Hammer and Crucible by Cameron Cooper (easy books to read txt) 📗

size of this ship, now it was away from a carrier and not diminished in comparison, I judged the guns were heavier than I had first measured them to be. “If any ship was capable of destroying a frigate in one shot, it might well be you, Lyth, although that is not an experiment you should run. The Emperor gets pissed when people break his toys.”

Lyth nodded. “I will wait until you tell me I can try to melt a frigate.”

“What happened to you after the Emperor sent Girish Wedekind away?” Juliyana asked curiously.

I wanted to warn her not to anthropomorphize Lyth too much. It was just a smart AI, designed to ape human emotions. As it was advice I should follow myself, I said nothing.

“Girish ordered me to park myself at Badelt City,” Lyth said. “So I did, even though I was sad he was leaving. He never did come back.”

“You’ve been in that junk park for eighty-three years?” I asked.

“Eighty-two years, six months, two weeks and two days,” Lyth said. “Terran Standard, that is.”

No wonder the empathetic thing pined for company and was running about making sure we were happy, to ensure we wouldn’t want to leave.

Lyth sat up. “Major Dalton is finished and is asking to speak to you,” he told me.

“He can’t come here?”

“He is receiving treatment,” Lyth replied.

“You’d better show me the way to the infirmary,” I told him. “And don’t do that splitting thing, huh? It makes me feel like I’ve had one too many cocktails.”

Lyth pouted, but obeyed.

13

Dalton sat in a comfortable chair in a large room with subdued color on the wall. The color extended to cupboard fronts, drawers and counters. The light was low. Dalton even had his feet up on a hassock. His long coat laid over the back of the chair and his sleeve was rolled up. His arm was extended, with a cuff around the thickest part of his forearm.

Lyth moved a matching armchair over in front of Dalton and patted the back of it, indicating I should sit.

The cushions were very soft.

Then I tried to get up again. “The chair wasn’t here just now, when I came in.” Even the fastest printer known couldn’t print and grow a chair in seconds.

Dalton smiled grimly. “It gets even weirder,” he assured me. “The walls move.”

“Major Dalton is mildly claustrophobic,” Lyth said. “I made adjustments.”

“Lyth is the most advanced ship Girish Wedekind ever designed,” I told Dalton. “You’re really claustrophobic? How’d you get in the Rangers?” Rangers had to squeeze into pods, crawl through tunnels, and breath each others’ body odor for days at a time while on missions—claustrophobia should have bounced him right out the recruiting center door.

“I wasn’t, then,” Dalton said. “There was a thing a few years ago…” He scowled. “Doesn’t matter,” he growled.

I looked at the cuff on his arm. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Dalton said, in the same tone. “Every time I try to say no to something, the AI parrots at me about how advanced it is, and how the treatment it can provide me is the very best available outside the most exclusive clinics anywhere in the empire.” His scowl deepened. “You primed the damn thing.”

“Lyth did, I suspect,” I replied. “I’ve never spoken to the AI. So, what is the problem then? Can it fix your crush status?”

“Not here,” Dalton said.

I looked at Lyth. “The AI can’t administer crush juice, even in an emergency?”

Most shipboard medical AIs could supervise crush shots—it was a basic function, as everyone on a ship needed high level crush status at all times.

“I have crush juice in my system, still,” Dalton said. “The problem is…” He trailed off, looking disgusted.

Lyth tilted his head, as if he was listening to something I couldn’t hear. “Ah!” he said. “Major Dalton underwent rejuvenation eleven years ago. The therapy did not properly extend his telomeres.”

I looked at Dalton, surprised.

He shrugged. “What can I say? Bootleg rejuvenation is expensive. I got what I paid for.”

I felt a touch of…something. I squashed it. “Your cells are too old for the crush juice to work, and you can’t have another shot because the nanobots in that shot will fight with the ones you already have.”

“Yeah, that’s about what the doc said,” Dalton drawled.

How fucking ironic.

“You don’t have to look like that,” Dalton growled.

“You’ve been on the run for forty years, Gabriel,” I told him. “You’ve defied the odds. No one runs that long. Everyone gets caught eventually.”

“In case it isn’t obvious, I’m not exactly thriving.” He lifted his arm with the hard cuff around it. “In fact, I was pretty close to rock bottom when Lyth found me.” He looked away from me.

Lyth had the sense to keep his mouth shut.

“When we hit station side, we’ll do something about the rejuvenation,” I told Dalton.

He looked at me once more. “No. No favors.”

“I need you fully functional.”

“I’m not your junior officer anymore.”

“You were never a junior officer,” I assured him.

“Why exactly were you dodging the Rangers, anyway?”

I sat back, startled. It wasn’t the change of subject it appeared to be, but it was an unexpected direction. I had forgotten how Dalton’s mind sometimes tore off on strange tangents, seeing oblique connections and bizarre associations.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Dalton said. “We know why I want to avoid Rangers—”

“I know the external reason, but I need to know the motive behind it,” I replied.

“You, first,” Dalton said, then shut up. His eyes narrowed as he studied me, seeing if I would meet him halfway.

He was right. He was no longer a Ranger officer reporting to me.

And I was no longer the Colonel he had reported to. I had to shift to match the changed circumstances. “I diverted my family corporation’s annual dividends payment and bought a rejuvenation and crush juice with some of it,” I told him. “The family CEO informed the police battalions, who are now looking for me.”

Dalton’s eyes grew very wide. “You stole money?” He started to smile.