Frontier's Reach: A Space Opera Adventure (Frontiers Book 1) by Robert James (beach read TXT) 📗

“Iota particles,” they both uttered in unison.

“When we traveled through the trans-space corridor, they must have got lodged in the exhausts.” Petit stopped himself before continuing. “Do you see the same thing I’m seeing?”

Aly studied the data. She’d had no experience with the particles apart from what Jason had told her. “Enlighten me.”

“They’re not decaying. The Iota particles have a half-life.”

“That was why the vortex would shrink over time and why Jason hadn’t been able to detect them at Frontier’s Reach. What do you think’s the cause, Professor?”

Petit shook his head. “I’m not sure, but it has to have something to do with the plasma.” He smiled. “This is a great find. The biggest reason that they weren’t studied in more depth four years ago was that we didn’t have a physical specimen. Now we do.”

“We’ll have to find a method of storing the particles. If we can’t expel them from the exhausts, the FTL drive won’t ever work.”

“Agreed. Do you have any spare plasma storage cylinders?”

“There should be a few lying around in the cargo bay.”

“Good. Now we just have to figure out a way to extract the Iota particles without losing them.”

Aly thought it best to leave someone much more qualified to decide on how to do that. “I’ll find a storage cylinder.”

Transport Pod Julieanne

Until yesterday Jason hadn’t seen anything as monstrous as the Seeker ship in orbit of Orion V. But this new cigar-shaped craft had blown that record out of the water.

The tractor field took the Julieanne to the underside of the peculiar vessel and upward through a large aperture. Jason didn’t think the dark side of the moon could get any darker, but it had. Up through a labyrinth of shadowy black passageways, the pod hurtled farther inside the ship, until it approached another wide entry. A strange, almost-translucent curtain stretched across it.

Realizing he was going to collide with it, Jason sank in his seat. But instead, the Julieanne passed through the curtain as if it were a wall of soap bubbles. He assumed it was the Seeker’s version of an airlock.

Beneath him appeared a huge landing area, several football fields in length and width. Dozens of smaller craft were scattered all over it. He descended, and without so much as a thud, his journey came to an end. He stood and waited for the inevitable.

A tinkering emanated outside the Julieanne’s side airlock and a moment later it opened. The next thing Jason knew he was being grabbed by the legs and dragged out onto the alien hangar deck by a Seeker welcoming party. Four of the black-clad soldiers threw him to the deck and trained their weapons on him. Jason raised his hands in surrender.

The soldiers parted, and another figure walked toward him, flanked by two more of the Seeker henchmen.

“You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you, Cassidy?” Nash shook his head disapprovingly.

Jason pulled himself to his feet in a manner that wouldn’t get himself shot. “What did you expect I’d do?”

“I had hoped you’d die at the bottom of that godforsaken hole in the ground.” The message was blunt. More forthright than Jason expected.

“Then why didn’t you kill us all and be sure of it?”

Ever since Jason had seen his friend down in that antechamber on Orion V, Nash had radiated an air of confidence. He had an answer to every question, but in that instance, his arrogance escaped him.

It quickly returned. “An oversight. Not one I’ll repeat.” Nash turned to his soldiers and nodded.

Jason found himself with a brute on each side of him, and they walked toward an exit at the end of the hangar deck.

“You would kill me? After coming back to rescue you?”

“I never asked you to rescue me, Cassidy.”

They moved into a corridor. The walls were black, like the exterior of the vessel, while soft light radiated from the floors. And appearing every so often on the bulkheads was a symbol. It looked like an S, but backward with a horizontal line through it and a dot above. He wondered if it was a letter or number in the Seeker language.

“You don’t really mean that.”

“You don’t understand anything, do you?” Nash said as four of the soldiers peeled off down one end of the corridor. The other two remained by his side. “The Christian Nash you knew died in the nebula that day.”

They all entered an elevator. One soldier waved his hand over a small circular panel and it scrolled through several Seeker letters.

The elevator ascended. Jason regarded his old friend and started to doubt himself. Did he believe his friend was still there, or was he believing it because he wanted it to be so? Without Jason being able to give it another thought, the elevator stopped, and they all filed out.

Ahead appeared another letter on the wall. Three horizontal strokes with two dots beneath. They walked along the corridor and at the end through a door, in to a large room. Throughout were a row of smaller rooms, all sealed shut by pale-yellow barriers. Jason knew a brig when he saw one, even on an extraterrestrial ship.

“Put him in the cell,” Nash instructed.

One of his captors waved at the circular terminal near the cell and the pale-yellow barrier dropped. The two soldiers manhandling Jason threw him in on his face, and he glanced back as the barrier reactivated.

“I wish you’d hadn’t come here.” Nash shook his head and turned, leaving the brig with his men.

Jason stood and contemplated his new surroundings. It was just as black and spartan as the rest of the ship. While he wondered where he’d have the privacy to pee, a groan wailed from the cell opposite his own.

He peered through the barrier…

“Kione!”

Thirty-One

Psi-Aion

Tyler remembered back to when he and Jason were children. They would always try to see who the first one off the ship would be when they reached a different port. As the elder brother, Jason had a knack of beating him most of the time. But