Accord of Honor by Kevin O. McLaughlin Read Free Book Online

me through the doorway.
    “Welcome to our Command Center,” he said.

Chapter 4
Thomas
    T he room was smaller than the command hub of Mars Station, which was my main basis for comparison. It seemed tighter but more active at the same time. It had a dome shape with a ring of consoles running around the entire outside except the doorway and a large monitor opposite. Looked like six stations in all, but none were in use. In the center of the room was a holotank, the same sort of three dimensional display system Mars Station had, and frightfully expensive. Right now it showed a plot of local space around Mars. Two men and a woman all looked up at us from the tank as we stepped in. I spotted at least one set of raised eyebrows when they saw me.
    Glenn Chandler and Margaret Llyons went back to being busy at the plot. They were old crew from some of the company’s earliest shipping runs. Dad had yanked them from the line for his special projects division years ago. Now I knew why.
    “Dunno that this is the best time for tours, Nick,” said the third man. That was Master Chief Matthew Acres, USN, retired, keeper of the raised eyebrows. One of Dad’s old Navy friends, and another founding member of the company. The guy had to be as old as the moon and twice as crusty, and he had a quiet but forceful Texas drawl that had sent shivers down the spine of new company spacers for decades. I knew from experience. He worked engineering and basically ran most of the ship when I did my own apprentice voyage.
    Now? Yeah. The man was still scary. I stepped forward anyway and said, “Wouldn’t need a tour to find you, Chief. I’d just follow the bodies of the apprentices you’d frightened to death.”
    He laughed a big, rolling belly laugh. “Well kid, you picked a hell of a time to come on board. But I guess the Old Man was pretty much always planning on bringing you in, sooner or later. He said you had the temperament.” I raised my eyebrows, looked at Dad. He ignored the banter, striding forward to check the holographic plot.
    “Status,” he said coolly, that one word carrying enough weight to quiet all of us.
    Glenn tapped a few keystrokes, and the projection switched to a view of the second ship I had seen, the warship. “ISS Defender is ready for action, sir. Full weapons load, and I’ve already ordered crew aboard. I thought it wise to be ready.” He looked at Dad, who nodded. “She can ship out as soon as is needed.” He looked at me, then continued for my benefit, “She has a compliment of thirty crew. There are four anti missile mounts, and sixteen missile tubes. She’s well stocked with sixteen hundred missiles – enough for over an hour of continuous fire. Also, six anti-missile missile tubes, linked to the same computer system as the guns to stop incoming shots.” He paused for a breath. “And the new drive is capable of a sustained twenty-five gravities, although I wouldn’t recommend holding that acceleration too long. The crew won’t handle it as well as the ship will.”
    I didn’t know a lot about weapon mounts, but engines were another story. “Twenty-five Gs?” I said. “Sustained how long?” That was an incredible acceleration rate. I recalled my recent experience at being squashed under fifteen gravities. Twenty five was faster than even the best couriers we had.
    “Forever, pretty much.” Glenn grinned now. “We’ve been busy out here. These engines function on the same principle as the standard ion engine, but they are a lot more powerful. We’ve got ablative seating and fluid-pressurized suits to help the crew handle that sort of accel, but even so, that’s the weak point. You’ll have people passing out if you hold that sort of boost too long. You should be able to go days at half that in a pinch, though.”
    Days spent weighing four hundred kilos didn’t sound like much fun to me, no matter how good the seats and suits were. But I nodded – I could see the advantage. I did some