Crossroads of Fate (Cadicle #5): An Epic Space Opera Series by Amy DuBoff Read Free Book Online Page B

telepathically.
    “Partners, just like always.”
    The Command Center was abuzz with final systems checks in preparation for departure. Wil’s mother, Kate, was in the First Officer’s chair directing the cross-checks. She smiled at Wil and Saera when they entered, but quickly resumed her duties as Cris made his way to the Captain’s chair next to her.
    Wil and Saera took seats at the back of the Command Center by the main door. The spherical room curved overhead and below the transparent floor, wrapped in a massive viewscreen that gave a 360-degree view of the surrounding space. The two command chairs were in the center of the room, and the pair of consoles in front were occupied by the ship’s pilot, Alec, and the tactical officer, Kari. They had been a part of the crew for almost Wil’s entire life, and he couldn’t imagine the Vanquish without them.
    After a few minutes, Kate nodded to Cris. “Everything is in order.”
    Cris took a deep breath. “Okay. Alec, lay in a course for the Prisaris rift gate to H2.”
    “Aye.” Alec made the necessary inputs on his console. “Ready.”
    “Take us out,” Cris commanded.
    Wil felt a wave of anxiety as the Vanquish pulled away from the dock. A knot started forming in his chest. Stars! Keep it together. He reached over the armrest and took Saera’s hand. Her soft touch gave him the reassurance he needed. I’m not in this alone .
    The Vanquish pulled away from the spacedock and into open space beyond the moon.
    “Make the jump to subspace when ready,” Cris instructed Alec.
    “Initiating jump sequence.” Alec made the final inputs.
    A low vibration emanated from the floor and soon filled the air. The space surrounding the vessel changed to shifting blue-green as it made the jump to subspace. The Vanquish followed the set course through the SiNavTech navigation beacons. Wil held Saera’s hand and sat in silence for the duration of the travel, trying to keep his mind from wandering too far into thoughts of what would come next. 
    The Vanquish dropped out of subspace near the Prisaris shipyard. As a key production facility for TSS ships, it was a familiar location for Wil. Five years ago, he and his father had brokered the arrangement that allowed the TSS full use of the shipyard in exchange for licensing his independent jump drive design to SiNavTech. The shipyard had enormous production capacity, but lack of TSS resources had caused production to begin winding down several months prior, and most of the finished ships had already been sent through the rift gate.
    On the far side of the shipyard, the rift gate was suspended in open space. The ring dwarfed even the largest of the vessels at the shipyard, designed to accommodate several carriers in one transfer to the other dimensional plane. It had replaced the smaller rift gate located several star systems closer to Bakzen territory, which had previously linked H2 with the rest of the Taran worlds. Traditional rift gate designs required the entry and exit points to be at an identical place relative to normal space, but Wil had consulted with some of the TSS’ other engineers to successfully link the new gate to the existing gate at H2, despite the relative physical distance in corresponding normal space. The innovation had enabled more effective transportation of the new vessels from the Prisaris shipyard, and had also allowed for a greater buffer between the vulnerable mid-production vessels and the encroaching enemy.
    Wil surveyed the remaining ships throughout the production yard as they passed through. If these are the only reserves, then I need to make sure to limit losses. We couldn’t begin to replenish the fleet with so few.
    As the Vanquish neared the giant ring, Alec initiated the start-up sequence for the rift jump. The ring lit up, and components along the inner track began rotating around the ring’s circumference. The rotation accelerated until the movement was soon a complete blur. The space at the