Dark Beneath the Moon Read Online Free PDF

case,” I said, shaking my head. “So, how about this radical idea? There are more men in the universe than the ones born on Eri.”
    Rei looked scandalized, her golden eyes widening. “Marry a non-Erian? My mother would go freneza , for one thing,” she said. She stared up at the catwalk stretching across the cargo pod, far above our heads. “I don’t know. That idea would take getting used to.”
    I slowly got to my feet and brushed cargo pod dust off my jeans. “Well, then I suggest you stop thinking about it for a little while,” I said. “You can’t do anything about it until we finish this mission for Lanar, anyway. Things might seem different in a few weeks.”
    She nodded. “I know. But being dumped by a seventeen-year-old who’d rather be a monk . . .” Her voice trailed off. “It’s pretty bad. And having to watch Baden and Maja tripping over each other isn’t making it any easier.”
    I laughed as I collected my shoes and slipped them on. “They are a little overwhelming, aren’t they?” I hesitated. “Rei, does it bother you about Baden? I mean, I know you two were close . . .”
    She smiled then, a real smile that touched her eyes. “No, and I told Maja that. Baden was a nice diversion on long runs—really nice,” she said with a wink. “And good experience. But I never thought of it as anything more than that.”
    Her eyes narrowed suddenly. “Speaking of couples, I haven’t been as completely unobservant as you might think. You and Hirin—”
    Her words were cut off by a jolt that shook the ship. I stumbled and fetched up against the plasteel wall of the cargo pod with a thump.
    “Ouch! What the—”
    “Captain! Rei!” Baden’s voice sounded over the ship’s comm. “You might want to get the hell up here!”
    I pressed the implant in my left forearm as I straightened up. Rei ran for the ladder that led to the upper decks, and I followed a few steps behind.
    “On our way!” I told him, and as I pounded across the cargo pod behind Rei, the things I’d been worrying about seemed small and far away.
     
     

Chapter 3 – Luta
Moving Targets
     
     
     
     
     
     
    I REALIZED AS Rei and I climbed past the engineering deck that the pounding I’d heard on my way down had stopped. Viss sat planted in a skimchair, punching commands into the engineering console.
    “You okay here, Viss?” I yelled as we scrambled past.
    “Keep going, Captain,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Just let me know what’s happening.”
    “Keep the shipwide comm open!”
    Another impact, slightly weaker than the first one, shook the ship as we neared the top of the ladder. One of Rei’s hands slipped off the metal rung, but she didn’t even stop moving. I was only a rung below her by this time, and if she’d fallen, we both would have landed on the unforgiving floor of the cargo pod far below. As it was, I was right behind her as we pounded up the corridor to the bridge.
    Hirin’s voice reached us as we arrived, issuing commands in a steady, level voice. He’d taken a spot at the pilot’s console in Rei’s absence. He heard us arrive and slid out of the way neatly for Rei to take his place, but I didn’t move to take the captain’s seat. I’d been absent, and he still had the chair. Somehow I’d thought about it on the way up from the cargo deck, and this seemed like the only way to handle it. I dropped into a skimchair at the secondary pilot controls and locked it down.
    “Trouble?” I asked Hirin.
    He flashed a grin. “Something like that. Innocent-looking C-class starrunner passed within a few hundred klicks, turned when he got behind us, and came in with a flash-pack torpedo.” He turned his palms up. “Don’t know what he was thinking. Even without shields it wouldn’t breach our hull, but it shook us up a little. You okay?”
    “Fine,” I said. “Where is he now?”
    My question was answered by a thump on the starwise side of the ship.
    “What does he want?”
    “Good