SODIUM:4 Gravity Read Online Free PDF Page A

bandage that now adorned my right temple.
    I was told I now had an optical implant and whatever I saw with my right eye would be broadcast over the quantum channel along with the audio from my right ear. They were truly the devices of invasion of privacy, but where I was going, privacy would not be needed.
    We were then returned to our quarters. As I lay back on my anti-grav mattress another tech standing over me with a clipboard looked me in the eye and told me he would see me in six. The sleep drugs administered quickly and I was soon in la-la land. The six hours of rest would be over soon enough.

Chapter 3

    As the stimulants pulsed through my bloodstream I was fully awake in seconds. The new Bio-Gel Sustenance suit (it was officially named the BGS) was much more comfortable with thinner layering and a tighter fit. When I walked into the hallway towards the elevators the other workers stopped and stared. It had been months since I had that feeling of being an attractive woman. It felt good to be back.
    I met Shepard at the elevator and we made our way topside. Our new ship, even though it had the same inner frame, was named the Ghost series. With a slightly thicker skin and a more powerful magnetic field applied, it would disappear when activated without the customary rippling effect the Defender series had when looking through it.
    The sensors had also been redesigned and repositioned to offer a stealthy approach when the BHD drives were off and the sensors still active. In the Defenders the sensors had to be off to allow the active skin to shield us from detection. I was eager to give our Ghost a try.
    After a final short brief on our mission I joined Shepard in the cockpit for a systems check. Ten minutes passed before the pale blue of the sky turned quickly into the blackness of space. I pushed the throttle full and watched in awe as the ship rapidly accelerated away from Earth.
    In two hours we passed through the heliosphere on our way out to the alien fleet. With our new power-plants, the trip out to our enemy took only two days while reaching a speed of nearly 500 times light-speed. The thought of traveling 500 SOL made me smile.
    As we approached the distance of the alien fleet we took a wide berth while leaving the sensors on full to collect data. From the perspective we had we could see that the fleet was still intact. On an earlier mission a prior crew had attempted to launch a set of Drillers at the fleet with the hopes of doing damage. If any damage had been done from that attack it was not visible from our view.
    We continued to accelerate before reaching our maximum safe speed of 2412 SOL. At that speed striking a rock the size of a softball would instantly end our voyage. The ship had the ability to continue to accelerate but our sensors would not be able to steer clear of smaller obstacles with any degree of safety. I was quite happy with our two week voyage time.
    With our belt-line nutri-packs and filters we were no longer tethered to the chairs. In the cockpit of the Ghost it really didn't matter as there was no free room to get up and move around. It was just two weeks sitting in the same position.
    I tweaked my BGS to set it to the highest level of stimulation available. I planned on being muscle bound upon our return to Earth. I also felt it would not hurt to be as physically fit as possible in case there was some need to go extra-vehicular. The new BGS was fully capable of protecting us if a spacewalk was necessary.
    The suit utilized a new Sodium skin that would automatically activate to protect us from radiation sources such as the charged particles of the stellar winds. The activation level of the skin on the BGS was very low as it needed to consume little power if our power packs were to last any length of time.
    Shepard was a wiz with the on-board computer and after the first day she had a ghost operating system running with everything in simulation. She had four scenarios from our training