Tritium Gambit (Max and Miranda Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

indignantly. I put my arms around her waist. “Besides, aren’t we supposed to be undercover?”
    “ Yes, but not under covers.” She gave me a playful push. “Behave, and get to bed.” She stepped into the room and closed the door in my face.
    “ Denied,” Tyler whispered.
    I showed him the Bar-F that she had discretely slid into to my pocket. I didn’t mess around with the wrapper this time though. I went right for my knife to open it.
    “ So, how did you really end up on our plane?” I asked.
    “ I told you…”
    “ Seriously, don’t give me that crap. Why are you here?” I asked.
    He sighed. “Look, I just need to show that I still have it.” He looked away. “There’s been some talk of me retiring, and I need this mission.”
    “ Won’t they be upset if they find out you showed up here without permission?”
    Tyler frowned. “Those bastards sit in their comfortable boardrooms calling the shots, but they don’t know shit. We’re the ones out here putting our lives on the line. I’ll make them see that I still have it in me. I’m not going to retire on their piss-poor pension, not yet.”
    I nodded. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
     

Chapter 5. Miranda
     
    When I closed the door on the boys, I immediately took out my com link, which doubles as a computer, and logged into the Intergalactic Secret Service servers. The blue three-dimensional holographic display and interface appeared in the air before me. I pulled up the assignment briefing.
    The ping was triggered when a fishing guide and two of his clients went missing the same day that a tachyon ripple was detected in the region. The tachyon signature resembled that of a Delta class ship. The briefing had a second attachment, a report from the Stellar Command stating that a Phoenix 5000, a Delta class ship, had been stolen from a repair dock four months prior.
    As I was reading the Stellar Command report, the hologram flickered and turned into a blank blue slate and then reloaded. The report was gone. Now the briefing showed that the ping was merely a suspicious disappearance of a fishing guide and two of his clients. I refreshed the report and the information about the Phoenix was still missing. I did a search across the Stellar Command newsfeed and found nothing.
    Confused, I swished my hand through the air, changing the com link interface to communication mode and called Wendy.
    “ Hello, Miranda,” she said.
    “ Wendy, I’m so glad you are there this late. I was just reading the mission brief, and it changed.”
    “ Let me look.” There was a moment of silence. “The briefing has no history of change.”
    “ I was just looking at it, and believe me, it changed.”
    “ The document has an origination timestamp of earlier today, and there are no modifications listed. There’s no reason to believe it has changed.”
    “ There was a report of a missing Phoenix 5000 as part of the ping, information about a tachyon radiation signature. If that information is gone and the new briefing isn’t listed as modified, whoever did this has sufficient system access to cover their tracks.”
    “ You might be right,” she said. “I’ll contact security and we’ll investigate. You’ll have to make do with the information you have for now.”
    “ As mission coordinator, don’t you remember the briefing from earlier today?” I asked.
    “ The Texas assignment was more critical. The low priority nature of your assignment did not warrant that level of my attention,” she said. “I will look into it. Good night.”
    I hadn’t slept in forty hours, I told myself, and so it was possible I had imagined the report. But I didn’t think so, if for no other reason than Wendy’s reaction. She was too defensive.
    The com link’s projection of Wendy disappeared, replaced by the holographic computer interface.
    I touched intangible buttons in the air and started searching the Internet for details on the area. Humans wouldn’t have