Rocketship Patrol Read Online Free PDF Page B

stopped. “Says who?”
    “It is–” Loy began.
    Hackenthrush lifted a warning finger. “Don’t say it.”
    “–Standard operating protocol,” Loy finished.
    “You know, if I wanted to be constantly reminded about all the things I’m not doing…” Hackenthrush turned to Rikki. “Remind me again, who’s the senior officer here?”
    “8724?” Rikki guessed.
    Hackenthrush grunted. “No… me. I am .”
    “Seriously?” Rikki extended a paw. “Well, congrats, I guess.”
    “Thank you,” Hackenthrush shook Rikki’s paw then smirked at Loy. “And as senior officer, I have damn well near absolute say on what course of action we take, protocol be damned. I shouldn’t have to remind you of that, Junior Officer Five-Percent-Top-Of-My-Class.”
    Loy sighed. “If we check out the accident site, it’ll give you more time to get to know Miss Swartzbaum.”
    “Duty calls, I’m afraid, Miss Swartzbaum,” Hackenthrush said, opening the hatch of his cabin for Cortez. His cabin was bathed in soft red mood light from an artificial candle that pumped cheap musk into the air. “It won’t take long, I assure you.”
    “Let’s hope not,” Cortez said, her smile fading. She stepped into the cabin, her nose twitching with displeasure as the musk hit her.
    “Let me just show you where everything is,” Hackenthrush said, attempting to follow her in.
    Cortez put a hand on his chest to stop him on the threshold. “I think I can figure things out. Call me when lunch is ready.” She gave Hackenthrush a solid push and closed the hatch in his face, squashing his nose.
    Rikki stared at the closed door, his ear-tips flicking, agitated. “I bet she’s getting naked in there...”
    “Damn it,” Hackenthrush said, “I knew I shouldn’t have moved the surveillance cameras to rookie’s cabin.”
    “What did you say?” Loy asked.
    Hackenthrush squinted at her. “What did you hear ?”
    Loy sighed. “Never mind. Anybody else think there’s something wrong here?”
    “Yeah,” Hackenthrush said, rubbing his nose. “I’m on the wrong side of this door.”
    “I mean with her,” Loy said. “She just lost a ship. A new ship. But she didn’t even ask about getting the black box. Insurance company won’t pay out without it.”
    “She’s probably in shock,” Rikki said.
    Loy shook her head. “The med scans didn’t show anything. And how do you accidentally blow up a ship by pressing the wrong button? There are safeguards. Even if there was a single button that could do it, the Ship’s Brain would never allow it without several layers of verbal authentication. Right, 8724?”
    “I know I wouldn’t,” 8724 said.
    “I’m telling you, it doesn’t add up.”
    “No, doesn’t add up at all,” Hackenthrush said. He slapped his hands together. “Oh, well, what you gonna do? I’m gonna go make her some lunch.”
    “Maybe a Cobb salad?” Rikki suggested.
    “With a nice rare steak.” Hackenthrush started down the corridor, back towards the ladder. “I think we’ve got some New Hirenk strips in the freezer.”
    Rikki caught up with him. “I have the perfect wine. Fortified.”
    Loy watched the pair disappear down the ladder. “It’s too soon to mutiny, isn’t it, 8724?”
    “It is only your first day.”
     
     
     
     

FOUR
     
     
    “Gas. It’s all gas.”
    The rusting bulk of the Exalted Refuse drifted below the wide expanse of debris field, spotlight shafts spearing up from her dented forward probe into the cloud of sparkling dust and slowly dissipating gas.
    “Just like I told you it would be when you spotted the explosion,” Vei continued. The Halgorian was four foot tall, hunched over under a glistening, ridged dome of a shell. Her bulging eyes were fixed on the holotank set in the rim of her majority shareholder’s nest-station, which showed an image of the debris field displayed relayed from an external camera on the Refuse ’s broad back. “Something that intense doesn’t leave