Fool's Gold: Carson Lyle's War - Part One Read Online Free PDF Page B

say it was aged didn't do it justice. The CF17-type freighter was downright old. Ancient, in fact, compared to the heavy lift transports used by the corporate freight lines. It had custom external cargo mounts, for nearly every container configuration and a smaller internal cargo bay. It was designed for a max crew of three but had been customized, over the years, to run just fine with one. It was cranky and temperamental, at times, and Betty had to compete with it for Mad Jack's affections before he died. But next to Mad Jack and Betty, it was about the only thing that hadn't let him down. When Jack had willed it to him, it changed his life.
    He boarded. The preflight checks, in the cockpit, were completed quickly. After a quick consult with the A.I. running Dock Control, by radio, he was flipping banks of switches on in a sequence he knew all too well. The vibration in his seat signaled the engines were firing up. Audible CLANG noises indicated the A.I. released the docking clamps. In another two minutes, the ship was pointed toward open space and the first jumpgate.
    Lyle checked the time again. He'd be cutting it close, but the big, fat bonus was still very much in play.
     
    ***
     
    Sweeney stood at the view port, watching The Majestic complete its turn away from the port toward open space. It grew smaller, as it moved away, and it wasn’t long before the ship was obscured by the brightness of the engine exhaust ports. Then that brightness increased, exponentially. In a few seconds, it was gone from sight.
    He rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment, then pulled a personal comm out of his pocket, thumbed a call preset and held it to his ear. Someone picked up in a moment.
    “Shorty didn’t get the job back…No, I don’t know where he is. Might wanna check the ERs in Atlantia proper….No…But this might work out better. Shorty was never right for this.”
    The voice, on the other end of the call, spoke for a few seconds.
    “They’ll have to convince him…He just boosted…Maybe twenty-five hours…Not my problem…Alright…Out.”
    He switched off the comm and started to walk away, but stopped. He looked back in the direction The Majestic boosted for a long moment.
    Too bad. I’d have liked to work him.
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 7
     
     
     
     
    Outer Rim Border
    Planet Webb-152e: "El Dorato"
     
    WHAM!
    The jolt would have thrown Carson Lyle out of his seat had he not been strapped in. The Majestic emerged from the El Dorado gate wth alarm klaxons sounding throughout the ship and a half dozen new red lights light on the panel.
    The auto-pilot began bringing the ship to a stop, as programmed. Lyle was woozy from four jump hops just under twenty-four hours. The relativistic effects of the transition in and out of jump space abused the human body, especially the temporal lobe of the brain and the inner-ear. Four hops in the same standard day was especially brutal, which was why haulers didn't exactly line up for speed runs to El Dorado.
    Carson Lyle cursed continuously as he swallowed a caffeine capsule to help get him straight more quickly. He struggled to focus on the readouts on the control panel. There were structural alarms on the rear quarter of the ship and one booster engine was critical.
    He didn't need the computer analysis to know what happened. Apparently, the report that said the El Dorado gate was fixed needed to be fixed, itself. There was only a finite hole in the wall of space-time for ships to pass in and out of the jump space tramline and the gate had shifted slightly out of line with that hole. The misalignment caused part of his ship to collide with the boundary between jump space and normal space. That barrier, of two different phases of space-time, was an unforgiving to matter trying to pass through it. The Majestic might as well have clipped a large asteroid. It was just as solid.
    Shit! Should've listened to Betty.
    Lyle ran, at full sprint, back to the engine