Fleet of the Damned Read Online Free PDF

sergeant was right, or maybe he was just paranoiac. But regardless, the beer machine sat unused throughout Selection.
    Sten's quarters were also quite interesting. They consisted of two rooms—a combined bedroom/study decorated in soothing colors, and a 'fresher that included not only the usual facilities, but an elaborate Jacuzzi.
    Sten had the idea that Ferrari's muscle toning would continue throughout Selection.
    Unpacking took only moments—Sten, as a professional, had learned to travel light. The only extraneous gear he had in his duffel was the fiches he'd collected over the years, now micro/microfiched, and his miniholoprocessor that, in off-duty hours, he used to recreate working miniatures of industrial plants.
    Sten had gotten the idea that he would have little time to play with the holoprocessor, but decided to hook it up regardless.
    The manufacturers were lying, he decided after a few moments. Their universal power connection wasn't that universal, at least not universal enough to include the powerplate hookups that his room had.
    Sten went out into the corridor, intending to see if his cross-hall neighbor had a diploid plug that would work, and also to check the terrain.
    He tapped at the door, a tentative tap meant to tell whoever was inside that this was not an IP, so he/she didn't have to conceal whatever he/she might have been doing.
    A sultry voice came through the annunciator, a voice as soothing as any emergency surgery nurse could have.
    Sten told the box what he wanted.
    "Orbit a beat, brother, and I'll be with you."
    Then the door opened, and Sten dropped into horror.
    Sten was not a lot of things:
    He certainly wasn't ethnocentric. The factory hellworld he'd been raised in had given him no sense of innate culture.
    He was not xenophobic. Mantis training and combat missions on a thousand worlds with a thousand different life forms had kept that from happening.
    He also was not what his contemporaries called a shapist. He did not care what a fellow being looked or smelled like.
    He thought.
    However, when a door is opened and someone is confronted by a two-meter-tall hairy spider, all bets are off.
    Sten was—later—a little proud that his only reaction was his jaw elevatoring down past his belt line.
    "Oh dear," the spider observed. "I'm most sorry to have surprised you."
    Sten really felt like drakh.
    The situation called for some sort of apology. But even his century had not yet developed a satisfactory social grace for a terminal embarrassment. Sten was very pleased that the spider understood.
    "Can I help you with something?"
    "Uh… yeah," Sten improvised. "Wanted to see if you knew what time we mess."
    "About one hour," the spider said after curling up one leg that, incongruously, had an expensive wrist-timer on it.
    "Oh, hell. I'm sorry. My name's Sten."
    And he stuck out a hand.
    The spider eyed Sten's hand, then his face, then extended a second leg, a pedipalp, laying its slightly clawed tip in Sten's palm.
    The leg was warm, and the hair was like silk. Sten felt the horror seep away.
    "I am Sh'aarl't. Would you care to come in?"
    Sten entered—not only for politeness but because he was curious as to what sort of quarters the Empire provided for arachnids.
    There was no bed, but instead, near the high ceiling, a barred rack. The desk took up that unoccupied space, since the desk chair was actually a large round settee.
    "What do you think—so far?"
    "I think," the lovely voice said, "that I should have my carapace examined for cracks for ever wanting to be a pilot."
    "If you figure out why, let me know."
    The social lubricant was starting to flow, although Sten still had to repress a shudder as Sh'aarl't waved a leg toward the settee. He sat.
    "I involved myself in this madness because my family has a history of spinning the highest webs our world has. If you don't mind a personal question, why are you here?"
    Sten knew that if he told Sh'aarl't that the Eternal Emperor himself had punted