Revolution: The Ship Series // Book Two Read Online Free PDF

eat it. Take a
bite.”
    The boy took the apple and gave it a small, tentative
nibble. Nolly’s expression transformed from apprehension to pure joy. Two huge
bites followed in quick succession after which he used the heel of his palm to
wipe the resultant chin drippings back into his mouth.
    Zax smiled at the boy’s exuberance and swiveled to
Imair, curious as to whether she shared his appreciation. She wasn’t looking at
Nolly but instead had fixed her gaze on Zax with what appeared to be
bewilderment. As Zax turned to her, Imair’s expression switched almost
instantly back to neutral and she addressed the young civilian.
    “Put that in your pocket, Nolly, and go find someplace
where you can finish it without anyone seeing you. When you get into the
middle, there are going to be tough, stringy pieces and hard, black things
called seeds. You can eat those bits if you choose, but they won’t taste nearly
as good as the outer portion.”
    The boy bolted, but before disappearing around the
corner he looked back over his shoulder and shouted. “Thank you, sir!”
    Imair turned and walked through the hatch. Zax followed
being sure to scan his eyes all around as he entered the compartment. Mikedo’s
lesson during his Marine training about gaining immediate awareness of new
surroundings had stuck with Zax. A group of civilians huddled around a display.
They looked up as Imair approached, and the lone male in the group spoke.
    “We’ve continued to troubleshoot, but we just can’t
figure out where the fault is coming from.”
    Imair turned back to Zax. “Sir, the system keeps reporting
a fault we can’t resolve. We’ve even tried resetting the whole module, but
nothing has worked. We’re hoping you might have some ideas.”
    “I bet you’ve focused on the subsystems in compartment
50-H in trying to sort this out,” Zax offered after a quick look at the
display. “This circuit is unique because it has a special offshoot which leads
into 51-F as well. Let’s go take a look there.”
    Zax exited the compartment and Imair spoke as she caught
up. “Must be nice to just use your Plug to access the schematics and get an
answer so quickly. We’ve had a team of five racking our brains for eighty-nine
mins, and you just walk in and solve it after seventeen secs.”
    “I actually didn’t use my Plug,” Zax replied. “I studied
all of the Waste Systems schematics when I first started here. That circuit
stood out as an oddball since it was the only one that splits the way it does.
I figured one day it would cause an issue like this, and it looks like I was
right.”
    For the second time in a few mins, Zax felt like he had
perplexed Imair based on her facial expression. “You mean, you’ve committed the
entire system to memory?”
    “I don’t know about the whole system,” Zax grinned, “but
hopefully I’ve managed to remember the most interesting bits.”
    Zax halted at a small access port, but Imair kept
walking without noticing. She quickly realized, stopped, and looked back at
him.
    “Sir, we need to keep going this way to get to 51-F.”
    “Yes, that’s the best route if we want to stick to the
main passageways and ladders. The fastest route, though, is to use the
maintenance network. There’s a laddered shaft that will let us get up to 51 and
the tunnels between here and there are almost entirely walkable. There is one
four meter stretch where we’ll have to crawl, but even factoring that in this
should still save us 156 secs of travel time.” Zax smiled. “Well—it will save
us that travel time as long as you trust me and don’t stop to question every
turn we take.”
    Imair stared at him impassively for a moment before she
spoke. “My apologies, sir. Let me guess—you’ve memorized the routing of all the
maintenance tunnels too.”
    “At least the interesting ones.” Zax replied as he
opened the port.

 

     

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    Why
the apple?
    Imair dutifully followed Zax in silence as he led