Rogue Powers Read Online Free PDF

to lunch half the time.
    "I suppose, Johnny. You go and have your fun while I try and get those pinheads on Capital to send me some fighters. Or maybe even the rest of my crew. I'm still only half-manned."
    Lucy got more interested. This sounds like two commanding officers talking, saying goodbye.
    "Come on, now, they're only 6000 hours behind schedule."
    " 'Only' he tells me. Listen, seriously, you guys be careful. Main Strike shouldn't be flying without Leviathan. We shouldn't divide our forces."
    "Yeah, I know. Bollixed up the whole battle plan. But orders are orders. 'Main Fleet is to depart on schedule, and no debate on this point will be heard.'"
    "'Any ship not yet prepared will join the fleet later,' " the other voice said, completing the quote. "But look on the bright side. They were going to send us with you as we were."
    "But Leviathan's nowhere near ready!"
    "I talked 'em out of it. Pounded my fist on the table at the admiralty and showed them what was what."
    "Bloody fools."
    "But it s going to be all ri—"
    "Calder! Quit staring into space and get back to work!" One of the Guards had finally noticed that Lucy had stopped pushing buttons.
    She came to herself and cut off her tap on Leviathans radio.
    Whatever it was the Guardians were up to, had begun.

CHAPTER THREE   June, 2115

Ariadne
    Two weeks after the fleet left, Gustav came out of his daily meeting with Romero covered in a cold sweat. Something new had come up. New information received, a big new job to do. The news was stunning. Incredible. And they had handed Ariadne the job of dealing with it. Romero in charge of it! That damn fool wasn't competent enough to tie his shoes without consulting the manual, and they handed this job to him because Ariadne was in charge of communications! Brilliant logic. Obviously no one had any idea how big this was. A check of the computer personnel files completed the chain of rotten luck. A CI, not a loyal Guardian, was the best qualified person to do the actual work. If anyone was qualified.
    Lucy thought she was being arrested when the call came. Gustav had bugged the meetings, knew what was going on, knew that she was tapping the comm fines. But the Guard who came to her work station said nothing beyond ordering her to the executive officer's office. None of the CIs had dealt much with the XO yet, and Lucy had little idea of what to expect. She pushed the buzzer at the entrance to his office.
    "Come in," a tinny voice said through a speaker. She opened the hatch—why couldn't they call it a door?—and entered. Gustav looked the way he always did: too young for his job, dark-haired, with deep, intelligent eyes and a face that would have been handsome smiling—if Gustav ever did smile. He was of medium height, or slightly above, in good shape, though his midriff seemed in the first stages of going to fat. A good field officer recently trapped behind a desk.
    "Lieutenant Calder. Have a seat."
    She took a chair and sat down. "Thank you."
    "All right, let me clear the air of the easy part. I don't know and I don't care about any and all of your conspiracies and plots and plans and meetings, and that's not why you're here. Your people are prisoners—and I'll call you that even if it's against policy—and you can never ever escape. Period. You're too far from home and have too few resources. I don't care about your plots because they can never do you any good, or me any harm. You are here for the rest of your life. So as long as you do your work, we don't care. Or at least I don't, and as far as you're concerned, it's the same thing."
    Lucy swallowed hard. "I see."
    "That's all unimportant now. Something has happened and you are a part of it. There's a group on Outpost, and we need a linguist. The files on you we took off the Venera say that you are one. Close enough?"
    "I know some languages. French, Russian, a few Australian aboriginal dialects, Chinese, but I'm—"
    "Then you're better qualified than anyone within