bridge crew. Nods all around. “Thought so. Comm, send a meta-space signal to CENTCOM. Text as follows: Meta-space disturbance detected near Nueva Leon. Will investigate before proceeding to Veracruz.”

Chapter Nine

    L-2 Lagrange point, Earth
    Afterburners Bar, ISS Constitution

    Captain Granger knew it was probably a mistake to antagonize the newest officer on the Constitution , but dammit all if it didn’t feel wonderful. But that preening paper-pusher of a commander, Shelby Proctor, would probably complain to Admiral Yarbrough that he was interfering with her mission, and he knew his official record could do without another corrective administrative action. He’d been on good behavior for the past decade or so, but Yarbrough made it clear to him years ago that she wouldn’t tolerate another incident , no matter how many good-old-boy buddies he had up the chain of command.
    “So you’re just going to let her do it? Strip out our starboard fighter bay and turn it into a friggin petting zoo?”
    Granger glowered at his XO, and tipped his glass back. “What the hell am I supposed to do, Abe? Lock her in her quarters until the decommissioning ceremony and hope for the best?”
    “Yes.” Haws pulled his flask from his boot and uncapped the lip, grinning at the thought.
    “You and I both know that we’re on a tight leash here.”
    “Even after all this time? Hell, Tim, it’s been nearly fifteen years since your little stunt.” The old officer swigged the remainder of the contents of the flask, which he’d probably been working on since waking up that morning.
    “Regardless. I don’t want to risk your retirement. Or my next command—assuming I get one. Or the futures of the rest of the senior staff.”
    “You know we’d have your back.”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of. No, Abe, it’s time. It’s time we let her go. She’s had her run.” He glanced up at the ceiling of Afterburners , then lowered his eyes to the officers scattered around the room at the tables and benches. The walls were adorned with various mementos and pictures the proprietor had picked up from around the colonies. A fossilized tree ring from the blue forest on Deneb 3, nearly three feet in diameter and glazed in lacquer. A pair of old, dusty leather boots hanging down from a nail driven into the bulkhead—the footwear of the very first captain of the Constitution, who commanded the Old Bird over a hundred and twenty-five years ago . He smirked as his eyes passed over a picture of President Avery of the United Earth League, her stern, lined, grandmotherly face taped atop the barely-clothed busty figure of a supermodel in a pose so suggestive that it would give a regular person hip-dysplacia.  
    Dammit, he was going to miss the Old Bird.
    Granger swallowed another mouthful of the Afterburner’ s distilled rotgut. “You know, it’s not all that bad. The original USS Constitution —the old sailing vessel George Washington commissioned, the one that saw service for nearly a hundred years—it’s still in Boston harbor, taking on tourists every day. Are we better than her?”
    “Did you hear what Proctor wants to do with the engines?” Haws motioned over to the bartender and pointed at his empty flask.
    “What’s that?”
    “Oh, only strip out the lead ballast from the main drive. Says she wants to bolster the shielding of the main reactor.”
    Granger did a double-take. “She what?”
    “You heard me. Thinks that the level of radiation coming off the reactor poses a threat to visitors.”
    Granger shook his head. “It’s well within norms.”
    “Within military norms, sure. But it’s slightly above accepted civilian dosage rates. So she wants all the ballast stripped out and the quantum reactor core shielded with at least five centimeters of friggin lead.”
    The captain rolled his eyes. “If we do that,