Terminus (Fringe Worlds #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

actually let him tell much of his story without interruption, reserving many of their questions until he’d finished – something for which Maker found himself grateful. It wasn’t that it was difficult for him to talk about what happened; he just preferred to tell the tale as quickly and succinctly as possible. When questions came in the middle of his narrative, it felt as though he was never going to get through. Now that he was finished, however, the questions started rolling out in machine-gun fashion.
    “When you first encountered the derelict ship,” Browing started to say, “couldn’t you have simply noted the ship’s position? Couldn’t you have returned to base and then sent help back?”
    “We didn’t know what the emergency was. Being adrift, they might not be in the same spot when help arrived. Hell, another ship might not have even gotten close enough to pick up the signal – assuming it was still broadcasting at that point.”
    “I’m more interested in the nine-point jump,” Dr. Chantrey stated. “How did that end?”
    “The ship practically disintegrated upon re-entry into normal space,” Maker said. “We exited well within the Hub, apparently causing a slight bit of panic since we came out of nowhere.”
    Panic was putting it mildly. Early on, one of the first uses conceived of for hyperspace travel was military applications. Got a world that’s giving you trouble? Then just pop out of hyperspace, drop a dozen planetbusters in their direction, then zip away. With that in mind, laws restricting hyperspace travel got passed pretty quickly. As a result, the only hyperspace travel allowed inside the Hub was via jump gates – giant ovals in space that essentially acted like humongous slingshots, flinging ships through H-space to their destinations. (In fact, the gates were indispensable modes of travel for many alien ships, which were required to have their jump drives completely disengaged when passing anywhere through Gaian Space more centric than the Inner Rim.)
    As an added precaution, the ship navigation systems that controlled jump drives were manufactured with a built-in kill switch, an automatic regulator that operated on the basis of proximity. In other words, a jump drive simply wouldn’t work anywhere within the Hub (nor within some regions of the Mezzo). In fact, the auto-regulator wouldn’t allow a ship to drop out of hyperspace any closer than two jump-points from the Hub.
    Theoretically, it was possible to override the kill switch, but it was synced with navigation in such a way that any attempt to pervert the system was supposed to scramble the astro-coordinates. Simply put, if a ship made such a jump, there was no telling where it would exit hyperspace.
    Bearing all that in mind, the sudden appearance of Maker’s ship had caused something along the lines of hysteria. In making his jump, he hadn’t just done the impossible; he’d done the inconceivable.
    “Some time after re-entry, I lost consciousness,” Maker continued. “I came to in an ambulatory vessel. A couple of medics were trying to make sure I was okay, but Erlen wouldn’t let them come near me. I felt fine, so I basically discharged myself from their care.”
    “And then?” Browing asked.
    “I was essentially placed under house arrest,” Maker stated flatly. “Held in solitary confinement until someone of appropriate rank and authority could arrive to debrief me.” He glanced at the general, who said nothing.
    “About a day later,” Maker said, “I gave my report to a panel of three general officers. Then I spent the next six months telling the same story over and over again to an endless barrage of people – specialists in various fields.”
    “Specialists?” Dr. Chantrey asked.
    “Military officers, doctors, scientists…” Maker said, trailing off. “The military wanted to know about the aliens and weapons we allegedly encountered. Doctors wanted to know how the hyperspace journey had