Galaxy's End: Book One by LeRoy Clary (popular ebook readers txt) 📗

said, “Can that voice that comes over the speakers record you ordering me to help you under the penalty of death? Meaning, if it ever comes to it, I can show that I was made to do it, or you’d toss me out the airlock.”

Smart. Captain Stone liked that. She said, “Bert, record this for us.” She waited so the order would separate from the conversation, “McL, you will either help us open the cargo pods or I’ll chuck you out that airlock over there. As the new captain, I’m giving you a direct order.”

The engineer said, “Send a copy of that to my mailbox.”

She smiled. That last was so she didn’t erase it as soon as they finished. Again, smart.

He said, “Let me see the coordinates for what you want.”

After peering at them for a moment, he pointed next to where Bill stood, still holding the torch. The engineer said, “Yup, the bottom one. Big sucker.”

Captain Stone said, “We don’t have to move it, just those on top.”

McL turned to Bill. “You going to just stand there and hold that thing while I do all the work? Put it down and look here how to attach the slings to the eyebolts.

In a brief time, the first and smallest of the cargo pods dangled in the air and slid to one side, where it was lowered to the floor.

There were several hiccups and one near accident from a swinging pod before they cleared the pile. Only the large one that had been the base remained.

Captain Stone retrieved the torch and began cutting as Bill stood ready with the fire extinguisher. Other than the loss of air in a spaceship, a fire was the next concern. More than one ship had its entire crew suffocate or die from smoke inhalation. There is nowhere to run for clean air.

After cutting the lock, she sat the cutter aside and slid the retaining bar to one side. It was time to find out what was so valuable.

She expected to find advanced electronics, or computers, or detection equipment to allow ships to follow each other while inside wormholes. Even advanced weapons. Whatever, it had to be immensely valuable, not only because of the prohibitive cost to ship it but because the contents were why three ships had chased them.

After removing the side panel, there were smaller plastic containers a half meter cube, all sides equal. She lifted one out with the help of Bill and sat it on the deck plate. They lifted another lid and revealed rugged square plastic tubes, sealed with tan-colored stoppers at one end. Each was the diameter of her wrist and clear.

Inside were small marbles inside a jell. One of the containers held a thick viscous liquid. The cap was blue.

There were more cubes. She chose one at random and found the same things inside. Then another and another.

None of them spoke. All three were bewildered.

Captain Stone stood and stretched her back and said, “Let’s see what’s in the other one.”

They found the same thing. Containers stacked six high, with rows six wide, of identical containers. Each of the smaller units held layers of six containers, each layer with one that had a blue cap. Nothing else.

Captain stone sat on a crate and asked, “Any ideas?”

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

 

Kat

 

I knew worry when I saw it. Both Fang and Captain Stone were worried, and that worried me. Fang was busy with the computer inputs located at his flipper-tips, and I watched until his tongue snatched the next insect that suddenly flew past. I quickly whispered, “Bert, ping me once if I need to be upset or worried.”

A single ping sounded from the speaker overhead. Fang’s crunching of the insect probably prevented him from hearing it.

Okay, Bert and I were worried.

The ship moved inside a wormhole and whenever or wherever we exited it, a pair of ships from the other end of human-occupied space would too. They followed us. What would happen then was anyone’s guess.

We couldn’t outmaneuver them. They were faster than us and presumably armed.

Captain Stone believed exiting in the center of a secret military complex where a war was in progress was our best hope. When I thought of it like that, I probably needed a better word than worry to describe it. Her solution sounded insane at first . . . and worse after that. Three ships spilling out of a wormhole at a secret spaceship construction location might get all of them blasted before we had a chance to explain.

For some odd reason, my thoughts returned to Chance, the steward. There was still more to him than I knew, and I believed he knew far more than he was saying. Perhaps if I went to him with part of the truth, he’d help us, if only to protect himself. At the worst, he’d begin to worry like me.

But the truth was, he had been an empath for a lot longer than me and knew more. That was not a lot. I had no training and little experience. Hinting someone should share an apple is a lot different than having our lives depend on what happened when we entered a warzone uninvited—and with a tall tale of an alien invasion as our only hope.

Fang said, “Nice try.”

“What?” I answered in my most innocent voice.

“Distract me and speak to Bert and have him respond with that ping. It was a good plan. Unsuccessful, but I applaud your attempt. Now, what’s going on?”

“That steward is what’s going on. He knows more about being an empath than I. Much more. And I think he also knows, at least, part of the answers about our cargo and those two ships following us.”

Fang turned three sets of eyestalks in