Space, but just in case, everything about everyone was detailed in an electronic dossier which Ethan had loaded into the holocard reader implanted behind his ear. That file had been hastily put together from interrogating the real Adan Reese who Ethan had run into aboard Chorlis Orbital. It had taken just one night for Verlin to find out everything they needed to know about the officer’s life in order to steal it from him. Ethan mused that the young man must’ve been easy to crack, either that, or Verlin’s interrogation methods were particularly effective.
Ethan closed the file with a thought and rather focused on the stars, watching them sparkle and burn. He wasn’t the type to read manuals and instruction booklets. He preferred just to dive in and figure things out. He figured the best thing for his cover would be to keep his mouth shut and listen. If you gave people enough chances, they would happily tell you everything you needed to know about them. His role would be to quietly observe and stick to himself as much as possible until he could find an opportunity to sabotage the Valiant —that wasn’t going to be easy, and escaping afterward would be even harder.
Ethan frowned. He wasn’t sure he would be doing humanity a favor. In a time when the human population was already struggling, he was going to kill off 50,000 men and women. Surely there was a better way.
Maybe he could force them to become productive members of society. If he could simply doom their ship to a slow death in some way that would give them enough time to evacuate, but not enough time to fix it, then they could always find other jobs and eventually become less of a drain on society—win-win. He didn’t see how Brondi could object. The mission was to take out the Valiant , which he would do. Killing the crew was implied, but not necessarily a required part of that objective.
Now the Forliss-Etaris gate was all Ethan could see in any direction, and he was racing toward the translucent blue portal at a frightening speed. “Good luck,” he wished himself. “You’re going to need it.” And then time dilated with an actinic flash and a ripple of shimmering light.
* * *
As Ethan flew through the last and most dangerous part of the Firebelt Nebula, his eyes skipped between the nova’s gravidar and his HUD, which was supposed to bracket any asteroids as soon as they appeared in range. The nebula had claimed more than a few unwary ships in the past decade because its roiling red clouds swirled with fast-moving asteroids which were often the size of planetoids. Due to the nebula, it would take him almost half an hour in real space to cross from the Etaris-Chorlis gate to the Chorlis-Firean gate—that gate was actually still inside the nebula, but it provided a safe route thanks to the string of interrupter buoys which had been seeded along its jump path. The buoys would drop Ethan out of SLS at the first sign of an asteroid coming too close. At that point, he’d have to use his own SLS drive to reinitiate the jump, which would be more fuel expensive than using a gate, but still infinitely better than being dead. In real space, the nebula’s asteroids were far enough apart that they were a rare sight, and that lulled most pilots into a false sense of security while they were flying, but Ethan wasn’t about to let that happen to him. He was flying his nova hands-on and eyes open.
It wasn’t long before he was rewarded for his vigilance and half a dozen yellow bracket pairs of unknown gravidar contacts appeared against the distant red clouds of the nebula. An instant later, however, those contacts were identified as ships rather than asteroids. Ethan frowned at the SID codes which appeared beneath the bracket pairs. Abruptly, two of the yellow bracket pairs turned to green, indicating that they were friendly ships, and then the nebula flashed with yellow ripper fire and the other four bracket pairs turned red. The friendly targets were
Ethan closed the file with a thought and rather focused on the stars, watching them sparkle and burn. He wasn’t the type to read manuals and instruction booklets. He preferred just to dive in and figure things out. He figured the best thing for his cover would be to keep his mouth shut and listen. If you gave people enough chances, they would happily tell you everything you needed to know about them. His role would be to quietly observe and stick to himself as much as possible until he could find an opportunity to sabotage the Valiant —that wasn’t going to be easy, and escaping afterward would be even harder.
Ethan frowned. He wasn’t sure he would be doing humanity a favor. In a time when the human population was already struggling, he was going to kill off 50,000 men and women. Surely there was a better way.
Maybe he could force them to become productive members of society. If he could simply doom their ship to a slow death in some way that would give them enough time to evacuate, but not enough time to fix it, then they could always find other jobs and eventually become less of a drain on society—win-win. He didn’t see how Brondi could object. The mission was to take out the Valiant , which he would do. Killing the crew was implied, but not necessarily a required part of that objective.
Now the Forliss-Etaris gate was all Ethan could see in any direction, and he was racing toward the translucent blue portal at a frightening speed. “Good luck,” he wished himself. “You’re going to need it.” And then time dilated with an actinic flash and a ripple of shimmering light.
* * *
As Ethan flew through the last and most dangerous part of the Firebelt Nebula, his eyes skipped between the nova’s gravidar and his HUD, which was supposed to bracket any asteroids as soon as they appeared in range. The nebula had claimed more than a few unwary ships in the past decade because its roiling red clouds swirled with fast-moving asteroids which were often the size of planetoids. Due to the nebula, it would take him almost half an hour in real space to cross from the Etaris-Chorlis gate to the Chorlis-Firean gate—that gate was actually still inside the nebula, but it provided a safe route thanks to the string of interrupter buoys which had been seeded along its jump path. The buoys would drop Ethan out of SLS at the first sign of an asteroid coming too close. At that point, he’d have to use his own SLS drive to reinitiate the jump, which would be more fuel expensive than using a gate, but still infinitely better than being dead. In real space, the nebula’s asteroids were far enough apart that they were a rare sight, and that lulled most pilots into a false sense of security while they were flying, but Ethan wasn’t about to let that happen to him. He was flying his nova hands-on and eyes open.
It wasn’t long before he was rewarded for his vigilance and half a dozen yellow bracket pairs of unknown gravidar contacts appeared against the distant red clouds of the nebula. An instant later, however, those contacts were identified as ships rather than asteroids. Ethan frowned at the SID codes which appeared beneath the bracket pairs. Abruptly, two of the yellow bracket pairs turned to green, indicating that they were friendly ships, and then the nebula flashed with yellow ripper fire and the other four bracket pairs turned red. The friendly targets were
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