Children of the Void: Book One of the Aionian Saga by Jack Halls Read Free Book Online Page B

me?”
    Takomi threw up her hands. “You’ve already gotten me into trouble, so I might as well see it through. So what’s your plan?”
    Gideon hid a smile. “We can’t go in through the front door, that’s for sure.”
    “So CENTCOM has a mysterious back door that I don’t know about?”
    “Well, no, but it does have a big hole blasted into the side of it. It’ll take weeks for them to seal it up again.”
    Takomi laughed. “You’re right, there is a big hole, but you seem to forget that it’s a hundred meters up. We’re supposed to climb up there?”
    “Shouldn’t be a problem with Sentinel Armor.”
    Takomi stopped walking. “Are you crazy? Are we supposed to just go and ask the armory for a couple suits?”
    “I’m working on the details, but I think I can get us suits from the training center.”
    “Okay, say we can get some armor. Then what? The second we climb through that hole, someone’s going to spot us. CENTCOM’s always crawling with people.”
    “We wait until everybody leaves.”
    “There are shifts around the clock. How are we supposed to get everyone out?”
    Gideon smirked as he started walking again. “We’re not going to get everyone out. Valkyrie is.”

C HAPTER S IX
CENTCOM

    S AVE FOR A few guards and engineers monitoring vital systems, every soul aboard the Leviathan was gathered in the large central park in the biosphere, just up the river from the cemetery. The climatologists had engineered the perfect evening, with a light breeze and comfortable temperature. White canvas pavilions ringed the park next to stately oak trees strung with lights.  
    In the center of the ring, a huge hologram depicted Valkyrie, updated in real time as the Leviathan approached. After a century and a half of drifting through the Void, they were finally getting a close-up — at least in galactic terms — of the planet they soon hoped to call home. Later tonight, the ship would zip past the planet at close to twenty-five kilometers per second. Every camera and spectrometer aboard the ship was furiously gathering as much data as possible as they hurtled toward it.
    In a few hours, they would be speeding away again, past Valkyrie and into a close orbit around her star. A few rocket burns later, they would come into an orbit matching that of Valkyrie, and three months from now, Leviathan would meet up with the planet and fall into orbit.  
    Despite the festivities, Gideon sat alone on the outside of the gathering. Two weeks had passed since the funeral, and watching everyone drinking and dancing while they celebrated the final chapter of their journey cut him deeper than he’d expected. But that wasn’t the only reason his thoughts were elsewhere.
    Somewhere among the revelers, Takomi was biding her time, waiting for the moment of their rendezvous. He’d done everything he could to convince her to stay out of it, but in the end, she’d threatened to turn him in if he didn’t involve her. Truth was, he was glad to have someone to confide in.
    “Not interested in the party?”
    Gideon jumped in his chair and whipped his head around. Commander Devereux was standing uncomfortably close, staring down at him with the party lights reflecting in his eyes.
    “Commander,” said Gideon, and he scrambled to stand up. “You surprised me.”
    Devereux raised a hand. “Don’t stand up. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Just found it interesting you were alone, that’s all.”
    Gideon sat back down, but had to sit sideways to look at Devereux comfortably. “I was just thinking about what my mom would think of all this. It’s still hard for me to accept that she’ll never see Valkyrie up close.”
    It was true, but it was also an excuse. Gideon had used the same line several times already to get people to leave him alone, but Devereux just nodded and continued to watch Gideon with his hard eyes. “I knew your mother a long time. She was smart.”
    “She was.” Gideon wasn’t sure how else to